Jam making!

My weekend was cut a little short, as I had to work Saturday morning (not best pleased) but I still managed to cram a lot in. Saturday afternoon after speeding out of Birmingham I managed to get the time to go to a farm sale, something I haven’t done in years, it was good fun looking round all the tat but I didn’t feel the urge to buy anything. The rest of the day was quite social, catching up with people I haven’t seen in ages and going for a walk with my sister (which turned into a bit of a run thanks to an April shower!). On Sunday I was very productive, spending a lot of the day in the garden (weeding mostly), and I cooked some roast lamb (my dad had given us this the last time he had one killed) with all the trimmings, first time I’ve cooked in ages as I’m always back too late with my job.
As the rhubarb is running rampant I decided to do something with it and make jam (we’ve nearly run out of blackberry and apple jam). The recipe was simply equal amounts of fruit and sugar (in weight) with a bit out ground ginger. This is simmered until its all mushy then boiled rapidly until setting point is reached (it wrinkles on a cold plate). Making jam is so easy and it didn’t take long, not sure why anyone would want the supermarket stuff with all its preservatives in it.

Homemade stuff always tastes better as well!

Picnic

(An entry for last week as my internet was down!)
This has not been one of the best working weeks of my life! Between the rain, thunderstorms and the gear box going on my car I was pretty down by Friday afternoon, especially when I found out how much the parts were for my car, but the weekend has been a complete turnaround.
I was an usher at a very good friends’ wedding on Saturday and the whole day was filled with sunshine and apple blossom, it really couldn’t have been any better! And the weather on Sunday has been great as well, so Claire and I went for a picnic by the river (about an hours walk from our house) and then lay in the sun for a while. Perfect recharge for the rubbish week I’ve got ahead of me!

Sunshine!

The weather over the weekend has been lovely, complete sunshine for three days, not like a normal bank holiday.
We went away for the day on Saturday to Hay-On-Wye, one of our favourite places on earth due to it having about 35 second hand bookshops. A really enjoyable day, I only brought two books (one on farming and the other on Kung Fu) and spent the rest of the day browsing even having fish and chips by the river. Sunday and Monday were spent in the garden planting hundreds of seeds, repotting blueberry bushes and herbs as well as trying to make it look nice. Also got a little done on my shed, which seems to be going a lot slower now I’m doing 13 hours a day in the week! I will get it finished by the end of the summer though.
I’ve also managed to talk Claire into letting me hatch out some quails to make use of the old chicken pen. I’ve got to find somewhere that sells fertile eggs and borrow the incubator from mum and then we can add to my growing little garden economy!

Lovely Rhubarb

Well after working in Birmingham all week with an hours drive either side of a 7 till 6 day I was looking forward to the weekend a little more than usual. Even though one of my jobs was to fix our toilet as it had leaked and soaked the dining room ceiling – I’m always glad I can do jobs like this myself or it would cost a fortune to get a plumber in.
I spent almost the whole weekend in the garden pottering round, tidying up, mowing the lawn and doing other odd jobs. I even managed to sort out some of my herbs and pots.
Planted my early potatoes yesterday (rocket as these did well last year), also took a bit of risk and transplanted my tomatoes and left them in the greenhouse overnight (even though there was a frost – they seem alright today so I’m really pleased).
Also brought and planted some herbs, angelica so I can use the roots to ease the indigestion I get all the time, and chamomile to relax me after a day at my stressful job!
Gave myself a little treat tonight as I had a bit of the rhubarb that I’ve forced dipped in a sugar – so nice! It’s much less sharp than unforced rhubarb. I’ll take some with me to work tomorrow so I can pretend I’m not in the city centre for two minutes!

Forced

My rhubarb forcer is working, although this rhubarb hasn’t been in that long it has already started making new crowns so I thought I’d put the forcer over one of them. Not on quite the scale as what some of the farms do in the village where they us upturned 45 gallon oil drums to cover their crop! And theirs is twice the size of mine as you can see in the picture below.

Birthday Weekend

I turned 26 yesterday, can’t believe how fast time has gone! But I did get loads of presents!
My fiancé brought me some DVDs, a new pair of trainers (she’s fed up as I’ve had my last pair 7 years and glued them together 4 times!) and many other things. My brother and sister both brought me some nice gifts and it was nice of Dave to have thought so far ahead as he’s been in South America a month now.

My Mum and Dad concentrated on more gardening type gifts. I got a red gooseberry bush (as my other has died), a strawberry plant, plant labels, lots of books on smallholding and old crafts and a nice sized garden bench to go in the vegetable garden so I can sit and watch the chickens in the summer.

Another job I did this weekend, besides working slowly on cladding the shed, was to make a very cheap cloche out of a water cooler bottle cut in two (not sure what pow wow would think of this), I’m using this to protect my young lettuce plants from the cold, should do the job just as well and it didn't cost £10!

A busy day today

Managed to finish the new chicken coop, which the hens seem to love, although I had to catch them to put them to bed – I’m sure they’ll learn where they’ve got to go soon enough! Tried to get them up the ladder by leaving corn on each step, seemed to work as they were in and out all day but couldn't do it in the dark! Really pleased with the coop and pen, their old one is now sitting empty for a while and I’ve promised not to get anything else until I’ve started my new job and got used to it!
Claire sent off for some seeds from Blue Peter to encourage bees so I’ve planted a little wild flower boarder next to the chicken pen with these (as well as adding some poppy seeds) and made a “bee hotel” out of bamboo to give them somewhere to live.
We went for a lovely walk tonight just as it was getting dark, walked up to the river past all the commercial vegetable gardens, its really interesting seeing how they do it on a bigger scale.

Advanced Fruit Tree Pruning Course

I had a great day yesterday on the second part of the course that I took in November last year.
This course was nearly all hands on as we’d done the theory on the course before. The trees were older as well, meaning we were doing tree renovation rather than designing how a tree will grow. When doing this it nearly always means cutting big limbs off, and sometimes over a course of two or three years you take the tree right back down to a stump to start its structure again.

How to train trees in their different forms was also covered in more detail (this is what I'll be trying to do in my garden) and we got to see behind the sences at a kitchen garden thats currently being renovated with rows of different shaped trees being grown.

We also learned to tell different tree problems like canker and woolly aphid (although the damage can look similar) and when these problems occur. Apparently becides the varitey just mentioned you can eat aphids and they taste sweet - I'll be trying this in the summer! Below is a picture of wooly aphid damage - looks just like canker.

This was another brilliant day run by the RHS and I’m going to book myself on their summer pruning course to finish my learning of this subject as well as booking up their cider making course (although I’ve made cider in the past, it sounds like another fun day).