Just Harvested the Onions

[littleweed]

Forgot to mention that we have around 60 fruit trees.
Last year was spectacular, eating necterines warm off the tree and having to bend so that the juice dropped onto the ground.
This year it was a mild winter with no snow - usually up to 4 feet deep. Result, little water getting down in the earth and few fruits forming.
Grapes are doing alright though.

Phreddy

Oh Phreddy, I feel so sorry for you ! Having to eat that fruit, I can always swap with you, or failing that send you a bib! Still wearing water wings to garden in! Jan.:

[Birdie Wife]

Sounds fantastic Phreddy, do you make your own rakia? I got quite a taste for it when I was over in Bulgaria on a work trip three years ago...

[Phreddy]

Ah! Now that is the wife's department. Last year we filled 2 x 120 litre bidons (Those blue barrels that one sees around alotments) with 'material' (plums or sliver, water and sugar). Took it to the village KAZAN (still) and spent about 4 hours distilling it. Ended up with 50 litres of rakia.

Costs: £4 each for the barrels, £8 for sugar, £4 for rent of the kazan. £3 for rent of the donkey to transport the lot between home and still.

We had lots of cherries so made some cherry rakia. That is nice.
Wanted to make some sloe rakia but couldn't find enough blackthorn bushes.

I would add that we do not drink! We are known in the village as 'no alcohol'

There is much sadness in the village this year. In mid to late march when the fruit trees were in flower there was a week of heavy frosts. All our trees are bereft of fruit so no rakia this year.

Grapes are going well though so there may be a wine harvest and some of that distilled.

Phreddy

[Birdie Wife]

No Rakia?? That will be one depressed bunch of Bulgarians. What do you do with 50 litres of rakia if you don't drink it? £3 for rent of a donkey for transport... love it...

[Phreddy]

It was a one off, we just had to! From the licensing laws and the taxes of the UK to a land of make your own booze?
No question!!
What do we do with it?
Bulgarians are the most hospitipal people you could wish to meet. If you admire their flowers they pick them for you. This couses us problem when we just want to look and maybe ask for some seeds or a cutting but before you can say anything it is picked along with a few more.
Not an even number of blooms either - that is either bad luck or rude, whichever, just not done.
So a half a litre of rakia in an old water bottle is most welcome. The ladies are particularly impressed with the cherry sort. Loads of sugar and they do like that.

By this time the kazan should be in full swing. But the drought doesn't help either, or I'm sure they'd make it of something else.Grapes are doing well so I suspect all is not lost for this year.

Phreddy