Month: January 2016

I kinda like this time of year, making lists, planning and ordering, it’s the calm before the storm in terms of workload.

The lists include things that didn’t get done last year and are transferred to this year in the hopes that they may get completed! Planning is nearly always undone by weather or circumstance, but it still needs to be done, and ordering of course is most women’s delight even if it is a combination of planks of wood and plants lol. 

Most of my seeds I ordered on Black Friday would you believe and got them half price (chuffed😁) but I also need to replace or replenish some plants, one of the blueberry bushes died and so needed replacing, in the end I ordered three to cover the whole season. The same  with the strawberries, they are four years old now and need replacing, so I ordered enough to cover the season instead of just the month of June, hopefully it won’t be a manic picking session every morning, I can take my time over a longer period. 

I ordered my seed potatoes and left it a bit late as the variety I wanted was sold out already! This year I decided to go for more earlies and less main crop as we harvested a large crop of late potatoes and I don’t think we are going to get through them all before the new season starts again. People tend to buy the new potatoes but not the older ones for storing so that’s the logic behind my thinking. I also ordered a couple of novelty items like black radish and endamme (soya) beans to see how they go. Although last years ‘trials’ were not so good, the cucamelon were a waste of time, the oca need a bit of getting used too as far as customers are concerned! 

I am going to have another go at sweet potato, the only time I have done them they didn’t amount to anything so a bit more research is in order and hopefully we will be more successful this year.

The planning isn’t just confined to the veg garden, I have been sourcing and ordering some new Quail which we will be picking up next weekend and I need some more laying ducks, I am on the case but the nearest I can find with what I want is in Bath, however a nice little trip out in the countryside would not be a bad thing. We intend to replace our laying flock of chickens but timming is key as we do not want to run out of eggs, although they are not laying very many at the minute anyway. The older ladies will be sold off very cheaply to make way for the younger, hopefully more prolific hens 😜

I am hopeful that the geese will lay this spring otherwise they will be heading for the freezer, I can’t keep feeding livestock that is not giving me any return, I have told them but whether they listened or not is another matter 😋

The fluctuating weather takes a bit of keeping up with, downpours, wind, frozen ground, you never know what the next day will bring but it’s all heading towards spring so I am not complaining. I took some photos around the farm when it was frozen, it’s always quite beautiful on those days 

Our straw and hay supplier has run out of both already this year and so I have had to ring round to find another supply. That’s the first time in six years he has actually run out completely, some of his fields were too wet last year to harvest and so he had to plough it back in creating a bit of a shortfall. I realise how spoilt we are with him as he will deliver at short notice and now I have to be on top of things and plan ahead.

From this week onwards I have committed myself to trying to get something achieved in the veg garden everyday, so far, so good (I know it’s only Tuesday) but yesterday I cut back the herbs, and did the hoeing on that whole bed including the asparagus and rhubarb areas, and today I have hoed the bed next to it, counted up how many new boards I need to replace the rotten ones and planted some broad bean seeds to bring on and plant in the poly tunnel, I’m on a roll 😝

I have given Hubby the job of planning and building the outdoor rabbit enclosure for the five rabbits we have, at the minute they are in the chicken pen but we will need that soon for the new chooks. The rabbits won’t be making us money except for the odd litter we might sell but they are lovely to have around and you do need something just for enjoyment purposes, well that’s my excuse anyway! 

Have a fab week ☔️❄️💦☀️ whatever the weather 😃

   
    
   

Here is the blog I had already written up last week, the one that the ‘rant’ replaced, on the up side, it saved me a hour of time this week 😀

Happy New Year to you all, I hope you had a good one.

The beginning of the year nearly always brings planning to the fore, planning holidays, planning diets or abstentions and for me planning the veg garden in particular. The first thing on the list is always the rotation plan and I have completed that although I do find it gets tweaked a little as time goes on. Next on the list are jobs that need doing before any kind of planting can even begin, repairs being the main one, some boards around the beds have rotted and need replacing and although it’s a bit wet at the moment they can be ordered in readiness. Due to the amount of rain we have had (and it’s not finished yet) the most planning I need to do is in regards to the soil, the garden is on a slight slope and those two things combined will mean that leaching will have occurred for sure. Nutrients and minerals will have been washed away and need to be replaced, we have piles of manure and will be using plenty of that to increase the bulk and improve the soil properties but I think extra will be needed this year. With that in mind I have ordered the usual suspects, blood, fish and bone, a slow acting fertiliser, this will be used at the potting up or planting stage and sulphate of potash to encourage flowering especially around the strawberries, more flowers = more fruit, this will be lightly forked in so that it reaches the roots. Two others that I will be trying are mycorrhizal fungus and a totally new one on me, Rock Dust! The fungus has been around for a few years and has a symbiotic relationship with plants meaning that the fungus lives on the roots of the plants but far from being harmful it actually helps the roots by helping them to access nutrients from further afield than they normally would be able to reach. The rock dust is exactly that crushed rock containing plenty of minerals, there are stories of fantastic results and huge veg when using this product, I am not wanting competition sized carrots but I am hoping for good healthy plants 😃

I have been able to get some planting under way, I have Jalapeños and tomato seeds in a heated propagator on the side in the boot room and also basil and coriander on the window sill, so we are underway. I really ought to think about getting some veg sown in the poly tunnel as I left that fallow over winter, I thought the soil might be too wet but I had a look today and it seems fine so broad beans and early peas could go in and hopefully not get eaten by mice! 

Strangely the Quail have started to lay again already, this could be due to the unseasonably warm weather or the fact that I had to bring them indoors and the light is on in the morning and evening thus increasing the amount of light they are getting, I think the latter is more likely. With that fact in mind today I ran a cable across to the chicken house and put a light in there, I have drawn up a tally sheet to record the number of eggs we get and see if the light makes any difference, I am mindful that as the nights draw out the egg numbers would increase naturally as well but it will be interesting to find out if it works. Trivia: Did you know that when a hen is born she is born with all the eggs she will ever produce already inside her! 

Footnote: as yet the egg numbers have not changed in the last week at all 😔

You know what, this week I was gonna write an informative piece about the rain and the leaching in the soil and what I am planning to do to correct that, in fact I had it all typed up BUT I just can’t hold it in anymore, I have to moan. I have tried really hard not to do that this Winter, after all lots of people have far bigger mountains to climb and my mud is trivial, however, mud and rain and the chaos it causes  is my mountain! I am so pissed off trudging and slipping around in what can only be described as slurry, that’s animal shit on top of wet mud, I am trying, I really am, to face each day with a smile,  but inside I am thinking, when will all this be over. Every night I watch the weather forecast and pray for minus figures but no, just more rain is forecast, I know there are people far worse off with flooding but it doesn’t make the daily tasks any easier here, and right on cue as I write this, more rain is coming down, it’s exasperating. 

Some people have the good fortune to fall in shit and come up smelling of roses, I have never been one of those people, nope, I just stink of shit and look like I have been dragged through a hedge backwards! I try, I really try, Christmas Day I got all dressed up to go out to dinner, to get to the car you have to open the gate, the wooden gate that has been rained on for weeks now, it’s covered in an inconspicuous green slime, at this point it is now all over my hands and I have no where to wipe it off, why did I bother? That’s why most times, I don’t bother, you will never see me all nicely dressed with a full face of makeup around the farm, more likely I am splattered in slurry from head to toe. 

I don’t just feel sorry for myself mind you, I feel sorry for the birds, well chickens in particular, it was all going so well up to the beginning of December, I had transferred them to nice grass, that is just a big slurry pit now, I do have the other half that is green but I am trying to save it for when the weather turns so that they at least have good pasture to move to.  I am having to use it to turn the horse out now and again but I can’t put him out for long as it is so soft under foot it would be wrecked in no time at all. The liveries have had to move to spring paddocks already because the horses keep losing shoes in the suction of the mud, that means that come spring none of the paddocks will be in a good state, it’s a sorry state of affairs to be sure. 

The Ducks of course love it, they don’t care how muddy they get wallowing around in it, the more it rains, the more they wallow, the muddier it gets, the geese don’t care either BUT I DO. It’s like trying to get up the stairs when you are three and a half sheets to the wind and some bastard has greased your shoes! I just hope there is a change of weather on the horizon, I don’t care which, frozen ground or warmer to dry up the ground but it really can’t come soon enough as far as I am concerned. In the mean time of course I will just keep on doing what I am doing, trudging, slipping, sliding and getting splattered, hanging on to side rails to try and get some traction and despairing each time I go out there. 

When I come in I spend my time planning for better times, and how to sort the leaching problem on the veg patch, that’s if there is any soil left after all this, fingers crossed we don’t have a wet Spring as well or we are doomed, doomed I tell you 😜