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
frieslandfarm (flowers) 