The First Seedling of 2017

3rd February 2017
The First Seedling
Storm Doris was so offended by the name she was given that she veered off toward France. I was expecting a howler but instead we got a whimper.
Meanwhile, the first seedlings are up! A momentous day each year. Glory went to the third aubergine in row two, narrowly beating the lemon drop chillis which were sown on the same day last week.
I start these seeds off so early as they require a long growing season to grow and ripen. The downside is that they will need gentle tending until the polytunnel warms up properly.

The start of the 2017 growing season

4th February 2017
While the cat's away...
Well, more precisely, while Sue's away we all sleep on the bed and have a lay in.

Slightly 'soft focus' but it's not easy taking a selfie with four animals on the bed.

My battle with the rat(s) in the polytunnel is still ongoing. It took ten bags of Eradibait - the 'friendly bait' that doesn't harm other wildlife, they just forget to tell you that the rats don't bother to eat it either!
I thought it must be taking the bait until I found more rat holes with Eradibait pellets strewn everywhere. They have simply been dispersed. So I have set the proper poison up and they have started taking it.
I am itching to clear out and clean the polytunnel so I can get growing in there.

This afternoon I moved the sheep around a bit, along with hay feeders, the Xmas tree for them to keep munching on, water...

The Shetland lambs in their new home.

The lambs were moving back up to the main paddocks to give the paddock near the house time to rest for when this year's lambs move into it. But before they moved, the adults had to be moved further down the land.
This operation was all going very smoothly until a very unfortunate incident when three dogs briefly ran amok through them. Unfortunately it happened in the short period when I had the electric fence off to move the sheep. But it shouldn't have happened and I just hope no harm has come to the ewes or their unborn lambs. The dogs were not vicious but I was powerless to stop them chasing the sheep.
As it had happened while I was moving the sheep, we had all been taken by surprise. Otherwise I don't think the sheep would have turned tail and ran. The trouble is that it only takes one sheep to lose its nerve. If Rambo head butted a dog I have no doubt he would do some very serious damage. I don't think the sheep realised this would happen, as Boris and Arthur are the only dogs they know and these have always kept a respectful distance.
It took me a long time to persuade the sheep to follow me back up to their new paddock again.

The adult sheep finally where I wanted them, lured with Christmas tree, hay and mangels.

After this incident I left the sheep to recover in peace while I took cuttings from my buddleias, willows and elders. These three species are the keenest to take root and it is very hard to fail with them. And if you take enough cuttings it doesn't matter if a few don't take.

While I was cutting the buddleia, I came across the first snowdrops of the year. It's beginning to feel like Spring is just around the corner (cue gales, rain and snow!)

5th Feb 2017
Plants for free
I spent the morning poking yesterday's cuttings into the ground, over two hundred of them. I have put them into a special cuttings area and will move them to  their final growing sites early next winter, once they have had a season to grow some roots and gone dormant again.
The unexpected early arrival of Sue back from London cheered me up and I quickly had her helping me erect a temporary stretch of fence alongside the bottom sheep paddock. We had to improvise with what few materials we had on hand but it was more important to get something up quickly than to make it look good.

6th & 7th Feb 2017

A Hullaballoo in the Polytunnel
Main job for the two days was to create as much hullaballoo as possible in the polytunnel. For I had finally lost patience. Rat activity seemed to have died down so I guessed the poison was finally taking effect.

The polytunnel is a lovely place. Warm, dry, full of food at the right time of year. It was brilliant for the first few years, but it has been harder going the last couple of years. It is an ideal place for rearing seedlings, but later in the year the red spider mites undertake a silent invasion, sucking the life out of many of the crops. Voles and field mice enjoy the warm and dry, along with the supply of carrots, though many end up in the traps. Then this winter the rats have found it to their liking too.

I felt I needed a fresh start, so Monday morning I started clearing all old plants and dead material out. I followed this up by taking Mr Rotavator in and churning up and down the beds, taking extra care near the thin plastic walls. The idea was to turn the soil but also to cause maximum underground disruption, collapsing all the tunnels and generally scaring anything taking shelter. Rats do not like disturbance.
Next up came chemical warfare. I am pragmatic organic, which means that I am totally organic unless there is absolutely no other way to save a crop or to eradicate a weed. It is rare that I have to resort to other methods, but today I blasted the polytunnel with a spray of Jeyes Fluid, paying special attention  to all the nooks and crannies between the metal framework and the polythene.

Then came a thorough power blast with the hose pipe. It is very difficult to stay dry during this operation!
All this took the best part of a whole day, but there was still more to come.
Tuesday brought out the soft broom and the washing up liquid, for the polytunnel imperceptibly turns green during the year. It doesn't really notice, but a thin film of algae builds up, along with grime on the outside. All of this blocks out the light, not so important in midsummer but crucial when the sun is low and the days are only just starting to draw out.
The outside is relatively easy to clean, although there is a strip about a foot wide on top which I can never reach. Inside is a different story as most of the water ends up coming back down on me!
Anyway, after two hard days of cleaning the polytunnel is looking like brand new. This weekend I shall plant my super early potatoes in there and sow my first carrots, turnips and lettuces.

If any pests return I am going to hit them very hard indeed.

8th February 2017

A Bird Flu update from The Ministry.
Full details in the next couple of days. This merits its own post.

The summer time of my life

20th July 2016
50! How did that happen? I am 50 years old!
I used to say I still felt 20 in my mind and about 70 in my body but I think that's changed a little now. I think I think a little more old these days, so maybe 30 in my mind, though some would say more like 6! And that's partially true too, which is why I am such a brilliant teacher. I am also starting to benefit from the confidence of age.
As for the 70 in body, to be fair there are days when I feel I can do anything and days when every single inch of my body seems to ache and groan.
I have done a lot in my 50 years on this planet (not that I spent any time before that on another planet, though again some would disagree). I don't intend to do quite so much in the next 50 years, but I do intend to savour and enjoy most of it.
I don't really do birthdays, or any celebrations for that matter, but especially not birthdays. My preference would have been that it pass by largely unnoticed. I got as close to this as was probably possible and celebrated with a quiet meal out with Sue in the evening. I splashed out and went for almost the most expensive thing on the menu but there was no way I was paying an extra £2 for a sauce to go with my fillet steak! That would be too wild a celebration!

There was a better reason for celebration today, for I finished work at midday and I'm not due back in till 1st September.

21st July 2016
Back to normal today.
One of the young chicks in the broody box was clearly not well today. I tried gently holding its beak to the water trough, I placed it under the electric hen to warm up, but as usual when a bird is ill it did not respond. After a couple of hours I decided to end it quickly. Better for the chick and better to remove it from the others too. Five years ago I would have struggled to do this and put it off, but I have hardened up now. I still quietly say sorry and I still have a sad feeling in my heart. Compassion sometimes means being decisive.

The turkey family picking through the cut grass

With the protracted spell of summer proper, I took advantage and started mowing the lawns. They've got out of control again and the mower needs a new blade so it was slow work. I just mowed paths through the sward to allow the air in and the grass to dry a little.

This year's lambs in the foreground

Next job on such a fine day was another chemical attack on those nasty nettles and thistles. I've left a few patches for the wildlife, but any others that spring up need to be dealt with harshly, particularly since I seem to have become very reactive to nettle stings, an almost daily occurrence which needs nipping in the bud. I resprayed the electric fence line too. This tactic seems to be working well. I'd rather not use any spray but needs must. Physically controlling the weeds and the growth under the fence are not possible on this scale. I use minimum sprays and just about everything else I do on the smallholding is pretty much for the benefit of wildlife.

That's shallot of shallots!
Last year's stored onions have come to an end now and this year's are not quite ready. It's not looking like a great crop coming so thank goodness for the shallots, which were ready to harvest today after a few sunny days to dry them out.

Lady Penelope, Single Parent
There was still time to lop some of the trees along the boundary. The branches go to the sheep who love stripping off the leaves and the bark. Nothing goes to waste here. It was while I was doing this that I spotted Lady Penelope Peacock and she was accompanied by a single poult, now large enough to be showing a clear crest. I had not seen her for a couple of weeks and was fearing for her.

The days are long now so I can get stacks done when I'm off work. But darkness still comes in the end and todays dusk brought with it a calling Little Owl in the old ash trees and a calling Barn Owl, a nice combo.

22nd July 2016
Chicken in a basket box
Every day now I move the Ixworth chicks outside into a large dog cage on the lawn and every night they go back into the garage under the heat lamp. The accommodation en route is cosy!

Bad service
I finally managed to get through to someone to order a spare rotavator belt and mower blade. It's taken three phone calls and two ignored emails to finally get someone who didn't pass the problem on to an empty phone extension. It took 18 minutes on the phone and I'm not confident I've moved much further forwards despite the promises. It's a shame as Abbey Garden Sales have provided me with good service in the past but I am now starting to see the reasons for other people's bad reviews.

Harvest news
The first tomatoes are ready in the polytunnel and they are looking good! These are Black Cherry, Gardener's Delight, Golden Sunrise and Honybee.

There were more raspberries to be had today too. It really is a good crop this year. Delving a little deeper in the polytunnel, I came across a couple of yellow courgettes I'd missed. Here they are dwarfing the first cucumber of the year!



Some crops are already over though. Sue went out to do one final pick of the yellow mangetout plants but they were going over so the geese got a few. We've got  loads in the freezer already along with the green ones from the tunnel. Fortunately I managed to stop Sue in time to leave a few plants still standing. These are a heritage variety and I want to save the seed.

You know those jobs you keep putting off because you just know something's going to go wrong and you wish you'd never started? Well today I plugged the ride-on mower into the charger. If the battery charges up then I've just got to persuade it to start for the first time this year and to keep going. Reliability has never been my Mountfield mower's strongest point. If it had a name it would be called Flimsy!

And finally my nature note for today.
There have been strange calls coming from the ash trees for the last couple of days. In the past these calls have had me stumped, but now I recognise them as the calls of young Green Woodpeckers. Today I was lucky enough to see one of them perched out in the open on a branch next to its parent. They have timed it incredibly well, for today was also the day the ants came out. Every year they find their way into the house and swarm all over the windows. The delights of countryside living.

23rd July 2016
Harvest speeds up
Minipops
Some of the sweetcorn in the polytunnel is going absolutely bananas. In fact it actually resembles a banana plantation in there. The outdoor crop isn't far behind either.
Surprisingly the biggest plants belong to the variety Minipop. This is a corn grown for its baby cobs. You don't get a huge harvest but it adds variety and is a high value crop.
It is ready to pick as soon as the tassles appear. No need to wait for them to be pollinated. In the polytunnel I am also growing normal sweetcorn, so I actually removed the male flowers from the top of the minipop plants today so they wouldn't cross-pollinate the other variety. Hopefully this won't stem the flow of min cobs.
A word of caution here. Parts of the plant would appear to be razor sharp! A couple of slashes across my fingers are testament to this.



Anyway, after much dehusking (great material for the compost heap) I ended up with 26 baby corns to go in the freezer. There are a lot more to come too.
Gooseberry gazumped!
I moved on to harvesting the last of the gooseberries ... except they were all gone! Something had got to them first. Oh well. Not to worry. Next year I'll pick them all when they are harder and sharper. That's the best quality about gooseberries anyway.
Champion.
I moved on again, this time to the peas. I've not grown conventional peas for a few years now because of the pea moth which has a nasty habit of depositing maggots inside the pods. But this year I am trialling an old-fashioned tall pea, Champion of England. I sowed it late, at the end of April, in an attempt to avoid the period when the moth lays its eggs. Today the first plump pods were ready for picking. As ever with fresh peas they tasted amazing, little globes of summer sweetness. As this is a climbing variety they should crop over a longer period which means I can graze them rather than harvesting the whole lot at once.

Saving the Tomatoes
Another of the outdoor crops is under serious threat though. For it was only a matter of time before the potato blight spread to the tomatoes. A couple of the leaves were showing the first signs of attack today. It was time for another major prune of the toms anyway, so I removed all of the lower leaves and any sideshoots. I weeded thoroughly around the plants and tied them to their supports. The whole idea is to reduce the amount of foliage through which the blight spores can attack the plant while at the same time maximising air flow around the plants. I then mixed up a bicarbonate spray and thoroughly soaked every plant. I will repeat this once weekly for a while and with a bit of luck I might just save my outdoor tomato crop.
Outdoor tomatoes are always a huge risk and more often than not they fail. It doesn't matter too much as there are plenty coming from the greenhouse, but a bumper crop once in a while is good for stocking up the freezers with tomato sauce.

With daylight still left I started painting the garage, beginning with a first applicaton of creosote to the wood. Proper creosote is wonderful. I love the smell. It is not as nasty as people make out. In fact, one of the main reasons it's use was severely limited by the EU was to do with a very low cancer risk under specific circumstances. I get the feeling this is more about protecting large corporations rather than for any environmental reasons.

Today's nature notes
The swallow's nest in the chicken feed shed is wonderful, for it is at head level. I can raise the phone above my head and get a great view of the inside. It has been empy for a while now, but today I noticed two eggs inside. It seems they are going for another brood. Wonderful news! I counted another four active nests inside the stables today too.






Dark Daggers
Down in the chicken pen I found a small group of rather splendid caterpillars on a plum tree today. I took photos and then scoured the internet to identify them. I eventually identified them as belonging to the Dark Dagger moth. It has a great name but is actually very drab, unlike its glamorous larvae.

Harvesting - A Mixed Bag

9th July
Rainwater harvesting for the polytunnel
Heavy rain when I woke up, so I hastily hooked up a hosepipe to the overflowing water butts, channelling the rain into a couple of watering cans in the polytunnel. While I wait for each watering can to fill in turn I weed, harvest and thin foliage. The rain water is much appreciated by the plants.

It can get very sticky in the polytunnel so it is important to  remove foliage from ground level. To reduce humidity the courgettes got heavily trimmed and the rampant squash plants cut back.

I harvested and thinned out the kohl rabi and turnips. I've only left a few. They are very susceptible to rot once the other plants get going and temperatures warm up. Turnip fly becomes a problem too. The Purple Top Milans seem to have a harder flesh and to be more resistant to rot and fly than the Snowball and Goldenball. Next year I'll reserve the latter two for outside. Straight into the newly available space went peppers and aubergines.
Where I removed the kohl rabi plants, the sweetcorn growing in amongst them is about a foot tall. The plants growing without any competition are up to the polytunnel roof - what a difference! It's planned though. Now I've removed the kohl rabi the sweetcorn will prosper and will come ready later than the rest.
Once the rain stopped I harvested more beetroots to be processed.

Beetroots laid out ready for baking

Not going round the bend
A walk along the roadside revealed the extent of the damage to next door's field gate caused by yet another car coming off at the bend. The car must have been in quite a state as that wooden gate post has lifted a massive lump of concrete from the ground.

10th July
A lay in, a Wimbledon final and a European Cup final in which Ronaldo got floored by a Silver-Y moth
Young swallows and tree sparrows
In between all this the swallows fledged. I opened the chicken feed shed to find one fluttering against the window so I caught it and placed it back on its nest but there was only one other. They both promptly flew off the nest, one again fluttering against the window, so I caught it and released it for its first flight. A very special moment. Fortunately the hobby's daily speculative fly through the garden had already happened today.

More excitement on the wild birds front. I've planted a branch of twisted willow in the border near the bird feeding station in the hope that birds will use it as a perch coming to and from the feeders. Well, the first birds to do this were the tree sparrow family, two fledged young and their parents. Excellent.

Squishy strawberries
A much anticipated strawberry harvest was very disappointing indeed - virtually all of them had rotted before they even ripened properly. Those that had escaped this had mostly been munched by something. I'm not sure how much the straw has helped.

I checked the weather forecast before pruning the plum trees. Dry all day. Ten minutes of pruning soon changed that, precipitating a cloudburst!
I gave up.



This was also the cue to get the Ixworth chicks back inside before they caught a chill. They've been going outside for a couple of days to get them ready for a move into the stables. It means they leave their mess and smells outside too. They also get to eat grass, scratch around and peck at insects. They seem to find the outside world quite scary at the moment.


11th July
Failed Wurzels and an Injury to Mr Rotavator
I spent the morning trying to track down a spare belt for Mr Rotavator who had a rather unfortunate mishap yesterday. Hopefully he'll be back to his wonderful best soon.
In readiness for his return to good health, I got out the slasher and hacked back all the fat hen which has grown up in what was supposed to be the mangel wurzel patch. The slugs and/or rabbits did for this crop before it ever got going. Next year I'll be growing each plant in modules before planting out. This has worked brilliantly over in the main veg patch where I'm growing the mangels which will, I'm sure, help me retain the Jeff Yates Mangel Wurzel Trophy!

Poor Honey
After all the work I'd put into the strawberry beds, yesterday's failed harvest was a big let down. Today it was Sue's turn. This has been a testing year so far for the honey bees and for beekeepers. But Sue had at least managed to take off enough frames of honey to fill about 16 jars. But when she came to spin it, some wasn't yet ready to be spun and the rest surprisingly contained rape honey that had set in the combs. All Sue's hard work for just three jars of honey and if this year continues in the same vein that could be it for honey for the year.

First Broad Beans
Fortunately my harvesting today was more productive. The broad beans have survived a bit of a bashing from the weather and today I was able to gather the first few. You can tell when they are ready when the pod hang downwards. There were carrots from the polytunnel along with more mangetout and the first Swiss chard leaves of the year, which came from self-seeded plants rather than those I've planted.
Sue worked her magic in the kitchen combining these with some pork mince from the freezer. Just a little of everything always seems to make so much lovely food!

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we head into the gooseberry patch.

Post-Brexit Growth

Post-Brexit and we are experiencing rapid growth - the chicks, the ducklings, the sweetcorn, the grass, the tomatoes, the swallow babies - all are growing at an amazing rate.

1st July
Where is the summer?
Last year 1st July saw record temperatures in the mid 30s. What a contrast today!

There has been a honey bee starvation warning issued as they've not been able to get out and forage. In the polytunnel, the courgette plants are failing to produce viable fruits as they are not getting pollinated. Instead the developing fruits just rot off. I may have to start hand pollinating.

On the plus side, the peas and potatoes are enjoying the rain. Swings and roundabouts.

2nd July

Dramatic skies today

Pottering
A day of clearing, weeding, transplanting and general pottering, aka gentle general maintenance.
The polytunnel is rapidly turning into a jungle. It's amazing how even a little summer heat gets the plants growing so fast. Air flow becomes very important, so lower leaves are regularly removed along with anything wilting or yellowing.

Tomatoes are remarkably resilient. Apart from the Romas, which are a bush-type, all the others need the side shoots pinching out on a regular basis so that all the plant's efforts can go into producing trusses of fruit from the main stem. Once the tomatoes start developing on a truss, I like to remove the leaves lower down. This allows the light in to ripen the tomatoes as well as letting air flow through the tunnel at ground level.


Underneath the tomatoes I am growing basil. They make good companions growing together and good companions in the kitchen. Today I took the first basil harvest, cutting the tops off the plants so they bush up.

3rd July
Nasty but necessary
I've been waiting for a dry, calm day to do the spraying. In an ideal world I'd be able to rely on physical methods to remove weeds, but this is impossible sometimes. Today I was using two chemicals. Glyphosate (aka Roudup) kills everything and is what I have to use on the driveway to prevent it turning into a lawn. I have also used this around the perimeter of the electric fence to keep the grass from growing up through the fence. The other chemical I use is Grazon. This is a selective weedkiller which is hugely effective against nettles, docks and thistles which are my main problems. All of these plants are good to have for wildlife, but it is not possible to maintain small patches of them and let them flower without them spreading uncontrollably. The only way I can do this is by minimal use of spray when I have to.
Besides this, I may have become hyper allergic to nettles. A couple of harmless stings on my ankles recently have turned very nasty and necessitated a visit to the pharmacy.

Today's other major job was to convert the electric fence in the top paddock from battery to mains. It needs to be strong enough and reliable enough to train new sheep and lambs for when they go down to the bottom. Also I have learned this year that it can be dangerous for the sheep if they are able to ignore it and become entangled.
Everything was going very well until I turned it on and it tripped the RCD in the garage! After lots of testing and elimination, I established that it seems to be the earth cable causing the problem. I've got a feeling that I just need to move the earth stake further away from the building, but I've left it for the moment. It's not an urgent job and I want to come to it at the beginning of a day, just in case it needs more time to sort out.

Honey bees struggling
Sue was on the last session of her intermediate beekeeping course today. She returned with tales of everybody having troubles with the rainy weather we've had. Sue has two hives without queens, the one that swarmed and the one with the swarm she collected. Most of the other beekeepers had experienced problems with swarms and lost queens too.
For the moment Sue has united these two colonies.

Strawberry harvest
My new strawberry beds are starting to produce. It doesn't look like a great year, with late ripening and at least half the fruits rotting off before ripening. Still there were plenty of fruits to be picked. Sue has performed her magic and turned them into strawberry & honey icecream, strawberry & banana fruit leather, strawberry and honey fruit leather and dried strawberries. The first of the raspberries were ready too. Dried raspberries are like tiny packages of flavour explosion.

4th July
Could it be that summer has at last arrived? I think that may be a little over-optimistic. In fact, I'm not sure that summers will ever again be what we imagine them to be. Were they ever?
Anyway, I made the most of it to mow the lawns. A hobby swooped low through the veg plot today. It is making daily appearances at the moment. The adult swallows usually see it coming way before I do. In fact it is their alarm calls which prompt me to look up.
The swallow chicks in the chicken shed are growing at an amazing pace now. It won't be long before I find the nest empty.



What Have I Raised?
Elvis's ten ducklings are also growing at an amazing rate. They suddenly have feathers instead of down and look like proper ducks. They still stick with Elvis mostly, but are becoming more independent. It won't be long before Elvis moves away from them. If I know her, she'll soon be broody again!
I won't be giving the ducks names as they are destined for the table later this year.

High Rise Chicks
Also growing up fast are the Ixworth chicks which are now two weeks old. I redesigned their broody box today, as they were constantly kicking their bedding into the drinker and kicking their feed everywhere. My solution is to make their accommodation two storey, as they are now capable of finding their way up the stairs to their food and drink or even hopping straight up there.



5th July
Garlic
The garlic has grown incredibly quickly this year. It has obviously enjoyed the wet conditions since I planted the cloves back in January. I sowed parsnips in between the rows. The two seem to do very well together and look after each other. By the time the parsnips are becoming robust plants, the garlic is starting to die back. Every year it gets rust, but this doesn't seem to affect it at all. I had been waiting for some sunny weather as it needs to dry, particularly the bases of the stems where rot is most likely to set in.
The bulbs had split and swollen very nicely. I didn't remember planting quite so many cloves, but 133 bulbs should be enough to last another year.

Garlic bulbs set to dry.

Yellow Mangetout
I've tried a new variety of Mangetout this year, a yellow one to make it easier to pick. It has grown well, though I'm not sure it tastes quite so sweet as the green one I grew in the polytunnel. It's a close thing though and the pink and purple flowers and yellow pods may keep this on the list for next year.
It is cropping very well too.




Final job of the day was to dig some potatoes for dinner. The Dunluces have completely died down and this was the first time I was harvesting them. I got a really good amount from just one plant and they certainly are tasty.

6th July
Today I did none of the jobs on my list! Instead...
Beetroot bounty
I harvested a whole load of beetroots. I grow purple ones (Boltardy), Golden ones and stripy ones (Chioggia). Quite notable the outdoor ones had caught up with the early ones I planted in the polytunnel and done at least as well. Maybe next year I'll save the polytunnel space for something else.
Later on Sue roasted the beets ready to be peeled and vacuum packed.


Continuing the theme of doing jobs not on the list, I decided to plant the last thirty willow whips which had been sitting in the water butt developing roots. I'll be very surprised if they all take, but hopefully some will.

Captain Peacock lives on
It was while I was doing this job that I heard Lady Peacock calling. I'd not heard her for a while so went to investigate. She was strutting around in the middle of the road, but them I spotted the reason why as two chicks ran across the road behind her.


7th July
A complete non starter of a day
A but of a disastrous day really. I got in my car to go to work and it absolutely refused to start. It had no life in it whatsoever. So I had to stay in and wait for someone to come and help me start it, then get it to a garage without turning the engine back off. Turns out it was the starter motor. This is the second time this has happened. The car is seven years old and I have calculated it is costing me almost £2 per week just for the starter motor. Not very impressive Ford.

But the day was to get worse. For late afternoon my arms started itching and were covered in rather ugly and angry blisters. It looked a little like shingles, but not quite. The doctor didn't think it was either. So all I can think is that I have become very allergic to nettles as I really can't think of anything else that could have caused it. I am always getting stung by nettles so it is hard to remember if the blisters matched where I had been stung.
I guess we'll find out more next time I get stung. For the moment though I'm on anti-histamines which make me incredibly tired and antibiotics.

8th July
The only good thing if it had been shingles would have been being signed off from work for a couple of weeks, which would have taken me nicely up to the summer holidays!
As it was, I was back at work today. In the evening I had to take Boris, dressed in his bow tie, on school dog duties, meet and greet at the Year 6 prom. We didn't have that in my day. Mind you, it wasn't called Year 6 either, it was fourth year juniors.

The Mangetout are Through

Not the most exciting photos in the world, but today was a big day in the 2016 growing season.

The mangetout peas I sowed for growing early in the polytunnel are starting to poke through the soil surface and reach for the skies. Green shoots and all that.

The sowing season has gone up a gear too. Today I sowed my aubergine seeds. It's very early and I will have to tend the delicate little things for quite some time, but until now I've had precious little success with aubergines. They are a temperamental crop. Some people do well with them. Some people just can't get a decent aubergine off them. I come firmly in the latter group. Until now. This is the year when I plan to join the former. The tender treatment starts now, with the seeds soaked in tepid water for 24 hours (obviously the water was cold by the end!) and now in a small heated propagator, which I purchased over the winter. It's just a crude, basic one but I'm hoping it is just enough to kickstart seeds into growth. After that, for most crops, double and triple cloches in the polytunnel should afford enough protection until springtime proper arrives.

I sowed lettuces too. I always grow too many at once and never keep up the succession properly, resulting in fields of lettuce all ready at the same time, most of which go on to bolt, followed by no lettuce whatsoever. This year, that changes and I've started by sowing some very early lettuce which I hope will germinate under bubble wrap in the tunnel - similar to the mangetout. The crucial thing with lettuces is that the temperature is not too low (below about 5C) and not too high (above 20C) for the first couple of days after sowing. The second of these is often far more difficult to achieve in the polytunnel and once we get into March I'll probably be using the cold frame for germination.
The varieties for so early in the year are the Cos types and the looseleaf (green rather than red). I have sown seeds of Little Gem, Lobjoits Green Cos and Buttercrunch.

Finally I have sown early carrots too today. Early Nantes, straight into the polytunnel beds. If we were in a cold snap, I would hold off on this, but the bees have been out for a couple of days this week, a song thrush was singing today and it is beginning to feel like spring already. I'm sure that winter will still have a say at some point. I hope so.

I've learned from last year and covered the rows with mesh. There always seems to be an interminable wait for carrotlings to emerge, so you can imagine how disheartening it was last year when first the chickens got in and destroyed a couple of rows and then Boris discovered that the polytunnel was a very good place to go digging.

Tomorrow the first turnips go into the polytunnel beds.

Meanwhile the outside  jobs are more winter-like. Moving, pruning and taking cuttings from dormant plants. Digging, shifting compost, rotavating when I can.

Easy Peasy

It's 2nd Januarty and I've sown some seeds! Mangetout. To grow in the polytunnel.

Really I should have planted them at the back end of Autumn, but using the polytunnel to hold plants in stasis over the winter is something I'm only just beginning to experiment with. Mind you, with the weather we've been having I don't think there will be an issue.
The idea is to have some delicious fresh mangetout peas available early in the year, way before anything's cropping from outside.

Me and mangetout have history and it's one that gets steadily worse. I grow mangetout for a couple of reasons. Although in my experience peas always give a disappointing and brief yield for the space they take up, mangetout are high value and can justify the space, time and effort they are given. They also don't succumb to the dreaded pea moth, that tiny caterpillar which gets inside the pods and prevents you eating any raw pods, unless you like a little extra protein! For this reason, maincrop and Sugarsnap peas have had a rest from my plot for three years to break the life cycle. I'll try again this year, but I'm planting later to try to avoid the moth's emergence period.

So, back to the mangetout. I had a brilliant harvest the first time I grew them. It was that really, really wet year and I think they enjoyed the moisture. Beginner's luck.
Then three years ago I decided to grow the purple ones. They looked fantastic on the plot, but the yield was slightly lower and I have to say they tasted a little more cabbage than peas should.
Two years ago I had a disaster. They all got eaten. And the second sowing too.
Last year, they all came up but it was very dry at the crucial time. We hardly got any pods. On top of this, I think I missed a few pods which meant that they stopped producing too. They seemed to swell everso quickly, almost as if they were bolting.
The result was about three meals worth from 100+ seeds!

Therefore this year I have a different strategy. I am growing some traditional green ones early in the polytunnel. I have gone for Oregon Sugar Pod which is supposedly pretty hardy. Today I sowed them four to a pot, which I have covered with bubble wrap to encourage them to germinate. I don't sow direct as there are too many voles and field mice to devour them. When they're big enough, they'll go in the bed allocated for sweetcorn and squash. Hopefully they'll be out again before the corn and squash even get planted. In the polytunnel I have easier access to water too and can tend them more easily. Plus I have two little helpers who are always keen to help me, especially with digging!

Arthur and Boris, specially bred as gardening dogs.

I will try growing some outside again this year. I'm going for a golden one so I can see the pods easily to keep up with picking. I'll keep them well watered too and hope for the best.
I'll report back at harvest time.

March of the greenhouse

Something has been going on in the garden. I can't quite put my finger on it, but things don't all seem to be in the same place.

I got a little carried away with my polytunnel reorganisation and decided to sort out the outside area too. First was a layer of weed suppression fabric, rejected from the polytunnel as I have gradually moved from container planting to growing directly in the soil.
I already used this patch of ground as a nursery area and transition zone between the polytunnel and the outside beds, but it was all a bit haphazard and long grass kept creeping up in inaccessible areas... and you don't want that happening.
Anyway, the new area looked so appealing that this happened...

 

This old greenhouse has already moved with us all the way from London, but it never quite fitted back together properly. Polycarbonate doesn't last for ever either. The brittle frames easily succumb to Fenland winds. And so this poor bedraggled greenhouse had become neglected, hidden away in an inaccessible corner of the garden.
It clearly liked the look of the newly developed area outside the polytunnel and walked itself there, even finding its way over two fences. Remarkably all of the panels stayed in place, but when they eventually perish I'll use scaffold netting or pallets around the frame to create a sheltered nursery area.