There were twenty-two jars of jam on the display table*, four of which were mine. I didn't expect to win, because I've entered before and not won. I also didn't expect my friend to win, because (a) he's never entered before, (b) he hardly ever makes jam, and (c) fate wouldn't be so cruel. Fate was so cruel: my friend won. He's more pleased over ( Read more... )

It's the Southern Agricultural Show today. My chicken-keeping friend and I are having a "jam off" in the Confectionery: Jam section. Over the last few weeks I've taken things like this:


( Read more... )

I'm really pleased with the way the allotment is going at the moment. After a couple of really strenuous visits, we seem to be down to relatively easy maintenance for most of it. I spent the sunny afternoon hoeing all the new weeds off, and hand-weeding around the new beetroot and chard seedlings. Then Matt turned up after an hour and took his ( Read more... )

It didn’t rain on Saturday ( Read more... )

Matt's dad has always been a keen vegetable grower. When Matt and I first got together his dad had an allotment and, after seeing how interested we were in his plot, he sneakily put our names down on the waiting list ( Read more... )

It stopped raining for four hours on Saturday afternoon, so I sped to the allotment and broke my back on the lush, overgrown weeds. ( Words and picture under the cut. )

Matt made fish pie last night, so that's all his fish used up. (And, hallelujah, the bin men came this morning and took away our stinky bin-bag of fish guts and sour milk ( Read more... )

We finished off the free lamb on Sunday night -- lamb and cucumber sandwiches to go with minted pea soup. Yesterday I boiled up the bones and sinewy bits with half an onion, a carrot, a stick of celery, bay leaves and peppercorns, and now there are three jugs of stock sitting in the fridge. We're going to have stew for dinner today ( Read more... )

Remember how only one kohl rabi seed germinated out of the whole packet? ( Read more... )

I was teaching a girl on Wednesday whose parents keep sheep as a kind of hobby. At the end of the lesson her mum handed me a plastic bag dripping with blood, and said, "You're not still vegetarian, are you?" And thus I became the proud owner of some free meat -- shoulder of lamb, to be exact ( Read more... )