Rising Sap

It is that time again.  On a couple of occasions recently I have left the house without freezing, there is blossom out and the birds are singing.  It can only mean one thing.  Spring is starting at long last.  It also means that some of those exciting plants that I bought in the tail end of last year will have their first full season in my company.  According to my sources oca and yacon need to be grown on in pots, until the chances of frost pass.  I over-wintered them in a tub indoors and this may explain their early sprouting.  So it is time to separate them up into pots and bring them on a bit.  It may be that in future years I will be a bit less precious over them, but for now I will be careful and build up my stock.

Jerusalem artichoke (left), Yacon (right) and Oca (bottom centre)

The Yacon tubers look like Jerusalem artichokes.  In fact they look even more like jerusalem artichokes than the jerusalem artichoke that I found for the photograph.

Oca starting to come through and looking a lot like clover.

The jerusalem artichokes have gone straight into the ground as I feel I can be a bit less precious over them.  I have only ever known one person who did not have a run away success growing them and even if I do kill them I can get some more.
The seed potatoes have gone in.  This year I have gone for a lucky dip selection.  Two years ago I planted a wide selection at my mum's house, which were only partly harvested that year and completely abandoned the following year.  So last year I dug up some in the autumn, but by that time the labels had long since passed on.  Now this mixed collection have formed the seed for this year.  Lets see what comes up!
I have also put in some quite normal seeds including broccoli, comfrey, pumpkin, and chili.  Far more excitingly I have planted some liquorice, and cape gooseberry seeds.  Lets hope I can keep the slugs away this time.

Drugs, Just say why?

Lance Armstrong's recent fall from grace has got me thinking.  He used to date Sheryl Crow.  A relationship which neatly represents the two side of societies ambivalent attitudes towards drugs.  On the one hand you have Lance Armstrong whom we now known to be a lying, bullying, DRUGS CHEAT!  He is now persona non grata and will probably be sued by every American who ever looked up to him, or put into a Findus beef lasagna along with the rest of the failed race horses.  On the other hand you have Sheryl Crow, who for all I know is a clean living child of light who welcomes the rising sun every morning with yogic love, but for this illustration she represents the music industry where a much more permissive attitude towards drug use is common.
Now this raises an obvious question, why the difference?  Of course we all know the usual arguments about  drug use in sport.  That it should be about the ability of the athlete and not their ability to take drugs, and taking drugs is a shortcut for just doing more training.  I am inclined to agree, seeing people shorten their lives for a blaze of transient glory on the sport field is a bit tragic.  There are those who suggest, only half joking, that there should be some divisions of sport where there is a drugs free for all, and I have to confess that I would be curious to see what the human body could achieve with an unlimited supply of pharmaceutical assistance.
The interesting thing is that the attitude of many people, myself included, is very different when it comes to the the music industry.  Now you might say this is not a fair comparison.  In the world of sport drugs are used to enhance performance in quite clinical and indeed cynical ways, whereas in the world of music, drugs are recreational and it is not a competition.  These drugs will not make you run faster.  They are taken in a haphazard way to expand perception, relax, stimulate, or heighten experiences and emotions.  Not similar at all.  But what is it that musicians do?  They sing, compose and play about their perceptions, experiences and emotions.  They get hyped up to give manic performances and then need help to relax afterwards.  So are the drugs they use not performance enhancing?  Its just a different kind of performance.  If you don't believe me, look at the clean living musicians such as Coldplay or Westlife.  It is theoretically possible that their music could make me more bored, but I would have to be prevented from turning it off to experience that level of boredom.
Of course you can point to drug addled wastrels who produce rubbish music.  But then the equivalent would be true in sport.  It wouldn't matter how much EPO and steroids you pushed into me, I wouldn't keep up with Bradley Wiggins unless he was pulling me in a bike trailer.  Drugs can only assist so far, and after that it just down to what you had to start with.
All this musing leads me to some final questions.  With the correct prescription of recreational drugs would Coldplay and Westlife stop producing drivel that can put strong men into a catatonic torpor?  On the other hand, what have we got to lose?

Wailing and gnashing of dampproofing

Have you ever wondered if you could fit everything you own into one room?  Recently this question has been vexing me and it turns out that, broadly speaking the answer is yes. I can fit almost everything I own into one room.  I say almost everything because some items of furniture remain downstairs, but technically most of those are the property of my mother, without whom my house would be mostly unfurnished.  Actually some (all) of the furniture in my bedroom belongs to my mother too, so if we discount that it should be easy to fit everything into one room.

The obvious question is why?  Why would someone fit everything they own into one cramped little room.  Well in the near future my house will be in receipt of a new damp course and wood worm spray.  As such all wood floors need to be free of items, carpet, furniture, etc.  and some of the downstairs walls need to be freed from their plaster and skirting boards.  On top of all this, a number of floor boards need to be lifted so that the joists and undersides of the floors can be sprayed too.  All of this means that the house has a cold, musty and dusty air of a building site on hiatus.

All this will soon change though as the treatment should be happening in a week or so.  This will be followed by some rather extensive plastering to make good on the damp proofing and the building work.  This should be the last I see of bare bricks on the inside of the house, which i am more than a bit glad of as I cannot adequately describe quite how sick I am of my house being a building site.  What is more remarkable is that I spend most of my time (when not wearing a boiler suit) at Claire's.  The  house of my lovely girlfriend, not the shop that sells cheap jewellery.  So I am not even fully immersed in the buildingsiteyness of it.  But it has been a year since I moved in.  Plenty long enough to tire of the sight of bare plaster/bare brick/cables/unfinished floor boards/ etc.
Ah well.  Hopefully most of the building site will just be a memory soon!

New doors

The builders finished a week ago, the new patio doors are in an the house is weather tight again.

The Joy of Veg

The day has arrived when some of my new plants have come up with the goods!  Oh Frabjus day.

First up the Yacon; the frost had previously taken out the leaves, so I figured that its useful days of growing were over for this season.... Time to have a look under the ground.  I was expecting one or two tubers, but what I got was five decent sized ones.  Now I believe these things can grow to be huge so I might look back at these and think they are rather tame, but for now I am quite pleased with five hens egg sized tubers.

The plant had only been in my garden for one and a half months, the root structure was still pot shapes and the stem only reached about one meter.  Next year with a full run at the growing season the results may be bigger and better.

I had to look up how to harvest Yacon on line to make sure I would not kill it.  It turns out that the round tubery things are the bounty and the ones that look like Jerusalem artichokes are the bit that propagate next year.  you have to keep the crown, as a plant after harvesting.  It is now in a bucket in my porch to keep it frost free.

But what of the flavor? They are sweet, and crunchy with a light texture.  Rather delightful! The texture is quite unexpected for a root vegetable, more like an apple than a root vegetable.  This did lead me to wonder what the french would call it, as 'apple of the ground' is already taken.  I can only assume they would call it a Yacon.  But maybe their name for potato will need revising.
Next up the Oca; less of a run away success, but only in quantity.  Like the Yacon, it was still growing in the shape of its old pot.  It had grown a few tubers.  Some of which the slugs had nibbled.  Unlike the Yacon the eaty bit of the Oca is also the growy bit for next year, so some restraint is needed.  But I had to have a nibble on one.  It was like a raw potato in texture with a slightly sour acidic citrus flavor.  Apparently the acidic flavor mellows after a couple of days in the sun, but I am not going to eat any more to find out as the rest are going to be seed for next year.

Last and by a long way, not least, the Chilean Guava;  When I bought the plant it had two berries on it.  Having read that they look ready long before they are, I didn't want to risk picking them too early.  As the leaves are falling off of the trees, I figured they will not be getting any riper, so I gave it a go.  Wow I can see what Queen Victoria was on about!  They are amazing.  The most obvious thing they taste like is strawberries, but there is something more that I could not quite put my finger on.  It looks like that other flavor will have to wait until next year.  Lets hope it produced more berries next year.

New kitchen; day 2

A new opening in the fireplace.  Woo hoo!

And an new hole in the back of the house.

The New Kitchen; Phase 1

Today I came home to a new house.  It looked a lot like the old house that I am used to, but it has changed and been transformed into something more.  A version of its old self, but with extra excitement.  The reason for this extra excitement is that today is the first day of building work.  I am having some walls removed and some new ones put in.  It will be amazing and choirs of angels will sing as you walk in.  Something like that anyway.

The first and most obvious change that I noticed when I arrived at the house was that where there was once a driveway, there is now an enormous pile of rubble.  I had been warned that this was the case.  The main builder had rung me at work to warn me that they had not been able to fit a skip onto the drive and still get into the front door.  So the rubble is resting on the drive and will be cleared tomorrow.  It was a small drive before but now it is very small.

Upon entering the house I was instantly hit by the change.  The door closed with a bit more force than usual  this was due to there being a big hole in the back of the house.  But far more exciting than that I could see the back of the house from just inside the front door.  The wall that used to make the kitchen feel small and the dining room feel dingy was gone.  All that remains is ends of some bricks

This all probably doesn't mean too much with out a before picture.  

Its a different view, but you get the idea.

Tomorrow there should be fewer holes and acros in the house.  The chimney should be opened up too.