Winter's nearly over - quick, take cuttings

Saturday 10th March 2018

Quick to the cuttings

15 degrees today. What a contrast to last week.
Heavy rain last night left some fairly substantial puddles on the land. The water takes a while to sink through the clay, especially when the water table is already high after the snow melt last week.

I am running out of time to move last years cuttings and to take new cuttings. Everything is springing into growth and the pace of gardening is hotting up.

Last Wednesday I planted a new mixed hedge of about 100 plants.

Next on the list were the yellow willow cuttings which I poked in the ground last year. Most of them had survived and some had really flourished. With the ground wet, they were not too difficult to uproot. My plan was to plant them closely in a line along the boundary of the land. I will pollard them so they form a colourful boundary, especially during the winter. During the summer and autumn they should provide shade and shelter to the sheep paddock. 

I had quite a few spares, so decided to plant them even closer in amongst a wild area of nettles. This area needs taming a little - there are plenty of nettles elsewhere so nothing will suffer. The idea is to form a willow spinney.

Not much to see now, but my new area of willow coppice will be an attractive

part of the wildlife garden behind the bug hotel

Next a bit of sorting out. The pallets which make the compost bins make great storage for canes, stakes, guttering and hazel poles. The added benefit is that these form a more solid wall to keep the heat and moisture in the heap.

With that job completed, I moved on to seed sowing, potting up and moving some seedlings into the polytunnel. The spring conveyor belt of plant rearing is truly in full swing now

Sunday 11th March 2018

The Pest from the Zest!

Some days I seem to get very little done. Some days I get a lot done. Some days I get loads done!

Today was one of the 'loads' days.

The day started with identifying what is wrong with our small lemon tree. It has been secreting a sticky sap for a while now and the leaves have started to yellow. Some have sooty mould on them and the baby lemons have turned black and fallen off. A close look and an internet search identified the culprit as brown soft scale. These are flat, armoured insects which suck the lifeblood out of the plant. 

Now that we know the problem, we should be able to solve it with careful cleaning of all the leaves, repeated applications of insecticidal soap (just a weak solution of castile soap) and occasional wipes with surgical spirit to penetrate those armoured shells.

Butterfly Heaven

Transplanting continued with 25 buddleias. They had rooted really well. Final home for these was to be weasel ridge, around the living willow chair and overlooking the veg garden. First though, I needed to dig out a load of nettles, roots and all. This is a satisfying job but it is hard work and can be painful at times.

I was pleased to be distracted halfway through by buzzards calling overhead. When I looked up there were seven circling over together - quite unprecedented here.

I didn't intend to use all the buddleias on the mound, but in the end I planted them close. They should be absolutely alive with butterflies later in the year.

Plenty of help from the chickens today as I planted up the buddleia bank

While I was doing this, Sue was cleaning out the chicken houses and equipping them with fresh straw. I knew her every move as I have fitted her with a new wife-tracking device - aka very squeaky wheelbarrow!

Mr Motivator goes for a spin

With a little warmth in the air, I decided to give the rotavator a try while Sue took the dogs for a long walk down to the river. The broad bean bed, the turnip bed and the bed for the early potatoes all needed to be prepared. The soil was just about workable and the rotavator increases the air and surface area so it should warm up and dry out much quicker now. I gave a couple of other beds a preliminary tickle too.

This is a turning point in the year. Over the next month the winter veg patch will be transformed as beds get worked and borders neatened.

Another duck pond to dig

The ducks are moving back into the veg garden too - a decision I made after I had dug them a new pond!

This is all part of the Spare Veg Patch being turned into a paddock for sheep, pigs, goats, whatever. The heavy soil was too difficult to work and a haven for slugs, which made their homes deep down where the ducks couldn't reach them. This has been most apparent this week when I have been digging up cuttings. With the clay soil being so heavy it is not practical to keep it worked frequently enough to unearth the slugs and expose them to the attention of the ducks and chickens.

And so I spent the last hour of daylight making a start on a new duck pond. It was just a start as I had a place to put the excess soil but it needed wheeling away.

A busman's holiday

I received an email today confirming our summer holiday plans. For the second year in a row we are getting a week away, thanks to Sue's friend who has volunteered to come and look after the smallholding. The plan is to spend the week in West Wales... on a smallholding!!! We really are suckers for punishment.

The day ended on a possibly sad note. Putting the Muscovies away, I noticed that the brown female was not with the other three. Thinking about it, I don't recall seeing her for some days now. There is a very small possibility that she is holed up somewhere sitting on eggs, but I think it is more likely that she has come to some sort of mishap. 

I'll have a good look around in the morning, but don't expect to find her.

A Dry Crust Signals GO!

It has been such a delight to be able to harvest fresh asparagus from the garden for the last two years, so I have gone and bought another thirty crowns. As ever, though, there's nowhere for them to go yet. But there is a plan, which is to extend the current bed of three rows across the path and to steal a little of the sorrel patch
So about a fortnight ago I decided it was time to start preparing the ground. The soil was still fairly heavy but we'd had a few dry days and an initial turn with my trusty fork would at least be a good start. Problem was, rain was forecast from about midday. After a couple of hours of pretty heavy work I was within sight of the end when the rain started and I had to stop, not because I don't like getting wet, but because the soil quickly becomes unworkable. Anyway, nine hours later the rain stopped. The ground was completely sodden and I wouldn't be able to go near it for quite some time, even if the weather stayed dry.

Fast forward to yesterday. March is nearly upon us. The days are lengthening and between the showers we've had some moderately warm weather. I've even heard a skylark singing on a couple of days. As I was moving some raspberry canes and planting up some currant bushes (last year's cuttings) I noticed that the tansy was sprouting green again, the rhubarb leaves were almost open and the nectarine was threatening to come into blossom. But more boringly I noticed that there was a dry crust just starting to appear on the soil surface. Prepare yourself for some very exciting pictures!

The half dug new asparagus bed

This is a sure sign that the soil is becoming workable. In the height of summer, I'd have about three days to get the rotavator on it before it turns to concrete! But at this time of year the concern is another downpour. And, being a Thursday, that soaking was duly forecast to arrive at 10am. Not to be outwitted, I was up and out early(ish) and it didn't take long to achieve some pretty impressive results. Four beds completely ready for planting and another three have been worked for the first time this year. One more go and they'll reach a fine tilth.

 

Ready to go!

 

All I need to do is wait for the rain to stop (that's why I'm finally composing another blog post) and I can get back outside. There's cloches to be placed, netting and wigwams to be erected and compost bins to be moved.

Meanwhile, inside, the sowing has started in earnest. It's going to be a good year. I can tell.

 

Breaking up is hard to do. Preparing the ground.

I am almost on top of my veg beds this year.
There have even been times when I have not had to dig or turn a bed when the seeds or seedlings needed to go in.

But there was big area which still needed work. The "Spare Veg Patch".
This is where I grow the crops which demand a bit more  space. The Three Sisters (Sweetcorn, Squashes and Beans), fodder crops (including my bid to retain the Mangold Wurzel trophy) and my brassicas, which I have moved out of my main vegetable rotation due to constantly snagging up the netting in the mower.
This part of the garden is on the part of my land which is classified as agricultural. This means that in the past the soil was worked to its limit and denuded. The lack of organic matter makes the soil very clayey. It's been compacted over the years too.

So I was facing quite a tricky rotavator job. It would eventually get there, but it would need several passes between the tines. But then along came Don, my friendly neighbour, with an offer to drag it with his tractor. In no time at all the surface was broken up. Farmers have all manner of machinery to reduce the soil to a fine tilth, but the drag at least got it part way there.



















Just a few hours with Mr Rotavator and I have managed to get it to this.

Now I just need a bit of rain so I can break up those golf ball size hard lumps.
But if we don't get it, I should be able to sow the wurzel seeds anyway. They don't need a fine tilth.

Mr Rotavator has been busy.

Sunday 13th May 2012

A magical, still morning and Mr Whitethroat was singing out loud even before the sun was up.

Daisy ran out to see me when she heard me coming, so I indulged her by racing her up and down her enclosure a few times. She is getting back into good condition now that she is not feeding her litter.

75%!

I got straight on with the work and had already made good headway when Sue came out to inform me that one of the eggs that seemed lifeless was tapping and cheeping. A little late, considering its first brother or sister was born all of 3 days ago. We left it to make its own way into the world.

Then, on with the main act.

Remember this??

Two days of tugging at clumps of grass, wrestling with Mr Rotavator, picking through the soil for grass still stubbornly clinging on with its roots.

Then stooping over to pick off the last of the weeds.

Wait for the wind and the sun (mostly the wind) to drive off some of the moisture, then another going over with Mr Rotavator and more weed picking.

In short, a LOT of hard work, and you get this...

This soil, for some reason, is much clayier than the potager, so a fine tilth is not going to happen. Maybe in a few years when I've improved the structure of the soil by adding lots of organic matter. For the moment, though, small clods are the best I can do.
I marked it out according to a basic plan, improvising as I went along. By mid afternoon on Sunday, after over 25 hours of blood, sweat and toil, the patch was all worked over and marked out.

Time for sowing, just to make sure my back was well exercised!
I had an envelope of Garlic Marco saved from last year which had no home, and another of Golden Gourmet Shallots. Also over a hundred red onion sets. I poked them into the moist soil, just covering them as best I could with clumps of earth - no point trying to crumble it, it just compacts into a sticky ball. Then the remainder of this bed was devoted to maincrop carrots, Autumn King, and a row of mixed Solar Yellow and Cosmic Purple. All these mixed in with what I had left of a packet of mixed annual flowers to confuse those pesky carrot flies with their scent and beauty!

Then I made a start on the laborious task of sowing the seeds for the fodder crops. The large cluster-seeds of Mangel Wurzels along with the delicate seeds of Chicory. I pushed myself to keep going but eventually, two thirds of the way through, I had to succumb to my body's need for rest. The reason I had pushed myself so hard to get so much done was that the forecast for the next couple of days is...well, you guess.

I've already heard it called Monsoon May. A bit of an exaggeration, but more alliterative than the April Shower. 

Inside before dark, and this little beauty (on the right) was just about ready to go in with the others. So that's 9 out of 12. 75% success!

The Perfect Synergy of Man and Machine

Monday 2nd April 2012

As well as my designer veg patch, I have been trying to cultivate a large area down by the pig enclosure. In fact, part of it used to be a pig pen, so I am hoping that all that muck has done some good for the soil.
This area is for veg which take up a lot of space, such as squashes and maincrop potatoes. Also for sowing excess seeds - some of the seed packets come with enough seed to grow a forest. Maybe, too, an area for fodder crops and for flowers for the vase.

I attempted to cultivate this area last year, but the task was daunting. I reluctantly, and against my instincts, treated the long grass with glyphosate weedkiller. After this, a farmer came with his power harrow - this is the boy's toy of farmers, miraculously turning lumpy ploughed fields into beautifully neat, flat areas of perfectly tilled soil.



It looked beautiful when it was done, and the seed weeds which had been lying in wait really enjoyed their new facilities! Keeping on top of all this proved impossible, though I did manage a half-decent crop of mangelwurzels, a few patches of sunflowers and a line of spare runner beans. After this, though, the grass made a very determined attempt to re-cover the ground.



So I started this year staring at an area which very much resembled how it had looked at the very beginning. Don very kindly dragged the area with his tractor twice, which broke up the soil, dislodging or burying large clumps of turf and weed.



I have made friends with my new rotavator



This morning, it was finally time to deploy the new rotavator. I had been putting this off for two reasons. Firstly, I suspected I would have teething troubles which would stop me getting much done. Secondly, I feared it would not be able to cope with the mighty job ahead of it, which would make me despair of the task.



The spare veg patch

However, I had used all my allocated beds for early potato varieties, so today it was time to take the plunge or face having nowhere to plant the maincrop potatoes which will take us through next winter.



Until I get to work it more and add plenty of organic matter, the soil in this area can be a bit cloggy when wet and like bricks when too dry. So I had been waiting for just the right moment. Any further delay and I would be running the rotavator over an impenetrable concrete pad.



Well, as you can see, me and Mr Rotavator got along fine, though he kept trying to run away from me for a while. He woke up muscles which have been sitting lazy and unused for quite a while. I made a more than satisfactory start to the job and am feeling much happier about being able to manage everthing now.

Artichoke Alley

Sue magically commands the plant label towards her

The first crop to go in the new patch was the mountain of Jerusalem artichokes produced from the ten or so tubers we grew last year. So this year we will have 161 plants! I hope the pigs like them! If not, at least they look good and they'll provide a windbreak for more delicate vegetables. Sue got stuck into this job with gusto while I played with my new toy. 

A New Friend Arrives.

Friday 27th January 2012

The first clear morning horizon for a while now. And with it a sharp frost.

Sunrise now arrives before 8 and is creeping forward daily.

While I was out today my new rotavator arrived. I already have a small tiller, which is perfect for the system of small beds I operate in the veg plot. But I needed something with a bit more oomph for the larger area which I use for growing spare crops, fodder crops and those crops which demand more space, such as squashes, pumpkins, sweetcorn and maincrop potatoes. I must admit, machines always scare me a little. The bigger they are and the more noise they make, the more they scare me. But hopefully me and my new rotorvator will become firm friends over the next few years.
I was going to buy something bigger, more fancy and more expensive, but I decided to quiz Don about his rotorvator, which always seems easy to handle and does a good job. He spoke highly of his Apache Euro 5 Rotavator, and especially the reliability of its Honda engine. A quick scour of the internet had revealed that I would save several hundred pounds by buying this. And a personal recommendation is worth it's weight in gold, especially from someone who you respect and who knows more than you do. So today my Apache arrived (City Link kindly left it on the doorstep for the few hours I was out!) If it disappoints, Don's to blame.
Late afternoon I discovered three holly saplings which had taken refuge in an old tea chest down by the chicken pen. So, officially, it was today that the tree-planting marathon was 100% finished.

There's probably a Law to explain why this happens but, just a few hours after the arrival of my shiny new rotavator, a sickening crack resounded from the wooden shaft of my trusty spade, which has been a loyal friend for several years now. From Do-It-ALL originally, it has outlasted the DIY chain as well as most of my other tools. I will ask around to find a skilled craftsman capable of giving my spade the loving attention it deserves. Don will know someone. Meanwhile, despite a visible crack, the spade continues to function, though I am being very careful not to stress it.