Fungal foray

Been so busy this week that I haven't had chance to write my blog. Work has been killing me, haven't got home before 7.30 and I leave the house a little after 6.00!

Last weekend was good though, very much in the countryside. Saturday was spent doing a few jobs in the garden then driving over to mum and dads farm for a spot of shooting. I went pigeon shooting for starters but they didn't have to be scared as I didn't even see a pigeon let alone shoot one!

Afterwards my brother and I went lamping for rabbits, he drove and I shot, managed to get a good few for the pot and lessen the numbers a little. (I had planned to make rabbit stew in the week but in the end I never had chance as I got back too late each night so they got wasted, I was a bit gutted about that)

Sunday was spent with my brother, we went up to some woods just south of Iron Bridge for the fungal foray we had booked. There was 28 of us on the course (which was too many), we all met up in the green woods centre and then headed for the trees in search of any mushrooms we could find.

After being told how to pick mushrooms safely and what to remember about where we found them, we were quite amazed with how many were about considering how dry it has been. straight away me and Dave found some edible ones (although the slugs had been there first) and soon everyone was coming up with more and more.

After a dinner of mushroom soup we then went to some different woods to find some truffles! My brother was like a little truffling pig and found about five before anyone else had found any! unfortunately the instructor didn't tell us until we'd found them that this type could not be eaten so we were all a little disappointed.

The day was really good and we went home with enough mushrooms to make a nice meal and a little bit more knowledge on what to look for without killing ourselves.

Planting Garlic on a Sunny Afternoon

Had a wonderful lazy sunday where we went for a nice long walk to the next village across from ours and then, once we'd failed to find a good picnic spot, we ended up having our lunch in the garden!Afterwards I planted the four different types of garlic in where the potatoes had been eariler in the year, with a little blood, fish and bone added in for good measure.

Being the good husband that I am I also cooked a nice roast dinner. The whole meal could be traced. The Potatoes I brought from the farm shop, the runner beans, carrots and shallots were from the garden and the lamb (which was lovely) was from my fathers farm. I felt quite please with that and tonights tea was all the leftovers fried up with some extra shallots and courgettes so although not as glamourus as yesterdays dinner but still tasty and local.

Squash it...

I had to go to work this morning which is always a bit of a blow, but I was looking forward to a nice afternoon in the garden. All was going well until the heavens opened and I had to run back inside!

I did manage to pick two more vegetable spaghetti squashes but we're still not sure what to do with the first one! Going to leave them to mature first as I don't want them tasting like the first squash we had last year!

Also prepared the ground for the four different types of garlic that I brought last weekend at Malvern show but the rain stopped me planting them!

Drying French Beans

My french beans had definatly come to an end a few weeks ago, so I just left the last few pods on the plant to die off and dry in the weather we've been having lately.

Tonight I had half an hour in the garden before it got dark so I managed to pull all the beans off the plant and empty the pods into a seed tray. These I'll leave in the shed until they're dry and then store them in a kilner jar.

I hope I can use any sort of french bean for drying! Does anyone have any information?