Easter Monday: I keep thinking it’s Sunday lol, Another nice morning, up early again because John is off it means I can go straight out to the garden and get started on some stuff. I have hoed the brassica cage, keeping the weeds for the rabbits, planted some broad beans round the edge of the cage and the brassicas will go in the middle, I’m also planning on growing peas in there because they will grow upwards rather than outwards so I can get them in between the brassicas and keep the birds off, bonus 😀 I did as much hoeing as I needed, I’m taking a more relaxed approach this year as I mentioned before, a lot of the weeds will be hand pulled to feed the rabbits and torts so I need a supply lol. The only weed I am actively controlling is bindweed, the rabbits will eat it but it’s such a thug it gets out of hand quickly and swamps everything so I’m trying to keep it down. I have planted a couple of herbs, my rosemary got so big it split in two and that caused the plant to rot over winter so I have a new one in and I also bought a curry plant to give that a try, I have been going round finding self set plants and digging those up and potting them, even things like Rosa rugosa because I can plant those in the hedge lines eventually.
The swallows have arrived, John spotted them yesterday afternoon flying around, you know Spring has sprung when they turn up 😀 They will have come from South Africa travelling up to 200 miles a day to get here, I think they deserve the noting of their arrival!
Tuesday: St George’s Day April 23rd not celebrated as it should be in my opinion considering it’s our National day! Mia day today but I got everything done before she arrived plus a little watering, I do hope we get some rain this week as things are beginning to struggle a little, they need something to perk them up. We didn’t do much apart from watch the torts and play but Sam finished early so I whizzed round and did the feeding and eggs then time for GOT 😀😀 I feel tired today, that’s the first time in a week or so, not sure why but definitely not got the umph I have had 😕 Late afternoon I planted some more peas, these are going in the brassica cage with broad beans and the brassicas. I thought I would take advantage of the fact that the cage is netted so that will keep the pigeons off them also they will grow much higher/narrower than the beans and cabbages/cauliflower so won’t be competing for space and light. I watered them in even though a touch of rain is forecast and I could smell that the air was charged. I could hear rumbles of thunder while I was out there but as yet I hasn’t come to much and the from the amount of times I have left it because it was supposed to rain and didn’t , I have learnt from experience, a little extra doesn’t do any harm. Hopefully with a rest tonight and a good nights sleep (which now I think about it, I didn’t have last night, I kept waking up for some reason) I should be raring to go tomorrow 🙄
I have ordered 25 Silver Birch trees, yep 25, well they were a bargain, I will only want a few of them but the rest I can pot up and sell on hopefully, if not we will have lots more lovely trees around the place. I tried growing some from seed but they didn’t grow at all and the around the two birches I already have I have never found saplings.
Going back to this morning I just have to tell you this, I went into the stable block to feed the hens that are in the stable (the escapees from the back paddock) near the tap was an overturned bucket with lots of the ground scratched about round it, I lifted the bucket and there was a hen, she has had a lucky escape from the fox by the looks of it, obviously the fox couldn’t work out how to knock the bucket over but it knew there was something under it, the hen clearly felt safe as she had even laid an egg 😬
Wednesday: Feeling less tired today so cracked on a bit, got the feeding etc done and then Into the garden. With rain forecast I wanted to get a couple of things done, first, cut the grass on the lawn and the driveway, two reasons, I want the clippings to put on the beds as a mulch and I don’t want the grass to spurt and get too long to cut when the rain comes. Second job was to get some things planted in the ground also because rain is forecast and that will give them a good start, eating peas and sweet peas mostly. I could have spent forever doing things but finally a shower 😀 I have heard thunder and the patter of a few drops since last night but nothing materialised until now. It seems odd that in England, where the rest of the world thinks it rains all the time, we are desperate for some rain, we haven’t had any for around 2/3 weeks and together with the scorching spring temperatures we have had, it’s a recipe for disaster in the garden, especially veg gardens. It’s not that we want rain all the time but over the years we have got used to it and so garden accordingly, we are now beginning to realise that we need to adapt and change, that is the reason I have been trying to create more of a forest garden so that we have a canopy to hold the moisture in the soil. The time for neat rows and bare soil has passed, well here at least and I need to learn a different way, not new, it’s been done in various forms for hundreds of years and there are always new ideas to tap into, it’s a journey of discovery I am enjoying.
I took a photo of one of the ‘guilds’ I created, it’s in its infancy and the photo is taken from directly above, I planted this up last year and the apple tree had been moved from the paddock because it was struggling massively. The tree is the one with the red leaves in the middle, I so want this to do well because the flesh of the apple is also red which I thought would be fun, then there is comfrey an accumulator, it will pull up nutrients from deep down and deposit them when it either dies back or is chopped and dropped, that’s the theory anyway, then there are strawberries they will spread, covering the bare ground and they obviously bring bees and insects to the area (pollinator) it doesn’t matter if the berries get eaten by birds, they are not my main plants for harvesting, you can just see onions poking through, those help deter pests due to the smell (repellers) I need to plant a (fixer) in there which will be from the legume family, they draw nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on the roots and release it into the soil when they die back, nitrogen is one of the most important chemicals to a plant, it’s needed to make chlorophyll, clover is probably what I will sow, it’s permanent unlike the beans and peas although I may put a couple of those in as well, it’s not difficult once to understand what each plant does and how it helps the other, in this case they are all helping he apple tree, hopefully it will work out, I will let you know. I have other guilds to plant up, the fruit trees have already been in the ground for a year so time to build the guilds 😀 
We had a short shower, long enough to be able to smell that delightful smell of Petrichor 😀 one of my fave smells, this is the rain causing chemical reactions of either oil being realised from plants or bacteria, either way it’s a smell I love and the garden loves it too which is the most important thing. You could spend a day watering with tap water just to keep things ticking over, but a short burst of rain and the plants do a little happy dance, burst into life and put on good growth, now we just need a little bit more to fill up the water tanks please 😜
Went up to my neighbours to try and help identify some veg seedlings for her, the classic mistake we all make ‘I will recognise those when they come up’ or the labels fade/wash away, and you are left with trays of very similar looking seedlings 😀
Back home and did an hour in the tunnel, emptying things that have not grown, sowing odd packets of things that have been opened last year and a few left, they may come up, they may not but nothing ventured nothing gained. There were a few chick pea seeds so I sowed them and they grew well but didn’t produce much last time, however I figure the rabbits will eat the tops if nothing else.
I picked a few bits for the egg shed, rhubarb, asparagus and I put out Welsh onion, these are not something you will find readily in the shops, they are a perennial onion with a bit more of a kick than chives but not as strong as an onion, use them the same way you would as spring onion or chives.
Thursday: We have had a substantial amount of rain overnight by the looks of it which is great, the sun is trying to shine and the temps are not too low so it’s great growing weather. We popped out to do some bits last night and driving down the lanes I was thinking how fabulous the countryside looks when the hedges all start to fill out.
Pick a job, any job that’s the order of the day today, indoors, animals, garden, plenty needs doing, first of all though shower and coffee 😜
I ordered some tomato plants, I thought I had ordered some previously but I can’t find any email saying so (probably end up with loads arriving) I have got some seeds in but I think it’s a bit late really and the plants will give me a good start.
Yesterday while gardening I found a few borage seedlings in the path so I dug them up and relocated them back onto the herb bed, I was reading this morning that borage is especially useful to pollinating insects as it fills up with nectar every two minutes 😲 so I will be on the look out for more seedlings to transplant around the rest of the beds, borage can be a bit annoying if you like well structured gardening as it is big, hairy and floppy (yes, now I’ve written it, I see how rudely that will be interpreted by some 😜) and seeds everywhere but it is a fabulous plant for the insects so well worth putting up with 😀
I got a few of those jobs done that have needed doing for a while, you know the ones you walk past daily thinking, I need to do that, I must do that, I really have to do that soon lol. Mainly it was cleaning out the rabbits, they get deep littered over winter which works well, they have a couple of wet areas the rest is dry and the bumbles fall through the straw to the bottom. Well now was the time to sift all through it, take out the wet, shovel up the bumbles and dust, a lot of the straw is perfectly fine to throw on the toilet areas and then they will have clean straw and hay elsewhere. The quail hut needed doing as well and the nest boxes of the incarcerated hens in the stable, I’m keeping them in hoping that when they finally go back out into the back paddock most of them will stay there 🙄 I picked some fresh food for the rabbits and guinea, weeds, some herbs, and some chard, I gave a bit of chard to the light Sussex and the hens in the stable. We have a light Sussex hen sitting on eggs at the moment, I would be nice if she manages to hatch a bunch of them out, we haven’t had hen raised chicks for a couple of years.
What I really need to get a grip with is feeding the light Sussex as naturally as possible, that was always the intention, a flock of dual purpose birds for our own use, to feed them fresh fruit, veg, herbs & then grain & pulses. For one reason or another it has not been possible to get them out on a paddock as yet and now she is sitting I will have to wait a while longer but it gives me time to put something in place for when the time comes.
We hadn’t had as much rain over night as I thought, just a spitting by the looks of it but just as I finished the rabbits, tidied away and came in for coffee the heavens opened and down it came, good timing 😝
The sun is coming out in between showers so I went out and planted the rest of the seed potatoes this year we have swift (earlies) and Picasso (main crop) last year the potato harvest was not good because of the long hot spell hopefully this year will be better. I also scattered some cornflower and poppy seeds in the flower bed, I have cornflower growing from seed in the tunnel as well but you can never have enough cornflowers 😀 I am trialing a few other things, millet, quinoa, kidney beans, and haricot beans, and sunflowers seeds from the bird seed, to see if they grow and how well and I have had a piece of ginger in my fruit bowl that I was hoping would begin to sprout, it has so now I have placed it on top of some compost in a pot in the tunnel to see if I can get that going. Ginger is a bit hit and miss I find, it sprouts really well then dies off but I do know people who grow it successfully so giving it a go. My tea bush (Camellia Sinensis) survived winter, I need to read up on the best location to plant it once it’s big enough and get this, because if I was trying I wouldn’t succeed, but I used some cut apple wood branches to secure a piece of mesh round some bulbs and the wood has rooted 😲 free apple tree 😀 only one piece out of about 8 buy hey I’ll take that as a win. Amaranth is another I am going to try, the leaves are eaten like spinach and if it goes to seed the birds/hens will love it.
I put an item up for sale on social media and had a chap contact me as he wanted to buy it, all very normal, he didn’t know the area and doesn’t have a sat nav so asked if he could meet in Carterton which he does know a bit, that’s fine we can do that, as a thank you for going out of your way (it’s not really) would you like some tomato plants, yes please 😀 Sungold and Indigo, I haven’t grown either before so looking forward to seeing how they do.
Friday: I have only done the basics today, firstly it’s bloods day, I am pleased to say that the last lot of results were all normal so these should be too, then I went with Shelley while Josh had his class photos taken, then to get a coffee and cake, then a bit of food shopping. Back home and Mum came, then Sam and Mia so we all had a lunch of prawns and salad leaves from the tunnel and some general chat while the children argued over every little thing 😂 the amazing thing is that when it was time for Josh to go, he and Mia suddenly declared how much they love each other lol, if only they did that at the start it might have been a less fractious afternoon, kids 😝
Some brassica plants arrived today, I had forgotten that I ordered them but I’m pleased that there are Brussel sprouts in with them as well as cauliflower, cabbage and purple sprouting, I have loads of the latter two as seedlings so goodness knows what I will do with them all. I ordered plants last year and they did so well that I must have decided to repeat it again this year, meanwhile gaily sowing plenty of the seeds as well 🙄
Saturday: Oh what a difference in the weather from this time last week! The wind is very cold this morning, if you are reading this and not living in the UK you might be able to see why we are obsessed with talking about he weather, it’s soooo changeable it’s ridiculous, it makes planning anything outdoors very sketchy. We are lulled into a false sense of Spring then wham October is back lol, it’s a reminder to make sure any plants that are going out are short and strong rather than spindly or leggy as they will get battered.
We did the morning feeding and letting out and John keeps complaining about the wind and how cold it is, I told him, I know you are just trying to talk yourself into a warm comfy seat in front of the telly for F1 and some snooker 😝 I can find plenty of jobs under cover 😂
Before we get under way for the day on the smallholding though we are going for a bit of CPR training, the village now has a defibrillator in place and offered the free opportunity to learn or freshen up on CPR and familiarise ourselves with how the defibrillator works, too good an opportunity to miss.
The we went straight to pick up some multi purpose compost from the garden centre and of course John had to have a breakfast while he was there 😂 It gave me a bit of time for a look round and pick up some bits, I like to go to the casualty dept and rescue something I might fancy, today was a large lemon thyme for £2. For nearly ten years I have only grown vegetables and fruit with the odd flower or shrub in a pot, I realised how much I missed flower gardening, gardening in general, but I’m a bit giddy with my rediscovered passion for it lol and buying, propagating plants left right and centre. I’m even thinking, where can I start a real garden, by that I mean a dedicated area, it’s not that we don’t have the space, 5 acres is a lot, but can I, should I, give over a particular space to it? At the moment I have a small border in the front of the gate, pots and boxes in front of the building and a small area approx 5ft x 5ft in the veg garden.
I am changing the place bit by bit, I wish I had started 10 years back but hey that’s hindsight for you, the small paddock has got some fruit trees and I have a couple more native trees to go in so that will have a small copse area, and we have a small copse area in the side paddock right down near the road, I have never touched this but was looking at it yesterday thinking I could doing a little bit of tidying in there, it’s mostly hawthorn bushes and put a couple of other trees in there as well. We would have to fence it off though or the horse will probably eat anything I put in!
When we got back I spent a bit of time in the tunnel, it’s nice in there and horrid outside the wind is fierce. I picked up some 50p herbs from the supermarket, basil and parsley the basil I have planted in a pot with a cloche and the parsley I took a sharp knife to the roots and divided it into 4, planted 2 in the salad bed and potted 2 just to see if they take and how they do because that would be a very cheap way to get plenty of herbs on the go. I also picked up a rosemary also 50p, (these are all living herbs with roots) and took some cuttings from the nice soft tips of it, also just to see if it works.
After that we had decided that we would use one of the brooders that John made to move the chicks into as they need more space and will be moved out of it by the time the ducklings arrive. I don’t often give John the credit he is due (doesn’t pay to let him get too big for his boots 😜) but I am soooo pleased with these, they are just perfect and he has done a great job of building them, so if you see him out and about you can tell him ‘nice brooder unit’ 😀😀
Back out into the tunnel (my happy, happy place) and pot on a few more seedlings that are getting big enough now, I’m going to have so much to plant out very soon I will be busy from dawn till dusk 😋 Inbetween I was trying to go round picking up stuff that has been strewn by the wind 😕 hoping it dies down soon.
Then we went to pick up Josh who is coming for sausage and chips and a sleepover at Nanas and Gramp Gramps 😀
Sunday: A better day weather wise, the wind has dropped and we had a fair bit of sunshine in the afternoon. Josh went out and helped Grampy do the feeding and letting out this morning then the boys came over to do some more to the greenhouse and the girls came over with the rest of the grandchildren. By early afternoon they had gone and I set about planting the brassicas up, the whole cage is full now with broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts, cabbage, purple sprouting, dwarf kale and some turnips, all that together with the broad beans and some peas should fill it to bursting once it’s all growing.
I potted up most of the silver birch whips, heeled a couple of them in in various places in the veg garden, the rest will be planted around the farm somewhere yet to be decided.
Charlie and Macca invited us for roast dinner, never going to say no to that 😀 and when we returned I went out to water the stuff I had planted earlier.
Picture of ranunculus which I have totally fallen in love with.
Job done
Day done
Week done 😀
frieslandfarm (flowers) 