The Good Life - No pain no gain!

 Fourth weekend of work on the new allotment - some progress visible!

The day finally came where we had to say good bye to the patch of ground which we toiled over, and planted with great energy and vigor in the past few years. The allotment, or "Venice" as I used to call it had its faults, mainly at high tide and when it rained, however we worked hard to enrich the ground and managed to get cultivate a reasonable production between the months of March and December. In fact we left Jerusalem artichokes in the ground and were digging them up as recently as two weeks ago.

As we closed the gate on the old allotment Fingal County Council allocated us another plot, and for the last three weeks we have been labouring away turning the soil with a fork and spade. My mind constantly wandered to the hard life of a medieval farmer who might have tilled his fields by hand. Thankfully my efforts at digging were further improved by our neighbour John, who rotivated the ground following the digging.

The rhubarb has survived and is leaping out of the ground

Corinne had a limited amount of time to target and rescue a number of plants for transplanting into the new allotment. The first task was to transplant the rhubarb; now over 2 years old the root system was prolific and it took us in excess of an hour to release its grip on the ground. The artichokes also made the cut and also had surprisingly large root systems. The rhubarb immediately found a home, and a large bucket was placed over it to begin forcing the growth. Last weekend while doing the shopping I saw some magnificent pale forced rhubarb from Holland and can only hope our transplanting has not shocked the root systems.

I escaped for an hour this morning to tap two silver birch trees and collect their sap. For a few weeks in March the silver birch [betula pendula] draws up a fructose rich sap into the trunk of the tree, being the nourishment required to kick start the Spring growth and the budding of the new leaves on the branches. A hole is drilled approximately 30mm deep into the trunk of the tree, about 1.5 meters above the ground. The sap will start to flow immediately and you can insert a metal tube with hose attached to collect the sap in a container. It can be used to make a wine or reduced to make a syrup. The syrup is not so easy to produce because you would need over 100 liters of sap to produce one liter of syrup.

There are quite a variety of recipes on the internet for making birch sap wine. Some use modern wine making technology employing various tablets and concentrates. I find the whole topic of country winemaking quite intriguing, since my first foray with elderflower cordial, which fermented rapidly and is now an accidental sparkling wine (success at last). The subject requires further reading to avoid mishaps and exploding jars, so I have decided to educate myself with Mary Aylett's "Country Winemaking", 1953 (now out of print but thankfully available on www.allibris.com ). For this experiment I have decided to steer clear of the complication of syrups and campden tablets, and prefer a rather simple recipe I have found on the river cottage website. This will produce a relatively clear dry wine I believe without the added flavours of apple or grape. More on this topic to follow.

As the raised beds have been prepared, we have gradually planted the sorrel, thyme, spinach and chard. Adjacent to this bed we have set down our "berry garden" (always wanted one of these!); gooseberries, raspberries, white currants, red currants and black currants form the backbone of this vital part of our Summer production liberally fed with a healthy layer of potash and horse shit(e).

We have a break mid week for Saint Patrick's day and we might get a few more hours work in on the allotment in advance of the anticipated long hours of hard labour at the weekend. Today the wind has moved into the south west for the first time in nearly two months, and while the temperatures have picked up and spring noticeably advances, I believe we may have some rainfall in the next few days. When the weekend arrives it will be interesting to observe how this allotment stands up to a spell of persistent rain.

 Hopefully it will taste as good as it looks