Beetroot Wine (spiced)

Despite staggered planting our beetroot had other ideas and was all ready at once! (oh this learning curve can be confusing...).
We made beetroot wine from Richs Dads Wine book (Homemade Country Wines, 1966)

Spiced Beetroot Wine

1 gallon water
4lb beetroot
3lb sugar
1 lemon
4-6 cloves
1/2 oz ginger
Bakers yeast.

Wash the beetroot well, then slice this thinly. Bring to the boil in the water with the thinly peeled rind of the lemon, the cloves and the ginger. Simmer till the beetroot is tender and losing its colour. Strain on to the sugar, preferably in a large bowl. Stir well. When luke warm, mix the yeast  with a little of the liquid and add lemon juice to the liquid.
Cover and leave in a warm place for a few days to begin fermentation. Then pour into a fermentation jar, insert an airlock and leave in a warm place to continue fermenting to a finish.

Runner Bean Pickle

We have a glut of Runner Beans, our neighbours and friends have all been given green bundles recently and still we have more.
I have made runner bean pickle from a recipe I found on the internet.

Spiced Runner Bean Pickle.

2 lb (900 g) runner beans (weighed after trimming and slicing)

1½ lb (700 g) onions, chopped

1½ pints (850 ml) malt vinegar

1½ oz (40 g) cornflour

1 heaped tablespoon mustard powder

1 rounded tablespoon turmeric

8 oz (225 g) soft brown sugar

1 lb (450 g) demerara sugar

salt

Put the chopped onions into a preserving pan or large casserole or saucepan with 10 fl oz (275 ml) of the vinegar. Bring them up to simmering point and let them simmer gently for about 20 minutes or until the onions are soft. Meanwhile cook the sliced beans in boiling salted water for 5 minutes, then strain them in a colander and add to the onions.

Now in a small basin mix the cornflour, mustard and turmeric with a little of the remaining vinegar – enough to make a smooth paste – then add this paste to the onion mixture. Pour in the rest of the vinegar and simmer everything for 10 minutes. After that stir in both quantities of sugar until they dissolve and continue to simmer for a further 15 minutes. Then pot the pickle in warmed, sterilised jars, and seal and label when cold. Keep for at least a month before eating

Swampy August 2010

Above are photos of Swampy taken in August 2010. Below are photos of some of our harvest, Carrots, Cauliflowers, Squash, Cucumbers, Hazelnuts, Chillies and Runner Beans.

Allotment people

Everyone we've met up the allotments is really friendly, it's lovely to be among so many welcoming people, it's not something we've come to expect in Leicestershire.

Advice about dandelions from a 97 year old plot holder: put vinegar on the leaves in the hottest part of the day and leave them. They will die back. I'm going to give this a go, because this man doesn't have ANY dandelions on his plot in a field which is yellow with them!

Peas peas peas

I cannot work peas out. Why do they want to lay along the ground? I thought they were surposed to climb?
They are driving me loopy!
Did some weeding while pondering peas...

Rich washed the greenhouse down, just the roof to complete now. Hopefully tomorrow...

Greenhouse - part 2

Back to the plot this evening to start to put the greenhouse together. It's almost complete now, the man-that-can gave us more glass to replace the broken panes. We've promised him some mead from our next batch!

Apart from that the plot was looking very sad. The potatoes, sweetcorn and sweetpeas have been got by the frost. I have now covered the potatoes over as more frost is forecast. The sweetcorn needed replacing, I have just planted some more in pots at home.

Greenhouse - Part 1

We visited today to find that someone has given us a greenhouse, we looked all around for some idea of where it came from - but found no clues. The man-that-can later told us that it had been donated and he thought we'd put it to good use.
No time to put it together today, but it was a lovely surprise.