Drastically thinning the plums

Saturday 3rd June
Today I sowed the rest of my beans along with the sweetcorn, courgettes, pumpkins and celeriac. Finally virtually all of the veg beds have something in them.
I sowed more carrots and lettuce too as well as sowing my swede crop for the year.

With everything growing so well, the creeping thistles have poked their heads up in my young woodland and there are a couple of rather large patches which will get out of control if I do nothing about them. Don't get me wrong, thistles are great for wildlife and I even quite like how they look, but they are just too unruly. So I spent a half hour or so  mixing up the Grazon and spraying it liberally. The great thing about this weedkiller is that it doesn't kill the grass, it just takes out the broad-leaved plants, with a particular penchant for thistles and nettles. It's not organic so I wouldn't use it near the crops, but it is perfect used in the right place. Within 24 hours the plants will already be drooping.

Finally I got on the mower. When it works well it is great, but I have never been able to ride it in confidence. Today it broke again! I gave up.

Sunday 4th June
Job for the day was to thin the plums. Two of my trees have bumper crops this year - the Victoria plum and the Merryweather damson.
Tempting as it is to leave all the plums on the tree, the internet reassures me that this is not the best policy. The fruits need space to grow and they need air around them so they don't rot. Plum trees often suffer from branches breaking under the stress of a bumper crop of fruit - another reason to thin the young fruit. Thirdly, and I had not considered this, if the tree has put all its energies into a bumper crop of fruit it is unable to produce the fruiting buds for next year. This is why so often fruit trees go into the habit of cropping every other year.
And so I set about a drastic thinning process, leaving at most a third of the plums on each tree. It had better turn out well.








Monday 5th June
Following a dismal return from the 500 sweetcorn seeds I originally sowed, I ordered some extra seed from another company. Fortunately they were having an end of season sale, plus I receive a discount on top of this so I ended up paying less than 50% of the packet price.
But of course, while I was on their website, many other items caught my eye. In particular I discovered a good source of seed for my dyer's garden which I hope to develop next year. I also purchased some lablab beans. More on both of these later.

Tuesday 6th June
Boris needed his annual booster today so it was off to the vets over in Norfolk. Arthur came along for the trip too and I had a secret plan to take them both to the beach afterwards. But plans change. The weather was showery here, but by the time I had made the journey to Norfolk conditions were well and truly miserable. In the end we came straight back from the vets and had a lazy rest of the day.

Everything is growing... quickly

2nd May
The broad beans are up and doing well, well enough indeed to take the netting off and finally be able to access all the weeds which have started to emerge amongst them. I planted out Poached Egg plants among them - this supposedly prevents them being attacked by blackfly and it seems to have worked for the past few years so I'll continue with it.
I got half of the onions weeded too before heavy rain in the afternoon drove me into the polytunnel.
No matter though, plenty of jobs to keep me busy in there. I sowed more carrot seeds. The first two packs of Early Nantes seeds I used have been discarded. I was beginning to think there was something very wrong with my soil but different varieties have since germinated well.
I planted more kohl rabi seedlings out into the beds - these are the last ones for the polytunnel. From now they'll be sown outside. The early turnips I sowed are doing well (after a similar disaster with the first batch of seeds) and needed thinning. Hopefully we'll get some young turnips before long and the plants can then come out to make room for the young pepper plants I've got coming along.
I sowed some peas for outdoors too, deciding not to risk planting them straight into the soil outside - it also brought me some time to construct a support for them.
3rd May
We were awoken at 6am by the dogs barking. They were quite persistent, so obviously thought there was something out there. I went outside but nothing seemed amiss. It was a lovely morning with a gentle and warm southerly breeze.
I decided to spray the last few creeping thistles which survived last year's regime of attack. I have learned that just a few pests and weeds need radical solutions, but I try to do this as efficiently and as carefully as I can so as to leave the wildlife hopefully minimally affected. I tried pulling the nettles and thistles but on the scale of our smallholding it was an impossible task. I still leave patches of nettles around the edge, but the creeping thistles really are too invasive to tolerate. It's a great shame as they are alive with bees and butterflies when in flower.
The day continued hot and the southerly air brought with it an arrival of Swallows along with the first Swift of the year and a brief Sand Martin. Up till now we only had 4 swallows back on the farm. I always know when new arrivals come in as there is much excited chattering and chasing.
The first orange-tip butterfly was fluttering around too and later the first small white (= cabbage white!!!) This prompted me to erect the netting over my main brassica patch. I've constructed a veritable fort which should protect my greens from caterpillar and pigeon attack.

One final job for the day was to move all the sheep down to the big field. The paddock up by the house needs a little time to recover before I move the lambs back up again without their mums.

All the ewes and lambs meet up for the first time.

There is much excitement.

And after the final job, there is usually another one. In weather like this, keeping everything watered in the polytunnel is crucial. Forget for one day or miss a tray and a whole batch of seedlings can be dead. I'm using the overhead irrigation more this year but a bit of targeted watering every evening is still necessary.
After I'd given the hanging strawberries a good soaking I decided to tuck some straw underneath the developing fruits, firstly to act as a mulch and keep in the moisture and secondly to prevent the strawberries from rotting where they touched the soil surface.




4th May
22 Centigrade today. A real scorcher!
I sowed my first beetroots direct outside, between the onions. They are supposedly good companions. I sowed my quinoa seeds too. Well, some of them. I bought a packet which contained several thousand seeds, to be sown direct a foot apart. I had enough for a field full! Unsure of how they would germinate, I sowed them much more thickly. I sowed some in modules in the polytunnel too, just to be sure.
Quinoa is a new crop for me. I like to try new things, but they don't always work. Generally there are reasons why some vegetables (and grains) have become more popular than others, but there is the occasional exception to the rule.
Lastly, Rameses is down to two feeds per day. This in in preparation for weaning him off his bottle milk. His afternoon feed will consist of being offered a tub of creep feed and beet pellets (pre-soaked). I'm sure there will be loud protestations!

Rameses comes out for his feed and has been making friends with the dogs.

5th May

Gosling's first trip into the garden proper.

Not much done on the smallholding today. I did get to the hardware store though so was able to fix the hinges on the duck houses.
40 Sweetcorn minipop seedlings appear to have gone missing! I don't suspect foul play, more an ever increasing propensity to put things down and completely forget about them!
6th May
A white duck egg! The first for some time. The white duck has been through a bit of a hard time. We had to separate her from the black Cayugas as the young male just would not leave her alone, eventually drawing blood on her head and wing. We separated her off for a while. Meanwhile the overly hormonal drake was 'disappeared', but not before he had exhausted another of the females. Sadly we lost her.
The good news is that the white duck has made friends with the lone white Muscovy drake - the larger drake has taken the two females for himself. She has even started going into the same house as him and the egg shows that she is healthy and happy again. Maybe she approved of her new door hinges too.





More exciting news was the first tail-raising display by Captain Peacock. It wasn't spectacular and appeared to be aimed at a duck, but it was still a significant moment.
Finally I undertook a big job today, restoring the asparagus bed. It was in a bit of a state. Keeping weeds out is very difficult and the ridges I grow it on were collapsing. Furthermore, cracks had appeared in the soil around this years emerging spears and last year's decomposing stems had made more perfect hidy holes for slugs, who seem partial to a nice bit of young asparagus.

Traditionally asparagus beds were treated with salt, which would kill off weeds (and I presume do a pretty good job on slugs). I decided that some old builders sand I had would do a similar job, as well as filling in the cracks and holes. Anyway it was pretty hard work but I was pleased with the finished results of my work. The asparagus will very soon begin growing at a phenomenal rate and we can harvest it until about the end of June when we leave it to grow and gather the sun's goodness to store in its roots.

Thistles - A Tale of Love and Hate

Why is it that some of the very best plants are also some of the very worst plants?
I'm talking nettles and thistles. The good side:  not actually bad looking plants, wonderful for wildlife, useful as a barrier. The bad side: rampant and uncontrollable.

I'll deal with the thistles for the moment, creeping thistle in the main. It produces fluffy seedheads by the million. If they find a footing, they shoot their roots deep into the ground and in no time fleshy roots are spreading deep underground, sending up battalions of prickly shoots. Pulling them is tedious and disheartening, not to mention the inevitability of discovering some time later that microscopic pieces of thorn are lodged just under your skin.

But on the good side, there's this:

Thistle flowers are an absolute magnet for insects. These photos took me less than 10 minutes to take and it wasn't even a sunny day.

If only there was a way to control the thistles, to grow them where I want and only where I want.
The old saying goes -

Cut them in June

You've cut too soon,

Cut them in July,

They're sure to die.

 

Unfortunately it's not that straightforward. But it is definitely the best time to cut the plants when they have just put all their energy into producing flowers. More than that though, they need constant removal and this is just not realistic. (It's taken for granted that I will only use a weedkiller when I have completely run out of other options - even that would require repeat applications).

Now, I may not be able to constantly keep the thistles cut, but I am hoping that I have put together a team who can. They need a little help at first, for which I use a hand sickle to swipe down the plants, but after that they come along and devour the wilting leaves. They gradually nibble the fresh young leaves too and I'm hoping this will be enough to do the trick over time.
Here is my team.

If my Shetland sheep attack the thistles with the same gusto that they nibble at my trees, in no time the thistles should only be growing where I choose.
They like nettles too.

A Prickly Problem...This'll Sort It Out!

Come on! Face The Camera!

Tuesday 21st August 2012

Oh dear, we broke the farmer's tractor!

Yesterday the farmer was in the ex-rape field next door cutting the vegetation along the dyke with his tractor. We thought nothing of it until he appeared asking us if we had a knife and scissors. The huge sheet of polythene which once covered our old stack of haybales had blown into the dyke at some point and was now entangled in the farmer's machinery! We did sort it out, everything was amicable and no lasting damage was caused. But the reason I tell you this is that the conversation brought to the fore another job which needed doing...

A Prickly Subject

Remember back in early spring, after Squiggle and Curl had recreated a scene from The Battle Of The Somme along one edge of the pig enclosure, I had a brilliant idea. Bring in the electric fence and plant the area with Jerusalem artichokes, then in the autumn I could just move the electric fence back again revealing a tasty harvest upon which the new piglets could feast.



Here you can see the old fence line
and the forest of thistles in the background.

Well, it almost worked, but instead of Jerusalem artichokes I got prickly thistles! Now, much as I  and the birds and the insects like the thistles, I need to keep on the right side of all those around me and the fluffy seed heads have started drifting through the air in the summer breeze.
I can't really see it being an issue, as the fields get pounded with herbicides, fungicides, pesticides...you name it... I even found out that they get a liberal sprinkling of slug pellets. No wonder the wildlife struggles. 

Anyway, clearing the thistles was a job which needed doing. So this morning, at first light, I switched off the electric fence and began the painstaking job of moving it the other side of the thistles. Fortunately pigs have a very good memory for where their boundaries used to run and take quite some time to realise that the fence is not still there. Nevertheless, I worked as quickly as I could until I could switch everything back on.





I then set to work flattening the thistles. I wasn't really appropriately dressed, with shorts and no socks, but my big feet made relatively short work of rendering the forest flat.

Next job was to send in the pigs to complete the trampling and dig out the roots. Pigs are remarkably tough and seem completely unaffected by prickles and thorns.

But first there was the invisible line to cross! Even the temptation of lush grass and tall vegetation was not enough, but a sprinkling of pig nuts soon proved too much temptation as the first brave soul ventured his snout into previously forbidden territory.

It wasn't long before all seven were burying themselves beneath the thistles, shoving each other out the way and tossing piles of thistles aside to get at the pignuts beneath.

So there you have it. Happy farmer. Happy pigs. Happy me.

And the goldfinches, butterflies, hoverflies and bees? Well, I make sure there's plenty enough food and habitat for them spread around the farm.



Ragwort and Thistles - Poisonous and Prickly

Sunday 8th July 2012

More wildlife at first light.
This leveret relies on sitting tight for protection.

At some point last night Daisy and Gerald must have sorted out their sleeping arrangements. All was sleepy under dramatic skies this morning.



As I said in yesterday's post, I took a bit of a battering yesterday. So my aching body would appeciate a day of leisure today, with a certain Wimbledon final scheduled at the heart of it (and, less historically, a manure collection). I spent the early morning taking in some of the details in the garden. 

 

There was too much dew to venture back into the meadow.

But it looked beautiful as it bejewelled the drooping asparagus ferns.

The chickens gained height

to avoid getting their

feathers drenched

and Cocky fluffed himself up big.

Back in the spring, Sue peppered Weasel Ridge
with poppy seeds.
Her efforts are now being handsomely rewarded.

 

And so it was that I pottered around for a while, browsing on dew-covered raspberries and strawberries, delightfully crunchy sugarsnap peas and the freshest of garden peas plucked straight from the pod.

All a far cry from yesterday's exertions. Reward for my efforts.

Ragwort and Thistles.



I actually happen to like both of these plants. The deep cut leaves of ragwort topped by sunny explosions of yellow florets. And the stark, sharp outlines of thistles supporting those wonderful globes opening into deep purple tufts so beloved of bees and butterflies.

Cut in May, they'll grow back in a day.

Cut in June is much too soon

Cut in July, sure to die

(or say goodbye)

That's the old rhyme about thistles. So it's time for action! In fact I'm still in two minds about the thistles. They're so very good for wildlife, but the problem is that if I let them flower and seed they end up everywhere. They're a complete pain to clear though. So spiky I can't even pick up the cut stems with gloves on. Instead I have to pick them up using the shears. Leave them on the ground and months later those needle like thorns come back to haunt.

Maybe I should just leave one patch, far enough away from the bare soil of the veg patches to not cause too much of a problem. 
No. Those seeds get blown everywhere. Better, I think, to replace them with something less invasive. Probably teasel, so good for the bees in the summer and the goldfinches in the winter.
There'll always be a few thistles that get through the net. But I'm going to learn from my mistakes of the past. Whenever I have selectively allowed certain 'weeds' to grow because I liked them, they have invariably betrayed my trust and ended up swamping everything around!

As for the ragwort. Well, if everything I read were true it would surely have taken over the Earth by now, wiping out all wildlife that stood in its way.
True, it's a complete pain to eradicate. Let it flower and, as a biennial, it should die. But how many seedlings will pop up elsewhere? Cut it and it just resprouts stronger, even changing it's growth habit to behave like a perennial. Try pulling it and invariably it snaps at the base, leaving the roots to sprout new growth. Even digging it out would leave fragments of root, each reportedly giving rise to a new plant.

Now, this would not be a problem if it weren't for the fact that ragwort is one of only five plants which landowners are obliged to control. For it is poisonous to livestock, particularly horses. Again, if you believe everything you read it would seem that a horse or a cow only has to look at a ragwort plant and it will drop dead.
Of course, all of the above dire warnings come from the chemical companies, who'd just love you to feel you had no option but to use their products. It might be easier, but my experience tells me that with persistence and hard work I can get on top of the problem. But it is a problem I need to keep on top of, for if I let it get out of control I will never be able to sell hay from the meadow should I wish.

And now is the perfect time for the job. The ground is waterlogged, even with patches of standing water. It's hard to remember we're in July! The plants are towering up and their disks of yellow flowers announce their presence.
So, with a trowel to loosen the soil I set to work prowling around the meadow pulling and digging every plant I could see. Every plant I pulled was carefully collected for burning.
Most plants yielded their long tapering roots and even the largest came out with most of their rootballs intact. OK, so some of the tiny bits of root will regrow, but there is no way that inflicting so much damage on a plant can result in it coming back stronger.

Of course, if I am eating my words in a couple of years, I can always give up my principles. Though even then I'll spot treat each individual plant rather than blithely wiping out every broadleaf herb in the meadow.