Here’s the finished result of Karen’s hard work - garlic plaited and ready to dry. We ended up with eight big plaits and a whole lot of heads with no stalks attached. We’ll eat the singles first while the plaits can dry in the cool shed.

The cleaning was quite laborious this year as the ground was so wet when we harvested - lots of dirt stuck to the heads.

We’ve been asked a few times to recommend reading lists to people so I thought it was about time we listed a few of our favourite books. We read a lot and this list are the ones we think are the most informative, inspiring or plain useful. I’ll add more books to the shelf as I think of them and get the time.

You can visit the Lifeboat Bookshelf here.

About six months ago on the shortest day (or not long after as I recall) we planted 200-odd garlic cloves. It looks like almost all of them have grown well and now it’s time to harvest. The tops are just starting to die back which is as good a sign as any they are ready.

Here’s the garlic haul - we ended up with two of these baskets full!

They’ll dry out for a few days before we can plait them into strings to dry them properly. This is half the garlic laid out. The rest is on the other side of the lounge (because you just never know which direction the vampires will attack from).

Look out for future posts on roasting, smoking and cooking with our garlic.

The unsettled weather has given us a surprise batch of field mushrooms. Not to look a gift mushroom in the mouth, we promptly made a delicious mushroom risotto with our find.

We finally have our new batch of piglets. Having just arrived we’ve put them in the stables for a few days until they get used to us and learn where their food comes from. This will make them much easier to move around once they are out and about.

After a couple of escapes from the stables we think we have finally perfected the pig-proof stall and will release them into their new forest home soon. They’ll have about 2 acres of mature woodlot to fossick about in with fresh water and a house to shelter from the weather. The entire perimeter has a snout-height electric wire to keep them safely in the woodlot (and our adjacent gardens safe from them).

New grass day for the cows is their favourite day I’m guessing. Our girls are still putting on good weight being just on pasture this time of year. We could probably get them fatter faster if we gave them grain or palm kernel but why would you when they are perfectly evolved to eat pasture, and nothing but.

We have been waiting for enough fine weather to cut hay for about a moth now. The grass is quite long enough to cut and with the alternating wet and hot days it is getting more ready every day. This is the view from the bottom of the airstrip (our hay paddock) down the valley.

Despite the very unsettled spring weather (or more likely because of it) we’ve had our best year ever for brassicas. It seems that a cold, long winter killed off most of the white butterflies and the last few months of weird weather has disrupted the life cycles of those that survived. We’ve seen perhaps only two or three white butterflies this spring and the result is broccoli, cabbages and cauliflower coming out our ears.

This will be tonight’s dinner (with some cheesy tomato and vege sauce, over pasta.

We are blessed with good friends and neighbours that give us food (knowing of course that we’ll reciprocate :-). This batch of preserving is red currants, rhubarb, plums and blackberries.We still have quite a bit more to process but Karen and Kelly did pretty well for an afternoon over the wood stove.

Much like the apple trees down our roadsides, there are plenty of plum trees too. This is the haul from a leisurely Sunday afternoon of scrumping with Karen, Daniel and Kelly. Look out for some plum preserving action soon.