Popcorn Harvest

Barley Patch

My trial 'field' of Lawina Hull-less Barley is coming along nicely!

Double Red

I've just put my sweetcorn plants into the ground. It seems early, but they got to a size that demanded transplant. Two varieties this year, 'Supersweet Mama' and 'Double Red' from Real Seeds. These look interesting with the red pigmentation extending right down into the roots. I have noticed (though haven't researched) that pests generally seem less interested in red varieties. The slugs will demolish all the green lettuce and leave the red for later. Same with the cabbage white and even the pigeons when it comes to brassicas.

Popcorn Harvest

It's been a good summer for corn - mind you, never enough sweet corn to really satisfy as I can't spare that much space. But we've this Dakota Black popcorn for the long winter nights in front of the idiot box. And it tastes remarkably better than anything you get at the cinema. Because popcorn makers buy by weight and sell by volume, industry research is all about achieving the biggest flakes, never mind the taste just add more butter and salt.

A Recipe For Gruel

I never did post a link here to my little animated film based upon a piece of prose by Frank Key. It's done the rounds of festivals and is now on line for all to view. (Hopefully not on your iPhone.)
You can watch it HERE.

World Porridge Day

Gosh! I have just realized that today IS World Porridge Day. How do I celebrate? I have already eaten my morning porridge unawares. Tsk.

Meanwhile, here is a handy reference for working out just how old your goat is.

A Recipe For Gruel

The 10 minute film I have been making for the past year is now finished. HERE is a trailer which should leave you crying out for 'More'!

Time for a Corn Boil

"These novel tongs provide a sanitary means of holding hot roasting ears. Made of stainless steel, they permit the ear to be grasped securely without the fingers touching the corn. Claws on the ends of the tongs are shaped in 'fish hook' manner so that the corn cannot possibly slip."
(from ModernMechanix)

Solstice

"Longest day: a cold hard solstice! The rats have carried away six out of seven of my biggest Bantam chickens; some from the stable, & some from the brewhouse." Gilbert White 1792
We finished up the longest day of the year with a picnic at the allotment, the weather mild. The corn there - Inca Rainbow - is very cheering. Most of my crops seem to be progressing much slower than last year. Lots of green tomatoes but still no ripe ones. Perhaps it's all the cloud cover we've had lately - today is dark again. Oca that I got from Patrick (on the left) has just put shoots above ground and Yacon plants (right, also sourced by Patrick) are about 15 inches tall. Having never before grown these tubers, I'm not sure how well this measures up. Still, five eggs today, and the chickens are all present and accounted for.

Bumper Crop

"One of my neighbours, shot a ring-dove on an evening as it was returning from feed, & going to roost. When his wife had picked and drawn it, she found it's craw stuffed with the most nice and tender tops of turnips. These she washed & boiled, and so sate down to a choice & delicate plate of greens, culled & provided in this extraordinary manner."
Gilbert White (again)
I remembered this passage while eviscerating Henry. I removed the crop still warm and stuffed with grains and I wondered just what sort of a porridge could be had by steaming it like a pudding, a mini-haggis, if you will. However, it looked to be very gritty, so I chucked it out.
By amazing coincidence though, on Tuesday, in Soho, at a leaving drink for a friend, I met Sydney, who, I later discovered, is responsible for posting 'The Natural History of Selbourne' blog - one of my favourite daily reads.

Oatmeal

"On Sundays as children, if we had been good during the week we had our initials in treacle put on our porridge, and then cream." The Scotsman January 1939
The old custom is to stand whilst supping porridge, walking about the room with the bowl in one hand and the spoon in the other, as if you were ready to start off for the wars, or shooting, or fishing, the next moment. As for cooking it, the oats should be let to fall in a steady rain from the left hand while stirring briskly with the right, sunwise, or the right hand turn for luck. And the salt shouldn't be added until 10 minutes into the cooking as it will have a tendancy to harden the meal and prevent it from swelling.
This and much else have I gleaned from the wee book of Scottish recipes (1929) which I found in the wee cottage we stayed in last week on a beach near the Wee Town (Campbeltown). So many ways to cook your oats! And I will grow them again but I'm not going to sow until spring this time round.


Woman Eating Porridge by Gerrit Dou (in the Netherlands it must be acceptable to sit)

Home-Grown Porridge

First sow, water, weed and 9 months later harvest the oats. Second, thresh, separate and clean the oats. Then you can follow this Recipe for Gruel. It's that easy !
Blessed Hildegard has a few things to say about oats.
"They are both rich and healthy nourishment for healthy people; they provide a rich mind and a pure and clear intellect; and they provide good colour and healthy flesh. And oats are good for those that are somewhat and moderately ill. It does not hurt them , whether eaten in bread or cereal. But let whoever is worn out with paralysis and as a result has a split mind and empty thoughts, so that the person is somewhat insane, be in a sweat bath when the 'wheat' in the hot water in which it has been cooked is poured over the hot stones. Let them do this often; they will return to themselves and regain sanity."

First Corn-Boil

'They have another way of eating Indian corn, to prepare which they take it in the ear and put it in water under the mud, leaving it two or three months in that state, until they judge that it is putrid; then they take it out and boil it with meat or fish and then eat it. They also roast it, and it is better this way than boiled, but I assure you that nothing smells so bad as this corn when it comes out of the water all covered with mud; yet the women and children take it and suck it like sugar cane, there being nothing they like better, as they plainly show.'
Samuel de Champlain observing the Hurons circa 1616

Black Aztec

After several years of 'Stowell's Evergreen' and 'Inca Rainbow' I'm trying a new (old) variety of corn - 'Black Aztec'. I planted out a couple of dozen about a month ago (on the left now) and then got greedy and started another tray (right) which can go in next week I guess. I got the seeds from Baker Creek and their blurb states that the corn is sweet eating at the milk stage but will make a fine corn meal bread if left to mature. So here's hoping.
Below, from Strange Maps (originally from a satirical blog) - illustration of a possible correlation between GM corn production and neo-nazi violence. Hmmm...

Tidy Up

"Brought away Mrs. Snooke's old tortoise, Timothy, which she values so much, & had treated kindly for near 40 years. When dug out of it's hybernaculum, it resented the insult by hissing."
Gilbert White 1780

Most of the weekend was spent raking, weeding, pruning and beating back the brambles. Satisfying toil against unruly nature as Richard Mabey puts it. I'm not leaving it very ruly, but want to get the big work done now rather than turf some little critter like Timothy the Tortoise or Betty the Bumblebee out of his or her hybernaculum in the middle of winter. With the help of the azada (which I can't recommend highly enough) I've grubbed up an area big enough for the planned hen run. This would have taken three times as long using a spade or fork. And then I built an almighty compost heap (my best ever) and moistened it with lashings of dilute widdle. However, rather than illustrate that, the picture below marks the progress of the oats sown 6 weeks ago.

Growing Breakfast

Last summer I found a number of grains had germinated under the birdfeeder and I let them grow on. I realized how ignorant I am when it comes to identifying grasses/grains so I set about collecting and studying them, learning about awns and glumes and so on. The photos above are about as far as I got. Before long though I decided that I want to try to grow my own porridge (well,at least a few bowlsfull) and have now taken delivery of a packet of hulless oats and one of hulless barley. I did thresh (and thrash) the quarter cup of grain that grew last summer but the gruel was inedible - just a mouthful of hulls. These varieties should be easier to deal with. It's difficult to find much advice in any gardening books but I guess the idea is to sow it in September or thereabouts and harvest next June.