When's the Goat Coming?

The Kentish Soap Company

2011-11-26T21:08:00.000Z

The last couple of months have gone by in a flash. As I mentioned in my last post I have decided to go for it and get my soap certified for sale. There was so much more to it than I realised, but I kept going and by the beginning of November I was ready with my safety assessment for cold processed soap and bath bombs. I had to buy insurance, special scales and some extra equipment. I've made hundreds of bars of soap and bath bombs, which all had to be wrapped and labelled and I've had to write a product information file.

I took it all along to a local Christmas fair last weekend and it went really well (much to my relief!), I'm also doing party plan so my lovely, and very supportive, sister hosted a party for me last night which was a big success. I'm really happy with how everything is going so far, I have more parties and fairs booked and I've had loads of positive feedback.
All this means that I probably won't be posting on here for a while. I don't want to turn this into a business blog so I will stick to post about the garden, chickens, cooking etc. although I can't promise not to mention soap.

If you are interested in the soap business I have a website www.kentishsoap.co.uk and a Facebook page, just search for The Kentish Soap Company and click like at the top of the page.

Jayne x

New business venture

2011-09-30T10:24:00.000+01:00

Nearly another month has passed without me blogging, but I have been extremely busy as I have decided to go ahead with my soap making business. I've applied for my safety assessment (which should be completed in about 2 weeks), had to buy special scales, organise insurance and have had to get my head around pages of rules and regulations.

But the fun bit is that I've got to make lots of soap while experimenting with new fragrances etc.

I've got them all lined up curing on the shelf in my craft room, they look so nice I keep going in there just to look at them (sad I know). I have been totally involved in soap for the past few weeks, my poor family have to listen to me wittering on about it constantly. Dispite all the boring legal stuff I'm loving every minute.

I'm hoping to be up and running at the beginning of November, just in time for Christmas, I am already booked at one Christmas fayre and am hoping to find another to do. I also would like to do some party plan and I'm working on a website, with the help of my very clever daughter who is also designing my labels.

So wish me luck!

Purple Soap

2011-09-07T15:08:00.001+01:00

Haven't posted for ages, so I thought I'd show you my latest soap creation, it's purple (although the photo makes it look blue) and is scented with lavender essential oil. I managed to pick up some silicon bakeware cheap in TK max so I had to try them out. They worked really well, they withstand the heat and don't need lining.

I have been giving some serious thought to getting my soaps certified so that I can sell them. I've been researching what I have to do and it seems that there is quite a lot to it with safety testing and insurance etc. My head is spinning! In the mean time I am taking a soap course to refine my skills a bit. My box of goodies arrived yesterday, smelling gorgeous, so I can't wait to get started. I'll post about it as I go.

Jayne x

First Duck Egg!

2011-07-27T19:12:00.001+01:00

We got our first duck egg today.

Emma thinks it was Alice (the White one) she has noticed a change in her recently.
It is quite different from the chickens eggs, it's large, more rounded at the ends and its white but with an almost greenish tint to it.

I think it may be a case of one fried egg cut into 4 later this evening!

Jayne x

Garden

2011-07-23T11:22:00.001+01:00

The garden has been a little neglected recently, partly due to this.

Oil seed rape growing in the field at the end of the garden, very pretty but it gives me dreadful hay fever so I've been limiting my outdoor time.

There are a few things doing well though.

We've had loads of raspberries, there is a bit of a pause in production at the moment but new ones are forming on the autumn fruiting ones.

I am a little disappointed in the new lasagne beds, the layer of cardboard doesn't seem to have done a very good job at keeping the weeds at bay (maybe I didn't overlap it enough) and the bale of straw i used must have had lots of wheat seed in it which germinated. Some of my usual crops didn't do well, although the runner beans are flowering so we should have some beans to eat soon.

And the corn is doing really well.

I am really pleased with the forest boarder though.

It's looked really good and we have had quite a bit of food from it. Best of all it has pretty much looked after itself.

I planted lettuces amongst the other plants and they have done really well and seemed to have gone unnoticed by all the usual pests.

There are lots of herbs all doing well planted among the fruit trees and bushes.

This plant i particularly love, it's tree spinach, it started life as a very small plant bought at a local garden centre in the spring and has grown to 4 or 5 foot tall. It's really attractive, the small pink leaves are great in salads and the larger leaves can be used as a substitute for spinach.

I'm hoping to get out into the garden this weekend, now the rape seed flowers have finally gone over, to try to get the weeds back under control so I can plan for some winter crops.

New additions

2011-07-03T10:28:00.001+01:00

A couple of weeks ago my sister phoned and asked if I would go with her to pick up a couple of new hens to add to her flock. She had found a place on the Internet that is about half an hour away from me. I agreed but said that I wouldn't be buying any as the smallholders show at Ardingly was coming up and I wanted to buy some there.

So one morning she picked me up, she also brought along her lovely friend Sally, who also keeps chickens and off we went.

When we got there we followed the signs down the side of the house into the garden, which initially didn't look that large, and down the garden path which went on and on until to our surprise the garden opened out into a large orchard with loads of chickens! Heaven! There we met a very friendly chap who showed us some hybrids in loads of different colours, all beautiful. Well you guessed it I couldn't resist.

Meet Primrose and Cathy, sorry the photo isn't great they are still a bit shy, but are settling in well. If you live in Kent and are after some chickens I can thoroughly recommend Hen House Poultry in Teston, he has a website with all his available birds, if you google it you should find it.

Well yesterday was the smallholders show, we had a lovely day, the weather was perfect. We saw lots of lovely animals

And went to a talk on bee keeping, which is something we have been considering, it was very interesting. We are hoping to attend a meeting of the local beekeeping association soon so we can handle them to see how we get on. I'll blog more about this later.

Anyway we were at the show, but we weren't going to buy any livestock as I just got two new girls.

I'm so weak, meet Buffy, Willow and Xander. My buff Peking trio, I have a cockerel! We are hoping to raise some chicks in the future, probably next spring, watch this space!

Jayne x

Gardeners World Live

2011-06-20T12:42:00.001+01:00

We travelled to the Nec in Birmingham this weekend for gardeners world live.

There were some really sweet show gardens and lots of shopping to be done.

When we first started going to gardening shows you rarely saw a vegetable, but now they feature in nearly all the gardens.

I bought a fig tree (I love figs) and some herbs for my forest border.

And I saw Monty!

Jayne x

Raspberries and strawberries

2011-06-04T12:35:00.001+01:00

My first harvest of berries from the garden. (Not counting the ones that have found their way into my mouth while I've been working in the garden!)

Jayne x

Heathfield show

2011-05-29T09:47:00.001+01:00

Spent yesterday at the heathfield agricultural show.

There were lots of lovely animals that I would have loved to have brought home with me.

Especially these piglets! But they were all going to grow too big, not enough room in my garden for sheep or pigs or goats.

But....

Someone did come home with us!

Introducing Pippa our new speckled hen. She's moved in with Hettie and the ducks. So far they all seem to be getting along really well.

Jayne x

Duck update

2011-05-25T15:24:00.001+01:00

Emma's ducks have settled well into their new home. They are now fully feathered but are still too young to lay any eggs yet.

They love their paddling pool and become quite excited when we fill it up. These pictures were take a few minutes after I had filled it. They had swam round and round, jumping in and out (totally drenching me in the process) and flapping their wings like crazy.

They also like to sit under the hose and snap at the water as it comes out. They are really funny to watch and all have their own personalities.

As you can see Hettie has now moved in with them permanently. She seems much more comfortable living with ducks than chickens.

Rose Petal Jelly

2011-05-23T07:59:00.000+01:00

I love roses, especially ones that have a really good scent. My favorite roses are the David Austin ones that we have bought over the years at RHS shows. I love going to these shows, my favorite is always Hampton court. It's chelsea week this week but I will only be watching it on the TV, we have been before but it is expensive and always very crowded, but I always feel sad that I'm not there when I watch it.

Anyway back to the roses, as I said I love heavily scented roses and I thought it would be lovely if I could make some rose petal jelly. I had read that the more fragrant the rose the better, so my David Austin roses were perfect for the job.

I picked some flowers that were fully open, stripped all the petals off and gave them a good wash, I don't use any sprays which makes them safe to eat but may mean there is the occasional bug.

There was quite alot of petals so I put them in two jars and filled them with boiling water.

The effect was quite amazing, all the colour from the petals immediately drained out into the water, turning it bright pink. I left this to steep for about an hour and the I sieved it to get rid of the, now off white, petals.

This left me with quite alot of rose water, I measured out a litre, added the juice of one lemon, a kilo of sugar and a packet of pectin. I heated this mixture, stiring till the sugar had dissolved and then brought it to a rapid boil until it reached setting point.

I then put it into sterilised jars. You can't really see from the photos but it is the most amazing jewel like pink colour and is absolutely yummy. As you can see from the picture I had quite a bit of the flavoured water left so I made another batch and also tried it it a batch of soap, I had hoped it would retain some of the colour and maybe a litte of the scent. The colour turned to a beige as soon as I added the lye and I'm not sure about the scent I think I can detect a hint of rose, but will have to see what it's like once it's cured.

I now have a new favorite thing to have on my toast for breakfast. I have been looking for other things that I may be able to do with flowers from the garden. I've read that jelly made with dandelion flowers taste like honey, I'm always battling with dandelions in the garden, so I may try this next. Then I can say I'm growing them for culinary use, any excuse for doing less weeding!

Photos

2011-04-19T15:38:00.000+01:00

OK so I haven't posted any pictures for a while so I'm going to make up for it now. It has been all go in the garden for a couple of months now, we've had some unseasonably warm weather of late and living in England you never know how long it's going to last, so I've been working outside as much as is possible.

Most of the lawn has been replaced with raised beds on one side and my mini forest garden on the other. I hate mowing the lawn! Although we do have a decent sized area of grass left at the end of the garden.

The raised beds have been filled up with a mixture of straw, home made compost and top soil. I think that I may have to add some bought compost as the level has dropped quite a lot since I made them. The only problem is some wheat that is growing in them, this has come from the straw, but it's quite easy to pull out.

So far I have planted one bed with potatoes, which have just started to come up and another with some onion sets. I have lots of things growing in modules in the green house to go out later.

I'm quite pleased with how the forest border looks it still needs more plants but so far I have put in a pear, nectarine. crab apple, a couple of hazel nuts, gooseberries, blackcurrants, loads of different herbs and some strawberry runners. Some of the plants are new others have been moved from elsewhere in the garden. There are also some apple trees and a plum that were already there, oh and I have also put in a couple of silver birch trees, just because I like them, either side of a bench which will give a nice shady place to sit. Lastly I have sewn some flower seeds some of which are edible and some of which are good companion plants.

The rocks around the edge were already in the garden and the path is edged with the trucks of some leylandi which we took down recently. I have had to buy some bark for the path and some compost when the home made stuff ran out.

I particularly love my new crab apple tree, which was my mothers day present from my lovely children. It is quite large, I have no idea how they managed to get it into Toms little renault clio, but they managed to get it home without knocking all of the flower buds off and it is looking really beautiful with all the blossom out.

About a month ago Emma and I went collect these 3 little beauties, we got them from the same place that we got my lovely Hettie, I had spoken to the lady about ducklings when we were there to collect Hettie and she phoned me to say that she had some available.

They have grown a lot in a month and are now in the chicken run, although they are seperate from the chickens. Alice is the biggest she was yellow when we got her but she is slowly turning white, Dolly is the khaki campbell and nugget is black and yellow, but the yellow is also turning to white. Hettie seems to prefer to be with the ducks than the other chickens, if you look at the photo you can see her sitting next to the duck pen.

Constuction is underway on the new duck run, we are building on the side of the existing chicken run and you will have to go through one to get to the other, this will mean that if we want to let them live together all we have to do is to leave the inner gate open. We have a shed in there that will be the ducks house and we need to get paddling pool for them to swim in.

Anyway I have probably waffled on for long enough! I will try not to leave it as long before I blog next time.

Bad blogger!

2011-04-18T09:06:00.001+01:00

I am a bad blogger. I get busy in the garden and I completely forget to blog. The reason I started this blog was as a record of what I was doing and when, mainly for me to look at back at.

I have now set up all my new raised beds, although some of them might need some more topping up as they have dropped down a little, I have also finished the forest garden border.

We collected some new Ducklings a couple of weeks ago and they are growing rapidly and are now outside in the chicken run although we are keeping them separate for now. John has started construction on a duck run next to the chicken run and we have bought a new shed for them to live in.

With all this activity in the garden I haven't had much time for crafting and have just made a couple of cards to order.

I keep forgetting to take photos to post, I will try to take some today to post later and to be a better blogger!

New veg beds

2011-03-14T20:11:00.001Z

We've been very busy in the garden. I made a start on my mini forest border and it is looking quite nice, I'll try and take some pictures to post later.

John took a couple of days off either side of the weekend, so we managed to get quite a lot done. My raspberries now have some support so they aren't flopping every where any more, I have a new washing line (boring but essential as I don't have a tumble dryer) and all my new veg beds have nice wooden edges.

The ground here is absolutely full of stones which makes digging a very hard and sometimes pain full experience. I started digging the new veg beds last year and managed to make two new beds. I completed another one last week but it was such hard work and my arms and hands were sore from the jarring when the fork was hitting the stones.

Raised beds seemed to be the answer but they can cost a fortune to fill up. I have read on various websites about lasagne beds (they go by various different names but I like lasagne beds), basically you layer different materials in your raised bed which will break down to make soil. I started with a layer of cardboard to cover the grass, followed by some straw and some of my garden compost, I emptied some of last years used grow bags onto them and some top soil, that had previously been some turfs that I had removed and stacked the year before last when I made a flower bed. I will probably add some lawn clippings as well next time I mow that lawn.

So now I have three traditional double dug beds and four lasagne beds, it will be interesting to see how they compare, watch this space!

Started!

2011-03-03T16:05:00.002Z

I can't believe that it's March already! It's been nearly a month since I last posted.

My sister has just started growing vegetables and I am helping her to set up her new veg beds. We are planning on spending a day a week in each others gardens working together. It's nice to have company and I can help her to learn about growing veg. She doesn't have space for a green house so we will sew seeds in modules here whenever possible. We are also sharing packets of seeds which will hopefully save us both some money.

Today she has been here and we have started sowing a few things (tomatoes, chillies, aubergines and cucumbers). These are now sitting on the kitchen window sill. The greenhouse has a broken pane of glass so I will need get that fixed before anything goes out there. My niece found a packet of sweet peas in my seed box and declared that she wanted to grow some pretty flowers, we helped her sew some in loo roll tubes. She a nice new pink watering can so she can help mummy and aunty Jayne.

I have been reading a lot about permaculture and forest gardening recently and have decided to try to create a mini forest garden border on the other side of the garden to the new veg patch. I have bought a couple of fruit trees and some gooseberries, which were very cheap in home base. I will add to it as and when I can afford to, hopefully it will be a productive but low maintenance area. I will probably blog about this in more detail later.

-

Sunny days!

2011-02-09T21:32:00.000Z

No photos today, just a quick update. We have had a couple of really beautiful sunny and warm (for the time of year) days this week. This has allowed me to get outside, yay!

Yesterday Tom and I spent the afternoon at the allotment, clearing the last of the crops that I didn't manage to harvest before the snow hit. We came home with 2 big plastic trug buckets full of veg. There were leeks, parsnips and some huge potatoes, which amazingly survived the snow and rain pretty well.

Tonight we had a vegetable bake for dinner which was yummy, the parsnips are really sweet after all that frosty weather, I will make some spicy parsnip soup tomorrow, which is one of my favourites and I will save some to roast with some belly pork at the weekend.

We brought all the tools home as well, I think I mentioned before that we are not going to continue with it next year, I am going to concentrate my efforts on making new areas to grow veg in the garden, I hate mowing the lawn so am happy to dig some of it up for veg.

I have been reading the seed catalogues, that I always get through the post at this time of year, and am writing a list of what I would like to grow this year. I will probably have to half the number of varieties before I order, I always get a bit carried away at first. I have loads of plans for the garden this year, giving up the allotment will give me the time to

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

New soap 'flavours'

2011-02-01T13:10:00.001Z

At Christmas I decided to give some of my homemade soaps. I had fun playing around with different 'flavours'. I ended up giving chocolate mint swirl and honey oatmeal scrub soap.

They seemed to go down rather well. My sisters children loved them, although my 3 year old niece had to be reminded that it wasn't to eat. I have now had some requests for some more, so today I have been in the kitchen playing with 'flavours' again.

I collected and dried some calendula petals from the garden in the summer so I decided to add these with some orange essential oil.

It has given the soap lovely orange speckly appearance.

It is now sitting on my worktop, wrapped in an old sleeping bag, setting. Tomorrow I will chop it up into bars and them it will need 6 weeks to cure. Luckily I have some of the Christmas bars to hand out until then.

Unfortunately I can't sell my soap, there are too many rules and regulations, but I enjoy making it and am happy to make it for my family. My mum had given me a bag full of lavender from her garden so I may use some of that in my next batch.

Hettie

2011-01-28T12:11:00.001Z

Introducing Hettie, the latest addition to our flock. She is a volwerk which is a fairly rare breed I think.

I actually went with my sister to buy some new hens for her, but when she asked if I wanted Hettie how could I resist, she is beautiful. I nearly came away with a silkie as well, they have fantastic punky hairdos, perhaps next time.

She is still quite young but I think she is going to be quite feisty, she is totally unfazed by the move to her new home.

Experiments with Cheese

2011-01-20T11:24:00.000Z

Having mastered the art of making soft cheese, I decided it was time to try some different cheeses. So I tried some mozzarella, which was so much fun and you get two cheeses for the price of one because you can make riccotta from the whey. So we can have pizza one night and spinach and riccotta ravioli the next (the riccotta freezes quite well so you can just put it away to use later). Making mozzarella involves heating the curds (I use the microwave), and kneading and stretching them until you get that lovely stretchy shiny ball of cheese which you then put into cold water until you want to use it. There are loads of recipes on the web for mozzarella I used this one http://chickensintheroad.com/cooking/making-fresh-mozzarella/ I can't remember where I got the recipe for the ricotta but again there are loads of them on the web.

With mozzarella under my belt I decided to try some hard cheese. My lovely kids bought me a cheese press for mothers day last year and I have made a few attempts at making a cheddar type cheese since. The first couple were very nice but had more of a drier crumbly texture than cheddar. They were polished off quickly so I suppose that they were a success but they were not what I had intended to make.

In november I bought myself a cheese making book by Paul Peacock, I have found this to be really helpful, it is written with the home cheesemaker in mind, whereas most of the recipes in the other books that I have seen use gallons and gallons of milk and turn out huge cheeses, most of the recipes in this book use 4.5 litres.

So in the run up to christmas I was trying to make one cheese a week and experimenting with recipes from the book and using different starters such as creme fraiche. We have only just started sampling these cheeses as they have been maturing, I have set up my old fridge as a cheese cave in the garage for storing them. So far we have had a few promising results. I m making notes and hopefully will come up with a good every day cheese soon.

Facebook shop

2011-01-10T15:19:00.000Z

I have just opened a shop on facebook to sell some of my handmade goods, there are only cards on there at the moment but I will hopefully be adding more items soon and some cards that can be personalised.

I have added a link on the side of this page, please excuse my spelling I was so busy trying to work out how to set up the shop that I didn't notice the mistakes until after I had posted it and now I can't work out how to change it (I will have to ask my kids!).

Postage is free so have a look and see if there is anything you like, if you don't want to buy and you are on facebook you could 'like' the page, it would be much appreciated.

Getting crafty

2011-01-09T16:11:00.001Z

With my whole garden having turned into a swamp, I'm seriously thinking of getting wellies for the chickens! I am staying indoors as much as possible. Having been a really good girl last year (mostly), santa brought me lots of lovely craft related gifts and I have been having loads of fun in the last few days playing with them.

I'm a big fan of the Tim Holtz products and was lucky enough to get some of his dies for my sizzix machine, as well as distress inks and stencils from my lovely hubby and kids and my sister gave me an embossing heat gun.

I spent yesterday in my nice dry craft room cutting and embossing bird cages and learning how to make paper flowers.

I also made this little paper mache shelf for my ink pads, it's a bit shabby, but it's just made out of an old cardboard box and some newspaper (which aged up a bit with some distress ink) and I like it. To round off my lovely day Tom cooked us a delicious chinese dinner so I didn't even have to cook, perfect!

Happy New Year

2011-01-07T08:40:00.000Z

The new year is always a time for making plans for me. I have been reflecting on the past year and making plans for this one. There isn't much going on in the garden, to be honest it looks a bit of a disaster area after loads of snow and now rain. It has a tendency to get very wet, a new bed that I had started to dig before the snow hit looks more like a pond at the moment! I am just shuffling out there to look after the chickens and coming straight back in.

I haven't been to the allotment since before christmas. I think we have decided not to continue with it when our year runs out in may. John now has access to free parking at another station and has been reluctant to leave his car parked at the allotment car park since it was broken into, even though this does add a little to his train fare. As the allotment is privately owned it is more expensive than council run ones, this was worth paying while we were using it for parking but is too much just for an allotment.

So I have started to dig up some of the lawn area and move some flower beds to make room in the garden for more veg, there are some drainage issues to contend with, I may have to create raised beds in some areas and dig in lots of sharp sand to try to combat that. We went over board on the potatoes last year, for the amount of work they involve and space they take up it is not worth growning more than a few earlies. Especially as I can buy a sack of local potatoes for the farm shop for about £7-8.

I have been a bit down on myself recently, as I felt that I hadn't been as successful in my endevors as I had hoped to be, but I have come to realise that I am on a learning curve and I'm not going to get it all right first time, I just need to learn from my mistakes and move on.

A Few Set Backs

2010-11-23T18:59:00.001Z

I haven't posted for a while again, we have had a few set backs in the last few weeks.

Sadly our lovely ducks were taken by a fox, the latch on the run was broken, didn't fasten properly and we hadn't noticed. We were all very upset, especially Emma who had looked after them since they were babies. We have decided to beef up security over the winter and get some more in the spring, but we all miss them terribly.

I have had some health issues, which knocked me back but hopefully is now under control, John's car window was smashed while parked in the allotment car park and Tom (who only recently passed his test) had an accident, thankfully he wasn't badly hurt, but has been suffering from some back ache since the accident.

I am hoping that we are past the worst and am now preparing for christmas. Some of the gifts I will be giving this year will be homemade, so I have been busy making preserves and pickles as well as soaps. I made all our christmas cards as well. I have made the puddings (one for us and one to take to my parents house, where we will be spending christmas day) and the dried fruit is soaking in brandy ready for making the cake.

Ducklings

2010-09-30T17:49:00.000+01:00

Introducing the latest addition to our menagerie, Willow and Amber, 2 khaki campbell ducklings. We got them at the Edenbridge and Oxted Show in August when they were just 2 weeks old.

They actually belong to Emma who has a thing for ducks! She did some research and Khaki Campbells were generally the breed recommended as good back garden ducks and good layers. We are looking forward to duck eggs in our future (they are both girls), I've heard that they are very good for cakes (the eggs not the ducks!). They are also very cute!(The ducklings not the eggs!)

They have grown at an amazing rate, there was only a week between when the first and second photos were taken. Now they have most their feathers they have moved outside into my old eglu. We shut them in at night to keep them warm and safe from foxes and have given them a large seed tray to paddle in. Eventually they will be put in the big pen where the chickens currently live and I am on the look out for a paddling pool for them.

Emma has been spending alot of time with them as she wants them to be tame this seems to be working well with Willow but Amber is a little more shy, they both however seem to recognise her voice and will start quacking if they hear her, they obviously think that she is their mummy!

Autumn

2010-09-22T09:16:00.000+01:00

Can't believe that I haven't posted since July! The summer has gone really quickly and it is definitely starting to feel very autumnal outside. Things have been growing well on the allotment, including the weeds, and we have been harvesting things regularly. I need to grow more onions and carrots next year as these are the veg that we use the most and are going to run out soon. My sweetcorn, which was looking quite promising earlier in the year was eaten by something, I think rabbits, whilst we were away on holiday. We only managed to pick 4 unnibbled cobs, strangely they didn't touch the carrots.

I have been preserving as much as possible for the winter, our fruit trees are still very small and only produce a few fruit, but I was able to pick plenty of pears from a friends garden, which have been bottled, and my parents have given me lots of plums for jam and cooking apples which have been cooked and frozen to be used in crumbles and pies over the winter.

We also have added to our menagerie of animals over the summer but I will post about that another day.

Allotment Update

2010-07-23T17:12:00.002+01:00

I feel like I am finally making progress with the allotment. I have either cleared or covered all of the weedy areas and am keeping on top any new weeds with the hoe. It is starting to look tidy, well tidier.

There has been a few failures, I had very patchy germination with my parsnips, there are a few growing but with big gaps in between. I've sewn some radishes in the gaps so as not to waste space.

The borlotti beans, sweetcorn and butternut squash seem to be doing well.

And all the potatoes are thriving although I live in fear of the dreaded blight.

Most importantly I am able to take home buckets of vegetable for our evening meals.

Busy busy busy

2010-07-12T09:41:00.000+01:00

Just thought I would post to say that I'm still here. The race for life went really well, it was a lovely warm day, the atmosphere was fantastic and best of all we raised loads of money for cancer research (thank you to everyone who sponsored me). I have already signed up for next year!

We have now started to harvest some of our fruit and vegetables, we are harvesting potatoes and spinach from the allotment as well as salad leaves, cucumbers, french beans and loads of strawberries from the garden. On the allotment we have also planted pumpkins, sweetcorn, carrots, parsnips, beetroot and borlotti beans. It still isn't very pretty and there are areas with lots of weeds but I am gradually clearing it, it is very much a work in progress.

At home I've been trying to reorganise the garden with the help of Tom, who is a horticulture student (four months off! it's hard life being at uni isn't it!). I have also had my brother in law (who is a builder) here redoing the bathroom. We had a huge bathroom so we have basically cut it in half to make a smaller bathroom and a new bedroom, which I have claimed as my craft room. As you can imagine this has involved quite alot of work, many cups of tea and eggs on toast for lunch for my brother in law every day (I did try giving him something different but he likes eggs on toast).

With most of the building work finished, I am now decorating and organising the craft room and have plans to try and earn a little money from it, but I will post about that soon.

Race for Life

2010-05-18T18:14:00.001+01:00

Just a short post to tell you that I will be taking part in the Race for Life on the 6th of June to raise funds for Cancer Research. I'm not a runner by nature (I'm aiming for a brisk walking pace) but it's a great cause and I would love to raise as much money as possible for them.

If you are able to sponsor me please use the link at the side of the page. Thank you!

Jayne x

Potatoes are in!

2010-04-22T21:45:00.001+01:00

John had a week off last week and we spent to get some time at the allotment, these photos were taken mid week. We managed to dig a bed all the way along one side of the plot and planted quite alot of potatoes. We have also put in some onions and have sewn some spinach. It feels great to finally have something in the ground, I am now peering at the ground daily looking for green things sprouting (that aren't weeds).

The previous occupant had put in a couple of raised beds, but had dismantled and taken away. This has left a couple of patches, where she had bought in top soil, which I was able to clear these much more easily than the rest of the plot which is heavy clay.

Amongst the weeds we discovered this very small rhubarb plant which we have moved to a better spot with a bit of compost and some chicken manure.

I was really excited one day when we arrived to find that a water tap had been installed right opposite our allotment (I know I am very very sad), up to now we have had to walk backward and forwards with our watering can to a tap by the entrance, the plot owner only installed 3 of these tanks on the whole plot so we are very lucky to have one so close. It has a water tank next to the tap which refills automatically after you have filled you watering can from it.

The communal compost bin was also emptied this week so we were able to add a few wheel barrows full to our soil which should help improve it a bit. I've never had to cope with clay soil before the other plot holders tell me that it will bake rock hard during the summer, if anyone out there has any tips on how to improve the soil, without spending a fortune on top soil, I really would appreciate hearing them.

Slow progress on the allotment

2010-03-28T21:49:00.000+01:00

We managed to get up to the allotment for the first time today, up until now the weather has prevented us from starting it. It was more weedy tham I remembered there were lots of nettles and dock as well as loads of potatoes that had been left by the previous occupant, most of these were quite mushy.

The soil is clay and is still quite sticky. We only had about an hour but we managed to dig over a bed and removed all of the weeds (and potatoes). It's only a small bed but it's a start.

We plan on growing the crops that take up alot of space here, such as potatoes and pumpkins as well things like parsnips which are in the ground for a long time. At home we will grow the things that require regular picking like beans, courgettes and salad crops.

Lemon curd

2010-03-24T18:41:00.000Z

Making the lemon soap gave me a craving for some lemon curd, I'm just weird like that! Luckily I had some lemons in the fridge. It's really easy to make and is delicious.

You need 3 eggs, the juice and rind of 3 lemons, 100g of butter and 225g of caster sugar.

Melt the butter and sugar together in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Then add the lemon rind and juice and the whisked eggs. Heat stirring now and then until it thickens, this takes about 25-30 mins.

Pour into sterilised jars, seal and label. This needs to be kept in the fridge and will last for about 3 months.

Soap

2010-03-23T07:42:00.000Z

I made soap! I've been reading about it for months and I bought the ingredients before christmas, but it has taken till now to pluck up the courage to try it. The reason for my hestation was all the warnings about the sodium hydroxide, an essential ingredient in making cold pressed soap, this is otherwise know as caustic soda and is used as drain cleaner!

So I collected all my ingredients together, put newspaper on my worktop, put on my apron and gloves, and got on with it. I used coconut oil, olive oil and sunflower oil. The measurements have to be exact so that all the sodium hydroxide is used up in the chemical reaction with the oil that turns it into soap. There are lots of soap calculators on the internet so you can work out a safe recipe.

I measured out my oils and put them in a saucepan to melt together (the coconut oil is solid at room temperature) and I added the sodium hydroxide to the water in a jug (no pictures of this I was too scared of it). This is where you have to be really careful, wear rubber gloves, an apron and safety goggles and open a window, it makes nasty fumes and you don't want breath them in.

The oil and the sodium hydroxide need to be at the same temperature when they are mixed, I heated the oil and then made up the sodium hydroxide solution, this was the wrong way round. When added to water the sodium hydroxide solution heats up, really hot, and it took ages to cool, I had to warm the oil back up as it was too cold.

Next you mix the 2 together and stir. One recipe I read said the whisk for 45min! I used my stick blender, much easier (John came in at this point and took some pictures for me). You have to mix until it reaches 'trace', think thick custard. I couldn't say exctly how long this took maybe 5-10mins (not 45!). Just as it reaches trace I added some essential oil for fragrance. I wanted everyone in the house to use it so I chose lemon, I love lavender but John and Tom wouldn't use that. It looked and smelt like lemon curd.

Next it was poured into a tupperware container lined with baking parchment. It needs to cool slowly so I wrapped it in a towel and left it like that for 24hrs.

The next day I turned it out and cut it into bars, you still need to wear rubber gloves when handling it. It will need to be 'cured' for 6 weeks before it is ready to use. It is very 'rustic' looking, I didn't smooth the top enough when I poured it and I think I need to find a better mould. I cut it into different sized pieces, big ones for the shower and smaller ones for the sinks, I may grate the wobbly edge pieces to use in my laundry detergent.
I'm really pleased, it wasn't really scary at all, you just have to be sensible. I'm planing my next batch already (lavender!) and am reading up on making shampoo bars, which would be great for taking on hoilday, and other homemade toiletries.

Chickens

2010-03-22T08:47:00.000Z

I love my chickens, I think they are a perfect pet. They are no more difficult to look after than something like a rabbit and you get eggs.

We have 5 chickens, there were 6 but we lost our little Millie during the winter. Millie and Poppy (the red one in the picture below) were our oldest chickens. Millie seemed to have just died in her sleep, she appeared perfectly happy and healthy, but I found her dead in the coop one morning. Poppy is still going strong although she doesn't lay many eggs any more.

The chickens live in an eglu cube which is in a large enclosure that John built in the garden, it is over 6ft high and has netting across the top to stop any foxes from getting in, we lost our first 2 chickens to foxes so we only let them free range in the garden when we are out there with them.

The Eglu cube can take up to 10 chickens and we also have an original eglu which takes 2 (this was Millie and Poppy's original home) we have been adding 2 chickens to our flock each year, this means we always have young girls to give us eggs and the older ladies can enjoy their retirement. We are enjoying 3-4 eggs a day at the moment and are planning to buy 2 new girls in a couple of months, I use lots of eggs in my cooking.

The girls get through a sack of layers pellets a month, they also like a few kitchen scraps (they are eating cooked potato peelings in the photos, one of their favorites) and they love some nice leaves (they eat the outer leaves of cabbages and lettuces and most weeds). Apart from that all they need is fresh water every day and cleaning out once a week, sometime I replace the straw in the nest box more often if it gets dirty.

Laundry liquid

2010-03-18T09:25:00.085Z

There are loads of recipes on the internet for home made laundry detergents, this is the one that I use I can't quite remember where it came from. I have made a few batches of it and found that it works really well and because its a liquid it can be rubbed neat onto stains. The best thing is it is incredibly cheap to make.

All you need is soap flakes, washing soda and borax. I managed to buy soap flakes and washing soda in Waitrose and ordered the borax online although I have since discovered that they sell it in Robert Dyas. I've made about 4 batches of liquid so far and still have plenty of the ingredients left.

You first need to dissolve 1 cup of soap in 1 1/2 litres of water, I have found this is best done by slowly heating the mixture while stirring with a whisk, (I know there is a spoon in the picture I took it before I discovered that the whisk worked better.) You need to make sure that all the soap dissolves, when it has, remove from the heat and add 1/2 cup of washing soda and 1/2 cup of borax.

Then you need to dilute the mixture with hot water from the tap. I have a builders bucket that has measurements marked on the inside, it was 99p from the diy store, I pour the mixture into it and top it up to the 10 litre mark, stirring with the whisk the whole time.

I decant the liquid into 2 litre drinks bottles, you need to let it cool down first. It goes quite thick when it cools and can sometimes separate a bit I just give it a good shake before I use it.

I have a cup from the top of an old flask that I use to measure it out, we have very hard water here so you could probably us less in an area with soft water. I gives the washing a nice fresh smell, although sometimes I add a bit of lavender oil to the softener compartment if I want a bit of fragrance.

Update

2010-03-18T09:24:00.000Z

It's been nearly a month since I last blogged, and during that time we have had loads of rain.

A birthday.

and spring finally seems to have arrived after what seems to have been a very long winter.

I have to thank my parents for Toms lovely cake, he is a horticulture student and they cleverly managed to find these really cute little garden tools and a gardener.

They also bought this sparkler instead of a candle.

We had a lovely afternoon with the family, and the cake was yummy.

Making Soft Cheese

2010-02-20T21:50:00.000Z

I've been without a computer for a couple of weeks so haven't been able to blog, it's now back from the repair man and is working better than before. I've had an eventful couple of weeks my husband and son were involved in a car accident, thankfully neither were hurt, although he car was a write off. I've now left my part time job at the pre-school and will be home full time now. I have loads of plans including soap making, expanding the fruit and vegetable garden at home as well as starting the allotment, I am hoping to get more chickens in the spring so we will probably extend the chicken run and I want to make more cheeses.
I currently make a basic soft cheese, I use standard whole milk from the supermarket, I have read in a few places that you can't make cheese with homogenised milk but I not had a problem with it.

I bought some starter in powder form and made it up then froze it in an ice cube tray. I use 2 cubes, defrosted, for about 2 litres of milk.

The milk I buy is already pasteurized so I just heat it to 30 degrees C and then add the starter, it is important that it's not too hot or the heat will kill the bacteria in the starter. It then needs to sit somewhere warm for about and hour. While this is sitting I add 2 drops of rennet to 2 teaspoons of previously boiled cooled water and then stir this into the milk. Leave it until it sets into curds, you should be able to touch it without it leaving a milky stain on your finger.

I then spoon it into a sterilized cheese cloth, (I boil the cloth to sterilize it) tie up the top and hang it from a cupboard door knob over a bowl. I usually leave it over night, during which time the whey should drain out leaving soft cheese in the cloth. I save the whey and use it in cooking, it is makes tasty bread when used instead of the water and can be used instead of milk in lots of recipes.

I roll the cheese into logs and flavour them, the one on the left has cracked black peppercorns on it and the right one has garlic and herbs. They are standing on a rack from the bottom of a Tupperware vegetable crisper, I store them in the crisper in the fridge as some more whey will often drain out and the rack holds them above the liquid.

I'm hoping to try mozzarella soon, I'll post about it once I've tried it.

Allotment

2010-01-28T15:25:00.002Z

I went to see an allotment today it is on a privately run plot, about ten minutes away from home and near to the station that John uses to get to work.

The plot is slightly smaller than I was expecting, but this might be a good thing as I have a tendency to bite off a bit more than I can chew.

The plots are laid out in a big circle, so all the allotments are wedge shaped, imagine a big cartwheel. The 2 stones on the picture below mark the narrowest point of the allotment and it widens to a path that runs around between the inner and outer plots.

It has been used recently and was apparently quite productive. I'm hoping that along with the veg plot in the garden I will be able to grow all of our vegetables.

So as soon as the weather starts to improve and the ground dries out a bit, the soil is clay and a bit sticky, I will be up there weeding and digging and hopefully in a few months I will be able to post some pictures of some lovely veggies growing on my plot.

Bread

2010-01-22T16:02:00.000Z

I've been making all our bread for a while now. It tastes so much better than shop bought and works out cheaper. Although it takes a couple of hours overall, most of that time it is just sitting rising, I don't need to actually do much to it. I use my food mixer with a dough hook attached, so I don't even knead it myself.

The basic recipe I use is

500g Strong Flour

1Tsp fast acting yeast

1Tsp Salt

1Tsp sugar

A 'glug' of oil (usually olive)

About 300ml warm water

Everything goes into the mixer for about 10 minutes, it should form a ball of dough, sometimes it needs more or less water (if it gets too wet I just add a bit more flour). The dough gets left in the mixer bowl, with a clean tea towel over it, until it has doubled in size.

I then tip it out onto a floured worktop give it a quick knead and put it in a bread tin or sometimes I make it into rolls. Then it needs to be put in a warm place until it has risen.

It needs to be baked in a hot oven for 20 minutes (rolls take 10 minutes).

This is the bread that I make most days. I have also used this recipe to make currant buns by adding extra sugar and some dried fruit and pizza bases by using half plain and half bread flour. If I'm short of time I make soda bread which can be made and baked straight away.

Chocolate Cookies

2010-01-14T17:37:00.000Z

My sister and my niece (AKA Goldilocks) came to visit today and we decided to make cookies, chocolate of course. I use a recipe from Nigellas' Christmas book.

250g butter

150g caster sugar

40g cocoa

300g plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarb

1tsp baking powder

I like this recipe because I usually have all the ingredients in the cupboard, the recipe in the book has a "Festive Topping" but I don't usually bother with that, they are nice enough without.

Goldilocks had lots of fun mixing, first with a spoon and then with her hands. Then we rolled them into balls, can you tell which ones she did?

I flattened them slightly with a fork and then baked them for 10-15 mins, there was some variation in size for some reason!

The only problem we had was getting her to wait until they were cool, she wanted to try them straight away. We agreed that they were yummy and some were put in a box to take home for Daddy and her big brothers.

I hate snow!

2010-01-13T10:29:00.001Z

I've so had enough of this snow! We had another snow fall last night and this morning, actually it's still snowing. It's not much about an inch, I thought that if I could get to the main road it would be fine. I had a phone call from my friend at work at around 7 saying it was probably not a good idea to drive in as the A21 hadn't been gritted and that she had skidded badly, despite driving really slow. I checked the web, the school is open so Emma and I got in the car to drive her to school at about 7.50. She has to be there at 8.30 plenty of time I thought (it is a journey that usually takes about 10mins).
We crawled along at about 10mph, the roads were icy but I expected that, they are only small lanes.

We got to the main road fairly quickly considering, but it wasn't much diferent except there were more cars. The we stopped, I mean everyone not just me.

We sat like this for ages only edging forward a few yards every now and then, I suspect that that was only because of people turning around and going back. We were listening to the radio this whole time and reports were coming in of trains not runing and road problems. At 9am we decided to turn back, it was still snowing and I was worried that if I eventually got Emma to school I might not be able to pick her up this afternoon.

John is in Cardiff acording to the news the weather is worse there, I have spoken to him and he has managed to get on a train back to London. I hope that he will be able to get home tonight.

Note: I thought I should mention that Emma took all the photos in this post, I didn't drive along the icy roads with my camera perched on top of the steering wheel!

Store Cupboard

2010-01-12T20:57:00.000Z

We spent the time while we were snowed in sorting some storage. When we moved in here 2 1/2 years ago we unpacked quickly and everything was shoved into which ever cupboards were handy. We have gradually begun to sort things out but still have a way to go. This cupboard in the hallway had a couple of coat hooks in it but was mainly full of unused assorted items.

I thought it would be better with shelves so that I could use it as an extra food storage cupboard for jars of homemade jam, chutneys and pickles, bags of flour, tins etc. I have a small pantry in the kitchen but it is usually so full that it can be really hard to find anything. John used some offcuts of wood that we had in the garage and fitted the cupboard out with shelves.

Here it is finished I even managed to hang the (previously nomadic) ironing board on the back of the door. I now have a home for all my jars as well as being able to keep a stock of flour, sugar, rice etc. I have realised the value of having a well stocked pantry over the last couple of weeks!

Went back to work today after the snow, they are forecasting more to come but it shouldn't be as bad, fingers crossed.

Mad Dogs and Teenagers

2010-01-09T22:00:00.000Z

Today the kids decided it was time to build a snowman.

Tom took it very seriously and was outside for ages.

So long in fact that he sent Emma indoors for a flask of tea.

It was dark by the time they finished their "snowlady" complete with conifer hair.

The dogs enjoyed their time in the garden. Bobby showed that he can still behave like a young pup, despite being nearly 10, by charging round and round the garden like a looney. I took lots of blurry pictures of the snow before he finally stood still long enough for me to take a photo of him

Casper seems to like having his photo taken and runs towards me every time I point the camera at him. I have quite a few extreme close ups of him!

The cats Maverick (Above) and Rosie (Below) are far more sensible and prefered to stay warm and confortable indoors.

Bean Encilladas

2010-01-08T17:48:00.000Z

The bean encilladas that we had for dinner last night were a hit, everyone liked them and that almost never happens. The beans were cooking almost all day, I used dried so they had to be soaked, then cooked, and then simmered in a chilli and tomato sauce that I had made. It sounds like alot of work but there was very little to actually do, they just simmered away in the bottom aga oven.

The flour tortillas were a different matter. I used a recipe from the River Cottage Family Cookbook, the dough had to be made and then rested, divided and shaped into balls and then rolled out. As you can see from the pictures they weren't very round.

The most time consuming bit was cooking them, they had to be cooked in a pan individually for about a minute on each side, and then kept on a plate under a tea towel until they were all ready to be filled.

I rolled them up with they beans inside and then poured over more sauce and then sprinkled cheese over the top. Unfortunately I didn't get any more pictures as by the time they came out of the oven everyone was starving.

We have all been at home again today because of the snow, according to the weather forecast it will probably get worse before it gets better. I've spent most of the day sorting out the pantry, and baking bread, cakes and an pie. This snow is not good for my waistline!

Snow Day Again

2010-01-07T11:09:00.000Z

Another snowy day. The school and college are closed so the kids are at home with me. John went off to work today, it took him nearly an hour to get to the station he said the roads were awful, he rang a little while ago and he has made it to London, just has to get home again tonight!

Apart from wandering down the garden to defrost the chickens water and take some pictures, I will be staying indoors in the warm today. I've made bread and will bake a cake later. Bean enchiladas for dinner tonight, this is a new recipe and a bit of an experiment, I will post later and report how it went.

12th night

2010-01-05T21:50:00.000Z

It's 12th night, time for the tree to come down, it had started to look a bit sad and droopy. It's still really cold outside again, snow is forecast again! We had a lovely fire and burnt the tree. The house looks really bare without the decorations.

One of our goals for this year is to try to eat less meat. First veggie meal of the year tonight was tarka dhal, with rice and homemade flat bread. Everyone quite liked it, the general consensus was that the flavour was lovely but the texture was a bit sloppy, perhaps I might try different lentils next time.

It's cold!

2010-01-03T19:24:00.000Z

It has been snowing today, not that much, but it's cold.

A good day to stay indoors and make soup and soda bread for lunch.

1st blog, Cranberry Jam.

2010-01-01T21:28:00.000Z

Well I've finally got around to writing something in my blog, New Year ’s Day seems a good day to start.

I've have been making cranberry jam today. I found cranberries reduced in Waitrose yesterday to 29p a packet so bought 10, I may have gone a little mad, that’s a lot of cranberries! I spent the morning looking for recipes to use them in and couldn't decide, until my mum came up with a recipe for jam.

I put 2kg of the cranberries in a pan with 400ml of water and simmered them for about 40 minutes.

When they were nice and soft I mashed them a bit with a potato masher then added 2kg of sugar. I then brought them to a boil until it reached setting point. The jam was a gorgeous colour.

Here are the finished jars waiting to be labelled, notice the big bowl full of more cranberries. I have run out of sugar and jars, so not sure what I am going to do with them yet, but they were a bargain!

Update. I made the rest of the cranberries into cranberry sauce, I had to freeze it as I have run out of Jars.