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Several things make a post
As the garden centres are (mostly) closed, and the online suppliers are (mostly) falling over under the strain, I sent an email to the lady up the road who opens her garden under the National Garden Scheme and arranged to buy some plants from her. She had some alliums that she was going to have to plant out, so amongst other things I got a tray of 20 for £10.
We had a whole half inch of rain on Saturday. That’s all we’ve had so far this month, and we’re now back to sun and a dry wind for the foreseeable future. The garden’s getting very dry, but I’m more worried about the grass not growing; we shouldn’t be having to give the horses more hay at this time of year. We also had a frost, but fortunately it wasn’t bad enough to damage the wisteria flower buds (which are looking very promising this year).
Mike took out some of the overgrown beeches in the garden, and the tree surgeons came and took out some more (they were both more overgrown and had the phone line running through them, so it seemed safer to get the pros in). That should mean more light and less competition for the veg bed this year, which is good.
In what I doubt is an unusually occurrence right now, Mike went to do the weekly trip to the farm shop and found that the car battery was dead. Fortunately, I knew that the Up The Hills have a battery jump start thing, so we borrowed that and got the car going again. Mike has now ordered one of our own, just in case.
It’s become noteworthy to see an aircraft contrail. Starting to feel like a Pacific Island cargo cultist, next thing you know we’ll be worshipping Prince Phillip (or should that be Boris?)....
The swallows have arrived, and the early purple orchids are in bloom. The wild garlic is going over, but I did pick a bag to make experimental wild garlic jam.
I based it on US recipes for ramps jam.
I used a bag of wild garlic, which was about 350g, chopped up fairly small and then cooked down with a bit of oil and salt for about ten minutes. Then I added 50g of sugar, 100ml vinegar (I used white wine) and a couple of sage leaves and reduced it for about five minutes, then added half a teaspoon of pectin and cooked it for another couple of minutes. That made about 300ml of jam.
It’s not quite as jammy as I’d thought it would be, given the use of pectin: the liquid is set, but there’s so little of it that you don’t really notice it. It’s also a little too vinegary for my tastes, I found it overpowers the garlic a bit.
If I was making it again, I’d cut the vinegar to maybe 70ml. I’d also either not bother with the pectin and just call it pickle or I’d add water to get more jelly and make it more jam-like.
We had a whole half inch of rain on Saturday. That’s all we’ve had so far this month, and we’re now back to sun and a dry wind for the foreseeable future. The garden’s getting very dry, but I’m more worried about the grass not growing; we shouldn’t be having to give the horses more hay at this time of year. We also had a frost, but fortunately it wasn’t bad enough to damage the wisteria flower buds (which are looking very promising this year).
Mike took out some of the overgrown beeches in the garden, and the tree surgeons came and took out some more (they were both more overgrown and had the phone line running through them, so it seemed safer to get the pros in). That should mean more light and less competition for the veg bed this year, which is good.
In what I doubt is an unusually occurrence right now, Mike went to do the weekly trip to the farm shop and found that the car battery was dead. Fortunately, I knew that the Up The Hills have a battery jump start thing, so we borrowed that and got the car going again. Mike has now ordered one of our own, just in case.
It’s become noteworthy to see an aircraft contrail. Starting to feel like a Pacific Island cargo cultist, next thing you know we’ll be worshipping Prince Phillip (or should that be Boris?)....
The swallows have arrived, and the early purple orchids are in bloom. The wild garlic is going over, but I did pick a bag to make experimental wild garlic jam.
I based it on US recipes for ramps jam.
I used a bag of wild garlic, which was about 350g, chopped up fairly small and then cooked down with a bit of oil and salt for about ten minutes. Then I added 50g of sugar, 100ml vinegar (I used white wine) and a couple of sage leaves and reduced it for about five minutes, then added half a teaspoon of pectin and cooked it for another couple of minutes. That made about 300ml of jam.
It’s not quite as jammy as I’d thought it would be, given the use of pectin: the liquid is set, but there’s so little of it that you don’t really notice it. It’s also a little too vinegary for my tastes, I found it overpowers the garlic a bit.
If I was making it again, I’d cut the vinegar to maybe 70ml. I’d also either not bother with the pectin and just call it pickle or I’d add water to get more jelly and make it more jam-like.