Garden Tool Set: sweetcorn

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Monday, August 10, 2015

The Three Sisters and other companion planting ideas

At the Secret Garden Club last Sunday we looked at different types of companion planting – putting plants together that will help each other in some way - and how these can benefit your garden.

You can grow certain plants in close proximity to each other for various reasons:

Some plants will ward off pests, either by their smell, or secretions from their roots, or simply because they have sharp thorns. You can grow these plants close to those that are vulnerable from such pests in order to give them protection.
Conversely you might use plants that are particularly susceptible to a pest as a 'decoy', to draw them away from another more valuable or delicate plant.
Some plants will attract beneficial insects, such as lacewings, hoverflies or ladybirds, to the garden. Place these close to plants which need pollinators to set fruit.
Some plants, notably legumes (peas and beans), will enrich the soil for other plants.
Tall sturdy plants can be used to provide support for other plants, such as climbers.
Trailing plants might act as ground cover, suppressing weeds and acting as a mulch, reducing water evaporation from the soil surface.

We discussed in some detail one very traditional companion planting method from the Americas, widely known as the Three Sisters and practised across North America from the midwest plains to Mexico from pre-Columbian times.

The Three Sisters themselves are the staple ingredients of the traditional Native American diet: corn, beans and squash. In America, the three are sown together and provide sustenance and support for each other.

The corn provides a strong upright stake for the beans to climb up, winding their stems around the main trunk of the sweetcorn. These bean plants also act as 'guy ropes' for the corn, keeping it stable in the wind.The squash plants are trained to trail around the foot of each corn/bean combo, their broad leaves shading the soil, keeping it moist and suppressing the weeds.

A further benefit of the Three Sisters scheme is the ability of the beans to nourish the soil. Peas and beans are all able to fix nitrogen from the air through their roots in the soil. As nitrogen is one of the main nutrients required by plants, especially leafy plants, this means that the soil is left enriched after the Three Sisters crops have been harvested, ready for the next year's planting. It's a highly sustainable planting scheme.

Three London Sisters

The UK climate is not the same as the American plains or the semi-tropical climate of Mexico. It’s more unpredictable, and so the Three Sisters method has to be adapted. We can’t sow each seed at the same time, as the beans will grow much faster than the corn and will overwhelm it.

So we need to start when the corn is already about 4-6 inches high.

Sweetcorn is very easy to grow from seed, or you can readily buy seedlings from garden centres. Beware sweetcorn sold with a number of plants in each pot. They dislike having their roots disturbed too much and if you are having to tease seedlings apart to separate them when you transplant them you are liable to damage the roots. Better to buy those which have a single plant in a plastic or polystyrene module, or to grow your own from seed in coir pots, one seed per pot. With coir pots, you don't have to turn the seedling out when you transplant it, you just dig a hole the same size and shape as the coir pot, drop the pot in, and firm the soil around it. No root disturbance at all.

The best beans to use for Three British Sisters are ones which you leave to dry on the plant, not runners or French beans which need regular picking. These should be sown when you plant the corn seedlings, when the soil has warmed up and all danger of frost has passed. We used the climbing borlotti beans Borlotto Lamon from Seeds of Italy at the Secret Garden Club - borlotti beans are easy to grow in the UK and are flamboyantly beautiful: bright crimson seed pods flecked with cream, which you shell to reveal creamy-pink beans flecked with crimson. With a dense floury texture and good flavour, they're a delicious and versatile bean in the kitchen too.

For the squash Sister, any squash with a trailing habit will work well. So don't use a courgette, which grows as a bush. Butternuts, spaghetti squash, Crown Prince, or a Halloween pumpkin - all these will do very well. We planted specimens of all these at the Secret Garden Club, plus a Japanese variety, Futsu Black (from The Organic Gardening Catalogue) and a sweet, dense-fleshed Italian variety, Marina di Chioggia (Seeds of Italy, again).

Squash seedlings after planting

Start squash off in small pots, either indoors or in a greenhouse. Sow two seeds to a pot and keep the pots covered until they germinate, which should only take 5-7 days. Snip out the weaker seedling before transplanting.

Once the squash plants start to spread, try to train them in a circle around the foot of the corn/bean plants. I say 'try' because squash seem to have a wanderlust and will grow three feet in the wrong direction as soon as your back is turned. Many times I have returned from two weeks holiday in August to find that the squash have run rampant in my absence.

Planting out

The Native Americans built up mounds in the soil about 45cm across and 10cm high and planted the Three Sisters in the mounds. Creating similarly-sized square or circular mounds using a mix of manure, kitchen compost and commercial compost makes sense in the UK too: all three of the Sisters are hungry plants and need lots of nutrients to get going. Giving them a specially enriched mound should get them off to a good start.

In dry areas, the Americans would traditionally make a shallow depression in the centre of each mound to hold water. We could do well to copy this in our drought-ridden, hosepipe-banned times.

The minimum viable size for a Three Sisters plot is 3.5m x 3.5m. It's a considerable space commitment, but remember you are growing three crops in the area. Less than this and the corn may not pollinate properly. Corn is wind-pollinated, which is why you should always plant corn in blocks - plant in a row and the wind may not blow in the right direction to ensure pollination.

Plant corn in blocks to help
ensure pollination

Each circle above represents one 45cm diameter mound. The corn and bean plants will grow together on a mound; alternate mounds are left to squash which will need more space.
In the mounds shown here as yellow circles, plant four corn seedlings in a square shape. There should be at least 15cm between the plants. Then, plant four bean seeds, one between each corn seedling - you should be able to simply push the bean seed into the ground with your thumb or forefinger. Close the soil above it and firm the surface.
In the mounds shown here as orange circles, plant two squash, as far apart as possible on the mound.
Water all the seedlings well.

The beans should germinate within two weeks, by which time the corn should be about 30cm high. As the beans grow, they may need to be tied in initially to encourage them to grow up and around the corn. The squash plants may take a while to get going, but will grow rapidly when they do. They will need training to keep them to the Three Sisters growing area.
When squash fruit begin to form, place a clean tile underneath the fruit for them to rest on to protect it from the dirt and creepy-crawlies. Once a single plant has produced three fruit, stop the growing tip - this will help the plant concentrate on growing really good-sized fruit.

Depending on the variety, the sweetcorn should be ready to harvest from late August or September. Borlotti beans and squash can be left to mature on the plant. Make sure you lift them before the first frost.

The harvested squash should be taken indoors and leave to finish ripening in dry warmth and light. During this process they may well change colour from green to orange or yellow. Stored properly, they can be stored for 4-8 months.

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t pick borlotti bean pods to cook and eat fresh. They’re delicious, especially served with a squeeze of lemon, some salt and a drizzle of olive oil.

But leave at least some on the plants to keep for use in winter. As summer wears on into autumn, the pods will change from bright pink flecked with cream, to a brown papery husk. Pick the pods as late as possible, but before the first frost, usually in the middle of October.

Thread the pods together and hang them up somewhere airy until all the pods are completely dried out, about 2-3 weeks. Then shell the beans. They should be dry already and rattle when shaken together and clatter when dropped on the work surface. If they land with a soft thud instead, they need more drying.

Finally, put the shelled beans in a freezer bag and seal. Place in the freezer for about 48 hours. This quick freeze just ensures that if the beans were harbouring any bugs, mites or insect eggs, that they are killed off. Once out of the freezer, spread the beans out briefly on kitchen paper just to check they’re dry again, then pour into a jar with a tightly fitting lid.

Keep in a dark cool place and they will last for months – until your next bean harvest, in fact, if you haven’t eaten them all by then.

More on nitrogen fixing

Because legumes (peas and beans) fix nitrogen from the air through their roots, they nourish the soil. This means that the soil maintains its own fertility without you having to add large amounts of fertiliser.

However, they fix nitrogen for the next crop. So if you are planning to plant your legumes with a view to feeding the soil for another crop, choose something that will carry on growing after the peas or beans have finished.

It’s also good to follow peas with something that likes nitrogen, some thing leafy, eg, brassicas, squash.

At the Secret Garden Club, we've planted cavolo nero, or black kale (or Tuscan kale) in the middle of the sugar pea wigwams. Cavolo nero is a slim-leaved version of kale, more tender than curly kale and very flavoursome. (It also makes great 'seaweed', of the type you get in Chinese restaurants!)

Once the peas have died down in July-August, we’ll leave the plants in the ground to fix nitrogen through their roots for the benefit of the cavolo nero which will carry on growing throughout the winter.

At Sunday's workshop, guests created a smaller version of this wigwam with cavolo nero seedlings and young runner bean plants. These were planted up into 15cm pots which can be transferred into the open ground in a couple of weeks or so when the beans get too big for the pot.

Insect repellents
Carrots and onions make excellent companions in the vegetable bed. Many gardeners find that they need to protect the carrot crop from carrot fly, a dull-looking brown fly which flies low to the ground and can detect the smell of carrots from half a mile away. The female will lay her eggs in the soil close to the carrot roots, and when the larvae hatch, they start to feed on the growing carrots in the ground. When you dig up the crop, you'll find tell-tale brown streaks and tunnels boring into the carrot itself.

Grow garlic or onions around the
edge of beds to repel aphids.

However, you can protect your carrots to a certain extent by sowing them in-between alliums (garlic and onions, mainly, although you could try leeks as well for a late-growing carrot crop - leeks don't really get going until late summer). The smell of the onions is said to mask the scent of the carrots, so that the fly doesn't realise the carrots are there.
In return, the carrots are said to mask the allium scent for the onion fly, which preys on onions and also garlic and shallots.
Garlic and onions are good for repelling many different insects, including aphids. The sulphur accumulated in their roots may also act as a natural pesticide. Some people plant alliums all around the edge of their plot or patch for this reason. Of course, you need to be sure that you don’t have any of these pests inside the plot already or else you will trap them in instead of keeping them out.

Specifically, however, garlic and onions can be sown around roses or in the rose bed to help deter greenfly and blackfly. Chives are also excellent for this: their low bushy habit and mauve pom-pom flower look attractive among the roses.

Garlic can also be used directly on plants to deter aphids. Jekka McVicar of Jekka's Herb Farm recommends crushing 3-4 cloves of garlic and bringing to the boil in a litre of water. Let the garlic cool in the water and strain. This spray can be used on the leaves of the plant. I find it works best as a preventative rather than a cure.

The magic of marigolds

Marigolds are well-known for their insect repelling properties. They are especially associated with brassicas: plant marigolds around your cabbage and cauliflowers to ward off the whitefly. Furthermore, the roots exude a substance which are toxic to nematodes, including those which attack tomatoes. So plant marigolds around the tomatoes as well.

It can be confusing to buy marigolds and to know which is which. French marigolds are actually Mexican. African marigolds are also American in origin. Pot marigolds are a different thing again.

This is where the Latin or botanical names come in handy. Tagetes is the name to look for. French marigolds are usually varieties of Tagetes patula. African marigolds are usually varieties of Tagetes erecta – and often used as food colouring.

The botanical name for pot marigold is Calendula. Extracts from Calendula are used a lot in cosmetics, and also useful for repelling insects but they don’t have the same root secretions.

Insect attractants

Having talked at length about insect-repelling plants, we also looked at growing plants for their insect-attracting qualities. Not all insects are pests - far from it. Some, such as ladybirds, hoverflies and lacewings are known as beneficial insects.
We think of bees as being the main pollinators of plants, but hoverflies also feed on nectar and are excellent pollinators. Plants which need a pollinator, such as squash and courgettes, and fruit trees will benefit.
Hoverflies are doubly welcome in the garden because their larvae will chomp their way through massive numbers of aphids. Ladybird and lacewing larvae are also enthusiastic consumers of aphids - a very good reason to attract them to the garden.

Plants such as achillea (yarrow), as well as borage, the poached egg plant and comfrey are good examples of plants which will attract beneficial insects, while lavender and roses are well-known for buzzing with bees during the summer.

The beauty of companion planting

Companion planting will help your garden to look attractive. It encourages you to consider a greater variety of planting, which is always good for biodiversity, and different layouts and arrangements of plants within the plot.

It helps your garden to sustain itself – with well-selected companion plants, your garden should be humming with life, not sterile and formal.

Adopting companion planting methods should mean you can greatly reduce or eliminate any use of pesticides. It should help you to raise better crops and improve the sustainability of your soil. At the Secret Garden Club, we're aiming to create a harmonious combination of edible and ornamental plants and companion planting has found its way into the heart of that plan.

Useful links
For more about companion plants and specific plants which work well together, there is plenty of information on the following sites:
Golden Harvest Organics - plant lists and benefits of growing together.
Victoriana Nursery Gardens - the Three Sisters - growing the Three Sisters in the UK climate. We followed many of the suggestions here for the Secret Garden Club's Three Sisters plot.
Renee's Garden - US site with the story behind the Three Sisters tradition, plus Three Sisters planting diagrams.
National Vegetable Society - Good overview of companion planting principles plus plant lists.
Laura's Organics - page on attracting beneficial insects to the garden.

Happy guests at the Secret Garden Club

To find out about the Native Indian inspired food that MsMarmite served go here.

Learn to smoke

The Secret Garden Club returned on November 20 with a session on techniques for smoking food. Taking in tea-smoking, hot-smoking and cold-smoking, Zia Mays explained the principles of each method, using a wide variety of ingredients, while MsMarmiteLover turned the smoked foods into a delicious smoky-themed tea for everyone.

Guests were welcomed with a vodka and smoked lemonade cocktail, before the fires were lit in earnest and smoke wafted into the air.

Smoking techniques
Tea-smoking is a method of hot-smoking, ie, the food is cooked at the same time as being smoked. It uses a mix of tea leaves, brown sugar, raw rice and optional aromatics as the smoking medium. With the mix set in a pan under a steamer, the smoke generated infuses foods in the steamer basket with a delicate, elusive tea-smoke flavour.

Secret Garden Club tea-smoking mix:
Half a (US) cup of Lapsang Souchong tea leaves (about 30g)
Half a (US) cup of brown sugar (about 75g)
Half a (US) cup of raw long-grain rice (about 75g)
This was used to smoke:
Trout fillets - marinaded for one hour beforehand in whisky;
Tomatoes - cut in half hemispherically and lightly roasted in the oven for 20 minutes before smoking.

Also good with chicken - use thin fillets to ensure they are cooked through, duck, quail. With tea-smoking, less is definitely more: over-smoke the food and you'll be left with a distinct aftertaste of fag packet.

Hot-smoking over wood applies direct heat to soaked woodchips so that they smoulder gently. The wood and the food are both in a sealed unit so that the heat and smoke permeate the food to cook and smoke it at the same time.

Important: when smoking food with any kind of wood, it is vitally important that the wood is raw, and untreated. Any sort of treatment, coating, glue or varnish will give off potentially toxic fumes when smoked - NOT what you want coating your food. If the wood you want to use has been cut with a chainsaw, beware - there could easily be oil residues on the wood from the chainsaw. It's highly satisfying to use wood that you have chopped or sourced yourself, but you must be 100% certain that the wood is free of any chemicals.

We smoked vegetables in the hot-smoker:

Sweet peppers;
Pumpkins, cut into thin wedges and marinaded for two hours beforehand in a mix of soy sauce and maple syrup;
Chillies;
Tofu, cut into thick slices and marinaded for two hours beforehand.
Sweetcorn, on the cob;
Apples, following a baked apple recipe but with added smokiness.

Basic marinade for the tofu, pumpkins:
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp maple syrup
A dash of sesame oil
A dash of olive oil
Half a teasp of English mustard powder

The sweetcorn and baked apples were particularly successful. We've had variable results with tofu: firstly, try to get firm tofu so that it doesn't disintegrate when you try to handle it. Tofu definitely needs to be marinaded first for a good two hours - and a more Japanese style marinade with mirin and wasabi would also work well here.

Cold-smoking is the technique we associate most with fish - think smoked salmon, smoked mackerel, smoked haddock - and meat - smoked bacon. However, it's also used to smoke cheese (such as applewood-smoked cheddar) and bulbs of garlic. When you expose food to cold, or cool, smoke, the food does not cook, although the smoke will penetrate the food more thoroughly than when hot-smoked.

Fish (and meat) will need to be salted, or brined, before it is cold-smoked. To salt, say, a side of salmon, cover completely in salt and keep it, weighted down, in the fridge for around 18-24 hours. Brining it creates a sweeter cure: make up a salt/sugar solution, completely immerse the fish in this and store, covered, in the fridge for around eight hours. (Smaller fillets may take less time.)

Simple brine

100g brown sugar

75g salt

1 litre water

Plenty of other flavours can be added to this, eg, fennel, onions, garlic, herbs.

Reasons for brining:

· The salt and/or sugar in the brine help the preserving process;

· Salting/brining inhibits bacteria which might otherwise multiply while the fish is being smoked;

· Both salt and sugar add flavour to the fish;

Once salted/brined, rinse the fish well to get rid of excess salt, then dry it, ideally for a couple of hours or so, in a cool, well-ventilated place. Only then it is ready to smoke. We also smoked cheddar cheese and garlic bulbs – these do not need brining or curing but can go straight into the cold smoker.

With cold-smoking, the challenge is to generate smoke that is cool when it reaches your food. The ideal temperature range in the smoker is between 26 and 30 degrees Celsius (80-90 degrees Fahrenheit). If the temperature exceeds 37 degrees C (100 F), then the fish will get too warm. It will lose moisture and may start to cook.

An obvious way to do this is to burn your wood in one place, channel the smoke through piping so that it cools as it goes, and direct it into a smokehouse. But if you just want to try out some cold-smoking, this is quite a cumbersome operation. Remember also, your fire needs to burn wood only (see warnings about wood-burning, above), and your piping and smokehouse should be lined with non-reactive material.

Costs can be kept down by making your smokehouse from household items such as an old fridge (cut a hole in one side to take the piped smoke, or a filing cabinet (popular because the file rods are handy to hang fish fillets from), or even a cardboard box (remember, the smoke is cool when it reaches the box).

We demonstrated a method which is quick to set up, and uses everyday items so is handy for anyone who wants to experiment but isn’t sure that they want to spend time constructing a semi-permanent smokehouse. In this option, we use the smallest possible heat point to generate a comparatively large amount of smoke.

You will need:

A deep-based, or kettle barbecue, such as a Weber

A soldering iron

A tin can, eg a Baxters soup tin

Woodchips (see notes, on sourcing wood, above)

Silver foil

A standard outdoor thermometer (recommended)

A bag of ice (may not be necessary but have one on standby)

A power extension cable

Note: the soldering iron must have no solder on it AT ALL. This is your heat source and smoking lead is a very bad idea indeed. Best to buy a new soldering iron for about a tenner and use it exclusively for cold-smoking.

Many tins these days, especially supermarket own-brand cans, are lined. You should use an unlined tin. We haven’t researched exhaustively for suitable brands, but Baxters’ soup tins are unlined, and the soup’s OK as well.

While the tin is still full, make a hole in it at the end (we used a sharpening steel and a hammer), opposite the ring-pull if there is one. The hole needs to be just big enough to fit the tip and arm of the soldering iron. Empty and wash out the tin, and let it dry.

Carefully peel back the lid of the tin using the ring-pull about half way. Fill just over half the tin with your wood chips. Close the lid as far as possible, then push the soldering iron through the hole so that it’s fully inserted in the tin and the arm is in direct contact with the woodchips. This is your ‘firepit’.

Put the tin in the bottom of the barbecue. Lay the food to be smoked on the silver foil on the top rack. Gently ease the soldering iron cable out of the barbecue and plug into the extension socket. Place the lid on the barbecue as tightly as possible allowing for the fact that the soldering iron cable will prevent it from closing fully. Switch on the power to the extension cable. You should start to see wisps of smoke emerge from under the lid within 5 mins.

With tin, soldering iron and food positioned this way, the smoke around the food should stay cool enough to cold smoke properly. We recommend you place a thermometer on the rack next to the food and check the temperature regularly. On a sunny day, the outside temperature may make the barbecue heat up – and it’s not something to do in midsummer. Cold smoking this way is a wintertime occupation. If you do see the temperature rising much above 30 degrees, slide a bag of ice into the bottom of the barbecue. This should bring the temperature down to the safe range and keep it there.

While the woodchip tin is smoking, prepare a second one. The tins will last about 90 mins to 2 hours, so, when the first is exhausted, unplug the soldering iron, remove it and the tin from the barbecue, and switch the soldering iron from tin 1 to tin 2. Tin 1 can now be emptied and reused.

Timings

Cheddar cheese

Lightly smoked: 3 hours

Medium smoked: 6 hours

Garlic bulbs

Light to medium smoked: 6 hours

Salmon fillets

Lightly smoked: 12 hours

Secret Garden Club Smoking Workshop

Menu

Vodka and smoked lemonade cocktail

Tea-smoked trout and tomato, watercress salad

Smoked cheese and garlic toasted sandwiches

Smoked salmon with cucumber pickles

Marinaded smoked pumpkin slices

Marinaded smoked tofu

Smoked sweet peppers and hot chillies

Smoked glazed sweetcorn

Smoked baked apples with Jameson whisky

Spring at last

It's been a cold start to the year at the Secret Garden Club. Although we had some glorious spring days in March, the nights were chilly with the threat of frost never far away, so tender plants were kept tucked up indoors.

Once the hosepipe ban came into effect, the heavens opened and April turned out cool and wet. With March's sunny head start, growth turned lush and very green, as we wait for the milder temperatures of May to warm the soil up and heat up the suntraps.

Courgettes, peppers, and tomatoes will all be planted out soon - they are already bursting out of their indoor pots.

We'll also have sweetcorn, climbing beans and squash ready for the Secret Garden Club workshop on companion planting on Sunday May 27th, where we'll be explaining how the Native Americans grew these three plants, the Three Sisters, together so that they could support and nourish each other. We'll have other companion planting ideas to share as well, followed by a Cherokee-themed tea created by MsMarmiteLover. Click here for details and to book tickets.

A young Gunnera manicata covered in blossom from the tree above.

Daffodils in the front drive surround a new bay tree

Rosmarinus officinalis 'prostratus' - rosemary in the herb garden.

Pansies in the window boxes.

The camellia tree started flowering in January and was still going strong at the end of April.

Transplanting sugar snap peas to climb up a willow wigwam.

Smoked out

The Secret Garden Club held its second smoking workshop on Sunday March 18: the notes that follow reflect the activities of the day and vary slightly from the blog post following the first smoking day in November 2011.

Smoking is a technique which imparts a distinctive flavour to food and can also change its texture slightly. Our ancestors smoked food for its preservative effect, and while food which has been smoked will take longer to go off, these days, it is for the smoke flavour plus any aromatics that may have been added to the smoke mix, that makes the food so delicious.

We looked at three different methods of smoking food during the afternoon. Tea-smoking uses a mix of sugar, rice and tea leaves which are heated until they smoulder to produce a fragrant smoke which both cooks and flavours food.

Hot-smoking over wood applies heat to wood chips in order to cook food and to flavour it more strongly. Cold smoking involves exposing food to cool smoke for a much longer period of time, from several hours to a couple of days and will both flavour and preserve food without cooking it.

Tea-smoking uses a mix of tea leaves, brown sugar, raw rice and optional aromatics as the smoking medium. With the mix set in a pan under a steamer, the smoke generated infuses foods in the steamer basket with a delicate, elusive tea-smoke flavour.

Secret Garden Club tea-smoking mix:
Half a (US) cup of tea leaves (about 4 tbsp)
Half a (US) cup of brown sugar (about 4 tbsp)
Half a (US) cup of raw long-grain rice (about tbsp)

Mix the ingredients together, then make a foil saucer that fits into the bottom of the base pan. Pour the smoking mixture on to the foil (this is to protect the pan itself from staining), set it over the heat and fit the steamer basket and lid.

The trout fillets were laid on the steamer basket just as the smoke began to curl upwards through the slats, and steamed for around 20 minutes. Times will vary and our fillets were quite chunky. With fish, remove from the smoker as soon as they are opaque all the way through so that they don't overcook. With tea-smoking, less is definitely more: over-smoke the food and you'll be left with a distinct aftertaste of fag packet.

Hot-smoking over wood applies direct heat to soaked woodchips so that they smoulder gently. The wood and the food are both in a sealed unit so that the heat and smoke permeate the food to cook and smoke it at the same time. You can use the same equipment as for tea-smoking, above, ideally on an outdoor cooker. The process will produce much more smoke than with tea-smoking, so if you do have to hot smoke over wood indoors, open all windows and doors first and turn up your extractor fan - although you will probably set off your smoke alarm even so.

Important: when smoking food with any kind of wood, it is vitally important that the wood is raw, and untreated. Any sort of treatment, coating, glue or varnish will give off potentially toxic fumes when smoked - NOT what you want coating your food. If the wood you want to use has been cut with a chainsaw, beware - there could easily be oil residues on the wood from the chainsaw. It's highly satisfying to use wood that you have chopped or sourced yourself, but you must be 100% certain that the wood is free of any chemicals.

We used a proprietary hot-smoker - very similar to this one - set up outside on the terrace.

Sweet peppers, sliced in half and with seeds removed;
Lemons, cut in half;
Tofu, cut into thick slices and marinaded for two hours beforehand in soy sauce and maple syrup;
Sweetcorn, on the cob;
Halloumi cheese

These were all smoked over hickory chips for 25-30 minutes. It's well worth experimenting with different types of wood, so long as you stick to hardwoods. We were asked on Sunday about smoking with pine to get that distinctive resinated flavour. But pine, and also cedar, contain too much in the way of tars and resins to smoke successfully and can even ruin your smoker. Fruit woods, such as pear, apple, or cherry, are all popularly used for smoking. Oak, beech and hickory are also classic smoking woods.

Marinade for tofu

3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp maple syrup
2 tsps olive oil
Half a teasp of English mustard

Whisk all ingredients well together. This was also used to glaze the sweetcorn immediately prior to smoking.

Cold-smoking is the technique we associate most with fish (smoked salmon, smoked mackerel, smoked haddock) and meat (smoked bacon). However, it's also used to smoke cheese (such as applewood-smoked cheddar) and bulbs of garlic. When you expose food to cold, or cool, smoke, the food does not cook, although the smoke will penetrate the food more thoroughly than when hot-smoked.

Fish (and meat) will need to be salted, or brined, before it is cold-smoked. To salt, say, a side of salmon, find a baking tray on which the salmon will fit comfortably. Spread a layer of rock salt on the base of the tray. Lay the salmon, skin side down on the rock salt, and cover completely with more salt. Other aromatics can be added as well: lemon slices, herbs, beetroot, some gin or vidka maybe. Now place a second baking tray on top of the salmon and salt, and weight it down by placing tins or full jars on the top. Slide the whole lot into the fridge and leave for 12-24 hours.

Remove the salmon, reserving the salt mixture and drain away any liquid generated during this first salting. Turn the fish over on the rock salt base, so that it's now skin side up. Cover again with salt and aromatics (you may need more). Weight down again as before. Put the tray and salmon combo back in the fridge for another 12-24 hours.

Brining it creates a sweeter cure: make up a salt/sugar solution in cold water, completely immerse the fish in this and store, covered, in the fridge for around 8-12 hours. (Smaller fillets may take less time.)

Simple brine

100g brown sugar

75g salt

1 litre water

Plenty of other flavours can be added to this, eg, fennel, onions, garlic, herbs. Or go Asian with star anise, cinnamon, lemongrass or lime.

Once salted/brined, rinse the fish well to get rid of excess salt, then dry it, ideally for a couple of hours or so, in a cool, well-ventilated place. Only then it is ready to smoke. We also smoked Camembert cheese, salt, aubergines and garlic bulbs – these do not need brining or curing but can go straight into the cold smoker.

A second solution is to generate the smoke from as small a heat source as possible. We used a ProQ smoke generator, available online from Mac's BBQ, and Amazon among other places, placed in the bottom of an ordinary kettle barbecue. If you don't have a deep barbecue, you could try making a smokehouse out of an old fridge, or a discarded filing cabinet (popular because the file rods are handy to hang fish fillets from), or even a cardboard box (while the smoke should be cool when it reaches the box, place the smoke generator itself on foil or something non-reactive and fireproof).

The ProQ is filled with smoke dust in a spiral pattern. The outer ring of the spiral is heated by a small tealight which can then be removed when the wood dust starts to smoulder. It will continue to smoulder for up to ten hours. It's an effective, tidy way to generate cool smoke, although we found that it didn't always produce very much smoke. Two ProQ smoke generators would probably be ideal, but expensive.

If you don't want to shell out for commercial kit straightaway, try the tin + soldering iron method instead. For this you need a deep container, again such as a kettle barbecue, a soldering iron, an empty 400g food tin, and your woodchips. For this method you'll also need access to a power supply.

Important: the soldering iron must have no solder on it AT ALL. You do not want smouldering lead contaminating your woodsmoke. Ideally, buy a new soldering iron for about a tenner and use it exclusively for cold-smoking.

Also note: many food tins these days, especially supermarket own-brand cans, are lined with a plastic coating. You should use an unlined tin - Baxter's soup cans are unlined, for example.

Before you empty the contents of the tin, make a hole in it at the top end (we used a sharpening steel and a hammer), opposite the ring-pull if there is one. The hole needs to be just big enough to fit the tip and arm of the soldering iron. This is much easier to do when the tin is full; the lid tends to buckle and collapse if you empty the contents first. Wash out the tin, and let it dry.

Using the ring-pull, carefully peel back the lid of the tin about half way. Fill just over half the tin with your wood chips. Close the lid as far as possible, then push the soldering iron through the hole so that it’s fully inserted in the tin and the arm is in direct contact with the woodchips.

Put the tin with the soldering iron inserted in the bottom of the barbecue. Lay the food to be smoked on silver foil on the top rack. Carefull trail the soldering iron's cable out of the barbecue and plug into the power supply. Place the lid on the barbecue as tightly as possible allowing for the fact that the soldering iron cable will prevent it from closing fully. Switch on the power to the extension cable. You should start to see wisps of smoke emerge from under the lid within 5 mins.

With the soldering iron and tin at the bottom of the barbecue and the food laid out at the top, the smoke around the food should stay cool enough to cold smoke properly. If you have an outdoor thermometer, it's a good idea to place it on the rack next to the food, so that you can check the temperature regularly. On a sunny day, the outside temperature may heat up the interior of the barbecue. If you do see the temperature rising much above 30 degrees, slide a bag of ice into the bottom of the barbecue next to the tin of woodchips. This should bring the temperature down to the safe range and keep it there.

Smoking workshop March 2012

Menu

Rum punch with smoked lemons

Smoked trout salad

Halloumi salad with tomatoes

Smoked marinaded tofu

Smoked red peppers

Smoked sweetcorn

Smoked aubergine curry

Selection of smoked cheeses

Take up smoking - again!

Sunday’s Secret Garden Club afternoon sees us return to the subject of smoking. Adding smoke to food gives it a delicious flavour and aroma, redolent of barbecues and the great outdoors. It doesn’t need specialist equipment: if you barbecue, you can smoke.

We’ll look at three different ways to smoke food - from delicate tea-smoked fish, to a range of vegetables hot-smoked over wood chips, to cold smoking and how to rig up a cold smoker in your own back garden for a very small outlay.

MsMarmiteLover has promised to mix her acclaimed smoked lemon cocktails again to kick-start the afternoon, and we’ll finish with an afternoon tea inspired by our smoky ventures.

There will be plenty of time to chat and discuss the best way to set up a smoker and various techniques and foods to try.

Some of the food we’ll be smoking include:

Aubergines – hot-smoked for a distinctive char-grilled flavour;
Cheese – different varieties can be smoked with some very distinctive effects;
Garlic –smoked garlic can be used in place of ordinary cloves to add smoky notes;
Jalapeno chillies – smoked and dried chillies are known as chipotles and are used in Mexican cuisine;
Lemons – you haven’t lived until you’ve tried one of MsMarmiteLover’s smoked lemon cocktails;
Peppers – smoking brings out their sweetness;
Salmon – once you’ve tried your own home-cured, home-smoked salmon, you’ll never want shop-bought again;
Salt - gourmet seasoning;
Sweetcorn – marinaded and hot-smoked for a barbecue style dish;
Tofu – marinaded first for sweetness and to retain its softness, then hot-smoked ;
Tomatoes – tea-smoked to bring out their essential flavours;
Trout fillets – smoked over leaves of Lapsang Souchong tea for a delicate, elusive taste.

Join us on Sunday March 18th, starting at 2.00pm. Booking details are here.