Locally grown

Despite working on the house, and more recently, the garden and paving the courtyard it's been great to be able to have a good summer of growing our own. In the last couple of weeks we've dug up all the remaining potatoes (a whole barrow full) and they're now stored in a cool dark vermin-proof cupboard in the shed. Not that they'll last too long I'm sure as they are so tasty, especially the Charlottes which have beaten the other variety we grew (Jersey Royals) hands down.

Elsewhere in the garden the runner beans are still producing at daunting rate, despite blanching and freezing a load of them and we've finally got a few French beans to enjoy as well. We've pulled the last of the beetroot but still have courgettes growing and leeks in the ground to be harvested later in the year.

The ever present brambles are doing their one positive thing of the year and are now laden with blackberries, of which we've had a few but probably ought to pick and freeze a load. The raspberry canes, new in this spring, have produced a good few handfuls of fruit and our eating apple tree (Jonagold) is laden with a dozen good sized apples that I'm looking forward to tasting soon. Unfortunately the Bramley threw it's fruit earlier in the summer but hopefully that was just a symptom of it settling in to it's new home.

The greenhouse is proving it's worth now that the days are getting slightly shorter and cooler, with tomatoes and chillies ripening nicely. And with pot grown salad leaves and various herbs we've been able to enjoy a load of home grown and very tasty food this summer, with only a few 'food yards'! To top it all though, I had a conversation with Andrew our part-time farmer neighbour this evening and have put in an order for half of one of his lambs which are currently grazing in the field adjacent to our veg plot, which will make for some very locally grown meat to go with our veg.

A month of sunshine?

We've had the solar thermal system running for a complete month now so it's a good time to see how it's been performing. The TD3 controller that Navitron supplied with it stores all sorts of useful data so assessing how it's doing is a simple task.

August, as is so often the case, proved to be a month with plenty of cloud and several dull wet days when there was little if any heat gained from the system. We had to use the electric immersion heater to boost the water temperature on a few occasions as a result. Even so the system generated 273 kwh of hot water during the month, saving us approximately £10. Not a lot when you consider the cost of the system but not bad for a very grey month. It'll be interesting to see how September fares, as we're only two days in and it's already generated more than 10% of what we saw in August thanks to clear blue skies.

And we're not letting the plentiful hot water go to waste either, as we spend this week laying 80 square metres of paving slabs to turn the muddy area at the back of the kitchen/diner into the courtyard, so hot showers are proving a good way to soothe aching muscles!