Home Produce.

This weekend was very wet and put me down in the dumps, not wanting to do anything.

So I didn't.

Through I did start some strawberry wine, with Genie's help.  I had just enough strawbs for a gallon, and just enough enthusiasm to take photos for a video (watch this space).

The dish on the left contains wild strawberries - a freebie from the garden!

Genie and I went for a walk to check out our local allotments.  They put us to shame. I console myself that our garden is convalescing, and not up to full production yet, though I know this is a little conceit.

The shed still looks at me dolefully.  It's no good having big shed fantasies if I don't do something about it - I must have a proper go at estimating cost and finalising plans.

This evening (Tuesday), tackled last year's frozen blackcurrants, and made about 8 lbs.  Again, video to follow.

A dramatic Pot-shot.

Jamming

Roses

The rosebushes around the garden are out of shape because they are overgrown, and will need some proper attention.

This one is under the evergreens that I chopped back a little recently.  The scent is not strong, but absolutely wonderful.

This a more old fashioned looking rose at the entrance to the main lawn.  This scent is beautiful too and stronger. 

This rose is almost lost as lemon balm grows up around it.

I've started harvesting the strawberries. Not expecting huge quantities. Two years ago we had more than five kilos, but I think the dry spring may have lined them this year.  Early days yet...

Replacement beans are in now.

A Shedding of Inhibitions

Cooler and wetter weather has kept us inside (excuse). I've been making plans to replace the garden shed, which is somewhat rickety.  Pippy painted it three years (it must be) ago, and I remember thinking then that it wouldn't last.

So.  Plans.

Currently, it is just a storage shed, but we could do with something a little larger to use as a potting shed - the space in the outhouses isn't very suitable.   We (Genie and I) like the idea of a rounded shed with a view over the garden.  So we messed about with some ideas.

For a while, I disappeared down a creative rabbit hole, looking into 'reciprocal' roofs. These are self-supporting structures with a central hole, but a little OTT for a garden shed.  Also, they don't lend themselves to an uncomplicated waterproof roof covering. And they have a hole in the middle!

Having dismissed the reciprocal roof idea, I tried a few others, including regular an irregular polygons.

I've settled on an octagonal base with windows on four sides. I made a little model on Friday, with sides 4 and 2 feet wide (in scale of 2ft = 1cm).  

I like the shape and the size of the windows but the shed would be a little too small.  Scaling up would make the windows too big, so I tried again. (Models are fun!).  Much as I delight in the theoretical elegance of the SI system of measurement, I'm not measuring the size of a shed in comparison to 1/299 792 458th of the speed of light in a vacuum, not the distance from the Equator to the North Pole (or a fraction thereof).  So feet and inches it is.  Here's a scale model 1:12.  The door (in scale) is 6ft high and it's 6'6" to the waves,. The pitch of the roof is 1:3, and gives an overall height of just over 8'1". Planning regs limit me to 2.5m height.

Thanks to the wonders of modern camera miniaturisation, we can see the view through the window. What fun!

Here's the (non-reciprocal) roof:

Next stage is to plan the materials and the carpentry.

The Bubble Twins

Put the rhubarb wine into demijohns on Monday, after six days starting in the brewing bucket.  Now they sit on the kitchen sideboard, having their little bubbly conversation.

I understand I killed the delicate pink colour with campden tablets, which are used to sterilise the 'must' before starting the fermentation with winemaker's yeast.   

Early tasting notes: yeasty, sweet, fizzy, boozy and acid.

Weed of the Week

This is Creeping Woodsorrel, Oxalis corniculata, a tiny plant that hugs the gaps in our walls, stone and concrete.  Just about uniquely, the leaves are heart-shaped.  It's edible, with a pleasant tip-of-the-tongue sharpness (I tried it this morning). And, I'm told by You Tube, it demands a high price in posh restaurants.  Special teams of OCD foragers, even as I write, are combing the cracks in London pavements.  Tread softly, because you tread on my lunch.