Monday 3rd June: Well rested after a weekend away it’s time to crack on 😜 After sorting all the birds out in the morning it was straight into the garden to see what’s been happening and what needs to be done.
I planted the cucumbers, loofahs, some tomato plants and the dahlias, all a bit late going in but it won’t harm them. I put a few more plants out for sale, picked some buckets of weeds and herbs for the rabbits and hens and picked some veg that was ready. Today’s pickings were rhubarb, broad beans and baby turnips, some of which I put out for sale, the turnips I kept back were washed diced and blanched and will be open frozen for use in soups, stews and casseroles. It’s it easier to do it this way then I can grab a handful when I need them, I am aiming to do this will all the root veg if possible. The dwarf kale is reading for picking but I will pick it as I need it. I also cut some flowers for the table, roses, sweet Williams and huechera , it looks pretty and brightens the place up plus the roses smell amazing.
There are one or two strawberries that have ripened while I was away, might as well eat those while I am wandering around lol, there are also plenty of radish and salad leaves to be had at the moment.
We have plaice for dinner, I keep avoiding it in the freezer because I need to fillet it first but today is the day I decided to do it lol, I will cook it with lemon and parsley butter, potatoes and the peas I picked before we went away, delish 😋
Did the afternoon egg collection then cleaned out the ducklings and prepped the dinner, then time for a sit down and a cuppa plus a piece of banana bread that Charlotte made while she was staying here 😀 I taught her to bake from about the age of seven, she was diagnosed as a coeliac at 14 months and the whole family mostly ate gluten free while she was growing up and so teaching her about food was important. In fact all three of the girls know about food, they understand the different food groups and how they go together, they understand the difference between ‘real’ food and processed food (you’d be surprised at how many people don’t) they can all cook and bake from scratch without a jar of sauce or packet mix in sight (I’m not saying they do all the time, just that they can 😝) and most of all on the whole, they enjoy cooking, job done ✅ there I reckon 😀
I pruned the leader branches from the cherry tree, two reason, one I don’t want it to get too big and the other so that when they start to ripen I can still get a net over it to stop the crows from stripping the tree in no time at all!
With stone fruit you should prune in June that’s the general rule so they don’t get silver leaf or canker.
As rhubarb is still in plentiful supply I made a rhubarb pudding cake for dessert, a self saucing pud, easy peasy.
Tuesday: Mia day 😀 I got all the morning jobs done before Mia arrived and then we pretty much played all day lol, picked dandelions for the torts, sat on a blanket on the grass for an hour or so, then the rain came. We are getting the ideal amount of rain as far as the garden goes because I’m not worrying about things not growing, on the contrary they are growing well including the weeds 😝 I’m not quite sure what to do about them they have overtaken my ability to keep them in order at the moment. I saw some cornstarch weed barrier but the price is rather high for my liking so I will carry on hoeing until I come up with a plan! Once the veg start to romp away it will be fine as they will shade out the weeds but until then it’s a constant struggle lol.
Wednesday: Well the weather is certainly not flaming June! Not that I’m complaining because at least I can work out in it but it a tad on the cold side 😜 After sorting out the morning jobs I set to sorting out the poly tunnel so that I could get a couple more melons and tomato plants in, I did a fair amount of hoeing outside so that I could rearrange pots of plants that I am growing on and organised those. Mum came at lunchtime and did some weeding and it looks great especially the fruit cage and I no longer feel like I’m drowning in weeds so thank you Mum you are a star ⭐️ I had Josh for a couple of hours in the afternoon he likes to come and be on his own at the farm with me and help do the jobs lol, we collected the eggs and did the ducklings, pinched the tops off of the broad beans as they have blackfly, sang some songs with Mum and then had to watch tv as we had worked so hard 🤣 his words not mine.
I did a bit of hand weeding late afternoon, the carrots have been sporadic to say the least, we will get some summer carrot but I think I will need to sow some more for winter use.
I made some bread and some choc chunk cookies and I also picked some elderflower which is steeping in water and lemon juice overnight to extract the flavour, I’m intending to make jam with it 😀
The 75th Anniversary of the D Day landings got me interested in learning a bit more about RAF Broadwell, part of our land was part of the dispersed sites, No3 to be precise. When the weather is dry and certainly last summer you can easily see where the foundations of buildings were and when you are trying to get anything in the ground in the front paddock you always hit red brick lol. It would be great if I could find a comprehensive map or old photos of where we are but although there are many photos online and some sites are detailed ours does not seem to be 😏 If we ever found an underground bunker I would consider that we would hit the jackpot lol, it would be cold storage at it best.
Thursday: Did the morning stuff then popped to town to get a few bits, it’s Johns birthday tomorrow and so our turn to feed everyone 😀 the forecast is heavy rain ☹️ so I am doing pulled pork rolls and accompanying salads.
I finally got the limoncello under way, basically it’s lemongrass (bashed with a rolling pin) and lemon verbena, steeped for a few days in vodka then make a sugar syrup to add to it and voila. I have also got elderflower and lemons steeping in water to make elderflower jam. It being a creative kind of day I picked some roses and I am drying the petals, to start them off drying I have put them in the poly tunnel but I won’t leave them in there as it will be too hot and also the light will fade them too much, along with that I have picked some flowers to hang to dry, I’m thinking I need a drying shed 😜 as I would like to dry a whole bunch of things. I want to be making wreaths at Christmas after my day out last year and so drying things to use seems like a good idea, I will experiment with all sorts and see what turns out the best.
Friday, Johns Birthday: I spent most of the day prepping and cooking food! Starting with the birthday cake first thing in the morning after getting the animals done. John had the day off from his regular work but neglected to tell me he was going to be home, consequently I had arranged to get all this cooking done and have a visit from a friend so he sat around like a spare part most of the day🙄 It mostly rained so doing anything outside was a bit pointless for him, it was a surprise he said, yes guess what, surprise, I’m busy all day 🤪 next time tell me in advance and we will go out for lunch and I will do nibbles for the birthday guests not a full on pulled pork feast!
In amongst all that two new Guinea pigs arrived, I wasn’t expecting them until the weekend and so I hadn’t got anything ready, I put them straight in with the rabbit (who is still fine) and the other pig, later in the day when Sam and Mia came they cleaned out the run which I had intended to do tomorrow morning.
Later in the early evening everyone arrived, ate, drank, chatted, sang happy birthday and then went home, Happy Birthday John 😀
We had a bit of thunder and lightening but not much, I love a good storm.
Saturday: Pouring with rain this morning and looks like it has been from early on, June, such a lovely warm month 😂
We are off out to have breakfast this morning with Sam, Charlie & Shelley as a little treat for Sam as she didn’t want a baby shower, the twins are growing well but she could go into labour anytime and she can’t eat a full on meal anymore, no room 🤪 so breakfast is the lighter option.
Breakfast was lovely, I had waffles, bacon and maple syrup 😋 we went to The Old Shed just outside Charlbury, it’s delightful there, shame the weather wasn’t better or we could have eaten al fresco!
We popped in to see my brother and sister in law on the way back, then home, John cleaned out the ducklings while I got Jacks stable ready to get him in for a day or so, with all the rain we have had the grass is going to grow like billyo and he needs restricting so until we make his field smaller, he is coming in and going on hay, he won’t like it one bit but it’s for his own good.
The sun came out but it’s really windy, it makes moving straw a bit of a futile effort, get a load on the end of the pitchfork, turn around to put it in the barrow and you’d be lucky to get half of it in while the other half blows away!
I decided to call the guinea pigs Boris and Donald 🤣 Josh has named the other one socco? Until now he hasn’t really had a name lol, the rabbit is called Peter even though she is a girl, that’s at Mia’s insistence and she is still very well thank goodness. When we went for breakfast they had animals and I noticed that they had double lined the cage with two lots of wire with a gap inbetween, this seems like a good idea as any wild animals could not get nose to nose with the enclosed ones, an idea I think I will implement on future runs.
Sunday: John did the morning rounds while I went out and picked broad beans and rhubarb to put out for sale which went within minutes!
Yesterday Martin came over and did a bit more to the greenhouse and today Luke came over and we got some of the windows in, just a bit more to do and it will be finished.
It’s cold for the time of year this evening, the sun was nice today but now the temps have dipped a bit ☹️
The elderflower I had steeping, and it said 48 hours, went mouldy so I’m going to have to start that again 🙄
frieslandfarm (flowers) 