Potato Day

I often talk about the passing of the seasons and how we look forward to the same events coming round year after year.
Last Saturday it was the much anticipated Potato Day.
After planting the garlic, Potato Day and the start of seed sowing are annual markers of the beginning of a new growing season.

In my last post I talked about Fenland Smallholders Club. Another local group is Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group who organise this annual Potato Day. It is an opportunity for members of the club and members of the public to purchase from a range of about 50 seed potatoes. There are onions and shallots also and, for the first time this year, dahlia tubers too.
There are refurbished garden tools for sale, crafts and cakes and drinks.

CSSG Potato Day is held in a rather grandiose church in Huntingdon.

It was absolutely packed this year.

I've written about this every year for the past 5 years so I'll keep it brief.
The advantage of purchasing seed potatoes from a Potato Day is that there are knowledgeable folk on hand if you're not sure what you need, there are umpteen varieties available and you can buy as many or as few of each as you like so it's a great opportunity to try new types of potato.
It also happens to be an inexpensive way of buying potatoes.

This year I purchased over a hundred tubers of eleven varieties. That will be over a hundred potato plants for the grand total of £7.62!
Once you work out the best way to grow potatoes, there's actually very little effort involved. You certainly don't need to be digging trenches and shifting tons of heavy clay soil. So that's £7.62 for my year's supply of potatoes and eleven different varieties available for our enjoyment.

The varieties I am growing this year are the seven varieties I've settled on growing every year plus three which I grow in some years and one new variety.
The stalwarts are:
Earlies: Arran Pilot and Duke of York (Usually Red Duke of York but a crop failure means we couldn't get hold of them)
Second Earlies: Charlotte and Kestrel.
Maincrop: Valor, Desiree and Pink Fir Apple

In addition, I am growing Bonnies again as a second early and Cara and Orla maincrops. I have grown all these varieties before.

Finally there is Blue Danube, reputed to be one of the best for roast potatoes. This one is new for me.

Most of the potatoes will be set to chit, the process whereby they are encouraged to form strong sprouts before being planted. The aim here is to give them a start as they can't go outside yet. Potatoes are not frost hardy. No-one seems to be able to prove whether or not chitting works but most people do it! It certainly does no harm.



Half a dozen of the Arran Pilot potatoes will however be planted out in the morning, but under the protection of the polytunnel. These give a super early crop which is grown and harvested before the polytunnel space is needed for other crops.

Having selected and paid for my seed potatoes, I went over to the refurbished tool stand to chat to the guys there. I was admiring a cultivator with five spear shaped tines, a beautiful piece of equipment but of little use in my no dig garden with reasonably heavy soil.
But I was so glad I went for a chat as one of the people pointed out a potato fork they had for just a fiver. This looks like a normal digging fork, but the prongs are wide and flattened, designed to minimise spearing the harvest. I can't wat to try it out.

Potato day 2019

While heavy snow hit almost all the rest of the country, here in our little piece of fenland we managed to all but avoid it. But with the ground frozen for a couple of weeks it has slowed my progress in the veg plot.



That is though what the seasons are all about. As a smallholder you work with the weather patterns. We don't get snow all winter, but a week or two of freezing temperatures and the odd covering of the white stuff is what we should expect.
Anyway, I am glad we didn't get a lot of snow for it somehow has the capacity to make the ground even sludgier than a downfall of rain.

Saturday 2nd February was Potato Day, an annual event held by Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group.
For the last few years I have helped set up, getting lots and lots of potato varieties out of a van and laid out in neat order on tables. The event is held in Huntingdon but the venue has changed several times. For now it has settled into a fantastic old church in the very centre of town.
It surely has to be one of the most glamorous venues for a potato day.

As is usual I like to arrive early, get set up, purchase my year's supply of seed potatoes and get out before the place is full of Joe (and Jane) public.

There are over 40 varieties of potato to choose from. We used to have even more, but some of the more unusual types don't sell well enough to be worth buying in. They are just £1/kilo for members of the group, £1.30 for non members.
It is a great opportunity to experiment with new varieties. One year somebody bought one of each just so they could compare yields, taste and uses.

With so many types of potato on sale it can be a bit bewildering. It pays to do a bit of research and find out the qualities of each one. There is of course information available at Potato Day, but over the years I have now settled on eight varieties.
Primarily they absolutely have to be slug resistant. For some reason slugs like to munch some types of potato but not others. The other big pest is a fungal one. Blight. That's the same potato blight which caused famine in Ireland all those years ago.
We didn't get it at all last year but that was because it was such a dry year. It thrives in warm, humid conditions, exactly the conditions we are getting more and more in summer as the climate breaks down.
There are some varieties which have been bred to be very resistant to this scourge. I have grown them and their leaves did stay wonderfully green compared to the collapsed foliage of the potatoes all around them. Unfortunately though they have very little taste.
So instead I look for varieties with 'some resistance'. This usually means that they do get killed off by blight, but that for some reason it seems slower to infect the tubers meaning that more can be saved.

It is this prevalence of blight nowadays which necessitates purchasing new seed potatoes every year. If we didn't get it I would probably just use last years potatoes to start off the crop each year. This is the reason why 'volunteer' potatoes, those which you missed harvesting the previous year and appear in last year's bed, need to be removed straight away.

So, my eight varieties:
Earlies - Arran Pilot and Red Duke of York.
Second Earlies - Kestrel and Charlotte (Kestrel is the variety chosen by the Grow Your Own group for everybody to grow this year so we can compare results. Fortunately it is one which I grow every year as it grows very well here. I did used to grow Blue Kestrel successfully too but it is no longer available at potato day)
Maincrops - Desiree, Valor (a new one I tried last year, very firm flesh which stores well and has a lovely taste), Cara (a good all round white potato. I would prefer the organic growers' favourite Orla but that one is not available).
Speciality - Pink Fir Apple - very late to form tubers so be prepared to get none if blight comes early. But in a good year I get sacks full. It is a distinctive potato which is great boiled or whole in winter stews. It lasts well through the winter and we are often still eating it when the first of the early potatoes is ready in spring.

I have planted some of the Arran Pilot potatoes in the polytunnel where I can protect the emerging leaves from frosts. They will give an early harvest of new potatoes.

Arran Pilot and Kestrel potatoes being chitted

The rest are in the conservatory (aka plant nursery come potting shed at this time of year) chitting. This is the process where you lay them out in egg boxes and encourage them to start sprouting. In theory this gives them a head start once they are outside in the ground.
They can' just go straight into the ground outside as any frosts will likely kill them.
I think the effect of chitting is marginal but it's just something you do, almost a custom which marks the beginning of the potato growing year.

Cheese and Wine Anyone?

As if we don't have enough to do, what with working, running a smallholding, birding, and running the Smallholders Club, I have set a new target for Sue and I - to hold a cheese and wine party next year.

Now that would actually be quite a challenge for me anyway, but there is a twist... it will be cheese and wine made by our very own hands.

Sue has taken a few tentative steps with the cheese and I have decided that my mangolds, parsnips, carrots, redcurrants, strawberries, gooseberries and apples are going to contribute to a general state of inebriation. These wines are known as country wines.

I have read one book. It was originally written before I was born and yet everybody reckons it is still the best one. First Steps In Winemaking by CJJ Berry. Personally, I reckon it could do with updating. Anyhow, I have been reading and planning and reading and planning but it doesn't all quite make sense. Really I need to just get on and have a go.

As luck would have it, the Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group had a speaker on Thursday evening on the subject of brewing. I was keen to get along to the meeting, despite the threat of snow drifting across the roads. Unfortunately Sue would have to drive as my car was stubbornly refusing to start with temperatures below zero for days on end.
In the end the talk was a very general one as it covered a lot of different areas in a short time. We did have a nice time though.

I also found out that home brew beer, even from a kit, runs in at just 57p a pint. I'm not tempted to get into mixing my own hops and barley and malt and whatever, but now that I will have the equipment for the winemaking I see no harm in using it for the occasional 40 pints of beer!

Arthur is still not completely better and Boris has now caught the same bug. So I have been staying at home to look after them and to keep an eye on all the livestock in the snow. It's not been possible to do any work on the land though, so I've been internet shopping!
As a result, there is now a plethora of country winemaking homebrew equipment and ingredients winging it's way to the farm.
The first batch should be on the go by the end of the week.

Update:
The dogs are both on the mend and enjoying their new diet of rice and chicken. We even managed to get them both out along the river before the snow disappeared.

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.

It's beginning to feel a bit like Chr...

Wednesday 6th December 2017
Poultry Explorers
The monster chicks are faring well. They seem to have massive crops, which allows them to stuff in even more food at once than I am capable of! A tragic and unforeseeable accident meant that sadly we lost two but it could have been worse as I found them in time to save two others.

At this time of year I let the chickens into the veg plot and the soft fruit patch. I like to see them scratching around or huddling together under blackcurrant bushes or asparagus fronds. They can't do too much damage as there are few crops showing above the ground. If I can I like to turn the soil so they can clear it of larvae and eggs.
The geese don't get to go into the veg plot yet, as they are adept at finding root vegetables and have a liking for parsnips in particular. Instead though they get the run of the orchard while there is no fruit to stretch up and pull off. They can be surprisingly intelligent in this regard. I have seen them yanking on branches to dislodge apples clinging on for their lives.

Nice to see the three new Silkies exploring

The older hens stick closely together with Cocky

The young Muscovies are getting big now.

They give the run around every night and often just won't go into their houses.

The bigger males will be 'going' in the near future.

Thursday 7th December 2017

A Christmas gathering with good people

I wish the Cambridgeshire Self Sufficiency Group were based a little closer to us, for they are a lovely group of friendly people. Sue and I get along to as many events as we can.

I don't do many Christmassy things, but we were keen to get along to their Christmas Get-Together. It is always worth making time to spend it with good people. There are not enough of them in the world.

Friday 8th December 2017
By the time I get back from work it's pretty much getting dark at this time of year. So I took the time to admire the sunrise this morning.

Saturday 9th December 2017

More Christmassy stuff
I don't know what's wrong with me, but Saturday saw Sue and I at another Christmas event, the Green Back Yard Christmas Fayre. I must be going soft in my old age

Maybe it's the early morning frosts and the icy, clear air going to my brain.

Before we went out, Sue put some lamb neck in the slow cooker along with a selection of our own dried beans and some of our vegetables. This type of food is just perfect for warming the soul on a cold, dark winter's evening.

I don't often do 'what we had for dinner' piccies, but here you go.

We got to The Green Back Yard in Peterborough just past midday. The air in town was somewhat warmer than on the smallholding out in the rural fens.

I certainly don't do Christmas consumerism but I did enjoy seeing some of the crafts. I got a few ideas to steal too.

A simple basketwork angel and a willow Yuletide tree decorated with greenery

Potato Day

Sorry. Not many photos. My car temporarily broke the phone. Read on for more details.

11th February 2017
Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group's 8th (I think) Potato Day.
This is an event where the club buys in over 50 varieties of seed potato to sell to members and the general public. Potato days are a great way to try new varieties as you can buy as few or as many as you like. Not only that, but it is the cheapest way of buying seed potatoes if you don't want to buy them in 25kg sacks!

As with last year I was there to help out with the setting up, which basically involves unloading about 100 sacks of potatoes and arranging them on tables in alphabetical order. I arrived at the hall at 8am sharp, which involved a 7 o'clock departure from the farm in driving snow, fortunately not of the settling kind.

As well as being helpful, helping out also entitles me to choose my potatoes in peace, before the general public come flooding through the doors. There were about 700 visitors this year.
I don't like that many people, so I quickly chose my potatoes and made a hasty departure.

The varieties I have chosen for this year are:

Aaron Pilot
- a good, reliable First Early. I find it to store well in the ground too.
Red Duke of York
- a floury early potato which is excellent for chips or roast too. Has a firm place on the list.
Duke of York
- I decided to try the non-red variety too this year, mainly on the recommendation of Lawrence D Hills in his pioneering book on organic growing (published over 45 years ago). He recommends these as an early which can be left in the ground to grow larger. One advantage of this which I hadn't considered is that, in an early blight year, you at least get a reasonable crop. I doubt Mr Hills would have realised just how warm and wet our summers would become and how regular blight would become.
Orla
- another early which can be left in to become a Maincrop. A disease resistant organic favourite. I have grown this once before.

Charlotte
- a great performer in this area. 100kg were sold out in 25 minutes at the potato day. My most reliable cropper, matures early and tubers seem resistant to blight. Extremely little slug damage too. What puzzles me is that these qualities are not pushed on websites. Maybe it's a secret not to be shared!
Kestrel
- different taste qualities, but otherwise rivals Charlotte for blight and slug resistance. Another Second Early so it guarantees a crop even if the tops have to come off early. Firmer flesh than Charlotte and stores even longer. Great for chips. First grown by me two years ago. Last year I grew Blue Kestrel, but they were not available this year.

Desiree
- a great old-fashioned performer and one of my favourites for baking and boiling. You can't go far wrong with this one.
Cara
- a Maincrop variety popular with organic growers as it has high blight resistance. Some negative reviews about going soggy when boiled. I bought a few to try
Valor
- the only variety I've never grown before. An offspring of Cara.

Pink Fir Apple
- last year I got none. In 2015 I got sacks full. Let's hope it does well this year. I've missed the taste.

Altogether I bought just over 10kg of seed potatoes. A tenner's worth of potatoes should last the two of us comfortably for the whole year.

Four Hours and a Tow Truck later...
Two miles out of Huntingdon the car broke down. Completely kaput. Sleet outside and no heating, stuck in a muddy layby by the side of a busy road in the middle of nowhere. Thank goodness for Google Maps and phone reception.
Fortunately the breakdown service didn't take too long and I had plenty of spare coats flung in the back of the car as usual. But the car stubbornly refused to spring to life so it was another hour long wait for a tow truck.
The alternator had gone and the battery was so dead we couldn't even get the car into neutral without jump leads.

The journey to my local garage was quite enjoyable given the circumstances. The driver was a chirpy old fellow and there were great views over the dykes and Washes. And being in the passenger seat I noticed so much more than when I am driving. Not only that, but I saved a little petrol money too!

I did take photos of Potato Day and of my car being winched onto the back of a lorry, but it seems the alternator going affected more than just the car, as I had to reboot my phone to get it working and I had lost the day's photos. I think the car tried to suck power through the phone charger since its own battery offered nothing.

With the weather matching my mood, cold and grey, I spent what was left of the day setting my potatoes to chit.

12th February 2017
Squeaky Clean Polytunnel
Keen to catch up on some of yesterday's lost time, I was up early and creosoting some of the wood in the polytunnel. An extreme measure but I am determined to get rid of the red spider mite this year. I have decided that the environment inside a polytunnel is so false that there is no point trying to maintain a natural balance. Of course, I will still use organic means wherever possible and I will still encourage hoverflies, ladybirds, bees, toads.

With this job done, I planted up some of the Arran Pilot potatoes for a really early crop.

So that's where chicken comes from
Next up were the last of the meat chickens along with the young cockerel who is excess to requirements. This didn't take long but I'm sure you don't want all the details. They are readily available in other posts I have written!

Open space for the lambs
The recent wet weather has meant that the three Shetland lambs quickly turned their enclosure into a muddy quagmire, so today I moved them to the first paddock. This meant that they were within sight of the adults and much baaing ensued. Not being used to so much open space or electric fencing, it wasn't long before one of the lambs was through the fence, across the separating paddock and through the second fence to join the adults. It didn't matter too much. It always takes the sheep a few hours to learn about the fence, after which they tend not to go through it.

Later in the afternoon I caught the lamb and carried it back to join the others. There were no more problems.

With the meat chickens gone and the young cockerel dispatched, a stable had become free which gave us the opportunity to move Priscilla and her chick in with rest. They got a fair bit of hassle to start (to be expected) but we kept a close eye. Moving things around a bit in the stable gave the other chickens something else to think about and gave the new chickens somewhere to take refuge if they needed.

With darkness now upon us, I retired to the farmhouse but continued working. For the seed-sowing season is upon us. Today it was cauliflower, kohl rabi and lettuces. These are sown in trays inside but will go straight to the polytunnel once they germinate. They do not need heat, as long as temperatures do not plunge ridiculously low.

13th February 2017

At this point I didn't realise the Ixworth cockerel had taken out my glasses.

He came peacefully in the end.

Ixworth trio in a flap
Only the Ixworth trio remained down in the chicken pen, in a coop only just large enough for them to stretch their wings. Catching them was quite an effort, during which I got a few wings in the face and lost my glasses in the mud, but we managed to get them down to the now spare stable. They are inside but have space and straw aplenty.



I finally got round to planting the dozen or so small Christmas trees I purchased for £1 each. These are available every year and will add a nice bit of variety and greenery to the smallholding given patience.

Evenings are for seed sowing now. Today it was two trays of leeks which will be enough to keep us going through next winter.

Santa shows us how to stuff a turkey

Friday 23rd December 2016
So here he is. Santa!
This is what he does in the run up to Christmas,

I'll let you into a little secret. It's not really Santa. It is, in fact, Paul from the Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group, our friendly butcher but also one of the founders of the smallholding movement who has led a fascinating life. He still leads a fascinating life, for that matter.
It was pretty windy and there was a chill in the air, but Paul's Christmas poultry prep workshop was still held outside and Paul made no compromises with his wear. He always wears tee-shirt and shorts!

Of the two of us, Sue takes on most of the butchering duties. Today's task was to debone and stuff the turkey. We had deliberately not gutted the turkey as it would be good to get Paul to show us. There is always something to learn from an expert. In particular, we had not taken the tendons out from the legs. We had been shown this once before, but could only remember about half of it, enough to remove them with a moderate degree of success.
But Paul showed us how it was done properly and I took photos to aid our memories next time.

Paul sharpened our knives for us and we all then spent the next half hour or so anxiously watching Sue's fingers and periodically issuing reminders about how sharp the knives were.

With Paul's expert and patient guidance, Sue successfully cleaned and deboned the turkey.




We had improvised our own stuffing recipe, based loosely on the percentage ingredient list off a packet of Sainsbury's Taste The Difference stuffing which we found on the internet. We added a few more little luxuries and plenty of herbs from the garden. The result, I have to say, was the nicest stuffing I have ever tasted.
When I get round to it, I'll work out the exact ingredient quantities and post them. Without quantities, it was onion, celery, garlic, bread, sausage meat, cranberries, porcini mushrooms, citrus peel, brazil nuts, sage, rosemary, thyme, parsley, egg and chestnuts.


We spent all afternoon with Paul and his wife, Anne. They made us feel so welcome and Anne's cake went down very well indeed. Paul kept trying to persuade me to try one of his special malts, but I'm afraid I am no fan and it would have been wasted on me.

We headed home just as the sun was about to go down, but it wasn't long before a warning light came on in the car. I pulled over to discover that it was actually telling the truth. We had a puncture!

I know. I'll clean it!

Less than an hour later I had fitted the spare, we had gotten ourselves to our tyre shop just before it closed and the original tyre was back on, repaired with no charge.

Saturday 24th December 2016
To bring us bang up to date for Christmas, we spent Saturday in Stamford Christmas shopping for ourselves! I go shopping literally about twice a year, but I am quite good at spending money when I do go. Mountain Warehouse were having a sale and I treated myself to some proper wellies, some warm boots and some proper thick socks.
Prize for most exciting purchase of the day went to the packet of Arran Pilot seed potatoes I found in Wilko's. The 2017 growing season begins. These will go into the polytunnel for a super-early crop.

The main reason for our visit was to drop in at Moles Country Stores and pick up some new sheep wormer. Very Christmassy!

Finally, if you're reading this on the day, just to show that I am not a total bah humbug (though I am always disappointed when Scrooge gets 'converted' at the end of that story), MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Let's Hope The Big Bad Wolf Doesn't Hear About This

Sunday 11th December 2016
Not that it is a very hierarchical group, but Mick is pretty much the main man at Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group. He is running a Pig Club whereby a group of people share a couple of piglets. We were in a similar pig co-op last year, as pigs need to be kept at least in two's but two pigs is rather a lot to go in the freezer so sharing makes sense.
Sue and I are not in the Pig Club but decided to go along and help with some fencing and building a temporary house so that the piglets could come outside.
It's something that happens to all of us. The animals (or in some cases plants) don't stop growing, but we have not managed to get their new home ready in time.

The fencing was merely a matter of screwing planks into existing fence posts, just at ground level to prevent the pigs nuzzling the stock fence out of shape and escaping. I did manage to find a very good source of classy new planks

The house was to be made of straw, despite me reminding Mick about the famous story. He felt that the local wolves would not have enough huff and puff to blow this house down!

Mick's plan was very similar to something I had been planning, basically just walls made of straw bales and a corrugated roof laid onto a frame to cover the whole. I was keen to see how it would actually work in practice.

Two happy piglets, one happy Mick

Well, as you can see the house worked out well. With a race of hurdles to coax them in the right direction, moving the piglets from their indoor home to their new outdoor home was pretty easy. The piglets were very happy with the new set up and set about chasing each other around excitedly before they settled down and started digging around with their snouts.
We were home just in time to witness a stunning sunset. I went straight onto the internet as Mick had recommended an old book about smallholding and I was keen to find it. I was delighted to find a used copy on Amazon for 1p plus postage. Now that I've got mine ordered, I can tell you it is called Fieldcraft and Farmyard by Val Porter. I'll let you know what I think of it once it's arrived.

A thoroughly disheartening start to June

What's the difference between a turkey and a fly? Turkeys drop more easily. Read on and you'll understand.
It's been a bad start to June and one which has put a heavy demand on my stoical resources.

1st June
The grey goose now has three beautiful little goslings. She is already bringing them out of the stables. Unlike the white Embdens, she has done the decent thing and hatched them all out at the same time.
Meanwhile outside it rained and rained and rained. The 1000 litre water butt I had to empty to repair is now full again and I spent much of the day using the rainwater to irrigate the plants in the polytunnel. I planted my pepper and celery seedlings into the polytunnel beds along with another round of coriander plants. I came upon this little cryptic fella under a plank too.

Can you see it?

He's most welcome (I don't know why I'm assuming it's a he).

A freshly fledged tree sparrow appeared on the feeders today for the first time this year. Its mum (or dad, for both sexes are alike) was feeding it. These birds are becoming rarer and rarer in the English countryside so I am very proud to have them on the farm.

And so to the turkeys. I kept a close eye on them all day and mum seemed to be doing a great job looking after them. They spent quite a bit of time in the herb bed and quite a bit of time sheltering under a wheelbarrow. Mum spreads her wings and all you can see of the poults is all their legs poking out underneath mum. It looks like a 24-legged turkey!
When the rain got heavy I ushered them into their shed where they stayed for a while before going out for another wander. Come early evening I decided to round them back into the shed for the night. They had already taken themselves in but I could only count ten chicks. I counted three times. Still just ten. I wandered round the garden for ages looking and listening for a lone turkey poult but to no avail. Sue found it later on (well, Arthur actually, who has a very keen nose for such things) but it was dead.

2nd June
Everyone who has raised turkeys talks about how easily they give up on life and today I began to witness that. For when I opened up the turkey shed there was one of the young birds lying on its side, apparently dead. When I picked it up it was still moving, just. So I brought it inside, wrapped it up, put it under a heat lamp and fed it as much sugary water as I could. But after an hour it became obvious that it was to no avail.
We had been doing so well with the turkeys and I was now regretting the decision to let them out. Lesson learned for next year. I moved the turkeys back into the stables.

I spent the afternoon planting out my various pumpkins and squashes with names like Hundredweight (self-explanatory), Cha-Cha (not so), Table Queen, Golden Nugget, Delicata, Sweet Dumpling and Naples Long. These go into the more exposed veg patch where I grow big plants, but it does put them more at risk of attack by rabbits and slugs. So each one gets a tree protector until it becomes established. They usually take a bit of a knock for the first few days outside, but after a week they get their roots down and from then on growth is rapid. I've put 25 plants out, so I'll be very happy if 20 come through which will give us plenty enough pumpkins and winter squash.
The tree protectors keep the rabbits from nibbling but they do nothing to protect against the silent enemy from underground, the slugs. So I sprinkled organic slug pellets around the base of each plant. The advantage with these, as well as supposedly not harming other wildlife, is that they don't just disappear when it rains so the extra cost is offset a little.

In the evening we were off to the monthly CSSG (Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group) meeting for a talk on edible plants which can be part of a forest garden. This is a system of gardening I know a fair bit about, though I tend to dismiss it as a little gimmicky. However, I'm always open to new ideas. I just think that the way forward is to integrate the best bits from lots of different systems - Forest Gardening, Permaculture, Polyculture, No Dig... I've not yet dabbled with Hydroponics or the one which relies on the cycles of the moon - can't remember what it's called.
In fact there's a fair bit of Forest Gardening goes on in my patch anyway, it's just that I don't go for all these exotic plants which you can, in theory if you really wanted to, eat. I'm all for trying out new things, but there are very few which eventually earn their place in my veg plot.

Anyway, we enjoyed the company. This group is very different to the Fenland Smallholders (from whom they split somewhat acrimoniously just before we came on the scene). They are the old guard, the more hippyish element, very open and extremely knowledgeable. It's such a shame the two groups can't merge as each has particular strengths which would make them very strong together. For the moment, Sue and I keep a foot in both camps. Unfortunately the CSSG is a little too distant for us to get more involved.

3rd June
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but today was one of those most disheartening days which occurs every now and again. Smallholding is never all rosy and sometimes demands a very strong resolve.
If you only want the view through rose-tinted glasses, then I'd suggest you stop reading now!

Sue had gone to a friend's to continue with making goat's cheese and to try to figure out why their efforts at goat's milk ice cream kept failing (turns out it needs more fat, something to do with goat's milk being naturally homogenised).
I opened the turkey stable to find a dead youngster with no head! Whether it was attacked by a predator (rat, weasel, stoat?) wasn't clear but would present a big problem if it were. I more suspected that it had passed away in the night and that the others had pecked away at it - poultry can be incredibly insensitive creatures.
Another young poult was looking not too good either, droopy winged and it's eyes half closed. It was no surprise when Sue found it dead later in the morning. This was feeling like a losing battle. Worst case scenario would be that some disease was jumping through the flock at an alarming rate, but my suspicions were still that the birds had just gotten too cold when we had let them outside on a wet day and possibly developed pneumonia. Whatever the case, I felt terrible. I feel responsible for these young lives and although I expect losses, this was becoming serious. Of course, the practical side of me was also thinking of the number of turkey dinners we would be missing out on, for that is the reason for rearing these young birds.

Just when I thought things couldn't get much worse, I discovered a neatly laid out pile of peacock tail feathers next to my digging spade. The only explanation was that Don, our neighbour, had found the body of Captain Peacock. This was a gentle way of letting us know. Having survived the road for so long (and presumable developed a bit of road sense), I suspect that the verge cutter may have done for him.

I spent the rest of the day doing big, physical jobs in the garden, trying not to think too much about other things. I got about half of the lawns mowed - quite a feat considering how long the grass had got. Then there was the strawberry patch to tackle. Despite my earlier weeding efforts, it had become overwhelmed with grasses and docks. With the soil nicely watered this would be the ideal time to start the not inconsiderable job of weeding before laying down straw and netting to protect the developing crop.
I called Sue in to help and we got half the job done before running out of energy. The remaining seven turkey poults made it through till the evening. What would we find next morning though?

Say cheeeeeeeese!

I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front of late. It's that time of year when things quieten down, with most effort going into harvesting anything which needs to come out before it rots or gets caught by frost. It's also the time of year when we thin down the animals for the winter. Some of the sheep will be going off on a little journey soon, now that they have fattened up nicely on the summer grass.

I should be putting up a few more posts for the next couple of weeks as I am rather incapacitated. I have a touch of man flu, but that is not the reason. More seriously, an occasionally sensitive tooth has just decided to become a total nightmare.

It began when I was on the Outer Hebrides last week and, despite my hopes that it would settle down, has become steadily more painful. I finally managed to secure a dentist appointment (something which fills me with dread - I have fainted several times in the past!) and my very nice dentist succeeded in locating the problem by sharply tapping my tooth until the pain shot up my left jaw  as far as my temple. She booked me in to have the nerve removed and advised me to ask the receptionist for a cancellation 'today or tomorrow'. But my relief was short-lived when the receptionist frostily informed me that the first available appointment would be in 12 days time and that was the best she could do. So I now have to take painkillers constantly for the next 12 days, for when my tooth decides to hurt it is not half-hearted about it. This happens pretty much every time I drink and if I breathe cold air outside. Coffee is out of the queston, so I shall be even more grumpy in the mornings!
Anyway, moan over, but I will be spending much more time than usual indoors for a while now.

And so to the cheesemaking. We've had a go before, round at a friend's who keeps goats, but we didn't have much success. We've since discovered that we should have used a starter culture because the goats milk we used had been frozen.

Mick and Carole from the Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group had offered to run a cheesemaking course, even though it was several years since they'd really done much in the way of cheesemaking. Now the folks at the CSSG are the most honest, helpful and friendly bunch of people you could hope to come across. They have years and years of smallholding experience. It's a shame that they are that bit too far away for Sue and I to really get very involved in the group.
The group are totally laid back, which is nice. But it does sometimes mean that things are not as well organised as they could be!
This applied to the cheesemaking. I'm not complaining at all as it was offered for free and the company was excellent. Unfortunately though, despite Mick's best efforts, the milk steadfastly refused to separate into curds and whey.

Here's what should happen: (Although if you really want to go ahead and make some cheese, you would do better to buy a book or seach the internet for more detailed information)

Goat's milk or raw cows milk (not easy to get hold of, but contact these people who visit farmers markets) are best to use.

If you are using pasteurised milk (or milk which has been frozen, as we learned) you need to add a starter. You can make your own, but to start with it is easily purchased.

You heat the milk up to 32 C, stirring to make sure the heat is evenly distributed. You then add the rennet (4 drops to 5 litres of milk). You then wait for the milk to separate into curds and whey. This can take quite some time, as we discovered!!!

Mick heating the milk ready to add the rennet.
Everything was still going well at this stage!!!

And so an early lunch was taken - a bring and share meal of breads, cheeses, cakes, scones, dates...you name it.

Mick and Carole demsonstrating how you would use a cheese press....
if you had some curds.

After lunch and it was on to Plan B, as the milk was showing no signs of forming curds. The low temperature in the room was probably not helping. Some recipes use lemon juice or white malt vinegar to precipitate the separation of the milk into curds and whey, so in a final act of desperation we tried this... then waited some more. Mick was rapidly running out of anecdotes to keep us entertained!

Well, to cut a long story shortish, we eventually got some curds, which were strained through muslin.

Curds and whey - at last!

And that was about as far as our cheesemaking got. While we had been waiting for the curds to form, Mick and Carole had taken us through all the theory of how to transform this into soft cheese, semi-soft cheese and hard cheese. We just never got to that stage!

At the end of the day we came away not having learned an awful lot, but thoroughly inspired to have a go at cheesemaking ourselves.
All we need to do now is to get some goats and a dairy cow. Not really. That is a big commitment. I would not be able to shoot off to chase rare birds at a moments notice and any significant time away from the smallholding would be nigh on impossible. Also, we would end up with gallons of milk and it's not so easy to sell as eggs.
For the moment we will source goat's milk from our goatkeeper friends or we will experiment with using pasteurised cows milk.

And if you wanted to know about that trip to the Outer Hebrides, it was to see a Wilson's Warbler which had come all the way across The Atlantic. The first Wilson's Warbler in Britain was a one day bird in Cornwall all of 30 years ago, to the day. I wasn't twitching then and wouldn't have got there in time anyway. The second was just two years ago, in South-West Ireland. I missed it by one day and it started a string of failed trips to that part of the world.
So this was only the third and an opportunity to get back a bird which I thought I would probably never see. News broke early last week and I was on the road that evening.

By the morning I was in a different car with three other birders in the queue at Ullapool ferry terminal and by early afternoon we were hurtling across the Isle of Lewis toward our target. We didn't even stop for an extremely close Golden Eagle which was quartering the moorland very close to the road.
The warbler was still present, but was proving extremely elusive. But just as we arrived it was spotted shooting across from one patch of cover into another, even denser. Dan and Mick were quick enough to secure a fleeting glimpse. Al and I weren't. And that was to be the pattern of the afternoon. Wherever those two went, the bird popped up. Whenever I decided to stay put and wait, the bird showed in a different part of the garden. When my nerve cracked and I moved, so did the bird.

It was well over two hours before I finally got the bird in my binoculars. My 505th species in Britain. Prior to that I had suffered fleeting glimpses with the naked eye. To be honest, it could have been someone chucking a lemon across in front of me!
Eventually the bird showed better, in the top of an apple tree. As dusk approached we headed off to Stornoway to seek out food and accommodation, for there was no option of a same day return on the ferry.

The successful team.
The sign on the wall says it all!

Early next morning we were back on the ferry and by the afternoon we were speeding back through England. Late evening I rolled back onto the farm... with toothache!