Our pigs only have 3 weeks left with us now. They're going to work with Ste on a Tuesday and will be coming back in a different state. I've got some reading up to do as to how we want to process them so I'll be checking out blogs on here plus my River Cottage handbook of course.
The pigs have a slap mark on their shoulder which identifies them when they go to slaughter. It's one of the marks the vet will look for. Think of it as a tattoo.
The farmer thinks they will be weighing in at 65 kilos.
Look at this! A cabbage that I thought was done for! This is one that the birds or slugs ate and left skeletal. What a trooper this little thing is. There's plenty more where he came from too. At least these are doing well this year as the cauliflowers are non existent and the broccoli all bolted.
It might look strange, posting a photo of an onion but I grew this! Yeah! Really excited, no need to buy any more onions again I hope!
Now to the carrots. I have never ever managed togrow carrots before so imagine my excitement when I saw loads growing in my black bin! I've been nursing them daily only to check on them today and discover an ant's nest. Well I panicked and pulled them all out. Only to be told by my neighbour that ants are pretty clean and wouldn't have eaten them. He said they like light soil which this bin is.
Another thing I wanted to share with you is this little gadget that my friend has bought me, how lovely is it? It's a dibber for planting out and I think it is very thoughtful of her.
The dogs like it too!!
Even after living here 18+ months we're still finding trees that we didn't know we had. Is this one hazelnut or acorn, does anyone know?
For my records, broad beans and first peas have done dreadfully this year! Aren't broad beans supposed to be amazingly easy to grow?! We've had some, but not loads.
Oh and the sheep broke into the new chicken area! Hooligans!
Also a quick update on the recurrant jelly. It didn't work! That's ok though, you win some and you lose some. The overnight dripped juice only yielded 350ml when the recipe expected over 600ml. We got 1.5 small jars when we expected 4 - 5 so something is amiss. I think it's going to set solid, so I'll maybe try to loosen it up and add water and boil up again or if I can slice it (haha oh dear) then I'll make gravy up adding it, then I'll freeze the gravy.
More where they came from though, we'll get there! The 2nd lot of strawberry jam was just as amazing as the first though - wahoo!
