God I love growing our own

[jenkinsbrynmair]

What's the recipe?

feed the squirrel exlax with it's hazelnuts
Then follow it around with bucket

 

[Erichalfbee]

What's the recipe?

150g ……ish blanched hazelnuts,

225g chocolate, about 70% cocoa 

50g honey

3tbsp powdered whole milk 

350ml whole milk

Dash of vanilla extract

Pinch of salt


Roast nuts spread out on a tray for about 12-15 minutes at 180 until golden, then allow to cool.
Grind into a smooth paste in a food processor, scooping out and reserving a couple of spoonfuls early on if you’d prefer a crunchy texture. Depending on your machine, this will take about 10 minutes and you’ll need to keep scraping down the sides.
Melt chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave. Stir together the milk, milk powder and 25g honey in a small pan, and heat to a simmer.

With the processor still running, pour the hot chocolate into the hazelnut paste, followed by the hot milk, vanilla and a pinch of salt. Then and add as much of the remaining honey to taste then when you’re happy with the consistency stir in any reserved part-ground nuts.

 

[enrico]

Had our first picking of asparagus yesterday. Spring is coming

 

[Erichalfbee]

Had our first picking of asparagus yesterday

 

[JamezF]

Quite. Ours haven't even made it out of the ground yet.

James

 

[pargyle]

Lovely day down here ... sorted out and re-potted a lot of my strawberries, mulched my fruit bushes, repotted some over winter cuttings, seived a barrow or two of my own compost, trimmed and tidied, dug up and transplanted a slew of Teasels (I have a small area where I allow them to grown next to my apiary .. the finches and bluetits love the seed heads and lots of insects drink from the water that collects in the leaf nodes). Pulled up a zillion sycamore seedlings .. if there was a prize for growing sycamore seedlings then I would win hands down ! Sowed some more cress ...

My Melon seeds have germinated on top of the central heating boiler - I've never grown melons before but I'm going to try in a corner of the greenhouse in a couple of big pots. Bit of an experiment ... anyone else ever tried and were you successful in getting some fruit ?

 

[JamezF]

Busy Friday out in the sunshine, dreary Saturday dodging the horizontal rain, very busy Sunday, out in the sunshine again. And then tonight it is supposed to start raining for the next twenty-four hours

On Friday I chipped a fair bit of sycamore that I'd felled and started on the firewood for heating next Winter.

Saturday's job was using that woodchip to finish the paths around the new beds in the veggie plot. Bit of a fail there because I ran out. Fortunately I still have more trees to deal with.

Today was an absolute frenzy of mowing, just to get everything under control a bit. Mostly I was tidying stuff up so my daughter could mow and unfortunately as I dragged a tarp out from where it had been abandoned (by me, to be fair) I found this, rather too late:

I tried to reassemble it all as best I could, but I suspect it may be too late. I think it might have been doomed from the start if I'm honest, as it was only a couple of feet off the ground and once the chicks hatched and started making a noise the cats would have been all over it On the positive side we did herd a large frog away from the mower to safety.

The grass clippings went into the compost, mixed with my son's GCSE notes which he's decided he no longer needs given that he will be graduating this Summer. About an hour later I put the thermometer into the pile...

I imagine that lot will be pretty toasty by tomorrow morning. Finally I loaded up the trailer with green waste compost and spread it on one of my veggie beds, mixed with my own compost. This one is for my early potatoes. The composting and planting should really have been done already, but given that the veggie plot has made the Somme look like a Forest School mud kitchen for most of the Winter, I'm just having to catch up as best I can.

James

 

[JamezF]

My Melon seeds have germinated on top of the central heating boiler - I've never grown melons before but I'm going to try in a corner of the greenhouse in a couple of big pots. Bit of an experiment ... anyone else ever tried and were you successful in getting some fruit ?

I've grown melons for the last two or three years and I'll be doing some again this year (Minesota Midget, Prescott Fond Blanc and Petit Gris de Rennes [below]). We've had fruit, and they've done ok though I couldn't say brilliantly, but I suspect you have the advantage of being better off weather-wise than we are. These are some from 2022 (along with the last of the rather large aubergines that I harvested at the same time).

The smell in the greenhouse when they're approaching fully ripe can be fantastic. It's almost worth growing them just for that

James

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

mixed with my son's GCSE notes which he's decided he no longer needs given that he will be graduating this Summer.

don't worry, it was only last month I finally recycled my notes for my powerboat skipper's exams which I passed 28 years ago

 

[Midget Gem]

Lovely day down here ... sorted out and re-potted a lot of my strawberries, mulched my fruit bushes, repotted some over winter cuttings, seived a barrow or two of my own compost, trimmed and tidied, dug up and transplanted a slew of Teasels (I have a small area where I allow them to grown next to my apiary .. the finches and bluetits love the seed heads and lots of insects drink from the water that collects in the leaf nodes). Pulled up a zillion sycamore seedlings .. if there was a prize for growing sycamore seedlings then I would win hands down ! Sowed some more cress ...

My Melon seeds have germinated on top of the central heating boiler - I've never grown melons before but I'm going to try in a corner of the greenhouse in a couple of big pots. Bit of an experiment ... anyone else ever tried and were you successful in getting some fruit ?

My son has grown watermelon for the past 2 years with some success. Seeds form Lidl for 29p. Watermelons are small and don't always have much red flesh but are juicy and tasty.

 

[enrico]

Busy Friday out in the sunshine, dreary Saturday dodging the horizontal rain, very busy Sunday, out in the sunshine again. And then tonight it is supposed to start raining for the next twenty-four hours

On Friday I chipped a fair bit of sycamore that I'd felled and started on the firewood for heating next Winter.

Saturday's job was using that woodchip to finish the paths around the new beds in the veggie plot. Bit of a fail there because I ran out. Fortunately I still have more trees to deal with.

Today was an absolute frenzy of mowing, just to get everything under control a bit. Mostly I was tidying stuff up so my daughter could mow and unfortunately as I dragged a tarp out from where it had been abandoned (by me, to be fair) I found this, rather too late:

I tried to reassemble it all as best I could, but I suspect it may be too late. I think it might have been doomed from the start if I'm honest, as it was only a couple of feet off the ground and once the chicks hatched and started making a noise the cats would have been all over it On the positive side we did herd a large frog away from the mower to safety.

The grass clippings went into the compost, mixed with my son's GCSE notes which he's decided he no longer needs given that he will be graduating this Summer. About an hour later I put the thermometer into the pile...

I imagine that lot will be pretty toasty by tomorrow morning. Finally I loaded up the trailer with green waste compost and spread it on one of my veggie beds, mixed with my own compost. This one is for my early potatoes. The composting and planting should really have been done already, but given that the veggie plot has made the Somme look like a Forest School mud kitchen for most of the Winter, I'm just having to catch up as best I can.

James

Sycamore is a bugger to split

 

[JamezF]

Sycamore is a bugger to split

I only bother with stuff that's too big to go into the woodburners in one piece, and for that I have a log-splitter

James

 

[enrico]

I only bother with stuff that's too big to go into the woodburners in one piece, and for that I have a log-splitter

James

I use a manual log splitter

 

[JamezF]

I use a manual log splitter

I have a log-splitting maul, but getting through an entire Winter's worth of logs is tough

James

 

[enrico]

I have a log-splitting maul, but getting through an entire Winter's worth of logs is tough

James

It's a good workout. I find little more satisfying than cutting, splitting and stacking wood.

 

[fian]

It's a good workout. I find little more satisfying than cutting, splitting and stacking wood.

An old saying says that firewood gives three times the heat:
A. When you cut it.
B. When you stack it.
C. When you burn it.

 

[Midget Gem]

Made a trommel to sieve soil using a couple of old bike rims, some casters, welded mesh and scrap wood. So much quicker than a hand sieve and seems to do ok with wet soil.

 

[JamezF]

Very neat. I've often thought about constructing something similar myself and never got around to doing anything about it.

James

 

[pargyle]

Made a trommel to sieve soil using a couple of old bike rims, some casters, welded mesh and scrap wood. So much quicker than a hand sieve and seems to do ok with wet soil.

View attachment 39354

I like it a lot ... not sure about the motor though ... where do you plug it in ?

 

[JamezF]

I like it a lot ... not sure about the motor though ... where do you plug it in ?

I was thinking... the next obvious improvements are sealing one end so stuff can't fall out, a belt drive, and a tilting mechanism so everything stays inside when it's turning and the big lumps can be tipped out after sieving. Or, a cement mixer with a mesh barrel

James