Growing Anticipation

Things are looking on the up. A period of high pressure and dry weather has allowed the ground to dry out a little, though there is still plenty enough water left to keep the Muscovy ducks happy.

And a few clear, sunny days have done wonders to lift the spirits. It almost feels like spring, though I may be getting a bit premature there.
Seed sowing is almost upon us. At this time of year there is a great feeling of anticipation and a temptation to rush into the new growing season. Most seeds, however, benefit from a little patience so they can grow when conditions are actually much better for them rather than having to struggle against poor light conditions, cold weather and wet soil.
The flip side of this is that some more Mediterranean and tropical crops need a long season and only start to produce crops late in the summer. An early start gives a much higher percentage of ripening and cropping time.
In reality it is a balance and very much depends on conditions from year to year. Last year looked good until June, but them summer failed to properly materialise. Blight came quite early and hit the potatoes hard. It hit the outdoor tomatoes just as we were starting to get a crop. Chillis and peppers never had time to ripen either, even in the polytunnel. Beans and squashes didn't get enough autumn sun to dry out properly for storage. I can't squeeze the timing of these any more as they can only be planted out after all risk of frost has passed. We may not get many frosts these days, but a late one can still cause havoc, and let's not forget the Beast from the East and not get lulled into a false sense of security  by mild winter conditions. Onions and leeks never reached their full potential either and I will definitely be starting them earlier this year.

The answer with most crops is not to put all your eggs in one basket. Seeds are cheap and there are often way too many in a packet, so there is no harm trying for an early sowing but with a later one as insurance.

So with this in mind I do actually have a list of seeds to sow right now. Things have been delayed a little by the oiler finally giving up the ghost. We spent two weeks with no central heating.

To say the least, I was not impressed with this Worcester Bosch boiler which only gave us about 6 years of service. 

That black smoke should be clear steam.

So it was a relief to finally get a new boiler fitted.

Most exciting though, look at that big bit of cardboard  which should be enough to cover one of my weedy veg beds!

Now that  we have warmth in every room again, I will be able to give some early seeds the right conditions to get a start in the house. Once they have germinated, most move to the conservatory which is cooler but has good light. From there it's into the polytunnel with the added protection of a mini greenhouse and a propagator cloche if needed.
I have found this system generally to give me really strong seedlings for more hardy outdoor vegetables and for those which will grow in the protected polytunnel environment.

Of course, the race is still on to prepare all the beds. My back still seems to be on the mend, so compost turning is still very much a priority. I have used all of the compost from the ready pile and it has covered not 20% of my beds. However, at the bottom of the huge heap which has not been turned since mid August there is a large quantity of usable material. This will mostly be reserved for covering my seed potatoes in about ten weeks time. This weekend is Cambridgeshire Self Sufficiency Group's annual potato day in Huntingdon. I help out here and will be purchasing this year's crop of seed potatoes. I am planning to grow eleven varieties of potato this year.

Above: Any help greatly appreciated. Boris does his best to shred any sticks he finds in the compost, plus a bit of digging.

Below: Once the beds are covered with a thin layer of compost to exclude the light, I lay fleece over the top. This is to stop the chickens and ducks displacing all the compost. After a while the compost settles and I can remove the fleece. 

When I plant seedlings' out, the fleece will be used to protect them again and once the plants are big enough to remove the fleece, the ducks and chickens will be excluded from the veg patch.

Compost turning back on the agenda

8th January 2020 - Jobs for the day

Put bins bags out for collection
Feed and let out poultry
Check rat traps, move one into stable to catch the rat in there
Batch freeze soup made yesterday - by the way, concentrated orange and pineapple squash is not a suitable substitute for the juice of an orange in a butternut and parsnip soup recipe
Go to doctors for vaccinations for upcoming trip
Check out swan flock that has appeared in the fields on the way to the doctors. (49 Bewick's Swans and 140 Whooper Swans)
Clear perennial weeds from two veg beds, mulch with an inch of compost to protect the surface and provide goodness for next year. Cover with fleece until it settles down to stop the ducks and chickens moving it back off again.
Turn 2019 compost heap.


Yes. TURN 2019 COMPOST HEAP.
This is significant as it's the first time I've actually been able to turn the compost since the end of August. I don't want to build my hopes up too far, but months of gingerly pottering around in fear of aggravating my back pains may be coming to an end. Enforced rest (which has driven me stir crazy) and half an hour of exercises every night seems to have finally got me to the stage where actually using and exercising my back muscles, within reason, is helping my recovery.

The compost which I started back in November 2018, when I decided to trial no dig, has shrunk unimaginably. Despite my best efforts, there will only be enough to cover about a fifth of my veg beds. This has always been a concern of mine about the no-dig system as I see post upon post on Facebook where people are bringing in compost. To me a truly regenerative system needs to be self-supporting and this is what I am constantly searching for.
On a more positive note, I have a humungous pile of compostable material that I have amassed during 2019. I've just not been able to turn it of late.
From the outside it looks nothing like compost as the outermost surface is recently added material, but when I turned it today it didn't take long to reach usable compost. The best stuff was where I had added woodchip which comes directly from trees and shrubs grown specifically for harvesting for this purpose.
In fact I reckon I will be able to cover close to half of the veg beds with what I have produced.

This is encouraging and spurs me forwards to producing more and more compost. The willow bed will go from strength to strength, as will the elephant grass, both specifically cultivated for adding to the compost. Their roots will stay in the soil to add structure.

I was disappointed not to be able to try my oats experiment this year. The idea is to sow oats quite thickly after the earlier harvests. I can get whole oats as animal feed for less than £5 for a 15kg bag. The oats will grow enough to protect the soil surface, then get killed off by the frost. Come springtime they can be raked off and added to the compost.
I don't know anybody in this country who uses this method but I have seen it on YouTube and can't see why it won't work.

No digging, plenty of lugging!

With Spring hurtling towards us, there is plenty to do to get ready for sowing and growing. The ground has been pretty much frozen for a while now, so I have used my time to do some of the more physical jobs on the smallholding, mainly moving piles of stuff from one place to another.

Firstly an offer of woodchip rapidly developed into collecting 6 trailer loads of the stuff over several days. It's not heavy, but that's still a lot of shovel fulls to load and then unload at this end.
Considering how much I shifted, it seems to have gone nowhere. I do at least now have some nice woodchip paths between my new no-dig veg beds.
Not all the beds are ready yet as there are leeks and brassicas still in the ground holding up my redesign of the bed system, so the last couple of trailer loads are piled up waiting to go to their new home.

While the trailer was on the car I used the opportunity to collect a couple of loads of straw bales. We are fortunate that a couple of very local farms still do conventional small bales which are far easier to handle than the massive agricultural scale ones which mostly go straight off to be burned for energy these days.
They are still only £1 per bale here, which is ridiculously cheap compared to other areas of the country.

I've continued moving compost onto some of the new beds too. The asparagus bed is looking particularly swanky. I hope the asparagus plants appreciate my efforts and throw up a forest of lovely spears this year.

Final job, and one which Sue excels at, was to clear a year's bedding from the goose stable. We run them on a deep litter system and have a good clean out once a year just before they begin laying, which traditionally happens on Valentine's day (give or take a couple of weeks).
This heady mix of straw and goose poo goes by wheelbarrow straight down to the soft fruit patch. I had to hurriedly prune all the currant bushes before it went down.
I pile it around the base of each bush and then the chickens come along and spread it everywhere!
This practice seems to reward me with ample currants. The blackcurrants especially thrive under this system.

While I was down in the soft fruit patch, I finally finished

cutting back the summer raspberries.

 

I laid cardboard on the grass (thanks Big Dug) and covered it with 

goose bedding. This will create a new bed into which I intend 

to plant more blackcurrant bushes which I raised from cuttings two years ago.

Growing Plans - The Wheel Goes No-Dig

I am more excited about the coming growing season than I have been for a long while.

I am going back to a system of smaller veg beds. I originally had the veg plot divided into 68 beds separated by grass paths. But those paths were a complete pain to mow, offering miles of edges for slugs to hide underneath.
So gradually I joined the smaller beds together until I was down to 28. The advantage of this was a lot less grass edge, simpler mowing and bigger beds which were easier to rotavate. The disadvantage was having to walk on beds to get to plants and it being more difficult to organise crops within the beds.

So this winter I am biting the bullet and going back to many small veg beds, but I am doing it differently. There won't be grass paths between the smaller beds. Instead each of the larger beds will be divided up into free-standing beds with permanent sunken pathways in between.

This means that using the rotavator will be difficult. Manoeuvring it in such small beds is difficult and it will kick the soil all over the paths.
Instead I am going for no dig.

The plan taking shape on the ground

I have been highly sceptical about no-dig in the past, seeing it as a fad which generally requires more mulch than a garden can possibly produce which in turn encourages slugs and usually seems to demand raised beds using forests of wood as edging (given that we don't have access to natural materials like rocks).
There are alternatives to raised beds, such as lasagna beds, but even the name puts me off! These rely on layers of mulch and compost which can go straight down even onto turf. As long as the layers are thick enough this will create an instant fertile bed.
There are also systems which rely on black plastic to cover the ground, but this just feels completely wrong to me.

Then I came across Charles Dowding's method of no dig where he uses compost as a mulch. The advantage of this is that it is not so attractive to slugs as all the rotting material is not sitting on the veg beds. In theory the compost mulch keeps weeding to a minimum too, though I suspect that a fair bit of weeding will still be required.
Of course, we are back to the original problem of how on earth to produce enough compost. Charles Dowding appears to bring in large quantities of soil improver made from green waste. This often comes with plenty of plastic fragments in, as well as needing to be purchased and brought in. He also seems to have a close relative with plenty of cows and benefits from bulk deliveries of manure.

So I set to thinking how I could realistically and sustainably mulch my beds.
The solution I have come to combines a host of methods.

Firstly I will collect from all over the smallholding for the compost heaps. I am hoping to grow Miscanthus elephant grass and to chip short rotation coppice willow to give bulky material to add. I already grow plenty of comfrey but again will make sure that I harvest this on a regular basis.

My compost heaps, the key to my new system.

But this still won't be enough, even with the addition of plenty of bedding from the poultry.

I am using cardboard to exclude light and protect the soil surface too. Everybody who visits has to bring all their boxes with them!

Beds protected for the winter, light excluded so that emerging weeds expend all their energy then die off.

Here I have put nitrogen rich poultry bedding under the cardboard. 

I will let the ducks (aka slug hoovers) in before planting.

I am also planning on using green manures. However, most of these need digging in which goes against the whole philosophy of no dig. So I am being selective. Field beans seem like a good option as they are hardy so will give protection to the soil over winter, but in the spring the tops can be chopped off and moved to the compost bins while the roots will be left in the soil to add structure and nutrients. Unfortunately I made all these decisions a little too late to sow field beans so I am growing them in modules in the polytunnel so they can hopefully be planted out soon.
I also have a plan to trial sowing oats in early autumn next year where crops have been harvested. I don't see a reason why I can't use the whole oats which I buy as part of my fermented poultry mix. I know it germinates.
Oats are not frost hardy, so should die down with the first heavy frosts. They will then protect the soil over winter before being raked off and moved to the compost bin in spring if they've not already rotted down.

The first bed to go into active service. 

Two rows of garlic cloves and I will sow parsnips down the middle when the time is right.

I do anticipate a potential increase in the slug population, which is one of the major problems of no dig in our climate. But I am hoping to make good use of the ducks to control this, letting them into areas at critical times to clear the ground before tender crops go in.

It is going to be a time of trying out new ideas and it will be more work to begin with getting it set up, but I have high hopes for my new growing system.
The disadvantage, if you see it that way, is that it looks more 'rustic'. Usually at this point in the year I would have beautifully rotavated beds and the overall design of the veg plot, which I call The Wheel, would be clear for all to see.

So why go no dig at this point?
Firstly it is about going back to smaller beds again, where Mr Rotavator becomes a little clumsy. The appeal of a lot less weeding is a draw too, though I think this may be overstated as part of the sell.
The main reason is gut instinct. After eight years of cultivation my soil is lovely to work and grow in now, but it doesn't feel like it has much life in it. When I leave a bed uncultivated for a while it becomes full of worms and it is beautifully crumbly, even at the end of winter when the bare soil has been beaten down by the elements.
The theory of no dig is to protect the surface of the soil and to keep the life within it undisturbed. Not just worms but less tangible elements, particularly mycorrhizal fungi which form a linked network through huge areas of soil and interact symbiotically with plant roots.
I will have to take peoples' word for this, but I am prepared to give it a go and see what happens.
Of course, mulching is not exclusively for no-dig systems, but it will go right up the list of priorities. The idea is that the time working and shifting compost is made up for by spending less time weeding and digging. I am hoping too that mulching more effectively will help crops get through dry periods and make for better conditions for vegetables which don't like the soil to dry out.

As I say, gut feeling says this is right for my plot right now.

I will keep you updated through the year.

Compost designs

Steaming heaps

There are big changes afoot with my compost heaps. I have 6 made of pallets and three bays made of corrugated iron. But it is an effort turning the compost from one pallet to another and to be honest it doesn't get done anywhere near as much as it should, resulting in cold composting which takes years rather than hot composting which can take a little as a couple of months in the summer.

So gone are the dividers between the bays. This year's compost is now in one giant long heap, easily accessed and easily turned every time I pass or throw something on the heap.

If this new way is successful, most of the pallet compost heaps will go too. I'll just keep the best ones to store well-rotted compost in or for perennial weed roots or leaf mould.

2018 Veg - All Systems Go Go GO!

Sunday 7th January 2018
Poultry losses
We lost one of the ducks on Saturday, the male Cayuga. He just wasn't there when I went to put them away. No feathers, no blood, no body. I count my blessings really that whatever took him just took one. It rarely happens and always at this time of year, when food is short for predators.

And today one of the commercial meat chicks. I didn't count them in last night, but only 7 emerged this morning. I searched everywhere before the gruesome find of the poor little thing encased in ice in the paddling pool. This is the first bird we have lost in there, as we have placed bricks around the edge and a wooden ramp to aid escape.
Losses are always sad, but sometimes they are unpredictable or unavoidable. It's part of the price of letting the birds have more freedom.
Monday8th January 2018
Turning the soil
Onto more positive things.
I took advantage of drier and frosty conditions this morning to finally get the bed ready for the garlic cloves. They'll be going in tomorrow when the soil is a bit softer. 100 cloves to produce 100 garlic bulbs. This will be the fifth year I've used my old bulbs with no negative effect on harvest. Not bad considering I ignored all the advice to buy specialist stock and instead brought them originally from a small Asian supermarket in Harrow.

Mr Rotavator comes out for the first time in 2018. I love to see the chickens and robins grabbing the opportunity to rid my soil of creepy crawlies. I'm sure they eat some good ones too, but so be it. As long as they get the slug eggs.

Sue picked up some Early potatoes for me too yesterday. They are to go in the polytunnel immediately, to start the new potato harvest early.  So after I had rotavated the garlic bed I set to clearing out the polytunnel. I'm tight for time for a spring clean, but if I can get the tubers into the soil I can get the spring clean done before the leaves poke through the surface.

I need to plant my polytunnel mangetout seeds too - which means auditing what seeds I have and completing my vegetable seed order for the year.

Wow! All of a sudden it feels as if the 2018 growing season is upon us. It gives me a spring in my step. Between now and February half term I'll try to take advantage of any fine days when the soil is not sodden to work all the veg beds, emptying the compost bins and incorporating it into the soil.

This year I plan to stick to the basics. No fancy crops that we don't really eat. Besides, I've tried just about every exotic vegetable there is to try.

I have some major smallholding projects planned for the year, so I am going to try to make my veg growing more simple and organised.

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!

A New Comfrey Bed

18th March 2017
Re-reading the works of Lawrence D Hills (founder of the UK organic movement) has inspired me to make better use of my comfrey plants.

My established comfrey plants are coming up fast.

Half a comfrey plant will make many more.

They are of the variety Russian Bocking 14, which importantly does not self-seed all over the place. Instead you multiply it by dividing the rootstock. This is the time of year to perform this operation, just as the leaves of established plants are poking their heads up into the spring air.

It is achieved by simply plunging a spade into an existing plant. The considerable rootstock is surprisingly juicy and crisp. I like to leave at least half of the old plant in its place, but the other half can be subdivided into a dozen new plants easily. In theory, each small part of root will become a new plant, but I like to use a part of root which is throwing up new leaves. I think this may be the difference between a root cutting and an offset, though I may be wrong! Anyway, you can't really go wrong with comfrey.

I guess the only thing would be to establish a bed where you don't want it to be in a few years time, for the depth of the roots and the ease with which they grow into new plants when chopped up means that getting it out of the ground is almost impossible (repeated doses of weedkiller would have to be the solution I guess)

Today I used three of my established plants to create a new bed of 50 plants! The parent plants will be back to their best very quickly and by next year the young plants will have caught up with them.

Why do I need this much comfrey? Mainly as a natural fertiliser and as a compost component. Comfrey has extraordinarily deep roots which bring nutrients from way down. The leaves can be cut half a dozen times a year and if you let it flower it is much appreciated by the bees. I have planted a few in odd corners which I allow to flower, but the main beds I try to keep on top of cutting.

Comfrey leaves can be put straight into the ground under transplanted seedlings or laid on top as a mulch. They can be added to the compost heap or steeped in water to make a tomato feed soup. If I can grow enough, I intend to feed it to the chickens too as a once a week treat.

It took me most of the morning to create my new bed (much of which was taken up extracting dock roots and creeping thistle from the new site) which is down in the spare veg patch, next to the compost bins there.

While we are on the subject of compost, I now have a new source of horse manure. Next door have a fancy poo hoover and today I took delivery of my first poo, all nicely chopped up. It will be a fantastic addition to the compost bins, adding goodness and considerably speeding up the rate at which they turn garden rubbish into black gold.

Much of last year's mature compost went onto the veg beds at the beginning of winter. More specifically it went onto the beds where this year I will grow potatoes. It has been rotting down and being incorporated into the soil by the worms.
Today I took Mr Rotavator onto those beds and managed to turn them. Mr Rotavator has been a bit poorly of late. His engine has been running far too fast and threatening to explode! I have poked around a little bit and today he seemed to run fine which was a relief as now is not a good time for him to throw a sickie!

New potatoes and rows of turnip seedlings

doing well in the polytunnel

Double protection for the carrot seedlings

I was hoping to get my early spuds into the ground, but the heavens opened and drove me into the polytunnel. In there the extra early potatoes have already reached the surface. We should have scrummy new potatoes just as last year's stored tubers have run their course.
I sowed a new row of turnips too and resowed the carrots. For the second year in a row they seemed to disappear as soon as they germinated. I have taken the precaution of cloching the new ones in case it is too cold for the seedlings at night time. I have scattered some organic slug pellets in there too to cover that option.

The rain never stopped for the rest of the day. I did all the work I could think of to do in the tunnel and then retreated indoors.

The evening was spent at a Race Night (lots of gambling, drinking and eating, all in moderation of course) to raise money for Sue's school. They raised over £1000 which is not bad for a small village school. The money will be used to pay for the children to go to the pantomime later in the year. I reckon it should be Jack and The Beanstalk or Mother Goose.

All Muck But Not A Lot Of Magic Yet

Saturday 11th March 2017

For those who enjoyed reading about Arthur's escapades,

here he is at the scene of the crime, the attractively named South Holland Main Drain

 And here's a spot the difference for you to play.

We have had a few trees topped off. They were looming over the neighbour's house (can't stand the neighbour, but not worth the hassle of a tree falling on their house!)
Anyway, I am hoping to effectively coppice them at head height so they thicken up at the bottom and remain manageable for me.
Meanwhile, I have a lovely pile of silver birch logs to put to creative use somewhere. I am thinking of a log pile by the new pond I am half way through constructing.

Main event for the weekend though is that tomorrow the four Shetland ewes will be coming down into the stables ready for lambing, hopefully in a couple of weeks time. As ever though, there is competition for stable space, especially with the chickens still in as a precaution against bird flu.

A new home for the laying flock.

I am hoping to be able to move them

outside in a few weeks time.

The main flock of layers, along with Cocky, had to vacate their stable and move into the smaller pad next door. In turn, the Ixworth trio have been allowed outside - to their great delight. There is a large chicken pen for them to scratch around in and nothing has been eating the bugs for three months. Chicken heaven!

The Ixworth trio enjoying the great outdoors.

With the Ixworths caught and moved, it was time for one of those glamorous jobs us smallholders just love - cleaning out the deep litter from the stables.



I don't want any sympathy, but I have just had my third bout of man flu this winter. Not many men even survive that sort of onslaught. What better way to get over it than to spend the day moving huge piles of compost around.
Sue emptied the stable, delivering barrel load after barrel load to me down at the compost bays.
I unloaded the straw and while I was waiting I mixed in the material from the other five compost bins. This was a killer of a job, but the mix of composting materials should come good once the weather warms up a little more. Most of it is destined to go onto the soft fruits to act as a mulch and to be taken down into the ground by the worms.

Boris supervises the compost mixing.

Getting the lambs ready for a journey

Monday 14th November 2016
Boris was a bit under the weather today. I think he got stung by nettles yesterday. Arthur and I stayed in and looked after him.

Tuesday 15th November
It's a time of clearing and preparing the soil for next year. I never get this achieved when I'd like to in late autumn and then the ground usually becomes too wet to work except when there is a heavy frost.
But this year the ground is, for the moment, drier. Anticipating removing a lot of dead and dying foliage, I decided to turn all the compost heaps today and to move any well-matured compost from the bottom of the heaps and place it on next year's potato beds for the worms to work in to the soil.
This was a pretty big job, but it was a good day for it.

Came across a couple of dead rats in the compost heaps.

Good to know the poison is working.

There aren't many around, but they have been more persistent than usual this year.

Boris stayed inside for the morning, but Arthur kept by my side until he rediscovered the joys of digging for voles. After lunch Boris came out and between them they managed to catch one.

Darkness comes soon at this time of year. We'll get the peg loom out soon to pass away the long winter evenings. But today there was international football to watch - that was until we really were plunged into the past when the electricity went off. It made a couple of attempts to come back, but I missed most of the goals. It made me think about what people did in the past. Winter must have been a lot harder than it is now.

You can just make out the lapwing flock as it wheels round over the distant copse.

Thursday 17th November 2016

It was nice to see a sizeable flock of lapwings wheeling around the fields today. As they turned back into the sun they gleamed white. It must have taken at least ten minutes before they finally decided it was safe to land.

Friday 18th November 2016

A forage around the garden to find the ingredients for a couple of cauldrons of soup. The leek plants are looking good and there is a whole bed of self-seeded parsley which brightens the place up at this time of year. So a leek and potato soup was definitely on the cards. The Grow-Your-Own group are round tomorrow evening, so I'll use the opportunity to use up some pumpkin too. The sage has thrived this year so a Pumpkin and Sage soup should do the trick.

Saturday 19th November 2016

A welcome significant frost and a reminder to turn as much of the soil as possible so the frost can get in and kill off some of the nasties.

The evening gathering went very well and we managed to come up with some exciting plans for 2017. More about those later.

Sunday 20th November 2016

Main job today was to worm the four sheep in the top paddock and to get ear tags in the two Shetlands which are going off next week. The wormer is just a precaution, but it has a six day withdrawal period on the meat (the minimum period between administering the medication and slaughter) so needed to be done today.
The two Shetland lambs were born and reared on the farm and have always been pretty tame as far as Shetlands go. The two commercials were cade lambs from the rare breeds farm and have been interacting with humans all their lives. So getting them penned was easy. We draw the hurdles in around them until they are pretty much pinned in. This makes administering drugs (just a liquid which is syringed into their mouths) and putting in ear tags very easy. Most importantly it's efficient, stress-free for us and the sheep.

With the ground turning sticky the commercial ewe who's been up here all the time had picked up a large clod of mud between her toes which was causing her to limp a little. This was a good opportunity to remove it - there was actually a stone inside it - and she is much happier now.