Easter Monday

A sad start to Easter Monday as it was time to dispatch the Muscovy duck that we reared last year. He had grown into a big boy but, to the displeasure of the boss male, he had also taken a liking to the females.
For quite a while now this had made putting the ducks away at night a bit of a nightmare. Every night the chickens and geese put themselves away, the turkeys and guinea fowl go up on the fence, but the ducks loiter outside until I appear to put them away. The female and the boss male then go into the house as a group, bobbing their heads at each other and hissing in a friendly fashion. It's not unusual for two to get wedged in the door as their efforts to go one at a time go awry.
Once in, the old male turns around and guards the door.

Boss male with his girls

The problem comes when the young male, who has been hanging around hiding, then needs to be put away.  For he is scared of the dominant male and every time he attempts to enter the house he comes running back out again. Leaving him outside is not an option as he doesn't go up on the fence and would otherwise end up as fox food. However much we have tried, he won't do the sensible thing and go into alternative overnight accommodation.
So the only answer is to chase him round and round the pen until it is the easier option for him to brave going into the house.

This has been an inconvenience, but in the last few days he has started being pecked in the house. He was always destined for the plate anyway, but this made the matter more pressing.

So this morning I caught him straight from his overnight accommodation (a risky operation as he was a big, strong boy and Muscovy ducks have sharp claws) and did the deed.

While I was doing this (and well before, while I was still in bed), Sue had been a busy bee in the kitchen.

I went down to the kitchen to find a Rhubarb and Orange Crumble made with our own hazelnuts in the topping. Yummy!
Sue had been at the bottle again too. She had bottle up her plum brandy and sloe vodka and put some rhubarb and ginger vodka to start as well as sloe port.

That should help us through lockdown!

It was a much chillier day today so I chose an indoor task, pricking out the celeriac seedlings and planting them individually into modules. This is a fiddly task and the seedlings need to be treated very delicately. I selected the strongest 40 seedlings from the small tray of maybe twice that number. They can now go to the polytunnel to grow on before they are planted outside. It will be a long while before they are ready to harvest.

40 celeriac seedlings in the polytunnel

next to sugar snap peas and red onions

I spent the early afternoon planting another couple of beds of potatoes before we turned our attention back to the Muscovy duck, now hanging out in the stable.

Muscovy ducks have three layers of feathers and plucking them dry is a Herculean task, so instead we dunk them in boiling water for 3 1/2 minutes which makes plucking far easier.
We do the plucking in the stable which makes for easily sweeping up the feathers to go on the compost heap. We did have to keep the geese away though so they wouldn't see what was happening.

One was sitting on the nest so we left her there, a much safer option for us. We have the same problem with the geese as we had with the Muscovys. Last year's sole offspring is a young male and is get harassed. Fortunately he has the sense to spend the nights in the separate stable we have allotted to him.









While we were clearing up I decided to sort out last year's onions. We didn't manage to use them all before their inbuilt senses kicked in and they sprouted fresh growth. So I sorted them out and moved those which were still ok to the fridge.
Unfortunately no animals or birds will eat onions so any excess grown cannot be used for them.

Final job of the day was to mend the roof of the chicken house. The overnight winds had whipped off the felt. To be fair, I had been looking at it for a while thinking that it needed replacing.

My whopper celeriac

Tuesday 17th January 2017
I took the dogs for a long walk along the Main Drain today. It took longer than usual as I just kept stopping to take photos. They are just snaps taken on the phone, but there are days when the unique qualities of our Fenland landscape really come to the fore.

So that was the morning taken care off. In the afternoon I started the task of pruning the apple and pear trees. Anything I've pruned gets thrown to the Shetland sheep who delight in stripping off the bark and with it hopefully any pests and nasty fungi.

I harvested one of my celeriac roots today too. I expected to find a crown of leaves with a missing root underneath, gnawed by the voles, or to have to pick most of the crop to get enough celeriac to be worth the picking. This is what has happened in the past and this year was celeriac's last chance.

But no! I harvested a real whopper. Even after I had trimmed off all the leaves, the side-shoots and the roots, there was still a sizeable root left. Success at last!


The plan was for a roasted medley of roots all from the garden. In the picture are parsnips and carrots  (already frozen), potato, celeriac, Spanish Black Radish, beetroot and a small winter squash.

These vegetables were to be an accompaniment for Seared Duck Breast with Blood Orange and Star Anise. This is all part of my new Tuesday cookery resolution.

The skies continued to delight all day

And after dark it was back into the kitchen for a spot of baking.

June jobs

4th June
Uncovering the strawberry patch
Just where do the weeds come from? A bit of warm weather and a spot of rain and suddenly the strawberry patch disappeared under a metre high forest of grasses and docks. It got so bad I'm ashamed to even show you a picture of it. The berry bushes and raspberries are the same. It's not been this bad in previous years but this year the grass is growing like elephant grass. Even the sheep field is outgrowing the grazing efforts of the Shetland sheep.
And so it was that I spent the whole day pulling weeds. At least the damp soil meant that the roots came out easily. But it was hard work, so much so that I drafted Sue in to help. We'd better get a good strawberry crop, especially as the new strawberry patch is about five times the size of the old one.

An artificial swarm
In the morning Sue had been doing a spot of bee-keeping. At this time of year, if the hive is getting full, the bees start building queen cells which look a bit like monkey nuts hanging down from the frames. These they fill with royal jelly to raise new queens. They are a sure sign that the old queen is getting ready to leave, taking half the colony with her. Sue took two strong hives into the winter rather than three weaker ones with the aim of splitting one or both in the spring. The imminent swarm is the time to do this. Basically you create a small colony, known as a nucleus, in a mini-hive, a nuke box. With luck you avoid further swarming and create a new colony. We'll see if it works.
Sue took honey off too. It's rape honey so timing is critical before it sets solid. This had happened on a few of the frames. The solution is to spray them with water and out them back in the hive for the bees to clean up if they can.

Despite Sue's tinkering, the bees which were visiting the strawberry plants today seemed unconcerned with me, just going about their business in amongst the strawberry flowers.

On the bird front we still have 7 turkey poults, so fingers crossed we are over the worst of the losses. They'll be staying in the stable until they are much bigger and the weather is much warmer. Lesson learned.
Sadly Captain Peacock is confirmed dead. I found his body in a bit of a mess. I found out more of the story from Don. Apparently a couple of days ago there were feathers strewn on the roadside. But Captain was still alive, sitting in the dyke. I guess though that the verge cutting must have injured him or rendered him defenceless, for something obviously got him overnight.
More news from Don. Apparently on Wednesday night yet another car came off the road at the bend and went straight through his field gates! We didn't even know it had happened. About two cars a year come off here and usually end up in the ditch.








5th June

A willowy day!

The early part of the day was spent back at the Green Backyard. This week we were making dragonflies. These start with a basic bell shape which I have never mastered. I've not been able to understand how to influence the shape. My bells end up looking like cigars! But today I finally got it. It was on the last go, just before I was about to spit out my dummy and give up.

Once I'd got the weaving technique sorted I could use my knowledge of nature to make some very realistic dragonflies.
I also started working out a design for some willow bulrushes to go round the pond in the veg plot.

Giant Beans
Back home and there was more willow magic to be woven. Last year I chopped down a couple of overgrown twisted willows, nearly taking out the stable block in the process. Over the winter we threw the branches to the sheep who did a wonderful job stripping off every last thread of bark, which should stop them rooting. Today I planted four of them into the bean patch. At the base I've planted my Gigantes beans. These are a variety of runner bean grown for the gigantic (hence the name) white butter beans it produces. I have high hopes for this new variety.

A ring of willow arches
But I wasn't yet finished with my willow day. For about 80 willow whips I harvested in the winter have been sat in a water butt growing a tangle of roots. I was planning to use them for a fedge or a tunnel but that project will have to wait for next year now. I didn't want to waste them though and while at the Green Backyard I found some inspiration. They use willow to create living archways and screens all around the place. I decided that a circle of archways around the 'wheel' of the veg patch would create dramatic effect.

As it was getting dark I had to stop. I'd planted and twisted a dozen arches. Some need to grow a little before I can link them across the top. I had four left to do, though an extension of my idea meant that an extra eight would be needed!

Last act of the day was to pick my first ever kohl rabi bulb. We had it steamed and it tasted very nice indeed. We'll try the next one raw, sliced into a salad.

6th June
24 degrees today. The morning was spent picking up some sheep hurdles and other equipment from a fellow smallholder who is giving up and moving on. You can never have too many sheep hurdles.

Straw for the strawberries
I spent the afternoon tucking straw under the developing strawberry fruits. It lifts them off the ground and stops them rotting or getting splashed by mud. I chose not to use slug pellets under the straw mulch. Hopefully I won't regret that decision.
Finally I netted the strawberries to protect them from marauding birds - mainly the guinea fowl who are rather partial to the occasional strawberry.

At the end of a hot day there was still time to finish the remaining dozen arches in The Wheel. They don't look much at the moment, but give it a year...

7th June
Mowing, mowing and more mowing. The grass has got a bit unruly (understatement) and on the few dry days we've had I've been chasing birds all around the country. I've perfected a technique of lifting up the from of the mower and using it like a strimmer. It was hot and thirsty work, punctuated by many a break for drinks. I'm sure I didn't need this many breaks when I was younger.

The mower needed rest breaks too, so in between scything paths through the jungle I planted out the leeks and celeriac alongside tagetes marigolds in nice neat rows. They make good companions and are one of the combinations I've stuck to over the years.

I grow two varieties of leek, Jolant, an early one and Musselburgh. I raise them in trays early in the year. They are slow growers.

I put some spare strawberry and herb plants into the 'permaculture' beds too. We should have strawberries coming out of our ears, but I can just never throw away spare plants

Today I kicked the broody Muscovy off her eggs too. They obviously weren't going to hatch and she needed to get back to normal life.



8th June
Glorious weather again. Too hot to do much though. Every now and then I have a day of just pottering, making the time to appreciate everything on the smallholding. It's far too easy to get so bogged down in work that you never get time to enjoy what you've created.

Our Cream Legbar hen has moved out from her three Ixworth chicks. She has jumped the fence and left them on their own! A couple of days ago we tried letting them out with the flock. The chicks coped fine but mum got into lots of fights so we had to separate them again. Mum moving out will make things much easier.

A gosling disappears
But not a day goes by without a drama of some sort at the moment. I guess it's inevitable with so many young birds. One of the small goslings has gone missing. One minute the two grey geese had three little goslings, the next time I looked there were only two. I searched everywhere but to no avail. It has just vanished. There's no way it will still be alive.

9th June
Eggs back on the menu
The garden is starting to get pretty dry now. Temperatures in the polytunnel are unbearable at times. My glasses steam up when I go in there!

As the evening temperature settled down I turned on the overhead irrigation. Three hours later I remembered I'd left the water on! I do try to set an alarm as I always think I'll remember and always end up forgetting.
The chickens are liking the warm weather. They had virtually stopped laying for a few days (this happened last year at this time too) but today we were back up to 11 eggs again.

10th June
Noisy skies
Two fighter jets spent much of the day practising their dogfight manoeuvres over the farm today. Spectacular but noisy. There was thunder too, but no rain yet. I used the evening to get right on top of the grass. Even the front lawn got cut. This is always the last one I get round to.
The trouble with mowing the grass is that, unlike other big jobs, once it's done it soon needs doing again. I'm not talking about obsessively manicured lawns and paths here. No. I'm talking just keeping it below waist height!
So it's been quite a productive week. The veg patch is coming along nicely, the grass is all mown, the strawberry patch is looking amazing, the chickens are laying again and there are willow sculptures everywhere.

RIP Terry The Turkey :-(

I've decided to try a slightly different format for my blog posts from now on. At this time of year I'm incredibly busy with sowing, mowing and growing... and that's not to mention looking after all the animals. At the end of the day I'm often just too whacked to keep up with the blog. So I've decided to go over to a diary style blog with occasional longer posts devoted to one subject. That way I get to keep a record of everything I do on the smallholding (and you get a true sense of everything that is involved). Hopefully I'll catch up with myself within a week or two.
22nd April
The broad beans are finally up. I used seed collected from last year and it's always an interminably long wait for them to poke their heads up. I don't plant in the autumn like many do as I don't see the point in such an early start. Besides, if the cold and wet didn't get them, the chickens sure would!
One of our Muscovy girls has started sitting already. I did read that they were very prolific, but she can only just have had time to lay enough eggs before plonking herself down on them.
She's in the corner of the big chicken house.
Two nights ago I got fantastic views of a Short-eared Owl hunting down in the young woodland I have planted. This is an infrequent visitor to the farm and must be on its way back to its breeding grounds. Anyway, tonight it was back again, swooping into the grass hunting voles. Unfortunately I've not seen the barn owls for a while now, not since the farmer who bought the field grubbed up all the scrub in the corner where the barn owl box is. As he did this during the breeding season, it's odds on the owls will have abandoned their nest. Let's hope they return.

23rd April
I'm trying Mangetout outside again this year, but I've bought a variety called Golden Sweet which has yellow pods. Hopefully they'll be easier to spot when harvest time comes around. I constructed a frame for them to grow up made of bamboo sticks interwoven with semi-dry willow which I harvested from around the farm during the winter and I planted them out this morning. I raised them in pots in the polytunnel and have been hardening them off for a couple of days. I prefer not to plant straight out as I've lost them all in the past, either to voles, slugs or pigeons. I've planted them close to a large water butt too so I can prevent them becoming too dry.
I also sowed some Salsify and Scorzonera today. Closely related, these plants have very different roots. The scorzonera has been sown in some of my new 'mini-permaculture' beds as this plant is a perennial and if the roots don't develop enough in the first year they can be harvested at the end of next year instead. If they were sown in with the root crops, that space would be needed by potatoes next year.
Next to them I sowed some Sokol Breadseed Poppies. These should give a harvest of white poppy seeds, as well as a fine display of flowers. The seed heads don't have holes around the edge so the seeds are easily collected.

24th April
Time to sow the sweetcorn. This year I have 100 sweetcorn seeds. I am growing a supersweet variety again. The past two years my sweetcorn harvest has been disappointing after rats moved out of the fields before the corn was ripe enough to harvest. So this year I'll be growing some in the polytunnel and some further from the field edge in my main vegetable plot. I'm planning to undersow it with my prize mangel wurzels!
I'm also giving Minipop another go. This is harvested for miniature cobs before the tassels develop and hence before pollination. Therefore it shouldn't cross pollenate with the maincrop, which would risk spoiling it.
25th April
I have started some cucumbers off earlier than normal this year and this evening I took the plunge and planted three seedlings into the polytunnel beds. I grow Burpless Tasty Green - it's the bulk standard variety but serves me very well indeed when grown in the tunnel. I have tried others but found the yield inferior and the skin tougher. I will grow my cucumbers in two or three batches to extend the harvest period.
26th April
Mangel Wurzels and Finch Seed Mix.
Today I got a very big sowing job done. I have a 'spare veg patch' away from the main one, where I grow tougher crops which require more space. The soil is heavy clay here and pretty compacted, having been arable in the past. One quarter of this area is reserved for fodder crops. They only make a small donation to the animal food bill, but are a top up treat in the winter. I grow mostly Mangel Brigadier, but have sown some Yellow Eckendorff too. In all I sowed 1400 seeds, two every 15 inches or so!
Another quarter is, for the first time this year, reserved for the wild birds. I have sown a finch and bunting seed mix which should help out some of our disappearing farmland birds during the winter and early spring. Luckily this mix was simply broadcast and lightly turned in with the rotavator.
27th April

Hail and snow today and some pretty tasty thunderstorms. So I spent much of the evening in the polytunnel. I potted up all my tomato plants. These are the ones to go outside, always a bit of a gamble in our climate but I'm determined to manage them properly this year, taking off lower leaves and nipping sideshoots to give them the best chance of ripening and avoiding blight.
While I was potting up, I pricked out the celeriac seedlings too. Some of these won't be ready till late next winter so I don't want to hold up their growth even one little bit.
The storms obviously grounded a few migrant birds as my first Whitethroat for the year was calling scratchily from the dyke and a Chiffchaff was calling from the ash trees.

28th April

What a terrible start to the day. Sue was up at a ridiculously early hour and came back in to tell me that she thought Terry The Turkey had been killed. Terry is, or was, our turkey stag, a gentle giant who followed me everywhere. Only yesterday he had been stomping around in the kitchen with me. Up to now he had led a charmed life, firstly surviving Christmas and now settled with a wife and poults on the way. I went outside to investigate, but it was clear from the trail of feathers that something awful had happened. We had given up putting the pair of turkeys in housing at nights since they started roosting in random places. I often got a face full of flapping wing when I tried to move them. We've only ever lost one goose and a couple of guinea fowl to the fox, so this was a bit of a shock. He may even have died trying to protect his hen, who has been sat on her nest in the planter at the front of the house and only has 2 days to go until the chicks hopefully hatch out.

Mangetout and Aubergine update

36 days ago I planted 80 seeds of Mangetout Oregon Sugar Pod. It's a strange time of year to sow them, but I missed planting them any earlier and I was hoping they might make it through to give me an early season treat. They were, at least, planted in the polytunnel under bubble wrap.
Well I think that those which are going to germinate have now germinated, which is 34 in total. I put four peas into each pot. Some pots have completely failed. I'll leave them a while just in case. The best pots have given me three out of four plants.

Of course I would have liked 80 plants, but I was pushing my luck a bit so overall I am very happy with 34. The packet contained 200 seeds so next year I'll probably plant the other 120. If I plant them in October / November, I may well get a higher percentage of germination too.

As for the aubergines, they are getting a different start to life. These delicate little things would never germinate in the polytunnel at this time of year. They will need warmth and light for quite some time and will be high maintenance until May. It's early to start them but when I've started them later I've run out of sunshine too early to get a worthwhile crop.

I am growing Aubergine Long Purple. There are plenty of seeds in a packet, so I sowed 16. I only really want a few plants to mature - so Sod's law says they'll all come through and do well! I soaked the seeds in tepid water before sowing them in a heated propagator. It's only really a heated tray without even a thermostat, but it is designed to give an initial boost of heat to kick start delicate seeds such as aubergines, peppers and chillis.

The aubergines have started germinating now and my worry is that I don't want them to get too leggy. I'll leave them with bottom heat for a while but open the vents on the lids. But at some point they will be going into a mini greenhouse in the polytunnel. This will slow down their growth but hopefully make for sturdy little plants. I may have to get that hot bed going again.


In a similar vein, I've started off some celeriac, another crop which can never get too long in the ground. I really like the taste of celeriac, especially in a winter casserole or a soup, but this vegetable is in last chance saloon. I have had limited success growing it, but it takes most of my harvest to make a large cauldron of soup. It quite simply has to perform better this year.

I scattered the tiny seeds on the surface of the compost in a seed tray and the first tiny shoots have appeared today. Hopefully in a year's time I'll be writing about how successful my celeriac crop has been this year!

Thinking forward to next year.

Swallows gathering ready to leave

This year has been a challenging one but still I have learned a lot and things have moved forwards here on the smallholding.
But as September is upon us, I start to cast my mind to next year. Which varieties have earned their place in next year's plan? What should I change? What has worked well?

Saturday 1st September 2012
An autumn sunrise!

Of course, next year may well be completely different. But here are my initial thoughts.

Potatoes - They liked the water this year, but the swollen lenticels made them a difficult prospect to sell. Then The Blight hit. I tried over a dozen varieties, which has given us way too many spuds given that I can't really sell many. And that's a lot of digging to plant them in ridges, earth them up and then dig them out at the end. So next year I'll be more selective. I've not even investigated how some of the types have fared or harvested, but my initial thoughts are:
Earlies and Second Earlies
Bonnies - a definite - large, smooth, abundant, good-looking. Quite large losses to blight, but next year I'll be more ready to deal with it!
Red Duke of York and Salad Blue - The Yorks are a mealy potato, great for chips and roasting. Didn't enjoy the wet soil though. Salad Blues did well, but more of a novelty crop. They give a nice, sweet mashed potato, but the purple flesh turns a little greyish.
I'll probably choose one of these varieties each year. Both hit heavily by blight.
Dunluce / Arran Pilot - Two good early potatoes. Dunluce grow big quickly but Arran Pilot didn't reach full size before the tops were bitten. Probably grow one of these in future, along with Charlotte. All affected by swollen lenticels, not great on a new potato.
Swift - I won't bother with this one again. Maybe it just didn't like conditions this year, but poor yield, never really got going.
Edgecote Purple - An attractive, purple potato (clue's in the name) which has cropped fairly well. Not too many tubers got by blight. Shame I had to take off the foliage so early. The spuds which reached full size were amazing. A definite for next year.

Maincrops
I've not harvested many of these yet. Last year the Desirees and Pink Fir Apples did brilliantly, but that was a dry year so I'm expecting the opposite this year. However, there'll always be a place for both of these in my potato patch. The Setantas cropped well. Although the tops were decimated by blight like all the others, I seem to have a good crop of healthy, red tubers under the soil. I've not tried them enough ways to comment on taste yet.
Sarpo Mira - strange to see one variety almost totally unaffected by blight. Top growth is still green, even now. This is a big advantage, though I have been told that the taste is a bit bland. I'll let you know.
I'm really hoping the Orlas do well, as they're sold as the organic gardener's spud. Top rotted away with blight, so we'll see what lies under the soil.

Peas
Well, we've all learned that peas love loads of water. What a great year for them! I used to think they weren't worth growing, and they're probably not if you're going to put them in the freezer. But as a fresh crop they take some beating, even if they don't stay on the fork, especially raw which is how I prefer them. I must say, I find it hard to tell between different varieties. They're all lovely! The traditional Kelvedon Wonder did well this year and they're going cheap in the shops at the momnent. I could save my own seed, but if it's economical I like to change it every now and again.
The Sugar Snaps were lovely too, so fresh and crunchy, but I'll make more effort to get a successional crop next year. As for the mangetouts - well, the purple-podded look nice and crop well, but for me they're a bit too cabbagey. Next year I'll be trying a more traditional green mangetout.

Beans
What a disastrous year! Virtually none made it past the slugs, which is such a shame. I grow French Bean Blue Lake for fresh pods and Canadian Wonder for kidney beans to dry. I tried the latter as fresh pods last year but couldn't bear the stringiness. The Borlottis joined both these varieties in totally failing this year.
On the plus side, the pack of "exotic beans" which I got from the 99p shop (or was it Poundland?) gave me a pretty good crop of purple pods (Purple Teepee) and the yellow pods (Monte d'Or) tasted beautiful. I'll be interested to see how the black-eyed beans do.They are healthy at the moment. I'll be buying a few of these packs next year, though it's a bit of a pain having to sort out the seeds from the mixed pack.

Runner Beans
Again, these struggled to get past the slugs. The Painted Ladies are a heritage variety which I've chosen on account of their red and white flowers. They are vigorous and crop well, but I've decided to go for a stringless variety next year. I don't like a mouth full of razorlike stringy green stuff and, even if I try to pick them young, I reckon that a customer finding themselves chewing on one of these would not come back.
The Czars, which I grow for their white flowers and white beans, are much less vigorous but, when I do eat them as pods, less prone to be stringy unless they are obviously too big. So they get another chance next year.

Three Sisters
Well, it only ended up as Two Sisters but I've been pretty impressed. The Sweetcorn (Lark) has flourished, it's wispy heads towering above the carpet of courgettes, squashes and pumpkins. Aside from the courgette mountain problem, this system may get even more space next year. I'll add more different winter squashes, as they look great and store well.

The cucurbits which I grew in tyres have done very well too, so I'll continue with this next year.

Leeks and Celery
The leeks and celery seem to be growing very well indeed in each other's company. We've started taking some of the young celery already and I look forward to the leeks later in the year.

Root crops
The Parsnips (Tender & True) have, I think, done brilliantly. Another crop which likes plenty of water early on I guess. I'm confidently expecting to have to bring in a digger to get the whole roots out. I don't know whether interplanting with garlic has helped, but since they've done so well I'll repeat this next year. In stark contrast, none of my Hamburg Parsley came up from two sowings. Such a shame as I really like it. I'll try again next year, but if it fails again...
Carrots of all varieties have had a catastrophic year. I've always been able to rely on these doing well before. I'm sure they'll do well again next year and I'll still grow lots of different colours and shapes.
The Scorzonera, which did so well last year, also failed to materialise. We really like the taste but the long, black roots are extremely fiddly to peel. In contrast, its sister crop, the Salsify, has done brilliantly, as has the Celeriac next to it. Both crops need longer to harvest, but I'm full of expectation. I'll leave some Salsify to flower, since it's a lovely plant all round.
Beetroots have done OK this year, though germination was poor and the slugs got all of those which were planted later. But I do love the taste. I think three types is enough, a red one (may try one of the longer tubers next year), stripy Chioggia and a golden one for sure.

Brassicas
As usual, everything else has got on top of me and the poor brassicas have dropped off the bottom of the list. Next year! The turnips did well early on!



So, that's the beginnings of my plans for next year. No doubt over the winter months I'll be absorbed in planning everything in much more detail. There's the flowers and herbs too, and of course I have a polytunnel for next year which will give a whole new range of opportunites and challenges.

Roll on 2013!

Going back to my roots

  

Friday 29th June 2012
The clearest of morning skies

Remember those carrots that never came up? No, I'm not going to tell you that they've all magically and mysteriously sprung up in the last few days. Quite the reverse. They've been an unmitigated disaster. The spring onions have fared just as poorly, as well as a couple of my beetroot varieties. A combination of three factors has caused this. First, my own miserliness, trying to use old seed that had been poorly stored. Second, the washout spring and early summer we've had. And third, the plague of slugs we've encountered this year.

In fact, things have been so bad I've been avoiding this quarter of my veg patch, letting the onions, shallots and garlic get on by themselves. They're planted to deter the carrotfly!
Of course, the easiest way to deter carrotfly is to have no carrots!!!

My root beds (after a tidy up)

Back to my roots
Today's job was to go back to my roots. I ventured in, equipped with shears, hoe and trowel. At least if I could tidy up the edges and weed out the weeds, with the sun shining I might just see a chink of light at the end of the tunnel.

... And there it was. My salsify was flourishing between the sage plants I've dotted around for the general well-being of the veg patch.

Salsify and Sage doing well.

Celeriac
The other end of the salsify bed was waiting for my celeriac seedlings, and they went in today too. This root is in fact a form of celery where the base swells up and is the part to eat. I prefer it to celery as I find the taste more delicate. Besides, those whiskery, bearded roots always make me smile when I pull them up in the autumn. Celeriac needs a long season to succeed in this country, and home-grown plants never quite achieve the clean lines and the stature of those in the shops, but it is nevertheless a crop which I find well worth the effort.

Carrots
Spurred on by my discovery of a thriving salsify crop, I uncovered just a few carrot plants, borne of the toughest seeds.

The idea of some beautifully sweet, early carrots is a distant memory now. So too the multicoloured succession of roots plucked straight from the ground and lucky to make it back to the kitchen before being munched.
But I figure it's not too late to try for a crop to enjoy in the autumn and to store through the winter. So I've resown some of my beds with seed purchased this year. The slugs are more under control, the weather seems less inclement and I reckon things might just turn out OK.

Mixed success in the beetroot bed.

Beetroots
Over in the beetroot and onion bed, the Red Ace beetroots have fared pretty well. About three quarters of the line has come up, so I filled the gaps today. The Chioggia, those wonderful beetroots with their rings of colour, were much more sparse. And the Burpees Golden, Sue's favourite... Two plants in a twelve foot row!
I've resown the seed I had left over from the last two varieties in seedtrays to give them as much chance as possible of at least getting a start in life, and I used any leftover seed to partially fill the gaps. I may just get a few extra plants if I'm lucky.

Scorzonera
(please don't ask me exactly how to pronounce it. I've done well to spell it!)
The scorzonera and maincrop carrot bed is difficult to fathom at the moment. There's certainly no carrots come up and it's hard to find more than a few young scorzonera plants, but they do look so like grass and are terribly difficult to pick out in amongst the stray blades. Since my veg beds were carved out of a lush sheep paddock, eradicating the couch-grass and dandelions from them has been a drawn-out process, but one which I am definitely winning.

Scorzonera and salsify are usually grouped together as sister crops, so it won't be a disaster if I only get salsify this year. Last year I only bothered with scorzonera and was delighted to harvest a good crop of ridiculously long, gnarled black roots at the end of the year. If you can get past the fact that they are stubbornly difficult to peel (best done after coooking), you really should give scorzonera a chance. I love the taste and texture, though I can't even begin to describe it.

Thinning out the 'snips


One of last year's parsnips which I must have missed!
I do like to leave some vegetables to flower .
Salsify is a particularly good one, as is rocket.
I may try collecting the seed, though I won't rely on it.

The parsnips are, along with the salsify, the stars of the root bed show this year. I've grown lines of them interspersed with garlic and a few pot marigolds. They're supposed to be good companions. There are a few odd patches where germination has failed, but on the whole my 'snips have done well. I do know that parsnip seed is one that really doesn't stay viable for more than a year, so each year new seed is used.

I learned a valuable lesson last year, when I failed to thin. I was rewarded with a crop of long, skinny parsnips which didn't make much impact in the pot. Where I was lucky and a seedling had germinated all on its lonesome, I got the most fantastic long, chunky roots. So today I bit the bullet and thinned. Most of my plants were growing in pairs or even triplets, as I had sown the papery seeds in clusters at stations every six to eight inches apart.
(While just looking something up, I came across some valuable advice about sowing parsnips. Two bits of advice really. The first was to sow by scattering seed along a four inch drill rather than at cluster stations, as the latter often leads to gaps in the rows - I can bear testament to this. The second was to ignore the seed packet instruction and wait till early April to sow rather than February. I never make February anyway!)
Anyway, back to the thinning out. This process pains me greatly. I find it like pulling my own teeth, though I know it has to be done and is for the best. But today I pulled a couple of dozen perfect, tapering roots. I can only hope that my attempt to leave the strongest plants means that there are even better plants left in the ground with room to expand.

It just seemed such a shame, and especially with all those gaps, but I really couldn't imagine that such long, thin roots would transplant well into the gaps. So instead I filled them with a few spare celeriac plants.

Hamburg Parsley
I've saved the worst till last. Nothing. Zilch. Rien. Last year I spilled all the seed before I could sow it and had to buy in an emergency packet. In the end it didn't get sown till June 18th, but I still got a decent crop. The roots look like parsnip but have  a nuttier flavour and the leaves can be used just like normal parsley. I do like a plant with two uses.
So today I rotavated the bed and started afresh. A bit late, but I'll push my luck and see what happens.


Just one bed left to sort out now. I grow my leeks and celery in the roots quarter of the veg patch and I have some young plants thriving in seed trays at the moment. They'll move into their final positon in a couple of days time.

Raspberries, Celeriac and Hamburg Parsley

Friday 20th January 2011

A third day without seeing the sun actually rise. In fact, the sky this morning was a completely universal shade of grey. No contrast, no variation. There was no point starting on tree planting today as I had to work at school in the afternoon. I find it not worth starting a really big job if I have to break the job before I've really got into it.

Save The Raspberries!

So I spent the morning, in the constant drizzle, weeding a new raspberry bed and planting up the raspberries I had salvaged from one of the wilder parts of the farm. I got very muddy, and occasionally had to rinse my hands under the overflowing water butts before I continued my work. I found label - Octavia. When I looked this up I found them to be a late summer fruiting variety. Now I'm no expert, but I know there are basically two types of raspberry, summer fruiting and autumn fruiting. There is a crucial difference. Autumn fruiting bear their fruit on this year's canes. These are all cut down at the end of the year and the next spring the whole plant shoots up again ready to bear fruit on every stem. Summer fruiting bear thier fruits on shoots which grew the year before. So at the end of the year there will be two types of cane on each plant: Those with fruit, which can be harvested and then pruned out; and those with no fruit which need to be left to bear next year's fruit.

There's probably a way of telling, but to my untrained eye all the canes on these plants look the same. It my be that the old, dead canes have already snapped off, but for the moment I will leave all the canes until next year, when I can see which canes fruit.

A Parsnip Impersonator and a Bearded Celery.

When I returned from work I harvested some leeks, some celeriac and some hamburg parsley. Celeriac in this country does not quite grow to be as big and chunky as that which is flown in from elsewhere. However, as a first sortee into this field, I am happy to get any crop at all. Celeriac is, reportedly, just a form of celery wherre the base swells. This is the part which is eaten and it's actually a corm rather than a root. Which explains the mass of beard-like roots emanating from the bottom. Not widely grown in the UK as it requires a long growing season, celeriac provides a refreshing root with a strong hint of celery. Hamburg Parsley looks like parsnip, but the leaves are basically parsley and can be used as such. So a vegetable with a double use. I'd never tried it before, but the root had a subtly nutty taste.

I had an idea for these ingredients. A true rustic feast. I sauteed the vegetables with a couple of handfuls of green lentils, chucked in a good scattering of fennel seeds and then the final piece, some ham hock. Simmered until most of the liquid was soaked up by the lentils, served with mash and a chilli, chorizo sausage. Sue said it was the best meal I had ever served up! I have to admit, it was very tasty and perfect for a winter evening.