Month: May 2019

Posted in Friesland Farm

No rain, lemon yoghurt cake, still no rain 🙄

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 20th May: We didn’t get any more rain yesterday despite the forecast saying there were heavy showers around 🙄 It’s slightly worrying that the pattern seems similar to last year in terms of lack of rain which is one of the reason I am trying to move in a different direction with the gardening. Large bare areas that are ready to plant/sow veg into are not ideal any more, the ground needs to be covered either with planting, mulching, or material cover or a mixture of all three. The weeds are getting a bit out of control BUT where there is a weed density the plants are thriving so there is a compromise to be had there.

I did the morning rounds and had made a mental note to not work on the garden today, giving my time to other things, initially I stuck to this and got some cleaning done and some bread on the go, then I got sidetracked in the garden 🤪 a bit of planting, some watering and some mulching.

Massage evening 😀😀😀 fabulous 😀😀😀 good for the mind, body and soul.

More watering when I got back 😝

Tuesday: I had Mia today so 99% of it revolves around her lol, however we did manage to get one half of the ducklings outside so they could splash around in a bowl of water and clean/preen themselves which they seemed to enjoy, the other half will have to wait a couple of days. Not sure if we did anything else apart from playing and reading etc.

Once she had gone home it was time to get the watering going, honestly I really wouldn’t expect to be watering quite so much at this time of year already but this is the second year in a row, the water butts are sounding hollow so nearly empty already. We are hopefully picking up 4 IBC tanks this week which will be another 4000 litres but they will be for the smaller buildings and hold water for the hens etc.

The comfrey has flowered and was teeming with bees 🐝 tonight which is fabulous 😀 I was about to cut some of it back but I couldn’t bring myself to do it with that much activity on it.

We dispatched two more of the rabbits tonight as they were definitely infected with Mitzi, the other, last one, is in a separate cage with the guinea pig and doesn’t look at all like she is but only time will tell.

Well I sat down around 8.45, typed up this then is was out to sort the ducklings, turned on the heat lamp, bulb blew, tripped the fuse out there and blew the fuse in the plug, so they are on a 60w bulb 🙄 hopefully the temps don’t get too cold tonight!

Wednesday: Nice morning again, up early and had my cuppa outside 😀 Did the ducklings then the morning feeding and letting out. John didn’t shut the ducks away last night, the ones in the pen, and this morning there was a dead duck, well headless actually, so guessing the fox got in, how on Earth we didn’t lose the whole lot is anyone’s guess!

Into the garden to get the last of the planting bits done, I am going to have so many courgettes this year lol. I planted almost the last of the beans to go out, ying yang and haricot beans, then planted a bed with the tree spinach, amaranth and quinoa looking forward to seeing how they turn out, probably self seed everywhere 😜

I watched the medals episode of Chelsea Flower Show, then did the ducklings again, then I got ready for my hospital appointment in the afternoon. I checked the post box, there was a live plant package in there, tomatoes and cucumber, oooops. I thought I had ordered some but couldn’t find the e-mail so grew some and bought some, now I have loads, ah well better to have too much than not enough, just need to find spaces for them 🙄

An afternoon getting to, having the appointment and getting home again, all my vital signs are good 😝 so onwards and upwards, just got to come off the steroids now.

When I got back John had got the ducks outside for some fresh air and a splash about, they really are mucky and I have scoured the internet to find ways of making it less so but it seems that’s what you have to put up with lol.

The tomato and cucumber plants that arrived had been soaking in the sink so I put them outside on the table in their plastic carriers which detailed from left to right which plants were which, but I hadn’t quite closed them tightly enough and a gust of wind blew them off the table and now I have no idea which is which variety 🤪 After dinner I got them potted up and left them to soak.

I had a very excited Shelley FaceTime me with her very first homegrown radish 😀😀

Thursday: Up a bit late today 🙄 7.30 so chasing my tail a bit and quickly ran out of cooler/shady weather so after doing hot ducklings and feeding etc I thought a bit of cake making might be the order of the day.

I had some Greek yoghurt, from the batch I made, to use up so I made a lemon yoghurt cake, very simple, just how I like it, mix up the ingredients and cook, I also made a batch of scones, they taste great but didn’t t rise very well lol.

Mix dry ingredients, then mix eggs with the milk and add, then add the oil and mix ….cook, I baked it at about 160c until the knife came out clean. Then make a mix of icing sugar and lemon juice up and pour over the top, amount depends on how much you want on it 😀

Went off to a farm a few villages away to pick up the IBC tanks, I’m pretty pleased with these, to collect as much rain water as possible has to be the way forward. Pop to the shop to get a few bits afterwards, home for dinner, then out to do the watering and finally cut the driveway grass and use for mulching.

So many jobs, so little time 😝

Friday: How is it Friday already!

Up at the crack of sparrows this morning and been running around ever since trying to get all the ‘must do’ jobs done then I can concentrate on the ‘should do’ ones 😜 The ducklings, as you can imagine are taking up quite a lot of cleaning, moving, watering, feeding time and growing fast. Hopefully we have some people coming this weekend to take a few of them so a little less work but not by much. They are having daily sessions outside now, it means I can put deeper water out there for them for splash in and wash and preen and I don’t have to clean the brooder box every few hours! Boy are they messy lol.

I swapped some plants with my neighbour this week so I have been planting up some more veg that I didn’t grow myself, swedes mostly, she also gave me some more pumpkins and cucumbers, I will try and sell some on but I may be planting them in the ménage to see if they will grow in there, just need John to fix the gate so the ducks can’t get at them.

I have a fig tree in a pot, it’s not huge at the moment but it will get bigger, a couple of the branches hang low down to the ground so I am going to layer them, this just means pegging them down into a pot of soil/compost and waiting, for quite a long time lol for them to put out some roots.

Apparently we may get a shower today but the sky is looking so blue that I wonder if it will all just pass us by 😏 The ground is dustbowl dry and in desperate need of some rain, plus it would be nice to get the tanks filling up again.

I had a coffee and a slice of lemon yoghurt cake, it has a texture like Madeira so quite dry and not sweet so if that how you like cake it’s a good one to try. Over the last few years I have really gone off cakes with icing, I find them far too sickly, except for an iced bun of course 😂

Saturday: Another fine morning, still no sign of any rain 🙄 We got up and got on with the mornings jobs, John went off to pick up some bits from the local building merchants and I watered the polytunnels and picked food for the remaining rabbit and guinea pig. I got Jack in as he is getting too fat on the grass that is available, he is not happy in the stable with just hay, kicking the billio out of the door. I sorted out some plants to go out for sale at the front and we had someone come to buy some ducklings 😀

Some sweet corn plants arrived in the post (more plants that I had forgotten I had ordered) and some mangetout seeds. I planted up the corn and sowed the peas round them, the peas can use the sweet corn stems for support. With everything I have planted and sown this year we will definitely not be going hungry 😋 and I may even be able to do veg boxes at the height of the season which would be amazing.

I have been out eyeing up the elderflower to see if they are open enough to start harvesting some, not quite ready just yet but the ones that are open smell amazing 😀 I am going to make a simple elderflower syrup and some jam this year as I think that will be more versatile, you can make a multitude of things with it including champagne. Apparently elderflower is very good for the immune system and if you infuse it in honey it makes a good flu buster for the winter months.

I haven’t forgotten the limoncello, I have the vodka ready, I am just waiting on the lemon verbena plant I bought to put on a bit more growth then I will be making it, we tasted it added to Prosecco and it was delicious even though I don’t drink Prosecco very often it will make great gifts for those that do 😀 I will be more inclined to add the elderflower syrup to gin and tonic 😀

I spent an hour or so shelling the last of the walnuts and hazelnuts that I had stored from last autumn, they will be nice in salads or just as a snack, they have kept well and not very many had dried up, bit of a faff collecting/washing/drying/ storing them at the time, but I’m glad at this time of year that I did.

Did some grass cutting, some watering of the plants I put in today and some of the pots, 6pm time to come in and cook the dinner 🙄 knackered today.

I felt some spots of rain but so far that’s it and only an 18% chance, I’m not taking the risk on that as the sun has been blaring for the best part of the day!

Meanwhile John has been moving wood from down the back and staining the capping for the greenhouse, cleaning out the ducks and various other jobs on the never ending job list 😝

Spag bol for me with a sauce I made and froze last year with fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil and John has mince with freshly picked peas and broad beans, the only thing that would be better than that would be new potatoes freshly dug but they are not ready yet. Still reaping the rewards of last years growing season 😀 To be fair we still have loads of fruit and veg left in the freezer and when I went shopping the other night it was just for basics like cat food and washing liquid as I am trying to make an effort not to buy anything unnecessary which will force me to look in the freezers and use it up, it’s too easy to just buy more and add to the amount we already have in there which is hardly the point of what I am trying to do here.

Sunday: The rain has been teasing us today, a sprinkle here and there but nothing substantial as yet 🙄 Did the morning things and a bit of potting on while John fixes one of the gates. Then we went to visit his Mum and afterwards to visit my brother and sister-in-law, popped in the see Sam, Luke and Mia on the way home. By the time we got back it was feeding and egg collecting time again and someone came to buy a couple of ducklings, the numbers are going down slowly. We have been putting them outside in a pen which they are enjoying but have to get them in when we go out as we can’t risk leaving them, so it’s in, out, in, out lol. I’m sat here writing this, the sky is black and I’m willing it very hard to pour down 🤪 the saplings I planted in the autumn are also beginning to struggle, they went through winter with no problems but with the wall to wall sunshine we have had without any rain the problems are starting to show.

The rain blew over quickly so it looks like I will be watering tonight 😝

We have a breast of lamb, rolled with garlic and rosemary, in the slow cooker for dinner so I haven’t got much prep to do, just as well as I was hoping I wouldn’t be doing the watering tonight.

That’s it for this week 😀 a bit boring really, I will try and pep it up a bit next week lol.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Planting out, peas in a pod & an egg in the pocket 🤪

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th May: Not up so early today, I wish I was as the Sun got hot very quickly giving me little time to get everything done, consequently I was here there and everywhere trying to beat the Sun hitting various areas for watering. I need to organise myself a bit better I think, mulching needs to be done but what to use that’s the question, we don’t have a lot of grass clippings so I’m thinking cut down any nettles let them wilt and then use those, but even they won’t go far. Once everything is growing well the ground will be covered with foliage but while its establishing and the sun is hot the ground dries quickly.

The ducklings needed moving over and cleaning, they are very active little blighters and very rapidly dirty the place up, go through lots of water and food, I may live to regret this 😜

I have planted out the dwarf beans this morning and interplanted cauliflowers as I seem to have rather a lot of those 🙄 the courgettes seemed to survive the first night out in open ground so that’s a bonus. As I said before, any spare plants will be planted wherever I can put them in, might as well have too much rather than not enough, besides the animals will probably eat as much surplus as I get so nothing will be wasted.

Fun in the afternoon, Sam and Mia came over and we decided to fill up the dog bath and let the ducklings have a good old splash about and a wash!

After tea (salmon and asparagus parcels with poly tunnel salad 😀) I spent a good couple of hours watering everything I had planted and all the things in pots, hopefully a good soak will speed them on their way, these hot sunny days are great but make establishing plants a bit of a chore.

Tuesday: Mia day, got the rounds done and then Mia arrived she was full of beans today lol. We moved the torts to the fruit cage because there are loads of weeds in there they can snack on, we ate peas fresh from the pod 😀 we learned how to do a roly poly and later when John came home we had rides in the wheel barrow. We did some of the watering though she watered mostly the ground 😝 and the rest of the watering I did later in the evening.

Each evening we have a blackbird that sits high up on top of the conifers by the duck pond, I told John to listen as in amongst his beautiful songs he imitates a kite soaring up high, clever hey, keeps all the other predator birds (corvids) away I guess.

Wednesday: Sunny again today, the temps are very warm each day so as long as I keep watering everything should be growing well. The morning rounds all went without incident, everything seems happy though the ducks are not laying particularly well, they are just finishing growing new feathers so should pick up soon. The ducklings are doing well, no losses so far 😀 and the little chicks are also doing well. The lady that hatched some out for her home schooled children is bringing back the chicks they hatched today so that’s five more, though they are still under heat as they are only just over a week old.

I have plenty of planting out to get on with, hopefully John will be home at lunchtime so there are a few jobs for him on the list as well 😀

Made the mistake of picking up an egg this morning while I was doing something else and putting it in my pocket 🤪 forgot I had it in there, wondered what it was a couple of hours later, oh a cracked egg lol, luckily it had not seeped everywhere.

Planted out more squash and put some plants out for sale as I have way more than I need. I potted a few more bits on, and am trying to figure out where everything will eventually go! I have pretty much everything (veg) going in somewhere and on top of that I have flowers and shrubs I have been collecting or growing that all need a place as well, I intend to fill the place to bursting with something for all of us, humans, insects, birds, etc.

John only had a small job to do this morning so was back fairly early, I set him to task, first on the front gate which needed adjusting and then a fab job for him, a patch of thistles that needed digging out 😜 only the best jobs for John 😬

The other chicks arrived, they all look lovely and healthy and will eventually go out with the others.

We had the unpleasant job of dispatching one of the rabbits, possibly mitzi, certainly looks like it so it’s possible all the other rabbits will have it too but at the moment they seem fine, we isolated her the minute we saw a problem. It’s a very unpleasant disease and because our rabbits have an outdoor run and wild rabbits can come up to the bars it’s always a risk, they can be vaccinated against it but it doesn’t always work and again because it’s possible for ours to have contact we don’t. If the others end up with it we will have to change the run so no contact can be made, although rabbit fleas can also transmit it ☹️

Another family birthday means we are going for some nosh and cake this evening 😀

Thursday: It was a bit cooler today so I’m not so worried about watering everything, the overnight dew should be enough. I organised the poly tunnel a bit better so that I can get some things planted into the ground in there, melons mostly, I have four plants in at the moment and a few more to go in when I can clear the rest of the equipment out. Sam and Mia came over and then my sister arrived with her little one so sitting and drinking tea was the order of the morning 😀

I gave John another great job, docks this time 😝 a patch of them in the field needed getting rid of, I did tell him just to mow them but he insisted on digging them up 🤪

Another fox attack before dark, this is fast becoming unsustainable 🙄 it is just going over the electric fence and straight in, I might consider a solar powered radio to see if that keeps them away.

Friday: Planting up more veg outside and trying to get this whole forest garden thing going. I am going to try growing cucumbers and loofah up and over using the fruit cage as a top support, we will see how that pans out but it will give me the height of a ‘forest’ and therefore the shade beneath, normally I let the cucumbers just sprawl on the ground so this might be a better way.

We had Josh for a couple of hours in the afternoon and took him back at teatime and stayed for something to eat with them.

When we got back we had two jobs to do, move the hens in the stable to the back paddock and dispatch the two cockerels who have become savage and I can’t risk that with the grandchildren. We used the new plucking machine, need a bit more practice with that as it certainly wasn’t a ‘clean’ pluck, it seems I need to scald the carcass first for it to be quick and featherless. While we were carrying the machine outside I looked across to the back paddock and spotted a fox, so down tools and chase that off, back to plucking and inbetween crate up the hens to move to the back. By the time we finished it was late and time for bed lol.

John saw a baby deer out in the big paddock on its own, but it was gone by the time I got there.

Saturday: Up and about and the first job was to water the plants I put in yesterday as I didn’t get round to it and the forecast rain hasn’t materialised, put the washing on, clean the ducklings and chicks out, have breakfast and then John got up 😜 He did the birds while I processed the chicken carcasses, they were quite narrow which makes it difficult to eviscerate so I spatchcocked one and filleted and jointed the other one. After that we went out to the side paddock to move the hut and the electric poultry netting, we have bought it up closer to the veg garden in the hopes of detering the fox plus it gives the hens clean ground to scratch about on.

An afternoon visit to a local plant nursery 😀 picked up a couple of plants and forgot to get the compost so called into B&Q and picked up a couple more from the plant graveyard lol, a patio rose for £3.50 and a couple of good sized ground cover plants for £1 each 😁 the first thing I did when I got back was to divide them and repot, lots of plants for next to no money 😀😀

Sunday: The weather is still good, warm enough and the sun not too strong just how I like it. I planted 100 freesia bulbs, bit late going in but I wasn’t sure where I was going to put them and I needed the compost we got yesterday to improve the place I eventually decided to plant them. I edged the lawn area and tided stuff away, always something to put away, I planted up a hanging basket with some small plants I have been growing and a dwarf bean for good measure. John has been busy moving wood from one place to another 🙄 to be fair it was wood cut up a couple of years ago and the area it was in gets wet so now it’s in the dry.

We decided as it was a nice day we would pop down to the local pub for a bite to eat and a drink, roast beef was on the menu so that’s what we had and a lovely sticky toffee pudding, delish. Obviously after that comes the afternoon nap 😝 then I cut the lawn as it looked like it was going to rain and yep it did, not quite enough though, just a wetting.

We have had some amazing sunsets and moonlit nights this week

And I have a last gotten to grips with planting with the moon phases so hopefully the plants I have been putting in will benefit greatly and put on good growth, the jury will remain out on that one, I think you need a few seasons experience to be sure if it is working or not.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Loofahs, ducklings & Malvern

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 6th May: Bank Holiday Monday 😀 weathers ok, still a tad on the cold side but not raining so that’s a bonus! John did the morning rounds while I made a loaf of bread, I need to get a baking head back on it’s been absent for a bit 😜 While I was waiting for the rises I though I may as well clean the kitchen 🙄

After that was done we went to pick up Josh and pay a visit to the May Day Farye in Carterton, we haven’t been for a couple of years and the whole event has grown massively, I bought a few plants as that’s what I wanted to go and find, Josh had a bit of fun on the stalls and swings with Grampy, ice creams and crepes were consumed then time to return home.

Mum arrived just as we got back and bought some plants for me that she has been growing, and took some plants home with her so that was a good exchange 😀

Sam, Luke and Mia arrived and Mia had a ride round the paddock on Jack, then she took the rabbit for a walk with a harness that Sam had purchased, we almost lost the rabbit down a nearby hole when Mia let go of the lead 😛 The rabbit had its nails clipped while it was out, I need to go and do the other three sometime.

When they went I took the plants that I bought and I dived two of them up into more plants, yay that’s what I like, buy a plant for £2.50 and turn it into 4 plants 😀

I had a ‘memory’ come up on my timeline today from 10 years ago, it’s amazing how much things change and it made me realise that Diesel is 10 years old this year!

Tuesday: Mia day today so up early to get everything fed and let out before she comes, although I do save the tort and rabbits feeding for her to help. We ‘walked’ the rabbit on the lead again 😜 I’m not sure the rabbit was too enthusiastic but it cooperated most of the time lol.

We had a good day together, played pirates, I made some cakes, sultana and orange, date and walnut and some little chocolate cakes, Mia licked the spoons lol, she helped me put fresh bedding in for the ducks using her little wheelbarrow, then we planted some plants on the fence line in the orchard and Mia did the watering, a good day 😀 She went home at 6pm and I got on with watering the poly tunnel, cutting the asparagus and rhubarb while John cut up some wood. I let the light Sussex out out but when I walked across the garden the damn cockerels came for me and I had to shout for John to help because every time I moved they would come for me again 😜

There is a lot of talk at the moment about climate change and the rapid rate of extinction of species, I have been trying to read as much as I can about it, always trying to find credible sources, it is the scientists that are leading/pushing this at the moment. The statistics are frightening and the problem is urgent, it’s real and the world needs to start doing everything it can, from what I have read we are already on a road that we can’t get off of but damage limitation is possible. I guess when you start on a journey you learn a multitude of things on the way, I began forest gardening because I needed a less intensive way to garden due to ill health at times but I soon began to realise that this is a necessity not a ‘niche’ and so I will be spreading the idea further out into the smallholding itself. The boundary hedges are great, we don’t flail them and they are doing well, only one needs some attention and that’s the one that Jack stands at by the roadside, I think we need to double fence it so that things have a chance to grown in between. The fences that divide up the paddocks and animal areas need to be planted up however I do need to get these plants established as they will get eaten by the hens, ducks, geese. Anything that has self seeded is being allowed to continue for the time being, so elder, blackcurrant, strawberries, wild rose are all being left to either grow in situ or be moved to a better location later on.

I wish I had started this way back when but hindsight is always a great thing, for now moving forward and doing whatever I can is the plan.

The flat leaf parsley I hung to dry in the tunnel was a ‘nope’ idea, it went all brown lol, as it happily grows through the winter in the poly tunnel I guess there is no point in drying it anyway, I just thought it would be good to have a handy pot on the side for cooking.

I also hung my moth traps in the fruit trees tonight, one plum month trap (it will cover 3-5 trees) as we had quite a lot of spoilt plums last year due to the grubs and also a codling moth trap for the apple trees. I have not used the plum moth one before but have had good success with the codling moth that affect the apple trees.

Wednesday: Yay some rain, quite a substantial amount and more to come later today, just as well because I could hear how empty the water tanks were! The ducks are loving it, the hens are scratching at the ground after worms coming to the surface, Jack is loving it judging by the way he is charging up and down the field, it means no flies so I guess he is happy about that as well 😀 And I don’t mind doing the rounds in the rain, everything looks fresh and smells rainy in a nice way.

I can’t really do much on the actual garden itself when it’s wet, well best not to compact the soil anyway so it’s was into the poly tunnel lol, you May wonder what on Earth I spend all my time on in there? I’m continually potting on and pricking out, pricking out is the very tiny seedlings, moving them from seed trays into pots and then potting on is simply moving the plants to bigger pots each time, you get a stronger plant by doing that. Normally I would now start to harden off the beans, and squash that I have grown under cover but the weather is a tad cold so potting them on is fine until such time that the warmth in the air and at night is sufficient not to cause set backs in growth, I’m constantly checking the bottoms of the pots and when the roots are growing through it’s time to pot on.

THE LOOFAHS ARE GROWING WHOOP DE WHOOP WHOOP DOO 😀 they failed to germinate last year and so this year I have high hopes for growing my own ‘scrub buds’ 😃😃

I ordered some dahlia tubers and they arrived today so I have potted those all up and they will break dormancy in the tunnel hopefully to go out near the end of the month.

I’m looking at it all thinking where on earth am I going to put all this lol, but I will find spaces for everything eventually.

I am having chicken breast stuffed with asparagus and Brie, probably not the best companion cheese but it’s what I have got and it will be nice and gooey to go with some fresh salad from the tunnel 😀

I made some Greek yoghurt in the yoghurt maker, I sent some home with Shelley along with some elderberry syrup from last year as she has a chest infection and the yoghurt will do the stomach bacteria good while taking antibiotics and the elder syrup is full of vit to aid recovery 😀

We lit the Rayburn again this afternoon just to ward off any damp from the rainy day and low temps 😛

Had an e-mail from the duck people, the duckling will be here on Friday morning……..watch this space.

John had to go off and do some jobs after tea so I went into the tunnel to sort out all my plant markers, they get thrown into a pot when I find them (all over the garden) and I’m always searching through them to find what I need so I decided I had time to sort them out into piles.

While I was in there about 7pm I heard the crows making a racket, then the hens making a racket then the click of the electric fence, the dogs ran down there, I went down there and the bloody fox has been inside the fence, there was a pile of feathers and an injured hen, so I’m guessing it’s had one and had a go at another as the feather trail goes off into the hedgeline. I’m not sure if the injured hen will make it, she is showing signs of shock and has a puncture wound in her back which I have treated, and put her in a dark box where she will hopefully recover.

Thursday: The hen is still alive, I put her down on the floor to see how she did but she was limping, I turned her over and missed another puncture wound last night so I have bathed and treated it this morning and put her in a cage indoors for the time being. I did all the rounds, the geese all came out so I figured it was a good time to muck them out, by the I got back a goose was back on the nest of eggs, so I left it for a while. Went off to get my bloods done, the last results are looking even better which is great. When I came back I put some fresh straw in another stable as I am going to move the locked up hens from one stable to another for a change of scenery and to make cleaning out easier. There are 18 in there and I managed to catch all but four who gave me the right runaround so I will wait till John gets home to round those up. Back to the geese and she is still sat so I risked life and limb to get some fresh bedding down in there, all the while she is hissing furiously at me but I’m going slowly so she doesn’t start honking and alert the others who would be back in a flash and I would be in trouble lol.

A bit of hoeing and some planting, a fair bit of observation and some planning and then a sit down.

In the afternoon I sowed a row of bulb fennel, took some more cuttings from various plants, did the egg collecting and various other jobs.

I have a serious infestation of greenfly on my blackcurrants in the fruit cage, the ones outside don’t have it, I made a solution of washing up liquid (ecover) and water and sprayed as much as I could, I also left the cage door open hoping that the little birds will help out 🙄

Friday: The ducklings arrived 😀😀😀

Then we went off out for the day to the RHS Spring Festival in Malvern, I had a great day, in my element with all the gardens and flowers lol, John obligingly walked around all day with me without complaining 😜 I found some unusual herbs, a cocoa cola plant which does smell like the cola lollies of long ago and some Tree Spinach, you can eat the young leaves raw in salads or use as you would spinach. I bought a couple of other plants but I was quite controlled and didn’t go mad haha. I saw plenty of ideas and ways to use resources we already have here so may have to get my creative head on. We sat in on a demo for making limoncello, definitely having a go at that, and listened to Francis Tophill talking about how she likes to garden, with purpose, which I like, she likes to grow things that have a use in one form or another. Yep had a lovely time I did 😀

Saturday: We had quite a busy day ahead which included a trip to Southampton to see my brother for a surprise birthday meal, this had to be cancelled as he was admitted to hospital overnight, he is home now and hopefully mending. I had arranged to go and see a lady about kittens in the afternoon, which we did and reserved two little black and white bundles of fluff which will be with us in a few weeks time when they are old enough 😀 Before that I cleaned out the ducklings and we got the second brooder in to move them to as they are dirty little buggers 😝 they are going to need cleaning out every morning! Foraged for rabbit food which is in abundance now with the weeds growing like billyo. Late afternoon John and I moved the light Sussex chickens into a hut in the paddock, which Macca kindly helped John to move,they have a run attached at the minute but will soon be released onto the grass 😀 The little chicks have been moved into the pen where the Sussex came out of, more room for them plus they can practise their natural instinct to scratch the soil, I dug over the ground and there was a worm fest, they soon figured out what that was all about, running around with worms in their beaks trying to keep it away from the others 🤣 Oh and we had a visit from a Harris Hawk again, same chap as before had lost his bird, different bird this time though, the grandchildren were here so they got a close up look and a photo opportunity 😁

Sunday: Last thing I said to John before going to sleep was ‘I’m going to try having a lay in tomorrow’ nope not happening 😝 Awake at 5.45! I could see the sun coming up behind the hedge so I figured I might as well get up and enjoy the early morning peace and quiet 😀

I did all the rounds and was busy working in the poly tunnel before John got up. I tidied the tunnel up a bit and pulled back some ground cover to plant into, I planted Melons, sowed some more spring onions and salad leaves, interplanted some parsley and some dwarf beans, the beans could go outside but I am using them as companion to fix nitrogen and suppress weeds. Did a bit of hoeing then planted out some courgettes, these will be covered with environmesh for a while to see how the night temps go, then it was onto getting the bean poles in and planting up the runner beans. I have loads of planting to do outside, the dwarf beans all need to go in and then more squash, I’d forgotten that I have a load of cauliflowers and turnips which can also be planted, mostly just to cover bare patches as they will probably get ravaged by caterpillars, we will call them a sacrificial crop 😀 I pulled a load of weeds for the rabbits and torts, there are plenty around at the moment so they are eating well 🙄

The ducklings will be taking up a fair bit of time, it’s quickly become apparent they need cleaning out twice a day and they are only 5 days old!

The hen had to be dispatched.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Asparagus frittata, grapes forming & the ducks are a no show ☹️

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 29th April: I’m feeling full of positive energy today 😀 The Sun is shinning and before doing anything else other than breakfast and showering, I have been out and cut the asparagus and rhubarb to put out for sale. Some of the asparagus I have kept back and made an asparagus frittata/crust less quiche, whatever you want to call it. I am making an effort to do a bit of clean(er) eating this week and as the asparagus is coming through plentiful and we have eggs I thought this would be ideal for lunch. I used 3 eggs, a bundle of asparagus, a clove of garlic, grated cheese, a spoonful of sour cream I needed to use up, pinch of salt and a shake of black pepper, bake at 160c ish for 30mins give or take and voila, lunch is done for a couple of days before I’ve even fed the chickens 😀

So what have I been doing all morning, well first I wrote myself a list of things I wanted to get done, and then worked through it, nearly all gardening things but a couple of others too boot. Firstly I wanted to feed a tree that is in the front paddock, Cherry, it’s been in all winter but I felt it needed a bit of a boost as the soil is very shallow out there and probably not many nutrients either. While I was out there I wandered over to look at the wild garlic which has now flowered 😀

Burn a bit of cardboard rubbish that has been piling up, sort out plants I am putting out for sale, dig up the last few leeks ready to chop and freeze for later use, one I have left as it’s going to seed so I can collect that at the end of the year. Hang the washing loads out, should dry well today, pay an outstanding bill online, hand weed the carrot bed and sow more carrots. The carrots I sowed a few weeks back have not been very good, it was a shorter, early variety that I was trying but the seedlings are sparse so I have intersown with a more familiar variety (Nantes) and then the other half of the bed with a later variety. I potted on more plants that are steadily growing and starting to put everything hardy enough outside to acclimatise. The more tender plants will stay in for probably another week then I can start hardening them off. I planted a couple of pepper plants in the small tunnel, the other three are still in pots in the large tunnel until I decide where to grow them. I looked up in the large tunnel and was cock a hoop to see the grape vine has tiny bunches of grapes growing 😀

I have seen a couple Pinterest posts with sweet potato slips being grown suspended over water so I am giving that a try to see if it works.

I bought one of those boxes of scatter and sow seeds at the weekend so I have done exactly that and watered them in, I’m not sure these really work, I have tried before with not great results but fingers crossed these just might.

There are still of jobs on the list to do lol but I’m getting through them as best I can 😜 and of course keep adding to the list all the while.

In the afternoon I did some slightly more gentle pottering, last year I decided that I wouldn’t do pots of things as it was bloody hard work trying to keep everything alive but today I changed my mind 🙄 so I have been finding bits to put into pots to go on the decking area. While I was down there I spotted a rat! I thought the torts were eating rather a lot 😝 so I will be giving the rat(s) supper tonight 😜 John had other ideas about trying to shoot it though, I say trying, it was an entertaining hour watching him stalking the thing, he has no patience to sit and wait for it to come out, he is also by his own admission ‘a crap shot’ added to that he kept moaning he couldn’t see through the sight, needless to say I’m still going to ‘feed’ it tonight 😛

Tuesday: Nice sunny morning, looks like a promising day 😁 I had Mia today and roped her in to help pick/cut some food for the rabbits and guinea pig and get some sacks filled with hay for them. She bought a marble painting kit with her that she got as a present for her birthday, it’s a great little kit, well thought out, we expanded the idea a little with splodge pictures and got messier and messier 😆

I received the invoice for the ducklings this morning and suddenly realised that has crept up on me fast 😂 I now need to think about moving the chicks to another pen, they should be able to go outside in the next few days as they are all feathered up now 🙂

I’m glad a did the whole ‘pond’ thing last year although it needs some work again now as the chickens decimated the planting, hopefully I will be rehoming some froglets to add to it so I need to make sure the area is damp and dark for them, natural slug patrol 😁

After Mia went home and John came home, I gave him the job of feeding the birds and collecting the eggs while I went out to water the poly tunnels, feed the citrus trees and pot a couple of things on, by the time we ate it was nearly 8pm 😜

Wednesday: Cooler this morning with a nice heavy dew, good for the garden 😁 Got the animals all sorted and picked a few bunches of asparagus which will go out for sale today.

When I went to collect the post from the end of the drive I could hear grasshoppers 😁 that made me smile 😀

I showed you a picture of a guild last week that I had planted, here is one that has more or less sprung up by itself so I have let it carry on, this is a cherry tree, feverfew, comfrey, some sweet cicely, there are daffodils and violet in there as well as a bit of horseradish, quite a combination! All doing very well although the feverfew is a bit thuggish. One of the asparagus beds runs behind it along the back

I should have been full steam ahead this morning but I’m taking it a little slower, I have been experiencing a high heart rate at times and trying to work out why, obviously it’s to do with the medication and I had stopped the anti inflammatory because I didn’t think I needed it anymore but maybe I still do, so a quieter day back on that and see what happens.

I have mainly pottered about doing bits and pieces, I sowed a couple of rows of beetroot, I need to find out what I can plant along side them to do them some good, I moved a few things around and then I picked some chard to take to the hens in the stable block. As I came out I whacked my head a good un on the closed top bit, why I don’t know because I KNOW ITS THERE and even stooped to miss it but not far enough it seems 🤕 ouch, one those when you just want to cry, I even checked to make sure I hadn’t cut it open, luckily not, just as well I took the anti inflammatory 🙄

It seems that beans and peas can be pretty much grown with anything so I have sowed some more dwarf bean seeds to use dotted around the garden as companions, I sowed some yarrow, potted on courgettes and melons and sorted out plants for Shelley, she has a terrific little courtyard garden which has the potential to grow lots of food as it is sheltered and parts are a sun trap.

I just witnessed first hand the ‘crow’ problem that is causing concerns throughout the countryside. I opened the pen for the light Sussex to get out further than normal earlier, this afternoon I can see about 15 crows in there, the problem (for the crows) is that the wire roof slants upwards and they cannot figure how to get out once they are disturbed. I haven’t been able to see yet if they have attacked the eggs the hen is sat on or if they were drawn in because the eggs have hatched (due any day) or if they were after feed. What I witnessed was two very angry cockerels attacking any crow that came down to the ground, one crow was attacked four or five times, but they are pretty tough as it still got out eventually! And then they all came back but the cockerel got the better of one of them this time though it took a bit of doing, if you are wondering why I didn’t intervene, not a chance I am going in there with a cockerel on a mission like that, and the fact that there are two cockerels in there having a go is a definite no way.

Tonight for my dinner I have chicken with coconut rice and a mango and avocado salsa 😀

Thursday: I got the morning stuff done, then moved the little chicks out to where the quail used to be to make room for the ducklings which are arriving tomorrow morning first thing. Then it was off to Shelley’s for the day to help her with her garden it’s a lovely little courtyard garden but full of weeds and building rubble from their renovations, now it’s all tided up, weeded and pots filled with edibles from patio trees and fruit bushes to vegetables 😀 we forgot to take before and after photos though 🤪

John got the ducks some starter crumb and the chicks some growers pellets on the way home. I cleaned out the brooder this morning so we are good to go with duckies.

Friday: Well it started off well, I was up early, got the brooder lamp on, opened a new bag of starter crumb and was making a duckling proof waterer at 7.30am all ready for the delivery of ducklings, get a phone call at 7.45 to say they are not coming because the hatch was 300 short ☹️ I’m a bit pissed off to be fair 🙄 All that work in making brooders, getting feed in (a 20kg bag which I opened minutes before the phonecall) not to mention the anticipation, all for nowt. They are going to ring back on Tuesday to see what they can do, it may mean waiting for another hatch but I’m guessing they have already allocated those to customers 😕 meanwhile the ducks I have are laying poorly at the minute so not many duck eggs. The last lot I bought in Ffairfach when I was down at Dads and that was a few years ago, we are going down at the end of this month and I may have to see if I can find some in that area to bring back with us, honestly, who knew it would be so hard to get hold of ducks lol.

I did the morning rounds and got everything else sorted all the while thinking about how things look rosy for a while and then bump, down you come with a thud lol.

I spent the morning in the poly tunnel sulking 😝 lol, well potting on etc then I did some planting of perennials that I had split last autumn and overwintered. Sam and Mia came over at lunchtime, ‘do you fancy lunch out’ I said, ‘yep’ then let’s go 😀

Got back and did the feeding and eggs, I have sold 12 goose eggs today 😁

After that I had a sit down and I need a new purse as mine is on its last legs, well we are back to the light bulb saga for choice, it seems these days you really need to have a purse that is RFID blocking to prevent unauthorised scanning 😏 I need it big enough to get a medication card (I have to carry around with me) in it, I would quite like one big enough to get my phone in it if I am not taking my bag with me, and of course a multitude of loyalty cards, (mostly for garden centres 😂), some old one pound notes I was given as a birthday present many years ago and never spent 🤣, I choose one eventually and then found I could get it half price if I buy one in damaged packaging, yep that will do fine I throw that bit away anyhow!

Babysat Florence in the evening while Shelley and Martin took Josh to see Madagascar the musical which he absolutely loved 😁😁

Saturday: A cold North wind this morning, apparently it’s the coldest May bank holiday weekend for however many years, the weather patterns are so up and down this year. John went off to get feed and I did the feeding etc. I had a few larger plants in pots that needed moving to bigger pots and so thats what I did, meanwhile John cleaned out his van which took nearly all morning, I washed it as he was just going to park it back on the driveway and it was filthy! In the afternoon we went over to Cheltenham to visit our niece whose birthday was this week and she has just moved into a new flat there, good to get out and about, back home for an hour then over to Sam and Luke’s for a burger and some pooling of ideas for their garden which is about to have a huge transformation. That’s pretty much it for the day 😀

I have managed to find a couple of kittens not too far away and hopefully will be going to look at them next weekend 😀

Sunday: Brrrr still colder than it should be by now. Morning rounds first then I did some hoeing, the weeds are beginning to sprout everywhere, John went off to visit his Mum and when he came back he got the mower out to do the front paddock. We have kept the chickens off this paddock to give it a rest and get the sward thickened up, it’s looking pretty good although there are still some bare patches. He got bored after a couple of goes round so I took over while he got on with taking out a gate post near the back door that had rotted out and needed renewing. Halfway through that job we decided to go out and get something to eat, came back and he finished the job off while I did some pricking out and potting on lol my favourite jobs at the minute. I have put some runner beans out for hardening off as they will need to be planted up soon, I did put an extra cover of bubble wrap over the top though as it’s unseasonably chilly 😏

We had to light the Rayburn as it’s a tad too cold in the house, come back sunshine 🌞

Mostly garden tasks this week lol at the expense of everything else but I’m loving it so I’ll carry on regardless 😜

Have a good week everyone x