''Fresh'' supermarket produce

I harvested my potatoes in September/October. I didn't have any fancy storage facilities. I still have a few left and they are still perfectly edible if getting a little wrinkled. They have only just started sprouting, 5 months later, as Nature intended, and I'll be replanting them next month.

Shop bought potatoes sprout within less than a week, and are sometimes black/bruised inside. I have recently gone through two bags of supermarket potatoes, and had a massive amount of waste from all the grey/black bits. Disgusting!

Makes you wonder how bloody old they are??

Well, the answer to that, apparently, is anything up to 12 months! Even ''new'' potatoes can be as old as 7 months! I never knew that and I'm really disgusted... And of course it's not just potatoes. It makes me realise the value of growing my own even more...

Homegrown & homemade garlic preserve

Fermentation is one of the healthiest ways of preserving vegetables; it turns them into a real probiotic powerhouse - especially precious if you've been taking antibiotics and your natural gut flora is depleted. Sauerkraut is a staple in my house, as are cucumbers in brine. I had never tried garlic preserved that way, but seeing as I had a bumper crop of garlic this year I absolutely had to try it!

Garlic preserved in salty brine tastes delicious and doesn't leave behind a stinky breath the way fresh raw garlic does. But most importantly, fermentation intensifies its healing properties, and eating just a couple of cloves a day will really boost your immune system.

Here is the recipe; all quantities are approximate and will depend on the amount of garlic you use.

Garlic cloves - peeled. I used 6 garlic heads to fill 2 small jars.

Dried herbs, about a teaspoon - I used basil and lovage, but any favourite herbs will work.

Whole mustard or coriander seeds, about a teaspoon.

Fresh rosemary, 1 sprig.

Brine:

Water - enough to fill the jars you are using.
Salt - use 1 tbsp per 1 litre of water (adjust the amount of salt accordingly, e.g. if using 500ml of water, only use half a tablespoon of salt).

Jars and lids must be scrubbed clean and dipped in hot (boiling) water to kill any microbes.

Place the herbs and spices in the bottom of the jar(s). Add in the garlic - a tight squeeze is fine.

Boil the water with the salt. Pour boiling water into the jars, making sure the garlic is covered. 

Screw the lids on and turn the jars upside down, and leave them until they cool down completely, then turn them the right way up and store away in room temperature for at least a week. The warmer the environment, the quicker it will ferment, so if your house is cooler, 2 weeks is probably the minimum.

The garlic can be sliced and added to salads, used in cooking, or eaten on its own almost like a ''pill'' when you feel you need an immunity boost.

I'm drowning in mushrooms!

They're everywhere. My freezer is packed full of sliced wild mushrooms. I have dried around 6kg (13 lbs) of mushrooms and they're now sitting in jars, ready for the pantry. I have a tub full of fried chanterelles in the fridge, waiting to become tonight's dinner. I also have a tub of creamy birch-bolete sauce in there, a massive amount left over from an even more massive amount we had for yesterday's lunch. AND I CAN'T STOP! I just can't walk away from an edible mushroom when I see it. It's an instinct, it gives me such an adrenaline kick! I know where to look, I know how quickly they grow back and I just can't stop myself from picking them. I absolutely love mushrooms, and this must have been the most prolific season yet, and it's only just started! 

I have stared giving them away since I'm running out of storage, but my hunter-gatherer instincts are making me pick more and more basketfuls of these little wonders. I wonder if there's a way I could sell them!

Mushroom season has begun!

Mushrooms - my absolute favourite thing to forage for - have finally appeared. At least the types I pick; I know there always are some mushrooms out there, but I don't pick anything I don't recognise. 

I already have two tubs full of sliced mushrooms in the freezer, and a third one about half full. And it's just the beginning!

My latest find is the beautiful large porcini mushroom pictured below - found it yesterday 5min from my house. S pointed out to me today that a certain gourmet online store sells them for £17 a piece!! Now that's a saving, I got it completely free :-)

I also stumbled upon a big patch of lovely chanterelles in the same spot a couple of days ago. I adore them - they make such wonderful sauce! They weighed in at 250g, I wonder how much that would have cost to buy!

I can't wait to go for a proper ''hunt'' to a large forest - maybe this weekend!

Porcini

Chantarelles

Chantarelles

Birch boletes

Bay bolete

Garden in full swing

The garden is doing beautifully - certainly a lot better than I expected in my first year of gardening. The picture above is today's harvest for a lovely vegetable soup, the first meal made entirely out of garden produce. I'm so chuffed!

We've also had a few BBQ meals already, even tough the weather hasn't really been BBQ-friendly. But since S built it all by himself, we had to test it - and it did the job perfectly. The simple meal of beef burgers, garden potatoes and garden broad beans we had the other day was to die for!

We have also had our first ripe tomato - they are coming along slowly as we haven't had much sunshine, but they'll get there!

First harvest of broad beans:

Onions laid out to dry - this is only about a third of all my onions!

First harvests & gardener's pride

Isn't June the most amazing time of the year for gardeners? With all the lush greenery and harvesting your first crops you can finally see all your hard work paying off. I am absolutely amazed by the miracles of nature, I still can't believe all my beautiful tomatoes, aubergines, chillies, courgettes, carrots, beets, kale, lettuces and more have all grown from tiny seeds and many of them will soon be producing fruit and seeds of their own - the full cycle.

Incidentally, June is also the busiest time at work for me, not leaving much free time or head space for anything else. I admire people who live off their own land, all the farmers and homesteaders out there. I am trying to do my best with the little land I have, and I don't take anything for granted, I remember every sore muscle, every hour and every penny spent on this garden. But oh, the satisfaction I get from it is just unreal!

I do have problems with slugs and birds, with tiny caterpillars eating my gooseberry and currant leaves, with green fly infestation on my broad beans, with unpredictable weather and all. Nothing is perfect or easy, but it's all a brilliant experience.

I am one proud gardener... I made all this happen with my own two hands (and the help of S); I nurtured these plants to the best of my ability and now I am able to feed my family with these wonderfully fresh, nutritious, organically grown crops. It's the best feeling in the world!

Here are some of my veggies...

Foraging - boletes

Boletes are quite a large family of mushrooms whose main characteristic is the lack of gills - they have spongy pores on the underside of their caps instead. They're not all edible, but many are - and can be utterly delicious. I have my favourites, but am not fussy at all. I think that a few sliced wild mushrooms of any kind, gently frying in butter, with a little chopped onion and some salt and pepper is the most heavenly smell in the world and the base of many gorgeous dishes.

We went to Callendar Park near Falkirk on Sunday for a nice walk, and found a handful, topped up with a few larger specimens found on our way from work last night. Aside from last week's chanterelles, I now have birch boletes, bay boletes, suede boletes and slippery jacks (a.k.a. sticky buns) in my freezer. It's very satisfying!

Suede bolete

And another one, hiding under twigs. Suede boletes are quite soft mushrooms so unfortunately worms like them a lot. This little guy however was perfect. 

Bay bolete. This size is perfect for pickling - although this time I didn't have enough of them to fill a jar. 

Another bay bolete.

Birch boletes with their unmistakeable birch-like stems and flesh that turns blue within seconds of being cut. I absolutely love them. They're flavourful and very dense, which means you are very unlikely to find a worm inside! 

Slippery jacks. It's the only mushroom I would peel (just the cap), as the skin is very sticky and impossible to clean.

Foraging - chanterelles

Foraging is one of my passions, and foraging for mushrooms in particular is my ultimate delight. I am lucky enough to have been taught about mushrooms pretty much ever since I could walk, by my parents and grandparents during countless foraging trips. I most definitely don't know all the mushrooms, especially that Scotland has surprised me with many species I had never come across before, but the ones I do know, I know well. Fresh wild mushrooms are ridiculously expensive to buy (if you can find them in a shop in the first place), so knowing my mushrooms is one of my most valuable skills.

The other day I went for a walk along the field behind our house. It's a fairly large field, and it borders with a small forest. Around 20 minutes into my walk, I came across a lovely troop of mushrooms that turned out to be one of my favourite kinds - chanterelles. Many of them had been largely eaten by slugs but that doesn't bother me - I'm happy to share.

I picked them and brought them home; cleaned and weighed them - I had 180g which is a good amount for a meal. A note on cleaning mushrooms: you don't want to wash them with water as they will soak it up like sponges. Just brush off the visible dirt.

They are now sitting in the freezer, waiting  to be used - maybe in a risotto or a lovely creamy sauce. I will definitely be going back to that spot soon to see if any have grown back. I am also planning to expand my foraging area and hope to find other things, too!

My very first Sourdough Bread

I love sourdough bread and have been wanting to make my own for ages, but it always felt like the most advanced of all the bread making techniques and I wasn't feeling too confident. I have been baking my own bread for close to a year now - I make several types of yeast bread as well as Irish soda bread. But it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I finally felt up for the sourdough challenge.

I began by making my sourdough starter - I mixed equal amounts (about 1/3 cup) of rye flour and water and left the mixture to sit in my warm kitchen. I fed it every day with 1-2 tablespoons of flour and water and watched it bubble away as the wild yeast began to work its magic.

It looked pretty much ready after 3 or 4 days, but there never was a right time for me to bake the bread, so I gave it about 2 weeks total. I was pretty certain at that point that my starter was mature enough.

I wanted a really simple recipe as it was my first time after all, and finally used the following:

5 heaped tablespoons rye sourdough starter

300g wholemeal rye flour

300g plain wheat flour

500-600ml very warm water (not boiling)

1 tablespoon salt

100g favourite seeds (I used linseed and nigella seeds, however sunflower or pumpkin seeds would work well too. Or can be omitted altogether.)

Mix all the ingredients with a spoon in a large bowl.

Prepare your loaf tin: this recipe is for a large loaf tin, 35cm x 12cm. If using a metal one, grease it and line with baking paper. I used a glass one so I greased it with butter and sprinkled with wheat bran.

Transfer the sticky mix to the loaf tin. Wrap it tightly in cling film and leave to rise in a warm place for 4-6 hours. Yesterday was a very warm day here, so I left mine outside in the sun. If after 4 hours you don't see any signs or rising, you can heat the oven up to 50°C, turn it off and place your bread mix in the warm oven for about 1h.

The chemical reactions in the mixture will release a lot of gas, so the cling film on the tin will probably look like this after a few hours:

And here it is all risen and ready to go in to the oven:

This needs to be baked in 240°C for 10 minutes; after 10 minutes turn it down to 200°C and bake for another 1 to 1.5 hours. I baked mine for 1h 15min but will probably only do 1 hour next time, as I found that it was a bit too crispy for me. The bread is ready when it sounds hollow when you knock on its base.

And here's the ready loaf!
Important note: you need to let it cool completely before you cut it.

I am really pleased with this; given that it was my very first attempt I can't complain! It tastes really good and I will definitely be making it again.

Micro-steps to self-sufficiency

Complete self-sufficiency looks wonderful on paper but in real life it's unattainable to most of us. Own wind turbines, solar panels, farm animals, large gardens or fields are all rather big and costly projects. Partial self-sufficiency is different. I would absolutely love to get as close to it as possible, but there are certain things I cannot do at the moment, such as keep livestock for example. That doesn't mean I shouldn't try to be self-sufficient in other areas. I follow a few homesteading/self-sufficiency blogs and truly admire those people, some of them have built their own houses, some keep chickens and goats and bees, others have beautiful, lush vegetable gardens, make their own clothes, soap, candles or boast a number of other great skills. All of them are hard workers and passionate about the idea of being able to create what they need just with their own two hands.

I am nowhere near as advanced as most of them, but I am taking baby steps. I think anyone can find at least one area of self-sufficiency they are good at, and build on that. Find online resources, talk to people, read books, take workshops and build the ''portfolio'' of your skills.

Sometimes we already have skills we take for granted and don't even think of them in terms of self-sufficiency. If you cook your own meals from scratch most days, you are already a big step ahead of the person who only shops the ready meals isle. If you have a pot of basil growing on your kitchen window sill, you are more self-sufficient than the person who buys the dried stuff every time they need it. The examples are countless.

I tried to think about my own skills, mostly to feel better about myself but also to motivate myself to learn more. Here's what I came up with:

My micro-steps to self-sufficiency

- I can cook. I know how to cook from scratch using simple ingredients; I don't need to buy ready meals. I can cook using recipes but also improvise a lot.

- I bake my own bread, I have a few types I have pretty much mastered and am still learning new ones. Right now I have my very first sourdough starter bubbling away in the kitchen and will soon try to make my own sourdough bread.

- I know how to bake my own cakes and cookies.

- I know how to make such things as butter or mayonnaise or flavoured oils.

- I know how to recognise a few edible wild plants.

- I know several medicinal herbs and know how to use them.

- I know how to recognise and pick edible mushrooms (this used to be our favourite family pastime back in Poland).

- I can ride a horse. Not that I have one, but you never know what skills might come in handy.

- I can milk a goat (and could probably easily learn to milk a cow as well).

- I can shoot an air riffle.

- I know how to use a hammer, a screwdriver, an electric driller and can put together simple furniture.

- I know how to clean, prep and paint walls.

- I grow my own herbs and vegetables. Previously only grown in containers, next year I will finally start planting things in the ground as I finally have my own garden - I can't wait!

There are many more things I want to learn, such as canning my own produce, fishing and gutting fish, pottery, soap making etc. There is a small room in our new house, currently full of boxes, which will eventually be turned into a craft room. Mostly to accommodate my papercraft hobby (scrapbooking and card making) and my partner's fly-tying, but there's no reason why it shouldn't be used for other crafts. I would love to do more upcycling; the internet is full of wonderful ideas (THIS site is one of my favourites at the moment). There are many ways to learn practical skills and I can't wait to add more to my list!