Bulgaria

	Bulgaria Expats, Diary - Renovating a House - Becoming Self Sufficient  July - August 2010
	Kingsley's Peachery - Shadbags Corner

6th August  July has passed by and what a busy month.  I had told myself that everything would be done by June so that I could sit and enjoy the summer, not so.  With the month of July being a month of storms (real heavy ones) and sunshine (nice and hot) the garden grew and grew as did the weeds so if time wasn’t spent picking it was definitely spent weeding. 

Mid July we went to Bourgas and purchased a large box freezer and I can happily say that 2 weeks on its already ¾ full with produce from the garden.  We have also been busy bottling (canning) plums and gherkins but with the gherkins growing so fast I wonder how many jars of pickle gherkins you can make.  What a shame and waste and there is no one we can give them to, everyone in the village seems to have grown them and wants to give their excess to you.  We did give a carrier bag away to feed a calf being raised in the village but even the goat’s, chickens and calf cannot eat them as fast as they grow.
Yesterday I collected 10 full sized cucumbers and 6 the day before.  I only planted 6 cucumber plants so next year will only plant 3.. 

Checking on the web it is possible to freeze cucumbers which was a real surprise and I now have a great recipe to do this.  Wanting to make sure the recipe worked I prepared and froze 5 cucumbers, left them a few days and defrosted a small amount to taste and check, wow for someone who never liked cucumber this recipe is lovely and the cucumber defrosts still crisp and ready to eat.
     

Recipe to freeze cucumbers 

7 cups thinly sliced cucumbers
3 med. onions, sliced
1 green pepper, chopped
2 cups sugar
1 cups vinegar
1/2 tsp. celery seed
1 tbsp. Salt

Mix all ingredients in large bowl. Refrigerate for 24 hours. Put in containers and freeze.

       
Our tomatoes had a problem which looked like blight but I managed to get passed that by picking all large green tomatoes (300) and placing these in a box to ripen.  Removed all infected leaves from the plant which I repeated daily.  Luckily we now seem to have the problem under control and yesterday was able to pick a further 100 tomatoes.  As the plants had become very tall and spindly without leaves and as the season for growing has a long way to go I was concerned how these already 5ft high plants could be supported knowing they could reach 10ft or so.  Got over this by placing sturdy support at the beginning and end of each row and run a wire from one end to the other at height of 4ft, then tied each plant along the wire growing them as you might a grape vine.  I’m constantly removing leaves and tying the plants along the wire which once they reach the end I will bend them back and tie in the opposite direction.  Having them growing this way makes for easy picking and removing leaves as they are now at a comfortable height.  So I’m now busy making tomato puree for freezing.

Tomato Puree recipe

Liquidize 36 med tomatoes which will make approx 3 litres (vary ingrediants according to taste} 
Place mixture in large wide pan and for each litre add
4tblsp vinegar 
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar

            
Heat until the mixture starts to bubble stirring constantly then reduce heat and simmer until the mixture is at required consistency.  Place in container and freeze

We did have a very unpleasant day in July, very sad.  After coming back from taking our goat buttercup up to the village goat pen, I went to let out the hens and cockerel and immediately see feathers at the front of the cage.  On opening the door I was met by a dreadful scene of all 4 chickens lying dead.  We have since learned  that the culprit of this crime is likely to be a pine marten which has killed hundreds of chickens in our village.  The same evening something also chomped on half of a fully grown cabbage and we suspect this to be a tortoise which we have seen heading off to the river.  The tortoise has been back several times since and I’m so pleased to be growing cabbage to keep it fed lol!!

Did I say I would wait awhile before asking for anymore animal pens to be built, well I did wait 2 weeks exactly but my baby chicks are growing rapidly now.  Yep hubby between renovating the roof so we don’t get snowed or rained on this winter is also building me a chicken coop and hen house.  It’s looking fantastic as it going together and I know the chicks will feel like they have moved into a 5 star hotel.  Now that’s another problem, as the chicks grow they are beginning to look a bit cockerel like, well 7 out of nine are.  Fingers crossed they end up mainly hens not cockerels otherwise my only option would be to eat a lot of coq au van this winter.  No way would I be able to keep 7 cockerels in the same coop. 

          
Back to my earlier problem with my goat buttercup and the milking, well pleased to say I have now got the hang of it and am able to milk with ease.  I have now reduced her from two milkings a day down to one, I want to get her dried off by the end of the month so that she can have a rest before she comes into season and gets ready to kid in the spring (fingers crossed).

The kid goats are rapidly growing and I’m hoping will be ready to go out to graze by the end of September.  Until now I have been mainly feeding them with plum trees and saplings which I’m cutting down and there was 100’s in the garden.  Happily the next few days will see an end to this cutting and pruning  yippee but I will have to think what I will feed the kids now until their big enough to go out with all the other village goats.  I have in the barn 20 bales of hay and another 50 bales of barley being delivered on Saturday so with this plus a small amount of chicken feed should be able to get a good mixture to keep them happy and healthy.  I will also add a few cucumbers and sunflowers to make a tasty treat.

7th Aug  After taking buttercup up to the village goat pen this morning around 7am we came back and before I started to cut a forest of food for the kid goats we had a cup of tea and stood looking around the garden trying to decide on the best place to set the new chicken coop and hen house, low and behold sitting on my fence and looking back at me was our chicken killer, the pine marten.  This one must have been a male as it was large and I couldn’t see anyway it could have got into the henhouse.  Females are smaller and able to get into the smallest of places.  Must admit it is a beautiful looking beast but not something I would wish to be lurking in the garden.  It must be used to us as it didn’t take fright but in its own time climbed down the fence and at a leisurely pace walked or skipped up the garden and over the fence into the neighbouring garden.