Guanciale means “pillow” in Italian, the reason should be obvious. My first taste was courtesy of my friend and Italian food mentor Carla Tomasi who sent me some from Rome. It was a revelation with a deep porky taste. It’s good raw, as a seasoning or a major ingredient in many dishes. When I got the Italian dry curing book Salumi for review (see here), I first searched out the recipe for guanciale. It’s ridiculously simple. The authors say it is:

…one of the most magical of the Big Eight cured cuts [and] some of the finest and most versatile salumi…

At the end of February I was fortunate to meet Huw Roberts of Oinc Oink our very local award winning pedigree Welsh pork producers. At their stall Huw had brought along some pig cheeks on the off chance that they might sell. They did.

I rushed home and got out my copy of Salumi. If you want to find out how to make your own guanciale, please read on…

How to make guanciale

Ingredients

Pork cheeks
Pure sea salt
Black peppercorns
Fennel seeds (optional)

Method

Once you have bought your pork cheeks you’ll have something a little like this:

Next you have to trim the meat so that it will take the cure well. The salt will remove water from the meat which provides a home for spoilage organisms.

You’ll see immediately to the left of the boning knife blade a chunk of meat that sits on top of the main cheek muscle & fat. I removed this ‘oyster’ and the similar one on the other cheek. This may or may not be present depending on how your butcher had prepared the meat. It’s not really firmly attached to the cheek and so I remove it. Also, underneath this is a membrane covering the meat. Remove this too as it will help the cure penetrate the meat. Have a look and feel for any glands. These are like soft, fatty, grey tissue not like the meat & fat. Remove the glands and then tidy up any odd bits and pieces so you have a tidy joint.

You should end up with something like this:

Once these cheeks were trimmed, they weighed 1.5kg.

The Cure

You then need to carefully weigh out the ingredients for the cure. The weights are a percentage of the trimmed weight of the cheeks. So weigh your pork cheeks now. I’ve put the amount I used for my 1.5kg of cheeks in brackets.

Sea salt 3% (50g)
Black pepper 3% (50g)
Fennel seeds 0.3% (5g)

I ground these to a coarse powder in my Kenwood multi-mill. You can also use a mortar & pestle or similar.

Rub this powder into the both sides of the cheeks and into all the nooks & crannies. You’ll end up with something like this:

Put the cheeks and any spare cure into a sealable, zip top bag or similar and squidge them about a bit. Squeeze as much air out of the bag as you can and then seal the bag. Then put a weight on top of the cheeks and store them in a fridge or other cool place.

I put the sealed bag in a medium sized fementation bucket with a plate on top. I weighed this down with a smaller fermentation bucket filled with water. Improvise with what you have, plastic bags filled with water make great weights.

Store the cheeks for two days and then check them and give the cure a rub & squidge to redistribute the cure. Turn the cheeks over and reweight them.

Store for another two days.

Take the cheeks from the bag and wash them in clean water. Dry them carefully. They should now feel firmer because of loss of water and the effect of the weight. My pork cheeks now weighed 1415g and so had lost 85g of fluid. They looked like this:

The Dry

The next step is to allow the pork cheeks to slowly dry in cool conditions, not too dry with good air circulation. You need the following conditions:

• Temperature of 12-18°C
• Humidity ~70%
• Air circulation

I have a lobby in my house that has these conditions during the late winter/early spring. You can improvise with a fridge containing a water bowl for humidity or similar.

You need the cheeks to lose about 30% of their weight to ensure they are properly cured. So weigh your pork cheeks before you cover them.

I put a hole through the top corner of each of the cheeks, covered each of them in clean and newly hot- ironed stockingette. The hot iron is used to sterilise the fabric without getting it wet with boiling water. I then hung the pork cheeks in the lobby.

Check the cheeks periodically to see all is ok and to weigh them. It’s not unusual to get a light mold on the meat. White/chalky molds are ok. If you get any other colour, then you can wash it off using some (white distilled) vinegar, dry the meat and then rehang. You need to be sensible here. If the mold persists and the meat smells bad then be cautious and dispose of it.

Here’s a graph of how my pork cheeks dried:

After about 50 days my cheeks had lost 26.8% of their weight. I could see from the trend on the graph that the rate of change was now very slow and so I’d gain very little to keep them hanging.

The cheeks now looked like this on the meat side:

And they looked like this on the skin side:

I’ve cut them into smaller portions and vacuum packed them for storage.

That was easy wasn’t it?

In my next post, I’ll set out a few of my favourite recipes using guanciale.

Cheesy, garlicky soda bread made w/blight resistant Blue Danubes sounds fab, but where is the recipe? Any new take on soda bread ROCKS for us Irish, especially if it incorporates SPUDS…Send a link pronto!

Who can resist a request like that? Not me

The Blue Danube potato are a part of a selection of potato varieties I am trialling for the far-sighted people at the Savari Research Trust who are developing these highly blight resistant potatoes. These potatoes are more sustainable to grow because they do not need the frequent chemical treatment and other energy dense maintenance of conventional varieties.

As you can imagine, that’s a tough gig. Specially as I’m trying to come up with some novel recipes too.

This bread is almost addictive. The potato in it makes the bread moist and tender unlike many soda breads that can seem hard and dry. The mixture of cheese, garlic and thyme makes it wonderfully savoury. It’s great as it is; slathered with good butter; toasted and topped with a fresh poached egg or eaten with (leek & potato) soup.

If you want to find out how to make it, please read on…

Potato soda bread recipe with cheese, garlic & thyme

I don’t use bought self raising flour and prefer to mix plain flour & baking powder. If you use SR, just replace the weight of the plain flour with SR, the weight difference of the added baking powder will make little difference.

This recipe is adapted from the one in the great book Leith’s Vegetarian Bible by Polly Tyrer.

Ingredients

350g plain flour (I used wholemeal spelt flour for its nutty taste and lovely colour)
7 tsps baking powder
2 tsps fine sea salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or finely ground chillies (or more to taste)
1 tbsp fresh or dried thyme leaves (dill, rosemary or chives would also work well)
1 free range egg
3 cloves garlic, peeled & mashed or grated (you can use more to taste, or roasted/confit garlic)
1 tbsp dijon mustard
150g mature cheddar cheese (or use your favourite cheese)
350g peeled weight of Blue Danube potatoes (other varieties are available Use a more floury type rather than a waxy potato)
100g milk/yoghurt/buttermilk/whey (You may not need all of this, see the Method below)

Method

Preheat an oven to 200C. Get ready a baking tray covered with greaseproof paper, Bake-o-glide or similar or grease it well and flour it to prevent the dough sticking.

Sieve the flour, baking powder, salt and cayenne into a large bowl. And the thyme and give a few stirs to ensure it’s all mixed well.

In a small bowl or mug, beat the egg and then add the garlic and mustard to it and mix well.

Grate the cheese and potatoes on to the sieved flour mix. Add the egg/garlic/mustard mix. Mix well with a knife, spatula or your hands. (Alternatively, Helen at A Kentish Kitchen suggests you could dice the cheese for a burst of flavour.)

Gradually add some of the milk/yoghurt/whey and mix in with your hands. You want the dough to be soft and just sticky.  So add liquid gradually. As soon as you add the liquid, the baking powder will start to work, so work swiftly and thoroughly.

Bring the dough together into a ball and put onto your baking tray.

Cut part way down into a cross and bake for 30-40 minutes until cooked through and you have a nice crust.

If you can wait, put the cooked bread onto a cooling tray and allow to cool before slicing.

You may also like my recipe for oatmeal soda bread.

I love the way Twitter works. In particular how ideas get propagated: across the world in an instant and inspiring new networks of enthusiastic people. And also how physical things are shared too.

This kefir bread is the result of both such things. My apologies for the pics – they’re taken quickly on an iPhone and the bread didn’t last long enough for me to take anything posher for you.

Here’s a quick and easy pitta bread recipe as requested by my kind and talented Twitter friends @evilgordon & @karlasparlour.

I served it with a tasty lamb tangia slow cooked for 7 hours and which had some of the Smen I blogged about earlier.

The method is one I’ve borrowed from Dan Lepard, it saves a whole lot of faffing with the old ‘knead for 10 minutes’. It’s not necessary.

Ingredients

450g strong white flour
300g wholemeal spelt flour
50g rye flakes
5g cumin seeds
12g fast action yeast
12g caster sugar
12g fine sea salt
45g olive oil
500g warm water

Method

Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

Add the olive oil and rub in to the dry ingredients.

Add the water and mix well. You want to make sure all the dry ingredients are wet and the dough is mixed, that’s all.

Cover with plastic or a tea towel and leave in a warm place for 10 minutes. Do what I call a quick ‘Compass Knead’. Imagine the dough is a compass, pull in to the centre of the dough from N, E , S, W and repeat.

Cover again, leave in a warm place and repeat the Compass Knead twice more at 10 minute intervals.

Cover the dough and leave for 30 minutes in a warm place.
Take out the dough and scale it into approximately 110g pieces, you should get 12 pieces.

Leave the 12 pieces on a floured board to rest for 15 minutes.

Roll out the pieces of dough so that they are about 5mm thick and 15cm in diameter.

I cooked mine on a hot cast iron tava taking about 2 minutes for each side. They could be cooked on a tray or baking stone in a very hot oven for about 3-5 minutes. Put the cooked pitta in a clean tea towel to stay warm and moist.

Tuck in and enjoy!

Kefir grains on the left; on the right the finished Smen,

Morocco has a special place in my heart as that’s where I had my honeymoon well over 20 years ago. Since then, I’ve maintained a keen interest in Moroccan & other North African cuisine.

One of the ingredients that is traditional to this part of the world is Smen (also called sman, semneh, or sminn) which is a cultured, salted and flavoured butter which keeps for ages. It’s normally made from sheep or goat’s milk. You’ll see it used to spread on flatbreads, to flavour tagines and cous cous. Jamie Oliver uses it for his recipe for mechoui lamb that I wanted to cook, so I decided to see if I could make my own smen.

Most of the recipes for it that I have found on the web and in my book involve clarifying butter. This is then kneaded with salt and an infusion of herbs (oregano or fenugreek). The butter is then packed and sealed and stored to mature. In others unclarified butter has the salt & herbs added and it’s then clarified.

The web tells of Berber herds people who will bury a sealed container of smen on the day of a daughter’s birth, aging it until it is unearthed and used to season the food served on that daughter’s wedding. I’ve no idea if this is true.

I’ve been playing with milk kefir grains for a while now. I wondered if I could use them to make smen from scratch with cream without the need to clarify already made butter. Read on for my story about how this might have happened in North Africa and for my method…

Carl and the Hundred and One nights

I am in North Africa on a cold morning just as dawn breaks. I’ve been out for a few days to search for good grazing for my goats. I milk the goats and decant each jug of the the still steaming milk into my traditional goat hide bag. Through the passage of the day, due to the heat, the movement of the bag and the microflora inside the bag, the milk naturally begins to ferment and thicken.

When I get back home I hang up the bag while I light a fire and start to heat water for tea. When I return to the bag, the milk smells slighty acidic and is much thicker than before. I take the precious liquid from the bag with an old wooden ladle and carefully put it in a small churn. I quickly & rhythmically work the churn to make butter and whey from the milk. To the butter I add some valuable salt and flavour it with some herbs I picked while out grazing. To keep it from the heat I seal it in a container and bury it in the ground so it will last for years. I’ll make some flat bread with flour and the leftover whey and cook it over the fire’s ruby embers.

I count myself very lucky to be able to save so much of the bounty from my goats. My friends and relatives will be very impressed as I let the smen age and mature. My stock of smen is a potent symbol of my riches.

*****

So the kefir-like stuff in the goat’s hide bag cultures the milk and thickens it. The now cultured/fermented liquid is then used to make the butter/smen. In this method, the water (whey) is separated when you make the butter. With the clarified method, the water is boiled away. So you get some cultures with the kefir method and some cooking with the clarified method.

Anyway, enough of this. Here’s how I made it…

How to make smen with milk kefir

So first get yourself some milk kefir grains. If you know someone who ‘does’ kefir, then they’ll probably have surplus grains to give you: it multiplies fast. You can also buy milk kefir grains online.

Above you can see I’ve put a small handful in a clean, 1 litre glass container. And below with about 600ml of double cream added.

Leave this at room temperature for 24-48 hours and the cream will noticeably thicken.
Here you can see the kefir grains lurking in the top layer of cream. This will now be slightly acidic. If you weren’t making smen, you could use it now as a sort of creme fraiche or mascarpone. It’s lovely.

The next stage is messy – there’s no easy way round this I’m afraid.  Separate the kefir grains from the cream- use your hands and have some water handy to clean yourself and the kitchen with.

Then put the cream into the bowl of your trusty Kenwood Chef with the K-beater or balloon whisk. You can use any other mixer with a  paddle/whisk or a handheld cake mix beater. Failing this, put the butterfat into a jar with a lid. Beat, agitate or shake your fat (!) until it forms butter and whey. If you’re doing this with a machine, be careful as it will suddenly split and you could end up with whey all over the place. You’ll see and hear the mix changing, so be cautious. Save the whey for making bread, muffins or drinks.

Here you can see the butter has formed, some residual whey left at the bottom (there was loads more).

Then take your new butter and in small handfuls squeeze it and wash it under some cold water over a colander or sieve to catch any bits of butter. By doing this, you will squeeze out the remaining whey. You want to get rid of as much as possible as the water provides a habitat for bacteria and your butter may spoil more easily. Keep washing & squeezing until the butter runs clear. I do small pieces at a time as I find it easier to squeeze efficiently. You can also beat/squeeze the butter in a bowl with the back of a wooden spoon. You should be left with something like this.

Weigh your butter and add about 1% by weight of salt. And add about one teaspoon of oregano to each 200g of butter (or to taste). Knead the salt and herbs into the butter. You may produce some more whey, just dab this off with a piece of kitchen towel.

Put your finished smen in a clean container. Then you can bury it in the soil, your local peat bog or pop it in the fridge.

I think the taste is of a mildly cheesy butter with a lovely background seasoning. The taste would obviously be stronger if I’d used goats’ or ewes’ milk. I’ll see how the taste of the smen changes with time – if there’s enough there. You see why you have to be rich to be able to store it for a long time

I will give the clarified butter methods a go and also try this with some raw goat’s milk when I can get hold of some. I will report back on this blog.

Smen & kefir research and Bog Butter

My story above is not completely far-fetched.This research from Iran is about use of a goat hide bag to produce kefir grains and to thicken milk Kefir Production in Iran.

This web-link gives some more cultural and historic information about Smen, along with a recipe for the clarified butter method Butter & Smen in the Arab World

Burying butter is not limited to North Africa. Here are two links to finds in Ireland: BogButter1 and  BogButter2 .

If you have a go at any of the methods or know more about this than me, please leave a comment. Thanks

How to grow Puntarelle

In my last blog post, I showed you how to use this versatile vegetable. As promised, I’ll tell you how to grow them in this post.

We found these very easy to grow last year even with all the rain and lack of sun.

If you’d like me to show you how to grow them,  please read on…

Puntarelle seeds & stockists

First thing to do is get hold of some seeds.

I was very lucky, my Italian friend & food mentor Carla Tomasi sent me a packet in one of her celebrated parcels from Rome.

In the UK, Paolo at Seeds of Italy sells a variety by Franchi Cicoria Catalogna Puntarelle di Brindisi.

I haven’t been able to source them anywhere else in the UK. If you know of a stockist in the UK or anywhere else worldwide, let me know in the comments and I’ll edit this post to include the links.

In the USA, Franchi seeds are sold by Seeds from Italy so this is the same Puntarelle di Brindisi.

In Australian, Franchi puntarelle seeds are sold by The Italian Gardener.

The horticultural information from the seed companies is not consistent. The instructions on the Blumen web site are different to those on the reverse of their own packet, and these are different to the Seeds of Italy instructions.  These are my recommendations based on only the one year’s experience. We have a relatively benign climate on the Llŷn Peninsula and we’re at 52° North latitude. So you may need to adjust details depending on your location and its climate.

Site

Well drained and fertile soil in sun or partial shade for part of the day. We put them in soil that had just been cleared from our potato harvest. We’d prepared this with a mulch of young bracken covered with home-made compost. So the soil was in good heart.

Temperatures

Ideal temperature is around 15°C, Blumen say they will grow down to 5°C. We found they didn’t really like temperatures below freezing as the shoots were damaged.

Sowing

Sow between June and early September. Our late September sowings didn’t produce shoots. These are an autumn/winter crop so I see no reason to sow them earlier in the year as there should be plenty of other good veg available. When we grow this year, we’ll make more successional sowings over this period to spread the maturity of the plants better.

We sowed in modules with 2/3 seeds in each and then thinned to the strongest seedling. Of course, you can sow them directly into the ground. We don’t do this to avoid losses due to slugs and snails.

Transplant

Once the seedlings were about 7-10cm tall we transplanted to about 30cm each way. Then just keep them weed free and well watered.

The picture at the top of the post shows them about a month or so after sowing:

Problems

We didn’t have any major problems. The small slugs & snails seemed to like the ribs of the leaves and the shoots. The damage from them wasn’t extensive, they just need looking out for when you prepare the vegetable. The shoots can rot from the inside out. I think this was from allowing them to stand too long once ready (hence the better succession sowing); or perhaps just the awful wet weather. The inside of the shoots is ‘ribbed’ and this can turn brown and start to rot.

Harvest

The plants take about two months or so to mature. You can harvest the shoots from about 5cm to 20cm tall. So we harvested from mid-September onwards. Depending on your frosts and how you succession sow, you could easily harvest them into the next year. I took leaves in December but the shoots were past their best by then.   I did try leaving the stumps of the cut vegetable in the ground to re-shoot (see more about my habits this way here). The early ones did re-shoot, but didn’t produce anything of real culinary use.

Once you’ve grown them, just prepare, cook and eat. Buon appetito!

Puntarelle are glorious to eat. This type of chicory is a versatile vegetable which you can eat raw or cooked. It’s also a doddle to grow. We grew it for the first time last year and it will be a firm favourite for the future.

You may see recipes for Puntarella, with an ‘a‘ at the end. However, to be precise, Puntarella  is the Roman Italian word for little shoot. So puntarella is one shoot,  and puntarelle – with an ‘e‘ at the end is the plural and means many shoots. We’re nearly always eating many, so the recipes use puntarelle. You may see the plant or seeds described as Cicoria (di) Cataglogna, Cicoria di Gaeta or Cicoria Asparago (asparagus chicory). As far as I can find out, the Cicoria di Veneto is a leaf only chicory like an endive and without the shoots. And some of the Cicoria Cataglogna seeds on sale are leaf only chicories. So be careful. In my next post, I’ll give you one UK source for the seeds for the right stuff.

According to Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book, seeds of asparagus chicory used to be sold (in 1976) for UK growers by Thompson & Morgan. I’m told by Charlie Hicks (the über-costermonger) that puntarelle were grown in England 100s of years ago and used to be exported to Italy. Now he has to import them for the top chefs to use. It’s appears that we’ve lost the taste for them in this neck of the woods. Perhaps I can start a revival here. If you’d like to find out more about how to grow and cook them, please read on…

This picture is of puntarelle that is about 4-6 weeks old. It shows what you get with the plant. Some narrow, frilled and ribbed leaves like an endive surrounding a centre where the juicy edible shoots appear.

And this is a big pile of the leaves and shoots harvested in October, 3-months after the seeds were first sown.

Both the leaves and the shoots are edible.

Puntarelle Shoots

The shoots are very unusual. They are hollow and ribbed on the insides. When raw they are crunchy and slightly bitter. You can reduce the crunch and the bitterness by steaming, boiling or sauteing them.

In Rome, they are traditionally eaten cut into fine strips lengthways. Then they are iced (for about an hour is best) so that they tenderise & curl. To serve they are dressed with a big flavoured anchovy and lemon juice (or red wine vinegar) dressing. Serve with fettunta – a good bread, toasted and drizzled with excellent extra virgin olive oil.

Here’s my attempt, served with some juicy home-grown tomatoes:

Below there is a video from Elizabeth Minchilli in Rome of them being prepared in the local market. Notice the patented puntarelle cutter called a Taglia.

Elizabeth’s recipe for the dressing and more information is here.

Puntarelle Leaves

The leaves are more of a bitter chicory taste than the shoots, the larger and older leaves more so. I treat them like chard and strip the green leaf from the rib. I sauté the rib and then steam or sauté the shredded leaves. These are great dressed in a  punchy vinaigrette or added to soups, casseroles, stews or pasta fillings.

There’s an alternative recipe and another video showing how to prepare the puntarelle from Stevie Parle at the Guardian’s Organic Allotment Blog.

The leaves and shoots can both be cooked and combined in another robust recipe served with beans.

A recipe for a similar dish is here on Lidia Bastianich’s site.

The shoots are also great cut across into small tubes about 1cm long and added to pasta sauces, minestrones and casseroles.

I hope you’re convinced it’s an interesting vegetable to try. Here’s my next blog post on puntarelle about how to grow it.

I made up the dough yesterday and folded it four times and about one hour intervals and then left it in the fridge overnight to retard.

This morning I took the dough out of the fridge to warm up while I had my breakfast, divided the dough and left it for 30 minutes. Then shaped them and put them into bannetons. They proved in a not so warm kitchen for about three hours before baking for 50 minutes with some steam trays to start.

Other posts you may like:

• How to make sourdough bread simply
• Felin Ganol – Tybalt Flour: Sourdough Bread
• Sourdough bread with rye and linseed
• Felin Ganol Amaretto Flour: Sourdough Bread

My Seedy Parcel

I received a lovely parcel containing seeds and more from Suse from the beautiful west coast of Scotland. When Suse contacted me I asked her to “Surprise me…” She did that in a lovely way.

I received some carefully packaged and annotated seed packets. On one side Suse wrote the name and variety and on the other some sowing, planting & usage tips. The seeds are just what I was after: some new to me varieties to try out.

Also, Suse had very thoughtfully included some other plants for me as I had told her I was always keen to try out new cuttings. The first is a small plant of  Fuschia Magellanica Versicolour that I hope turns out this beautiful .

And Suse also included some lovely plugs of heather plants including two tree heathers. The fuschia and heathers are already in their alloted spots and I hope they feel at home this far south. Thanks very much Suse

I will blog about the progress of Suse’s generous gifts and also some of the seeds I received from Lucy in last August’s exchange.

Seedy Penpals Updates on other blogs

This time round, I’m not using a link widget. Instead, I’ll post a summary and a link to all the Seedy Parcel blog updates and progress reports that I’m told about.

10th February 2013
Lorraine makes a Seedy Confession and also gets chocolate confections in her parcel from Becca. This is a great example of the joy of Seedy Penpals…

My Seedy Penpal, Kate at Ty Hen Cottage, offers a lovely seasonal Marmalade and Fruit Cake along with a peek at the parcel I sent her. Seeds, some tubers, a plant and a card. I’m looking forward to seeing the results…

13th February 2013
The brilliantly titled Two Thirsty Gardeners received a great parcel of some more unusual edibles from Hayley and gave Seedy Penpals a good write up

16th February 2013
And see what became of Lorraine’s chocolate…

More to come, pop back again soon!

If you have an update for Seedy Penpals, leave me a link in the comments below, or send me a Tweet

As many people found in August 2012, Seedy Penpals is a great way to share seeds with like-minded people. We all like to send and receive surprise treats: with Seedy Penpals you get to grow them too (and eat some). Follow the links at the bottom of that post to see the fun other people had.

Now it’s nearly time for the February 2013 exchange. If you already know about the scheme and just want to sign up, visit the ‘How it Works’ page and use the form that’s there.

If you took part in last year’s Scheme, I’ll email you to ask you to confirm that you want to take part in this exchange. Please look out for my email, or let me know you want to carry on by Tweeting  me. If your email address has changed since last time, please get in touch with me on Twitter or using the contact form on this website. Thanks

For those of you that are new to this, here’s a brief explanation…

Seedy Penpals is also a great way to

• Meet and make new friends who share your interest in gardening
• Find new blogs you may like
• Share your experience of different plants and how to grow & care for them
• Increase your knowledge about how to grow & care for plants
• Save & share your favourite varieties
• Protect plant biodiversity
• Conserve and promote heritage varieties of plants
• Make sure your surplus seeds are not wasted

Who can join?

Anyone who would like to join is welcome. You can be:

• a complete beginner, or
• someone who knows they have green fingers
• young, or
• more ‘mature’

We’d like to see:

• bloggers or non-bloggers
• Tweeters or non-Tweeters
• UK & other EU residents only (due to seed export restrictions)

All you need to do is to read this about How it Works, fill in the form that’s there and sign up. Please read How it Works carefully, so you can be sure that you can participate in this way.

So what happens?

• You read the Agreement and sign up
• You encourage your friends to join too
• In late January and late July of each year we match you up with a Seedy Penpal & email you
• Penpal A will send to Penpal B, Penpal B will send to Penpal C (so it’s not a swap)
• You get in touch with your Seedy Penpal to find out their postal address and any preferences they may have
• In February and August you select and send to your Seedy Penpal some thoughtfully chosen seeds and any tips and instructions for sowing and care
• You open your Seedy Packet and rejoice at your good fortune, sow what you like. Tweet your joy if you do that thing!
• If you can, blog about your Seedy Packet and how your seeds are doing in the coming weeks and months. You put your link on the Seedy Blog so we can all see it. Add the Seedy Penpals Badges to your site.
• Let us have some feedback about what went well and less well and give us suggestions for improvement
• Look forward to the next Seedy Packet and encourage your friends to join.

So now, sign up…