THE GOOD LIFE EVEN BETTER !
MAKING
THE MAGAZINE FOR HOME GROWERS, SMALLHOLDERS AND HOME PRODUCERS
ISSUE 100 | JULY 2016
GARDEN DIY… PLANT TIES, MULCHES AND MUCH MORE… FROM FLEECE
Fuel-less Cuisine! COOK FOR FREE WITH OUR HAYBOX
A TOUGH DECISION FOR POULTRY KEEPERS
PLUS
HONEY HARVEST BEE-KE
Cockerel Dilemma
EPING
TOP TIPS FOR EXTRACTING HONEY FROM THE HIVE
£4.25
TOP RECIPES – SUMMER SOUPS AND VEGAN TREATS FERMENTING – MAKING WINES AND MEADS AT HOME
CON T EN TS
WHAT’S INSIDE? s t n e t n o c e u s is 03 THE EDITOR’S BIT Paul ponders…
July
06 NEWS AND EVENTS Home Farmer related news and events.
46 A SMALLHOLDER’S DIARY Dot Tyne worries about grazing as new lambs and a calf are born, and a fox has to be dealt with.
10 ON THE PLOT John Harrison outlines veg-growing tasks for July, with cost-saving tips.
51 DEALING WITH COCKERELS If you hatch eggs, you’ll COVER STORY have to deal with young cockerels. Terry Beebe considers the options.
14 SQUARE-FOOT GARDENING Mark Abbott-Compton checks out a technique for making the most of small plots.
58 THE HONEY HARVEST Claire Waring describes COVER STORY how to extract your surplus honey from the hive.
18 UNDER COVER GARDENING Sue Stickland plans for autumn and winter, while still enjoying summer harvests.
62 HAYBOX COOKING Cooking for free without COVER STORY fuel? Seren EvansCharrington resurrects the ‘haybox’ method of cooking.
22 SHEEP – IN THE GARDEN? Helen Babbs discovers COVER STORY DIY uses for wool on the vegetable plot – including as a mulch! 27 A BUTTERFLY GARDEN British butterflies are at risk. Elizabeth McCorquodale shows how gardens may be the solution. 32 TACKLING A BEAN GLUT Gaby Bartai shows how to deal with surplus beans, both on the plot and in the kitchen. 36 COUNTRY WINES Sylvia Kent creates COVER STORY wine and mead using plums from the abundant July harvest.
66 COOL SUMMER SOUPS LizzieB prepares COVER STORY some super summer soups that are all best served chilled. 70 PULLET EGGS Small pullet eggs can often prove a real bargain. Pullet egg fan, Heidi M. Sands, investigates.
76 REHOMING BEES Chris Southall recounts some of the bee collections he has been involved with, and the equipment he relies on to do the job. 78 CLASSIFIEDS Courses – breeders – seed merchants – livestock for sale, etc. 80 SMALLHOLDER EVENTS Richard Thompson’s quarterly round-up of what’s happening in the UK smallholder sector. 82 SMALLHOLDER SOCIETIES A list of the UK’s smallholder groups. 83 NEXT MONTH A sneak preview of what’s planned for next month’s magazine.
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74 VEGAN TREATS Award-winning vegan food writer and blogger, Áine Carlin, provides some delicious treats.
40 FORAGING IN JULY David Winnard discovers English scurvygrass, wild onion and sea beet. 44 THE GREY SQUIRREL Elizabeth McCorquodale features a muchmaligned interloper to these shores.
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Above: ‘Red Frills’ mustard and radish, with carrots in the background.
❋ No 8. indicates plants at eight to a square, such as peas, leeks and coriander. ❋ No. 9 indicates nine to a square, such as beetroot, parsnips, spinach, onions and turnips. ❋ No. 16 means sixteen to a square, such as spring onions, radishes, baby carrots, baby leeks, leaf lettuce and rocket. But you don’t have to have just a single square of each, just that many plants per square. For example, you could plant four squares of dwarf beans, with four plants in each square. This planting pattern is also ideal for sweetcorn, which has to be block-planted in order to ensure germination. For the purposes of square-foot gardening, the number of plants per square overrides the spacing suggestions
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you might read on seed packets or in books, as there is effectively no distance between rows, just between plants. Consequently, you are saving (or rather avoiding having) lots of space, but if in any doubt, by all means use the recommended spacings on seed packets as a guide to how far apart to space them. The intention behind square-foot gardening is to grow at a much higher density than in a normal growing system, but the returns will also be much higher per square metre of bed. You do need to bear in mind that when growing in small spaces, the quality of the growing medium is always vitally important, as intensive cultivation removes nutrients and trace elements very rapidly from the soil. You will therefore need to incorporate as much home-made compost or leaf-mould into the soil as possible, to
create the very best possible growing conditions. Even with the addition of compost, you will be growing very intensively, so you will also need to add fertiliser, and this is vitally important. There are a few different options available, which can be applied as follows: ❋ Fish, blood and bone is a good organic fertiliser, and it can be added to your bed at a dosage of 1 good handful per square metre, applied by sprinkling evenly and raking in. ❋ Organic poultry manure is good for boosting nitrogen levels, and is applied in the same manner as fish, blood and bone. ❋ Non-organic fertilisers such as Growmore can also be used and applied as per the manufacturer’s instructions.
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K EEPING SHEEP
PLANT TIES Locks of wool pulled and twisted into a long, loose thread make excellent plant ties for crops such as tomatoes. Unlike plastic, or even hessian twine, wool plant ties are soft and won’t cut into or damage the plant stems: a homemade, biodegradable and much cheaper alternative to those foam and wire ‘soft-grip’ plant ties available in garden centres. Some fleeces may even come with clearly separate locks; otherwise, simply pull out a loose handful of wool and tease it gradually into a fat thread – a process hand-spinners call ‘drafting’. Twist this between your fingers, and you have a plant tie. Rather like cutting enough lengths of twine before starting a tying-up job, it is easiest to pull and twist a whole batch of wool ties just before you need them, then give them a final twist between the fingers before tying them in place.
SLUG DETERRENT Slugs dislike the dry, fibrous texture of fleece, rather like a person with a wool allergy! Even after it has been down for
more than a year, I tend to find far fewer slugs under a fleece mulch than any other type, but this repelling effect can also be used to provide a more targeted slug barrier. Proprietary slug
STEP-BY-STEP PLANT TIE
A ring of fleece deters slugs… and can help ravaged lettuces recover!
1. Take one lock of fleece.
2. Gradually tease out the lock.
deterrent pellets based on wool are available, but a simple ring of fleece laid around plants will also keep them off. As with most slug barriers, you will need to keep it topped up, and make sure the slugs can’t bypass it by climbing up overhanging leaves or by using some other alternative route. If a plant has already been ravaged by slugs, the soilwarming and feeding effects of the fleece should also help it to recover and grow away strongly.
CAMELIDS IN THE CARROTS
3. Twist the wool in your fingers.
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4. A finished tie.
All the uses I have suggested are based on experience with sheep fleece, but if your local fibre-raising smallholder has alpacas, llamas or angora goats instead, their fleeces should work just as well. However, given the size difference between a typical sheep and an alpaca, I hope you will never, ever, find them wandering round your garden!
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MIND THE GLUT!
TACKLING BEAN GLUTS Gaby Bartai tackles the bean glut in this month’s guide to coping with copious crops
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y July the crops are coming thick and fast, and we’re quickly losing our early-season innocence. You never hear people talking about their first runner bean, or their first courgette, with quite the same enthusiasm that they speak of the first asparagus, strawberry or new potato. This month, French and runner beans come on stream. Easy to grow and eager to crop, they are victims of their own success, and no sooner has the season started than the jokes begin: “Got any runners? Yeah? Want some more?” But crop control and creative cookery should forestall the need for late-night trips to offload bulging bags of beans on your neighbours’ doorstep. French beans are a versatile ingredient, and runners, caught young and tender, can be just as obliging – which is just as well, really, because there’s plenty more where they came from.
GOOD USES FOR GLUTS
The classic French way of serving green beans – warm or at room temperature, with a vinaigrette dressing – provides a fertile starting point. Think in terms of a salad, and the possibilities proliferate – and can also be applied to runners, as long as they’re caught young and cooked quickly. Vary the classic French recipe by adding mustard, garlic, finely sliced red onion or shallot, or one of the soft-leaved summer herbs. Wake things up with capers, gherkins, anchovies or chilli, or introduce a contrast of textures with flaked almonds or chopped hazelnuts. French beans work well with new potatoes in a salad, dressed with a piquant vinaigrette or a mustardy mayonnaise, while runners team well with Mediterranean ingredients like roasted red peppers, chickpeas, couscous and coriander. Combine your beans with ripe tomatoes and you have a salad that is the epitome of summer. The alternative strategy is long, slow cooking – a standard method of
cooking green beans in recipes from the eastern Mediterranean. Let your beans simmer to flavour-infused tenderness with onion, garlic, thyme, tomatoes and stock, finishing with a dash of red wine vinegar. Elaborate this into a ratatouille by adding any or all of the usual vegetable line-up. You could also slow-cook your beans with onion, red chilli and bacon, or add them to a chilli con carne. Surplus beans are readily consigned to the freezer – all too readily, in fact. Runners aren’t quite as good as French beans from frozen; and how many are you actually going to use? A better option, with runners, is to cook some into freezer-friendly recipes and then preserve them in ‘ready meal’ form. Consider alternative methods of preserving surplus beans to ring the changes on frozen. You can allow the pods on some plants to mature and then shell and dry the beans, or you can layer fresh beans with salt and preserve them that way. Alternatively, think along chutney lines; green beans are a regular ingredient in piccalilli, or you can add them, with good results, to a tomato chutney recipe.
Beans with bacon and chilli, made in bulk for the freezer.
Bean and tomato chutney.
The novelty of plain steamed beans soon palls; beyond the first week, a little more imagination is called for.
Runner beans with hummus.
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COUN T RY WINES
JULY WINE k n i r d a f o ’ y e n A ‘pl um ho In the abundant month of July, choosing one fruit over another is difficult, but Sylvia Kent has opted for plums, using both wine and mead recipes
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ruit is now all around us. We have a medley of delicious soft berries and colourful stoned fruit, as well as flowers and herbs. Many people loathe picking tree and bush fruit – well, it can become monotonous and back-breaking after a while – but it’s certainly well worth the effort if the season so far has been plentiful. Plums and gages are my favourite stoned fruit, and they are ever so versatile for kitchen use. They were introduced into Britain from France and Italy around the middle of the 15th century and have been at the forefront of recipes down the centuries, and often in savoury as well as sweet dishes. Recipes used in mediaeval banquets would have included plums in flummeries, pies and tarts. Initially, they were widely grown in Kent and Worcestershire, but now we can find them in orchards all around the UK. Culinary plums were cheap and, in addition to making delectable jam, were bottled annually by the country housewife as a useful larder commodity for the winter months ahead. Today, we can quickly prepare and freeze them following a bountiful harvest glut, and due to their high acidity (mostly malic acid) they preserve very well. A properly made plum beverage is always a real joy, and all the better for keeping for at least nine months before drinking. The plum family has an extraordinary variety of flavour and colour range, from green and pale gold, to pink, red and deep purple. The resulting wines vary accordingly, but most fall into the range of a delicate rosé – unless blended with elderberries. Victoria is the variety of plum I love best of all; it’s ready to eat straight off the tree and can be made into the most delicious jams and crumbles, but many inevitably end up in my wine bucket. Ripe Victoria plums produce a lovely pink wine, and the following recipe has been a consistent competition prizewinner.
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A much-envied plum wine first-prize winner.
PLUM TABLE WINE INGREDIENTS
MAKES 6 BOTTLES 1.8kg ripe plums 1.4kg sugar 250g sultanas ½ a cup of strongly brewed tea 2.8 litres cold water 1 litre boiling water 2 Campden tablets 2 tsp pectic enzyme 5g sachet of burgundy yeast 5g yeast nutrient
METHOD 1 2
3 4
Wash and halve the plums, then remove the stones and crush all the fruit. Place in a sterilised plastic bucket and cover with the cold water. Add 1 crushed Campden tablet and the pectic enzyme, then leave to steep for 24 hours. Activate the yeast starter, then dissolve the sugar in the boiling water. Leave the resulting syrup to cool to blood heat, then add to the plum pulp, together with the yeast, yeast nutrient and the sultanas.
The plum family has many varieties.
ACTIVATING THE YEAST Activate the yeast starter by adding the sachet of yeast and two teaspoons of sugar to a small bottle of warm water. Shake the bottle to get it going. Once bubbling away it is ready for use. This applies to both recipes. 5
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7 8 9
Add the tea (setting aside just a single Campden tablet), then cover and leave in a warm place to ferment for 5 days, stirring twice daily. Strain the liquid off the pulp through a sterilised plastic sieve and, using a funnel, transfer into a demijohn or fermenting jar, making it up to 4.5 litres using cooled boiled water (if required). Insert a bung and airlock and leave to ferment in a warm place (at about 21°C). Rack off the wine from the sediment into a second sterilised demijohn when the wine starts to clear. Once all fermentation has ceased and the wine has cleared, add the remaining crushed Campden tablet and store in a cool, dark place to mature for at least 6 months, but preferably longer, then bottle.
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VIABLE SELF-SUFFICIENCY
A WAY OF LIFE y r a i D s ’ r e d l o llh A Sma
Dot Tyne’s April diary entries include late lambing, turning out ewes and lambs, a fox, a new heifer calf from Snowdrop, worries about grazing, and the return of milking on the farm 1ST APRIL Iestyn did more work on the new path up to the camping area. Cleared a pile of fallen branches and cut them up for firewood. Tidied up in the garden, as we need to get the muck spread and rotovated in as soon as the ground is dry enough. Relocated a gooseberry bush I grew from a cutting. It’s a bit late to be moving it, as it’s already in leaf, but fingers crossed it will be OK. Two more ewes lambed this evening, so now only three left to go. Made bread, flapjacks and biscuits. 2ND APRIL Sorted out and moved quite a few sheep
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around. A further two sets of lambs born today, so just one left now. Turning out ewes and lambs and checked around all the fields. Tim went to fetch a load of hay. Roast chicken for dinner. 3RD APRIL Took Buttercup away from her calf and moved her back to the cowshed. Once the animal jobs were done and the sheep checked, Tim tidied up in the dairy in preparation for starting to milk the cow this evening. Gave the milking machine a thorough clean and set up the ancient Lister cream separator we were given last year. Worked in the garden. Planted out
more gooseberry bushes that have been growing in pots. Iestyn did more work on the campsite path. Milked Buttercup – she wasn’t particularly impressed, but she’ll soon settle down. Tim started a five-gallon batch of beer. 4TH APRIL The last ewe lambed. Moved Bluebell back to the cowshed so we can start milking her, too. Buttercup not giving much milk yet, but this should improve as she relaxes and gets into a routine. Also milked Bluebell for the first time this evening. Had a bit
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POULTRY
COCKERELS ! m e l b o r p t l difficu A
If you hatch birds, at least half will be cockerels, and there really is no demand for them today. Terry Beebe takes a look at the tough decisions facing some keepers
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hen you breed chickens, it is almost always the case that there are more cockerels than hens. For many, this is just the beginning of the problem. Unless you are hatching a breed that is sex-linked – where the sex of the newly hatched chicks is immediately obvious – you will not even be able to identify males until they have grown on for at least a couple of weeks. Some breeds can even be difficult to sex until they reach twelve weeks or more. For many keepers this will be the time they decide what to do with all those excess male birds – a difficult decision, and one which really should be made well in advance.
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There are several alternatives you might consider, and these include using them for breeding, growing them on for meat, selling them privately or at auction, and as a last resort, culling them. Sadly, very few cockerels are wanted, and they can be extremely difficult to dispose of in a positive way. Growing them on for meat is perhaps the best option, but you will ideally need a breed that provides enough meat for the dinner table. Light breeds and bantams rarely provide enough meat to make keeping them worthwhile.
SELLING Selling at auction could be a quick way to dispose of excess cockerels, but they will
fetch very little, if anything. You may well have to give them away. Most cockerels at auction will be bought solely for food, with very few sold for breeding or as pets. If you have pure-breed cockerels, there may be a chance of selling the odd one or two as stock cockerels to another breeder for use in the breeding pen. If you breed on a regular basis, keeping several cockerels is always a good idea, as having spare breeding stock is a good insurance policy if ever you lose any of your existing birds to illness or predator attacks. You may even get the odd person who wants an impressive cockerel for the back garden, but it is not a common occurrence, to be honest.
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FUEL- L ESS COOK ING
‘HANDS-OFF’ g n i k o o c x o b y a als with h me
If there was a way of cooking that uses virtually no fuel you’d think everyone would be using it, but that’s not the case. Seren Evans-Charrington resurrects the ‘haybox’ cooking method
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t the beginning of the 20th century there was a fashion for something called fuel-less cookery. Indeed, there were even a few early examples of fuel-less cookers manufactured at the time, including one called ‘Queen’s Fuel-less Cooker’, circa 1930, which was basically an insulated small oil drum; however, most people simply made their own home-made versions called ‘hayboxes’. Haybox cooking is not just a great way to conserve resources; it’s also a fantastic way to prepare a meal without having to slave over a hot stove – ideal when you are busy on the allotment, or, of course, when you are going out for the day, or simply have a million and one jobs to get through. Haybox cooking is certainly fantastic for ‘busy bees’, but I’ve also used the technique when I’ve gone on picnics but fancied something rather more substantial than just a sandwich. Indeed, as I leaf through old cookery books I can find lots of recipes and ideas for preparing a meal to eat while actually on a journey or out for the day. I find this sort of cooking particularly suitable for stews and casseroles, although it can be used to cook soups, rice, curries and
Filling the box with hay.
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porridge. Less water is needed than for other forms of cooking, as there is less evaporation, and, of course, there is no need to worry about burning the meal.
USING A HAYBOX There is really nothing simpler than haybox cooking: all you actually need is a box and some hay. The idea is really explained in the name. Food is simply heated up to boiling point, transferred to a pot, then immediately placed in a box surrounded by hay as insulation. Over the years I have used different sorts of boxes, from wooden ones with fitted lids, to old drawers which I’ve topped with a pillow for insulation, and I’ve even used a thick cardboard box. The idea is to take a box with a tight-fitting lid and fill it with insulating material like hay, although you can use straw, shredded paper, wood shavings, and even popcorn. A casserole dish with a lid is then rested on some of the insulation material, and more is packed around it to create a nest effect. The casserole dish really needs to have a tight-fitting lid, too; I have used cast-iron cooking pots and crock pots, both with good results. Once the pot is
Positioning the crock pot.
nestled into its insulation, you need to pack hay over the top of it, and the lid of the box will need securing tightly. If you are using an old drawer, you will need to pack hay over the top of the cooking pot, then use a feather-filled pillow as a lid for the box – this will act as a good layer of insulation. The food for your cooking pot needs to be heated thoroughly to start with, which is where the idea of boiling it for 10 minutes first comes from. Once it is hot, the sealed dish is then put into the box and left alone until it cooks. This leads to quite a considerable saving in the amount of fuel used, and it also means that, as with a standard slow cooker, it is possible to start the cooking process for a meal a few hours before it is needed and then to get on with other things as it is cooking, which is useful at any time of year.
STORING A HAYBOX A haybox left unattended for a while can look like a ready-made home to a mouse, so be careful where you keep it – mouse stew is probably not what you are hoping to achieve!
Covering the crock pot with hay.
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