My First steps to a River Cottage lifestyle (pics galore)

[Vossy1]

Not at all BrewStew, i worked boning beef for a couple of years, just the thoughts of you getting excited and posting pics of yourself with a Rambo style headband, blood stained white coat and a clever held high in the air (like an Iron Maiden cd cover) was enough to send a shiver down my spine

:rofl: :rofl:

 

[BrewStew]

The pig slaughter should be starting soon... hoping to get my hands dirty early to mid April :thumb:

in the mean time i've been doing alot of gardening these past couple of weekends.

i've sown everything i wanted except the potatoes which i should get around to doing tomorrow.

there's not much to see at the moment as only my lettuce has started to sprout, but here's what i've been up to

here's my main veg bed that i raised using the stones from the dismantled rockery

from left to right; Onions sown Autumn last year, spring onions, carrots, leeks, broccoli, beetroot

to the right of the veg patch is some rhubarb that was here before i took on the house which i'm currently forcing with plant pots

i'm letting the nettles grow this year as i want to use them for both cooking and brewing :thumb:


an area of lawn i had to dig up and relocate to where the rockery was is now privy to peas, with canes set up... i'll be netting them when they sprout

the hanging baskets have strawberries in the top right, and broad leafs that slugs like to attach (hence they were put in baskets) spinach, Chard and one type of lettuce. in the bed to the right of the garden light are three bunches of asparagus. i'll be putting the Tomatoes when they're fit for relocation to the left of the light and put something on the garage wall for them to cling to.

in pots on the patio i've got more spinach and two different types of lettuce, and chives

in a flower bed i've got garlic, and shallots. the three different types of potatoes will follow shortly

inside i've got sweetcorn in the single pots, the tomatoes in the big window box, and in the mini green house there are California peppers, Cubumber and Black Beauty Aubergines.

in the kitchen i've got chillis and parsley.. sorry no pics, but it's just another two pots with soil in at the moment anyways.


and last but not least is a flower bed i've got to finish restoring as it's still partly over grown with grass. I dunno what i'm going to put in this one yet but may have to put the sweetcorn here if there's no room for it in the other flower bed. it's not ideal as it doesnt get the sun that the other flower bed does... so i might dig it tomorrow and put the tatties here instead, leaving the spot next to the garlic and shallots for the sweetcorn :thumb:

in April i'll be sowing Jack o lantern pumpkin, Rouge vif d'Etampes pumpkin, Butternut Squash, and Sweet Dumpling :thumb:


i'm looking forward to harvest season!!! :party:

 

[BrewStew]

bah i missed a few off.

i'm also sowing Mint, Courgette, Coriander, Rocket, and Fennel soon too.

 

[BrewStew]

i just totalled everything up... if you include the two apple trees and the pear tree that's in my garden, and the cooking apple tree in my neighbours garden that drops into mine i've got about 40 different varieties of fruit, veg and herbs.

holy cow ! :shock: :party:

 

[Bru4u]

christ, your ahead of the game, I've lots to do yet before planting :shock:

 

[jamesb]

BS mate, for anything you want to do with the nettles, you want the young tops. Just keep harvesting those and freezing them until you need them. The old bits, which you'll get if you let them grow on will taste woody and crap.

Looking good anyway, you've annoyed me. I've just given up my allotment because I moved house and I haven't had time to get the garden into a state for planting yet.

EDIT: But you can use the bits to make some great liquid fertiliser.

 

[BrewStew]

JB, so should i snip them off now?

how much off the top? an inch? two? what do i do with the remaining stalks? let them regrow and snip them again?

cheers mate :thumb:

sorry to hear about your allotment

i'll be buggered if i have to move house before this lot comes into harvest (i'm in rented) :? but i'd certainly give transplanting them a crack!!!

 

[BrewStew]

LOL... poor Merry seems grumpy that she's got less space at her favourite spot in the sun thanks to the veg

at least she's on her blanket though.... shame she's still not using her bed, but i mustn't grumble cos at least she's off the carpet

her fur looks interesting in this pic... she's black normally but the sun is making her look a bit tabby :hmm:

 

[MartialAnt]

I dont want to sound like a party pooping tw@ but what if your landlord/lady ended your tenancy & gave you notice to leave, what would you do?

 

[jamesb]

JB, so should i snip them off now?
how much off the top? an inch? two? what do i do with the remaining stalks? let them regrow and snip them again?
cheers mate :thumb:

March/April time is the best to gather them. If you look, the top few sprigs (growing tops) should be a bit lighter and greener than the ones towards the base. Cut them off and do whatever with them. You'll need a couple of carrier bags full for whatever you want to do

sorry to hear about your allotment

Not a problem. I found myself lacking time anyway. Even less time now I've got a 4bbl brewery to play with. TBH, a halfplot was a bit too much or me and the missus anyway.

i'll be buggered if i have to move house before this lot comes into harvest (i'm in rented) :? but i'd certainly give transplanting them a crack!!!

:thumb:

 

[jamesb]

I dont want to sound like a party pooping tw@ but what if your landlord/lady ended your tenancy & gave you notice to leave, what would you do?

Plant her under the spuds before anyone notices. Human make great fertilizer once you've broken the tissues down with acid and then soaked the bones in quicklime.

 

[BrewStew]

:lol:

as i've said MartialAnt, i'd give transplanting a crack

i've only spent about £30 on seeds anyways. i'd be upset about the amount of hard work i've put into digging etc, but that's no great loss.

 

[MEB]

I'd claim squatters rights untill harvest :thumb:

 

[percival]

I've found some useful gardening type pages in wikipedia BS. As i see you've got chives, garlic, basil, toms, peas, corn, sunflowers you find them useful too.

companion plating, what to plant together and what to avoid planting together - iirc fennel is a bugger and best planted alone, but this page will confirm or not what my memory is up too! This is a cool page, lots of info, read up all the columns, comments etc contain good stuff. Copies and pastes into a work sheet nicely for your own editing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companion_plants

repellent plants, deal with pests the natural way
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_re ... ts#Mammals

and more of the same kind of stuff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pe ... ing_plants

and a special case of companion planting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)

somewhere amongst all of this stuff is slug repellent plants. They ruined our first attempts at foodie gardening last year. So i'm doing a belt and braces thing this year, pellets and repellent plants, and prolly also anything else that'll help ... nets, straw etc etc

 

[BrewStew]

thanks perci :thumb:

i've got a couple of slug traps that i'll put beer in to tempt them into a drunken death :twisted:

hopefully the slugs wont venture to the broad leaf stuff on the patio, but if they do i'll simply bring them inside.

the rest that's in slug territory shouldn't *touches wood* be much of a meal for them as they're all root crops.

as for the companion plants, yes i looked it up, hence why the tomatoes and asparagus are being put together, the leeks are next to the carrots and onions, hopefully the corn will go next to the potatoes and the cucumber next to those :thumb:

 

[percival]

swmbo prefers the thought of beer traps for slugs too

 

[BrewStew]

I had one heck of a result today!

I caught a wood pigeon having a peck at my crops today. needless to say i legged it up stairs and grabbed my rifle. i pulled the trigger and missed :evil:

in my haste i forgot that i'd re scoped it and hadn't finished sighting it in. so i thought while i had it out i'd give it a good clean and sight it in.

just as i'd finished, a wood pigeon decided to land on my neighbours tree on a branch that overhung my land. i was hoping it'd come down for a peck, but it didn't and i couldn't get a clear shot from where i was sitting.

i got up, snuck a little to the left of my perch, knelt down, and took my shot. it fell straight from the branch and into my garden.

for those of you that are squeemish or against the killing of animals (even for food), you might want to move away from this thread, because here come the pictures of the kill, and the preparing for the pot.


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if i've still got your attention, then here we go.

here's the wood pigeon after the kill. it was clean, and straight through the neck. to be sure i had a knife on standby and made certain it was dead with a quick slit across the throat as soon as i got to it after pulling the trigger. it didn't budge and was definitely dead just 10 seconds after i'd shot it.

onto the plucking. you're supposed to pluck a pigeon while it's still warm otherwise it gets hard to pluck. so over the wheelie bin it went and was plucked after about 15 mins.

you can see here where the pellet entered (i slit it's throat higher up than that)

here's the rifle that did the job. i was actually very surprised that it put the pellet exactly where i aimed, as it has a habit of being a little off as it's only a little plinker... probably no more than 7ftlb.

so straight into the kitchen it went for top and tailing. i might add it was still warm at this point which felt a little weird. it's my first ever kill and of course i'm used to having refrigerated meat from a butchers/supermarket.

i then cleared it's gullet. looked like it'd been feeding on some bush leaves or something.

then came what i thought would be the disgusting bit. pulling out the entrails.

it wasn't so bad! it didn't smell. the only thing odd was that of course it was still warm.

after a wash inside and out under the tap, it's ready to cook!

i'm now looking for a recipe as i want to eat it as fresh as it gets :thumb:

oh and for anyone interested, here's the shot i took from kneeling on the concrete... the tree in question is in direct line behind my garden light, just outside my land boundary. from kneeling down, there was nothing but open sky with a field beyond the houses if i missed

 

[BrewStew]

edited that numerous times for photo problems... if you're reading it right now, hit Ctrl F5 :thumb:

 

[tubby_shaw]

Nice shooting BS :thumb:
I have never had the patience for plucking and gutting pigeon I have always just skinned the breast and taken the breast fillets, but then again I'm a lazy git

 

[BrewStew]

it only took about half an hour to 45 mins... and that was with watching a youtube "how to" step by step as i've never done it before :lol:

i'm looking forward to cooking this up :)

my neighbour heard me take the shot and stuck his nose over the fence when i was plucking it... he said "well, that's one less of the buggers to eat my peas" :lol: :thumb: