Carpeting The Garden

I don't keep on top of weeds nearly as much as I should. They have a habit of getting away from me and engulfing what would otherwise be a lovely veg patch.

In the running for the most boringly pointless picture ever - here is a picture of a bit of carpet on some weeds

So these bits of carpet they were chucking out at work have become my new weed matting. I've got loads (and from when I did the living room renovation in the summer) and it's cost nothing. Laid out over the weeds it should stop some of them growing whilst still letting water through to the ground below.

What does everyone else use for weed matting and can you think of any negatives to using leftover carpet in this way?

Pressing Apples

On Sunday we pressed the apples that we had scratted the day before. I enjoyed the process as it was quite therapeutic and not something that could be rushed.

Here it is in pictures:

Laying out the first "hair" (dustsheets that have been washed ready for use) on top of a frame

The first cheese formed

Some of the pulp we were pressing - the red flecks were from the tom putts that we added to the mix of apples

Building up the stack. the two bars under the frame are called needles and they keep the frame sitting square until the next layer is added.

The press was fairly simple just using a 20 ton bottle jack with metal frame above - so not much could go wrong with it

The juice flowed well!

When being pressed the cheeses almost look like they've been glossed

It's amazing how thin it gets once its been pressed

We did two pressings in the end and that gave us 150 litres of apple juice

Testing the sugar content so we can work out the % of alcohol when it's finished fermenting

Dinner was a traditional Malaysian dish call mee hoon - Lovely and completely different from my normal sandwiches

We're now going to let the natural yeasts ferment the juice and the next step should be in a month or so. Trouble is I want to try the cider now!

Fox Attack

Well November hasn't gone down as my bet chicken keeping month ever!

Saturday morning I went out to feed my three lots of birds (the young lot have been moved to mum and dads as payment for corn!) only to find that the two silkies are no more. This was the only lot that I didn't shut in at night as their coop was so small and difficult to get into I thought it would be safe enough from foxes.

I guess I've learnt a lesson from that but it's a shame that they had to go that way! this were unproductive birds so they're loss isn't going to impact on egg production but I did quite like them and he was always the first to crow when I went outside.

Never mind, time to get the 12 bore and the gun lamp back out I think...

Apple Scratting

On Saturday we started the next step in our cider making process. We crushed and chopped the apples in an electric apple scratter ready so we can press it on Sunday.

Cleaning the apples

The look good enough to eat although I wouldn't!

The electric scratter that made the job quite easy

My little helper carrying a bucket of apples with me. I'm surprised she found time between eating as many apples as she could get away with.

Waiting to be pressed

The theory of doing this over two days is that the cider has a greater flavour over one that is scratted and pressed on the same day. I think that we managed to tackle around 300kg of apples in a few hours, so not too bad going really and not long enough for my little helper to get bored!

Maternal Instinct

This little girl loves her little sister so much!

I know little boys play with guns and little girls play with dolls but we've not knowingly pushed her in that direction (she has a train set!). She just wants to do little girl things.

But I never realised that a little person under the age of two could be so caring. If Melissa starts crying she tells her mum, when we change her nappy she brings us a new one and puts the dirty one in the bin, she tries to share food with her, protects her from other toddlers, constantly checks on her, kisses her, hugs her.

It melts your heart really. We were so worried about her being jealous. What a good big sister!