The birds and the seeds

I love my new blackbird family but I'm struggling with Daddy B tramping over my beds looking for worms to feed the young 'uns. Its really hard to know what has priority? I have struggled to get Dwarf French beans to grow in the past; the seeds rot in the soil only then to be frazzled by the sun once they emerge from the earth. The finally survivors look set to work until I discovered Tess, my dog, munching the tops off!

I have now got a few precious seedlings above ground, looking healthy and protected by a mesh cage, but what did I find today? Yes, a seedling pulled up and earth disturbed! The cheeky little BIrdy must have gone under the cage to get to a meaty morsel! I returned the injured seedling to the earth but I have no idea if my emergency 911 treatment will allow it to live long enough to see bean producing days. Why am I so unlucky with french beans I wonder? Maybe its revenge for not favouring German over GCSE French!!!

The Miracle of life

Chris was outside pruning our buddleia and found a birds nest. He picked Tom up to look inside and then came running to me saying, "Mummy, I've just seen some chicks." Not quick believing him we investigated the nest and he was quite right. Amazingly there were two tiny blackbird chicks, eyes still fused shut and two unhatched eggs. We quickly left the tree alone and allowed mummy blackbird to continue to nurse her babies. She is a grand looking bird who I'd seen in our garden regularly. She perches on the compost bin quite unfazed by Tess, our dog who watches with interest.

About an hour ago I saw her fly off to gather food so I took an opportunity to photograph the nest. Sure enough, the chicks were healthy and now three! I feel overwhelmed by the fragility of these tiny creatures. Mother nature sure is wonderful.

Honey and Walnut Bread

My foody friend Dave asked for my recipe for Honey and Walnut loaf. Although it contains nothing grown in my garden, I did feel it fitted our self-sustainable lifestyle and more importantly, a good enough recipe to share here.

We have a good quality bread maker with a seed dispenser, which is really important if you want good bread. It also has a timer, which is great if you like hot fresh bread in the morning. We have the Panasonic SD255 (shown below) and I can really recommend it. We have used it almost every day for over 2 years and it is still going strong.

The other important thing (to us at least) is that you use good ingredients. We make bread almost every day so wanted to buy flour in bulk to save money. We found a fabulous supplier here in Cambridgeshire who sources and grinds the wheat locally in his own mill. Fosters Mill in Swaffham Prior is one of the three remaining working tower mills in Cambridgeshire and the owner Jonathan Cook is helpful and a pleasure to buy from.

They grind organic wheat, certified by the Soil Association and wherever possible, is sourced in East Anglia. We buy large 25kg sacks of flour so we don’t need to use the car too often on shopping trips. The wholewheat is £24 for a 25kg sack, while the white is £30; a bit more expensive but stops the kids complaining about ‘brown bread’.

I really recommend getting your flour from Fosters Mill. They also supply smaller bags if you don’t want a huge sack and you can buy mail order too.

So, on with the bread recipe.

HONEY & WALNUT BREAD

Ingredients

• 1 tsp dried yeast
• 250g wholewheat flour
• 225g strong white flour
• 2 tbsp Olive Oil
• 2 tbsp Honey
• 1 ¼ tsp salt
• 300ml Water

In seed dispenser tray:

• Raisins
• Sunflower seeds
• Pumpkin seeds
  
• Roughly broken walnuts (not too small)

You need to add all the ingredients in the correct order as listed above.

Setting is Wholewheat > Bake > Raisin and takes 5 hours to bake. You will need to check your machine for its own settings.

Here is a photo of the loaf I made today. I hope you have success and let me know how you got on baking your own.