As the drought continued through to the end of August, our community garden struggled to produce many vegetables. However we found that our fruit trees have been pretty resilient. August is the peak season for our plums, greengages and damsons. Initially we were worried that most plums were infected by plum moth larvae, but the infected fruit seemed to disappear; probably dropped off and eaten by the sheep and we were left with beautiful plump fruit.
Our tomatoes and cucumbers have continued to produce fruit, with the white cucumbers out performing the green variety.
Behind the scenes
We are excited to see our new shed starting to take shape in the horticultural area. We desperately need more space for our tools and other equipment as well as a cool, rodent free, well ventilated room to store our harvested produce. Up to now we have either had to store it outside, in the polytunnel or in a barn (prone to rodents) across the farmyard. The new shed will be ready by early September and will even have a cool room to prolong the life of our soft fruit. It will be powered by passive cooling systems and solar power, keeping our site fully of grid and sustainable. We will be harvesting rainwater off its roof as well to increase our resilience.
As part of our Lottery funding, the team has been busy putting together a launch day for the Bank Holiday Monday. This will be an Open Day to showcase what FarmEco is all about. If it is successful, we may make this an annual event. At the moment we don’t know if 30 people are coming or 300! We will go with the flow and enjoy the day whatever happens!
Due to popular request, we have added a recipe module to our website. Over time we will collect recipes relevant to the crops we grow. This will be useful, especially for the more unusual fruits and veg. If you have any recipes that you would like to contribute, please email them through.
Lastly, thank-you to Nick for all the lovely photos that he is taking of the farm. He is capturing mouth-watering images of our produce, highlighting some of the wildflowers and insects around and showing our volunteers in action. He has also taken some great drone footage which we will add to our YouTube channel.
FarmEco Slivovitz
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- wash and destone the plums
- put half the plums in the mason jar
- add 2 tbsp honey
- pour over the vodka until they are covered
- add the other half of plums; fill the jar to near the top
- add the rest of the honey; alter amount according to your preference
- add the sea buckthorn berries
- top up with vodka to above the fruit
- close the lid and invert to mix several times
- keep in a cool, dark place and invert daily for the first two weeks
- leave to mature for about 3 months
- strain out the fruit (keep the fruit for other delicious recipes
- bottle up and give as Christmas gifts, or enjoy yourself!
This is incredibly helpful
Really love how you balance education with entertainment perfectly