Taking Stock on Midsummer's Day

Thursday 21st June 2018
Midsummer

It's midsummer. Most of the sowing is done. Most of the baby animals and birds are born. A few crops are starting to yield, but by and large this is a period of growing and rearing in readiness for harvest.

The Year's Weather So Far
Winter bites late then hangs around like a bad smell
The weather has been testing this year. Winter was not too bad until it turned round and bit us with The Beast From The East which was followed by a good few weeks of winter stubbornly putting its foot in the door and barring any entrance by Spring.
The cold snap was really challenging, especially for the pregnant ewes. We almost lost one, but in the end three ewes gave birth to seven lambs. We lost one and two ended up being bottle fed.
The runt third triplet, who we named Flash, continues to be very runtish. In contrast the other bottle fed lamb, Rambutan, is huge. All six lambs have just moved down into the further paddocks where the grass is now taller than they are.
The ewes are recovering well now too. We may give one or two of them a break from breeding next year.

The fruit and vegetables were left floundering too, maybe as much as a month behind usual. This was reflected in nature, with many migrant birds, including our swallows, arriving back very late. In fact many don't seem to have bothered at all.

A Warm and Wet Spring Finally Arrives
When Spring did arrive, it was pretty warm but came with plenty of rain. The water table sat just below the surface of the land so every time it rained we had puddles. The muddy conditions didn't last too long though and we have had much stickier in the past.

Early Summer And The Rain Dries Up
And so on into May and early summer. It has actually been very warm allowing many of the crops to catch up to close to where they should be by now. But it has been dry. Ridiculously dry. The water butts are all empty and I have had to water very selectively. We have only had five minutes of rain in the past month and the ground has gone from waterlogged to gaping cracks opening up. There is still water enough under the surface for most of the outdoor crops, but the carrots have completely failed. This happened two years ago too when we had similar conditions - a cold damp early start to the season followed by dry conditions and a hard crust on the soil.
At least I can still get a good crop in the polytunnel where they are more easily nurtured.
I am not sure how much the early potatoes will swell up. They should just about be ready for harvest soon, so I gave them a good drink last night. This should help them along.

And I am a little worried about the sheep paddocks. At the moment they are still ok, but if we don't get rain soon there will not be enough lush grass to fatten our lambs well.
People have already cut their hay and are baling it at the moment. I like to collect it straight off the field, but my first line of supply was short this year as the grass yield is down. Hopefully the second will come good.

On the positive side though, the sweetcorn, pumpkins and tomatoes are loving the Mediterranean climate.
It seems to be a good year for most of the fruit too. Apples and pears look like they will give us our first really decent harvest now that the orchard is maturing nicely. The blackthorns are absolutely smothered in sloes.

The strawberries are doing very well, free of strawberry seed beetle which devastated the crop last year, though a little rain might help them to swell up a bit more. The sunshine is making them taste like little buttons of sweet deliciousness.
The raspberries are just beginning to ripen and should produce bucket loads and the gooseberries are almost ready. Last year was disappointing for these but this year looks like a good crop of large berries.
The currants are not faring so well this year. It may be time to replace some of the bushes. They seem to prefer cooler, wetter years.
Finally, the cherries are ripening so hopefully we can get at least some of them before the birds do.

Poultry
The turkeys have enjoyed the dry weather too. In fact it was the day the poults hatched that it stopped raining. The nine poults we have kept for fattening up are doing extremely well, so well indeed that the two hens have left them and are both now sitting on new clutches of eggs.

If these hatch it will be a big bonus for us as the sale of the young turkeys will more than pay for the food to rise them and to support the adult birds through the year.

The meat chickens which we purchased as day old chicks about ten weeks ago have put on a sudden spurt of growth, so much so that they are pretty much ready to go in the freezer. It is a short life for them but they have had it infinitely better than any commercially produced birds, even the so-called free-range ones. I wasn't expecting them to make weight quite so soon, so need a couple of weeks to change their diet to finish them properly. But their early departure will free up accommodation and give the chance to rest the ground a bit.
It is actually quite good to be able to buy in, raise and dispatch in a relatively short period. Having lots of birds in different pens with different feed requirements can be quite demanding and quite a tie.

We decided not to breed any geese this year, but to sell the eggs instead. But one of the geese had different ideas as we found her sat on five eggs in a tyre outside. Sadly, the day after we found her the next was abandoned and the eggs gone. At least the goose was still alive.

And lastly, the Muscovy ducklings are growing well. They are still living in with the three silkie hens but will move out when they are old enough for they need  lot of space.



So that's it for the year so far.
Where it goes from here very much depends on the weather. If we return to normal levels of rain as we head into the second part of the year then it could turn out to be a very good year. If not... well.