Sunday 30 January 2011

Seed Potatoes and Onion Sets

After a very pleasant weekend with Hazel and Alex staying, we've finally managed to get round to ordering the seed potatoes and onion sets for the year. The potatoes are all from Thompson and Morgan, and we've ordered twenty tubers of each:
  • 'Rocket': a very early First Early, which also yields well.
  • 'Lady Christl': a fast First Early, but can be left in the ground to crop as a heavier Second Early.
  • 'Juliette': can be lifted as a Second Early, but may be left in the ground to bulk out further before cropping as an early Maincrop.
  • 'Belle de Fontenay': an early Maincrop.
  • 'Druid': a late, heavy-yielding Maincrop which stores well.
  • 'Golden Wonder': a late, versatile Maincrop which improves on storage.
  • 'Orla': nominally a Second Early, but can be held back (with careful storage) for a Second Cropper (planted out after Second Earlies are lifted).
  • 'Vivaldi': another nominal Second Early, which we'll aim to hold back as a Second Cropper.

Second Croppers are allowed to chit, and stored somewhere cool, with bright indirect light. They can then go in the ground in August, and should provide new potatoes through the autumn. They need good insulation to survive frosts: if they're grown in a bag, they can be moved to a greenhouse. Ideally, one wouldn't grow them in a space just vacated by potatoes, but if the soil's re-fed, they'll cope.

Onion-wise, we've gone to Marshalls Seeds, and got the following:
  • Autumn Gold improved: not heat-treated, and mainly so that we don't have all our eggs in one basket (x100).
  • New Fen Globe: our maincrop! Can get big (250–500 g), and stores well from harvest in autumn until the following May (x200).
  • Hyred: a good storer, and rounder than the 'standard' Red Baron (x100).

Red onion sets are no more expensive than the others, hence including 100 red sets for some variety, or when red onions are better. We also ordered some celeriac seed ('Monarch'), which should be fun.

Hopefully they'll all arrive in the next few weeks, and they can go in the ground in March.

Just as a note: the last of the paperwhite narcissi has just gone over; just as the tips of the spring daffodils are coming up outside. The paperwhites will be dead-headed, and then given a low-nitrogen feed, to best prepare them for flowering next year. Once they've died back, we'll lift them, and store them somewhere cool and dry. No guarantee, but with some luck, they'll flower again next Christmas.

Sunday 23 January 2011

First Sign of Daffodils

We've done a few chores in the garden, and had another batch of croissant-making. The latter went well, quicker than last time, and we've frozen the formed croissant pre-proving. We're hoping that these can then be taken out of the freezer one evening, defrost and rise overnight, and then be baked fresh for breakfast. That would be very useful, as they'll then be fresh—the alternative, baking them, freezing them, and reheating them, certainly works, but they're nicer fresh.

Outside, we sowed a few seed: a dozen cauliflowers (with a plan to sow at least one more crop), a tray of alpine strawberries (the plants we've had for a few years are cropping much less well, and probably need replacing), and a few dozen sweet peas. We've had a look through our seed collection, and planned roughly what will go where. A lot are a year past their best-before, but we'll sow them and see what comes up in order to run our stock down, before buying fresh for next year. We need, next, to decide on quantity and variety of potatoes. I'm thinking a couple of kilos of first-earlies, the same of second-earlies, and about 4 kg of main crop seeds. Although we definitely want some Belle de Fontenay, the other positions are up for grabs. Maybe some more Blue Danube? They cropped well, and are storing well; the same's true of the Axona.

While pottering, we also spotted the tips of the new daffodils, and—as best we can tell—some of the Puschkinia or Scilla. There's no sign, as yet, of the daffodils we planted in 2009, or those that were already in the garden (in small groups at the edges of the beds, and under the trees): only the new ones. A little perplexing, but hopefully the older ones will show soon. Nonetheless, it's exciting to see the signs of what I'm hoping will be a really colourful display from late March until mid-May.

Of course, a huge number of weeds have also germinated in the high beds where the Puschkinia/Scilla/daffs went, because we cleared so much undergrowth when planting them. I'm wondering about the best approach: I think mulching with bark, or similar, might be a necessity.

Sunday 16 January 2011

Weekend of Food

Our weekend was spent with university friends, who had assembled by Saturday morning. Much food was consumed, including slow cooker roast pork, a large quantity of cheese (including rather good camembert, and wedges of Roquefort and Saint Agur), the pastries prepared earlier and a bottle of blackberry & elderberry wine. There were, predictably, a number of games played (Settlers, Twaddle, Articulate, and Categorically Speaking) as well, so—in all—it was a very enjoyable weekend. Now we just have to launder a huge pile of bed-linen. Never mind, it's definitely worth it.

Sunday 9 January 2011

Yoghurt and Patisseries

A few years ago, we tried making yoghurt (using our usual off-the-shelf 'live' yoghurt as a starter). It wasn't very successful, turning out very runny and a bit grainy, although it tasted fine. Having found better instructions, and obtained a thermometer (also useful for wine making), we thought we'd try again.

Accordingly, we mixed 900 ml of whole milk with three tablespoons of milk powder (semi-skimmed); warmed it to 46°C; and stirred in a few tablespoons of live yoghurt. We poured the lot into a pair of half-litre vacuum flasks, and left it until this morning (about 15 hours), when I decanted it into a plastic tub and moved it to the fridge.

The result? Considerably more yoghurt-like. It's a bit gooey, I suppose, and not quite the same consistency as the commercial stuff. However, it tastes good, and, hopefully, is good for us. Certainly it works out cheaper: about 60p per litre, compared to £1.70—though I should add a little bit to that for the gas (negligible, seeing as a whole year of cooking gas is about £45) and milk powder (about 8p per litre, I estimate). Probably about a 55% saving, and that can only be good, especially when combined with the satisfaction of making it.

On the topic of making things, I spent a couple of hours during our last days of holiday (Monday/Tuesday) making a new chopping board. When the kitchen sinks were installed, corresponding pieces of worktop had to be cut out, which I saved. I smoothed (chisel) the sides of the smaller, which was about 40 x 30 cm, and gave it a thorough sand, before applying a couple of coats of oil. It'll need more oil, but it's come up really nicely. Obviously, it perfectly matches the sides, and is a nice size for use (though it's pretty heavy, as the sideboard is a really dense oak).

The larger piece (about 60 x 40 cm) will need slightly more preparation (less neat sides), but I'll try to do the same to it when I can. It will, of course, be even heavier, but a big board will be useful. I should also sand and re-oil our old butchers block, because that's badly worn now, after considerable use.

Next weekend, we have a number of friends coming to stay, for a belated Christmas/New Year get-together. It seemed an ideal opportunity to bake stuff, so we had a try at croissant and Danish pastries. We made a foray into pâtisserie a few years ago, making some croissant from a recipe in my big book of bread. They were very tasty, but—as anyone who's tried them will tell you—a labour of love. The traditional 'construction' recipe has several iterations of folding, butter spreading, and refrigerating to build up the 32 layers of butter and 33 layers of pastry/dough that is considered optimal (a process that always makes me think of Damascus steel, but that's my metallurgy background for you). This takes hours, frankly.

However, we—or, I should say, Liz's dad—came across a far better way of making them, which has only a brief refrigeration, one application of butter, and is far more feasible. Basically, after making the dough, and chilling it once, you apply a single slab of butter, and through cunning folding, achieve the 32 layers needed in one session of rolling and folding. No further chilling required. Once the laminated slab is made, it's a 'simple' task to cut into squares, and form into croissant or Danish pastries (we cheated and used the same dough, but encased a blob of marzipan, and adorned with an apricot). We tried one of each, and they're delicious: they'll now be frozen, and brought out for breakfast next Sunday (brief warming through optional, but recommended).

This week, we're having the oil boiler replaced, as the old one has a number of inadequacies, not least that it is non-condensing, and probably about 40% efficient. The new one is a big, high-efficiency condenser (97% nominal efficiency), which should mean less oil use. Unfortunately, this means a couple of days without heating, but the forecast for the week is much less bitter than it has been.