I gave the bread 8 hours to mature before I cut it this morning. I was looking for a better structure and a thinner crust and I think I achieved the first aim and I’m on my way to achieving the second, so I thought I’d better make a note of what I did because I’m bound to forget. There are two principal changes. Firstly I diluted the strong flour by substituting 25% organic white soft flour. This was an idea that came from the Shipton Mill website which says that (home) bakers struggle to achieve a good result with because apparently most strong bread flours are all a bit too strong, which seems to suit industrial bakeries but makes such a strong dough that it can’t really expand into the big open textures we all like. The 25% figure was a pure guess and it would be worth experimenting around that percentage and maybe also trying different flours. I addressed the issue of tough crust by giving the loaf a 15 min blast at 220C with maximum steam and then turning it down to 180C (opening the door for a moment to let some of the heat out), for a further 15 minutes and then finishing with five minutes with the oven turned off and the door ajar by a couple of inches. The crust is definitely thinner – still crisp, but not tooth-breaking hard. I think I must have been cooking the loaves too hot. On occasions with wholemeal loaves I’ve had brick hard crust but undercooked crumb at the centre.
Meanwhile the propagator has been brought back into the kitchen and filled with coir pellets sown with winter lettuce, chard and spinach. The coir pellets have been a great success and have enabled us to avoid peat based sowing composts. They’re less messy and even beetroot seems to develop naturally from them. My only misgiving is the material used for the fine netting that surrounds them – is it biodegradable or are we in danger of loading yet more plastic into the earth. A bit of research on the internet suggests that the peat industry is sponsoring a fightback through so-called independent websites, suggesting that the netting surrounding Jiffy 7 pellets doesn’t degrade. There’s a lot of confusion about degradability in any case. The ‘degradable’ bin liners we all use don’t degrade in normal domestic compost heaps but only in commercial high temperature industrial composters and so the many that I’ve used in our heap seem undiminished even when the heap reaches 40C. It’s a fraud on the gullible who hope to save the world by buying something different and the manufacturers are getting away with it. Then there’s a distinction between biodegradable and photo degradable plastics. If the Jiffy 7 netting is only photodegradable it’s never going to decompose while it’s under the soil surface. Coir pellets only need to to be contained until the seedlings are planted out – so maybe five or six weeks maximum – and then they can biodegrade as quickly as possible. Don’t we have any suitable materials to to this? and could we not use a form of woven cotton to achieve the end we all want. The problem I suspect is that the highly compressed pellet (light, robust and cheap to transport} doubles or trebles in size when it’s soaked prior to sowing and so the coating fabric needs to be able to expand accordingly. Some form of extra fine cotton crepe or sheeps’ wool might do it but would probably need developing. As ever it’s cheaper to use weasel words on the packet than to do the research and development. I think this is calling for an experiment. It would cost more than a penny to bury a few pellets and to expose some more to sunlight and weather, and I could find out for myself.
Later we decided not to go to the allotment but to go for a walk along the canal. It was a great decision and we both enjoyed it enormously, especially when the skies cleared a bit and the sun came out just as we came to the refreshment hut above Bath Deep Lock. So we walked up to Sidney Gardens and back along Great Pulteney Steet.
Then home and I made a salad of mango, smoked chicken and a thai style dressing on our own salad leaves. I chucked a few cooked salad potatoes in underneath for a bit of padding but there was ample for both of us. I even managed to use one of the Apache chillies without making th whole thing too fiery.
The cucumbers did amazingly well this year. Last year we planted them amongst the tomatoes and they got swamped. I think we had a very few and so the question of preserving them never came up. But this year we ran the propagator and grew nearly everything from seed, under lights in the kitchen. For several months the whole flat looked like an overfurnished greenhouse but it resulted in many more young plants than we’ve ever grown before. In the end we gave many of them away but we still planted out half a dozen plants and they generated a surplus that just cried out to be preserved in some way. 
Date: 16 August 2018 at 19:41:38 BST
Maybe it’s just the way of things, but here we are, halfway through August and yet there are hints of autumn lurking behind every hedge. When I think about it, I can recall easily that each season carries the remnants of the old and harbingers of the new. In deep winter the trees carry their buds even as some late and decaying leaves still cling to the twigs. In the spring, there are days of hope as the sun breaks through and then nights of frost that remind you that winter’s not done with yet, and in late summer my mind resonates with the shrinking hours of daylight and applies itself, like a squirrel, to preparing for the winter. It’s a favourite season and yet the harvest touches my melancholic soul every year by modulating from the major to the minor key. Jams, pickles and preserves become the centre of focus and I’m drawn to the kitchen. The fruits and vegetables that are coming off the allotment each day are almost overwhelming in their richness and numbers and finding ways of cooking or keeping them becomes an obsession. But there are only two of us and my deepest atavistic urges are to feed a family of five, or eight or ten. Today I thought of Christmas for the first time even though we’ve not finished sowing for autumn. It’s raining as I write this, and we’ve had plenty of rain in the last week. We longed for rain yet when it arrives like the Seventh Cavalry to rescue the besieged vegetables I think that somehow, if we could have just one more glorious day, I’d find the energy to go on watering. Never satisfied! I can hear my mother saying it.
