Buds and Shoots

The soundtrack to accompany this picture can be heard here . Scroll down and click on 'Buds & Shoots', listen and enjoy.

Grey Matter

Here is what this week's weather looked like on Saturday. I have taken to screen grabbing these BBC forecasts and filing them away for some, as yet undetermined, purpose. But I've had the feeling that for many months now we've been shortchanged in hours of sunlight. It turns out I'm not wrong. The Met anomaly maps show (Click to enlarge and then go here when you still can't make it out) that our little corner of the country (circled) has been deprived over the past six months. Quick calculation - 50% of November's average 60 hours = 30, 30% of December's 37 hour average = 12+, and 50% of January's average of 45 hours = 23. That means we've had 65 hours sun in the past 3 months. That would be about 8 sunny days I guess - 1 day in every week and a half.
On a brighter note, I sowed many peppers and aubergine seeds on Monday.

Burn's Night Etiquette

'Burnish no bones with thy teeth for this is unseemly, neither belch thou near to a man's face with corrupt fumosity. Scratch not thy head with thy finger whilst thou art at meat, and blow not thy nose on thy napkin, where you should wipe thy hands, but cleanse it in the handkerchief. Fill not thy mouth too full, least thou perhaps of force must speak, neither blow out thy crumbs when thou dust eat. Blow not thy pottage nor drink, for it is not commendable; for if thou be not sweet in thy body, thy breath is corruptible. If you must spit, keep it out of sight; let it not lie upon the ground but tread thou it outright.'
Words of advice (predating Burns by a few centuries) in a little pamphlet of Scottish recipes 'Friends Cook Book' I got many years ago near Glencoe. There is also a helpful guide to measures. 1 1/2 Pints - 1 Lippie; 4 Lippies - 1 Peck; 4 Pecks - 1 Firlot; 4 Firlots - 1 Boll.


Happy Burn's Night and if you have to spit be sure to smear it into the carpet while your host is looking the other way.

Accomodation Available

High rise living with views out over the city for south London's stag beetles at Nunhead cemetery - part nature reserve part burial ground. They don't offer 24 hour security which is a pity as a magpie or crow can pick off emerging bugs in their dozens. Maria.Fremlin has posted some particularly macabre footage of the aftermath of such an attack which could be animated out-takes from a Svankmajer film. She also very helpfully provides a guide to the larvae of several beetles which is worth consulting before stomping in disgust any and every grub one unearths. Size would seem to be the big giveaway for indentifying a stag beetle larva - 8 centimetres!

Do Not Make Cucumber

Found on the world wide interweb @ eatliver.com

Signage in Yorkshire No.2

'Life is an old cabbage wrapt up in newspaper'. Photo taken by Nev in the late 70's.
One week until the South London annual Potato Fair!

One Egg

Hurrah! Doris has ended our 10 weeks of egglessness.

Least of All

"This is the least of all birds found with us in England, weighing not more than one single drachm... The top of the head is adorned with a most beautiful bright spot (which they call a crest) of a deep saffron or pale scarlet colour. Hence it got those ambitious titles of Regulus (little king) and Tyrannus (tyrant). This crest or crown (if you please so to call it) it can when it lifts, by corrugating its forehead, and drawing the sides of the spot together, wholly conceal and render invisible."
The Ornithology of Francis Willughby John Ray 1678


I saw the goldcrest again yesterday foraging in and around the currant bushes. So, one has survived the cold snowy December weather.

A Quiet Sun!Day Afternoon

... at nearby Nunhead. Hirsute and snag-toothed, this wooded necropolis is a good place for a wander. Last year I saw one of Britain's rarest mammals here - the black rat.

Me New Bamboo

I took home a bundle of MH's* thinnings when we visited last week - raw material for pole bean supports which will be arranged artfully (?) in the spring.
*A founding father of the Bamboo Society, you can see some of his bamboo illustration here.

'Natural History of Selbourne' the Musical Play

Scenes from my little paper theatre play 'Entries from Reverend Gilbert White's Diary in December' performed last night for Nev, Iz & M. And they, each in turn put on their very own, very idiosyncratic plays. Much fun was had.
Pictured here are such entries as - December 3 1788 Good mackarel brought to the door. And December 17 1774 Mrs. Snooke's tortoise, after it had been buried more than a month, came forth & wandered round the garden in a disconsolate state, not knowing where to fix on a spot for it's retreat.

Update

Six Days off Work...

Five Hens NOT-Laying...

Four Pigeons Poaching (the chard and kale)...

Three Magpies Watching...

Two Swans A'Fighting...

I witnessed a tremendous mud wrestling match at low tide last week with two swans trying their darnedest to kill each other. They spent a long while between sodden flapflapping locked beak to pinion as illustrated above. Finally after having been nearly drowned head first in the Thames ooze, the weaker one escaped upriver.


... and a heron hunched amongst the reeds.

Cold Front

Fierce frost. It's not yet December and they've just salted the road for the third time. The ice was an inch and a half thick on the water butt this afternoon and tonight we fired up the wood stove.

Caper Substitute

The climbing (clambering, sprawling) nasturtiums I sowed in June were a long time getting any ambition to go anywhere. But from sometime in late August until now they have been blooming continuously. I've been adding them to salads and now there is a small jar's worth of seeds to pickle for which I have found the following recipe -

Gather the nasturtium seeds immediately after the blossoms have faded and put them to soak in cold salt water for 2 days, stirring them twice each day. Peel and slice 1 shallot, 1 horse-radish, 2 red peppers, and quarter 1 nutmeg. Place these in a glass jar with white wine or simply vinegar, adding salt, pepper, and a few cloves. Put in the drained nasturtium seeds, then cork and seal.

They Can't Ration These by Vicomte de Mauduit, 1940
("All those possessing a roof in the country together with the necessary sticks of furniture and apparels of clothing will be able, if armed with a copy of this book, to live in comfort, in plenty, and in health even if all banks, all shops, and all markets be closed for indefinite periods.")

Dug-Up Potatoes

A splendid day today. Above, passing through the Horniman Gardens after retrieving the last of the potato crop from the allotment. Below, my beast of burden, saddled with the Aran Victories, pauses for breath.

Vote for Cabbage

Graphics from the Philippines general election via designKULTUR

Bubble & Squeak

Take of Beef, Mutton, or Lamb, or Veal, or any other meat, two Pounds and an half, or any other Quantity; let it lay in Salt, till the saline Particles have lock'd up all the Juices of the Animal, and render'd the Fibres too hard to be digested; then boil it over a Turf or Peat Fire, in a Brass Kettle cover'd with a Copper Lid, till it is much done. Then take Cabbage (that which is most windy, and capable of producing the greatest Report) and boil it in a Bell-Metal Pot till it is done enough, or if you think it proper, till it is done too much. Then slice the beef, and souse that and the Cabbage both in a Frying-Pan together, and let it bubble and squeak over a Charcoal Fire, for half an Hour, three Minutes, and two Seconds. Then eat a Quantum sufficit, or two Pounds and a half, and after it drink sixteen Pints of fat Ale, smoak, sleep, snoar, belch, and forget your Book.
A Lecture In Cookery in The Mid-Wife: or, the old woman's magazine
Christopher Smart, 1753

Squash Harvest '10

Two hens invigilating. (We had to buy eggs this week. They've begun their annual shutdown.)

Further Adventures with Potato Seed

This weekend I exhumed the rest of the spuds from Tom Wagner's TPS. And I think that they hold great promise not least because, although it's been dry this summer, it is now late October and there's still no blight. I am most excited by the tiny round daughters of No.11 as they look very like 'Kuntur warmi' which is Andean for 'Like a Woman with the Colours of a Condor's Neck'. Note, one of the purple offspring of No.6 was a victim of the fork and it's interior is on view.

36 Views

Between 1826 and 1833, Katsushika Hokusai published his 'Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji'. While back for Thanksgiving (Cdn.) last week I resolved to make a series of views of the omnipresent CN tower. Yes, well, below are 15, and now that I've published them I can move on. (If you have any interest at all, click on the image for enlargement)

Adventures with Potato Seed

This year I've been growing some potatoes from true seed obtained from breeder Tom Wagner via Patrick. Although I got started a little late they have now developed into large healthy looking plants. But, what with all this rain and cooler weather around the corner, I'm getting increasingly anxious about disease, pestilence and the like. So as not to have all my potatoes lost in the same basket of blight, I unearthed the above yesterday. The still small but perfectly formed tubers of No.16 (French Fingerling x Magic Molly) and No.21 (John Tom Kaighin x Negro y Azul). Yet to harvest are No.25 (Wild Species x Thumbertime) and No.6 (F2 Pam Wagner) & No.11 (Pirampo x Khuchi Akita) which are just now flowering and setting fruit. I'll leave them for another couple of weeks with fingers crossed. Now, how best to store? I've read 5-10°C and 95% humidity. Is packing in wet sand as you would carrots and beets a good idea? Or perhaps the refrigerator? The plan is to chit and set out next spring for a full crop with taste testing a year from now.

Late Runner

I pushed a few seeds of Runner Bean 'Streamline' in the ground in late July and we're eating them now.

2012 (Peasant) Olympics

I've been in training all summer for the 'Water Carrying To Protect The Seedlings Amidst Drought' event at the next Peasant Olympics. Now that the ceiling has lowered and everything is sodden I think I'll work on some '60-metre Snatch the Grain and Get It Into Storage' drills.

Capsaicin

According to 'Science and Lore of the Kitchen' by Harold McGee, researchers have isolated five capsaicinoid components that have different effects on the mouth. Three give 'rapid bite sensations' in the back of the palate and throat, and the other two a long, low intensity bite on the tongue and mid-palate. Capsaicin accumulates in the fruit concurrently with the pigment during ripening and is primarily found in the white placental tissue to which the seeds are attached. So you can moderate the heat by scraping away all the white bits.
This year my peppers have grown really well, much better than anything else. The two smallest are the most fiery - Gelbe Kirschen & Pretty in Purple. These are really very attractive plants, small and bushy and covered with fruit, but they are fiddly to prepare. Doe Hill is sweet and the other two are mildly spicy. (The slate is ruled in one inch squares.)

Equinoctial Entries

Aah, the majesty of summer now fades...(click here for the rest)

Myriads of Insects sporting in the sunbeams. September 21 1789
Showers, rainbow, bright. Barley in a sad condition about Basingstoke. Rams begin to pay court to the ewes. September 21 1775
One little starveling wasp. September 20 1782

Gilbert White Natural History of Selbourne

Here in London 2010, the weather stays warm, 25° expected tomorrow.

T.G.I.F.

F for Fall that is. Time to draw a line under this rubbish summer. Too little rain - not enough time to water, tomatoes that grew taller and taller without fruiting, early kale and beets that ran to flower, squash that sat looking miserable and refused to swell...

Underground

A picture of my garden's soil structure is beginning to emerge based on the shape of these recently unearthed beetroots (Medwyn's Extra Long Selection of Cheltenham Green Top).

Chirp!

If you haven't seen it already, click here, watch and marvel. Pictured above the pheasant(?) at the end.

In The Castle Keep

... I assemble my stores; everything over and above my daily wants that I capture inside the burrow, and everything I bring back with me from my hunting expeditions outside, I pile up here. The place is so spacious that food for half a year scarce fills it. Consequently I can divide up my stores, walk about among them, play with them, enjoy their plenty and their various smells, and reckon up exactly how much they represent. That done, I can always arrange accordingly, and make my calculations and hunting plans for the future, taking into account the season of the year. There are times when I am so well provided for that in my indifference to food I never even touch the smaller fry that scuttle about the burrow, which, however, is probably imprudent of me... I find a certain comfort in having all the passages and rooms free, in seeing my stores growing in the Castle Keep and emitting their variegated and mingled smells, each of which delights me in its own fashion, and every one of which I can distinguish even at a distance, as far as the remotest passages. Then I usually enjoy periods of particular tranquility, in which I change my sleeping place by stages, always working in toward the centre of the burrow, always steeping myself more profoundly in the mingled smells, until at last I can no longer restrain myself and one night rush into the Castle Keep, mightily fling myself upon my stores, and glut myself with the best that I can seize until I am completely gorged.

The Burrow Kafka

Signs of BonkerDom

Packets of sugar and mustard from the hotel breakfast room. As usual, click on image to make readable.
P.S. I'm not the only one that reads the fine print. More allergy advice here.

Signage in Yorkshire

Squash Map

TKK - Thai Kang Kob, FU - Futsu, BB - Bush ButterCup, LWP - Luxury Winter Pie, TSSP - Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato, CWH - Chicago Warted Hubbard

Key to the Cabbage Patch

Four out of the six 'Couvé Tronchada' have run to flower prematurely and were removed, unceremoniously, by me this weekend. Apart from that the brassicas are all looking rather picturesque (see below). The cabbage white hasn't found her way into the netting yet.

Midsummer Update

Cucumber 'Kaiser Alexander', Squash 'Buttercup', Sweet Pepper 'Doe Hill', Cucumber 'Bianco Longo' and Squash 'Winter Luxury'. Meanwhile the weather remains very hot and dry just like last year at this time. Phew!!

XXXL

This week Doris squoze out an extra big egg, with two yolks! Here it is next to a normal sized egg.

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo

'Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo' coming to a cinema near you?


Found this one loitering around the back door.