SEASON'S OVER

So finally this year's season of courses is over. As so often it did not turn out quite as we expected because of the large number of enquiries and the fact that we laid on 4 extra courses as a result. But it is rewarding to find we are in demand and that so many people are looking to improve to the way they live by doing more for themselves and relying less on the monstrous corporations of the world which now provide so much of the wherewithall for life in the urban west. Our students come from far and wide - the USA, France and Portugal this year as well as those from Ireland and England. They bring with them all sorts of experience and skill and we hope they leave with a little more.

This year our pig, Tigerpig, has been a great character. Intelligent, playful and gregarious, he loves company and loves his vegetables. Never has a pig eaten more of the weeds, carrot tops, beet leaves and sweetcorn stems. I am sure he is a great inspiration to our students and , like all pigs, he lives life to the full watching and listening to every move on the smallholding that might bring him a new set of flavours. You can see me here after just harvesting another bucket of carrots, taking the tops to Tigerpig. And there he is himself munching them.

With the help of all our summer rains the garden mushroom crop has excelled itself this year. There have been all sorts of fungi in abundance - horse mushrooms, field mushrooms, the dreaded yellow stainers (which always look so enticing until you smell the acrid odours they emit) and last but not least the lovely shaggy parasols. The kids found this lot behind the big conifers in the orchard and I have put them, flash frozen , into the deepfreeze to eat with the fresh bacon when the winter is upon us.

We are now facing up to the challenge of the apple harvest. Many of the eating apples have already found their way into children's tummies - self-help being the main order of the day as far as fruit harvesting is concerned. We now have 4 trees of cookers to process. This means getting the magical all singing and dancing corer, peeler and slicer into action. It means getting out the big fruit crusher and press for the cider making. It means making jelly and apply pulp on the hot kitchen range. Cider making is a job for the young and the fit as it takes about one and a half wheelbarrowfuls of apples to make the necessary minimum of 5 gallons of juice for the fermenting barrel. Jelly and jam making is a less intense affair although it can be hot and steamy working over the big stove. Once the apple pulp has been simmered down we put it through an old pillow case so it can be boiled up with sugar next day and popped into the heated jars either as sweet or savoury jelly.