All you need is love and cake

Love is a Mosaic made by Helen Clues

Cake

She spied wild flowers on the seashore

Wild flowers on the Seashore - Cyprus 2011

Blackcurrant Bushes Planted

A couple of weeks ago I dropped Mr S off in Shepton Mallet to start his weekend away with friends exhibiting a large model railway layout.  As I knew it was market day there, I went down to see what was on offer.  There were only a few market stalls, but I spied one with plants.  There were some bare-rooted fruit bushes, all well labelled, and with their root balls very nicely taped up in small bags with soil around them.  I found the stall holder very helpful, giving me advice on the best fruit for the area.

These bushes had been grown in Norfolk.  He had a variety of fruit bushes and trees.  When I asked about the variety he would recommend for my small garden he suggested Ben Sarek and found me two very sturdy plants.

A few months ago I had been researching which varieties to grow and this is one of the recent introductions and is compact , and self fertile.  What I like is that Ben Sarek is early fruiting, frost and mildew resistant, and has good yields of large berries.

Today the sun has been shining, it hasn't rained, and I felt the pull of the outdoors.  After half an hour or so of weeding, my eye fell on the plants standing up by the water-but.  Each plant has been carefully planted in a deep hole, and the soil as it was returned around the roots, mixed with well matured compost and fish, blood and bone.  It was very nearly dark when I finished, but my little camera still coped with the low light.

In all my gardens and also when I had an allotment, I have planted blackcurrants.  They are a fabulous fruit to have, and each bush can yield a few pounds.  Even when I was without fruit for a season or two, I managed to find some lovely fruit for preserving.  One of my favourite deserts although quite simple is poached pears and blackcurrants.

Mr S's choice preserve by far is Blackcurrant Jam.  When we went together to pick some at a pick your own farm, he realised just how hard work they are to pick...and hence the price in the shops.

And now for the hard to bear pruning regime, which entails cutting these lovely little twigs with their promising buds down to about two inches above ground.  I was really hoping to find some way of keeping some stems and hence fruit this season.  I did leave a couple of bushes like this in my last garden, but the hard pruned ones did perform the best.  Tomorrow I shall go out, and prune them hard, and as the stems look so healthy, will try rooting them for additional plants.

Here is to 2019 when I hope to pick the first blackcurrants!

Cheese and Onion Sourdough Bread

It seems ages since I had my hand in sourdough, and having refreshed the starter last night, I set about one of the baking challenges set this month.

At the same time I made up something that approximates to Do-good Bread, divided  into a loaf, and some mixed up with soaked up bottom of the bag fruit and fibre cereal with added fruit.  Its one of the ways I use up all the fine stuff left at the bottom of the cereal bag!  We end up with breakfast bread that uses up what would have been wasted.  Our wild birds prefer sunflower hearts to left over cereal!

As I write this up, the smell of the cheese and onion loaves, slowly cooling on the rack, is wafting upstairs. Supper this evening will be this bread together with a warming and spicy soup.  We had a altogether delicious and filling lunch, and this will do very nicely indeed.

The recipe gives a 1.4 Kg loaf, which would be great for a gathering.   I therefore chose to make two smaller loaves, and feeling that my dough would slide across the baking sheets during its two to three hours final proof, used two deep pan  baking tins. 

As for the 200g mature Cheddar Cheese, this was not on the cards for us.  Such a shame as Cheddar is just down the road...Instead I thought some goat's cheese from a farm even closer at Wookey, bought straight from the farmer at the Wells's farmers' market on Wednesday would do very nicely.  It came wrapped in grease proof paper..so absolutely no plastic in this instance!

Once the dough was ready for its final rise, it was popped into tins...

and after about two hours I brushed them with egg wash and added just a small sprinkling of cheese.

Then after another hour...I felt they were ready for the oven.  After the first blast I decided to sit out in the kitchen and watch the loaves carefully through the oven window and was happy that the cheese did not burn.

Here they are turned out and cooling....

When I popped into the library this week...out on the New Books stand I found this one.  Of course, I was drawn by the title...and I have found it entertaining and amusing and read about Lois being shortlisted, or not for a market stall in San Francisco.  Nice to have a novel with a character who is beguiled by sourdough!

Off to heat up the soup now.....

Crassula falcata miniatum

I believe this plant to be Crassula perfoliata var. falcata or var.minor, but my plant looks different to the ones I have seen on the internet.

It has the interesting sickle shaped grey leaves but after about 8cm tumbles down and just keeps growing down, with many side shoots. For me it has never flowered but even so, the very grey leaves and their sickleshape are worth growing this plant for.  I am putting a link here to Bruce Brethauer's article on this plant at The Central Ohio Cactus and Succulent Society as it gives very good guidelines on cultivation etc.  Having read the article I shall adopt cooler winter time temperatures with as much light as possible, with even more sunshine during the summer months.  I also now understand that they may go into a summer dormancy when watering ought to be reduced.

Again it is only now that I write about this plant for the first time.  I have or rather had two plant pots with Crassula falcata.  I have had them a number of years.  I used to have them in the conservatory, but thought it was too cool and had them either side of the bay window on the windowsill.  It is only because they are in heavy clay pots within a ceramic pot outer that the weight of the plant does not overbalance.

Yesterday I found one half  of one of the plants on the floor.  Unlike the plant in the picture above, it had a little 'overwatering' injury a few years ago, with a blackened stem.  It continued growing but I think the weight of the growth was so great that it finally fractured at this point.

Here is the broken stem from which I started to prepare some new cuttings.  

I have taken some today for one of the stall holders at Wells Market who is a bit of succulent lover.., along with some bulbs from the Ledebouria, and Crassula ovata gollum. I have again put a link to some photographs of the Ledebouria taken by Bruce Brethauer on flick.

I shall wait a day or two and pot them up in some sandy compost. I wonder whether fellow blogger Daisy Debs will have this plant and comment. If you don't have this one Daisy, and would like a piece, then just ask. If anyone else reads this post, and has anything to add on their views as to what this plant is etc...comments would be very welcome.