It's an early winter's morning here at Moat Cottage
and the ducks and chickens have just been let out of their enclosure, into the garden
and it seems they have a lot to discuss about the day ahead.
It's a foggy, wet winter and we're nearly a month in and I've only seen the sun on a few days
I'm harvesting the food that I know I'll be wanting today. I'll be making garlic bread later
and I'll need a lemon for that and I'll need some lemons to make some lemon honey drinks.
Niki and I are almost fully recovered from what ended up being the flu and we
certainly made good use of our home-grown citrus throughout our healing journey,
we are feeling so much better now and thank you so much for all your lovely messages.
The old water tank, herb garden is still growing well. It seems to be protected
from the frosts and even the frost tender sage is doing nicely. I've got Sorrel, Parsley, Dill, Sage
and Thyme, these herbs grow well together, with none of them trying to outshine the other.
This pot is in the most difficult position, in my garden, for plants to grow. It gets no direct
sunlight at all in winter and in summer it gets the full hot westerly sun, which is extreme heat
I can't believe how fast little Jinx is growing, she is the most mischievous little kitten.
I'm going to be making some Garlic Bread in the slow cooker. This is some garlic that I
harvested in the summertime and here's the parsley I just picked as well as the lemons
I'll be adding these home-grown ingredients to some cream cheese and parmesan cheese in
this bowl, this mixture will then be spread over the dough
before I roll it up and cut it up and put it into the slow cooker
Niki and I were the only two in the family that got sick with the flu
and it was nice to share the adventure with an understanding soul, we were able to laugh
at the ridiculousness of our situation at each stage, it seemed to last for weeks
and it wasn't even the one that everyone's been talking about for the past few years. It was
handy to have canned food ready Niki lived off the Chicken Soup and I was living off the Tomato Soup.
I had plenty of other food, including freezer food. that I'd cooked up earlier for this sort
of occasion, but we just weren't that hungry so the soups were perfect and easy to keep us going
To make the dough I add warm water to yeast and honey and let that sit for 5 minutes
in another bowl I add plain flour which is all-purpose flour
and salt and then I mix it all together
once the dough is combined, flour your work surface and your rolling pin
and then knead your dough for five minutes
when your five minutes is up let it rest for 10 minutes
before rolling it out onto your work surface
I roll it into a rectangle that's about 9 inches by 15 inches
and then I spread my mixture over the top of the dough
before rolling it up
and then the log gets sliced up into about 10 to 12 different pieces
and these go into the slow cooker that is already lined with parchment paper that's greased
you can sprinkle some sea salt on top if you like. The slow cooker is on high and the garlic
bread will cook for 90 minutes and I put a tea towel in the lid to absorb any moisture that
comes out of the bread. I make sure all the tea towels on top of the lid so that it doesn't burn
I harvested this pumpkin 14 months ago, I usually
can or use them up by at least 10 months after harvesting
but I didn't get around to it this year, it'll be interesting to see what it looks like inside
there's no water beading from the flesh and the seeds are somewhat
dry but it's still good enough to eat, it's more like a store bought pumpkin
I'm removing the seeds and chopping up the pumpkin so that i can roast it in the oven
I'm making a pumpkin soup
It stopped drizzling and the sun has even made a brief appearance so I had to take this opportunity
to absorb some sunshine. The glass house, that I got a few years ago is needing some maintenance,
the glass is falling out of the frame so it's better to fix this before it
becomes a bigger problem. I just need to line up the glass back into the frame
once I get it up into place I can add a screw to the bottom to hold
the glass in place so it doesn't drop out again
it's a good time to clean it out as well and get it ready in preparation
for the end of the winter seedlings that I'm going to put in for the spring garden
I can remove all of these planks
and make sure there's no guests living in the greenhouse like bugs or spiders or whatever.......
while I've been healing from the flu, I've had many creative ideas
for projects around the garden. One of them is to make doors on the side of this glass house,
that way no adventurous chickens or ducks will discover my seedlings
I've been contemplating building a gate for easier access to the back of the Passionfruits
and I've also thought about changing some of my outdoor spaces by moving seats and pot plants,
that I already have, to create new areas. I need to remove grass under the Kumquat tree as well
and separate and mount my Staghorns and repot a Bay tree, which also needs to be moved as well,
to a newer location. Sometimes a potted plant outgrows its location but it will be wonderful
to have it in a new position and then there's a seat that no longer gets used in another spot
and it would be good for it to be in a new space too.
It's amazing how many ideas you can have when you can't do anything, the ideas are so clear in my
mind that they are real and I look forward to you seeing them when they actually exist
I hope you're well where you are and thanks for spending time with me at Moat Cottage.
Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next video.