We’re growing spuds in a massive sack…

New booze round-up #6: beers around the world and not rum

Restaurant review: Acorn, Bath, fine-dining vegan excellence

Building a Raised Bed

We’ve just taken delivery of a few sacks of barley, oats and wheat seed for our latest brewing experiments. Lucky old us*. And to contain our grassy stash, we’ll be building a lovely new raised bed down on the allotment. But how do you make raised beds, we hear you ask?

It’s easy. Read on, green-fingered friends, read on…

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Raised bed gardening is an advantageous way of growing plants. The general idea is that plants grown in a deep container that sits on the earth will be insulated from the chill of the ground, retaining warmth for longer, thus creating favourable growing conditions. It’s a technique bourn from traditional permaculture methods designed to maximise cropping; plants are also sown closer together in raised bed gardening, helping create a tight canopy to inhibit weeds, and it also means you are not reliant on the native soil in your garden. In theory you could build and fill a bed for plants that thrive in alkaline soil, and construct a separate bed for those that prefer to nestle down in soil more acidic.

For those less adept at DIY, raised beds can be bought in kit form, with a minimal amount of construction required before you are up, running and ready to plant. For those that like to get stuck into a rewarding garden project, there are three main construction types to consider…

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Wooden Raised Beds

Advantages: Easy to build. Cheap(ish).

Disadvantages: Slugs will like to hang out in the damp, woody corners. Wood rots – You might need to replace the panels after a few years service.

How to build

1. Choose your wood carefully. Pressure treated wood, although made to prevent premature rotting, has its concerns. Back in the old days, chemicals used in the pressure treating process contain chromated copper arsenate (CCA) which uses arsenic – not the kind of chemical you want leaking all over your spuds. Fortunately, most modern PPT treatment uses Tanalith E, an organic based preservative which is safe to use and will retail your organic vegetable status – if that is important factor in your gardening. Old Scaffolding boards are a good choice, and another cheap option would be getting hold of a few pallets to break down. Garden centres are a good source of palettes – ask nicely and they might let you have a couple to take home. Steer clear of any blue ones though – these are hire pallets and unless you want a hefty fine landing on your doorstep, they shouldn’t be touched, let alone set upon with a hammer and saw.
2. Use square retaining stakes for each corner, and for maximum stability, every metre. Hammer the stakes into the ground to a depth of around 25 cm.
3. Fix your wooden panels to the retaining stakes. Screws will last longer and make things easier if you want to deconstruct your work, but nails are the quickest option. Whatever you choose, make sure they are galvanised for maximum corrosion protection.
4. Don’t forget the spirit level! Keep checking your levels as you go.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Brick walled raised beds

Advantages: Built to last – bricks won’t rot.

Disadvantages: Time consuming and costly to make. You’ll need a bit of basic brickworking skill to construct a brick bed.

How to build

1. Mark out the designated area using stakes and string.
2. For a strong and stable bed wall, put down a hardcore base approx. 10 cm deep before laying your bricks.
3. If you plan to construct your brick raised bed on concrete or an existing patio, leave the odd gap between brick joints to provide drainage. Cover the holes with mesh to stop them clogging.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Sleeper raised bed
Advantages: Looks the biz. Will last for years.
Disadvantages: Sleepers can be expensive to purchase and can potentially leak undesirable chemicals into your soil.

How to build

1. Choose your sleepers carefully – old railway sleepers may look lovely and rustic, but will most likely have been treated with tar and creosote which will seep into your soil in warm weather. Pay a visit to your local garden timber yard, who will be able to advise. Look out for new, softwood sleepers that have been treated with eco-friendly preservatives. Softwood sleepers are also a lot lighter, making them easier to lug around the garden.
2. Ensure the ground you intend to build on is firm and level.
3. Overlap the sleepers like brickwork if you are building a bed more than two sleeper levels high.
4. Fix in position by hammering metal rods into the ground, either side of the sleeper walls.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Filling your raised bed

To aid drainage, first lay an 8 cm layer of gravel or stones, on top of which lay a weed inhibiting membrane. Fill your bed with topsoil. If you can, avoid filling with soil sourced from elsewhere in the garden to prevent any weed contamination. Remember to add a generous amount of well rotten manure, and dig over the area thoroughly before planting.

—————–

• But unlucky for our allotment neighbours, who will be cursing our wandering seed when it makes its way into their soil beds, borne on stiff breeze and avian beak.

This post contains a sponsored link

The post Building a Raised Bed appeared first on Two Thirsty Gardeners.

from Two Thirsty Gardeners http://twothirstygardeners.co.uk/2019/04/building-a-raised-bed%ef%bb%bf/

Big Brand Global Lager. Is it any good?

We say it often: we’re living in a golden age of beer. Choice and quality has never been so high and it feels as if the whole world has suddenly cottoned on to the magic of beer. One reason often cited by the craft beer innovators for starting up breweries was as a reaction to the blandness of beers on offer at the time – and in most instances these would likely be the kind of global big brand lagers that dominate the sales charts.

We rarely drank these lagers before the craft beer boom, and resort to them even less now there’s more choice, but have they been harshly treated? Along with the rise in quality beers, has there also been a rise in beer snobbery, with those world lagers at the receiving end of unfair criticism?

Along with an increasing array of imported craft beers, big brand lagers from far flung places are also being made more readily available to UK consumers. To find out if any of them are worth flinging your earned cash at, we’ve decided to taste test a collection of boozes from five different countries.

Seeing as it’s the Germans who historically kicked off this global lager passion (familiar names including Anheuser, Busch, Pabst, Coors and Miller were German migrants who set up breweries in America and went on to conquer the world) we’ve also included a traditional German pils in our taste test as a ‘control’. We’ve worked with Krombacher quite a lot over the past year so it’s their pils that we’ve used for taste test purposes.

Krombacher Pils is smooth and malty with a distinctively Germanic spicy and grassy hop bitterness. It’s quite soft and bready, a touch sweeter than other pils, and the light hopping helps to crisp it up at the finish. We like it as a daytime sipper and it goes especially well with vegetable dishes or a Sunday roast chicken – there’s enough flavour to make it worthy of a place on your dinner table, but it will never overpower those more delicately flavoured dishes.

So with the German control safely guzzled it’s time to check out five more big brand lagers. In drinking order…

Quilmes, 4.9%

Country: Argentina
We first tried this Argentinian import while researching beers to represent each country at the World Cup and, though not a world beater, it certainly did the job of providing refreshing boozeiness while watching football. It has sweet malt flavours common to lots of mass produced lagers with only light hopping at the finish. Nothing overtly nasty to report and an acceptable fridge beer for when your main focus is on the tv sporting action.

Buy now

Windhoek Lager, 4%

Country: Namibia
There’s very little wrong with this. You could make a strong case for it being bland but not everyone wants full flavour all of the time. It’s close to Krombacher in its initial sweet grainy flavour and it has a noticeable bitterness that edges towards grassy. The high carbonation suits its light, crisp body and at 4% it’s the kind of lager you would want to neck to see off a sweat.

Buy now

Molson Canadian, 5%

Country: Canada
This really is a bland beer that has somehow managed to suck flavour from the grain and hops to leave behind a thin, dry drink with a light fizz and a bit of sweetness. Despite those criticisms it’s far from horrible (there are a lot worse out there) and we can see the appeal. It fills a gap between beer and water, and if it were the only thing on offer at a bar we would stick with it for a few pints.

Buy now

Chang Classic, 5%

Country: Thailand
Something in our memory banks suggested this tasted great when drinking it in the hot and humid streets of Bangkok but when we got back home it became one to avoid. However, it has been a long time since we last drank any. Trying it now we notice how different it is from the other beers, with very little bitter hopping, an almost vinous homemade wine tang to the body and some sharper lemony notes prodding the palate. Rice is among the ingredients, which is partly responsible for this change in feel and flavour, and is a reason the purists will criticise it. Treat it as a different kind of product than a regular lager and it becomes a more acceptable drink, albeit one we would only want to experience in a hot and humid Bangkok setting.

Buy now

Kirin Ichiban, 4.6%

Country: Japan
We assumed this beer was flown in from Japan but it’s brewed under licence in Wolverhampton by Marstons. Weaker, paler, lighter and fizzier than Chang it also has a bit of peppery Germanic hopping at the finish. A basic lager but no complaints from us.

Buy now

Verdict

With the exception of Krombacher, none of these are the kind of beers we would choose to drink that often, but it has been a fun exercise comparing lagers from around the world and picking out a favourite. Even the most committed Big-Brand-Lager-Refuser probably has at least one they don’t mind drinking (call it a ‘guilty pleasure’ if you like) and of the five we tried it’s Namibia’s Windhoek that is our top pick. Heck, we might even get a case in for the fridge – with summer approaching everyone needs a quick and simple thirst quencher to fall back on.

This is sponsored post.

The post Big Brand Global Lager. Is it any good? appeared first on Two Thirsty Gardeners.

from Two Thirsty Gardeners http://twothirstygardeners.co.uk/2019/04/big-brand-global-lager-review-molson-windhoek-quilmes-chang-kirin-ichiban/