Month: March 2012

Spring is officially here, although it seems more like Summer at the moment 🙂 The weather is beautiful, its uplifting after the long cold Winter and our motivation has gone into overdrive.

We have had a very busy week and an even busier weekend, lots of tidying up to do and general maintenance such as altering gates that have dropped over time. It is amazing how much rubbish you can accumulate, all left in a little pile for dealing with another day and before you know it the small pile is a mountain of broken bits and pieces. The wildlife activity has increased hugely, last Thursday evening at dusk we saw four fallow deer out in the field across the lane, and a huge buzzard which took off just in front of the van as we were driving home, seconds after that we spotted a fox in the hedge about to run out, I will have to keep an eye on the chickens again, we have had a couple of weeks respite but time to go back on guard. I have also spotted a couple of Long Tailed Tits, they are clearly nesting nearby although I have not worked out where just yet. The Blue Tits are busy nesting in the walls of the building, I think there are about three pairs in various locations, and a Wren which appears to be nesting in the old muck heap! Just in case you were wondering ‘Kevin the Crow’ is still sitting patiently next to the mirrors, oh dear 😛

The lovely sunshine means people get out and about a bit more and so we have had a few visitors popping in for a cup of tea which is always nice, my in-laws came in the week and we walked around the farm chatting about the year to come, while we were up the back, I pointed out one of the ducks that had decided to have a dip in a bucket of water, as we got closer and she didn’t move I realised she was a stuck duck! I tipped the bucket over and off she went, only to find her the very next day in exactly the same situation, she clearly feels the need for a bath so I will need to find her something bigger to sit in. The chickens we were waiting for finally arrived, but only because Hubby went on a four-hour round trip to pick them up, we got fed up with waiting and had so many customers that had pre-booked them we thought it was worth the trip. The weekend was then spent ringing round and letting people know they had arrived and after that we had a steady stream of would be chicken keepers coming to pick up their new pets. We sold over twenty between Saturday lunchtime and Sunday evening! Keeping chickens has become very popular and it is getting more difficult to source them but I have put in my order for the next few months which should see us through to Autumn, so if you fancy keeping chickens, you know where to come 🙂

The horses are enjoying the Sunshine too, off come all the Winter rugs then we have a short period of time before the flies start to bother them and the fly masks go on. Jack had a bath at the weekend and is looking very shiny, or he was untill he went back out and rolled in the dust! The two indoor dogs have also had their long coats clipped right off, the older of the two, Max,  particularly enjoys this for some reason, he bounces about like a puppy for a couple of days glad to be rid of all that fur.

The busiest time has been spent out on the garden, we have been building two new raised beds, these are for flowers though, especially flowers that will attract the bees and butterflies and of course they will be pretty to look at which is why they are next to the seating area. Weeding is again at the top of the list, no matter how much you do there are always more! I spent one morning tidying up the raspberry canes, I have a mix of summer and autumn ones and they needed to be tied in and any runners pulled up so that they don’t grow everywhere, if you fancy a go at growing some of your own, I would get Autumn canes, they are very easy to look after and will produce some fruit this year, then they just get cut back to the ground at the end of the season. The Summer canes are a little more work as they fruit on second year wood so you have cut back the canes that have fruited and leave the new growth in place for the following year to fruit. For years I only grew the Autumn ones but I would say that the summer type are much better in taste and so worth the extra work if you are up for it.

I spent this morning in the greenhouse, it is by far my favorite place to be at this time of year 🙂 I have been busy sowing a range of seeds, some vegetable and some flowers, all nicely labeled and watered, little black seed trays full of promise, that’s the theory anyway, one of the failures I had last year were the mini pop sweetcorn, they completely failed to germinate, but I have given them another go this year and hope they do better. The courgette seeds I planted last week have burst through the surface and are looking  strong, there are leek seedlings just emerging from the dark beneath, but the broad beans have yet to make an appearance, I did have a feel to make sure the mice had not pinched them, they are still there just a little reluctant to grow at the minute. Growing plants from seed is very easy and much cheaper that buying the plant, you get to the stage when you don’t want to buy any plant because you know you can buy a packet of seeds and grow many more for the same price. A general rule is to plant the seed one and half times deeper than the size of it, this is because the seed is packed with just enough energy to reach the surface before the sunlight begins to help it on its way. If you plant it too deep it wont make it to the surface, too shallow and it will be leggy and not rooted well enough to hold it in place, of course the main thing to remember is to water it because not much will grow in a dry pot! One crop I am going to grow more of this year is sprouting seed, you can grow them like cress and they don’t need anything fancy, in fact they don’t even need compost, a piece of wet kitchen roll will do the job. I discovered one of the tastiest by accident a few years ago, I had sown some Celery seeds with the aim of pricking them out and growing them on into nice plants, but I didn’t have time and so they were growing like cress does, I cut them with scissors and added them to a salad and they were delicious and much easier than growing and blanching the full Celery plant.

I have had a look at the Tortoises this week, considering how warm it has been, I would have expected to see some activity from them by now, on inspection I am not sure they have made it through the Winter, they look very leathered and dry, I will leave them where they are for now  as it would be dangerous to bring them out of hibernation if they are not ready,   I will be crossing my fingers  that they are just having an extra little nap, and keep you informed over the next couple of weeks. 

I had a lovely weekend being thoroughly spoilt with presents, meals out, a bit of garden centre shopping and some Skyping with my lovely girls and their partners, I hope every Mum and Mother figure out there enjoyed themselves just as much.

Spring is definitely leaping forward, the Equinox will soon be upon us and the clocks will change, the ground temperature is still a little low though, and after the Sunshine we were promised last week did not materialise, I put off sowing straight into the ground and planted into seed trays instead. The Broad Beans, Courgettes and Leeks were all sown into trays and will stay in the greenhouse until they can be hardened off. I could have planted them into the ground but there are too many things that can work against it, firstly although we have now put up a wind barrier all the way round the veg garden we are still in an exposed area and the temperatures are often 2 or 3 degrees lower than the town. Secondly there are still small animals out there searching for a tasty meal and the bean seeds would be a definite attraction for mice and lastly I can bring the plants on, make sure they get enough water and they will hopefully be strong enough to withstand the weather when they are finally planted out. The one thing that is growing away merrily are the weeds, it will now be a continuous battle to keep them down so that they are not stealing all the nutrients and light that the vegetable plants will need to thrive.

The rhubarb has shot up over the last week and it will very soon be time to pick some and have it fresh with custard :p I started blogging just over a year ago now and one of the stories I remember putting on here was about how I had forgotten how good rhubarb tasted, it is always a pleasure to re discover it every year! Gardeners often have an abundance of the stuff and if you get offered some and have not eaten since you were at school, I would say give it another chance you may be pleasantly surprised, it also makes a great crumble filling, a friend of mine makes his crumble with chocolate and rhubarb, the jury is still out on that one for me, I think I will need another tasting session to decide once and for all!

I am still waiting for the arrival of the chickens that were due for delivery last week! Later on today I will be on the phone asking for a definite delivery day, I know that the chicken industry is working flat out at the minute and the supplier is struggling to keep up with demand but I am hoping I will get a result and that they will be here very soon. On the subject of chickens the recent EU ban on caged hens will mean that the cost of eggs will go up as the producers costs increase with the very welcome change of lifestyle for the hens. This will have a knock on effect to all products made with eggs, all the more reason to buy them from your local free range farm 🙂

One of my current gripes about the retail industry is the charging of higher prices for ‘fashionable food’, Blue eggs do not cost any more to produce in any layer of the process so why charge up to double the price for them. The original egg that the hen comes from costs the same to incubate as any other, the feed is not any different to make the eggshell Blue, that is a process that the hen can manage by herself, the husbandry is exactly the same and it does not cost anymore to collect or transport, so why do they cost more to buy??????  My little Blue egg layer is laying on a daily basis, I hatched her out last year with the intention of mixing in Blue eggs with White and Brown to prove that they are not a ‘designer’ egg and that they should not cost any more than any other egg to buy. The cost of buying laying hens appears to be on the up too, I did do Economics at school and I remember the ‘supply and demand’ cycle but I was aghast to see a local garden centre with hybrid hens for sale at £25 each, knowing the industry I am aware that is approx 150% profit! I know they have overheads as do we all but honestly, you should be paying around £12 – £17 for a hybrid hen and approx £20 – £30 for a Pure Breed depending on its rarity, obviously anything rarer than that will cost you considerably more but that is mostly for enthusiasts and not your average back garden keeper. You are better off spending your money on good Fox protection because no matter how much you paid for your hen it is a quick and easy fast food takeway for him if you dont 😉

 

What an absolute stonker of a weekend for mid March! We couldn’t have asked for better weather than that and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did 🙂

I have been busy this week preparing the beds for imminent planting of vegetable seeds and plants, the weeds have been cleared in the fruit cage and the holes in the netting mended, a Goji Berry which is taking over has been dug up and will be planted in something that can contain the root system, it is a bit of a brute and the branches have been rooting all around it, the Japanese Wineberry is about to have the same treatment as this is also quite vigorous and I don’t want it taking over the fruit cage.

All the time I have been digging and weeding, four of the young chickens have been doing a great job of picking over the grubs and scratching the dirt around, even manuring it for me as they go, but now they have come to the end of their usefulness in that department and it is time for them to vacate the vegetable garden completely so that anything I plant remains in the ground! This has proved easier said than done, firstly I increased the height of the fencing around their pen which covers a large area in the orchard, this did not stop them finding a way out, so the next step was to clip their wings and move them to the back paddock with the laying flock. A new battery was connected to the electric fence, but by midday one by one they began to wander down to the front and were eyeing up my newly raked over beds, on to plan c and they are back in the orchard and we have removed (hopefully) all possible mid height perching areas, I will watch today and see how succesful that has been.

The chickens in the orchard will be joined by 60 more tomorrow which is my first order of the year for the ‘hens for sale’ part of the business, that should keep them occupied for a while, and if they continue to get out they will included in the for sale list! They really can’t complain though as we spent Sunday morning cleaning and scrubbing the chicken hut for the new arrivals and then the wanderers moved back in, I don’t think they are as stupid as we think they are!

On the Saturday we went to the Smallholders Auction as planned, and I know you are all dying to know what we bought, two bacon rolls and two cups of coffee and that was it 🙂 To be honest the stock that was there was not up to much, a word of warning for anyone buying animals from an auction, on the whole it is generally stock that is no longer wanted by the owner, and if they don’t want it, neither do you! It is a bit like a Spring clean when people get rid of things that are no longer working or a bit tatty and passed its sell by date 😉 To be fair there were one or two pens that had good animals in but they were reflected by the prices, and the day was not wasted as it gave us a fair idea of what we should be paying or selling decent stock for, plus we got to catch up with a couple of friends and talk ‘smallholdings’ and of course the bacon rolls went down a treat 🙂

We caught another Fox this week, and whilst chatting to our friends we found out that we are not the only ones that are overrun with them, the ones we have caught have mainly been in good condition but I know that there are an increasing amount that are looking very scruffy and full of mange, a clear indication that something needs to be done, hunting, although not agreed by everyone, did at least dispose of the weak and the ill in the fox population. Another worrying fact is that the stronger ones are increasing in size, we thought our 15kg fox was big, but there have been reports in the paper of even bigger foxes than that caught, as there is nothing to keep the numbers down and the urban foxes have a ready supply of food from bins or even put out especially for them, I can only wonder how long it will be before they evolve to be big enough to include dogs, cats, or worse, as fair game!

My daffodils have finally burst open this morning 😀 and the trees in the village are covered in blossom so we can safely say that Spring has arrived, how long it will stay for is another matter though. As the weather had warmed up a bit I thought I would check on the Tortoise house and see if there were any signs of movement. On inspection I found a clutch of 14 hens eggs, another problem with wandering hens, as I got them all out I noticed that quite a few were cracked and smelt a little off, the Tortoises are still fast asleep and I hope that the smell in there was caused by the eggs and not the fact that Fred and Livingstone have not made it through the Winter! Only time will tell, they have to wake up slowly and in their own good time, if you try to rush it they will certainly die, we should know by the end of the month so I will keep you posted on that one 🙂

I would have planted Broad Beans, Parsnip and some New potatoes this weekend but wanted to make sure they would stay in the ground without getting dug up, so that is today’s job providing the chickens don’t get out again, what I have planted is radish, Spring Onion, Lettuce and Spinach, all in the safety of the greenhouse, the radish are already beginning to sprout and I will plant successions of each in order to keep a ready supply going through the Spring. For a gardener this has to be the best time of the year, planning and anticipating the bounty to come, it does not matter if it is vegetables or flowers the rewards are one of natures greatest gifts, there may be some disappointments along the way and army of insects all bent on getting to the goods before you do but that is what makes it fun, getting the treasure at the end.

I just popped out to check on the chickens in the orchard and they are all still in there, however they were all gathered around the plum tree eyeing up the lower branches as a possible escape route!!

It is beautiful and sunny today but the North East wind is biting, over the weekend we have had an enormous amount of rain which is desperately needed but does mean the paddocks are squelching underfoot!

During the week when the weather was a little better I spent one day weeding and digging over the Strawberry bed, I dug up half of the plants last year as these were 3 years old and they should be replaced at least every 3 years so that disease does not build up in the runners that are potted up for the next years crop. I have ordered new plants to replace them and as soon as they arrive they will go in and I will give them a feed of Sulphate of Potash to encourage flowering and fruiting. I tend to cover them with environmesh to begin with, then when they are flowering change it to netting, so that the bees can still get in but the birds can’t get at the fruit. Last years weather caused a bit of a problem, we had a lovely warm spell followed by a wet cold spell, they had flowered by then are were beginning to set fruit, but the fruit began to drop off before ripening which was disappointing, we still had a good crop, but I am hoping the weather will be kinder to us this year.

It has been very quiet on the Fox front this week, I feel he is lulling us into a false sense of security! There are plenty of rabbits around at the minute so maybe they are keeping the Foxes fed, they are certainly keeping our cats fed, Felix has been spotted twice this week with a baby bunny in his mouth. The rabbits are getting braver and coming nearer to the vegetable garden, I will need to get some rabbit fencing in place before too long, last year they chewed through the fruit cage netting, which not only let them in, but the birds as well, I will need to go round and ‘stitch’ up any holes that I find so that the only ones eating the fruit crop is us :p

The weekend was a very busy one and we have had one of the liveries leave as well, that is a long story but after having to have many ‘words’ with her the last straw was when she turned up at 12.30 on Friday night to do her horse, needless to say we found out how good the guard dog was and there was no way she was going to be able to get past the gate at that time of night!

My daughters boyfriend and my Hubby spent Sunday felling the two remaining conifers at the front of the drive, the first came down a treat but the last one got stuck in another tree as it was coming down, which made the whole job a little bit longer. We were all pulling on the rope as it came down trying to get it to miss but to no avail. It is an amazing sound when the tree has been cut and your hear that crack as it begins to fall then the thud as it hits the ground. It was a good days work though and there is now a huge pile of trimmings to slowly work through, the biggest will be cut for next years wood and  rest will eventually be burnt. Left standing are two Eucalyptus and three Silver Birch, they look very odd at the moment as they have been cut back and look like triffids stood in the middle of nowhere, but eventually the canopy should come back and it will be a much more attractive looking area (that’s the plan anyway).

I have an order of chickens due in next week, I had put in my original order of 40 birds but I have had that many enquiries and pre bookings that I have had to up the order to 60. Keeping chickens has become a very popular hobby and a great one at that, they are easy to look after, entertaining, and give you lovely fresh eggs in return, no wonder the chicken industry is struggling to keep up with demand 🙂 My laying flock have gone into overdrive at the moment which is great, at one time I was struggling to keep customers supplied and then one day last week I had seven dozen sat on the side, needless to say we had eggs for tea! I am still waiting for the Geese to start laying, mine always seem to be late, after a chat with a friend last week I found out that hers had been laying all month, my two just seem to be more interested in terrorising the chickens than laying an egg. While I was feeding them last night with the corn that I throw into the paddock, an almighty rumpus occurred, I looked round to find that one of the geese had a chicken in its mouth running around the paddock with it, the chicken was making a din and the other goose was chasing round after them making a din, and all because the chicken got too close to the corn that the goose was eating! They failed to realise that all the time they were doing that, fifteen other chickens were greedily gobbling up the remaining corn :p

I have set up and planted the heated propagator, tomatoes, aubergine, peppers and melon all need an early start as they have a long growing season and if you want to produce any fruit at all they need a good warm start. I am determined to get more that one or two Peppers this year, I don’t use a heated greenhouse because of the obvious costs both to my pocket and the environment, but I will use the propagator for a short while to get them going. After that they will need a good regime of potting on and gradual acclimatizing to  the harshness of the British Weather! I have ordered all my seeds and am eagerly awaiting their arrival any day, I have been careful about the choice this year, trying to choose plants that will do well in an exposed area, for example I have gone for dwarf broad beans this year as the bed they are going into gets quite a bit of wind, so hopefully at that size they wont get blown over and break, in theory they should already be in and growing but experience tells me that it is not possible on our site and it is better to wait for the ground to warm up a bit more, the results will be faster and better rather than watching them disappointingly struggle.

This Saturday is the smallholder auction in Thame, so we will be popping over there for the day to see what we can find, we have had the ‘we are not having any lambs or piglets this year’ conversation but you never know sometimes it can be irresistible! What I will be on the look out for is Quail, I would like a few and be able to sell quail eggs, we used to have some when we lived at our old place and they lay really well although I am not sure if there will be customers for the eggs it will be fun finding out 🙂 I will let you know what we came back with next week!