Pickling with Vinegar

Alot of pickled foods use vinegar as the main preserving ingredient. There are a number of vinegars that can be used, malt vinegar is most common, but cider vinegar and red and white wine vinegars can also be used. These latter vinegars are usually more expensive, and their flavour is often more subtle and can be lost with the process of pickling.

MAKING SPICED VINEGAR
You can either buy a ready made pickling spice which will contain a selection of different spices, or you can buy individual spices to make your own pickling blend. Depending on the spices used you will need between 1 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon of spices for every 600 ml of vinegar. To make the spiced vinegar, it should be boiled with the spices for 5 to 15 minutes (from 5 minutes for a milder flavour or use with pickling fruits, 15 minutes for a stronger flavour). The intensity of the flavour is down to personal preference, so you can taste the vinegar at 5 minute intervals until the correct flavour is achieved. The spices themselves can either be wrapped in muslin or used loose and removed later. If you wish to add spices to the jar to make it look attractive, use only a very small amount of the spices used for boiling, as the flavours will keep infusing into the pickles as they are stored. NOTE: Don't use zinc, copper, iron or brass pans with vinegar; stainless steel, aluminium and good quality enamel pans are good.

MAKING PICKLES
Spiced vinegar can be used for pickling most kinds of vegetables and fruit. You need to sterilise (boiling is good) the jars that you will be using, and avoid using metal lids as they can rust. You can get round this by putting a layer of clean cling film inside the lid.

ONCE THE PICKLES ARE USED...USE THE VINEGAR
The vinegar left over once the pickles have been used can be added in salad dressings and in other forms of cooking. 'Waste Not Want Not' as my nan used to say!

How many spots?

I have been sent these pictures of unusual ladybirds found in Holly's garden in Kings Heath. She found them eating aphids in the raspberry patch. Thank you very much, and if anyone else would like to send me some photo's of bugs they've found or how their plants are growing I would love to see them.

To find out more about ladybirds, click the label at the bottom of this post.

Hand Knitted Finger Puppets

Juicy Jess
Snails may be a bit of an annoyance to gardener's, but they fascinate alot of children. They slide along the ground on what is one muscular foot and leave a trail to follow. Jess comes with a snail racing game.
£2.90 each.

Nectar Norma
Bees are so important in pollinating all the flowering plants and helping us to grow our fruit and vegetables. Most bees in this country are solitary bees, and Norma comes with information for building a bee habitat. £2.90 each.

Scarlet Charlotte 
The ladybird finger puppet comes with information for building a ladybird sanctuary in your garden, which gives ladybirds somewhere to hibernate over the winter. You can also find lots more activities here. £2.90 each.

Flirty Gerty
We will be adding lots of information about how to attract different kinds of butterflies to your garden, and what to plant for the caterpillars to eat. Gert comes with a butterfly imaginarium. £2.90 each.

Sidney Spider
Spiders spin beautiful webs which they use to catch their food. There are not insects but are arachnids which is why they have eight legs, not six like all insects. Sidney comes with his own spelling game. £2.90 each.








Buy two puppets for £5, please state your two chosen puppets as you order.

Buy all five minibeast puppets for £11.50, your puppets will come with two information sheets, place state which two you would like.

Our hand knitted finger puppets are supplied by Little Fingy who give to Cancer Research UK and environmental improvement schemes in the Britain. The puppets are knitted in Peru, and Little Fingy support the communities that produce them.

Strawberries & .....

What to put with strawberries this .... ahem ..... summer?
Strawberries and cream go with sunshine, sun dresses, sun glasses, but considering that we have had so little of that word sun this year, I have been trying to think of some other great combinations.

With Elderflower Syrup
At Stirchley Community Market on Tuesday we served fresh strawberries picked from the garden with our homemade elderflower syrup poured over the top; they were a real hit and tasted delicious with a real flavour of summer. Much nicer than just plain sugar.

With Balsamic Vinegar
A friend first introduced me to this combination, at first I was a little sceptical, but was instantly converted. For every 200g of prepared straberries add 2-3 tsp balsamic vinegar, 1 1/2 tbsp sugar and a little black pepper to taste. I have also seen scones with strawberries and black pepper which I would like to try.

Elderflower Cordial

~The elderflower cordial infusing.~

Elderflower cordial is so easy to make and tastes amazing. Me and Nial made this from elderflowers that we picked locally, and there are loads of them in the area. We got about two litres out of this recipe, and you can freeze it in smaller batches to preserve over the year.

YOU WILL NEED
20 elderflower heads, with minimal stalks
1 lemon, sliced
2 tsp citric acid
1.5 kg sugar
1.2 ltr boiling water


METHOD
1) Place all the ingredients except the boiling water into a large bowl (we used a large pan).
2) Pour the boiling water over the ingredients and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
3) Remove any scum from the surface of the water.
4) Cover the container with a cloth and leave for five days stirring twice every day.
5) Strain through muslin and decant liquid into steralised bottles.
6) Keep refrigerated and best used within two weeks, freeze if necessary.

Elderflower growing wild.
Please use a professional book to identify elderflowers, I suggest Food for Free, which you can find at Amazon.

Grow Courgettes and Summer Squashes

Summer squashes come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colours and include courgettes and marrows. They can be highly prolific croppers, and a few plants can yield lots of fruits, especially over a good summer. To maintain a good crop it is best to pick the fruits whilst young, and to keep harvesting all fruit to encourage new cropping.

COURGETTE, Ambassador F1
A classic dark green courgette, with a good yielding capability. Pick at about 10-13 cm. You can get up to 20 fruits off one plant.
£1.39 per pack (for 6 seeds)

SUMMER SQUASH, Tromboncino
An eccentric squash with green skin and a rounded end, which will grow into many interesting curvy shapes and lengths of up to a metre long. This makes it a popular crop for children. It can be used like a courgette.
£2.29 per pack (6 seeds)

GROW COURGETTES AND SUMMER SQUASHES
Preparation
Squashes need a sunny spot and well fertilised soil, with a good amount of organic matter added. It is beneficial to dig out a bucket sized hole and fill it with compost where you want to put your plants.
Sowing
Sow indoors: Apr-Jun. Sow seeds on their sides 1cm deep in 7-9cm pots of compost. Propogate until germination. Once the plants have grown two true leaves they can begin to be hardened off, as long as there is no risk of frost. Plant about 60cm apart. Keep well watered around the plants, but not on them.
Sow outdoors: Sow directly in early June.
Growing and Harvesting
A good tip is to cover the ground around plants with black polythene; this inhibits weeds and keeps the fruit off the soil (you can add small drainage holes to prevent puddles). Raise fruits from the surface with wood, a piece of brick or something similar. Squashes do need to be kept wet, a tip is to cut off the bottom of a pop bottle and push it upside down into the soil as you plant out, this can then be filled with water in dryer weather so that it gets straight to the roots. You can feed with a high-potash fertiliser every 2 weeks for extra benefit when the fruits start to swell. Fruits will be ready by about 10-12 weeks. Pick regularly when young.

Stirchley Community Market

~jACKrABBIT at the May market.~

On the first Tuesday of every month, from 4 till 8, we are at Stirchley Community Market (at the Working Men's Club in Stirchley). You can come and visit to get what you need; if you are coming down for something in particular then it is best to send me an email first just so I can make sure that I bring it with me.

There are also all kinds of local food and craft stalls including bread, pickles, apple juice, cakes, cheese and other savoury food. You can find out more as well as get directions here.

Here are some links to a few of the other stall holders.
Urban Harvest: Sell apple juice and jams, find out how you can have your surplus fruit collected and turned into juice.
Martineau Gardens: Sell plants and you can also visit their community garden in Edgbaston.
Leverton & Hall's: Sell all kinds of savoury food and cakes all from their deli and cafe on Mary Vale Road in Bournville.
These are just a few, there are many more stalls to see, so why not come along and take a look.