First frost

Throughout October I didn't spend much time in the garden, particularly toward the end of the month.  Not much was happening, and there wasn't a whole lot left to harvest--seeing as the chickens helped themselves to the bulk of the remaining chard.  I did a few jobs here and there, and mainly occupied myself with indoor pursuits.

We had our first frost of the season at the beginning of November;  this is a bit early, but not entirely unexpected.  It hit the front (mainly ornamental) garden, and car in the drive, but didn't touch my vegetable patch;  it helps that the vegetables are in a sheltered (next to the house), south facing position. 

But really, the only plants still out there that would be negatively affected by frost are the nasturtiums, and I didn't even plant them--they self seed every year.  Still, the leaves make a nice occasional addition to stews and casseroles, and flowers for the odd salad that I continue to let a few grow.  And nasturtiums are my frost indicator.  When there's a frost, they'll die off immediately.

I've been waiting on first frost to eat the celeriac, and the regrown Brussels sprouts.  Also so I can fully clear the nasturtiums away (so I can pile compost and manure on the beds), and move the last few perennials out of the veg patch.

Our first frost out back happened on Wednesday:  it snowed!  We got about half an inch or so;  it snowed for about 12 hours then melted (enough time for the six year old to build a tiny snowman).  I guess it's time for me to get out there and clear nasturtiums away.

Brassicas in lower left corner;  lawn and ornamentals elsewhere

Preserves taste test, November 2016

I have to admit, towards the end of October, garden vegetables were pretty thin.  There was still some chard and kale, but everything else was just about done.  I really rationed the last few onions and garlic to make them stretch!  And I opened up a few jars of preserved veg to tide us over till the end of the month.

I have quite a lot of preserves, though not enough to feed us through winter sadly.  Still, there is enough to add some flavor and texture to meals.  Here's what we've eaten so far:

Small jar of pickled mixed garden veg

This was made in August and contained runner beans, zuccini, onion and garlic.  I chopped the veg, packed it into small sterilized jars, and poured over boiling hot spiced malt vinegar (random spices from the cupboard--I think whole coriander seed was involved).  I opened this jar to add to a pork stir fry in October.  The plain pickled veg was pretty tart, but cooked with the stir fry was very nice, and I couldn't tell it apart from regular cooked veg.  Result:  5*

Jar of one dozen pickled eggs

This was made in September.  I wish I had used our own eggs for this but they're actually bought ones (come on chickens, get going!).  I boiled the eggs, shelled them, and packed them in the same manner as the pickled mixed veg.  The six year old has been very excited to try them--it was the first time for both of us.  He proclaimed them delicious, and the husband agreed they were good.  I'm not entirely sure I like them, but the husband assures me I'll love them by the end of the jar.  Result:  3*

Two jars of green tomato salsa

This was also made in September, and I ended up buying onions for it as I was desperate to preserve the green tomatoes before they went moldy with blight.  It also contained storebought peppers (sweet and hot).  The whole family really enjoyed it with cheese on scrambled eggs.  Result:  5*

Half jar of salted runner beans

I put away three 1L jars of salted runner beans, starting in August.  Whenever I picked a big handful of them, I'd set aside the most tender beans for salting:  I chopped them fairly small, and added them to the jar with a good covering of salt in between each 1/2-1 inch layer.  It took about two weeks to fill a liter jar bit by bit, and once filled I just put the jar in the cupboard with the rest of the preserves.  To use, open it up, take the required amount of beans out and soak in cold water for two hours.  I used them in a stew and a curry and they tasted nice:  not too salty (although cooked plainly without a sauce they would probably still taste salty).  Result:  5*

Still to come:  pickled zuccini, apple chutney, green tomato relish, dried chard leaves, dried peas, pickled rhubarb.  I'll report back here on the results!

October garden recap

Kale, October 2016

Roots

I cleared away the last ten onions from the Roots bed:  small but tasty.  There are still beets, celeriac and rutabaga, not doing much--still a bit too small to eat, though we had the biggest of the beets (still small).   Garlic cloves planted in 2017 Roots bed are sprouting nicely;  I managed to find some shallots to plant after all:  at the local discount supermarket of all places.  Around 30 shallot bulbs planted.  Last year's leeks haven't managed to make seed--after flowering pretty much all summer--but some are sprouting new growth from the base.

Peas and Beans

There were still a few runner beans to be had in October, but they've pretty much stopped producing.  I sprouted a handful of broad bean seeds midway through the month and planted them in a trench in 2017's Peas and Beans bed (this year's Misc bed).  They have not yet come up.

Brassicas

I have huge cabbage plants, and have taken a few outer leaves to eat so far.  The advice on the seed packet was to plant one foot apart, but I think I should have planted two feet apart;  they're enormous and fiercely competing for space.

The broccoli are also planted one foot apart, but are growing up more than out, so they fit just fine;  I don't expect to harvest them till early spring.  Kale continues to produce.  Last year's Brussels are growing nice little sprouts.

Miscellaneous

I pulled up the container tomatoes at the beginning of the month and made green tomato relish.  It looked like it got the blight, same as the in-ground ones.

The zuccini hadn't given up yet, once it found its stride;  it took a while to get started (August), but still managed several fruits throughout October.  My two small pumpkins were beautifully orange and the bigger one parted from the vine for Halloween carving (and for cooking the next day);  the smaller is on the kitchen counter.  My surprise squash is still orange-ing up on the vine and is a lovely size, considering how late it formed (September).

Still chard standing, but probably won't get any new growth until spring.  I picked it gradually before the chickens broke out and ate most of the leaves;  there's still a little left standing.  Also have a container of salad greens of which I've harvested a little.

Fruit

I picked all the Sparta apples in October.  There are one or two left in the fruit bowl.  I also picked all three remaining almonds (grand total of four), and six little Asian pears.  That's it for fruit for the year, I think.

I bought a yellow fruiting raspberry on the cheap.  I moved a few strawberry runners.  I will be moving two little gooseberry bushes and a few random raspberry canes to the back corner near the other soft fruit in November, hopefully.

Perennials and Herbs

I mulched the artichoke, rhubarb, and asparagus beds.  Still need to move the sorrel out of the main veg beds.

Still harvesting a small amount of rosemary, tarragon, chives.  Mint, sage and thyme not dead yet.

October 2016 Food Totals

Cabbages amongst the (volunteer) nasturtiums, Oct 2016

Vegetables: 

8.5 oz tomatoes
58 oz green tomatoes
39 oz zuccini
1 oz carrots
16  oz runner beans
21 oz kale
3.5 oz beets
4 oz salad greens (miner's and lamb's lettuces)
15 oz chard
4 oz nasturtium leaves
1 oz celeriac leaves

2 pumpkins (2 lb 6 oz, and 2 lb 15 oz: untrimmed)

Total:  171 oz, or 10 lb 11 oz

Does not include fresh herbs (rosemary, tarragon, thyme, chives) which were too small a quantity to weigh, i.e. less than 0.5 oz, or the two pumpkins.  

Note:  I weigh all my vegetables after preparation:  peeling, trimming, etc. 

Fruit: 

6 Kumoi pears
23 Sparta apples
1 autumn-fruiting raspberry

Eggs:

Total:  196 eggs from 12 adult hens
Total feed bought: 2 bags layers pellets (40kg total)

Preserves:

1.5L green tomato relish (tomatoes and garlic from my garden, bought onions)

Small jar dried bergamot

Homebrew:  

4.6L elderberry wine bottled up (six bottles)
4L cider (apples from wild trees) begun
Elderflower and rhubarb wines still fermenting 

Let the vegetables end (sort of)

Container with lambs lettuce and miner's lettuce, October 2016

After an unexpectedly warm--near constant low to mid 20s Celsius--summer, albeit a little late starting, it's now gone cooler and more rainy here at the end of October.  The main bulk of my plants are finished and cleared away.  I've told the husband we can start buying vegetables again in November.  This will be supplementing the winter veg (kale, cabbage, broccoli, salad greens and a few leeks and root veg) still growing, and the preserved veg in the cupboards/freezer.

Since the second week of July, we have bought no vegetables--except 10 onions for emergency green tomato salsa.  Note this only includes vegetables and not fruits;  all fruits were allowed and we continued to buy "salad" fruits like avocados, cucumbers, etc;  this was explicitly stated at the beginning of the challenge.  I know, loopholes and all that. 

I should also state that not every vegetable we ate came from our garden.  I was given quite a lot, including three overflowing sacks of rhubarb (the bulk of which is still in the freezer) and enough zuccini to make several jars of pickles.  I also obtained some free vegetables from other sources.

One of my five year goals is to be self sufficient in seasonal fruit.  Hopefully this would extend to salad fruits too!  (Though maybe not avocados.)  I anticipate that in future years, building on the success of this year, I might be able to manage this.  My main obstacle to growing en masse is not my small space:  it's organization.

Using The Complete Guide to Self Sufficiency as my guide, I had very clear and timely instructions on what to plant and when this year--this is a book written for my particular climate (central/northern England).  In previous years I haven't followed any sort of plan, other than "plant vegetables" and mainly used the backs of seed packets as my guide to gardening--along with a garden year book focused on ornamentals and the occasional internet advice.  I now have a specific plan, and it showed genuine improvement on my previous gardening attempts.

Maybe the extraordinary summer weather contributed more to my success this year, and having secure fencing for chickens certainly helped (no major chicken-caused damage this year);  but I also attribute it to John Seymour's method.  Let the bought vegetables begin again--we've had a full 16 weeks (that's just about 4 months) of not buying.  And we will continue to eat from the garden until further notice.

Doing those autumn jobs!

We had a mass chicken breakout:  they ate the leaves off several chard plants, scratched up the newly sprouting green manure seedlings in the Misc bed--and scratched up some small beets in the raised bed.  Oh well.  I'm thankful we had no major incidents before this, and to be honest, this was not major at all (though it would have been at the beginning of summer when everything was still small and fragile).

I managed to plant out about 35 cloves of my own grown garlic last week;  the chickens scratched up a couple of earlier planted cloves (from the store), which showed some good root growth.  I popped them back in the ground too;  that makes around 85 cloves planted.

I also sowed cauliflower seeds in a tray--hopefully to plant out later on in the raised bed/cold frame next to the house.  If the slugs don't get them, that is.  That raised bed had plenty of chicken attention and has some nice bare spots in it now;  it was just growing chard and a few beets (and weeds);  I think they only scratched away the smaller weeds and smallest beets.  Lots of space for cauliflowers.

I cleared away most of the Roots bed--there were still about 10 onions lurking under the self-sown nasturtiums.  Not big, but tasty at least.  I pulled out some unwanted ornamental crocosmia in the Roots bed (it regrows every year, and if not checked will spread very quickly--at least it's pretty), and had plenty of growth from it and the accompanying weeds to feed my second composter.

And last but not least, I started 30 broad bean seeds to sprout in the garage;  when they do so I will dig a trench in the garden and plant them out.

Still not done:  clear away runner beans, plant shallots (can't find any I care to pay for;  maybe I'll go for seed instead), mulch brassicas with compost, pile manure/sow green manure on beds.  Better get going!

We are what we eat: chicken!

Chicken dinner 2015 (feet go in the stock pot)

Let's talk about chicken.  It's a tasty meat with a mild flavor.  It can be roasted, baked, fried, sauteed, grilled, stewed, and more.  It tastes good with everything.  It makes an amazing curry or stir fry.  Then there's chicken soup:  a necessity during flu season.  Chicken bones make a fantastic stock.  We love chicken--it's delicious and versatile.

Chicken comes from a bird.  It comes from a chicken, of course.  A chicken that runs around, sleeps with its head under its wing, tips its head up to swallow a drink, clucks to get your attention.  Chicken comes from a curious, friendly, busy bird:  active and interested.  At least, our chicken does.

We hardly ever buy chicken meat any more, since it doesn't compare to our own chicken.  Why would it?  Supermarket chicken was raised in a closed barn, full of birds in cages.  Those chickens eat only chicken chow, and are bred to grow quickly;  usually by eight weeks old they're big enough to slaughter, and if they aren't killed soon after they might die of heart failure anyway.  They don't have much room to move around in, which is good because their legs can't really support all that weight very well. 

It's cheaper to raise chicken this way, and supermarket chicken is cheap.  Our chicken isn't cheap.  A chick costs us around £3.50-£5 when newly hatched;  chick feed is around £10 a bag, and growers feed is £12.  That's expensive chicken--at least twice as much as supermarket chicken.

But there's not just a big difference in price;  there's also a big difference in quality.  Our chicken is happy and healthy, able to act out its natural instincts and behavior, and every day is a good day--until the very last minute.  Our chicken tastes sweet.  It tastes intense and juicy.  Its giblets make a beautiful mild gravy.  Its skin is crispy but tender.  In short, it's the best chicken we've ever had.

Are our chickens our pets?  Do we eat our pets?  Well, no.  We treat them with respect and love, and we let them live as natural a life as possible:  they get to be chickens.  They are not our "feather babies" but animals in their own right.  It's hard to kill them, just as it was hard to take our 14 year old dog to be put to sleep at the vet.  We take responsibility for their lives and wellbeing, and we take responsibility for their deaths.  Everything dies, whether sooner or later.  And unlike our old dog, chickens are useful in death as well as life:  they allow us to go on living.  We give them good lives, and a good death.

We'll be killing Lavender*, our 6 month old Cream Legbar cockerel in a week.  I'll be sorry to kill him--though the six year old's not, as he's continued to be aggressive towards him.  But I won't be sorry to eat him.

Lavender

*Our big black cockerel Winnie died unexpectedly overnight a few weeks ago;  we found him cold and stiff on the floor of the coop.  Tiny, our miniscule English Game cockerel, has a reprieve for now;  unless we get a complaint about his crowing, he gets to stay.