Harvest Time

I've got a glut of cherry tomatoes at the moment, and the cucumber is doing well. We've had about four so far and there are a lot more to come. Both the cucumber and the Butternut Squash are growing all over the place - I'm glad I had them grow up a trellis, but it isn't nearly tall enough. Next time, I'll make one of steel rods rather than plastic-coated metal poles. The netting works well, but two poles aren't strong enough to bear the weight of two heavy vine plants. I would never have thought that the squash would be so prolific.

The deer have been getting at the chard and beetroot. We thought we had beaten them with the entrance to the wood blocked off, but it seems that they jump over the fence. I kept finding chard and beetroot plants rooted up and the tops nibbled off right down to the base of the plants. So I've covered them up with the chicken wire cages again and they're growing back again, thank goodness. I think they liked the artichoke too, for some reason, but I think it will survive.

The bush beans are coming on well, as are the purple runner beans. We had some today with the last of my sad little leeks, some freshly dug potatoes, diced salami and summer savoury. Scrumptious.

We picked the first courgette - the last of the lettuce (planted some more young plants, as well as Chinese Leaves and Zuckerhut - can't remember what that is in English) - lots of blackberries and some more strawberries. I made a couple of pots of bramble and strawberry jam. Yummy.

We've got some pumpkins coming - our neighbour kindly gave me a plant a few months ago, but frankly, apart from pumpkin pie and soup, I can't think what to do with them. There'll probably be about twenty at least, as well as the butternut squashes. Not being American or German, I don't have many uses for pumpkin and we don't do Halloween, so I've no idea. Suggestions welcome.

Next year I'd love to make another raised SF bed, this time for potatoes. Those that I've grown this year have been brilliant - we still have two rows-full to dig up, but I've read that you shouldn't grow potatoes in the same place two years following. So I'm thinking of putting carrots, leeks, onions and spring onions in the old potato bed, which is sandy and not as nitrogen-rich as the SF beds (I can always add some compost), and in the new bed, which I hope to be able to put in front of the apple tree, I'll put a mixture of our sandy soil, as well as Mel's Mix, for the pototoes.

Quote from one of the Elite

"One must act 'as if' in Europe: as if one wanted only very few things, in order to obtain a great deal. As if nations were to remain sovereign, in order to convince them to surrender their sovereignty. The Commission in Brussels, for example, must act as if it were a technical organism, in order to operate like a government ... and so on, camouflaging and toning down. The sovereignty lost at national level does not pass to any new subject. It is entrusted to a faceless entity: NATO, the UN and eventually the EU. The Union is the vanguard of this changing world:it indicates a future of Princes without sovereignty. The new entity is faceless and those who are in command can neither be pinned down nor elected ... That is the way Europe was made too: by creating communitarian organisms without giving the organisms presided over by national governments the impression that they were being subjected to a higher power. That is how the Court of Justice as a supra-national organ was born. It was a sort of unseen atom bomb, which Schuman and Monnet slipped into the negotiations on the Coal and Steel Community. That was what the 'CSC' itself was: a random mixture of national egotisms which became communitarian. I don't think it is a good idea to replace this slow and effective method - which keeps national States free from anxiety while they are being stripped of power - with great institutional leaps - Therefore I prefer to go slowly, to crumble pieces of sovereignty up litle by little, avoiding brusque transitions from national to federal power. That is the way I think we will have to build Europe's common policies..." - Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, later Vice-President of the EU Constitutional Convention, interview with Barbara Spinelli, La Stampa, 13 July 2000. Posted in a great list of quotes compiled by Free Europe.org.

Went to see the film 'David Against Monsanto' (in German) this evening, and hear an excellent talk about the fight against Gene Modified Crops. Apparently it's now over 200,000 Indian farmers who have committed suicide because they've been ruined by Monsanto. Pray that the Lord would bring this evil corporation down.
Such corporations, and similar companies are the elitist 'Illuminati' Bayer, BASF, Dupont, Dow and (Swiss) Syngenta - actually, with Monsanto, the only six such agri-corporations left - because they've consolidated over the years.

Consume less, buy regional, buy bio, be careful what clothes you buy; if they're cheap cotton, then they're likely to have been made from GM cotton, probably in a developing world sweat shop, where Monsanto has cornered the market and has control. They're doing it in Iraq. (Another reason why the US and the UK invaded the country. So that they could get oil, natural deposits, cheap labour, and carry out more population reduction than Saddam ever did.)

Support your local beekeeper and buy his honey. (If you've got bees in your garden, then you'll have a local beekeeper somewhere.)

Get informed; internet, books, public lectures, films etc. Join up with others who feel strongly about the issues, write to the newspapers and politicians, blog, go on demonstrations. Let the politicians know that the public DON'T WANT their corrupt corporations running our countries.

Cheese-Tasting

The great day has arrived!

I wanted to wait until H and B had got home from school before 'broaching' these cheeses. I had also promised Daniel, who comes for an English lesson once a week, that he could taste them once they were ready, and since today is Wednesday, the day when he comes, I thought it would be a good opportunity to cut them.

The cheddar, the larger one, (made 21st April) tastes full and mature - is slightly crumbly - possibly I've matured it for too long, but it's still definitely delicious. The smaller one (made 4th May) is a cheddar with sage from the garden and is really good. The sage taste is perfect. In future, while I'll continue making these cheeses the same way - and the cheese wax works beautifully - I won't mature them for quite as long. They're probably too small for that and don't need as long as a much larger wheel.

Altogether a great success. I am encouraged and will make another batch soon. I wish I had a cheese cellar - I could keep up production indefinitely and we could be self-sufficient in cheese - but I just don't have the room.

I have finally given up the ghost on my onion-related veggies. According to the SFG book, the nitrogen from the horse manure which I added to the soil mix last autumn was just too much for them. The growth went into the leaves instead of into the bulbs. So I ended up with strong, healthy green parts, but pathetic looking bulbs. So I pulled them all up and stuck them in a salad. The garlic are mildly better, although they too are rather small. I've pulled them up too and they're drying on the terrace. We live and learn.

So I have a few empty squares. Have got some new compost ready, so I'll add that and then we'll start some new veg for late summer and autumn. The mangetout are scrumptious and the aubergine seems to be recovering in its new position, especially as it's been under cellophane and getting extra warmth. June here is being very cool, rather like last year. But I already have small green tomatoes on both bush and beefsteak plants and the cucumber plant is taking off like nobody's business, as is the butternut squash and another pumpkin variety which our next-door neighbour kindly gave me. The potatoes are flowering and beginning to look a little tired - maybe in a week or so I might be able to get our first new potatoes out? They'll have been in since the beginning of April. We'll see. The strawberry plants have been fruiting a bit - but perhaps not as much as I hoped. It maybe though, that they're young and need a couple of years to establish themselves. I'm going to buy some strawberries this week and make some more jam. We've run out.

I'm really glad that I left so much room between the beds; the plants are growing so big, one really needs the space. I'll do another video soon.

I have to say that I'm thrilled to bits about these kohlrabis which I picked today. They are huge and very heavy. I just hope that they're not tough. I'm going to make a kohlrabi and potato soup with them.
I have replanted the aubergine in their place, as it just wasn't getting enough sun back next to the beef steak tomato. Where the aubergine was, I have sown some more bush beans.

Have discovered that I probably put down too much horse manure (excess nitrogen) last autumn than was good for onions. None of my onions look too good - in fact, all they've done is to grow upwards, rather than outwards in the bulb. So I've used them for salads as in spring onions and have sown radishes there instead.
Kohlrabi obviously likes horse manure, but onions don't. Not too much anyway.

The other disappointing thing is the carrots. I only have one square of them , but it's possible that the soil isn't clayey enough for the rather short, rounded carrots which I sowed. They are taking forever. Apparently only the long ones like loose, friable soil. I thought that the SF bed wouldn't be deep enough for long ones. So we live and learn. Never mind - I can buy both carrots and onions from the local farm.

Have put up some supports and netting for sweet peas and runner beans. The sweet peas are because my grandmother used to have a long trellis of them every year in her enormous garden in Storrington in Sussex - I remember the asparagus and the cucumber frame - and she'd bring huge bunches of them into the house. Their scent filled every room where they were. I loved them... Sweet peas and the smell of Grandpas's pipe tobacco; the damp, wonderful, faintly alarming smell of the garden room with its enormous rubber plant whose leaves we were allowed to clean with milk; the constant ticking of the huge, spired grandfather clock in the corner of the drawing room; the dark green, musty smelling carpet on which we would lie for hours, making card houses and playing Beggar my Neighbour, while the thrushes sang in the apple trees in the orchard outside and the azure periwinkles crept into every crevice in the stone-flagged terrace under the kitchen window. The beans go in tomorrow because today is a public holiday in Germany (Ascension day/Father's Day and the shops are shut. So it's a-bean-buying I'll go tomorrow, plus I need two new kohlrabi plants - the first ones are so fat and perfect-looking and they'll soon be ready for picking.