Friday 16 September 2011

Roadkill hare

I didn't run it over but it was very recent. Made six good-sized adult portions of meat plus offal plus stock. 



Shrooms

Collected quite a haul of mushies today. Seems that recent high winds have kept the flies grounded so all this lot were free of grubs. 


Cut and trimmed ready for drying

Thursday 15 September 2011

Sloes

Sloes are ripe enough to gather now. None of this "wait until after the first frost" stuff, by then they'll have all withered and the birds will have had what's left. We bung them in the freezer to release the extra sugars.
Collected just over two kilos, should be enough to make about four bottles of liqueur. 

Sunday 4 September 2011

Rug Rat

A few days back Lew and I got rid of the heavy trunk section left over from when I felled the tree. In moving it we rolled it over a folded up carpet. Next I moved the carpet and found this chap who must have taken refuge under there when we arrived. I guess it just wasn't his lucky day.
Took this pic after leaving the corpse for a couple of days, was hoping a fox might make off with it but the smell was getting too bad so I gave it a suitable burial.



Sunday 28 August 2011

Produce already

Folk from other plots have been really kind. In total we've been given over 90kg of potatoes, 40 onions, carrier bags full of various sized beet roots, broad beans, runner beans, cucumbers, lettuce, grapes, apples, spring onions, cabbages, cauliflowers, black kale, and the biggest squash I've ever seen.
Oh, plus two wood pigeons and a load of scaffolding poles to make bean supports.



Deep in the thickets we found we'd inherited redcurrant and blackcurrant bushes (one of each, both laden with fruit), quite a few gooseberry bushes and a few salvageable raspberry canes.
Of what we planted ourselves we are now harvesting French beans, runner beans, beetroot, perpetual spinach, Swiss chard and the first kale leaves. We've picked five cucumbers from the greenhouse plus loads of tomatoes.





Tuesday 9 August 2011

Found a pathway

Found a shared tarmac path between us and our neighbour. 




Also unearthed a patio between the shed and greenhouse.

Wednesday 13 July 2011

The Brassica Arch

Other plot holders complain about wood pigeons stripping cabbages and kale etc. The arch measures 3m x 3.5m and for crop rotation is light enough for two people to lift and move.



Difficult to see on the pic but it's covered in a butterfly/bird-proof mesh