HELP!!! Swamped by courgettes

 

If you ignore the missing bean plants, then I guess this is what the Three Sisters planting system is supposed to look like. The squashes, pumpkins and courgettes have slithered along the floor and crept in to every gap to completely cover the ground. And in between rise the clusters of sweetcorn.

The cucurbits growing in tyres are doing equally well, spilling over the sides and along the ground.And just look at the harvest we're getting. We are harvesting courgettes daily and poor Sue can't keep up with them. So far we've got a sea of Spicy Courgette Soup, we've got griddled courgettes, variously flavoured Courgette Fritters and grated courgettes. The freezer is positively bursting. The only thing we've not tried yet is courgette cake.

But PLEASE! PLEASE!! PLEASE!!! Does anyone out there have any inspired ideas how to use a mountain of courgettes, especially the ones which have miraculously reached gargantuan marrow proportions overnight, without necessitating another visit to the freezer shop?

I've scoured the interweb, which is full of similar tales and pleas, but I'm just looking for that one killer idea. Courgette beer?? Courgette cordial?? Courgette sorbet?? Even Courgette juice??

Meanwhile, here are some images.

 

 





 





Potimarron pumpkin.

There is a fascinating website devoted to

Tai Chi and Potimarrons!

http://www.rainbow-taichi.org.uk/site/the-potimarron-project/

The gurgling water is somewhat disconcerting.

I thought it was my fermenting cider

about to explode!





At least the squashes and pumpkins grow at a nice, steady rate and will store through the winter, a great asset. As for the courgettes, well here's what's happened to some of them.

Good news is that the chickens, geese and the pigs all like courgette, so nothing is going to waste.












A Double Dose of Greens

Thursday 23rd August 2012
A horizon lined with cloud made me wait
just long enough for a new bird to drop in.

OK. Sorry! It's birds again.

If you tuned in expecting to see courgettes, they will appear later today. That's a promise.
As I have done every morning (except one) this year, I walked out onto the farm at first light to take my sunrise photo. I have only recently switched to taking my morning photo from the very end of the land as the sun is gradually moving back along the horizon and a line of trees had begun to creep further and further into my field of view.

Well, this morning I had double reason for making this journey. Would yesterday evening's Green Sandpiper still be in the dyke? I carefully peered over the edge, but nothing in immediate view, so I cautiously climbed down the steep bank to get a view along. Again, nothing.

I scrambled back up and waited a couple of minutes to see if the sun would be able to break through the clouds on the horizon when, quite out of the blue, I heard a familiar, powerful chew-chew call. I looked up into the air to see a wader drop into the dyke, only about 30 yards to my left. I edged my way to the bank and, peering through the long grass, could see a juvenile Greenshank standing alert with its head held high showing off its strong, slightly upturned bill. I watched it for all of about ten seconds before it took to the air again and headed high south, calling chew-chew, chew-chew-chew.

Farm tick 102!

Well, well! What were the chances of that happening? Green Sandpiper one evening and Greenshank very first thing the next morning.

Actually it's no coincidence. Given the right conditions birds will be on the move in numbers. If there's something to attract them, even a newly dredged, muddy old dyke, then they will appear. It's just a matter of being lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. I could so easily have missed both these birds. Goodness knows what else I've missed, maybe even while I'm sat here typing.

An example of such a coincidence is not far away, for when I checked my records yesterday I noticed that it was one year and one day since I had a Pied Flycatcher in the garden. And the day after that I had a Spotted Flycatcher! The only time I've seen either bird here.

So next time I get a new bird for the farm, I'll be out the next day confidently expecting another. But that's not the way it works. However much you try to predict, it's always a surprise what turns up next.

That's the delight of birding.

Green Sand in the Dyke

It's not every day you get one of these at the bottom of the garden.

Well, I was all set to sit down this evening and compose a post about my mountain of courgettes. But this idea has been somewhat overtaken by events.




Wednesday 22nd August 2012
You can just make out a Marsh Harrier on an early morning foray (just left of the sun)

Running my smallholding takes up 90% of my time, but every now and then I drop everything for a bird. It may be one that flies through the garden, it may be one on some far-flung island which presents a logistical nightmare and requires a Herculean effort to get to.

Here on my fenland smallholding things have been hotting up on the bird front for a couple of weeks now. It started with an arrival of Willow Warblers which seem to pass through at this time of year. One was around the pond again this morning. The Swallows have been entertaining me early morning and evening, gathering in flocks of up to a couple of hundred with the adults teaching their young how to fly ahead of their hazardous migration.
I watched one make its first flight from the nest the other day, flitting around the stables and eventually settling on a hay rack with its siblings.

The finches have been forming their winter flocks too, families of goldfinches joining together in their jingle-jangling flight. This morning I witnessed the first mixed flock of the autumn, with Chaffinches and Linnets joining the Goldfinches.
But for a spectacle nothing can rival the sheer numbers of Black-headed Gulls which have been coming and going over the farm this last couple of days. This happens every year when the farmer runs the harrow over the straw that remains from the harvest. There must have been three thousand of them today, with just a few Common Gulls and even fewer Lesser-Black-Backed Gulls mixed in. I spent about an hour scanning through them hoping for something rarer, but not to be.

The bare fields show the birds now, so it makes a change to be able to see bemused partridges and pheasants which, till now, have just exploded from a few yards in front and skimmed the crops before disappearing again.
A young Buzzard has been taking advantage too, for two days now perched on the ground along the dyke, picking off any prey which makes the mistake of breaking cover..

Other excitement today, and very relevant to this birdy post, was the appearance of this monster machine which munched its way along the Lambert Drain, the dyke which runs across the bottom of my land. I pay the grand sum of £28 a year land drainage rates for this. It protects my land and the whole fenland area from falling under water, so a worthwhile expense!

Lambert Drain after the digger.

So, onto the main event.

Birders will interpret the title of this post differently to my other visitors, for the dyke was not indeed filled with green sand, rather brown, gooey mud. And I know this because I climbed down into it this evening.

And what on earth possessed me to do this?

Birding is a funny old game, full of fate and chance. Early this morning I was looking through my bird records from the farm for last year and I noted that a family of Grey Herons used to fly in every evening. I wondered whether the cold, wet breeding season had hit them hard, since I've only seen lone birds so far this year. But, right on cue, this evening I picked up four herons lumbering their way across the fields with their heavy, deep wingbeats. A welcome return. Above them wheeled a flock of about 100 Golden Plover, a winter visitor to the area. This is the first time I have seen these since they departed earlier in the year.

I worked late this evening under a glorious orange sky, but at some time past 7 my attention was diverted by a heron which rose from the dyke and headed away. It appeared very brown, though I suspected it was just a Grey Heron, possibly a dark, young bird strangely lit by the setting sun. I quickly forgot about it and continued with my work, but about 20 minutes later it dropped back into the dyke. I decided that this would be a good time to put away my tools and make the 300m trip to the end of the land to investigate further. I knew that as soon as I peered over into the dyke the heron would take flight. There was no avoiding this. I tried to break the skyline away from where ithad flown in, but it must have walked along the dyke in the meantime as it flew up just to my right. It was a Grey Heron, looking very smart in the evening light.
But at almost the same time a small wader flew up, calling, just to my right, no more than ten yards away. I knew instantly from its contrasty plumage and gleaming white rump, as well as the call, that it was a Green Sandpiper, the green sand in the dyke! It settled back further along the dyke which is when I climbed down and discovered quite how gooey it was down there! But it was worth it, for this was

Farm Tick 101!!

Yes, a new bird for the farm and for the patch, the eighth wader for the farm.  If it hadn't been for the beautiful sunset making that Grey Heron look a little strange, I would probably have remained totally oblivious to this passing gem.
I shall definitely be checking the dyke out a bit more now, as the newly exposed mud presents a rich feeding area for birds.

Oh, by the way, come back tomorrow if you want to find out all about my mountain of courgettes!

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.



Zwartbles lambs

Zwartbles to you too.

Meet our newest animals. Zwartbles.

No, I'm not being rude. That's what they are called and don't ask me how to pronounce it. Originally from a cold, wet, windy area of The Netherlands, they seem like the perfect choice for our very Dutch landscape here in the district of South Holland.

This pair are wethers (males which won't get to become rams) which have come off an organic farm. They are becoming more common over here in the UK, as they are prolific, good for meat and docile.



Monday 20th August 2012

So yesterday morning we hooked up the horsebox, kindly lent to us by a fellow smallholder, and tentatively drove the few miles to the smallholding where several of us were to collect our lambs. Being unbraked, the livestock trailer took some getting used to and often seemed more in control of the car than vice versa! Fortunatley we were travelling on rural backroads where we could keep things nice and slow.

We pulled into the smallholding to discover that the lambs had swapped paddocks over an electric fence during the night. This was a little concerning as our fencing was lower and was all that would separate the lambs from the road or Don's vegetables. However, they were surprisingly easy to herd back where they were needed and made no effort to jump over the insubstantail hurdles into which they were coraled and grouped. They even began nibbling at my shorts.

Now began the fun and games, as we began our crash course into sheep handling. I am glad I did not have my camera!

Firstly you lift up your lamb (remembering that, though technically lambs, these are actually sheep to the untrained eye), sit it on its bottom and wedge its shoulders between your thighs,  so that its feet protrude out the front. At this point, if you've got it right, the sheep becomes docile - remember I said that Zwartbles are a docile breed anyway. When it came to my turn, I got the lively one! Probably more down to inexperience and tentativeness on my part.

Then a lesson in toenail trimming and some of these lambs were well overdue a lambicure. This was a good opportunity to inspect the feet of the lambs and one of ours did have a cut between its toes which was becoming infected. Next a syringe of wormer fluid into the mouth - sheep have a perfect space between their teeth for one of these. And finally the flystrike liquid, sprayed down the back and round the tail / bum.



Number 10 and Number 18

And all this under a blazing sun in almost 90 degree heat.  At least we weren't wearing thick woolly coats though!

And while the small herd of Dexter cattle were giving my car a close inspection and setting off the alarm in the process.

Then into the trailer - oh, how I wish pigs would go in so easily - and home, where we let our two Zwartbles out into the paddock with the geese. They quickly made themselves at home and settled down to munching the grass.


I must say, they really are very nice creatures, gentle, good-looking and friendly. If this goes well we may take more next year, once we know how much grass they need and how easy they are to look after. We may even possibly go for sheep all year round. It could save me a lot of mowing time, not to mention the petrol money. 



Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you their names.

Number Ten and Number Eighteen. That's as close as they'll get to being named, considering that they'll be going on another little journey round about late October.

Balmy weather

I can't quite believe it has been five days since I last posted. Time sure flies when you're having fun.

Firstly, a series of calm, clear morning sunrises (apart from 17th, which let the side down).

Thursday 16th August 2012

Friday 17th August 2012

Saturday 18th August 2012

Sunday 19th August 2012

These beautiful daybreaks have been followed by balmy days, with temperatures peaking at over 30 degrees. And we have been taking full advantage of the good weather. I'd like to say that we were making hay while the sun shone, but dealing with the swards of grassland will have to wait just a bit longer while other priorities take over.

No, instead, in the hot sun we have been strenuously building fences, scratting apples (yes, more cider is on the way!) and wrestling with sheep (more on this tomorrow).

Unfortunately, as is so often the case when we are at our busiest, photos of what we've been up to are thin on the ground.
I've been trying to persuade Sue that our journey to collect rubble and our visit to the wood yard count as two of the days out which I promised at the beginning of the holidays!

The fencing project.
One day, soon, I promise, all the fences and gates will be finished. We've been busy fencing one side of the corridor which runs down our land. When the task is complete there will be a continuous run from the stables right down to the pigpen, with gates off to the various garden rooms either side. Unfortunately, work has had to come to a temporary halt as Lady Guinea is still sitting on her seventeen eggs and her nest is nestled in right along the intended line of the fence. I'll be surprised if she actually manages to raise any young though, especially since there was a stoat bouncing around in that area a few days ago.

Cider making
On Saturday we spent another very enjoyable day cutting, bashing (officially known as scratting), shredding and squeezing (pressing) apples. We picked the hottest day for such strenuous effort, but the four demijohns of juice have already started bubbling away furiously and it won't be long till we're supping cider!
The whole process is surprisingly straightforward. Just make sure everything's sterilised, filter the juice into the demijohns, bung in the airlock and wait until everything settles down again. Then drink!

Sheep
These merit their own post, but suffice to say that we had a crash course in sheep handling and have come back with two delightful sheep. Technically they are lambs, but they are pretty big. Unfortunately they won't be staying with us very long. They just need finishing before they go off in late autumn.

Wineberries and Chokeberies

Some of the more exotic fruits from our soft fruit patch today. Pride of place goes to the Japanese Wineberry. I just love how the fruits look before the berry emerges, like insectivorous sundew plants with their red hairs tipped with droplets of sap. But they unfurl to reveal a true gem inside.

This plant was only planted last year, so there's just enough fruit for me to nibble on as I potter around. But what a delicious taste - a delicate sweetness subtly balanced by an equally delicate sharpness. You can tell it's from the raspberry family, but it's different enough to be worth cultivating separately. One drawback, apparently, is that it's not supposed to be fully hardy, but it seems to be flourishing, even after the winter we've just had.


My second item of exotica is my chokeberry bush.
Supposedly it grows to a height of about 2m, but at the moment it's little more than a small cluster of twigs, yet still it has managed to produce three clusters of berries. Just imagine how many there will be when the plant is fully grown.

The plant does not have the most appealing of names, so maybe I should call it my Aronia bush, to use the Latin name.
Intrigued by what these berries would taste like, Sue and I tried one each, like two fairytale characters plucking fruits and waiting to find out if they are poisonous.

The first taste was very reminiscent of blueberry, but then a mouth puckering dryness like the most potent of sour sweets. I assumed that they weren't quite ripe yet, but running some basic searches reveals that this is how they are supposed to taste, and that they are not a berry to be eaten raw! That astringency is caused by the tannins in the fruit.

The good news, though, is that they can be used for jams, jellies, syrups... They are also very much favoured by the birds, so we will have to share them once the bush grows big enough for a decent yield..




Wednesday 15th August 2012
This is why I get up early.

In Praise of Beetroot

Chioggia - a beetroot that surprises on the inside.

Beetroot is fantastic. Easy to grow. Fresh, zingy taste. Very good for you. The pigs and chickens love it if you can't keep up with supply. But best of all, it makes your wee go red!

Tuesday 14th August 2012
Overnight rain led to a fine day.

When I was younger I only knew beetroot from a jar and pickled. In fact, it is the only food I've ever enjoyed pickled. Now I realise there's so much more you can do with it.

But let's start by setting things straight about the colour of beetroot. It does not have to be purple. I grow Boltardy and Red Ace, which are purple, but I also grow Chioggia which is pale with concentric purple-red circles. Pretty whacky.
But for something totally different, why not go for one of the golden varieties. They look amazing on the plate, like a beautiful sunset, and they taste deliciously sweet. Sue does not like beetroot, except the golden ones.

I always think that fruit and vegetables with really distinctive tastes and colours probably contain something different to other food and it's probably good for us. Unscientific I know, but it's just a hunch. The alternative is that the distinctive taste indicates that it is poisonous, but over the years humans have tended not to cultivate these things as food!

Left to grow too big, beetroots can go a little woody.
No matter though, the pigs love them too.

Apart from a few problems getting them past the slugs this year, I have never had any problems growing beetroot. They seem pretty much pest and disease free, though they can bolt if conditions are too dry. They can be planted from early in the season to late and store well, even if you don't pickle them.
They can take a while to cook, but I have discovered that beetroot microwaves very well. But you don't even have to cook them. Sliced in a salad they add a wonderful crunch and surprising flavour. Avoid the purple ones and the rest of your food won't turn purple either.
Go a little further and beetroot becomes surprisingly versatile. Obviously there's borscht, that popular Eastern European cold beetroot soup, but I've also made beetroot and chocolate cake and Hugh F-W's beetroot and walnut hummus. I fed the cake to someone who doesn't even like beetroot and they never even noticed it!

Left to grow too big, beetroots can turn a little woody but that's no matter when the chickens and pigs love them too. I reckon there could be a niche market in purple pork!
In fact, the pigs love them so much that they do their best to pick one up and sneak away from the others!

"Hopefully they won't see me here.
By the way, how does this colour lipstick look on me?"

Who knows, this year I may even try pickling some or a change!

Too many cockerels

The Cream Legbar in the foreground is the lucky one
who's been chosen as breeding stock. He'll get a name now.
This is the last photo of the other two Teenagers. Their dispatch was made all the more difficult by their friendliness.

Some nice sunrise photos before the gory details.

Monday 13th August 2012

One of the problems with hatching your own eggs is what to do with the cockerels. In this respect we've been incredibly unfortunate in that we've only got three hens from all the eggs we've hatched. This means that we have rather a lot of young cockerels now strutting their stuff and beginning to challenge Cocky. He soon puts them in their place, but this still makes for a less settled coop - noisy crowing, chases, scuffles and hassled hens.
So yesterday, as a cruel balance to the arrival of the cute, fluffy chicks and ducklings, two of the Teenagers had to go for the pot.

This is why the teenagers were never given names.

I don't feel guilty about this. In fact, quite the opposite. They've had a good life (though short), much better than any commercial chicken would fare.

Many people ask how we can dispatch chickens and how we can send pigs to slaughter. My response is to ask how they can consume the same products without knowing about how it lived in the first place (or caring enough to do anything to change things, apart from paying a few extra quid if they can afford it to ease their consciences). Just because we distance ourselves from something and pay somebody else to do the deed does not make it more acceptable. In fact that very disassociaiton with the whole process leads to a lack of respect for the life which has been taken. That's the bee in my bonnet let loose for a while. 

However, Sue and I are still getting used to dispatching chickens. The same gentle, compassionate side to our nature that makes sure our animals are well cared for also dictates that they are swiftly and humanely dispatched, an act where compasson and hard-heartedness become strange and uncomfortable bedfellows.

I'm sure we'll get used to it eventually, though we'll never become discompassonate.
Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to a lovely roast chicken tonight. Of course, all the vegetables will come from our own plot, but there's something very special about it when the meat is home-produced too.

All our own produce.
This was the friendliest chicken we've ever had.
It was the tastiest too!