Delaney delivers

The perennial bed needs a fair bit of prep, and thats where Delaney helps out by providing a fair bit of manure.

I ordered some asparagus crowns from Mr.Middletons, which should be here next week along with some jeruselem artichoke.
What I am using for fertilizer is a mixture of seaweed, donkey manure and compost from kitchen waste.

I realise I am lucky when it comes to sorting organic fertilizer, but at the same time it has taken a lot of effort in tems of providing carrots and apples all year.

As for Delilah, Delaneys friend, we are expecting another delivery - and that I will post as soon as I know

One thing I do want to find is old kreels, or Donkey panniers, I think if Mr D benefits from the garden he should provide a bit of labour in that direction - all offers or ideas welcome to make Delaney work for  living rather - as Mamo Corcaigh would say - sit around smoking fags and playing cards all day.

He has taken recently to braying at any stranger on the road to provide apples and carrots - that kind of behaviour needs to end

Rusheen Rhubarb and Blackberry Preserve

The first of the Jam recipes. This is the first jam I have made myself. I think the last time I even helped make for that matter, was 1984! My Grandmother made it, as did my mother, but with boarding school, work and other things I have not had anything to do with it since.

Blackberries are coming into season now, a lot of readers who aim for even a little self suficiency have been emailing.
So, my advice would be now is the time to start building up a winter larder - make hay while the sun shines so the saying goes.

A few hours picking, a bit of bartering and a little imagination gives months of satisfaction and good home made food.

just an excuse to show off the new Kilner jars on the right

My neighbour Judah was a great friend of my Gran. She has fantastic rhubarb plants. They must have been established back in the 1890's and whatever variety they are, they are delicious.
When we get a gift of them in early spring each year, they have no stringiness and make great crumble.
I cant wait to get a few crowns for transplant come November.

We save on bin charges here in a very easy way. What ever food waste we have the cats don't want goes to Judah's chickens, and we get eggs - pretty fair deal.
And trust me - you will never get a shop bought egg as good as something fresh off a farm. Just boiled and served with soda bread is a breakfast fit for an emperor, never mind a king.

So I decided the first batch should be something for her.

Even in this first attempt I am determined to reduce the amount of sugar, I used a little honey (10%) in place of sugar

Another tip is to use a small percentage, say about 10%, of under ripe berries, also helps the jam to set.
And even with the sugar reduction it worked out fine.
For the standard procedure in preserve making, please see the production made easy posting.

Ingredients.
250 grm. Rhubarb, sliced thinly
200 grm Blackberries, washed, steeped in slightly salty cold water for an hour (to knock off any little nasties) then rinsed
200 grm granulated white sugar
150 grm granulated Demerera sugar
50 grm rich dark sugar
50 grm honey
1 Tsp lemon juice
150 ml water

This will yield about 500ml of preserve

Dude, You cookin'?

Easy peasy Mackerel and lemon squeezy broadbean risotto

There are so many things to do with mackerel. I will be doing a post on how to salt them, even if only to record how to preserve fish for others.
But fresh, local, line caught mackerel is a real treat. I must thank Syed Taqi for passing a few my way, they certainly wont go to waste.

The main way I cook mackerel myself is in a Normandy style - but I saw this recipe from the great Mark Hix of the UK's independent newspaper.

Having fresh peas and broad beans in the garden, it seemed to be a natural choice when I got the first mackerel of this season.

There are several recipes that do mackerel with fruits like cranberry, apple, gooseberry, rhubarb etc.

I think the idea is that the acid in the fruit can cut through the oils in the fish.

Mackerel is like Irish tuna, fairly plentiful, packed with Omega 3 oils and it adapts easily with different flavours.

There are so many great cuisines that do rice and fish, Indonesia, China, Spain with their paella and others.

I feel there is a real automatic temptation to reach for new potato's and fresh mackerel, in itself a great meal.
A great favorite locally is salted mackerel with new potato's and loads of butter.

But just to be a little different I went with a risotto with fresh broad beans from the garden.

If the mackerel are small, then use two fillets per person, or alternatively you could ask your fishmonger to butterfly them.

4 fillets from a large mackerel, weighing about 100-120g each, or 8 smaller ones
1tbsp flour for dusting
1tbsp olive oil
100g butter
2 large shallots, peeled, halved and finely chopped
The grated zest and juice of one orange
100ml veg stock
120-150g shelled weight of peas, cooked
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat half the butter in a pan and gently cook the shallots for a couple of minutes until soft, add the orange zest and juice, fish stock and peas, season and simmer for 2-3 minutes,

Stir in the rest of the butter until emulsified and remove from the heat.

Heat the olive oil in a heavy or non-stick frying pan.
Lightly flour the mackerel on the skin side and season.
Fry the fillets skin-side down, first for 2-3 minutes until the skin is crisp, then turn them and cook for a couple of minutes on the other side.
Spoon the peas on to serving plates; lay the fillets on top.
====

FOR THE RICE

This risotto is really easy-peasy-lemon squeezy

Ingredients
350g (12 oz)  broad beans
Salt and pepper
15g (1 tbsp) butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
200g (7 oz) arborio (risotto) rice
1 litre (1¾ pints) hot vegetable stock
Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon

Optional, Grated Parmesan

Optional, to give it a Spanish flavour you could add some prawns and saffron - maybe a tiny dash of sherry vinegar.
Method

1.Cook the broad beans in a large pan of boiling salted water for 3-5 minutes or until just tender. Plunge into ice-cold water to cool. Drain, peel off the outer skin, if wished, and set aside.

2.Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the onion and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes or until beginning to soften. Add the rice and continue to cook, stirring for 1-2 minutes.

3.Pour in a ladle full of the hot stock and simmer gently, stirring frequently until the rice has absorbed most of it. Keep adding the stock in this way until the rice is tender but still has bite to it; this will take about 15-20 minutes. The risotto should look creamy and soft when cooked.

4.Add the broad beans, lemon rind and juice and warm through.

5.Serve the risotto immediately, garnished with grated Parmesan and lemon rind.
 
The mackerel is also great with new potato's or a simple green salad with a french or Caribbean dressing.
I'll have my own shots of the meal up in the next few days.

Great thing about fishy leftovers like guts, heads etc. is that I have a professional disposal team for leftovers

This is a great meal in terms of prep time, your looking at 25 minutes between fridge and plate.
Frying pan and pot's for stock, peas and risotto

All go, from pantry to plating up in 25 mins

Alternate presentation with risotto

More slugs and caterpillars

SLUGS
Another thing I have been doing lately is slug lamping, come sunset I go out with a can of salty water, and check the beds and their sides with a torch.
I also check the plants, their base and the underside of the leaves in particular.
If I find any of the beasties they are dispatched rather quickly.
Although labour intensive, one hour of hand picking will provide a noticeable reduction in snail and slug populations.
From what I understand, if you kill one by hand, its as good as killing 200 chemically
The beer traps are also doing their jobs, as I have seen a steady reduction in the numbers of slugs.

BUTTERFLY CONTROL
One particular job that I feel weird about is checking the leaves for butterfly eggs.
The white butterflies lay their eggs on the underside of leaves, and they are noticeable.
I have found them to be yellow or lime green.
Sorry about the focus on the shot, but the clusters are quite unmistakable.
The outer shell on the larger, lime green eggs are quite hard, like bits of grit.

On one of the pea plants I found a cluster of orange eggs - these may be from a moth.

I use a thumbnail to take them off and pretty mush squish them, feels quite bad, but then if they became caterpillars, I'd be annoyed at the damage. I have planted nasturtium flowers in window boxes elsewhere as a trap crop, to give them an alternative place to breed.

Just some overviews

Just some garden overviews. The nets are more anti cat than anti bird. They are simply stitched in at the base with a fisherman's needle.

Then I put in T-supports made of waste bits of wood and spliced through some lighter line to give the nets a better shape.

It actually makes managing the nets easier, as when you lift them the tuck away nicely on top for weeding, thinning, harvesting etc.

The T-supports also are handy as they can be used for setting up trellises for supporting vine plants like tomato or achocha

In the top left of the picture above you can see the amount of bush that had to be cleared,

The shot below gives a decent view of the ash and pine needle pathways I put in as a kind of slug barrier.

Potato Cake from Stamppot leftovers

Well, there is a recipe that can be used for any potato based mash.
The Irish make many types of potato cake, this is just my version.
Its simply a way of using up left-overs.

I used up my turnip greens stamppot in this way, and its a nice brunch/lunch.
I did find the stamppot mash made a really delicious cake.
With the turnip top and bacon bits in the cake, its like a cross between a normal potato cake with the English staple, bubble and squeak

It's very simple.

INGREDIENTS
400 gm potato based mash
250 gm plain flour
1 egg

PROCEDURE
Simply put the flour, mash and egg in a bowl.
Keep some flour for dusting fingers and board.
Add some salt if it is a plain mash.
Mix with a fork.

Dust your pastry board* (see 2012 below for another suggestion)
With a serving spoon place a dollop of mix onto the board and shape into patties like burgers.
Finished they should be about 2cm thick, and a diameter of about 15 cm

These can be frozen for future use, just defrost the night before cooking. Just put greaseproof paper between them and store in a lunchbox container or a clingfilm wrap.

Fry in olive oil or Donegal Rapeseed oil. Serve with mayonnaise and chives or shallots.

Enjoy!

* 2012 update

For a bit of variety, crunch and just to look a little different you can incorporate rolled oats
Simply mix some rolled oats with the flour

 Then pat down the potato cake onto the board, both sides

 Fry up and serve

Organic Pest Control - Passive and Active measures

There is a real temptation, after doing so much work, to revert to Abbot Arnold Amaury's attitude of "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" - Kill them All - God knows the innocent.

Regardless of how tempting it is - theres no real need to go over the top and revert to all out chemical warfare when it comes to defending the garden from pests (even when three kittens you feed are really getting annoying)

Everything in nature serves its purpose, everything has evolved to its place and has its reasons. Not all insects and bugs are pests.

Spiders, ladybirds, bees, worms and may beetles help us in the garden. 

Pest Control

But some, slugs, caterpillars, leatherjackets and others are threats to the veg garden.
I really don't want to use chemicals in the garden, as they will kill helpful or harmless bugs, and can hurt bees and hedgehogs,

I like them and you dont see many hedgehogs out here in the west - not to forget that whatever we spray goes into our food chain.

In actual fact, if the hedgehog hating UK wardens who cull the hedgehogs in Uist in the Outer Hebridies need a place to send them as refugees instead of killing Mrs. Tiggy-winkle and her family every year, they can send them here.
If they can survive Uist, Connemara would be like Hawaii, they are more than welcome as asylum seekers here as they eat slugs and snails so would be an asset.

I also really, really dig bumblebees and dont want to see them harmed - but more about that in another blog.

PESTS EXPECTED

I can't cover all threats, but there are some that I have already identified.

Slugs and snails have a perfect habitat here with mild, damp weather. I do hope the cold winter may have reduced their numbers.

Daddy Longlegs - or Cranefly - until now I thought harmless, quite likeable creatures, but it turns out their kids are utter delinquents in the veg garden. Their larvae are called leatherjackets and do major damage to roots.

Other problem kids are caterpillars, the larvae of butterflies - already I have seen a lot of a white type with orange tipped wings fluttering around my garden. For help on identification of butterflies see irishbutterflies.com and ukbutterflies.co.uk

The three kittens do try, but have not succeeded in catching any and so it seems to be up to me to sort them out.

There are onion fly and carrot fly, but I believe - and I may be wrong here - that they prey on each other so where I have carrots, I have onions in an attempt to divide and conquer.

The only natural allies I seem to have are dragonflies and spiders, so one hopes they will take up residence in the trellis' and catch some of the butterflies, aphids etc.

PASSIVE DEFENCE

This is the term I'd use for something that is not active, not aggressive but a deterrent - like the Swiss army.

SLUGS

In an effort to dissuade slugs from getting into the beds, the pathways have been made of old ash, and a surface of pine needles has been built up around the beds.

Coffee grounds are already recommended as a home remedy for keeping slugs and snails at bay.
Each morning I sprinkle coffee grounds around the paths as well as left over coffee.
Coffee grinds apparently repel slugs because pure caffene is a poison to them and corree has a very bitter taste.

I also do not want to use chemical slug pellets as these can be eaten by hedgehogs and birds. Johnstown garden centre offer a bio alternative to chemical slug pellets as do Irish Seed savers with their ferramol pellets

Another avenue I am looking at is the electrical low voltage system - essentially two copper wires hooked up to a battery. When the snail hits both wires they get a tiny shock which drives them back.

Comercial version of this are relativly expensive, and I dound a length of discarded telephone wire, so I am looking at doing something of that nature in a DIY set-up.

There is also the old fashioned slug trap with beer. Two things put me off this.
One is will a beer trap attract slugs from outside the beds.
Secondly, is it immoral to have beer and not actually drink it yourself?

BUTTERFLIES
There are three types of White Butterflies whose larvaes pimary food source are Brassicas - or Crucifers as we should call them in future.

They are: Large White (Pieris brassicae) Small White (Pieris rapae) and Green Veined White (Pieris napi)
They all look quite similar - these pics are all female, and anyone who has seen the Alien movies knows the egg layers are the really dangerous ones.

The good news is that their caterpillars also eat Nasturtium, apparently, planting Nasturtium flowers can distract the buggers.
So I intend to plant some out close to- but away from the cabbage beds. The intention would be to hit the brassicas with liquid derris plus, but not the Nasturtium, causing a distraction at least one would hope.

ACTIVE DEFENCE

Well, this makes me worse than Saddam Hussein I guess, I have the capability and I am perfectly happy to use biological and bio-chemical weapons of mass destruction that are at my disposal.

Active measures I would term a more aggresive form of pest control, going out to kill or maim the pests.

Nematodes are new to me - these are the natural parasites of pests that occur naturally in the wild, but by concentrating them in a small area (e.g. the veg patch) we overwelm garden pests.

I have bought my initial batch of nematodes from Mr Midletons - who are one of the best garden suppliers on the Island, and not to disparage them in any way, it was only after I made the purchase online did I find an Irish made product which I will be buying in about 6 weeks. It seems better for the casual gardener.

From Supernemos you can get, online, SuperNemo, an Irish invention. It is a little more expensive than Nemasys - but it kills a wider range of pests.

What I would really like to see from an Irish company like that is a twin-pack containing nematodes for slugs and all the other nasties, hope someone does something like that.

Nemasys / Nemaslug
Biological Warfare - These are parasites that hunt and kill garden pests. I bought them online from Mr Middletons in Dublin

Nemasys is aimed at carrot rot fly, cabbage root fly, leatherjackets,cutworms,onion fly, ants (why?) sciarids, caterpillars,goosebury sawfly, thrips and codling moth.

Nemaslug is aimed at slugs and snails and like Nemasys uses natural parasites in large numbers who hunt and kill slugs.

These products are living organisms, and have a very short shelf life. They must be stored in a fridge, and made up solution cannot be stored.

The standard packets (2xNemasys [14.95]& 1x Nemaslug [17.95]) total cost 32.90 EUR.

I got both types as I wanted a comprehensive program.

But I will try the Irish SuperNemo next time I am due to dose the beds.

From Mr Middleton you can also buy full season programs for each type, which means they post you new nematodes about every 6 weeks - more details on their site.
The main thing about the application of nematodes seems to be never in direct sunlight - i.e. overcast days or evenings, into moist but not waterlogged soil - ensure temp over 10 degs C and thats it, just add the sachet contents to a watering can and spread it around.

Liquid Derris Plus
Chemical Warfare - What I found was Liquid Derris Plus, a bio control spray. This is said to fight off greenfly, blackfly, caterpillars and red spider mite.

This product is dangerous for aquatic life, so if you have a pond cover it up. My only concern in using this is that the old drains nearby are a nice home for frogs (who eat slugs and bugs) so I only sprayed on days that had a few dry days with little or no wind forecast to avoid as much runoff and drift as possible.

Only the beds were sprayed, not the extra ridges as they are very close to the old drains.

Bed 4 - Turnip, Suede, peas, beans, Oca and other groovey stuff

Bed 4

This one is a real mix, but started out predominantly pulses.

Western Perfection Suede and Tipperary Turnip are Irish heritage varieties that came from Irish seed savers - they do an important job and are worth supporting.

Interspacing the suedes and turnips is Osaka Purple Mustard Green from the Real Seed company in the UK.
They are coming up no problem at all

Also from them are Jaune Obtuse de Doubs, a french heritage yellow carrot and Atika.
Atika is a root parsley that is used a lot in East European dishes, I have it seeded below the old glass panes.

Atika.

Just beyond the glass is Oka - a South American tuber, tastes like lemon flavour potatoes.

Oca in Ireland

I sourced this from Christophe on Clare Island, at Macalla Farm - very pleasent guy to deal with.

Looking forward to having them at Chrismas.

Here also are the main crop gherkin under glass for the moment.

Just before the glass are two types of French bean from Lidl - Kinghorn wax and Saxa French dwarf bean.

These were sprouted inside and seem to be doing well.

The large bushels at the end are broad bean and peas. The pea variety are a mix of Rondo (main) and Evita (early)

Here also are Kohl Rabi - they seem to be thriving, its an Olivia F1 hybrid

Then at the bottom are a quick crop of Milan Purple top turnip and a few rocket seeds courtesy of the Daily Mail giveaway

The nets are all inplace to try and dissuade three horrid kittens to stop using the place as a toilet, but I really dont know if that is working at the moment