An Early Spring Smallholding Week

What I love about working on the smallholding is the rich variety of jobs. So, by way of a bit of a catch up, here's a quick overview of a week here on Swallow Farm.

Thursday 15th February 2018
I started the day by jointing the ducks I recently dispatched and plucked - I am getting better and better at getting all the meat off the bone, which is great as I hate to waste anything when it is an animal's life we are talking about.
Hazel Coppicing
A trip to the vets for standard pet supplies hurt the wallet as usual, but we stopped off at a fellow smallholder's place on the way back to help coppice some hazel. Just one tree for this year but it gave us a fair haul of useable poles. They are a bit rustic but should be ok for what I have in mind, which is to make some hazel and willow hurdles. I had forgotten that the willow needs to be cut for a couple of weeks before it can be sufficiently bent without snapping, so that job has gone on the list.

I would normally cut all the growth at ground level, leaving sloped edges to shed water,

but the owner wanted this year's growth left - which made cutting a lot, lot trickier.

Friday 16th February 2018

The large water butt (an IBC - Intermediate Bulk Container) has been working well as a reservoir from the gutter to the wildlife pond. But the best laid plans... today I just needed to move it about 4 feet to make room for something else.
Willow harvesting

The job went more smoothly than I imagined, so I got straight on with harvesting the remaining willows. For the moment they can lay in neat piles until they have weathered enough to use for hurdle making.

Let there be light in the polytunnel
With jobs falling thick and fast, I made hay while the sun shone and cleaned the polytunnel. I have bought a new long-handled squeegee and soft broom for this and all was going well until a small plastic protrusion went straight through the polytunnel plastic. Fortunately I had a couple of foot of repair tape left over. More has been ordered as this is one thing you want in stock on the rare occasions when it is needed.

The monster chicks foraging in the rhubarb bed.

The upturned bins are for forcing pink rhubarb.

Saturday 17th February 2018

Rhubarb forcing

Not much done today, though I did place a couple of plastic dustbins over two of my rhubarb crowns in the hope that I can get a small crop of forced rhubarb this year. We'll see how it goes.

Sunday 18th February 2018

Grow-Your-Own Motivation

A day spent with the Grow-Your-Own group. I have handed over the reins of this group as I have taken on being Chair of the Smallholders Club and that is taking up quite enough of my time.

Our subject for the day was succession planting and we had a very informative discussion. I showed off my seed organisation system, which I can't show you as it is patent pending (actually it's not, but it should be).

More importantly we enjoyed a high quality bring and share meal. Then there was more club business. Four of the Grow-Your-Own group are now committee members of the Fenland Smallholders Club and we informed the others that the group had volunteered to organise the April club meeting. As this would be the first I had been in charge of as Chair, I want to make it a good one.

Lots of ideas flew about and I think we will put on quite a show.

I always come back from the Grow-our-Own group feeling inspired and reinvigorated.

Monday 19th February

Early Crops

Finally the polytunnel is ready for me to start planting. (I discovered that the old soft broom head fitted the new gubbins I've bought, making for the perfect polytunnel cleaning set up).

In went ten Arran Pilot seed potatoes for a super early crop of new potatoes. I sowed carrots, beetroots, turnips and lettuce too. The polytunnel is great for squeezing an extra crop in before anything is possible in the unprotected beds outside.

Turkeys not just for Christmas

I managed to catch and dispatch the superfluous male turkey - important to do this while I could still tell it from the older stag.

I got it all plucked too while it was still warm. I find turkeys the easiest of all poultry to pluck.

Primocane Raspberries

With these jobs done before lunch, I continued on to cutting back the stems of my autumn fruiting raspberries. It is amazing that from nothing new stems will shoot up, flower and fruit all before winter comes round again.

These are my new raspberries, one called Joan J which gets rave reviews from everyone and one called All Gold (though it doesn't produce chocolate raspberries and they're not Terry's!)

Another Re-organisation

With drizzle coming down all day, I was by now getting pretty damp. The water table is high which means that any rain makes the soil unworkable and things churn up pretty quickly. So I continued the day reorganising the stables. I have made some room in there and want to make good use of the space. It is amazing how every space I create seems to fill up with 'stuff', hence the endless reorganisations.

And finally, despite the weather forecast for the coming week, there are more definite signs of spring. Here's a photo of some catkins I took today.

ELVIS LIVES

When we moved here we asked if some chickens, Daisy the Pig and the tractor could be left for us.
The only survivor after just over seven years is Elvis, our amazing Silkie hen.

Elvis just loves to sit on eggs and likes nothing better than to care for a young family. It doesn't really matter whether they are chickens, ducks or even guinea fowl.

For the last couple of years we have used Elvis to raise clutches of Muscovy Ducks. But Elvis is slowing down a little. There was a time when she would happily raise three broods a year. Sit for three or four weeks. Raise for about 7 weeks. Sit again. From Spring till Autumn.
But her feathers are tinged brown these days (the Silkie equivalent of grey hair) and one brood a year is enough to keep her happy.

It is now over two years since the last of the other inherited chickens went to the big chicken run in the sky, so we have to face the fact that Elvis will not keep going forever.

And so at the back end of last year we purchased three silkie hens. Elvis is actually a Silkie cross, with more obvious feathering than a true Silkie whose feathers more resemble hair.
We didn't intend to get another three hens, but one came free so it seemed rude to say no. Two of our new Silkie hens are black, one is a dinky little brown thing, known as Partridge. They laid their first eggs at the turn of the year and already they are displaying some classic Silkie behaviour. In fact, Partridge has been firmly plonked in her nest box for several weeks now. She does not budge except for brief forays for food, drink and ablutions. Try to retireve an egg from under her and she just clucks and purrs, pecks a little and then tries to settle down on your hand.

But now the little broody house where they live has become home to three broody hens. They spend all day being clucky together, squeezed into the tiniest space. They have not even laid an egg for several days now, yet still they sit.
Taking a photo is not the easiest task though, as all I keep getting is a bundle of furry feather!

Valentine's Day Massacre

Wednesday 14th February 2018
Valentine's Day
What more romantic activity for Valentine's Day can there be than killing and plucking five Muscovy Ducks!

Dispatch complete, now just hanging around waiting to be plucked.

These were this year's birds which survived the last cull as they had a bit more growing to do. I wasn't looking forward to the job, as ducks are the most difficult to dispatch. They have strong necks and a strong will to live!

The weather was pretty foul again. A strong southerly wind at this time of year does not bring warm winds. We caught the ducks one at a time while they were still in their houses and the dispatch went very smoothly indeed, which was a relief.

We took a break while the birds hung around for a bit. This lets the blood drain into the neck cavity. Then it was time for plucking. Sue heated up a large cauldron of hot water and dipped each bird for 220 seconds at 163 degrees F. This proved perfect for loosening the feathers without damaging the skin. Ducks need a lot more soaking time to penetrate the three layers of feathers. They are after all designed to keep out water!

We managed to get five ducks plucked remarkable quickly, in half the time we usually take. We must be getting good at this now. It only took just over an hour for five.

Plucked in record time. As we will be jointed them rather than roasting whole,

some bits can be left unplucked.

Boris gets a shock
With no change in the weather, we huddled up in the warm house. Late afternoon I went to feed the chickens and collect eggs. Seven eggs today which is an upturn.
Then a quick yomp around the perimeter walk with the dogs. It was on the way back that Boris and Arthur raced ahead and not long after this I heard a yelp and saw Boris heading off toward the house. The strong winds had blown some dead weed stems across the path and Boris had come into contact with the electric fence as he skirted round them. Arthur had a very close call too.
Boris spent the next couple of hours literally in shock, his back legs shaking and panting. We were worried for him, but he eventually calmed down after receiving huge doses of attention.
Our dogs are lovely, but they are not the bravest.

What a Very Productive couple of days

Sunday 11th February 2018
Looking after my body
I woke up aching. These old muscles need recuperation time from activities such as lugging sacks of potatoes about.

So I chose gentle jobs for the day. First up was creosoting all the wood in the polytunnel for I suspect that is where the red spider mites hide away to overwinter. The metal frame has already been nuked with disinfectant and blasted with water but a multifaceted chemical attack is clearly what is needed.

All I need to do now is to clean the polythene. Most of the algae is on the inside and the outside is just grimy. I have ordered a long handled squeegee / soft broom affair for the job. The reason it is not here yet is another story.
This is a great job to do, as the light floods in afterwards.

We are not exactly having many beautiful clear winter days at the moment, so again it was not a day for outdoor jobs.

Instead I potted up some of the tomato seedlings. I've started a few varieties off early this year just to see how they do compared to the others. My hope is that the conservatory proves to be the ultimate plant rearing facility and I can start everything off that bit earlier so that harvests come sooner. I don't normally rush things, but the sooner I get a harvest the more tomatoes I will get if blight strikes later on.
I have sown some lemongrass as well and it has already germinated as has my first sowing of coriander.
I potted up the chilli seedlings too. I am still waiting for a couple of varieties to come through, but old chilli seed often loses its viability.

Finally I sowed my leek seeds for the year. I have changed variety this year as last year's suffered terribly from rust and have not stood the frosts well. I just feel it is time for a swap, so I've gone for Porbella which claims to have good rust resistance. By the way, this is not the same rust that cars suffer from!

With the sowing of this year's leeks, I harvested the last of last year's for a leek and potato soup. I harvested the last of the carrots too. They should have been harvested before the winter to save them from the slugs, but we got plenty this year so I left some standing in the ground.
The last ones left were Autumn King and had grown to a good size.
There was a fair amount of slug damage and a few millipedes and woodlice had been munching too, but I still got a good bowl full even after sorting. The geese got the rest and spent the next few days doing orange poo!
As I harvested the carrots, the chickens pecked up the baby keel slugs which had moved in. One I'm particular waited for me to hold up each newly dug carrot. The fate of this carrot harvest was a carrot and ginger soup which came out very nicely. In addition, any spare carrots, leeks and a few other bits and bobs were used to make two big pans of stock to add depth of flavour to the soups.

The evening was spent cooking. I am still keeping to my New Year's resolution of cooking more with our produce. The two aforementioned soups plus a big pot of roast sweet potato and pumpkin soup.
These soups will feed the first meeting of the Fenland Smallholders Club committee that I am chairing this weekend.

Monday 12th February 2018
Cooking and Preserving

Beef Goulash with roast Salsify and Scorzonera.

Portuguese Corn bread and very British Lardy Cake.

What a very productive day. After three batches of soup yesterday evening, I took on a Beef Goulash with Roast Salsify and Scorzonera with Ginger, Lemon and Honey. Yummy!

Then onto bread making. with a Portuguese Corn Bread (thanks to finding somewhere to buy corn meal) and a soda Pumpkin Bread (courtesy of the buttermilk I found in the same shop)

While I was doing all this, Sue was processing a ton of blackcurrants from the freezer, juicing them ready to make a jelly. She mad 30 jars of delicious damson jam too.

Next up for me was Lardy Cake. I make this wicked favourite every year, using some of the very best lard we saved from Daisy when she went to the great pigsty in the sky. 

Then biscuits for the committee meeting. Orange Biscuits, Walnut and Chocolate Slices and Prune and Peel Rock Buns.

It's a good job I am trying to lose a bit of weight at the moment!

Potato Day 2018

Saturday 10th February 2018
An early start as I headed for Huntingdon and Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group's annual Potato Day.
I've helped out for the last three years, each year at a different venue.
This year's venue was the most grandiose by far.

Generally I just help with the heavy duties, lugging sacks of potatoes and laying them out on the tables. I like to make myself scarce before the general public get let in.

For helping out I get first pick of the seed potatoes. I had already planned which varieties I wanted, completing my final research the night before. Priority has to go to slug resistance and blight resistance, for each of these curses is more than capable of taking out half my crop.
Fortunately there are enough suitable varieties left for us to have a good selection of spuds throughout the year.

The advantage of going to a potato day is that you can buy just a few tubers and try lots of different varieties. You get to pick your tubers too. The best are not the largest. I go for the size of a smallish egg.
The CSSG also have onion and shallot sets for sale as well as a very nice refreshments stand and a seed swap.

On my list this year were:
Earlies
- Arran Pilot (actually already got these, as I like to get some going in the polytunnel early)
- Red Duke of York - I've bought these every year since I first started growing them
Second Earlies - many of my absolute favourites belong in this category. In a bad blight year, they have at least grown for long enough to get a decent crop before it hits. The early growth means they beat the worst of the slug season too.
Charlotte - just perfect!
Kestrel - My third year with these, since Blue Kestrel stopped being available on the day. We are still eating these now and they haven't lost a bit of quality.
Maincrop
Desiree - always a reasonable performer, sometimes exceptional. A tasty mainstay.
Cara - an organic grower's favourite. Very good resistance and tasty.
Valor - grown for the first time last year. An offspring of Cara which did very well with wonderfully firm flesh and a great taste.
Pink Fir Apple - an oddity which does very well in my soil. A really good, earthy taste and keeps amazingly well. We've not even touched last year's crop yet.
Setanta - this year's new variety. One of the very blight-resistant types, but will the taste be good?


I don't get in the car these days without compiling an endless list of things to do while I'm in town. The rest of the day saw me stopping off at a health food shop (not many of those in The Fens) for nut supplies, Wickes for roof felt (sheds and chicken coops need constant repairs), The Water Zoo for pond liner (new pond for the ducks so I can have the wildlife pond back).
Then it was on to Lincoln Road where the ethnic food shops are. Corn Meal and Buttermilk haven't yet made it out of the city and into fenland! Spices, pulses and exotic vegetables are easier to find here too and cheaper. There's some wonderful Turkish bread available too and we always treat ourselves to a loaf when we're in Peterborough. Finally Morrison's for frozen ginger (the only place we know to get it).

After my grand tour, I hunted out the old egg boxes in the sheds. They come out every year and are ideal for chitting potatoes in. This is the process where the seed potatoes are set out, eyes up, in a light and moderately warm place so they gradually start throwing out new shoots. This gives them a head start provided you are careful not to knock off the tender shoots when they are eventually planted. They can't just go in the ground outside as a hard frost would destroy them or at least set them back a long way.

Now all we need is a good year. Not too wet, not too dry, not too humid. No slugs or splitting, no scab, no blight.

Bring On The Winter!

Sunday 4th February 2018
I am a Chair!
After putting the finishing touches to the fedge, it was off to Upwell Village Hall for the Fenland Smallholders Club Annual General Meeting.
I came back as the new Chair, not entirely unexpected but not official until properly nominated and elected at the meeting.
I have big plans for the club so it should keep me busy enough. I am very excited at the prospect at taking the club forwards into the twenty-first century!!! 😉

For a while now the committee has had a number of spare places which means that the burden of organising events falls on fewer shoulders. So I was absolutely thrilled that quite out of the blue one after another after another put themselves forward until all twelve committee positions were full.

I went into Monday and Tuesday really buoyed up.

Monday 5th February
Wrapping Up
I think I have finally adapted to winter. Having worked outside all day in the drizzle on Saturday, I worked outside all day in temperatures close to freezing with occasional flurries of snow.
I didn't even feel cold. The secret is to wear layers and to work hard. I have just discovered Aldi Special Buy fishing gear too. Does the job perfectly.

With the clear, cold weather come some stunning sunsets. I often see them as I'm walking the dogs along the river. We have to cut back across the fields and often end up crossing the dyke to get back onto our land after the sun has gone down.

Tuesday 6th February
The Gardening Gang
With temperatures still below zero I decided to heave out the rotavator and start working the bed where the broad beans will be planted. I thought I had covered this bed with cardboard, but was disappointed to find it was one which had become overrun with nasturtiums last year. The dead stems still trailed over the surface. These would need picking off, icy as they were, otherwise they just twine around the blades of the rotavator.
There were a few nettles that needed digging out too. As I sunk the fork into the ground, it clearly wasn't hard enough under the surface to be rotavated. It would just cling to the tines and coagulate to clog up the machine.
Instead I decided to do some good old fashioned digging. There were areas of couch grass too and the roots needed excavating and pulling. A rotavator would have just propagated them.
I had a bunch of willing helpers today - chickens, ducks and guinea fowl. I let them out of their pen as I would be in attendance so they were very unlikely to come into contact with any wild birds.

They appreciated the extra protein as they pecked at anything that moved as I turned the soil. Hopefully I exposed all the slug eggs and nasty bugs, though they are not fussy about who they eat. Goodies like worms and ground beetles go down well too. Of course, as they eat, they scratch and break up the soil and they fertilise as they go.

I discovered a few Romanesco cauliflowers which I had missed. The frost had got to some of them, but there was enough to salvage. These are certainly hardier and easier to grow than conventional cauliflowers. Some went to make cauliflower rice along with some pheasant curry, the rest went into the freezer.

With a whole day's hard work under the belt, I decided to take the dogs on a good long walk before dark. We crossed the fields from the back of the land, along the river and then along the road where we virtually never meet traffic or people. Boris and Arthur just love running along this road.

Coming up in next post: ELVIS LIVES (but a successor has been appointed)

Step by Step Fedge In A Day (and a bit)

Saturday 3rd February 2018
Today was drizzly, all day.
But with colder weather forecast for the coming week I took the plunge (not quite literally) and decided to get six metres of fedge complete with archway constructed in a day, right through from harvesting the willow.

The idea was to mirror the fedge we made last weekend, creating a corridor with archways off to the side leading into the future butterfly meadow areas.

So here it is step by step:

Step 1
Peg out ground cover fabric. The willow slips are programmed to root and sprout, but they still need a little protection from competition from grasses, at least until they get their roots established.

Step 2
Harvest the willow.
I pollard my willows so the new growth doesn't get nibbled at ground level. It's easier to harvest too.

Step 3
Trim and Sort the willow.
Long straight stems are best. The longest for the archway, the next thickest and straightest for the uprights.
Weavers need to be just a little thinner and anything really long and thin is ideal for binders.

Step 4
Drive holes into the ground and insert the uprights, ideally a foot into the ground. Align the uprights in the plane of the fedge and firm the ground around their bases.
It doesn't matter if they are not yet completely vertical - this can be achieved when the binders are woven in.
For the arch, the uprights are inserted into the ground at an angle so they bow outwards. The tops are tied temporarily with baling twine, trying to pull the arches into a consistent  symmetrical shape.


Step 5
Weave in the binders. This is the trickiest part. Pairs of long willow whips weave in and out and over and under. They bind everything together (hence the name).
I find that this step often causes the whole fedge to pull one way or another. If this happens I pull it back with cord and a stake. Once the fedge is complete it will hold itself in place and no longer pull one way. Then the cord can be released.



Step 6
Insert the weavers. These go into the ground and weave up across three uprights. This is where everything suddenly comes together.

By this stage I really was working in the dark. The temperature was dropping and my wet hands were turning numb. I kept going, keen to at least get all the whips into the ground before it turned icy over the next few days. But eventually I had to give up. I placed lengths of twine on the ground which are used to temporarily tie things in and I couldn't even see where they were. I was pretty much working by touch alone!

I didn't get the whole thing done in a day, but given the conditions and how short the days are at the moment I was pretty amazed how close I had come. Another hour or so of light and I would have finished.

Sunday 4th February 2018
Steps 6 - 8
Up early to get the fedge finished (and get some photos of where I got to last night).
First those last few weavers.

Step 7
All the temporary ties (baling twine) get replaced with tying tube. This is a hollow rubber tube which is soft on the wood but over time should create a pressure graft where it is used to tie living and growing wood.

Step 8
Trim everything to look neat, tie the projecting tops of the uprights into design of own choice.

And that's it.
OK, I've simplified it a bit.
If you want to go ahead and build your own fedge, there is a great video on YouTube by the people at Willowbank. (I actually purchased the DVD before I found this.) Unfortunately it stops just before Step 8, but you can probably work out what to do.

I'll post pictures in the summer to show what it looks like with leaves on.