Everything is growing... quickly

2nd May
The broad beans are up and doing well, well enough indeed to take the netting off and finally be able to access all the weeds which have started to emerge amongst them. I planted out Poached Egg plants among them - this supposedly prevents them being attacked by blackfly and it seems to have worked for the past few years so I'll continue with it.
I got half of the onions weeded too before heavy rain in the afternoon drove me into the polytunnel.
No matter though, plenty of jobs to keep me busy in there. I sowed more carrot seeds. The first two packs of Early Nantes seeds I used have been discarded. I was beginning to think there was something very wrong with my soil but different varieties have since germinated well.
I planted more kohl rabi seedlings out into the beds - these are the last ones for the polytunnel. From now they'll be sown outside. The early turnips I sowed are doing well (after a similar disaster with the first batch of seeds) and needed thinning. Hopefully we'll get some young turnips before long and the plants can then come out to make room for the young pepper plants I've got coming along.
I sowed some peas for outdoors too, deciding not to risk planting them straight into the soil outside - it also brought me some time to construct a support for them.
3rd May
We were awoken at 6am by the dogs barking. They were quite persistent, so obviously thought there was something out there. I went outside but nothing seemed amiss. It was a lovely morning with a gentle and warm southerly breeze.
I decided to spray the last few creeping thistles which survived last year's regime of attack. I have learned that just a few pests and weeds need radical solutions, but I try to do this as efficiently and as carefully as I can so as to leave the wildlife hopefully minimally affected. I tried pulling the nettles and thistles but on the scale of our smallholding it was an impossible task. I still leave patches of nettles around the edge, but the creeping thistles really are too invasive to tolerate. It's a great shame as they are alive with bees and butterflies when in flower.
The day continued hot and the southerly air brought with it an arrival of Swallows along with the first Swift of the year and a brief Sand Martin. Up till now we only had 4 swallows back on the farm. I always know when new arrivals come in as there is much excited chattering and chasing.
The first orange-tip butterfly was fluttering around too and later the first small white (= cabbage white!!!) This prompted me to erect the netting over my main brassica patch. I've constructed a veritable fort which should protect my greens from caterpillar and pigeon attack.

One final job for the day was to move all the sheep down to the big field. The paddock up by the house needs a little time to recover before I move the lambs back up again without their mums.

All the ewes and lambs meet up for the first time.

There is much excitement.

And after the final job, there is usually another one. In weather like this, keeping everything watered in the polytunnel is crucial. Forget for one day or miss a tray and a whole batch of seedlings can be dead. I'm using the overhead irrigation more this year but a bit of targeted watering every evening is still necessary.
After I'd given the hanging strawberries a good soaking I decided to tuck some straw underneath the developing fruits, firstly to act as a mulch and keep in the moisture and secondly to prevent the strawberries from rotting where they touched the soil surface.




4th May
22 Centigrade today. A real scorcher!
I sowed my first beetroots direct outside, between the onions. They are supposedly good companions. I sowed my quinoa seeds too. Well, some of them. I bought a packet which contained several thousand seeds, to be sown direct a foot apart. I had enough for a field full! Unsure of how they would germinate, I sowed them much more thickly. I sowed some in modules in the polytunnel too, just to be sure.
Quinoa is a new crop for me. I like to try new things, but they don't always work. Generally there are reasons why some vegetables (and grains) have become more popular than others, but there is the occasional exception to the rule.
Lastly, Rameses is down to two feeds per day. This in in preparation for weaning him off his bottle milk. His afternoon feed will consist of being offered a tub of creep feed and beet pellets (pre-soaked). I'm sure there will be loud protestations!

Rameses comes out for his feed and has been making friends with the dogs.

5th May

Gosling's first trip into the garden proper.

Not much done on the smallholding today. I did get to the hardware store though so was able to fix the hinges on the duck houses.
40 Sweetcorn minipop seedlings appear to have gone missing! I don't suspect foul play, more an ever increasing propensity to put things down and completely forget about them!
6th May
A white duck egg! The first for some time. The white duck has been through a bit of a hard time. We had to separate her from the black Cayugas as the young male just would not leave her alone, eventually drawing blood on her head and wing. We separated her off for a while. Meanwhile the overly hormonal drake was 'disappeared', but not before he had exhausted another of the females. Sadly we lost her.
The good news is that the white duck has made friends with the lone white Muscovy drake - the larger drake has taken the two females for himself. She has even started going into the same house as him and the egg shows that she is healthy and happy again. Maybe she approved of her new door hinges too.





More exciting news was the first tail-raising display by Captain Peacock. It wasn't spectacular and appeared to be aimed at a duck, but it was still a significant moment.
Finally I undertook a big job today, restoring the asparagus bed. It was in a bit of a state. Keeping weeds out is very difficult and the ridges I grow it on were collapsing. Furthermore, cracks had appeared in the soil around this years emerging spears and last year's decomposing stems had made more perfect hidy holes for slugs, who seem partial to a nice bit of young asparagus.

Traditionally asparagus beds were treated with salt, which would kill off weeds (and I presume do a pretty good job on slugs). I decided that some old builders sand I had would do a similar job, as well as filling in the cracks and holes. Anyway it was pretty hard work but I was pleased with the finished results of my work. The asparagus will very soon begin growing at a phenomenal rate and we can harvest it until about the end of June when we leave it to grow and gather the sun's goodness to store in its roots.

Romanesco and Cavolo Nero

Romanesco and Cavolo Nero
will go nicely with Pheasant tonight

You've got to hand it to the Italians. They certainly know how to grow a good brassica!

I have often waned lyrical (I guess this is the opposite of waxing lyrical) about brassicas.
Cabbages, Greens, Sprouts, Broccoli... they are all green, they all taste and smell roughly the same (caterpillar poo springs to mind), they take up inordinate space in the veg garden and they are nigh on impossible to grow as, for some very strange reason, everything in the natural world seems determined to eat them!

However, I do like a challenge.

I remember as a teenager deciding that I really should eat green things. I would eat just one sprout every time they were served up and eventually I actually came to quite like them. I won't go any further than that though. The same goes for broccoli. Cauliflower I actually do like - maybe that's because it's not green. I did manage to grow a cauliflower earlier in the year, my first ever. I got it past the cabbage flies, past the caterpillars, past the pigeons and then, right at the last moment, some giant slug found it! So disappointed.

Continuing with the 'not green' theme, I have found that I like Red Cabbage too and we managed to grow a few right through to the eating stage last year. I even won the 'above ground' category in the Smallholder Show with my Red Cabbage.

So, what about the Italians I mentioned?

Kale forest

Well, another brassica which I've come close to success with in the past is Kale. It takes many forms. There's borecole, aka Curly Kale, which comes in Red and Green.


Curly Green Kale

Then there's Cavolo Nero, aka Black Cabbage or Black Tuscan Kale.Cavolo Nero is one of the brassicas I want to highlight today. On our fertile Lincolnshire soil the kales seem to grow very well. They seem more resilient than other brassicas. I've had a little trouble with caterpillars, but only really during the Cabbage White plague year of 2013. In general, a modicum of netting is all that is needed to get Cavolo Nero past the pests. It is a handsome crop and produces plentiful leaves in a relatively small area. Furthermore, it actually tastes rather pleasant.


For more on Kale, it even has it's own website with some very good background information and recipes. Just click discoverkale.

The second Italian brassica of the day is Romanesco. Another very good looking vegetable, Romanesco has me a little confused as I still cannot work out whether it's a broccoli or a cauliflower. Anyway, I decided to try growing some this year. The seeds went into modules in the polytunnel early in the year. As usual with brassicas, they germinated well. I remembered to thin them out to one seedling per module. Then something amazing happened. Brassica seedlings always seem very slow to grow and invariably I forget about them in the May mayhem of a busy veg grower. They either dry out or I discover them sometime in late July, all leggy and well past the time when they should have been planted out. All this would be avoided if I grew them the old fashioned way, in a seedbed, but that means outside which means standing guard over them day and night to protect them from invading hoards! Anyway, the amazing thing that happened this year was that my brassicas all got planted out into the garden at the right time... Then I forgot about them!

What with the netting, the weeds and the giant proportions to which some of the brassicas have grown, I just never got round to inspecting them very often. So it was with some great delight that yesterday I discovered a Romanesco ready to eat!

There were another two which had flowered and gone over, but never mind that. The first time you harvest any vegetable is always special, and this little beaut was no exception.

I may also get some Brussels sprouts this year and the Purple Sprouting Broccoli (as opposed to supermarket 'broccoli' which is really calabrese) is looking promising for later in the winter.

So all in all my brassica growing is most definitely improving year on year and I've even found some which I quite like eating. Especially the Italian duo.

What to do with cabbage white caterpillars

The sign says it all.

New Public Enemy Number One.

I love insects. They come in so many shapes, sizes and colours. They're like miniature alien creations. But they're not all welcome in my garden.
It's been a great year for butterflies and this pleases me greatly. Who could not marvel at the sight of butterflies fluttering by?

JUST AS LONG AS THEY ARE NOT THESE BUTTERFLIES!!!



A group of five cabbage whites cavorting over (and under)
the netting which is supposed to protect my greens. 

In the year when I have put more effort than ever into growing my greens, nature has put more effort than ever into eating my greens! Those scraggy butterflies have found impossible ways of getting themselves on the wrong side of my netting. In fact, when I show people round I joke that the netting is there to protect the butterflies and their offspring from predators.
And therein lies my dilemma. I have to net my brassicas or else every leaf would be reduced to a skeleton by caterpillars and pigeons, but in so doing I deny access to the ducks who would be more than happy to help with caterpillar clearance.

So instead I have a new fixation - hunting out the caterpillars.

They're not always as easy to find as these two were.

 And I have a new entrepreneurial idea. Caterpillar racing!

 

 

However, before I find this too depressing, let's remember that I should still get an ample crop for the two of us.
OK, they may need a soak in salty water to coax out any extra creepy-crawly protein, but for the first time I am producing our own calabrese, kale and cabbages.
Hopefully cauliflowers and sprouting broccoli will come, and maybe even some sprouts for Christmas.

Let's remember, too, that not every insect is bad. Which is why I don't just aim to kill everything that comes near my crops.


One of the friendly bugs.

As for those cabbage white caterpillars. Well they're currently being put to good use too.



A quick update on everything on the smallholding

Pigs

The pigs are all healthy and eating us out of house and home as usual. They have put on a sudden spurt of growth which prompted me to pay a visit to the butcher last week! Two will be going on a little journey at the beginning of the summer holiday. One will be spared for a while, to go off for bacon in the winter, and Daisy's future is still a matter of discussion between Sue and I.

Two of their sisters who I sold have already gone, but ours grow more slowly as they spend all their time chasing each other.

Guineas

At the last count, there were 65 guineafowl eggs hidden in the grass. But still every evening eleven birds roost on the fence so none is sitting ... yet.

The guineafowl have, however, discovered the strawberries. Not just ours, but Don's too. They have always been allowed to wander free and have never previously caused too much damage. For now, the strawberries will be netted and we will monitor the situation.

Chickens

The chickens all seem happy at the moment. We are getting about a dozen eggs a day. A few have shown signs of broodiness but have given up when we keep taking their eggs. Elvis, who we want to go broody, has most unusually shown little inclination to sit. Shame, as we were rather hoping to hatch out some blue eggs.

Geese

The geese have finally given up on their efforts to hatch an egg. Maybe next year they'll have more success. So for now they are back out in the paddock to keep the grass down. They have quickly settled into their new routine and every evening wait at the gate to waddle in line into the stable for the night. One goes on the right of the divider, the rest go on the left.

The poor girls who spent so long sitting on the nest are slowly getting back into condition.

Ducks Still waddling.

Sheep 

The sheep have settled in to living in their new home, up in the pasture, where they are beginning to make an impact on the grass. The one who had the limp is now completely better and they are all growing fast. I accidentally left the electric fence off last night and one got out, but it didn't go far. They are happy where they are as long as they have fresh grass.

Bees
Who knows! They are now closed down for a few weeks. All we can see is this unusual cluster at the bottom of the hive. We think they're clustering around newly built queen cells. With luck both hives will successfully manage to make a queen which mates successfully. We'll know if they have been successful if there are eggs when we next open them.

Owls
The owls continue to delight us, more and more during the day. I saw a young one being fed the other day. Once in a while I hear the swallows causing a commotion and look up to see a dumpy Little Owl being pursued by a line of graceful but angry swallows.
Not such good news with the Barn Owls. There seem to be very, very few about. It seems that their boxes have been taken over by Jackdaws.
Trees
A couple of weeks ago I spent some time assessing the young woodland trees. If you remember, this job was interrupted by the arrival of a Pacific Swift in Suffolk. Most are doing well, though we suffered a few losses. By next year they should be looking more like small trees than weedy saplings.
The Ash saplings all seem to be doing well. Time will tell whether the threat from Ash dieback is as serious as it seemed last year.

 

Orchard

The orchard trees, all planted two winters ago, are beginning to flourish. We should get a more significant amount of fruit this year. However, pollination was patchy, especially of the cherries and plums. Goodness knows where our bees were going to get their food, but they studiously ignored all of my and Don's offerings.

Soft Fruit

All the soft fruit is developing nicely. It looks like being a bumper year for gooseberries. I really look forward to this annual treat. The other fruit that should be ready early is the strawberries, but I seem to have very little ripe fruit this year. Neighbours and friends are already harvesting.

However, as alluded to above, I think I've discovered the reason.

Those pesky guineafowl seem to have found the fruit before me. The netting will have to come out.

Vegetables



Runners struggling to get going



Beans n Peas : Every year is different in the world of vegetable growing. Last year beans and peas, if the young shoots got past the slugs, did well. This year, nobody's beans are coming up fast. The weather has been too cool and they could do with a bit more (warm) rain.

The broad beans, though, have loved the cool weather.

 

Roots : Parsnips are flourishing again. Carrots are patchy again, but much better than last year. The experiment to sow carrots into a bed of mixed annual flowers has backfired somewhat as the weeds grew first. This happened with the other beds which I reserved just for the flowers. It's impossible to get in there with the rotavator or even the hoe. Still, a few weeks of selective weeding may just reveal some pleasant hidden treasures.  

Spuds : I'm a bit worried about the spuds. The tops are looking good, but it's been a bit dry at the crucial time when the tubers should be forming. I dug up one of my Earlies a couple of weeks ago and there were no tubers at all! Those I grew in bags had a disappointing yield too. I'll have to make changes for next year.

However, I'm still pretty confident that the outdoor crops will come good. I probably just need to be patient. They did go in a little later than I hoped and I did not get to chit them properly as the house was in such a mess with the building works. 

Brassicas : This year I've actually got round to transplanting the young brassicas into the veg beds outside and they've even got protection. They'd better work, or I'll be giving up on them.

 

As you can see, I've even gone to the effort of making collars for them out of old carpet underlay. This, in theory, should stop them being devastated by cabbage root fly.

House

Work on the house is almost finished. We're still waiting for the scaffolding to come down and there's a couple of jobs for the plumber to finish off (it's only been six months since he first came!) All we need to do now is decorate every room. That'll be in our spare time then!