Monday 11th October 2021: Must try harder to write every day and not forget like I did last week 🤪
Already this morning the plans I had have changed and it’s only 9.30 am. I had a phone call from a tree company who are working in the area had want to bring wood chip😁 I am on a site where they can ring and ask if you want some, I said yes please and now I have three loads coming 🙄 so I need to decide where they are going to dump it and what I will do with it. We use a lot of it on the pathways in the veg garden, it’s ideal for suppressing weeds and does need renewing each year. We used to use a lot of it in the ménage but that has just become a weed bed at the minute so I can put it straight on there although I will probably put it there when I get time to sort it all out. So the jobs I had on my list go by the way and make way for a different job today, sometimes that’s just how things go. I might have another cup of coffee before having to get stuck in to moving it all.
I have spent most of the day shifting wood chip onto the pathways (still a long way to go yet) I spent the rest of the time, cutting things down or pulling things up. I have tidied up the hoses and anything I left lying around which is always a fair amount of stuff 🤪 and I worked right until it was dark. I did have a short interlude when Shelley came over with Josh and Flo and we cooked sausages on the fire pit (Shelley moved a few barrows of wood chip for me as well)
Tuesday: Another busy one in the garden, I was going to move more woodchip but I was thinking while I was falling asleep last night that I needed to get the fruit cage in order so that I could woodchip in there. If I did all the paths around it first I would find it hard to push the barrow, so I spent the morning tidying, weeding, cutting back and repotting the blueberries and the yellow raspberries. I topped up all the pots with compost and added some pelleted chicken manure and some carbon at the same time. I did actually find a few raspberries 😁 only around 15 but still that’s a win. The raspberries have on the whole been terrible this year but there is a late flush, due to the weather I imagine and so I might get a few more before the weather turns.
I did plan to sit down after that but found I had more energy so I changed jobs and barrowed some of the homemade compost onto the smaller raised beds that John put in for me. I got three of them filled, added some carbon and covered them with membrane, they will stay like that until I either decided to plant into them for winter or leave them until spring. I have a lot of much smaller beds now which is time consuming at this end of the year but will be much easier to look after in the growing season hopefully.
I did get the dinner on first thing in the morning and got the ducks some clean bedding before I started all of that lol.
Wednesday: Another good lot of work in the garden today although I did sit down at 1.30 for a good hour or so, the more I do the more tired I feel the next day 🙄 But I feel like I am really getting somewhere and making good progress with the preparation which in turn will make next spring a lot easier hopefully. I started off in the greenhouse picking any remaining chillies and peppers then putting the plants outside, they will go in the compost bin when there is room. I cut all the lemon grass, took the tops to the rabbit and Guineas and kept the rest of the stems, some are for sale some I will find a use for. I also took one of the plants inside to overwinter along with another ginger plant. I dug up part of the horseradish, it has got huge and I don’t want it taking over, some of the root I put out for sale the rest I will grate and freeze. Next I fixed the side of one of the long beds, the wood had rotted and the side collapsed and then onto a fair amount of weeding. I picked all the remaining courgettes, they are small but still useable. All the while I was popping back and forth to the kitchen because I was baking bread. While I was waiting for the bread to cook I made a batch of tomato soup all with home grown ingredients, garlic, carrot, basil, tomatoes and a lovely red pepper. Back outside to get some more bits done before moving 4 barrows of woodchip. I think I earned the sit down lol.
All home brown ingredients for tomato soup, can’t show you the finished article because we ate it all up 😋
Thursday: Mostly busy indoors today which was unexpected, I was quite tired so I had already decided to potter today rather than get stuck into anything big. But the day didn’t pan out like that, Luke came to rebuild the end side of the building which is the undercover outer area, we had a discussion however an decided to completely remodel the whole thing 🤣
Friday: Gotta love Friday and especially a sunny one 😁 I got busy straight away with putting some bits up for sale to make room in the back covered area and then I started dismantling the worktop and anything around it in the area where the door will now be going. I also rang the surgery as I had notification from nhs vaccine that I need to get a third vaccine booked. There is some confusion over if this is the booster or a third primary vaccine but a bit of research showed that the booster is the same as the origin vaccine so I can’t see it makes much difference really except that I am then supposed to have a booster in six months time as well 🤷♀️ Luke is busy out the back opening up the new doorway and re fitting the doors, can’t believe we didn’t do it years ago it would have made much more sense lol. I have barrowed a few loads of woodchip as well today, if I do some every day then eventually I will get it done.
Lemon grass tea, full of antioxidants and goodness and so easy to grow in the UK
Saturday: Did a bit of pottering about first thing, I was waiting for someone to arrive who was coming to buy some equipment we were selling. They were a lovely young couple eager to get started on some land for their smallholding dreams, it was lovely to chat and show them around listening to their enthusiasm 😁 I totally forgot I had a loaf of bread proving mind you 🤣 all was not lost and after I had baked the loaf I went outside and cleaned the Guineas and quail. This was a big clean out ready for the coming winter months, mostly they get skipped out, that’s just the messiest bits clean up but this was a complete job for both pens. The quail often come inside for winter as they will keep laying then but I think this winter we will leave them out and they can rest from egg production. I put in fresh hay for the rabbit and cleaned out all the water and feed bowls. A quick bite to eat and a little sit down before going out to sort the light Sussex pen and the Turkey pen.
Sunday: Been busy today helping John do the side of the building, it coming along nicely now but still a fair amount to get done yet as always 😜
Thai chillies in various stages of drying outStill managing to harvest a few things though the summer veg is coming to and end now. The flower garden is still giving up its bounty, this has been one of the best decisions I have made, they brighten up the garden and the house 😁
The summer veg garden is almost finished but there are still things growing for winter, I have leeks in as well as kale and brassicas and winter lettuce.
As we have been redoing the side of the building I thought it would be a good idea to buy a bat box, we have plenty flying around at night and so a box seemed like a good idea. It all adds to the diversity of the wildlife we have here.
Monday 14th June 2021: Today we find out if any of the restrictions still in place will be lifted or not, not holding out much hope for a full lift 🙄
Another fine day with the temps set to climb up near 30c, you know what that means for me, early morning, so it’s 8.30pm I have stopped for a coffee after already doing a three hour stint this morning. Most of that was picking, peas & mangetout today, a bit of weeding while I was going round, sorting out some plants in the cold frame and picking weeds to feed the Guineas and torts. I also did all the usual jobs of feeding various four legged pets, putting eggs out, a bit of watering out the front etc etc.
This is the month where the harvests begin to come in, they start off slowly but soon there will be so much to pick I won’t know if I am coming or going. And then there is the processing of it all lol, at the minute my plan is to keep back what I want for the day and put the rest out for sale, this morning that only amounted to two bags of mangetout and a tub of strawberries but it will start to come thick and fast especially if we get any rain, doesn’t look very promising at the minute. Of course we have been here before and what will happen next is too much rain that spoils the fruit 🤣 there is no winning this swim only treading water and trying to stay afloat 🤪 I still have some squash to get in the ground but I am waiting until it cools a little first, they will be fine in pots for now. I also have a fair few pepper seedlings and runner beans, I tried selling them but no takers and I hate throwing them away so I am going to have to find a place for them to grow on.
After coffee I did another hour outside which will probably do for today. I have potted on the pepper seedlings, it doesn’t matter if I have 20 pepper plants, I have space for them so may as well grow them, there was a jalapeño plant too, the tomato plants that didn’t sell are also potted on, I may put them back out or plant them up outside who knows yet. I planted up sweetcorn that I had left over, I put those in a bucket for the kids to pick if they get big enough, the corn, not the kids and I sowed some more carrot seeds, some in a bed in between the rows that are nearly done and some in pots again for the kids to pick. They are round carrot so ideal for pots, I picked some of those from the bed for dinner tonight and I found a stray potato which had grown so that will be potato, carrots and peas from the garden as well as strawberries for pudding 🥰 That is what is called the good life and it really is.
I noticed, when I pulled the carrots that the bed was very dry under the initial damp surface so I gave it a good soaking with the rain water hose. It is always worth digging down a bit to see exactly how far the water has penetrated, you will be surprised at dry it really is. A good indicator are ants, if there are a fair few nearby then you can bet there is an ants nest and that will tell you it’s way too dry they don’t like damp soil.
Once indoors I decided to get some polishing, cleaning done and change the bed sheets, I found a great podcast to listen to while doing it, Self Sufficient Hub. There are some interesting topics so if self sufficiency is for you then have a listen or have a listen if it’s it’s not you may get the bug 😁 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/self-sufficient-hub/id1506405294
It’s 1pm and I am a little tired now so I have had a quick lunch and am now going to have a little rest and maybe listen to another podcast.
In the evening after some dinner we went round to Mum and Ken’s for a cuppa and a slice of cake, there is always cake at Mums 🥰
Tuesday: Up earlyish to get the morning jobs done as I have blood tests first thing, they are a little over due but not to worry. Back home and I just about go put the washing hung out when Sam arrived with the twins. She had come over to move the electric fencing and make a bigger restriction paddock that will also now house Jack as well as Biscuit. To be fair Biscuit is looking and doing well but Jack on the other hand is getting too fat, too much grass for him to eat all by himself lol. He will also now be restricted probably for the next 2/3 months depending on the weather. If it stays hot and dry the grass will die off and he can go back out but any rain that we have will ‘flush’ the grass and he will have to stay put. He won’t like it one little bit but he will get I’ll otherwise so it’s for his own good. That took up a couple of hours, once we had got the stakes in place and some electric tape plus the water buckets all filled I took the twins back to the house to get some snacks and a drink while Sam finished it all off.
The twins had such a fun time here that they had to have a bath before going home 🤣 George had by that point, played with horse poo, dirty water in the garden & soil in the veg bed which he delighted in putting all over Lucies back. Lucie had stuck her whole foot in the horses water bucket, sock, trainer and all, thrown her bear in there too and de planted some of Nannys pricked out foxglove seedlings 🤪 All good fun and because there are two of them it can be manic when one goes in one direction to create havoc while the other is off in another direction, hilarious at times as well though 🤣
Wednesday: I was up fairly early and got on with a few jobs before having breakfast, John did the animals and then left for work. Next came a first for me, a covid test, a lateral flow test to be precise, the reason being that I have a sore throat, similar to having swallowed sandpaper 🙄 which is making me cough. I checked my temperature and oxygen levels all normal, I didn’t think for one minute I had covid but I have to check. Two things struck me as I did the test, first on opening I couldn’t help but notice it was all made in China 🙄 if I was a conspiracist I would definitely be jumping up and down saying ‘I told you’ China is probably making a fortune at the minute 😬 Secondly I don’t know if it was just me but I suspect not, I could not help but sneeze, 4/5/6 times while doing the nostril bit. I was thinking good job I am not in a test clinic and positive or else those sneeze spores are going to be all over the place 🤷♀️ I have just checked my test as time is up and it’s negative, I kind of knew it would be but you never know. Actually I have a third point to add, all the pieces of the test are plastic, they go into a plastic bag when you have finished and then that goes in the bin 😖 In a time when we are trying to reduce plastic use this is disastrous really, I know there is probably not a way round it when they are needed so quickly and in great quantities but can you image exactly how many billions of pieces of plastic have been added to landfill over the last year and a half 😢
While I was waiting for the test to ‘ripen’ I went out to water and feed the plants in the greenhouse and then the small tunnel.
Pottered about a bit picking strawberries and peas, a bit of watering and then Shelley arrived with Flo. They had come over to help get some work done in the veg garden, they weeded around the courgette plants and then watered and put down some cardboard mulch as the relentless sun dries the ground so quickly. The we went onto tidying, weeding and sorting the area right inside the gate, I tend to dump pots and tools and everything else there on my way to and from the front garden and never get round to tidying it, well mow it’s all done and feels like a much nicer part of the garden. I have many spaces like that to sort out mind you 😜 Shelley had bought lunch and went inside to make that while I carried on a little more and then we sat down and ate in the garden where there was still some shade. We are forecast thunderstorms and rain over the next couple of days and we could really do it to be honest, everything is flagging a little.
I heard on the radio a report that in this country, and many more around the world I suspect, we are unprepared for the climate chaos that is ahead in the UK. This definitely rings alarms bells for me, I have been saying for a couple of years now that the weather is so much more unpredictable than it was even five years ago. It was never this relentlessly hot for days or even weeks on end, we seem to have our weather in blocks these days and it is nearly always extreme bouts of it too. I seriously need to get a handle on what it is I need to do in order to be able to continue to grow fruit and veg successfully. Trying to stabilise the soil is probably the main thing, the torrential downpours we get now wash the soil downhill. Next would be trying to work out ways to get through drought periods, I may have to use more drought tolerant varieties, I am finding that swede and turnips just keep bolting because of the lack of rain, I either don’t plant them any more or look for better varieties. One thing is certain, a change in thinking and planning is needed to combat whatever the future weather has in store.
I just signed up with a group called Arbtalk where you can register as a tip site for free woodchip if any members are working in your area 😁
After a quick dinner we went over to babysit Mia, George and Lucy for a few hours while Sam and Luke went out for a drink.
Thursday: It’s 9.15am and I have already showered, breakfasted, put on some washing, fed the dogs, cats and Guineas, sorted the eggs and put them out for sale, have three loaves of bread on a second prove and got a lamb stew going in the slow cooker. It rained a little over night but not as much as was forecast and no thunder storms, my plan was to be indoors today as it was supposed to rain heavily most of the morning but as yet nothing🙄 As I am already committed to timings and will have the oven on I am going to make some more rhubarb and orange jam. A couple of years ago I split my three rhubarb plants into six because I couldn’t keep up with the demand for rhubarb, it’s Sod’s law that nobody seems to want much of it this year 🤪 Nobody seems to want much of anything actually lol but that’s fine, more for us and less pressure.
I still feel a bit rough but the throat no longer feels like sandpaper so that’s an improvement 😁
11am and three loaves of bread cooked and cooling as well as five jars of jam and the washing up done. Time for a sit down I think.
Those loaves are bigger than they look in the picture 😂 they are 1lb loaves, I use half white flour and half granary to get a nice loaf, forgot to score the tops of these though 🤷♀️
I emptied, what was left in the small chest freezer, into the big chest freezer and have now turned the smaller one off to defrost. This will be cleaned out and moved to a new position and I will reload it with only what I want to keep and will use. Both of the freezers were half empty or half full depends on how you view it, and both freezers have things in them that I will probably not get round to using before the next lot of produce starts going in. The plan is to throw out what I don’t want, when I say throw out I don’t mean throw away mind you, there is a fair amount in there that I will feed to the dogs, gravy stock for instance, if I don’t think I will be using it within the next couple of months I will defrost and use it to mix with the dog biscuits. The reason being I am bound to be making more so I need to move it on. There are ice packs in there, a drawer full, they have arrived at various times with meat or fish orders and rather than throw them away I have kept them but I don’t need them, what I do need to do is get rid of them 🙄 There are things like frozen buttermillk, pesto, herb portions in there, I need to get good idea of what is available and plan to use it all up. Once the smaller freezer is cleaned and moved I will transfer over and then defrost the bigger one which we will be selling, I have a small under counter front loading freezer which is off most of the time but I will keep it just in case I need extra space 😜 It is always handy to use if you are stocking up for a birthday or bbq anyway.
I went outside and did a bit of weeding in the bed on the side of the driveway, then some picking of peas and watering in the small tunnel. I pulled up the rocket which has now gone over and some early sown baby spinach which has now bolted. These were both in tubs in the small tunnel because they were sown so early, once it gets hot in there they just bolt. I gave the tubs (old recycle bins) a good soaking and then sowed some corn salad in one tub and some celery seeds in the other. The celery will be for snipping like you do with cress, I never was a good enough veg gardener to perfect the art of full grown celery 🤪 but this way is ideal, useful on salads and if I don’t use all of it the leaves will get big enough to pick and dry as celery powder or freeze in packets.
I keep looking at the sky and thinking ‘come on, rain please’ but as usual the weather forecast has changed somewhat and there is no rain in sight until later tonight, so much for heavy downpours, I may have to do a rain dance at this rate. It is seriously beginning to affect some areas now, not everything, some things are plodding away content with the sprinkling they might get when I hose at night or the spitting we had overnight which hardly wet the ground and certainly didn’t penetrate much further into the soil than a nano of a millimetre 🙄 Around the farm I can see the ground beginning to open up with fissures, dry, cracked ground, I think I have been here before 🤔 The water tanks are almost empty now and it’s very definitely going to become a problem is we don’t get some rain soon.
During the afternoon and then in the evening I watered, the signs of rain were there but I it wasn’t really happening and I know from experience that I may as well do it. If the rain comes then it’s a bonus if it doesn’t come then at least the plants get something to drink.
At teatime I looked after the twins while Sam took Mia for her swimming lesson and then in the evening Sue and Shane popped over for a cuppa and to let me know about a small business arrangement that I may be able to take advantage of, more about that later if it happens 😁
By the time we went to bed, still no rain, we were later to bed than usual as we have been binge watching Clarksons Farm, which is the funniest thing on TV all year, seriously it’s hilarious, definitely watch it if you live around the Cotswolds, the very real characters are worth a watch in their own and together with Jeremys humour it is side splitting 🤣🤣
Friday: Rain 🌧 actual rain, enough to wet the top layer of the soil 😁 hopefully we will get a fair bit today, it will enliven the plants and fill the water tanks. The problem will be getting it to stop 🤪 The forecast is possibly ‘a days rain in an hour’ 🙄 that is definitely climate change, we never had such volumes in such a short time years ago, whatever is causing the change it is undeniably here. Still it means that today I don’t have to water anything outside and as I did the tunnels and greenhouse last night and the sun is nowhere to be seen, it means no watering at all and I can concentrate on other jobs. I still feel a bit rough, still have a sore throat so I am thinking that I will probably have a good rest this afternoon to gather strength for the weekends work ahead.
It’s been steadily raining for a few hours now, nice and steady so far 🙄 which is what we want, heavy rain washes away the top of the soil because we are on a slight slope and that’s not good.
After doing the washing up I went out to mop up the defrosted freezer, what I could have done with was a pile of tea towels 🤪 I knew I needed them for something. I have cleaned all the areas I can get to, inside is done and the front and sides, I need to move it so that I can Hoover off the back and the side ventilation, that will have to wait until John is home, unless I am feeling particularly strong. Actually I don’t think they are that heavy once they are empty just cumbersome due to the size.
I was listening to a couple of podcasts while I was working and I need to get some more veg in for successional sowing, things like French beans and beetroot, but I also need to start off some veg for overwintering such as cabbage maybe. If you sow them now and keep them in modules until later then hopefully you miss the cabbage white butterfly which as you probably know will decimate a crop very quickly. Think I will have my first break now and peruse some catalogue to see if there is anything I haven’t got that I could be sowing for winter.
The business thing I was talking about has happened quickly and so I am able to tell you that from later today we will be selling local honey from the egg shed 🥰 I am delighted to be able to help a small local producer by buying any jars they haven’t sold and then selling them in the shed. It’s a win win situation and I hope it works out well. The bees live in a quiet area on the edge of woodland just 4 miles away at Grove Farm, I am very excited at the opportunity to be able to do this for our customers.
I popped into the greenhouse for half an hour and have sown some swede, turnip, peas, cabbage, cauliflower and French beans as well as some icicle radish. I know I said I wasn’t going to do some of these but I am thinking that later sowings might be better especially for the root veg. By the time they are big enough to go in the ground, then establish and finally begin to put on some growth they won’t have got so big that they need to bolt due to lack of rain or consistent sunny weather 🤷♀️ I will only know if it try it out, I will have the onion bed available at the beginning of next month and then the broad bean bed will also probably be vacant by then, both of these areas I can use to grow veg well into the Autumn or even winter.
The honey arrived and I got sorted making a little notice for the shed and putting it on the Farm Facebook page. I had some on the bread I made yesterday (toasted) I can confirm it is delicious 😋
I have been researching mulches, home made mulches to be precise, to see exactly what you can/can’t should/shouldn’t use as a mulch. Pretty much anything as long as it does have a seed head is the answer, I have plenty of raw material round here it’s just a case of deciding which to use, probably a mixture of a few things would be ideal. I need to get into the habit of shredding everything I cut back but you can even use a shredder to shred cardboard (as long as the blade is sharp enough and the cardboard is dry) Remember the jute I was trialling? Well here is my conclusion, yes it works well for the first year, it doesn’t exclude all light but it is not a bad alternative to plastic membrane, however as expected it does not last through to the following spring, even if you take it up off the garden, the weather has already started to degrade it. I would say if you can get hold of it easily or cheaply then use it but I wouldn’t buy it off the shelf unless you have plenty of disposable income. Next the biodegradable, compostable plastic membrane, this one had good points and not so good. It was flimsy, quite expensive (but hey we are trying to save the planet 😬) Not permeable which is a bit of a drawback if you are using it to grow crops in, however I would think if you made a ridge and furrow type bed, laid the membrane then planted into the top of the ridge the furrows would collect water run off and so water would get to the roots that way. Laying it on the top of a flat bed does not really work if you are growing through it but it is ideal as a weed suppressant on its own. As for it breaking down, I think you could probably get two years out of it, it showed no signs of disintegrating when it came to plant season again this spring though it didn’t feel quite so robust. It is also a bit like cling film, sticks to itself making for a very good comedy sketch if your sense of humour is present that day 😜 So the good points are, it’s good for the environment, not so good, fairly expensive and tricky to use. Cardboard is another one I use, this is pretty good, the thicker the cardboard the better, but slugs do like to have a festival gathering underneath it so make sure you have frogs and hedgehogs to help keep the slugs down. Mostly I am trying whatever I can to suppress weeds and prevent moisture loss, so far the woven weed membrane is ticking all the boxes except the most important one which is the environment.
Went and got some food shopping early evening, when we got back the geese were making a racket so John left the shopping in the front and ran up the back to see what was happening, he couldn’t really see anything and so came back in. When he went to put the birds away the fox has had two full grown geese 🤬🤬 Last night as he was putting away he nearly tripped over the fox who was busy eating one of our new hens 😳 It’s a f…ing nightmare, what are you supposed to do, full grown geese can’t be kept in a fox proof pen, they graze grass and cover large areas while they are doing it 🤷♀️ getting close to the ‘what’s the point’ point 😢
Saturday: It’s overcast and quite a bit cooler today hence why it’s now 5pm and this is the first time I have sat down all day long I even ate my lunch on the move. I spent the first hour or so doing the usual jobs and then picking, peas, mangetout, baby beetroot and rhubarb, while John did the morning rounds. After that I went out to move the horses restricted fencing just a tad so that they have a bit more grass. Then we moved the freezer into its new position and I went to inspect the damage to the geese from the fox last night. He had gone for the goose on the nest and the gander had tried to defend her but he had both of them. The eggs were scattered everywhere last night but this morning they had put them all back in a nest 😢 However we had already decided to get her off the nest as it was now obvious they were not going to hatch, we wait every year but they are nearly always duff. These were the same I threw them in the hedge and most of them exploded eww that stinks. I then said to John we need to get the grass cut in that paddock, one of the reasons they would have not seen the fox was because the grass was long and it could easily sneak up. Once we got the ride on mower going I whizzed round and round until it was done, found the remains of the female goose in the long grass, the fox has been chewing away on it overnight by the looks of things 🤬 John dug up any ragwort and docks for burning. I then went round to the side by the ducks and cut that grass, it’s a walkway really so needed cutting, John meanwhile dug up docks in the side paddock. He then went in for lunch and I made a sandwich while he got the strimmer going, once it was running I finished my lunch quickly and went out to strim. John had a bit of a sit down but not for long, once I had finished that we tided up some rubbish from the back area and sorted out one of the cupboards which had stuff in there I have been keeping ‘just in case’ five years later I haven’t ever needed it and so now it is getting binned. It is nothing special just things like nets that bulbs came in or plastic fruit punnets I had collected by the dozens 🤣 I also had some brewing gear in there but that is going to my niece and her partner, I said he could have it in exchange for a bottle of whatever it is he decides to brew. I did do some brewing once upon a time, not much, a batch of beer and some cider but as neither of us drink very much I haven’t really bothered for years so might as well give it to someone who will. Shelley came over with the children, my sister was here doing the caravan and then my Mum turned up, all at the same time lol so we had a cup of tea 🫖 Then it was time to do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting which John did while I cleaned the kitchen up a bit and washed the floor and that lot took us up to 5pm 🤪 At least I can get a good days work in when the weather is like this, here’s hoping it is the same again tomorrow and at this rate everything will be ship shape in no time at all.
Ooo one thing I nearly forgot, I picked some tea 😁 Camellia Sinensis, not much but about 15 leaves, the tips of the plant (hence PG Tips 😜) will dry them out and then wait for some more to grow and pick them and keep doing that until I have enough for a cup of tea 😂 Actually what I need to do is propagate the plant so I have quite a bit to pick at the same time.
I took some pics in the week of all the lovely pink flowers that are coming out 🥰
I love the baby pink lupin, the rose is Hermione, the salvia is pink sensation and I had no idea I had this dusky pink delphinium 😁
And some of the pyramid orchids growing in the long grass in the driveway, that’s why I can’t cut the grass yet 😁
Pyramid Orchid, there are a few in the driveway and quite a few more in the front paddock, hopefully by not mowing they will increase year on year.
Sunday: Father’s Day, we got up and did all the early morning jobs as usual and then Charlie, Shelley, Martin, Florence and Josh came over. They bought all the necessary ingredients to cook a Father’s Day breakfast which we all sat and ate together, lovely. That was a couple of hours of a leisurely breakfast and some Sunday morning chat and then John went off to pick up some tiles we had ordered to repair the floor in the kitchen where the Rayburn had been taken out. A short rest early afternoon and then mid afternoon someone arrived as planned to take the Rayburn and all the fittings. So now Rosie the Rayburn has gone, I am going to have mixed feelings, we were getting to the point where it was bloody hard work, chopping and cutting wood all summer, loading and keep her going all winter but I will miss the cooking facilities and the amazing warm hug that comes from a wood burning stove that you just can’t replicate with any other heat. I have toyed with the idea of having a small wood burner but that is my heart tugging and not my head thinking 😂
Later we are off to Sam and Luke’s for a roast dinner 😁 and this evening a chap is coming to see if he can dispatch the fox for us. Actually it’s two more foxes, he was here last night and saw them but couldn’t get a safe shot as one was in the yard and the other near the goose hut. When we lost the chickens the other week, he got three foxes and now there are two more to deal with, when I say it’s relentless, it really is. And as I will always say we don’t just do it for the sake of it, the nighttime prowlers are perfectly entitled to prowl, the birds are locked away safely, but the daylight ones well they are a different kettle of fish, we can’t afford to just allow the fox to continuously take all our birds. Come the day that happens we will be shutting up shop as there is only so much of a bashing you can realistically take. I know there are people who don’t agree and that’s fine they are entitled to their opinions and while it is still lawful we are entitled to ours. Before we go out we will be locking the geese away, the new hens have been locked away for three days now, the ones out the front are still free ranging but I wouldn’t be surprised if we lose a few of those while we are out 🙄 people like free range eggs but they come at a cost one way or another 😕
Well we have arrived back home about 8pm from having dinner with Sam and Luke, to a massacre 🤬🤬 I don’t even know what to say to be honest, you know when you just feel hysterical and it’s going to go one way or the other, either laugh or scream. There are bodies and feathers all over the front paddock, side paddock and walkway. This is unsustainable, as I say I can’t see how you can keep a free range flock safe any more unless you invest a lot of money and fence them and then they are not really free range are they 🤷♀️ It is soul destroying and we are getting nearer to the end of keeping hens a lot quicker than we had anticipated, seriously we can’t go on like this much more, we can’t even go out for a few hours. The fox numbers are becoming out of control, they will be in competition with each other for food, I have already heard first hand reports of small dogs being snatched, I suspect at least two of our cats were taken when they were small, where does it end ? 😢 When we no longer have birds it won’t be our problem but at the minute it is and it’s a big problem 😡
Monday 21st October: We are rattling through the year now, always seems slower at this end than the warm end 😜
Weekdays mean I’m on the duty rota for the feeding and letting out of the birds. I do it slightly differently to John and prefer to keep the birds shut in while they eat their feed and go back and let them out after. This is for two reasons, 1, they eat the feed otherwise they are off out to play and the feed is left meaning they are not getting the nutrients they need to be healthy or to lay well, reason 2 is that they are then not all under my feet while I am going from pen to pen, John lets them out as he goes.
When I have finished I look forward to a cup of coffee and I usually sit down and take the time to try and learn something new by reading up a topic that has caught my eye or ear over the weekend. Today though I am having an in depth look at quail, their natural habitat and feeding. Our quail seem a bit unhappy at the minute, they were fine until I introduced new males to the females and now the ladies have stopped laying 🙄 Potentially this is coincidence as the light levels drop and the temps drop but I want to make sure I am not missing anything vital. Having read up I am going to up the amount of seed in various forms and see what happens, I will also pick them up one of their favourite treats of mealworm for extra protein. If that fails to get them laying I may have to bring them in under a lamp as they may just be too cold and using all their energy to keep warm.
I did a trial growing of amaranth, millet and quinoa this year to see how they did, the amaranth was fine and grew well although it didn’t ripen, the un ripe seed will still get used to feed the quail probably, the millet was less successful producing only one stem though I think that has more to do with how I grew it (a trial bed was too small an area and got crowded with the amaranth and tree spinach) the quinoa was totally unsuccessful and nothing grew, again I think a larger area would have been more beneficial. If it taught me anything it’s that the amaranth can indeed be grown in a garden setting while the other two need more agricultural conditions I would say and that’s what trialling is for 🙄
A great spotted woodpecker landed on an oak tree bough outside the kitchen door with a beak full of grubs/caterpillars, I wondered if it had young somewhere nearby which would be completely the wrong time of year, I couldn’t find any information other than they lay eggs March to May so hopefully he was hoarding for himself otherwise any young probably would do well at this time of year. Having said it’s the wrong time of year one of my clematis have also reflowered? This one is an early flowering variety and had already flowered once back in April, further proof, as if we needed it, that the seasons are all over the place 🤔
I did a few hours outside including moving more wood chip 😜 I also moved the torts hut into the greenhouse where they will spend the winter in hibernation, I had to cut a pop hole a bit bigger as Billy was trying to ram himself through it without much luck. I potted up a couple of kiwi that had rooted in the pathway and a Japanese honeysuckle, I cleared some dead stuff and pulled some weeds for the rabbits/guineas.
Sam came over in the afternoon with the twiglets and Mia, we made some gingerbread men although I might find a different recipe next time as this one seemed to have a lot of molasses in it which overpowered the ginger so I guess they were actually molasses men 😂
Oh and I was really surprised to see the garlic I planted only last week has already begun to shoot 😀
Tuesday: It looks promising for a fine, sunny October day today 😀
Every morning when I come in after doing the rounds I make coffee and stand at the stable door in the kitchen for a bit having a look out, and everyday for the past few weeks I have been having a conversation with Cyril 🐿 A one sided conversation obviously 😜 not that far gone yet! ‘Morning Cyril, what are you collecting today’ at this point he either stands stock still hoping I can’t see him or he shoots off up to the top of the oak tree faster than the speed of light lol.
When I first went out this morning I could hear the Lions roaring really loudly today, I got my phone out to try and record it but by the time I had done that they had stopped. It must have been breakfast time for them or something and I thought, crikey if it’s that loud here (approx a mile away) how loud must it be stood right near them 🤔
First major job on the list was to put up electric fencing in the next paddock for the horses to eat off, we did put them in there last week but they bust through into the large paddock so they went back to the side paddock until I could get it sorted. Jack has been charging at me for the last two days so I’m guessing he is hungry. A few minor hiccups, the electric sockets in the stable block still don’t work so had to work out how to get the cable to the other side of the field and still get power. While doing this and feeding the cable along side the paddock, I got to the field gate pulled the cable and the plug end caught the top of the gate, flicked up and smacked me clean on the forehead, 😣 Next plug in the fence charger and make sure it works, yep clicking loudly, move the box so it can be covered from rain and doh second whack from the electric pulse 🤬 have I earned the rest of the day off yet 😜 probably not but I am going to find something pleasant to do 😀
So I spent a good few hours in the garden weeding and clearing, spreading wood chip, the asparagus bed was the main target, it was lovely out there and I have dirty knees to prove I did indeed do a bit 😀
Last year I did chop and drop but I’m not doing that this year lol, I found it was too messy come spring so this year I’m clearing but I have left a pile of asparagus fern choppings where the rhubarb is so that anything that needs a winter home has got one available.
You know when you think 🤔 ah well the day will get better I’m sure, nope, so after my two minor mishaps this morning I had a third (hopefully we are done now) I was doing the feeding and collecting eggs, I stopped to take a photo of the cat, Benny, drinking out of the horse bucket, I thought it would provide a little amusement 😜 I carried on with my rounds and tripped over fresh air, yes fresh air, well there was nothing else around and I hadn’t had any wine it was only four o’clock! That wasn’t the end of the mishap, oh no because if that wasn’t bad enough I put my hand out to stop my face from hitting the dirt and it went straight into the bucket of eggs I had just collected 🤬 and faster than a Kit Kat disappears at a weight loss meeting Benny was in the bucket snacking on broken eggs 😭
My thoughts went like this ‘ffs I’m done today’ ‘I want to cry’ ‘have I broken anything’ ‘nope, better carry on then’ My knee hurts and I have a bit of a headache, hoping that isn’t the head injury this morning 🙄
I am actually going to blame varifocals, I would like a formal inquiry into the correlation of varifocal wearers and minor accidents like mine 😬 I can’t see clearly without them but my spacial awareness is not as accurate as it used to be when I’m wearing them, hence I’m always bumping my head when I have to duck under something, seriously I think there is definitely something in this, either that or my glasses are just crap 🤓
Wednesday: I thought it was going to warm up today but the sun never actually burnt through the mist and by lunchtime I decided I should light the Rayburn. It’s dry though so I am not complaining 😀 Apart from the usual I haven’t actually done much today 🙄 I have done a fair bit of reading up on various topics, cut flowers, autumn gardening jobs and how many sexes there are 😜 a random one that but something came up on my news feed and I just had to look further into it lol, scientists have a blob that is neither a fungus nor a plant/animal and it has 720 sexes, what, how, those questions and more are what I asked myself so I had to find out. I actually didn’t get very far as the explanation was beyond my understanding so I’m leaving that particular topic alone for now lol.
Thursday: It’s 11.45 and it’s raining 🌧 fear not though it has been pretty dry all morning and I have been very busy 😀 After the rounds I went straight out to the veg garden and got stuck into clearing one of the beds. This one is behind the fruit cage next to the brassica cage and I have decided that this is where I will grow flowers, a strange choice maybe as it can’t be seen from the seating areas but there is method in my madness. The beds at the far end are difficult for me to manage, they get the first lot of sun in the morning and then all day until the sun goes down, I very often can’t get out there because it’s too hot and there is no shade. So my plan is to plant perennial flowers on most of it along with some annuals, this will be my cut flower bed 💐 I cleared the bed which had beetroot and fennel still growing in there and then a good few barrows of well rotted manure went on top, I didn’t weed because I then put on a weed membrane and secured it with pegs. By the time I got to the end it was beginning to spit but undeterred I then tackled the other end of the bed, this end I have decided to try a thick layer of wood chip, as I have plenty, and see how that turns out compared to the membrane and manure. It will be a good comparison, it might work better, it might not, only time will tell, the winter weather can now do it’s work and hopefully under the membrane all the insects will be doing their bit as well. Just as I had finished it started to rain heavily so that was good timing. One thing I realised this morning, in fact all this week is that I am only limited by the Lupus, by that I mean I can still do a good mornings hard graft, I was beginning to think I couldn’t and would maybe have to give a lot of it up but no, it seems that if and that’s a BIG IF, if I can keep the disease on an even keel I can do the jobs I want to get done. I have repeat bloods again tomorrow to see if my white cells are going back up before I go back on the meds but I am wondering now if the meds are too much as I keep see sawing on them, might be time to have a conversation with my consultant about the dosage.
This part of the garden by the way is where I was trying out the permaculture and I had my first guild, the comfrey did fantastically every thing else not so, the apple tree eventually died but it had been moved once already because it was failing so I’m guessing it just wasn’t meant to be. Never be afraid to admit when things don’t work out and you have to start over 😏
Friday: By the time I’d finished the morning rounds of feeding watering and letting out it was raining 🌧 hmm I was hoping for a dry day but it’s not to be so I turned my thoughts to chutney. Remember the basket full of green tomatoes that I was hoping would ripen, well they haven’t lol and so chutney making is on the cards. Luckily I had picked a bucket full of apples from the front tree, these are eating apples but they will be fine in a chutney as they are keeper apples and are pretty firm. I surveyed the tree while I was picking and it really needs a good prune and I’m wondering if John and I are up to it or if I get the chap who did the cooking apple last year to come and do it. It’s a case of money expenditure versus strength/energy expenditure, I will see what John says. It needs doing because most of the apples, around 60/70% were tiny and in clumps, a fair few were a double apple so an apple with an extra lump and out of the rest which were all ok there were quite a few with maggot.
Bloods this morning before I can decide what to get on with.
I didn’t get anything else done lol as Shelley and the children came back with me then Sam and the children came over, just as well as it wasn’t a very nice day out, Sam and Mia did the feeding and egg collecting in the afternoon so I didn’t even have to do that 😀
There were a large flock of long tailed tits in the oak tree today, I always say they arrive when the weather is about to get very cold (snow even) so we will see over the next few days if I am right.
Saturday: It was a filthy night last night, rain, wind, orrible, and it’s not any better this morning though not as windy. We did the morning stuff then John went off to get some feed and I sorted some bits in the greenhouse, beetroot and swede I had pulled up when I did the bed ready for winter. It doesn’t look like we will do much outside at all today but that’s fine, we need to get a list sorted of jobs that need doing eventually such as the greenhouse leak and the electric sockets in the stable block. I have messaged the chap about pruning the tree as John decided he didn’t want to do it and we have some beef arriving from a smallholder this afternoon.
I ordered a baby burco so that we can scald these chickens and get them done and in the freezer, I have got to an age where I don’t want to be doing it and I don’t mean because I’m getting too old but I am getting too soft 😏 It’s always been a fine line that you tread when raising your own meat and the older I have got the more I dislike doing the deed but I also am not ready to give up eating meat yet and so the option is meat from the supermarket or from another smallholder. I can easily get lamb and beef, we don’t really eat much pork except bacon and sausage, but chickens are more difficult to get unless you get them from a farm shop and then they are pretty expensive. The expense I have to say is justified as usually they are quite big chickens and you can get three meals out of it and of course they are much more tasty, not pumped full of water and not bleached either so worth the spend but not when you can raise your own.
It turned into an busy couple of hours in the afternoon, John decided to clear the drain that runs across the driveway because the water was not getting away, the rain has not let up at all and now we have the river and lake back in the side paddocks. My nephew and nephew in law arrived with a lorry full of wood for the Rayburn, it has to be cut up yet but it’s old oak from a roof and so it will burn nicely. Then my beef delivery turned up, we ordered from smallholder Emma’s Ewesful Acres ://www.emmasewesfulacres.com/news she does lamb as well but we already have some, I made some rock cakes as a treat and got the Rayburn going, then there was the feeding and eggs to do so rather than sitting down doing a bit of reading like I planned I was busy as a bee 🐝
We have a nice grass fed steak for dinner tonight 😀
Sunday: Clocks went back. A pleasant, sunny morning after a cold night and a frost bit at least no rain 😀 John did the morning rounds while I cleaned out the Rayburn flues and did some hoovering.
Yesterday I made a list of jobs that need doing and this morning we have got on with some of them, disconnect the water pipes from the veg garden before we get a big freeze and a pipe burst ✅ Put the horse box up for sale as we don’t really need it ✅ John has added a few of his own jobs and of course prioritised those 😏 so at the moment only one of the jobs on my list for him has been done 🙄
I am a little bit excited to tell you that I have booked a workshop for myself at a local organic farm and I will be learning about sustainable floristry, I am not planning on going into floristry in a big way lol but I would like to know a bit more about sustainable cut flowers and arranging them so I treated myself 😀
After identifying yet another job that was not on my list I managed to steer John onto one that was 😂 We have a 6ft wide gate by the side of the house that has a smaller 4ft one as well, in the spring the posts rotted away and the small gate post got done but not the bigger one, we don’t open it much anyway but when we do it has to be lifted off the ground so that post needed doing which I have managed to get him working on, he has also loaded up the wood store so he has earned some brownie points today 😬 Meanwhile I have been barrowing wood chip to the paths in the veg garden 🙄 I still have plenty left to do but I have managed to cover a large part of it already.
Sam, Luke, Mia and the twiglets came over and took Biscuit for a walk up the road and Mia had a sit on her back while she was led around the school. Biscuit was exceptionally good once we managed to get her away from the field, I think she thought she would never see Jack again, they have become firm friends.
Light the fire, get the dinner sorted and it’s dark just after 5pm 😏 roll on to the shortest day 🙄
Easter Monday: I keep thinking it’s Sunday lol, Another nice morning, up early again because John is off it means I can go straight out to the garden and get started on some stuff. I have hoed the brassica cage, keeping the weeds for the rabbits, planted some broad beans round the edge of the cage and the brassicas will go in the middle, I’m also planning on growing peas in there because they will grow upwards rather than outwards so I can get them in between the brassicas and keep the birds off, bonus 😀 I did as much hoeing as I needed, I’m taking a more relaxed approach this year as I mentioned before, a lot of the weeds will be hand pulled to feed the rabbits and torts so I need a supply lol. The only weed I am actively controlling is bindweed, the rabbits will eat it but it’s such a thug it gets out of hand quickly and swamps everything so I’m trying to keep it down. I have planted a couple of herbs, my rosemary got so big it split in two and that caused the plant to rot over winter so I have a new one in and I also bought a curry plant to give that a try, I have been going round finding self set plants and digging those up and potting them, even things like Rosa rugosa because I can plant those in the hedge lines eventually.
The swallows have arrived, John spotted them yesterday afternoon flying around, you know Spring has sprung when they turn up 😀 They will have come from South Africa travelling up to 200 miles a day to get here, I think they deserve the noting of their arrival!
Tuesday: St George’s Day April 23rd not celebrated as it should be in my opinion considering it’s our National day! Mia day today but I got everything done before she arrived plus a little watering, I do hope we get some rain this week as things are beginning to struggle a little, they need something to perk them up. We didn’t do much apart from watch the torts and play but Sam finished early so I whizzed round and did the feeding and eggs then time for GOT 😀😀 I feel tired today, that’s the first time in a week or so, not sure why but definitely not got the umph I have had 😕 Late afternoon I planted some more peas, these are going in the brassica cage with broad beans and the brassicas. I thought I would take advantage of the fact that the cage is netted so that will keep the pigeons off them also they will grow much higher/narrower than the beans and cabbages/cauliflower so won’t be competing for space and light. I watered them in even though a touch of rain is forecast and I could smell that the air was charged. I could hear rumbles of thunder while I was out there but as yet I hasn’t come to much and the from the amount of times I have left it because it was supposed to rain and didn’t , I have learnt from experience, a little extra doesn’t do any harm. Hopefully with a rest tonight and a good nights sleep (which now I think about it, I didn’t have last night, I kept waking up for some reason) I should be raring to go tomorrow 🙄
I have ordered 25 Silver Birch trees, yep 25, well they were a bargain, I will only want a few of them but the rest I can pot up and sell on hopefully, if not we will have lots more lovely trees around the place. I tried growing some from seed but they didn’t grow at all and the around the two birches I already have I have never found saplings.
Going back to this morning I just have to tell you this, I went into the stable block to feed the hens that are in the stable (the escapees from the back paddock) near the tap was an overturned bucket with lots of the ground scratched about round it, I lifted the bucket and there was a hen, she has had a lucky escape from the fox by the looks of it, obviously the fox couldn’t work out how to knock the bucket over but it knew there was something under it, the hen clearly felt safe as she had even laid an egg 😬
Wednesday: Feeling less tired today so cracked on a bit, got the feeding etc done and then Into the garden. With rain forecast I wanted to get a couple of things done, first, cut the grass on the lawn and the driveway, two reasons, I want the clippings to put on the beds as a mulch and I don’t want the grass to spurt and get too long to cut when the rain comes. Second job was to get some things planted in the ground also because rain is forecast and that will give them a good start, eating peas and sweet peas mostly. I could have spent forever doing things but finally a shower 😀 I have heard thunder and the patter of a few drops since last night but nothing materialised until now. It seems odd that in England, where the rest of the world thinks it rains all the time, we are desperate for some rain, we haven’t had any for around 2/3 weeks and together with the scorching spring temperatures we have had, it’s a recipe for disaster in the garden, especially veg gardens. It’s not that we want rain all the time but over the years we have got used to it and so garden accordingly, we are now beginning to realise that we need to adapt and change, that is the reason I have been trying to create more of a forest garden so that we have a canopy to hold the moisture in the soil. The time for neat rows and bare soil has passed, well here at least and I need to learn a different way, not new, it’s been done in various forms for hundreds of years and there are always new ideas to tap into, it’s a journey of discovery I am enjoying.
I took a photo of one of the ‘guilds’ I created, it’s in its infancy and the photo is taken from directly above, I planted this up last year and the apple tree had been moved from the paddock because it was struggling massively. The tree is the one with the red leaves in the middle, I so want this to do well because the flesh of the apple is also red which I thought would be fun, then there is comfrey an accumulator, it will pull up nutrients from deep down and deposit them when it either dies back or is chopped and dropped, that’s the theory anyway, then there are strawberries they will spread, covering the bare ground and they obviously bring bees and insects to the area (pollinator) it doesn’t matter if the berries get eaten by birds, they are not my main plants for harvesting, you can just see onions poking through, those help deter pests due to the smell (repellers) I need to plant a (fixer) in there which will be from the legume family, they draw nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on the roots and release it into the soil when they die back, nitrogen is one of the most important chemicals to a plant, it’s needed to make chlorophyll, clover is probably what I will sow, it’s permanent unlike the beans and peas although I may put a couple of those in as well, it’s not difficult once to understand what each plant does and how it helps the other, in this case they are all helping he apple tree, hopefully it will work out, I will let you know. I have other guilds to plant up, the fruit trees have already been in the ground for a year so time to build the guilds 😀
We had a short shower, long enough to be able to smell that delightful smell of Petrichor 😀 one of my fave smells, this is the rain causing chemical reactions of either oil being realised from plants or bacteria, either way it’s a smell I love and the garden loves it too which is the most important thing. You could spend a day watering with tap water just to keep things ticking over, but a short burst of rain and the plants do a little happy dance, burst into life and put on good growth, now we just need a little bit more to fill up the water tanks please 😜
Went up to my neighbours to try and help identify some veg seedlings for her, the classic mistake we all make ‘I will recognise those when they come up’ or the labels fade/wash away, and you are left with trays of very similar looking seedlings 😀
Back home and did an hour in the tunnel, emptying things that have not grown, sowing odd packets of things that have been opened last year and a few left, they may come up, they may not but nothing ventured nothing gained. There were a few chick pea seeds so I sowed them and they grew well but didn’t produce much last time, however I figure the rabbits will eat the tops if nothing else.
I picked a few bits for the egg shed, rhubarb, asparagus and I put out Welsh onion, these are not something you will find readily in the shops, they are a perennial onion with a bit more of a kick than chives but not as strong as an onion, use them the same way you would as spring onion or chives.
Thursday: We have had a substantial amount of rain overnight by the looks of it which is great, the sun is trying to shine and the temps are not too low so it’s great growing weather. We popped out to do some bits last night and driving down the lanes I was thinking how fabulous the countryside looks when the hedges all start to fill out.
Pick a job, any job that’s the order of the day today, indoors, animals, garden, plenty needs doing, first of all though shower and coffee 😜
I ordered some tomato plants, I thought I had ordered some previously but I can’t find any email saying so (probably end up with loads arriving) I have got some seeds in but I think it’s a bit late really and the plants will give me a good start.
Yesterday while gardening I found a few borage seedlings in the path so I dug them up and relocated them back onto the herb bed, I was reading this morning that borage is especially useful to pollinating insects as it fills up with nectar every two minutes 😲 so I will be on the look out for more seedlings to transplant around the rest of the beds, borage can be a bit annoying if you like well structured gardening as it is big, hairy and floppy (yes, now I’ve written it, I see how rudely that will be interpreted by some 😜) and seeds everywhere but it is a fabulous plant for the insects so well worth putting up with 😀
I got a few of those jobs done that have needed doing for a while, you know the ones you walk past daily thinking, I need to do that, I must do that, I really have to do that soon lol. Mainly it was cleaning out the rabbits, they get deep littered over winter which works well, they have a couple of wet areas the rest is dry and the bumbles fall through the straw to the bottom. Well now was the time to sift all through it, take out the wet, shovel up the bumbles and dust, a lot of the straw is perfectly fine to throw on the toilet areas and then they will have clean straw and hay elsewhere. The quail hut needed doing as well and the nest boxes of the incarcerated hens in the stable, I’m keeping them in hoping that when they finally go back out into the back paddock most of them will stay there 🙄 I picked some fresh food for the rabbits and guinea, weeds, some herbs, and some chard, I gave a bit of chard to the light Sussex and the hens in the stable. We have a light Sussex hen sitting on eggs at the moment, I would be nice if she manages to hatch a bunch of them out, we haven’t had hen raised chicks for a couple of years.
What I really need to get a grip with is feeding the light Sussex as naturally as possible, that was always the intention, a flock of dual purpose birds for our own use, to feed them fresh fruit, veg, herbs & then grain & pulses. For one reason or another it has not been possible to get them out on a paddock as yet and now she is sitting I will have to wait a while longer but it gives me time to put something in place for when the time comes.
We hadn’t had as much rain over night as I thought, just a spitting by the looks of it but just as I finished the rabbits, tidied away and came in for coffee the heavens opened and down it came, good timing 😝
The sun is coming out in between showers so I went out and planted the rest of the seed potatoes this year we have swift (earlies) and Picasso (main crop) last year the potato harvest was not good because of the long hot spell hopefully this year will be better. I also scattered some cornflower and poppy seeds in the flower bed, I have cornflower growing from seed in the tunnel as well but you can never have enough cornflowers 😀 I am trialing a few other things, millet, quinoa, kidney beans, and haricot beans, and sunflowers seeds from the bird seed, to see if they grow and how well and I have had a piece of ginger in my fruit bowl that I was hoping would begin to sprout, it has so now I have placed it on top of some compost in a pot in the tunnel to see if I can get that going. Ginger is a bit hit and miss I find, it sprouts really well then dies off but I do know people who grow it successfully so giving it a go. My tea bush (Camellia Sinensis) survived winter, I need to read up on the best location to plant it once it’s big enough and get this, because if I was trying I wouldn’t succeed, but I used some cut apple wood branches to secure a piece of mesh round some bulbs and the wood has rooted 😲 free apple tree 😀 only one piece out of about 8 buy hey I’ll take that as a win. Amaranth is another I am going to try, the leaves are eaten like spinach and if it goes to seed the birds/hens will love it.
I put an item up for sale on social media and had a chap contact me as he wanted to buy it, all very normal, he didn’t know the area and doesn’t have a sat nav so asked if he could meet in Carterton which he does know a bit, that’s fine we can do that, as a thank you for going out of your way (it’s not really) would you like some tomato plants, yes please 😀 Sungold and Indigo, I haven’t grown either before so looking forward to seeing how they do.
Friday: I have only done the basics today, firstly it’s bloods day, I am pleased to say that the last lot of results were all normal so these should be too, then I went with Shelley while Josh had his class photos taken, then to get a coffee and cake, then a bit of food shopping. Back home and Mum came, then Sam and Mia so we all had a lunch of prawns and salad leaves from the tunnel and some general chat while the children argued over every little thing 😂 the amazing thing is that when it was time for Josh to go, he and Mia suddenly declared how much they love each other lol, if only they did that at the start it might have been a less fractious afternoon, kids 😝
Some brassica plants arrived today, I had forgotten that I ordered them but I’m pleased that there are Brussel sprouts in with them as well as cauliflower, cabbage and purple sprouting, I have loads of the latter two as seedlings so goodness knows what I will do with them all. I ordered plants last year and they did so well that I must have decided to repeat it again this year, meanwhile gaily sowing plenty of the seeds as well 🙄
Saturday: Oh what a difference in the weather from this time last week! The wind is very cold this morning, if you are reading this and not living in the UK you might be able to see why we are obsessed with talking about he weather, it’s soooo changeable it’s ridiculous, it makes planning anything outdoors very sketchy. We are lulled into a false sense of Spring then wham October is back lol, it’s a reminder to make sure any plants that are going out are short and strong rather than spindly or leggy as they will get battered.
We did the morning feeding and letting out and John keeps complaining about the wind and how cold it is, I told him, I know you are just trying to talk yourself into a warm comfy seat in front of the telly for F1 and some snooker 😝 I can find plenty of jobs under cover 😂
Before we get under way for the day on the smallholding though we are going for a bit of CPR training, the village now has a defibrillator in place and offered the free opportunity to learn or freshen up on CPR and familiarise ourselves with how the defibrillator works, too good an opportunity to miss.
The we went straight to pick up some multi purpose compost from the garden centre and of course John had to have a breakfast while he was there 😂 It gave me a bit of time for a look round and pick up some bits, I like to go to the casualty dept and rescue something I might fancy, today was a large lemon thyme for £2. For nearly ten years I have only grown vegetables and fruit with the odd flower or shrub in a pot, I realised how much I missed flower gardening, gardening in general, but I’m a bit giddy with my rediscovered passion for it lol and buying, propagating plants left right and centre. I’m even thinking, where can I start a real garden, by that I mean a dedicated area, it’s not that we don’t have the space, 5 acres is a lot, but can I, should I, give over a particular space to it? At the moment I have a small border in the front of the gate, pots and boxes in front of the building and a small area approx 5ft x 5ft in the veg garden.
I am changing the place bit by bit, I wish I had started 10 years back but hey that’s hindsight for you, the small paddock has got some fruit trees and I have a couple more native trees to go in so that will have a small copse area, and we have a small copse area in the side paddock right down near the road, I have never touched this but was looking at it yesterday thinking I could doing a little bit of tidying in there, it’s mostly hawthorn bushes and put a couple of other trees in there as well. We would have to fence it off though or the horse will probably eat anything I put in!
When we got back I spent a bit of time in the tunnel, it’s nice in there and horrid outside the wind is fierce. I picked up some 50p herbs from the supermarket, basil and parsley the basil I have planted in a pot with a cloche and the parsley I took a sharp knife to the roots and divided it into 4, planted 2 in the salad bed and potted 2 just to see if they take and how they do because that would be a very cheap way to get plenty of herbs on the go. I also picked up a rosemary also 50p, (these are all living herbs with roots) and took some cuttings from the nice soft tips of it, also just to see if it works.
After that we had decided that we would use one of the brooders that John made to move the chicks into as they need more space and will be moved out of it by the time the ducklings arrive. I don’t often give John the credit he is due (doesn’t pay to let him get too big for his boots 😜) but I am soooo pleased with these, they are just perfect and he has done a great job of building them, so if you see him out and about you can tell him ‘nice brooder unit’ 😀😀
Back out into the tunnel (my happy, happy place) and pot on a few more seedlings that are getting big enough now, I’m going to have so much to plant out very soon I will be busy from dawn till dusk 😋 Inbetween I was trying to go round picking up stuff that has been strewn by the wind 😕 hoping it dies down soon.
Then we went to pick up Josh who is coming for sausage and chips and a sleepover at Nanas and Gramp Gramps 😀
Sunday: A better day weather wise, the wind has dropped and we had a fair bit of sunshine in the afternoon. Josh went out and helped Grampy do the feeding and letting out this morning then the boys came over to do some more to the greenhouse and the girls came over with the rest of the grandchildren. By early afternoon they had gone and I set about planting the brassicas up, the whole cage is full now with broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts, cabbage, purple sprouting, dwarf kale and some turnips, all that together with the broad beans and some peas should fill it to bursting once it’s all growing.
I potted up most of the silver birch whips, heeled a couple of them in in various places in the veg garden, the rest will be planted around the farm somewhere yet to be decided.
Charlie and Macca invited us for roast dinner, never going to say no to that 😀 and when we returned I went out to water the stuff I had planted earlier.
Picture of ranunculus which I have totally fallen in love with.
Monday 16th July: The dry, hot spell looks set to continue with no sign of rain 😏 although as I have said there is moisture in the air overnight so there is some respite for the plants. We were discussing the last summer we had like this which was 2006, very hot and dry though not as prolonged as this one, the other that I remember well was 1976. A childhood memory of a long hot idyllic summer holiday, I would have been 12 and we lived in a village then, going off all day with a sarnie and a drink to play in the local park or abandoned railway line all day long, catching crayfish, minnows or bullheads, making dens on the edge of a crop field (naughty) water fights and paddling pools, a time gone by and lost forever for most children I fear 😩
I did a bit of watering in the morning and harvested some courgettes, everything is starting to ramp up a gear at long last, I can see the cucumbers beginning to grow bigger and the beans are getting longer so it’s all finally going in the right direction. While I am out there I am constantly planning for times ahead, I can’t do anything at the minute not least because the ground is so hard and anyway best time will be autumn to move things around, I really need to start a list so I don’t forget anything. The peach tree I ordered arrived yesterday so I have repotted it and stood it out the front which is south facing, it has one peach on it, hopefully many more next year, I also moved the orange and lemon tree out there and the fig, with all this sunshine I may as well make the most of it. The grapevine has loads of grapes on it, I’m very excited about that lol and I’m thinking the olive tree would probably do better out there to. I have ordered some big pots with handles so that they can all be moved back inside for overwintering as they won’t survive otherwise and I ordered some seaweed fertiliser as a bit of a boost for the plants, it’s full of minerals, shame I don’t live closer to the sea, I could harvest my own.
Dad and Sue popped in, they are en route to Suffolk and made an overnight stop here so we chatted for the afternoon and drank tea then went out for dinner in the evening, they will be back again on Friday. I obviously didn’t water as I was out so an early start in the morning.
Tuesday: Up early to get the watering done, at this point I realise I have left the polytunnel water on all day and all night 😝 uh oh, it won’t need watering for at least a week I should think, still at least I know it got enough!
I picked the first of the runner beans, not the traditional ones but the dwarf ‘yin yang’ ones, I grew them last year and kept them for the black and white seeds but this year I’m harvesting them in their young form, they are exceptionally sweet and juicy for a bean.
I may be getting carried away with the possibilities that this weather could bring but I have ordered a couple of random plants to try out, the first is kumquat which, according to most places, is pretty easy to grow here, the next is saffron crocus, can’t hurt to give it a try and thirdly but by no means a runner up is Camellia sinensis, tea! I thought, let’s just see how it does, the plant I ordered is small and so about £5 plus postage, worth a go, you never know Shilton might be just the place for a tea plantation 😂 or saffron fields, you never know until you try and I am always trying 😀
One of the benefits of feeding the birds through the winter is they drop seed and it grows, we have sunflowers randomly popping up and also flax (linseed) I used to have some flax growing at our old house and when I saw it I wondered why I hadn’t thought of growing it here, when you see fields of blue, that’s flax, it’s such a beautiful little flower and of course the seeds are hugely useful, and now we will hopefully have a bird seed mix growing of it’s own accord, bonus 😀
Wednesday: Up early to do some gardening bits, watering, picking and then sort out the brooder unit for the ducklings which will hopefully hatch on Friday. I had supper out with my girlfriends last night and even though it was a gentle evening it has taken its toll on me today, by 9am I was already tired and trying to get some extra bits done but eventually I decided to lay on the sofa 😜 That was pretty much it for the day until early evening when after resting I get a second wind and can do a bit more. Shopping was on the agenda, I have been sending John for bits and pieces while I was ill but you know you get to a stage when you need to replenish a few things and you know full well that what you put on the list will not be what he comes home with, a bit like the replacement items in an online shop! The reduced basket had pots of extra thick double cream reduced to 90p so I bought a couple of pots and I will make butter with them, I will have some buttermilk leftover from make it so it’s a win, win for me.
Watering again this evening, I can’t believe how much it dries out good job the hosepipe ban is not in force as yet though I don’t think it will be long before we get notification and goodness knows what we will do then, abandon ship I reckon 🤪
Last week or the week before, I can’t remember when, I said I was making an effort try eliminating plastics wherever possible and I had bought loofahs to use for washing up etc, well they are working out really well, I’m so pleased much better than the artificial sponge thingys. I did try growing them but they didn’t germinate, given how great I find them I will give them another go next year.
Just found Jack wandering around the yard, Sam had put him out on a bit of grass outside his field and he decided he would go on tour 😝 I have now put him in the little paddock where there is plenty of grass both dead and alive for him to munch on overnight.
Thursday: Usual routine of early morning watering, a bit of picking and then off for some more blood tests.
Mostly spent the rest of he day resting, though I did watch ‘An inconvenient Truth’ and apparently there is another film out which I will look up and watch that too. I briefly mentioned before about my thoughts on global warming and climate change, undoubtably we are contributing massively towards this and accelerating it at a colossal speed but I do believe there are natural cycles at force as well, after all Mother Nature is ALL about cycles, those cycles we can’t stop or slow down but the choices we make can have an impact good or bad on climate change. If you don’t know anything about it, learn, if you do know, learn a bit more and make the changes that you can, and make a conscious effort to work towards those that are a little bit more elusive. We only have one life, live it, but we only have one planet, look after it while you are here.
Friday: Up at the crack of sparrows 😀 there was a good bit to pick this morning, runners, beetroot, courgettes, a few apricots I missed, some mangetout but one thing I really needed to pick was a few remaining gooseberries. Dad and Sue are back this evening and we had arranged to go out to eat but I thought with all the amazing produce I have here I might as well cook. We are having the mackerel from Cornwall along with a medley of seasonal veg and new potatoes, I wanted to make a gooseberry sauce to compliment the fish so that’s what the gooseberries were for, good job there were some left. The sauce calls for horseradish sauce which I don’t have to hand but I do have horseradish growing, it was a measly woody bit but it will do the job so I made a tiny amount of horseradish sauce to go in the gooseberry sauce 😋 we we have Madagascan vanilla ice cream with homemade mixed berry sauce for dessert washed down with a Sauvignon blanc 😀
Oh my days it finally rained, thank you Mother Nature, it means I can have an extra couple of hours in bed in the morning 😝
My blood tests came back normal and the first of the duck eggs in the incubator has pipped, happy Friday 😀
Saturday: Well it was only a small amount of the rain that was needed but it was enough to mean I could have a lie in 😀 Having got so used to being up early I was still up by 6.30 😝 but the damp ground d meant I could get on with other things instead of watering. The first on the agenda was a proper clean out of both the rabbit cages, they actually were not as bad as I had feared they would be but now they are nice and clean. Then on to clearing up debris from the orchard pen and making a mini compost heap next to the light Sussex chicks so that when they are let out into the bigger pen they can scratch about in it to their hearts contents and hopefully that will lead to great tasting chicken. John also fixed a little hut up for the ducks so they don’t have to go in with the rabbits anymore and put a catch on the inside of the chicks hut so that when I go in the door doesn’t swing open and they all escape. He put a top on the water barrel that is connected to the gutter on the rabbit run so that the leaves don’t all fall in, the water we managed to catch yesterday was no good at all because it was full of debris.
As it is predicted that the temps will go up as high as 33c next week I really needed to get a handle on the garden so firstly we moved anything that is in a pot onto spaces on the veg beds so that they get watered at the same time, cutting down on having to water the pots by hand thus saving time. Then I got a bale of straw from the stable and mulched the potatoes, they were hastily planted into some raised beds that were previously used for flowers ( I dug them up last autumn and divided them, potting them up for future use, most have been put into the flower bed area now) The potatoes are struggling but there are some there, firstly they struggle because they are under a huge tree and secondly because they need watering separately to the rest of the garden and I often just run out of time, so they were mulched and soaked and hopefully we will get something from them later in the year. The rest of the bale I used to mulch anything in a pot, they will dry out pretty quickly and hopefully this will help, it includes the raspberry bushes that I potted up early in the year, I need to mulch as much as possible to make life a lot easier but by then it was lunchtime and then time for a rest. I am finding I need about and hour and a half sleep in the daytime and then I am good to go again. My blood results came back as ‘no action required’ which means the inflammation has gone down which is great and I no longer have any pain, also great but I guess this is a convalescent period where I need to build my strength back up, each day I can work a bit longer without feeling ill or tired so I am on the upward road touch wood.
Still waiting for the first duckling to hatch 🐣
The Large Fowl Light Sussex in their new run, I will be adding pots of foliage when the weather changes, at the moment I have lovage and a hazel tree ready but would like to get a currant bush in there as well so that they can forage for themselves, I have also been putting a barrowful of rotted manure in for them which they love scratching around in. We need to put in a roosting tree for them so that they can sleep outside if they choose to. In the Autumn, Winter and early Spring they will free range in the orchard and veg garden to help with pests, hopefully they will have as near to natural diet/life as possible.
Did a bit of picking in the evening as everything I put out today has gone! I picked 1kg of runner beans and that’s just the first picking once they get going there will be many more, the first veg I ever sold were runners and they continue to be the best selling item closely followed by the rhubarb. I picked a large punnet of berries, blue, raspberry, blackcurrant and Logan berries I might make a mixed jam with those, I found a cucumber that I had missed and it’s very fat lol, the tomatoes are just beginning to ripen and for the first time of trying I may even have some aubergines this year 😀
Sunday: Guess what I did this morning? Yep, watering I think I’m officially sick of doing it now, a ‘surprise’ shower would be just wonderful 😝
Apart from watering I also picked the baby corn, the stalks are around 8ft high and I thought there were no cobs but they suddenly shot through yesterday, I got John to take a short video of me harvesting them, which I will have to post separately as it won’t upload here, anyone who gets this emailed can try looking on Facebook under Friesland Farm 😀 hopefully it will be on there.
The first duckling hatched this afternoon, there are others pipping so fingers crossed for a good hatch 🐣
Thursday 28th June: Yep this is the first time this week I am able to write something, the Lupus had taken hold, looking back I can see I was on a slippery slope I just didn’t recognise the signs as they are different to the last, and only, flare I had. I knew I was in trouble when I started getting pins and needles in my right hand. I had attributed most problems to the virus that both John and I had but with Lupus once the immune system has finished fighting off any attack on the body, it starts on the body itself, healthy tissue as well, it’s a bit like a frenzied fox attack, the job is done but the attacker can’t stop. Anyhow I am now back under the care of the doctors and rheumatologist and back on a short course of steroids which will hopefully knock it into touch. Needless to say I have not done anything except get myself up and dressed (which was hard work in itself) for the past 4 days! Thank goodness then for my amazing family 😀 John, who has worked every morning and evening shift, worked in between AND had to do his Mum every night as his brother is away, Sam, Shelley and Charlie who have done household chores, made lunches and dinners, run me backwards and forwards for blood tests and doctor appointments, cleaned out animal cages, watered the garden, the list goes on. Mum for coming over and planting, watering, weeding and worrying about me 😘
Steroids are not really the way I like to control the Lupus but sometimes you just need the extra bit of help, it’s five years since my last flare so not bad at all and since I am now on them I will be making the most of them 😜 Last time I took them I was like superwoman! I would go to bed thinking about what I would have for breakfast in the morning and running through a list of jobs to do, I was extremely active until well into the evenings, cleaning out cupboards etc etc, so if they react the same way this time I will be able to get all those jobs that are piling up done in no time 😀
I started taking them last night and even by this morning, although there is still pain, it’s not so acute. Once the painkillers kicked in it was a perfect morning to get some watering done, well soaking actually as it’s incredibly dry out there, though the bits of mulching I did have been doing their job really well so I need to get more of that in place, it is the same as yesterday, overcast but I’m sure the Sun will appear with great ferocity at some point. I did manage to pick about 7 heads of broccoli lol, they needed picking quite quickly or they will begin to go to seed and at the moment they are just perfect. I made some broccoli and cauliflower soup, with a bit of lovage and onions from the garden, it was very tasty, all from the garden and highly nutritious what more could you want? I had a power packed salad for tea time, mackerel, oranges, spinach and black grapes with a yoghurt and lime dressing, I have now got to fill my system with all the nutrients I need to get back in top form whilst making sure I don’t add extra weight from taking the steroids, so lots of potassium as well.
Wednesday 4th July: Posting few and far between because I’m still not well enough to maintain a full day or even half a day for that matter!
Most of the time I can give has been getting up with the daylight, and going outside to get the watering done as it is very desperate and I don’t want to loose the work I put in at the beginning of the year. We are now out of tanked rainwater so I am down to main hoses making the job longer because the pressure only enables one area of the garden to be worked at one time 😜
I have done some little bits, picking raspberries and gooseberries and making jam, picking blackcurrants to make syrup and jellies 😀 I have made some rosemary cuttings and hoping they will strike, I have done a bit of mulching which has helped no end but there is plenty more to do.
Yesterday I had a delivery of fresh fish straight off the boat from Cornwall, I like fish but I like it fresh and was put off from supermarket fish when the polystyrene tray stuck to it and was left on there, though I did wash it off obvs. So I have fresh mackerel, mussels, sea trout, hake, scallops and it smells amazing, we are as far from the sea as you can get so it’s a real treat.
My loofah plants didn’t grow, well it was a difficult year for the normal things so no wonder, but I have been introduced to the online ethical supermarket and have ordered loofah for washing up and bathing, to get rid of the sponges and the bloody plastic scrubby thing that John likes to use 😜
After I have done a few early hours in the garden I mostly then lie down and rest/sleep until later in the day when I have built up enough reserves of energy to go again, more watering in the evening, I try and do the bottom half, which gets the sun first, in the evening and the nearer half in the morning. This morning, as I received some free smoked salmon with my order, I had scrambled egg, smoked salmon and coffee as a treat, delish 😋
I will try and write a bit more as I get better, but living with Lupus, especially when it’s not behaving itself is difficult and tiring.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 