Willow Coppice Planting
At last after weeks of hard work and slog, and contending with snow and ice we can finally start planting up the Willow Coppice!
It was as ever a family affair and the kids loved pushing the willow ‘twigs’ into the holes and sinking in the cane beside it to hold up the rabbit guard. My Mum was also on hand to help dig and plant so we managed quite a production line, and got over half of the 200 trees planted.
Short Rotation Coppicing - Rows
We have always aspired to recycle as much as we can and ideally be self-sufficient. We seem to have made a slow start on the latter, but at last our plan to create our own coppice to sustain us with firewood has begun!
Today, following Tam’s careful plan, we marked out the 12 rows varying between 12 and 16 meters long. Not as easy as it sounds as we first had to shift tons of sand/soil etc which was in the way! Now the rows are marked out we need to get the turf/meadow cut so we can strip it off.
Sloe Gin Recipe - Progress
Since I have my first post on the sloe gin recipe we have had a significant influx of visitors to the site, clearly there is a high demand for sloe gin this year!
I guess now we have started to have some ice on the cars in the morning the traditionalists who pick their sloes after the first frost will be stripping local off-licences and supermarket shelves of gin by the basket load!
You may remember that I have been trying to grow some veg without a proper veg patch this year (see here for previous posts on the subject)! Well, I recently harvested my butternut squash and thought you’d like to see them. In the end I had only 2 fruits (off a single plant), but those 2 have done OK and, for my first attempt and considering they were grown in an old sink (!), I’m pretty chuffed! (more…)
Sloe Gin Recipe Progress
As reported in this post on of me trying to follow my first sloe gin recipe, I wanted to give you a progress report! I have been shaking the sloe gin every day since it was bottled, and it has now turned a very impressive colour.
The sugar took quite a few days to dissolve, and to start with there was this incredible shimmering within the bottle where the alcohol was increasing in strength due to the sugar.
