Strawberries, brassicas, bees wax and hedgehogs

Strawberries are delicious, but they are not as easy to grow as it might seem. The problem is that the strawberry bed loses productivity over the years.
So I have abandoned our old strawberry patch which really hasn't been very productive for a couple of years. But I cannot turn over a new area to strawberries every few years.

The old strawberry patch

Instead I have come up with a cunning plan. I purchased three dozen new plants of three varieties to spread the harvest period and have allocated them three beds in with the roots quarter of my rotation. Next year they will stay there and I will use the suckers to populate three more beds in next year's roots quarter. Then the same the next year. In the fourth year, the first beds will come out and as the strawberries rotate around the beds I will change which beds they occupy.
Incorporating the strawberries into the vegetable rotation is an idea I got from the legendary Lawrence D Hills, founder of the organic growing movement.
There is a big potential downside. I have also read warnings not to do this as strawberries are susceptible to verticillium wilt, a disease which also affects other crops, notably potatoes. But it is a risk I am going to take. The rewards outweigh the risk.
I purchased my strawberry bare root strawberry plants back in January. This is a bit late so they may not produce fruit this year but that doesn't matter too much as Wimbledon is cancelled anyhow! I potted them up for the roots to develop and waited for the worst of winter to pass.
Today they moved out into the big wide world. Hopefully they will like their new home.

The rest of the day was spent preparing veg beds. Under the no dig regime this should just be a matter of a quick hoe then piling compost on top of the beds. It should have been done back in the autumn or winter. However, I was pretty much incapacitated due to my back. Also I did not at the time have sufficient compost to achieve this, though cardboard could have been used to block the light.
And so the most neglected beds are now well on the way to reverting back to grassland! The transition to no dig is a gradual one anyway. Although in theory you can eradicate nasty perennial weeds over time by continual covering and pulling, I find that it is better in the first instance to dig out the really tenacious ones like couch grass, dock and creeping buttercup. This takes a lot of time and effort when the bed has been neglected.
I spent too much time on it in one day and my back suffered as a result. I find I need to do lots of different jobs and avoid too much of any one task in a day, especially if it involves bending down too much. I am not very bendy any more!

A quicker job was hoeing the beds with easier weeds, such as feverfew, dead nettle, groundsel and chickweed. With the soil surface dry and compost not yet applied, this was an easy job with the oscillating hoe.

Before my body gave up I covered the new beds with a thin layer of compost.

Next morning it was time to plant up some turnips and radish plants. I sowed these a while back in modules. The turnips are Snowball and Purple Top Milan. I also grow Golden Ball but this is an autumn turnip. The radishes are a right old mixture, including a new variety called Watermelon Radish. Unfortunately these need covering as a physical barrier against flea beetle and turnip root fly. I was already using the turnip netting to cover my new plantings of onions, calabrese and spinach.

Erecting netting takes time, mainly configuring the limited selection of poles to fit the new space each year. I was very happy with the system I came up with this year. The turnips have a higher mesh which will give them space to grow underneath and give me space to weed, thin and harvest from both sides.



Where the turnip mesh was has become my brassica cage for this year. This covers four beds. The main purpose is to protect against cabbage white butterflies, though I have invested in a biological solution this year so it doesn't need to be quite so watertight. It does however provide good protection against pigeon attack too.
I use soft butterfly netting. It is slightly more expensive but much tougher and less prone to ripping. It's quite an investment so needs to last from year to year.

Today I evicted the chickens and ducks from the veg patch too. Their services are useful for slug control but they also have a penchant for soft young spinach and brassica leaves!
I have put all the poultry together in the big pen. Fortunately there was no aggro. The four ducks set straight to work snuzzling through the grass and the six ex free-range hens stick together and are more than capable of looking after themselves.

Moving them out of the veg plot also means I can leave the polytunnel doors open now, as temperatures soar above 40 degrees whenever the sun comes out.



While I've been starting to fill the veg plot with crops, Sue has been using her time to sort out her bee frames. The bees are starting to produce honey now and we need more frames for them to store their honey in. The old frames are pretty gunky with honey and wax and propolis. Sue cut the old wax frames out and melted down the mixture in a special vessel to produce clean wax. The cloth that she strains the mixture through makes fantastic firelighters

Next the wooden frames needed cleaning. Sue boiled up a washing soda solution in her cauldron  and in went the frames. With all the gunk loosened she was able to scrape them clean.
I've made this job sound simple but with so many frames it kept Sue busy for a couple of days.
Now I just have to help her put the new wax foundation sheets into the frames. This is a job for evenings.




Arthur has been busy too. He is obsessed with hedgehogs
Arthur rarely barks unless someone passes the front gate. He doesn't bark if he is stuck in somewhere or if he needs to go out. But he does bark at hedgehogs. So a single bark heard outside was a sure sign that a hedgehog needed rescuing. Arthur has learned to pick hedgehogs up without getting a nose full of spines so I was not surprised to find this scene on the back lawn.
Unlike our labradoodle Boris, Arthur rarely plays with toys or chases a ball. But there is one exception. Notice anything about his favourite ball?

River Cottage has come to the Lincolnshire Fens

Sunday 27th May 2018

With Sue's rapidly expanding apiary, I spent some of the morning knocking up some new brood frames and a new brood box. Meanwhile Sue was inspecting her bees.
While I was in a DIY sort of mood and with Sue annoying the bees (actually they seem very calm and peaceful this year) I spent some time in the garage cleaning and sharpening my tools.

Bee city

I got to work hoeing some of the veg beds. What a difference a sharp hoe makes.
But it wasn't long before bees took over my day again, for a giant swarm appeared on one of the willow arches. I've already posted about this so won't go into too much detail. But I can't resist posting the picture up again.

Today's outdoor work was intermittent, for I was having a bit of a lazy day. You can't work solidly every day. At my age the body needs a rest every now and then, even if the mind doesn't want it to!
Fortunately one of our Freeview channels was showing old episodes of River Cottage all day long.
I had seen most of these before, but before I was a smallholder, and it is only watching them again that I quite realise how much they affected my life. The first time round, Hugh F-W planted a dream in my head.
The second time around was more of a nostalgic experience. We've done that... and that... we tried that... that happened to us too.
Very notable is that the rules have changed. No kitchen scraps for the chooks and pigs any more. No burying fallen stock. No blood back from the abattoir for black pudding. Apart from these details though, it was inspiring to watch all the shows again. I wonder what seeds have been inadvertently planted in my mind this time.



With the new bees in the brood box (the new one which I constructed this morning), I spent a very pleasant hour weeding the strawberries with Sue. They are looking good this year and fingers crossed there is no sign of a return of the Strawberry Seed Beetle, a plague of which devastated our crop this year.
There was still plenty of the day left, enough time to mow and edge the paths in the veg plot (overgrown edges are where the slugs like to hide) and ridge up the potatoes.
Sue made another batch of asparagus soup which smells absolutely delicious. We have a few weeks of asparagus left now before we let the plants grow and gather the sun's energy to store in the crowns ready for next year. The spears are coming thick and fast and are hard to keep up with.
At the moment every meal is accompanied by fresh asparagus, new potatoes and mangetout. The potatoes will continue for a long, long while with different varieties coming along nicely, but the asparagus and mangetout will soon be replaced by broad beans, the next vegetable to come into crop.

I leave you with a few images from the smallholding today.

The yellow flowers of Scorzonera in its second year.

Behind, the beautiful blue flowers of its cousin, Salsify

 

Left: Honesty which I have left.to flower and go to seed.
Right: The lambs enjoying a few freshly cut willow branches.

A Wasp Fly I found while planting bee seedlings.

A Scorpion Fly which got stuck in the polytunnel for a while.

Outdoor reared turkeys

Tuesday 22nd May 2018
The Dry Weather Turkey Chicks
The original plan was to move the young turkeys with one or both of their mums up to a stable once they were born. I don't like keeping birds inside, for I think that fresh air and exploration are key to their upbringing. However crows, cold and getting wet are most definitely not key to their upbringing.
A couple of years ago I made the mistake of putting some poults outside when they appeared strong and fully feathered at about 6 weeks old. They got soaked during a storm and were obviously suffering. I brought them back in, but over the next week we lost about one a day. It was heart-breaking.

This year we ended up with 14 chicks from two hens, ten from the more experienced hen and just four from the other. Very quickly two chicks swapped mums to the older hen. We sold four chicks while they were very young, which should pay for the others' food for a while. After a bit of 'negotiation' the ten remaining chicks are now being shared between both mums.
This year's turkey chicks have brought us good weather. They are ten days old now and have not yet seen a spot of rain. I am veering towards letting them stay outside. To this end I knocked them up a shelter, as much as anything to keep their food dry. While they are small they can all dive under mums protective wings, but they won't all fit forever.

A bigger job was to prevent them wandering through the heras fencing, for the crows have young now and will be on the lookout for any opportunity to grab a tasty treat. The young turkeys are inquisitive and go wandering through the nettles which surround the turkey pen. However the adults can't get through to protect them.
I rummaged around and found a roll of chicken wire and a roll of plastic tree protector. I found a jar of old twist ties which I'd been saving up too. Securing all this to the heras fence was a long and repetitive job and the young turkeys kept finding ways through.
In the end we got there though.

Thursday 24th May 2018
The first rain for a long while, which was desperately needed. The turkey chicks should be ok now. They are 12 days old and Mum knows what she is doing. When the wind turns cold or the air turns damp, she heads into one of the houses and spreads her wings to shield the poults.

Next to the turkey pen, the meat chickens are growing at a staggering rate. I have them separated from the other chickens so I can feed them the appropriate diet for their stage in life. At present they are on what is known as growers pellets, though they go mad for any bit of greenery I throw in the pen. They stay on these pellets until a couple of weeks before their time is up, when they move onto finisher pellets (the clue is in the name).

Growing fast

Finally  a couple of other images from the smallholding. The first is a wonderful wild rose which is brightening up my native hedge at the moment.
The second shows the strawberry rows which we have been weeding ready for the harvest. No sign of the dreaded strawberry beetle which plagued us last year, so fingers crossed for our best ever strawberry year.

A Plague of Strawberry Seed Beetles

Sometimes things do not go according to plan.

Rotten Strawberries

My strawberry plants have been looking extremely healthy with masses of young strawberries on them. Last year we had problems with them all rotting, but I weeded them out and tended to them over the winter. However, an old farmer had said that my rows were way too wide.

A few days ago I began to notice that my strawberries had something very wrong with them. Even the hard green fruits were developing brown marks on them and many were rotting way before they were anywhere near ripe.
I searched and searched the internet for the cause, but all that I could come up with was leather rot, and this only featured on American websites. It didn't completely match what I was seeing either. However, it certainly seemed to be fungal in nature, whatever it was, so I decided there could be no harm thinning the rows to let more air between the plants.
I drove the rotavator straight through the middle of the rows, up and down, picking off any damaged plants and brown fruits. I enlisted the help of Sue and the dogs, as this was quite a big job. It was quite depressing too, for most of the fruit needed taking off the plants.

All I can hope is that the plants can grow new fruits which will thrive better with increased air circulation.
If not, I may have to move the strawberry patch which would be very demoralising. I have put a lot of work into creating it and have had very, very little reward by way of strawberries. I thought they would be coming out of our ears!

A Plague of Beetles
On a separate matter, we have been absolutely inundated with ground beetles for the past couple of weeks. They are literally everywhere, even in the house. Last night Sue left a jug of water in the front room and there were 15 beetles swimming around in the morning!
As far as I was aware, ground beetles are good. They eat slug eggs among other things.

HOWEVER, curious as to whether this plague of beetles was peculiar to our farm, I went searching on the internet. First step was to identify them, which was fairly straight forward as they have clearly orange legs. So I typed into an image search orange-legged ground beetle and up came a matching picture - the strawberry seed beetle.





And here the two parts of this story come together.
It didn't take long for my search to hit on pictures of damaged strawberries with the damage exactly matching what is happening to our strawberries.

Further research reveals that this species is widespread throughout much of the world. It is in the adult stage that it is a pest of unripe seeds, anything from strawberries to grains and sugar beet. It is also an important insect for controlling other unwanted bugs, though this is of little use when it has caused so much damage itself.

For the moment the beetles seem to have largely left the strawberry bed and headed en masse into the house! Every evening they literally emerge from the woodwork and I am catching 20 to 30 before I go to bed.
It looks like, with luck, we will manage to salvage some sort of strawberry crop but I am a little concerned about future years. My best hope is that this has been a bumper year for Harpalus rufipes and that in future a more healthy balance will be restored.

For the moment I'm afraid the strawberry seed beetle will receive no mercy.

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.