Bottled the Samson’s Newkie Brown today. Took 7/8 days to be fermented and ready to bottle. 35 bottles wating to be drank.

Took today off work and spent 4 hours Rotovating the plot. Had to dig over a small part of it because the ground was just too heavy for the rotovator to do its job. All in all a good day and will go back and do it again in a couple of weeks.

Sown in cells and are now in the greenhouse.

Broad Bean – Aguaduice -20

Board Bean – Witkem Manita – 48

Plus for good measure sown some Basil and is now in the kitchen.

Well decided today to sow the chilies and tomatoes. 13 types of Chilli and 6 tomato. The plan was to only sow 3 or 4 type of chilli but something went wrong somewhere

Chillies

Bird Eye – Demon
A fantastic, extremely hot, dwarf variety that produces a prolific yield.  The flowers and upward pointing fruits start green and turn bright red and are produced throughout the season.  These are ideally suited to a windowsill or patio containers and make equally attractive ornamental plants

Cayenne Long Slim
Dark green, long fruit maturing to red. Slim 6” x 3/4” pointed and wrinkled. Strong, spreading plant, 20-24” tall. Great for processing & drying. 70-75 days.

Cayenne Hot

Habanero Orange
Plant produces heavy yields of 40mm long by 30mm wide wrinkled hot peppers. Peppers are extremely hot and turn from green to orange when mature. Plant has green stems, green leaves, and white flowers.

Scotch Bonnet Red
Closely related to the Habaneros, Scotch Bonnets are also fabulously hot. This red hot, fruity, Scotch Bonnet is an essential ingredient in Caribbean recipes. Needs a long warm growing season for fruit to fully ripen to red – Like we will get that in the UK!!

Prairie Fire
This is a compact round bush with fiery hot small chillies which mature from yellow to red. Ideal as a small pot plant. This is probably the quickest growing of the hot chillies we sell and lots of people keep them growing happily through the winter in their kitchen window.

Jalapeño
Chilli Pepper Jalapeno, Standard Jalapeno type, 3″ fruits having thick walls and continuous fruit setting, used for hot pepper eating contests in the USA. Fruits ripen from green to red. A very hot pepper. Used on nachos and chopped in Mexican sauces giving them an excellent flavour.

Cherry Bomb
This is a hugely popular, versatile chilli and very easy to grow too. A bush of beautiful red 5cm very fleshy fruits which mature in around 60 days from potting on. They can be stuffed with cheese and baked, or used for cooking. They are similar in heat to Jalapenos (around 6000 scoville units).

Hot Lemon
Very hot lemon flavoured and scented chili pepper, suitable for drying and freezing,  Green fruits up to 5cm long mature to yellow. Plant height approx 60cm

Bolivian Rainbow
Tear-drop shaped peppers turn from purple to yellow to orange to red with all colours present on the plant at the same time. Great container plant. Very prolific. (Capsicum annuum). 75 days to ripen. Heirloom variety. Grown in Bolivia. Ever bearing, 2-3 foot plants have purple foliage and flowers and yield tiny, pointed 1 inch fruits.

Bhut Jolokia
Bhut Jolokia seeds the ‘Blistering Hot’ Indian Chilli Pepper that originates in the area of Assam, India. Tested by the Chile Pepper Institute in Mexico (our source for one of the hottest peppers in the world) the origin of the seed they used was from Bih Jolokia bred in Assam India.
Up to 1,001,304 Scoville Units

Dorset Naga
Dorset Naga measuring about 1,000,000 Scoville Heat Units, is one of the hottest chillies in the world. Its scorching heat is combined with a distinctive fruity aroma makes it a truly exceptional chilli.

Congo Black – 1 seed from last year!
Congo Black is a very sharp Habanero / Scotch Bonnet variety from the Caribbean. Very prolific medium-sized plants.

Tomatoes

Alicante
Heavy-cropping Money maker type with an excellent flavour.A classic, older variety.

Gardeners Delight
An exceptionally sweet and delicious outdoor cherry tomato. Each bite sized fruit is packed full of old fashioned true tomato taste.

Golden Sunrise
Medium sized, early, sweet yellow fruits with a distinctive flavour

Moneymaker
Well known for reliably producing heavy crops. Large trusses of medium-sized fruit. Ideal for greenhouse or outdoor growing

Orange Santa
A spectacular dense, orange-skinned, cherry plum with a high sugar content and a distinctive flavour when fully rip

Tigerella
Very distinctive variety having red fruits with orange-yellow stripes. Fine flavour and heavy yielding

Walk starting and finishing in the lovely village of Kilburn. The walk takes you passed Byland Abbey over to the Gliding club and the White Horse of Kilburn. Today we had a demoralising start to the walk, 1st the GPS wouldn’t work and then most of 1st 3 miles to the Abbey were pure mud.

Worth it in the end to see the Abbey/Gliders/White horse and the wonderful views.

Walk
Total length : 10.3 miles
Time taken : 4.5 Hours
Min Elevation : 273ft
Max Elevation : 965ft

Memory Map Overlay

On a roll now. Just made another batch of home brew beer, this time Samson’s Newkie Brown. So at the moment I have 1 red wine and 2 beers on the go, the kitchen is looking more like a mini brewery

Might start a Pinot Grigio at the weekend as well..

Samson's Newkie Brown

Spent all morning scrubbing the Greenhouse clean. Amazing how much “gunk” was on the glass and amazing how it has taken me 3 years to actually clean it – hmm not really that amazing since I am a lazy sod…..

Took the plunge into basic wine making kits and currently have a demijohn filled with 6 bottles of vino – Beaverdale Rioja

Beaverdale Rioja

Also have had to put some extra yeast/primer into the Coopers – Dark Ale, as I think I left it in the Fermentation Vessel (bucket!!) too long before bottling and it never had enough yeast for the 2nd fermentation in the bottles. This means they are totally flat. This is a long shot but really didn’t want to pour it down the sink.

UPDATE  : Wine bottled 22/03/2009