Garlic comparison

Posted on January 6, 2022 by james

As I posted a couple of days ago, this year’s garlic has finally made it out of the ground. I’d been feeling a bit apprehensive about what was going on because it seems to have been far slower to get going than last year.

In 2020 I couldn’t initially find the variety of garlic that I wanted to grow, so took what I could get and planted it outdoors on 10th October. I later did manage to find someone stocking the variety I was after (Solent Wight), so I bought some of that and planted it in the polytunnel towards the end of November.

This time around I planted my own saved garlic, both outdoors and in the polytunnel, on pretty much the same date in October as I had done the previous year. Now I’ve looked back in detail, the difference is quite surprising. These are the only two sets of leaves showing above ground outdoors from what will be this year’s harvest on 5th January:

By comparison, this photo was last year’s crop, with the photo actually taken a month earlier.

And in the polytunnel, these are the only two shoots I could find yesterday:

Whereas last winter the plants were at pretty much the same stage two weeks earlier despite having been planted five weeks later.

Given that late autumn and winter have been so mild so far, I’m surprised that the previous crop should have been so far ahead at this point. I know that garlic needs a period of cold to develop properly, but I believe that relates to bulb formation. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the production of foliage. The RHS website says:

Most varieties need one to two months at 0–10°C (32–50°F) for good bulb development.

which is a bit of a concern given that we’ve barely had more than a few days below 10°C so far this winter.

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Swimming, 5th Jan 2022

Posted on January 6, 2022 by james

First swim of the new year, and not entirely to my surprise the pool was unusually busy. Past years suggest that it will have all calmed down again by the end of the month 🙂

I wasn’t expecting too much today as my shoulder was feeling a little battered after my Covid booster shot yesterday, on top of which I’d only swum once in the last two weeks I think, but actually it wasn’t so bad. I did have a few slow reps where I was avoiding other swimmers, but generally I was less than a second off where I’d like to be for the 50m reps. And oddly enough my shoulder felt much better for the exercise afterwards.

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At last we have garlic-sign!

Posted on January 4, 2022 by james

I’ve been a little apprehensive about the garlic for next year. I saved four of my best bulbs from this year’s harvest to replant, and did so back in October. Despite the fairly mild weather however there’s been no sign of life whereas last year the bulbs I bought seemed to take off quite fast. I wonder if something to do with the way they’re handled makes that more likely?

Anyhow, today I was out trimming back some of the trees overhanging the compost heaps and veggie plot, occasionally having a little weed of the beds and whilst doing the latter noticed that a few of the garlic bulbs are now making their way out of the ground which is very reassuring.

I’ll have to check the ones in the polytunnel tomorrow. It needs a bit of a tidy up in there now anyhow, as many of the pepper plants have dropped their leaves.

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Smoke #2

Posted on January 2, 2022 by james

This morning I’ve smoked the second batch of cheese, or, at least, the Tesco own-brand cheese. The rest somehow “disappeared” from the fridge and is nowhere to be seen. It’s a mystery…

This time I used apple wood dust from Gwernyfed Wood. I don’t know much about them, but they had a selection of different woods available on that long river place which means I can try a few different ones out.

Getting the smoke generator lit was easier today than yesterday, but I can’t say whether that’s just me starting to get a better feel for it, or if the wood is perhaps drier than the beech I used yesterday. In three hours it burnt further around the generator than the beech, so perhaps the latter explanation might be favourite.

I had to rush out and protect the smoker from the rain halfway through, but nothing disastrous appears to have occurred as a result of a few drops getting onto the smoker and when I finally took the cheese out after three hours it looked pretty much the same as yesterday’s.

It’s now wrapped and in the fridge, and tomorrow I’ll vacuum pack it.

It’s tempting to try some sausages next — just plain pork or something else very simple. I’ll do a bit more reading first though.

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My first attempt at smoking…

Posted on January 1, 2022 by james

Cheddar cheese in this case. It rolls ok, but it’s a pig to get lit 😀

Slightly more seriously, I bought just over a kilo of cheese earlier in the week. Given that this was going to be my first attempt I bought the cheapest I could find. A couple of varieties in fact — Tesco’s own brand extra mature and Pilgrim’s Choice mature. I’ve actually no idea what they taste like before smoking as for obvious reasons we buy pretty much all of our cheese from the local butcher 🙂

I cut half of the cheese into blocks of about 100g.

To see if it would make any difference, I put them on the top and middle shelves in the smoker.

First time around I opted to try the beech dust provided as part of the smoker kit by ProQ. I filled just the outside channels of the smoke generator spiral as I’ve read that the entire outside takes about four hours to burn and that would give me a bit of time in hand if there was any messing about. It’s not been the ideal day for smoking given the temperature (over 14°C here) and because it’s been quite breezy. The latter made the smoke generator a little awkward to get lit and whilst I had a little hole burnt away above the tea light I really wasn’t sure it was going to work.

After a sluggish start it did get going though, and seemed quite happy in the bottom of the smoker.

I checked about an hour and a half in, and whilst the burn hadn’t progressed as far around the spiral as I was expecting it was clearly working so I left it to get on for a little over three hours at which point I removed the smoke generator from the base of the smoker. It still hadn’t burnt as far as I expected.

I’m not sure why that should be at the moment. Perhaps my wood isn’t as dry as it could be, or perhaps the wind interfered with the burning process in some way.

Anyhow, once the smoke generator was out of the way I opened up the smoker and took out the cheese. It’s very clearly changed colour, turning a bright yellow.

I’ve now wrapped the cheese in paper and put it in the fridge. Tomorrow I’ll vacuum pack it and we’ll keep it in the fridge for at least three weeks before tasting it. At least, that’s the plan 🙂

Assuming we have acceptable weather tomorrow I’ve decided to smoke the remaining cheese with apple, firstly to see if we can tell the difference between the two, but also so we can compare it with the apple-smoked cheddar from the butcher.

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Last shot from the plot

Posted on January 1, 2022 by james

For 2021, at least 🙂

I lifted a good couple of dozen leeks to share with my extended family when we saw them just before the new year. Fortunately there are still plenty left for us.

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Pickled jalapenos

Posted on December 29, 2021 by james

I’ve just realised that I meant to show what I did with all my green jalapenos from this year. No idea how I can have forgotten something so important 🙂

I did save a few to stuff and bake, but the majority got sliced up:

I added some sliced garlic cloves and peppercorns to the jalapenos

Then I made up a brine with white wine vinegar, salt and sugar (I can’t recall the exact mix now — I must have it written down somewhere). Once the sugar and salt was dissolved, in went the chiles, garlic and peppercorns, leaving them to simmer for a few minutes.

After which they went into jars. The chiles were packed in first and then the jars topped up with the brine, tipping the jars over once the lids were on so the hot liquid could sterlise the inside of the lid.

We still have an unfinished jar of commercially produced pickled jalapenos, but I’m very much looking forward to opening up the first jar of these quite soon.

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Swimming, 29th December 2021

Posted on December 29, 2021 by james

My last swim of the year today, and it did not go well 🙁

Not because I’ve over-indulged during the course of the last week (though I shan’t be denying that if accused), but the pool was just way to warm for swimming hard. When I spoke to the lifeguards about it I was told that the heating had stopped altogether over Christmas and when the engineers fixed the problem (I suspect temporarily, as I overheard one talking about new parts being required on his way out) the water temperature had got too high.

It’s a bit of a disappointment to go out on a low note, but I’m now swimming a comfortable five seconds faster for my 50m reps than I was when I first got back into the pool after our last lockdown in April so I think I can end the year feeling that I’ve really made progress.

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The veggie plot at the end of 2021

Posted on December 29, 2021 by james

As I posted a couple of days back, I wanted to take a few photos of the plot as it is now so I can remember where I still need to spread compost once the winter crops are out of the ground, so here they are.

The first two are the new bed and the one next to it, where I still have some leeks, small spring onions and brassicas. And in fact the other side of the spring onions there’s also my outdoor garlic which hasn’t sprouted yet.

Then the next two, with more leeks and spring onions, red chard and various brassicas in one, cabbages, kale and purple sprouting broccoli in the other.

The next two rows are mostly sprouts with a few PSB plants, then leeks, parsnips and some left-over beetroot, though most of the foliage from the parsnips has died back now.

And the final pair, one of which is completely unoccupied for the moment and the other has some more spring onions, a few more beetroot and a mixture of brassicas that I had left over and just stuck in because it seemed better than wasting them.

Finally, a couple of shots of the entire plot from opposite corners…

The damage, mostly due to deer I believe, is quite widespread. First they went for the beetroot leaves

and now this is all that’s left of the red chard

We’ve had one single pick of that this winter 🙁

After they’d run out of red chard, the parsley disappeared

They’ve even browsed off most of my father-in-law’s Alstroemerias!

I’m not sure this is deer though. It could be pigeons, though I’ve not really seen pigeons about that much this winter.

But for the cost I’m tempted to put up a trail camera to see if I can catch exactly what is doing the damage. Perhaps I’ll look into building one using a Raspberry Pi.

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Post-Christmas veggie plot tidy up

Posted on December 27, 2021 by james

Despite filling ten (I think — could be twelve) dumpy bags with fallen leaves, there were still quite a few that had collected on the paths and around the plants in the veggie plot so today I decided to clean them up a bit, partly because they’ll provide a home for pests, but also they stop water drying off the surface of the ground and it’s been very wet here over the last week. I could do with some of it drying out a bit.

I ended up with about four wheelbarrows worth of leaves, one of which went straight into the compost spread on the green stuff that’s been added over Christmas. The rest I’ve piled up to one side and I’ll mix it in with new material over the next few weeks.

After clearing the paths it was quite obvious that the woodchip in some areas had got a bit thin — mud was squelching up around my boots as I walked around. Possibly not a big surprise as I did skimp a little in places last year when I initially ran out of woodchip. Making a poor job of dodging the increasingly heavy raindrops I spread the last of my remaining bagged-up woodchip in the worst areas.

I managed to get that all done before ending up soaked to the skin, but it was a close call 🙂 I did intend to take some photos just to record the areas where I still need to spread compost before planting out next year and to record the damage done by deer, but at that point there was no chance. If the weather is dry tomorrow, I’ll do it then.

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