Watermelon Curry and other Culinary Adventures

Dad went to a music festival over the weekend, and came back with a watermelon and some greengages he found in a hedgerow! Greengages are one of my absolute favourite treats; their season is so short and they're harder to find than other types of plums, but I think they have the best flavour. We used to eat them on the beach in Brittany, getting sandy and sticky with juice all at once. I can't believe he found them just growing in a hedgerow!

Anyway, there was this watermelon, and I had no idea what we were going to do with it. Then I remembered that at Christmas my grandparents gave Pabi Bach and I a book called 'The Modern Vegetarian' by Maria Elia, and that there were a few recipes for watermelon in it. So we chose the 'Watermelon curry with black beans and paneer' - only without the paneer, and with mixed beans and chickpeas instead of black ones.

It's a really delicious recipe - Pops found it a bit hot but the mixture of spicy and sweet is really refreshing and brings out the flavour of the watermelon (and I like it hot - as far as I'm concerned a curry's only good if it makes my nose run!). I know it sounds weird but as you cook it it starts to smell delicious. It's got a sweet edge but looks more like it's cooked with tomatoes than strange pink fruit!

It's a really interesting book actually; the recipes are so original and pieced harmoniously together from many different cuisines. It's a bit adventurous for everyday, but we've tried a few things from it and they've all been delicious. And if you have a sudden surprise watermelon sprung on you there are actually a total of 4 recipes for it. Definitely recommend it, and for everyone who likes their fruit and veg - not just vegetarians.

Anyway we made the curry. It was delish. And in the cooking process we discovered a couple of ways of eating raw watermelon which are delicious.

The first is to sprinkle your watermelon chunk with salt and tuck in. Yum! Try it with pepper too.

The second is to chop up your chillis for the curry. Then plonk a load of watermelon on top of where you've just been cutting chilli. Take a bite. Hot but heavenly!!

Apart from this we also stewed the more squooshy of the greengages. I stoned some more mirabelles and we had these fresh for pudding, along with some of the apple and blackberry mixture from Sunday lunch and then banana and Ambrosia custard. Lush.

Yesterday we had Grandad John (adopted, but nonetheless adored) round for Sunday lunch - roast lamb for the meat eaters, all the veg (including our slightly unusual family tradition of having spicy roast butternut squash and/or aubergine with the usual potatoes, peas, etc) as well as the first of our runner bean crop! And Pabi Bach cooked a delicious Blackberry and apple pie with a pastry lattice top. Everyone tucked in, but I'm afraid that yours truly ate it for a midnight snack before I could take a picture to show you all. But it was beautiful. And delicious.

^ no picture of the pie, so flowers from our garden instead ^^

Anyway, off round to Mum's tomorrow night for more culinary fun... ;)

Bees & Beans

Yesterday we visited the bees.

Our friend Paul is a new beekeeper and now has one excellent hive going strong. When we arrived he had just captured another swarm which will be going in his Top Bar Hive. I've never seen one in the flesh before, and it was really interesting. The hive is certainly beautiful, and it will be interesting to see how it works out.

As far as our own bees are concerned, the swarm we collected that didn't seem to have a queen did have a queen, but there was still no brood (although they were working really hard - might even get some lovely honey of them this year). Judging by the length of her abdomen she wasn't a virgin queen, which means that she must have been the old queen from her original colony and had just grown old and run out of juice. So we squished her, closed up the hive and left them till the evening.

In the evening, we went to visit our other hives, where we had just carried out an artificial swarm. The idea was to donate a couple of queen cells from the artificial swarm to the queenless colony. However when we got there, we found an emerged queen cell, and that the other cells had been torn down! So our artificial swarm has given us a new queen, and as the weather has been good hopefully she will have mated.

^ Emerged and demolished queen cells

So we had to turn to plan B. This plan will take longer, but if necessary we can donate capped brood to the queenless colony to boost their numbers until the new queen gets going. We took a frame of eggs from our original colony (the Wall colony - now building up beautifully after the artificial swarm) and, trying not to joggle the frame around too much or to get it too cool, raced back to the other apiary and stuck it in the queenless hive. By the time we got there the queenless hive were quite agitated, and had obviously noticed they had no queen. But thankfully the frame of eggs went in smoothly, and so hopefully they will be able to grow one of those into an emergency queen. Of course, emergency queens aren't always as good as planned queens, but she'll be better than nothing and will give us time to make up plan C if we have to! Now we'll just leave them for a fortnight, come back and hopefully there will be an emerged queen cell, followed by eggs...

Today we spent the morning and early afternoon planting out the beans at last! Poppy also planted her brussels sprouts, I planted my squashes, and the greenhouse is full of chillis, salads and cucumbers. So after weeks of the poor plants wasting away in pots, they are at last in some beautiful compost-laden soil and perked up almost immediately after planting! Some of the lingua di fuoco (borlotti) beans already have their pretty purple flowers on them, and most of the beans are already happily spiralling up their supporting canes. So I'm hoping for a beautiful sunny summer and excellent crops of haricots and honey!

^ beans planted a while ago, and planted today :)

Bees & Garden

We've had a while of miserable weather but the last few days have been very hot indeed, and this has definitely shown in terms of the number of calls we've had about swarms! We've had 3 in the past week (not all of them turned out to be honey bees however), and have carried out an artificial swarm on our existing hive, and so at present we have 3 colonies and possibly another 1 on the way...

^ Queen with long abdomen (sorry for blurry pic)

^ Artificial Swarm taking place

The first call we got was to a beautiful old house in the countryside which is being converted into flats. The foreman had spotted the bees clustered on a tree trunk in the sunshine. When we arrived the "swarm" had gone and what we were left with was a wild colony living in the dead tree trunk, with only an inch square hole for access. Unfortunately the tree is being cut down and so they will have to move, but fortunately the foreman seemed very reluctant to kill them. We pondered and pondered how we could possibly rescue the bees, as the queen will never leave her home and brood. In the end Dad constructed a cardboard box with a one-way bee escape in, so that any bees flying out would be redirected to a hive on a raised platform. That way we'll the get the flyers at least, and although they'll be queenless, they may be able to start afresh with a few nurse bees and a frame of eggs. The queen and her brood will have to be left there (and destroyed) but that's life, bees and humans don't always get along.

The second call I didn't go to, but I gather it was a straightforward swarm collection and the bees are now installed in the apiary! The third call turned out to be bumble bees, but if the weather continues to be as good as it is there should be plenty more opportunities for us to stock up on new colonies.

I'm a great believer in collecting swarms and the merits of wild colonies; not only do you get a new colony for free, but you can be assured that you're getting bees whose natural instincts are sound. Of course there is always the slight risk that they'll be hideously grumpy or carrying diseases, although swarming is often a good way to minimise disease, and swarming bees tend to be at their most docile. The only hive of ours who survived the winter and have made a good start this year are the wild colony we collected from the wall (see the video blog). And despite being moved fairly late in the year last year, they still made loads of lovely honey and laid down good stores for them and for us. This made me realise that bees that can survive without human meddling are the most likely to survive overall - if they can take care of themselves, they're less likely to produce dud queens, starve to death, be lazy or too grumpy, or freeze to death. They've done it all before in the wild, so of course they'll survive in a nice new hive where the wax is already started for them. Last year we bought a bunch of new mated queens from a local bee breeder. Every single colony failed, and in every case it was because the queen hadn't taken or had stopped laying, and I recently heard that another keeper in our association had the same problem with queens from the same breeder. And while this might just be that one individual breeder, it can't be denied that we humans breed bees that have the characteristics that are convenient for us (docility, good honey production, lack of swarming instinct). But the more I learn about bees, the more I begin to realise that these characteristics aren't good for them - is it any wonder that they're dying out if their natural instincts are being suppressed? With wild or swarming bees, you know that they're following their instincts and are doing what comes naturally to them, and this can only be a good thing. "Natural" bees should be resilient, self-regulating and completely uninterested by human activity. Perhaps by breeding bees to illiminate problems, we are creating more problems? Let me know what you think!

And onto the garden. The first beans have been planted out in a heavy mulch of homemade compost (mulching helps retain moisture, good plant food, no digging required, and also I was too lazy to prepare the ground earlier this year, woops!), but I've run out of canes so the others will have to wait; however, I am now watering them religiously and despite a tussle with the rabbits (evidence: white fur all over munched lower leaves and stems) they're making a good go of it. We've got a few lettuces and peas on the go too, as well as our tomatoes, chillis and peppers, but we need more! So now that I am on study leave, I'm hoping to be able to get out in the garden a bit more (when I'm not studying lol) and sort things out a bit.

As for compost, last year we tried an enclosed compost heap called the "Green Johanna" which allows you to compost cooked food and even meat, dairy and fish. As a result of this we had a rat infestation for a while, although this could also possibly have been because of the building works next door, as the rats disappeared after the building stopped...anyway, we stopped using the Green Jo' and have left it for almost a year...and now it is full of the most wonderful loamy, soft, fine, moist, rich, dark lovely compost! I can't wait to get using it. It doesn't smell at all and has the most wonderful texture, part of me wishes I could roll around in it!

Anyway, I shall leave you with a delicious recipe that Dad made up this evening - wonderful with a slice of toast or good nutty brown rice ^^

Dad's Leek & Bean Summer Stew

Ingredients:

5 dry red chillis, crushed (or your preference, we like things hot ^^)

3 leeks, chopped

2 courgettes, sliced

1 onion, chopped

1 tin of black eye peas, drained

1 tin of chick peas, drained

salt and pepper

It's easy - stick all in a pot with a little stock or water, and cook with the lid on until the leeks and courgettes are soft and sweet. Delicious!

Update 03.05.2010

It's certainly proving to be a good year for fruit so far: the trees, both in the garden and in the wild, are absolutely laden with blossoms. I already have small blackcurrants forming; the beans are reaching for the skies and will very soon be planted out now that we have our canes up. The strawberries are in flower, the tadpoles are wiggling around the pond, and the garden is beginning to look beautiful and green again. Bring on summer!

Spring Inspection

Today we carried out our spring inspection of our one remaining hive, as well as cleaning out some of the dead hives.

Looking through dead hives is always upsetting, especially as we worked so hard last year and we've lost a couple of decent bloodlines. But equally it was a relief - no signs of starvation, which would have made me feel very guilty indeed. In fact two of the three hives we looked at died in the cluster. Bees had died just hanging off the frames or digging into food, of which there was plenty. It looks like they just froze to death - no sign of any brood (the queen wouldn't have been laying if it was too cold - another good sign) and they were weak hives anyway. So it looked like it was just too cold of them. Of course we probably should have insulated them with a tarp or similar, but equally the winter was one of the harshest for the last 30 years or something. So it's nice to know that they didn't die just because of our own stupidity.

The other dead hive that we cleared out had only a very small volume of bees that were completely un-clustered. No brood. It seems the queen must have died, again maybe becuase of the cold (too cold to lay eggs > no new bees > population death > no bees to warm the queen up > no queen to lay new eggs).

However, our one remaining hive (the one we took from the barn wall last year - see the video blog) is doing absolutely splendidly! plenty of adult bees and 5 sides of brood - eggs, larvae and capped, and beautiful healthy brood it is too. They're bringing in loads of pollen and nectar, and they have stores left over too, mostly a mixture of sugar and honey unfortunately, but they still appear to be working hard. They're literally 2 feet from a 5 acre field of oil seed rape this year too, which has yet to flower, so hopefully they'll be able to build up their numbers even more to make the most of the harvest. They have plenty of room and were REALLY DOCILE - came as a bit of a shock after extracting them from the wall (they were rather angry - Dad got stung nearly 50 times on the same finger and it swelled up to the size of a golf ball just below the knuckle) but they were beautiful bees - absolutely unfussed and uninterested by the humans cooing over them adoringly!

So, after a rather large setback of massive losses, it looks like we've got off to the best start we could have expected. And fingers crossed for lots of big swarms this May!

The veggies we planted last week are up already! I'd better get preparing a space for them...

The ducks lay every day during all but the very deepest winter days. But at the moment the chickens are laying regularly too - an unexpected pleasure, as usually we spend half our lives trying to stop them being broody and attacking anything that moves in a fit of maternal rage. But despite the meat-and-dairy eaters of the house eating a lot of omelettes, we still ended up with a glut of eggs. So this week Pabi Bach made her wonderful Mexican chocolate cake (wonderfully moist every time she makes it, with spices to bring out the flavour of the chocolate. My favourite cake of all time) as well as over 40 meringues. But despite all this we still had loads of eggs to use up, so we decided to make some lemon curd. We used Delia Smith's recipe (too sweet but a good basic - next time we'll add more lemon) and ended up with 7 jars of lemon curd, some of which we've been giving away. It's incredible stuff, best eaten straight from the jar with a spoon!

However only 2 days since the great curd cooking session, the eggs are piling up again already. So I'll have to think of something else we can make this time. Any ideas leave a comment!

The Year of a Thousand Beans

After a bit of a late start (not a bad thing incidentally, as the soil is still very cold) I have started planting!!

I feel that this year must be a bean year. I am growing 7 varieties this year and I got a bit carried away planting them today...about 200 bean plants I reckon. However none will go to waste I hope - most of the garden will be given over to them this year, friends will take some, and as a last resort I know some greedy chickens who will polish off a bean plant at the drop of a hat. The varieties I'm growing are:

• French beans 'Cobra' and 'Blue Lake'
• Runner bean 'Scarlet Emperor'
• Borlotto 'Lingua di Fuoco' and a four-year old packet of a mystery borlotto
• Dwarf French bean 'Tendergreen'
• Kidney bean 'Yin Yang' - absolutely beautiful black and white beans!

not to mention the other things I'm growing, the usual tomatoes and lettuces etc.

The garden is going to be full this year, but I have cut back on variety if not on numbers of plants, sticking to things that are better home grown - e.g. tomatoes - are easy to grow - e.g. lettuces, chillis - and things that we just love too much to not grow - beans and squashes, for example.

Even so, why have I grown so many beans, you may well ask. Well, I think there was an element of insanity in buying endless packets of beans, but it's also because they store well (dried, frozen or bottled, like Madame Georgette, our French neighbour, does), are a good source of protein in the vegetarian diet, and because they're very ornamental plants that I hope to have climbing up every available vertical space in the garden. Also they're a piece of cake to grow - I remember growing them on a piece of damp tissue paper at school when I was 8 - and they taste GOOD. I expect that by the end of the summer we'll all be sick of beans, but hopefully we'll take the time to store them, meaning that we won't feel compelled to buy Kenyan imports in the winter in order to get something, anything, green and tender.

Anyway, I'm also trying out the Asparagus Pea this year. It grows sort of ridged pods that apparently taste like Asparagus. My Grandad used to grow it, and looking through his old gardening books and allotment folders etc, we seem to have been quite similar in taste when it comes to veg varieties. So this year I am following in his footsteps and planting this strange, short, bushy green vegetable.

As far as the rest of the garden is concerned, it's well and truly springtime now! We have blackbirds nesting in the clematis, the girls are laying so many eggs we don't know what to do with them, and my currant bushes have plenty of flowers this year ^^. Also the blackthorns in the hedgerows seem to be doing well this season, which should mean plenty of sloe gin in the autumn...

As for the bees, I haven't seen them yet this year! Dad has been to check on them and feed them to get them going, but as yet we haven't carried out a full inspection. We are very unfortunate to have only one hive left now, due to the fact that every hive had litterally pounds of stores but somehow couldn't eat it (easily solved, I hope, by feeding more liquid syrup later in the autumn this year). However in some ways this is lucky, as it allows us to build up again (always exciting) and we know that these bees can stick it when others just can't (and they're our best honey producers too). Fingers crossed for lots of lovely strong swarms this May however!