Squash Tyres

Saturday 9th June 2012

At the moment a pattern seems to be emerging. Grey starts to the day seem to lead on to the better days weatherwise. And so it was today. A day to be busy in the garden.
I had a big job to do. The squash tyres.

Luxury High-Rise Squash Accommodation
Some of my cucurbits (squashes, pumpkins, courgettes and cucumbers) have gone in with the sweetcorn and beans as part of my Three Sisters experiment. The rest though, have their own special area, each with it's own home fully equipped with everything it could possibly need. Firstly, a tyre to keep it warm and to raise it above the ground. Then, a layer of turfs, back to back, to rot down and give goodness. The next layer of the cake, well rotted horse manure for strong growth. On top a covering of topsoil, just to stop the diet being too rich. Atop all this, each young plant, lovingly reared in the greenhouse, would get its own protective cloche made from a milk carton.

When I showed Sue how to do this, she put the milk carton upside-down...and it made a lot of sense. Easier to secure, a smaller rim to push into the soil and a larger rim to catch the rain and allow for expansion. The final luxury, a layer of slug repellent granules.
Now, this didn't all build itself. In fact it took the best part of the day. Just one last thing to prepare before my cherished plants came to their new home. A slug bashing session.

This year has been quite the opposite of last for slugs. So it didn't take me long to dispatch well over a hundred slugs. Just one of these, nibbling through the stem of a young plant, could wreck all the effort put into rearing it. I know I've talked about working with nature, but I'm afraid that doesn't include slugs. Well, not until I've managed to attract more hedgehogs, frogs and toads into the garden.

Luxury high-rise apartments for the cucurbits

A big scare
Mid afternoon our cat, Geronimo (Gerry for short) came miaowing up to me in the garden. When we moved in we acquired three delightful kittens, mainly to help with the rodent situation. They were supposed to be feral, but we are cat people, so these were always going to be loved and mollycoddled. We were devastated last spring to lose two of them on the road within a short space of time. Olly and Charlie are still much missed and lovingly remembered.
Now, Gerry disappears for long spells into the fields or hunting in the dykes, and occasionally he just decides not to respond to us, especially if he is hunting. So it is always a relief when he puts in an appearance. So I put him in the house at 3 o'clock and got on with my work in the knowledge that he was safe.

At quarter to ten, just as I was contemplating stopping for bad light, Sue came down to where I was working and said that Gerry was nowhere to be seen in the house and that he hadn't come to see her since she got home late afternoon. Convinced that I had put him in, and that the door had not come open again, I searched the house, but no sign. The first place we look, with dread, when Gerry does not come, is on the road. Then along the dyke, in case he has ended up in there. But that's when it's light enough to see. By now it was gloom, heading for pitch black.

Well, to cut a long story short, we searched more and more desperately with no luck. He had always come in before dark, but it was now approaching midnight. I still could not understand how he had got out, so searched the house for the third time...and there, under the bed, tucked away behind an old quilt, sat a very devected looking cat.
What a huge relief! But something was clearly up. He really was not himself, listless, no purr and no response to us. We put him on the bed and went to sleep. It wouldn't be long till the morning and we could see how he was there. At least I wouldn't be out searching for him at first light.

An Egg Thief

Friday 8th June 2012
The heavens opened.

I'm no fair weather gardener. I've taken my fair share of drenchings in the rain, buffetings by the wind and even peltings by hail stones. But I'm no fan of days when these elements combine.
For some reason I was up at 3 this morning, so I decided to scan the internet in search of a fencing and gate supplier. I was hoping to get everything I needed from one place, and the best I came up with was over the other side of Melton Mowbray. http://www.davidmussonfencing.co.uk/store/


So I set to work planning what I needed. I could get everything from here and their prices seemed very favourable compared to others.
After a break for the sunrise photo and another for feeding the animals, I had finally compiled my list of requirements. Two 9ft gates (10 foot if they could deliver), four 4ft gates, 40 posts, latches and hinges for six gates (the ironwork is a significant part of the cost), 100m of rabbit fencing and 25kg of straining wire.
My preference would be to view what I was buying, but it seemed silly to go all the way without the trailer. On the other hand, the trailer bounces all over the place when it's empty, especially on bumpy fenland roads, so I prefer to use it only for short journeys. Come opening time, I phoned to enquire about availability and everything was in stock...just. Delivery was possible, at a price, but by now I had decided to take the chance and hope that I could fit everything in the trailer.
By the mood of the sky at sunrise, there was obviously a lot of moisture in the air and it was only a matter of time before it came down in bucketloads, so a shopping trip seemed like the best way to spend the day. We headed inland through genteel country villages, all their houses hewn from the same, sandy stone. And just as we arrived at the impressive yard, the heavens opened. But I was in a sweetshop and nothing was going to spoil the fun.

Fortunately the shorter posts just about fitted in the back of the car,
as the trailer was full to the brim.

An Egg Thief

The hens' egg production has plummeted recently and I have been a little concerned. I could see possible reasons for a reduction, but we are now down to one or two eggs a day. Thoughts of disease were entering my head, but Sue has possibly discovered a more sinister explanation...cannibalism!

Chickens will eat eggs if they find one broken and that's just part of nature's recycling. However, every now and again a hen learns that inside those hard shells lies a tasty treat. And so it was that sue returned from the hen house with tales of Elvis and White Broody Number Two with egg on their beaks.

Now White Broody Number Two is sitting on eggs right next to here the others lay. Has she been secretly leaning over and helping herself? It would explain a lot.

Flaming June

Thursday 7th June 2012

The moments just before the sun comes up often give the most dramatic skies

as the light bounces around the clouds.

Today was one of my favourites of the year so far.

Flaming June is to be taken as a mild expletive, not a description of the weather!

Talking of flames, that reminds me. Where are my carrots? I've sown about six different types (not all orange) at three different times in several different places and they're now long overdue. I can only think that they are all lying dormant and will take me by surprise, or that the seeds have lost their viability since last year. But all of them?? Could be the slugs, but again, all of them?

Anyway, I'll give it another week and then I'll sow new ones, much more thickly and forget successional sowing! The same seems to have happened to my Hamburg Parsley and Spring Onions. Maybe a hot, dry few days came at just the wrong time, especially with the hosepipe ban still in place.

Well, June has not exactly been flaming so far. In fact, there's been enough rain to make weeding a delightful task. And boy, have those weeds grown! Today was the turn of the soft fruit patch to be cleared. Rhubarb, gooseberries, currants of all colours, raspberries, blackberries, tayberry, honeyberry, blueberries and strawberries - all were beginning to be engulfed by dandelions, docks, sowthistles, proper prickly thistles, nettles, mayweed, fat hen and a host of other invasive plants.

But sometimes, if you time it just right, conditions for weeding are perfect. And today was the day. The soil was not sticky or clogging, but was so soft that even the likes of dandelion and dock with their deep, tapering roots, if grabbed firmly at the base and tugged gently, yielded their whole root. Such was the task that, after a late start, it took most of the day and resulted in four barrowloads of weeds for the pigs to pick through. 

And now we have raspberries again. I can even work out which are the summer fruiting and which the autumn fruiting. We just need some sun to ripen all those fruits nicely.

Venus transits The Sun

Space is a big place. So when something unusual happens, typically one thing passing in front of another, it stirs up a lot of excitement. I have to say, I normally end up being underwhelmed. To me, some of the beautiful and stunning sunrises and sunsets I've experienced, as well as sights like the moon two nights ago, totally eclipse these more unusual events (forgive the unintentional pun).

So, I would be rewarded for my diligent sunrise awakenings this year with a view of Venus passing in front of the sun. And here it is! ...

Wednesday 6th June 2012
Venus passes in front of The Sun
(please e-mail me if you would like an uncompressed version!!!)

That's the other thing I forgot to mention. We are battling against the odds to witness any cosmic phenomena. At the end of this year I'll calculate the percentage of mornings when cloud did not fill the horizon.

Now where did I put that important document?

My smallholding is well-organised. I may fall behind in my tasks, but on the whole I run a tidy ship. The same cannot be said for my office and my paperwork. Today I did not venture outside after sunrise, for the time had come to sort out what was beginning to resemble a hoarder's room.


There was a most definite spur to this action, for I could not find my car documents anywhere and the tax ran out at the end of May. (Actually only 1 day overdue, as all the rest of the days have been bank holiday). I did try to renew it on time, just, but I needed the documents or it would be a trip to my 'local' DVLA office. These documents may well be in amongst the piles of unfiled bank statemnets, receipts and bills. On the other hand, they could have slipped in amongst all the smallholding and gardening catalogues. Or I could even have put them somewhere safe! That would be the worst. I used to put things at the bottom of the wardrobe, or at the back of my sock draw, so today's super sort-out began in the bedroom. I emptied every drawer and cupboard, taking advantage of the opportunity to have a good chuck out. Anything not worn for 2 years and, more relevant, anything with enough tears and rips to render it indecent to wear, got thrown.

Then, inch by inch, document by document, I sorted through the study, transferring financial records onto my well organised but oft neglected budget spreadsheet. I started this at 3 this morning, as the urgency of finding that V5C was playing on my mind. At 4.30 I went out to let the chickens out and to see the sunset, and what a stunner it was.

Tuesday 5th June 2012

At 6 o'clock the program closed itself and I lost 3 hours work! Lesson learned...until next time. Old programs do not automatically save as you go along.

It's now 5.30 in the evening and I've just found the V5C at the bottom of the second to last pile of papers. Looking on the bright side, I've just done about a year's worth of paperwork and the office, as well as my bedroom drawers, looks stunning.


Now to go out onto the farm and see what's been happening. Rumour has it that Sue's put four eggs under another hen. No wonder we're not getting many eggs, what with two broodies and three in heavy moult. Mind you, a little patience and we should be rewarded.


Oh, and Sue's been scrumping, if that word's not exclusive to fruit trees, in Don's rhubarb patch. She's found a recipe for Rhubarb and Ginger jam.

Tomorrow morning, the possibility of something special in the sunrise...

Greeniversity

Monday 4th June 2012
The sun makes a valiant effort to break through.

Sunrise is getting earlier by less than a minute a day as it approaches the turn. From 14th to 19th June it's at 04:34, then it gradually starts getting later again. Egg production is still worryingly low. Three of the chickens are in heavy moult and another is sitting on eggs. Given how well they laid all winter, and that they were almost laying one a day on the shortest day, I think their bodies must have been tricked by the warm winter. Perhaps now, finally, they've run out of energy and need a rest. Let's hope so.


Not long ago we had so many eggs we felt guilty if we did not eat at least two a day and make a batch of cakes at the weekend. But now they're all sold before they come out of the chickens. In fact, when laying is poor, we have to ration our customers. With a week's holiday, we get to eat more of our own eggs and I'm looking forward to it.


Our efforts at rearing more egg-laying hens are proving frustrating too. Although our hatch rate has improved considerably, it is looking like we have far more cockerels than hens! In general with livestock, boys are pretty useless and girls are what you want. All to do with testosterone (or whatever the chicken and pig equivalent is if it's not testosterone).


Sue reckons it's something in the water round here as there are far more boys than girls in her school too.


Heritage Food at Greeniversity
After yesterday's mammoth job, my body needs a rest, so it is most convenient that we have booked ourselves to attend a heritage food event in Whittlesey, promising elderflower delights and goosegrass curry....



... well, the event wasn't quite what we expected. We hadn't realised it was part of a fairly small jubilee fete, unfortunately slightly dampened by the weather.

We decided to give it a miss, and instead went to a giant Tescos! Much as I criticise the big supermarkets, there are many things which we can't produce for ourselves. It's not often that we go to big shopping centres these days, and it felt slightly strange. In fact, we felt a bit like those tribespeople from PNG plucked from their surroundings and airlifted into the hullaballoo of the Western world!

We did have an ulterior motive for our Tesco pilgrimage today. Swing-top bottles. A special offer meant that it's almost as cheap to buy them filled with Grolsch as it is to buy them empty! I'll just have to do my duty.
I noticed too that it is possible to buy lemon curd and marmalade for 22p and 27p a jar. I hate to think how they do it for that price. We pay a lot more than that just for the jars for our honey, jam and chutneys (when we don't have enough to re-use that is). It would actually be cheaper to buy these products and tip them away! That can't be right and it would feel very wrong doing this. I'd end up trying to find recipes to use loads of lemon curd and marmalade...

To go off on a tangent, that prompted me to google the famous nursery rhyme. Fascinating the information you can find at the click of a finger.

Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me five farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin's.

When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,
Say the bells of Shoreditch.

When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.

I do not know,
Says the great bell of Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

This is actually a very lean time as the winter stores get low and we await the first crops with mouthwatering expectation. So we were a bit like kids in a sweetshop today! Not that I agree with flying food all over the world. Maybe as the occasional treat in our ever shrinking world, but it has become the norm and is taken for granted. 
Chicken talk
The Welsummers have grown at an astonishing rate and I was keen to get them outside today, while the weather held off, but the grass in the chicken area was truly like a jungle. So I attacked it for an hour with the strimmer. I was very pleased with the result. The chickens were not too impressed by the strimmer but I think they appreciated their new landscape!

With the disturbance over and the long, damp grass cut back, it was time to introduce the chicks to their new home and to the two French Copper Marans.



The 5 Welsummers (the large, darker birds)
and the four Indian Games
get used to their new surroundings and company.


Meanwhile, one of the teenagers has begun to cockle-doodle. Well, it's more of a croaky, muffled crockloooeeeuuuuuugh! If he had any sense he'd stay quiet and pretend to be a hen.
To end a very diverse day, I played chase with the pigs, trying to get photos of them charging towards me. This involves me running as fast as I can and turning to take a quick piccie before Daisy and her litter loom large. She moves with deceptive speed.

The pigs appreciated their rewards.

The day ended with an amazing moonrise, more than my camera can do justice too. A huge, orange globe in a velvety sky.

Moving Mountains

Sunday 3rd June 2012
Rain.

Spuds, Muck and more Muck
Today I moved not one, not two, but three mountains! I had arranged to go over to our friends and collect their bagged-up horse manure, but when I opened up the garage to hook up the trailer, I remembered that it was still half full with pig potatoes which needed loading into sacks and taking down to the pig pens. Sue and I got stuck in and it wasn't too long before half a ton of spuds were bagged up, apart from a carpeting of potato eyes on the floor of the trailer. 
The goose-barrow really earned it's keep today. I can fairly easily move 250kg on the barrow, so a couple of trips and everything was in the right place.

We then headed off to collect the 60 or so plastic bags of horse manure. Weighing in at between 5 and 8kg each, and more when wet, this was another job for the goose barrow when we returned. There was already a load of manure bags sitting by the heaps waiting to be unloaded. So that was over a hundred bags of muck to be split open and heaped up, or to put it another way, well over half a ton. By lunchtime the job was finished and so, just about, was I.
Like a marathon runner, I was pleased that it drizzled most of the day, though I must have looked pretty bedraggled by the end of it. 

But that was only two mountains moved, and the third towered over the first two, for Gerald's old stable still needed mucking out. I reckoned about 40 large wheelbarrows worth all needed digging out, wheeling down the land and unloading at the other end. Fortunately my muscles got a second wind and for a few hours I felt like Popeye. 

An admirable hobby
By early evening I welcomed the chance to pause and admire the agility of a hobby which cut through the air. Amazingly this falcon preys on swifts and swallows, particularly on migration and in late summer when there are plenty of young, inexperienced birds to hunt. Our small colony of breeding swallows attracts these falcons occasionally and the swallows always let me know of their presence as the adults fly up towards the hobby, twittering madly. I have only once seen a hobby actually take a bird in flight. It is more usual to see them catching their other favourite foodstuff over reedbeds, where they swoop in search of dragonflies which they catch and dismember in flight. Anyway, today's bird shot low through ahead of the rain and disappeared over the trees towards the Main Drain.

After that pause I pushed myself hard to get the job done and was feeling decidedly weary by the time the sun was plummeting toward the horizon.
That last barrowful was a joy to unload. A very, very good day's work done.

My muscles will be aching in the morning though, so more gentle jobs will be in order for tomorrow.

 

Black Gold

Saturday 2nd June 2012

See! I was serious about wearing the bee suit when mowing the lawn, though the bees behaved themselves today. With rain and showers forecast for the week ahead, I had another mammoth mowing session today, doing both lawns, the goose paddock, the veg patch, the soft fruit garden, the orchard and I carved a couple of paths through the meadow right to the end of the land. 

Fed up with the damp grass clogging up the machine, I gaffer-taped the metal contact at the back and bypassed the need for a collection box or a deflector. (Do not try this at home! The safety mechanism is there for good reason!) Notwithstanding this warning, the plan worked fabulously, though the mowings flew yards out of the back of the machine. This was OK when I mowed North to South, but when I turned I got a face full of grass and, over time, the back of my jumper began to resemble a football pitch!

Two things happened during the day to interrupt my mowing. First, and delightful it was too, I paused to watch a swallow playing with a goose feather. Four times it caught the feather mid air, only to release it and swoop again. I thought it was collecting the feather for its nest, but since it eventually left it to float back to the ground, I assume the swallow was either playing or just plain gave up.

The second thing that happened was this...

A bumper apple year last year meant that Don was unable to eat his way through all of his stored apples. This is very good news indeed for the pig family.

Black Gold

Achievement for the day went to the comfrey bin though. I hadn't checked the bucket for a while and got a really good surprise when I did. Expecting to possibly find a few drips of oily black liquid, instead I found over an inch of liquid. This will be diluted about 15:1 to make a fertiliser. And this from just one cut of less than half the comfrey bed. With about five cuts a year, that's a lot of fertiliser. The reason that comfrey is so good at collecting nutrients from the soil is that its roots go down as far as 10 feet. It can be soaked in water to give a fertiliser or leaves can be compressed and the black sludge collected as they break down. The leaves can also be used as a mulch or placed into planting holes to give plants a good start in life.

Ideally the leaves are cut just before the plant flowers. This is when they are at their most potent. However, I like to leave some of the plants to flower for the bees and for their beauty.

Beware of the Fenland nettle
I once did a study on nettles as part of  a Field Biology course. It involved counting the stinging hairs on the surface of the leaves. There was an astonishing difference between the stingiest and the least stingy. (Please read these two words with a hard g.) It transpired that nettles evolve locally to become much more potent when they are subject to grazing. So the rabbits have a lot to answer for. Our nettles are like no others I have come across. They get you through jeans and gloves, and once stung they leave tingling and numbness for hours.

But nettles are, on the whole, a good thing... like any other 'weed', if they have a use then they are good as long as they are controlled. They provide an excellent habitat for insects and are the food plant of small tortoiseshell caterpillars as well as being the host plant to comma and red admiral butterflies and many moths. Not only that, but they can be used in a similar way to comfrey, so today I carefully cut one of our nettle patches and topped up the comfrey bin. Basically, I am using the comfrey and nettle leaves as a means to collect nutrients and transport them to where I want them.

The Queen.



Friday 1st June 2012
A dreamy early morning sky

 



The Queen!

No, not the bees again. I mean the Queen.

For today was the Jubilee party at Sue's school and I was required to attend. It was actually a very enjoyable afternoon and good for the children to be part of the traditions and celebrations.

Pictures courtesy of Heart's Angels (Heart FM)

As you can see in the picture above, it was nice that the queen herself was able to attend and seemed to enjoy the recorder rendition of The National Anthem.

On a more serious note there was a lovely moment when the oldest woman in the village (90) opened the wildlife garden. She attended the school when she was a child, as have the next three generations.
Lots of parents came along and it was great that the school could again stand at the heart of the community.

Absolute bee-ginners

Thursday 31st June 2012

Opening up the hives
After work today, our bee colleague had agreed to come and open up the hives with us. We were expecting the worst. After all, Hive A appeared to have swarmed and Hive B (with the original queen) had been very quiet indeed. In fact, I suspected that the action at Hive B may have been the others going in and taking the store of honey.

It was somewhat reassuring to find out that this week has been a mega week for swarms. I guess everyone's bees were stuck inside during wet April and the first half of May. They obviously just spent their time multiplying! Then a hot fortnight for them to cram the hive full of honey. The result seems to have been hives full to the brim and mass swarms.

I heard, too, that our nearest fellow beekeeper had a bit of a nasty accident earlier in the week. While mowing his grass the bees came out of the rape field and stung him badly. Now I'm always careful to mow the lawn near the hives late on, after the bees have gone to bed, but after hearing this I think that extra precautions will be called for.

I've been rambling on when I should be telling what we found inside the hives. Well, Hive B had about 6 frames full of bees and brood, including plenty of newly laid eggs, which means that there is a queen and she is laying. In fact, it was fairly easy to find our old queen. The brood pattern looked healthy and there were stores of pollen and honey. Overall then, this hive should fairly quickly build into a healthy colony again. As the rape goes over in the field next door, so the clover begins to flower in the meadow.

Hive A, in which we had left a couple of queen cells, and which had swarmed, contained a surprising number of bees. Maybe seven or  eight full frames still. We couldn't find a queen, though a new queen would still be quite small and, obviously, unmarked. More importantly, nor could we find any eggs, which meant that the hive did not yet have a laying queen.
There were however a few old queen cells, which seemed to be empty. Probably the bees had chosen their new queen and destroyed the others. Thing is, they had then flown off with her.
But there were a few new queen cells too. So we removed the older queen cells and left the best looking so that, hopefully, a new virgin queen would emerge.

When this happens, she spends a few days in the hive before flying out and high up in search of drones from another hive with which to mate. As long as she does not get blown away by the wind, washed away by rain, or plucked out of the air by a bird, then she returns to start laying and building up her new colony.

The other job which needed doing in this hive was to move some of the honey-filled frames above the brood box and replace them with new frames. This is to keep the bees busy so they don't get ideas about swarming again. Secondary swarms are known as cast swarms, and can deplete the hive to the extent that it is no longer a viable colony.

A Queen Appears
As we were doing this, our bee colleague picked up one of the old queen cells which we had discarded. Out of it was crawling a bee... but not just any old bee. Even to my inexperienced eye this bee was longer bodied than the others. It looked absolutely pristine. A new queen, and a well-shaped one to boot.
This came as a big surprise, so the plan was changed. We decided to let her crawl in amongst the brood frames, and instead destroyed the two queen cells which we had left in there. With luck, the bees will accept her as their new queen and, next time we open the hive, we will see freshly laid eggs.


I would like to apologise for the lack of photos, as all of this will be a bit confusing if you don't keep bees. Reason is there's just too much to think about at the moment when we open the hives. Combine this with wearing a space suit and the fact that my glasses focus disconcertingly on the mesh veil of my hood and that's why there are no photos.

I promise to put together a photo essay at some stage in the near future.


Pigeon goes to roost
A comedic end to the day. As I ushered the goose pair into their stable block our new pigeon shuffled ahead of them and there it spent the night.

A new lodger moves in with the geese.