This year I've spent quite a bit of time and effort on the garden. Like most other people I was working from home and not really going anywhere most of the time, so home improvements and gardening naturally got quite a bit of my attention. Prior to this year my gardening had been mostly some herbs and very little else. While some of the more recent work has been focussed on … [Read more...] about The Garden’s First Season Draws to a Close
cooking
Storing and Preserving Surplus Fruit and Vegetables
My greenhouse has proven to be a success overall. I have made plenty of mistakes and I will be adjusting how I do things for next year, though I'm also working on making sure that I make full use of it during the "off" period as well. Over the past few weeks I've been able to harvest a growing number of fruit and vegetable from the greenhouse. Some, like the strawberries, … [Read more...] about Storing and Preserving Surplus Fruit and Vegetables
Making Bread With a Bread Machine
Last year during the peak of the pandemic with lockdowns and restrictions in most places the world started baking. Oddly I didn't. I did quite a few things during the various lockdowns, including developing an obsession with all things barbecue, as well as doing quite a bit of "grow your own" gardening. But no baking. One of the things I wanted to do was to get a bread … [Read more...] about Making Bread With a Bread Machine
The Satisfaction of Eating Your own Fruit
For the last couple of years I've had a couple of berry bushes that produce very small amounts of fruit. Not enough to do anything with. This year, however, I've got quite a few things planted that will hopefully produce fruit and vegetables in usable quantities. The first fruit to produce a crop was one of my strawberry plants that gave me enough decent sized … [Read more...] about The Satisfaction of Eating Your own Fruit
Home Brewing One Week On
Last weekend I started my home brewing adventures and experiments. In the end I put on two different brews at the weekend and added a third during the week: a basic honey mead which was pretty simple and straightforward. Honey, water, yeast and a very little else. As I really don't know how well this is going to turn out I opted to only do one demijohn worth, which is … [Read more...] about Home Brewing One Week On