A Lebanese Feast

David created a magnificent culinary masterpiece - a dinner of traditional Lebanese foods. Here are some "recipes" I compiled from some stealthy spying:

Labneh: spreadable homemade cheese (similar to cream cheese)

1. To make your own yogurt: scald milk in a large pot without boiling, cover and let cool slowly until it is still very warm but comfortable to stick your finger in for about thirty seconds, add live culture (established yogurt) and let it sit for a long time

2. To make the cheese: pour homemade (or store bought) yogurt onto a tea towel and let drain into a bowl, tie the tea towel into a small sack around the yogurt and hang somewhere to drain overnight, after about a day much of the water has slipped away and you're left with a soft cheese, form into balls, garnish with a sprinkle of dried mint and a drizzle of olive oil, and serve with pita

Baba ghanouj: roasted aubergine dip

1. Put several whole aubergines on the grill and char the outsides, turning often to cook evenly, keep on the grill for longer than feels comfortable until all the meat inside is mush - warning: aubergines may explode when heated!

2. Let the aubergines cool a bit and then remove the skin either by peeling away or (if the skin is too crumbly) scooping away the flesh inside. Start mashing with a fork and just keep at it even though it will feel fibrous and tough for the first few minutes. Add some tahini, fresh garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper gradually as you continue to mash. Drizzle with more oil and serve with pita.

Kibbeh: puree of raw lamb meat, bulgar, cinnamon, and raw onion

Mujadarra: lentils and bulgar

1. Fry a finely slice onion until almost burnt - a nice, deep caramel colour. Mix with cooked lentils and bulgar and serve with sliced raw onion.

With all this, serve homemade pita. Sadly, I only witnessed the very end of the process.

Take that poppy seed, for instance: it lies in your palm, the merest atom of matter, hardly visible, a speck, a pin's point in bulk, but within it is imprisoned a spirit of beauty ineffable, which will break its bonds and emerge from the dark ground and blossom in as a splendour so dazzling as to baffle all powers of description. - Celia Thaxter

By any other name...

I must be turning into a proper Brit - I am tackling the delicate task of pruning roses. Roses are in a world of their own at the nursery, and this is a fantastic opportunity to learn the proper techniques to cultivate the thorny beauties.

- There are two major classes of roses: old English and hybrid tea. The old English shrubs are excellent for planting in a flower garden with well-filled foliage and aromatic blossoms. The latter are those seen in supermarket cut bouquets. They are cultivated for straight, thornless stems and bright flowers but lack the pungent fragrance of the garden varieties.

- When shopping for a rose bush, look for a circular bowl shape. The branches should be curving upward and outward with very little foliage in the centre. As it grows, the branches will have space to fill out while still allowing air to flow through the centre of the plant, reducing the risk of many diseases. At the end of the season, prune back to bowl shape, removing centre branches.

- There are three main problems to look for when taking care of a rose bush: stem rot, black leaf, and rust. Stem rot occurs where a branch has been cut or broken off - the living tissue starts to turn black and decay. When trimming, it's best to cut the branch about 3-4 cm below the end of the living tissue to avoid contaminating the clippers with the disease and transferring to other plants. Black leaf is just as it sounds, and rust is a brown fungus that eats leaves and appears on the backside as rust-coloured spots.

- When flowers are starting to wilt, dry out, or simply cease to look attractive, they should be trimmed off. The best place to cut is above the first protrusion with five leaves, and the stem should be trimmed diagonally at a 45 degree angle. This "five leaf" rule ensures that the stem capable of producing new growth is not cut away. Obviously, if the stem supporting the flower is connected to other buds, just the single flower head should be cut away, and then the main stem can be cut correctly when all the buds have blossomed.

- This spring was very warm in Suffolk, which caused the rose bushes here to bloom two months early! Many are coming into their second flowering in the next few weeks.

- Most roses do not like a lot of water, so too much rain can make them a bit unhappy.

Roses have vicious thorns, so as I'm learning how to maintain them properly I'm also becoming wary of their spiky branches. I was stabbed twice today - enough to draw blood - so I'm aiming to gain fewer scars tomorrow.

The love of dirt is among the earliest of passions, as it is the latest. Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure. - Charles Dudley Warner

Garden countdown

Top ten garden tips from Darsham:

10. Educate yourself - the better you understand each component of your garden, the more successful it will be.

9. Just because you know what Helenium is doesn't mean you'll be able to help someone looking for Sneezewort. Common names often bear little resemblance to the formal Latin genus and can often vary between the US and UK.

8. Less can be more. When trying to fill a bed with a variety of flowers, don't simply head to the nursery and start grabbing a vine here and a shrub there all helter skelter. Your plants be much happier - and grow more fully - if choose fewer types and buy three or four of each so they grow together.

7. Take photographs of flowers - particularly in interesting sunlight and after a drenching rain.

6. Compost, compost, compost! (Except if the plant had a contagious disease.)

5. Plant fruits, vegetables, and herbs - they look beautiful and taste even better! Just be sure to check the best times to start each plant to have them ready to harvest at the appropriate time of the season.

4. Many perennials can be trimmed down to bare bones - or at least pruned of deadheads and ailing leaves - in the autumn. This encourages the plant to focus on developing a larger root system in the ground so it can rise from the ashes as a healthy, happy plant in spring.

3. Make sure that your garden is always colourful. Many customers come to the nursery in the spring when the temperature starts to rise, buy beautiful flowering plants, and then wonder why everything looks boring throughout summer and autumn. It is better to create a balance of plants that flower throughout the year so the garden can be full of vibrant colours in every season.

2. It's best not to transplant new plants from the pot to the garden while they are flowering. The plant will be focusing a lot of energy on creating enticing flowers and potential offspring, so introducing it to a new environment just adds even more stress.

1. Love your garden!

The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life. - Jean Giraudoux

Top five perennials

Some of my favourites: Kniphofia, Fuchsia, Papaver, Sempervivum, and Crocosmia

You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or squirrel of subversion, or challenge the ideology of a violet. - Hal Borland

Hedera to Yucca

More plants!

- Hedera: ivy; sneaks around wherever it feels like going

- Helenium: large, daisy-like flowers in burnt oranges and russets; also called "Sneezewort" apparently

- Iris: monocot leaves, sadly not in bloom currently

- Kniphofia: monocot with long blade-like leaves; the blooms are spectacular towers of thin tubules in cascading shades of pale yellows to bright oranges; breed names reflect the bright colours from "Tawny King" to "Light of the World"

- Lamium: simple groundcover plant with heart-shaped light green leaves with outer edges in contrasting colour; look like mint plants

- Leucanthemum: similar to white chyrsanthemum; different breeds can be identified partly by the shape of the flower, which can be flat (like a daisy) or rounded (like a pompom)

- Linum: simple clumpy plant with fine leaves and small, brightly coloured flowers

- Lupinus: small buds form spiky towers in shades of yellow, blue, white, red, and pink; I remember seeing it all over San Antonio as the "Texas bluebonnet"; a very pretty flower

- Paeonia: apparently in the UK the flowers are called paeonies (instead of spelling it as peonies as in America); shrub with dark, waxy leaves but not in bloom currently; varieties include the "Shirley Temple"

- Papaver: bright flowers with delicate, thin petals on tall, thin stalks; poppies!

- Phlox: small, simple flowers in a variety of shades on mounded cushions of thin leaves

- Phormium: palm-like leaves striped in shades of ivory and green or dark brown and crimson

- Potentilla: a nice, steady flowering plant with soft, thin leaves of dark green and bright flowers

- Primula: when not in bloom looks like old salad leaves

- Pulmonaria: small clumps of rather ugly leaves; not surprisingly, also known as "Lungwort"

- Sedum: an interesting, bright green plant that tapers upwards; leaves are waxy and shiny - might seem like rubbery plastic at a glance

- Sempervivum: AMAZING plant like something out of a Dr. Seuss book; leaves look like rubbery rosettes of light green and pink; flowers are spiky and pink and burst forth from thick, curvy, hairy stems; known as "houseleeks"; one of the favourites as the nursery, probably makes a good indoor plant

- Solanum: tall, climbing plant with purplish-blue flowers

- Trollius: leaves are very similar to those of a geranium; flowers are supposedly like rounded, chubby rose buds but not appearing at this time

- Verbena: can be either matlike or tall and gangly plant with dark green leaves and different types of blooms

- Yucca: a dry weather monocot; leaves are fairly rigid and sharp at the tips

This is merely a taste of the plants sold at the nursery, which itself only has a small fraction of possible garden stock. All these plants are perennials and can be viewed as "plants" rather than "shrubs" - though the distinction is hazy. Some popular perennials are kept separate for different reasons, such as hydrangeas and the classic English lavenders. Hopefully, I'll have to reorganize the shrubs soon.

Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, I'm going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that's tough. I'm going to snow anyway. - Maya Angelou

Achellia to Geum

We are reorganizing the nursery and attempting to place all the perennials in alphabetical order (by Latin name). The task may be daunting for someone with slightly OCD tendencies, but it's proving very educational as I learn about different plant genuses (geni?):

- Achillea: a fairly tall, stalky plant with delicate leaves and flat clumps of small flowers (like Queen Anne's Lace); varietal names general describe the colour of the petals such as "Cloth of Gold" and "Pearls"

- Agapanthus: sometimes referred to as Lily of the Nile, a beautiful monocot with slender, vibrant flowers radiating outward to form spherical clumps; most varieties we had in stock had amazingly colourful buds ranging from deep navy blue to an elegant grey.

- Artemisia: a beautiful bushy plant with silvery leaves that are soft and delicate like fern fronds.

- Aster: large, tall plants with daisy-like flowers in a wide range of colours with very slender petals

- Baptisia: a shrublike plant with beautiful light green leaves

- Begonias: the only breed we have in stock is a low plant with bright red flowers and dark mahogany leaves

- Campanula: a boring plant with tall, upright stems and droopy-looking flowers - not my favourite.

- Canna: an amazing, tropical-looking plant with bright red-orange blooms and beautiful variegated leaves with greens, yellows, and husky oranges.

- Crocosmia: a plant similar to a lily with long, narrow leaves and beautifully intricate flowers; one of the most spectacular flowers in bloom now is a breed of crocosmia with scarlet flowers with "arching spikes of upward facing flowers"

- Delphiniums: well-known plants with towers of small flowers standing on tall stalks; a wonderful palette of shades ranging from blue-blacks to soft whites, which seem to have romantic names like "Galahad" and "Black Knight"

- Digitalis: low plants with large, oval leaves and bell-shaped flowers; poisonous.

- Euphorbia: a gigantic genus of shrubby evergreen plants that like dry areas; pointsettias belong to this genus.

- Fuchsia: viny plants with astonishingly vibrant flowers; the double flowers - often in shades of violet, white, and (of course) fuchsia - hang down with dramatically long stamen; varieties include "Delta Sarah". Unfortunately, they can be very difficult to untangle from each other and the flowers are easily broken off.

- Gaillardia: a bushy plant with daisy-like blooms like beautiful little suns; the flowers start yellow at the tips of the petals and gradually turn to a rusty orange in the centre.

- Geum: small, boring plants with round-ish leaves

Conclusion: how will I ever learn common names?

Each flower is a soul blossoming out to nature. - Gerard de Nerval

The horticulture culture

Nature has been kind enough to do the watering for us the past couple of days and nursery work has been a bit slow while we dodge raindrops:

- Harvesting tomatoes - with all the interesting (and weird) varieties, colour is not a good indicator for ripeness. A gentle squeeze reveals if the fruit has ripened or remains stiff and firm.

- Harvesting broad beans. I learned that broad beans = lima beans in the US. Lightbulb! With such a small crop, I just pulled each plant out of the ground by hand. I miss my scythe.

- The vegetable beds here have luxuriously soft and dark soil. In addition to years of mixing in compost, they spread a thick layer of manure on the top in late autumn and leave it over the winter.

- Tamed the rambling vines of a climbing garden shrub. Tied stems to bamboo pole stuck firmly into soil in pot. Stems seem to naturally twist clockwise. Hmmm...

- Trimmed deadheads off hostas when buds dead and seeds beginning to form.

- Chopped off most of basil plant - leaving only a few leaves on each stalk - and planted in large pots with tomato plants. Tomatoes and basil - a match made in heaven.

And the chickens. Silly little ladies:

- We feed chicks a high energy, high protein food (they are kept in a separate enclosure) and the noisy hens get normal chicken feed - which looks like Gus's old pellets. The feed is scattered throughout their area and they go crazy, scurrying around to snatch the little pellets.

- They drink water from a couple big buckets. It's amusing seeing them drink - their mouths open and close several times to gulp down a swig of water.

- The eggs are laid inside the adorable little chicken coops. there are a few nests with comfortable straw beds for the would-be mothers and a hinged door overhead for easy access. If a hen is sitting around and doesn't get up when given a slight nudge, you have to gently pick her up and place her in a different nest because she is probably sitting on an egg. It's amazing seeing the range of eggshell colours depending on the chicken breed. My favourite are a light pink eggshell laid by rare black-and-white chickens. If the eggs are dirty, they have to be rinsed with very hot water before going on the shelf to be sold. Cold water will seep into the shell through tiny pores.

- If eggshells are brittle and crack easily, we feed the chickens broken up oyster shell. Theory says that the oyster shell gets somehow incorporated into the shell of the eggs they lay. Interesting.

- Chicken crap smells terrible. Absolutely disgusting. Rain makes it worse.

All nature wears one universal grin. - Henry Fielding

Rainbow of tomatoes

Tomato harvest time!

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato. - Lewis Grizzard

No, no, not a child nursery

God gave us memories that we may have roses in December. - JM Barrie

A Rock Star Garden

Today was my first day at Darsham Nurseries (darshamnurseries.co.uk) in beautiful Suffolk county. David, the owner, bought the property over three years ago when it was only a dilapidated piece of land that once housed a garden store. It is impressive listening to people who are knowledgeable in horticulture - they can instantly tick off the Latin names of a wide variety of plants. Unfortunately, it was a very rainy day so I did very little work with the plants.

- Back to working with tomatoes in polytunnels. Here, the plant are tied to stakes instead of being twisted around them. It was surprising to be considered a "tomato expert" after I've only looked after them for three weeks.

- Cleaned out an old garage with lots of junk and pots of many sizes.

- Lots of watering inside the polytunnels. A good soaking with the hose is equivalent to two to three hour of pouring rain, so sustained precipitation is needed to really satisfy plants outdoors.

- The plants here are not organically grown. The main problem is a nasty pest called the vine weevil that lays its eggs in compost and grow into root-eating grubs that stealthily kill a plant. The compost used here contains a weevil inhibitor chemical, as well as some fertilizers to provide nutrients.

- It is sad to say, but rabbits are considered vermin here. There are so many in the countryside with an appetite for nursery products. The majority of the plants are up on tables made from long planks of wood. A local man comes around a few times a week to relieve the property of a few rabbits and presumably make some soup.

Plants cry their gratitude for the sun in green joy. - Terri Guillemets

Wedding food recipes

Celebration Nut Roast Wellington (courtesy Chef Darren)

Ingredients:

- 2 medium onions, chopped

- 2 cloves garlic, chopped

- 1 Tbsp olive oil

- 1 lb carrots, cooked and mashed

- 8 oz cashews, ground (can also use pistachios)

- 4 oz wholewheat breadcrumbs

- 1 tsp tahini

- 1 1/2 tsp caraway seeds

- 1 tsp yeast extract

- juice of 1/2 lemon

- 65 mL (2 1/2 oz) carrot stock

- 1 oz butter

- 1-2 lb mushrooms, chopped

- 1 tsp parsley, chopped

- 1 egg, beaten

- 1 lb puff pastry

- dash of port wine

Directions:

1. For the filling: fry one onion and garlic in oil until soft and translucent. Mix with carrots, tahini, breadcrumbs, nuts, caraway, yeast extract carrot stock, and lemon juice.

2. Place mixture in oiled loaf tin. Cover with foil and bake at 350 F for 1 hour. Remove foil and bake another 10 minutes.

3. Leave to stand for 10 minutes and then turn out of tin.

4. Fry one onion in butter, then add mushrooms. Season with salt, pepper, and parsley and cook until soft. Add a generous splash of port.

5. Cool and stir in half of egg, then set aside and chill.

6. The rest is missing, but I assume it's something to do with rolling out the pastry lining loaf tin, adding onion mixture and baked nut/carrot mixture, covering with more pastry, and baking to a nice golden brown.

Elderlini

Ingredients:

- Elderflower cordial (concentrated elderflower juice)

- White wine or champagne

Delicious cocktail!

Farewell to South Farm

I left South Farm this afternoon - I am definitely going to miss all the vegetables, pigs, and amazing people! This last week, Bart let me handle some of the more advanced farming jobs - why, I do not know since I wouldn't trust me...

- Learned to use a scythe. I sharpened up a scary-looking hand scythe and then used it to decapitate the broad bean plants for harvesting. It went really smoothly after I imagined the scythe as a frisbee and pretended to play Ultimate. I am a little nervous that I found scything so satisfying.

- Shelled broad beans. All the HelpXers sat around a big pile of beans - over 100 kg - and popped the beans out of the pods. I have to admit, I was a little jealous of the beans. They have the most comfortable, smoothest, softest pillow inside their snug little pods.

- Drove a golf cart.

- Massive tomato operation. The tomatoes planted in late fall in one of the polytunnels were starting to grow quite tall, so Bart decided to experiment with them a bit. We cleaned up the bottom part of the stems, laid it along the ground for a meter or so, and then had the tomato vine start climbing again. I hope they like it!

- Planting cucumber plants. They are fragile, wandering vines that require a lot of attention when putting them into the ground. They bottom of the stem - where it meets the roots - is susceptible to stem rot so we made little mountains of soil around the base with a surrounding moat in the hopes that the water will stay away from the stem but still hydrate the roots. We also have a problem with mildew on the leaves, which appears at a white, powdery film.

- Restringing squash vines. Some prickly, climbing squash plants were at the end of their strings and grazing the roof of the polytunnel. We gave them more string to hug and guided them along the polytunnel roof, arching over to the opposite side. For the smaller ones that hadn't reached the roofline but were bearing heavy fruit, we made little nooses to help hold up the vine. When they fall down and crumple in on themselves, the air cannot circulate around the leaves and stem. Air circulation helps prevent problems like stem rot and mildew and generally keeps the plants happier and healthier.

- Watering from a tractor-driven water tank. I was actually trusted enough to drive the tractor around to water trees in the pig and chicken pastures. The hardest part was not hurting any of the pigs - they all found the tractor to be an extremely interesting backscratcher. It took them a little while to realize it moved and didn't produce any food.

You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things. - Walt Whitman

Camera-happy

Weeds

I must devote some space to pay respects to those pesky plants that haunt my dreams:

- Chickweed - viny undergrowth that stays close to the ground

- Ragwort

- Groundsel

- Redshank

- Thistle and sow-thistle - prickly little buggers

- Dog-violet

- Daisy - oh so lovely but unloved.

- Nettles - some sting and give a red, bumpy rash

I am not a lover of lawns. Rather would I see daisies in their thousands, ground ivy, hawkweed, and even the hated plantain with tall stem, and dandelions with splendid flowers and fairy down, than the too-well-tended lawn. - WH Hudson

Jack and the Beanstalk and other tales

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. - e.e. cummings

Gooseberry patch

Oodles of fun on the farm!

- Chasing runner ducks. We have several brown runner ducks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Runner_Duck ) and I had a chance to help move them around to different pens. They looked quite ridiculous - they actually do run instead of waddling like most ducks - but were calm once we caught them (and carefully held their long necks away from the face). We tried to shepherd a mother and five ducklings down a path, but the little ones decided to walk straight into an open net, which made our job considerably easier.

- Picked gooseberries! They were massive and very sweet - and prickly. The scars are worth it: three plants yielded 6 kg of berries (plus whatever I ate hehehe).

- Helped set up nets covering our cabbage bed. The birds don't seem to bother the cabbages too much, but one of our bean fields was decimated by birds nibbling on the germinating plants.

- Worked as a dish dryer again. It's amazing to see hundreds of plates bearing beautifully prepared food smoothly head out for the guests. And then I dry, inspect, and put away those hundreds of plates.

- Learning about food from chefs. Now they make a special vegetarian plate for me every night! Tonight: nut wellington with cashews, walnuts, carrots, and Swiss chard. Yum!

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story. - Linda Hogan

Bzzzzz

"How do you feel about bees?" This was the question that greeted me this morning. By evening, I had become a beekeeper's apprentice!

Bart and I went on a quest to a construction equipment engineering facility to rescue bees that had been swarming in the car park. We wore protective beekeeping gear - the big white suits with the mesh face covering. I couldn't decide whether it was more like a clean room suit with a fencing mask or a spaceman costume. We took off an entire tree limb, popped it into a large trough-like box, and transported them to a nice spot near the reservoir to set up their hive. It's a bit tricky, keeping the bees happy. Bart compared the car to a Tardis for bees :) Poor confused furballs!

It was fascinating observing bee behavior at close range. Their instinct to follow their queen is amazing - as is their ability to smell her pheromones. Luckily for us, the swarm was non-aggressive since it didn't have a developed nest to defend.

Later in the day, we returned to check up on our bee family. The queen and her posse had moved from the tree branch to the top of the box, which was a good sign that they were getting comfortable. Removing the branch was a delicate operation, but everything went smoothly and honey production should commence shortly!

As a side note, I discovered that Saabs can survive off-road adventures

To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment. - Jane Austen

Cabbage Patch Kids

Lots of planting, planting, planting today:

- Planted little leek plants in the field. We made little holes, dropped in the a young leek, and very loosely covered the roots with soil - just enough so it could stand up straight.

- Planted cabbages in the field. In contrast to the leeks, the cabbages were transferred from fairly large pots into the beds and the soil was firmly squashed down to press against the roots.

- Planted squashes in the field. The squash plants were quite large when we transferred them from pot to bed. Since their leaves are quite broad, they can easily get pushed over by the wind. To prevent too much damage, we essentially planted them slanted with the wind and made sure the leeward side was supported by the soil.

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. - Kahlil Gibran

Wimpole Estate

They feed me well...

English driving

An exciting day of farming today!

- Picked raspberries!!! (Aaahhh to be back at Chase's....)

- Herded pigs into their pen. I discovered that the little ones are ticklish on their tummies so if you just brush your fingers on their bellies they squeal and trot away from you. I'm trying to make myself not give them names - because I know what will eventually happen to them - but I now think of mama pig as Penelope. At least the piggies go to piggy heaven somewhere else - they are carted away alive and brought back as pork and bacon.

- Fought a battle against the weeds - they had grown so rapidly that our poor artichoke plants were completely covered and hidden in the prickles.

- Went bug hunting. The Swiss chard field has been taken over by black flies, so it needed a soapy spray to kill them. Before that, though, we captured all the good ladybirds, ladybugs, and ladybug larvae and put them on our tomato plants to eat other pesky insects. Here, ladybirds are the spotted, flying insects referred to as ladybugs in the US. Ladybugs, on the other hand, are beetle-like insects with bumpy exoskeletons in interesting patterns of blues, violets, and oranges.

- Learned that the best pumpkins for risotto and soup are uchiki kuri pumpkins, which have a yellowy flesh and rich flavour.

- Helped build a walk-in refrigerator. Actually, just helped clean everything.

- Planted sweet corn...yum!

- In many of our beds, there is a plastic sheet over the soil to prevent weeds from popping up all over the place. The holes for the vegetable plants are made by melting the plastic with a cute little blow torch.

- Drove a tractor! They trust me driving their machinery? Probably the first time I've driven anything with a clutch.

Yesterday, I took the afternoon off and went for a pleasant picnic to Wimpole Estate (http://beta.nationaltrust.org.uk/wimpole-estate) The grounds are massive with lots of brown sheep and white cows - and horses! It's an elegant Austen-esque building, but all the classical Greek garden statues have a really violent theme. Why do I want to see naked little Cupids trying to punch each other?

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. - Ansel Adams

YumYums

The food here is absolutely scrumptious! I love seeing the chefs gathering fruits and vegetables from around the gardens and cracking open fresh eggs from the wandering hens. They have really creative ways to incorporate farm products into the wedding meals, like: pumpkin ravioli, meringues, currant jelly, mini quiches, raspberry sauce, spring rolls, pesto, and on and on. Every wedding has assorted steamed vegetables - potatoes, carrots, baby courgettes, beets - so they are practiced in cooking them to perfection. It still amazes me to see a hundred plates all prepared and ready to go out to guests, still piping hot and immaculately presented.

What I've learned this weekend:

- Chickens are used to being fed first thing in the morning. If I walk past their pen before their breakfast, they follow me around while clucking expectantly.

- Planting winter cabbages.

- Teaching climbing beans to climb by winding them around a metal hoop and loosely tying them in place.

- The farm follows a seven year crop rotation system. One component is a combination of alfalfa and clover, which are good nitrogen-fixing plants to help convert nitrogen gas into usable nitrogen compounds in the soil. Clover is also used as ground cover around the climbing beans where it also acts as a weed suppressant. There are several different fields with their own seven year cycles, but in general they involve: nitrogen-fixing plants, potatoes, root vegetables (beets, carrots, parsnips), cabbages, legumes, squashes and aubergines, and smelly vegetables (garlic, onion, leeks). Tomatoes, cucumbers, and more squashes and aubergines are grown in the polytunnels, and leafy greens are grown elsewhere in smaller beds. Berries are also grown separately, completely contained in a "cage" to keep away curious animals.

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. - Rachel Carson

Farmer Résumé

Trying to keep a record of all the farming skills I've learned:

- How to harvest potatoes, three ways:

1. Remove the tops then turn over the soil and dig through by hand.

2. Have someone dig under the plant while another person yanks out the whole thing and then scrambles to find flying potatoes.

3. Driving a tractor with essentially a super-sized rake on the back to turn over the soil then going through and picking up the surfaced potatoes. Usually involves me sitting on the back of the tractor to weigh it down.

- Picking beets - only when popping through the surface and of sufficient roundness.

- Picking courgettes - found a 2.5 kg one today! I don't think anyone else appreciated its massiveness but I pointed it out to everyone anyway.

- Picking carrots

- Weeding

- Planting lettuces

- Preparing veggie bags for distribution to well-paying London customers

- Preparing a bed for new plants. Involves lots of carting of compost and turning over of soil.

- Washing vegetables

- Setting up hoops and netting over vegetable beds

This is the first weekend Bart is bringing veggie bags down to London - hopefully they are successful!

Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyles. - Pope John Paul II