Swarmzzeee!

April was extremely dry and cold.

May was extremely wet, but the last week at least saw temperatures rising. 

This has made for an insanely busy half term for me here on the smallholding. The logjam of young plants is finally starting to clear and the garden is filling up, but my efforts have been somewhat disrupted by the honey bees who have been waiting for this weather to swarm.

In fact I have taken on the pseudonym SWARMZZEEE!

Since the first swarm which I mentioned in my last blog, we've had quite a few more, peaking at three in one day. Our plans to reduce the number of bee hives we keep have been well and truly scuppered. The smaller and medium swarms we offer to other beekeepers or we house them in a small hive known as a nucleus. As the old queen who left with the swarm continues to lay in the nucleus hive, we transfer the eggs into the original hive which is waiting for its new queen to hatch, undertake her mating flight and start laying.

The whole swarming phenomenon is amazing. It's like snow, I never tire of seeing it and just sit and watch in awe. We don't always see the whole process, but when I'm working in the garden I'll hear the bees being unusually noisy. A quick look will reveal many more bees than normal swirling around the hive and flying over the garden near the apiary. Gradually they'll start congregating on their chosen perch where the queen has landed and the tight swarm steadily grows as more and more bees settle. It's possible to get within feet of the swarm if you're brave enough (and ready to leg it if one gets too defensive!)

Once they are settled, they send out scouts in search of a permanent home. Sometimes they leave after a couple of hours, sometimes a couple of days. If we want to catch them, it's a matter of getting them into a nucleus or more usually a cardboard box. If they're hanging on a branch it's easy. You just give the branch a sharp shake so the swarm drops into the box. If they're on the trunk, you have to scoop them in.

If you've got the queen, the rest will head into the box. Some will position themselves at the entrance to the hive, point their abdomens into the air and vibrate their wings. They are fanning the pheromones from the queen as a signal to the other bees. It really is quite astonishing.

If you've missed the queen, they'll go back to the branch and you start the whole process again.

A couple of swarms this year have been absolutely massive, too good to give away. 

The long and the short of it is that we are now up to ten hives, all doing extremely well. With no honey to collect after a disappointing April and May, they are finally starting to make enough to share some with us.

A wet May has meant a larger than usual slug population in the veg plot. I need to encourage more ground beetles in. Until I manage this though, slug hunts are the order of the day. My motto is Show No Mercy! They really can do a lot of damage to tender young plants which I've spent ages raising. So I've developed a routine.

First I clear the ground and scrape off any mulch. I mow the surrounding grass short and clear the edges. This gives the slugs nowhere to hide. Ideally I leave it for a day in the sun. Basically I am removing the slug habitat. 

When the ground is ready for planting, the more vulnerable plants get a pair of woolly slippers made from scrap fleece. I'm using organic slug pellets too, though I only use these sparingly. I'd rather not.

Fortunately we are not short of scrap fleece. The sheep were sheared last week which is one of those annual events which marks the passing of the year. We had to bring them in for shearing as it was a day of heavy showers. For a few days afterwards they were quite cold but when the hot weather arrived they will have been thankful for the trim.

Insects have started appearing in the garden now too. I am seeing lots more butterflies, with orange-tips and brimstones predominant. If I notice anything different I like to take a snap and identify it. This glorious specimen is a red cardinal beetle I found. The variety of insect life never ceases to amaze me. If they were large animals they would be astonishing (and quite fearsome).

The two young turkeys have finally vacated the old shed in the veg plot, along with just two young chicks. Unfortunately one was not strong enough to make it through the first night, so we now have two turkey hens looking after just one chick. I managed to lure them into a temporary set-up in the stables where they have settled in nicely.

Meanwhile the older clutches are growing fast. Here they are trying to establish the threat level of a lettuce.

Potato day 2019

While heavy snow hit almost all the rest of the country, here in our little piece of fenland we managed to all but avoid it. But with the ground frozen for a couple of weeks it has slowed my progress in the veg plot.



That is though what the seasons are all about. As a smallholder you work with the weather patterns. We don't get snow all winter, but a week or two of freezing temperatures and the odd covering of the white stuff is what we should expect.
Anyway, I am glad we didn't get a lot of snow for it somehow has the capacity to make the ground even sludgier than a downfall of rain.

Saturday 2nd February was Potato Day, an annual event held by Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group.
For the last few years I have helped set up, getting lots and lots of potato varieties out of a van and laid out in neat order on tables. The event is held in Huntingdon but the venue has changed several times. For now it has settled into a fantastic old church in the very centre of town.
It surely has to be one of the most glamorous venues for a potato day.

As is usual I like to arrive early, get set up, purchase my year's supply of seed potatoes and get out before the place is full of Joe (and Jane) public.

There are over 40 varieties of potato to choose from. We used to have even more, but some of the more unusual types don't sell well enough to be worth buying in. They are just £1/kilo for members of the group, £1.30 for non members.
It is a great opportunity to experiment with new varieties. One year somebody bought one of each just so they could compare yields, taste and uses.

With so many types of potato on sale it can be a bit bewildering. It pays to do a bit of research and find out the qualities of each one. There is of course information available at Potato Day, but over the years I have now settled on eight varieties.
Primarily they absolutely have to be slug resistant. For some reason slugs like to munch some types of potato but not others. The other big pest is a fungal one. Blight. That's the same potato blight which caused famine in Ireland all those years ago.
We didn't get it at all last year but that was because it was such a dry year. It thrives in warm, humid conditions, exactly the conditions we are getting more and more in summer as the climate breaks down.
There are some varieties which have been bred to be very resistant to this scourge. I have grown them and their leaves did stay wonderfully green compared to the collapsed foliage of the potatoes all around them. Unfortunately though they have very little taste.
So instead I look for varieties with 'some resistance'. This usually means that they do get killed off by blight, but that for some reason it seems slower to infect the tubers meaning that more can be saved.

It is this prevalence of blight nowadays which necessitates purchasing new seed potatoes every year. If we didn't get it I would probably just use last years potatoes to start off the crop each year. This is the reason why 'volunteer' potatoes, those which you missed harvesting the previous year and appear in last year's bed, need to be removed straight away.

So, my eight varieties:
Earlies - Arran Pilot and Red Duke of York.
Second Earlies - Kestrel and Charlotte (Kestrel is the variety chosen by the Grow Your Own group for everybody to grow this year so we can compare results. Fortunately it is one which I grow every year as it grows very well here. I did used to grow Blue Kestrel successfully too but it is no longer available at potato day)
Maincrops - Desiree, Valor (a new one I tried last year, very firm flesh which stores well and has a lovely taste), Cara (a good all round white potato. I would prefer the organic growers' favourite Orla but that one is not available).
Speciality - Pink Fir Apple - very late to form tubers so be prepared to get none if blight comes early. But in a good year I get sacks full. It is a distinctive potato which is great boiled or whole in winter stews. It lasts well through the winter and we are often still eating it when the first of the early potatoes is ready in spring.

I have planted some of the Arran Pilot potatoes in the polytunnel where I can protect the emerging leaves from frosts. They will give an early harvest of new potatoes.

Arran Pilot and Kestrel potatoes being chitted

The rest are in the conservatory (aka plant nursery come potting shed at this time of year) chitting. This is the process where you lay them out in egg boxes and encourage them to start sprouting. In theory this gives them a head start once they are outside in the ground.
They can' just go straight into the ground outside as any frosts will likely kill them.
I think the effect of chitting is marginal but it's just something you do, almost a custom which marks the beginning of the potato growing year.

The War On Slugs

Saturday 28th April 2018

The War Against Slugs
I made some new slug traps today from old plastic food pots. I am having a concerted attack on the blighters this year, using these techniques:
Night time hunts
Placing planks on the ground so the slugs shelter there during the day
Ducks - now living in the veg plot
Slug traps - filled with beer slops or, failing that, a sugar and yeast mix
Slug pellets - ferrous phosphate, organic and wildlife friendly (except slugs)
It is a battle which requires prolonged and sustained effort.




A New Home for the Table Birds
Next I moved the chicks from the broody ring in the garage. They have very quickly outgrown their space. They were very excited to discover the great outside, but even more excited by their new feeders!

Doing my bit to build a community
In the evening we had a local group of smallholders coming over. This is a group I started up as part of the Fenland Smallholders Club. We had a lovely evening and I am sure the group will go from strength to strength over the years. Everybody lives within a short distance of each other which means we should be able to coordinate some of our smallholding activities. Hopefully friendships will form and we will all be able to help each other out when we need it.

Ducks move into Spare Veg Patch

Not only do I have a rather intricately designed veg plot known as The Wheel, but I also have a rather sizeable plot simply known as The Spare Veg Patch.
This is where I grow the crops which grow too large to fit nicely into beds - Pumpkins, Mangel Wurzels, large brassicas such as cauliflowers.

Buddleia and elder cuttings with sweetcorn and pumpkings behind

and the brassica cage in the background.

All a bit overgrown at this time of year!

Unlike The Wheel, the Spare Veg Patch used to be arable land so it is denuded of decent top soil. It is pretty windswept too, although I have planted hedges which are beginning to give some shelter. And another thing... once the field next door is harvested, the rodents tend to flee to The Spare Veg Patch and eat all the sweetcorn before it has ripened. And one last thing... the rabbits come up out of the dry dyke and nibble everything.
But still I persist with growing things there. Admittedly I have given quarter of it over to growing seed for wild birds and another quarter as a temporary home for hardwood cuttings until they are big enough to move to their permanent homes.
The rest I have heavily nourished with horse muck and grass cuttings. Having the dogs seems to have deterred the rodents - for the first time this year my sweetcorn still has cobs on even once the field has been cleared.

Sweetcorn Minipop - the cobs are picked early,

before they mature and before anything can eat them.

Mangel wurzels actually do pretty well in the heavy soil - they are closely related to the sugar beet which is a favourite crop in the area. Pumpkins fare okay too as does sweetcorn. I think that the hard clay surface holds plenty of moisture underneath and further down, where deep in the past this was an inlet from the sea (you can still see the lines of old Roman salt works) lies a layer of sandy loam.

So everything in the Spare Veg Patch is hunky dory. No!

Those cracks which open up on the clay surface are proving to be an excellent daytime hiding place for slugs - big orange ones, long black ones, small pale ones, squidgy brown ones.
I managed to protect my brassicas from cabbage fly, cabbage whites, pigeons and rabbits, only for an enemy to rise from beneath the soil and invade from outside the protective netting, mostly disappearing during the day leaving behind just the occasional slimy trail and decimated leaves resembling the worst lacework you have ever seen. Even worse, they have taken a liking to my cauliflowers, the vegetable which has taken me six years to finally succeed with.

Part of it is my own fault. I've let the nasturtiums get out of control and they provide the perfect cool, shady habitat underneath their lily-like leaves and splashes of orange-red flowers. I totally cleared them once, but I need to keep more on top of it. There's just so much to do though.

The slugs live under the nasturtium canopy.

So in one last desperate attempt I have resorted to biological control - the ducks. They have moved in to the Spare Veg Patch. At the moment they are still scared of everything and spend most of their time huddled up by the gate, nowhere near where most of the slugs are. But hopefully in the winter they will come into their own, when I can work the soil, hopefully with a trio of ducks and a gang of chickens following me along enjoying the feast that is thrown up from beneath the surface.
Yes, the chickens get through an awful lot of worms which are the gardener's friend, but there are plenty more of them thank goodness.

And so, with tweaks and adjustments, the Spare Veg Patch will continue into the autumn and next year. It's getting there.

Biological control

Plague and pestilence - a thoroughly disheartening affair

How dare we have a holiday!
We were only gone for just less than a week during which time a plague of pestilence and disease was wrought upon the smallholding. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration but this is a post to show that smallholding is not always a bed of roses.

On the positive side the animals were ok. But it was a different story in the veg plot.

Blight
For the umpteenth year in a row blight has swept through my potatoes and moved onto my tomatoes. And because I wasn't here to spot it early it had a chance to kill off all the foliage on the Earlies and Second Earlies before starting on the Maincrops. There were no signs of it when we left for Scotland and by the time we returned it had ravaged the crop. The timing could not have been worse. I took the tops off all the potatoes and have left them in the ground so they don't come into  contact with any spores on the soil surface, but harvesting has been a thoroughly depressing activity, with perhaps just a quarter of the Early potatoes surviving. I haven't yet dared check the other potatoes, but am clinging onto the hope that Charlottes have been pretty blight resistant in previous years.
The blight has then moved onto the tomatoes. It enters the plants through the leaves so I have removed most of the leaves and check daily, removing all affected leaves and fruit. But once it gets into the stem you are fighting a losing battle. For some reason the plum varieties, Roma and San Marzano, seem to fare the worst. A fairly decent crop can still be salvaged from the others.

Spanish Slugs
Next on the list is slugs. More precisely the big fat orange ones which some people call Spanish slugs. The problem is they are too big and slimy for natural enemies to predate. I think the key to controlling them is to leave them no cover, but this means keeping the veg beds perfectly edged. The most effective killer of these orange slime-monsters is my edging shears - messy but effective!
Unfortunately they also seem to like living under a dense canopy of nasturtium leaves and whenever I have let these companion plants ramble it has resulted in an army of slugs attacking the crops.
So habitat destruction is proving the key to control here, as well as direct hunting out of the enemy followed by quick dispatch.

I have also released the ducks into the spare veg patch where my brassica leaves are more hole than leaf. This is in the part of the smallholding which used to be arable with the result that there is very little topsoil. The clay surface opens into wide cracks during the summer, a perfect daytime hideout for the slugs.
During my research of Spanish slugs I have come across an awful lot of poor advice on various forums, but one comment I read has reminded me of a technique which could possibly work. Apparently slugs are suckers for porridge oats, which then swell up inside them with disastrous consequences (for the slug).
I can buy sacks of porridge oats for just a few pounds and have some in stock, for the sheep love them soaked and mixed in with a few sugar beet pellets.  I would imagine the ground needs to be dry for this to work well and the oats to achieve maximum swell inside the slug, so now would be a perfect time to try.

Red Spider Mite
Third on the most unwanted list is Red Spider Mite. I nuked the polytunnel this winter but they have crept back in, though much later than in previous years. I am managing to keep them under control with weekly sprays of pyrethrum on to the most affected plants and sprays of rosemary oil mixed with eucalyptus oil and a little soap every other day in between. The trouble is you can never quite totally eradicate them.
While we were away they multiplied rapidly in the polytunnel, moving from the aubergines (always the first to be hit) onto the cucumbers (always the second). However, I have been working hard and they are back under control for the moment.



Well, that was a depressing post wasn't it. But we came back from our holiday refreshed and full of optimism. The disappointments have been shrugged off and we have been forging ahead with new projects. Hence the lack of posts recently. We really have been working very, very hard till late every evening.
More on these exciting new projects very soon.

A Sluggish Couple of Days

Sunday 28th May
Growing turnips in the polytunnel
The turnips came out of the polytunnel yesterday. I only grow these in the tunnel very early in the year, as they grow lots of leaf and soon start rotting when the weather warms up. But I do get some rather lovely turnips. Some go into the freezer as insurance in case the outdoor crop fails. This year I turned the rest into turnip masala. The recipe used up some of last year's onions and garlic which are just about hanging on as well as a tub of frozen tomatoes from the bumper year two years back.
I collected together the ingredients and set about crushing the garlic and dicing the onions. Actually, I cheated and did it in the food processor, but it still made my eyes stream.

A Visit from The Bee Man
My cooking was interrupted by a visitor. The bee man who turns up for a friendly chat once or twice a year. He is a serious bee-keeper who breeds his own queens and has a wealth of knowledge and experience to share. We chatted for quite some time until the next unexpected visitor.

A Case of Fly Strike
Our neighbour appeared at the gate seeking help with her old pet sheep which had unfortunately become a victim of fly strike. This is just about the most disgusting thing to have to deal with. Greenbottles lay their eggs on the sheep and hundreds of maggots hatch out and start eating away at the flesh. The wool starts dropping off, and is soaked with a foul-smelling liquid. Very, very quickly the sheep falls ill and if not caught quickly fly strike may well prove fatal.
This is why it is irresponsible to keep sheep if you can't check on them at least once a day. A fly struck sheep will typically be away from the flock and inactive.
The solution is to cut back the wool all around the affected area, clean it thoroughly and dab on the same solution which is applied to sheep as a spot-on application to keep flies at bay. This is a strong and harsh chemical but there are times when subtlety does not do the trick. We have only had fly strike once and it was certainly a learning experience. We managed to save that particular sheep.
I won't go into any more detail, but after an hour or so Carol Ann had gone through the same fly strike learning curve as we did last year.

A bit of our own sheep husbandry
It was then time to attend to our own sheep, as some of the lambs needed worming. While we had them all corralled, we had a bit of a move around. The fawn ewe and the two youngest lambs were to move up with the others. There would be butting and chasing for a while and mum would be distracted from attending to her lambs, so to minimise the disturbance I wanted to move Rambo and the other entire ram lamb out of the way, at least until things settled down.
We had a bit of chasing around the field while the sheep played silly buggers, but in the end they did what they were supposed to. We drenched them (sounds complicated, but just means giving them medicine orally) and I then spent an hour or so just keeping an eye on things until they settled down.

So, back to the turnip masala. I wasn't sure about it, but the genius touch was when everything got roughly mashed at the end. Suddenly the dish was transformed into an authentic Indian vegetable dish. Success!

Verti-gone?
Final job for the day was one which I had been putting off for quite a while. Our gutter was blocked and grass was growing from it, but I was unable to reach it leaning out of the upstairs window. So it was up to roof level on the ladder - which is why I had been putting it off for so long. For some reason though today my fear of heights was absent. Climbing the ladder was a cinch. I don't know why I put it off for so long.

Monday 29th May
A very early start after heavy rain during the night. At 5am I was picking slugs off the walls of the polytunnel. For yesterday I cut back the herbs which grow along the outside edge of the tunnel, so the slugs had nowhere to hide.
I stopped counting when I got to 200 slugs! Fortunately I have trained my ducks to recognise the white bucket as their treat bucket. All I have to do is to stop the slugs escaping before I get the bucket down to the ducks.
Smallholding is not always glamorous, so I leave you with an image which sums that up quite nicely.

Potatoes - The Results Are In.

6th August 2016

The view over the farm buildings and veg plot from up the ladder

I woke up inexplicably early today so decided to take advantage of the forecast sunny day to creosote the cladding on the house.

The fine was ideal for harvesting the potatoes too, as they need to bake in the sun for a while to improve their storage time. In truth it is a little early in the year to be harvesting the spuds, but blight has dictated proceedings this year.

And so we step back three weeks to when the tell-tale signs of blight swept through the potato crop. Within a couple of days a few brown blotches on the leaves can turn into rows of withered plants. If it gets into the stems it rapidly spreads down to the tubers.
The only course of action is to chop off all growth above ground and hope that it has not spread underground. Of course, this puts a halt to any further growth of the tubers, so the earlier blight comes the smaller the potato harvest.

This year the blight came early.

As if this is not depressing enough, there are plenty of other things that can go wrong with a potato, especially in a cool, wet year. The only benefit of so much rain earlier in the year was that the tubers would hopefully have been swelling quickly.

Once the tops have been removed, you need to leave the potatoes in the ground for two to three weeks so that they do not come into contact with live blight spores on the soil surface when you harvest them. Otherwise they will rot in storage. The fishy smell of a blighted potato tuber is unforgettable.
The longer they are left in the ground though, the more susceptible they are to slug damage, so it is a balancing act which also depends on waiting for a fine, sunny day.

A fine crop of Markies

So today was D-Day, the moment of truth. It took me several hours of hard digging to unearth all the spuds. Some varieties were a joy to dig as the fork lifted to reveal clusters of large, healthy tubers. Others were disheartening with very few usable potatoes. That's one of the reasons why I grow nine varieties, as they all have different qualities and different resistance to disease and pests.



So, here's what can go wrong!

Look carefully and you see the slimy,

melting cheese gunk that is a blighted potato.

Any blighted material needs to be dealt with.

Ideally it is burned, but this is not so easily done!

I put it all into a couple of closed unit plastic compost bins,

never to see the light of day again!

Splitting. Only the Picassos did this.

Still edible, but it did give a route in

for pests and diseases.

(See the slug?)

Slugs

Some varieties seem much more susceptible.

Can cause serious damage in a wet year.

These neat holes often open up into a network of tunnels on the inside.

They don't go to waste though as the geese and the sheep hoover them up gratefully..

A few always get caught by the fork.

Though not many, it always seems to be the best specimens!

And now for the performance by variety. Remember that yields reflect a bad blight year when the tops were taken off in mid July, which would be expected to hit the maincrop varieties worst.
Also, every year is different and performance varies greatly between varieties and in different soils.

Markies potatoes laid out

on the grass to dry.

Markies - Main Crop
A trial crop based on other people's strong recommendations. This variety is supposed to make for tasty chips - always good! Despite the early topping off there was a good yield of medium to large potatoes. Blight had only got into a couple of the tubers. There was some slug damage, but overall very little.
Picasso - Main Crop
I only grew these because I had a few kg left over from the bulk order I do for smallholders. Personally I wouldn't grow a variety that is favoured by farmers. It usually means that it thrives under a regime of chemicals, not necessarily the best for an organic grower. Unfortunately most of the smallholders are very conservative in their potato choices.
The Picassos had split much more than any other variety, caused by rapid growth in wet weather. This had allowed access to pests. Few tubers were blighted, but maybe 20% had slug damage. The yield was fair but nothing exceptional.

Blue Kestrels set out to dry on the soil surface.

In the foreground,

my entire usable harvest of Bonnies!

Bonnies - Second Early
Probably my favourite potato as a baker. Produces a good yield of large, round, attractive tubers. Unfortunately, not for the first time, the usable yield was disastrous. Blight had got into maybe 30% of the tubers and about 90% of what was left had become slug food. The slugs seem to love this variety. The end result was no more than a dozen very nice tubers from as many plants. Bonnie has had its last chance!
Blue Kestrel - Second Early
Having experimented with Kestrel last year and been impressed with the taste and the firm texture of the potatoes which lasted well in storage, I decided to try Blue Kestrel this year. I only grew ten plants, but this year at least it has turned out as one of the two absolute stars. The tubers are very attractive and many were large enough to make excellent baking potatoes. Being a Second Early is always going to help n a blight year. Blight had only got into three individual tubers and, unlike the Bonnies which they grew next to, there were virtually no slug holes. If the taste and storage are anything like last year's Kestrels then this will be on the list every year. Mind you, I said that about Bonnies once, when we had a dry year.

Charlotte - Second Early
I cannot believe how much this variety costs in the shops. It is one of the cheapest seed potatoes to buy from the wholesaler and has performed brilliantly every year. Yield was excellent and the quality of the tubers outstanding. There was virtually no blight in the tubers and virtually no slug damage. This makes Charlotte a brilliant insurance policy for a poor year, though it would more than earn its place in the veg plot in any year.
Dunluce - First Early
I tend to alternate between this variety and Arran Pilot for my bulk standard early potato. Being a First Early it has done all its growing before blight ever hits. However, earlies don't store so there are always quite a few left in the ground when the other potatoes are ready. This is where I like Dunluce and Arran Pilot, for they simply grow larger but retain their great flavour. This year's Dunluce have stayed relatively blight and slug free in the ground too. As would be expected with plenty of rain, the yield and tuber size has been good.
Red Duke of York - Early
A favourite of mine. An early red potato which is excellent for chipping and roasting. Doesn't produce massive tubers, but they are brightly coloured and good quality. This year there were more tiny tubers than usual but the yield was still fair. It has not stood in the ground as well as the Dunluces and blight has got into some of the tubers. So not the best year for this variety but it still performs well enough to firmly hold its place.
Pink Fir Apple - Late
This was the absolute star of the show last year, producing sacks of large tubers. The tubers seem to be pretty blight resistant and incur little slug damage. However, this can be an all or nothing potato, and this year it was nothing! I couldn't risk not cutting the tops off, but being a late developer it was inevitable that the tubers would not have had time to develop. As it was I got about a plate full of mini Pink Firs!
This potato still remains a firm favourite of mine and I am happy to run the risk every year as it is more than worth it when it pays off and this is the first time that I've had no crop to speak of.
Desiree - Main Crop
Despite it being a fairly bulk standard variety, I love Desiree potatoes. They are versatile and produce a good yield of attractive tubers, with a fair percentage of whoppers for baking.
In the shops it has been largely replaced by its descendant, Romano, but I find that Desiree preforms better for me.
The blight reached the leaves of the Desirees last so it didn't really have time to get into the tubers. The tubers had not quite had time to swell to full size, but I still got a fair crop and there was relatively little slug damage. Not the best year, but I've still got enough to keep me going.

So, overall it was a pretty challenging year potato-wise but I still ended up with about five sacks of potatoes which will be plenty to get us through till the first First Earlies come out of the polytunnel next spring.
A couple of varieties bombed and a couple were outstanding. Slugs seem to increase year on year in my veg plot, though nothing like as bad as the plague year we had in 2012. In a wet year though, they probably cause more crop loss than does blight.
When I choose next year's varieties, slug-resistance will remain a high priority.

Definitely on the list will be Charlotte, Blue Kestrel, Desiree, Dunluce/Arran Pilot, Pink For, Red Duke of York and a new entrant, Markies.
Definitely off the list are Bonnie.
As for Picasso, I basically got them free but if I had to pay I'd look for another variety.

Boris and Arthur could have helped with the digging,

but decided instead to go digging for moles in amongst the climbing beans.

Chickens Let Loose

Sunday 5th August 2012
Thunder, lightning and torrential downpours again today??

A couple of months ago I tried feeding slugs to the chooks and they turned their noses up at them. So it was with some surprise that yesterday, when I accidently left the chicken pen door open for a couple of minutes, I found Cocky and his harem outside greedily plucking the slugs from the swathes of white clover.

Kill or Cure
This set my mind thinking. The Three (now Two) Sisters are growing well and, now that I have cleared the potatoes (not to mention the waist high jungle of sow thistles), I can just make out lines of struggling, nibbled beans and even a few pathetic little beetroot seedlings. If I leave things as they are, this is precisely how things will stay, as the poor little plants just can't make it past the munching attacks this year.
So a decision was made. Let the chickens in. The worst they could do would be to scratch and peck a few plants out, but without their help there'd be no harvest anyway. Besides, a bit of extra freedom and protein might up the egg production again.









The chickens, and the guineafowl, set to work immediately. What a shame they can be so destructive with their earth scratching and penchant for fresh green leaves.

Hopefully Lady Guinea will soon produce a troupe of insect munching (OK, slugs are not actually insects) baby fowl.










But this incident has made my mind up about something else. I definitely need some ducks to help out. Anybody know where to get some Cayugas?



On another positive note, I did find two toads while I was weeding today. Not quite enough to eat all the slugs, but a start.



Devil's Coach Horse

Devil's Coach Horse Beetle

There's nothing better to capture the imagination of a young boy than a name like Devil's Coach Horse Beetle and that's what happened to me many years ago. Although not rare, I think I've only seen a couple in my life. That is until this year, when I've been encountering about one a day.

What an amazing beetle it is with its long, thin body, large jaws (adults) and scorpion-like defence posture. I did get to see this action the other day when I disturbed one in the strawberry patch. Apparently they are capable of emitting a foul smell from special glands too.

The DCHB is a predator, eating just about anything that moves, and according to at least one website this includes slugs. Finally! I have an ally in my battle.

But it would need a small army of DCHBs to impact on the slug population at the present. As we enter our fourth wet month, those slimy little critters are having a field day. Sue read the other day that there are two and a half times the usual number of slugs this year. I think the whole nation's population must have decamped to my veg patches!

Monday 9th July 2012
A most featureless sky.

Tuesday 10th July
What's there to say?

Sorry to go on about them, but yesterday morning I actually got quite depressed when my tired body dragged itself up to find the most featureless sky imagineable. I took a snap, let the chickens out and headed back for bed. That wasn't the depressing bit. That was just a disappointing sunrise and a tired body. No. The depressing bit was the hordes of slugs devouring my squashes (the hairier varieties seem most resistant) and, worse still, the lovingly nurtured bean plants which I had transplanted just the previous evening to replace those which I'd lost.

Instead of back to bed, it was two hours of slug destruction and the same again this morning to get back on top of the problem.

Pragmatic organic??
I seriously felt like abandoning my principles and driving straight to the shop to invest in bucket loads of slug pellets (despite my previous utterances on this subject). I have resisted for now, but I have always said that I would be pragmatic organic. By this I mean I will garden according to organic principles except in exceptional circumstances where whole crops are faced with destruction.

Nature's balance has clearly been thrown out of kilter and my efforts to fit in with it have been seriously derailed. For now at least I have held back on such a big decision.
But it clearly won't be a bumper crop of beans this year, any variety. I'll be happy if we get a few to eat and enough to save for next year's seed. Considering how many I've planted this year, that's some scaling back of my expectations!

To take my mind off my gardening woes, I returned to the house and spent the whole day cleaning. Although not my natural inclination, we had a builder coming round late afternoon and I knew that Sue would want to present a visitor with a house that was spick-and-span. When I took breaks, it was to check on the chickens or transport carts of manure down to the muck heaps. What a glamorous life I lead!
Typically it stayed dry all day. The forecast for tomorrow...


Peas and Harmony
Not all is negative. It's been a great year so far for peas and potatoes. As I dug Charlottes from the ground for dinner last evening, a strange call overhead was an unexpected barn owl quite high up. Then, as I plucked cascading pea pods and purple mangetout, fourteen lapwings passed by. It's been a bad year for breeding birds and these could well have given up and be thinking about where to spend winter!

The spuds and the peas, by the way, tasted wonderful. The sugar snaps were like small packages of perfect freshness and sweetness.