Tag: broad beans

Posted in Friesland Farm

Nice weather to begin with, then wind and rain and then just continuous wind 😝

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 8th March 2021: Good morning and good morning to all those children who are finally returning to school today and big high five to the parents who have been home schooling ✋ Hopefully today marks the beginning of the road to some kind of normality later this year 🙏 When I think about the last year of our lives it all seems surreal, governments have ordered people to stay home and paid them to do so, made travel illegal, isolation and quarantine have become normal words in a conversation, furlough is a newly invented word for being paid to stay home, shortages of toilet roll and other vital supplies 🙄 No seeing your family, no hugs, no birthday celebrations, no weddings, funerals that couldn’t give people the send off they deserved, people dying by the millions all over the world, scientists working flat out to come up with a vaccine, NHS working round the clock in extreme circumstances, shops, bars, clubs, pubs, theatres, sports grounds all closed for the duration, and this time last year we had no idea what was coming!

John was up and did the animals before going off to work this morning. I swung the hoover round and did a bit of polishing, that will make me feel better when I go outside and spend most of my time in the garden 😀

Good grief is it still Monday 🙄 seems like a very long day today. Been busy in the garden first thing, raking up and burning garden debris, nothing quite like a garden bonfire in Spring. Then I was digging up more deep rooted weeds before they start to flower and set seed. Sam came and I looked after the twins for an hour while she went food shopping. Carried on in the garden after she left and John came home, we got the last bit of compost riddled and what didn’t fit in the new compost bins went on the garden. It will all end up on the garden I am just not ready for it yet. I cleaned the small poly tunnel cover with the algae remover, did a few more bits before sowing the first two rows of carrots for the year 😀 covered them with environmesh because the cats are getting round to playing in the garden and we have a storm coming Thursday apparently, so if they are covered nicely the seeds should not get to disturbed. Environmesh is an expensive outlay initially but it is very long lasting, I have had mine for years and it can be used for a multitude of coverings including brassicas. Checked the postbox and Johns call up for the vaccine had arrived, he was invited to go to the Kassam stadium but booking it online was a right ole rigmarole 🙄 by the time you had chosen a date and pressed next, the times had all been allocated and it was back to square one, in the end he phoned and spoke to a human and got it all booked 😀 Then it was time to get the eggs done and light the Rayburn, get the dinner sorted etc etc. I did pull up a few good beetroot today so I need to decide what to do with them, normally I would leave them in the ground to get bigger but I really wanted to clear the area for a fresh start.

In this area there is the apricot tree a cherry tree which is out of shot then rhubarb, a thornless blackberry some horseradish and asparagus but I have plenty of room to plant other crops, I am just not sure what that will be yet. To the right you can just see the runner bean frames so they also grow here. Last year I grew pumpkins in this space which just meandered around everything else which worked well.

It won’t be long until I can start picking some of this years produce, the rhubarb I have been forcing is looking brilliantly vibrant and there are enough stalks to pull, I really need to have custard with mine 😀 The purple sprouting broccoli has a few little heads appearing, I think by next week there will be enough for a picking. The leeks I planted last year have been slow but they are just about big enough to be useful if pulled from here on in, it’s all looking promising and I can’t wait for that fresh, home grown, full of flavour goodness. As a side note there are plenty of things growing that we could eat right now but they are from days long gone and are mostly considered weeds, plantain, dandelion, goose grass, chick weed, nettles, but always worth remembering just in case you ever need to know 😜

This forced rhubarb looks amazingly vibrant (no filter needed here) can’t wait to have some with custard 🥰

We are getting near to the end of the veg I froze last year but I still have loads of frozen fruit left mostly plums. The plums won’t be ripe until late August, early September so no rush to use them but I will probably make some more jam with half of them, there are also a few bags of mixed berries which again I will use to make jam as we have run out.

After five whole days of our broadband and phone being fixed it’s back to dropping out again so that more time wasted contacting BT, seriously they are shockingly shite! I would change provider but that doesn’t really solve the problem as Open Reach service the lines anyway not matter who the provider is so I can’t imagine it would be any better 🤷‍♀️

Tuesday: A sunny morning with a frost, it should burn off and be a pleasant day. I am trying to get as much done as possible during this dry period, we have wind and rain approaching in the second half of the week so making the most if it. Once the weather turns I can do a bit of baking, haven’t done any in a long while so John will be pleased. BT are coming out tomorrow to fix the problem, just like they did the last three times 🙄 not holding out much hope there 😜 We had another power cut the night before last, not for long but still, our services seem to be getting worse and worse with each passing year.

The big news today is the Megan and Harry interview, I am trying to avoid it but it crops up everywhere 😂 suffice to say my opinion, for what it matters, is that there are better ways of dealing with things than airing your dirty linen on a worldwide scale, they haven’t done themselves any favours. I had supported them in everything they decided to do until now.

It’s 1.30 and I have just come in and had some lunch after a very pleasant morning in the garden. I have been doing various bits but nothing too hard which is why it was so nice I think, pottering is the best term for it. I have sown some more seeds, firstly some flowers, sunflowers and echinops to be precise and then in the big tunnel I have also sown some little gem and winter gem lettuce, some spring onions and some white radish. I have cut back some of the hazel that overshadows the small tunnel, I think looking at them they need a really good cut back, I will have to sacrifice nuts this year. Then I thought I ought to sort out my seeds, they seem to be in complete disarray and I am forever going through all of them to find something. Now they are all in tubs for various types, root veg, squash, salad, you get the idea. The one thing I haven’t got is courgettes, none at all so I will have to get some and some more broad beans while I am at it. I have made sure that any flyawayables are secure for this wind we have coming, shame the weather is going to break but we have had a good run over the last week. It doesn’t sound like I have done much but I have done other bits as well such as retrieve the goose eggs and fill up their water bucket, sort out the eggs and the returned egg boxes, not much but it has filled my morning with only a quick coffee break when John came home to get something he needed. Yep a very pleasant morning indeed.

My guilty pleasure on such a lovely day 😜

I spent another hour in the greenhouse, I didn’t intend to, I went in to give the next size up propagator a clean ready for moving seedlings on but I got listening to a story on radio 4 and so I couldn’t leave until it was finished 😂 I found plenty of little things to do while I was listening 😀

Wednesday: It’s not as cold this morning but we have drizzle and a slight wind, worse to come later according to the weather forecast 😕 John was up and down the animals before going off to work, the builders merchant lorry arrived with the remaining top soil for the last bed, it has taken 15 of the big builder bags, I am not sure how much they weigh but that’s a lot of top soil. John arrived back home as he saw the lorry passing him and came back to help unload which was great as I was not looking forward to that. They hold the bags up on a grab over the bed and then cut underneath to let the soil fall but even so I struggle to cut the bag with my rusty old Stanley knife 😂 They all left and I came in to finish the washing up and then out to take the soil as flat as I could, we have a small mound left in the middle and I will let John decide wether to rake it over or take it off (heavy work lol) I seem to have lost a lot of strength over the last year, I keep trying to build it back up but then everything hurts, at the minute I have shooting pains now and again up the middle of my lower palm and into the wrists. I need to book some more blood tests for next week to see how the white cells are doing, hopefully they have not gone too low, that could be causing the problems I am having which are only minor but still inconvenient. I am also waiting for BT to arrive again today, we will see what they can find this time 🙄

As the weather is not favourable I had decided I will probably do some baking today, it will keep the kitchen nice and warm and keep me busy. It also means I will have things in the freezer that I can just grab to defrost once the gardening season is well under way and I have less time indoors to do stuff like cooking 😜

I have baked scones, biscuits, two fruit cakes and a mincemeat slice pudding for dinner tonight to go with out delicious looking shoulder of lamb 😀

I will freeze a fair bit of this for another day 😀

It was nice and warm in the kitchen while I was cooking and moving around but a short while after I had finished I could feel the cold so it was time to light the Rayburn. Another valid reason that I will be glad when I no longer have to do that is this scenario: It is pretty windy today, the wind is coming up from a south westerly direction and whipping past the back door, the Rayburn is next to the back door and when I empty the ash pan I go straight outside, you can put two and two together there can’t you 😝 And also a good reason for lighting it mid afternoon is to do with the wind, we already had one power cut this week and one the week before I think it was so the potential for another is high. The winds are forecast to reach up to 70 miles an hour on the coast, they will be less fierce by the time they come this far inland but still could reach 50 miles an hour and that will be more than enough to bring down a tree onto a power line. If I warm the house up now at least we won’t be freezing if it does happen later 🙄 Always pay to have a plan 😉

Thursday: Good grief what a night, I was going to sit and blog at 4.30 this morning but decided not to bother. Due to the winds I was awake at 1.30, 3, 4, 5 which is when I made a cuppa, went back to bed and the alarm went off at 6.30 but I went back to sleep as the winds had subsided a little by then. Seriously it was roaring all night, the metal roof occasional banged, the wooden building flexed, creaked and groaned, each time I nodded off there would be a loud creak or bang and I would be wide awake again. By 6am my eyes were stinging where I was tired. The local station recorded 47mph peak, their elevation is 88m ours is 101m with an open west aspect which is the direction the winds came from most of the night so I reckon we probably could have recorded 60mph or more at times here. Loud is an understatement, I was trying to compare it, I think it was mix of a big waterfall and a fast speed train 😂 It never let up all night long and this morning is lighter but still blowy, it changed in speed and direction around 6am. On a good note though it’s not raining this morning no yet anyway, I had expected a lot more rain than we have had 🤷‍♀️ By contrast, John slept through the lot 🙄 Amazes me because if he can hear the second hand of a clock he can’t sleep apparently but rip roaring winds not a problem, he was the same when the children were little, never heard the baby cry or the dog bark to go out but would complain that the clock on the oven downstairs made a noise!

John was up before me and do the animals, I got up and had a cuppa, then I made another one and thought, John will be in any minute from doing the rounds so I made him one, I drank mine and thought, where has he got to? I then realise that his phone and glasses were no on the table and so I looked out the window and his van was gone, he had left for work before I even got up 😂

I whizzed round and got a few things done, made an appointment for bloods next week, sorted out the eggs, the Guineas, cats and dogs, put the rubbish out, give the place a check over to make sure no trees had come down then had a coffee. After that I went to town to get some fruit from the market, takeaway coffee and a pastry from the local coffee shop musing over how lovely it will be to be able to go in and sit down for coffee eventually 🥰 A quick trip into the supermarket and the bakery, I haven’t managed to make bread so I bought some. Then over to see Sam and the twiglets in time to help feed lunch. Back home for 2pm and I could have lit the Rayburn but then I am tied to it for an hour so instead I spent an hour in the greenhouse checking things over. I also sowed some night scented stock seeds, these flowers are vital to things like moths and night flyers, they need nectar too. I got caught up listening to another afternoon story and couldn’t leave until it had finished 😂 The cardboard over the seedlings hack is looking promising, so much so that I have mow covered all seeds with it. I am not sure why I have never come across this before but if it works well it’s a keeper hack. I thought I then ought to light the Rayburn but first I had to get a few barrowfulls of wood into the back, saves going out in the dark and cold to get it later on. We will have two extra areas once the Rayburn is gone, one just out the back in the undercover area where we bring the wood into and then the big undercover area outside where we keep all the chopped wood, it’s big enough to fit a horse box or tractor in so quite a decent size, I am sure we will figure out what to do with them pretty quickly.

Friday: Friday again already 😜 John did the morning rounds and then went off to work. I had lots of little things to get sorted before the farrier arrived at 10am. All sorted indoors it was outside to get some hay in nets to hang for the horses on the hard standing and then into the paddock to get them in. As always Biscuit was a good good and came biddingly and Jack was an arse 😜 finally managed to get his head collar on and lead him in. I picked out their feet and waited for the farrier who was running late. Just as he turned up so did Sam with the twins, got that sorted and the twins had a little sit on the back of biscuit which they both seemed to like and then it was time for a sing song before lunch. A while after lunch I went with Sam in the car to sit with them while she got some shopping, it was around their afternoon nap time so that worked in well. By the time I got back John was home and he had even got the Rayburn lit. The wind is rather cold today but at least not as fierce, we have had a good bit of rain which has refilled some of the water tanks so that’s good, it’s amazing how quickly it gets used during a dry period. We have not got much else done this afternoon but we have a busy weekend ahead of us weather permitting so it’s fine to have a little rest now and again.

Early evening and it’s raining, it think we have rain for most of the night.

Saturday: Pretty windy again this morning, we got the morning jobs done including moving the light Sussex back out to their outdoor enclosure so that we could move the hens from the point of lay pen back into the stable ready for the batch of POL coming in this week. I also completely cleaned out the Guineas pig run and observed them for a while, I don’t think it’s mites that the guinea has got I think it’s being bullied by the other one. The reason I came to this conclusion is that the other one shows no signs of mite and he is constantly chasing the other one off, need to monitor that and do something about it soon. We also have one cockerel bullying another, it was fine while the other one was young but now it’s grown and on someone else’s territory it’s not so good, also need to do something about that 🙄 It’s always the male of the species that are a problem 😂 the females live together in relative harmony 🤔 We then went to the garden centre so that I could buy some plants for the final bed, I have a lot that I have previously grown ready or already had but I wanted a few more smaller plants for infilling, this bed is (hopefully) a nod to a cottage garden style, roses, Hardy geranium, delphiniums, dahlias, stocks, saxifrage etc, each bed should have a different look eventually.

While I was out there planting things I had a look at something I planted in the other bed, it hadn’t made it through the winter which was strange as it’s a huechera which are fairy Hardy. I dug it up thinking I might be able to recuse it and was horrified to see lots of little grubs in the soil. My first thought was cut worm and if it is in the topsoil then we are buggered as it will undone all the work we have done already, chewing through the roots of everything and killing it all off. I lifted the plant, and all the surrounding soil making sure I found every little grub that I could, this all went in the skip, there was another plant that was similar so I dug that up and yep one or two grubs in there to 🤦‍♀️ My next thought was that if it’s in the compost I am also buggered as I have used that for everything! A quick scan round and everything else is fine so I think it is localised luckily, I googled it and it’s not cut worm but vine weevil grubs which will be easier to deal with, they like pots of things so I imagine an adult has crawled in when I had stuff in pots and laid it’s eggs. Not so bad because it means it’s not in everything and I can get nematodes to water in and deal with them, panic over 😅

Besides that I had a lovely time planting everything in between hail storms and rain that is and of course the never ending wind. In the end I got fed up of being buffeted and went into the greenhouse for some respite from it lol.

Once I had finished that it was indoors to do a quick bit of hoovering all round and get the Rayburn ready for lighting. John had been out the back giving the POL pen a power wash so it’s all ready for next week and then came in and made a cuppa.

We booked our first post covid overnight stay away 🥰 when I say we, I don’t mean John and I 😂 Ever since our eldest turned 30, the three girls and I have a new tradition of having a spa break at a 5* boutique hotel in the Cotswolds. Last April we were booked to go for Charlie’s 30th but it got cancelled due to the pandemic and so after a whole year of waiting we were able to book it again for the end of July 👏 So looking forward to finally being able to go so fingers crossed the rest of the year goes as planned 🙏 I will have to look for somewhere for John and I to go, it’s only fair 😂

Sunday: Still windy, getting tedious now lol, it’s more tiring working against the wind all the time 🙄 Still, not to be deterred we got up, I have to say I had the most amazing breakfast by strength_chef delivered from Charlie and Macca, then got the animals done and then out the front to get some more bits tidied up. Sam arrived with Mia to do the horses and bought some beautiful primula to plant in my new flower bed along with some seeds for the butterflies and bees. Mia went home with a goose egg for her breakfast 😜 Shelley popped over to drop off a present and that was a lovely little recycled notebook that is impregnated with seeds that you can plant when you have finished using it and some amazing blondies from Indulge by Amy, find her on Facebook, fab cakes 🥰 Feeling the love today from my amazing girls, love them all to the moon and back 💕 💕 💕

Mia with her dippy goose egg 😀

We did a bit more outside after I lit the Rayburn, it’s pretty chilly today, John laid a few slabs and sorted out some of the driveway, it needs raking off and levelling, I collected empty flower pots that had blown around and we moved the fig tree and the olive tree to the fruit cage. The birds pinch all the emerging buds on both so I never get anything, hopefully in the cage I will stand more of a chanice of a harvest.

Eventually in the early afternoon we had both had enough outside and so a well earned Sunday afternoon sit down was in order.

Not long until the spring equinox 👏 👏 👏 happy days ahead 🥰 Have a fabulous week whatever you are doing x x

Posted in Friesland Farm

Surprise! Mid week interlude 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

I thought I would do a quick round up of the photos of produce I took over the 2020 growing season in date order so you can see how the year progressed. I love how vibrant the colours all are and can’t wait to start harvesting again this year. What I really should do is weigh everything to see exactly how much I get, the photos represent probably 1/2 of what I actually harvest so it would be interesting to have an accurate record.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Weeding, tidying, plenty to do.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday March 1st 2021: An altogether different day today, the heat and the sun have disappeared and it is quite a bit colder, the sun came out in the afternoon but there is still a distinct chill in the air. February has been a crazy month weatherwise, we have gone from days and days of below zero, to a lot of rain and then at the end highs of around 15c with plenty of warmth. We don’t know if we are coming or going 😂 the last four days are what is known as a fools spring, we were looking forward to more sunshine and heat but wham it’s gone just like that.

Although there are things to be done out in the garden I really wanted to get some of the Lino prints that have been ordered done and a few more to put out for sale. So that’s what I did for the first part of the morning, Sam phoned to see if I could mind the twins while she went and got her food shop, that’s what I did for the second part of the morning, the wheels on the bus and round and round the garden mostly 😜

John came home around 1pm he had a dentist appointment to go to, lunch for me around 2pm after I had checked the egg shed and done a few bits and pieces.

Just after 2, as the sun was shining, I decided to do an hours weeding, a wise man once said to me, do a little bit every day and it will soon be done, actually it was my brother in law but still very wise words and I always think of him saying it when I chose that mantra. When I came in it was 4pm! It was so pleasant out there that I had got lost in time and thought 😀 I did a couple of other things out there as well such as moving some small clumps of ‘Johnny Jump Up’ which are viola, they had self set around the veg garden so I might as well use them in the front beds they will make good ground cover. I also checked the seedlings in the greenhouse, it was lovely and warm in there, the shinny backing I have used is working well as the seedlings are not leggy nor are they leaning for light. I checked the sprouting broccoli, remember I couldn’t actually recall what it was just that it was tall, well it’s purple sprouting and there are a few little heads beginning to appear. I sowed some seeds straight onto the ground in the tortoise pen, this is specific tortoise food, fingers crossed it grows.

By the time I came in I thought I better get the Rayburn lit and think about what we would have for dinner. John had gone to do an outside tap after his dentist appointment but he arrived home not long after I lit the fire, he went out and did the feeding and egg collecting.

Tuesday: Much colder today and not much hope of it warming up either, grey and overcast. John did the birds before going off to work, I did my jobs and then set about mounting the Lino prints I did yesterday, I put them out for sale, if they are not out there I will never know if anyone wants them or not lol. I have never really been one for ‘stepping out of the shadow’ is how I think of it, I would never push myself forward or raise my head above the parapet not unless I am 100% sure about whatever it is, then and only then I will. But as I get older I tend to think ‘f**k it’ what have I got to lose 😜 I think that is one of the pleasures of getting older, you give less of a damn about what anyone else thinks about what you do 😂

I feel like I have had a good day today and I wasn’t even expecting to 😀 As I said it was pretty cold this morning but around 11 I thought I would go out and do a few things that needed doing. The drops arrived for the Guineas, I managed to catch two of them and get them done but the third is elusive and I need John to help me corner him, no point only doing the two. Then I figured I would do a little bit of weeding/clearing and ended up doing that until 4 o clock. The sun made an appearance mid afternoon and it was rather too nice to give up so I carried on. I also checked the torts, we have legs out and movement when I touched them so that is good news, they have made it through the winter, they just need to warm up now before they start moving around, it will be a while before they go outside mind you. I have dug up and split plants that need moving, now is a great time to divide clumps of plants and re plant them where you want them, I have potted up several thornless blackberries that have rooted themselves, I have sown some rocket and baby spinach seeds in the small tunnel as a quick crop, yep I have had a lovely, productive day. Time to come in and do the house jobs, such as light the Rayburn, sort out washing, hang it to dry over night, dry up etc etc. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do only what you wanted to do rather than what you have to do 😜

Just a recap of what I have sown so far this year for anyone wanting to get going and not really sure when to do that. All seeds so far have been grown under cover of poly tunnel or greenhouse because I have found that my particular plot is around 2/3 weeks behind usual sowing times, this is due to the slight incline that faces west, as our winds are mainly westerlies this causes a chill area 🙄 Peas and broad beans sown in the greenhouse, the peas are in root trainer pots and the broad beans in seed tray inserts, I think they are about 2” inch square something like that. I have sown rocket and spinach in the poly tunnel straight on top of the soil, in this case in old recycling boxes. I have potatoes chitting in a dark box ready to plant out, traditionally that would be good Friday but a lot depends on the temperatures around that time as easter is early this year, if it’s cold I will leave it another couple of weeks. I have tomatoes, chilli and pepper seeds in the greenhouse inside a heated propagator, they need that warmth for quite a while so having a bigger propagator to move them to is also needed. I have dill, garlic chives and coriander in trays in the greenhouse with no heat, again because my plot is too cold and wet for them to be sown straight into the ground at this time of year. I have a good deal more to get sown but I also have plenty of preparation to do in the garden as well so it’s a case of weighing up what needs doing first and generally seeds will catch up easily even if they are sown late.

Wednesday: Grey, foggy, a bit on the cold side this morning but you never know it may burn off and be nice at some point. I have been out to do the egg shed and collect the milk and the sparrows are using the new nesting flats 😀 I was a bit worried they would be too upmarket for them but it seems not. They have also been investigating the old boxes which I have placed in various other places in the front area, I didn’t want to waste them but they were a bit tatty to go on the new house front.

Today is a day that is necessary but not nice lol, septic tank emptying day. I did learn the lesson in the first year, do not have it emptied when it is likely to be a hot day, the stench hangs around both inside and out for a couple of days 😂 A cool day in early Spring is a much better time of year to have it done 😜 Still, keep all windows and doors shut ☑️

The wagon came just after lunch (luckily 😜) and there is a lingering whiff but not too bad 😂

As it was a tad cold out I decided this morning I would take a look through the photos that I need to get sorted. We had some from when Johns Mum died and then some from when Dad died, some from an older relative a few years ago and plenty that were already here but stuffed in various places while we got the office sorted. Now it’s done I need to get them in some kind of order along with the bits and pieces of ancestry stuff. I also thought it might be a good idea to write the names on the backs of photos because although we may know who they are now, future generations probably won’t and that information is lost forever. I have plenty of photos of great Aunts and Uncles but on some of them I am not 100% sure who is who 🤷‍♀️

Thursday: Dank, is the way to describe the weather today 😜 I spent the first couple of hours trying to upload the photos for the mid week surprise, doing jobs inbetween, seemed to take forever. Then it was on with the rest of the day. The first main job was a dangerous one, retrieve the eggs from the goose nest 🙄 I went up to see if they were all out but one was still on the nest so I left it until later. Instead I decided to clean the inside windows of the greenhouse and give the top shelves a clean and tidy up. It is a delicate balance at this time of year because there are lacewings and ladybirds overwintering in the nooks and crannies but there are also other insects you don’t really want hanging around such as wood louse, slugs, greenfly etc. I moved everything and gave the windows a clean, checked the heat mat as I thought it wasn’t working but it’s fine, watered anything that needed watering, sowed a few more pea seeds all while listening to Radio 4 😀 There was an interesting section about bread and how for centuries the whiter your bread the higher ranking in society you were, of course the whiter they made it, the less nutritious it became and the poor were left with the wholemeal bread which was obviously not as good 🤣 oh how times have changed. Once I had finished all the intended jobs I began to ‘faff’ a sure sign that what I was trying to do was not the right time to be doing it, luckily I recognised that behaviour and left the greenhouse 😀 Back to the dangerous job, the geese’s were all now out in the paddock grazing, good that means I can nip in and collect the eggs but this comes with the aforementioned danger element. The gander, quite rightly, is there to protect his ladies and their eggs but he has missed the memo regarding the fact that I feed, water and clean them as well as give them a lovely place to live and so those eggs are mine 😝 At the moment he is merely in the warning phase, he makes a run for you but not with any great intent, as the season goes on and his ladies decide they may like to sit he will become pretty aggressive and when he comes at you then he means every bit of it!For now a little bit of extra scratch corn and a stick with a piece of flapping bag on it keeps him at bay and he wanders back to the corn, another month and we probably won’t be gathering eggs any more, life is too precious 😂

After putting the goose eggs out for sale I went back to the POL pen where our ladies are still being held captive due to avian flu. I shovelled up buckets of deposited poop and dug over the soil area which had become wet and horrible due to the water being left on by John. There was much drier soil underneath and the hens will have a great afternoon scratching about to find any insects and seeds, back in for lunch, is it only lunchtime 😆

John came home just after lunch, that’s the nature of his work at the minute, bitty so I never know when he will be here, he was planning on staying but he had been waiting for the electrician to be able to fit in a socket on the job he did this week and he called and was available so off John went. He did get the flue swept when he first came back though which is good as it was getting a bit sooty. He has estimated we have about a months worth of wood left so we are hoping it has warmed up enough by then to stop lighting the Rayburn. That will be the end of an era here, I will be a little bit sad not to have that comfortable heat from it but I will be a lot happier not to have to do my Cinderella duties day in and day out 😝

I took a bit of time out to watch a few you tube videos on gardening hacks, a good one to watch is Huw Richards he has some really good hacks a couple of which I will be trying this year. Another good gardening you tuber is Liz Zorab, I have been following her since she started really as she was already on one of the groups I am in, she has built up a steady following and has just published her first book called Grounded. Both are experienced vegetable gardeners if you are looking for hints and tips. You are never too old to learn and I always say every day is a school day, the hack of placing a plank or cardboard over your seedlings until they emerge is one I will definitely try and the other is growing potatoes in a different medium. Basically you put the potatoes in soil but instead of using more and more soil to Earth up you use hay, straw, wood chip etc. As I am going to use pallet collars this year I was thinking it is going to take a lot of compost but if I use hay or straw that will be a whole lot easier and cheaper plus the potatoes will be lovely and clean when harvested.

Friday: Cold and grey but dry at least. John is off today and so he says ‘I am all yours, what jobs do you want doing?’ I start talking about how I want to get the garden cleared a bit and sort out the compost heaps, I just have to go and get feed first he says, and I have to sort out the van first. So that is half an hour sorting out the van, and hour round trip to get feed and half an hour unloading, half an hour for a coffee when he has finished that, that’s two and half hours down already and he will probably get a phone call at some point and have to go out to work. He wonders why I never bother relying on him to help me with what I have to do, sometimes I would rather he didn’t ask in the first place 🤦‍♀️

We did get some work done on the compost heap but not quite as much as I would have liked but there is always tomorrow. To be honest when I first went outside to get some work done it was so cold that my fingers and toes hurt so I came back in until it warmed up a little. I did sowed a tray of beetroot seeds, the nice striped ones, and I have trialled this covering with cardboard hack to see how well that works. The idea is that you dampen the compost, sow the seeds and then cover with cardboard, this stops the compost drying out so no more watering is needed until the seedlings appear, I am intrigued to see how well it works. While John was digging the compost heap over I was weeding one of the other beds, I am getting there slowly, I just have one and a half more beds to do and then they are ready for whatever I decided to put in them. I needed to top dress the asparagus as they will be one of the first veg to harvest, sprouting broccoli, rhubarb and asparagus are the first three treats to look forward too. This year I have forced some of the rhubarb and that is looking like it’s nearly ready to pick 😀

I have a little light reading to do ‘The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments’ 🤣 which is about how to achieve greater biological activity and mineral availability, increase resistance, yields and nutrient density 🙄 I do believe that every day is a school day and there is always more to learn, I will let you know how it goes.

Today is the last day that parents are having to home school, I know from watching my children with their children that it has been hard work, rewarding at times and fun but also stressful, fractious and emotional at times, well done, you did it, you should be very proud of yourselves it was a big ask 🥰 I imagine the whoops of joy on Monday morning will be very audible all over the shires 😂

Saturday: Busy, busy day, it will make up for all those days when I wasn’t busy 😂 First I started off digging up some deep rooted weeds and comfrey which seems to have spread itself everywhere. John was busy riddling the compost heap and tidying that up, then he went off to take a card to his brother for his birthday and onto a small call out job. I got tired of digging up weeds so I decided to give the outside of the greenhouse a wash. I have an organic algae wash, I found the bucket and the extendable brush and got to work on that, next clean out the gutters and then onto the cold frames, clean the tops and clean inside, move all the plants over so that next time it rains they get a watering. John came back and we attempted to lift the water butt which had fallen over sometime during the winter, it was wedged and still full of water so a heavy tricky job. With that finished John went back to the compost heap and I began the mammoth task of tidying up the pots 🙄 I have hundreds of them, literally, I asked for any plastic pots last year and people bought them all summer long and now I have so many I will never use them all lol. I have had to put a notice up saying ‘no more pots’. That took me all afternoon and I had five bags of broken, split, rubbish pots to put in the skip. At some point John did the egg collecting and when I came in around 4pm I lit the Rayburn. We had a cuppa and I said it would be a good time to give the grass a first cut, it had got long but today had dried out better than it has on other days. I got the mower out and gave it some wd40 but it wouldn’t start, the throttle cable had stretched and was not opening up whatever it is it opens up 😝 So John has to come and pull back the spring every time I wanted to restart it after emptying the grass box. It actually wouldn’t turn off either unless you put it back to choke, need to get the cable sorted as it’s a hard enough job without any added complications. The problem with our lawn is that it was once rough terrain, so it’s not level and the front of the mower tends to dig in, add to that the cramp I get in my hands and let’s just say it’s not a job that I find any pleasure in 😜 John kindly offered to do it again tomorrow, course you will, I’ve just don’t he hard bit doing the long grass first cut! Back indoors, and it’s do you want to do the washing up or the eggs, John chose the washing up, I get the eggs. Finally sat down at 5pm.

At the end of the season last year, one of the last crops to dig up are the Oca, they like a frost on the leaves before they are dug. I dug them and bought them in, my intention was not to eat them this year but to get increase the amount of tubers to replant. I kept them in the back, they don’t go green like potatoes and so are fine in the light, I noticed yesterday that they have started to chit, it’s a bit early for them to go in yet but I am glad they are doing well. Oca otherwise known as New Zealand yam or the ‘lost crop of the Incas’ are incredibly versatile, raw, baked, fried, roasted, grilled any way you like, it’s a wonder we don’t use them more in the UK. They are nutritionally rich and very easy to grow, they are not an invasive plant, tolerate our weather really well, practically the perfect vegetable.

Sunday: It turned out to be a nicer day than I thought it was going to be, the sun came out and soon warmed the air up but not too much. We have had another busy day and John has sieved around two ton of compost which is now neatly stacked in compost bins made from the pallet collars. It means I will be able to go and shovel into the wheelbarrow with ease and use it round the garden. I spent part of my time sowing more peas and mangetout and now I think I have sown too many 😂 I have also been digging up feverfew which has self set everywhere and trying to clear and tidy one of the beds. I made a mound of twigs and sticks and debris and tried to burn it, twice I had to light it but it’s kind of smouldering and burning the bits near the flame then just goes out. I wanted to get it burnt while it was dry because if it rains tomorrow I won’t be able to do it until it all dries out again. We have had lots of visitors by that I mean people coming to get plastic pots, people coming to borrow things and people coming to get other things I was giving away. Of course each time we stand and have a chat and so that lost us plenty of good working hours 🤣 however there is always tomorrow and it’s nice to have time to stop and chat with people maybe just not all on the same day!

At the end of each day there is always still more work to be done, the Rayburn, the washing up, the eggs, hanging the washing to dry overnight, the dogs and cats to feed and the dinner to get. At one point I was diving between getting the Rayburn lit and keeping the small bonfire going outside, back and forth between the two of them at least four times. That’s the end of another day and another week, hopefully we can get as much done next week as we have this one 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Winter jobs, winter food, winter weather.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 18th January 2021: I like typing 2021 it feels very futuristic 😂 Monday morning again and the weather is ok, you can tell when the weather is just ok as the English don’t mention it, we tend to talk about extremes, isn’t it hot or it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, we mostly always mention the rain though, we state the obvious, wet today isn’t it 😝 We are definitely weather obsessed as a nation and that’s because it is usually all over the place, you can’t guarantee that Spring will be spring like or that summer will be warm and dry you have to wait and see what comes our way and we can change it but what we can do is use it as a conversation starter 😀

John has had to go and change a set of taps for an elderly disabled lady this morning but first we did the morning feeding and watering. Once he had left I did some household bits plus get some bread on the go, since the beginning of this lockdown we have not bought bread at all I have made every loaf.

I did contemplate going out to the front and cutting back dead foliage on the flower bed by the front gate but I think I will wait, there will be plenty of insects hibernating still and although I am keen to get tided up I don’t want to disturb them just yet.

We need to decide what job we are going to get sorted next, the side driveway is on our radar but that will be weather dependant, when it’s dry we can get on, if it’s pouring down (and there is rain on the radar) then there won’t be any point as it will just make more of a mess than necessary plus who wants to get a soaking when you don’t need to.

I am on a roll this morning, whilst having bread on the go I have also got some bits of paperwork done, Bill paying, filing, sending out invoices etc and lit the Rayburn and got soup on for lunch. One of the things I did last year for the first time was the bags of frozen mixed veg for soup and I am so pleased I did they have been great and will definitely be doing them again for next Winter. This mix has courgettes, celery, turnip, onion, carrot and runner beans in it, mostly they were odd veg that I couldn’t do much else with and so I chopped them and open froze then put them all in one bag to use as a soup mix. If you have the odd carrot or stick of celery in the fridge do the same, you will soon have a soup bag ready for when you need it, anything can go in even the odd potato. I tend to cook mine down until the veg collapse then whizz with a hand blender, add stock of your choice and voila lunch is ready in no time, we have ours with freshly baked bread today which is a bonus 😀

We got lots of little bits done in the afternoon, the door stop and door handle, I have a fold up table that we have hung neatly on the back of the door, that’s for when I need extra room for crafting or sewing etc. The next radiator got delivered and that was put up in the spare room. I know it is a little thing but I am loving the heat from these radiators, it’s hard to explain but the room feels all over gently heated rather than what we have now from the wet system 🤷‍♀️

Dinner tonight consists of left over roast lamb so John has a throw it in the pot dinner with lamb, potatoes, carrots and mixed veg plus stock and cornflour, throw it all in and put it in the Rayburn until cooked. Not sure why so many recipes faff about with preparation when these dinners always come out smelling delicious 😋 I on the other hand am having a healthy version of lamb korma made by marinating the lamb in yoghurt and a korma spice, I will add ground almond to it when I cook it, having that with whole grain rice, a cucumber and grape salad and a wholemeal pitta bread, together with a diet Cherry coke I can almost kid myself I have had a lovely takeaway 🤣

John did the afternoon rounds while I got the dinner ready and that is Monday almost done and dusted, just the evening to relax and enjoy, this lockdown lark is quite enjoyable really 😜

The vaccine rollout is well under way and over 4million people have already been vaccinated, they are vaccinating a higher number than those that are testing positive so that’s a great thing. They have started to call in the over 70s as well now, hopefully it won’t be long until we get ours. As I said before Shelley has been a volunteer at the local vaccination centre and she said people are very emotional about receiving their jabs, for some of them it has been their first trip out since last March 😔

Tuesday: Busy again today, it’s much easier to keep busy while the days pass than sit doing nothing though I appreciate some don’t have the choice. First up John did the morning rounds, I had a shower and then did some hoovering, fed the cats and dogs, put out the rubbish those kind of jobs. Then onto the main events of the day and we had two, John was on concrete duties, we have an areas just outside the double doors in the back bit, for some reason the paths ends before it reaches the doors and so I wanted to get it extended to keep the mud down when we come in from the yard. Meanwhile I spent an hour in the greenhouse sowing broad bean seeds and some peas, the peas will be for harvesting the shoots as I am rather partial to pea shoots in my salad. After that I decided the big poly tunnel could be done, the garden itself is too wet but the tunnel is perfect for working in at this time of year. I spent a good couple of hours, weeding, pulling up anything that was still growing, salad mostly, and then putting barrowfulls of mushroom compost on the beds. Last year I left things to grow on but I feel that was a bit of mistake as I never really had a starting point, I was always trying to work round everything, the salad leaves went to the chickens in the stable, judging by the scuffles they were very happy to have something to peck over. I have beds in there because after we sited it I discovered it was on a clear seam and a big one at that, year after year I tried growing straight into it but it was hard work with little return. We cobbled together beds out of what we had lying around and the difference was amazing, I get good crops now, the left hand corner near the doorway is fine, that has lovely soil and so does not need any type of bed, funny how the soil type can change within centimetres 😜

It’s mid afternoon and I haven’t lit the Rayburn yet, it’s positively balmy at around 11 degrees today 😜

I discovered that the kittens or at least one of them is as much use as a chocolate teapot 😝 I was digging mushroom compost from the big tonne bag when a couple of mice suddenly appeared. No sign of the cats outside so I went into the boot room and picked one up and took it back with me (Jack) I put him in the bag and he jumped straight out without even looking. I the tried to catch him again but he wasn’t having any of it so I caught the mouse, I put it down on the floor, the cat was looking, the mouse ran, the cat looked and only once the mouse had disappeared under the fence did the cat venture forward and sniff where the mouse had been 🤣 I said to John I am going to have to train them I think!

John had covered up his concrete as it’s right outside the door but as I am always telling him your defences are only as good as your weakest point, the dog went out and stood on the tiny bit that was not covered 🤣🤣 which caused some swearing 😜 To be fair he has been lucky with the weather today as storm Christoph is battering the UK and until about 4pm we hadn’t really seen any sign of it at all. As it is at the minute we have a bit of rain but nothing much, it may progress through the night mind you 🙄

I realised after looking through my seeds that I didn’t have any peas, I had a few, those I sowed this morning but nowhere near enough to grow a decent amount of peas for the year. I ordered, mangetout, snap peas and a dwarf early variety which I will probably sow in pots and then transfer to the tunnel. The carrots I was hoping to have in the small tunnel never got very far, they sprouted but something and I suspect that is a mouse, keeps eating the greenery so not much chance of anything developing underneath. I also ordered some lemon grass seeds, I really loved growing it though I didn’t use much of it and need to rectify that. I love the smell of anything lemony, the lemon verbena has survived the winter so far and it smells amazing even in the depths of the dormant season.

The onions, garlic and shallots are doing well as I said last week, I got a photo so you can see how they are coming along.

Onions, garlic and shallots, I thought it was a lot when I planted them but will probably find it’s not enough 😂

Broad beans sown, the others are plants I have had on the heat mat through the winter which seems to have worked well 😀

The weather took a turn for the worst during the evening, heavy rain and high winds, hopefully it will have blown over by the morning 😀

Wednesday: Ewww storm Christoph got going overnight, I think I was woken three or four times with the wind or the rain making a racket and all today has been nothing less than a washout with constant rain. John attempted to dig a hole for the first post of the fence that will run down the side of the new driveway but he gave up, too wet, who wants to work in the rain. Apart from the necessary we didn’t do much else.

We did spend a fair bit of the day watching CNN, the outgoing President and the incoming President, how different the two ceremonies were 🙄 I hope the USA manages to heal the differences that have set them so far apart from each other ❤️ 🇺🇸

Thursday: OMG excuse my language but that was fucking awful out there doing the animals this morning! After around 36 hours of constant rain and gusts of wind battering the place, it was wet, soggy, windy, raining, blowing a hoolie and bitterly cold to boot, one of the worst mornings so far. At one point it looked as though the sun was coming out and it was clearing up but just as I left the stable block to go and do Ted I did an about turn and ran back. The sky turned black, the wind whipped up from nowhere and the rain lashed down for all of around one to two minutes then it was gone again but I still got wet and windswept. I am so over winter already lol, we have the usual lake and river in the side paddocks, that is becoming a much more frequent feature as the years go by. Early on it was an occasional thing, eleven years later and we get it about four to five times a year, every year 🙄

We had decided to go into town this morning, the local market is on a Thursday and I wanted to get some fresh fruit and a few bits of veg. I got leeks, mine are still in the ground and still rather small, potatoes as I didn’t grow enough to last us and then fresh fruit for snacking on. We saw Shelley, Josh and Flo down there so we bought some cakes and went and got a takeaway coffee to stand and drink. I haven’t seen Josh and Flo except when they are in the car or on messenger so it was lovely to interact with them 😀 We went to the butchers where I got some chicken breast and then to the supermarket where we bought more than we thought we originally needed 🙄 I dropped off some leeks to Mum on the way back and a bunch of flowers , great news she had her jab yesterday and Ken had his today. Then it was back home to a warm house as we lit the Rayburn before leaving, I didn’t want to come home to a cold house on a day like today. It had stopped raining by the time we went out mind you but it was still a cold day. By the time we got back it was early afternoon and so not much point starting anything, I have chopped up some potatoes, leeks and celeriac and put that in the slow cooker for tomorrow’s lunch, it will cook the rest of the afternoon and all evening then I will turn it off overnight and turn it back on in the morning ready for lunchtime.

That will probably be it for today except for the afternoon rounds which John is doing as I type, an evening snuggled up in the warm either reading or watching a film maybe. Tomorrow is supposed to be dry and Sunny although still quite cold, I will spend some time thinking about what job I can be doing in the garden or polytunnels.

Friday: A sharp frost this morning. We went out to do the rounds and discovered that Jack had bust out of the field, the electric still had not been turned back on, big mistake 😜, and he had worked it out. He has had a good wander round the place and broken into the hay barn 🙄 We got him back in the paddock, sorted the fencing, turned it on and hopefully he will stay there for a while. They have finished their big roll of hay so I will have to get some more delivered, I doubt very much the grass will start growing anytime soon. In the meantime I will have to fill up sacks and drag them out to the field. John did most of the birds and I went over to do Ted and the Guineas, in with Ted are the two light Sussex that hatched first last year, the female has laid her first egg today 😀 it’s always lovely to get the first egg from a pullet (young female) no matter how many times you have seen it. I went into the small poly tunnel where I set the mousetrap yesterday and result, two in the trap 😀 I will have to reset it, and I tried but it kept going off, there are bound to be more around eating all my veg, these two are the ones that have been nibbling the carrot tops all winter long.

I came indoors to do the washing up, hoovering and get the Rayburn ready for lighting later, meanwhile John carried on with digging the holes for the side fence and he has now gone off to get cement to have a rest from the digging lol. I have a bit of a headache this morning, hopefully nothing but I can’t seem to shake it off, normally I guess, nobody would worry but at the minute you never know what you have picked up even being very careful on the limited times you go out 🙄

The pea seeds I ordered have arrived and so have the seed potatoes, I will get the earlies ready to chit and they will go in the big tunnel, also I will start of early peas and grow them on in the big tunnel as well I think. I have some garlic chive seeds that can be sown anytime so I will go and get them done later. The sun is shining beautifully now and the greenhouse will be a lovely place to be working in about another hours time I reckon 😀 It might even be warm enough in the to pretend it’s spring 😜

We have the leek and potato soup for lunch today so I do t have to stop and think about what I need to be doing for that.

I did go out into the greenhouse and sowed a few peas, I also tided up the small tunnel though it didn’t need much doing but it was still very cold on my feet and my toes began to hurt so I gave that up. Instead I set about fixing the egg board which usually sits out on the front of the driveway. It got blown over during one windy night a few weeks ago and the leg came apart so I fixed it back together re wrote it and put it back out.

Saturday: I have been feeling a bit urgh the last couple of days, can’t put my finger on it but I think it’s to do with the Lupus, I have tiny red hives on my fingers and toes and they hurt if I knock them against anything. I feel tired and lethargic and have a borderline headache, I actually didn’t realise that there is such as thing as a ‘Lupus headache’ and what I need to watch for is vasculitis, oh joy another thing to keep an eye on and not so easy at the minute when the doctors are really busy with a pandemic. It all seems a bit trivial to bother the doc with but if it gets worse I will have to get it looked at, of course with Lupus it can sometimes just clear up and go away of its own accord which is what I am hoping it will do.

It’s cold and frosty this morning, because I have been feeling sluggish John left me to sleep in and did the animals this morning 🥰 I am grateful that I have someone to pick up the reins if needs be. He then went out and started on the fence again while I did the usual household tidying bits, rubbish, recycling, milk bottles all those little jobs. I had just made coffee when he came back in, his feet were too cold working out there so he drank his coffee and went off to the merchants and the bank, hopefully the sun will have warmed the ground by the time he returns.

According to some news reports a hospital in Kent is trialling elderberry as a treatment for covid, I imagine it runs alongside other more conventional treatments but finally the medical world wakes up to alternative treatments. I make plenty with elderberries, pies, syrups and Pontack sauce, I will definitely be picking them and putting them out for sale this year lol.

I have had a lovely day, I have been in my little room designing cards for Valentine’s Day, I can’t make them yet as I am waiting for the recycled card to come but they are along the same lines as the button Christmas cards I made. It’s very therapeutic and just what I needed today when I don’t have the energy for much else.

I did go outside mid afternoon and attempt to fill the water buckets up at the back the the hosepipe was still frozen so I took buckets of water up. I also put down some clean bedding for the geese and the ducks. I am hoping the geese will begin to lay very soon, it’s a short season for goose eggs and like duck eggs you either love em or hate em and luckily we do have customers that love em 🥰 I also lit the Rayburn quote early and have been keeping that going all day as well as getting in a couple of loads of wood from the store, we are due snow tomorrow so best to keep it all topped up.

It’s a fish and chip supper tonight from the chip shop, I am really looking forward to it, one day when I don’t have to think about what to get for dinner 😜

Sunday: got up and had a look out of the window around 6.30am, nothing to report, went back to bed, got up at 8am and we had a good layer of snow and it was still snowing 🌨 The forecast says we will get around 5 to 8cm 🙄 and it will snow most of the day. So we donned our snow gear and went out to do the animals, I love pristine snow but the dogs always get there first at least it will clean their coats nicely. Then I made John go for a walk in the side paddock, a couple of snowballs thrown and we went back in. Snow days mean no days for us, we can’t do a lot outside and I am wondering what on Earth people do all day long 🤷‍♀️ it will a marathon tv watch or reading which I will be so bored of by the end of the day 🙄 I lit the Rayburn, John got some bacon sizzling on the hot plate and that will probably be it for us until the animals need doing later. In normal years the kids might have come over but this year the at is not an option sadly, we did get the sledge out but I couldn’t pull John on it 🤣 Years ago when we lived at a different house the kids had plastic ones and when they came in to warm up, someone nicked them so my dad made them a wooden one but we never really had any decent snowfall for years after so it never got used, we got it out today but it has woodworm 😝 it is still sound enough but too small for either of us to use, maybe one year it will get used by children again.

Afternoon rounds done and dusted, the snow is still on the ground only slightly melted and the forecast is for a very cold night possibly -5 so we made sure we filled up water buckets ready for the morning, we will have to break ice but at least there will be water. Dinner is in the Rayburn, the curtains are now shut and the house is nice and warm. Have a great week, stay safe and stay warm x x

Posted in Friesland Farm

A pick ‘n’ mix of a week 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th July 2020: It was a sunny start though the sun seems to have disappeared behind clouds now which is great for me. I did a bit of picking first thing this morning, rhubarb, dwarf beans, courgettes, a marrow, beetroot, salad turnips, French breakfast radish and white globe radish plus a few blueberries and raspberries. The little birds are still getting into the fruit cage though I can’t see where they are managing to get in, i did think that the raspberries were not producing very much, they are being eaten before I even get out of bed!

It’s ‘Bees need’ week this week and there are five simple things you can do to help the plight of our most important creatures. Grow more flowers (the open type, not multiple petals as they can’t reach the nectar) Leave some wild areas, weeds are not favoured by humans but the bees love them and we need the bees to survive otherwise we won’t 🙄 Don’t cut the grass so often, I know it looks a bit unsightly but we managed without hairdressers and barbers for a while and it didn’t hurt did it 😜 Don’t disturb nests and hibernation places, if you find a bees nest just leave it, they won’t bother you if you don’t bother them, of course I am not talking about a swarm, that does need sorting but on the whole solitary bees will move on once the young have hatched. Don’t use pesticides, this in my opinion is the biggest problem for insects, nurture nature to get a good balance in your garden instead of resorting to pesticide. Those are the main five things but there are other things you can do to help when it’s really hot, leave a dish of topped up water for insects to find and quench their thirst. When it’s turning cold provide areas for them to overwinter, bug houses are all the rage but areas that have not been tidied are just as good, resist the temptation to tidy and leave it until spring 😀

This morning I have been doing a bit of this and a bit of that in the garden. I planted up the pak Choi and the chicory into the polytunnel for the colder months and I sowed a new bed of mixed lettuce leaves which will be quick growing. The bed I pulled all the carrots from has now got a layer of mushroom compost on it to condition the soil and I have sown some lambs lettuce and winter purslane (I think) in the bed that the radish were in. The bulb fennel seeds I sowed in there failed to materialise 🙄 After that it was onto re potting some plants I bought at the weekend, ornamental grasses. The area in the front that I cast lots of wildflower seeds onto has not really done much, I have some things in pots but I think the seeds and small plants I put there have been eaten by earwigs or woodlouse as it has a layer of wood chip covering, ideal for pests to live in 😜 So I bought some grasses and will put them in pots over there the idea being that they set seed and do the job for me, I can’t dig into the ground as it was an area used to put types of aggregate and now is a solid bed of stones.

Update: something is eating the pak Choi and something has dug up a couple of the chicory plants, why do I bother lol

I was looking forward to lunchtime because today is the day I get to eat the first couple of ripe tomatoes in a cheese sandwich, that is always a day to look forward to 😀 as I always say grow/find yourself some home grown toms they taste a hundred times better than shop bought ones especially if they are freshly picked after being warmed by the sun ☀️

I’m not sure what’s on the agenda for the afternoon yet, I seem to run out of steam after lunch, definitely not got the ooomph I had when I was on the steroids 😏

I got this evenings dinner on the go, I like to do it either first thing or at least by lunchtime otherwise I feel disinclined to sort anything at the actual time. I don’t know how people come in from work and decide what to have, we would end up with something on toast every night 😜 Tonight’s dinner is lamb shank (just one is enough for the two of us) cooked in the slow cooker with veg from the garden, broad beans, dwarf beans, turnips, potatoes, peas, garlic I grew and is now stored and rosemary from the garden, along with some lamb stock from the freezer. The lamb is from a local smallholder so it’s entirely a smallholder meal 😀 For pudding (or dessert if you are posh) we have mixed fruit crumble, blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants and rhubarb, all from the garden, as I have said before, we eat like kings here 👑

John has gone to work today which enables me to get on a bit I think, I am certainly more organised when he is not here, I think it’s the fact that I can’t entirely get on with what I want to do as there is usually something to be discussed or looked at and he is inclined to come in for lunch and turn the tv on to watch the news so I sit down and watch it too, something I don’t do when I am here by myself (except in the winter months)

John has been in the wars at work today, a piece of tile he was chopping off the wall flew and caught his middle finger between the knuckle and the hand. He came home with a couple of bloody plasters on it. He went off to do the egg collecting and came back in swearing, he saw a rat in the duck pen, picked up an iron bar to whack it, missed and blood starting pouring out of his finger again, he says pouring I say dribbling. He is quite dramatic in his descriptions ‘ I had a bad accident at work today’ seriously, you cut your finger, ‘it’s really deep’ can’t be that deep or your finger would be hanging off! You can see I’m not the sympathetic type 😜 so when I had to clean it up and re dress it and he is hanging onto the sink saying ‘I feel sick and dizzy’ my answer is ‘strap a pair on will you’ 🤪 I don’t really understand those who feel sick and dizzy at the slightest cut, I am of a mind to think it’s all in the head but maybe it isn’t, maybe it’s a real thing that I have just never experienced being made of sterner stuff 😀

Tuesday: Today is a long awaited day, I get a hair cut 😂 not that I am one who regularly has a hair cut just when it gets on my nerves which it is doing at the minute. Two reasons, one it has got a bit long and is annoying when it’s wrapping itself round my neck when I’m sleeping 🙄 and two it is falling out, probably due to the new meds but I think a good cut will help a bit, I’m hoping anyway 🤞

John is working again today, this will probably be the norm now, mostly working with the odd day off here and there, even though he wants to spend more time at home, the phone keeps ringing, well his mobile anyway as the house phone you know about already! I have slung the Hoover round and done a bit of wiping over and topped and tailed the gooseberries I picked the other day ready for the freezer. Topping and tailing is pretty time consuming luckily it’s only gooseberries that need it, blackcurrants don’t really as the ‘bit’ is the remainder of the flower and so perfectly fine to eat, saves a lot of time. I feel tired today and lethargic, I am wondering what to do next and then wondering if I can be bothered 😕

A new law comes into effect next week and we will have to wear face masks in shops, some people already do but I never have, the choice is wear a mask or don’t go shopping 😜 hmmm I think I prefer the latter.

Shelley and the children came over and we dug some potatoes for their dinner later, picked some peas and ate them from the pod 😀 I love to teach the children about where food actually comes from. Josh and I had an interesting conversation about flies eyes and how they have 360o vision, I managed to get him off the subject of superheroes for a minute or two 😜

Wednesday: An overcast but pleasant enough day, some very slight drizzle first thing that soon went. First thing I did was water the greenhouse and feed the torts, then move the grasses I re potted to their position out in the front area. I decided to give the whole area a bit of a tidy up, weeding, sweeping, dead heading cutting back and mowing the grass in the driveway, it’s looking a lot better now. At times I feel overwhelmed by the weeds and amount of tidying it will take to get it looking immaculate, then I remind myself that it’s good for the wildlife and I shouldn’t be too tidy 🙄 It’s been a difficult transition that has taken years to let go, in our old place I opened the garden once a year so everything was immaculate all the time but that is exhausting as well as time consuming. Part of me likes a tidy well turned out garden but another part of me loves the overgrown look, if I could achieve a combination of the two that would be a great result, I will keep working on it 😜 A Gardeners’ work is always a life time road I think, it changes direction sometimes but it is a constant motion when it’s in the blood I reckon 🙂

I have just discovered the medicine wheel, literally just discovered it last night when I joined a balanced life group. I am curious to see how this can help with life and felt drawn to it for some reason so am following. I have talked before about how I see life, in circles, the minute, the hour, the day, the year, after some discussion and thought, the month is not seen the same but as part of a circle that forms the year. Apparently lots of people see these in linear form, so stretching ahead of you, have you ever thought about it? And if you have after reading this, which one are you? If you are a circle person you are much more in touch with your life balance than you think but you can have blockages which is where the medicine wheel comes in, I am looking forward to the discovery of any blockage I have and as a bonus it’s always good to learn something new 😀

In the afternoon the girls came over with the kiddies and we went for a walk up the local lane. I like to keep an eye on a couple of apple trees and a plum tree along there, we have had some very tasty fruit from those trees and they are loaded again this year I am glad to see. We had a few incidents, Josh turned the hose on and got Flo all wet, then on the walk Florence walked into a blackberry runner so had scratches all over her face, when we got back Mia turned the hose on and got Josh wet (that’s Karma we all explained to him 🤪) the only difference was that whereas Josh readily apologised to Flo, Mia has enormous difficulty saying sorry. It ends up with her having a total meltdown, by this time the twins are crying as well, poor Sam, Mia still won’t apologise no matter how much you try and coax her or tell her and then she melts down further because Shelley, Josh and Flo are going to feed the chickens but she is not allowed because she won’t say sorry. The horse pesters Shelley (she doesn’t like horses) so she feeds the hens but abandons the egg collection, Mia goes with Josh, Flo and Shelley to do the front hens, Sam goes to pick the eggs up where shelley couldn’t and the geese arrive and harass Samantha, eventually all situations are resolved but it’s pure carnage when it’s going on 😂 When they have all gone it’s time for a quiet cuppa before I start again.

We all commented on how cold it was for the time of year, it really is very noticeable especially if there is a breeze, it’s going to jump up 6 degrees tomorrow that is quite a difference from one day to the next.

We went to the supermarket this evening and although we have not worn masks before we thought now would be a good time to get used to doing it. I can tell you my future trips will be as little as possible, my glasses kept steaming up so I couldn’t see anything, resulted in keep moving them from my face to my head and that involves touching 🙄 I felt more at ease when I wasn’t wearing one, I may see if there are any delivery slots available yet 😏

Thursday: I did a bit of picking this morning, the usual culprits lol but it does look like I may have found where the little birds get in the fruit cage because I blocked up a hole and this morning I have quite a few raspberries 😀 After doing the picking I cut the lawn but I confess I am a bit tired today, I need to remember that though I have come out the other side of a flare and I am on meds, I still have lupus and I still get tired. So today I a, winky going to rest and hopefully build up some reserve energy for tomorrow. I bought a gardening magazine yesterday so I will read it at my leisure I think 😀

Remember the cuttings I took back in May, well I can report that most of them didn’t take 🤪 but some did 😀 I think I had eight pots of four cuttings and I have ended up with six plants 🙄 still, six free plants is better than none, a couple of them I am really chuffed about, a clematis and a climbing rose 😀 the others are a sage, a japonica, elderflower (nigra). The dahlias I took cuttings from took really easily and I now have four in a pot out the front so hopefully they will flower and I would definitely do those again but some of the other stuff I think is easier to grow from seed/root/dividing, still it was good to give it a go and I had some measure of success.

Friday: A beautiful summer morning, just how summer should be, a fresh but sunny start with the promise of more warmth as the day progresses but not so hot that you can’t function properly 🤣 I started with watering the pots out the front then onto the poly tunnels so that they can cope with any heat, the greenhouse and the pots on the decking and in the cold frames, in fact anything that is in a pot got a watering. I picked a few raspberries and blueberries and there are still a few strawberries to be had, a handful of tomatoes were ready as well. I did pick a coup,e of cucumbers a while back and the rest are still too small to pick but there are plenty of them. I had a good look round and although everything seems slow it is producing, just not in vast quantities, I’m not sure why but others have said the same this year, in contrast I see others who have said it’s a bumper year, I guess it just depends on where you are. I sat with a coffee and watched all the wildlife, goldfinches, blackbirds (pinching the choke berries) a wren that had got herself into the greenhouse and then couldn’t find the bloody great doorway to get back out 😂 I have noticed an increase in butterflies and I aim to get some photos at some point, I still think the smaller insects are a bit thin on the ground which is a worry, normally I would see hoverflies, dragonflies, lacewings etc but they seem to be absent, maybe now the sun is here they will come out to play.

I am feeling less tired today thankfully, I’m not sure what it was, could be anything from air pressure to the Lupus, who knows but today I feel as though I can get on which is great.

Saturday: I spent most of the morning picking, watering and cutting back. I picked all the peas/mangetout I could find and then gave the plants a good cut back. You can still sow seeds at this time of year so I thought as the plants are already growing I might as well just cut the existing ones back and see what’s happens. I have done it with the broad beans and they are flowering again already, hopefully I will get a second crop. I don’t sell peas in the shed, the reason being we use a lot of them, they are labour intensive mind you and you end up with much more empty pod than peas but worth the bother I think. You can make pea pod wine apparently but I have never tried. I picked about 1/2 kg of dwarf French beans, some out for sale and some in the freezer, the more you pick beans and peas the more the plant will produce, once you stop picking they will stop producing so it’s best to keep taking them off. I also,picked courgettes, tomatoes, radish, cucumber, peppers, quite a haul this morning. A bit of watering to keep everything going and then into the kitchen to process it all.

More pod than peas 😜

Sunday: A rainy start so I needn’t have done any watering yesterday 😂 We got the usual jobs done and then went out for breakfast, on the way back we popped in to see Mum and Ken and when we got home Charlie and Macca were here so we sat and had coffee with them. We sat down for a while and then my mobile rang and it was BT complaints dept about the complaint I made last Sunday after getting nowhere. I then spent two and a half hours more on the phone going form dept to dept, the upshot is we have been ‘slammed’ I think that is their term for massive cock up. Basically they disconnected the wrong line and now we are having to spend hours trying to get it reinstated, I reordered it once but that order has been cancelled because they have the line under the wrong address and the other person cancelled the order. I have been from the complaints dept to the faults dept to the ‘I have no idea’ dept and finally to the order dept explaining I have been through all this already and won’t it just happen again, they assured me it won’t, I somehow don’t believe them 🙄 Watch this space………

Consequently we have not done much else today except that John spent half an hour digging up ragwort from the paddocks before it goes to seed. He did start some chainsaw work this morning but the chain snapped, luckily it stayed on the blade otherwise it could have been a day spent at the hospital instead!

Have a good week and as always, stay safe x x

Posted in Friesland Farm

Windy weather, picking and freezing & John returns home.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 29th June 2020: It very windy today, I’m sure we don’t normally have winds as strong as this in June 🙄 yesterday was the same, strong enough to damage plants and whip bits off of trees 😏

I spent the night on my own here which is only the second time in 11 years I think. I can be pretty scary as we are a bit out in the sticks but to be honest I was so tired that I went straight to sleep anyhow. This morning I was up early, showered and out to do the animal rounds, I walked round the garden thinking I would do a bit outside but the buffeting from the wind soon put me off 😂 I decided to get a few bits done indoors and at 9am John called to say he could come home. I arranged with Shelley to go and pick him up and by 11am he was back home again. They are not sure why it happened and not sure if it will happen again 😏 but in the meantime we go about life as normally as possible. John had something to eat, a cup of tea, a nice bath and at the moment is having a sleep, you know what it’s like trying to sleep in hospital so he is a bit tired today.

I am still doing the glacé cherries they take 10 days and I had missed a couple of days, which doesn’t matter as long as you continue the process for the number of days rather than in succession, I should be on day 7 but am only on day 6 in the process.

The last topic in last weeks blog was the link to the grow.foodrevolution.org and I did say I would come back to the subject. In my opinion anyone who eats 🙄 has children, grandchildren or cares about their future generations really ought to be looking more closely at how food is grown, what the processes are and why it should change. Remember way back in my blogs I always said I was prepared for an apocalypse of some kind and then the pandemic came. Up to that point even I thought maybe I was a bit barmy but it happened and life was not how we had always known it to be, to me it just confirmed that we shouldn’t be complacent, never mind being alert during a pandemic, we should be alert at all times, or at the very least awake to the problems in the world.

Declining soil fertility is a real worldwide problem, one that you should be aware of, the over use of pesticides, weedkillers and artificial fertilisers has depleted the soil of its vitamins and minerals and turned the vast growing acres into dust bowls with no nutrition in them or at least only enough to last a few decades longer. Years ago farmers would spread muck back onto the fields (and some still do) but the bigger the farm the less likely they are to do this and of course it’s the big farms that provide a vast quantity of the crops we eat in one form or another. Mono cropping is also an issue, vast areas with one crop do nothing for biodiversity, which should be all part of a healthy system. The fruit and vegetables you buy from the supermarkets, that you think are giving you a good healthy diet, are not providing anywhere near the amount of nutrients that they used to 50 years ago because of the reduced soil fertility. What can you do? It’s my firm belief that as individuals all doing our bit we make a strong collective, and that goes for any issue. You don’t need to be an activist or an ‘alternative’ or join a cause, all you need to do is understand the issue and adjust your thoughts and actions accordingly, in my mind it really is that simple.

Getting the fertility back into the soil is relatively easy on a small scale and should be done even in the flower garden, composting your own green waste rather than sending it to the council to compost is a great way to ensure that you know what is going back into the ground. With communal composting schemes they don’t ask you not to put waste that has been treated with weedkiller or pesticides in, that means there is a possibility that residue is left in the end product, the product which is then bagged up to be sold or sold in bulk, makes you think doesn’t it. Even organic compost only has to be organic in origin not organically treated. Once upon a time every garden owner would have had a heap and that would all eventually go back into the garden, it’s my belief that every garden over a certain size (a size that can accommodate a small compost bin) should not be allowed a green bin 😏 (and I did write to our local council to suggest that idea) I’m not sure where it all went wrong when as a nation of Gardeners’ we forgot the basics of gardening!

Tuesday: Not raining, not windy, not sunny, happy me it means I can get on. John did the rounds with me but he was tired afterwards and so went in for a sit down. I got on with some picking, mangetout, peas, carrots, rhubarb, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackcurrants and cherries. I wasn’t going to pick any more cherries but the urge to gather is irresistible 😜 The peas and carrots are for dinner later, the strawberries, blueberries, rhubarb, and raspberries are going into a mixed fruit crumble for pudding 😀 After doing a few other bits we went to town to get a little bit of shopping, but they still don’t have any jam sugar on the shelves, I will have to see if I can get a bulk buy. When we got back John had another rest lol and I prepared a shepherds pie and the crumble for later on. A quick rest and a cuppa and I got on with making some blackcurrant jam, I had some sugar in the cupboard already but will need more before the season is out.

Mixed fruit crumble mix

Be careful what you wish for lol, remember I said I was hoping to get some cherries, well the morello tree is loaded with them and although the black bird is having some there are hundreds 🙄 I have already picked quite a lot and today I couldn’t resist picking some more. The problem with cherries is they do not continue to ripen once picked and you can’t leave them to get the very dark colour (the birds get there first) but they are ripe at the cherry red colour so that’s when they get picked. I have some cooked and in the freezer, the glacé cherries are still on the go and now I have about another kg to do something with. I have told Mum to come and pick some tomorrow if she wants some, I hate to see them wasted.

You can see why they use these vibrant cherries to glacé 😀

Wednesday: First it’s hot, then it’s not, then it is again, one of those days when the jumper is on, off, on, off and sometimes a raincoat is needed too 😜 John did the morning rounds and I got on with some picking, as well as the things I have already been harvesting, I picked peppers, some small courgettes, some beetroot and a very small handful of dwarf beans. The beans were cut up and frozen along with the peas I picked yesterday and I also froze the mixed fruit. I still need to do something with the beetroot, I was thinking of grating it and freezing, that would be quite useful I think. The courgettes and peppers can wait and I may use them tomorrow or put some out for sale. One job I wanted to get done was to repot the yellow raspberry, it was getting a bit big for the pot it was in. When I took it out of the old pot the soil was really dry, even though we had the rain this week so I gave all the rest of the pots of raspberries a good soak. I grow them in pots because the runners take over the garden otherwise although you do get far more berries if they are in the ground, I think I should identify a raspberry patch and let them romp away lol. Mum and Ken came up to pick some cherries and blackcurrants, the timing was not great as it started to rain as they got here and slowly got heavier but with Ken on the cherry tree and Mum on the blackcurrants they soon had enough to be going on with 😀

Thursday: Busy morning for me again, John did the morning rounds then went to have a lie down. I have been working on the decorative side of the garden instead of the growing side. I edged all the lawn and then gave it a cut, cut back some overhanging branches, potted up some self sown plantings and put some bits out for sale. John bought coffee out mid morning and we discussed getting some fence panels for the decking area as the wind blows right across there from a westerly direction. He went off to get some now that the suppliers are open but had to get someone to help him lift them in as he didn’t have the strength on his own 😏 It takes a lot longer than you think to recover from something like that.

The rest of the day was spent pottering, some of the time in the poly tunnel where I dug out the flat leaf parsley, it had got huge and was taking over, I managed to save a root to pot up. I seem to be lacking momentum at the minute, I am ok in the mornings but by mid afternoon I’m flagging lol.

One thing I forgot to mention is that John saw a hedgehog the other night, I know we have them but rarely see them and then you wonder if they have moved on but nope they are still here, all part of my lovely little eco system 😀

Friday: Not sure what kind of a day it’s going to be weatherwise, at the moment it’s overcast and dry but the sky is moody and looks like it is threatening to rain. We could do with a bit, the wind that we have had has dried the ground so quickly and we have stronger winds tomorrow apparently 😏 What happened to summer? I am certain the seasons are shifting, the ants are on the move and they don’t normally start until the beginning of August but I think the next lot of warm sunny weather and they will be flying.

I have been doing various things this morning, picking mangetout and broad beans, then some sour cherries to put out for sale. I picked a big bunch of basil which is now in the dehydrator and smells amazing, I prepped everything I picked ready for the freezer, I am only getting small quantities at the minute but they soon become a big batch if you do it daily. I find open freezing the best way to do them and I have started mixing up the veg and fruit as I think I would be more inclined to use it like that besides it makes it easier for soups and stews. I pulled a few baby turnips, one I grated along with beetroot and carrots chopped a baby pepper and that with a hard boiled egg will be my lunch, all home produced 😀 I potted up a few bits I dug up in the polytunnel yesterday, some bits of mint, flat leaf parsley and aquilegia which had been growing in there for a couple of years. I seem to have a few things that have self set or have been sown but got huge and are happily growing in there but I really need to have a clear out as there is less and less space for the things I want to grow. I want to have a go at pak Choi (I have sown seeds which have come up nicely) this winter and also get some more salad leaves sown to take us through the end of the summer and into autumn. Looking at the weather forecast there is less than 50% chance of rain, much less at times, so I’m thinking I will have to water some of the veg growing outside, the courgettes and patty pan seem to be taking ages to get going so a bit of extra watering might help boost them along a bit. Really I should weigh everything I pick and add it up at the end of the season, that would give me more of an idea of how much is actually produced I think. Picking it daily and then freezing some, eating some or putting some out for sale, it doesn’t seem like a lot bit it probably adds up to much more than I think.

It struck me when eating my lunch that we probably eat as well as folks who dine in a fancy restaurant, without the price tag 😋 The presentation isn’t as good I grant you that, but it’s all fresh, hand picked and prepared, organic, yep we feast like kings here 😀 It also occurred to me that the phrase, you are what you eat, is not strictly true 🙄 I, we, have eaten fresh homegrown produce for 11 years, the ten years or so before that I bought organic and yet I ended up ill, I would probably be worse if it were not for the good food but it means that environmental factors play a part as well, in that I would include stress. Stress plays a very large part in your health as far as I can see, I was the person who worried about things, even little things and the big things, well they sent me into overload lol. These days I am more of a ‘couldn’t give a toss’ type 🤪, I learnt not to worry about things that hadn’t happened (nor were likely to) and only to worry and then deal with things that did actually happen. That’s a far better way to live and certainly better for your health, so if you recognise yourself in there take a tip from me, stop worrying. Be kind to others but be kind to yourself as well, Life is too short to spend it worrying.

Rain stopped play in the afternoon but at least I won’t have to water tonight 😀

Saturday: I have done very little outside today, picked some greens for the Guineas and clean out the water buckets for the horses and that’s about it. I spent a lovely morning with Charlie at a wedding dress shop trying on dresses, Charlie not me obvs lol. She was the shops first appointment since the lockdown and it was by appointment only 😀 Afterwards we went to a local independent coffee shop where the new normal is to give your details, when ordering for sitting in, so that they can track and trace if necessary, social distancing in place and it all seems to work well. Considering more shops and the pubs are allowed to open today, the town was still not very busy, I feel this is all going to take longer than we first thought to get back to the old normal 😏

Sunday: A very windy but dry day today. John put up the fence panels around the decking area, it was to hopefully reduce the wind but it has still blown the chairs around 🙄 I did some picking again this morning, rhubarb, mange tout, broad beans, dwarf beans, courgette and a few blueberries, blackcurrants, raspberries and strawberries. The it all had to be sorted and either put out for sale or prepped for the freezer. We went round to see Mum and Ken and have a coffee, not sure what else we have done today lol. I need to organise myself a bit better to get jobs done as I have slacked a bit lately. One job is to sort the freezers out, with the picking prepping and freezing I tend to just find any space for it to go but then everything is all over the place and I have no idea what I have. I usually use sacks in the bottom of the big freezers, one for veg, one for fruit at least that way I know which sack to look in, I might not know what is actually in there, but I know if it’s one or the other 😜 The white woven sacks (from the builders merchant) are ideal if anyone is thinking of doing it as they don’t stick to the side of the freezer at all.

Have a great week, I think the weather is going to improve, hopefully this wind will do one 😋 Stay safe, stay alert.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Garlic harvest, wildlife mornings & a tad of the wet stuff.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 18th May 2020: A new week 😀 still in a global pandemic and life has taken a slower pace for a majority of us. I wonder how many will continue to take it much slower once the threat is over. John has decided that when he goes back to work he is going to go later and come home earlier, I have heard that before mind you 😂 and of course he has the luxury of choice, we don’t have a mortgage, the bills are fairly low and he is self employed so can please himself to an extent.

He is going to do a job today, a leak under a floor which is regarded as an essential repair, he is going to do the hens and ducks before he goes though and will be home to do the afternoon rounds. This is because the temps look set to be pretty high and I will struggle out in the sun. The paddocks are ridiculously exposed areas and had we known 11 years ago that I would end up with this disease we would have started way back then planting many many trees so it was easier for me to move around in the shade lol.

We set the alarm this morning as we have things to get on with and seem to be sleeping in longer and longer! John did the feeding and letting out, I did the ponies and then we went to try and establish if the goose eggs were worth letting her sit on them for very much longer. You take your life in your hands really as the rest of them are not happy you are apparently ‘attacking’ the other one 😂 I did manage to pick up two eggs and they feel heavy enough to contain something so we put some food and water in for her as she is losing condition bu not coming off the nest.

Next I had to rig up electric fencing across the slip rail we repaired yesterday because although Jack has free run of some pretty big paddocks he has decided he wants the grass on the other side of the fence 🙄

John then left for work and I got on with some gardening jobs. First I pulled all the rest of the garlic that I grew over winter, it’s ready now and I want the space for more tomato plants, it’s now drying in the sun. I planted some leeks, they are a bit late going in but will catch up, you need firm ground that you can make good deep holes with the dibber for leeks. You just drop the tiny plants into the holes and eventually they will swell to fit the holes, leeks are a great staple for winter and they are kinder on the stomach than onions so if you have IBS try leeks instead. Then onto some more weeding and I took the hens a bucketful, the tree spinach I grew last year has self seeded everywhere but it’s good for the hens, rabbits and torts so it will come in handy. After that I found a tree stake and put that in next to a dwarf apple I planted in the veg garden, it a bit blowy today so I thought it could do with staking before it snaps off. A great day for drying the washing so two loads are now out on the line as well, at that point I figured a short sit down had been earned 😀

Leeks, I planted about 15 in all and I have plenty more seedlings, I might just spread the rest around in spare areas or inbetween rows of other crops already growing, you can never have too many leeks 😀

After my sit down my aim is to clean the bathroom, Hoover and polish the sitting room and give the kitchen a clean plus decided what to have to dinner tonight.

I got the jobs done that I wanted plus I made bread and a sultana and orange tray bake (Mary Berry) one of the simplest and foolproof recipes I have ever used and tasty, great if you have a sad looking orange sitting in the fruit bowl lol. We are having fish cakes for dinner, John will have chips and peas but I am having some of the salad leaves from the garden, the wild rocket is particularly tasty and I have a good bed of mixed salad leaves waiting to be used up.

I went with John this evening to fix a leaking outside tap, on our way back home just up the lane we saw a beautiful barn owl flying low over the field, life is good 😀

Tuesday: John has to go and finish the job he started yesterday but did the animals first, I helped a bit before getting on with watering the poly tunnels before it gets too hot. Then I spent the rest of the morning (until 11am) potting things on, I have a lot of shrubs/trees and plants that I have been growing since last year and they won’t get much bigger unless I give them some tlc. Bigger pots, fresh compost, plenty of water and some feed should see them come on in leaps and bounds now. I planted a few things out into the flower beds and then it was time for coffee and recharging my batteries 😜

I am trying to work out what is the best thing to do with our front area immediately out side the house, it’s basically been a gravelled area for about 10 years. I have filled the area in front of the house with pots, this is because at some point we need to reclad the front and so I didn’t want to dig a border or bed as it will get trampled down, so pots are a great option however they do have to be watered every day. The other problem is weeds growing in the gravel, some I don’t mind, some are a pain and unsightly but I also am not inclined to use too much weedkiller because of the wildlife, so you can see I have a dilemma lol, which I honestly don’t know how to overcome at the minute. The area opposite the building has got weedy and untidy but I have started putting a few plants and shrubs in that bit to brighten it up and I have the catalpa tree coming which will also get planted there. Another problem with the area is that it gets the sun from early morning until late afternoon, south facing, not too bad for sun loving plants but for me it’s difficult to spend much time on it each day, so I can’t make an impact within a few hours, more like ten minutes here and there which is not much use. The other day the sun went behind clouds so I went and got the hoe and by the time I got out there the sun was back out lol, I did his about four times before giving up completely. I need an overcast day but all we are getting is sunshine at the moment.

The afternoon I spent indoors and had a cheeky nap as I felt a bit tired. John came home in time to do the egg collecting and feeding, we had dinner then went in search of ice creams 😀

When we got back it had cooled down enough for me to go outside and get the Indian Bean Tree planted, John did come out and dig the hole for me as it turns out there was some kind of footings right where I had chosen to put it, so an iron bar was needed to break it up. I carried on outside, hoeing, sweeping, tidying and watering until almost 10pm. It was a lovely cool evening so I made the most of it 😀

Wednesday: I was up with the larks this morning lol, 5am i woke up and thought, I need a wee, I’m hungry and I could do with a cuppa so I got up made a brew and went outside where the air was lovely and cool, there was a low mist and the pink sunrise sky made it almost magical. I had a shower went out and did watering, weeding, planting, sorted out the horses with fresh water, poo picking and putting Biscuit back in her lockdown paddock after letting her out overnight to have some time with Jack and some fresh grass. I came back in to get some breakfast and John still wasn’t up lol. Eventually he hauled his sorry arse out of bed and did the feeding rounds and then we went off to a local landscaping yard to get some new pots and I came back with a tree 😜 We also called in at the local Smokery where I bought some fresh fruit, freshly made sausages and some strawberries and cream 😋 The afternoon was spent inside in the cool as it’s far to hot for me and we decided that we would wait until it cools right down and spend the evening outside working again.

Another evening stint, cutting the grass, repotting and re positioning plants, watering, so much nicer when it’s cooler lol. John spent the evening digging up nettle and plantain clumps in the front paddock and helping me move heavy pots etc. I ran out of time to get a photo of the most beautiful aquilegia, in the evening light it had a wonderful glow, if I remember I will try and get a pic tomorrow, it probably has an optimum glory time which I just missed 😜

No filter needed for this beauty 😀

Thursday: John is off to do another job today, easing himself back in slowly, he will have to be careful about hand washing etc and the customers have to stay out of the way and hopefully all should be ok, he was enjoying not working but you can’t stay like that forever unless you have a big bank account 😜 So far though he has kept his promise about doing the morning rounds before he goes, this is so I can get on with watering in the garden before it gets too hot. I have to water in two stints, one in the morning and one in the evening, two different half’s of the garden and mostly because we have had no rain for weeks. The water tanks are almost empty, that’s nearly 20,000 litres used in various places, they need a refill. I was up early again, 5.30 this time, dressed and out with a cuppa in my hand, love the cool mornings. I had plenty of wildlife experiences this morning, firstly a deer in the far paddock grazing away oblivious to the fact I was watching. Then as I was watering in the garden a heron flew straight over the top of me, they make quite a bit of noise when flying unlike other birds, after that I found baby bees hatching in the hay, literally hatching right there and then, cute little bumbles. The last is worthy of a paragraph of its own 😂 in all the years I have kept ducks (around 20) I have never seen an elusive duck penis, yep you read that correctly lol, but this morning was the morning. Now this one was still attached to the drake, there are fabled stories of drakes discarding them now and again, if you have not read one of my previous blogs on the matter, they can be up to half a metre long and fit the chosen mate so if the mate dies they grow a new one. Anyway there it was when I came round the corner this morning, fascinating, as I said, still attached and slowly retracting but definitely a first for me 😜

This mornings main job was to tidy up bits of the garden that just get left and to clean out the pirate ship for whenever the kiddies can use it again. I found a nest in there while I was sweeping and it has eggs in, I’m guessing Robin, it’s quite high so I left it undisturbed. Sweeping down the decking area and giving the table a wash, tidying up the seating area under the oak tree and making it look like someone cares 😌 Put up the hammock, just in case I get a fancy for laying in it today, potting up some self set plants that are coming up round the garden, huecheras and daisy type flowers. Feed the torts some thistles, spinach and sorrel, plant a tomato plant that arrived (black tomatoes, they sold well last year and are very tasty) Back indoors to get some bread on and decide what’s for dinner later, then a well earned break after all that is a five hour stint I have done already lol.

An evening spent watering, the ground is sooo dry it’s ridiculous and I know rain is forecast but in my years of experience never rely on it to come unless of course you don’t want it because you are having an outdoor event 🤣 then it pours down!

Have a look at this photo, just a dog laying on the ground right? Zoom in and look again, the blob to the right of the dog is a fledgling blue tit. The baby bird was flapping out squawking and Mia just sat watching it bless her, I’m surprised she didn’t try to catch it as she is always trying to catch bees 😂

John was concerned about the fledgling, it can’t fly, shall we pick it up? No, is the answer, it can fly or at least it’s learning to fly, the parents will be very close by encouraging it to take flight by cheeping at it. Sure enough within a couple of minutes it was making progress and eventually went up the tree albeit by climbing the trunk 😜

This bit of the garden always make me smile as I go past, the flowers are a mix of old fashioned type plants, common varieties and wildflowers (some might call weeds) BUT it is always teeming with bees and insects which was the intention so I’m more than happy with that 😀

Friday: An altogether different morning this morning, blowy and although it has tried hard to rain all we got was a ‘spit‘ and unless we get anything else we are going to be in a bit of trouble for watering 😏 John is working again today, once it starts it won’t stop, but he did the animals beforehand, just as well as I feel under par today and I actually went and had a lay back down and 15 minutes sleep at about 8.30, I think the early mornings and working evenings finally caught up with me. I spent a couple of hours tidying up the greenhouse, going through old seed packets etc, making sure everything that needed potting on is done and has sufficient watering needs. I sorted out plants that will be going to Mum, they are at this moment making their way back across France and should be in the UK by tomorrow, they will then probably have to self isolate but they will be very glad to get home. I have been growing a few veg plants for her so that she has a chance at getting a crop this year, we had no idea how long they would have to stay in Spain for but luckily she will be in time to get some stuff in the ground 😀

Saturday: Still very blowy, unseasonably windy they said and it’s a pain as it has already broken off my splendid artichoke plants 😏 Still it has bought a bit of rain with it, not enough to fill the tanks but enough to chivvy along all the veg growing outside, they respond quickly and strongly to rain unlike tap water or even water from the rain butt for that matter. It’s the chemical reaction that is sparked that charges the ground and the air and motivates the growth. As the temps are set to rise again next week I will take whatever we can get at the minute.

This morning John had to go and sort out a hot water issue and I got on with doing some bits in the garden, quite a few bits actually. Firstly, last night I had a plan lol, I have grown some marrow seedlings because I had them but they take up a lot of room so I have put a tub, half filled with manure and half filled with compost, in the front area where it gets really weedy gravel. I planted three plants in there and hopefully they will grow well and produce some marrows, if not they will at least produce lots of foliage which will spread and help cover the weeds. I also have a trellis out there which is doing nothing so I am going to grow a couple of cucumbers up it, plenty of sun out there so they should produce something and again the foliage will be better than bare trellis. I potted up some Hyacinth Bean which is a climbing flower also to grow up the trellis, potted on all kinds of things, sorted out what is going to Mums for her to continue growing and put some bits out for sale. I barrowed two lots of muck, one for the melons, tomatoes and cucumbers in the poly tunnel and one for the pumpkins and dwarf beans, they will need as much mulch as they can get without any serious rain coming any time soon.

I discovered a few greenfly on a couple of peppers and aubergine in the greenhouse, I then started the hunt for a bottle of neem oil I have somewhere in the boot room but do you think I could find it, nope, everything else but that, in the end I used thyme oil diluted and hopefully that might work just as well 🙄 On a wider note about greenfly and blackfly in the garden, I seem to be doing ok this year so far🤞 last year was a bad year and lots of things suffered but I’m hoping I have a good balance this year which is helping. I stop feeding the garden birds around the beginning of May, the weather is better and there should be plenty to keep the birds and youngsters going, I help them and then they help me and I have seen plenty of little beaks filled with grubs and bugs so it’s working well. I do have some powdery mildew on the brambly apple tree in the front though 🙄 this is due to the prolonged dry weather and as it is a large tree Im not sure that anything I can do will be sufficient, it’s only on a few leaves at the minute and I am tempted to leave it to nature and see what happens, theoretically the balance of nature should sort it but we will see.

One seasonal fruit I like to tell people about are oranges, there is a season for them even though you can get them all year round 🙄 Orange season is just coming to an end and if you buy oranges get them from around the end of Feb to May, you will find they are at their tastiest then, you can thank me later 😀 After orange season comes lemon season so we are just coming into that now, I think, fingers crossed, I am going to get my very first ripe lemon this year 😀😀😀 very exited about that. I had a chat with an egg customer the other day about lemon curd (which I love) I can’t make it, by that I mean I can never get it to turn no matter how much I try, do it in the slow cooker she said, whaaaaaat, I didn’t know this was a thing and so I am definitely going to give this a go, I will have to buy lemons this year but once the tree is producing lots I shall use my own. The other thing I have growing for the first time this year, and I don’t want to jinx it, are kiwi, the vine is about four years old and usually gets frosted so no fruit, but this year I can see a few small fruitlets forming, another exciting first. It’s not all good mind you as the grape vine that produced masses last year looks to have died over winter, you win some you lose some, that life 😜

We nipped to the local garden centre this afternoon, I wanted a couple of packets of seeds for another project, a climbing rose and I bought some plants for hanging baskets 🤷‍♀️ wtf, I don’t even do hanging baskets 🤣 impulse buys 😂 It was nice to get out even if it wasn’t the usual gentle stroll around, but the system they have was flawless and they have worked hard to make sure it’s all socially distanced. We treated ourselves to an ice cream and milkshake from the pop up coffee shop afterwards, lol funny how we feel the need to treat ourselves, goes hand in hand with the impulse buys I think!

I am pleased to report that the thyme oil appears to have killed off the greenfly on the peppers, now all I have to do is make sure it doesn’t affect the growth of the plant leaves or the peppers 😀

Sunday: A busy morning again this morning, I did some watering first thing, pots and poly tunnels, then I spent a while sorting out plants that need to go to the cold frames and holding area ready for growing on either for autumn or next spring. It can be a slow process sometimes waiting for plants to establish and get going especially when like me you hate paying silly money for plants so get the small ones lol. It’s the time of year for semi ripe cuttings and I’m not very good at cuttings despite the lesson Mum gave me last year, however all I really have to lose is some compost so I set about identifying what I wanted to take cutting from. The pot of compost wants to be free draining so I added grit to it for that purpose, they also need to be in the light but not in the sun so they are under the greenhouse bench, they need humidity so after watering they have been placed in a propagator (not turned on) and hopefully some of them will strike. I have done rosemary, lavender, olive, clematis, sambucus, japonica and the new climbing rose I just bought. I have tried my best and fingers crossed I get something from them lol.

Meanwhile after doing the morning rounds John started on creosoting the hen hut at the back, the hens (which were being picked off by the fox and are now secure) will go back in there once the creosote is dry and isn’t giving off odour!

Ooops just had a notification of some other seeds I’d ordered, is there a group for ‘Gardeners’ anonymous’ 😜luckily they were only £2 but they are jack fruit which I’ve not tired before, love trying new stuff 😀

When he finished that and I had finished doing all my bits we shot to another garden centre to pick up some more compost (I need to get a bulk delivery next year I think) of course there were a couple of plants that went into the trolley and a pot for the new climbing rose I bought yesterday. It’s my weakness I have to admit 😜 I would rather go to garden centre after garden centre than shopping centre after shopping centre 😂 The plants are big ones so I can easily divide them and get at least two if not three out of each one so in my eyes it’s money saving (apart from the fact that I didn’t need them 😋)

Another evening of watering and working and it’s around this time of year I start wondering why?? The winds were awful and they have taken off all the apricots and peaches that were growing, the artichoke which were in their fully glory are now on the ground so I have had to salvage what I could and chop the rest down 😏 The weeds are gaily growing away fiercely unlike the veg which is struggling due to lack of rain, the slugs are managing to find the strawberries before I do, and I’m finding more and more greenfly, yep definitely the time of year I think I might just give up 😜 On the plus side the mangetout are beginning to get big enough to pick and the broad beans are developing, I do have small kiwis and there are lemons, the apple, pear and cherry trees are loaded with fruit so are the gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries so it’s not all bad. Maybe it’s just time to get rid of what fails and stick with the easier stuff.

Another day and another week tomorrow, always onwards and upwards lol, stay safe x x

Posted in Friesland Farm

Found me Mojo, the kittens explore & ‘crappy to happy’

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 8th July: John is at home today and so he did the morning rounds and then went off to get feed, it meant that I could get straight on with the job of the day, housework 😜 not just a quick flick of the duster and a whizz with the hoover but strip the sofa covers and bed covers and wash them all then hoover and polish everything to within an inch of its life. This was it, I had committed myself and taken the plunge 🙄 I only actually managed the bathroom, living room and bedroom fully before feeling exhausted, those sofa covers are heavy and cumbersome and hard work, the kitchen got a hoover and a wipe round and the floor washed and there is still the boot room and office to do but they can wait until another day. Around lunchtime because that was enough housework for anyone lol, I prepped, blanched and open froze, the carrots, broad beans, turnip, peas and potatoes that I picked yesterday and didn’t use for dinner last night. Potatoes are something I haven’t frozen before so I did a bit of reading up about it, but as John pointed out chips come frozen so they should be fine. I wanted to use them all as I ran out halfway through winter last year and then had to buy them from the shop although by that time I did have a bucket full of small ones all sprouting like they do. The bigger potatoes are safely in dark potato bags hanging in the boot room but if I did that with the tiny ones I know I wouldn’t use them so pre preparing them and freezing them will guarantee they will get used.

John has been busy as well, he is preparing the floor in the front chicken hut for concreting, we did have wood down but the rats would chew through it and eventually it became hard to clean everyday, hopefully the concrete will be much easier, although rats can still chew through it, it’s less likely 🙄

The weather is not bad today, sometimes over cast and sometimes sunny spells, great for getting those covers dry, we are forecast a spot of rain around 4pm but I won’t be holding my breath.

The kittens have been given free range out the back and I have seen them outside on the grass, they are also getting on really well with the dogs, all walking around in the boot room together with no problems, this is a first for us as usually, cat sees dog, cat runs, dog chases cat, cat leaps up high out of the way, dog sits there all day with stupid anticipation that cat will come down again for another round of chase 🤪 so, long may this new behaviour last 😉

In the afternoon we watched a bit of Wimbledon and then after dinner I went out to do some watering and picked some raspberries.

Tuesday: John was up early today and he had done all the animals before I got up, result 😀 I did have to pick for the rabbit/guineas and the torts but that’s part of weeding anyhow 😜 I did some hoeing and a bit of tidying up then picked some more blackcurrants, some to put out for sale, some to freeze for winter puddings.

I ordered a cherry ‘bush’ this is new on the market and is a bush rather than a tree, it can be kept at 5ft so my plan is to have it inside the fruit cage that way I might, just might get cherries 😀

Moving plants, that I have either grown from seed or cutting or divided, around, I realised I have got to town and now have far more than I had envisaged lol, I need to sell a few more I think.

I had Mia for a short while in the afternoon while Sam went and did a few things. We cleaned the decking area and washed the glass table top, well if you have free child labour might as well use it 😜 afterwards we had a ‘juice break’ and sat at the nice clean table.

I had a klutz moment while collecting the eggs this afternoon, I didn’t lift my leg quite high enough to get over the poultry netting and it got caught, to prevent myself for falling I quickly put the other foot on the fencing as well, unfortunately I was very close to a fence stake (these are flexible plastic stakes) which immediately bent towards me with pace and caught me just under the ear and behind the jaw bone, you know the place where you check to see if your tonsils are inflamed, I hate moments like that they make you want to cry, not so much from the fleeting pain but sheer stupidity.

I have found my flexibility is back to rusty since finishing the steroids, I don’t know what it is about them that helps so much, I guess without them there is still inflammation making tasks more difficult, I am back to doing the shuffle sometimes when getting under things rather than being able to bend low enough and gracefully scoot🙄

Wednesday: John was up early again and did the rounds so I got on with picking and watering, raspberries, artichoke and French beans today.

This morning while wandering round the garden I made the unhappy discovery that the fox had got one of my light Sussex hens, she had laid an egg in my flower bed so I’m guessing was there when the fox got her, I have no idea when during the day that was though, it must have been they day before.

Mum came over and turned a scrappy (from crappy to happy is what I am calling it )bit of garden into something lovely 😊

Some of the potatoes are collapsing and the lack of any water means I am constantly trying to revive them so today I dug one lot up, it means I won’t have any to store for winter, except self setters, but hey ho, needs must.

In the evening I did more watering lol

Thursday: We had a sprinkle of rain overnight and it really was just a sprinkle but it will perk things up a bit. Again John was up early and had the animals all done, not sure what has got into him but I’m not complaining 😀

I went into the garden and planted one of the new buddliea I bought, into the ground, it is a pink one and I have positioned it in front of the torts fence, I also planted a Mock Orange bush in the planter where potatoes normally grow as I could do with a bit of extra shade in that part of the garden. It is a big planter, a crate actually like the ones building stone or slates come in so it will easily accommodate a large bush. It is difficult getting stuff into the ground here because of the brash, when I say difficult I mean bloody hard digging so if there is another way I’m all for it 😀

I also chopped down all the weeds and stingers that have grown up in front of the compost area, I couldn’t get to it at all and now I need access as I begin to clear things away once they have gone over, I had piles of trimmings around the place and so cleared them and threw them on the compost heap.

I am a bit reluctant to clear up too much as the increase in the insects has been huge, by leaving unkempt areas, hundreds and hundreds of ladybirds 🐞 I see my little frog everyday and presume it’s the same one but it may be many 😀 I hope so they will help keep the slugs down.

Leaf cutter bee activity

Cinnabar caterpillar

One insect I have noticed seems to be rampant this year is the earwig, they were everywhere, I say were as they have now moulted and their shed skins are all over the place, I swept out the egg shed this morning which had loads of them in there. I looked up information about them and it seems they are a beneficial insect, they don’t really do a lot of damage and clear up dead and decaying material as well as aphids etc so they can stay 😀 Unusually for insects they are very good mothers apparently, they keep the eggs clean and then feed their young until they can fend for themselves, unfortunately they also eat any young that refuse to left the nest!

I was just getting into the swing of it when the sun decided to make an appearance, it’s pretty intense this time of year and I don’t want to risk another flare up so I came inside for a coffee and a write up. I am sure that sooner or later there will be days that are overcast and I can get a good shift in 😝

For dinner tonight we have our own chicken legs slowed cooked with all our own veg and herbs 😀 For dessert I have made a gooseberry clafoutis, two reasons, one because I have gooseberries to use up and two because I love the word clafoutis 😬It will taste amazing of course so I don’t need to use that as a reason 😂

I did the afternoon rounds and it was a bit weird out there, to begin with there was a nice fresh cool breeze and then it dropped, feels like a storm brewing and it’s certainly got muggy.

Friday: Got to love Fridays 💕 Just for a change I was up early too this morning 😀 My mojo had disappeared for a while but seems like it’s back again now 😜 John did the morning rounds while I put on a load of washing and hung out the washing I did the night before. This morning I have been multitasking so first off I picked the bits for the torts and rabbit/guineas, then I came in and got some bread on the go, after the first kneading I set it to prove for an hour and put the timer on, went out and did some picking, broad beans (cut back the plants at the same time) and French beans, came in weighed them out bagged them up and put them out for sale, ready for the second prove, did that and then went out to pick raspberries and peas and water the small tunnel and greenhouse, back in to put the bread in the oven, meanwhile back out to water the big poly tunnel, back in to get the bread out 😀 I did sit and have a coffee in the shade and watch the clouds, I suddenly remembered how we used to lie on the school field in summer and cloud watch, well we didn’t have phones to constantly stare at back then 🤪

While picking peas in the brassica cage I saw a cabbage white butterfly in there 😲 I have no idea how it got in as the cage is usually secure and butterfly free but after dancing around for a bit I finally caught it and unceremoniously dumped it outside!

Sitting here writing this I am vaguely aware I smell of fox, that’s because I have been picking right near the area where it took my hen from, they do leave a stink wherever they go 🙄

Update on the kittens, they are fast now, very fast and you can’t get in or out of a door before them 😂 Last night they spent their first night out in the back area, that’s because they wouldn’t come in when John had finished putting the birds to bed and brought the dogs in, so we decided they could stay out there. They have been venturing out there during the day for about a week now so they know the area, sometimes they even take a quick tour outside, I have seen them hiding under a log pile, they will get braver and braver soon. Diesel isn’t aware of them yet, mostly because he hardly comes back to the yard at the moment, we do see him down on the boundary wall so we know he is ok and he must be catching lots of rabbits or getting fed elsewhere as he hardly comes back for feeding.

The clouds are intermittent today I’m just waiting for a bit more cover before I go back out and do some more bits 😀

From time to time odd things happen here and I just had one of them this very minute! The dogs barked, they often do and it’s usually the girls or an egg customer so I didn’t look straight away. When I did look an bloke was carrying something and left it by the egg shed and drove off, I went to look and it’s a saddle?? He didn’t ring the bell or anything so I messaged my neighbour to see if she was expecting it, nope, so he has just dumped it!

Inspired by Mums planting I decided to turn another crappy area to happy, I dug in a couple of things and for the moment have stood a couple of things in place just to see if I like them there or not.

Saturday: Up fairly early and John did the animals while I sorted out the rabbit/guineas and torts, then we had a discussion about what to do, we decided on a tidy up day. That only lasted a short while as I decided to turn another crappy area into a happy one 😂 my plan was just to level the ground, cut stuff back and move the table and chairs that we use for our morning/evening coffee, however the ground levels were difficult and so we thought we might as well put a small bit of decking down so that it is all level. That means the job turned into something a little bigger than planned and John went off to get the decking.

The kittens have found their way round to the side of the house, I think mostly because that’s where we are working so they feel safe to do so, they are clambering up and over everything but having great fun doing it.

Sunday: A bit of a rest day today as far as work is concerned, John went to visit his Mum then we went shopping then over to my brothers where John did a teensy bit of plumbing, back home where Charlie, Macca, Shelley, Martin, Josh and Flo had called for a visit. Then an afternoon of F1 and Tennis, the latter is still going on lol.

Over and out for this week 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Elderflower, more hatchlings and greenhouse planning.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 11th June: An idyllic day, those are my thoughts of today, of course I haven’t done much again his morning so I can take the time to just enjoy what’s around me, sunshine, birdsong, gentle breeze, totally idyllic, I need to take more time to appreciate it in future I think. It is in fact a perfect morning for collecting elderflower heads, the sun has warmed them and the heady smell is wonderful, it’s something gentle I can do as the tree i use is just out the front, I picked 25 heads, added a couple of slices of lemon and lime and poured on boiling water, it will steep for 24hrs then I will decide what to make with it, cordial, syrup, jelly who knows? It is such an underrated, bountiful tree because of course later on in the year you get those glorious vitamin packed berries as well.

The Epsom salts arrived so I will be using them later providing my joints will co operate.

ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL

Tuesday: I pretty much didn’t do anything other than make some bread and the dinner today. Getting better slowly.

Wednesday: Same again today, I haven’t done much in the way of the farm/garden.

I did however notice something on the dog, Mia, Charlie bathed her on Sunday and said she had a sore, today I noticed another and my suspicions were aroused, mange from a mangey fox, Mia is the only dog who loves to roll in fox poo and seeing as they don’t go off the farm that’s the only way she could have caught it. She is off to the vet tomorrow for confirmation and decontamination will begin!

Mum called in today and bought the aubergine plants I had given her to nurture, they were started at the same time as my others which are in the tunnel but they are three times bigger and flowering! What am I doing wrong I keep asking myself?

Thursday: Feeling capable again today although John still did the morning routine. I got up showered took painkillers and set about a few tasks that needed doing, water the poly tunnels, we have misty drizzle today so outside will be fine. While I was out there I pulled the onions and garlic that are ready and will need a week or so to ‘cure’ there are still onions growing that I planted later so I have left those in. Then empty the brooder unit that the goslings were in as I am expecting a hatch of light Sussex this weekend, onto burning the card/paper rubbish that was piling up. Before all that I had put a wash load on but the red light was telling me that the filter was blocked so I had to drain off the water and empty that, I found two Kirby grips, a piece of wood and a small plastic bag! Time for coffee and a sit down I don’t want to over do it, though I know I’m feeling better as I keep thinking of all the jobs that need doing, I’m not muscly by any means but have noticed some muscle loss especially in my arms from not doing anything all week 😝 I also found some mesh and made a leaf guard for the new bit of guttering John put up over the rabbit run, best to keep as much rubbish out as possible.

The drizzle turned to very windy, great for drying the washing, not so good for plants 😜 normally I would fret about the runner beans being wind ravaged after they had only just been planted out but these were sown straight into the ground and are good strong plants with strong roots hopefully, so I’m not too worried.

In the afternoon Sam came over and we sorted out the dog area and fed the birds before taking Mia to the vets, I ordered some antibacterial shampoo which had arrived by the time we got back which was useful. Mia is on antibiotics as there is a bit of infection on one of the areas, we bathed her, put the spot on for the mites (it kills about a hundred other things too!) then on went the buster collar 😩 and I fed her the antibiotics, Patch and Alfie had a wash and the spot on as well, though they show no signs of having anything, better to be thorough. By this time my feet and ankles were killing and I had a lay down, John made dinner, well eggs on toast, popped to the shop to get some wet food so Mia will take the tablets, quick cuppa at my sisters and the day is done.

Oh, we had a lovely note in the egg money box today, some visitors from Singapore that were staying up the lane wrote to tell us that they had never had farm fresh eggs before and that the absolutely loved them and the children had adored seeing the birds in the front paddock, positive feedback, lovely.

Friday: Up early, painkillers, then a bit of early morning gardening 😀 John did the birds at the front early and I did the others a bit later on.

I did a bit of tidying up, planted some flowers, repotted some bits, picked the rest of the peas in the tunnel and then pulled up the plants, I have sweet potato growing there now, emptied out a large pot that had broken and was full of bulbs, all kinds of little jobs that needed doing. An hours sit down and I’m good to go again 😀

Slightly concerned about Molly the cat, I haven’t seen her for a couple of days, normally she is hanging around the garden, she does go off sometimes but the older she gets the less likely she is to come back and she is around 13/14 years old.

The light Sussex are starting to hatch, at the moment there is just one, I hope I get a few more than that!

Saturday: 10 little fluffy chicks in total, not great from 24 eggs but not too bad all in all. After morning jobs I did a bit of pottering again in the garden, I can’t actually get my teeth stuck into any great jobs as I still can’t bend at the knee terribly well but getting there slowly. Mostly pulling weeds which the rabbits were very grateful for as they have been on pellets all week with John feeding them, well I can’t really ask him to spend half an hour foraging for them on top of everything else he was doing can I 🤣 John did a bit of digging up docks in the big side paddock and then did a bit of weeding in the garden to help out. In the afternoon we went to look at greenhouses 😀 I decided I definitely need to get a new one, have decided which one I want and went to have a look at one that is up just to make sure. All we have to do is put a base down and they will come and install it, so watch this space 😀

Sunday: Father’s Day and we are off out for lunch later on, in the meantime we did a little bit of goodness knows what because I can’t remember but one of the things was make a planter out of an old pallet, I wanted it for lavenders in the front which is an idea I had right from when we first came but couldn’t do it because Kai would have just trodden all over it. Now I’m not so sure that’s what I want or need so I need to rethink what it is I want to achieve 😝 better do it soon as the lavender plants arrived yesterday!

Put the onions and garlic in the greenhouse to cure for a week or so before storing.

This week I have managed to pick broad beans, strawberries, raspberries, broccoli and cauliflower for our meals, I haven’t had much to put out for sale as yet but I’m sure there will be plenty soon.