Green Cotton

At last!!!  My first green cotton boll has opened.  I've been checking them every day in the greenhouse, sometimes twice, to see if any were showing signs of opening, but until today there was never any indication that they might start to ripen.  This is from one of the first two flowers, so it makes sense that it should be the first, but actually there are much fatter bolls than this so I was never sure which one would win.

I suspect the one on the right may be next as that is from the other of the first flowers. The cotton is still a bit damp and hard-looking, but I think it will fluff up with a bit of warm sun.

You can see that it's definitely green inside.  Apparently, once it's spun and boiled, the colour deepens.  Hope I get enough cotton to try that!

The sun is much lower in the sky now, and early morning/late afternoon the greenhouse isn't getting much in the way of sunshine.  Also, for part of the day, the greenhouse is shaded by a large oak tree at the edge of the garden.  So, today I moved this pot outside (it's a gorgeous sunny day today) and put it in a place where it will be in full sun all day. Hopefully it will help the cotton dry out and fluff up, and may encourage others to open. I'll put it back inside for the night time.

A few sunny shots, but I think the colour shows up better in the top two photos.

Bailey, Brody, Cotton and Laziness

It's so long since I blogged, you probably thought I'd disappeared off the planet!  I've either been ultra-busy, lazy, or just had nothing to say for myself.  Well, probably a little bit of those with quite a lot of laziness thrown in.

We went for a short holiday to the Costa Brava in northern Spain earlier in the month and managed to not take any interesting photos.  I can show you a little update on my cotton plants though which have been growing like weeds since I put them in the greenhouse.  I have bolls - yes, that is spelled right!

I have three green cotton plants and they're all about this size :-

which probably doesn't mean much, but that's actually quite a large pot.  I've had loads of flowers on these and new ones are opening every day.  I don't expect all the bolls to burst open and provide cotton, but some of the larger ones should have a chance.  It's still around 30 deg C in the greenhouse each day, so I think there just may be enough time for these to mature.

On another note, look who came to stay :-

Brody wearing his kilt in Switzerland last month

Wee Brody came to see his Grandpops and Nanny Chris!

He's been swimming in the pool,

eats all his meals outside,

visited Bailey,

and loves al fresco bathing in his posh new bathtub!!

Jak's really impressed with his new sleeping quarters too!

And, how could I end this post without a few photos of Bailey (who says I'm totally besotted?)

This is one of my favourites, taken with the sun behind him in the early evening.

Ooh, what's that?

Are you quite SURE there are no more carrots?

Hope and Bailey inspecting a strange object in their field.

And finally, I can never get away without Cerise (Bailey's Mum) poking her nose in :-

Cheeeeeeeeeese!

Cotton

Getting back to a more fibery subject (although alpacas are fibery too, right?), earlier this year I sowed some natural green cotton seeds of which only three survived the slugs (the white cotton all got eaten).  The seeds had been sent from the U.S. by a Ravelry friend (thanks Vicki!) as I so wanted to grow some green cotton.

This summer, for the first time since 2003 when we arrived here, has been a bit of a non-event.  It's now, finally, hot summer weather, but July and August were untypically cool for this part of France.  The plants were outside in pots most of the summer, and really didn't grow awfully well.  Mid-August I moved them into the greenhouse and they've grown like wildfire ever since.

A few days ago the first flower arrived (and there are lots more to come).  It's larger than the white cotton flowers and quite different, I think.  What a pity they only last a day.  I put the plant outside hoping to attract passing bees and insects and took it back inside in the evening.  All three plants are in large pots with a water reservoir underneath, which helps when the temperature inside the greenhouse is getting up to 47 degrees C.

Fingers and toes crossed that there'll be enough time for some cotton bolls to mature.

Baby Blanket's Growing

Not a good photo because it was taken under artificial light (it's raining cats and dogs outside), but the blanket has moved on a bit.  Almost halfway there now.  The baby was actually due two days ago, but Rona seems to be doing a good job of keeping her legs crossed.  There's no way this is going to be finished and in the post by the time baby arrives, but hopefully it won't be too long afterwards.

In the meantime, I've run out of wool again and am in the middle of spinning the 3rd ball. With a bit of luck I'll only need four!

Speaking of rain, my greenhouse is doing its best to turn itself back into a swimming pool:-

By tomorrow, I'll have to wear Eric's waders - my wellies just aren't high enough any more!  Luckily, we raised all the plants onto blocks above the expected final water line so they should keep dry.

My plant scientist friend suggested I should grow rice in there!  I don't think he's far wrong, do you?

F.S.M. (Foul Stinky Mixture)

Well actually, it stands for Fermented Suint Method, but I think mine's more accurate!

This is the offending article - I put it down in our subterranean greenhouse (well, the storage half of it) so it would be well away from the house.

For those non-witches amongst us, I'll tell you a little bit about why I started this noxious brew, and what I hope it will achieve.  If you have lots of sheep fleeces to wash it can be a bit of a lengthy process.  I've normally washed about 200g at a time - soaked, washed, rinsed, rinsed again - after two or three batches I've had enough.

With this system, you use a largish container (with a lid - most important!!!!  It doesn't have to be a tight-fitting lid, just enough to keep the smell in), fill it with rainwater, dunk in a whole fleece, the dirtier, smellier, greasier the better, and let it stew for between 5 and 7 days.

I put two Ouessant fleeces (these are miniature sheep and only grow to about 50cm high so the fleeces tend to be small) in zipped laundry bags, pressed them down so they were totally submerged, replaced the lid and beat a hasty retreat.  I checked the tub each day and the smell got noticeably worse after the second or third day.

So, after 5-7 days, your fleece should have worked its magic and be ready to remove. This is the nasty part because you have to be in close proximity with the highly reeking solution while you pull out your laundry bag(s).  It's important to let the liquid drain back into the tub so you don't lose too much.  After that you can take your fleece and rinse it in cold water.  I only needed to do 3 rinses before laying it out to dry in the sun.

I was surprised how clean the white bits had become considering I'd used no soap.


When I rinsed the Ouessant fleeces I was quite amazed that the water became a bit foamy, just as though I'd put soap in there.  Apparently the suint (sheep sweat!) makes a type of soap to clean future fleeces.


Right, so what do you do with the remaining liquid?  You put in another fleece (yes, really!) that you want to clean.  This time it will only need to be submerged for two or three days and you will then have another sparklingly clean fleece.  At least, that's the theory, I haven't got that far yet.  I've just put half of my new, precious, Maco Merinos fleece in there and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  I would be really upset if I messed this one up, especially as they seem to have sold out for this year!


You can keep this mix going indefinitely, but I'll probably get rid of it after I've done all my fleeces and any that Tammy wants to clean.  So, what will I do with this?  I'll water it down and use it on the garden - the plants will love it.

Watery Grave!

This is how our greenhouse looked when we got back from holiday on Monday (remember, this used to be a swimming pool) :-

This is looking towards the door of the actual greenhouse.  The water is about 60cm deep.  We had a lot of rain before we left, but apparently it rained every day until we returned.

The water is just skimming the second step :-

The photo below is the view in the actual greenhouse part.  The plants just right of centre are a lemon tree and a lemon tree with an orange grafted onto it, which we've only had for a few months.




What a mess!  A lot of things are floating, the water is filthy, and algae is growing on top of the water.

The problem at the moment is that we can't get in there to rescue the plants which are still alive as the water is just too deep.  Luckily, we have a friend who is a fisherman and he's promised to lend us some waders so we can get in there and clear the mess (thanks Brian) . Fortunately, the waders will fit one of us . . . me, to be exact!  So I'm the one who's going to be wading through that filth!  Hopefully I'll manage to drag the plants out (the lemon trees are pretty heavy, so I'll just have to try and pull them out of their pots and we'll repot them once they're out).

One little ray of hope, the coriander (my favourite) in the miniature herb greenhouse is thriving :-

although the salad leaves either side don't look too promising.

The main problem here is that the old swimming pool had a crack from one side to the other, and the water table is so high at the moment that it's just seeping through the crack.  The weather forecast is now improving, and we should get a bit of dry weather during the next week, so we're just keeping our fingers crossed that the water subsides.

(Almost) Free Food

About three weeks ago I bought a bunch of watercress for making soup.  I cut off the stems (some of which had roots growing) and pushed them into some compost in a tub in the greenhouse.  Yesterday I was able to harvest enough for another batch of soup.

The nice thing is, the plants should produce at least another batch as they're still growing quite strongly.  The soup was delicious and had far more flavour than the original watercress I'd bought, probably because there was only about 15 minutes from plant to pan.

Anyway, thought you might like the recipe; it's very easy and doesn't take long to make.

Watercress Soup

This amount serves four generous helpings.  I only did half of this as I didn't have enough watercress to do the complete recipe.

9 oz watercress, chopped
4 oz butter
Approx 14 oz leeks, chopped
4 potatoes, peeled and chopped
3 pts hot stock
4 heaped tablespoons creme fraiche
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Melt butter in a large pan, then add chopped leeks, potatoes and watercress and stir so they are well coated in butter.  Sprinkle in some salt, then cover and sweat over a very gentle heat for about 20 minutes, giving mixture a good stir halfway through.

Add stock, bringing everything to a simmering point, and simmer, covered, for 10-15 minutes.

Remove from heat, cool slightly and blend in a food processor until smooth.  Return to pan and add 3 tablespoons of creme fraiche, season to taste with salt and pepper, then reheat gently without letting it boil.

Serve with an extra swirl of creme fraiche or cool and serve chilled in the same way.

I topped ours with a parasol mushroom (flash fried in butter until slightly crispy on the outside, but tender in the middle) that we found, and an extra sprig of watercress. Delicious!

In the Greenhouse

Lots of green stuff to feed us over the winter :-

Lettuce, watercress, rocket, salad leaves, pak choi, oregano,

More lettuce, round carrots, baby leeks,

Yet more lettuce and pak choi,

and look who's taking care of things for me while I'm not there :-

Hope he manages to find plenty of bugs!

A Little Visitor

This post was supposed to be all about Sarah's sweater, which is now finished, at last. Tonight, I asked Eric to take photos of me wearing it to put on the blog.  Big mistake!! Brown is my worst colour anyway, but the photos just didn't do the sweater justice.  So then I "posed" it on one of the leather sofas, but the sofa being brown and the sweater being brown, it didn't really work.  I then draped it over the bed and took some more photos - waste of time, the light just wasn't right.  So, sorry Sarah, you'll just have to wait until tomorrow, when hopefully the sun will shine, to see photos!

In the meantime, I'm still painting in the greenhouse, and I'm not posting photos until it's finished, so there! But look who came to help today :-

This little vole was on the main steps into the old swimming pool which leads to the greenhouse.  On the left of the photo is the remains of a few acorns it had dined on.  This little mite sat there about 12 inches away from the camera and posed.  I was even able to stroke it and it didn't run away.  Anyway, I thought it looked hungry, so I shelled a few hazelnuts and almonds and delivered the goodies.  It immediately pounced on them and guzzled to its hearts content.

So, now the only problem is keeping it away from my cat .  . . I'm probably just feeding it up so Jak gets a better meal in the long run!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I've been very lazy with the old blog this week - too busy with the new greenhouse (ex-swimming pool).  I spent four days last week stripping off the old paint from the inside walls, then had to scrub the lot with soap and water, then rinse down.  I've started repainting, but it'll probably take a while.

Meantime, Thursday night Eric's band had a gig in Carcassonne, which is about two hours east of here.  The deal included a free room for the night, but as I didn't fancy sharing with the rest of the band we decided to take the camper van.  The pub was right in the centre of Carcassonne and it turned out to be a real nightmare driving through the narrow streets in a camper, especially when there were cars parked at the side of the road and we had to mount the (very narrow) pavement to get through.  Then when we got there we couldn't park to unload so ended up driving out again and getting one of the other band members to come and collect both us and the gear.

The Celt is an Irish pub and was having a week of celebrations for St Paddy's night.  It's a really nice place which made us all feel we'd just walked into a pub in the UK.  I've not posted any photos of the band as they all start to look the same, especially as Steve was wearing the same shirt as last time!!  They played until just after 1 a.m. and after we'd packed away all the gear, Eric decided it would be a nice idea to walk back to the camper . . . only 15 minutes away (ha ha!).  When we got outside there was a light drizzle, and after walking for about 10 minutes we realised the directions given to us by the bar staff weren't exactly accurate.  We eventually found someone to ask and they put us on the right road.  Or so we thought!

By this time we could see the mediaeval city up on the hill, and knew we'd parked the camper in one of the car parks outside the old city walls.  Well, what do you know, we only walked the wrong way around it, i.e. we walked three quarters of the way round the outside of the walls when we could have gone the other way and just walked around a quarter of it.  And if you've ever walked around Carcassonne old city at 2:30 in the morning, you'll realise just how spooky it was!  Anyway we finally found the camper just before 3 a.m. after walking for over an hour!  And we were soaked.

(If you ever find yourself driving past Carcassone on the autoroute, keep an eye out for the old city - it's an absolutely magnificent sight from the road and one I'd love to have a photograph of.  One day!)

Next morning we'd arranged with Steve that he would bring the gear back for us in his car - luckily - as we'd just found that our battery was flat and we weren't going anywhere in a hurry.  Aren't jump leads a wonderful invention?

We had been planning to go down to Spain and spend a night there, but with the battery being a bit unpredictable we came home instead.  Bliss!  I got to spend the whole afternoon spinning.  I finished spinning a merino/silk mix for a secret project, then spun another ball of camel wool for Sarah's sweater (which I still haven't finished).  Then this morning I dyed up the secret wool and plied and washed the camel wool.  I need to get all my projects finished so that I can spend some time with my new 1 kg bag of baby alpaca which arrived on Thursday - lovely, lovely, soft-as-clouds white alpaca.  I don't think I'll need to card it, just spin straight from the locks.  But I can't start yet, got to finish Sarah's sweater and the secret project, otherwise they'll never get done.

By the way, when we tried the camper this morning, it started first time!!  Sods law, or what?

Gone AWOL

Well, here we are in sunny (?) Aberdeen and I didn't even tell you we were leaving.  We're spending 10 days with Dan (wicked stepson no. 2) in the frozen north to check out his new house, spend a little time with numbers 3 and 4 (no. 1 is back in Dubai flying big airplanes), see friends (the ones who want to come and see us anyway - we didn't hire a car this time) and indulge in a little retail therapy.

The weather is actually not too bad this trip - no snow at any rate - and we've even had the sun put in an appearance once or twice.  If only it weren't for the lazy wind (I'd forgotten about the lazy wind) - so lazy it can't be bothered going round you, so it just goes right through you.

Not sure if I can post any photos from here - my computer doesn't have anywhere to plug in my SD card and the external SD reader we bought doesn't seem to be compatible.  At home I use another computer to transfer the photos onto a memory stick which I can then plug into this one, sounds a bit long-winded, but it works.

However, I can show you our progress (well, Eric's really as he's done most of it) on my greenhouse.  It's now complete and ready for tidying up in time for spring sowing and planting.

Ok, so it's not pretty - I didn't say it was pretty.  It still needs cleaning, the walls need rendering and painting, but it's in one piece, blocking out the weather.

Note the stepping-stone path which leads into it!  That half will eventually have a roof on it too, so water won't be able to accumulate.

Again, there's a lot of clearing up, cleaning, rendering and painting to do inside.

There's now a door in that hole!

So we're looking forward (!) to getting stuck into that little lot when we get home.  Already we can feel the potential when we go in there as it's certainly warmer than outside, and so far the temperature hasn't dropped below 2.2 deg C during the night, even when we've had hard frosts.  Can't wait to actually get growing in there!

Cool Hot House

The greenhouse is coming along - we now have two full curved roof panels fitted.  It hasn't been an easy job by any means, mainly because we are fitting second-hand panels which had been damaged in a storm (we got them free as the people had claimed new ones on their insurance and just wanted to be rid of the old ones - they advertised them "free to a good home" and, unfortunately, we got there second so got what was left!).  We then found that one of the panels had a slightly different curvature from the other three, so that's been a bit of a problem getting it to fit in with the others.  However, here it is so far :-

This photo shows the inside of the greenhouse with the two panels fitted - the gap on the right hand side will be filled with a framework of polycarbonate sheeting (the panels weren't quite wide enough - beggars can't be choosers and all that!)

This is the side view - only two more panels to fit.

This is the view we will see from the house - it looks a bit of an eyesore at the moment, but once it's all finished and sealed up it will be "cosmetically enhanced" with a good coating of render.

This one shows another view of the inside - and also tells a story of the condition of the pool as we inherited it.  A good thick layer of white paint won't go amiss.

The nice thing about the separate panels of polycarbonate on the right hand side is that we can make part of it "slideable" to create an access hatch for dumping soil, manure etc. into the basin.

In the winter I'm planning on making a hotbed with lots of fresh manure inside an "inner sanctum" (a protected area made of polycarbonate or thick polythene) where I can store my sensitive plants, i.e. orange and lemon trees, avocado tree, lemon grass etc. - lots of work for me, but in a nice warm environment hopefully.

I'll post more photos when it's all finished and tidied up.  In the meantime, I've got an appointment with two skeins of merino and a pile of woad leaves . . . more on that later.

Cotton Update

My cotton plants have grown pretty well so far.  We have had some good, hot weather, but really they were just planted too late.  However, today I found a flower (at least I think it's a flower).  It probably won't develop into anything as it's starting to cool down now, but I'm pretty sure it is a flower.

This has actually given me hope that next year I can grow cotton!  If it's sown a lot earlier, and protected, I think I should be able to grow my own.

My new greenhouse will help towards that end.  Work started this week on my greenhouse.  We had been waiting for the visit of my sister and brother-in-law to start the work, because Geoff used to be a welder in his previous life, and we needed welding!

These photos show one of the roof panels being lowered into place.  It's still far from completion, but at least it's started.  I have high hopes of being able to start things off in there in the late autumn.

My Messy Garden

Finally got around to sowing all my vegetable seeds the other day.  A bit late, I know, but the nice thing about living down here is that things catch up very quickly.

I've sowed lots of tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, chillies, peas, aubergines, melons, pumpkins, butternut squash and lots of other edibles.  Plus lots of basil (for Eric) and lots of coriander (for me).   Also put in some woad seed which is now 2 years old, so I hope it grows.

Meanwhile, the redcurrants are coming along nicely . . .

. . . as are the leeks and garlic :

Oh, and here is our future greenhouse

Ah, I hear you say, but isn't that a swimming pool?  Well, yes, a very large, derelict swimming pool which was going to cost an absolute arm and a leg to renovate and maintain.  So, we decided the best option (especially as my greenhouse got blown away twice in gales!) was to put a polycarbonate roof on it and call it a greenhouse.  Work in progress!


We were at a friend's house one night last weekend and it was nice enough to sit outside for the whole evening.  This little chap (chapess?) joined us and stayed for the whole party

It's blowing a gale here today so I now have to decide whether to go and cut the grass anyway, dig the vegetable beds, or stay inside and do the ironing, bake some bread, clean the bathroom or take the day off and spin!  Decisions, decisions . . .