Monday 1st July and the weeks keep rolling on 😏 A nice morning as far as I am concerned, overcast, dry and not to warm 😀 John did a couple of the bird pens before going to work and I did the rest and picked greenery for the torts and rabbits etc. Then once I had done the ‘housekeeping’ bits I got on with putting out some plants for sale and digging up some self set plants and potted them up ready for sale in a couple of weeks. After that I picked blackcurrants and gooseberries, you can tell they are ready when you disturb the blackbirds foraging underneath the bushes. I do leave enough for the birds, taking some to put out for sale and some to either freeze or make jam.
The girls and the grandchildren came for a couple of hours in the afternoon and after they went I made the blackcurrant jam.
After getting the dinner I went outside to do some more picking and the watering, I picked broad beans and rhubarb and found a courgette I had missed previously which was on the way to becoming a marrow 🙄 Everything I s coming on nicely, the tomatoes have started to form as have the peppers, there are tiny melons, no sign of cucumbers yet though. Dwarf beans are flowering and there are some squash forming, I am keeping an eye on the cherries so the birds don’t get them first, the brassicas in the cage are romping away and the potatoes are abundant, looks like a good year 😀
Tuesday: Another lovely looking morning, the sinusitis was getting better, I thought, but it had come back with a vengeance this morning 😐 thick head and all.
After doing the rounds I then collected greenery for the torts and rabbits/guineas, the rabbits etc had mainly trees and herbs this morning, lilac, hazel, willow, mint, lemon balm, fennel and a few dandelion types for good measure. The torts love the yellow flowers of all dandelion types so I went round and collected those for them today.
I noticed this morning that my nut and fruit trees are absolutely covered with ladybird larvae in different stages, fantastic 😀
I took some blueberry cuttings, I need to do something with the blueberries they are not thriving like they should and therefore the yield is not great, in fact an overhaul for the fruit cage interior is very much on the cards. I have ordered some weed membrane and intend to plant the raspberries that are in pots into the ground, it was a job I was going to do last year but didn’t get round to it, the membrane will hopefully keep most of the weeds at bay and the moisture in the ground so it will be less work in the long run.
In the afternoon, Sam, Mia, Shelley, Josh, Florence and I went to a pick your own farm to get strawberries 😀 I do not have enough of my own this year to make jam so off we went to gather some, a few kilos later and a fun afternoon and this evening I have made strawberry jam 😀 I wish I could let you smell the divine smell of it bubbling away on the hob, amazing smell 😀 A word of advice if you ever buy homemade jam, if you are dairy intolerant just check with the maker that they haven’t put butter in it. Some recipes advise a knob of butter to disperse the scum, personally I haven’t found it makes a difference and I prefer to use the back of a metal spoon to lift it off, it sticks readily to the back and can be scrapped off into a bowl. If I am making jam that is purely for our own use I don’t even bother, it looks unsightly but there is nothing wrong with it, it’s just froth really.
Normally I would make a dessert or two with the strawberries but the last two weeks John has come home with cakes made by his customers, not little cakes, full size cakes, last week a chocolate one and this week, from a different customer I might add, a lemon one. So we have cake to eat and no point making anything with the strawberries except jam lol.
I sold three more ducklings today, that’s 27 in total so not bad, I am planning on keeping 15 so have another 9 to sell.
Wednesday: Up and at it early, did the rounds then onto watering things that are in the shade, the ground is dry again due to lack of moisture. I spent a good hour or so watering things and I will have to do the rest tonight, especially the raspberries as they are small and dry not plump, so lacking in water even the ones in the ground, I never used to have this problem, only in the last couple of years. By 10 I had come in, I was feeling tired, the steroids stopped a couple of weeks ago, and once I’m tired I know I’m not going to achieve much so time to recuperate with a coffee, some cake and a sit down 😀
Blue skies mean I don’t get outside much more today, I did go back out in the evening once it had cooled down a bit and did some more watering.
The fox had a hen in the side paddock, she was out when I fed them at 4pm, I had tried to catch her but couldn’t and forgot to tell John when he came home, at about 8pm the dogs barked, but they do that a lot so we didn’t take much notice and then when John went to put the hens to bed…..feathers everywhere ☹️
Thursday: Another blue sky, sunny day on the cards so I set my alarm for 5.30, the early morning air was fresh and cool, delightful, I got plenty done before I had to come in. I didn’t water as I had done that the night before but I did a bit of weeding in the polytunnel and I harvested some potatoes, these were some I grow in a large square crate, and I leave the tiny potatoes that come off in there to go again, so in essence they are self set and I always get a good haul from them, touch wood they have never had disease either, I have been doing this for about 4 years now, maybe I should just do it for all my potatoes?
Contemplating what to do for dinner tonight, I found some frozen pizza dough I made and some passata frozen from last years tomatoes, I have mozzarella in the fridge and fresh basil, a drizzle of chilli oil that Shelley bought back from Italy so I’m good, that just leaves what to cook for John 🙄
With some of the strawberries I have left I made a simple strawberry sauce to bottle up and put in the fridge, this can be used on ice cream, in milkshakes, on pancakes or in yoghurt, whatever you want to put it on really lol. I made a batch of Greek yoghurt at the same time then I will have both things to use at the same time. I use an easiyo maker which is VERY easy to use and makes great yoghurt, one day I would like to make my own yoghurt from scratch but as only I eat eat and not that often it’s not something I have tried doing yet.
I’m getting paranoid about the crows stealing my cherries 😂 the minute I hear them out there I go out to check they are not raiding my trees. The year before last they stripped everything, cherries, pears, gooseberries so I am determined to get some this time round, I can’t imagine how farmers feels when they strip a whole crop!
Friday: I went to Josh’s sports morning first thing then we went to the new shake shop that has opened in town 😀 I’m writing this Sunday and can’t actually recall what else I did that day apart from probably watering 😜
Saturday: Overcast today, whoop, so I did a fair bit of weeding and sorting out plants for sale, generally speaking all day in the garden doing stuff. In the evening we went to a Memorial walk and family fun event, I didn’t do the walk but joined them later for the bbq and raffle. It was in aid of the Eve appeal which is a charity for research into gynaecological cancers, a very special lady, Julie, our cousin died from Vulval cancer and the event is to raise funds and awareness. Here is the link to their website if you want to know more
It was raining when we left there it just about 4/5 miles away and when we got home, nothing 🙁 could have done with a small shower for the veg garden.
We came back with My sister and brother in law who were having a ‘quick cuppa’ a couple of hours later, we had booked a small break between us and it was time for bed lol.
Sunday: Overcast to begin with so I did a lot of picking, carrots, peas, broad beans, raspberries, turnips, potatoes. The raspberries are getting more numerous now so it makes them worth picking 😀 We are having lamb later with all our own veg seasoned with homegrown rosemary and garlic, then we will have the raspberries for dessert.
One of my cherry trees has already been raided, not the crows en mass this year but the blackbirds in covert operations from underneath, and now they have started on the morellos 😕 The problem is that they eat them just before they ripen and as cherries do not continue to ripen there is no point me picking them early, so the decision I have made is to let the birds have them, I have plenty of other fruit and I can’t keep rushing out there to shoo them off because they come straight back when I go in. Netting won’t work for the smaller birds as they go under and up, it would keep off the crows mind but they don’t seem interested this year.
The tomatoes are turning red 😀 I always feel that it’s the pinnacle of the main growing season and I have a strange sense of fulfilment 😀
The geese are moulting after their egg laying stint, it looks like a fox attack as there are feathers like this all over the farm 🤣
frieslandfarm (flowers) 