Marmalade Update

It was rather amiss of me not to write an update about the marmalade. According to the instructions I was following there are a couple of ways to know if a preservative has reached its setting point. These include using a thermometer and when a certain temperature has been reached then the setting point has also been achieved, and a second method involves letting a small bit of the preservative lie on a cold plate for a couple of minutes and if it has the consistency you require then it too has reached the setting point.

I went with the first method of setting the marmalade, but I must have done something wrong. The marmalade is very runny, but on the other hand it is absolutely delicious. Anyway, I still have several jars of blueberry jam to get through until we can start on the marmalade and I am hoping that it will have set a little by then. If not, it will make for a delicious orange marmalade sauce.

Orange Marmalade

In the middle of winter there are not many fruits that are in season, but one such useful fruit is the Seville Orange, which is available between January and February. The Seville Orange is also known as bitter orange, and has a very bitter or sour taste, but the reason I am interested in it is its use in making marmalade. Following a recipe from the Preserves book in the River Cottage Handbook series, today I bought a kilo of Seville Oranges and two kilos of demerara sugar.

So far I have cut the oranges up, squeezed the juice out and shredded the peel. Once this was done, I re-added the juice and covered the shredded peel with water. It is currently in my kitchen looking a bit like this:

 

They will remain in the bowl for 24 hours before being turned into about 6 450g jars of marmalade.

The seeds that I planted the other week are coming up well, and only a couple of seeds don't appeared to have come through, but there are plenty to help me start a herb garden once they get a big bigger and it gets a bit warmer outside. This is what it currently looks like on my kitchen window sill:

I think, moving from left-to-right we have sage, basil, chives and oregano but, due to my lousy record-keeping, I will have a much better idea when they grow a bit more.

First Sowing of the Year

Today I started my somewhat smaller gardening year by sowing a couple of different herbs. These consist of basil, garlic chives, sage, and oregano. I am only growing 8 modules of each herb since I am sowing them so early, but I wanted to get a start as the weather here in Victoria is so unseasonably mild due to El Nino. I am using top soil mixed with vermiculite for the sowing material and the root container is currently sitting on a heat mat. Hopefully the first seedlings should start appearing within the week.

My bread adventures continue, as I am currently creating two whole wheat loaves of bread with a mixture of seeds inside the bread. As I grow in confidence it is fun to try different mixtures in order to vary the bread being created.

My New Backyard

This is a picture of my new backyard, or to be precise the back of my yard. the house is to one side of the lot and so there is a bit of garden to one side, but this used to be a driveway to a workshop. we are not going to use the workshop per se, so this driveway is open to be developed for a veg garden. I am currently thinking that I will install two 4ftx20ft beds eventually, but that is a lot of gravel to move so baby steps.

This is to the one side of the driveway. There is a shed and some kind of extension that I think can be used as a greenhouse, especially if I install another window. I may also add some kind of coldhouse at the bottom of the windows. This area gets Sun all year round, so it'll be a good area to develop for crops like tomatoes, I think.

This is to the side of the house. It will receive Sun during the Summer but I do not know when the Sun will be high enough to get over the roof of the house. I won't be developing this area this year, but will keep an eye on the situation over the year so that I can make a plan for next year.

New Year's Resolution

Since I last posted back in the Summer I have moved to a place called Victoria, which is on Vancouver Island in BC. Unfortunately, the area for my vegetable patch is a lot smaller than in my previous house but, on the plus side, the climate is warmer and therefore the growing season is slightly longer.

On a bigger issue, the area that I am considering for my vegetable patch needs a lot of work as it is currently covering in gravel. sounds like fun. I need to work out my plan and see what can be done and grown this year. Pictures coming soon.