The first three and a half litres of home made ginger beer should be ready within 24 hours. The ginger beer bug plant is bubbling away and the next batch will be ready for bottling a week today. Meanwhile, the elderflower bush at the top of our upper field by the churchyard is in full flower, flowers we picked on Saturday afternoon.
In my larder 6 1/2 litres of elderflower chanpagne is now – I hope – beginning to bubble away. In theory it should be bottled on Friday and ready a week later. I will aim to make a second batch on Sunday after returning from Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks. And below you see just under two litres of elderflower cordial. It will be sitting and infusing until this evening when it will be bottled and ready for supper time and, later this week to use in making elderflower ice cream.
Meanwhile i have now harvested onions, garlic and shallotts all of which are drying to be threaded up later. Out on the garden around 20 marrow, squash, cucumber and courgette plants have been planted out as have ten tomato plants and the chillies and peppers. Two heavy thunderstorms in two days have provided much needed water for the whole garden.
A few, younger, home grown tomatoes and chillies are in the potting shed for planting later this month. Other than that it is just the Christmas potatoes, swedes, and a second run of beetroot, lettuces and leeks and I am done leaving just harvesting and weeding and new radishes every three weeks. Oh… and the strawberries are almost ripe and ready for a mass harvest from our several hundred plants.
