Strawberries, brassicas, bees wax and hedgehogs

Strawberries are delicious, but they are not as easy to grow as it might seem. The problem is that the strawberry bed loses productivity over the years.
So I have abandoned our old strawberry patch which really hasn't been very productive for a couple of years. But I cannot turn over a new area to strawberries every few years.

The old strawberry patch

Instead I have come up with a cunning plan. I purchased three dozen new plants of three varieties to spread the harvest period and have allocated them three beds in with the roots quarter of my rotation. Next year they will stay there and I will use the suckers to populate three more beds in next year's roots quarter. Then the same the next year. In the fourth year, the first beds will come out and as the strawberries rotate around the beds I will change which beds they occupy.
Incorporating the strawberries into the vegetable rotation is an idea I got from the legendary Lawrence D Hills, founder of the organic growing movement.
There is a big potential downside. I have also read warnings not to do this as strawberries are susceptible to verticillium wilt, a disease which also affects other crops, notably potatoes. But it is a risk I am going to take. The rewards outweigh the risk.
I purchased my strawberry bare root strawberry plants back in January. This is a bit late so they may not produce fruit this year but that doesn't matter too much as Wimbledon is cancelled anyhow! I potted them up for the roots to develop and waited for the worst of winter to pass.
Today they moved out into the big wide world. Hopefully they will like their new home.

The rest of the day was spent preparing veg beds. Under the no dig regime this should just be a matter of a quick hoe then piling compost on top of the beds. It should have been done back in the autumn or winter. However, I was pretty much incapacitated due to my back. Also I did not at the time have sufficient compost to achieve this, though cardboard could have been used to block the light.
And so the most neglected beds are now well on the way to reverting back to grassland! The transition to no dig is a gradual one anyway. Although in theory you can eradicate nasty perennial weeds over time by continual covering and pulling, I find that it is better in the first instance to dig out the really tenacious ones like couch grass, dock and creeping buttercup. This takes a lot of time and effort when the bed has been neglected.
I spent too much time on it in one day and my back suffered as a result. I find I need to do lots of different jobs and avoid too much of any one task in a day, especially if it involves bending down too much. I am not very bendy any more!

A quicker job was hoeing the beds with easier weeds, such as feverfew, dead nettle, groundsel and chickweed. With the soil surface dry and compost not yet applied, this was an easy job with the oscillating hoe.

Before my body gave up I covered the new beds with a thin layer of compost.

Next morning it was time to plant up some turnips and radish plants. I sowed these a while back in modules. The turnips are Snowball and Purple Top Milan. I also grow Golden Ball but this is an autumn turnip. The radishes are a right old mixture, including a new variety called Watermelon Radish. Unfortunately these need covering as a physical barrier against flea beetle and turnip root fly. I was already using the turnip netting to cover my new plantings of onions, calabrese and spinach.

Erecting netting takes time, mainly configuring the limited selection of poles to fit the new space each year. I was very happy with the system I came up with this year. The turnips have a higher mesh which will give them space to grow underneath and give me space to weed, thin and harvest from both sides.



Where the turnip mesh was has become my brassica cage for this year. This covers four beds. The main purpose is to protect against cabbage white butterflies, though I have invested in a biological solution this year so it doesn't need to be quite so watertight. It does however provide good protection against pigeon attack too.
I use soft butterfly netting. It is slightly more expensive but much tougher and less prone to ripping. It's quite an investment so needs to last from year to year.

Today I evicted the chickens and ducks from the veg patch too. Their services are useful for slug control but they also have a penchant for soft young spinach and brassica leaves!
I have put all the poultry together in the big pen. Fortunately there was no aggro. The four ducks set straight to work snuzzling through the grass and the six ex free-range hens stick together and are more than capable of looking after themselves.

Moving them out of the veg plot also means I can leave the polytunnel doors open now, as temperatures soar above 40 degrees whenever the sun comes out.



While I've been starting to fill the veg plot with crops, Sue has been using her time to sort out her bee frames. The bees are starting to produce honey now and we need more frames for them to store their honey in. The old frames are pretty gunky with honey and wax and propolis. Sue cut the old wax frames out and melted down the mixture in a special vessel to produce clean wax. The cloth that she strains the mixture through makes fantastic firelighters

Next the wooden frames needed cleaning. Sue boiled up a washing soda solution in her cauldron  and in went the frames. With all the gunk loosened she was able to scrape them clean.
I've made this job sound simple but with so many frames it kept Sue busy for a couple of days.
Now I just have to help her put the new wax foundation sheets into the frames. This is a job for evenings.




Arthur has been busy too. He is obsessed with hedgehogs
Arthur rarely barks unless someone passes the front gate. He doesn't bark if he is stuck in somewhere or if he needs to go out. But he does bark at hedgehogs. So a single bark heard outside was a sure sign that a hedgehog needed rescuing. Arthur has learned to pick hedgehogs up without getting a nose full of spines so I was not surprised to find this scene on the back lawn.
Unlike our labradoodle Boris, Arthur rarely plays with toys or chases a ball. But there is one exception. Notice anything about his favourite ball?

A new meadow

Sunday 22nd April 2018

So the heatwave is officially over!
I missed my opportunity to catch up with everything due to other commitments.
With heavy rain forecast for later on today, I did manage to get out early and do some more planting before the soil becomes unworkable again.
The first of the outdoor carrots are sown. Hopefully the soil will be warm enough that they get a good start. And I've put a row of spring onions in too, though it won't be spring by the time they are ready.
I am more organised with my brassica seedlings now too. I raise them in modules but always used to leave it too long before moving them on into the open soil. But I now plan into my rotation to have a nursery bed where they can grow on before going to their final positions. The bed will never be full and will be empty once all the seedlings have gone through, so I will use it as a spare growing area if I need it, otherwise I will plant it up with green manure plants.

Many of the seedlings in the polytunnel are big enough to survive outside now. In fact, the hardier ones would prefer it outside and are safer out there where there is less risk of the modules drying out. The only risk is that they become waterlogged if there is lots of rain, so I have to remember to periodically empty the trays they sit in. There are still a few weeks until we are safe from overnight frosts, but there is none in the immediate forecast so these plants will have plenty of time to harden off in my old open-toped greenhouse which acts perfectly as a giant cold frame.

Monday 23rd April 2018

With the forecast rain holding off for now, I went back over the meadow area with the rotavator.
I plan to have a permanent bee and butterfly meadow area in an area where I used to sow annual seed every year. This worked until the borage and nettles started coming through too strongly year on year.
The first rotavation was about a month ago and turned most of the weeds under, but I wanted to create what is called a stale seed bed. After turning the soil, a carpet of seedlings appears. So you wait for this to happen and them lightly work the surface to kill them off. Now your area is ready for sowing.


I purchased a 20% wildflower mix from Boston Seeds. The rest is a mixture of meadow grasses. Most of the wildflowers won't show in the first year, so I spent a little extra for  a mix with cornfield annuals added to give colour in the first year.
This is part of my new wildlife area, which includes the bug hotel, the wildlife pond which I have now reclaimed from the ducks, a couple of willow coppice areas and a managed nettle bed.

First Frost of Winter

Monday 6th November 2017
First proper frost
The first proper frost of the year. I got up early to see the sunrise. These clear, crisp winter mornings are one of my favourite times of the year.

A Silkie Swap
One of the Silkie hens which we purchased a few weeks back has started crowing good and proper. It can be hard to tell what sex birds are until they start either crowing and jumping on the girls or, alternatively, cooing and laying eggs

No problems though. The people we bought from were happy to swap for another and with them being a bit older now it was actually just possible to be sure what we were getting. When I saw the hens, I could indeed tell which was which - they had no wattle whatsoever and the cockerel had longer, shinier feathering in his tail.

The couple I was picking up from were incredibly chatty and I ended up staying over an hour. They had poultry everywhere - it is surprisingly easy to breed lots of animals or birds when you first start out, but you need an end plan.

Eventually I returned with not one, but two replacement silkies. Both black to go with the 'partridge' one we picked up last time. Hopefully they will settle in quickly and be going broody early next year.

The buzz of a brambling
On the wildlife front, 4 Whooper Swans were in with the swan flock this morning and another 7 flew over the farm. A brambling was buzzing from the birches, the first of the winter and a clear cold weather arrival.






Tuesday 7th November 2017
Medlar time
Rain promised. Never quite materialised.

The adult Shetland sheep in the furthest paddock.

I have left this paddock ungrazed for a yeat to give it a rest, so there's plenty for them to munch.

The medlars are just about ready now. They are an odd looking fruit, with the nickname of 'dog's arse' in French! They are inedible until they have bletted, which means that you need to wait until the flesh is bitten by the frost or softens until it resembles mushy apples.

Not really selling them, am I?

The tree is a good-looking orchard tree, quickly acquiring the look of an old tree and bearing wonderful white blooms in springtime.

When the medlar fruits hang on amongst the yellowing leaves, nothing could be more autumnal. But the chickens and ducks have started jumping up to get at the lowest fruits now. They are ready for picking. The medlar jelly that Sue makes is wonderful.

Wednesday 8th November 2017

Grey Wagtail!!!

Only the second ever that I've seen on the farm. Even better, it was darting around the drinking pool and new pond which I recently constructed, its tail lifting up and down as if on a pulley with an overenthusiastic campanologist on the other end. What a great start to the day. 

The end of the day wasn't bad either.

Saturday 11th November 2017
Romanesco

Look what I've grown. A brassica which has made it through to harvest and actually tastes nice! It has taken me several years, but I think I have finally narrowed my brassica list down to what usually grows successfully and what I actually like eating.

Next year I shall be growing: Red Cabbage; Scarlet Kale; Cavolo Nero; Calabrese; Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Romanesco. I shall not be growing sprouts, green cabbages or cauliflowers, which is pretty much the traditional list of brassicas grown by gardeners.

Carrots hanging on
I dug up more carrots today. They should really be out of the ground by now, but the freezers are full so they can take their chances. Covering with fleece has prevented 99% of the carrotfly carnage which destroyed previous crops. The voles haven't found them this year (it seems to be a poor vole year) and the slugs have only taken the occasional munch.


Other than that, it was just general tidying up of spent veg beds today. The ground is now wetter and colder and compacts easily so it's best to keep off the soil as much as possible.

Ducks move into Spare Veg Patch

Not only do I have a rather intricately designed veg plot known as The Wheel, but I also have a rather sizeable plot simply known as The Spare Veg Patch.
This is where I grow the crops which grow too large to fit nicely into beds - Pumpkins, Mangel Wurzels, large brassicas such as cauliflowers.

Buddleia and elder cuttings with sweetcorn and pumpkings behind

and the brassica cage in the background.

All a bit overgrown at this time of year!

Unlike The Wheel, the Spare Veg Patch used to be arable land so it is denuded of decent top soil. It is pretty windswept too, although I have planted hedges which are beginning to give some shelter. And another thing... once the field next door is harvested, the rodents tend to flee to The Spare Veg Patch and eat all the sweetcorn before it has ripened. And one last thing... the rabbits come up out of the dry dyke and nibble everything.
But still I persist with growing things there. Admittedly I have given quarter of it over to growing seed for wild birds and another quarter as a temporary home for hardwood cuttings until they are big enough to move to their permanent homes.
The rest I have heavily nourished with horse muck and grass cuttings. Having the dogs seems to have deterred the rodents - for the first time this year my sweetcorn still has cobs on even once the field has been cleared.

Sweetcorn Minipop - the cobs are picked early,

before they mature and before anything can eat them.

Mangel wurzels actually do pretty well in the heavy soil - they are closely related to the sugar beet which is a favourite crop in the area. Pumpkins fare okay too as does sweetcorn. I think that the hard clay surface holds plenty of moisture underneath and further down, where deep in the past this was an inlet from the sea (you can still see the lines of old Roman salt works) lies a layer of sandy loam.

So everything in the Spare Veg Patch is hunky dory. No!

Those cracks which open up on the clay surface are proving to be an excellent daytime hiding place for slugs - big orange ones, long black ones, small pale ones, squidgy brown ones.
I managed to protect my brassicas from cabbage fly, cabbage whites, pigeons and rabbits, only for an enemy to rise from beneath the soil and invade from outside the protective netting, mostly disappearing during the day leaving behind just the occasional slimy trail and decimated leaves resembling the worst lacework you have ever seen. Even worse, they have taken a liking to my cauliflowers, the vegetable which has taken me six years to finally succeed with.

Part of it is my own fault. I've let the nasturtiums get out of control and they provide the perfect cool, shady habitat underneath their lily-like leaves and splashes of orange-red flowers. I totally cleared them once, but I need to keep more on top of it. There's just so much to do though.

The slugs live under the nasturtium canopy.

So in one last desperate attempt I have resorted to biological control - the ducks. They have moved in to the Spare Veg Patch. At the moment they are still scared of everything and spend most of their time huddled up by the gate, nowhere near where most of the slugs are. But hopefully in the winter they will come into their own, when I can work the soil, hopefully with a trio of ducks and a gang of chickens following me along enjoying the feast that is thrown up from beneath the surface.
Yes, the chickens get through an awful lot of worms which are the gardener's friend, but there are plenty more of them thank goodness.

And so, with tweaks and adjustments, the Spare Veg Patch will continue into the autumn and next year. It's getting there.

Biological control

Composting hots up

20th May 2017
Composting hots up
I finally have heat in my compost bins! They have been just sitting there doing very little since last summer. But they got a good watering the other day and I spent a good while turning them and incorporating some of the hovered up horse manure that next door kindly let me have.
I have resolved to be a good composting boy and to turn at least one heap every week - aerating and mixing really is the way to get the bacteria going. So today I turned a steaming heap into the next bin along and filled the vacated heap with a mixture of half rotted material and horse manure. I chopped some comfrey and threw that in too for good measure.

There are three benefits of the heaps heating up. Firstly, the mass of material rots down much quicker and is ready to go on the veg beds earlier. Secondly, the heating up kills all nasties like weed seeds, roots, bugs and diseases. Thirdly, it looks like a proper gardener's compost heap!





The brassica fortress
Well that was a big job accomplished but I still had energy and enthusiasm so I moved on to the next big job, getting the brassica area set up. Brassicas (the cabbage family) get a pretty raw deal since, apparently, they are the tastiest thing on the planet and everything tries to eat them. To compound this, they need to stay in the soil for many months which gives the enemy plenty of time to find a weakness in the defences.

First of all the posts go in to hold up the scaffold netting which goes all the way round. Then the taller aluminium poles which will support the soft butterfly netting (invest in the soft as it is so much tougher that the normal stuff). The ground has already been rotavated several times and the chickens have been allowed on to scratch around. Hopefully this will minimise the number of slugs, but on this clay ground the slugs find a perfect home, taking shelter in the cracks which open up in dry weather and relishing the moisture retaining qualities in the wet. So my final defence is a liberal scattering of organic slug pellets.
When I plant the young brassica plants I will tread them in very firmly to protect them from rocking in the wind (the scaffold net helps with this too) and I will place cut-off plastic bottles over them until they grow big enough to withstand the ravages of a slug or too.
I do not use cabbage collars as many do to protect against cabbage root fly. So far I have not had a problem with this pest, but when I did use home-made collars fashioned from carpet underlay they proved an ideal daytime hideout for slugs.

And the final, final defence, is a rabbit fence around the whole area. I don't connect it to the electric fence as it sucks too much energy, but the physical barrier serves as a deterrent at least.

No pot of gold...
With late afternoon now upon us the weather changed and we had some pretty heavy showers which at one point resulted in one of the most amazing double rainbows I have ever seen, arching right over the smallholding. Unfortunately my camera gear was not quite up to scratch to capture it well.


... but a good consolation prize
I retreated to the new conservatory to watch the birds on the feeders. I was absolutely delighted to see a group of four tree sparrows fly in, especially when two of the proved to be recently fledged young birds.

Tree Sparrow at the feeders

21st May
We're not called Swallow Farm for nothing
The day started with a swallow in the house. It eventually found its way out but not before it had found some rather novel places to perch.

Off with their bits!
Most important job for today was to apply castration rings to the two new lambs. A tricky operation this, for they have an uncanny ability to breath right in and withdraw the important bits! I don't think anybody, even vets, manages to capture both balls every time, so to speak. I rather think the process is more painful in my mind than it actually is for the lamb, since it just involves stretching a rubber ring over said bits which causes them to lose their blood supply and drop off. The lambs show no distress whatsoever once they are back with their mum - well, maybe they walk a bit funny for a few minutes. This needs to happen before they are seven days old.
While we were on the sheep, I moved Rambo and the ram we 'missed' last year back in with the ewes and older lambs. After half hour of chasing around and macho behaviour all settled down. The lambs are now plenty big enough to stay away from trouble.

Poultry news
More livestock news as we sadly lost another of the turkey poults today. There is no rime nor reason to whether young turkeys live or not. They go from perfect health one minute to dead the next. But as if by magic a day old turkey chick appeared from the next which is still be sat on by the turkey hen who won't give up.
Call me hard, but young birds give up the ghost with such ease that I have come to accept it, though obviously I'd rather it didn't happen and do everything I can to make sure it doesn't. But we do lose a young bird now, my main thought is There goes a tasty meal in a few months time.

The mangel wurzel tradition continues
The afternoon was spent planting 250 young mangel wurzel plants. I raise these in modules as otherwise the rabbits and slugs get them and I end up with some very gappy rows. Hopefully the effort will be repaid in late autumn when they will supplement dwindling grass supplies for the sheep.

Mega weeding
With this job accomplished I got distracted pulling weeds. The soil is in that rare state when the seeds virtually jump out of the ground, roots and all, even deep-rooted fiends like dock and dandelion. I spent the whole evening, maybe four hours, on a mega weeding session. The slugs absolutely love to hide in amongst the weeds and under overhanging grass edges to borders, so as I weeded I collected slugs for the ducks. They were very, very appreciative. Nothing goes to waste here on the smallholding.

Enjoying the bounty
While I was doing all this, Sue was doing her farmhouse wife bit, making a selection of delicious jams from what remained in the freezer of last year's soft fruits. We now have umpteen jars of blackcurrant (& rum), redcurrant and crab apple jellies. YUMMY.

She also made a cushion as a thank you to the people who recently gave us three of their fleeces for peg looming. Meanwhile, I have collected another twelve fleeces to keep her busy!

Smart new dogs

10th August 2016

Boris, like a certain one of his owners, likes to be scruffy and likes getting dirty. His favourite activity (not shared by his owner) is to find a nice juicy patch of goose poo and to roll around in it, or even better a dead animal.
Arthur, despite being younger, is more refined, but he is cursed by wiry hair with a fair scattering of grey which makes him look much older than he really is.

But today, for the first time ever, Sue took them off to the groomers. At midday she returned to the farm with two new dogs.

They had clearly enjoyed their pampering session, though Boris was a little befuddled by his new hairstyle. Hopefully he will feel more comfortable in the hot weather though. Arthur was clearly most pleased with his new look and spent the day parading around admiring himself.

Boris asked me not to publish this picture

While the boys were away I ventured into one of the brassica patches. It was getting a bit weedy, though the pot marigolds and hyssop which I planted in between the greens were looking good. It wasn't the weeds that prompted me there, for I've been ignoring those for a while now. It was instead the sight of a calabrese head almost in flower. I walk past these everyday and should have been keeping a closer eye. Fortunately most of the other plants had good tight heads on which I harvested. I must remember next year that, unlike many of the other brassicas, calabrese is quick to mature and to give a crop.

11th August 2016
A massive weeding session today.

12th August 2016
A big step for the older group of Ixworth chicks today as they moved into a pen down with the rest of the chickens. There will be lots of new things for them to see and do and they will have to cope overnight without the heat lamp. They have plenty of feathers now and night time temperatures are not low so everything should be fine.
Sue took honey off the bees. It may be the last honey of the year as she needs to begin varroa treatment soon and the bees need to be left with enough honey for themselves in addition to what we steal from them.

The birds and the bees... and the sheep

The first honey of the year

complete with new labels.

Sometimes I don't mind getting wet, for once you're really wet through you stop noticing it and just carry on. But today I feel like staying dry, so I'm staying indoors. Besides, in the past week of warm, dry weather I've totally failed to mow the lawns so the soaking would come from the bottom up.
Why have I not mown the lawns? Priorities.
March and April are all about getting seeds sown and young plants raised. But come the second week of May, when the soil is warmed up and the danger of frost is passed, it's all about getting all those little plants into the soil so their roots can delve and explore and nourish. Stuck in seed trays or modules the plants just stop growing or, even worse, wither up and die if you accidentally miss watering their tray on a hot day.

Fortunately we have a rather well-timed week off school in which I can hopefully catch up with everything I've fallen behind with (mainly because I've been scooting all over the country chasing rare birds).

It's not all been about the vegetables though. There's been action on the sheep front and plenty of news from the poultry pen, most of it a bit calamitous, but not all.
So here's a run down of what's been going on.

Rambo shorn - a shadow of his former self.

24th May
The ewes and Rambo came down to the paddock near the house, briefly meeting the lambs on the other side of some sheep hurdles before the lambs went down to the big sheep field all on their own. The lambs were delighted to see their mums again and started bleating loudly. Their mums pretty much blanked them, fearing for their udders which are beginning to dry up now.
The reason for the swap was that Carl the shearer was due in the morning.

25th May
I managed to get all bar one (sorry for the pun, if you noticed it) of the sheep penned in with relative ease. They still come to investigate a bucket, but I wasn't quite quick enough to sneak round and close off the hurdles. One of the ewes made a dash for it. Never mind. It wasn't long before I had her penned in too. The secret with sheep is just to move them into smaller and smaller areas, remembering to bar (sorry!) their way back to the previous place. And never try to move a loan ewe. Easier to take the whole flock, separate the one and then take the rest back.
Carl arrived from his previous job and I was quite proud that I had the sheep so well penned and ready for shearing. Shetland sheep are sort of self-shedding, but they look a right mess while this is going on and some are too late for the warm weather. Two of my girls, the ones who had multiple lambs, were pretty much self-shorn already.


Shearing went well. Carl is amazing with the sheep. Strong but gentle. Even Rambo didn't put up too much of a fight this time. I got Carl to check and trim their feet too. For an extra £1 per sheep it's worth getting it done. As it was he didn't charge me for this and was not even going to charge for the two ewes which just needed a little tidying up. I paid him the whole amount though as he deserves it.



Last year we sold the wool to some spinners. They were very, very happy with it and we recovered the cost of shearing. This year we are planning to learn how to do peg looming so will keep as much wool as we need for ourselves. More on peg looming in a few weeks.

26th May
The exertions of the weekend were still telling on my body. I used to be able to do overnight drives seemingly with no effect but as I get older my body demands considerably more time to recover. So today after work it was a rest day, a lazy evening pottering around enjoying the smallholding, just taking stock of everything.
I did get the car serviced and MOT'ed today. It's a dangerous time of year to be without car (rare birds don't hang around waiting for the car to be fixed) so I was glad to get it done.

27th May
Only 3 eggs today! That's a pretty poor return. But it happens sometimes. The spring egg glut has happened and several of the hens have chicks or are sitting on eggs. Some of the hens are getting older so are less productive. The others have just gone on strike and we have a very sudden drop in egg production. This is not unusual, but inexplicably the timing seems to vary year on year. But I seem to remember this happening last year.
I should keep records, but I've never been good at that sort of thing. I like to be more inefficient! Organic. Creative.
Anyway, I sort of suspect the crows which now nest in the old ash trees. There's only one pair but they hang around the chicken pens a lot. I know they sometimes go down for the wheat and I've seen them take duck eggs when the ducks have decided to lay on the ground outside. What I'm not sure about is whether or not they have the audacity to enter one of the chicken houses and take the eggs. I can't believe that we could lose this many eggs and never catch them red-handed though, so  suspect it's more about the chickens than the crows.

Meanwhile, in the big chicken house where our Muscovy duck has inconveniently made her nest and been sat for the last five weeks, today we had the first cheep cheeps of a little duckling. Hopefully by tomorrow they'll all be hatched and I can think about where to move the young family for safety.

IT'S THE HOLIDAYS! I have eleven days off work.

28th May
A somewhat challenging day today.
Sue took the first honey of the year off the bees. Despite the proximity of a giant rape field, the bees actually seem to use a variety of sources of food. However, the presence of even some rape means that the honey is likely to set hard as a rock. Left in the frames in the hive, it quickly becomes irretrievable, so timing is crucial. It needs to be taken off the bees when it is just capped. For non beekeepers, the bees store the honey until it reaches the correct consistency and then cap it off with wax to prevent it drying out any more.
Sue's bee-keeping skills are developing fast now (thanks to the excellent West Norfolk Beekeeping Group).
Today she managed to mark one of the queens. Finding the queen is tricky so it is useful when you do find her to trap her in a queen cage and dab her with a bright colour. But it's a bit daunting handling the queen when the whole hive centres around her. This was the first time Sue had performed this delicate operation.
She also removed drone comb. This is the brood cells which will produce male bees and is where the varroa mite can really get a hold in a hive. Since the drones are pretty useless it is best to remove. Sue feeds it to the chickens who very much enjoy pecking out the juicy drone larvae.

I said today was challenging. That's because I was trying my best to work in the veg plot despite the unwanted attentions of Sue's angry bees, who were even more grumpy than usual as somebody had stolen their honey and interfered with their queen!

I resorted to wearing a hat with a veil over. I'm pretty good at ignoring the attentions of inquisitive bees and can even tolerate them landing in my hair. Usually they find their way out again. I find I just have to freeze still for about a minute. Then they go away but I remain frozen, for after a few seconds they always come back, just to check.
However, once in a while you get a complete nutter hell-bent on destruction. You can tell by the buzz. They go for the face or land in your hair and start burrowing and buzzing fiercely. If they're in your face the best thing is to run for it, but they pursue with vigour. In your hair I reckon you've got a 50/50 chance of getting them out before the sting goes in!
One of Sue's hives is way too aggressive. They have been since the back end of last autumn and things haven't improved. Unfortunately the queen will have to be replaced. A new one, specially bred to be peaceful, will be brought in and should then produce calmer offspring. The bees which remain should calm down too.
This is why there are no photos of the bees. I used to be able to stand right next to the hive while Sue had them open.

Anyway, in the face of such challenge I still got quite a lot done outside. Most of the outdoor tomatoes are now planted. The main varieties are Roma and San Marzano (both Italian plum tomatoes for sauces), Gardener's Delight and Outdoor Girl, a new variety I'm trying which is supposed to do well even if the weather is not ideal.
What sort of harvest we get from the outdoor toms is unpredictable. If they come good we will have tons. If blight strikes we could get none. And if the summer is dull we could have lots and lots of green tomatoes.

The other job for today was to sow the kidney beans, variety Canada Wonder. I've sown these direct, but if they don't come there's still time to resow them in modules. They are interplanted with Perpetual Spinach, a new crop for me.

29th May
Sad news. No sign of the Muscovy duckling this morning. Mum has moved the nest and the remaining eggs are all over the place. Maybe it was a mistake letting the chickens back in to roost last night.
I've closed the house off now and the girl is back on her eggs. The chickens will get a shock when they try to go to bed tonight, but I have laid on alternative accommodation for them if they find it.

Today was a perfect day for working outside but all I could get done was picking out and planting French Marigolds (tagetes). These act as a wonderful insect deterrent. I've planted a load of them in amongst my turnip and swede sowings to try to deter the flea beetles which destroyed the first sowing. I plant them between tomato plants too. They keep off whitefly. Then I just dot them around the place as a general defence against insect attack.
The other type of marigold is Pot Marigold (calendula). This is a pretty good companion plant too, though tagetes is a stronger deterrent. Calendulas are more hardy though and self-seed everywhere, appearing every spring almost in weed proportions. Fortunately they are easily pulled or transplanted to where I want them.
My work was interrupted though as today was the Smallholders meeting. I so wish they would consider evening meetings but I've made my point and it's not been taken. It was tempting to carry on working on the veg patch but fortunately with holidays coming up there's not too much pressure. Besides, today there was a visit to a smallholding I'd not visited before. It's always good to visit other places, though invariably I come back full of new ideas and jobs to do. There was a very informative talk on building a pole barn as well as the chance to catch up with my smallholding friends.
I also managed to pick up a copy of The Polytunnel Book for £1. This is my polytunnel bible. If I had to recommend one book, this would be the one.

There was just time after the meeting to take a small diversion on the way home to Paxton Pits where a Great Reed Warbler had been singing for about a week. These are like one of our regular reed warblers (small boring brown birds which sing from reedbeds) but a mammoth version and they don't sing, they holler! As it was, our Great Reed Warbler was having a very shy day. We heard a few loud calls but it wasn't in the mood for climbing to the top of the reeds and belting out its song. We left with a 'heard only' record.
Today was a good chance to try the car out too. The braking had been a bit shaky before the service and the garage had replaced something on the anti-roll bar. However, the problem seems to have got worse! Over 60mph it feels like the car has a wobbly wheel and breaking requires a firm hand on the shaky steering wheel. It'll have to go back in. Let's hope a rare bird doesn't turn up while I'm carless. Over in Denmark a Sulphur-bellied Warbler has turned up. It's so rare I can't even begin to explain. If one of those turned up here while my car was in the garage I think I'd just start walking.

30th May
Today I released the turkey family. They've been incarcerated in a very luxurious stable since their birth for their own safety. Mum led them all around the smallholding. Terry the Turkey would have been so proud if he were still around.

Early evening I decided to try and put them away for the night. After a couple of failed attempts, I managed to get them into one of the new sheds which has been kitted out in readiness. It's pretty nice in there.

The rest of the day was spent planting out my brassicas. I've abandoned the idea of using carpet underlay to stop root fly laying its eggs in the soil. Firstly each collar provided a cosy home for a slug with a handy local food source (my cauliflower seedlings). I sorted this out, slugs chopped in half, slug pellets scattered (I use the organic ferric phosphate ones, though I still try to minimise their use) but today I found half of the surviving plants dried up. The underlay obviously hadn't let through enough water. So that was it. Collars abandoned. Luckily I only really needed about a third of my caulis to make it through and the ones which have survived are looking very strong. There are more on the way as I sow them in succession. This means I can fill the gaps and that they will not all harvest at once.

Today, along with the cauliflowers, I've planted Romanesco, Calabrese, Cavolo Nero, Scarlet Kale, Red Cabbage, Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Cabbage January King.
They're all under netting and I've interplanted with marigolds and hyssop as companion plants.

This is a concerted effort at finally growing and harvesting brassicas successfully. If it fails I might just give up.

31st May
And so to the last day of May. A welcome rainy day, for I was starting to get worried about the young plants and seedlings outside. The water butts are filling up nicely.
Two surprises when I let the birds out this morning. The first was a robin inexplicably encaged in one of the broody hen runs. Quite how it got in goodness knows. I released it. That was good act number one.
The second was to find a very small gosling stuck in the feed trough near one of our Toulouse goose nests. Fortunately the grey geese are not quite so aggressive in their defence and I was able to gently pick up the little gosling, which felt cold, and place it next to mum on the edge of the nest. When I looked later it was gone, so I presume safely tucked in underneath mum again.
Not such good news from our other sitting mums-to-be. No sign of any ducklings under the Muscovy, despite the first one hatching three days ago. And no sign of any Ixworth eggs hatching under the other broody hen either.
To compensate for the various failures of our broody hens and ducks, we have placed 18 Ixworth hen eggs into our new (second-hand) incubator. It'll be more work for us to raise the chicks but we should have a greater success rate.

Every time we use an incubator we have a power cut. I don't think it's the fault of the incubators! It's just the poor rural infrastructure which means that every time it rains or is windy the power cuts out. Today we had two and the second lasted three hours. Hopefully it won't affect the development of the eggs.

So that's it. May has flown by and tomorrow it's the official start of meteorological summer. Bring on the rain!