Jam – Page 2 – frieslandfarm (flowers)

Rain, homegrown passata and a broken tractor 😕

Posted on August 31, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 24th August: Rattling through the weeks, I think like most people I will be glad to see the back of 2020, while not wanting to wish my life away it’s been a tough year by anyone’s standards 😜

It’s just gone 2pm and I am all plummed out I reckon, I spent the first part of the morning doing some cleaning whilst listening to some tunes, haven’t done that for ages so it was good to have the music blasting out 😜 After that it was plums again 🙄 I have just processed another 4kgs, 2 of them as more jam and the other two for the freezer, there are plenty more on the trees but seriously I think I have enough in reserve 😂 come this time next year if there are no plums I may regret that decision but it’s one I will have to live with. What is left on the trees will keep the birds going hopefully, that’s if the wasps haven’t had them all by then.

The weather is changeable, I went out to hang the washing, the minute I walked away it started to spit then got a bit worse, I got it all back in again and it stopped, it was like a bloody comedy sketch! The sun is out now and I’m tempted to try again but we are running out of good drying time and you never know at the minute if it will stay dry long enough. Update: it didn’t and now it’s in the tumble dryer which I try not to use very often but needs must.

John is working today but then has the next three day’s off, I would be chuffed but the forecast is dreadful so I can’t see us getting much done on that front border which was the plan.

I managed to get a photo of the hens and their chicks this morning, it’s not a great one but it is cheery 🥰

Popped round to see Mum and Ken for a cuppa before dinner then afterwards we did a little bit on the front border. It’s quite hard going because it was mostly shingle and hardcore lol, taking a while to get it up together before planting up.

The nights are drawing in, it’s getting dark at 8.30pm 😏 Winters coming lol.

Tuesday: It rained pretty heavily during the night and was still raining this morning, not a good start to Johns days off to do the border 😏 We got the animals done and a few other random jobs and then John went out to do a bit out front. Luckily by this time it’s only fine mist rain so he was able to get on a little, not sure how long for as the forecast is terrible today, rain and high winds again, I definitely think Autumn is upon us already 😕 Meanwhile indoors 😜 I made some fresh bread and got some vegetable soup on the go, all from the garden so it’s good and wholesome, free of any nasties. Veg soup is a great way of getting plenty of goodness, in this pan there is potato, onion, garlic, chard stalks, courgette, turnips, lovage and sage, you cant really go wrong putting whatever you have in the pan as long as there is a selection 😀

The weather didn’t get any better, it ranged from awful to worse, storm Francis you can do one it’s supposed to be late summer 🙄 As the weather was not favourable I spent some of the day sorting through Dads stuff and seeing who wants what. Bits and pieces he had collected or been given, nothing of great value but all things typical of him, harmonicas, brass ornaments, penknives, he always had a penknife and they had been sharpened away over the years but that’s what’s makes them special. I kept a couple of pruning knives that he used and in the garden 😀

I hope the weather is nicer tomorrow 🙄 We have BT coming to supposedly reconnecting us, I won’t hold my breath 😂 and I have a bloods appointment in the morning.

Wednesday: So today was the day for the big BT cock up correction, I am pleased to report we now have a landline again albeit a new number for the time being, we also have full internet access once more instead of a ‘here you are this will keep you off our backs’ mini hub which incidentally doesn’t do anything ‘wired’ only wireless 🙄 go figure. Anyhooo as I said we are now able to function fully though it did take the engineer from 8am through to 3pm to get it sorted, again, go figure, I don’t understand how it can be that hard but then again I’m not qualified in that industry 😜

Meanwhile John and I have been getting on with the front border, I ordered a good few tonnes of topsoil and we are almost ready to put it down. I was pleased that we have been able to progress without using weedkiller which was a task in itself and it’s basically compacted earth and shingle. We have raked and weeded the perennial weeds and have now put down a layer of cardboard which will block out the light from remaining weeds, that with a deep layer on top should do the job. I can’t wait to start planting it up, I think I have decided on just the flowering shrubs and then cast seed from things like love in a mist, verbena, red flax and whatever else I fancy. My biggest worry is keeping the hens off it.

Thursday: It’s 1pm and started raining about 20 minutes ago, up to then it had been dry and overcast and we had been busy. After the morning rounds John got on with the front border, we have a few tonnes of topsoil coming but he has been using the tractor to put manure in the bottom of the bed and moving a lot of stones as the ground dips away quite a bit at one end so it needs making up. Meanwhile this morning I got Biscuit the Shetland in from the main paddocks and into a smaller one. She has done really well all summer and not had any laminitis but with all this rain the grass is flushing and that won’t do her any good so for the time being she is confined. I took a walk around the paddock edges and ate a few blackberries as I went, I will endeavour to get out there and pick some as soon as I have time. I picked a few things this morning, runner beans and lots of tomatoes. The runner beans have not done so well this year I think the weather has been all wrong for them. There are beans but they were late and instead of young, long beans there are shorter fatter beans which are normally what you would get at the end of the season. They will still get used though, I chopped some of them along with a few cauliflower heads I picked (these are quite small too this year) and some carrots, these will be open froze ready to bag up. The cauliflower stalks don’t get wasted as I chopped them up along with patty pan, turnip, runner beans and carrots for a soup bag mix. I also picked a punnet of soft fruit, raspberries, the last few blueberries and plenty of hybrid blackberries. At the moment I have bread on the go and have just taken some roasted, tomatoes, garlic, onion, basil and oregano out of the oven, I will wait for it to cool and then put it through the mouli for passata, it smells amazing 😀

The passata tastes seriously good I’m really pleased with it, its the river cottage method but tweek it however you want with whatever you have 😀

Rain stopped play for the rest of the afternoon really, the downpours were heavy and thundery and more of the same tomorrow I think 😕

Friday: A soggy morning and more rain forecast for today 🙄 John did the animals and went off to work for the day and I did some bits and pieces around the place. I got the milk in and then realised that I hadn’t put the dustbin out and the cart was going past 😏 I put it out anyway in the hopes that they would stop on the way back, they did 😀 Some people complain about their binmen but I always find ours accommodating, I went back down the drive to thank them. Then I burnt some paper rubbish, when I eventually found something to light it with that is, a one time I always had a handy lighter but not these days, I need one of those everlasting matches I think. I checked on the horses, they were fine and then over to the orchard pen to check things there. I found a dead chick, it had got stuck behind the hut and died 😢 but the other five are fine, there are always ways animals find to get themselves killed no matter how careful you are. You wouldn’t believe some of the predicaments we have found animals in over the years even in a seemingly innocuous paddock. Sheep are the worst as they move forward, a dog or cat will move backwards to try and untangle itself but sheep go forward often making the situation worse. We had one once wedged under the Cambridge roller, it has a triangle of iron angle bars to hitch it up with. The front end lays on the ground when not in use and why the sheep decided to get under it I don’t know, how it managed to get under it I don’t know either but luckily you can just pick it up and release the sheep which is what we did. That was an easy one, we have had one firmly stuck underneath the hen coop and one that had got its head stuck in the stock fencing (which is fairly common) they were much harder to release when you are doing your best not to hurt them in any way. We had a horse that managed to roll and find the only piece of old barbed wire in the field (not our field) and slash open his face, cats stuck down gaps we didn’t even know were there and hens wedged behind drainpipe, animals get themselves into all kinds of scrapes from time to time.

I hoovered the boot room and the kitchen and did a bit of putting away and then went into the garden to see what could be done out there, it’s very soggy so I decided not much! We are still waiting for the delivery of topsoil so I can’t do that either, I will have to find something to do indoors I think, coffee break first though 😜

I have been thinking a lot about the weather patterns, hard not too when they are all over the place. A news item this week was about the shortage of wheat due to the conditions and so the knock on effect on bread and cakes etc and how farmers are going to have to look at their growing practices. The same can be said for veg growers, I have been saying for a few years now about how the seasons seem to be shifting, very warm spring, wet summer, early autumn, that has certainly been the case for the last two years. I need to work out how to change the way I garden to fit in with the weather changes. I am thinking that making more of under cover growing helps to stabilise the conditions as they can be controlled (to an extent, obviously I can’t control the sun) I can control the amount of water and I can protect crops from these high winds which are becoming more frequent in summer, I may need another tunnel 😜 The forest garden is coming on but obviously it’s a slow process, the trees and shrubs I planted have not got to a size yet where they are beneficial to the plants around them although the roots will be helping to stabilise the ground, it’s looking more like a jungle than a forest at the minute out there.

The topsoil arrived, it’s pissing down with rain I’m not moving it in this 🤪 I have spent the morning doing various little jobs that have needed doing, it’s still raining, crap day.

John came home and got the tractor out, the rain was intermittent with a bit of thunder thrown in for good measure. He moved the fist bucket load of soil onto the bed, went to lift the second load and disaster, a tractor malfunction 🙄 worse than that there was now hydraulic fluid pouring onto the top soil 🤪 all the efforts we have gone to making sure that we are doing everything the eco friendly way and bam contaminated soil 😡 luckily the tractor was stationary and that bit (about a wheelbarrow full) can be thrown into the skip but not what you want on a Friday afternoon 😟 I called Ken, he came and had a look and the ram (arm thingy on the bucket) had broken so they undid it and John went off to the local hydraulic place to see what they could do. They will have a look at it on Tuesday (I forgot it’s a bank holiday) and let us know how much it will cost 😏 Meanwhile it’s shifting 8 tonne of top soil by hand this weekend 😭 and it’s still raining on and off, some days are just sent to try us, today is one of those days 😂 Oh yes and I had a phone call to say stop the meds the white cell count is down again 😕 back to weekly blood tests, I wish this damn disease would stabilise or at least the meds would stabilise it 🙄 Update: Just had another phone call from the doc and now I don’t have to stop them, it seems rheumatology have a lower threshold count than the standard one 🤷‍♀️ so keep taking them and bloods again next week. I don’t actually mind because as always when my count is low, I feel much better, maybe that’s my level, who knows as it was never tested before I had the disease!

Saturday: I spent today looking after Mia, Lucie and George while Sam and Luke went off to look for a new car that can accommodate three car seats, a double pushchair and a dog easily lol. Charlie was with me for most of the day and I have no idea how Sam does it on her own 😂 We went on a walk, just a short one Charlie said, 3k later and Mia was crying, Lucie was crying but we were nearly home again. To be fair Mia did very well and we had a lovely time most of the way round. We picked blackberries (which she ate later with cheese for lunch) and we stood ‘at the top of the world’ well it must seem like it to a four year old when you can see for miles around 😀 We stood at a five bar gate and saw a ‘magic wood’ all these things you have to tell toddlers just to keep them going lol. I didn’t get back until 4pm by which time John had filled the front border with topsoil and done the birds and eggs.

Sunday: Today seems to have shot past probably because we had a lie in until 7.30. Once we had done the rounds we went off out to get some breakfast (another reason why time seems to be flying past) the morning journey was beautiful, the sun was shinning and coming back along the top road you could see right across the shire, there is nothing better 🥰 Once back we had to get on, John went off to get a bit of shopping, I told you I was sending him in future 🤣 and I did some picking. Every last thing sold in the egg shed yesterday and so I needed to replenish it, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, marrow, chillies, beetroot, runner beans and French beans all picked and put out for sale. I did pick some blackberries and raspberries for us that are now in the fridge. I picked a few more eating apples and watered the tunnels and the greenhouse. It has been an odd year for growing veg here, the courgettes that normally appear so fast you can’t keep up have been sparse, the patty pan never materialised at all, the French beans seem to have given up already and the runner beans just went into seed setting mode, I didn’t have a very big crop of those at all this year. I did pick another batch of rhubarb though, it really struggled earlier in the year but has now produced some new tender stems, it’s all arse about face. Everything seems to indicate Autumn already and it’s only the end of August 🤷‍♀️ I still have a few things coming on, butternut squash, pumpkins and sweetcorn but none of it really doing as well as previous years, I can’t say I blame them the weather has meant they have no idea what season it is 😏 John then topped the front paddock, the grass has got longer than we would have liked but with all that rain and not being able to get it cut it’s not surprising.

Friesland Farm

Changeable weather, plenty of produce, especially plums 😂

Posted on August 17, 2020August 23, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 17th August 2020: Up and about this morning get some veg picked, I think I need a bigger basket 😂 loads of tomatoes this morning and the conference pears were ready to pick. After sorting it all out, putting some out for sale, finding homes for the rest of it, I got started on the front area we are creating the border in. There were bramble bushes growing which needed digging out and then shredding any material from the existing bush that I cut back yesterday. I had a go at a few of the perennial weeds as well but there is still plenty more to do. That took me up to about 11.30, that’s when I heard the first crack of thunder and felt the first spots of rain. Honestly we seem to dive from one extreme to another as far as the weather is concerned, I’m pretty sure it ought to be a little more constant than this 😏 A customer arrived to collect the last of this batch of hens, the next batch is nearly all sold already and they are not due in until October 🙄 The rain got heavier but that’s fine as I have a bit of tidying to do indoors, I haven’t done any all weekend and things get plonked down all over the place, I have looked at the forecast for the rest of the day and it’s a washout so might as well stay in.

Although staying in was my plan it didn’t actually carrying on raining and so all I did indoors was the washing up, a quick phone call to Sue and then outside again. I wanted to dig up the rest of the carrots because the rain we are forecast all week will not do them any favours so might as well get them up and into the freezer. I found a marrow that had escaped my eye as they often do, it’s not too big but big enough, some of the smaller courgettes had rotted at the ends so I cut those off and threw them to the chickens and I picked a few berries from the fruit cage and some cape gooseberries from the tunnels. The clouds were intermittent and you know what that means for me, diving in an out of shade areas lol, it’s pretty strong when it makes an appearance 🙄

This mornings haul, under the tomatoes and pears there is a good layer of beans as well 😀

Someone gave me some packets of chilli seeds back in spring, I am not a fan of spicy food as it causes my acid reflux to play up but I grew them anyway and now I have loads of little Thai chillies lol. Not sure what I am going to do with them apart from put them out for sale. It’s the first time I have successfully grown chillies though, must have been the high temps we had back in spring and a decent greenhouse, I might try growing some with less heat next year.

I am running out of available space in the kitchen, there are tomatoes and plums everywhere 😂 I think a good amount of tomatoes will be ripe enough to pick again tomorrow as well, I really need to do something with them.

Tuesday: I decided to make today an ordinary day, that is nothing out on the farm or in the garden except the essentials, a day pottering around indoors, a bit of cleaning, washing, tidying away and anything else I fancy doing. I started off with good intentions and got the boot room hoovered and tided and a few bits in the kitchen, then got side tracked by chatting with customers. One couple I was chatting to come once a year when they are down in their caravan on holiday, they always come and get their breakfast eggs here which is lovely 😀 A bit more hoovering and put the washing on the line though I’m not sure how long it will be out there before it rains 🙄 I am not picking anything today as I have plenty still to sort out before I get more in, I have ordered a food mill/purée maker so that I can purée the tomatoes etc for passata. I made some last year if you remember and I experimented with one jar in the fridge and one in the cupboard to see how they did, well they are still both fine so that’s a year they have kept easily, really ought to use them up lol.

Wednesday: On reflection I should have done some outside things yesterday! It’s 7.30am it’s already raining and it’s set in for the day according to the forecasters 🙄 There are plums on the trees still to pick and there are seeds to collect, none of this couldn’t wait until the next dry day except that there are strong winds forecast after that, the plums will all be on the floor 😦 Hopefully somewhere in between our demented weather I will get an hour or two to do these jobs. They say make hay while the sun shines and I should have heeded the old proverb 😏 Having said that there is only so much you want to be doing or you would be totally submerged in the processes of self sufficiency, maybe you should be, I don’t know. What I do know is that to be totally self sufficient in food you would have to work from dawn to dusk at this time of year. We are ss in fruit/veg/nuts/eggs and that keeps me busy enough imagine if we had a house cow as well, I’m not sure there are enough hours in the day even if I really would love one. Imagine on top of those two you grew your own grain as well and reared meat in what ever form you decided, that’s a very busy, full on life, I salute anyone that manages all of those!

I could bake today, I always used to say, rainy days are baking days but to be honest we are trying to eat healthier and cakes and pies don’t fall into the healthy category 😂

I was delighted to see The Guardian report that the interest in allotments soared during the pandemic, our fragile food security was exposed during those early days and people recognised the need to have home grown food (and by that I also mean UK grown) instead of relying on imports. My aim is always to encourage people to have a go at growing your own even if you just start with a tomato bush and some herbs, it’s something and you never know, you might get hooked 😀 There are so many gardens in our wonderful country, town gardens, country gardens even some city gardens and the potential to grow food is massively overlooked. Even small spaces have potential with the idea of vertical gardening, get creative, you don’t need masses of ground area and the taste is amazing.

In my blog I try to keep it simple and non reactive (on the whole anyway) because it’s a diary blog after all but there are a lot of topics that I research or follow in much more depth than I write about. One of those is the fragility of how we live, not just the climate but our fundamental way of life, which is pretty fragile as shown by the pandemic. That was a disease and on the scale it’s not a bad one either, of course to those affected it is catastrophic but at least it wasn’t airbourne, can you imagine how cataclysmic that would have been and who’s to say that won’t happen sometime in the future with a different disease. Now you are beginning to see why I keep it quite neutral aren’t you 😂 The government stepped in and kept the country ticking over by ploughing money into the system because to them that’s the most important thing and even I was grateful for that. Now imagine that airbourne disease and how it is affecting everyone, people are dying by the tens of thousands and the systems that we rely on can no longer function, what are we going to do? Anything is possible as we have just witnessed, how well are we equipped to manage?, on the whole, we are not and that is the scary part. Electricity & Water, outside of the basic food system, are the two biggies to focus on, at the moment they are pumped to our properties with uninterrupted supply, on the whole. We don’t think about it until the supply stops for whatever reason, but if you really think about it you will begin to realise just how much we rely on it, electric especially. If the power plants closed, because there was no one to run them, EVERYTHING shuts down even your water supply 🙄 If you want to learn more then there are plenty of pod casts out there, Permaculture for the future is a good one to listen too, and far from giving you nightmares I think the knowledge builds strength within you to cope with whatever life throws at you, I hope so anyway.

Does anyone have the address for ‘offmet ‘ I want to write a complaint about the weather 😜 Seriously, this time last week we were sweating our nuts off, today it’s umbrellas and rain coats all day and then we have high winds coming, nothing resembling a ‘normal’ late summers day in sight 😒 I think I need to stop watching the forecast and just be surprised by whatever it is wet get thrown as us, it’s just depressing otherwise.

Thursday: A nice morning so far, not raining and not too hot. The first job on my list was to pick plums, with the high winds forecast later today and tomorrow, most of the weekend in fact, the plums would be all on the floor pretty quickly so needed picking pdq. I now have many kgs of plums to sort and process 😂 I also picked a few other bits, the tomatoes are coming in thick and fast, I picked beans of various variety’s and of course courgettes, marrows and cucumbers. This is where we move from the ‘grow your own’ into the self sufficient realm, definitely self sufficient in fruit and veg that’s for sure and so many things can be made from the basics that we won’t go short for the next few seasons 😀

A snapshot of some of the produce this year 😀

There is still plenty to harvest, the sweet corn I checked today but that’s not ready just yet, butternut squash still growing nicely, plenty of turnips, beetroot, swede and leeks still in the ground, cauliflowers coming on, there are also Oca in the ground that won’t be harvested until after the from and the yacon, I have no idea when to harvest that but I’m sure it will become evident. There are chillies continuing to grow and ripen along with the cues and toms, next will be nuts and blackberries 😀 busy times ahead!

It’s 1.30pm and I am having a sit down, mainly to stretch my back out lol, I have spent the whole morning processing. It’s surprising how much time it all takes but I now have 8 jars of plum jam, and for the freezer two containers of tomato purée, two bags of plums and a tray of French beans, plus two plum breads in the oven. Seriously, that has taken me about 3 hours and there are still loads of plums left to do something with 🙄 Hopefully the plum bread will turn out ok, the recipe was a bit finicky but I just threw it all in a gave it a stir so we will see 😜

Plum bread was delish 😋 After a rest I did more plums then all the washing up, got some bread on the go, sorted the eggs, got the dinner, knackered now, over and out for today, writing anyway, still got to water the tunnels later!

I did spend a pleasant half an hour gathering some seeds from marigolds, cornflowers, love in a mist, poppies and morning glory. I intend to cast theses next spring, along with a few others that have not set seed yet, in a part of the veg garden that I struggle to get round to. Hopefully they will cover it and provide some lovely colour and nectar and save me weeding 😀

Friday: Oh my word they were not wrong about the wind, some of the gusts are savage 🙄 First job was to get the egg shed sorted with stuff for sale as Fridays are proving to be pretty busy at the minute. There was a lady at the gate who’s words were ‘I have a strange request’ that’s fine I said, you wouldn’t believe some of the requests I get 🤣 Turned out not to be that strange, not in my experience anyhow, she was after fertile eggs to incubate, all pretty normal so far 🙄 The embryo would not reach full gestation though as they would be frozen and used to help develop a new scanning system for animals, a cross between an x-ray and a scan, still in 2D but more detailed, I think I got the gist of it. We have fertile quail eggs and duck eggs but not many chicken eggs as our layer flock don’t run with a cockerel I explained. I also explained that what fertile eggs we do have are currently being sat on by broody hens, we went to have a look to see how many they were sat on and guess what, chicks 🐣 they had hatched! She went away with quail and duck eggs and my e-mail and she is going to send me the results of any scans that they get, exciting stuff, she asked how much she owed and I replied, it’s for science, they are free 😀 got to help science along as you never know when you are going to need it yourself.

I had Florence and Josh for a couple of hours this morning while Shelley was busy. She runs an eyebrow/eyelash business from home and has only just been able to start up again after the lockdown and so customers are queuing up. It’s funny really as when she left school she qualified as a beauty therapist but ended up in hotel management for years. It would always be something she could fall back on when she needed to and so once she had Josh and Flo she started up again so that she could work from home, it proved to be a great back up plan 😀

I asked Shelley to pick me up some brandy as she was popping to the shops before coming back here, I think I am going to make some plum brandy, might as well make good use of these plums. It might be a very nice warming, winter tipple if I add some cinnamon as well 🥃 I used the Rumtopf vessel I have as that’s as good as anything, gradually getting through the plums 😋

Plums, Brandy, Sugar, Cinamon, Orange zest, stir and leave for a few months until ready then strain and bottle or drink up 😀

After they went home I went outside to do a bit of weeding and feed the guineas some weeds but although the weather itself is ok the buffeting from the wind is as always pretty exhausting. When Shelley came back to pick the children up she said it’s not that noticeable in town, we definitely notice the weather extremes here because it’s fairly exposed.

I called John to tell him we will need some chick crumb and now I have to work out where they will go, the last mum and babies I moved out because of the holes in the ground if you remember, I don’t want them falling down crevices, not sure where I am going to move them too, I will need to have a good think about it.

I fed the chicks and there are five little yellow fluffy bundles in there 😀

We decided to go shopping, we didn’t need much but had run out of washing up liquid and cheese so off we went. Well I wish I hadn’t bothered, it was hammering down when we left and all the way there, got a soaking getting into the shop to start off with, then of course my glasses steamed up. The whole glasses and mask thing is a pain in the arse, I can’t see the labels clearly without them, they don’t sit on my head (they slip off) and no matter how I adjust the mask they constantly steam up. We were just about done and I remembered that I had forgotten something but I couldn’t think what it was and the bloody music they pipe over the whole place wasn’t helping with my concentration levels. I ended up being so irritated I decided I’m not going again, I will send John with a list and do without whatever I forget to put on it. I know I’m a grumpy cow lol.

Saturday: The weather is a bit on and off today. After doing the animals John got the tractor out to dig a trench for the new border, this will have a low fence to hold the soil in and keep the shingle separate. It was sunny and we were out there discussing the outline when out of nowhere it starting raining, 1st soaking. He got on with that while I went and did some picking, again it was sunny when all of a sudden it started raining, I dived into the poly tunnel before I got a second soaking, by now John was on the tractor digging and he got a soaking lol. No doubt that is how the day will carry on by the looks of things.

We had a busy morning, John on the new border and me sorting out the newly hatched chicks (6) and their Mums. I have moved them into Teds pen, there is a little hut in there and the ground is not full of potential pitfalls for small chicks. Both the mummy hens and the cockerel have been moved along with the chicks. That means Ted will have a new place to sleep tonight and that might be difficult encouraging him to change. I cleaned out Teds pen, sorted out food and water then caught up one hen dusted her for mites, moved her, moved the chicks, then the other hen, dusting her as well, then finally the cockerel giving him a dusting too. Then cleaned out then pen where they had hatched and burnt the bedding, where the hens had been sitting tight and the weather has been hot there were quite a lot of red mite in there, burning gets rid of a vast majority of them. I then used the DE to dust the hatching area and I will leave it a while before cleaning it out completely and giving it a wash down with some jeyes fluid. The pen was never intended for chickens (originally it was for the rabbits) so it’s a bit awkward to clean out. We never intended to have hatchlings, typical, if you had wanted them it wouldn’t have happened and now we have eight including the two that hatched a few weeks back!

While we were both busy patch started yapping incessantly, I could hear John telling him to be quiet but I also knew that the type of yap he was doing meant he was telling us something. Not all lassie like lol, there was no one stuck down a well or anything like that and usually it’s if the horse has got out. I went to investigate and found a large hedgehog, I’m guessing the dogs had disturbed from wherever it was sleeping. I watched it and it was trying to get along the fence line of my garden so I opened the gate and in it went, I turned round to see where it was heading and it was gone, they really moved fast when they want to. I said to John we need to make little hedgehog tunnels so they can move between fenced areas more easily.

Sunday: Another busy morning, the weather has been favourable, for me at least 😜 John got on with the front bed and I did a bit of cutting back in the garden and then some potting on of a few pots of things as well as some pricking out of lupins and huechera seedlings that have grown nicely. After that I went to help John in the front, digging out weeds etc. We are hoping to do the bed without weedkiller which is a pretty big task as it’s very weedy and not just easy to pull weeds either but some real tough rooted ones. I think I have settled on putting flowering shrubs in there and intersperse with some late flowering plants, then scatter some annual seeds for a wispy look. I also have some bulbs which can go for spring interest, hopefully hat will cover all the seasons and be changing all the time. Most of the shrubs I already have growing in pots and once they are in the ground they should tare off pretty quickly provided we can get them in fairly soon.

I took some photos of the flower bed in the veg garden as a few smaller plants have got lost in with the giants, there is a lovely little salmon coloured dahlia that can hardly be seen as it’s behind a much bigger yellow one, all things to consider for rearranging in autumn. The photos are to remind me once the plants have died down, it’s all very well having an idea of what height they grow to but seeing them gives you a much better idea of where to place things.

All looks a bit of a mess as I did just shove it all in this year but come autumn I will re arrange it all a little better 😀

Friesland Farm

Lunch in the City 😲 plenty of plums & RIP Benny 😢

Posted on August 6, 2020August 9, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 3rd August: This morning I whizzed around and got a few things done ( made two banana loaves and a greengage and vanilla tart) before going out for lunch in Oxford with Charlie as a birthday treat. We went to The Alchemist, the food was delicious and it all felt very safe and social distancing was well in hand. I haven’t been to Oxford centre for a least 6 years if not a lot longer. The new shopping centre is light and airy and the rooftop terrace where all the eateries are is a delightful place to eat. Afterwards we went on the tourist trails and into the back streets to find lovely park areas and beautiful architecture. A lovely way to spend an afternoon 🥰

When I got back John was already home and had been working on the new fence which is very nearly finished.

Early evening I went out into the paddock John is working in and had a look round. We discovered bees in a hollow of the apple tree, these might be bees that have swarmed and set up home here or they may be native bees but they are definitely honey bees 🐝 happy days, hopefully it will start oozing out lol.

We still have no internet and it’s due to be connected tomorrow, the equipment arrived safely yesterday morning due to the fact that our postie knows everyone so well that he delivers it to the named recipient not the address which is just as well. Trying to bounce off the hot spot on my phone is very tiresome I can tell you and I do find the reliance on the internet more than a little disconcerting. As I have written before in previous blogs, an apocalypse (disaster, pandemic) was always on my radar and one of the worst would be if the internet went down, we would be totally screwed I can tell you that so it would be prudent to look at what you use the connection for and always make sure you have an alternative 🙄 That is self reliance 😀 One other way to make sure you stay connected is the telephone line. We have cordless telephone handsets but I always keep a corded set in the cupboard because if we have a power cut we still have a phone, you may think that’s ok I have my mobile but trust me the amount of time I have no battery when the power goes is nobody’s business 😜

Tuesday: Picking produce was this mornings task, more plums, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, dwarf beans, beetroot, turnips, snowball radish and a few potatoes, I am quite literally drowning in veg lol.

1.30pm and I’m sitting down to give my back a rest lol, I have spent all this time prepping nearly everything I picked this morning. Beans, carrots and turnips chopped and open froze, beetroots and radish peeled and chopped for a few days of salad meals and greengage plums stoned and made into jam. Lots of the veg were weighed and bagged up to go out for sale and I still have Victoria plums to make more jam with but not today 😜

After a short rest I went out and cut back one of my two sage bushes, the leaves are now drying in the dehydrator ready for putting in a jar and using over Winter. The other bush I will leave for now and cut it back later in the season and continue to use the fresh leaves when I need to. John came home just as I had finished and put the kettle on, I swear he must hear it being turned on as his timing is impeccable 🤪

Early evening I had a phone call from our neighbour, we have travellers in the area and they have been doing what they usually do and targeting work vans. They tried to break into her husbands van and when challenged by her Hubby the person lunged at him with a screwdriver, threw a walling brick at him (which missed luckily) and jumped into a waiting car which drove off. There is a serious problem here at the moment and it seems the police are not getting on top of it at all, I have seen reports on Facebook all day of people/vans/businesses being hit in broad daylight 🤬

Wednesday: Phone saga: So this morning I had an email to say we were good to go, I checked the phone, dead, I looked at the hub, red light, not good to go 🙄 I phoned them (another hour on the phone) and they said the line is live, no it’s not I told them. Another transfer to a different department and to cut a long story short we now have to wait until August 14th for an engineer to come out, meanwhile they will send me a 4G mini hub so I don’t have to use data on my phone. Well that’s good because I am using it as a hotspot and that is painful as I have said before, 3G is all we get and that drops out pretty frequently 🤪

When I finally got off the phone to them I thought I ought to try and get some work done. I can’t remember what else I did but I did make six more jars of Victoria plum jam 😀

We had to take Benny to the vet early evening, luckily I had got him in at lunchtime and shut him in. We put him into a carrier and set off, 10 minutes down the road the cat pooped, 🤣🤣🤣 OMG it was hilarious, I thought John was going to be sick, he was actually gagging, he pulled a mask out of the side pocket and put it on and then we found a safe place to pull over. John held the cat while I sorted it out and we went on our way. The upshot is that it looks like he has been clipped by a car and it has put his hip out ‘Ouch’ this is going to be expensive 🙄 he has to go back tomorrow for an X-ray and they will decide if he needs surgery (possibly amputation depending on injury) 😏

Thursday: Funny kind of a morning, it’s warm but as I was out picking plums it’s started a fine misty rain and just as I am typing the this the sun is coming out and I think it is going to be hot 🥵 (10 minutes later it has gone back in again)

John did the rounds and then went off to work with Wonky Benny to drop him at the vets this morning, I do hope he doesn’t poo again as John is on his own this time 😂

First jobs on the list were watering the pots, the tunnels and the greenhouse as the forecast is anywhere up to 30c+ over the next few days. Then making sure the animals all have got plenty of fresh water just in case, they have fresh water anyway but we tend to double up when the weather is very warm. After finding food for the torts it was on to a bit of plum picking, if I told you the trees are dripping with plums it would be no lie, it’s a bumper crop this year right across the varieties. The Victoria tree is always abundant, the greengage not so much, except for this year, the damsons, never seen so many on there and the new tree (the variety escapes me) is also loaded and very tasty they are too.

At this time of year my kitchen just isn’t big enough for all the produce I am bringing in on a daily basis and I always have baskets and trays of it stacked in various corners until I can get round to sorting them out. At the minute I have cooking apples to be sorted as well, the ones that are damaged will be peeled and cooked for the freezer and any that are in good condition will be stored out the back. This is when I could do with some cool storage as the back area heats up quickly due to the tin roof out there. It would be nice to have a little brick built store shed or at least a heavily insulated wooden shed, but I like the brick shed idea better 😀

So what am I going to do with all these plums? Good question 😜 some will be frozen for winter puddings, some will be made into more jam I think, always good for presents or exchanges, some will be given away to family and friends and some will be sold in the shed. In the past I have made plum sauce and plum chutney and if I get the enthusiasm I may do some this year.

As if I didn’t have enough to do I have come up with another job lol, I have ordered Almond oil as a carrier which arrived this morning and I am going to infuse it with lavender as a quick way of making it, I haven’t done it before so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. You can then add the oil to the bath or use it on your skin.

I harvested some lavender and tied it in bunches to dry on the rack in the kitchen ready to use when it has dried out.

The phone rang and it was John, I figured at 11am it’s not good news and I was right. The vet had called him and Benny’s hip socket was smashed to bits, they couldn’t amputate because they would need to remove too much. The next option was a specialist and even then there was no guarantee he would walk again and so John made the decision to put him to sleep which is exactly what I would have done. The vet said she couldn’t believe he had been walking on it and she had never seen any bone that smashed 🙄 So RIP Benny, I am so very sorry that your wonderful life as our farm cat was cut short and I will miss your very vocal presence. I am done with cats for a while, we still have Diesel (who is getting on in years) but we have been through a few other cats over the last few years, they either get hit by cars or disappear never to be seen again! Molly was the only other cat that saw her last few years out here and died peacefully.

Pretty sure patch will miss you annoying him as well 🥰

I am waiting patiently for this 4G mini hub to turn up from BT it comes with a sim and unlimited data until the problem is sorted. I have tried uploading last weeks blog but like the photos there is not enough umph to do it.

We went over to Sams late afternoon and took Mia out for ice cream and a play at the park just to give Sam a bit of a break from three children to two 😂

Friday: Today the temps are set to rise well above 30c not hot for some countries but not what we are used to here in the UK 😜 I opened the windows early to let the cool morning air in and then shut them as the sun came round, closing the curtains at the same time to hopefully keep the worst of the heat out 🙄 I was up early and outside picking first thing, marrow, beans, peas, mangetout, carrots, cauliflower and a bucketful of eating apples from a dwarf tree! As soon as the torts were fed I was off inside to start prepping. The veg have all be cleaned chopped and open froze, and the apples have all been wiped over sorted into perfect and blemished piles. The perfects will store nicely for a few weeks and the blemished (which won’t store well) will be either used in chutney etc or fed to the animals as a treat. The marrow I am undecided about, many people eat stuffed marrow, I can’t see the point personally 😂 my Dad always told me to make marrow rum, your pour rum into the marrow, hang it for a few days and then let the liquid out from the bottom, again I can’t see the pint, just drink the rum! I will say that I have never tasted either of these so I may be missing something wonderful but I somehow doubt it 😜 Why grow the marrows you may ask, I had the seeds, it’s as simple as that, and if nothing else the hens will enjoy a good feast on them 😀 They will store for weeks mind you so I may decide to have a go at a curry or even use them in a chutney, I don’t have to decide just yet.

I have just received notice that my 4G mini hub will be delivered today thank goodness, it’s a hub supplied by BT (when you have connection problems 😂) that has a sim and unlimited data (free of course) so I should then be able to upload pictures etc. Last weeks blog randomly uploaded while I was typing this up, I have been trying to upload it for days and gave up in the end 🙄

I made plum chutney, love a bit of chutney in a cheese sandwich 😀 Apparently the temps at Heathrow are already 31c and it’s only lunchtime, however Charlie has just sent me a video as she is on the way home from Devon and it’s pouring with rain, ah gotta love the extremes of our climate, it’s not like it’s a big island in comparison to some but the difference in weather from one end to another is hilarious sometimes 😁 It’s nearly 1pm and still pretty cool in the house hopefully it will stay that way 🙄

Yay the mini hub arrived, very mini, not much bigger than a business card in size I was expecting something bigger lol. I now have full WiFi signal 😀 hopefully I can now upload photos.

Saturday: Set to be very hot today so we were up early to get a bit done first thing, John went off to get a few and al supplies and order some bits of fencing he was short of. In the afternoon we went over to my brothers for the first real birthday BBQ this year. John came back mid evening to put the birds to bed and then came back and we stayed until late evening with the fire pit lit and watching the stars, lovely day. Luckily there was a lot of shade and a good breeze so it was t too u comfortable.

Sunday: A bit late up today lol, 8am which is late for us. After the feeding rounds John cracked on with the last remaining bit of fencing and I went out to pick plums and do a bit of weeding. It was overcast for a good part of the morning and although it was still warm it gave me a chance to get some things done. Mum and Ken came over after lunch to pick some plums , I gave them a bagful of dwarf beans a marrow to go home with as well. It is at that stage where I have so much produce I either don’t know what to do with it all or I am sick of processing it all so start giving it away by the bagful 😜

Friesland Farm

Windy weather, picking and freezing & John returns home.

Posted on July 5, 2020 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.

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.

Friesland Farm

Afternoon tea, potatoes planted & Jobs list ticked off.

Posted on March 8, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 2nd March 2020: The beginning of Johns week off, the weather is on our side for today at least. We both did the morning rounds then straight on with the job of the day, the fence at the end of the veg garden. This is a job that had to be completed in one day otherwise the dogs and the ducks would be all over it. We kept at it all day with a few interruptions by way of Johns phone, going to get some gravel boards then a quick trip to the solicitor to sign some papers, a few cups of tea and by 3pm we had finished 22m of fencing and tidied up. I am pretty pleased with the result, the fence had to keep the ducks/dogs out which it will and it looks a whole lot tidier to boot. I will look forward to working this part of the garden now, it has been a bit neglected in the last couple of years and so brambles and stingers have taken hold but I managed to dig most of them out, I will have to weedkiller any new growth but it shouldn’t be much and the area outside the fence is now clear enough to mow so that will keep them down on that side. I gained an extra bit of planting space as we had a gate halfway along the fence but never used it so have taken it out, now the pathway leading to the previous gate can become planting area. Indoors for something to eat, a cuppa and a quick rest before lighting the Rayburn, feeding the birds and collecting and sorting the eggs, getting the dinner. Day one, ✅ 😀

Tuesday: The weather is holding though it’s a tad colder today, we did the morning rounds and then got on with today’s jobs. First make a raised bed in the polytunnel out of wood we have lying around, the ground in the tunnel has a clay seam running thorough and one side is particularly difficult to manage when it dries out, I found low raised beds gives better results. I now have a 10ft x 3ft bed to fill with compost from the heap. Then onto moving the strawberry troughs, these are about 8ft long and a foot wide but they are up on legs, the problem is there is a lot of ground underneath that I can’t get too so we took them off the legs and moved them to the sides of the beds. This was harder than it sounds as they are very heavy, the second one we had to use bars to roll it along and get it in position. Then onto making the arches, for the morning glory etc, a bit more secure than they were, this still needs a bit more work but it’s nearly there. Shelley called in with Florence and bought cake so we stopped for a cuppa and then I had a phone call from a friend to see if I wanted to go for afternoon tea, yep, not gonna turn that invite down. I still had a couple of hours spare so I planted up the area that is now free of the strawberry troughs. I had potted up enough plants from last year to fill it, stocks, chrysanthemums, delphiniums, achillea, aster, campion, verbascum, huechera and some more that I have forgotten at this minute. The bed will be for cutting flowers for birthdays and to bring in the house 😀 John went off to do some tidying elsewhere, objective achieved today 😀 And now I am off out for afternoon tea ☕️ perfect day, it’s not normally something I would be able to take advantage of but as luck would have it and John is off to hold the fort and I’m going lol.

Afternoon tea was a lovely affair, plenty of tea, cake and sandwiches and of course chit chat with my friends, by the time I got back John had fed the birds and done the eggs so that looks like the rest of the day off for me 😀

The turkey stag has started covering the hen, hopefully eggs will follow soon. If you have never been close to a turkey come and get a look at ours, the stag is pretty impressive with his ‘snoods’ and the sounds are even better, the ‘gobbling’ that everyone knows but also a low ‘booming’ sound, at first I wondered what the heck it was then I realised it was coming from within him lol. A description I read referred to it as guttural which is pretty accurate and scientists don’t 100% understand how the noise is made. They are originally forest dwellers and love to forage for insects, slugs and snails, berries and fruit, seeds, nuts and green foliage or buds so a pretty comprehensive list.

We decided to call them Bonny & Clyde
(photos from Sally 😋)

Wednesday: Despite rain being forecast it didn’t arrive until about 1.30pm which meant we were able to get a fair bit done beforehand. With the morning rounds done by John while I put on some washing and did some general tidying we then set about sorting out the rest of the compost heap and tidying that up. John went off up the back to burn some rubbish and get the rest of the mirror structure down while I pottered in the garden. Making good the extra area we created by doing away with the path, filling it with compost, putting an edge board up and topping up the wood chip in that area. It looks good and I have decided to fill it with flowers, as you enter the garden at the other end it’s the long view down and it would be nice to see a splash of colour. Again I have plenty of plants, rudbeckia, lupins, geum, probably some aquilegia and maybe some foxgloves as it has the Mulberry bush for canopy.

We filled the bed in the tunnel with compost and I have put a washing up bowl at the end with a piece of gutter and a stone in there, this is because I know we have frogs (I found a few today while I was working) and I know they like to live in the tunnel during growing season when it has plenty of foliage and gets watered daily. The bowl will be filled with rain water and the frogs can help keep the slugs down, win, win 😀 I did a fair bit of sorting out, plants that never made it through winter and picking up stuff that had been blown about by the winds. In the greenhouse I did a bit of watering and had a look at the seeds I sowed last week, most are showing signs of sprouting so I’m happy with the progress so far.

When the rain came I came indoors to put on more washing, light the Rayburn and think about dinner later while John went off to get some diesel for the tractor as it’s nearly out. It looks as though rain will stop play as it’s pretty heavy and not much fun to be working out in.

I spent 4 hours, yes that long, trying to pair my new camera with my phone, eventually giving up after reading that the operating software on the phone has a problem with the app I am using to pair, an app created by the camera manufacturer so that’s buggered that, eventually I tried it with Johns phone which is different and voila, first time 😝 I have two choices as I see it, use the camera and download to the laptop as I did with the old one or wait until I’m due an upgrade and choose a different phone, for the time being I will just get taking some pictures. My old camera is around 30 years old and I love it but the quality of pictures on the new cameras is amazing and I want to start cataloging the wildlife here not just the birds but everything I see really.

Thursday: Still cold but not raining. John did the morning rounds while I got on with some household bits and got something out of the freezer for dinner tonight. John has been busy tidying up the back area and we had a lot of scrap metal bits, old tin sheets and chicken wire that has now thankfully gone to the scrap an and earned us a whopping £14 🙄 He has also been busy stacking wood in the back, you can do an awful lot of work and it doesn’t look like you have done much but we know it’s done so that’s what matters. Meanwhile after sorting indoor stuff out I went to the poly tunnel and planted up the chitted potatoes. I decided as these were first earlies, which I don’t normally do, I would grow them under cover, we have had a lot of rain and I would hate for them to rot away. They are now in 6 bags that have compost in and each time the greenery pokes its head above the compost I will cover with more compost, this way i am hoping to get nice clean early potatoes with very thin skins. I also moved a few things round, the citrus have now gone from the greenhouse and into the tunnel which gives more more room to move in the greenhouse. The bottom end of the tunnel is becoming my ‘exotics’ area, with the citrus, lemon grass (if it survives) cape gooseberries, grape vine, lemon verbena and a pineapple guava, if only I could grow bananas and avocados I’d be set for life oh and chocolate of course 😜. Other than that I sowed a few flower seeds, these were free so might as well give them a go, dwarf delphiniums, rudbeckia, dahlias and amaranth. When John went off to the scrapyard I came in and lit the Rayburn and got the dinner sorted for later, we have shepherds pie and an apple and blackberry crumble for dessert.

Random thought of the day, how come the turkey stag only ‘covers’ his hen and doesn’t try it on with the chickens?

I have been listening to the radio talk about stockpiling, it never ceases to amaze me how much food people buy especially at Christmas or snow days, do people really eat that much or does a lot of it get wasted. I try very hard not to waste anything if I can help it, but I am aware of the need to have a few things in the cupboard just in case. For me it’s extra flour and dried milk because with what I already have in the freezers or cupboards I can pretty much knock something up, we don’t eat pasta or rice really so what I have will suffice and we seem to have accrued a few tins of fish in various forms so that will do us in a crisis. We did buy extra tea bags and coffee and I still have my 5ltr of olive oil from the Brexit crisis 😂 Luckily we are going into the growing season 😀 and I have plenty of seeds on the go for that so hopefully we should muddle through any problems in the supply chain. I agree it is a worry, I mostly worry about the grandchildren and that they will be able to get enough food, I’m sure it’s just people panicking and it will all be ok in the end 🤞‘don’t panic Mr Mannering’ I can hear the Dads Army cast saying lol.

On the topic of not wasting anything I had a net of clementines which were sour, you know the ones that make your face twist lol, not wanting to waste them I made a jar and a quarter of jam with them, hopefully it will taste better than the initial ingredient 😀

We made it all the way through to Thursday before John got a call out to an emergency, that’s pretty good going, this one was someone deciding to take the shower apart and now they can’t stop the water from flowing 🙄 He had his ‘not happy’ face on when he left lol, though I think he secretly likes to be a super hero plumber 😜

I am keeping an eye on the rhubarb, it’s getting there but it’s not quite long enough to start picking just yet, we could do with some warming sun on it after all the rain we have had, that would give it a spurt of growth I think. I can’t see any in the weather radar for a couple of weeks yet so just have to hope it’s not far away.

Friday: I can’t actually remember what we did in the morning but in the afternoon we had the twins while Mia went to her swimming lesson and then Shelley and the kids called in.

Saturday: Today’s the day, the new sofas are arriving and I’m a bit nervous that they won’t fit through the doorways lol. John did the rounds and then we got the old sofas out, I then cleaned the room while John did some outside jobs. We got a phone call to say that the delivery was only 5 mins away, they arrived, a lovely couple of chaps, easily got the sofas in, phew, put them together, tidied up and took the packaging, easy as that we now have new sofas though we are not allowed to sit on them in our work clothes 😂 Now they are in it is noticeable how shabby the old ones had got and I am delighted with the new look.

In the evening we went to get a few bits of shopping for Johns lunch next week, pretty bemused to see some of the shelves are empty of goods, not a piece of chicken to be had, no ibrufen and the toilet roll shelf was empty 🙄 I guess the panic buying is in full swing then, there was no bread flour and no yeast, this is a big uptake of people who are suddenly going to bake their own bread, I buy these all the time and never struggle to find them normally. I’m not sure which camp I am in to be honest, on the one hand it’s selfish behaviour because there are those that can’t bulk buy, either because they don’t have the money or they physically can’t get it home and on the other hand I think, what if we have to self isolate, you are going to need supplies. For the time being we will just carry on shopping as normal I think and if push comes to shove we will have to make do. On a bonus note I was looking for a lightbulb under the the kitchen sink and I found a box of face masks ( I had these when we had bird flu in the country and used them when cleaning out the birds)

We have in fact also taken around a third more on eggs this week, a good week or an indicator?

Sunday: More rain overnight and the wind is cold today but if you can stand in a sheltered spot when the sun is out there is heat in it so it won’t be long before we get some nice Springlike weather hopefully. John did the morning rounds and I did some potting on in the greenhouse, then I mentioned the ducks needed cleaning out which I had intended to help with, the next thing I know John has done it (I like having a helper lol)

We are on the last day of Johns week off and we haven’t managed to strangle each other in fact we have done quite well with hardly a cross word between us 😜 although he does do some things differently to me which I find annoying such as marking up the egg boxes the wrong way round (because he is left handed) I kept quiet 😝 I will miss having him around to do the daily tasks while I get on with other things but I will also look forward to having my space back 😋

We pretty much got everything done that was on the list though there are always many more jobs to do, they can wait until Easter weekend now. ✅ 😀

Have a good week and stay well 🤞

Friesland Farm

Jammin, not the musical kind 😜

Posted on September 8, 2019 by frieslandfarm

I decided to change the theme layout of the blog this week to keep,you on your toes 😋

Monday 2nd September: Oooo we are proper rolling into Autumn now. Dad and Sue enjoyed their week and did some helpful jobs around the place, mowing, picking, weeding etc John was off as well and got a few jobs done, not ones that were on my list for him mind you!

It turned out that mostly, the plums on the Victoria tree were fine so I have been picking those, some were stoned and frozen for winter use and this morning I have made some jars of jam. I love the colour of Victoria jam, a beautiful jewel colour and you know Autumn is just around the corner when you can start the blackberry picking in earnest.

I like whole fruit jams rather than jelly, the latter is made by cooking the fruit then straining it overnight through a jelly bag to get the liquid, if you like seedless then that’s what you would do but firstly I can’t be bothered with the faff and I rather like to use all of the fruit, with the exception of apple, I’m not keen on the texture and so apple jelly is altogether nicer in my opinion.

I have still been regularly picking tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beetroot, runner beans, carrots, courgettes, raspberries and hybrid blackberries, I keep testing the grapes for sweetness and they are almost ripe, the melons are doing nicely and the pumpkins and spaghetti squash are beginning to ripen.

Last week I dug up my blueberries and repotted them, they have not done well where they are, I don’t know why, but time to move them and see if I can get a better crop from them. This is the time of year to sort out the strawberry beds and so that is on the to do list as are a hundred and one other jobs lol, seed collection, dividing and a bit of planning for next year.

I made a ‘chuck it in’ sauce for the freezer, I used courgette, tomato, celery, garlic, onion, green pepper, carrot, oregano, basil, parsley, salt and pepper. I used what I had that was ripe and ready or needed using up, no particular quantities just what I had available, the tomatoes were blanched and skinned but apart from that everything else was just chopped and chucked, I sweated it off with a bit of avocado oil and then it will simmer gently down in its own juices. With all that in there it can’t fail to taste good, each different batch would of course taste slightly different but I will freeze it and use it for pasta or even as a base for soup in the winter. I always freeze, I have never got round to thinking about canning on a serious level though I probably should some day.

Tuesday: One of the first jobs this morning was to re boil the jam as it didn’t set! Pain in the bum as all the jars need re sterilising etc, it’s done now and looks like a set has been reached, I did throw a lemon in with it to help it on its way. I have a feeling that the fruit has a lot more water content this year than previous years as too much liquid seems to be the problem. I am going to Swindon with Shelley this morning so I will look for a new thermometer as the bubble keeps separating in mine which can’t help much either 🙄

I still have this ridiculous cough, I had it all week while Dad and Sue were here, it is getting better but slowly, last night I was up two or three times and consequently am tired already today and it’s only 9am 😏

While I was in Swindon Mum was here working away on the strawberry bed, I have strawberries all over the place and they need consolidating, the bed also needed raising as the slugs were getting most of them as they were trailing on the floor. This is the right time of year to sort out the strawberries and thin out any old ones and use the new runners as fresh plants.

Wednesday: Rain overnight which is good because the garden needed a sprinkle 😀 I am making more jam this morning 😜 plenty of berries to be picked at the moment and this is mainly blackberry but there are a few raspberries, mulberries, blueberries and a couple of cherries in there too so this is a mixed fruit jam.

This time of year is packed with preparing and storing the harvest, berries, top fruit, veg, nuts it’s an abundant time of year and a busy one. I have a basket full of tomatoes to do something with not quite sure what yet maybe soup, you can’t beat some fresh tomato soup in the depths of winter.

The hens are laying very well now and we have an abundance of eggs 🤪 I also have some pears to use up and when I see the words ‘one bowl, no fuss’ that’s a recipe I know I’m going to love so I made a cinnamon spiced pear cake.

We went over to my brothers after dinner as John had to pipe up a couple of radiators for him, when we got back it had rained again and it felt decidedly wintery 😏 so a good mug of hot chocolate was in order, soon be Hygge time again 😀

Thursday: Sunny but chilly this morning, looks like it will be a nice day though so I got some washing on first thing. Slight problem with that at the moment as a spider has taken up residence in the wash basket 🙄 I tentatively pull clothing out knowing that any minute a 10ft hairy eight legged monster is going to leap out at me 🤪

The wildlife is still abundant round here, each morning when I open the side door around 20/30 sparrows are startled and start flying from bush to bush, it’s quite a sight. They appear to be feeding on the ground in the gravel at the front so bang goes my notion to weedkiller it at the end of the month, I am not really sure what to do, leave it all to grow and mow it?

I watched John for five minutes trying to catch an escaped chicken in vain on his way to his van this morning, I could have gone out and helped but it was much more fun to spectate 😂

Not sure what I am going to do today, that’s the beauty of this place and my life, I can decide in a moment ‘to do or not to do’ I write that glibly as very often a situation arises that needs sorting or something comes up that really can’t wait.

The rabbits and guinea are still on their green diet, I have not bought a bag of hard feed since way back in spring, nor should it be necessary really with all the forage there is available. The kittens are doing well and are right at home here now, we have seen a lot less of them this week mind as Alfie (Sams dog) has been staying and he, for the want of a better word, is a tit 😬 continually chasing the birds, horse, cats, anything that might move and give him a game, the kittens, quite sensibly stay out of the way when he is around. I am keeping a close eye on the torts, they will begin to eat less now the heat has gone out of the ground, they will wind down until it’s time for them to sleep for the winter. If you think about it, it’s half a life, the sensible half mind you in the warmth of Spring and Summer 😀 Everything else is doing well, the three remaining turkeys are growing and occasionally make that gobbling noise which is funny to hear, the light Sussex are getting to the point where we will have to do what was intended with them 🙄 the laying hens are laying well and we have plenty of eggs available every day, just the young ducks that are slacking and still have not produced a single egg between them yet 😏

I went out and did a bit of picking, mainly courgettes 😂 they grow like weeds! I don’t even eat them but they sell well and if they get too big the chickens love them 😀 I had a pot of agapanthus that came from Johns Mums and it was well and truly pot bound so I have divided it up into about seven new plants, now is a good time to do it, when they have gone over agapanthus need deadheading and feeding for six weeks according to Monty Don so splitting them and putting them into fresh compost will serve them well hopefully.

The wind is still cold and I feel a bit tired today which in turn makes me despondent 😭 gets me wondering, why I am doing all this, what/who am I doing it for? Shall I cut back massively but I know it’s just today and tomorrow if it’s warm and I feel good I will be back on track 😀 When we started this journey the Lupus was not even on the radar and I was used to hard graft, in our previous house I had not only dug out the footings for a very large extension with only a jack hammer to aid me but completely transformed a large mostly lawned garden into a wonderful space with interest and abundance. The garden was opened once a year for viewing to aid a local charity and that meant being on top of things all the time, when we moved here the momentum to achieve something great was intensified but year by year it waned until I was so poorly that my system completely collapsed and another chapter in my life began, living with Lupus 🙄 However, I am not and never have been a quitter, always in it for the long haul and I still am but days like these when I am too tired to motivate myself leave me wondering, how about a small house and garden, lots of holidays and free time lol.

I found a little bit of energy later in the afternoon to do the egg collecting and feeding and a few other little jobs, the sun was shinning and the wind had dropped so it was quite lovely outside. Part of the tiredness is a this bloody stupid cough I have got, I have to sleep practically sitting up and wake up coughing a couple of times a night so it’s no wonder really but it is getting slowly better.

Friday: We were up late and so it was me doing the animal rounds this morning, John has been doing it for ages and doing a sterling job. I’m not complaining 🙄 about his routine but……the birds have been getting away with murder, well not murder exactly 😜 but they have been left to become a bit delinquent, so this morning I reigned in some control 😮 Not just let out to run wild but kept in to eat and drink before being let out to run wild 😂

Then onto a good few hours work in the fruit cage, pruning, cutting back, trying to dig up stinging nettles, until my legs felt like jelly, I haven’t done that much hard work for a long while 😀

I had to reach into the back of the wardrobe this afternoon, no door to Narnia in there but there was a long woolly cardi with my name on it 🥶 I can’t quite believe that just over two weeks ago the temperatures were so high, it’s like a roller coaster ride, slow ride to the top then whooosh we are hurtling headlong into Winter in a split second, that’s a temperate climate for you, bloody temperamental it should be called 😏 Now I am sporting a very fetching look of long cardigan with my gillet over the top for no other reason than I love my gillet and can’t let go of it just yet 🤣

Saturday: More work in the fruit cage and Mum came to help so we got it all done, looks a whole lot tidier and more manageable now, I have put a fair bit of weed membrane down on the side that is troubled with stinging nettles and bindweed I fed all the raspberries in the pots, I was going to put them in the ground but that’s a whole lot of work and they spread like crazy so I decided to leave them in the pots and look after them a bit better 😜 I harvested a load of carrots, I intend to make some tomato soup so will need some for that but the rest will be prepped for the freezer. Then I picked some blackberries and open froze them for using later and then a sandwich and a sit down, got to conserve energy as I have Josh and Flo this afternoon and overnight while Shelley and Martin go to a wedding lol, and we are taking the kids with us to an 18th birthday bbq 🤪

Sunday: Pretty much a non day for me on the smallholding, I stayed over at Shelleys with the grandchildren last night so John was in charge all day 😀

Friesland Farm

Picking, Strawberry jam & feathers everywhere.

Posted on July 7, 2019 by frieslandfarm

Monday 1st July and the weeks keep rolling on 😏 A nice morning as far as I am concerned, overcast, dry and not to warm 😀 John did a couple of the bird pens before going to work and I did the rest and picked greenery for the torts and rabbits etc. Then once I had done the ‘housekeeping’ bits I got on with putting out some plants for sale and digging up some self set plants and potted them up ready for sale in a couple of weeks. After that I picked blackcurrants and gooseberries, you can tell they are ready when you disturb the blackbirds foraging underneath the bushes. I do leave enough for the birds, taking some to put out for sale and some to either freeze or make jam.

The girls and the grandchildren came for a couple of hours in the afternoon and after they went I made the blackcurrant jam.

After getting the dinner I went outside to do some more picking and the watering, I picked broad beans and rhubarb and found a courgette I had missed previously which was on the way to becoming a marrow 🙄 Everything I s coming on nicely, the tomatoes have started to form as have the peppers, there are tiny melons, no sign of cucumbers yet though. Dwarf beans are flowering and there are some squash forming, I am keeping an eye on the cherries so the birds don’t get them first, the brassicas in the cage are romping away and the potatoes are abundant, looks like a good year 😀

Tuesday: Another lovely looking morning, the sinusitis was getting better, I thought, but it had come back with a vengeance this morning 😐 thick head and all.

After doing the rounds I then collected greenery for the torts and rabbits/guineas, the rabbits etc had mainly trees and herbs this morning, lilac, hazel, willow, mint, lemon balm, fennel and a few dandelion types for good measure. The torts love the yellow flowers of all dandelion types so I went round and collected those for them today.

I noticed this morning that my nut and fruit trees are absolutely covered with ladybird larvae in different stages, fantastic 😀

I took some blueberry cuttings, I need to do something with the blueberries they are not thriving like they should and therefore the yield is not great, in fact an overhaul for the fruit cage interior is very much on the cards. I have ordered some weed membrane and intend to plant the raspberries that are in pots into the ground, it was a job I was going to do last year but didn’t get round to it, the membrane will hopefully keep most of the weeds at bay and the moisture in the ground so it will be less work in the long run.

In the afternoon, Sam, Mia, Shelley, Josh, Florence and I went to a pick your own farm to get strawberries 😀 I do not have enough of my own this year to make jam so off we went to gather some, a few kilos later and a fun afternoon and this evening I have made strawberry jam 😀 I wish I could let you smell the divine smell of it bubbling away on the hob, amazing smell 😀 A word of advice if you ever buy homemade jam, if you are dairy intolerant just check with the maker that they haven’t put butter in it. Some recipes advise a knob of butter to disperse the scum, personally I haven’t found it makes a difference and I prefer to use the back of a metal spoon to lift it off, it sticks readily to the back and can be scrapped off into a bowl. If I am making jam that is purely for our own use I don’t even bother, it looks unsightly but there is nothing wrong with it, it’s just froth really.

Normally I would make a dessert or two with the strawberries but the last two weeks John has come home with cakes made by his customers, not little cakes, full size cakes, last week a chocolate one and this week, from a different customer I might add, a lemon one. So we have cake to eat and no point making anything with the strawberries except jam lol.

I sold three more ducklings today, that’s 27 in total so not bad, I am planning on keeping 15 so have another 9 to sell.

Wednesday: Up and at it early, did the rounds then onto watering things that are in the shade, the ground is dry again due to lack of moisture. I spent a good hour or so watering things and I will have to do the rest tonight, especially the raspberries as they are small and dry not plump, so lacking in water even the ones in the ground, I never used to have this problem, only in the last couple of years. By 10 I had come in, I was feeling tired, the steroids stopped a couple of weeks ago, and once I’m tired I know I’m not going to achieve much so time to recuperate with a coffee, some cake and a sit down 😀

Blue skies mean I don’t get outside much more today, I did go back out in the evening once it had cooled down a bit and did some more watering.

The fox had a hen in the side paddock, she was out when I fed them at 4pm, I had tried to catch her but couldn’t and forgot to tell John when he came home, at about 8pm the dogs barked, but they do that a lot so we didn’t take much notice and then when John went to put the hens to bed…..feathers everywhere ☹️

Thursday: Another blue sky, sunny day on the cards so I set my alarm for 5.30, the early morning air was fresh and cool, delightful, I got plenty done before I had to come in. I didn’t water as I had done that the night before but I did a bit of weeding in the polytunnel and I harvested some potatoes, these were some I grow in a large square crate, and I leave the tiny potatoes that come off in there to go again, so in essence they are self set and I always get a good haul from them, touch wood they have never had disease either, I have been doing this for about 4 years now, maybe I should just do it for all my potatoes?

Contemplating what to do for dinner tonight, I found some frozen pizza dough I made and some passata frozen from last years tomatoes, I have mozzarella in the fridge and fresh basil, a drizzle of chilli oil that Shelley bought back from Italy so I’m good, that just leaves what to cook for John 🙄

With some of the strawberries I have left I made a simple strawberry sauce to bottle up and put in the fridge, this can be used on ice cream, in milkshakes, on pancakes or in yoghurt, whatever you want to put it on really lol. I made a batch of Greek yoghurt at the same time then I will have both things to use at the same time. I use an easiyo maker which is VERY easy to use and makes great yoghurt, one day I would like to make my own yoghurt from scratch but as only I eat eat and not that often it’s not something I have tried doing yet.

I’m getting paranoid about the crows stealing my cherries 😂 the minute I hear them out there I go out to check they are not raiding my trees. The year before last they stripped everything, cherries, pears, gooseberries so I am determined to get some this time round, I can’t imagine how farmers feels when they strip a whole crop!

Friday: I went to Josh’s sports morning first thing then we went to the new shake shop that has opened in town 😀 I’m writing this Sunday and can’t actually recall what else I did that day apart from probably watering 😜

Saturday: Overcast today, whoop, so I did a fair bit of weeding and sorting out plants for sale, generally speaking all day in the garden doing stuff. In the evening we went to a Memorial walk and family fun event, I didn’t do the walk but joined them later for the bbq and raffle. It was in aid of the Eve appeal which is a charity for research into gynaecological cancers, a very special lady, Julie, our cousin died from Vulval cancer and the event is to raise funds and awareness. Here is the link to their website if you want to know more

https://eveappeal.org.uk

It was raining when we left there it just about 4/5 miles away and when we got home, nothing 🙁 could have done with a small shower for the veg garden.

We came back with My sister and brother in law who were having a ‘quick cuppa’ a couple of hours later, we had booked a small break between us and it was time for bed lol.

Sunday: Overcast to begin with so I did a lot of picking, carrots, peas, broad beans, raspberries, turnips, potatoes. The raspberries are getting more numerous now so it makes them worth picking 😀 We are having lamb later with all our own veg seasoned with homegrown rosemary and garlic, then we will have the raspberries for dessert.

One of my cherry trees has already been raided, not the crows en mass this year but the blackbirds in covert operations from underneath, and now they have started on the morellos 😕 The problem is that they eat them just before they ripen and as cherries do not continue to ripen there is no point me picking them early, so the decision I have made is to let the birds have them, I have plenty of other fruit and I can’t keep rushing out there to shoo them off because they come straight back when I go in. Netting won’t work for the smaller birds as they go under and up, it would keep off the crows mind but they don’t seem interested this year.

The tomatoes are turning red 😀 I always feel that it’s the pinnacle of the main growing season and I have a strange sense of fulfilment 😀

The geese are moulting after their egg laying stint, it looks like a fox attack as there are feathers like this all over the farm 🤣

Friesland Farm

Back from holibobs, back to work & and thieving little s***s 😡

Posted on September 23, 2018 by frieslandfarm

Wednesday 19th Sept: This is the first chance I have had to write anything, as you can imagine it’s been pretty full on since we got back from our holiday. We had a splendid time, mostly spent relaxing, some acupuncture and massage and lots of eating, drinking and talking. The farm has been in the most capable hands and nothing died or was amiss 😀

We returned home Sunday and I got on with the washing and catching up with everyone and everything, we hadn’t quite got our land legs back yet as we didn’t get off the ship at all until the Saturday in Guernsey so it’s all a bit wobbly at times 😝 We went on a vintage coach trip around the island and it was a fabulous afternoon which included afternoon tea and some views to die for, one of my favourite things to watch out for was ‘hedge veg’ what a fantastic name 😀 Basically anyone who grows anything and has an abundance puts it out for sale in with an honesty box (and they are very honest over there) even the main supplier of Guernsey goat butter leaves his back door open for people to access his fridge when he is not there, imagine that! I saw one sign that said ‘shop or swap’ which I also thought was a great idea.

On Monday it was more washing and then some nut gathering as the winds have picked up a bit and they are all over the floor, hazelnuts everywhere and the walnuts are dropping as well. It was Samantha’s birthday so we went out for tea and cake in the afternoon with a bit of Park time for the little ones.

Tuesday: Starting from today I will be having Mia from 7am till after tea time so I won’t be getting much done on these days in the future.

Somebody local put up on social media free grapes and there were a lot of them, my sister was going to get some and so I asked if she could pick up some for me as well which she did and bought them over.

Wednesday: I better get started in earnest today on prepping and processing things or I will get a bit behind. First up is the grapes and grape juice so I got that under way, then went out to do the orchard birds and animals, once back inside I have some pears that have gone a bit wrinkly and as I have always wanted to have a go at fruit leathers, I puree them along with a bit of melon and they are now in the oven on a very low setting for the next 6 hours 😀

Go round and collect any eggs available to put out for sale

Out to check the torts and give them some more food, the sun is still pretty hot when it’s out and though they are slowing down they are not ready to hibernate just yet. Then pick the tomatoes, I have an abundance this year, a fair few of the outside ones get spoiled or eaten so pick those off and throw in with the chickens, then back to pick the good ones to finish ripening on the window sill.

Get the chops out for dinner later, make coffee sit down and find more grape recipes 😜

There are plenty of things you can do with grapes it turns out! The obvious one is wine but to be honest we are not wine drinkers at the best of times so I’m giving that a miss. I had a banana and grape smoothie mid morning and washed another third of the grapes and de stalked them, some I have put on a tray and into the oven to dehydrate along with the fruit leather, the kids love raisins, great snack, and so I’d see how they turn out. More grape juice I think and I will have to freeze it as I don’t have room to pasteurise it and store it in bottles. I’m definitely leaning towards some grape jam, I’m curious to see how it turns out and let’s face it most jam is pretty good so that’s a contender, and you can freeze grapes, bonus, I will definitely be doing this as well.

It’s very windy out today, squally, as I call it because the wind is blowing in all directions, consequently it’s noisy in here as we have a tin roof and a very large crab apple tree above the roof, bonk, bonk, bonk, bonk every couple of seconds 😜 I have used the apples to feed pigs in the past and we have had people come and take boxes and boxes of them away for making cider but I have never done it myself, mostly because I just don’t have the time in amongst everything else there is to process!

When looking into the jam/jelly making process for grapes I found that it was mostly for seedless grapes, these have seeds in them, most seeded recipes are juice extracted, I think that’s an awful waste of skin and goodness so I did a quick bit of research to make sure the seeds are ok for you and it turns out they are very beneficial 😀 so whole grape jam it will be 😀 I personally don’t mind seeds of any type in my jams, adds to the texture.

So I just finished making the jam and I’m no expert, but I have made a lot of jam and even though it reached setting point, I don’t think it’s going to set, in fact you will be able to knock me down with a feather if it does 😲 in which case I can either boil or I have five jars of grape sauce to find recipes for 🤣

Well the grapes have been a bit of a disaster really, the jam is still not set, the raisins have been in for hours and look like they will take a hundred more so I abandoned that, the juice is lovely, looks like cold tea though, the rest I have open frozen to use another time. It takes more time than you think to process everything. On the good side of today was the fruit leather 😀 although the sides shrank it turned out very much how I thought it would and tastes great so a big thumbs up for that. I am tired again today, the meds they upped have not seemed to help the condition get better, the acupuncture did help in terms of less stiffness and associated pain but I was hoping to feel ready to get back at it, not happening 😏 I sat down for forty winks (may have been a little bit longer 😉) and when I woke up it was raining, and the washing, that had blown around nicely all day, was wet again 😤 hey ho, tomorrow is another day.

Then my Pyrex casserole dish that I’ve had for many, many years fell out of the cupboard when I opened the door and smashed 😏

Thursday: Raining this morning and although it will make things mucky I have to say I’m glad, it was getting very dry and dusty so a change is as good as a rest as they say.

I was looking through all the photos of the summer and if I get time I will do a round up of them, it’s amazing to see what I have grown and produced with it all and a great reminder in the times that I think ‘I should give it all up’, this year has been difficult not only because of the weather but due to the debilitating effects of this damn disease. When I was first diagnosed this is what I expected but after a year or so it went into remission and life was good, I’m hopeful that I can get back there some day but the road is longer than I thought it would be ☹️

Gosh just had a whirlwind of a half hour, someone at the gate to tell me a chicken is on the road, I suspect it’s the same one I keep getting reports of and that she is laying somewhere and crossing the road to do it, I go and look for her but nowhere to be seen 😋 then when I am re boiling the jam and it’s just near setting point the house phone rings at the exact same moment my mobile rings, I answered the house phone, quick convo about going away for the weekend with relatives, then I phone John who was trying to get me on the mobile because he couldn’t get through on the house phone, he has had to call a paramedic for his Mum who is not well, in all that Sam pops in to pick up the travel cot as they are going away for the weekend, and then calm is restored again 😀

Fingers crossed the jam will set this time, it has reduced by one whole jar and I put half a lemon in for pectin so hopefully…

I have been costing up the sale of nuts, we sold quite a few last year and so I will put them out again this year, I have to order paper bags with windows though, they don’t sell in just a paper bag we tried it then changed the packaging and voila, weird but I guess that why marketing is a real job!

On a whim, as if I don’t have enough on the ‘to do’ list, I made granola 😀 I found a great chart and used up items I had in the cupboard, oats, linseed mix, almonds, coconut oil, molasses, mix it and bake it in the oven then added dates and desiccated coconut, I hope it tastes good 😀 I struggle with breakfast because I don’t want to eat toast and porridge gets boring, the supermarket cereals are full of hidden sugar either that or it’s bran based ☹️ so I figured I would make my own lol I’m pretty well practised at granola though because every time I make flapjack, that’s how it turns out 😂😂

My writing is interrupted by about the 6/7th phone call from numbers I never answer probably cold calling, I’m fed up with the phone constantly ringing so I have gone on to my BT and blacklisted them all 😝 oooo feels good 😀

Picked up half a bucketful of hazelnuts, this morning I was picking up walnuts, the wind has kindly made the job easier by dumping them all on the floor 😜 I have just seen a warning from our local police force for the impending storm and possible damage to buildings and trees 😲 scary.

Friday: Well the winds were not too bad though it did wake me a couple of times along with the rain 🌧It’s sunny but windy this morning and I have picked up another load of walnuts, that’s a bucket and half, I think I will give up picking up hazels there are thousands of them! As well as the walnut picking I have fed the orchard lot, put on some washing, cleaned the bathroom, collected eggs and put them out for sale, now I’m having a sit down. I’m having to pace myself today, yesterday was a good day, it’s not too bad today but I feel exhausted already 😏 pain in the bum as I really want to get on but can’t physically do it.

I harvested the pumpkins some of them are ripe and some needing ripening so I have put them in the polytunnel, they are early this year and the foliage has now died off, if I leave them they will either get eaten by the hens/birds or with the rain and damp, go soft so I’m hedging my bets and getting them in. Not a bad haul from one plant 😀 Since the grandchildren were born I try and grow them so they each have one for Halloween 🎃 They are only a small variety but sweet when eaten as well so I will probably sell a few of them at the gate.

Saturday: Well if the rest of the blog is a bit uninteresting that’s all about to change! So we did the usual jobs this morning, I manage to relocate a cooking apple tree into the front paddock as well as a dogwood for the fence line, put barricades around them so the chickens don’t scratch back to the roots. John put a new gate post in on the duck pen (he accidentally caught the old one with the tractor) then went and extended the electric fencing round the new hens. He came back to the house and made tea, gave me a yell as I was in the polytunnel clearing the ground, we sat down and were chatting and drinking, the dog, Mia, looked towards the driveway with her ears down and wagging her tail, I thought, that’s funny because both Shelley and Sam are away for the day so it’s not them coming. Nobody appeared so I got up and looked in the driveway and saw who I thought was Charlie crouching at the back of her car, she must be cleaning it was my thought then I realised that when I had gone in to the loo just minutes before she was busy hoovering. At this point I realised someone was pinching her number plates, I yelled ‘oi’ and started running out there along with John, they took off in a car but we got the number plate (one letter wrong we found out later) I ran back shouting the reg number so I didn’t forget it to report it to the police, John and Charlie got in the car to see a) if they had chucked the plates in the hedge along the lane and b) to see if the local community officer was down the road where he often visits. Meanwhile I checked the cctv and found that they had pulled up, had a look in the egg shed, then reversed the car behind Johns van, rifled through that and nicked his drill, rifled through Charlie’s car and then nicked the number plates which is when I saw him. Through the power of social media we quickly found out that the car was pinched yesterday from a village not far away and it seems that there have been a few other incidents in our village. Lessons to learn 1) don’t get complacent, lock your vehicle even if you are going back out in it very soon 2) the dogs don’t always bark but they do act funny, check it out. This was 11am while we were out and about on the farm and it disrupted our day completely not to mention Charlie is out of pocket having to quickly get new plates made up, on the other hand it’s only stuff and nobody was hurt. Hopefully they will catch the little turds soon enough 😡

Life goes on and I decided to process the walnuts so took all the husks off, washed them then rinsed them in white vinegar and put them in racks to dry, my fingers are now a lovely shade of brown, it would make great fake suntan dye 😋

Sunday: Filthy morning weather wise though the sun came out in the afternoon. After the morning feeding etc, John cleaned out Rosie the Rayburn and put her new firebrick and grate in, still need to clean the flue but not while it’s raining 😝 I set about weighing and packaging up the hazelnuts and printing off a bit of random information about hazels, always good to educate myself and others 😀

We went round to see Shelley, Martin, Josh and Flo and hear all about their trip to West Midlands Safari Park, Josh wanted to see a real ‘Ephaphant’ 😀

When we got back there was a message from Thames Valley Police to say that Charlie’s stolen plates and the stolen car they were on, the same one we saw yesterday, had been recovered, this was a direct result of quickly sharing the information on Facebook, well done everyone and thank you very much, it will mean that Charlie does not have to worry about what her number plate is going to get up to, hopefully the stolen car is in good order and can be returned to its rightful owner who no doubt works as hard as everyone (almost) else does for the things that they cherish.

On the upside of yesterday’s escapade, the adrenaline rush seems to have done my aches and pains a power of good 😀 or maybe the meds are finally kicking in 😜

Friesland Farm

Apples, pears, plums and a whole load of other stuff.

Posted on August 26, 2018 by frieslandfarm

Monday 20th August: I’m thinking that maybe we should have opening times for the egg shed as last night someone arrived at 7.45pm expecting there to still be eggs available!

A dull but warm morning so after the orchard animals were sorted and I went round checking for randomly laid duck eggs I decided to plant the sambucus nigra which is a black elderflower tree, it has beautiful pink flowers in the spring which make pink elderflower champagne 😀 I want to get it in the ground while there is still some growing time to be had, it’s going in the front yard area to cast a bit of shade by the gateway so that I can stand and chat to customers lol. I dug the first spadeful of dirt out and low and behold a chicken appears, they are fast when they think there are worms to be had, sadly this is a hard area and no worms to be seen. I got it the ground and put some rotted muck in the hole to give it a bit of a boost and then cut some mesh to go around the base to stop the chickens scratching up the loose dirt and exposing the roots otherwise it won’t do very well at all.

Next job was to weed killer the ménage as it has got a bit out of control and with it overcast it’s an ideal time, some of the taller weeds I hand pulled, two barrow loads, and as it looked like the sun was going to come out I then got on with spraying the rest. I can’t use the weed burner in there because of the wood chip, it would be a blazing inferno! Would you bloody coco it though, it seemed like the sun was going to come out and then when I had finished (about an hour) it started to drizzle, now, I need about a 2 hour clearance on this so I’m not a happy bunny ☹️ When you want rain, nothing, when you don’t want it……🌧

I have been busy planning what veg to grow over winter, onions, broad beans, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, I think I should put in some more garlic as well, I’m also waiting for some leek plants to arrive but they seem to have disappeared in the post! All I have to do now is decide where I am going to plant all this as I also need to heavily muck the beds to get the best soil I can for next springs plantings.

Then I did a bit of picking, tomatoes, courgettes, more runner beans and some purple French beans (I really need to grow many more of these next year) and half a bucket of elderberries which are beautifully ripe now. I made elderberry syrup with them, for pouring on ice cream or with yoghurt in the mornings, it’s packed with vitamin c and extremely good for you, the syrup can also be used if you have a cough or mixed with a bit of honey as a hot drink for some tlc when you have a cold.

I had a bit of an accident later in the afternoon, when Sam and Mia came over they had picked me some blackberries and so I took Mia out to get some cooking apples off the tree for her to take home for crumble, then when Josh came over I went out with him to get him some apples as well, only this time I failed to see a low (head height) stumpy branch and walked straight into it with a thump, it jarred my neck and put me on the floor 😏

Tuesday: Dull again with that very fine drizzle, almost just a misting really, it was like that yesterday, it couldn’t quite make up its mind what it was going to do. Foraged for the rabbits this morning, a big bucket full of herbs and weeds, some dandelions for the torts along with some fallen apples and a couple of small courgettes. I have watered anything in pots as it is quite dry, I’m contemplating watering the veg later on if the sun comes out as they say it should. Lots of jobs I really should be doing but I’m quite tired even though I only got up a couple of hours ago, it will be interesting to see what the blood results are later this week, I feel like I’m always bordering on getting a cold 😏

I have been constantly looking for something to make another small water garden with and the answer was under my nose all the time, we have some old metal water tanks and one of them by the kennels is no longer connected to any drainpipe so I think I will use that I just need to empty it and drag it into the garden, fill it back up and put some of the pond plants in it, I think it will work fine, if I can summon up some energy I will do it later, It’s mostly to attract insects and increase the diversity in the garden. I might even put some fish in it, I need to measure it and make sure it’s deep enough that it doesn’t freeze in winter though.

In the big raised bed between the poly tunnels I have sown some winter grazing rye, mostly this will be for the rabbits over winter but the roots will stabilise the soil structure and then be dug in as a green manure when the time comes, I have had the packet for a couple of years and never got round to sowing it so hopefully it’s still viable.

I noticed that the dogs are eating the hazelnuts, that fall on the ground much more frequently now, and a quick look on the trees tells me that they are definitely ready which is about 2/3 weeks earlier than normal, it looks like everything is going to come at once now, apples, plums, pears, blackberries and nuts, busy times 😋

Back to the water garden thing and I also realised that I have the perfect opportunity in a tank that is already in the fruit cage so I filled it right up with rainwater and pulled some water plants from the other small pond to transfer over, the pond plants help to keep the water clean and aerated. I will have mini water gardens all over the place at this rate 😀

Shelley, Josh and Florence came over and I had Mia today so we arranged to go blackberry picking along Scrubbs Lane, Shelley and I got a tub full each, Mia and Josh ate every single one they picked 🤣🤣 The plum tree (lovely yellow plums) that is along there is sadly riddled with plum moth this year so we didn’t get any, never mind we will try again next year.

Ooops so I did this thing, I ordered 1000 daffodil bulbs 🤪 guess that’s another job on the list of things to do when they arrive! Next spring however we will be selling bunches of daffs at the gate 😀

Wednesday: A bit cooler today and overcast but just right for me 😀 John did the main feeding etc although I noticed later that he had forgot to let the geese out and turn off the water into the duck pond! I collected rabbit greens and sorted out the orchard birds then Mum arrived to do some gardening, some tidying and some weeding, it’s that time of year when it looks looms a bit scruffy and now it’s looking a lot better 😀 I picked some Victoria plums, on one side of the tree there is no moth that has burrowed in so they are fine, I had the plums picked and made into jam and jarred up in an hour 😀 cant get better than that and it’s a beautiful pink colour, fabulous, I gave Mum a jar in return for her hard work.

Then Mia arrived for the day and she played outside for a bit until she tripped over the hose and hit her face on the wheelbarrow handle ☹️

Out in the evening for curry with my friends.

Thursday: Raining this morning, that’s good because I had started having to water again as it was getting very dry. Spent a couple of hours sorting out insurance and paperwork for our up coming holiday, why does it always take so long, John thinks it’s a 2 minute job! Then did the orchard animals and collected some eggs to put out for sale, I noticed that some of the ducks are growing new wing feathers so hopefully they will come back into lay soon. Out of the 90 hens in the front paddock only around 60 of them are laying at the minute, lots of them are in a moult, that together with the disappearing daylight hours mean egg numbers drop a fair bit but it’s not quite time to put a light in, though we could trial it and see if it helps. I also have wormer ordered and ready to pick up so we will begin a week long dose on Sunday, these hybrids have to kept in tip top condition to perform, just like an F1 car 😜

I picked the apples from my eating apple tree, the wasps have started on them and they are beginning to fall so that tells me they are ready and last year I lost the lot to the birds so I was determined to harvest them this year 🤪 and as they will continue to ripen after picking we are all good, I need to get to the pears as soon as possible too. These are not ‘keeper’ apples so they won’t store all winter but they will last a month in the bottom of the fridge, a bit too many for us so I will be giving some of them to Shelley and Sam for the grandchildren 😀 I also picked a fair few cucumbers, more than I thought were out there, some tomatoes and some French beans which have suddenly decided to kick start production.

Friday: Definite chill in the air this morning though the day itself was not bad. I picked all the pears from my dual pear tree, one side they are fab, the other side they are not so good, scabby and useless, I also picked another load of plums but really need to get some sugar to make jam before they get too ripe. I quickly made a pear and cinnamon cake and then went on a busmans day out with the grandchildren to a farm 😀 While I was there I bought some unhomogenised organic milk and some organic butter, if I get a minute I will try making some cheese with the milk.

Very tired when I got home but I had the afternoon feeding and egg to collect as the egg shed was empty, then as I sit down to type up this and I can hear a bloody mouse or something scratching in the wall cavity. I will either have to set a trap or shut the cat in the back for the night, I really don’t want to use poison because they always choose to die in the wall and then it stinks 😷 besides that it’s not good for the wildlife.

I am aware that I talk about the orchard and the birds/animals in there so I thought I would take some photos from various angles so you can see what it looks like, through the summer it is lovely and shaded, especially useful this summer! The fence along the left hand side in the top pic is the one between the orchard and the paddock and the one I want to plant into an edible hedgeline, so far I have planted a couple of blackcurrants, comfrey, thornless blackberry, feverfew and a dog rose, I have also sprinkled plenty of marigold and love in a mist seeds along there too.

For the first time ever John cooked his own dinner! Now just to clarify he does cook cheese on toast and sausages/bacon and eggs but that’s it, the extent of his culinary talents, so tonight I made him cook his own, from start to finish, peeling the spuds and everything 😜 I didn’t even help him with the timings and voila now he thinks he could manage masterchef 🤣🤣

I found just over half a bottle of vodka in the cupboard and so I figured pear liqueur was a good thing to try, pierce holes in the pear, put in a jar, cover with vodka, add nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and orange peel, leave for two weeks and then add sugar and leave until Christmas time 😀 enjoy on a cold night hopefully 😋

So with all these pears, naturally I have been looking at recipes, one thing I have never tried is canning and I will admit that breaking open a fresh jar of pears in the winter sounds very appealing. Looking at how it’s done it seems simple enough, I’m thinking I can do the water bath method in a large stewing saucepan with a lid, I have a trivet, I just need to dig out my killer jars and I will give it a go even if it’s only a couple of jars. If anyone has experience of canning I would love to hear your tips and methods.

Saturday: After last nights rain it’s sunny this morning but with a chill in the air. Sorted out the orchard lot first and then did some picking as someone requested runner beans yesterday. It’s surprising how long it all takes really and to be fully self sufficient would take an awful lot longer or at the least need two people doing it all, at the minute we kind of muddle through, John doing the maintenance and building runs and coops etc, feeding the birds in the mornings and cleaning out the two main lot of hens weekly, while I do everything else! The list is endless, sowing, growing, hoeing, mowing, watering, harvesting, processing, cooking, cleaning, washing, paperwork, and I have been asked ‘what do you find to do all day’! Well in order to make the most of everything it takes time, effort, perseverance and determination, one day I will write a comprehensive list of everything 🤪 in the meantime that’s what the blog is for, so I can keep a check on what I have done.

The cats have been acting very strangely of late, constantly following us around and meowing, even the pizza delivery guy (wrong address it was for next door) said ‘I think there is something wrong with your cat’ well no, there is nothing wrong with him, he is just weird at the moment, I wormed and flead them just in case, the full moon probably has something to do with it, but they have become a bit needy and follow you round like a dog. John did shut Diesel in the back area last night in the hopes that he will catch whatever it was in the wall, one good thing about him being under your feet, you don’t have to go searching 😀

We sold out of eggs within an hour yesterday afternoon so consequently there is a delay this morning until the girls get going again, I hate it when customers come and there are no eggs but there is not much I can do about it, one customer has asked for more plum jam but I need to pick the rest of the plums first and I need a bigger ladder and preferably another person there, John has had to go to work this morning and also do his Mums breakfast and her shopping first thing so hopefully we can pick them this afternoon.

I have a mother load of pears, some small but most are of a good size, so in the oven at the moment on a low temp are two trays of pear crisps, never done them before so I will be interesting to see how they turn out. I’m hoping the grandchildren will like them, Mia’s first words when she gets here are always ‘I very ‘ungry’ meaning she wants a biscuit 😜 o hopefully they will be a good substitute.

The basil needed picking and so I made some pesto, a small jar for the fridge to be used within a couple of days and then a small tub for the freezer which can be used anytime I need some. Basil smells amazing, it’s one of the best smells I think. The older leaves and stalks I have to the rabbits who have had a good mix of willow and herbs today.

The pear crisps turned out ok, they got the thumbs up from Macca at any rate 😀 I will try them on the grandchildren and they may become a regular thing, great for snacking on.

John helped to pick the rest of the plums and I managed to get the last 4 bags of preserving sugar on the shelf when I went shopping so plum jam is on the to do list.

Sunday: Wet today! We picked around 4kg of plums yesterday taking the final amount to around 6kg from the one tree😀 so this morning I have mostly been processing plums, 3kg of plum jam a jar of plum sauce (plums, onion, garlic, vinegar, sugar, nutmeg, ginger, and star anise (take that out before bottling) purée, re heat and bottle) and cooked down some with sugar for the freezer ready for crumbles in the winter.

This afternoon we are on a whole family picnic 😝 only it’s wet but we have booked a hall (there are a lot of us) in the event of wet weather so that’s good or it would be if I hadn’t decided to take bbq food and a disposable bbq, now I’m a bit stuffed with what to do lol. I needn’t have worried there was enough food to feed an army 🤣 fabulous afternoon had by young and old alike.

Have a fabulous week people x

Friesland Farm

Forest gardening, Midsummer and a Harris Hawk

Posted on June 24, 2018 by frieslandfarm

Monday 18th May: The weather looks set to be fair this week, no rain in sight which means lots of watering to be done! I’m pretty good this morning once I’ve taken something to help out so John did half the birds and I did the other half, we have 10 hatchlings in the final count, good strong chicks though so hopefully they will continue that way. Weeding and foraging for the rabbits goes hand in hand so I did some of that, there is plenty for them at this time of year. I made up a cutting compost mix as I have a few bits I want to try and strike, the mix is compost, sand and vermiculite and then the cuttings dipped in root gel and put on a lower shelf in a unheated propagator in the greenhouse out of direct sunlight, nothing to lose really so I will give them a go.

I sold 6 quail over the weekend 5 female and one male so the urgency to find them a proper place is not so bad now, my plan, I think, is to keep a male (and I have identified which one already) with a few females, that way I have two separate flocks and if I want to breed I can swap the males over for new bloodlines, the rest of the males I will probably let go and they can have a couple of days freedom before they become dinner for some other wildlife, it’s a dog eat dog world out there 😩 The POL sales also went crazy at the weekend, we haven’t sold any for a couple of weeks then all of a sudden 20 in one weekend!

Lots of pottering in the garden and a bit of planning for ‘forest gardening’ which I am going to have a go at, to be honest I already have bits of it in place I just didn’t realise there was an actual term for it! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_gardening

Harvested some potatoes from the self setter box I have, it’s a large crate and I have now grown self setters in there for about 4 years in a row with no problems whatsoever ever, basically I harvest as I have today, leaving behind all the tiny potatoes and they grow again, I will probably get some more in time for Christmas and do the same all over again.

Picked a few strawberries and raspberries, not many but I plan to plant strawberries in with the forest garden as I have found that the best plants are always the ones that have self set, I’m beginning to think all this preening, pruning, row growing etc is a complete waste of time, I think I will let nature show me how it’s done 😀

I have noticed a fair bit of ‘June drop’ from the fruit trees, I just hope there is enough left at the end of the season to harvest, one of my plum branches has already snapped under the weight and the plums are pretty small at the minute. I have an apple tree in the paddock that is struggling, it’s been struggling ever since I put it in but this year it’s just not managing at all so I need to dig that up and move it, I think I will plant a sweet chestnut out there instead.

On my down time I am continuously learning, today it’s all about ‘swales’ as far as I can make out, it’s basically a ditch dug out on the contour or slope and piled up on the other side to create a water catchment that is ‘level’ this collects the rain and then filters it slowly or much more slowly at least in the downward direction meaning the plants in its pathway can utilise the water more efficiently. I am definitely going to give this a try, Swales can be large covering a whole field or they can be smaller such as in a veg plot setting, interesting and pretty obvious when you think about it, and obvious that our ‘natural’ Swales run in completely the wrong direction! I have also been reading other bits and pieces that seem obvious but I had never thought of it, I seem to be having my eyes opened just recently to a number of things, maybe I had closed my mind and was just bumbling through. I couldn’t really get my head around permaculture being anything more than lots of people trying to make money out of writing a book about it but I am beginning to see exactly what it’s all about and how to apply it, looking, learning and applying. Sure we are doing the basics, collecting rainwater etc but I am still having to stand and water everything which takes time, and I am missing out on useful water such as the duck pond when it’s emptied just gets tipped out, all those duck poo nutrients going to waste waahh what was I thinking 😜

Sowed a bed of carrot seeds where I had pulled the onions from.

I have spotted, pardon the pun, many, many ladybird larvae all over the garden, on a positive note this is fab for my garden however they are Harlequin larvae so not so good for the native ladybird ☹️ firstly, parasites that attack native ones don’t attack harlequins and secondly if the harlequins run out of food they will eat native ladybird eggs.

Had a dental appointment then dinner then out to cut the front paddock, it’s grown so much since we last did it which doesn’t seem that long ago, while John was on lawnmower duty I did a bit of watering then went to help him, typically it’s now spitting with rain 😝

Ordered a book called ‘Permaculture in a nutshell’ hopefully it will help me see what it is we need to be putting in place, meanwhile I am looking at things with new vision, I also ordered an Alder tree as apparently it fixes nitrogen and will be planting that out near the fruit trees in the paddock, and some horseradish, the last lot I bought as dried foot failed to appear although (I had forgotten) there is some on the side of the road just a bit up from us so I may go and dig a piece up from there as well.

Found a baby bird dead in the water butt, how it got there is a mystery as there is a lid on it, the only thing I can think is that it has fallen down the drainpipe?

Tuesday: Apart from John carrying two feed buckets to the front for me it was, me, myself, I, on morning duties today, I don’t mind telling you I was worn out after lol. Mum arrived fairly early to do some gardening 😀 yay many hands make light work as they say and I am always grateful for extra hands. She did some weeding up on the far end while I did some in the middle, then I potted up a thornless blackberry and some black currant seedlings that had grown in the brassica cage. I cut some broccoli, one for Mum and one for our dinner later.

At the moment I am collecting eggs from the Welsh Harlequin ducks that I separated off they will be the last batch of eggs to go in the incubator this year, I should be able to fit about 12 in there hopefully.

Some trees I ordered have arrived, not any old trees but ‘sacred’ trees, small leaved lime or linden, multiple uses including using the young leaves in salads, linden tea can be made for blood pressure and the bark can be used for rope making if I ever need it 😀 They are small at the moment but will reach a great height eventually, I will pot them up and bring them on keeping a close eye on them for a year, they can be used as coppice for fuel so there’s an option, I will probably use one in my ‘edible forest’ that is the veg garden.

The summer solstice is fast approaching, why does is come so quickly when winter drags on so long, anyhow I have found a recipe for honey cakes which are used as an offering for the ‘faeries’ on Midsummers eve, a pretty simple recipe and something I haven’t tried before so I will be giving them a go.

Wednesday: Ooops totally overdid it yesterday and by the evening I was not too good so a dose of painkillers and a good nights sleep was in order. This morning John kindly did the morning routine before going to work bless him, I showered and by 8.30 I had started to clean the kitchen which has been bugging me for a while. A deep clean, drawers, cupboards, walls etc so at this present time 12.30 I’m having a break and still have plenty to do in there.

I noticed a grasshopper on the wall by the breadbin, thought ah that’s sweet and took a photo,

I thought about putting it back outside but forgot, now I have to live with the consequences because on my, hoovering the tops of the walls round, I found a spider had wrapped said grasshopper up for lunch 😩 so I hoovered up that bastard too 🤪

Went on clean the living room and the bedroom, knackered now and shoulders are killing me ☹️ still it feels nice and clean everywhere, well not everywhere there is still the boot room and the office to de clutter and deweb but they can wait for another day.

After some more anti inflammatory pills and a rest some dinner it was back to work watering, picking etc and I made the honey cake, I use the term loosely and I won’t put the recipe on here because there are probably far better examples out there. Honey cake, well it has honey in it and it’s definitely cake, it also has a fair amount of coffee, I used decaf so we won’t be bouncing off the walls after eating it, it’s edible, pleasant enough but not what I would call honey cake really.

Today I picked a small tub of strawberries and raspberries, 4 heads of broccoli, some beetroot, a courgette, rainbow chard and some new potatoes, most of which I have put out for sale as we have already eaten. The dilemma is what to charge for naturally grown veg, I always check the supermarket prices but I feel that if I priced them like that they are grossly underpriced for what you are getting, something that actually tastes like its supposed to, been lovingly tended, had nothing sprayed on it whatsoever, the best veg you can get to be precise 😀

Thursday: Up in the middle of the night to eat and take anti inflammatory! The trouble is when I feel ok I get stuck into jobs then pay for it later on 😜 Anyhow, John did the morning routine then went off to get feed then take the van for a service, I had some paperwork to do so got on with that as much as I could because for some reason my iPad and printer are not talking to each other 🤪

In the afternoon I used the cardboard, that I had put on the floor in the greenhouse over winter, to cut and place round the squash plants that are growing outside, it’s a start to the mulching I need to get done. Mulch, mulch, mulch is my mantra of the week, we are in for a serious lack of rain and some very high temperatures which won’t do the plants any good at all so best start preparing now. John came home and was on in ‘half a job John’ mode, at this moment we have everything pulled out from under the kitchen sink as he is putting in an outside tap but that’s as far as he has got, then we have tools out in the orchard area where he has half fitted some angle irons at the top of the fencing with wire attached to it to stop the fox getting over, at one point I wondered where he had gone and he was up the garden weeding in goggles due to the high pollen count!!! “There is medication available you know” but you can’t help those who won’t help themselves can you 😩

Just been informed after asking what the plan is, that every time he goes to do a job he needs a tool that is in the van that has gone for a service, I get it now, I thought he was just being unproductive lol.

My bit of bedtime reading arrived yesterday ‘permaculture in a nutshell’ and today I have been making a plan to start the polyculture, permaculture, forest garden approach, I have a pear tree in the orchard that I will start with. I have chosen plants that I already have available:

Comfrey – Mulch/insect attractor

Lavender – attractor

Borage – attractor

Fennel – attractor

Rhubarb – mulch

Solomans seal

Strawberry – attractor/stabiliser

Thyme – soil stabiliser

Peas – nitrogen fixer

I still need to have fruit bushes which will probably be currant and roots which may be onion or wild garlic or chives but this is the basic outline of my ‘guild’ I will observe and see what does well and what fails, either way I will learn a fair bit I think.

I’ve just read a blog on a forest garden hedge so that will be another project to think about, ooo so much to do and so little time 😜 Inbetween that I fancied a snack so I made some raspberry fritters 😀 mashed banana, flour, cinnamon, mash and stir then add the raspberries then fry in coconut oil, rather delish with some creme fresh though they didn’t hold shape too well, still it all goes down the same way 😝

So I asked for an outside tap under the kitchen window and this happened!

Well I wouldn’t mind so much except that John is a time served plumber 😩 there was a LOT of swearing and a bit of a puddle and apparently the kitchen tap (which admittedly we had been having problems with) was f**ked this is why it has been leaking even though John fitted new washers a while back. On the up side I now have an outside tap to water the front plants with 😀

A bit later I asked John if it was connected to the hot, “nope, it’s just a cold tap and before you say anything, a hundred years ago they would have delighted with that fitted” so I said, “a hundred years ago they would have been delighted with rabbit for dinner “ guess what’s on the menu tomorrow 🤪

Mowed the grass and used the mowings for mulches on various plants that are in danger of drying out too quickly when this hot weather hits us.

Friday: By mutual agreement I have decided to take it a bit easier today, I find that I am suffering a lot once I stop in late evening and then the joints seize up over night. Having said that there are a couple of jobs I want to get done, the first is my second ‘guild’ an Apple tree this time. It was growing out in the paddock but it has never been happy there so I dug it up and pruned it back, put in in water to soak for a couple of days and planted it elsewhere this morning. So far I have planted comfrey, strawberries and black currant round it, there is a pumpkin growing close by and some Welsh onions, I need a few other things in there, I will probably try coriander as a quick growing herb and some broad beans for fixing nitrogen. I have some b bean plants that I cut back after they had finished, they are in a pot so will transplant easily.

As I look at things with new vision so much of ‘traditional’ gardening seems pretty foolhardy now, most attributed to the victorians who liked neat and tidy rows but then they had plenty of man power in the kitchen garden which I definitely don’t have here. One of the practices I will definitely adopt is the ‘chop and drop’ I mean unless you want compost to plant into then why on earth spend all that time taking it all to the compost heap, turning it and hauling it back again, chop it, leave it where it is and let nature do the work for you seems obvious now, unless of course there is disease but even then burn it and use the ash on the garden. I am rather liking this new outlook, how can I save time and work but still reap the benefits. Another thing I have taken more notice of is how/where plants grow, one instance is a rogue strawberry plant that had escaped out of the fruit cage and is growing in the path, it’s not watered or fed or tended in any way and yet it is in much better health than the cosseted ones inside the cage? Another observation is of 5 sweet potato plants, 4 of them struggling 1 which is under the tomato plants is romping away, again the 4 had greenfly which I wiped off but the other one didn’t have any, that information will be consigned to memory for future years.

Today I picked raspberries and strawberries, in previous years we had an abundance but I dug three rows of raspberries up last year as they were getting out of control in terms of I didn’t have time to tend or even pick them properly and the strawberries had got in the same kind of muddle so we cleared them, sadly this year I don’t have very many so there won’t be jam!

Saturday: Up early to take painkillers again so that I can get up at the usual time and be able to do some work! I did the morning rounds with John then onto a bit of watering in the shady areas, then I put up a temporary fence in the orchard to let the Welsh harlequins have more room but not get on the veg garden or they will eat the courgettes 😜 Then I planted a lime tree in the duck pen and put some protection round it, we were going to change the duck pen and move it but actually all it needs is some greenery in the form of trees and bushes and preferably ones with berries that will feed them too such as elderberry and currant, they will provide shade, shelter and forage. Then onto foraging for the rabbits, willow, hazel, lemon balm, plenty of plantain, dandelions, clover, thistle and birds foot trefoil and grass. It’s getting quite warm out there now after a cool start.

Charlie is making smoothies with the few berries I have collected 😀 there looks like there will be plenty of black currants and gooseberry and hopefully I will get some jam made with those although John is not particularly keen on those flavours as that’s all there will be he may actually try them 😝

I watched a red legged partridge, that had somehow managed to get in the front paddock with all the birds, frantically running round trying to find a way back out while being chased by all and sundry, it must have eventually got out as peace was resumed pretty quickly. We get a pair visit the farm every year, I presume they are the same pair and it’s always the same time of year.

Picked some gooseberries (I know they are ready because each time I go up there the blackbirds are ferreting about underneath them) topped and tailed them and made some jam with a bit of elderflower cordial in for good measure. I went slightly wrong, don’t know what I was thinking when I put the sugar in at the same time as the gooseberries 😜 no harm done really it just meant I needed to cook them slowly to begin with then on to a boil. While I was waiting I put the contents of the under the sink cupboard back after John advised me to leave it all out and check for any leaks after fitting the new kitchen tap, we now have a proper mixer tap back. I always sterilise my jam jars in the oven, it’s just how I prefer to do it, I know it can be done in the microwave or with sterilising fluid but that’s my preferred method, wash with hot soapy water, rinse and then with the oven set at around 120/30c they can stay in there until the jam is ready to jar up, I use a thermometer rather than a plate from the freezer, mainly because I can’t be bothered to keep going backwards and forwards to the freezer which is out the back! I was surprised how quickly the temperature went up to setting point so I’m hoping it does actually set. It was only after I made the jam I remembered I had bought a proper jam pan last year, I had to search for it but I will definitely use that next time so as not to burn it which can happen in a thinner saucepan. I had enough strawberries and raspberries to make a couple of jars of mixed jam so that’s what I did, in the proper pan this time. This jam had quite a lot of foam, you can remove it with a spoon just before putting it a jar, you can use a tiny amount of butter or oil when you cook the jam or you can do what I do and leave it. It is said that it can shorten the life of the jam but as two jars will probably not even last a month in this house then I don’t worry too much, I prefer to take it off when I open a jar. If you take it off you can heat it in the microwave and it will make a bit of extra jam ready for instant use, the foam is just jam bubbles so nothing terrible. Obviously if you are wanting to give your jam as a present/gift I would recommend scooping it off, if it’s for home use then don’t worry unless you really want to.

I made a pineapple, turmeric and ginger blitz in the nutrition bullet tonight, I need to try and get this inflammation down and I’d rather try and do it naturally rather than continuous pills.

The sunset tonight was magnificent, Charlie took some photos 😀

Sunday: I’m not in very good shape this morning, I will have to relent and call the doctor tomorrow and see what can be done. John did the morning stuff while I hobbled around, had a shower got dressed etc then I did manage to go outside and pick a few raspberries and do a bit of watering of stuff in the shade. Then I heard a peculiar noise 3 times so I was about to go and investigate when I heard somebody shouting hello across the hedge. It turns out a chap who was hawking at the farm over the back from us had lost his Harris hawk, so that’s the noise I could hear. We eventually located it in the top of one of our conifers and he called it down with a tit bit to entice it, her name was Missie and she was a beautiful bird. I invited the chap to feel free to catch rabbits with her here and I hope that he will take us up on the offer at some point as we are getting over run with them.

Didn’t do much for the rest of the day except watering in the evening, John cleaned out the front birds and we had to move a duck that the geese have regularly been picking on for some unknown reason ☹️