Tag: gardening

My first ever ripe fig. Pity not all of them are as ripe as this. Picked and enjoyed today. All the sun we've had this year must have pushed this to be edible, and monstrous too. And delicious it was.

Little experiment this year with a tiny crop of barley. I found some growing last year, so I've used them and some harvested from fields to create a little square metre patch in my garden. If I have a bit more space next year, I'll use these to seed hopefully enough for a small batch of beer from home harvested wheat, hops and some wild yeast. Though it may very well not be enough for even that!

Kratky method hydroponic watercress. It's very easy to get sucked into internet rabbit holes, some you find are deeper than others. Hydroponic growing is one of those deep ones that I think appeals to a certain type of "technical solutions" person. Fortunately, I didn't have to go too deep for this project. Bernard Kratky was a researcher at the university of Hawaii, and he developed a low tech hydroponic growing system that didn't require any electricity or moving parts.

Most of the tobacco leaves from this year's crop have turned a lovely brown colour during the curing process. They've been hanging in my kitchen for 8 weeks now. During this time, they've slowly dried out and changed colour as the chlorophyll has broken down. This method is known as air curing, and will leave you with leaves with a low sugar content and higher nicotine levels, more commonly used for cigars and pipe tobacco. After this, generally the leaves are fermented aerobically, in the presence of oxygen.

Not a smoker, but I grew some tobacco plants. Currently colour curing in the kitchen. Hoping they actually turn yellow to indicate chlorophyll degradation, then a nice shade of dark brown. At some point I believe I'll need to ferment them as well.

Slightly scary looking sunflower face, I tried to mimic those I saw in Spain, but it ended up looking more like Tim Burton than Walt Disney!