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Exciting new course - Wet Felting

Would you like to learn how to felt wool?

Well now is your chance!

Make, Do and Mend in Chelmsford are offering the members of East Essex Smallholders the chance to learn about felting wool.

During this 3 hour workshop you will learn the basics of wet felting using soap and water and create your own piece of felt that will then be used to make a flower corsage with beads.






The Course will cost only £36.00


We are looking at booking a course for a Saturday in March.

If you are interested please contact

Danni – 07854595640 

or

email chair@eastessexsmallholders.org.uk

NEWSLETTER - February 2011

Hello Fellow East Essex Small Holders

Welcome to our February news letter, the first one by us, Donna and Caroline.

Hope it is of the usual standard, as we are new to this. Any hints and tips are

welcome, but please be aware we are ladies of a delicate age!!!!!!

Hopefully this will be the last one that is sent by e-mail as we are currently

developing our own website (well, Sussannah and Carlie are doing all the hard work

we are just helping with ‘good ideas’).

We have set up a small informal ‘committee’ as Danni asked for help running the

group. We are Danni, Sussannah, Carlie, Phil, oh and not forgetting us Donna and

Caroline. We all volunteered to take some of the workload and organisation.

Our First meeting of the year was on Tuesday night where we announced the

imminent arrival of the website and had a collection to purchase the web space and

domain. We raised a total of £77 .

We would like to send a BIG thank you to everyone who contributed.

Back Yard Poultry - Susan McCann

The ‘Back yard poultry’ talk by local vet Susan McCann was a great success many

thanks to her for coming. I think we all gathered some very useful information.

Here are the details for the useful websites that she mentioned.

Poutry Club and Animal Oracle hopefully Sussannah will be able

to add them as a link when the website is up and running. We will also add the

contact details for Marriages, they sell Flubenvet already mixed in the food. This can

make life a bit easier.

New Members

We also had some new members come along which is always good to see. We

would like to welcome them wholeheartedly and we hope you enjoyed yourself and

will come to future meetings, (If we didn’t scare you off).

DEFRA 

Danni received a call from Defra this afternoon who due to ill health have cancelled

their talk for February. We think we may have managed to scare them off even

before we sent them a list of questions! Although they say they are still very keen

to meet us, but want to be sure they send the best suited people. I have arranged

for pest control to come instead on 22nd February and will slot Defra into the 22nd

March as soon as it can be arranged. Please forward any questions to

Caroline

Recipe of the Month

We have attached (hopefully) a recipe which we think you might enjoy. We are

hoping to include a ‘recipe of the month’ on the website. If you have any that you

like to share with the group please forward them to Caroline

Pig Keeping Course

For those interested Fiona is running some One Day Pig Keeping Courses, mainly for

anyone interested in raising pigs for the freezer, but can also be structured for

those wishing to have 'pet' pigs in the garden or simply for anyone wishing to spend

a day with all things piggy!

A 'hands on' experience where you will learn basic pig husbandry covering housing,

fencing, regulations, handling/moving, feeding and general healthcare. Courses are

planned for March and subject to demand April too. Cost is £75 per person including

refreshments, lunch, information and a pig keeping book to take home, more details

can be found at www.madaboutpigs.co.uk

If anyone would like to offer any helpful hints and tips or amusing anecdotes

regarding your adventures in small holding we would love to include these in future

newsletters.

Dig It

One of our other columnists, Fiona’s Dad, has been talked into/told he will be doing

a gardening feature each month. So a big thank you to him and here is his first

article.

Allotment and Garden February

This is the time for getting equipment ready ie; seed trays and pots, making sure

they are all clean and ready for use.

Disregard old compost making way for fresh as old compost loses its nutrients.

This is also the time to buy seeds, onion sets and seed potatoes. You can start

'chitting' potatoes in a greenhouse or any light, cool place. Egg boxes are ideal trays

for these placing the tubers 'eye' end up. They should be ready for planting out in

late March/April.

Sow broad beans, early peas and spinach also early maturing cabbage and

cauliflower in pots, from the middle of the month onwards, in the greenhouse,

cloches or in poly tunnels.

If you have established rhubarb it should be coming through now, so if you want to

pick stalks early cover with an upturned bucket or pot to 'force' it.

Dig over the veg patches and dress with well rotted manure or fertiliser.

Remember to check bird boxes are secure or put up new ones.

Finish pruning and tidying the garden before the spring growth really takes off.

Just a few things to do in February

Well that’s all for this month we hope you have enjoyed our first edition;

Next Meeting

Happy smallholding hope to see you all on the 22nd February at The Blue

Boar

Donna & Caroline

RECIPE OF THE MONTH

Potato and Blue Cheese soup

Ingredients

Potatoes (soft ones that mash)

2 medium onions peeled and chopped

2 cloves garlic peeled and crushed

Blue Cheese cubed (its best with a mild one Garstang Blue or Stilton

Knob of butter and enough oil to lightly fry the onions

1 Litre vegetable stock

150ml cream (or good natural yoghurt)

Salt and Pepper

Method

Peel the potato’s (or you can leave the skin on if you wish) and cut

into rough chunks.

Heat oil and butter in a large pan, when butter has just melted add

the garlic and onions. Cook on a gentle heat for 5 minutes.

Add the potatoes and the stock, cover and cook until the potatoes are

soft. If you are using cream add it at this point. If using yoghurt add

just before serving.

Mash or liquidise the soup using a food processor or hand blender.

Return soup to the pan and add the cheese cubes, heat gently until

the cheese has melted.

Season to taste.

If using yoghurt add now or garnish by crumbling on a small

amount of blue cheese.

Serve immediately with warm crusty bread and salted butter.

Butchery Course - April 2011

Another butchery course is being planned for April.

If you are interested in attending there are 4 places, which need filling before a date can be confirmed with Ansells, Maldon.

 

The course will last for about 2 hours with staff demonstrating the butchery of a pig.  Each course costs £15 and please see Phil's report on this blog.

To reserve a place, please email Danni on the link below

Butchery Course - April 2011

Ansell & Sons butchery course

Sunday  6^th February was the first butchery course for our small holding group and was a great success here is the report by Phil.

We all arrived for 9.30am at Ansell & Sons on Maldon High Street for a demonstration on how to butcher a pig. Our expert tutors were Paul and Derek. Some useful handouts were distributed for us to take home, on the types of cuts that come from a pig with corresponding recipes.

The hanging of the pig was first discussed, this is done for approximately 4 days to allow the meat to settle, making it easier to butcher.

We were then shown how all the different cuts and joints on the pig are broken down, with advice on how to cut using mostly the tip of the knife and following the bone or seam of the meat.  By this point most of us had started salivating; a half time interval with bacon or sausage sandwiches would have been most welcome.

On the subject of sausages it was reassuring to find out what isn’t added to sausages at Ansell’s but what is normally added to less reputable sausages in the form of an extruded paste made up of all the crap like the gristle and spinal cord.

Ansell’s have said they will butcher our pigs for at a price of around £35 but please pre-plan and give them plenty of notice, so that they can make a good job of it.

Some other interesting facts I learnt from the day:

           -        80% of meat in catering is imported

           -        Most British meat is being exported at the moment, because of its superior quality and the strength of the Euro

 The morning’s demonstration was well worth the price. Even if you don’t have your own pigs it was good to see what you buy and how it fits into a pig. I’m looking forward even more to getting my first weaners and having a go at butchering myself, but probably in front of the TV watching what I have videoed.  I will endeavour to get this onto DVD, for the next meeting.

Here’s their website:  www.ansellandsons.co.uk