The Seasonal Supplement: Issue 5, Late Winter

sandstone baubles | rhubarb cocktails | first seeds

Feb 19, 2023

The orchard is sporting an unusual look this month. The grass is strewn with lichen-covered cuttings: some chunky branches, some wispy twigs, some a mix between the two. An assortment of ladders, saws, and wheelbarrows fill gaps between trees. And sandstone rocks, wrapped and knotted with yellow string, dangle from branches like bizarre baubles. We’re in the middle of pruning the apple and pear trees. And there is a lot of reshaping to do.

The orchard was already well established when we moved here. Old maps and historical records tell us it has been a place where fruit trees have grown for over a hundred years. At one time it was dedicated solely to cider apples, but these days there is a mixture of cherries, apples, pears, plums, gages, medlars, and mulberries. We were so excited to take on its guardianship when we arrived on the smallholding. But when that first fruit harvest was over, and the leaves fell, we realised we had a difficult job on our hands. Almost all the trees were growing in haphazard shapes. They looked nothing like the drawings in our gardening books, or the examples featured in online how-to videos. It’s hard to know where to start pruning when you’re faced with a tree in a terrific tangle. And even tougher when there’s a whole orchard of them. But with secateurs and saw in hand, we got going. Sometimes it is best to just begin. So, we snipped and cut and shaped and hoped for the best. And with each year that passed, the task got slightly easier, and the trees slowly smartened up.

Almost a decade later, the old apple and pear trees are finally growing towards the classic goblet shapes that work so well in an orchard. There is space for air to circulate amongst the branches, keeping pests and diseases at bay, and room for the fruit to grow plentifully. Now, when winter pruning rolls round, it’s more a case of maintenance than drastic reform, although some of the younger growth needs encouragement into the right positions (hence the stone weights). The plums and cherries, on the other hand, are still in a bit of a muddle, but they are the next priority. We’ll get there, eventually.

In the meantime, winter is dissolving into spring. The crocuses, snowdrops and winter aconites are in full bloom. Comfrey, hellebores, anemones, and primroses are coming into flower. There are even daisies in the lawn - enough for a chain. And the daffodils are so nearly ready to open - their yellow petals gently glowing through translucent spathes. It’s just as well really, as the butterflies and bumblebees are emerging already and drowsily making their way to the nearest pollen and nectar sources.

There’s a couple of new things for us to harvest too: finger-pinches of rosemary flowers and the very first stems of rhubarb. Plus the chickens are getting into the swing of laying, and eggs are becoming plentiful again. All of which brings us to this month’s seasonal recipe…

A seasonal recipe

This sweet and sour gin cocktail is infused with sticks of neon pink rhubarb, plus rosemary (leaf sprigs and soft blue flowers) from the herb beds. A tipple to complement the next few weeks of winter-spring transition. Cheers!

Rhubarb and Rosemary Cocktail

Makes 2

100g caster sugar

200g rhubarb, chopped into 5cm lengths

A sprig of fresh rosemary

75ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

50ml gin

2 very fresh egg whites

A few rosemary leaves or flowers to serve (optional)

In a large saucepan, gently heat the caster sugar with 100ml of water until dissolved. Bring the mixture up to the boil and then immediately add the rhubarb and rosemary. Cook for a couple of minutes, then remove from the heat. Once the mixture has cooled down, discard the rosemary, strain out the poached rhubarb - save it to eat with thick yoghurt or a crumble topping - and bottle the syrup. There should be more than enough for two cocktails (any leftovers will happily keep for a couple of weeks in the fridge).

To make the cocktail: put 100ml of rhubarb and rosemary syrup, the lemon juice, gin, and egg whites into a cocktail shaker (or a large jam jar with the lid on), and shake to combine all the ingredients. Then add a handful of ice cubes to the shaker and shake again vigorously until beads of condensation form on the outside of the glass/metal. Strain into glasses, sprinkle a few rosemary flowers or rosemary leaves on top of the foam to decorate if you wish, and serve immediately.

A book to read

Urban Dreams, Rural Realities by Daniel Butler and Bel Crewe

Many years ago, when we were living in London, we came across a crumpled copy of this book on the shelves of the local library. It is about a couple who moved from London to the Welsh countryside in pursuit of the good life. The pages are filled with stories of wild mushroom hunts, growing vegetables for the first time, keeping pigs, bee swarms, and general life in the countryside. We both read it cover to cover and absolutely loved it. It formed part of the inspiration for our own move to a smallholding, and more than piqued our interest in mushroom foraging too. It’s out of print now, but easy to pick up second hand, and well worth a read.

A seed to sow

We sowed the first seeds of the year this week in the heated propagator: the tomatoes. Latah is our current favourite tomato variety to grow. We don’t have a polytunnel, so we need a multipurpose tomato that can cope happily with being grown outside in the English weather. Latah is a super early, really flavoursome, red tomato variety that is just as good for cooking with as it is for eating fresh, and it grows really well here in Somerset. Once the seedlings are big enough and the weather is suitably warm, we plant them out in one of the raised beds and just leave them to it. Latah is a bush variety of tomato, so there’s no need to worry about pinching out or staking. The plants quickly grow into what is essentially a scrambling, chaotic, knee-high tomato forest, which fruits abundantly from early summer until autumn. In 2022, one large raised bed (4m x 1.2m), of the plants provided almost all our tomatoey needs for the year. We ate our fill of fresh tomatoes and made countless jars of passata, dried tomatoes in oil, soups, and pasta sauces to last us through to the next harvest.

A few snippets from our February task list

Weed and fix the fruit cage. The fruit cage needs a serious tidy. There are wayward raspberry canes, invading couch grass, an array of brambles and ferns, a broken bit of frame, and squirrel holes all over the netting that need patching up.
Finish the apple tree pruning. We are so nearly there with this year’s pruning. There are just the two spartan trees left to go. And then there will be rhubarb cocktails to celebrate.
Chip the fruit tree prunings. While any large chunks of fruitwood prunings end up in the logstores for firewood, we also chip the more spindly branches and use them as a handy mulch for the flowerbeds. And we keep a couple of buckets back for using on summer barbeques, because applewood smoked meat is a very good thing.
Give the sheep some prunings to snack on. Our Shetland sheep adore nibbling fruit wood, so we always make sure we take them a few piles of apple twigs.
Divide the comfrey plants. We have various spots of comfrey dotted around the smallholding. Under the old apple tree and around the woodstores mainly. But it is such a useful plant that we’re keen to establish a few more patches. It is loved by so many insects and pollinators and makes an excellent plant feed, so we’re happy to have it around in profusion.
Sow the chilli seeds. Next into the heated propagator will be the chilli seeds. Two varieties this year: Nigel’s Outdoor Chilli (which is suitable for growing in the veg patch) and Chinese Dragon Tongue, which we grew last year on the kitchen windowsill (it made a superb sweet chilli sauce, so we saved the seeds and are planting it again).
Chit potatoes. Our seed potatoes arrived this week and need to be laid out to chit (we use old cardboard egg trays for this, which work rather nicely). We’re growing two varieties this year. Sarpo Mira and Coleen.
Harvest the willow. We have a coppice of different basketry willows that are ready to harvest this month. The long, whippy strands need to be cut right back to the ground, bundled up, and dried. We have lots of willow crafting dreams for the year ahead.

We so hope you enjoyed reading the Seasonal Supplement. As ever, please do feel free to leave a like or a comment - it really does brighten our day to read your thoughts and chat with you in the comments. We absolutely love hearing from you.

The Journal of Modern Smallholding