The Drought Is Over

138.8mm of rain for Holbeach - that's us!

Last night it rained. Proper rain. More rain than we've accumulated in the last 4 months.

It's the first we've had for a long, long time. In fact I think it's only rained a few times since the beginning of April. and only once this summer.

[ed. I knew it rained a lot and the fields were full of standing water, but it turns out that on a wet day countrywide, Holbeach was the wettest with a staggering 138.8mm of rain!!!] 

Unfortunately there is an obvious pattern in recent years of all our rain saving itself up for the occasional deluge which surrounds uncomfortably long periods of aridity.

It's made for a difficult growing season (to put it mildly) and we've had to think about how much feed we need to bring in for sheep to overwinter.

In the veg plot, crop after crop has failed. Beans, sweetcorn, potatoes, onions, cabbage.... the list goes on. Those planted earlier in the year have mostly come to nothing and it hasn't even been possible to plant out any young plants sown in late April and May. For the most part the rain has come too late for another attempt at things. At least it's a good opportunity to empty the freezers and in reality we never go short of food.

The barley crop next door has been baled. Just look how dry everything is.

If temperatures of 40C and prolonged dry periods are to be a feature of our lives then I can only guess that plums are going to take over the world! Every single plum tree is literally dripping with fruit. Thank goodness we have several varieties which don't all ripen at once.

The forest garden has fared better as that is designed to be a sustainable system which can deal with weather extremes, though I've lost a few young perennials which were tricky to source in the first place.

The controlled climate of the polytunnel will give us some crops this year and I've a couple of new greenhouses too. We'll be living on squashes, peppers, aubergines and tomatoes.

I mentioned winter feed for the sheep. That's because we've already had to start dipping into it.

We are careful with our stocking levels and try to leave some paddocks long to prevent the worst excesses of drying out. But months of dry weather and a couple of intense heatwaves have left the paddocks looking a touch bare and scorched. We bought in our winter hay from a fellow smallholder a few weeks back - the first hay harvest was incredibly early this year, but we've already had to start topping up the sheep's diet, in particular the rams.

So it was fortunate that one of our local smallholders was having a clear-out and we were able to purchase a whole load of old hay and straw. Shetland sheep are not bothered about the quality of their hay so it doesn't matter that it's not this year's.

I've got more straw than I need for animal bedding so I decided to lay some of it onto all the veg beds which I've abandoned for the year. Sometimes it's best to cut your losses and start preparing for next year. The straw will protect the surface, keep in moisture and gradually rot down and be incorporated into the soil by the worms. Over the winter the ducks will sort out any slugs which try to use it as cover and will further fertilise the beds.

I might have a go at some straw bale gardening too, then let the straw bales rot down into the beds. I'm thinking especially about some of the potatoes.

Sowing, Hoeing, Mowing, Growing

I got the grass mowed this week for the first time this year. It's always a relief when the mower starts up. Until now the geese have been doing the job for me, but the warm weather and a bit of rainfall have spurred the grass into action.
On the whole grass is a pain. I have no want for a green carpet so welcome moles and weeds. But since I've got it I might as well make the most of it, turning it into meat and eggs via the sheep and poultry. And when there's so much that I have to mow it then it makes a good addition to the compost heaps or direct as a mulch, so it all ends up indirectly in my tummy!

I leave some of my grass to grow long. This irritates Sue but is a joy to me.













The thermometer in the polytunnel has soared this week, creeping up into the high 40s. The early sown turnips bolted but the mangetout is doing wonderfully. I have now planted all my tomatoes, peppers and butternut squash in there too. I am trying a variety of squash called Butterbush in the hope that it won't take over the whole polytunnel!


It has been perfect weather for hoeing. Within a couple of hours any weeds that have been chopped off at the base lie withered and dead. I'm gradually working my way round all the veg beds. The ones that have been previously mulched are much easier to do.

A forecast of frost for the next few mornings has been holding me back in the veg patch. As soon as this next cold spell passes the garden will fill with young bean plants, sweetcorn, squash and tomatoes which I have been raising for outdoors. Until then I am trying to hold them back in the polytunnel.

Self-seeded Poached egg plants,

wonderful for bees and a great

companion plant for broad beans.

The vegetable patch is starting to look gorgeous at the moment. I have left a lot of self-sown and naturalised plants to flower and the willow arches are coming on great. These seem to be a magnet for bee swarms and so it was that the third swarm of the year, almost definitely not from our hives, appeared on our last hot day. The swarm was huge.

And the reward for 

longest swarm

goes to...

Having already successfully housed two swarms and moved back up to 8 hives, any we collect from now will be given to fellow beekeepers. This swarm has gone off to Thorney, about ten miles down the road.

Our turkey hen who has been sat on eggs under a patch of borage and flowering rocket started clucking three days ago. I suspected that either chicks had been born or the eggs were pipping.
Sure enough, the next day a little head was poking out from under her feathers.

Our first view of our turkey hen's offspring

She sat tight for two days but was thinking of moving off the nest this morning. With the local crows loitering, we decided to catch her and any chicks and transfer them to a vacant poultry pen. There were just three chicks and three unhatched eggs. Sue retrieved the chicks while the hen slipped my grasp and proceeded to defend her family quite resolutely!
All are now settled into their new home.

Meanwhile, after three Silkie chickens only succeeded in constantly swapping the four ducks eggs they were sharing, we have put one of the Silkie hens on her own with four new eggs. Hopefully we'll have some success. Two of our Muscovy duck girls have now vanished. The optimistic side of me says that they may appear at some point with ducklings, but it is surprising that we have not seen them at all.

Finally there have been more night time capers. It seems tawny owls have moved into the neighbourhood. I regularly hear them when sat outside at night. This may be at the expense of our barn owls as I rarely see or hear them now.
A couple of nights ago as I sat outside under a wonderful full moon I could hear a female tawny nearby. I speculatively imitated a male hooting and within a minute the unmistakable silhouette of an owl flew up into one of the trees in the roadside paddock. Then it flew right over my head and into one of the large ash trees in the garden. It may have been one in the morning, but the full moon meant that it was easily visible against the moonlit sky as it passed over. Then another!
The pair started duetting really close by. Amazing stuff.

And final finally, a couple of lockdown images. One of my new lockdown hair and one my Google timeline for the month of April which tells its own story.

Life in the Polytunnel

Some things sit on my to do list until it's too late to do them. This I find is an excellent way of clearing the list!

Cleaning the polytunnel was one such job, but out of the blue last week I summoned up the enthusiasm to undertake the yearly task. Another week and it would be too late as there would be too many plants in there to get to the polythene walls.

The outside is quite easy, though reaching the top is a challenge. The inside is more tricky, particularly the roof as everything drips back down in your face. This is one reason to do this on a cooler day too so the drops are not boiling hot.

I use Citrox on the inside, a natural disinfectant which contains extracts of citrus fruit. It is antibacterial and antifungal.

The difference between cleaned and not cleaned.

The polytunnel is the ideal place to work when it's cold and raining. On the other hand it is not the ideal place to work when it is sunny, temperatures rapidly escalating to 40+ degrees.

It provides a unique climate.

Ideal for a dust bath but 

all poultry are now excluded

The challenges:

No rain, so watering must be done manually. Extreme temperatures, meaning that dehydration can be astonishingly quick in trays of seedlings. Low night temperatures. Limited ventilation.

The advantages:

Protection from winds. Protection from sparrows, pigeons etc. Warm soil. Excellent light levels compared even to a windowsill or conservatory.

The classic use for a polytunnel is to grow what I refer to as Mediterranean crops. Peppers, aubergines, melons and tomatoes do particularly well. In fact for some of these it is the only way to guarantee a ripe crop by the end of the season. These are high value crops which earn their allocated space.

Early mangetout just about to come into flower.

Turnips and early potatoes.

But the space is not required by these crops year round. In early spring there is time to grow some early crops which wouldn't be possible outside for another couple of months. I squeeze in a crop of early potatoes, mangetout, turnips and carrots. All of these are harvested before the Mediterranean crops can go into the ground. Once things heat up the polytunnel becomes too hot for these cool weather crops. This year some of my turnips are already bolting (producing flowers in response to hot conditions, which often makes root crops tough and woody).

Polytunnel Plan, rotation year 6.

This plan is flexible. I don't grow all of these plants every year. 

Another really positive advantage of the polytunnel is as a place for raising seedlings. As I've alluded to seedlings growing in relatively small soil volumes such as seed trays or modules can easily die if the soil dries out. But this challenge is more than outweighed by the warm temperatures and in particular the light levels. I find that all but the most tender of seedlings can cope with dips in night time temperatures. If necessary they get the added protection of a cloche or fleece.

Raising seedlings in the polytunnel.

Some of these are ready to go outside just as soon as we get some rain.

One final use of the polytunnel is to hold young plants overwinter which have been started in the autumn. When light and temperature levels lift in early spring, these plants have a huge head start.

With the polytunnel all cleaned I decided to plant my tomato plants. The literature says to only plant tomatoes in the soil when the first flowers have appeared. I don't really know why you need to wait, so this year I have taken the risk and planted them before that time. Sometimes you just need to get things done when you can.

I grow many varieties of tomato of many shapes, sizes and colours. Last year's experiment of growing them up strings worked well. I actually use baling twine which is never in short supply on a smallholding and has a multitude of uses. I loop one end under the plant plugs and tie the other to the polytunnel frame. The tomatoes are planted quite deeply, up to their first true leaves, as they are capable of putting out extra roots from the buried stem.

I always grow too many from seed, just in case they fail, which they rarely do! And I always struggle not to plant too many. Any spares get given away to encourage others to grow their own food.

I can fit a couple of dozen plants down one side of the tunnel (actually half of one side). This year I have carrots down the other side as they grow brilliantly in the tunnel and are protected from carrot fly. I decided to double the tomato capacity by overplanting these with tomato plants. Hopefully they will grow together on different levels.

A harvest of lemongrass and a family of deer

Wednesday 9th January 2019

I finally got round to harvesting some lemongrass today.
One of the more unusual crops I have grown and this year was very much an experiment.

You can buy stalks from the shop and root them in water to grow on, but this year I sowed seeds instead, not expecting too much. But by the autumn I had seven very sizeable clumps of lemongrass several feet tall.

I am not quite sure what to do about winter though. The lemongrass is in the polytunnel. Three plants are in the soil and four in pots. I know that lemongrass is not frost hardy and the pots which were nearest the doors have begun to die back.

I am not sure if this is just an annual die back and if new shoots will come back in the spring.

So somewhat belatedly I cut a big handful of stalks today while they were still healthy and green.

This will be plenty of lemongrass to last through the winter and spring. If the existing plants don't come back, I have plenty of seedl eft over to raise some more plants. If that does happen, I'll bring one or two pots inside next winter.

In the afternoon I took the dogs on a very long walk. There is a sizeable field of rough ground which has not had a crop for a few years. It is possible that it cannot be ploughed for archaeological reasons, for the whole area used to be a fleet and a centre of Roman saltworks. It may just be that the farmer is using it for game cover for the many local shooters to come along and blast a few freshly released gamebirds.
Whatever the reason, this are holds quite a large flock of linnets, a sadly unusual sight in the countryside these days. I extended the usual route to skirt round this field and to take in a new stretch of river. As well as the linnets there were buntings and several snipe. If only more land were like this rather than the intensively exploited surrounding farmland.

Until recently this owl box was nestled in a clump of bushes. Unfortunately this was far too messy for the farmer's liking and probably competed with a fraction of a percentage of his field. The owls seem to have abandoned the box now and they have sadly become quite a rare sight on late afternoon walks.

Bird of the day was, however, not a bird but the family of roe deer which appear irregularly in the fields around the farm. Last week we watched them swim across a river. They have been in the area since we moved in and numbers have fluctuate between four and seven.

Anyway, I think I have found where they live most of the time, for as a reached the edge of the rough land there they were. They looked up but allowed remarkable close approach, close enough for me to get some sort of photo with my phone before they went leaping off across the fields.

Hotting Up In The Polytunnel

Early carrots

Sunday 13th May 2018
The Jungle is growing
A bit of sunshine at this time of year and temperatures rapidly soar to over 100 in the polytunnel. Growth is fast.
Crops occupying the beds at the moment are the sneaky ones which will be harvested and gone before the main crops go in.

Mangetout is cropping now

Once all these are gone, their place will be taken with peppers, chillis, tomatoes, basil, sweetcorn, butternut squash, melons and cucumber. These are all grown from seed, sown a while back and patiently waiting for their place in the beds. Once they get their roots down they will grow like billy-o.
They are vulnerable while they are still in modules or small pots, for the soil can dry out within a day and it is easy to lose a whole tray of seedlings. But it's easy to go the other way and drown them too.
With the warmer weather, many seedlings can go outside in the cold frame, where they will not dry out so quickly. But here they become a tempting morsel for the odd slug which finds its way in and spends the days squidged safely in the crevices underneath the modules.

This is why patience is key when sowing and growing. There is no point going too early, for a queue of young plants waiting for their place in the soil makes them vulnerable.

The first coriander of the year and lettuces

Turnips and beetroots coming along nicely

A queue of plants waiting for polytunnel space

Turkey chicks go exploring

Meanwhile outside mama turkey took her chicks for walkabouts today. There are ten of them in all. I was hoping for more like fifteen. They all look strong and healthy though and with the weather set warm and dry I will leave them outside for as long as possible.

Dykes and Drains

With the weather so fine, we took the dogs for a long walk along one of the drains this afternoon. Drains and dykes are such ugly words, but this particular drain is most pleasant at this time of year. The pair of swans have abandoned their nest where the dyke at the bottom of our land flows into this drain, but now we know why, for they have moved further along.

It is good to see that plenty of hares have survived the winter hare coursers this year, though they lead Arthur and Boris a merry dance. Arthur is under the illusion that his stumpy little legs are capable of helping him catch up with a hare half way across a field. To be fair, he has a good go!