A View (Some Miles Away) From The Greenhouse; We’re All “Far-Right” Now.

Recently I had occasion to visit the observatory at Langdale, a torturous ninety minute drive from home, along some of the very worst roads in Cumbria. It was almost all for naught, although the clouds did part for around a minute or so, revealing a full moon and at least five stars. Sadly, by the time the telescope we’d been assigned to was positioned and focused, the cloud had returned and that was that. However, the lead astronomer was an enthusiastic and very knowledgeable fellow and he managed to keep us reasonably well entertained with his little lecture, accompanied by photographs that he’d taken, of our neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda. The Milky Way is estimated to have something between 100 and 400 billion stars within its purview and (or so we were told) something in the region of 90% of them have “viable planetary systems”. On seeing Andromeda, I commented, as one does, that doesn’t seem so large (the near/far away analogy was soon invoked) and anyway, I further asked, what are all those dots surrounding it? They were some of the stars in the Milky Way. Any road up, Andromeda has an estimated trillion stars, making it (possibly) ten times the size of our piddling affair. By my reckoning, that means it could be home to as many as 900,000,000,000 viable planetary systems. There are an estimated 2 trillion galaxies in the “observable universe” although nobody really knows where the whole thing begins and ends, or even, to be fair, if it does. All this made me think about Ed Milliband, Mark Carney and their ilk, with their “net zero” bollox. As I said to Mrs. C as we left “the hubris of man, to think it’s all about us”. We may take the observatory up on the offer to return, FOC, on a less cloudy and more auspicious evening (the planetarium cinema/story’s very interesting, if you’re up this way and have an hour to spare) but we may not. It’s a long drive and there’s still quite a lot to take in.

The first lot of runners I removed from the strawberry troughs were put in water (I should have looked it up) to see if I could get them to root and then over-winter them for replacements next season. They all died. I’ve put another forty in some enriched compost and we’ll see how that goes. If it’s another fail, I’ll get the old “Smallholders Encyclopedia” out. I think it has a paragraph or two on the subject of soft fruits propagation, thereof.

I’d been a bit sceptical about the corn experiment, I wasn’t even that sure what to expect, but my surprise at the reveal was more than pleasant. It may have been a week or two early to harvest this first one, but impatience got the better of both of us. It’s sweet and crunchy, although I doubt that there’d be much point in shucking and shelling these particular specimens. Mrs. C not being a fan, I doubt that any of it will end up in my kitchen, but if it did I’d probably cut the whole thing into bite sized pieces and roast them as a side veg, the centre core being almost as tender as the individual corn beads themselves. If I have a go, I’ll let you know how it goes.

One of the nice things about having a surfeit of produce is the discovery of ways to make it last longer and go further. There are people (more of which later), friends (old and new), casual acquaintances and neighbours who I’ve come to know well, some of them have things to swap and some of them have both the skills and the time to do some preserving. A friend who I’ve known now for a couple of years takes great pleasure in visiting the greenhouse and raiding it for both tried and tested recipes and new kitchen experiments. In recent weeks he’s taken a large truss of green tomatoes, which had broken off the plant stem and turned them into green tomato chutney, some of the glut of cherry tomatoes and pickled them and several large cornichon, which he’s also pickled with garlic and bay. The first attempt wasn’t a success, but this didn’t deter him in the slightest and he thinks that by pre-brining the result this time will be different. Only time will tell.

We’ve visited the plum tree previously, I know, so I won’t dwell on it, but I will say the small harvest of what was left after the jackdaws and wasps had had their fill was of excellent quality and superb tasting, mostly clean skinned, fruits. Many were eaten over the couple of weeks of peak ripening (and not just by me), I’ve stewed a couple of pounds and frozen them for winter porridge and I’ve also made three jars of jam. The weather suited the growing process, something I know we can’t always guarantee, but I have hope for more of the same next year. I’ll be peeling plums as well as grapes for the lovely Maya, all being well.

The compost heap continues to break down nicely, but I think having it inside the greenhouse doesn’t do it any favours. Any road up, following lengthy and involved consultations with the B&M department we’ve reached a new consensus. I’ve enriched it recently with some nettle soup and some chicken manure (I don’t think we got the best from it as a potting medium this year) and, once everything’s been harvested and cleaned out we’re moving it outside to see if we can get a bit more worm action and to allow us to have a dump for more “green” waste. We’ve recently been notified that we’re now going to be charged for the privilege of having it carted away once a fortnight. There was me thinking that was what I paid my council tax for, but apparently not.

I bought new San Marzano seed this year (I may have mentioned that the few I’d saved from last season had spoiled) and, for a while at least, I wasn’t sure that I’d made a good choice. I needn’t have worried, although they’ve been long in the ripening (some still have a way to go) they have excellent flavour and are the perfect choice for pasta sauces, whilst also being excellent for both soups and, as I found out this weekend, tomato and pesto tart. In a season of more ups than downs, I’m most happy that these have turned out much as I’d hoped they would.

And so to the grape harvest, part one. I’m convinced that the grapes on the older of the two vines, which is situated on the east facing side of the greenhouse, ripen more quickly than the ones on the younger vine. There’s nothing to block the sun on the eastern side, so it consequently gets more direct light and heat. Some mornings this year has seen full sun from around 5.30am, with the younger vine not really benefitting from it until around 11. It actually works to our advantage, as we’ve been able to harvest one vine and leave the other to ripen more slowly over the next couple of weeks. All in all, we took just over 40 pounds of grapes, much of which has now been juiced. It’s a little sweeter this year than it was last, I’m guessing, again, because of the amount of sunlight it’s received. Nature’s a wonderful thing, really.

I did hold back a couple of pints of properly filtered juice, to have another go at making grape jelly (American style jam). I’ve only ever got it right once before, that was the first time I had a go, but I’m nothing if not dogged. On the plus side, I now own a jam thermometer. What could possibly go wrong, I asked myself. Two pints of juice, one and three quarter pounds of sugar (with added pectin) and the juice of two lemons. Bring the mixture slowly to the boil, ensuring the sugar’s melted and cook on a rolling boil at 104 centigrade for 15 minutes or so. I cooked it for 25 minutes, to be safe, and bottled it while still warm. It didn’t work. Any road up, I cooked it again, for another 15 minutes, losing a small jar to evaporation in the process and I have a set, although the finished product is somewhat darker than shown above. I look forward to trying it out!

One of my neighbours stopped me one evening last week (he’s had the odd cucumber, tomato and pepper off me in the past) and offered me a bag of pears that he’d picked off a tree he has on his small plot of land in town. It’s no exaggeration to say I can’t remember eating a nicer pear in recent years. They’re Packhams, I think, but, whatever they are, they’re very good.Ignore the skin, it’s easily peeled.

It’s no secret that I’ve long taken the rise out of the “far-right” trope. I started to do so, along with a great many others, back in the heady days of “Brexit” when we were all “Far-right knuckle dragging, Islamophobic, Homophobic, racist northern monkeys”, simply for having had the temerity to say no to the establishment and vote to Leave the EU. Although this type of insult hasn’t really gone away, at least not on social media, the main stream, both political and in the media, have now decided that the ordinary folk of this once content and mostly satisfied nation are indeed ALL members of a large and growing cohort of Nazis and Fascists. You may well ask why and, funnily enough, it’s because we’ve again had the temerity to say no. No to illegal immigration, no to lying, grasping and corrupt politicians, no to £billions being spent on wars that are little business of ours, no to the utter bollox that is “net zero” and no to “baton passing” government.  You only have to read the hysterical output of some of the usual suspects, following this last weekends march in London, to realise just how scared they are that they may well have stirred the long slumbering beast of the English/British yeomanry stock. If any of them had a fully functioning brain, then they’d at least be asking why, but instead they’ve (mostly) reverted to type by doubling down on the demonisation of a vast swathe of the citizenry. I don’t know where it’s all going to end, but if it all goes south, then the “Progressive Liberal” cognoscenti can hardly say that they haven’t been warned.

Next Time; A (Shortish) Postcard From The Balearics
 

© Colin Cross 2025