What better way to follow up having rediscovered our party mojo this summer, than with a Sri Lankan Pop-Up evening at The Secret Acre last month for 16 friends and neighbours,
Thanks to talented local chef, Chandra, who has been running some amazing sort after pop-ups in the area, our usual late summer glut of organic veg, and ably assisted in the kitchen by Emma, a veritable feast of Sri Lankan fantastic food, drink and spices was enjoyed by all.
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Sounding a bit like a prog rock concept album’s track listings, The Portents of Spring, has surely been followed by The Arrival of Spring.
The asparagus bed has duly started sprouting, making a delicious addition in the kitchen to the already prolific wild garlic and rhubarb.
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Three cheers for the Apple Cider Vinegar – at last!
Just when we were about to give up, we successfully bottled 15 litres at The Secret Acre this winter.
We first, and last, successfully made Apple Cider Vinegar back in 2017, using it the following year for pickling all sorts, even radishes.
But the half dozen attempts since then to replicate that initial ‘beginners luck’ success have all failed.
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If you want to be the best, if you want to beat the rest… have a really dry year apparently… certainly some things on the smallholding have enjoyed it more than others… and not necessarily the things you might expect.
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Kitting out the new outdoor kitchen continued this summer with the arrival of a wood-fired outdoor cooking oven.
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While we were enjoying our spring equinox BBQ earlier in the year, we were also getting round to starting the final transformation of our rebuilt ‘lean to love shack’ into a new outdoor kitchen.
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Last week saw the arrival of the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. The UK enjoyed an unseasonably warm day, including Wales’ warmest spring equinox on record, as the early impacts of the coming climate chaos continue to make themselves felt.
Naturally, here at The Secret Acre, we took the opportunity for a summer BBQ. Our earliest on record, after none at all in last year’s continuously unseasonable cold and wet.
We ended up enjoying three seasons in one day! A summer BBQ on the warmest spring equinox, having dug up the last of the winter leaks, to char on the BBQ coals, and eat with an excellent romesco sauce.
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And we hope you like jammin’ too… because another thing that seems to have enjoyed our unseasonably wet and cold spring/summer period is the soft fruit. Or at least some of it!
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January tends to get a bad rap as a month.
We blame Pilot for letting the rot set in when they sang in their 1975 No1 hit single “January, sick and tired, you’ve been hanging on me”.
But as Josephine Nuese, author of The Country Garden pointed out, gardening really begins in January, with the dream. So come last year’s cold snap, or this year’s unseasonably mild weather, we kind of quite like January here at The Secret Acre.
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As the September harvest with its late summer sunshine gave away to increasingly damp and cool autumnal weather, we gathered in the last of the crops at The Secret Acre and started clearing down the veg beds.
Here are a few pictures from October and early November’s gradual decent into autumn.
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The Secret Acre 