Dry January

January 2022 has brought us some beautiful, crisp weather
and hardly a drop of rain.

This time in 2021 we were very much waterlogged. The ducks enjoyed it! As did the birdwatcher in me, though not quite so much the smallholder.

This year the contrast couldn't be greater. I can't actually remember a drop of rain in January - if there was, it was very early on. 

The ground is delightfully dry. It's so nice not to be squishing, squashing and squelching, slipping and sliding around the smallholding. It's such a treat to be able to work the soil and have it crumble rather than sticking in giant clods to the soul of your gardening shoes. 

I've been cutting back on of my wildlife hedges. These are cut on a three year cycle so there is a variety of stages of growth. It also means they give me more hedgerow fruits.

When we moved in there was not a hedge in sight. Now they are home to all sorts of wildlife. Nests are buried so deep inside that it is only when the leaves drop and I cut the hedges back that I notice them all. One was even used by some type of mouse as a rose hip storage basket.

Cutting the hedges back produces a surprising quantity of cut material. Without a chipper, this would be impossible to manage. But I am able to turn it into valuable woodchip which covers the ground in the forest garden. Any spare is used to ease the way over any muddy stretches of path or goes to bulk up the compost pile. Nothing goes to waste here.