The Ciderhouse

Getting stuff done

Jerryfb — Tue, 07 May 2013 08:32:13 +0000

My Passiflora Icarnata have been top dressed, as has the schizandra chinensis. I’ve now got two of these elusive vines in cultivation. They make runners very freely so if you are having trouble growing them from seed then see if you can find someone who has a well growing vine – there should be plenty of plants in there. The potatoes are finally bedded in with plenty of food and my melons, chillies and tomatoes are all growing well. All in all a pretty productive month so far. BTW if you have blueberries in pots make sure to absolutely soak them with rainwater right now. They get very very thirsty at this time of year.

Smokin’!…

Jerryfb — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:44:47 +0000

So I treated myself to a smoker. A cabinet with an electric element that heats a bowl of wood chips or wood dust. You can cold smoke food with it or more easily hot smoke food. There are plenty of websites going into the ins and outs of smoking food but as it is not as straightforward as it seems I started on something safe like Salmon, just to get the hang of how it works. Suffice to say that after I had experimented on some hapless Mackerel to get the process right my pecan smoked side of salmon was absolutely gorgeous. I bought a side of salmon from Asda, cut it down the middle lengthways to get two pieces and then brined these pieces for over an hour to draw out the moisture. You can flavour your brine with whatever takes your fancy. Start simple and then experiment. YOu also need to dry the fish out after you have brined them. They need to be bone dry and crusted with what is known as a pellicle to get the best effect. Anyhow, cook em in the smoker between 60 and 90 degrees centigrade for between and hour and 90 minutes depending on the size of the meat and the heat. It is real trial and error and gut feel but you’ll get the hang of how long should be needed. You’ll love the results.

Why I’m growing loads of beetroot this year

Jerryfb — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:40:08 +0000

We all love beetroot in our house. Well at least the adults do. We eat it in salads, roasted with the sunday lunch and grated into Coleslaw. Most of all though we juice it. I would certainly attest that it makes me feel so much better and I drink it before I work out and also in the mornings as part of my breakfast. Such a simple food that we’ve eaten for years in this country. This article from the BBC just goes to show that the next wonder food is not always the one found on the side of a himalayan mountain or in some jungle in South America. Get those seeds in now. Rich soil and plenty of manure will make leaves but it will also help make lovely big juicy roots. PLenty of water as well – they dont like it dry in my experience. But don’t flood them

So Spring is finally here

Jerryfb — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:17:55 +0000

April just arrived out of the frost and starting blessing the garden with sunshine. Rush rush rush to get everything out of the deep freeze and winter and into a state to start growing. Tidied up the compost heap, sorted out the greenhouse and filled a few rows with some salads and roots. I’ve finally got some peppers and tomatoes on the go. I really hope that we’ll have caught up nice and soon so everything can get back to normal. In fact the extended dormancy combined with (fingers crossed) no more frosty nights and we could be in for a fantastic growing season. Here’s hoping.

Rain, rain go away… no wait come back!

Jerryfb — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 10:52:39 +0000

This summer has been sodden so far. What started as a drought after a dry winter has become a lush weed fest. Its fascinating to see that in a dry summer you get completely different weeds from a wet one. Seeded poppies are sprouting where there were none before. You have to admire the opportunism of weeds who bide their time for the conditions to be just right. In a dry summer we get a lot of deep tap rooted weeds like dandelions that can take advantage of the lack of competition from more drought prone weeds. The damp crumbly soil does make weeding easy and if you can get the weeds out before they form seeds you can soon make a nice rich pile of compost heat accelerant that twins very nicely with the chicken poo and straw from the chicken house.

Likewise the vegetable patch has its winners and losers. My potatoes, kale, broccoli and leaf crops are all having a whale of a time. I cant wait to dig up the rest of the potatoes; the ones I’ve already pulled up look fantastic. My soft fruit are doing really well (raspberries, loganberries etc) as well as the apples but the plums and apricots are just empty. The warm early spring made them blossom so soon there were no bees to pollinate. No bees = no fruit. That greengage jam will just have to wait til next year.

The motto or lesson here is that if you have a diverse plot there will always be something that will take advantage of the prevailing conditions. You can make either work in your favour.

A very big thank you!…

Jerryfb — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 08:00:19 +0000

To all the newts, frogs, hedgehogs and other creatures that keep my lovely lettuce patch so bug free. It has been the wettest summer in some time and articles like this just show that without our invisible support it would make organic vegetable growing (especially of the delicious salad munching type) nigh on impossible. Come later in the year when the slugs have grown in number I have to wash unwelcome meal additions out with the addition of vinegar into the water i wash my salad in. In the meantime our salad harvest is fantastic. Cheap labour paid in slugs; you can’t beat it.

Well they had a good innigs

Jerryfb — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:27:23 +0000

Our chickens were killed by a fox a few days ago. Not really pets but certainly much loved for their funny winsome ways. We’d had them for three years and they were just slowing down the egg laying production and my wife and I were just starting to discuss what to do about the drop in production. Well the dicsussions were cut abrubtly short on monday when a fox got in the run and slaughtered each and everyone of them. We had taken to letting them run free in a part of the garden to get some space, grasss and just to scratch around. Well our kindness killed them ultimately. I can’t begin to say how much I hate foxes; urban or otherwise. They should not be living in the town. They should not be predating on suburban chickens. Above all dimwittedd suburbanites should not be feeding them. They are vermin in the same way that rats are. Nothing we do should intentionally be promoting their reproduction. I would shoot them if I could.

Get those leaves going

Jerryfb — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:49:00 +0000

If you have a greenhouse, cold frame or any sizeable well lit shelter now is a good time to get some additional salad leaves growing. The variety available today is vast with different leaf types, colours as well as flavours etc. One of the reasons I plant a lot of salad leaves is that we eat a lot of salad in the season but more than that; a well planted set of different lettuces can really make the vegetable plot a thing of lush beauty.

Try to mix purples and red with vibrant greens. Mix round leaves with feathery and oak leaf. I keep my rows thickly planted as I mostly grow cut and come again type salads. I do also grow hearting lettuces but usually romaine type plants. They seem reliable, are easy to clean and have a lovely fresh crispy taste that is a superb base for a mixed salad where you can pitch in sweet, mustardy and bitter style leaves. For us there is also an added advantage. No matter how hard I try I always grow far too many. The plants that get thinned or go to seed will all be thrown to the chickens. They love them.

Salad leaves do need good watering especially when young. A moist fertile soil is ideal. Following on from your potatoes is a good idea if you can rotate your sowing and cropping. Obviously no use if you are sowing and growing both at the same time. In the south where we live you can reliably have a crop of salads of different types going all year.

The newt audit

Jerryfb — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 23:05:22 +0000

Our pond is slowly being choked by yellow flag iris. As the mat of tubers enlarges other plants grow between like moss and willow herb. Things are made much worse because a slow leak in the pond allows the other plants to grow. Frankly it has taken me a while to get on top of it. So for the last two years, in early spring I clamber into the muddy gloop and about 6cm of water to tear,hack and generally rip away at the huge pile of plant life that is filling in the pond. Slowly we are making progress but the pond is a very busy place. At this time of year it starts to fill up with newts. Loads of them.

To avoid any losses I carefully inspect what i am going to dig out, remove any creatures and then get as much of the weed mat out. Gradually we nibble our way around the mass of roots until there is just a bit more room to swim in. By the end of the job we have collected a big blue tub of displaced refugees. All get put back into a clearer, fuller, more watery pond than before. The kids love the annual roundup. The number of animals that need temporary shifting totally depends on the day of the year and the weather so far.

Schizandra Chinensis update

Jerryfb — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 06:24:52 +0000

Those of you trying to get your schizandra going might welcome another tip. If you do have plant already it’s useful to know they they propogate really easily from shoots that have been partially buried. I have been lax in training the stalks to the wall and those that have trailed on the ground have alll made roots. I just need to work up the courage to dig these new plants up and pot them on.