New year Bits and Bobs - 2016.

[dan3008]

mines always trying to eat mud and other yuck. im pretty convinced shes eaten some earthworms to... ah, you gotta eat a bit of muck before you die, thats what my gram always said

[Pa Snip]

Saturday 07:46am Looking a bit overcast out there already.

Fed up with not being able to get things done. At least here it is only extremely wet, not flooded

Was due to meet friends from Kent for lunch today, due to their local river rising we have taken a rain check. Very appropriate term in current situation.

[oldherbaceous]

Winter will soon have us in her ever tightening grip.....be prepared.

Not one of my cheeriest post, i have to admit.

[Pa Snip]

Morning OH

Careful old chap, you're almost sounding like the late John Laurie.

[Geoff]

Real Winter might be better than what we have been having, might be a bit more daylight. When is the rain going to stop, 25.4mm yesterday and already 23.4 today. 322.6mm (12.7") since I set up the new weather station on 17th December - remember that is after storm Desmond. At least the greenhouses and tunnel will start the new season well cleaned though some days I don't even like working in there.

[dan3008]

Just added to my new year bits and bobs... realising am already almost a month behind on my gardening... Nothings properly dug, my greenhouse is in a neat little pile next to the shed, the poly tunnel is still a pipe dream, and the climbing plant supports are... well my bambo canes are dust...

--edit--

but my seeds are all nicely organised into order of when to start planting them , well mostly...

[Pa Snip]

Bit of planning to do, fitting marmalade making into the schedule.

My annual supply of Seville oranges has arrived.
7kg delivered late yesterday afternoon along with more than enough lemons.

Have 1 x 2kg jam making sugar in cupboard, need to go out and get 6 more bags.

I usually make enough to last through until the next January when Seville oranges arrive again (which means I make about 26 - 30 jars).
Got 5 jars left from last years efforts and in keeping with my policy I shall still make enough to see me through to next year.

Just hope that this year I don't make a hash like I did last year. Ended up going out and buying more oranges because I totally messed up and had to bin a couple of batches

[PLUMPUDDING]

Thanks for the reminder PaSnip. Must look out for Seville oranges I forgot last year. I had my first attempt two years ago and it was delicious. Took ages to cut all the peel up though. Do you have a quick method? Or some special cutter to speed the job up?

[Pa Snip]

Thanks for the reminder PaSnip. Must look out for Seville oranges I forgot last year. I had my first attempt two years ago and it was delicious. Took ages to cut all the peel up though. Do you have a quick method? Or some special cutter to speed the job up?

You're welcome PP. The season of availability is so short it is very easy to miss out.

As for a quick way of cutting peel, I wish !!!, other than a good sharp knife I have no suggestions. Sorry

[Monika]

I made my annual crop of Seville orange marmalade last night, but just from 1kg of oranges! Next lot to do are a similar amount of ginger marmalade (with Seville oranges, lemon, root ginger and preserved ginger) - they always sell especially well at fundraising events, in my case usually a Macmillan coffee morning in September.

Winter certainly arrived here last night with a thick covering of snow. From our upstairs windows we can see a long gentle slopey field on the other side of the valley and that has been busy all day with families sledging. Very tempted to join in but that might be a little dangerous at my age and with osteoporosis! But I did enjoy walking through the snow this morning just to collect the newspapers from the village shop.

[robo]

With all this talk of oranges I'm getting very edgy, the Orange groves are around seven miles down the road from where we are in Spain I love fresh orange juice first thing in the morning (about tenish) we buy 14 kilo bags for around 9€ I spend half my time pressing them

[oldherbaceous]

We had a couple of inches of snow last night, so when i went to wind the Church clock this morning, i took the longest strides that i could.... it looked as if someone about eight foot tall had walked along the path.....childish i know and i bet everyone that saw them would have guessed who had done it, anyway.....but it still made me smile.

[Stephen]

Sevilles already! Eeeeeeeek! I'm busy for the next two weekends. I wonder how much space there is in the freezers.

[Primrose]

We got our Sevilles feom Waiteose on Friday and made 21 jars over the weekend, some to replenish our storecupboard as we're currently on our last jar, and the remainder (plus many more jars no doubt) for the local fund raising cause we make it for. Incidentally we also used up some Secilles which had been in our freezer since last February. They had been insividually wrapped in clingfilm and had kept perfectly. Once thawed out the skins were also a lot easier to chop up than fresh ones. It helps to have a knife sharpening session before starting ! We always hand chop because food processors seem to shred the skins into matchstocks and we like "proper" chunky marmalade with nice thick peel.

We also make a Three Fruit Citrus variety (orange, lemons, grapefruit) which is deliciously zingy, or Four Feuit citrus adding lime juice as well. We learnt though that when you boil lime peel it goes as tough as wood and is a real tooth breaker so now just use the juice. We once made a batch of Four Fruit Citrus for fund raising and the lime peel ended up so hard we had to go through the whole batch after it had set and fish out every single shred of lime peel in case someboth biught it and broke a tooth !

I may have raised this query before but if anybody has found a way of keeping lime peel soft during the boiling process I would be delighted to hear it.

Monika . Could you post your recipe /ginger quantities for your ginger marmalade please. It sounds delicious and would be nice to increase our fund raising marmalade range.

[Monika]

I have put the Ginger Marmalade recipe on the forum as a separate post in case somebody else might miss it in this thread.

By the way, I have had exactly the same problem with hard lime peel in the past and no longer use it. I boiled and boiled and boiled it but it never softened!