THERE'S THIS ONE PARTICULAR HARBOR…

I was watering my plants downstairs and noticed an amazing thing.

Months and I mean months ago, (AFTER the spring storms destroyed my greenhouse and my 4-year-old pineapple.) I tried planting a pineapple top but it never seemed to take off. The insides went brown and I put it on a shelf in the greenhouse cause I couldn’t quite give up on it. I brought it in with all the other plants this fall and I forgot it again. So much so that I got another pineapple in October and planted it right away. This one seemed healthier to start with, and here in January, it has shown some growth in the very middle. CURIOUSLY the YouTube instructions tell you to water it right down the middle but it seems to accelerate the rotting process. I’m keeping it wet and as much fun as you can get in January.

Imagine my surprise when I decided to bring the first top up to my study and let it get the advantage of the plant lights that I found it had a new bit of growth on it! (See pic below. )You can also see how brown and unlikely the rest of it is, but there is definitely new growth up the side of the original top. I will research around the web and see if I should repot it off like a separate plant. Most likely I will leave it alone for now. It’s gone thru a lot just to get to 2021.

I also noticed that my olive tree is doing Ok out in the cold but I might move it out of the wind when the weather gets blustery.

PS: I would really like to grow a banana but I think I would have to move a long way south of Salisbury!

Is it unusual for a poppy to be this colour? This one came up gratis in JJ’s easter lilly box. We’ve had poppies in our garden before but not one in this shade. I checked around and I think it’s a Patty’s Plum, variety. I will try to save seeds, and maybe make a start from the root stock when it’s had it’s time in the sun, so to speak.

We have a lovely lady who stops by every now and then for a bite of homecooked food (social distancing of course) and she gives us bottles of Bramley apple juice as a thank you. I put the first one into the ongoing batch of Grimstead Green since I didn’t have any actual apples from Grimmers to put in( last year’s harvest was very limited and I hadn’t been making cider all year so it went into pies and stuff .)

Anyway, I had three more bottles and decided to make another short batch in my demiJohn. I could have used that fourth bottle to make an average-sized batch but instead, I had about 150 grams of honey that was getting hard and needed using up. So I added that to some warm water to make up another bottle and added in the yeast that SHOULD have gone into the main batch months ago. I couldn’t find it at the time, and it only reappeared after the primary fermentation! It’s my preferred yeast LC-118. That and some ‘nutrient’ from the John Bull kit and some of the generic yeast that came with it.

I needn’t have worried, once those little beasties got added to the pure apple juice it took off within minutes! I know this would have been a good oppurtunity to test another flavor or even add pears to it but I just couldn’t. I had to go with what I know and avoid turning my back on all the years of snubbing flavored cider. 🙂

That is a lot more honey than what usually ends up in my batches (proportionally speaking) so I’ll be interested in seeing how it tastes and maybe scaling up the amount of honey in my next full-size batch.