Springing up

On a similar note to the previous post, giants are stirring below the ground and stretching their leafy arms to reach the sky, revelling in the first sunshine of the year.

These are THE HERBACEOUS PERENNIALS, a remarkable group of plants which basically hibernate. At the end of the year, after flowering and producing seeds, their leaves and stems wilt, dry up, rot down, and they disappear for the winter, dormant just below the surface. But their strong root systems, which increase year on year, are a remarkable store of energy which is unleashed when they sense lengthening days and warming soil. Through the soil poke the most luscious of leaves, nothing like the weedy and vulnerable seedlings produced by annuals.  Herbaceous perennials are ready to go. 

So as I walk around the smallholding, particularly the forest garden where young perennials were planted last year, every glimpse of an emerging strong plant brings joy. If they survived that first winter they will be here to stay. Every few years they can be divided to make more plants and in exceptionally cold winters I might mulch them as protection, though most are selected for their hardiness (and my laziness!)

So here's a quick gallery of what's coming through.

From top left, Globe Artichoke, Wild Strawberry, Garden Sorrel, Red-berried Elder, Dock (baddy), Caucasian Spinach, Babington Leaks, Lupins, Day Lily, Crocus, Bronze Fennel, Angelica, , 

 

Bloomin' Lovely!

 

For Ukraine.
Please provide a home if you can,
donate money, boycott those companies who turn a blind eye,
do anything you can to oppose barbaric aggression.

Spring is here! The daffs are trumpeting symphonies of sunshine. Hellebores are in full bloom, fountains of hyacinth blue bubble from the ground. And I am feeling poetic!

At this time of year the almond tree is a riot of pink profusion. On a sunny day it literally hums with the sound of contented honey bees foraging for pollen. With no hard frosts this year and calm weather while the blossom is out, I am anticipating a bumper crop of almonds this year.

Apple grafting and wax workshop

Most weekends I stay on the smallholding but last weekend Sue and I had booked to go along to a beeswax workshop in West Norfolk, courtesy of the brilliant WNKLBA (read as Winklebar, West Norfolk and Kings Lynn Bee-keepers Association).

But late on Thursday evening I came across a Facebook post on the East Anglian Landworkers Alliance Group to the effect that there were places left on an apple tree grafting day.

Not only did the timing fit in perfectly but it was in the same direction as the other course. Time is valuable. Petrol is priceless.

A couple of emails later and everything was sorted.

Easy Graft
Apple grafting is something I've not tried before. I've just never really got round to it. It's not only used for apples. The principal is that you put the fruit tree you want onto the rootstock that you want. It means you can control factors such as the size and vigour of the tree. These will be determined by the rootstock. February and March are the time to do it.

And so,  in a polytunnel on the site of Norfolk Farmshare on the outskirts of Norwich, I first learned the theory and then got to try the art of grafting. First I chose my two apple varieties. You just use what is basically the end of a twig. This is the scion, the cutting which will be joined to the rootstock. I wanted something new, so I went for Queen Cox on a small rootstock so that I can squeeze it into the forest garden. Secondly one which I'd never heard of, Gloucester Underleaf,.. I was attracted to this as it is a Cider Apple. I went for a larger rootstock on this one as we'll want lots for juicing.

I could get into this grafting business. It's a great way of being able to propagate and play with my favourite fruit trees. 

While I was grafting, Sue was exploring Norwich. Come lunchtime she picked me up and we headed back west to a village hall in West Norfolk. 

Waxing Lyrical
West Norfolk and Kings Lynn Beekeepers Association really is a fantastic group. Today's meeting was about using old wax from the bee hives. We joined in with a series of demonstrations, from lip balm to candles, wax wraps to furniture polish. We even got a sample of each to take home with us.

Smallholding is about using every little bit of what you produce. It's about doing things sustainably. After today, thanks to some people kindly sharing their knowledge, I am a little closer to that.

Ten years of geese and a (meteorological) Spring clean

Ten years ago a friend phoned to say someone had dumped five geese on her front lawn. We had no experience whatsoever of keeping geese, but I proved rather adept at catching them and they came back to ours in the boot of the car.

First Goose Egg of 2022
Ten years to the day since then we have the first goose egg of 2022. Valentine's Day is the traditional date for this but it varies from goose to goose and year to year. 

Over the last decade the geese have given us quite a few eggs, a few goslings and they have done a lot of grass cutting for me, as well as spreading a good amount of manure.

Garden Spring Clean (meteorolical refers to The Spring, not the extent of the clearing up!)
The problem with going on holiday in February (not that I'm complaining) is that I am already a little behind schedule and at the mercy of the weather. We are now officially in meteorological Spring and it began with one of those gorgeous spring days we love so much. 

After finishing taking the breasts off the pigeons we were gifted, I devoted some time to weeding out perennials from the veg beds. The war against grasses, docks, nettles and creeping buttercup is a never-ending one, but it does get easier with persistence and if you pick the right soil conditions to perform the extraction.

New growth is coming up rapidly now so I have been tidying up the overwintered dead stems. These provide important food and habitats to wildlife during the depths of winter and plants such as teasel, cardoon and fennel give visual interest too.  But now it's time they contributed to the compost heap. Before too long they'll be unrecognisable and back on the surface of the veg beds as finished compost.