In the Garden: Vernal Equinox

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Zoe Lynch

Camellia × williamsii ’Jury’s Yellow’ 

Its beginning to feel a lot like Spring has sprung here.  Today is the Vernal Equinox, and the Cherry is still in full bloom; its petals have begun to litter the garden like pink confetti floating down from heaven.  

The early harbingers, snowdrops, shrubby honeysuckle and the aconites are all over, and primroses, hellebores and narcissus are flowering.

Even the Tulips are above ground and I imagine by Easter I will be enjoying  the tall stems of ‘Ballerina’ waving amongst the grasses in the sunshine.  Ballerina is a good orange – and fragrant too; fragrant plants always find a space in my garden. I see gardening as being as much about fragrance as form, or texture or colour.

The Camellia, ‘Jury’s Yellow’ was looking stunning with its soft creamy yellow blooms reminding me of up ended tutus just ready for a fairy to slip into. We have had wonderful bright warm days lately, but the downside of this, with no cloud cover at night, is quite hard frosts by the morning. This leaves ugly brown marks all over the flowers.

The picture is of my current favourite part of the garden – the Daphne is still very fragrant and promises new flowers, the fragrant shrubby honeysuckle still has a few flowers and the Osmanthus is just beginning to flower, bringing its jasmine like fragrance into the mix.

The arum, Arum italicum subsp. italicum ‘Marmarotum’ is showing off its wonderful leaves too, to be followed by strange white lily like spathes, and then red berries come autumn. The name of this plant in engraved on my mind, along with Rubus cockburnianus – both botanical names that caused me dread and laughter in equal measure when I was trying to learn how to spell them for the weekly Plant Identity Test whilst studying a Diploma in Garden Design at Merrist Wood some 12 years ago now.  It is strange the things that stick in the mind. Most days I struggle to recall my own age, yet I can reel off botanical latin  like I was an expert! (I am not an expert by the way).

Wishing you all a blessed day and looking forward to  sharing the delights the lengthening days and warmth brings my way.

Posted in Uncategorised | 3 Comments

In the Kitchen: Making a Sourdough starter.

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Zoe Lynch

Every now and then I come across a book – invariably a cookery book, that I just HAVE to own. The illustrations and photographs make me salivate, and I can almost smell the aroma of the different things on the pages.

I discovered such a book recently, its been bedtime reading for several nights now as I paw over the pages, reading and re-reading the recipes wondering where to start first.

Something idiot proof was eventual choice, something homely and simple that would work well with my allotment soup for lunch one day next week. Something to be anticipated and relished.

I love sour dough bread, but have never ventured as far as making it. I had seen various conversations on Twitter about sour dough starters over recent months, and watched how these starters got passed from one to another like cherished cuttings from a favourite plant. I suppose it is a plant of sorts. A fungi. Natural yeasts being at the centre of the fermenting mass bubbling away in a jar. I recall the scrabble when Alys Fowler offered to share hers.

I had always assumed there was some mystery to the alchemy involved, but was delighted to discover just how simple this actually was in my newly found object of love.

Today I got started on making my own sour dough starter. It involved taking a clear jar and adding 2 teaspoons of water to one teaspoon of flour and mixing throughly.  Yes, it was that simple!

The following 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th days you simple add a further teaspoon of flour and two teaspoons of water and stir. Lots of bubble will form on the surface as it ferments.

To make a starter for a loaf – mix one tablespoon of the mixture from the jar with 150g of flour and 150 ml of warm water in a large bowl, cover with clingfilm,  and leave it to ferment overnight.

Then pick a sour dough recipe (there are so many variations) and use the starter as stated in your preferred recipe.

I am hoping to use mine to make a ‘Levain de Campagne‘ loaf next week, once I have been through all the steps. I’ll let you know how I got on! Continue reading →

Posted in In the Kitchen, Recipes | 4 Comments

More Bees …..

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Zoe Lynch

I went  to visit my bees today – the weather was perfect, still, warm, and sunny.  This colony was a nucleus colony I had acquired late  in August last year.  It was a bit of a risk taking on a colony so late in the season, but I was assured that so long as I kept an eye on them, and kept them well fed over the winter as they had virtually no reserves of their own when I installed the five nucleus frames into the 10 frame brood box.

I visit regularly, sometimes twice a week and I had noticed how active they seemed when I went to see them recently, but was reluctant to remove the device that makes the hive entrance very small. This acts to make the colony easier to defend against attacks from Wasps and Hornets (a problem in Autumn), and from invading mice, who love nothing better in winter to get inside warm hive and munch their way through the bee’s wax and supplies over the winter months. Woodpeckers are very keen on bee products too, and so over the winter the hive had been surround in a coat of chicken wire to prevent them being able to peck through the hive sides and steal the bees and their stores.

When I got there, the entrance looked like Oxford Circus Tube in rush hour, bees trying to get in and out at the same time and huge great queues of bees laden down with pollen waiting their turn to enter the hive and deposit their load. They seemed to do it with good humour and manners, I didn’t notice any platform rage!

Having seen how active the hive was and having opened up the entrance to allow free-flowing traffic, I decided now was the time to take a peek inside and see how my girls were doing. I only had a brood box on the hive, with an eke to supply them with bee candy as an extra food source to help them through the lean months. Having looked inside, all the frames were covered in comb, and were at various stages of brood development. I saw quite a lot of capped honey in the brood too, so it was looking pretty congested in there. I decided that now was the time to add a new super - an extra layer that would allow them to store all the nectar and pollen they were collecting, and hopefully free up some of the frames in the brood box for egg laying and raising brood. Failing to give the bees enough room might make them think they have exceeded their space and start to think about looking for a new home. This is one of the main reasons bees swarm, lack of space – so they head of with their Queen to find better lodgings. Not ideal for the bee keeper who has just lost the majority of their bees!

As you can see, my bees seem to have found a very good source of pollen. Flowering blackthorn and wild cherry plums are abundant in blossom at the moment around here as are the catkins and pussy willow.  It is possible  to make an educated guess at what the bees have been foraging on by comparing the colour of the pollen they are  carrying with a Pollen Chart.

I have got another hive ready and am hoping to set up a new colony sometime next month. In the mean time I am looking forward to watching this colony grow and thrive and maybe even harvest my first crop of honey come July!

Posted in Bee-keeping, Just Life, Signs of Spring, Uncategorised | 5 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: Garlic Chives seedhead

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Zoe Lynch

Posted in Favourite Herbs, My Garden, Photography, Wordless Wednesday | 4 Comments

In the Garden: The Birds and the Bees

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Zoe Lynch

A Buff Tail Bumble Bee Bombus terrestris (probably a Queen) in my  flowering Cherry

Like most of you probably, I have spent a huge amount of time outside this weekend. Our garden is currently a work in progress and under going radical changes. I have spoken before about the three areas we have split the space into, known as Chicken World, Rose World and Woodland World.

We have spent much of our efforts the past few weeks on Rose World and Woodland World, and the two for now are interconnected as we are salvaging ancient paving stones, and Victorian stable pavers from one to reuse in the other for the footpaths.  The patio that had been next to the Cherry was some 12 foot square. and a blissfully cool, shaded area on a hot summer’s day as it was on the cool moist soiled north side of the garden and in pretty much full shade.

I decided that this great expanse of stone and brick was to hard on the eyes, and a bench placed on the lawn in this area would serve as well as the huge hard standing that was seldom used in earnest. I saw a huge planting opportunity!  So between moving and planting/replanting countless roses,  digging up patios, the foundations to the old Vinery, and an old Lathe Shop, we have been hard at it for weeks, trying to get the garden in order for the Summer.

Things are taking shape – the patio is a thing of history, as are the foundation walls for the old buildings that had been buried for 25 years since they were demolished – we thought the builders had removed them, but we discovered them 6 inches under the top soil.  The bricks from these subterranean walls are rather attractive too, Victorian handmade jobs, probably made from Hampshire clay nearby – so these will get recycled as paving too in Chicken World. They have survived a 150 years in the soil, so I am sure they can survive another 50 above ground!

A Honey Bee Apies Mellifera one of a couple of hundred in my Cherry Tree 

Anyway, back to today.  I have hundred and I mean hundred of pots in various stages of cultivation, littering what will be Woodland World. Dozens of Helleborus and cuttings from Penstemons and Phlox, and countless bulbs that we have dug up, and I have saved in pots to replant.  If anyone didn’t know, you would have thought I was running a nursery, albeit a very scruffy one!  

Many of the pots are overgrown with Moss and Water Avens. Herb Robert and Chickweed was sprouting everywhere. The Vinca minor had invade many of the pots and literally joined them together, and I had spied the dreaded Ground Elder making an appearance too.

I sat on the little rocking bench under the Cherry Tree, and spent most of yesterday and today, cleaning the plants up, de-weeding them, topping up the soil levels, and where I could, planting them in the newly reclaimed ground.  The fragrance of the Daphne wafted over me and as I got closer to the soil and lost myself in what I was doing, I became acutely aware of the buzzing of bees. Not one bee, but hundreds.

Way above my head the tree was alive with honey bees, foraging for pollen and nectar. I sat and watched and listen for a long time, their rhythmic sound like a drum beat you might use when meditating. I couldn’t get over just how many bees there were working away in the tree some 10 foot above my head.  The Bumble bee above is a Buff Tail. I suspect she is a Queen, recently emerged from her subterranean hibernation, and now busy building her nest and building her reserves for the coming year.  I wished the honey bees were my bees, but I suspect they belong to Caroline who has a soft fruit PYO farm just along the Lane from where we live and has a few hives too. I know that Honey Bee colonies are coming back into activity now too. I have witnessed my own buzzing with activity as the new seasons bees orientate themselves around the front of their hive, so that they can remember their home when they return from their virgin foraging flights. It never ceases to amaze me that a bee can fly several square miles in any direction, but know exactly how to find the tiny entrance to their own hive.  There I days when I struggle to find where I parked the car! Oh how I wish for the bees sense of direction!

I was desperate to get some photographs, and having failed dismally with my usual favourite lens or a macro lens to get any images that weren’t blurry because of the light breeze, I resorted to using a telephoto lens to take pictures of the bees much higher up the tree. Oddly,  it worked as you can see above!

I hope you have had an equally enjoyable weekend.

Posted in Bee-keeping, Just Life, My Garden, Signs of Spring | 11 Comments

Friday Photo: In the pink

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Zoe Lynch

Thought I would share a few images with you of things that are looking good in my garden at the moment.  The Daphne smells amazing. The Cherry is my wishing tree, and the Hellebore one of the few that survived the winter of 2010. I have been trying to increase my stocks of Hellebores from seedlings, its a case of wait and see whether they are garden worthy plants though. Time will tell.

Posted in Friday Photo, My Garden, Photography, Signs of Spring | 9 Comments

Things I like to make: Jewellery experimentation

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Zoe Lynch

Yes, yes, I know I have been quiet,  too quiet? Probably not quiet enough for some. Anyway I am here now. I won’t bore you with an windy explanation for my absence, except to say that I have been in huge amounts of pain, and my demeanour and my mood have been so dark I decided not to inflict myself on you all. Truth told, my thoughts got pretty frightening and  I withdrew inside myself until it felt safer to come out again.

I’ve been in hospital in the past week, and had my sense of humour top up injections, and I can’t tell you what a difference they make. Its like night and day. Its like being released from a dank dark dungeon having been chained to its walls for months, out into the light and laying on a bed of meadow flowers.

Not having been able to do much or go anywhere since before Christmas time,  I tried very hard to distract myself from my morbid thoughts.  I decided to experiment with a material called Art Clay.

Art Clay comes in various materials, from polymers through various metals, and onto Silver and Gold.  My experiment involved working with Silver Art Clay.

I modelled the cherub, based on an old Victorian pinch-beck brooch I have. I used this to create a mould in silicon that I could use to form the Art Clay into an accurate replica of the original.  Having done this, I carved the clay back once it was dry to try and highlight the feathers and facial details.  I added some tiny bails so that I could later add a chain and pendant to the cherub.

Once I was happy with this, I fired the clay using a kitchen blowtorch!  This process burns of the binder that holds all the fine silver particles together, and once complete leaves you with an item that is 99.99% solid silver.  I decided after some debate that once I had burnished and polished it, it was just too shiny, and certainly didn’t fit in wit the ‘vintage’ look I had hoped to create.

This was resolved by dunking all the silver I was using to  make the necklace in a warm solution of Liver of Sulphur until everything was unrecognisable and black.

The kitchen now reeked like the very worst bad eggs you can imagine, the smell so redolent of school boy pranks and stink bombs! I paniced slightly when I saw that in a matter of seconds the silver had changed from the bright magpie silver, to something that looked like it had been sitting in the drains forever.  I quickly tipped all the silver into a solution of Baking Powder to stop the reaction continuing to tarnish the silver any further, and said a prayer to the little cherub in my hands, begging it to clean up! It was going to be a considerably expensive mistake if it didn’t!.

Thankfully after much polishing with jeweller’s sandpaper, burnishing and going over board on the silver polish, it came up a pewtery tone which I felt fitted the bill. So I added the cultured freshwater pearl drop and the chain, and this is what I ended up with.

I have sketched several other items I now want to make and I think my next project will involve me in learning to bezel set a gem.  My idea is to take a Labradorite cabochon and set it in a bezel mount and have a Hare leaping over it against a starry silver background. This will be like a picture, and I hope to use it as the centre piece to make a bracelet of similarly starry panels of Silver Art Clay to make a bracelet.  I would have used a large Moonstone, but I can’t find one big enough. Labradorite has a very moonscape feel to it though, so I am hoping it will be a good substitute.

In other news – my bees have survived the Winter and seem to be thriving. I have embarked on a series of evening classes and practical lessons with a view to taking the BBKA Basic Assessment exam at some point in the not to distant future.

The garden is coming on in leaps and bounds too, and is looking less like a scrap yard, and more like a place were plants might thrive. The Hens are back in lay and doing well too and I plan to increase their number next month. Watch this space!

 

Posted in Just Life, Things I like to do or make | 6 Comments

In the Kitchen: Seville Orange Marmalade

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Zoe Lynch

The strangest things make me nostalgic and return to my childhood, so strong is the imprint of an object, sound or fragrance. In this case it is not just the aroma of Seville oranges as I juice, de-membrane, slice, and boil to make marmalade, it is the pan itself.

I always smile when  I get this old work horse out, it must be at least 80 years old. It reminds me so clearly of the day my Father set fire to the kitchen when we lived in Anna Valley, in itself not funny, but hits my irony funny bone every time as he constantly admonished me ‘ Will you be careful!’ at the time.

Before that momentous event however, it had belonged to my paternal Grandma, Mabel Green as she was, although in the photo below I think she may have still been Mabel Mitchell.  She was an accomplished pianist, and taught others to play for a living.  She was a frugal women,  born in times of austerity in the First World War, lived through the depression of the 1930s, and then raised four children during World War II, my father included.  I know she bottled and preserved a lot, my Grandfather ran two allotments, and nothing, but nothing ever went to waste!

My paternal Grandmother

The pan reminds me of days, and sometimes weeks in the school holidays from boarding school, sitting in the kitchen with her, helping her prepare various preserves to go in the pan. Sometimes followed by a treat, like making coconut pyramids for tea; perfectly formed cones created in a special Tala mould just for the job, and then topped with half a glace cherry.  Sometimes I might earn one for walking Shandy the dog, or for helping my Aunty Jill, who still lived at home and was just 12 years my senior cut out book covers she hoarded from the Library at Loughborough Uni, to make this vast collage all over her bedroom walls.

Sometimes we would load up my Aunt’s Mini, taking a picnic of home made preserves and bread sandwiches, a slab of cake or maybe something more dainty, and Shandy the dog. We would head for Charnwood Forest and roam for miles, marvelling at bizarre fossils in rocky outcrops, or scrambling up trees or rolling in huge piles of leaves, ending up smelling musty and mushroomy, and of the earth.

These memories are very precious and make me smile and long for simpler times.

Enough of that – here is the recipe if you would like to make your own marmalade.

Seville Orange Marmalade

3lbs Seville Oranges, washed.

Juice of 2 lemons.

6 pints of water

6lbs of sugar.

Method

Halve  oranges and squeeze out all the juice and pips. Tie the pips, and any bits of membrane or pith that come away in a muslin square. Tie the muslin to make a secure bag.

Slice the orange peel according  to your preferences for chunky, medium or fine rinded marmalade and place in a preserving pan along with the water and the orange juice. Add the muslin bag.

Bring to the boil and then simmer gently for 2 hours until the peel is soft and the liquid in the pan has reduced by about half.

Remove the muslin bag.

Add the sugar and heat gently until all the sugar has dissolved. Then bring to a rapid boil and cook for about 15 minutes.

Test for the  a  set and once the setting point has been reached, take the pa off the heat and remove any scum from the surface of the marmlade.

Leave to stand for at least 15 minutes, as this will help the peel to distribute evenly throughout the preserve.

Then stir gently to distribute the peel and pot and cover in hot sterile jars. Makes about 10lbs.

Posted in Uncategorised | 6 Comments

Happy 2012!

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Zoe Lynch

Cyclamen coum and Pansies that I potted up flowering in the garden today, its bright and cold and feels like Spring

Yes, yes, I know –  week late with my greetings! Nothing new there then, I feel like I am playing catch up most the time at the moment.

Pain makes everything difficult, I feel like I am wading through treacle half the time. If its not the pain slowing me down, its the prescription drugs that leave you disconnected and soporific making it hard to think straight.

I day dream for hours when I have taken pain meds, unable to concentrate on the TV, or reading, or anything that takes much concentration.  Before I know where I am days, and then weeks have gone by.

Anyway, like most of you, I have made some, errr not what I would call resolutions perhaps, that would doom me to failure from the outset. Good intentions is what  I prefer to call them, little goals I set myself that are within the realms of achievable. This year is no different. Usually it involves me learning something new, something that will be useful to me.

This year it will be no different. I have really been enjoying making jewellery, and have sold a piece much to my own amazement, and had a couple of enquiries for commissions too, so hopefully in time they will come to fruition too.  In the meantime I have been concentrating my efforts of making things that may appeal to buyers as a Valentine gift for a loved one.

To this end I have been busy checking out and following all the advise given to me on my previous post about this.  I think I shall build myself a website, and perhaps add the items to Folksy too.  Think I will also apply to NOTHS and see if they will accept me, although their terms and conditions seem very variable and they don’t tell you about their charges until after you have applied and been accepted.

So what learning am I going to do? Well, I have booked myself on a day long workshop to learn about how to use Silver Clay, and I have also booked myself on a part time 8 week course in Winchester, to learn more about the real gold and silver smithing craft, and learn to make literally everything from scratch, including chains and all my own findings.

Soldering small joints is one thing, and I have the ability to do that now, but annealing and hardening metals, and manipulating precious metals is tantamount to alchemy, and I need to learn this from an expert so that I can extend the range of what I am able to create.  I have designs whizzing around my head, but I lack the skills to make them. I am hoping by the end of the year to have resolved this.

I have also signed up to a couple of blogging challenges:

VP over at Vegplotting has come up with a cracking idea to get us all growing and eating healthy salads in her 52 week Salad Challenge so pop over and join in!

Secondly, I have also signed up to Annie, the Felt Fairy’s  A Make a Month 2012 which is a good motivator for me to experiment and try out new things to make, and improve of some of those I have already attempted.

Onwards and upwards as they say!

Wishing you all, dear reader, ‘A Very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2012.’ 

Posted in Uncategorised | 9 Comments

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Zoe Lynch

Posted in Uncategorised | 4 Comments