Month: May 2012

It is all systems go on the farm at the moment, we spent last week getting all the rest of the veg plants in the ground so apart from one bed, which is a bit too much like clay and therefore difficult to plant, every available inch of space has been filled! The process for the next few weeks will be weeding and watering with the hopes of a good harvest to come. The potatoes have been earthed up to encourage more root growth and therefore more tubers, the peas and beans all tied in so that they can romp away as soon as the roots take hold, and the poly tunnel produce has settled in and begun to put on growth, all is well with the garden  🙂 Actually this is the easy part really the next battle that will begin is with the slugs and bugs, Cabbage White butterflies have already been spotted looking for a good cabbage to lay their eggs on and no doubt there will be an army of green-fly invading very shortly! Luckily our ‘life balance’ is pretty good and the Ladybirds and Lacewings will not be far away ready to help as soon as they are needed.

The Strawberries are still loaded with flowers, the bed just needs weeding now and any new runners kept under control, we should be eating the first few in the middle of June, that will be the first treat of the year, sadly they wont quite be ready for Jubilee weekend but never mind.

The quail are coming on in leaps and bounds there are still 31 left so a good number, I have had to upgrade their accommodation as they were getting too big for the small brooder in doors, they are now in a larger one in the back stable, they still need a light and will do for another couple of weeks yet. The bigger they got the more they poo the smellier they get and in this weather you don’t want them indoors for too long!! The hens that are sat on eggs in the back paddock have still not hatched anything but still keep laying so I will just leave them until something appears. The other hen in the run had hatched out two chicks but sadly one has since died, it is amazing that they grow and spend all that time hunched in a tight ball, hatch out then proceed to keel over and die without any obvious reason but it is the survival of the fittest and from experience I know it does not do any good to try and save them as they usually die in the end anyway 😦

Hubby and I had a weekend off this week, we left our eldest and her boyfriend in charge and went to Wales to visit my Dad. They did a good job and the farm looks tidy after they had strimmed all the grassy areas and the menage had a rake over, nothing died so that was a bonus!

I took some pictures of my Dad’s veg patch which he is very proud of, it is a small but very productive patch and the lines are very regimental! He is out there every morning weeding and watering and very good it looks too. They live on the side of a hill overlooking a valley and then going up the other side are the Black mountains, the view he has while he is working out there is fantastic and I am very envious of it. They also have a 9 acre wood, which is lovely now, 7 years ago when they moved in it was completely overgrown and difficult to get into, now it is a working wood, it has been cleared, tidied and copiced, all the trees that had to come down have been used for firewood, the branches for kindling and the result is a beautiful serene wood with an abundance of Bluebells, Wood Anenomes, Orchids and many other wild flowers. I went for  a walk through it and heard the unmistakable sound of the Woodpecker, as I got closer to one tree I could hear the chirping of chicks high up in a hole, the nearer I got the louder the Woodpecker chirped to warn me off so I left her in peace.

As you are all no doubt aware this weekend coming is Jubilee Weekend and although we will be working for some of it we are having a few hours off to celebrate, we are having a fancy dress (anything English) Jubilee picnic in the front paddock and the drive will be festooned with bunting and balloons, there will be picnic food to share, jugs of pimms and Aunt Sally to play, whatever you are doing have a great time and enjoy the celebrations, if you haven’t got anything to do bring a picnic and come and join us on the Sunday afternoon you would be most welcome. I wont be blogging next Monday as it will still be holiday time and no doubt I will be clearing up and possibly have a sore head :p, so I will catch up the week after and hopefully have some pics of us lot in fancy dress!

Good Morning, well nearly afternoon, I had to go to the dreaded dentist this morning and have only just got back so by the time I have written and published it will probably be afternoon.

We had another busy weekend finishing off the poly tunnel, we had some help from my Stepdad which was much appreciated or I don’t think it would have been finished, as it was I could not believe how quickly the day went and was inclined to think he was fibbing when he said it was 5.40pm and time to go home, I had thought it was only about 3.30! We weeded it yesterday and it is now ready to be planted up which I will try to get around to this afternoon and evening. Probably the first things going in will be tomatoes as they are quite far behind for the time of year and hopefully they will go full steam ahead once they are in there.

During the week my Mum came over and we planted up the brasicca bed, that is now full of cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli, the plants are a bit small due to lack of Sun but hopefully as we are predicted some warmth they will pick up quickly.

We have a few strange visitors to the farm now and again and this weekend was no exception, while we were doing the tunnel a car full of people arrived and got out, normally people are here to buy eggs or chickens, but this family wanted a look round and a cup of tea!!! They thought we were a farm cafe, I have no idea why as there is no such indication on the board outside, maybe it was the horse hotel bit that made them think so, needless to say we had quite a chuckle at that one 🙂

Talking of summer visitors, the swifts are back again this year, they come every summer and nest in the large stable block, we always keep an eye on them as they have a habit of nesting where the cats can reach or where the nest will be blown off the ledge  by the wind. At the moment they are scouting for a good spot, dive bombing people while they are doing it, one livery nearly had a head on collision with one on Saturday, as she came out of the side door, the swift was flying in.

I had a moment of hope on the Tortoise front last week, I looked up from the greenhouse where I was doing some potting on and saw the tortoises out in the garden, great I thought, they have woken up but when I went to look they were definitely dead and something must have pulled them out of their hut. Sadly that is the end of them, I can only think that they must have woken during a warm spell, eaten, and then gone back to sleep which is fatal if the temperature drops again.

Two lives have ended but we have plenty of new life here, the Quail caught me by surprise on Sunday morning as I had not expected them to hatch until tomorrow. In total 34 have hatched so far, that’s pretty good, they are tiny little things and I had to quickly get the brooder box sorted out, normally chicks go out into a box in the stable with a lamp but these are so small we made a special one that can stay indoors, it is made of a plastic storage box with a red bulb screwed to the inside, it means that we can keep them indoors and has the added bonus of being able to watch and observe them. They wriggle about like a tub of worms, each one trying to get nearest the warm spot. I have taken a couple of pictures, one is of them in the brooder box and the other is of little ones that have just hatched, they stay in the incubator until their feathers dry out then they are moved in with the others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had expected the hens to have hatched out chicks by now but as yet there is no sign of any, they have been messing about swapping eggs here and there and so I took some from one hen and put them under a different broody in another pen, remember the one that kept going broody but I had to make her get off as her eggs would not be fertile, well I decided that as she was persistently sitting there I would help her out a bit, hopefully she will manage to hatch one or two.

I had a quick trip to the garden centre on Sunday to pick up some more seeds, I went to get Melon plants but actually theirs were no further forward than mine so I decided not to bother, it seems even the professionals are having problem getting plants to put on any growth. While I was there I thought I would take a look at the chickens they were selling, I got the shock of my life when I saw that they had Crested Cream Legbars for sale at £54.99!!!!!!!!!!! OMG these are the next lot of eggs I will be hatching out but I will not be charging anywhere near that price, the phrase ‘rip off britain’ is spreading into the chicken market!

 

Another Monday morning, another wet weather forecast for the week ahead, but at least we had a half decent weekend and as always when the weather is good we work hard!

The big job this weekend was to get the polytunnel under construction, we made good progress and the frame went up within a few hours, next came the job of digging the trench all the way round, this is then backfilled and holds the cover taught. The digging was going well for the first 8 inches or so then we hit clay, it then took hubby the whole of Sunday to dig out just one side, clay is normally quite soft to dig, if a little heavy, but this is rock solid, probably because the water table is so low. While he was doing that job I busied myself putting down the path in the middle, as luck would have it we had been asked in the week if we wanted any slabs that someone was taking up, talk about timing! Hopefully the rest of the tunnel will be finished off next weekend, and we can begin to plant into it. The addition of a tunnel will extend the growing season by a month at each end of the season and because the site in general is quite exposed it means we will be able to plant more tender veg plants a lot earlier than usual with better results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also put together the new egg shed this week and it is now in place at the front instead of the plastic box. I didn’t get round to my fanciful painting and decorating ideas so it’s just a shed, not only will it be used for eggs but there is space in the bottom for any produce that I have picked or jars of chutney and jam that I have too many of!

Looking back through my posts just now I think the hen has been sitting for about 3 weeks on her egg clutch, she is now sitting very tightly, not getting off to eat or drink, so I think that by next week I may be able to report that she is a Mum, fingers crossed. The chickens appreciated the welcome break in the rain over the weekend, they were literally puddling in mud, even out on the paddocks the water was sitting and making life a bit miserable for them. The ground dries very quickly and so they were able to  dust bath and just enjoy soaking up the sunrays for a couple of days. The ducks have never had it so good in Spring and I keep hoping that one of them will go broody, it would be lovely to have ducklings following their Mum around the yard but no sign of that at the minute.

The horses have had a lucky break too and we are now borrowing the field next door, their fields were beginning to look as though we had ploughed them and there was not much grass left at all, but they are now happily munching away on a couple of acres of lovely long grass. The little Shetland, however has been banished to live with the sheep for a while as he would be ill if he was allowed to eat large quantities of grass like that, also it is the only field that is fully stockfenced so he wont be able to escape for a while. In the two weeks beforehand, he has been giving us the right run around, escaping left, right and centre, we barricade one part and he finds another weak spot to escape through, the paddock was beginning to look like Fort Knox, we were getting to the stage where barbed wire and search lights would be next on the list 😉

All this rain has done wonders for the permanent veg and fruit this year, the strawberry plants are absolutely loaded with flowers and hopefully it will be a bumper crop if we get some more sunshine to ripen them, the asparagus and the Rhubarb have also shot up and the fruit trees have been laden with blossom, the gooseberries, Blue berries and Black currants are also heavily laden so all in all a good crop to be had this year but it will depend on the Sun coming out a bit more often than it has up until now. The veg plants that need to go in the garden are still under cover of the greenhouse and the onions have not even gone in yet as the soil is too wet and cold, they would just rot away. The  plan for the onions and garlic is that they will go straight into the poly tunnel, anything that needs the protection and a long growing season will be going in there as a priority, Peppers and Tomatoes and also a crop of Runner beans, hopefully by the time they have grown the weather will have improved enough to put a crop outside too.

Every year since we have been here there has been a different challenge to face and overcome, the first two years were the coldest on record but the weather was good enough in the Spring and Summer to grow veg and fruit easily, this year we have had a mild Winter but the Spring has been cold and continues to delay planting.  We have previously had failures with veg plants because the wind had been cold and so we put in place a windbreak all the way around the garden to help protect them, watering was a long and laborious job and so we installed more outside taps and set up a watering system which due to the rain we have not needed to use at all yet! I sometimes wonder if we will ever get it just right, I suppose that is part of the attraction to beat all the odds, weather, insects, disease and still have a decent crop at the end of it. I find myself thinking that it would be easier just to shop at the supermarket, then I remember the trolley wars, that very irritating background music to make you forget what you came in for so that you buy more, putting it in the trolley, unpacking on to the belt, packing it back into the trolley, packing into the car then unpacking it when you get home, then when you cook it the disappointing taste of not a lot! You can’t beat the taste of a freshly picked corn on the cob or a Sun warmed Tomato, or lettuce that actually does have a flavour, that’s when I remember that it is all worth it, the real taste of food is worth all the backache, frustrations and challenges, very worth it indeed 🙂

Well we knew the weather was bad but now reports of a Tornado over parts of West Oxfordshire have completely topped it! I have to say that the hailstones were big and the wind whipped up but luckily the Tornado did not touch ground here thank goodness 🙂

During one of the two dry days we have had this week, we have been very busy outside as you would expect, Hubby and Daughters Boyfriend spent all day Saturday clearing the remains of the tree felling that we did a couple of months ago, this was no easy task as the pile of branches to be stripped and burnt was huge, but they worked all day, had a huge bonfire going and now it is all clear. The area we are left with is quite big, bigger than the average back garden, there are four trees remaining and the Lilac bushes that were struggling underneath have begun to sprout all over the area. The plan is to plant Daffodils and Primroses for Spring next year. A new fence will be going up next weekend as the old one was completely rotten and then just leave the area to its own devices and see what it does.

The amount of rain we have had should certainly help the farming crops and I know that the Rape is probably going to be a bumper crop this year, this should also be good news for the hay provided the rain stops at some point! Over the last two years the farmer that supplies us with hay has struggled to get a decent crop and he finally ran out of bales last month. This meant that we had to try to find a new supply and quickly, luckily we had a contact who had some bales to spare and so now the hay barn is stacked with those, hopefully they will take us beyond the first cut of the year. When hay is first cut it is ‘green’ this means that the sugar content is too high to feed to the horses straight away and it has to sit a while before its ready for them to digest without causing problems.

I have just received an e-mail to say that the poly tunnel has been despatched, how exciting 🙂 We probably wont be that excited when we are trying to put it up! Many years ago when I had an allotment with my Mum we chose a lovely day to put up a small tunnel, the weather was great until the last couple of hours, by this time we were in too deep to stop and so when the heavens opened we were on our hands and knees trying to backfill  the trench and get the polythene taut, when we had finished we were totally plastered in mud from head to foot, but still laughing, one of those times you will never forget 😉 I have also had a call to say that my new shed will be delivered this week, it will be the ‘egg’ shed, it is just a small one to put out the front and keep the eggs in. At the moment I am using a plastic tub which only holds 3 dozen and it is not very good when the sun shines as the inside sweats, so I decided to buy a little 4ft high shed to use instead. I have to confess I got a little carried away with the project and was going to paint the inside and give it a vintage look, by the time I had finished planning it, the shed had turned into a summer house with vintage furniture, tools, terracotta pots etc, well at least I was enthusiastic!

With luck we will have chicks galore in a few weeks, the broody hen is still sitting tight and at a guess she is sitting on over twenty eggs, I have had to put square baskets in the coop for the others to lay in now, if they lay near her she will just keep gathering eggs underneath her and then you decrease the chance of them hatching as she will move them around and some may get left in the cold. If this carries on day after day the chances are that at some point all of them will go cold and fail to hatch, the hen would have no idea and still keep sitting on them so it is best to encourage the others to lay elsewhere for the time being. Last week I ordered 48 quail eggs and set those in the incubator, I have been trying to find live birds for a while but no luck so this is the next best thing. That may seem like a large number of eggs but up to a third will fail to hatch for various reasons, from the rest that do hatch, probably half will be cock birds and then there will inevitably be some fatalities in the weeks that follow, realistically I am hoping to end up with approx 8-10 females for egg laying. Quail hatch on day 17 which is fairly quick, they are mature by the time they are 50 days old and so within a couple of months I should have quail eggs to sell, all being well.

We managed to put the horses out for a couple of days this weekend, the good thing about our soil, which has clay seams running through, is that it does dry up pretty quickly once the sun comes out, yesterday morning however, I went out to give them breakfast and hay nets and noticed that my Shetland was quite lame. It could have had something to do with the fact that he had escaped into the next paddock and probably hurt himself in the process. I decided to bring him in and take a look, I left Jack in the field with his breakfast and all of the haynets to himself, you would think that being the greedy horse that he is he would be in his element, WRONG,  I had barely got to the stable block with the Shetland when Jack decided to join us! He had jumped the paddock fence into the drive and was not about to be left outside while his field companion was in, so they both spent the day inside while the Shetland had a bit of medication to help with the pain. He looks as right as rain this morning and is back to chomping merrily on the hay, he seemed to have shoulder pain which would tie in with the fact that he uses his front leg to pull at the rails until he moves them and is free!

On the veg front we have managed to get the broad bean plants in the ground and the bean poles up ready for planting when the weather breaks, I also managed to get some weeding done during the sunny spell at the weekend. Everything else is being grown on inside at the moment, which is working quite well, of course it does mean a shortage of space and we have moved some of the brassicas out into the cold frame to harden off. The courgettes have been planted out into the hot box, which is basically a box filled with layers of horse muck and straw then topped with soil. The courgettes are planted into the soil and the idea is that as the muck breaks down it gives off heat which encourages growth. Courgettes are very hungry plants and as the roots go down into the straw and muck mix they will be very well fed, this is a bit of an experiment and hopefully it will work well, the Victorians used the method with great results so fingers crossed.

Quail eggs, I forgot that one was broken so there are in fact 47!

 

 

 

Hot Box