Winter again!

18th of March and woke up to a good covering of snow! Not unprecedented though but right now we should be expecting Spring! It is the duration of the cold weather that's really quite unusual though, cold easterly winds and nothing expected to change much for the next two weeks. This time last year we had 25 deg C about now, but that was indeed the only summer we got!

So, we've had three cold winters out of the past 4 years, which is actually rather normal, although winters 09/10 and 10/11 did have some really quite severe cold snaps with snow for a fortnight and -13 to -16 deg C at one point at night.

But going from 25 deg C last March to a summer with nothing but rain

http://cashandcarrots.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/allotment-report-or-weeds-r-us-with-bit.html

and then having the cold winter last into Spring, really is making problems for farmers and growers. I don't think we did too bad last year with the potatoes, they lasted until Christmas whereas I know that agricultural yields not just for potatoes were well down on normal. I even heard of sheep getting foot-rot from standing in flooded fields for too long.

Now, the cold means that many farmers, already losing money from having to buy in animal fodder, the various animal diseases going round, now find they can't plant seeds for this year.
We would normally have got parsnip seeds in by now and started germinating seeds etc. but it's too cold.

Parsnip Wine Making - part 2

Well, I finally got around to making parsnip wine. Or should I say parsnip and sultanas wine as the raisins make the wine taste a lot better, or so I am told!

Some links are on my earlier post
http://cashandcarrots.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/parsnips.html


Anyway, I started with 2kg (4lb) of parsnips, 1.25kg (2.5lb) sugar, 0.5kg (1lb) sultanas, 7g (0.25oz) of citric acid (lemon juice) and 1 UK gal (4.5 litres) of water.

First step was to dig up the parsnips! And then scrub and scrub them again. But not peel!

That's what 2kg of parsnips looks like!

Now to chop them up, not too small

And then boil them for approx 15 minutes with the sugar, you want them softer but not in any way mushy. 

I had to do them in two batches as I didn't have a pan big enough. 

So, once cooler I poured the mixture of parsnips, sugar and water into the plastic pail...

I then added the sultanas and citric acid and the remainder of the water to bring up to 1 Gallon, as well as the Campden tablet

A day later I added the yeast and yeast nutrient and it only too about another 24 hours for there to be visible signs of fermentation. 

I now took a reading on the hygrometer, and it was right in the middle of the blue bit that said "start wine". Which was a relief! Though I am still a little confused as this seems to be between 1.070 and 1.090. whereas you are supposed to start between 1.095 and 1.110. However a quick search on Google and a bit of head scratching showed that there's correction factors for temperature, volume of wine etc so it seemed to be ok And it was in the right range on the actual hygrometer!

The plastic pail lived in a corner of the bedroom for 3 days, in hindsight it should have been slightly warmer as the fermentation did slow down a bit. 

However, now came the awkward bit. With the help of one of my daughters (money changed hands!) we filtered the mixture into a demijohn using a plastic funnel with a sieve placed inside the funnel. Not an easy thing to do, as the plastic pail is quite heavy and there is a danger of a stray piece of parsnip or sultana falling into the demijohn off the side of the funnel! If that happens, pour the mixture back into the pail and start again. 

You will need to scrape the sieve out quite frequently as the holes get clogged up. 

So, after about half an hour or so of careful pouring and cleaning out the sieve we managed it, and fitted the airlock. In the top of the airlock (the u-shaped bit) I poured a small bit of water and within a short space of time the gas from the wine pushed the water up to one side. (Once no gas is being given off, fermentation has ended and this water will be level)

So the wine is now sitting in the demijohn, plopping away every so often as the bubbles come up and there's a small thermometer on the side reading 20.5 deg C which is a bit warmer than in the pail as the demijohn is smaller and can be put a little closer to the radiator. Don't go over 30 deg C or you'll kill the yeast and below about 10 deg C the fermentation would slow down or even stop - there was a noticeable difference between 20 and 15 degrees C in the pail.

So, in 3 months time I should have some wine ready for bottling but it depends on the dryness, I may need to add more sugar and ferment a bit longer as I am not keen on dry wines. 

Parsnips

Hacking parsnips out of the ground again! As with most of England we have snow and frost just now, -8 deg C last week, so the ground is a wee bit frozen!

Wilkinsons have expanded their range of wine making and home brew kit, was in their shop in Northallerton last week and got quite a nice surprise as I was expecting to have to trawl the internet to get what I needed for wine making, but it was all in one place to get!
So I spent about £30 and got a large plastic tub with lid, another demijohn (I already have one), tubing, yeast, a hygrometer, yeast food, campden tablets, a funnel and something else which I think is for clearing the wine.

Why all this? Well shortly I want to try parsnip wine making, we deliberately planted an extra row of parsnips this year so as we can try this.

Here goes with various snippets from the internet

WARNING! I HAVE NOT TRIED ANY OF THE LINKS AND RECIPES LISTED BELOW SO I CANNOT VOUCH FOR THEIR ACCURACY! HOWEVER, THESE ARE BITS OF RESEARCH THAT I WILL BE USING TO HELP ME NEXT MONTH.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/nov/09/how-to-make-parsnip-wine
http://jonathanspain.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/home-winemaking-tips-for-beginners/
amylase
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/grapevine/juicy-gossip/hazels-parsnip-wine_11876.html
10-20 mins boiling
Having had great success with elderberries last year, I'm just making some parsnip now. I've sort-of averaged a load of recipes I've found, and come up with:
4lb parsnips srubbed and sliced, boiled about 25 mins, strained onto 3lb sugar (1lb is dark brown coz I happened to have that in the cupboard, should add an interesting colour), about 1/2lb chopped raisins and 2Tbsp citric acid. When that's simmered for about 40 minutes I'll put it in a fermenting bin with a crushed Campden tablet and leave it to cool to 21C. Then pectolase, yeast nutrient, and yeast; stir daily for 10 days; rack into a demijohn. Then the long wait...

http://www.wine-making-guides.com/parsnip_wine.html
http://www.lowcostliving.co.uk/home-brewing/recipe-parsnip-wine.php
http://www.lowcostliving.co.uk/home-brewing/recipe-beetroot-recipe.php
http://www.yobrew.co.uk/parsnip.php
http://www.winesathome.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?3960-Parsnip-wine-another-one

Energy saving tips

It is amazing how much energy some people waste! You would think in these days of high energy costs, everyone would be switching things off at every opportunity, and insulating everything in sight!

10 ideas for energy saving

1. Lights off when you don't need them! Same goes for the TV and other electrical appliances - one of the neighbours seems to leave the TV on all night!

2. Drive slower, I drive at about 60mph now on A roads and motorways, and now get about 550 miles to 50 litres of petrol (car is a 1.6l Scenic). The way you drive is also a factor, steady not zooming around from junction to lights etc

3. Turn the heating down - adjust the timer for the times you really need it, and turn down to 16 or 17 deg C, plenty warm enough apart from in really cold snaps. Heat the rooms you are in.

4. Close the curtains at dusk, make sure windows are shut when the heating is on.

5. Change energy supplier - I have just changed and will save about £100-150 a year all being well. Look at your energy use in cooking, electric rings stay hot for a while after switch off, food will still cook with the remaining heat, switch off the kettle before the end, it's boiling quite a bit before it switches off.

6. Look at your appliances and central heating - I went from a G rated back boiler to a A rated combi, most appliances are A or even A+ rated nowadays

7. Keep doors shut - retain the heat in the rooms. Make sure visitors do the same when they come in!

8. Look at renewables if you have the spare cash to invest, and can justify the payback time. User solar or wind up chargers for phones and radio etc.

9. Grow your own - better for you (if organic), better for the environment (massive food miles by supermarkets), buy local

10. Insulate - loft grants are still available, as are cavity wall ones. If you don't have cavity walls, put a layer of loft insulation on a bare wall, with wooden slats between the lengths, then tongue and groove panel over the top to give a nice insulated wall, and it stops damp as well on cold walls.

Above all, just think about what you do, and what you can do to save energy!

Long time, no blog!

It's been a while since I last posted, time seems to have gone so quickly. Now it's November and the allotment is going into shutdown mode (cue Windows (tm) chime...)

There are still plenty of parsnips growing, in fact there's two rows, one for eating and one for wine making, that's assuming I can get another demijohn, a sterilised bucket and all the other associated bits and bats before January. There's leeks as well but that's really about it apart from the fractal cauliflower (below) which, now picked, I am told tastes like broccoli.

So, much of the work has been digging over the ground ready for next year, though there's some winter broad beans gone in and some winter lettuce and cabbage. I have got some manure (a local farmer drops some off for the allotment holders to share each year), so that's around where the peas and beans will go, and I have mulched around some of the fruit trees. I need to stake out the pears as they are growing a lot now.

The Moon

Isn't it strange, I was reading about why a "blue moon" is called a blue moon yesterday, and lo and behold we have one today. Though it's cloudy and you can't see it! A blue moon is the second full moon in a particular month. As this only occurs once every 2.75 years or so, hence the saying "once in a blue moon". The reason is that the moon's cycle is 29 days, whereas months are mostly 30 or 31 (except Feb of course), so eventually the date of full moon fits twice within a month.

As always Wikipedia explains best

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_moon

So I decided to do a bit of Moon digiscoping! I know this isn't quite full moon but you have to do this when the sky is clear!

For digiscoping you don't need too much equipment. You can use your compact camera - in fact I have read that compact cameras are actually better for this than DSLRs in some respects, although you need a long shutter speed for anything really remote, like nebulae etc (and an equatorial mount but I can't afford one of those just now!). You also need a camera mount for the telescope - about £20. The telescope btw was about £50 off eBay, it's a 75mm objective with a 25mm and 9mm lens and 3x Barlow Converter. So it gets some decent stuff for casual viewing. And it's the right way up so I can digiscope wildlife as well.

The above is a close up of Tycho, a crater near the base of the moon. Notice the white rays coming off it, which are streams of material ejected when the meteorite impacted the moon's surface. These rays are common to a few craters such as Archimedes and Plato in the north west quadrant of the moon (viewed right way up), and are only really spectacular near the full moon, whereas for crater spotting you probably need a much less full moon to get the shadows etc.

The difficulty with digiscoping is setting the telescope up first, even though the moon is pretty big in the sky you would be surprised how difficult I found it with a 9mm lens to pinpoint it. Plus it moves in the few minutes it takes to point the telescope the right way! Before I got the camera mount I took video to compensate for camera shake and telescope shake, and also before I found the setting on the compact camera (a Canon) to delay a photo for anything up to 2 or 3 minutes - though 20 seconds is usually enough.

I haven't had much luck yet with stars, despite keeping the shutter open for a while - in any case to do this properly as I mentioned you would need an equatorial mount and probably a 4 to 6 in scope, which isn't in my budget just now....

Nothing new under the sun...

Just reading a very interesting volume collection of a weekly newspaper called The Graphic published in Victorian times. This volume covered the period of January to June 1887 and does seem to be contemporary published folio, based on what I read on such as AbeBooks.

Some topics in the news include:

Concern regarding the call to Jihad by an Afghan ruler, particularly against the Russian empire.
An enquiry into the earnings of doctors to see whether some doctors were being paid excessively
Concerns about "the 3 R's" in education
various earthquakes and disasters at sea.
Whether the Post Office should deliver on Sundays.
Preparations for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria and a historical look back at the Jubilee of George 111.

Though some topics are definitely of the time:

Discovery of Gold in the Transvaal     (now South Africa)
The last battle in the wars in Arizona and Mexico against the Apache Indians
The opening of the new Tay Bridge

Adverts were for such as Pear's soap, Fry's chocolate and cocoa, Beecham's remedies

One advert was entitled "To Stout People" and was a remedy to cure obesity!