Happy Birthday Blog!

Wow! It's been a whole year since we started blogging again and if I might say, we've done rather well in my opinion. I did have the urge to do a review of the year in January like so many other bloggers did, but that would have actually been a review of the last 10 months as opposed to a year. So waiting until our blogging birthday was definately more suitable.

Every year, it is nice to go back and look through the blog posts that have accumulated. Having made around 150 posts, averaging about 3 per week, it can take a long time to look through them all. However, it is really beneficial to refresh your memory of what you should be doing now and also remind yourself of the things that worked particularly well and then of course.. those that didn't!

April
This is where it all started again. A spontaneous trip to a local garden centre resulted in us returning with a bag of early seed potatoes and some courgette plants...

These courgettes were a fantastic success, but the potatoes which we grew in bags were not so great. After giving up my allotment 2 years ago to concentrate on studies it was definately nice to get my fingers dirty again...

May

This was a very exciting month. Amy who had never grew anything before was witnessing tomato plants shoot right up  and we also saw those two measly courgette plants burst in to a jungle of foliage. This month also brought our first pickings of courgettes too. Simply delicious..

The above photo show our measly patch turning in to a green canvas of leaves and growing produce..

June
It was nice to get the bees back. After 3 years of beekeeping I have still not managed to harvest a good deal of honey. I only ever intend to take what the bees don't need and with the bees being quite a small colony they have never produced  a great deal. I'm hoping for a much more vigorous honey crop this year. The first inspection of Spring is upon us!

July
My highlight of the year was adding the Bantams to our ever growing very, very, very, very small holding. Having had 2 hybrids for eggs already in an eglu classic, it was nice to add some more chickens to the menagerie. Lesley and Geraldine our two original hens were rather shocked to see the impecably beautiful bantam trio of Margot, Barbara and Mrs.Weaver pitch up across the path in another eglu. These young, point of lay ladies came to strut their stuff and takeover the ruling of the roost.
There was some sadness to this story. Who can forget when one morning a 'cock a doodle doo' rang throughout the house, and upon very close inspection we realised that Barbara was more of a he than a she. No wonder there was a short term lack of eggs from these 'point of lay' pure breeds.
Here is Barbara in all of her 'cock-a-doodle-doodlingness'...

Anyway Barbara was replaced with Barbara II or Barbaradeux as we like to call her. The Bantams have been laying better than expected through winter and have been putting Lelsey and Geraldine to shame at times.

August

Our first green pepper came this month along with plentiful amounts of courgettes, tomatoes and mange tout. The potatoes however were a bit of a damp squib, with the potato in bags experiment being less successful than I had hoped it be. A lovely sunny month full of fresh produce on the table, what could be better?

September

A new academic year saw our blog posting tail off slightly, but good things still happened in our good life...

This month saw us doing lots of nice things inside rather than out. We got our Christmas cakes baked and I also helped Amy bake her first loaf. It is certainly a taste to savour, fresh homemade bread. We also went foraging in the park for crab apples which made a splendid jelly. Christmas things started to appear in shops and our countdown really began..

October
One of Martin's favourite times of year and not only for the soul reason that it is his birthday. October is a month of Orange. Orange leaves on trees and of course the wonderful pumpkins that emerge on doorsteps around the world at Halloween. We had an extra special Halloween this year with our trip to Disneyland Paris. A truly magical month, but food produced in the garden started to dwindle..

November

Our only post in November was an introduction to Barbaradeux. It certainly started to feel like Christmas in this month. Barbara was definately glad she wasn't a turkey...

December

 We had a very merry family christmas this year, which was splendid. With the bees sleeping for the winter, and the eggs starting to come to a stop we weren't up to too much in our good life venture but we did get crafty and make some homemade cross stitch cards for our nearest and dearest..

January

A very happy new year! Christmas seemed to have flew by without stopping and it was time to sit exams for us both. Not the best month from the 12. Roll on Spring!

February

Amy's Birthday was celebrated for what seemed forever. With such a large family we had birthday meals here there and everywhere but she certainly wasn't complaining..

I taught Amy how to make perfect bread this month and I think you can agree she is a quick learner..

February is such an important time for vegetable growers and gardeneres. The seed potatoes are ready to start chitting and it's time to think about early broad beans and garlic. Tomatoes and Chillis can be started off too, a small taste of things to come..
A late Christmas present came to us at the end of February in the form of our new allotment. Initially being allocated Plot 16 brought so much happiness, but when faced with the decision betweet Plots 16 and 114 there was only one clear winner. Plot 114 became our new home and definately ensured next month was going to be a busy one..

March

Like I stated earlier, Plot 114 ensured March was a busy month for us. Clearing the site and getting it ready for planting took some time but we are sure that it is going to be worth it come harvest time..

What next?
Well here's to another year of blogging for a start. We have really enjoyed giving an account of our good life and sharing it with all of our 54 followers and those who don't follow publicly aswell. We have really enjoyed reading everybody elses blogs too and we always try to publicise others blogs as much as our own, so I think that this month I will start featuring our favourite blogs in special posts. You can learn so much from every blog you visit.

For us, Plot 114 is such an exciting project. We can't wait to get things in the ground and start picking them soon. Martin also fancies some new chickens, but that is something we will have to see about, and we really hope that we get a honey harvest this year no matter how small.

One thing we are really keen on is improving the readability and graphology of the blog. So all of your feedback will be appreciated. We hope to include better quality photographs and more posts sharing hints and tips as opposed to just accounts of our days. We've already taken your feedback on board to remove the word verification process when posting comments.

Last but not least we really, really want to thank all of our followers and readers. Our site has been visited over 10,000 times in just under 12 months and from all corners of the globe too. Thankyou so much and we hope you continue to visit throughout the rest of 2012 and beyond.

Thanks again,

Martin and Amy

Bread of Heaven

Well that certainly tasted good.

The other day I thought I would teach Amy how to bake bread. It is something that I really enjoy doing and the taste and texture of a home made loaf is far grander than a shop bought one. I've really got the knack of it now and would never use a bread machine again.

I realised I give my bread quite a thorough seeing to in the kneading process, but Amy seemed to show a lot more gentle love and affection to the dough. She certainly has the right knack anyway because it tasted absolutely scrumptious and it looked good too...

I look forward to her baking many more loaves for me in the future.

Delicious!

Martin

Free Food is Fantastic

This is the picture of a the park where I have played and played and played ever since I was a very small child...

It is just down the path from my grandparent's house...

 Notice anything?

That's right a very established crab apple tree. One of two on the park. You may notice that there is a pool of fermenting apples already littering the floor. Why should so much FOOD go to waste? People walk past these FREE APPLES every day. Surely there is no need to waste ALL of them....

So after picking half  of a plastic carrier bag full of these crab apples, about 2kg, this is what the kitchen sink looked like...

I wanted to making something nice and tasty from these apples. Crab apples are known for being sour and pretty unapealing when raw. But when cooked and with the addition of a little sugar, the juice is lovely. But is wasn't juice I was making today (well not primarily). I was going to take my first plunge in to the world of jelly making....

With a very nice looking, clear, perfectly set and most importantly delicious jelly, I was very pleased!

I've made endless amounts of jam before but I've never endeavoured to commit to a jelly. I think it's the fact that you have to strain it over night, do this and do that. Oh well. I looked at buying a jelly strainer and could not believe how expensive they were for such a simple and flimsy object, but with a little bit of searching and imagination I made my own. I got an old, clean bathroom towel and using some elastic bands attached it to a microwave stand. It worked a treat, I just wish I took a picture to show you how it worked.I put all of the boiled pulp in to the towel stand to drain the juice from, then I left it for 8 hours to drain. It said in the recipe to leave it over night, but I started it off early morning so made the jelly in the early evening.

Once you had the juice, it was a very similar method to jam making which I am familiar with.

The jelly is very sweet so I would proably use less sugar next time, but it is still very tasty.

Making the most of free food which is available in public places, the side of a road or anywhere else for that matter is a brilliant thing to do. Not only are you pleased with the fact that you are eating delicious, homemade food, but you are also happy it cost you no more than a bag of sugar.

Have a good day!

Martin

P.S I will definately be making jelly again, such fun and highly reccomended. Off to bake some more bread now!!

Loaf at first sight!

Well, I'm not sure if it looks more like a football with a puncture or a work of art.

I hadn't made bread by hand for absolutely ages. In fact I never thought I was ever any good at it full stop. However I decided I would have another go yesterday to get me in the mood for Friday's baking session. (Which I will blog about over the weekend.)

From the moment I started making the dough I knew this was going to be a top loaf. After the dough had been left in the airing cupboard for 40 minutes, it had risen like my other doughs had never risen before. It was so big, so smooth. I was so excited and half an hour later..

Drumroll please....

Delicious!

I'm making another loaf tomorrow. I had made this loaf for Amy for when she got back from work, but when my family saw it, they asked me to bake them one too.

Don't you just love that scent that wafts through the house when bread is baking in the oven. If you don't know what I am talking about then you really need to bake some bread!

Heavinly!

Have a good weekend!!!
Martin