Tag Archives: Winter

Preparing for Winter..during a summer heatwave..oh yes!

Yes we are currently enjoying scorching temperatures here in the UK. ..and how lovely it is too!  But that doesn’t mean we can forget that Winter creeps up on us silently and before we know it we are wearing our woolly jumpers  and lugging firewood inside again.

So today I have been preparing for Autumn and Winter by harvesting garlic and onions to store for later in the year and by drying even MORE herbs to put by for the colder months.

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Two types of mint and oregano go into the dehydrator today.

I shall be drying blackcurrants, peas, sliced onion, more nettle tops, clover flowers, elderberries, tomatoes, sage ..and lots more. Having just been gifted 30 large sweet jars from our local sweet shop, I now have plenty of dry storage space for them all.

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Preparing my homegrown garlic for plaiting and storing

Garlic will be dried off in the sun and then plaited and hung up . I have strung some onions already.. They are hanging in the cottage lean-to. All the small loose ones will get used first or sliced and dehydrated,  to add to soups and stews in Winter. This year my onion harvest was poor compared to last year, so I may end up having to buy some in! I use a lot of onions.

Although I do still have perennial onions in the ground so all is not lost.

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The cottage kitchen smells divine..mint and oregano scent the rooms!

I shall be lifting some of the wild horseradish that grows on the riverbank here and making horseradish sauce too. I love the hot spiciness of horseradish. Surplus can be frozen, dehydrated or stored in boxes of dry sand over winter. Here are a few more ways to use and store this pungent root.

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Wild horseradish

So still lots to do…and although I am enjoying the sunshine, my mind is always thinking about the leaner months ahead  x

The first day of Spring…or is it?

So Spring has sprung..apparently..somewhere in the UK? ..but not here in Lincolnshire…yet!

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Despite a lovely show of flowers from the pretty pink heather growing by my wildlife pond and from the snowdrops that are brave enough to open their delicate white flowers long before the sun puts it’s hat on, as far as I am concerned we are still, albeit unofficially, stuck in Winter.

Spring pah!

Although I did spot a very lonely, sunshiny yellow dandelion, whilst out walking today, which made me smile.

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Spring or not, today here, in deepest rural Lincs, we have had yet more snow, sleet and freezing rain. The ground is either sodden or frozen.

Temperatures feel even lower with the bitter icy wind cutting across the open farmland and whipping around your ankles. It bites at your nose and tingles your ears. My extremities become a vivid shade of pink, my nose begins to run ( sexy huh!) and my fingers ‘burn’ with the cold til they throb and ache!

There is nothing quite so chilling as plunging a bucket into an icy water-butt and accidentally spilling most of the contents over oneself before you have even had breakfast!  Brrrrrr!!

I have a greenhouse full of seed trays, doing not very much at all 😦

I have goats that refuse to go out (and who can blame them). Instead they are happily munching their way through record amounts of hay, whilst tucked up inside their warm and cosy sheds.

My two driving ponies are competing with them for the most consumed hay in one season! It is a close call as to who will win! But I know my purse is definitely losing!

I have arm muscles like Popeye, from lugging, chopping and sawing up vast quantities of foraged and scrap wood for my fire…… all Winter long. It certainly does heat you twice.. or in my case three times.. fetching.. then cutting/ chopping ….and then finally burning.

I like the burning bit best. It heats my home and my water ..and makes lovely toasted marshmallows and roast chestnuts…so I shouldn’t complain 😉

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So what is one to do when Winter refuses to leave and nothing much is progressing outside… (apart from eating marshmallows and chestnuts that is.)…….

Well in my case I bake bread and cakes ( yep more nommy stuff..do you sense a theme?) …I drink tea and write ….I help my daughter with her projects   ….and I get on with indoors jobs, like ..dum dum dum…..the dreaded ‘housework’.

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But I am LONGING to be outdoors, with my hands in the soil…

To feel the sun on my back, as I work in the garden….

To smell freshly cut grass…

To have a break from sawing and chopping wood and fetching it in each and every day …..

….and from getting up at silly o’clock each morning to get the fire lit before my daughter rises…*sigh

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Roll on Spring and Summer!

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A blessed Equinox to you all x