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.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 