Making Sloe Gin

This is a rather belated post on how I made my sloe gin with the sloes I collected a couple of months ago.

As I wasn't quite ready to start right after picking the sloes, I split my harvest up into bags of 500g (just over a lb) and put them in the freezer. I also figured freezing them would mimic to some extent the effect of a frost on the sloes; and that is to soften the skins of the fruit which will result in more flavour exuding from them. It also saves pricking each one with a pin!. I also thought it might be a good idea to find out where Gordon's Gin was cheapest. I'd heard from two different sources that yes it does make a difference if you use cheap gin, and no it doesn't! So I thought it best to try and have the best of both worlds and buy a good gin when it was on offer.

A quick google found that in one particular week it was on offer at Asda so a trip to a nearby town was needed, luckily by my friend Judi as she works there several days a week.

A few days later and I was good to go. I think I roughly followed the recipe in my go-to preserving book, The Preserving Book, but I can't remember; which is really useful! Well the book is. I'm not!

I took out one bag of 500g of sloes from the freezer and split them evenly between two 1ltr Kilner jars. This is where it goes a bit pear-shaped...I might have added about 100g of caster sugar to each jar and then I definitely added 1 litre of gin between the two jars i.e. about 500ml per jar.

And then you wait, well kind of. For the first week you need to give the jars a shake each day to help the sugar dissolve. Within a week all of the sugar has been absorbed.

Day 1

Day 3

Day 6

And then you wait, again. After six weeks or so you *need* to have a little taste of the contents to see if you need to add any more sugar; the resulting sloe gin should taste like a sweet liqueur so after tasting I added a couple of heaped tablespoons of sugar and did the shake thing for a few days afterwards until it had dissolved.

I'll take another taste in a few weeks time and it should then hopefully be ready at Christmas!

Joanna

View from the Plot - May 2017

I thought I'd try something a little different this month and post a video update of how the plot is looking. A quick google suggested the best way of doing this is to post the video to YouTube and then link/embed it into a blog post.

There were a few teething problems but my channel on YouTube is now set up and here is the view of my plot at the end of May, ok start of June because I didn't get the chance to film the video until yesterday...

Previously I've done live Periscope tours on Twitter but of course, as they are live, I don't get to see them many more times as they disappear in my feed. So I might try posting videos once and a while. We'll see! I might even get better with the commentary. Yesterday I had to cope with a windy day and someone strimming nearby and my quiet voice....

View from the Plot - April 2017

So, what did I get up to on the allotment last month? To some extent it feels like very little, although looking back through my diary quite a lot of sowing and potting on has gone on. I guess it feels like I haven't accomplished much more than more digging because the plot is still relatively empty.

I dug up the remainder of last year's crops last month; the last few leeks and carrots and a lovely big parsnip. Currently deciding whether to make a parsnip cake with it! The purple sprouting broccoli seemed to finish quite abruptly. I think because I missed picking it for a few days, the heads went too far and started flowering.

As far as this year's crops are concerned, the onion sets I started off in modules were planted out and I've gradually been planting the chitted seed potatoes, just one more variety to go out now and they will get planted where the PSB are. I'd left those to flower as the bees seem to like them.

PSB left to flower

I've sown some root crops; two types of carrots, beetroot, parsnip and some radish. I warmed the soil this year and sowed them in the small polytunnels I use for my sweet potatoes and think that made a difference, particularly with the parsnips although come to think of it, I'm not sure the beetroot have germinated yet.

I've also sown some calendula and eschscholzia on the plot and am pretty sure they have germinated.

The first asparagus spear appeared a good week or so earlier than usual. The spears have been a bit sporadic again. Maybe I don't have enough crowns? Not sure. Unfortunately a frost on 26 April put paid to a few of them that were ready for harvesting. I cut those out and am pleased to see new spears popping their heads out of the soil.

New asparagus spears appearing

Weather-wise, the temperatures are still up and down and it feels a bit risky planting anything out at the moment. Another cold night is forecast in the coming week but after that things are looking a bit more promising...

The main problem is a lack of rain. The ground is bone dry, like dust. I can't remember when we last had a decent deluge and I think we're going to need to have quite a few to make any difference.

It does look like the strawberry crop may be a good one though. Although the blackened centres of some of the flowers suggests some were damaged by the frost last week.

Lots of flowers on the strawberries!

On the whole though I have a feeling it's going to be another challenging growing year!