Category Archives: Blog

Wittenham Cider

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Samhain – All Hallows Eve – time to make Wittenham Cider – many years ago my aunt gave me this recipe – it’s from a very old newspaper cutting._DSC0086s

Wittenham Cider

3 1b apples
12 pints water
2 lb granulated sugar
3 lemons
empty pop bottles

You will need 2 large clean buckets – one to make the cider in and another to strain the cider into. Approximately 3 lb of apples – any sort – a mixture is best and windfalls are fine. Wash them and chop or mince them up (including peel core and pips) and put them in the bucket.

Pour on 12 pints of cold, unboiled, water. (The original recipe is so old it says 6 quarts of water.)

Leave for a week, stirring night and morning.

Strain through a stocking held over a sieve or colander into the second bucket.

Stir in 2 lb of granulated sugar and the grated rind and juice of three lemons.

Strain again and bottle. Plastic pop bottles will do fine.

It should be drinkable within a week.

If not drinking straight away you will need to release the tops of the bottles regularly so they don’t explode – or you can use old port bottles with corks.

The Nuthatch

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Nuthatches like sunflower seeds as well as peanuts.

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Our neighbour works wonders with bits of old iron and he made this very innovative bird feeder which all the birds love and the cat hasn’t found out how to get onto yet.  We get visits from a pair of nuthatches, they usually pick up a peanut and fly off to eat it but this one stayed long enough to be photographed.

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I have also seen nuthatches eating melon seeds but they prefer peanuts.  The hens like melon seeds too.

New Zealand White Rabbits

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This is Cowslips latest litter, 5 weeks old.

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Baby rabbits must be some of the most adorable babies – once they have all their fur and their eyes are open.  They are born blind and deaf and pink-skinned but by 3 weeks old they are miniature versions of their mum hopping about their pen.

By 5 weeks old, the babies always scramble for a bit of their mum’s green food – this time of year it’s Shepherd’s Purse, rocket, spinach, dandelions, clover and the occasional nasturtium leaf (they love nasturtiums but they are quite strong so one leaf a day is enough).

Balloon Flights over Shropshire

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Sailing across Shropshire on a sultry September evening.

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Hot air balloons are surreal and it’s lovely to watch them drifting over the Shropshire fields but they are so silent they can be right above you without you knowing. We used to have a Jack Russell terrier who would bark like mad when he saw a balloon but he’s gone now so I have no warning. Totally engrossed in weeding the vegetable patch the other evening, it really made me jump – creeping silently across the sky and then the burner suddenly roaring just above my head!

Time to Harvest the Onions

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Late August – time to harvest the onions.

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Last year I bought some onion sets from a discount store which I planted in November, and some from a local nursery which I finally planted at the end of March (late because the weather was so awful in early Spring).   Whether it was the poor quality of the onions or the fact that the hens kept getting out and scratching in the onion bed, or the wet winter we had, I don’t know, but the onions I planted in March from the nursery were much bigger, despite the shorter growing season.

As soon as the onion tops fall over, it’s time to harvest the onions but you can, of course, eat them before that if you wish. To store them you need to tie string tightly around the neck of each onion so the damp in the stalk doesn’t seep into the onion bulb, then you can tie them up any way you want. Plaiting onions is quite fun and they look great hanging up alongside bunches of dried herbs.

Butterflies love Buddleia

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Every garden should have a buddleia bush.

 

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Butterflies and bees – and other insects – absolutely love buddleia and I’ve spent many hours in the August sunshine simply watching the different butterflies – this is a peacock which is one of our prettiest but our buddleia attracts red admirals, tortoiseshells and commas as well as speckled woods and cabbage whites. The common purple buddleia is quite vigorous and needs a lot of cutting back so choose a calmer variety if you have a small garden. Keep cutting off the dead flowers and it will continue flowering through September.

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Speckled Wood butterfly on potato leaves

Our Wildlife Pool

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A pool attracts all sorts of plants, animals and insects.

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It’s difficult to believe that when we originally dug out this pool and lined it with local clay it was just bare soil. I was told by our local farmer to pull out the trees when they were just saplings – should have listened – now we are having to cut them down.

I also didn’t believe the farmer that bulrushes would take over the pool – I was so delighted to have my own bulrush that I left it and, within a few years the pool was full of bulrushes and not much else. Then it dried out one summer and the next year the bulrushes had almost gone but yellow flag irises were taking over and the water lily was looking decidedly peaky. So you do need to maintain a pond to keep the balance but it’s worth it – we get lots damselflies and dragonflies as well as frogs, toads and newts.

Impossible to believe that the picture below was taken from virtually the same spot in May 2006!

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Poppies will grow anywhere

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Poppies will grow anywhere

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Poppies will grow anywhere but they need bare soil that has been turned over recently to germinate – which is why they grow so well in cornfields.   We now have two ganders and one drake which are obviously not very productive so I need to think about some mates for them. We inherited the geese and the sensible thing to do would be to get two female geese and have one of the ganders for Christmas but, as with all livestock, it’s not easy to make difficult decisions and the more you put them off the harder they become.

We bought the drake to keep the duck company – and so we would have some fertile eggs if the duck went broody – but then the fox got Jasmine so we were left with one duck again. To make matters worse Drake started chasing the hens but I had to move them to a safer place out of reach of the fox anyway. Now winter is coming and I need to move the hens back into the hen house so need to decide whether to get two ducks to keep Drake happy or – well the only other option is to find a new home for him as once something has a name it’s impossible to eat it!

Spring plants that rabbits like

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There are lots of spring plants that rabbits like and, fed in moderation, they are really good for them – too much green stuff can upset their digestion – but a few leaves of a few different plants  every day is fine – and they really enjoy them.

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Comfrey leaves and flowers are a favourite – not to be confused with foxglove which has the same shape leaves.  Comfrey is very easy to distinguish at this time of year as it’s in flower and foxglove is just leaves.

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Foxglove is digitalis and very poisonous so make sure you pick comfrey plants with flowers.

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Rabbits like most herbs, these are chives which have a slightly onion smell.

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Another spring weed in garlic mustard, or Jack-by-the-hedge which has a mild garlic scent – rabbits like flowers and leaves – smaller plants are most tender.

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And of course the dandelion, just leaves and again in moderation – just two or three leaves a day.

I like to give each rabbit a choice of leaves and see which they eat first – they don’t all choose the same ones first.  Dandelion likes comfrey and Fiver likes chives.

Every day I get real pleasure from picking a few choice titbits and watching the rabbits enjoy eating them – the hens like some plants too, particularly the brassicas, but their favourite is always bread and they come running when they see me carrying a basket.

 

Daffodils

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Daffodils – I love picking some of the first daffodils when they are in bud and seeing them open out, unfolding their petals, bringing spring scents into the room.  Wordsworth’s poem reminds me of  fields of daffodils in Cornwall ‘fluttering and dancing’ in the breeze.

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I wandered lonely as a cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)