Yesterday was part of my birthday celebration! We (Mum, Dad, Nan, Ding, Dong and me) went to Colne Valley Railway and had lunch on a train – steam and diesel (the engines supposedly swapped, but we couldn’t see from inside the train itself!) Lunch was very good – pate to start (chicken or mushroom), roast beef dinner, and then chocolate roll for pud. All the time chuffing back and forth along probably about 500yards of track lol (the track doesn’t go anywhere, so the trains just go station, sloe bush, station, nunnery, station and so on. Nunnery was the word “nunnery” spelt out in white stones on the embankment. We don’t know why… Thoroughly good day!
The last week (Monday->Friday) the temperature of the mini-greenhouse was 5-25°C, this weekend it was 4-23°C. I have a new max-min thermometer – having flashbacks to Geography with Miss Dishington, circa 1993. Since it’s cold this morning and the greenhouse is reading 10°C I think it does genuinely keep things a little warmer, even though it’s a bit of polythene and the zip’s a bit dodgy on one side.
In other news the Japanese (over-wintering) onions (Senshyu Yellow) I started in modules last weekend are romping away. Not sure when to put these out – I figure next weekend might be good.
The garlic (French Thermidorm) is not romping, but it’s also not rotting, despite being so shallowly planted. I do have some new pots to transfer these too so they get to be a bit deeper while they wait for it to get properly cold. I hope to do that later today.
The overwintering shallots (Jermor) also are not romping but likewise aren’t rotting. I don’t have much in the way of protection on the lottie (ok, we don’t have ANY form of protection – plants have to rough it with birds, caterpillars, wind and snow) so I am dithering about keeping these in either pots by the house since there are only 10 of them.
My beans (Aquadulce Claudia) are doing nothing obvious at present – also planted last weekend. These are the ones put in to test the horse manure doesn’t have weedkiller in it. I think I’ll pop them into the greenhouse. All that is happening is periodically someone small and fluffy is nicking a bean – see the two divots in the compost surface below. Meh – it’s cold, you can have a bean little field mouse. Interestingly only taking them from the non-horse poo side of the pot though.
We ate some of the cuckoo cabbage and one of our own cabbages on Saturday with beef berg… burg… bourginandonandon… stew. The cuckoo cabbage was sold as one of nine brussel sprouts but grew into a monster – even getting rid of the nibbled outer leaves it’s a good kilo or so I should think. I also cut down the two smallest brussel plants as well since I had planted them all very close, and assuming they flower ok we don’t really need eight brussel sprout plants…
Aunty S and Uncle J gave me some windfalls from their garden a few weeks ago so that was boiled and drained overnight and now frozen – apple juice always useful. Lovely tasting apples – would be smashing for apple juice or cider, have that lovely dry taste. I wonder if J knows what variety it is? My drawer in the freezer is getting properly full now, what with blackberry and apple juice, apple juice, rosehips, a few haws, sloes and still a load of elderberries from a year and a half ago. I’ve ordered a batch of jars and bottles for preserves and various flavoured booze for Christmas presents, so should be cracking on with them soon. As well as my jams, I want to make the River Cottage Christmas chutney this year – means buying dried fruit in but looks very nom indeed.
EDIT I stand corrected! I re-potted the garlic and shallots into bigger pots and found they’d all been growing roots and some were pretty module-bound after only one week! Good on them 🙂
