It’s looking very likely that Hannah Dawson will be coming here in November for 4-5 days to offer Equine Touch for horses and VHT for humans. Please let me know if you are interested, for you and/or your horse.
September, 2009:
Loofahs & Madagascar Beans
I’ve been wanting to grow loofahs ever since my aunt gave me one as a christmas present, for use as a washing up sponge/scourer. I’d only ever thought of them as being used to scrub your back in the bath before! I’d been looking for an alternative to the horrible sponge/scourers we use (I HATE buying them, but they seem to do the job best). So … today I finally remembered that I wanted to buy some loofah seeds and got onto google, and found a link to a great article http://down—to—earth.blogspot.com/2007/06/harvesting-loofahs.html which tells you everything you need to know about growing, harvesting and storing loofahs.
The article also mentions Madagascar Beans. “They’re a traditional permaculture plant. Two seeds will grow a wall of beans that can be shelled and stored in the cupboard as dried beans.” Never heard of Madagascar Beans so definitely need to check them out!
Grape Juice / Sumo de Uva
1: Set big pans of water on to boil, ready to sterilise the bottles.
2. Pick grapes (fogot to take photo of this, doh!).
3. Wash feet & tread grapes.
4. Put buckets of squished grapes into press (we pressed white (green) grapes first).
5. Collect juice (this is the juice from the red grapes)!
Don’t forget to taste it!
6. Pour boiling water into bottles to sterilise.
7. Strain juice into pans & heat to sterilising temperature (86 degs C).
8. Boil corks to sterilise.
9. Pour sterilised juice into bottles and cork.
Tomatillo Chutney
This is amazing stuff. Adapted from Pam Corbin’s recipe for “Seasonal Chutney” which she adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s “Glutney”.
1kg marrows or courgettes
1kg tomatilloes or green tomatoes
500g apples
500g onions
250g sultanas
500g sugar (i use the light brown stuff)
600ml white wine vinegar
50g fresh root ginger
Spice Option 1: 10 whole dried or fresh piri-piris, 2tsp black peppercorns, & 1 tsp coriander seeds
Spice Option 2: 4 tsps mixed pickling spice
Dice all the veg pretty small and chop the onions finely and the ginger very finely. Throw all the ingredients, except the sugar, into a big pan. Simmer gently until it’s pretty mushy. Add sugar. Continue to simmer gently until it’s a good dark brown colour and the consistency you want. Put into warm sterilised jars. Best if you can leave it at least a month to mature before eating!
