Home Grown

One of the absolute delights of living this rather alternative life style is the ability to look down at a delicious plate full of supper and know that we grew all or most of what we are looking at. Tonight's here is haggis from our own lambs, our own (mashed) spuds and our own calabrese. Yesterday was our own lamb chops, spuds again and a delicious medley of broad and French beans, peas, garlic and onions, with only the tomatoes and anchovy being shop-bought. My toms are not quite there yet and we will struggle to grow an anchovy bush in our climate (!).

If you exclude the 30 km round trip for the lambs to the butchers, then we are also very low on food miles, with most of this coming from the kitchen garden just outside the kitchen window (sometimes I pass it in through to Liz; I don't even walk it in round the yard!) and the rest from the 'allotment' about 100 yards away.

I know some of you have issues with eating animals we have named and known but I am personally delighted and have a clear conscience knowing that my lambs were very well cared for. They ate good grass, herbs and browse, enjoyed the freedom of the orchard and fields with the sun and rain on their backs. They were never chased about in a stressful way or harassed by dogs, children or vehicles. I know exactly what food went into them and that they loved it and ate heartily. I know that the only medicine they got when they lived here was one wormer/fluke dose when our man Kenny thought they were not growing as fast as they might.

When the time came for their final journey they did not go to some big, anonymous meat plant, but to our little local butcher, Ignatius, carefully selected and recommended to us. They were the only lambs in the batch that day, so there was no hanging around in pens listening to, and smelling the 'process' happening to other animals and the vet was there to see due care and professionalism. The carcasses are then hung by the butcher for a week to relax before being cut up in front of us. I firmly believe you would struggle to find this whole process done better or with a higher regard to welfare (though I accept that an organic diet could be seen in that light, ours were not fed organic 'crunch'). They were also sired by Jacob rams which are known to be good for flavour, being a traditional breed and all of these factors showed up in the quality of the meat which was tender and tasty throughout. The chops and the haggis I have mentioned are almost the last of the 2012 meat; we have a small quantity of liver left, and then we are done. It has been, in our view, a very successful exercise.

The veg is grown as well as I am able in good rich deep Roscommon hilltop soil (actually double-depth as I flip one 'spit' upside down on top of the existing grass when I am making the ridges in my allotment) enjoying the sunshine (this year!) and plenty of rain and being grown organically. I use no chemicals, not even the widely accepted ones like dilute washing up liquid for green fly. Everything is hand weeded and, if necessary, caterpillars and slugs are picked off by hand; in fact this has not been necessary at all. The nasturtiums and marigolds attract plenty of insects for pollination and even seem to distract the large white ("cabbage" white) butterflies, so that we find eggs and caterpillars on the nasturtium leaves rather than the kale. We leave some plants of lines like leek and chard to go to seed to keep the bees interested and try to save some seed. We are able to nip out and pick the veg for a meal minutes before it goes into the steamer, wok or pan.

Then there is the cooking, of course which is mainly Liz these days, though I do get involved occasionally. Liz has the knack of cooking all this bounty in simple ways with little additional flavouring and no overly spiced or sweet sauces. The lamb comes slow roasted or normally roasted with maybe just a smear of garlic, anchovy and rosemary paste, the chops maybe just slightly salted. Heart, kidney and liver are also cooked to show off the natural flavours. Veg' is generally steamed rather than boiled to keep the maximum fresh flavour or is as salad or quick stir-fry, nothing done to get in the way of the as-picked flavours. We use very few sauces from tins or jars and even when we do a curry it's a Madhur Jaffrey one - with the spices bought individually and added - quarter teaspoon of this, half a teaspoon of that.

We must be bursting with vitamins and nutrients!

Funny Old Season

We are coming at last to the end of this very unusual, frustrating season in the garden. Everyone round here (and further a-field) has had the same cold and wet as we have done and have commented that it has been the worst year ever. We, though, have also had to live with the fact that we did not finish building the house till the end of April so that (with the exception of a few spuds from the 'Secret Garden') nothing even got sown till May and in the Kitchen Garden 3 of the raised beds did not exist till June. Dad says he would not normally have the nerve to be publishing this stuff. We are only now, in September, able to pick our first few sweet peas and harvest our first chard and "Summer" squashes.

Roses here seem to come from the Garden Centres forced into flower outside of their normal season so that you buy them and plant them and the shop flush of flowers dies off. The rose then sorts itself out and consolidates its root system before eventually, producing a proper flush of flowers. In our case this is now, in September as for the Joseph's Coat climber above. In the garden we are more concerned with getting ready for Winter than 'first flushes' of bloom.

On that score we have had another result akin to the discovery of buried coal and anthracite in that heap in the Pond Garden (formerly the 'bit we don't talk about'). That is the discovery by the side of the drive of piles of buried and overgrown gravel for the drive. The drive as we bought the house was graveled with very nice round small pebbles, all be it well buried under 15 years of spruce needles and now bearing a fine layer of turf. The gravel seems to be of a type now described as 'decorative stone' and therefore commanding a premium. Whenever we have bought gravel since it is called "804" grade and is crushed, sharp-edged pieces of stone which bare feet do not enjoy walking on. These piles have presumably been scraped off the drive at some stage or were delivered and never spread a round but we have decided to use them to do the paths around the kitchen garden. Some of these were starting to muddy up as we head into winter and we don't want to be puddling around when picking veg, so some nice free draining gravel is the perfect solution (more shoveling for Dad, though!).

We have two more good results to report, as well, of gift plants. First the tiny lupin self-seeds donated by Vendor Anna have finally got into flower, just in time, hopefully, to set some seed which we can use in 2013. As we come into the end of the season we are already, like good gardeners, thinking and planning about Spring and how we'll do things differently given a proper 12 month long year to go at.

And the fig tree below which has pulled through a time of great trauma and is looking good going into winter. This is a 'Brown Turkey' fig tree obtained as a cutting from Pud Lady a couple of years back and grown successfully in a half barrel (also a gift) on the back terrace  in our old house in Faversham. When we came to start packing to move we knew we had to root wash it as you are not allowed to import soil, so it was brutally decapitated, uprooted and root-washed and then taken to Hastings, where Dad and us dogs lived for a few weeks. It spent the time sitting in a bucket of water till it could be moved over in a car with us on 10th Dec 2011. From there is was heeled into the front terrace here, but it showed no sign of growing. Only the thumb-nail dent showing green sap-wood saved it from the scrap heap.

Then one weekend while we were not about the JCB came to dig out the trenches for our drains and his chosen way in was across the terrace and then to bulldoze through the end of the terrace, the hedge and the bottom of what became known as the Primrose Path. I suppose it all looked like a rough old building site and the driver will not have even seen the 12 inch naked 'trunk' in among the stones and herbage. Poor old Brown Turkey, bulldozed, we thought and gone for ever. We looked around in the piles of spoil but to no avail.Then Mum decided to look at pictures Dad had taken of the area and including the planting site and worked out that the JCB must have missed the fig and it might just be 'here' under these waste boulders. A scrabbled dig and removal of 'over-burden' proved that this was true and the poor buried flattened fig trunk was persuaded back up to 45 degrees from horizontal and now protected with a ring of big boulders making the site obvious. Slowly slowly a couple of tiny buds started to expand and now, a month later, we have 2 short side branches and a couple of true leaves! One tough fig tree! May it go on to great things at the end of our terrace!

Deefs

Stew, Spuds and Sheps

Carnival time in our town, and with it an annual family event (first time for me, of course; I was only 4 weeks old this time last year)

(see pic)

- a "Stew, spuds and Sheps" party in the house as the carnival procession forms up outside in the road. "Sheps" is, of course, the local brew Shepherd Neame, much beloved of Dad, but not so much by Mum. She says, "Can it be ' Stew, Spuds and Shiraz' ?". Go on then Mum, what ever floats your boat.

For me, the promised excitement of Real-Mum, Dad and Brother Archie coming to visit. Plus Dylan the Norfolk Terrier of Mum and Dad's guitar-playing chum. Add to that the England France game, and it could all get a bit raucous round here.

Sounds like the famous town Carnival fireworks might not be happening though, which is a dampener.

Should be entertaining!

Deefer