Monday 30th August 2021: Bank Holiday Monday, it’s nice having an extra day at the weekend, shame we can’t do it every weekend. We set the alarm for 6.30 this morning even though it’s a holiday, better start practising for the working week ahead, John has jobs to go to and I have plenty to be getting on with here.
After doing the rounds John went out to get a bit more of the driveway done, by the time he finishes it will be time to start again 🙄 I had plenty to do in the garden and started off with a fair bit of picking, it’s fast and furious at this time of year and I picked courgettes, cucumbers, peppers, chillies, tomatoes, runner beans, a couple of apples that were ready, some pears and a couple of melons. While I was picking the runner beans I noticed that John had not recovered the cauliflower and cabbage plants I put in a few weeks ago. They are on the area he has been putting new boxes in and we had to work around them, when I was helping him the day before I had said we need to make sure the cover goes back on to stop the butterflies laying eggs. He worked on his own yesterday and took the cover off but didn’t replace it 🤬 I called him a few choice names and then had to carefully look over all the leaves and get any eggs off, they would be ravaged if I didn’t, weeks of growing almost ruined by being completely thoughtless 😤 He was contrite enough to say sorry but I don’t think he fully gets it 🤷♀️ I will have to check them daily for a while just in case I missed any. I also spent a good bit of time covering the other boxes with membrane to stop the cats using them as a toilet block. I dug in some soil conditioner that I already had and also some biochar that I ordered at the beginning of the year which I also dug in. Biochar is organic material that has been burnt at extremely high temperatures without oxygen, it helps with soil structure, it can hold onto to water and therefore water soluble nutrients, it’s beneficial for soil micro organisms, reduce nutrient leaching, basically it stabilises the soil and it will remain in the soil for 1000 years or more so they say. It captures carbon and holds onto it so it is very good from and environmental point of view as well, let’s see if it makes any difference, I hope it does, all the science says it works well.
It was one of my nieces birthdays today and so we went for a BBQ late afternoon and into the evening.
Tuesday: A housework day today so not much else going on other than hoovering polishing and cleaning.
Wednesday: I did a few bits and pieces this morning, then Shelley arrived with Josh and Flo for a visit. John called in mid morning in-between jobs and had a cup of tea with us all. Once everyone had left I went into the small tunnel and spent a good while cutting back all the leaves on the tomato plants. All that is left are the stems and any trusses that still have tomatoes of any decent size on, I will leave them on to ripen. Any fruits that were slightly on the turn from green have been picked and placed in the kitchen window to carry on ripening. I also picked some French beans and watered the greenhouse. A bit tired today so had a couple of hours sit down and catch up with some favourite programmes before sorting out dinner. Then mid evening it was time to go along to what I hope is going to be my new hobby, flower arranging 😁 It was the clubs first meeting since the beginning of the pandemic and there was a good turn out. I knew a couple of members slightly and made the acquaintance of a few more, they were a friendly lot and I came away with a list of what I need for next months meeting where I will be doing my first arrangement 😁 I have done arrangements a few times before for things like Christmas but I want to learn about techniques and form. It’s nice to have a new hobby especially one I have wanted to do for years, finally got there.
Thursday: A busier day today so far. Once the morning jobs were finished I set about processing the produce I had lying around waiting to be sorted, there were a few windfall cooking apples from the front tree so I made apple and raspberry (only had a few, bee rubbish weather for later fruiting) crumble for dinner later, chopped up peppers and French beans to open freeze along with some lemon slices which will be put into a tub and used when needed. I was saying to Shelley about not buying lemon as they get left in the fruit bowl sometimes, she said she slices hers and freezes them so I thought that was a sensible idea and decided to do that as well. Then I went out and did some picking, plenty of cucumbers this morning, eating apples, tomatoes, swede, a banana squash, carrots, celery leaves, garlic chives and a small amount of basil and coriander. The last four I have literally just frozen them as they are in tubs for use through the winter. The swede and carrot I cooked together and mashed, that will be frozen, the banana squash will keep for a few weeks so no need to sort that just yet, the tomatoes are on the window sill with plenty of others ripening and I am thinking I might make some tzatziki with some of the cucumbers, I was just researching to see how well it freezes. I also had to pick a couple more bunches of flowers as the one out front sold and I harvested some lemon grass to put out for sale as well as putting some lemon plants up for sale on social media.
I had to go and pick up a parcel that got delivered to next door instead, it was live plants so needed picking up fairly quickly. On the way I thought I would just have a quick look in the shed and found that someone had taken some of the jalapeño peppers from the carton they are sold in. This made me cross as they had left four in there, I weigh these out so that everybody gets a fair deal and just to take some but not all is annoying to say the least. It could be that they only wanted a few and paid for all of them but even so that’s not helpful. It could be that they just took them and didn’t pay at all I have no idea 🤷♀️ We run it on an honesty system and I think 98% of people are good citizens but some can’t help themselves 🙄 I don’t want to be watching all day just to make sure people are being honest, that’s not good for me and not good for the customers. I try to sell the produce as eco friendly as possible, in paper bags, loose and also cardboard cartons, the only thing I have to use are plastic cartons for fruit and things like tomatoes but they can be returned and washed so that’s not too bad. However in light of this discovery (not the first incident we have had very recently) I have found biodegradable, clear, zip seal bags and as long as I buy 500 they are not so expensive that I have to put prices up. It will be better really because I can then put out bunches of fresh herbs which I couldn’t before as they go limp quickly and I can seal the produce in the bag which will be better from a hygiene/Covid perspective, so in a roundabout way it has helped but still, why would you do that 😕
I have been following the build up to an interesting experiment, eating only what you grow, forage or barter (goods for goods) for the month of September. It is more difficult than you think, when I first listened and watched I thought, well that would be easy enough, but actually the more I thought about it the harder it became, as you will see it is things like salt and coffee that are irreplaceable lol. Although salt can be foraged from the ocean obviously, it is very time consuming process for very little return. Below is the link to the you tube channel if you are interested.
Friday: Started of with the same weather as the last couple of weeks, grey, overcast and a tad cold but the sun came out at lunchtime 😁 I did a fair bit of picking to begin the day which included a good load of plums, the Victoria’s on closer inspection seem to be mostly good, I also picked greengage and damsons. I tidied the kitchen and planned to make jam or chutney etc but the postman arrived with some plants and as I have a busy couple of days ahead I thought I better get them in the ground. They are kale plants, I didn’t sow seed in time and so had to order 10 plants, 5 different types so it will be interesting to see what they all taste like. Then as I was out there I decided to organise another raised bed and plant up some bulbs (allium of various types, tulips, and ranunculus) phlox, geum and knapweed, these are the first of my planting for cut flowers next spring. I dug up a few other small plants ready to divide, they are resting in a bucket of water for the time being as the sun was a bit too strong for me to stay out (Sod’s law 😂)
Saturday: Spent the day away from the Smallholding leaving John in charge, I went shopping for my Mother of the Bride outfit 😁
Sunday: Been super busy today, cutting back, dead heading, mowing, watering as it’s really dry everywhere 🙄 The sun made an appearance, finally right at the end of summer it decided to come out in full force 😂 I will probably do some watering this evening as well just to keep things ticking over. Some nights are cold enough for a good dew which will suffice at this time of year but with the hot day like today extra watering might be needed so everything doesn’t keel over.
Have a good week 😁
frieslandfarm (flowers) 