Wet Wet Wet

It has been quite a while since last posting, but by gum it’s been hectic….and it’s not all about the veg garden. Whilst the veg garden has been flourishing, we have sold sheep, acquired sheep, acquired further sheep, bottle fed lambs, weaned lambs, off-loaded lambs, acquired new lamb… and as it stands we are still bottle feeding the last lamb! And don’t get us started on the fencing and field preparation!!

The veg is a real mixed bag of results. Some things have loved the soil conditions and the 40 days (well it feels like it) of rain. Other things, well let’s just say…..epic fail. Potatoes are looking tremendous and we are on tenterhooks wondering when the right time to harvest is. The parsnips (that quite frankly looked proper weedy when they went in the tubs) are looking very good indeed. All the greens are growing great to the extent that we are going to have to urgently re-net. The sunflowers are whizzing up their stems, the carrots, swedes and beetroot are looking fab. However, the tomatoes have sulked, the cucumber has died, and the pumpkin has gone an insipid shade of yellow.

The herbs are the real success story though and we have done a hard harvest of a couple of plants; the sage, the oregano and the thyme. Storing the herbs when they are harvested can be really difficult. In the past we have tried drying, either whole and then passing through a mill or cut and allowed to dry. But, owing to space in the house we find one waft past by a small child, and the leaves just dissipate across the floor!! That or we haven’t allowed the air to circulate around the drying leaves and they all go mouldy. This time around we cut the fresh leaves and packed them into ice cube trays.  A little top up of water and a good freeze have given us little bombs of herbiness. Once decanted from an ice cube tray into a bag and they take up no room at all in the freezer and who doesn’t like the little fresh feeling you get on opening the freezer in the summer.