pumpkinstrokemarrow

A further note on the deer saga. It seems that there are companies in the States entirely devoted to controlling deer in suburban gardens. It seems that a mult-valence (aka multi-discplinary) approach is necessary. They offer a free deer control survey if you register with their site - but maybe this will not work over here. They also sell ultra sound devices more or less inaudible to us but painful to the deer - presumably on the same lines as the anti-teen devices you can buy. How long would the batteries last?

The stuffing turned out good. White bread crumbs, celery, onion, black pepper, half a pot of dried sage, walnuts and egg. Half done inside, moist and brownish from stomach linings (and so on) around the edges. Half done outside under streaky bacon. A rather crisper and drier quantity.

Otherwise been a rubbish week so far. Many shelves erected in garage to complement all the junk hanging up in the roof. Started a clear out in the house roof - which given several intakes over the last six months was starting to get a bit full and damp. Hopefully this last only due to lack of circulation. The local waste transfer site aka tip gets the benefit of a car load and the allotment acquires some aluminium poles, formely part of a tent. All very liberating getting rid of stuff which one has hung onto for years for what turned out to be no very good purpose. Things which were important for some reason or another once upon a time. Got to make room for the next generation!

But failed to ditch the two Alladin paraffin room heaters which have probably not been used for 30 years. Sentiment proved too much. Well made cylindrical green affairs about two foot tall with a flat tank at the base. They knock out a lot of both heat and water (we managed to rot the ceiling of our first bedsit with the things). Up to a point one can cook on the their tops. We can still get the right sort of paraffin somewhere round here so when the next hurricane knocks out the electricity for a few months we will be all right.

PS: they must be good gear. I remember during the three day week business back in the 70's when there were regular power cuts, OPCS (the outfit now submerged in ONS) had massed ranks of the very same things to heat their offices in Titchfield.

Labels: rubbish

Still pondering about how to keep the deer out of the allotment. Plan A was to eat them. Apart from the technical difficulty of catching them a bigger problem was the high proportion of veggies/animal lovers around here. None of whom seem to be in the least concerned by the amount of damage that deer do. (But I am not alone. Even the Daily Telegraph is running correspondance on how to deal with them). Plan B was to erect my very own six foor deer fence around the fruit trees - about 50 yards worth. Which would have cost the equivalent of many years' worth of fruit and a week or more's time. Plus maybe damage so not so robust back. So plan C was that maybe it will be cheaper and quicker to check the existing six foot fence around the whole allotment site - the catch being that some of it disappears into bramble thickets and such like.

Have discounted the theory that the deer are getting in through the culvert from Stamford Green. This looks to be about two foot in diameter and fifty yards long. I don't think a deer would go through such a thing unless chased or frightened. Perhaps just as well because while I first thought that it would be easy enough to block off the culvert using chicken wire or some such, such a blockage would soon block up with (Autumn) debris. Maybe even a modest flood on Stamford Green? In any event it seemed likely that someone would find something to complain about.

Walking around yesterday observed that there was a fairly new stretch of fence about where I vaguely remember a tree falling down and taking a chunk out. Job done! Then I saw a deer in the neighbouring school field. Turned my back for a few minutes and there it was in the allotment field, bold as brass. So job not quite done yet. Inspection will have to continue.

Catering matters relatively quiet at the moment. Today's challenge is the construction of stuffing for a chicken without the benefit of fresh sage - recently dug up, as reported on 6th instant. Nor are there any hazel nuts and I am not at all sure if walnuts will be a very satisfactory alternative. Using frozen bread to make the breadcrumbs, but that should not be a problem. So long as one does not cheat and use a food mixer which turns out breadpowder rather than breadcrumbs. There is also the temptation to let too much crust in which does nothing for the colour of the end product. Brown bread even worse. We will see how we get on.

Rather wet to continue digging. Also rather warm for killing off bugs as is proper at this time of year. Said to be the warmest November since records began.

Labels: stamford green deer

Now at 100% willow down. Large pile of bean sticks and row markers. These last all being cut to the same length - so amongst other things I will have the neatest rows ever. 45 wands planted in three rows giving a plantation about 6 inches across and 8 feet long. We will see what sort of a hedge results. I didn't, in the end plant any upside down but the last few were much greener than the rest. A vague memory that one should use one year wood for this sort of thing.

Next step 1 is large bonfire in a week or so to burn off all the rubbish after it has dried out a bit. Pyromaniac format all in one go or a controlled suburban affair feeding in two sticks at a time? Baked potatoes or marsh mellows? Next step 2 is construction of a runner bean wigwam. In this case the puzzle is how to secure the fixing at the apex when one can't get anywhere near it.

Yesterday's meat fest was sheep - at least it ought to be called sheep as a five and a quarter pound shoulder is going it a bit for a lamb - although I think the rule is that a lamb is anything up to two years old. Cooked it for two and a half hours at 185C which seemed to be about right - don't bother with pre-heating the oven - said to be unecessary with a fan - although we do pre-heat with things which like a very hot oven like pizza. Moist but not pink and most of the fat had leaked out - important with what can otherwise be a rather fatty joint. It was fresh - bright red and white when raw - and this seemed to make a differance to the texture of the finished product compared with a frozen New Zealand. Sweeter and not so stringy although quite hard to carve in a neat way. (But what about Australian? The butcher was knocking out a whole lot of Australian shanks for some restaurant with an Australian chef who would not settle for anything less). With rice, cabbage and swede. Followed by apple crumble and custard. The apples doing a very good job of offsetting the fat sweetness of the meat. All in all an excellent meal.

Continues. Now more than three quarters there. What we seem to have is one primary stool with two or three subsidiaries - maybe just suckered off the primary. The primary is irregular in shape, flat and about two feet across. The shoots occupy more or less the whole hemisphere - from horizontal to vertical. Tallest must be around 12 foot. We will see if I can get runner beans up them.

A few years ago somebody else had a go with a machete. Noticeable that for a very vigourous plant, willow does not much care for the crude wounds left by said machete. Much die back and many dead, feeble shoots. Healthy growth seems to come from some way down from the cut. We will see how it responds to the present much tidier job with a saw. Plus I will clear all the rubbish away and let a bit of air into the thing.

What I will not do is attempt to dig the thing out. I will leave that for someone who seriously wants the thing dead and either has a lot of time or a digger. It is alleged that one could pile all the clippings over the stool and burn the thing down. I suspect this would make a bit of a mess but not be fatal. In any case, I am quite happy to keep the thing for periodic prunings for sticks and stakes.

The curved hard steel pruning saw from Sweden continues to impress. The curve in the blade gives one a lot of extra traction in awkward places, as does the curve in the handle. Slightly scary when tired as if the blade jumped onto one's hand it would do serious damage. The teeth seem to be a vicious at the day it was bought fifteen years ago or more.

Fell off the cigar waggon on Thursday. We will see when the next occasion is!

Beef turned out very well - as good as anything I remember. Three ribs, 9.5 pounds, tied up and skewered a bit bit to stop it losing shape during the cooking which last for 2.5 hours at 180C - and done to a turn (whatever that phrase might mean). Brown on the outside and pink and damp on the inside. More or less the whole thing done by six people in one sitting. Cooking tip: don't let the butcher do any of this chining lark or bone removal. Carving is not a problem with the rib entire and rib entire holds shape much better.

Accompanied by bean pudding (seven days old - served as gravy. A few years ago used to go to a great deal of bother to make gravy on these occasions but seem to have lost the urge), spinach, brussel sprouts, swede and small red potatoes with their skins on. Small being the best we could do this year with the thin ground and the hosepipe ban. But they are not exploding as they have done in previous years and cooked in their skins have an excellent flavour. Fingers do get very sticky peeling the things at the table.

The whole preceeded by something prawny in avocado (prawns unusally fishy and flavourful for frozen Sainsbury) and succeeded by an apple meringue pudding from a South African recipe book. Altogether most successful.

Left over potatoes, green vegetables and dripping made an excellent bubble and squeak the following day.

Have still failed to grasp the waiting paint brush. Yesterday's and today's excuse being the urgent need to do a bit of concreting to patch two of the drain cover surrounds in the drive. Only a couple of buckets full but the first concreting for years and very satisfying. The concrete from B&Q was just the DIY ticket - a 20K bag with 1cm limestone chippings by way of aggregate. Ideal for patching jobs where one wants something better than mortar but have not got the space for proper concrete.

Today we will sample the first fore rib from Pinegar's, our new butcher from Cheam. The only shop I know that still operates a cash window separate from the meat counter. The nearest thing was a butcher in Swanage who had the window, but no longer in use. This particular butcher had been in business since I was born in 1949 and sold excellent bacon - sliced from the side on the premises.

The beef will not be accompanied by allotment cabbage (Jannuary King). We had one the other day and while quite edible, the heart had not really hardened up so we think we will leave the rest for a month or so - covered in net to keep the pidgeons off - something we never had to bother with when I was little. On the other hand it was a very handsome cabbage with a good spread of leaf providing a home for a good range of livestock. Remains a mystery how the market can knock out beautiful clean cabbages at 50p a pop given the amount of work it takes me to grow the things by hand. And I don't suppose they even count as organic because I put chicken pellets on the ground by way of fertiliser.

In the absence of cabbage we will have the perpetual spinach instead. Rather a bad year for it (unusually poor germination - at least of the intentional variety - see above (bearing in mind that the way this thing is organised what goes before appears below rather than above)) but we have enough for a meal or two and we might as well eat it before the deer do. Last year we saved some for Christmas but they got in on Christmas Eve and grazed it to the bone.

Continued threshing cucumbers. A sheet of birch ply does quite well to dry the seeds on, the only catch being a tendency to stick. I imagine newspaper would be worse.

Finished off this year's runner beans in yesterday's mince. We can now move onto last year's which having been hanging up in the garage roof for a year or so waiting for occupation.

In the olden days we had council works departments. OK so some of their people were a touch lazy. But some of them cared. And I am not at all sure that they cost more than our shiny new private sector contracts (the costs of which need to include the not small costs of adminstration and mangement by the council).

And if you are going to contract out, maybe you don't have to let the contract to the lowest bidder - although doing this saves paperwork. Maybe you take all that stuff about best value for money seriously.

And when you have contracted out, maybe you should manage the contract. And this does not mean sitting in the office fiddling with a bunch of performance indicators. No substitute for getting out there are seeing what people are doing. Never mind the small print in the contract... I could go on for ages but will save that for another day!

Continued with removal of willow. More bean poles, more row markers and seven more wands. Maybe I should plant some upsidedown, having claimed that they take just as well this way on more than one occasion. And have remembered about an earlier scheme to grow a very tall runner bean. So I shall save the longest poles and construct a sort of wigwam to grow beans up. Next stop a 20 foot scaffold pole.

Continue to wonder about the edibility of the bind weed/convolvulus roots of which I am turning up lots. (And there are lots more if I want them. Bind weed grows very well on the piles of rotting leaves left by the council in the Autumn (some of them clearly from cemetaries or crematoria) and getting the roots out is easy). They are very white and succulent looking - a lot more appetising than say couch grass or nettle roots which are similarly energetic. But how does one find out whether they are edible? Not sure that I am up for just giving it a go on the basis that it is unlikely to make me very sick.

Quite day on the allotment.

Picnic on the fishing chair, in the warm sun, sheltered from the wind in the alder bush. Chirping of children at play behind, bit of global warming drifting across the sky. Saucissson sec (de chez Sainsbury), bread and water.

Now started on taking the willow down. Only not mine, the one a couple of vacant allotments down. This one will furnish bean poles as well as wands. Planted eight wands so far - for a sort of hedge between the pampas grass and the teazel bed.

The quality of grass cutting continues to irritate. The council contractor - grass maintenance professionals no doubt with diplomas from High Down to prove it - is really hopeless. Some oik sits on a sit and ride lawn mover with his head phones on crashing about without a care in the world. Never mind about raising and lowering the cutter to allow for the ground. Or not cutting the grass at all because it is too wet. More later...

Prompted by a fireworks party to play with corn meal. This being a yellow slightly gritty powder obtainable from Holland and Barrett for £1 a pound. (Declined the health full pound fifty costing magazine). Had a go at the first of quite a lot of corn bread recipes in the Boston Cook Book - in the section called baking powder biscuits. Result was an agreeable flat yellow cake with an only slightly odd texture. And like other fresh cakes, an easy way to knock back several Mars Bar equivalents in a very short time. Meal, flour, sugar, beef dripping, an egg and lots of baking powder. Next step is the rather differant flanny quantity we were given at the party. Rumour has it that this was made with tinned corn, half of it put through a food mixer, and egg. Also baked in a flat tray, this one about 3cm rather than 1cm deep. Alternatively there is something in tins called creamed corn which might serve.

Found a double boiler to warm up the bean pudding. It and the new more energetic approach to chopping and cooking the bacon and onion has worked well. And there is now a microwave: will that be the bean pudding heater of the future?

Thinking of chopping the willow next to the not very happy rhubarb down to the ground. It will sprout again but it is taking up a fair amount of space and let go another year might become a major undertaking to trim. As it is I'm not very popular with my allotment neighbours on its account.

It started life as one of two cuttings stuck in the ground one Autumn, of which one took. Maybe I should plant lots of cuttings from the chopping down and establish a more scientific hit rate? With gooseberries the same wheeze should be close to 100%. A willow fence might be interesting and even deer proof.

But first we move into make a new batch of broad bean pudding. Maybe that micromave will be just the thing for warming it up. According to the nursery rhyme it should be good for nine days - but I think it will work better hot than cold.

Cleaned up the older rhubarb patch which apart from not doing terribly well - perhaps it did not care for its willow and buddleia neighbours (this last now having been replaced by a bamboo which might be even worse in this regard) - contains a fair amount of bramble and mint. This last being a relic of the days when it was thought cool to have seven differant varieties of mint with which to flavour potatoes and make tea. We will apply something by way of compost - hopefully we can do better than leaf mould - and then will see if the patch does better next year - otherwise it is for the chop. The new rhubard patch did better than the old after it's first year.

With mixed feelings decided to dig out the sage bush which was next door to the rhubarb. It had got very straggly and was three quarters dead. Will have to think about how to make the turkey stuffing - which is much better when made with fresh herbs than dried. (The stuffing this year will not be stuffed into the turkey as this would do no favours to a gluten adverse member of the party. External stuffing OK but can be a bit dry and lacks the gibletly flavour derived from the interior).

Continue to thresh cucumbers for their seeds - which are turning out rather small. Not at all clear that they will ever grow. Plus the process is all a bit slow and messy so must find a better way to do this. Or maybe there isn't and that is why one pays so much for them.

Am now wondering how pampas grass breeds. They have big plumes which look like the male parts of maize flowers. But no seeds seem to be forthcoming. Nor does one have pampas grass seedlings popping up all over the place. OK so one can divide the roots but most plants can do better than that at a push.

Dark talk of microwaves back at the ranch.

Cucumbers now getting rather mushy so we are gutting them before eating. Great improvement. So we now have lots of seeds. Given that one pays about £1 for eight of the things we shall try keeping some - without having selected an especially beautiful and splendid cucumber to breed from. A couple of questions. I got the plants from a car boot sale from a Greek (?) living in Kingston so I have no idea what variety they were. But a reasonable chance they were F1 hybrids which the seed sellers assure us don't work! And then there is the question of when does the seed know to get cracking. Cucumber seeds do not germinate easily but how do they know that the cosy interior of the mother cucumber is not the place to fire themselves up?

Also into retiring some excess books to the tip. Despite their having been in the roof, invisible and more or less forgotten for more than a year it is suprisingly hard to actually throw them away - despite it being fairly clear that one is never going to read the things again. And fairly clear that one is not going to find someone else who will. Maybe there should be something like one has in some office systems whereby unread or elderly material just falls of the end of the line into some dustbin without one having to make decisions about specific masterworks of office prose.

Picked the last runner beans today - as in previous years quite a good crop off quite poor plants. Germination very bad. The ones that have dried off will serve to pad out what is left of yesterday's mince.

Started the Autumn dig. Dug over some of the ground where I had buried newspapers last Spring - about four weekday Daily Telegraph's thick and about one spade deep (there is a proper word for this which I forget) - and suprised to find how little is left. The earlier stuff has more or less vanished. Not sure if it is doing the ground any good but it is a ecoway to get rid of newspapers.

Some bits of ground covered with spinach sports. Which have done hugely better than the seeds that I have planted. Will have to see if we can make anything of them. Some bits of ground covered with comfrey where I did not get all the roots out. That is supposed to make good mulch. And some bits covered with teasel seedlings. I will dig most of them out but they make interesting plants for a good chunk of the year so I shall leave some.