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.
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.
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.
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.
Monday 15th June 2020: A few bits of catch up news that I have forgotten to update on: I am easily making 10,000 steps a day on my Fitbit 😀 so at least I know I’m not lazy lol. The chive flower vinegar is at last in the bottle, now just need some chips to try it out on 😂 I’d forgotten that I had taken a photo of the muck pile gates as they were and so I can show you a before and after picture.
Last night I ordered some ladybird larvae lol and now I have to make the brassica cage a des res for them hoping they will stick around. I am hoping to get a bug hotel that I can put up for them to hibernate in come winter. A bit of research tells me it’s better to get the larvae than the ladybirds themselves as the larvae will at least stick around long enough to eat a few thousand aphids before flying off 😂
An early start and a busy morning, picking mange tout, broad beans, asparagus and rhubarb, at last we are starting to get a decent return from the plants. Though I have heard people talking about their raspberries and courgettes, mine have not started producing yet, some small fruits but nothing more. I seem to have been constantly on the go but I can’t remember what else I have been doing, some weeding and planted a couple of small plants, feeding the rabbits/guineas all the weed pickings, a bit of watering, then indoors to do a bit of cleaning, all sparkly and fresh and time for a sit down I reckon.
I have ordered some things that hang in trees to keep the birds away from my fruit this year, I am also hoping it frightens off the crows. We have about 30 of them each morning squawking and cackling all morning long, they come for the crane fly larvae in the paddocks but roost in the trees making a right old racket.
Thinking about the easing of lockdown measures and not much has really changed for me, I’m not bothered by the shops opening, I don’t spend my time shopping for clothes and goods etc, the only joy will be to go out for something to eat preferably at a good garden centre 😜
The strawberries are coming thick and fast, not enough to make jam yet and besides we are eating them just as fast. I was going to make a French strawberry cake for pudding later but then I thought we might as well eat them as they are, almost 😀 they are sprinkled with truvia not sugar and I have taken a liking to having mine with marscapone 🥰 try it, delicious, fresh, home grown, seasonal, doesn’t get much better than that as far as I am concerned 😀
Just had the biggest rumble of thunder, I love a good thunderstorm and a bit of lightening too 😀 An hour or so later and we haven’t had any more thunder but we have had a good dose of rain 🌧 😀 no watering for me tonight except that I had already done the front lot about 2 hours ago 😂 Ah well it won’t hurt for them to have extra and the rate it’s coming down it will definitely fill the water tanks.
Tuesday: A misty morning after the rainfall last night and the weather is going to be humid 😜 with outbreaks of sunshine and possible rain showers, perfect for the garden not so much for us lol. The ladybird larvae arrived, that was pretty quick, I opened them up and there were lots of teeny weeny larvae in there, supposed to be 100 but I don’t know if quality control had to count them 😂 anyway they come on shredded paper and you tip them into a little bag that is provided and place the bag near where you want the larvae to eventually move to. So at the moment they are in the bag underneath a big cabbage leaf in the brassica cage. When I came back I and looked at the box they came in there were one or two still in there so I took them to the greenhouse and let them go in the pepper plants, I have had to keep wiping greenfly off these plants each morning. That’s what I spent the first half hour doing this morning, that and moving the aubergine plants outside. I keep trying aubergine each year but this year I think will be the last time, I have tried everything I can, various growing mediums and conditions and this year I bought grafted plants (they are not cheap) but although they flower, the flower just drops off, I even hand pollinated them with a paintbrush to no avail. They also seem to attract multiple pests, greenfly and whitefly particularly, so they have been put outside to either fail completely or by some miracle produce at least one fruit we will see which. I picked some mangetout, with the rain and sun there will be plenty of pickings every day, I also picked a few broad beans, I haven’t checked anything else yet but as the sun is now out and on the garden it will have to wait until later on or some cloud cover lol. I did check on the cherries this morning and so far so good the birds have not been at them, I am hoping he sun today will turn enough of them for me to pick a bowl full. Everything comes at once which is why you need methods of preserving the produce, I noticed there are a few raspberries to be picked and plenty of strawberries again today.
We have had a bad run with the rabbits we got back at the beginning of the year, all three came from the same place but all three have died, the last one died yesterday, he has not been anywhere near the other two so it’s not infectious and he looked completely healthy just like the others did and yet died so I’m thinking it’s got to be genetic. I know the chap we got them from and the same problem with all of his but he didn’t have this until after we had got them for him so he wasn’t to know.
The compost delivery came so that enabled me to get on with some potting on, I have a fair bit to do, shrubs and flowers I had put into pots and now need bigger pots, trees I have been growing need bigger pots before I decide what to do with them, seedlings that need pricking out and then there is the mushroom compost for soil conditioning.
I got a bug house from a friend who’s husband is making them and then they sell them for the Air Ambulance charity 😀 I am hoping the ladybirds will move in a hibernate over winter and then be around for next years growing season 🙄
A couple of things to report, firstly, I am impressed with the biodegradable membrane/mulch it really does keep the moisture in, I only wish I had got it early enough to plant into rather than having to cut round but will def get this at the beginning of the season next year. Secondly, the orchids are back 😀 and this time there are more 😀😀 I deliberately left some long grass around the edges of the front paddock as I knew that’s where they grow and success they are back. Another thing to report is that if you wear your Fitbit on the mower and the ground is rough it counts the bumps as steps 😂😂😂 Another thing I want to share is the pinching out of side shoots on tomatoes, I do this, I guess most tomato growers do it to. What I usually do is discard the bits but you can plant them up and they will grow, so this time I thought I would have a go and just pushed them into soil with the basil I have growing. I think they are taking 😀 that means that if you buy tomato plants normally, you really only have to buy one plant, wait patiently for the side shoots and pinch them out, there are always plenty of them. I have also done it with the indigo rose tomato as that is the only one I have bought the others have all been raised from seed, watch this space, Im hoping that one takes as well, more bang for your bucks as they say plus it means I could buy a few different varieties and not have hundreds of seedlings just a few plants instead, worth remembering for next year.
I went outside after tea to collect some Huechera seed, sow some into a pot and save some for sowing next year if the pot ones don’t come up. John decided that we should top the front paddock, taking off the heads of any plantain etc that’s when I noticed the orchids, we then did the small back paddock again leaving a large patch in the middle long, there were plenty of insects flying around so I thought it best to leave them something to feed on. Apparently we are due two inches of rain tomorrow so getting it cut beforehand is a good idea, at least the rain we get will be used by the grass and not the weeds.
I picked strawberries, blackcurrants and a couple of cherries, the rest are not ripe enough yet. The Blackcurrants are not as prolific as they were last year, I had to cut it back quite hard last year as the greenfly decimated the new growth, this year they don’t have greenfly, you never know what is going to happen from year to year. I don’t mind there not being that many as I think there are still some in the freezer I can use if I need to. I froze 500g of the strawberries as there were not enough in one picking to make some jam and they will spoil if I leave them too long. I picked a few raspberries that were ready too, I have sun gold raspberries as well as the regular red ones. I had three of these canes but I think I have lost one over winter so come autumn I will be propagating these as they are very reliable and more importantly taste lovely. I think it will be a real novelty to make jam with them don’t you? But I need enough to be able to do that so I need to increase what I have already.
Wednesday: Ooo I’ve had a lovely morning so far, I have been concentrating on bulbs, that is pots of bulbs that I planted up and now need thinning out. I ordered the bulbs a couple of years ago and just shoved them into big tubs, they grew well but not what I had intended to do with them, I just ran out of time or enthusiasm or something. Now I have the compost and lots of big pots thanks to my brother, I spent the morning sorting them all out. I now have smaller decorative pots with a few bulbs in and lots of little pots with bulbs in ready for selling on next year, I have had to use an old cold frame that has environmesh on it to keep them in as I’m not sure if the squirrels will eat them otherwise. There are ranunculus, tulips and English bluebells and probably some others but I will have to wait until they come up next spring to see exactly what they are. One more tub has yet to flower so I will leave that until they have and then sort them out too. I picked a few mange tout but nothing else this morning, there will be a good picking every day from them for a while, keep picking is the key, the more you pick the more they will produce.
You may read my blog and think, she spends a lot of time in the garden, well yes I do 😀 it’s what I love doing, it’s the lifestyle choice we made that enables me to be able to do exactly that. we made sacrifices along the way and we have had our struggles just like everyone else but eventually we got there. During the lockdown John was beginning to see why I enjoy it so much, it’s a more relaxed pace of life and certainly much less stressful than out in the workplace which I never really fitted into, I love being my own boss, making my own choices and mistakes with only me to account too. I love having my time to do what I want to be able to do (on the whole) if I want to do something I will, if not I won’t, having said that there are things that have to be done of course especially when you have animals, they come first and foremost. I don’t make a lot of money at it, it’s not about the money for me, never has been, it’s about quality of life, we only get one shot at it might as well spend it as close to how you would like it as you can 😀
Sam, Shelley and the children came round in the afternoon for garden time, the kids spent a bit of time running of some energy in the front paddock, it’s great that we have the space for them to run around especially in times like these. 4pm and still no rain yet though just as I am typing the thunder starts lol.
Thursday: Rain and plenty of it, I woke at 4.30am and could hear torrential rain and then when I woke again at 6.30 it’s was still going, 11.45 and it still raining though a steady rate rather than heavy and it’s supposed to move slowly on during the course of the afternoon. It is a very welcome decent load and will do the garden good, the veg will come on a treat now 😀
As working out side is not an option I decided to tackle the office 🙄 Paperwork which should have been sorted, has been dumped on the desk for the last 12 weeks, the room itself has had stuff just dumped in it with the idea of sorting it at some point and today is that point. So I spent the morning going through some of the bits, stuff for the bin, stuff for the charity shop, stuff to sell on and then there is stuff I have no idea what to do with so it goes back to where it came from 😜 I call it the office because it’s where I go to do paperwork and it has a desk but it also has the Hoover in there, some coats, a cupboard full of bits and pieces, photographs, Christmas stuff, children’s toys and books, I should re name it the multi room really 😂
Friday: It was still drizzling first thing but gradually the day improved. I did some picking, the rain has ramped up the growth so I will probably spend many hours picking from here on here. Mangetout, raspberries and strawberries this morning and cherries this afternoon. I cooked the cherries with sugar and cornflour to make a pie filling that I will freeze and use at a later date. We have plenty of fresh fruit for puddings at the minute so need need for pies and crumbles much to Johns disgust lol. Once it had dried up a bit more I did some hoeing, the weeds will also ramp up after the deluge especially if the sun comes out as well. I was showing someone round the garden this afternoon when they said ‘oh is that a lizard I just saw, or a baby snake’ 🤪 I guess breeding has been successful for my grass snake and now there are babies, not sure what I think about that 😂 as long as I don’t find any while weeding by hand I will be fine 🙄
John came home at lunchtime today and has a new plan for the hens at the back, he is moving them to the side paddock next to the others. First he had to go and get a battery for the tractor from the scrapyard and he also refelted the duck house roof (the wind ripped off the last lot) and then cleaned the ducks out as the rain lashed in there making a right old mess. It makes sense to move them to the side as I am out there more often than not during the day and in the evening we can nip out and check at intervals hopefully frightening the fox away.
Saturday & Sunday: I forgot to make any notes yesterday so I will have to try and remember what we did lol. John moved the chicken hut that was up the back, down to the side so that we can put the hens back out and keep an eye on them 👀 He burnt a bit of rubbish which now we have had some rain was safe to do. I can’t remember what I did lol but I was busy 😂
Solstice blessings to you all,. Today has also been a busy day, mostly with Father’s Day visits, I do a couple of hours in the garden this morning hen we went to get a coffee, pop in to see Ken, back here to see Samantha, then off to see Charlie and back here again to see Shelley, a full day of fatherly love 💕 This evening we had someone taking care of our disappearing chicken problem 😉 which I can report was mission accomplished so now at least John doesn’t have to spend all evening guarding them. Now we just have a couple of rats and a few dozen crows to deal with, the crows will hopefully move on soon, they are after the crane flies in the ground, once the hatch into daddy long legs they will move on to another food source and as long as it’s not my fruit trees I don’t mind. The rats, and I saw one this morning in the light Sussex pen, have been given a hearty meal 😜 I don’t like poison on the whole but they are being a bit of a nuisance and I don’t really want hoards of them. My elderly rabbit died sometime over night and by the time I got to her this morning the rats had eaten her eyes out, urgh horrible creatures. I thought the run was rat proof but obviously not so we will need to look that over and see what else we can do, though rats can chew through concrete so I’m not sure there is anything that will some them except poison or shooting them.
John has another week off this week coming, we were due to go on holiday on Tuesday and obviously that’s not happening now so he might as well make himself useful at home 😀 Have a great week and as always, stay safe.
Monday 9th July: Up at 4.30am! Needed the toilet, starving, that’s the steroids, there was daylight so I figured I might as well get up an on. It was so wonderfully fresh and cool at that time of the day, even better than late at night, a welcome break from the daytime heat. Diesel also ate breakfast with me, not too close though as his was a mouse 😜 Of course there are plenty of people who are regularly up then, but as a general rule not me, though I would love to be an early bird it’s totally forced 😜
By 7am I have hung out the washing, cleaned out the outdoor quail, sorted and boxed yesterday’s eggs, filled up the pool and sorted the outside duck pen, moved the sprinkler several times over, done the washing-up/drying and putting away, stripped the bed, put more washing on, starving again now 😝 more breakfast, trying to eat well, toast first thing now yoghurt, blackcurrant sauce and walnuts.
By 8am I have hung out the second lot of washing and put a third load on, done some hoeing, collected weeds and forage for the rabbits and moved the sprinkler two more times, I need a sit down, what I should have is a glass of orange juice, what I will have is a coffee 😋 So far it’s cooler than previous days, I hope it stays like that for a few hours.
So after my busy early morning things went a bit downhill ☹️ I am on a short burst of steroids tapering off by 5mg every 5 days taking 20 days in all, I have 7 days left and I feel that things are slowly sliding backwards again, consequently I sat down at 12, laid down at 12.30 and didn’t do anything else until 7 when the days steroids had kicked back in. At 1.45 we lost our electric 😡 again, luckily I called John he came home and set up the generator to plug the incubator in, we also had to connect up the electric fence round the hens as the farmer over the back lost 17 hens on Saturday afternoon to the fox, normally I would be able to do the generator myself but not at the moment.
So after my next dose of steroids I am able to function again, there was a nice breeze this evening though it’s still muggy, feeling better I got on with hoovering and polishing the bedroom, changing the covers, not that we need any at the minute 😝 and cleaning the shower, then outside to get some watering done. I had a good look around at the veg plants, tiny runner beans are beginning to grow, there are tomatoes and cucumbers just coming along I think it will be ‘al rite’ in the end. I made a mental note to pick the morello cherries in the morning, they are not quite as dark as I would like but from last years experience if I don’t get them now the birds will strip the tree while I’m not looking, the cherries are plump and soft to the touch, that’ll do for me, I am looking forward to cherry jam 😀 One year I made glacé cherries with them, that’s a long (2 week) process and well worth the effort but I’ve decided on jam (I think 😝)
The apricots are also nearly ready, my most favourite is apricot preserve, it reminds me of three weeks spent on a French exchange when I was a teenager, real French bread, butter and apricot preserve, delish 😋
Off to bed for another early start tomorrow.
Tuesday: Well I woke at 3.30 decided that was far too early 🤪 the alarm went off at 4.30 and I eventually got out of bed at 4.50! Straight out and turn on the watering, you are probably thinking ‘why don’t you get a timer’ well there are many answers to that question lol. I do have a timer but in the past it’s failed in some way, either water pressure issues or just not turned on, so reliability is the first reason, secondly, the way we set things out originally isn’t very ergonomic for getting the maximum watered by the minimum amount of movement from the sprinkler, basically the area is spread out too far with obstacles in the way blocking the water flow, so constant moving of the sprinkler is what I need to do. We never really envisaged ending up growing so much so never thought about a whole sprinkler system in the first place plus as the main source of water we use is harvested rainwater it’s more difficult to pump it and get the pressure needed. Soaker hose is the next best option and we do have one on the bean bed but that’s it and because the raised beds are all separated by paths we can’t run a continuous hose so I would still have to go out and disconnect the hose and reconnect elsewhere, all these issues need to be looked at.
There were a couple of jobs I wanted to get done, the cherries and picking the apricots, objective achieved 😀 That’s the best haul of apricots I’ve ever had, around 50/60 up to now there have only been about 10 so I’m well chuffed with that, I left a few on there for the birds and insects, same with the cherries. The trees will need pruning now that the fruit is harvested, I need to raise the height of the lower branches slightly so I can get a guild growing and I need to just keep the height and spread of the trees in check so that I can still pick the fruit. Established stone fruit trees are done in early summer to minimise any chance of silver leaf, a fungal disease that can affect them. I hoed the fruit cage which had got quite weedy and the rabbits had a huge haul of mixed weeds. By then it as 7am and I am already flagging and needing to sit down ☹️ not the direction I was hoping I would be going in by now 😏
I did, well, practically nothing until about 3pm, except rest and sleep. Sam and Mia came over and when I woke up from sleeping the cleaning fairy had been 😁 how lovely. I spoke to the doctor and he suggests not dropping the dose on the next change over in two days time but to carry on with the same level and it will probably be for longer, also need more blood tests to check the CRP levels, that’s C-reactive protein which are markers for inflammation.
I lost my glasses somewhere in the garden this morning, where my hair has got thinner (oh yes there are more joys to his than you can imagine 😜) they keep falling backwards off my head, and you know that feeling that you know are supposed to be there but they are not well I kept getting it thinking I must have left them indoors but nope they are lost, they are not my new ones thankfully 😅
In the evening after I got the watering under way I sat and pitted the cherries with the little cherry stone pitter which John thought was a very clever tool. I ended up with 5 cups of them so not a huge haul but enough to do something with, I said I would make jam BUT when I was FaceTiming Shelley and telling her about them and a pic I had seen of a lovely looking Cherry pie, a little Joshy voice piped up and said ‘ooo yes please nana’ 🤣🤣 so cherry pie it will be 😀 I have also got some mixed berries straining to make sauce for ice creams, yoghurt, jellies etc. I’m left with a couple of handfuls of cherry pits (stones) apparently you can process these and then grind they will be almond in flavour BUT stones contain cyanide so it’s quite a process, you can use the pits whole which will still have cherry flesh on them and infuse cream with them and turn into a whip or fool type pudding, I had already washed them though so I am going to keep washing them until they are clean enough, then dry them and make one of those little cherry stone bags for headaches or warming your hands on a cold day.
I finally plaited the first of the onions, the plaits are not expert and a bit loose but I’m not looking to win any shows with them just store them for use, I put around 12 in a plait, that’s heavy enough to lug around. I have more onions to bring in and cure but I wish I had planted double the amount given that the growing conditions and curing conditions have been perfect this year, still you never know how it will go, there have been years where the moisture in the air is too much and some of them end up rotting so I will take what I have. The garlic has also cured nicely, again I wish I had planted a whole lot more, I have hard neck garlic so they won’t plait but they will be cleaned up and stored in a net, they store well until mid winter when they are likely to go hard, (it won’t last that long anyhow) once the temperatures have cooled down in the house (Autumn) they will all hang in the boot room ready for use. A final bit of watering before it gets too dark to see and I’m done for the day, the cherry pie filling is cooling hopefully I will get the chance/ be able, to make some lovely sweet pastry in the morning and couple them together. I did read a recipe that said to drop in almond essence once it was cooked but I’m a bit of a purist with my flavours, I like to taste exactly what it is, I did look for some essence as I was going to mix a tiny bit and see what I thought but I don’t have any so that sorted that out 😋
Wednesday: Up and out to water early, it is noticeably cooler this morning meaning the watering will have much more effect than in recent mornings. I cleaned and netted the garlic, small haul but nevertheless a home grown one 😀 I have rushed about a bit this morning trying to get some stuff done, pastry for the cherry pie, cook the berry sauce with some sugar for keeping in the fridge, actually made the first loaf of bread in weeks, lots of washing up, you’d be amazed how much there is just doing a few little things, sort and put the eggs out. Towards the end of the jobs I can feel myself going down, I start to feel cold, get a headache then very tired, so I had a hot shower, and am now sitting on the sofa with a decaf coff 😋
I did manage to make the cherry pie and I think Josh was pretty chuffed with it, Mia had some after her sleep but has a sweeter tooth than Josh and preferred the pastry and the ice cream to the cherry filling lol
We had decided we were not going to go on holiday this year but we really need one so I booked one 😀 it is at this point I part with my ethics somewhat because we cruise, have done for over 20 years, John hates flying and on the three occasions in 35 years that he has it’s not much fun sitting beside him 😜we spent the early part of the children’s life holidaying in places like Cornwall but in all honesty that is not a holiday for me what with still having to do the cooking and tidying up, organising picnics etc etc. So we went on our first cruise in 1997, it was fabulous, we get to eat the different foods we each like, someone else does everything except get us dressed for the whole time, we can do as much or as little as we want to, yes there are environmental issues as with all forms of transportation, yes there are waste issues, there are issues in every quarter but the industry is working hard to counteract or remedy these and we have actually seen the difference over the years, so there you have it my Achilles heal as it were! There will be no shopping trip for new clothes though, I take the ones I have had for years, evening dresses from the charity shop (bargains lol) John has had the same tuxedo and shirts for 20 years 😜 though he did have new trousers two years ago, we’ve earned this and are looking forward to a relaxing break 😀
I’m watering the garden again this evening as it’s overcast I can start a bit earlier, dashing out to move the hose at half time, England’s hopes are riding high tonight with this game and I doubt there are many countrymen/women/children that are not watching it 😀⚽️ 🏴
Thursday: Up early as usual watering, I think with the temps having dipped I am on top of this for a while a least, picked a very small amount of raspberries then went back to bed for 2 hours as I didn’t feel well, I have more bloods test this morning so we will see what the markers are doing and hopefully get sorted as I was doing well on 15mg but 10 is not enough.
One of the brown rabbits was dead this morning, there is no sign of fly strike, injury, myxomatosis and body condition is good, the others are fine so I am putting it down to age, we had them from someone re-homing them and I don’t know how old they are exactly though we have had them nearly three years and I do believe they were a few years old then.
Haven’t done anything else all day except rest and sleep and then watering in the evening ☹️
Friday: Alarm went off, I didn’t get up, not for another half hour anyway, so 5.30 I went out to turn on the water and the hens were making such a racket I thought there must be something in with them, I went over but nope they were just very vocal so I let them all out. In between moving the sprinkler around I pruned the apricot tree, just as bit so that the branches don’t get too heavy next year and break, well that was the plan but the tree has canker 😩 It had it in the trunk last year and I treated it with Bordeaux mixture but it has appeared on the branches, this is not good, the tree will have to be removed and burnt, gutted as it produced a good amount of fruit this year. There are no other controls available and if it was just in the branches it could be cut back to clean wood but being in the trunk already means it’s fate is sealed and it will come down so that it doesn’t spread to the other stone fruit trees 😪 I will probably order another tree, a more resistance variety, of course it cannot be planted in the same place and I have yet to think what I will put there instead.
One of the ‘news’ items currently circulating is regarding the government stockpiling food ready for Breixt, I have no idea if this is true, probably a nano comment made had been blown all out of proportion by the press as is usual and although I wouldn’t advocate storing large amounts of food, but given the ‘panic buying’ culture in his country it does make sense to have some reserves. I suppose as someone who strives for self sufficiency this is part and parcel of what we do, we grow, plant, harvest and process for the leaner months, obviously not everyone is able to do this but there are small changes you can make to your habits that would help in a temporary shortage of any kind. Just picking up an extra tin or dry goods packet when you shop, I’m not suggesting you do it every time otherwise you end up with a bulging cupboard but just making sure you always have 2 tins/packets instead of 1, things that have a long use by date on them are useful to have on standby, dried milk powder, jelly for instance, given the long, hot, dry spell, bottled water might be a good idea, things that if you don’t need to use in an emergency, will still get used, we don’t want wastage here 😀 It’s not scaremongering, it’s just good practice to think about how you would manage given an emergency situation, whatever that situation happens to be.
Needless to say I am monitoring this expected rain very closely today, I’m not sure why, I’m just hoping it doesn’t disappear off the radar and there is not much I can do about it if it does! Please rain, is not something I would ever normally utter but PLEASE RAIN 🌧🤪
I have to tell you what a total success the brassica cage has been, it was a belt and braces job, if you have ever tried to grow them you will know why 😝 I grew broccoli because that’s what we like and the early planted ones have done amazingly well, first a nice round head on each of them and now they are producing florets galore. The later planted ones have done nothing but keep going to seed despite me constantly cutting them back (continuous rabbit forage though) There is not one single butterfly in there and so no caterpillars borne out in the blanching water which has nothing floating in it except bit of broccoli, big success 😀
One thing I want to get made this year is a ‘souper mix’ it is basically vegetable stock, any combination of veg and herbs, blitzed to within an inch of its life in a processor then preserve with salt in a jar, the actual recipe can be found in the River Cottage handbook No2 but you can make it up as to what you have and I found it will keep longer than 6 months or you could always freeze it in batches, you need about 2 tsp per 500ml liquid, a great base for soups and stews and packed full of nutrients instead of preservatives.
I made apricot jam, I am functioning better today and really wanted to get it made, jam sessions are never the same twice and today was no different this came to a set point quicker than softer fruits. Tips, get your jars ready before you start, by that I mean if you are re-using jars, clean them first and get them ready for sterilising don’t put the fruit on to soften and then realise the jars you want to use need the labels soaking off! I have some sticky stuff remover which is fab but I really should have done it before I put them away lol. Secondly EVERYTHING is hot and I mean hot, especially if you are using kilner type jars with metal on them so be very careful in your procedures, thirdly always prepare extra jars, todays batch made more than I was expecting so I had to quickly find two more jars to sterilise, last but by not means least I find the right equipment is key to having continually successful jam sessions, heavy based pan, thermometer (one where part of the bubble has not gone on its own holiday 🤪) metal funnel, and never leave the jam to answer the phone or the door 😝 Oh boy am I looking forward to tasting this one 😀 one quick thing I used a large orange for pectin, just because I didn’t have a lemon or any lemon juice, it will work just as well, apricot have a medium amount of pectin but are low in acid meaning they need added extra to help the gelling process.
Although I feel a lot more with it today I still took it easy for the afternoon, blood results were back and had an appointment with the doc, the inflammation markers are up higher than they were before but with no symptoms, so no pain??? The problems I have had seem to be from the reducing of the steroids so we have slowed it down to see what happens and more blood test next week, in the meantime I carry on when I can and rest when I can’t.
The rain I was hoping for was nothing more than a ‘piddle’ and didn’t even wet the air let alone the ground so watering duties will continue for the foreseeable future 😋 I know we are far luckier than some countries where it’s a life or death situation but it does make life difficult.
Saturday: Well at 4.30 this morning it was very foggy, great because it means there was moisture in the air overnight for the plants to absorb however watering must still commence as the temps are set to be high again today. Other jobs included digging up a hardy fushia that isn’t doing so well where it was, I’ve potted it and will give it some tlc before repositioning it, to be honest I think the dog has been laying on it! I had a reg legged partridge right outside the kitchen window and a cricket on a plant out there too, pretty sure one was looking for the other 😜 I picked a random selection of different beans, they are just starting to come through but not enough of anything to sell yet, my best veg customer came and I gave them to him for free as a taste of things to come seeing how he has been so patient! I finally managed to move the quail from out of the back area to the orchard, it was a case of dismantling two cages to make one decent one, I put a ramp in so they can get to the top area, an upside down covered hanging basket which I’m hoping they will lay in and a dust bath, hopefully they will be very happy there. The odd silkie chick that survived a throwing against the trees stump as an egg is now pretty big, and a cockerel 😜 he has been living with the quail but he has also now got freedom to move and it in the orchard. We will probably allow him to roost in the trees and come and go whenever he pleases. I candled the duck eggs in the incubator, only one was infertile, they are due to hatch next week.
I picked a big bunch of basil, washed it and waiting for it to dry off a bit before I chop it and mix it with olive oil to freeze in an ice cube tray for winter use, I made bread, I’ve taken to making a traditional cottage loaf which I rather like the look of, and then had a well earned couple of hours sit down as my feet are beginning to hurt.
The last couple of days the air temperature early in the morning has been much cooler and then the fog today, you can see the difference in the plants just from that little bit of relief, they are suddenly more upright and not flagging so much, there is rain forecast next week, well there would be, bang on cue for the summer holidays!
We are directly in the airspace between the Royal International Air Tattoo and RAF Brize Norton and the air show is this weekend so it’s pretty noisy at times but we get random displays flying over every now and again so, the best one I have ever seen while we were here was a formation of about 12 helicopters flying directly towards us, it was a pretty awesome sight.
Standing at the back door a got a whiff of bonfire 🤔 had a look round and yep someone close by has one going, now we have had no rain for weeks, the ground is parched and as dry as I have ever seen it, personally I would think I was very stupid if I lit a bonfire in this climate, fingers crossed it stays under control!
We had a rare evening out, thanks to Shelley and Martin for coming over to shut the birds away, The Great British Summer Garden Party at Blenheim Palace, a wonderful evening, very relaxing, great entertainment and fireworks to finish with a round of Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory, perfick 😀
Sunday: Despite a long day yesterday I was still awake at 6 so I got up and went out to get the watering underway, the moisture in the air over night lately has done wonders for both the lawn and the plants, they are not needing quite so much watering as before. I used the lawn edger and tidied it up putting all the sods into the bucket for the rabbits, then cut the grass as it was looking rather strangely with long bits and dead bits all mingling in, at least they are all the same length bits now 😋 A quick cat nap after that just to recharge, I’m pretty tired today so will be taking it steady, I don’t want to be overdoing it, though there is so much I want to be getting on with, it can wait a bit longer.
John is out there this evening cleaning out the hens, he has to wait until it’s cooled down enough to be in there, just watching the countryfile weather and things are getting fresher, now if we could just have a touch of rain too please that would be marvellous 😜
frieslandfarm (flowers) 