Local residents

Yesterday, I heard a rustling noise as I walked past the bee hive. It came from under the raised paving slabs. Sure enough - a little face peeped out and looked at me, with fox-brown fur, a soft shiny brown snout and beady brown eyes. It disappeared in an instant and with another rustle, and reapperaed from under the slab a little closer to me. I stood as still as I could - in quite a wind - while it popped in and out, coming closer and closer while checking out what that big new thing on its turf is. I thought it was a rat, until I noticed the round ears and its cheeky attitude - attitude is a very apt word for this wee guy. It finally popped out fully and stood up, just over a metre away from my feet, revealing its bright white tummy fur while standing on its hind feet and sniffing the air like a meer cat. A kingdom for a camera! He soon lost interest though and wandered off under the long row of slabs, popping out its head occasionally to check on the situation outside.

Today, I saw him again, under the paving slabs on the opposite side, under the deceased bee hives. It came out fully, sniffed, disappeared and re-emerged to dump a grey bundle about half its size in front of it. I fumbled for my camera as it ran off towards the pumkin patch, where I demonstrated my failure as a wildlife photographer. Here are the results:

out of focus

hm, great action shot but no head...

best of three, but the rabbit's missing (or: does my bum look big in this?)

I really like this little guy. I hope he still comes in to our patch through the chicken wire or over the wall once it's fenced in. Our all-natural rabbit removal service!

Our resident pheasant Morag is a much more static model. More so than her current boyfriend below.

The single remaining bee hive is doing better now spring is here - still practicing getting them in focus though!

Wild garlic salsa

Here's one we whipped up while on holiday - a nice side dish for David's tortilla (recipe coming up).

3 ripe tomatoes
20 leaves wild garlic
1 small red onion
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
olive oil, parsley, oregano, black pepper and salt to taste

Dice tomatoes and onion, cut wild garlic into thin strips (I use scissors). Mix these ingredients vigorously with generous amounts of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, chopped parsley, oregano, black pepper and salt. The resulting juicy dip should have a coarse soup consistency when the tomato juice is released. Refrigerate for up to 2 days, but be aware, the garlic taste gets stronger!

Wild garlic dip

Inspired by the time of year - and invariably returning from woodland walks with one hand full of broad-leaf wild garlic - here's a recipe that's quick and lovely:

10 leaves wild garlic
1 pack cream cheese or quark or yoghurt (200g)
1 squeeze lemon juice
salt to taste

Pick off individual large leaves of wild garlic - ideally away from dog walking routes - wash thoroughly and chop (I use scissors). Mix with other ingredients and refrigerate overnight to bring out the best of the flavours. Serve as a dip with crudites and breadsticks, or on toast topped with smoked salmon. Watered down, leftovers make a great salad dressing.

Our first co-op plants

With rabbit fencing begun and ongoing, we've concentrated on putting out the less tasty plants:
4 rows of pink fir potatoes (from the Castle Douglas health food shop organic sprouted pile for 50p), one row each for Sarah, David, Cate and Malcolm. We planted the sprouting potatoes in deep grooves, covered with horse manure and kept soil aside to fill in as the plants grow to encourage more root growth. David dug in 3 further rows of charlotte potatoes a few days later (the bolted variety off the reduced shelf at homebase)

We - David and Sarah - dug up a good square metre of broad-leaf wild garlic plants while on holiday in Dumfries&Galloway, and transported them back in three baking trays we had brought along. They travelled back precariously balanced on top of our bags in the back of our miniature car, in sweltering heat - well, not bad for Scotland anyway. The two hour trip back to Edinburgh with open windows was - well - aromatic.

Nenya spent a couple of afternoons tending to the bulbs and distributing them in the far-end woodland patch. I feel a recipe coming on!

On the way back, we stopped by David's dad's place, dug up a large potato patch in his back garden to get them started, borrowed a couple of tarpaulins and offered to thin out the rhubarb patch. Here's one of the six root pieces now in our "pumpkin patch":

The co-op gets real

We're just back from "talking business" and now officially renting a spade-bogglingly large and mind-bogglingly beautiful plot of land to turn into a co-op allotment for 5-6 members. So from today, this blog will contain sowing, picking, cooking and eating posts from two sites: the staff/student plot and the co-op.

Sowing day

Cate, Malcolm and Sarah met up in the greenhouse today and prepped up seed trays of broccoli (1), mange tout (2), peas (2), rocket and onion (1), and a bunch of lettuces (4). Nenya got her tomatoes and aubergines in.

Fruit bushes

Another trip to LIDL, this time to relieve them of fruit bushes: 4 Raspberries, 2 Blueberries, 2 Gooseberries and 2 Redcurrants. Dug in with plenty of rotted down horse manure and mulched with sawdust.
Sophie bought several more bushes for the student crew to plant on our permaculture slope together with the trees.