Ten years of geese and a (meteorological) Spring clean

Ten years ago a friend phoned to say someone had dumped five geese on her front lawn. We had no experience whatsoever of keeping geese, but I proved rather adept at catching them and they came back to ours in the boot of the car.

First Goose Egg of 2022
Ten years to the day since then we have the first goose egg of 2022. Valentine's Day is the traditional date for this but it varies from goose to goose and year to year. 

Over the last decade the geese have given us quite a few eggs, a few goslings and they have done a lot of grass cutting for me, as well as spreading a good amount of manure.

Garden Spring Clean (meteorolical refers to The Spring, not the extent of the clearing up!)
The problem with going on holiday in February (not that I'm complaining) is that I am already a little behind schedule and at the mercy of the weather. We are now officially in meteorological Spring and it began with one of those gorgeous spring days we love so much. 

After finishing taking the breasts off the pigeons we were gifted, I devoted some time to weeding out perennials from the veg beds. The war against grasses, docks, nettles and creeping buttercup is a never-ending one, but it does get easier with persistence and if you pick the right soil conditions to perform the extraction.

New growth is coming up rapidly now so I have been tidying up the overwintered dead stems. These provide important food and habitats to wildlife during the depths of winter and plants such as teasel, cardoon and fennel give visual interest too.  But now it's time they contributed to the compost heap. Before too long they'll be unrecognisable and back on the surface of the veg beds as finished compost.

2021 Week 8 - Final preparations for outdoor growing

Spring is most definitely in the air! We've had warm, dry winds all week which have done wonders drying out the land. It's left the soil in the veg plot nicely pliable too, not that I dig it much now that I have converted to no-dig. It does make for good weeding though. Oh the satisfaction of pulling out a couple of foot of couch grass root in one go!

The veg plot is gradually taking shape as winter debris is cleared and beds are covered.

There was a lull in the seed sowing schedule this week so instead I've been concentrating on getting all the beds ready. With no dig, this mainly involves just shifting all the compost I managed to make last year. There's not enough to apply a thick covering all over, so I focus on using it in the polytunnel and on this year's potato beds. I've also been harvesting and chopping back the willow growth. Some is used for structures to support climbing plants and the like in the veg plot. The rest will be shredded and can go on my new perennial beds.

The mangetout has been planted in the polytunnel beds

We were back at school this week. Actually it was our bubble's turn to be teaching from home, but our broadband has been behaving like a temperamental small child which meant that I had to go into school every day just to connect to broadband so I could Zoom into pupils' homes and classrooms. I mostly had to work in a classroom on my own so I didn't do too much bubble crossing. 

The nights are really drawing out now though and it's easily possible to get a couple of hours done in the garden when I get home from work. This makes a really big difference.

Home from work and still plenty of light left

One of the principles of sustainable smallholding is never to throw anything away and to accumulate anything that might come in useful one day. This policy was vindicated this week as some incomplete polytunnel frames which I had collected quite some years ago (and had been moved around the smallholding several times) finally found a use.

With my new found interest in growing perennial plants, I have lots of pots over-wintering. They are fine in the polytunnel over winter, protected from the worst of the wind and frost, but temperatures in the polytunnel have been soaring whenever the sun shines, These plants are much better outside now, but a modicum of protection from the wind and the birds is still useful. So I have build an extension onto the back of the polytunnel and converted a previously wasted space into a nursery area. I just need the bird netting to be delivered and it will be complete. There was an old scaffold platform making the place look messy too. This I have repurposed into staging for plant trays.

I am really pleased with the new space I have created.

Boris and Arthur help out
with plucking as usual.

Bird flu restrictions are still in place so the poultry remain locked up. But the turkeys have started to fight as two young males have been strutting their stuff. There always comes a point when rearing birds when the boys have to move on. With this more aggressive springtime behaviour came a bit of wanderlust too. One morning we discovered they had got out and ventured into the field next door! This was the cue to round them up and for one of the boys to be freezer-bound. As usual I got a couple of wing-whacks in the face in the process of catching him. I've learned to take my glasses off.

I've been a busy boy this week. I've also built a low shelter for the chickens, again using old bits of polytunnel frame. I've got some old polytunnel cover sitting around that I scrounged too which should make this into a perfect shelter from the wind and the rain. It will also give the poultry some dry, dusty ground to bathe in once they are all free to explore.

The Silkies have had a major home improvement too. I purchased several large sheets of welded mesh. This was mainly to stop the rats digging under and into their pen, but it has also served to keep the chickens up abuve the mud. They seem very happy with the new arrangement.

More happy animals.

We have let the sheep back out of the stables. They were ecstatic, the old ewes running and bouncing and leaping around the paddock when they were let out. Rambutan got very over excited too. He is not in with the girls this year, but decided that ramming me would be quite a good game. I can tell you it hurt! It did remind me why they are called rams.

The geese responded to having all their stable straw changed by almost immediately beginning to lay. The first goose egg is one of those markers of the seasons for us. Next up will be the return of the swallows onto the farm.

Of course, I can't go without giving a Covid update. There is seemingly light at the end of the tunnel as Boris revealed his road ma. As expected we get all the children back at school in  a couple of weeks time. But I won't be around for the first week when they come back. For I have finally got the hospital appointment I've been waiting over a year for. This is one of my regular cancer checks and it has been a worrying time not having these checks. Hopefully nothing nasty has developed inside me while the hospitals have effectively been closed for normal service.

As well as the twice weekly lateral flow tests I am now taking for school, I will be required to take a proper test before I go into hospital and to self isolate for a few days beforehand. This time exactly a year ago I was one of the first to self-isolate in this country following my return from Thailand with a persistent cough. How things have developed since then.

Finally, my forest garden has arrived in a couple of boxes this week. Well, it's just part of what will hopefully become a food forest in the future (more of an edible copse really). For now this unusual mix of trees and shrubs has a little growing to do.

I'll tell you what the plants are in detail next week. I'll leave you with a mystery. What are these?

More lockdown pottering

I was out on the bench in the dark again when Arthur decided to jump up on me and cuddle in for warmth. It turns out he is surprisingly good at hearing night-time bird calls and was particularly keen on the moorhen which flew around our heads.

Today's pottering involved erecting supports for the mangetout seedlings which are going outside.  I can only grow peas really early in the season otherwise they get afflicted by pea moth. I grow very early mangetout in the polytunnel but by growing outside too I can extend the season.

There's a conveyor belt going on now. We have just entered April Week 3 on my spreadsheet which means a new group of seeds to sow. With space at a premium, some trays of seedlings need to move to the polytunnel to make way. In turn, there are seedlings in the polytunnel ready to go out into the soil. As usual I've not managed to quite keep up so I need to prepare beds for them to go into.

The polytunnel is open during the day now as the chickens and ducks can't go in and destroy everything. This keeps the heat down a little and makes it easier to work in there in the heat of the day. The fine weather continues. It came with coronavirus and has stayed ever since. To be honest, we could really do with a decent day of rain now.

I thought I'd show you a few details from the garden today, little things I notice as I go round. The first is an amazing fungus which appears somewhere most years. It is metallic silver. I know it as moon fungus, but its real name is False Puffball. It is a slime mould. After a few days the silvery coating disappears to reveal a chocolaty interior of spores.
I couldn't remember why on earth I call it moon fungus so I looked it up. The Spanish for this is caca di luna, or something like that, which means moonsh*t to put it bluntly! It's a much better name.




I am trying to increase the perennial herbs that I grow in the veg plot too. I love this time of year when all the perennial plants erupt from their dormancy with lush fresh growth.
These two are bronze fennel and lemon balm. When they flower they'll be smothered in insects.

And finally we have the bee-fly (not to be confused with Flybe!). These seem to be having a very good year this year. They appear like a bee at first, but they are a dumpier shape and have a super long proboscis sticking out the front for drinking nectar. They actually parasitise proper bees. They lay their eggs in their burrows and the bee-fly larvae feed on the bee larvae.

Talking of bees, I got my first sting of the year today. A couple of honey bees had already collided with me and got stuck in my hair this week, but I waited until they disentangled and flew away. But this one seemed more purposeful. It bumbled around in my hair near the neckline for a while before painfully inserting its sting into my head! It got me good and proper, but fortunately I did not react to this sting. It just hurt for a while.


We have settled into lockdown life now. Today Sue held her first ever online meeting with some of the other headteachers in the area. Obviously computers cannot replace face to face contact, but at the same time utilising the facility when schools reopen would save a lot of travel time , petrol and road congestion. One way I deal with the worry of coronavirus is by looking for the positives which could come out of the other end when  people are forced to rethink things in such a big way.

Final news from the smallholding. The geese have gone into proper broody mode. There are two nests in the stable which we rob every day if we can get to them. But often both are occupied and today two of the Embden geese were sharing one nest.

Taking Stock on Midsummer's Day

Thursday 21st June 2018
Midsummer

It's midsummer. Most of the sowing is done. Most of the baby animals and birds are born. A few crops are starting to yield, but by and large this is a period of growing and rearing in readiness for harvest.

The Year's Weather So Far
Winter bites late then hangs around like a bad smell
The weather has been testing this year. Winter was not too bad until it turned round and bit us with The Beast From The East which was followed by a good few weeks of winter stubbornly putting its foot in the door and barring any entrance by Spring.
The cold snap was really challenging, especially for the pregnant ewes. We almost lost one, but in the end three ewes gave birth to seven lambs. We lost one and two ended up being bottle fed.
The runt third triplet, who we named Flash, continues to be very runtish. In contrast the other bottle fed lamb, Rambutan, is huge. All six lambs have just moved down into the further paddocks where the grass is now taller than they are.
The ewes are recovering well now too. We may give one or two of them a break from breeding next year.

The fruit and vegetables were left floundering too, maybe as much as a month behind usual. This was reflected in nature, with many migrant birds, including our swallows, arriving back very late. In fact many don't seem to have bothered at all.

A Warm and Wet Spring Finally Arrives
When Spring did arrive, it was pretty warm but came with plenty of rain. The water table sat just below the surface of the land so every time it rained we had puddles. The muddy conditions didn't last too long though and we have had much stickier in the past.

Early Summer And The Rain Dries Up
And so on into May and early summer. It has actually been very warm allowing many of the crops to catch up to close to where they should be by now. But it has been dry. Ridiculously dry. The water butts are all empty and I have had to water very selectively. We have only had five minutes of rain in the past month and the ground has gone from waterlogged to gaping cracks opening up. There is still water enough under the surface for most of the outdoor crops, but the carrots have completely failed. This happened two years ago too when we had similar conditions - a cold damp early start to the season followed by dry conditions and a hard crust on the soil.
At least I can still get a good crop in the polytunnel where they are more easily nurtured.
I am not sure how much the early potatoes will swell up. They should just about be ready for harvest soon, so I gave them a good drink last night. This should help them along.

And I am a little worried about the sheep paddocks. At the moment they are still ok, but if we don't get rain soon there will not be enough lush grass to fatten our lambs well.
People have already cut their hay and are baling it at the moment. I like to collect it straight off the field, but my first line of supply was short this year as the grass yield is down. Hopefully the second will come good.

On the positive side though, the sweetcorn, pumpkins and tomatoes are loving the Mediterranean climate.
It seems to be a good year for most of the fruit too. Apples and pears look like they will give us our first really decent harvest now that the orchard is maturing nicely. The blackthorns are absolutely smothered in sloes.

The strawberries are doing very well, free of strawberry seed beetle which devastated the crop last year, though a little rain might help them to swell up a bit more. The sunshine is making them taste like little buttons of sweet deliciousness.
The raspberries are just beginning to ripen and should produce bucket loads and the gooseberries are almost ready. Last year was disappointing for these but this year looks like a good crop of large berries.
The currants are not faring so well this year. It may be time to replace some of the bushes. They seem to prefer cooler, wetter years.
Finally, the cherries are ripening so hopefully we can get at least some of them before the birds do.

Poultry
The turkeys have enjoyed the dry weather too. In fact it was the day the poults hatched that it stopped raining. The nine poults we have kept for fattening up are doing extremely well, so well indeed that the two hens have left them and are both now sitting on new clutches of eggs.

If these hatch it will be a big bonus for us as the sale of the young turkeys will more than pay for the food to rise them and to support the adult birds through the year.

The meat chickens which we purchased as day old chicks about ten weeks ago have put on a sudden spurt of growth, so much so that they are pretty much ready to go in the freezer. It is a short life for them but they have had it infinitely better than any commercially produced birds, even the so-called free-range ones. I wasn't expecting them to make weight quite so soon, so need a couple of weeks to change their diet to finish them properly. But their early departure will free up accommodation and give the chance to rest the ground a bit.
It is actually quite good to be able to buy in, raise and dispatch in a relatively short period. Having lots of birds in different pens with different feed requirements can be quite demanding and quite a tie.

We decided not to breed any geese this year, but to sell the eggs instead. But one of the geese had different ideas as we found her sat on five eggs in a tyre outside. Sadly, the day after we found her the next was abandoned and the eggs gone. At least the goose was still alive.

And lastly, the Muscovy ducklings are growing well. They are still living in with the three silkie hens but will move out when they are old enough for they need  lot of space.



So that's it for the year so far.
Where it goes from here very much depends on the weather. If we return to normal levels of rain as we head into the second part of the year then it could turn out to be a very good year. If not... well.

Spring... for one day only

Tuesday 30th January

Spring is here!

Today I heard a song thrush, a mistle thrush, great tits, robins, dunnocks, chaffinches, little owls (more of a duet than a song), skylarks and goldfinches all singing for joy. The sun beat down and cheered up the whole smallholding,

A farm record 22 Tree Sparrows were at the feeders. There were probably quite a few more as they were coming and going, their familiar chipping calls announcing their flights in and out.

I put up some very temporary stock fencing along the boundary where the geese kept going yesterday, but they just waddled further up the land, much further than they have ever been before, until they found the end of the fence.

This was solved with a few sheep hurdles. Why didn't I think of this earlier?

I got on with washing plant pots and cleaning plant labels - the best way to get the pencil off them from last year is to rub wet dirt on them.

I sowed 54 Mangetout seeds to grow in the polytunnel. This has worked brilliantly in previous years and the plants have cropped and are out before the space is needed.

This year I am trying some Sugarsnap peas too. The seeds are old but hopefully they will germinate successfully.

I can't grow peas outside - they need more water than I can provide, so this quick early crop in the polytunnel is perfect.

I sowed my chillies for the year too. Just four varieties and I will only grow one plant of each, for they are prolific.

The Piccolo tomatoes have germinated well already, as have the Black Russians and Gardener's Delight. They germinate on a heated propagator base. As soon as they come up, I open the vent on the plastic lid to allow air to circulate, otherwise they will just rot off.

In another couple of days they will come off heat and go into a mini greenhouse in the conservatory. At this early stage in their growth, light is essential so they don't get leggy.

Taking advantage of the glorious weather, I took Boris and Arthur out for a nice long walk along the river. Unfortunately the drainage board have felt it necessary to completely strip the banks, so no kingfishers, moorhens or reed buntings to be seen. The photo below shows the only small stretch where the vegetation has been left on one bank.

There was still time when I got back to plant up three small blueberry bushes which I purchased. I did have some of these in the soft fruit area, but the rabbits took a liking to them. Besides, they are better in pots which I can fill with ericaceous compost.

I will only need one decent harvest to repay the investment.

Wednesday 31st January 2018

SuperBlueBloodmoon!

Supermoons seem ten a penny these days. Hardly a full moon passes without making the grade. It is encouraging that people are finally noticing the natural wonders around them.

Tonight's supermoon was a blue moon too - that just means the second in a calendar month, so really it's just a coincidence of numbers. What I didn't know was that February will be a Black Moon month - no full moon.

The Blue Moon was also a Blood Moon, something to do with an eclipse earlier in the day and on another side of the world.

To be fair it was a nice moon that shone in through the skylight, though my camera totally failed to do it justice.

A Fedge Cathedral

Sunday 28th January 2018
A New Fancy Fedge
I have been trying to arrange a fedging work party for ages and today everything came together.
A fedge is a cross between a hedge and a fence, exploiting the unstoppable urge of willow to take root and grow apace.
This can not be done when the ground is hard and frosty and is no fun in the rain, which is why I changed it from yesterday. Today's weather was perfect - exceptionally mild, dry and not too breezy. The only unforeseen problem was that the bees were out in force while we were trying to harvest the willows right next to the hives.
I had to tell one of the participants quite forcefully that it really wasn't a good idea to stand in front of the hives watching them. Meanwhile, I lopped the new growth off as quickly as I could.
Each willow yielded about 50 whips up to 12 foot or more in length - amazing.

The team was a good one and the students listened well. I was happy to let them make decisions and get on with things on their own. By lunch we had the willow harvested and sorted, the ground fabric in place and all 22 uprights in place.

After lunch I showed Dans and Tom how to weave in the binders which stabilise the uprights, then in went the weavers. This is the most satisfying part where everything suddenly comes together. Final job was to tie everything in, trim off the loose ends and decide the final design for the top.

This was my most ambitious fedge to date, with two straight lengths linking in to a central archway.
It will provide a fitting entrance to my new butterfly and bee meadow area which is being sown later this year.

All finished. One wonky upright which I will replace.

Dr Dolittle relaxes in the evening

In the evening I prepared a Jerusalem Artichoke and Orange Salad, another meal which Sue awarded more than ten out of ten!

Monday 29th January 2018

A New Wether Map

First job of the day was to move one of the young male sheep down to the main paddocks. There is no grass left in the top paddock so the sheep are reliant on hay and sugar beet nuts. I would move them all, but the brown wether needs a proper fence and Rambo needs to be kept away from his daughters.

Rambo with  the brown wether - no name as he will be dinner later in the year.

He can't be down in the paddocks as he ducks under the electric fence with impunity.

This young wether (castrated male) has been moved down with the ewes.

He is small so I am keen to get him onto longer grass. 

He spent his first day being very rammy.

I put some finishing touches to the archway in the fedge, mindful of a forecast of rain later in the morning.

It didn't let down and came suddenly enough to drench me. 

Wandering Geese
The geese have been wandering further and further in search of grass and managed to find where the fence ends. They wandered into next door's paddocks. This was never a problem when Don lived next door, but the geese need to learn that this is now out of bounds.

I herded them back, but was not about to start working on the fence in the rain.

Half an hour later they were back next door!

The geese can get around remarkably quickly when they want and can be both stubborn and stupid in equal measure.

Tomorrow I will attend to the fence.