The ‘tilth’ dilemna

Our chums from the UK, Mel and Jase (pictured below) have a phenomenal amount of experience with growing vegetables and so we’re trying to pick their brains as much as possible whilst they’re here.

This includes discussing ‘tilth’ - they usually dig as deep as 2 spade lengths and remove all stones leaving them with a good depth of very light airy soil so they were rather scathing of Tony’s ‘tilth’ which only equated to approximately 1 spade length.  So, Tony and Jase set about to fine tuning the ‘tilth’ to discover that quite possibly the vegetable patch has never been dug any deeper than the one spade length because it was at about that depth that they came across a layer of completely solid stone which solved the dilemna as to how deep we should dig!  But now the dilemna of removing all the stones....sneaking around the neighbours veggie patches at dusk the other evening, we discovered that none of the neighbours seem to have removed any stones whereas Mel is usually quite a stickler about having a stone free veggie patch and to be honest if you have the time, it would certainly be my preference however we’re trying to learn from those around us and certainly don’t want to do things too differently from those who have been doing it in this area (presumably successfully) for generations!

That said, we reached a compromise and Jase and Tony discovered that our walnut drying rack (pictured on its side above) actually makes a pretty efficient sifter for the larger stones and rocks so we should still have a great tilth to the soil which will also be rock free for perhaps the first time in its life!

On a separate note, I’ve just bought a french cooking magazine - those of you who know me know that I do love cooking magazines and so I thought - buy a magazine I would like in french and I’m bound to read it, learn french, and perhaps pick up a few good recipes along the way.  When I picked it up, Tony mentioned that it was possible this magazine would add to the ever growing pile of fire fodder and that it would never be read - BUT - having read it as best I could, I found a recipe for Chicken Terrine which I’ve just made today - it looks like terrine, smells like terrine and tomorrow when we try it I’ll share the recipe if it’s any good - sadly, only those in Cayman with their own meat grinder will be able to make it because of the lack of “artisan butchers” willing to mince 200g of veal or chicken!  Anyway, it’s been a bit of a joke that I’ve made something because Tony asked if I was making terrine because it looked like a particularly good terrine recipe and I wanted to make it or if it was just to prove him wrong.......once I spotted the recipe, truth be told I was very keen to try it out but there was I suppose a part of me that wanted to find something in the magazine that I wanted to make just to ensure it wasn’t an unnecessary purchase (and to ensure it makes the “frivolous purchase” budget for next month!).