Tag: soup

Posted in Friesland Farm

Sorting appointments, seeds and poly tunnel.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 8th January 2024: It is a tad colder now and at least the rain has stopped. This morning a flock of long tailed tits arrived which nearly always suggests a period of cold weather looming.

I spent the first couple of hours trying to sort out appointments etc, trying being the operative word as nobody seems to answer the phone these days, you are always on a call back or in a never ending queue 🙄 The queue would not be so bad if you knew where in the queue you were but just to be on hold with crappy music for 15 mins is not great, no wonder stress levels have risen over the years. The next call was again on hold but at least I spoke to a human in the first place 🤪 I discovered I could book one of the appointments online, great until I realised I had booked it for two weeks away instead of this week! The forth I resorted to an enquiry form online and who knows if they will ever get back to me. Life is just not the same anymore, no one answers the phone and no one replies to your enquires lol. I managed to get three out of four sorted eventually so not a bad effort, the other I might just go in person when I have a minute.

I did up the list of workshop dates for the coming year and circulated those yesterday afternoon and despite the fact it is mid winter I still have a few flowers blooming and so a jam jar went to the local home this morning and I have sold a couple of bunches of dried flowers so it is still ticking over on that front.

Feeding the wild birds was on my todo list and prompted further by the arrival of the long tailed tits. I don’t generally feed the birds anymore, instead I leave everything that was growing, and has now died back, as a more natural eco system. I believe that there is plenty to be found and lots of hiding or overwintering places for insects that way and the birds can access those too. The exception comes when I know we are about to have a cold snap that will freeze everything and therefore either limit access to seeds/berries etc or kill off insects. Yes it does look untidy but we have to live in harmony with nature and not control it for our own vanity purposes, this helps to create a more natural environment for birds and insects and hopefully benefits me because they are sticking around and balancing themselves out 😊

I am determined to work my way through the freezers this winter and so today I have got out a leg of pork that needs using up, we will probably have that roasted tomorrow and then I will find a recipe for any left overs. I also got some chicken pieces that we had prepared for a bbq last year and didn’t use. I love a one pot recipe and so they are going on top of chopped celery, mushrooms and onions, brown rice is added to the dry mix along with seasoning and herbs and then water added to all of it, the chicken sat on top, covered and baked in the oven, easy peasy. I also got out a cake that I made and froze and some bubble and squeak (Christmas leftovers) for John along with one of the plum crumbles. I also made a batch of leek and potato soup (remember all those leeks John bought 🤪)

I made a batch of yoghurt, I don’t make it from scratch I use a yoghurt maker for that and I made a batch of doctored oats. I use plain quick cook oats, add anything dried that is suitable such as sunflower seeds and I have our own hazelnuts to start using so some of those went in as well. I also add cinnamon just because I like it and it’s good for you, mix it all up in a handy jar ready to use each morning. I use boiled water that has cooled a little to mix it and then add yoghurt and fresh fruit, sometimes with a drizzle of maple syrup or the blackcurrant syrup. You could mix in some nut butter instead (or as well as the yoghurt) Whatever you fancy really and it is so much nicer than plain oats with milk, healthier than sugary ready made cereals and good wholesome ingredients.

I love the apps that generate a recipe for you when you tell it what ingredients you have. I am using bing but there are probably plenty of others to chose from.

Tuesday: Oscar day 🥰 I don’t get an awful lot done on these days, well nothing in fact 😂 but that’s ok because before you know it they are old enough to go to school and these days are gone forever so I make the most of them. I couldn’t tell you how many times a day I sing ‘the wheels on the bus’ or ‘twinkle twinkle’ but it is a lot 🤪

Wednesday: I decided today was a good day to sort out my seed box ready for the growing season ahead. Most of the seeds I want for this year were ordered back in Autumn, again in order to get the varieties I want I have to be on the ball and get the order in early. A lot are half packets from last year but I will be using those up and I have saved seed from a fair few plants too. Everything needed looking at and putting in the correct sowing month which is easier said than done because the time can vary over a few months for most of them but the ideal month to start them off and go from there. Some I sorted out for Mum and there was only one where the packet was empty and I re ordered. All in all it was a good hour or so spent doing that job.

It is very tempting to keep ordering more and more seeds or plants 😂 but I am trying to behave myself, I did spend the last couple of years investing in what perennials I wanted and so this spring I will be dividing a lot of them to increase my plant stock.

We have talked about the need for better staking so that is a priority this year and once that Easterly wind drops we will go off to the wood yard to find some garden stakes. Not point wandering around in the bitter cold is there 🤷‍♀️

John had been out to work for a couple of hours and then came back and we went off to see if I could find a dentist 🙄 For those readers not in the UK our NHS dentistry system has all but disappeared, well in this area anyway, it is even difficult to get appointments for children which is rather disgusting I think. You cannot get an NHS appointment for love and so you have to pay the money which is exactly what I will be doing. Everything went wrong when covid hit and I have not been to a dentist since 2020, I was doing ok and then after a toffee (because I can’t resist a toffee) half of a tooth came away 😝 It isn’t a problem yet as there is no pain but I do not want to get the that stage and so need it looked at. Once I had been in to register and book an appointment we went round to see Mum and Ken for a cuppa.

The rest of the day was spent doing odd jobs, me around the house and John outside.

I have a zoom meeting tonight for social media, they are great and I learn a lot but I do wonder if I am getting sucked into the trap 🤪

January can be a pretty dull month, the sky is dull and there is not much going on but it is a great month to have a good think (in the warm) and decided what the year ahead is going to be all about. We have weeks to go but I can’t wait until the growing season gets going again and of course it will be warmer too hopefully.

Thursday: Getting bits and pieces done this morning, putting things back in their right places (I think they wander by themselves 🙄) Measuring and ordering muslin to make some curtains for the workshop, in summer it gets very hot as the sun shines directly in and last year I used some old bed sheets 😂 A quick reel for Instagram, which is never quick due to glitches 🤪 put out the rubbish, put on the washing all that sort of thing, nothing exciting but all necessary. I have a dentist appointment today but accidentally double booked it with looking after Oscar for an hour so I need to tweak timings, as long as the appointment is on time it should be fine but we all know how the best laid plans go! I also ordered some more business cards as I have used up the last batch 😊 to be honest I ordered them wondering if I would ever use them but each one went out on some flowers and I need more for the coming year.

Off to the dentist at lunchtime and I had the nicest dentist I have ever had 😊 Also very knowledgable about my medications and the impact they have on my teeth as well as how Lupus affects my mouth and teeth, impressed (even if it is going to cost me a chunk 🤪)

Straight after that I went to Charlie’s to look after Oscar while she went for an appointment, he went for a nap as I got there and didn’t wake up until Charlie came back. I had a lovely time as Charlie had left me some home made soup and I watched an hour of tv 🥰

I had taken this evenings dinner out of the freezer before I went out earlier as I knew I wouldn’t be here to make anything and that’s what the cook ups are all about. We had lamb stew and I made some dumplings to go in there too, nothing better on a cold Winters evening than a good stew and dumplings. That was followed by a fruit pie, slightly tart, I never like to overshadow the flavour of the fruit with too much sugar and surprisingly John didn’t even add extra sugar today either. I have a bit of a thing for evaporated milk 😂 and like to keep a small tin of it to have with a pudding occasionally.

Friday: I spent a good couple of hours making sure all my media was up to date and all linking with each other. Gone are the old days when you put a card in the local newsagent window 😂 or even just a straightforward website for that matter. Today social media pages need to link to websites, blogs, Google business profiles and vice versa, it is made all the more difficult because in my wisdom I set up separate ones for the flower side. In hindsight I should have just amalgamated it with the farm one which was already running 🤪🤪 I have updated a couple of the pages on this site to hopefully link with those social media sites so if you haven’t already had a look then please pop over and introduce yourself, you would be most welcome to follow me on:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/frieslandfarmflowers?igsh=bDlqNmFmZ2w3Z21u&utm_source=qr

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/dawnepearse

I still have some tweaks to make and one day I will streamline it all 🙄 but all in all you should find me one way or another!

I do have a podcast as well 😂 it started off really well and then when I changed direction it kind of fizzled out and I am floundering as to how to re invent it really but it was well received and I even have people who are now friends on Facebook from it 😊

Saturday: John spent the morning riddling compost, another 10 bags 😊 that will be very useful for topping up the beds come spring. Too rich for sowing seeds but good for everything else. Meanwhile I was in the workshop making some Muslim curtains for the windows, the sun shines strongly into the room in summer so if I can diffuse a little that will be helpful. I also collected up some of the weeping birch that naturally sheds when the winds are strong, I use that for making hearts. The hearts are then used as a base for grave flowers and in the past these are usually bought on appropriate calendar dates or for anniversaries.

It is cold enough today but we have an artic blast coming over the next few days, down to -8 at times 🥶 and that could potentially bring snow with it 🙄 All I think is just keep marching on and spring will be round the corner in no time, let’s just hope we get an early one lol.

Sunday: We went out for breakfast first thing, there is a place not too far that starts breakfast at 7.30am, ideal for us early risers who want to get on with the rest of the day. We called in to see my brother and his wife on the way back and had a quick cuppa with them before returning home to get on with some work. Right through until early afternoon John spent his time riddling the compost while I cut back the chrysanthemums in the big tunnel. I then got the staking organise for them for the next lot of growth, I covered the doorway at the end with bubble wrap and put a protect wrap around the stocks that are also growing in there. John came in with wheelbarrows full of compost to top up the beds at times and I feel that we accomplished quite a bit today. The sun came out and the temperatures in the tunnel were lovely but I needed to make sure that if we get that artic blast, plants are not going to suffer too much. I am also determined to get the staking sorting early in the season as I lose too many blooms that fall over otherwise. Mid afternoon my brother came over to get some wood chip to mulch his beds also to protect them from the cold weather.

I put some sweet pea seeds on damp kitchen towel to get them sprouted, I had a successful sowing in Autumn which is still growing I am glad to say. It is getting to the time of the gardening year when I am chomping at the bit but know I need to hold off for a long while yet but every little I can do is a step nearer.

Have a great week.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Autumn is here but I am preparing for Spring 😊

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 18th September 2023: This month seems to be rattling past 🙄 the weather is up and down but there is definitely an autumnal nip in the air in the mornings and evenings. Last night there was a big storm, I have to say apparently because I didn’t hear it 😂 John said it lit up the room and was really loud, I was busy sucking up 💤 flat out and didn’t hear anything except at me point heavy rain woke me but that’s it. I must have been tired after our long walk during the day.

It may seem early and I am not one for acknowledging the festive season until the beginning of December usually but I am starting to advertise wreath workshops lol. The spaces are already filling up and so if I can fill them well beforehand then I don’t need to think about that again until nearer the time.

Meanwhile there is still a lot of preparation for next spring to be done first as well as ongoing flowery and gardening stuff. I have been soaking the Ranuculas and anemone bulbs and will hopefully get those planted today along with some daffodil bulbs. I have hardly annual and biennial seedlings and plants to constantly pot on or plant out and perennials to divide to increase my flowers for next year. I try to keep the seasons extended for as long as possible which includes drying flowers and making lovely wreaths or things with those, all of this plus everything else in life keeps me pretty busy on a daily basis.

We have the new hens and we had 32 in, yesterday we got 31 eggs from them which is fabulous, we just need the customers to return to buying them now. To be fair they are going well but it needs to be a constant turnover and at least I have enough eggs now to do some baking, everything was going out to the shed before 😂

The sun is shining today despite the storm last night, John is mostly going to be at home for the next couple of weeks, having said that he has gone to do a small job this morning 🙄

So far I have had a very productive day, I have planted up some of the bulbs that needed doing, sown some seeds and started another dried flower wreath. John came home and we went out to get some evergreen shrubs from the wholesale place, I can only do this during weekdays as they are not open at the weekend so I have to wait for John to be available. I got a nice haul of rosemary, pittosporum, photinia euonymus, griselinia and some white astrantia that I have been trying to find all summer, I will definitely be going back there.

Then Charlie picked me up and we went over to Upton Smokery where once upon a time they had a fabulous bbq restaurant and is now a much bigger shop with all kinds of fabulous ingredients and fresh fruit/veg and is a much nicer shopping experience than the supermarkets 🥰 I bought some wild mushrooms some other veg, smoked chicken and other goodies.

Once back home I made some mushroom soup for later, put some fresh tomatoes, carrot, onion and celery in the slow cooker to make another batch of soup for another day and made an apple and sultana sponge pudding. We are feasting on natures bounty tonight and there is nothing more I like than using fresh home grown or locally grown ingredients.

Tuesday: A blustery, grey day today but I had Oscar and so didn’t have to go outside.

Once Charlie had finished work and collected Oscar I decided to brush Mia the dog. She has long hair and is short in the leg which is not ideal on a farm 🙄 she has been moulting a lot and so giving her a brush would help it on a bit, there are clumps of fur all over the place from her at the minute. She is not keen but I managed to get quite a lot of fur off her and the wind was blowing it away which is useful. Meanwhile John is trying to stack wood that he has been cutting and, this is hilarious, Patch is trying to hide behind Johns legs wherever he goes thinking any minute now it will be his turn 😂 I didn’t have my phone on me but it would have made a great photo, the thing with Patch is that he is short haired and tall so he doesn’t need de fuzzing at all, somehow he always manages to look clean and tidy 🤷‍♀️ I came in and hoovered the boot room which was full of clumps of hair and now I keep feeling that I have a hair in my mouth which is highly likely 😜

I got my dahlia order in, no good waiting until next year to do it otherwise the ones I want will be all gone, they will be delivered next year in Spring.

Wednesday: Windy (very) rainy and altogether horrible, trees down in various places and I don’t think it is going to improve much more. Off to deliver an order first thing, then pop into costa on the way back, Johns treat, I understood why on the way home, can you just do me a couple of invoices when we get back’ 🙄

I am on a downer today with technology, it’s all very well ramping it up but when the systems don’t work correctly or you do everything it asks for and then find you didn’t need to do it after all because the bod on the gate says, oh yeah your name is on the list just go in, it’s bloody annoying. It is more annoying when I have to do all of Johns online stuff because he can’t (or won’t) and then there are crossed wires when logging in because it is all from the same iPad 🤪 and the algorithms don’t like that, one of us must be an imposter 😣 Then there is our upcoming holiday where everything is done online beforehand, check in, booking activities, booking bloody dinner, all the joy has been taken out of a holiday by this point and what about those who are not so tech savvy. We are all being herded into a technological cell, one that we will not be able to escape from before long, rate your delivery, rate our customer service, rate our rate app 🤦‍♀️ Collect points for shopping, collect beans for coffee, all very well if when you get there you can actually connect to the internet or the app is working correctly, it’s like a giant dysfunctional toy asking you to play but the parts don’t all clunk into place. I admit we have come a long way, I am the age that was there at the birth of the World Wide Web, dial up was slow and painful and very frustrating. It has all moved very fast but I am not sure the systems are up to it and I am not sure a lot of humans are either 😂

I spent the best part of the day in the small tunnel, I have some bulbs planted in there and I planted up the anemone as well. Next job was to clear the cucumber and tomatoes harvesting everything that was any good while I was clearing. I have a lot of tiny toms and will make more soup with those, a lot of green toms that hopefully will ripen, a lot of toms went to the torts as well as a hidden away cucumber that was huge, I also bought the last of the cucumbers indoors. Once that was done it was time to bring in the chrysanthemums, they now go into the small tunnel to flower and they are in there so that the weather does not spoil the flowers. I got soaked just getting those inside and had to come in and change my top putting the one I was wearing into the dryer for 10 mins. Some of chrysanthemum plants have got huge nearly 5ft tall, I really need to have a good research on how best to grow them because they need some hefty staking the way I am doing it. I think I should have split them in the spring but of course I couldn’t, my plan is to cut right down the stems that are flowering and see how they recover, it might be a good plan, it might not 🤷‍♀️ I do have some in the big tunnel too but they have also got big and the staking is not great meaning they flop over and then begin to grow bent which is not much good for a vase 🙄

It has been hammering down for most of the afternoon but I thought I would be safe in the tunnel and I was until I needed to go and get scissors, string etc 😂 Never mind it’s a good job done now and I can have a cup of tea.

Thursday: Up, jobs done, out to get blood tests by 9am, John had to have some as well so I had booked us both in at the same time, I also got my flu jab. Then it was on to Witney to get some bits for holiday, nothing exciting really, tights, socks and a 2024 diary. We saw Gerald from Jeremy Clarksons programme, he was leaning against the wall out side WHSmith, I gave him the thumbs up and he laughed 😂 We bumped into Sam and Charlie while we were there too lol. Next it was off somewhere else to get some new trainers and a new top I rather liked while I was at it. Back home and back to getting some work done, John has been doing an excellent job of clearing all the old wood we had lying around in a heap, I have no idea where it all comes from sometimes. We now have a pile of logs from the ash tree that had to come down, a pile of kindling from the hazels we cut back last year, a pile of pallet wood ready to make boxes for jam jars and the rest which was mostly old fencing etc has been burnt, looking good.

Sometime in the afternoon I finished a dried flower wreath that I started yesterday and then I started another one and eventually finished it halfway through the evening. A full round wreath takes a long time to do and a lot of materials, no wonder they are expensive to buy, the largest one I have done I definitely wouldn’t sell for less than it’s worth, soo much work and my back was aching after doing them because you can’t really sit down to do it otherwise you can’t see it properly.

Friday: The weather seems to be developing a pattern, nice in the morning then rain in the afternoon (usually around school run time as always 🙄) This morning I got some social media sorted and then some flower cutting and then onto a bit of gardening, potting up, dividing, propagating. Now is a good time to divide or propagate and I have this great gadget that I was given for my birthday.

It is inside my back door so if I take a cutting I can just pop it in here and wait for the roots to develop as they have in the bottom left tube, simples 😊 once the roots are good I take it out and pot it up carefully as those roots will be fragile, voila a new plant 🥰

Sam came late morning and we went off out to get some lunch leaving John working here, I did offer for him to join us but he declined (garden centre 😜) I did bring him back a slice of Victoria sponge though.

The rain started while we were on the way home and pretty much stopped and started all afternoon making it difficult to get anything half decent done outside. I did manage to plant up a few things and dig up some plants that were in the wrong place and pot them up for re positioning in Spring. I have a lot of this kind of work to do, re position plants and propagate lots of the plants that do well as cut flowers. I went to the wholesale nursery the other day and bought some evergreen shrubs, rosemary, you can never have enough of that and my big one split and died a couple of years ago so time for some new ones. Pittosporum, I lost both of mine in the cold last Winter, this is a much bigger shrub and along with a couple of photinia red Robin, Portuguese laurel, parvifolia and euonymus (which by the way I have no idea where I am going to put 🤪) I also have other evergreens in pots that all need to go into the ground 😣 I have tried buying the small plants and waiting for them to grow and now I am going for the bigger ones instead, the problem with that is our ground or rather lack of soil depth. I am sure I will work something out, we did discuss moving the fence between the garden and the paddock and pinching around 10ft x 50ft which would be a lot of space but then I thought about deer, rabbits, horses etc. At the minute the deer and rabbits cannot get in although the horse regularly leans over and nibbles on anything nearby. The reason for this way of thinking was that the fence needs replacing but there are self growing hazels and sycamore growing through it, take the fence out dig out anything that should not be there and move the fence a little. Sounds easy but it is still a fair amount of work and then the new fence would need to be animal proof, ducks, geese, chickens, deer, rabbits, horses and dogs would all be in there given half the chance 🙄 I might have to think about a plan B 🤔

And if anyone reading this locally is cutting back evergreens near the end of November I am more than happy to come and collect from you, I can use it for wreath work and it saves it from going into your green waste bin. I often wonder if people realise just how useful their cuttings would be, there is plenty to be foraged but there are also plenty of out of control shrubs in gardens 😂 and I am always looking when I am out wondering if the owners even know how useful the shrubs are 😜

Saturday: I spent the morning doing a dried flower arrangement while listening to John trying to start the ride on mower. Eventually I went out to try and help, well actually first off I told him to move it out into the sunshine in case it was just damp. When that didn’t work I went out to help him try and work out what was wrong. He had reversed it about a foot and it had cut out so we were thinking it was an air lock in the fuel line. John I did the first pipe and the fuel was getting to there (and by the way we had checked fuel levels, battery was fine as it was turning over well and all the fuses) The question was ‘is there a safety mechanism we had forgotten about?) I called the mower man and he said most likely an air lock further down the fuel line and did we have any easy start we could use. The answer to that was no and that’s because John would always refuse to use it even though my dad had said many, many times to him, you need some easy start 😂 Off he went to get some 😜 he came back we unbolted everything to get to the end of the fuel line, sprayed some easy start, started it up and voila it worked 😊 I have no idea what easy start actually is or what it does but from now on we will make sure we always have some 🤪

I then cut the front paddock, the side walkway and the back walk way and not sure what John did because I couldn’t see but it was something useful I am sure. To be fair he has been really busy this week and so much has gone done and tided so it’s looking much more loved than it has done.

Late afternoon I did some gardening as the weather was lovely, the sun was out but not too hot, I was weeding and planting and it was very enjoyable.

Sunday: If ever there was a full days work it was today, I feel like I have got lots done despite being a bit indecisive to start with. First I watered the small tunnel which had the chrysanthemums in and then onto planting up almost 600 bulbs! It sounds impressive but bulb planting for cutting is not quite the same as for garden display. The bulbs are planted very close together in tubs or pots and that’s because what I am after is stem length and flower not a pretty looking area. I have planted tulips and narcissi, all the tubs then need covering with wire so that a) the squirrel doesn’t plant nuts in there and b) so the cats don’t think I have made them some swanky toilet area. After a brief trip out to get some lunch I got straight back on with gardening, planting up carnations and sweet Williams into the spare area in the small tunnel. These are all flowers I am hoping will be ready as early as possible next spring along with some ammi Majus I planted the other day and some daucus (wild carrot) which I had grown from seed and now needed planting out. Then I went onto the delphinium bed, removed the netting that it grows through, cut them back, top dressed with some blood fish and bone, put some more wood chip on top, replaced the netting and stakes (oh also planted another one in the space I had obviously lost one over winter) and whoop that’s another bed sorted ready for next year. Next weed the small area next to it that does not have anything growing there except weeds, it is about half a metre by 1200 and is between the delphinium bed and another raised box that has a mock orange growing in it. I weeded the area and then put down weed membrane and pegged it down, that is another tiny bit under control plus it means I have a place that I can get from one path to the other without treading on the flower beds. By this time my shoulder was stinging, I have no idea what that is but I have had it for a very long time and once it starts I know it’s time to stop work 🤪 I feel as though I have accomplished a good amount today though and as a bonus I split a delphinium plant, planted one and then potted up three other small plants, always handy to have spare plants 🥰

This is how close the bulbs get planted when growing for cutting, they don’t need an air flow around them because they get cut as soon as they are ready and the bulbs won’t be any good for next year. Many people compost the bulbs but I don’t, in a couple of years they will recover enough to flower so mine will go in the raised beds in the front and if I get tulips that’s a result and if I don’t well I will wait.
Believe it or not almost 600 spring bulbs are in these few containers.

We had a chap come from Wales today to catch some rabbits, he has been coming for a few years now (although not last year) he usually comes with a friend but today bought his son to teach him and get him off the computer, his words not mine lol. Many people would not agree with it but it is free meat and yes they do eat it, curried mostly I gather from our previous conversations. It is living off the land and not out of the supermarket, which to me is the best way, and great to teach the next generation because you never know when you might need to catch your own food in my opinion. We don’t eat rabbit but that’s only because John doesn’t like it, if we didn’t have anything else then we definitely would.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Seed sowing, apple picking and the weather is swinging back and forth.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 26th September 2022: Arrghh where is the year disappearing too 🙄 I will try to be a bit more efficient with writing the blog this week 😂 Today the weather is squally, windy, rainy at times with the sun occasionally appearing and definitely a tad cooler. I did think though that today would be a good day to get some washing dry and apart from one dash to retrieve it from the line I managed to get two lots dry 😁 I also planted up a few plants, three to be precise before the rain started, and I have sown some sweet pea seeds (long stem) The dinner was in the slow cookers early on, chicken stew with dumplings for John and Parmesan chicken for me. I do love this time of year, it’s when you get to reap the rewards for all the veg growing and foraging. I also made a sponge pudding which will be cooked in the microwave, I cooked down some blackberries with sugar, they went into the bottom of the pudding basin and then a basic sponge mix with added diced apple mixed in went on the top. That will take only a few minutes to cook and voila, dessert, it’s not corden bleu I know but it will be tasty and filling and that’s all that it needs to be 🥰

I checked the bulbs I planted in the big tunnel, the last time I looked a mouse or something had dug up an anemone bulbs and chewed on it 😡 but luckily it does not look as though any more have been got at. I did leave the door open so that the cats could patrol it and help out a little. It is kind of coming to the end of the cut flower season, having said that I had prepared in advance for flowers to take me up into December, chrysanthemums are ideal for this and I have them planted in tubs so that I can move them under cover if I need to. I have early spring bulbs in pots that can be forced in stages for the new year and I am much more aware of what needs to be done than I was this time last year 😂 I would say my first cut flower season has been a success, I have sold flowers and plenty of them, next year I plan to build on that by reviewing what I have learnt, honing my skills and learning more over the winter months. I have a new planner for 2023, one that means I can keep all the information in one place, what, where, when, how, who and I am looking forward to using it fully. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and my only regret is that I didn’t start years ago 🙄 It was a pretty rough introduction with the weather we have had this summer but as with veg growing, no two years are ever the same and so next year it will be different obstacles to overcome, bring on the challenge 🤪

Tuesday: Dmard bloods first thing this morning, it will be interesting to see if they show anything, been feeling quite fatigued, stiff finger joints, cramp everywhere, sore feet. I could of course just be getting old and falling apart 🤪 Once I got back I started on my project for the day, an indoor one today. Operation thermal lined curtains 😂 I will say first off that I can sew and I have in the past sewn all my curtains and fitted bedcovers. I spent a good few years sewing coats in a local factory when I left school so am well practised but I didn’t want to sew these. I wanted to do a no sew project and see how it came out and so I bought some thermal curtain lining and some stick on Velcro, it’s pretty successful! The lining does not fray so needs no seam sowing and the Velcro sticks well, so I cut it to the size I wanted, put the Velcro on and then the opposite on the back of the curtain and ta da, thermal lined curtains the easy way. The curtains are already lined and it was a toss up between buying new thermal curtains or using the curtains I have already and putting another lining on, I went for the latter. It is almost impossible to detect that I have done it, you wouldn’t know unless I showed you really. You may wonder why bother, well because every little helps as they say, plus in the summer they will work in reverse (keeping the heat out) win, win I reckon 🥰 We already had thermal door curtains for the back door and the door between the kitchen and the boot room. I got those a couple of years ago because we did have draughty spots around those doors, they don’t stay up all year but today I got them out and put them up for the winter 🥶 I rather like making sure that we are as cosy and toasty as possible for as little money as possible and as I have said before, I like to challenge myself to do better.

Wednesday: Mid afternoon sit down 😁 This morning I got the dinner ready to go in the slow cooker, the last bit of hogget from the freezer. It was a breast and I have rolled it and put in plenty of rosemary and garlic. I also made some flatbreads for my soup at lunchtime, Greek yoghurt and self raising flour, mix it up, pat it out and dry fry, easy peasy. Then I had a hair cut and after that I was able to get out side and get some work done. I have planted plants, sown seeds, dug up self seeded plantlets and potted those, dug up the scented pelargoniums (they will not survive outside) and potted those up. I have taken some cuttings of those in case the plants don’t make it through. They don’t even like being in an unheated greenhouse and so they are going to Mums as she has a conservatory 😂 There is a ton of work to do still 🤪 but I am getting there slowly, I need to write this down every day just so I know where I am at 😁 The bed that had the pelargonium has been cleared and now has direct sown seed of pink love in a mist, some daucus and something else that I have completely forgotten already. I covered the bed and hopefully they will sprout over autumn and winter and I won’t need to tend to those until next spring. There are plenty of flowers still growing but you always have to be thinking six months ahead otherwise you miss the timings. For instance I already have my dahlia tubers ordered and paid for but they won’t be delivered until next year.

Thursday: Quick sit down mid afternoon before a customer comes for their flowers. I have made lamb and sweet potato soup today in the slow cooker, left over lamb from yesterday plus anything else that needed using up, courgettes, mushrooms etc. I left the juices form the lamb last night to cool down and have taken off the solidified fat which I will freeze for roasting potatoes another day and the delicious jelly that is left behind is incorporated into the soup mix. I have sown some Ammi seeds today, picked courgettes and around 160, yes 160 eating apples from a dwarf tree that is growing in the veg garden. Wowsers, it cropped heavily this year 😁 Approx two thirds are storable so they will be wiped and dried and then wrapped individually in newspaper and stored in the apple rack in the pantry. They are delicious 😋 I had one with a chunk of Stilton for lunch.

All the apples are now sorted and those that will store are wrapped and safe in the apple rack. It’s this time of year I get my ‘squirrel’ head on 😂 I don’t know what it is but I like to start stocking up, it’s not like we live in the back of beyond or anything so I guess it is a primal trait 🤪 A well stocked pantry is a thing of beauty especially when a lot of it is home grown, it feels like a great accomplishment, bring on six foot of snow I am ready for it 🥰

Sunday: Ooops missed a couple of days lol. Friday we went out with George and Lucie to show them the fish at the garden centre and have cake of course 😁 Saturday I spent the morning doing a dried flower wreath and the afternoon dividing and potting up achillea plants ready for next spring. Today was another lovely sunny day, Charlie, Macca and Oscar came over in the morning and in the afternoon John carried on with boarding out the back area, all the gaps where the wind blows in are nearly filled now. I spent some time in the greenhouse potting up self sown rock soapwort or tumbling Ted and planting a couple of plants in the beds. I had a customer come for flowers, I have done quite a few bunches and bouquets this week and I don’t really want the season to change, the leaves are beginning to die back of lots of things 😢 I guess that is what it is all about though, the changing seasons and so we will move into the next season and who knows I may even love it.

Have a great week 😁

Posted in Friesland Farm

Harvesting veg, my birthday & a little bit of rain 😁

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Wednesday 27th July: Oooo it’s Wednesday before I even get anything written down 🙄 now I have to try and remember what I have been doing this week 🤔 On Monday I did a mornings work cleaning the house, boring but necessary for my own sense of peace and wellbeing. Just before lunchtime Sam came over with the children and we went for a walk up the lane, a couple of hours later and approx two + miles of walking we arrived back, the twins did very well but did start sitting down in protest on the last leg, they certainly earned their lunch that day. We took a bag with us in the hopes we would find something to forage but nothing was quite ready. Once they had left to go home I carried on with the rest of the housework and cleaning. In the evening I tried to get a bit done in the garden but I had developed a pain that was almost stopping me from walking. It’s funny but not funny, earlier in the day one of my feet slipped and went in a different direction to the rest of me. I didn’t fall and recovered quickly and thought no more of it until about an hour later when I had a dull ache at the front of my pelvis, I must have pulled a muscle or stretched a tendon/ligament or something and by mid evening I had to sit and rest. After a nights rest it was better when I first got up and then gravity kicked in 😂 it has gradually got better since then.

On Tuesday I did outside work, potting plants on, digging up self setting seedlings and potting those up, giving them all a good feed at the same time. I have also been collecting seeds from various plants, so far I have poppy seeds, calendula, cerinthe, nigella and sweet william, I am constantly watching to see what is ready to collect or transplant. I also cut a couple of big buckets of flowers ready for bouquets tomorrow. Then Shelley arrived with Flo and Josh and we went out for lunch at the garden centre where some plants fell into my basket 🤷‍♀️😂🤪 I spent some time in the evening weeding the pathways of the veg garden. One good thing about no significant rain is that the weeds elsewhere (front driveway)have mostly died off but where we heavily mulched the pathways in the garden with woodchip the moisture is retained (proves mulching works well) and so weeds (healthy ones at that) are popping up all over.

Wednesday: I was up early this morning and straight outside to get some watering done, still no rain and the rumblings of a hosepipe ban are getting louder, it’s a dry year. The last time it was this dry was in the 1970’s according to the statistics. In between watering I wired some dried flowers and had a go at making a hair comb with them, I have some tweaking to do but it was not bad for a first effort. Charlie arrived and stopped for a coffee before going off for a walk and a picnic with Sam, Shelley and all the children. I thought I had better not go out again today 😂 need to get some work done.

Thursday: A busy morning getting a few bits and bins done indoors and then outside to pick produce, quite a haul today which means one thing, inside to process it all in various ways. Prep for the freezer or for dinner this evening, put out for sale and put by anything that the girls want. That took me to 1pm and I think I earned a sit down which is exactly what I am doing now, although after writing up this and I shall be looking for recipe inspiration online 😁

Friday: I think I am officially done trying to bust a gut to keep everything alive, some things are dead already because I just can’t get round to water them as other things are more important and come first. It’s a pretty serious situation when you look at the bigger trees which are now starting to drop their leaves to save moisture 😔 the elderflower bushes are looking very sorry for themselves too, top fruit is going to be less than great when it was looking like a bumper crop year but now the fruitlets are dropping on the floor. I swear every year it gets more and more difficult when it should get easier 🤷‍♀️ Each year I start off with a great deal of enthusiasm which slowly gets eroded by one thing or another and they usually come in succession, I feel like I try really hard and the result is always not quite good enough. If we don’t get some rain soon it is going to be a hosepipe ban for sure and that is only the tip of the problems and failures ahead, not just for me but on a bigger food producing scale nationally. I know there is nothing I can do about it but still it is very irksome.

Saturday: It’s my birthday 🥳 still have jobs that have got to be done mind you so I was up to get on with it. Sam messaged to see if I wanted to go and watch Mia on her riding lesson and as it was overcast I said yes. Lovely watching her learning to ride and I was very impressed with her sitting trot, no reins 🥰 she has a good seat and great balance, last time I tried that I fell off and broke my collar bone and I have only ridden once or twice since then which was about 10 years ago. I did make me think I wouldn’t actually mind riding again but not sure I would manage to get my leg over the saddle without getting terrible cramp these days 😂 We came back to ours and then Shelley arrived with Josh and Flo and Charlie and Macca arrived. They bought a delicious spread of cheese, meats, fruits with them and Charlie made a lovely cake, very spoilt 🥰 At various times of the day other family members arrived to wish me happy birthday, have tea and cake and some chit chat and then in the evening it rained, oh happy day 😁 We need a bit more rain but anything is better than nothing at this point.

Sunday: It rained a bit more overnight, a gentle constant drizzle which is great, much better than a downpour, downpours though good to fill water tanks, run off very quickly whereas gentle drizzle has time to soak into the ground. Because we had rain I didn’t have to be outside checking to see what was flagging and watering so we went out for breakfast. We met my brother and his wife and afterwards went to the local garden centre, I know I have a bad plant buying habit 😂 and so do they 😝 He had told me of the great plant sale they had on there and he wasn’t wrong, I picked up some bargains for a couple of quid a plant and jammed them into every area of the car that was available 🤪 Once home I gave them all a good watering, they will also have a feed before going into their planting positions. We had more short showers this afternoon and hopefully we will have more overnight, we just need enough to keep them going for a few weeks with minimum watering from the refilled tanks.

Just having a sit down now in time to watch England Ladies play Germany in the Euro 22 final, Sweet Caroline I hope we win this but even if we don’t the team are incredible and are changing the future of womens football here in the UK, it’s history in the making from this team 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 COME ON ENGLAND 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Have a fabulous week and enjoy the little things as well as the bigger events x

Posted in Friesland Farm

Home sweet home 🏠 plenty to catch up on and the flipping dodgy internet again 😏

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Well hello everyone 😁 we are back from our holibobs which was a mixed bag of weather and destinations, the one consistent thing was the excellent food and service. The holiday started well enough two days at sea and then an announcement about very windy weather meaning we were unable to dock at two of our stops 🙄 Another two days at sea 😬 We finally arrived at Stockholm and it was raining, cold hard rain 😏 After that the weather settled to mild and sunny for the other stops until we reached Oslo when it was ridiculously hot 🥵 We have seen some great places and learnt a lot of history, my favourite place had to be Sweden 🥰 In Lithuania we had a fabulous opportunity to go to a Smallholding with the tour guide that lives there, self sufficient, living the good life and sharing it with us. Fab trip with nettle tea, homemade cheese and honey on offer, it was right up my street but all the others really enjoyed themselves as well. One thing that was evident throughout the Baltic countries was the negative impact Russia has had on each country over time and you can clearly see why they don’t want them back. Historic architecture destroyed and replaced with grey, drab, concrete slab buildings, seems like nothing has changed with their mindset for centuries 😢

Once back home it was a marathon of washing and weeding, I literally did not stop except to sleep for the first two days! Shelley did an excellent job of keeping everything going while we were gone but I knew it would be the weeds that got the better of her, they are insane and with rain and sun alternating it’s not surprising 😂 Two more days of constant weeding and we are now at Sunday evening with plenty more to do over the next few weeks, never ending.

One thing Shelley wasn’t sure about were the mangetout (or were they sweet peas) so she didn’t touch them. They were mangetout and there were loads so I set about picking them, some had gone from being nice flat pods to developing tiny peas but in order to keep them coming they need to be picked regularly. What do you do with lots and lots of gone passed their best mangetout, you make soup of course. So today I have made a batch of pea pod and potato soup, modifying it with mangetout pods and some other extras as I always do. I have told John he will have to eat it as I am not wasting food, this year of all years when the prices are rising constantly. My inspiration for self sufficiency was reinvigorated by the trip in Lithuania, they basically live on what they grow, they had five healthy children and were all full of energy. The whole trip made me realise, as if I didn’t already know, that we don’t eat healthily here in the UK, even when we think we do, we fall a very long way short of good simple, nutritious food and yet again the supermarkets are a fraction of the size of ours with far less convenience food on sale.

Monday 13th June 2022: John went to work today that’s the first time we have not spent a day together for four weeks and I think we are both relieved 😂 Since we got back we have mostly been playing catch up with things, we let the hens out to free range again and promptly lost 3 to a fox 🙄 so today they are in until later in the day, these attacks appeared to have been around mid afternoon. I don’t really know what we are going to do because to keep on fighting against it is becoming hard work, it’s constant and I think there is definitely more than one including a family which must be living close by. I am thinking the time will soon come when we give up the ghost and call it a day on having lots of hens keeping just a small flock that can be safely kept 🤷‍♀️ The main thing I have been doing today is picking which is a whole nicer topic 😁 Mangetout, broad beans, carrot thinnings and self set potatoes are on the menu with chicken tonight as well as strawberries, raspberries and red currants. Red currants are the jewel of mid summer, delightful shiny red globes of goodness 🥰 I think I will make a compote to have with Greek yoghurt and keep some for breakfast maybe with mini pancakes and yoghurt. I picked quite a lot of red currants so I will freeze some and use them for jams or jellies when I have enough or just add them to pies and crumbles. Red currant jelly is a great thing to have to hand as it can be used in gravies and stews for flavour or basted on meat for a sweet sticky coating, I am sure there are a hundred and one other things you can use them for as well. I know the obvious one is summer pudding but although I like almost everything, summer pudding is one of the few things I really do not like, the fact that it is cold is one thing and the texture is the other, not for me thank you very much lol. The weather is perfect for me today, warm but overcast which means I can move around easily and not worry about dashing for shade in the middle of the day.

Popped over to take Mum some rhubarb late afternoon when we got back I got the dinner on and then spent the evening watering pots and anything in the tunnels and greenhouse plus a freshen up for the veg and plant beds. Out into the paddocks to clean out the horse water buckets and let biscuit into the bigger area before finally coming inside at 9.30pm 💤

Tuesday: Sunshine right from the beginning this morning so a hot day ahead and you know what that means for me 🤪 I don’t have flowers to cut this morning and I did the watering last night so it is less of a ‘rush around’ morning and more of a gentle amble about. I had put the washing on last night so hung that out early, got the eggs sorted and put out for sale, messaged the lawn mower man to get that fixed and serviced, invoiced one of Johns customers, had two cups of tea, a banana and then made a yoghurt smoothie all before 8am. The yoghurt smoothie was supposed to be yoghurt with fruit compote. I made the compote yesterday from the fruit I picked and then last night I made some yoghurt. A few years ago I bought one of those easy yoghurt makers and use the sachets for Greek yoghurt because making it yourself involves something like three strainings for Greek yoghurt texture and flavour, this method is much quicker. Or it would be if it had set 😂 I think (well I know now) that the water was too warm and so the yoghurt did not set to the thick consistency I would expect, it was still runny. I had been looking forward to that combination for breakfast but not to be deterred I put some of each in the blender and had a yoghurt smoothie for breakfast instead 🥰

Next job on the list was working out what to make with some pork I got out of the freezer last night. I really need to start using up as much as possible from the freezers before I start loading it with this years pickings 🙄

Out for the afternoon to Shelley’s which was lovely as we picked Flo up from school went back got my nail varnish taken off had a general chat looked at the garden they are just redoing (a mammoth job) and then picked up Josh from school before being dropped off at home 😁

Had a rest before starting the dinner, John had pork casserole and I had pork and peas fried rice so that used up the pork nicely. I had to wait until around 8pm for it to cool down enough to get some watering done 😏 but I need to keep on top of it for the next couple of days as the temps climb. I dug around in the freezer for tomorrows dinner and also found some cherries and strawberries so I will use those to make a couple of crumbles I think and maybe some more compote 😁 They were labelled up for jam but John has gone off jam on toast for breakfast lately preferring scrambled egg which is much better for him 😝 I shall be up very early tomorrow morning to get some flowers cut for a bouquet, get as much done as possible before it gets too hot out there 🥵

Friday: I missed a couple of days days writing but as it was hot I spent most of the time inside 😝 Early yesterday morning as I took the eggs out to the shed and just as John was going up the back to let out the hens I spotted the fox running down the side of the hedge in next doors paddocks 😏 I shouted fox and luckily John heard me and so they didn’t get let out. Yesterday evening Charlie came over with Macca (he played pool) and she went for a wander up the back, when she came in she said she had seen the fox in our little paddock (as well as a large hedgehog 🥰) at the back and so had called the dogs up to see if off. This morning I had just finished cutting flowers and picking broad beans and mangetout when I heard the fox bark up in the little paddock at the back so I took the dogs up there and there was definitely something the other side of the wall judging by the way the dogs were bouncing up and down the boundary and the way a magpie was screeching away. It is a serious problem at the minute and I don’t expect it to get any better, the only thing we can do is be more vigilant and pro active in scaring it or them off. With that in mind I dug out a small solar powered radio and sat that on the fence at the back where it will be on all day hopefully making the fox think there is someone around 🤞 If it doesn’t work I can see our hen numbers going down and down and this time we will be throwing in the towel I reckon 😢

On a happier note I have been busy cutting flowers for orders 🥰 There is a great range available at the minute and I am beginning to see what is worth growing and what is not, I am also working out what other flowers would be great to grow and in what quantities. My mistakes are also becoming apparent now, mostly not staking properly to get maximum stem length or growing too close together which means plants are fighting to space, it’s all a learning curve. I had more plants arrive while I was away which Shelley potted on and then some more arrived yesterday which I need to get in the ground. The problem at the minute for me is the sun, I quickly run out of shade at this time of the year when it’s hot and although I would love to be out there working it is better for my overall health if I avoid it. The flowers love the sun though so I cant grow in the shade which would be the ideal option 😂 It will soon be time for the ‘big guns’ to start blooming, dahlias mainly and who can resist those 😍 I have, I think, made good plans for a continual flower supply right through to November, December, January but only time will tell, I have also been drying some flowers, not many but I will keep doing them and hopefully will have some great material to use if and when I need it. Flower petals have also been drying nicely though you do need a massive amount of those to do any thing on a sellable scale.

We have been eating broad beans and mangetout with all our meals as they are in plentiful supply right now as well as red currants which reminds me I need to pick more of those tonight when it’s cooler (maybe in the dark 😆)

I was up early today to beat the heat and get flowers cut, a couple of ordered bouquets and some wedding jam jars which I am really excited to do. Initially I was asked for green and white and I explained that I couldn’t guarantee a colour so if they definitely wanted that then they might like to try elsewhere. The customer then came back and asked how it all worked and I explained that it would be flowers that were available at the time of cutting to which she replied ‘oh that’s fine, whatever is available then’ great to have customers that understand. As it is I am happy to say that I did indeed have plenty of white and green and so am able to fulfil the original brief. I really had no idea of what would be ready this year, next year I will have a better idea of what is likely to be ready and when 😁

With it being so hot at the minute I have the windows and the curtains closed all day to keep the house cool which it does I am pleased to say. Then overnight I open the windows to let the cooler midnight air in but leave the curtains/blinds shut to keep the bugs out 😝

The rest of today I will be doing mostly not a lot especially outside at any rate and there is only so much I can be doing indoors. Better to use the time reading up, researching, catching up with all subjects that are remotely interesting, to me at any rate, such as gardening, flower arranging, recipes, the walking dead 🤣 yep I am a mixed bag of a personality but it keeps things interesting 🧐

It was an all or nothing day today as predicted, nothing for most of the day as it was too hot for me to get outside and I really couldn’t be bothered to do much except read etc indoors. Then mid evening it was full on getting the flowers and jam jars ready for tomorrow morning plus the two other bouquets ordered. It’s now 10pm and I am sat outside where it is soooo much cooler than it has been and much cooler than indoors. John has gone to bed already because if he has told me once that he is shattered he has told me at least a hundred times 😂 Hopefully we will get the predicted rain showers tomorrow 😁

Saturday: What a drop in temperature 😂 the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction it’s unbelievable, the hottest day of the year so far yesterday and today it’s very much colder and wet, wet, wet. I for one am glad of the rain it replenishes the water tanks and means I don’t spend hours watering the garden. With the amount we have had today I won’t have to water it for a good couple of weeks I would say.

I was up early and outside getting some weeding done before the rain came, also a bit of cutting back and seed collecting. The cerinthe needed some attention and some of it is already producing seeds so it was time to collect. Part of the sustainability angle is to collect the seed from the plants to use in autumn sowings or next spring, it will save you a good deal of money, I will also sell some of them on if I can collect enough. Once I had done that and watered the poly tunnels it was time to deliver flowers, some were collected yesterday evening which left two lots to deliver. One lot of jam jar posies for a wedding and one bouquet to a different customer. I was really chuffed with the jam jars they looked amazing and the smell was divine from the lemon verbena which I included.

In the afternoon Sam came over for a few hours with Mia, George & Lucie, but apart from their visit we didn’t do much else except the usual jobs. Popped out in the evening for our Saturday night fish and chip supper with my sister and brother in law.

We have been having a proper fox problem though and this afternoon John caught the fox chasing my geese. It seems like the same one I saw the other morning, a youngster I think which means it’s no match for full grown adult geese but still it’s a problem as it is stealing hens on a daily basis, we have lost around six since we came home 😏

Just sat typing this up at 10pm when I heard the cat bowl by the back door rattle, thinking it might be the fox I opened the top half of the stable door quickly to surprise it, the cat was sat meowing while a hedgehog was helping itself to cat biscuits 😂

Sunday: Fathers Day, we were up and about fairly early, John went to do the morning rounds and I cut some flowers then Charlie came round to cook her dad some breakfast 🥰 After that we went over to Dads grave where we met the others and I put the flowers I had cut in a jam jar. My brother from Australia and his family came, this is the first time he has been able to visit the grave and see where Dad is laid to rest. I gave them all a family history tour around the graveyard as lots of family members are buried there including Nan and Gramp and Great Grampy Charlie. On to the garden centre, not to but plants but for tea and cake with Shelley, Martin and the kiddies as well as my brother and his family. Back home and Sam and the kiddies arrived with a card and chocolate for John, all about the Daddies today 😁

One annoying thing that has happened twice today is that a bird keeps getting in the egg shed and pecking at the eggs in the egg boxes 😠 twice I have had to clear up in there. One of the problems is that the door doesn’t get closed properly when customers have finished, also though the catch does work it’s not really strong enough and bounces back open. I imagine it’s a magpie as we have a few of them around at the minute and they are pretty resourceful and good at repetitive behaviour.

I am having real trouble with the internet today, well since Friday actually, this happens quite a lot at the weekend and I have a theory that it is to do with that massive cock up of our telephone lines a couple of years ago. Every time it happens I check to see if there is a fault but it always comes back clear from BT but there is definitely a problem somewhere I just can’t figure out where, either that or our router is on its way out 🤷‍♀️ answers on a postcard please. I have tried and failed multiple times (+10) to upload photos for this blog, it’s just not happening so I am sorry about the lack of them 😏

Have a great week and thank you for reading, take time to enjoy everything, even the little things 😁

Posted in Friesland Farm

Valentines Day, Rhubarb appearing & stormy weather.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 14th February 2022: Weeee another week to slide into 😂 A sunny, mild start to the day but the actual forecast for this week does not look the best overall, time will tell. John has gone to work today and so I am on duty, once sorted indoors it was out to get the birds all fed and watered. I was hoping to find a goose egg today as traditionally this is the day they be in laying but no such luck just yet, I did put some nice clean straw in to try and encourage them 😝 Then it was onto the hens, the outside run needs a clean but I got on with the stable hens first, top up the water, top up the feed, I added some DE, seaweed and sunflower seeds to their breakfast this morning, raked over the old sawdust to check for any buried eggs and put in a whole bag of clean sawdust in one of the pens, the other only just had some the other day. Then onto let the ducks out and collect their eggs, they need a clean out but I am waiting for John to finish the compost area because that’s where the stuff goes. Onto the orchard pens, did I say that the fox had one of the light Sussex hens, the one that raised the chicks, only one chick made it to full size and now she is all on her own because mamma was taken by foxy, how the other one made it through I don’t know but as I found mums headless body in the paddock I assume the fox was disturbed by something. I put some fresh straw in for her and fresh straw in for the turkeys and the other light Sussex hens. I barrowed two loads of woodchip into their pen as well, the rain has made the ground deteriorate a fair bit and now all but the ducks and the outside hens are clean and tidy. I may go out and do those later or I may wait until tomorrow morning not sure yet.

Back inside for a coffee and a quick sit down before getting on with other things. It is Valentines Day today, not that it makes much difference in our house 🙄 probably the subconscious reason I decided to grow my own flowers at least that way I will have some. It is amazing how delightful a bunch of flowers can be, I remember one year a flower van pulled up and the lady got out with a big bouquet, it immediately lifted my spirits, then I realised they were for our daughter and not me 😏 😂

Valentine’s Day 🥰

Still no sign of the Lisianthus seeds sprouting (told you they were difficult) but others are popping up all over the place. The Ami and snapdragons are doing well, some lupin growing nicely and the sunflowers have just sprouted then there are some veg as well, beetroot, celeriac and tomato are all doing well in fact while I think about it I must sow some more tomato seeds. Oh and the rhubarb is beginning to appear so that won’t be long before the first harvest 🥰

Decided to do some paperwork in the afternoon as the rain began mid morning, simple enough task you would think, printer only has one job and that is to print 🙄 Low on ink it says, change ink, not genuine cartridges it says, I know yours are too bloody expensive, printing it says while making all the right noises but not actually doing anything 🤦‍♀️ Prints out, eligible, shall I clean the print head, ooo yes please do, cleaning please wait, just exactly how long for 🤷‍♀️ A simple task that should have taken a minute and that’s half an hour of my life gone and my blood pressure raised! Not to mention wasted paper and that was only the first of many 😝 I actually went away and made a cup of tea while waiting for it to perform the task of cleaning, came back, want me to clean the nozzles, oh go on then, seriously I can have a shower quicker than that thing can clean itself. And the blame of me gaining a lb or two this week lies fairly on the shoulders of Epson because what else was I supposed to while waiting other than eat the whole valentine blondie that Shelley bought me 😂

After printing out a reem of invoices (yes I know there is a better way but I like tangible paper copies 😝) I need to make yet another note to self: Keep a check on what plants you are buying or you will end up doubling up 🤪🤪 I think I could probably start a garden centre at this rate! I am not even going to begin to add it up yet, just keep telling myself I will make it back in sales 😉 Yes the most I print off the more I realise I need to get a grip on the order information including what, when and prices. No idea how many hours I have sat here now waiting for print outs, tried to make them more printer friendly, failed 😣

Tuesday: Pardon me but what a shitty day 😂 the weather is horrid, wet, cold and breezy, yuk. John was home for the morning and so he did the animals and then a couple of jobs out in the garden I needed done. The slabs down the side of the polytunnel which form a pathway have been down for about 8/9 years and have ‘walked’ so he took them all up p, shored up the side and laid them all again nicely 😁 He was brave working out there because meanwhile I found plenty to get done indooors in the warm 😊 Clean and vacuum the boot room, change the bed sheets and clean the bedroom, dig into the freezer and get ingredients for dinner tonight, a nice beef stew in the slow cooker for John, salmon for me 😝 I also got a chicken out to thaw for cooking tomorrow. We still have plenty in the freezers to get through yet, all that work back in the summer months prepping and freezing starts to pay off now that there is not much growing in the veg garden. I still have cabbage and kale available but nothing else really.

Wednesday: Storm something or other (we get so many these days I stop listening to the names) bought with it some pretty hefty gusts of wind and apparently tomorrows storm (yep one after the other) is going to be even stronger 🙄 I had ordered some turf which arrived first thing so John and I spent the morning laying that and repairing the edges of the raised beds next to it. We have done away with one of the pathways and the herb bed so have another 6mx5m of lawn or we would have if I had ordered enough 🤪 I had to order some more which will arrive tomorrow, but rather glad it didn’t all arrive today as working out in that all morning has been hard work. An afternoon of sitting down is definitely on the cards 😂 We sat down mid morning for a coffee outside and as a vehicle drove past a massive clatter occurred, it was towing a trailer with a tailgate which had come undone and fell with a bang onto the road, not something that happens everyday lol.

Thursday: The rest of the turf we needed arrived 😁 we now have a bigger lawn area for the kiddies to play on and less for me to weed and tend to. We scrapped the path down the side as well, I spent hours weeding the damn thing might as well cut grass instead. I have also sown a few more seeds today, more tomatoes (gardeners delight, Alisa Craig and tigerella) I have sown some basil and some dill as well, they are all in the greenhouse in a propagator. Still haven’t managed to catch the mouse, it has now eaten all the peanut butter so I have loaded the trap with maple syrup and wheat, my plan is to fatten it so that it is heavy enough to trip the trap 😂 The cats are doing a great job mind you, while we were out there today one of the cats had two mice for lunch. There was a lovely rainbow this morning, the calm between the storms, we are due a pretty nasty one in the early hours, storm Eunice is an explosive cyclogenesis which is a weather bomb apparently, instead of a storm building as it moves, the weather front moves and explodes into a storm. I hope we all come through it without any damage, watching the way they keep going on about it on the news I am surprised everyone isn’t totally terrified and digging holes in the ground to climb into 😏 I am not looking forward to the next 24hrs that’s for sure 😥

Friday: It is 10am just sitting here with a coffee thinking that so far it has not been too bad when a massive gust made the place groan and creak 😏 John has been here all morning but he now has to go and do a small job just when the winds are getting stronger, two points here, he is on the road when it is not so great out there and I am on my own here awaiting any catastrophe by myself 😣 I have some veg soup on the go for lunch and it occurred to me yesterday that we really need some kind of back up plan for any power cut. At least if we had a small gas stove we can boil a kettle, get a warm drink and make a hot water bottle. We have a generator but as I said to John I am not so good at starting it, so it’s fine if he is here not so good if I am on my own 🙄 I figured it would be a good idea to boil the kettle, fill a flask and a hot water bottle just in case 😂 To be honest the hot water bottle is much needed for my back, I woke up with a bad back on Wednesday and it hasn’t really got much better, stiff and slightly painful though not massively, I can move but with caution ⚠️ I would have gone for a walk to try and ease it off but today is not the ideal day 🤪

The winds got pretty fierce with some strong gusts, then it all seemed to die down again and then we lost power and the winds picked up once more. Good job I made a hot water bottle 😝 I called the power company but naturally they are only putting out a recorded message saying they have no idea when they will be able to get power back on and it could be off overnight 😣 I think a few layers of clothing will be needed, although I do have battery powered lights and a solar powered radio which is fully charged so that’s the evenings entertainment sorted 😂 At least I am not panicking about the Rayburn this year, every cloud and all that.

The power came back on for an hour or so and then went off again, but then came back on, how long this will go on for is anyones guess lol. The delivery of point of lay hens was cancelled for today, too risky to travel and we can wait another few days. At one point the wind was so loud it sounded like to door was open, it has died down somewhat now and I nipped out to the post box. I had a quick scan round to assess the place and apart from the bay tree in a big pot that has gone over it’s all looking fairly unscathed, plenty of reports locally of trees down everywhere though.

Judging by a lot of smallholders photos and videos I have seen online, we got away lightly, mostly I would say that is due to the positioning of and building robust pens and huts. We nearly always plan something with the wind direction in mind because it does get pretty windy here even on a regular day so stormy days are much worse. The older buildings are robust as well, Dad was a belts and braces person, there are straps on everything to hold it down luckily, the only thing that always worries me is the metal sheet roofing. Normally they would be fine but with constant winds at that speed they can easily be shaken so much they come loose, I said to John that once the weather calms we (he) needs to check the fixings and tighten any that have come loose.

Saturday: Weather was not much better but less wind and more rain. Didn’t do much outside at all and in the afternoon we went to a joint birthday party for two of our great nephews, 1 and 2 years old respectively. Nice to catch up with people we have not seen for a year or so and the children enjoyed playing together 🙄🤪

🙄

Sunday: Shocking again, almost as windy as Friday, raining most of the afternoon, cold and grey, yuk and more storms rolling in over the next couple of days 😏 It wasn’t raining first thing and John did the animals and then built the new compost bin area. The other has all been cleared and stacked ready to rot down more but we needed a new bay built with pallets which is what he did. Then he cleaned out the ducks, couldn’t do that until he built the bay as that’s where the duck muck goes. And finally he put the wheel back on the car, it had to be taken to the garage at the beginning of the week as the wheel rim had cracked and needed welding. Meanwhile I found stuff to do indoors, I didn’t really want to go outside in all that plus I still have a bad back so didn’t want to be lifting anything.

What is one to do on a cold, wet windy Sunday, well go and buy more plants of course 😁 When John came back in looking for a coffee I suggested we go out and get one accompanied by cake 🥰 and a mooch round at some lovely plants 🤪 I purchased more dahlia, gladioli and some anemone bulbs plus some sweet Williams, you can never have enough plants right 🤷‍♀️ My plan is to take cutting from all the dahlias I have so far which will increase my overall stock. Anything I can propagate I will have a go at, this morning I took some basal cuttings from the delphinium and I will be doing the same from the chrysanthemums and lupin that are coming up, it is a great way to get free plants and easy enough to do. I have used the carnations I bought from the garage a few weeks back (to have a go at an arrangement I wanted to try) to get new plants as well. They are easy to root just in water at this time of year, give it a go if you have any from your valentines flowers 😁 You are looking for new little plants coming from a leaf node, pinch those out and pop in water, they will soon form roots, don’t forget to change the water every couple of days to stop bacteria building up.

That’s is for this week, rubbish weather week I think I will call it 🙄 let’s hope it gets better during the week ahead, have a good one x

Posted in Friesland Farm

Busy week, painting projects & preparing to flower farm 😁

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 24th January 2022: Milder than it has been, dry and the ground is not frozen yay that means I can get outside and get something done. First though I had to get the animals all sorted as John has gone to work for a couple of hours but will be back mid morning. As soon as I could I went outside to get the job done that I had gone to sleep thinking about, sad I know 😂 The job in question was cutting back the lilacs in the veg garden. Quite a few years ago we thinned out the lilacs at the front and heeled in some whips, they were supposed to be dug up at a later point. That was probably something like seven years ago so you can guess how big they have got. They are at the end of the bed where I will be growing the cut flowers and so I cut them down by half in order to get the maximum sunshine but still provide a wind barrier, I also hope I will get some good lilac flowers from them although possibly not this year. I dug up a fair few whips to pot up and there was just one big root I couldn’t budge. John came home at that point and we went off to the diy shop to get some paint for the roadside advertising boards. I want to paint them the same colour (or near enough) to the logo background and try to pull everything together a bit better. Once back home John had to go off to the bank to shut down an account we haven’t used for around ten years but still had a small amount of money left in it. I sorted out what would be for dinner this evening and then got the smallest board in to give it a clean up and repair some little parts that had got damaged in the wind. I realised I needed to re do the blackboard paint so called John who was on his way back, he turned around and went to get the paint from the diy shop, bad management from me there but at least I can get the boards sorted. While John was out doing the afternoon rounds I painted the smallest of the boards with new blackboard paint and once it has had a makeover it will look splendid. John also went out and dug up that last root for me 😁 tomorrow we will go out there and put everything through the chipper, tidy up and that bed will be ready when I am for planting up.

Last night while checking my emails I looked at a particular website and decided I might like to go on one of the courses they were offering. I talked it over with John because it’s not cheap lol, but I am so excited to have booked a cut flower day course with Sarah Raven 🥰 She is the guru of cut flowers in the UK and I can’t wait to go and do that, yep it’s fair to say I am ‘cock a hoop’ about that.

At times I think to myself ‘whoa, what are you doing’ and then other times I am full steam ahead with ideas and plans, the one thing I keep telling myself is to just roll with it and enjoy everything, I mean what could be better than growing flowers all summer long. The one thing I did think was that at least picking flowers is an early morning job 😁

The poultry are obviously all still shut away and it would seem that it’s particularly bad this year 🙄 On the one hand it is easy for us to do them every day and they are not all over the place laying but on the other hand I kind of wonder what is the point of having them if they can’t get outside for four months of the year and so far that’s two years in a row we have had to lock them down 😔

Tuesday: oooosh been very busy this morning, after getting the morning jobs done including the animals, I got straight onto painting the primer on the advertising board for the front of the drive. I figured if I did that quickly it would be drying while I went about the rest of the day’s business. Today on the agenda was chipping up all the prunings from the lilacs and the apple trees I pruned the other week. That took around three hours and all the mulch went back onto the ground under the lilacs and around the lavender. John meanwhile was working on the area that will now be grass, it was the herb bed and I have dug everything out and potted up or replanted elsewhere. The sides of the bed need removing and all the soil needs moving so it is level with the pathway (although the path will also be grassed) He has been doing a fabulous job, riddling all the soil as he goes and putting on the rhubarb bed which really needed a top up. Around 11 John went out to look at a couple of jobs and an hour later returned, I had some soup in a mug outside, I didn’t want to stop and sit down otherwise I wouldn’t get going again. John got himself some lunch and then came back outside where we worked until mid afternoon, should sleep well tonight 🤪

In between everything else I was also painting and re writing the advertising chalkboard for the flowers.

Wednesday: Another busy day today, mild again which meant plenty of time outside to get stuff done. John carried on with the removing all the soil from the area we are putting down to lawn and while he was doing that I potted up all the lilac whips I dug up yesterday and I also planted 100 allium bulbs of various types. Some will go out for sale and some will be for the cutting garden. We then moved onto a different area, the brassica cage has been there for about four years I think, it is time to use it for something else before I end up with club root 🙄 I took off all the environmesh and hatched a plan 🤪 the plan involved re using items we already had to create a sweet pea growing area, I have some metal grid sheets that are pretty big and so I wanted one of those attached to the framework of the brassica cage and a narrow raised bed at the bottom for the sweet peas. It should be pretty successful 🤞 and a dedicated area for the sweet peas which have deep roots. I have now almost cleared the area where the rest of the cut flowers will be going and just need to make a plan of what is going where. I will get some pictures once it’s cleared properly and ready to go.

In between all this I was repainting and re writing the advertising chalkboard for the eggs, the boards are all having an overhaul and a refresh, I didn’t get before and after pics of the first board but I have of this second one.

I have also been trying to make hearts from the weeping birch branches, every year in winter it sheds lots of branches, they are very long and wispy, ideal for making things with.

Much better 😁

We popped out to get a bit of shopping once we had eaten dinner, figured it would be quiet in the evening. We got back just in time for a zoom meeting I almost forgot about 🙄 it was a cut flower meeting, very interesting and nice to see others who are doing the same thing.

Thursday: Making the most of John being at home because today is the last day for a while. So after the morning rounds John got straight on outside finishing the sweet pea box and I got on with chalking up the egg board for the roadside, looks pretty good and should just give a nudge reminder to anyone passing that we still sell eggs. Once I had finished I went out to help John, I lined the box, moved a few barrowfulls of dead and decaying leaves (I need to burn these as they are from the pear tree that has scab) Then once John had finished I laid weed membrane down over the rest of the plot to stall the weeds until I can get on it. We measured the plot and overall size is 12ft wide by 30ft long with some small areas already planted with the lilacs and lavender but the rest is ready to plan. It then started to rain 🌧 oh rain stops play says John, nope rain just means play outside stops but plenty to be done inside 🤪 So for the second time in as many weeks John got the hoover out 😝 that is worthy of writing as it doesn’t happen very often, not at home anyway, I am reliably informed by customers that he hoovers in their houses! Hoovering, tidying, wipe round done and time for a sit down, we have the twins later so need a rest in between. I have had to order a new vacuum cleaner, we have two, one is for the boot room and used to do the Rayburn, it’s gets that stale smell so it is the ‘outside hoover’ it has given up the ghost so the ‘indoor’ one moves to outdoor and the new one will be for inside.

I am feeling like my head is fit to burst with everything at the minute especially social media lol. But it’s an extremely useful platform both for getting information out and for receiving information. I just think that at the moment I have too many social media plates in the air 😂 online courses, zoom meetings, online workshops, relevant groups for flowers, Smallholding, self sufficiency, veg growing, gardening in general, personal, then there are the farm pages to run on Facebook, and Instagram and the blog and podcast, I think I need a PA 🤪 Still it keeps me busy right 😝. That and preparing the garden for spring, all of it not just the flower patch, growing seeds, potting up plants and planting bulbs not too mention keeping up with the weeds once they start in earnest.

In the past I have tried to find and trial other more environmentally friendly weed suppressants but I have resorted to the landscape membrane. I tried jute which was ok but only lasted the year which would make it pretty expensive, the cardboard method works really well and is cheap but to cover the area that I need to cover takes a LOT of cardboard so I can only use what I have. The biodegradable membrane is great (expensive) but not permeable and very flimsy so at the moment for large areas it is the landscape membrane I am afraid. Two reasons why this is the best option for me, one, the area is pretty extensive and there is a lot to do. I need to be able to be in control of what gets done and when, which leads me to the second reason and that is the Lupus. I have no idea how the year ahead will go regards the illness, if I am lucky and can keep on an even keel without flares, it will be smooth sailing. If it doesn’t go well I can be incapacitated for weeks sometimes months and then things will get very out of hand, it will stress me out massively and stress is something I need to avoid at all costs because it is a trigger. Sometimes you just have to do what is best for you and your health even if it goes against your ethics which in this case it does but I do need to balance one against the other and until they come up with something amazingly good that’s what I will be using. The good thing is that I use it over and over again but it does shred at the edges if the wind gets at it which is not great, if anyone has any tips on how to stop that I would be interested.

Friday: A frosty morning again but hopefully the sun will thaw everything quite quickly. John has gone off to work today but he did the animals before leaving so I got on with a few household chores. I am hoping to get outside once it warms up a little bit.

Last night I drew out the cutting patch to scale and am giving the layout lots of thought, I think that is the right approach because if I rush in with deciding where things will go chances are I will have forgotten something and have got change it all. The annual flowers are easy enough but the perennial flowers all have different needs and once they are in I don’t want to find I have got it wrong.

Update on the soil blocks and the grow lights: The soil blocks are definitely a winner, I need to get the level of moisture right next time when I use the block because if you have the soil too loose they can crumble a little when the edges dry out but I think that is more user error than design fault. So far I still think they are a brilliant concept, pricking out is a thing of the past with these as exact seedling has its own little bit of soil which you just transplant into the next size block, it’s genius really 🥰 As for the grow lights they have pros and cons, I bought a set with a clip that clip to a table or bench and four arms that have the lights in, the lights are red or blue or a mix of both. The pros are that they do work well, when I change the light colour, the leaf colour of the seedlings change as well. The seedlings also respond to the lights but you do need the lights directly over the seedlings, no point trying to squeeze an extra tray at the end of the light range because the seedlings just lean in that direction. I bought them because the lisianthus are difficult to germinate and grow and I wanted to give them all the help I could. I have seen set ups with trays and trays of seedlings on shelving each with lights attached to the under side of the shelf above. My thoughts are that although we are impatient to get growing, and so use these false environments, nature really does know best and waiting for the light levels to increase is probably better, you will end up with stronger seedlings. I wonder with big set ups, where are they moving all theses seedlings onto once they get big enough to transplant, another set up? You certainly couldn’t move them to outside, not in the UK at any rate, considering we are still weeks away from the last frost date that would be too risky. I imagine people must have a second stage set up that is perhaps under heated cover 🤷‍♀️ I am not sure, maybe I will research it to find out. Overall both the seed blocks and the grow lights are good but for the lights I personally wouldn’t go to a bigger scale not unless I had a good second stage set up to move them too.

John came home mid morning which I wasn’t expecting. I had decided to give the office/craft room a bit of a tidy up but as soon as I finished that I went outside with John to get some work done on the garden. The compost heap needed turning and the compost that was ready needed distributing. I decided that the beds in the big tunnel could do with topping up so that’s where the compost went. I moved two smaller beds that were temporary and put in some pallet collars to make two bigger beds which John also filled. I gave the tunnel a tidy up, put some membrane over the beds. That is the tunnel ready for the season apart from a good wash which needs to wait until the damp weather is finished otherwise the green algae will just come back. I don’t think I have ever had the tunnel ready for action this early in the year. John then carried on with turning this years heap, the more you turn it the quicker it breaks down but it’s hefty work. I tidied up some broken pots and bits ready to go into the skip and then I too sorted the compost bins at the other side of the garden. In the beginning we only had one compost area but I wasted a lot of time talking it all to the other end of the garden each time that I decided to have extra bins within the garden area. I have two big square ones and two darlek type, I emptied out the darleks and put all of that on top of the material in the square ones. Again the more weight on top the quicker it will break down, I quite expected to see some wildlife in there but nope not today. By 1pm it was getting colder and we had both worked pretty hard so it was inside for some soup and a sit down. The soup is from the soup bags I made up at the end of last year, very handy to pop them in the slow cooker with a stock cube in the morning, turn onto high and its ready to blitz and eat at lunchtime. It’s also great because there are veg in there that John wouldn’t normally eat but once blitzed he has no idea 😁

It occurred to me while I was in the poly tunnel that I could offer advice to anyone who is torn between a poly tunnel and a greenhouse. If you can only have one I would say go for a tunnel, they have different uses but a tunnel can be used similar to the greenhouse plus so much more and always go for the biggest one you can afford or site, whichever that is. If it is a greenhouse you really want above all else then by all means get the best you can afford but unless you want it for aesthetics don’t spend the extra on a posh one. It doesn’t work any different and doesn’t make you a better grower, there are better ways to spend the extra money on a greenhouse, such as ventilation, shading, decent staging, irrigation systems, electrics and decent propagators. Also a green house that is well put up will stand the test of time, doesn’t matter how good it looks if the wind rocks it will soon start to leak or worse the glass will crack. Our first poly tunnel has been up for around 10 years and the covering is still fully intact and functional, a lot of that is down to where it is sited, it doesn’t get battered by the wind, which improves the life span. In the tunnels I opted for an overhead irrigation system, which I don’t use, the reason being that too much water is wasted when it is watered from the top. You water areas that don’t need it such as the pathways, watering at soil level is far more cost effective and it is directed straight to the roots of the plants which is where it is needed most.

Another online flower workshop tonight, I am learning lots and loving it 😊

Saturday: Windy lol, that’s today, but mild enough and the sun peeks out now and again. After the usual jobs John asked what needed doing and so I gave him a verbal list, he chose the duck pen 😝 great because that was the dirtiest, muckiest job and I didn’t really want to do it 😂 We had to let the ducks out for a while in order to get it done, John shovelled out dirty, wet, smelly mud and shoved up plenty of duck poop, he then power washed the whole pen. Meanwhile I did the horses water and let them into the front side paddock, they now have three paddocks to roam over. Onto topping up straw in the hens laying areas and then to top up straw in the goose hut, I also found some site fencing (that plastic green stuff) and put that up all along the side of the little paddock that the geese are in. About four years ago Mum, Ken and I planted 950 daffodil bulbs, the first and second year they came up lovely, the third year we had to keep the geese in there due to bird flu and although the daffs came up they were short because the geese trampled all along there hampering growth. The same was likely to happen this year except that I have now fenced it off and hopefully I will get nice tall flowers 🤞 Once I finished that I made the decision to move the ducks back to their original housing, we were going to wait and get the hut moved and a new floor down but the hens in the stable could really do with some fresh air and so they will now move into the pen John has just cleaned out and the ducks will go back to their own home. One of the ducks is not looking very strong so I have ,over her to a stable on her own with food and water to see if she gets any better, she was quite light in weight and muddy I am not sure what has happened to her but if I can try and get her better then I will. I then went on to do some bits in the garden, I cut back all the autumn raspberry canes, potted a few up that I pulled up I also repaired and secured the posts that the canes get tied to as some of them were broken and wobbly. By that time it was lunchtime so I came in for some soup and a cuppa, John also came in for something eat. We had planned on a quick sit down and then carry on but Sam arrived with the children for a couple of hours.

I did another online masterclass about peonies in the afternoon, these type of classes are very good because they are specific and include information about using them as cut flowers rather than just in the garden borders. I have another three classes I think over the next week or so, I am really enjoying them and although I am not a novice gardener I am learning new things all the time 😁

This is the cut flower area it is approx 30 x 12ft 😮 the lilacs I cut back are at the far end and there are some lavenders in there already. The box on the right hand side are for the sweet peas and I need to decide how best to use the rest of the area, not that I am short of plants and seeds to go in there lol.

The weed membrane is to slow down and weed growth until I can get it sorted. This bed has always been a bit of a problem bed, rouge raspberry runners, comfrey and bindweed all have their roots in here, I may have to look at a few raised beds for some of it until they have all died off which could be a year or two 😏 The list of plants and seeds I have is pretty extensive from the favourites like roses, dahlias and peonies to cornflowers, poppies and snapdragons. The beauty of the mix I have is that the bouquets will not be like the ones from the shops, they need to use flowers that will transport well, I can use whatever I want and whatever is looking good at the time of picking.

Sunday: John did a bit outside in the morning and I was indoors making hearts from twigs. Just before lunch I decided I needed a trip to the garden centre to see what is actually out now, of course that result in some spenditure 😂 I said to John, I am investing for this time next year and to my surprise he said ‘good idea’ well then there was no holding me back 😝 I bought some beautiful hellebores, nerine and anemones, I am determined to have naturally blooming flowers this time next year! We were speaking to someone we know who works at the centre and he said that I was onto a good thing, growing and selling flowers and plants, because importing them is about to get a lot harder than it was due to brexit, I hadn’t realised that when I decided to do it but it’s an added bonus I guess. We stopped at the garage on the way back because I wanted to get a cheap bunch of flowers 😮 to give something a try. I was pretty pleased with the result proving that you can even make these look like they are bespoke 😁

Garage flowers and some twigs can still make an artistic display 😁

Have a great week, we are one more week nearer to spring 😁

Posted in Friesland Farm

Bulb planting, leaf gathering & snow!

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 22nd November: The temperatures have dropped to normal levels now and so I think our run of mild weather is gone for good. I don’t mind a cold dry winter it is much better than a mild wet one 🙄 Even though it is colder the sun was out shining away and eventually it warmed the ground up enough to get rid of the frost, I had already decided I was going to be doing a bit outside and the sun was an added bonus. Bearing in mind it has got colder I filled up a tonne bag with straw and took it to the orchard where I used it for the Guineas, rabbit, quail, lovely gut Sussex and the turkeys. All the pens and huts are now filled with a good amount of straw for them to burrow into if they need it. I also filled up all the wild birds feeders so that they have plenty to keep them going on a frosty morning.

After that it was on to the big job of the day, planting all the tulip bulbs as well as some giant alliums. I think there were about 450 tulips bulbs if my memory serves me correctly, they have all now been planted in various places and should look splendid come the spring. Some of them I used to plant up some pots that will go out for sale next spring, most of them went into the raised flower bed in front of the house, a sprinkling of them went into various other pots and then a good amount went into one of the raised beds in the veg garden. Those ones will be specifically for cut flowers and once they have been cut the bulbs will be discarded. This is what happens in the industry, once the flower is cut it can’t send goodness back to the bulb, normally you would allow the foliage to die back so that the bulb can get a good recovery ready for the next year, but picking or cutting the flower means that doesn’t happen and so the bulbs are discarded. This means that once all the tulips have been picked I can clear the bed out and use it for veg later. The pots of tulips I have had to put under a metal run that we use for chickens sometimes, this is to protect the, from all and sundry, chickens from digging in the pots, squirrels from hiding nuts in the pots and this disturbing the bulbs, I know foxes will dig up bulbs, not sure if they eat them or just dig to see what else is under there. Best to try and protect them as much as possible otherwise all the work ends up being for nothing. I still have a small box of gladioli bulbs to plant as well, I need to decide where they will go. I had to books I ordered arrive today, ‘the flower farmers year’ and a flower arranging book, plenty to read and I will probably find I have already done something wrong but I had to put the bulbs in before the book arrived and certainly before I had chance to read it through.

I did notice that although the garlic I planted is coming up but that the same cannot be said for the onions, something has been pulling them out so I have now covered them with environmesh to give any remaining ones a bit of a chance. I also can’t see any sign of the broad beans I sowed, I am thinking that the mice may have got them, I really should have sown them in pots first and then planted them out 🙄

We had a rich beef stew in the slow cooker for dinner tonight and an apple and blackberry crumble, definitely getting into comfort food season now. The Christmas pudding has been boiling away on the hob for two hours, it has another two hours to go before allowing it to cool and then store it ready for its main event on Christmas Day. I also got a soup veg bag out of the freezer this morning and made a batch of soup, should be enough for the next couple of days and a welcome warm lunch on cold days. I think soup is the best thing during the winter months, full of goodness and it warms you right through to the core 🥰

Tuesday: Early morning appointment for blood tests this morning so I was up and at it as soon as the alarm went off. I had I intended to come back home and get on with some things but Shelley suggested a trip into town and so that’s where we went. We had a lovely morning mooching around and getting a few Christmas presents sorted, plus a coffee stop which is always a pleasure. We stopped to collect Flo from nursery on our way back and I spotted some amazing looking ginkgo biloba leaves, when I started gathering them up they made the most beautiful and natural pompom 🥰 The leaf collecter lorry arrived shortly after so we were lucky to be in the right place at the right time 😁

Nature is a wonderful thing 😍

Once back home I got on with sorting out dinner for the evening and then a bit of card making u til it was time to do the afternoon rounds. The day finishes early at this time out year (outside at any rate) by around 4.30 it is starting to get dark. I decided the dark evenings are a blessing and they give me time to make things and so this evening I made a dried flower wreath. The wreath is from last Christmas, I leave it to dry all year and you end up with a lovely dried moss ring perfect for adding dried flowers that I picked in the summer months and hung to dry.

I seem to have lost a couple of days in between lol, suffice to say that I didn’t do much outside stuff mainly inside. I have been filling any gaps in the walls of the pantry and my sister came over with a drawing she has done of how it will look when it’s done. I need to give the walls a miss coat of paint, just enough to take the blockiness out of the ply walls and make it look rustic.

I think it was Wednesday that the APHA announced that poultry must all be housed and bio security measures put in place from Monday, here we go again. To be fair we were expecting it as we do nearly every year now, one of the reasons it hardly seems worth continuing with poultry 🙄 Hardly good for them when they have to spend months locked away, let’s hope it’s only them this year and not us again.

Thursday: My plan was to paint the pantry but first I wanted to get some cleaning done, the low sun at this time of year drives me nuts as it shows up all the dust 😂 After lunch Shelley, Flo, Sam, Lucie and George called in after their morning at soft play. Later that afternoon Sam was back with all the kiddies including Mia and the twins stayed here while Mia went for her swimming lesson.

Jack (horse) is lame 😒 no apparent cause at the minute, no cuts or heat in his leg, it’s possible he has knocked it or kicked it himself. He will be monitored for a couple of days to see how he goes, no point bringing him in as he will just kick the stable door and that won’t do his leg any good as it is one of his front ones. He is bearing some weight on it but clearly has an issue, I cut him some fresh willow to see if that helps at all, he is better off to continue moving at this stage we think.

Friday: I still haven’t got the pantry painted and I had no intention of doing it today either, it’s blooming cold out there so I would rather be inside doing something else 😜 Mostly that consists of making Christmas cards etc, trying out new ideas, making bread and cooking. The weather took a dive at lunchtime, windy, rainy, cold, not nice today at all, I was not looking forward to going out and doing the rounds late afternoon. In a couple more days that will not be an issue as they will all be penned up in the stable block so I will only have to nip across the hard standing.

John has just phoned to say he is in the queue for a booster vaccination at a walk in clinic, that means I will probably have to go outside again to shut everything away for the night 🥶

Josh and Flo are coming to tea tonight and staying over, it’s been a long time since they have stayed at Nanas, before the pandemic they would regularly come and stay and then everything went sideways and we have never really quite got back on track with sleepovers 😏 Spaghetti Bolognese and a jam sponge pudding for dessert is on the menu.

You may wonder (or you may not) how I am getting on without the Rayburn, well I have a lot more time to do the things I like doing and I thought I would miss the heat but I don’t. The only thing I really miss is being able to dry the washing each night but it’s a small price to pay compared to the amount of work it took all year to run and maintain it.

Saturday: Oh my days what a night 🙄 gale force winds were roaring and kept me and plenty of other people awake half the night,seriously strong gusts at times, scary stuff but no damage though as I write this Saturday evening the winds have not actually stopped all day and are still pretty fierce. Add to that snow, yes bloody snow and it was not at all nice out there, the wind was bitingly cold. I had to go out and top up the horses water and also give them some hay, on the way back I made up the stables in case the snow didn’t clear and I had to bring them in. John went off to get feed once he had done the morning rounds and then in the afternoon he reluctantly went out to fasten down some of the roof that had come loose from constant buffering. At 4pm shelley came over with Martin and the kids and we walked up to the farm next door where they were having the Christmas craft Fayre ooosh the wind was strong and cold but it all added to the adventure, we met Mum up there, had hot chocolates and mulled wine, bought some raffle tickets and then walked home again. I will be glad when I don’t have to go outside anymore tonight 🥶

This is my pantry which at the moment is a blank canvass but it will look super and be a great place to store all my produce and things.
Beautiful but could do without it lol

Sunday: It started off as a normal enough day, we did the animals, Sam and Mia came over to check the horses and rug up Jack. We had a discussion about where and when we will move them next but at the minute they are staying as they are. We went to the farm shop to get some bales of sawdust ready to shut the birds away and then we went out. Basically I dragged John round a couple of garden centres and a Christmas craft Fayre. I am doing well buying locally made gifts for the girls, I can’t really do it for the grandchildren but whenever I can I try and buy local. We bumped into Charlie and Macca at one of the centres so we stopped and had coffee and cake with them. Up to that point things were grand 🤪 We got home, unloaded and then the power went 🙄 I spent too much bloody time trying to get through to the power company, they are very busy due to the storm we had and so basically send you round and round in circles trying to report the outage and find out any info about when it would be back on. We had the big job of moving all the birds to do so we got togged up and went out to get that started. We put in clean bedding, blocked up any escape holes, put in water, feed, dust baths, perches and grit bowls as well as making nice little nest box areas. We also moved the ducks this time, they have gone into the point of lay pen, obviously they don’t roost so I made a little sleeping/egg laying area out of hay bales and straw for them. By this time it is starting to get dark and we have no lights 😂 we got the geese back up into the back paddock where they will stay for the duration and we herded the ducks from their current abode to their new des res. Then it was time to move all the hens, some of them had already been living in the stable block so they were easy enough. A few stragglers in the side paddock had gone to their usual hit and so we gathered those up a d put them in with the others. Then onto the big hut in the front paddock, we filled the first two poultry crates and took them to the stable, when we came out the lights were back on in the house yippee 🙌 We collected the last two poultry crates of birds and put those in the stable and finally we were done. It’s a pain having to shut the birds away for what is likely to be a few months but it’s what we have to do. On the flip side it makes them all easier to look after and of course they won’t get eaten by the fox plus we shall be able to find all the eggs. I have given them some extra treats, sunflower seeds and dried seaweed and I have used diatomaceous Earth in their feed as a wormer and in their bedding and dust bath, it’s like a five star poultry hotel 😂 Once that was done it was time to come in and get that cup of tea we had been looking forward to when we came home earlier in the day.

Posted in Friesland Farm

A farewell, a home brew & Christmas cards

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Thursday 4th November: Again it’s midweek before I think of sitting down to write the blog, not sure why that is happening but I will try to be better otherwise I forget things.

Monday I spent the morning cleaning and then making some banana bread in the early afternoon before doing the afternoon feed and egg collecting rounds. The clocks have changed and now it is getting dark before John gets home from work and so it’s my turn to start doing the birds in the afternoon, the mornings are still light enough at the moment for John to do them before work. I also cleaned out the dirty ducks, no matter how much you clean them out they soon make a mess especially if it has been raining.

Tuesday I can’t really remember what I did first thing although I must have done something 😜 At midday my sister picked me up and we went to my cousins funeral, a lovely send off and a bitter sweet day really. Sad that he has left this world but happy that he was here at all and we spent a lovely afternoon with family reminiscing.

Wednesday was much busier, I figured I ought to get my arse into gear a bit 😂 As soon as the frosty morning disappeared I went out and got some things done in the veg garden. I have been waiting for the compost heaps to drop a little before putting any more on them, and now that they have I was able to pile on any dead foliage I had already pulled up a couple of weeks ago. I went into the big tunnel and finished the tidying I started late last month. The citrus trees have now been wrapped ready for the cold months ahead and all the beds are covered, it pretty tidy in there now, I cut back the lemon verbena and will be using some of that for various things, the dahlia is now cut back and the pit wrapped up, just some lettuces growing in there for winter use.

After that I sowed a packet of broad beans and some onion sets in the small raised beds John put in earlier in the year. I feel as though I am now getting the hang of year round growing, it has taken me long enough lol. I have leeks, cabbages, kale, winter lettuce, carrots and garlic already growing and now I have the onions and beans in as well, I really should add some peas to that list and it would be complete.

Mid afternoon I made some tea, not any old tea mind you, this tea was grown by me right here 😁 I have a camellia sinensis plant and have been growing it from small for the past two years, this summer I harvested a few leaves and dried them. There were just enough for a small cup, I bought a small tea pot and had a little tea ceremony. It wasn’t very strong but it did taste like tea, my self sufficiency goals are complete ✔️

The darker evenings come quickly now and it wasn’t long before the curtains were shut and the lights went on and after having dinner I went off to the flower arranging group. Tonight it was a demonstration by a local florist who has competed and won a medal at Chelsea, she did four arrangements, all different, all beautiful and now I will have to have a go a some of them myself 🥰

Thursday: I spent the majority of the day making Christmas cards with buttons and up cycled bits and pieces, they sold well last year and I want to get ahead I bit in case there is demand this year 😂 Apart from that and doing the rounds in the afternoon I didn’t do anything else on the Smallholding.

Friday: Oh my that was a cold night 🙄 very frosty this morning though the the sun is shinning through so hopefully it won’t last long. First thing this morning was a delivery of materials so I got that all sorted and then decided to make some roasted butternut squash soup, def a soup day. I had a look at a few recipes and then made my own up, I roasted two small squash with some red onions, garlic a chilli and some celery leaves in olive oil and some salt and pepper. Once roasted I blended it up with some vegetable stock and water, some of the recipes have ginger or maple syrup in them so depending on how you like your soup you can add what you like really. I went for a touch of maple syrup 😋 Apart from the maple syrup and the veg stock the rest of the ingredients are entirely home grown so the food miles are very low in comparison, also the energy consumption levels, minimal processing, just great quality food 🥰

I need to get back on some healthier than usual eating as I feel a bit urgh, dumpy, doughy, you know what I mean 😂 extra layers of winter clothing doesn’t help either.

Saturday: Spent the morning doing a bit of cleaning while John was busy out the back continuing with that project. Lunchtime a straw delivery arrived and then I went to Sams to look after the children overnight while they went away.

Sunday: Came back home around lunchtime and had a nap 😂 the twins were awake at around 4am having a dinosaur fest, I could hear them roaring at each other and laughing for about an hour 🤪 Roast dinner at Shelley’s late afternoon and that’s another week done.

Have a good one x x