Stocking up for Winter

Sunday 7th October 2018
The first winter thrushes arrived today, first a lone fieldfare followed by small flocks of redwings heading in across the fields.
Doubtless they looked down on me as I harvested some of this year's pumpkins and pulled potatoes out of the ground. Some of the pumpkins have fared poorly this year, but the Giant Pink Bananas (which are indeed pumpkins) have excelled, as have the Naples Long.

Sue was doing a sterling job making inroads into the wood pile. We won't need to skimp on the woodburners this winter.



Tuesday 9th October 2018
We can provide most of our own fruit and veg. We can provide our own meat. But there are some items which we cannot provide for ourselves. Loo roll, flour, cleaning products - none of these are totally out of our reach but some things are not so practical to produce at home.

In an ideal world I would buy organic, ethical and environmentally friendly, but unfortunately prices are sometimes prohibitive. I know there is often a hidden price to buying cheap, but economics do have to come into account.
Personally I think that some of the worst products should be taxed to directly support some of the most ethical products, but that is never going to happen is it? Until then, ethical shopping unfortunately remains the preserve of the middle classes.

My posh shopping

But I have come across a scheme which offers these products at very good discounts, bringing their price down close to their bulk standard cheap unethical counterparts. It is a national scheme which supplies local food clubs with a delivery once a month.
So not only can Sue and I now afford some of the products we want to be able to purchase, but we can run a food club to encourage local people to do so too.
Ok, we will probably be preaching to the converted, but we can only do so much for the cause.

Anyhow today our order arrived. All this for just over £30! (we did enjoy a twenty quid introductory discount). Now we know it works, we will be looking to get our food club up and running.

Wednesday 10th October 2018
A while back I discovered Priscilla (daughter of Elvis) ensconced in the stables harbouring a nest of eggs. Since we don't actually want more chickens, I left her with just three eggs and forgot about her.

On my way down to the chickens today I heard a familiar cheeping. There under the hedge was Priscilla leading two tiny chicks down to the rest of the chickens.

We set up a house for her in with the Silkies. The two little chicks are certainly very confident and seem strong

Meanwhile, by way of contrast to our harmonious country ways, the farmer next door was doing his best to erode the rest of his topsoil. I would be grateful for his gift, but I don't particularly want my whole smallholding covered in his denuded and chemicalised dust.

Pink Fir Apples - Late Developers come good

Nothing much was expected of this year's potato harvest. A dry, dry start to the year ensured the tubers never had time to grow well.
The rain arrived just in time to avert a total disaster but the yield was still appreciably down. Many tubers were not much more than pea size and the more prone varieties were pretty scabby.

Pink fir Apple potatoes are weird and wonderful shapes, branching like grotesque ogre's fingers

The only positive is that for the first time in years we have not had blight in the potatoes or tomatoes.

So far I have harvested the Arran Pilot, earlies which were surprisingly good considering conditions. However, my favourite Red Duke of Yorks pretty much disappeared without a trace.
I harvested the Charlottes and Kestrels a while back. These Second Earlies are normally the most reliable of all the spuds, but I only got half a sack of each this year.

And so into Autumn. I wanted to begin harvesting the maincrops a couple of weeks ago, but the earth has again been too dry to make digging much fun. After Saturday's prolonged rain I decided to have another go, but it was still hard going. The Desirees were somewhere between ok and disappointing and then I came to the Pink Fir Apples.

Yes, Pink Fir Apples are actually spuds! They are a very late variety. In a blight year the harvest can often be all but lost as the tops (haulms) have to be taken off before the tubers have had time to even begin swelling.
As I pulled out the nasturtiums and marigolds which had invaded the Pink Fir Apple bed, it became apparent that these late developers might actually have done quite well.
I scraped the dry soil away and they just came tumbling out of the ground. They are weird and wonderful shapes, branching like grotesque ogre's fingers, but that doesn't matter for they don't need peeling. We don't have a great problem with slugs any more since the duck slug patrol was introduced, but Pink Fir Apples really don't seem attractive to these slimy little blighters anyhow.

The success of my Pink Fir Apple potatoes is a victory for diverse growing, whereby several varieties of each vegetable are grown as an insurance policy. Something is bound to succeed!
If my recollection is correct, last time we had a bumper Pink Fir Apple crop was a similarly dry year.

Orange Fenland

Autumn brings dramatic sunsets on the farm. Given clear weather, almost every evening sees the western sky ablaze.
The only trouble is the days are really drawing in now. But that is part and parcel of the beauty of the seasons.

My last picture shows an increasingly common fenland upside down sunset.

Fields of pumpkins to satisfy the annual demand at Halloween. In an age when any sort of deep beliefs seem rare, the public seems to increasingly need to throw itself into more and more festivals, the origins and meaning of which are completely lost. 

Wisbech's historically famous orchards are thin on the ground now and Spalding's bulb and flower fields are scarce too. Times change and pumpkins are just as widespread now.

One day I must put in the effort and capture an orange sunset behind a field of orange pumpkins.

Just one final plea. If you do purchase a pumpkin, please don't just throw it away at the end. If you don't want to make soup out of it, at the very least add it to the compost bin or feed the wildlife with it. Alternatively seek out a pumpkin recycling point. They do exist.

Separating the rams

I love keeping native breed sheep. They are so much more suitable to my style of smallholding than any of the larger breeds. My chosen variety are Shetland sheep.
For a start, they don't demand acres of lush green grass. In fact they seem to prefer my rougher pasture. Most of all they would like to get in amongst my young woodland where they would for certain make short work of the trees and saplings.

My Shetland sheep demolishing some sow thistle plants I've thrown in for them.

Rambo is the gorgeous boy in the foreground.

Come lambing time, they are not trying to give birth to ridiculously large little monsters which are basically too big to come out, so there are few problems and very few occasions to call the vet (an arm and a leg would seem cheap). This makes lambing time slightly less stressful, for I do not come from a farming background and do not have the experience for this not to be a tremendously worrying time.

The downside is that they do not produce a massive carcass and, despite leaving the young rams entire this year, they would still provide relatively slim pickings if I sent them on their way now. Instead we keep them through to a second year and look forward to what is known as hogget meat.

This brings its own complications too. Firstly they need enough pasture to support the adults and this year's young through the winter. But as mentioned before, they get by on very little so this is not too much of a problem. The bigger problem is that of separating related males and females.
Native breeds have a shorter breeding season than other sheep, but by mid-August the males start getting ideas!

So a few weeks back I erected a short stretch of stock fence to divide my paddocks into two. We already have electric fence, but for the sake of getting to the girls the rams would probably be prepared to take the hit.
Luckily we got enough rain just in time for me to knock in the posts. Prior to that the ground had been like concrete.

My ewes stripping some willow for me.

All the rams have settled in well and Rambo is tolerating the presence of his five sons. The ewes are enjoying the lack of male attention too. They do in fact have one male lurking amongst them but he is not interested as he got the chop last year. He is known as a wether. It is useful to keep one such boy to keep the ram company if he ever needs to be away from all the others.

We will wait till early November before letting Rambo in with the girls. That way we reduce the risk of poor weather at lambing time and if we are lucky lambing will coincide with our Easter holidays. There is no hurry to get the lambs out early in the year as we are not aiming to fatten them up before the grass dies down in late autumn.
When this happens any of last year's ewe lambs (Rambo's daughters) will need to go into a third separate paddock away from their dad and brothers.

Luckily the grass has grown back strong after the early summer drought so there are no problems going into the autumn. I have stocked up on hay for it will be in short supply this year and the price will rise steeply if availability becomes a problem. I hardly need to use any in normal circumstances, but you need to have it in just in case.

Duck Apartheid is Lifted

Well, it's been a while.
With the summer hols finished, the return to work did not go quite to plan as Sue and I found ourselves in at the deep end.
All our enthusiasm and fresh ideas for the smallholding have had to be put to one side. Having said that, the wheels are slowly being put in motion for an ambitious new project.

Big ideas are all well and good but it is the small details that make the smallholding such a special place to be.
This week we are celebrating the end of duck apartheid.

A little duck history first. We originally had three white ducks which were passed to us by an ex-smallholder. One of these still survives. We also had a small flock of black Cayuga ducks which we thinned down to a trio. Unfortunately one of the females then died and the male just vanished - presumably taken by a predator or a dog.

So for a while we had the old white duck and the old Cayuga with her limp, a droopy wing and a bald patch.

When the Pekin meat ducks came along, black duck completely disappeared. We presumed she had come to some unfortunate end, but a brief sighting a week later was followed by another after a further week.

Eventually we discovered her sitting tight deep in the lovage patch. Meanwhile old white duck teamed up with the new white ones. In fact despite being half their size they respected her seniority and made her their leader.

Skip forward a few weeks and black duck finally realised that no amount of patience was going to make her eggs hatch - hardly surprising since there was no drake around when she started sitting.
But now her best friend was gone, leading the white duck gang, and they were having none of it. It was like a duck version of Westside Story.

Black duck tried her best. She hung around on the outskirts but old white duck had forgotten her, moved on. Every time black duck tried to join the gang she was pecked and pushed away. Fortunately a duck's beak is no lethal weapon.

Since I dispatched a dozen of them for the table 

the ducks have been much less approachable! 

Look carefully and you can see black duck 

with her white pate near the back of the flock

Don't let it be said that persistence doesn't pay. Last night a lone dark figure, barely visible in the gloom of dusk, followed the white duck gang into their night stable.
And this morning black duck and white duck led the gang out! They have all hung around together all day long.

Duck apartheid is over. This is one smallholding tale which has a happy ending.

As peace breaks out we had our first dramatic and chilly autumn sunset of the year. 

The seasons they are a-changing.

Halcyon Days

27th August 2018

Don't spend ages looking for a kingfisher 

- it's not there any more!

I out this dead willow branch by the wildlife pond 

with kingfisher in mind. It worked.

My second new bird species for the farm this year.
After our holiday house sitter saw one perched on a log at the back of our new pond I was green with envy,

Today was a day of harvesting in the veg patch. I had already seen a small group of house martins pass through, a very occasional sight on our farm, but as I was turning the compost heap late afternoon I heard a strange call, clear, loud and harsh. Whatever it was, the local finches and tits were not happy, buzzing and churring, generally scolding angrily. Then it hit me. Surely that was a kingfisher calling repeatedly. And another calling back!
I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse but it didn't take long, for there bang in the middle of the garden right in the open was perched a blue and orange jewel. It was perched right at the top of a dead twisty willow I had planted just for this purpose when I installed the small wildlife pond in the centre of the veg patch. I love it when a plan comes together.
The second bird was somewhere over towards the bean poles but I didn't get time to locate it before both birds took off and whizzed low across the garden, over the hedge and out of sight.

And that was that. The story of how I clocked my 110th bird species for the farm.

The Rewards Flow In

What a great time of year it is!
Growing and rearing has slowed down considerably, the summer lull is over and now the activity picks right up again as we harvest and process all the wonderful produce from the smallholding. The dehydrator is on almost constantly, the freezers are bursting at the seams, the juicer is squeezing the life out of fruit and vegetables and the preserving pan is bubbling away.

Produce comes in thick and fast and is so varied. Here's just a few images to whet the appetite.

 

Compost designs

Steaming heaps

There are big changes afoot with my compost heaps. I have 6 made of pallets and three bays made of corrugated iron. But it is an effort turning the compost from one pallet to another and to be honest it doesn't get done anywhere near as much as it should, resulting in cold composting which takes years rather than hot composting which can take a little as a couple of months in the summer.

So gone are the dividers between the bays. This year's compost is now in one giant long heap, easily accessed and easily turned every time I pass or throw something on the heap.

If this new way is successful, most of the pallet compost heaps will go too. I'll just keep the best ones to store well-rotted compost in or for perennial weed roots or leaf mould.

Going. Going. Gone!

Sunday 12th August 2018
Going Going Gone


Today saw us helping to organise an auction of smallholding goods. An ex member of the Smallholders Club is taking the envious step of moving to West coast Scotland, though they will no longer be smallholding. They kindly offered club members an exclusive auction.
There was all sorts, from a mini tractor to old tools, trailers to plant pots, pig arks to chicken fencing. Sue played auctioneer for the day and enjoyed the power of wielding the gavel.
I was quite restrained with my purchases, though I did come away with a few unexpected purchase, which I was able to transport in the trailer I bought! Not a perfect one, but good enough for collecting hay and straw from down the road. Best of all, it came full of horse manure which went straight onto the compost heap.



And in case you are wondering, Sue is currently arranging to have the boat transported into her school playground for the children to play on.
There was also a rather special outdoor table and bench, carved from a single oak log, which I had admired at this property since I first visited about five years ago. Needless to say, we are now trying to arrange to have that transported to our place too.
If the plan comes off I'll show you pictures.

Foraging for Fodder

When it was looking like it would never rain again, I started to think about how I could supplement the livestock's increasingly meagre supplies.
There are some things which I know they like. For instance, the sheep go mad for willow or indeed any part of any tree. And I know the hens enjoy a bit of Fat Hen - it doesn't get its name by accident.

Believe it or not, most animals like a bit of nettle too, but you have to cut it for them. The turkeys are the exception to this as they'll happily peck at the growing plants. It's such a shame that for their own safety I cannot let them wander. I have discovered that the turkeys are also hooked on two other things. Dock seeds, which I have oodles of, and squidgy tomatoes. So every day I snip a few dock stems for them. They are easy to find as their rusty brown seed spikes protrude above the vegetation.

It turns out that the sheep like dock too, but I have decided to reserve it for the turkeys. The sheep like Fat Hen too and there is plenty of it growing in my veg patch. So every day I pull some for them. I snip off the fibrous roots and return them to the soil. The fat hen is absolutely laden with seeds which must be a source of goodness for the sheep.

The Muscovies prefer a nice bit of comfrey, especially if it has flowers on. This is jam packed full of minerals and vitamins.

Back to the sheep and a nice bit of Jerusalem Artichoke stem. I cut the sunchokes back at this time of year and they give a good bulk of greenery. Usually it is reserved for the compost heap, but this year the sheep take precedence.

The geese have been let into the lower orchard, mainly to keep them away from the brown chickens' food for my laying girls have been given total free-range during the day.

Main job for the geese is to trim the long grass in there, though they are quite adept at getting to any low growing fruit too! No worries, there is plenty for everyone.

It is not just the turkeys who have a penchant for tomatoes. The Pekin ducks enjoy them too. The problem here is that my ducks live in the veg patch. They are doing a brilliant job at keeping down the slug population but I have drawn the line at swapping this service for tomatoes. The tomatoes are now protected by spare sheep hurdles and netting.

Halcyon Blues

More work on the pond
First job on our return was to crack on with the big pond. The overflow boggy area wasn't working as it obviously had a leak and the damp soil was perfect to be invaded by grass. Taking advantage of my renewed vigour and ignoring the heat I set about digging all the soil back out and relining it. It is now basically a second pond which I will plant up with marginal pond plants.

A Kingfisher Missed
All the while I was doing this I couldn't get out of my mind what Sue our farmsitter had told me that morning. Just the previous day a kingfisher had been sat on the log I placed at the back of the pond. We had a kingfisher in our London garden once and only once, but never have I seen one here. I have spotted them on the Main Drain, but only rarely and little did I think that one would visit my new pond.
Let's hope for a repeat performance.
Until then I am gutted that I wasn't here to see it.

Quack Quack! I'm a Duck, Not a Drake

One animal that won't be allowed anywhere near this pond is my ducks. Ducks have already ruined one wildlife pond. Anyway, most of these won't be around for much longer. They have continued to grow at a staggering rate. They are still only eight weeks old. The males are beginning to show their curly tail feathers - it might be in their interests to try to hide these!

But there is another easier way to differentiate males from females. Only the females quack! Again the males may do well to learn to quack PDQ!

A Whopper First Plum Harvest

Other news and the first plums are ready. I've lost the label and am wracking my brains to remember the variety. It may be Opal, which was originally a cross between a plum and a gage. This year they have remained green and not coloured up at all but they have ripened and sweetened nicely in this year's exaggerated sunshine.
Sue couldn't quite reach all the high up fruits, but she still gathered 17.5kg of fruit. That's a lot of plums! We have about half a dozen other plum trees which should come to fruition over the next month or so.

Lammas Part Six and a Half - Pembrokeshire and Basket-making

Our cob course came to an end on Friday afternoon but we weren't quite finished with West Wales or Lammas yet.
I had planned to spend Saturday visiting the Centre for Alternative Technology, mostly out of nostalgia for my student days in the Green Society when we all piled into a van and headed west to volunteer at what was then a grassroots project in its infancy.
In the end I decided against visiting for fear that it would be an anti-climax. I am glad it has done so well, but when organisations go mainstream I usually bail out.

Instead we explored the Pembrokeshire coast. It was pretty but access was limited and hence each National Trust car park was full of cars. Instead we found a footpath leading down to the coast away from the crowds and had a relatively short walk in the sunshine.
The day was enjoyable but useful too as it helped us decide this would probably not be the best area to come back to with the dogs.

We even found an old wool mill to look around, but we resisted the temptation to spend.

On Sunday we returned to Cassie's place to learn how to make a frame basket. There were only four course participants. The weather was glorious, so much so that we had to move into the shade.
We had a lovely day making our baskets under Cassie's expert guidance.

Almost as importantly we came away with two very presentable and usable baskets.

This is something I definitely need to make the time to develop. It appeals to my love of natural materials and to my love of mathematical pattern. I should even be able to grow most of the basketry willow that I need.
Who knows, maybe some day I will become skilled enough to lead my own courses.

And that was that.
Into the car and ready for the long drive home.
We rolled back onto the farm just as it was getting dark. We were both looking forward to seeing the dogs again. Arthur was beside himself with joy at our return. Boris was happy to be meeting someone new. I'm sure he actually remembered who we were!
Getting to sleep that night was difficult. We had come back to the hot side of the country and even at 10 o'clock the temperature was way above 20 degrees. Beside that, my head was absolutely buzzing with ideas and plans.