My other passion: Whisky

This blog is, of course, mainly about gardening but you have previously been treated to a blog about the creation of the first part of my whisky cabinet. I've not yet started the second part, but I will get that done over the summer. In the mean time, I have thought it would be nice to intersperse my updates about gardening with a photo-diary of my whisky collection.

So, this is the first of the series.

I will be taking a picture of each bottle, and saying a short bit about each one.

Caol Ila 12 year

I bought this bottle on the grand tour of Scotland I did with my best mate. Eight distilleries in four days while we were on Islay.

Milford 10 year Oak Cask

My best mate tries to buy me an interesting whisky or two a year, and this is one of them. Milford is no longer producing, and this is bottled from a diminishing collection of casks laid down between 1987 and 1993.

Glenmorangie 12 year Gold Rum Cask

This was my first ever bottle, given to me by an old chap who lived in a flat above me years ago, as a thank you for talking to him of an evening. This particular bottle is empty, and I REALLY want to get some more because it is lovely.

The Glenlivet 12 year

I don't know much about this, I can't even remember when I last tasted it. Sorry, I have too many :)

The Yamazaki 10 year

I bought this bottle just before the aforementioned grand tour of Scotland, as a comparison to the "proper" scotch. It is actually very good (better than the 12 and 15yr Yamazakis for sure) but we were quite surprised to walk into the Caol Ila shop and see a bottle sitting there, in the depths of Islay.

Laphroaig Quarter Cask

Laphroaig is such a stunning place; situated right on the coast of Islay, and their whisky is one of the more peated in the world. This bottle is particularly harsh though, and not one for a new-whisky drinker to try. It is fantastic though, and highly recommended.

Scapa "the" Orcadian 16 year

This is another bottle bought me by my best friend. It is a light whisky, which isn't my favourite thing (I prefer peated and rich whisky) but it is definitely drinkable. The distillery is situated in Orkney.


So that is it for now, I will be back to usual service on gardening blogs next time.

Oh, and just for Bob:

hot chicks in skin tight yoga pants

Close up of progress around the garden

A mainly picture led post today, with close ups of everything I am growing.

Thyme seedlings

A couple of Sage seedlings

Basil!

Tomato forest

Parsley tree :)

Corriander flowers

Chives

Lettuce seedlings

Hanging basket tomatoes; doing very well

Little apples developing :)

Stuttgarter Giant Onions

Karmen Red Onions

Red Sun Shallots

Casablanca Garlic

Parsnips

Carrots; most of the seedlings have been taken by birds; cover these with netting in future!

Main bed tomatoes

Sweetcorn

Cabbages (ready for thinning)

Peppers, just prior to being potted out into 3" pots

So there you have it.  This blog post was started last week but, while I was in the middle of typing it up, my laptop completely died and I have only just managed to recover the pictures and get another laptop working so I could complete it. So these pics are actually a few days old and, now, we have a seedling appearing for the Rosemary so we have a 100% record on the Kitchen Windowsill Herb Garden!

Right I'm off now to thin the Cabbage, protect the remaining Carrots from marrauding birds, and generally weed and earth up and maintain, all the stuff that one has to do to keep the garden growing how you want it to (cos you know it'll grow without you, but all the food would be swamped by weeds)

I'll blog again soon.

Pond cleaning and snail saving (guest post)

Our Pond

There is something rather therapeutic about cleaning the pond, so on Saturday I retrieved the pond net and began my little task, operation pond gook.  I got really stuck into it, got a great rhythm going with the net and then even pulled out leaves and gunk where the net wouldn’t go.

Snails in pond gook

The pond is full of snails. I tried carefully not to pick any up but it was hard not to; today was all about saving the snails.  I rummaged through each slop pile returning any shell backed slimeys I’d scooped.  God only knows what they were thinking, me launching them 6 ft across the pond.  This is turning into operation snail save.    

The pond looking much cleaner

I then sat by the pond and a bright blue damson fly came by and perched right in front of me.  Unfortunately I had my camera on lock and by the time I’d realised it was too late. 

Wild flowers by the pond

Later on in the back garden I was left instructions to water the plants.  I thought I would wash myself off after cleaning the pond with the new hose but who knew, I was too stupid.  

I must have turned it on too quick as the connecting bit just flew right off.  So I sorted it out and did it slowly but nothing was happening so I turned it a bit more; now the whole thing is off the tap.  After my phone lesson in hosing it is now on and working.

The sun is on its way down now so I may go give his plants a water then settle with some vino after my day of snail saving and sunbathing. 

Chow        

Thanks to my girlfriend for this post :) and for doing the pond :) and for watering the plants while I was out at Alabama 3:

Potting out the Chillis

Yesterday I finally managed to get round to potting out the chillis.

My chillis are SUBSTANTIALLY smaller than Jon's at work and I was starting to develop an inferiority complex. A theory has developed that I have stunted them by keeping them in small pots for too long...

So, follows the photo-story of me potting them into much larger pots to hopefully encourage the growth spurt that they so desperately need.

First I gathered together large pots for the purpose. I have seven chilli plants remaining.

Then I put some plastic packing material in the bottom of each pot, to improve drainage and stop waterlogging.

The pot was then filled with compost and a hole dug centrally that was big enough to accept the root-system.

Each plant was carefully placed into the hole, ensuring that the roots were not disturbed, and the stem was below the surface of the soil up to the first baby leaves (a trick described in lessons learned from potting out my tomatoes).

The plant, placed as described above.

A very happy looking chilli plant, with the soil tamped down gently to secure the stem, and watered liberally to encourage bedding in.

I now have two chilli plants back in the window where the plant nursery is, one on my bedroom window, one in one of the greenhouses and three in pots actually outside; this means that the current change in weather (I'm now watching out for rain) is directly a result of my putting hot weather plants outside without protection!

Once this blog is done I will be going to stake out the plants which are outside, to ensure if the storm that is brewing does break, the plants are not blown over and killed.

I managed just now to complete a full weeding circuit of the main vegetable beds; the first time I have been over the Carrots and the Parnsips. This has taken me about an hour all told (20 mins yesterday and 40 today) and I am pretty confident there are no weeds left in any patch. This gives you an idea of how long it is taking me to keep up with all these plants. I may just do a study of the time I'm spending over a whole week and write a blog about that.

The only bed left to weed now is the Cabbages, and they are doing very well so this is going to be my task for tomorrow evening after work.

Finally, I have once again been mentioned on twitter on one of those online newspapers and I would like to say "thank you" to the people who put it together; it's great to be being read by people and if any of you come to this from one of those link sites then Welcome and please make yourself at home.

I'm actually on The Idaho Agriculture paper twice, with yesterdays blog post.

Edit - I have staked out the chilli plants:

Edit 2 - told you it'd rain:

Stinging Nettle Tea update, and progress

Well it's been quite a while since my last update, for me. Just life getting in the way.

I have been keeping on top of the gardening, but the time to write up and upload pictures onto the blog just hasn't been forthcoming.

This is one of those things as a Part Time Homesteader, as you have to prioritise your time and, obviously with the weather we've been having, getting round and watering all the plants is far more important while it is so hot.

Anyway, I have been taking photographs over the last few days and this is just a quick update about a few things I wanted to get out as they're starting to get very passe now.

First of all, I don't know if the Stinging Nettle Tea worked on not, but GOD DAMN it smelt FOUL so I had to get rid (it was effecting the use of the garden with the stench)

Mmmmm stinky water with stinky stinging nettles in it.

Oh well, you live and learn.

The Thyme is showing through nicely (this is a couple of days old so they're even better now).

The Basil is coming through even better.

I'm up to three tyres on the potatoes now. I've now run out so if anyone has any knackered tyres they're not using....?

The main bed potatoes are growing really well too, and I'm having to earth them up every couple of days. This is taking the most time of everything (including having to water all the tomatoes)

The Cabbage really is ready for "pricking out" now; thinning the seedlings so only the strongest remains, at a good separation for maximum growth per plant.

So that is my very quick update; I have another couple of blogs in the pipeline so I will update again later today probably.

Thanks for reading.

Potting out the sweetcorn

The sweetcorn that I planted as seeds a few weeks ago has grown SO fast!

Below are a few "daily photographs" to demonstrate just how fast, once it showed, it has shot up...

 Day 1

 Day 2

 Day 3

 Day 4

 Day 5

 Day 6

 Day 7

I haven't taken any daily pics for the last few days, but they had grown so much they were above the white bar visible above them in the last picture.

So I decided that today (well yesterday, as I'm typing this) was the right time to plant these seedlings out into the prepared bed that I dug out and cleared and dug in some good compost over the previous few weeks.

The tray of sweetcorn seedlings next to the bed, before I raked and cleared it finally

Post raking - I've broken up the big lumps of soil and taken out some MORE glass

Digging a hole for the first seedlings

Splitting the root ball up; this was a bad idea in the end, and later I'll show a better method of doing this.

The two seedlings nicely bedded in and ready for watering.

A better method of splitting the root ball; spraying it with the hose to clear all the soil away and allow the water to untangle the roots leaving....

... a nice clean plant and root system which can be replanted without any breakages.

The final plant bed, hopefully these will continue to grow at the same rate and some BBQs will be in our future, with corn on the cob straight off the plant :)

I am thinking of starting some more sweetcorn seedlings straight away, in case some of these don't take, and also possibly to extend the bed to grow some more.

To add another chapter to the "Tomato Tolstoy" I have finally potted out every seedling into larger pots, I doubled up the hanging baskets so there are two plants in each now. Now to keep watering them EVERY day and seeing which grows best.

The rest of the garden is coming on very well too; I will need to be pricking out the lettuce, carrots and parsnips soon as they are looking far more established. No sign yet of Lettuces, but the Kitchen Window herb garden is looking good.

Today was so warm I have come inside to do this blog rather than be outside in the sun; think I'll go back out now though as it's baking out there and I do like the sun.

Final comment; the pond is much clearer now, and today I saw lots of fish in it and a large frog that stuck it's head out through some weed to cool down, then splashed off after a couple of minutes. There were also some Damsel Flies scooting around, but photographs of them just didn't come out.