Elderberry & Apple Wine

The elderberry & apple wine continues to froth at an alarming rate - I might put it into a couple of demijohns tomorrow, but at the moment it's fizzing away like mad in a bucket.

It's a lovely colour too.

Promising. Very promising.

Giving & Receiving & Giving Again

John Badger at the bottom sent a note round to all everyone at the Hill a couple of weeks ago asking for donations of any spare produce to make up a hamper to raffle off this weekend at the clubhouse.

I'll put in a couple of the red kuri squash, a couple sweetcorn cobs, & a couple of jars of chutney. I toyed with the idea of donating the 'olive' squash, but figured that it would be rather bigger than the hamper, so discounted that thought.

On a separate note, JB has been nurturing a grapevine in his greenhouse & now that the bunches of grapes are ripening, he's asked me to take the bunches & make wine with them.

He dropped me a note today, "Its great to be able to look forward to some home made wine. Help yourself. They are only small but sweet," thus demonstrating a great deal of confidence in my wine making abilities...

Well, It's a Start...

I sat down this evening with the part of the seedbox which is 'veg but not peas or beans' & sorted all the seed packets into 'keep - for next year, or maybe the year after' & 'I really can't see me getting this sown'.

The exercise means that I now have 38 seed packets for redistribution to others - coo - & it raised a number of interesting questions:

1 why do I have a packet of lovely purple brocolli, a packet of heritage green brocolli - both excellent & on the 'keep' pile - yet I also have two identical packets of Mr F bog standard brocolli?
2 why do I have three unopened packets of beetroot? Not being hugely keen, I grow half a packet a year for chutney, and not even that this year.
3 why do I have achocha seeds from Veg Heaven and the seed swap parcel, yet I have about 3 million seeds to save from my own plant this year - and it is a contender for world's most boring veg?
4 Why have I kept the packet of celery seeds when the only time I grew celery in was so stringy it was inedible, and the wine I made from it was vile too?
5 Why do I have so many seeds that I can quite comfortably give away 6 types of tomato & 3 types of pepper without blinking...?
...etc, etc...

I am happy, though, as I can now get all the seeds in the box - just the peas, beans & flower seeds to go now...

Sweet Marrow Cream & Dry Wine

Although the weather has been lovely today, & I could have gone to the Hill, I decided to don my pinny & have a day of domesticity instead.

First up was to continue with the Marrow Cream - I put the steamed squash into the food processor with juice & zest of 3 lemons (actually, 2 & a half lemons & half a grapefruit - the other half of the lemon having graced a g&t the other day). Then I boiled this up with a couple of pounds of sugar & 6oz of butter stirring continuously for a very boring half an hour & potted the result up.

I must say that it tastes very good indeed - exactly like lemon curd - an absolute winner! So thanks must go to Nic on who's blog I first came across the recipe, and to It's Raining Plums compiled by Xanthe Clay where I saw a very similar recipe a few days later.

With the jars labelled up, I turned to one or two wine jobs to be done - the redcurrant wine started in July is clear, so I wanted to bottle that to free up a demijohn. I took the final SG reading (986, giving a 14% strength) & had a taste & found it to be on the dry side - fruity, but definitely dry.

I had a bit of a brainwave - the first batch of apple wine is shaping up to be rather sweet, so why don't I try my hand at blending the two? So the redcurrant is now back in a dark demijohn waiting for the apple to settle out, and we'll see how we get on from there.

The second batch of apple wine has calmed down enough to be put into one rather full demijohn - I measured the SG at 992, so already this is shaping up to be drier than the first batch, but then again, it wasn't as sweet to start off with.

Finally, my 'make it up as you go along' wine. Pointed in the right direction by Retired Maureen yesterday, I picked a whole heap of elderberries from a tree at the Hill at the back of David-other-half's plot. When I stripped them from the stalks with a fork at home & weighed them I found that I only had 2lb, not the 3lb need for a batch of elderberry wine.

I had a dither whether to add some redcurrants from the freezer, but decided to add a couple of pounds of apples instead from the garage. I boiled the apples, crushed the elderberries, added 3lb of sugar to get an SG of 1092, yeast & nutrient, a teaspoon of citric acid for good measure, & away it goes...

Making Edges & Marrow Cream

Although I did get a lot done today at the Hill, I did spend an awful long time doing it.

I wanted to make some headway with that side of the plot by neighbour Ted (where I plan to put in beds for the permanent crops & fruit) which is getting pretty shabby & overgrown. Although I can't put these beds in until all of the existing beds are shorted to their new 16' length, there is still work to be done in that area.

First off was to get rid of the next gooseberry bush - there were five of these altogether & with two down (& scratches healed!) I took the fork to the next in line.

At that point the lady from the stables arrived with a trailerful of horse muck, we chatted as we unloaded the bags from the trailer, & I picked some sweetcorn cobs for her to take. "Well, this takes me back!" she laughed "when I lived in Bermuda they cooked corn cobs at the side of the road - wonderful!"

Just as I was wondering why the devil she had moved back here, Woodchipping Paul arrived & so I helped him to empty the manure bags into the skip, keeping half a dozen to put on my own compost heap. A good - if mucky - workout.

Back with the gooseberry bush, disaster struck when I gave the fork one heft too many, & the shaft broke. Fortunately it was the 'spare' fork with the uncomfortable handle & wonky tines which seemed to arrive with the plot - the trusty Spear & Jackson stainless steel fork made a rather better job it, admittedly after a great deal of effort.

I then set about pruning the currant bushes - not sure quite how this was supposed to go, but ended up with an 'open goblet' shape on each one when I finished, so I was happy with that. Finally I whacked the whole area over with a spade and rake to level. Much better.

By this time, the compost bin was precariously full of cuttings and weeds, so I decided to call it a day, picking a SQUASH (olive), FRENCH BEANS (purple giant & dried early warwick), SWEETCORN (tender & true), CUCUMBER (burpless tasty green) & RUNNER BEANS (essex bb & reg-next-plot) to take home.

After a well needed bath, I set about making some marrow cream with the squash picked earlier - peeling, scooping out the seeds, chopping and steaming - it's supposed to be rather like lemon curd, which sounds yummy. It makes me wonder if it is so lovely, why I have never heard of it before...?

This is How it Should Be!

I am incredibly smug - it might have taken three years, but I reached the point tonight when even though I had nothing prepared for dinner, I could just take a store cupboard ingredient (in this case spaghetti), add all home-stuff & come out with a delicious meal!

So that was fried up courgette (green & yellow), onion, chocolate pepper (photo), garlic & tomatoes mixed in with the spaghetti & garnished with a good handful of basil - scoffed in about a minute as it was so lovely.

Oh, it was washed down with a glass of grapefruit wine - which is pretty spot-on too.

I do know that my smugness will not last, as all those just happen to be fresh in the fridge at the same time as this is the time of year, but I do feel like I've 'arrived' somehow!

Confessional...

Well I did have a sort through my seed box tonight.

Er - I do have rather a lot of seed packets, & this is after I put a whole heap of seed packets into the seed swap parcel which I had a few weeks ago.

The list of seed looks like this:

Unusual veg - 7 varieties/packets
Root veg - 26 varieties/packets
Beans - 35 varieties/packets
Peas - 14 varieties/packets
Brassica - 18 varieties/packets
Salad veg - 54 varieties/packets
Herbs - 3 varieties/packets

I originally had a list of an astonishing 37 types of vegetable detailed separately - but thought the list might look rather less lavish grouped into categories, but I'm really not so sure now...

Must get a grip!