Moving ducklings

In today's vlog we move the ducklings from their brooder nursery pen to their new home outside.

If you are unable to view the video on your device, you can watch it on YouTube here.

Let's keep bees!

I've been admiring the blossom on the damson trees for a week or two. Today the wind is making the petals flutter and dance across the vegetable garden and it looks like it's snowing, it's not, it's just the volume of blossoms being blown around.

The folks on the neighbouring smallholding keep bees, well actually, they kept them for the first time last year, but they plan to continue doing so. A few weeks ago I asked whether they would be happy to care for some bees on our smallholding, if we have a couple of hives here. They kindly agreed and said that they'd be delighted to do that. Phew! Because as much as though we like honey and neither of us would do anything to knowingly harm a bee, we are both rather wary of them. The thought of voluntarily poking around in a bee hive does not fill me with any warm fuzzy feelings. But if they are happy to attend to the bees, we'd be more than happy to give them a home!

I mentioned this conversation to my sister and brother-in-law and they know someone who used to keep around 30 hives of bees but no longer keeps that many. So my sister is going to ask him whether he has any old hives that we could use. If he doesn't, we can either buy one or we can make one, whichever way we should end up with a couple of hives tucked away at the back of the piggeries where the bees won't be disturbed and neither will Mr J and I.

However, if we are going to keep bees I think it's important that we also provide plenty of nectar rich plants for them to visit. Last year the fields that surround us were planted with clover and the bees from next door and further afield could be seen flying backwards and forwards all day long. I don't anticipate the fields being left fallow again this year which means that we should ensure a good and continuous supply of flowers that they find attractive.

I have several annuals that have now self-sown across the vegetable garden and I plan to leave them in situ to attract pollinators of all kinds, but I think we'll need more than these to support the potential bee population.

I have two small-ish buddleja bushes, one that was a small rooted cutting at the end of last summer and I don't know what colour it is and the other was a small rooted cutting this time last year. As it grows so quickly, this second bush is now around four feet across and three feet high. It would have been much taller but I kept it pruned last year to encourage bushy, denser growth and it now looks a healthy shrub that is bursting to put on lots of growth this year. I would like more buddleja, in fact, I'd quite like a short length of hedging in buddleja. This would boost the available foraging material for bees very well and so to that end, this morning I have taken some soft wood cuttings. 

Now I know it's rather early in the year to take cuttings, but I felt it was probably worth a try. The worst that can happen is that they don't root and I will have to try again later in the spring or summer.

I selected then strong shoots that have put on about eight inches this year (already!) and to prevent them drying out, I took them inside straight away.

I removed the lower leaves and the largest of the top leaves.

I cut each steam just below a leaf node.

I couldn't find my organic rooting powder, it wasn't in any of the places that I would usually find it, so without any further ado, they went into a wide necked jam jar filled with water.

I've put the jar on the kitchen windowsill and I will check the progress of the cuttings on a regular basis.

Hopefully by late spring I will have half a dozen or more young buddleja bushes that I can plant out along the boundary of the front garden, they will help provide flowers for the bees to visit and later in the year they will help form a much needed windbreak.

With the help of my friend Jane, we have moved some off-shoots of elderberry trees (well, Jane did this and I stood by and thanked her profusely) to form new bushes across the smallholding. The prolific flowering habit of the elderberry will be another source of food for the bees as well as providing us with elderflower for cordial and wine and elderberries for syrups, jams and wine.

Late in the year foraging, will be supported by the vast ivy vines that scramble over old trees and fences in the back yard and behind the piggeries. Hopefully, we will have plenty of blossoms for the bees throughout the year.

Now we just have to wait to hear whether we will be able to have an old hive or whether we need to get busy with the tool kit and create one. Fingers crossed that it's the former!

As I type there are some scones cooking in the oven and they smell like they are nearly ready. To go with a scone, I think it's time that I made a cuppa.

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I also post vlogs daily (almost). You can find my YouTube channel here.

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Compost boost

 Ooh, I've been sent what may turn out to be a rather nifty product to try out. Bio-Enzym make a range of products for the garden and first of all I'm going try out their Bio-P4 organic compost accelerator.

Now those who are familiar with my blog will know that I love making compost, that I make quite a bit of compost, in fact I make loads of compost! The reason for my composting enthusiasm has less to do with any green credentials and more to do with the soil here. Or should I say the lack of soil.

Photo from old property details

The field next to our house used to have commercial greenhouses on it, but sadly they were in a dilapidated state and so taken down by the previous owners of our smallholding. Inevitably some (a lot) of glass ended up on the ground. Then, when they were having the kitchen extension built, the sub-soil that was dug out for the foundations was put on top of the glassy grassy area. Grass and weeds grew in abundance on the field and for three to four years it was grazed by alpacas and a pony, which compacted the soil into a concrete hard base during the summer and a water-logged swampy area in the winter. I exaggerate of course, but only just.

Anyway, the lack of decent soil and the inability to get a spade into the ground to dig it over meant that I decided to create raised beds in which to grow our fruit and vegetables and to adopt a no-dig method of cultivation. But raised beds require soil and the best way to make more soil is through composting. We bought in some top soil but it's £40 a ton and it takes a ton to fill one raised bed to a 4 inch depth. I'd ideally like the beds to be about eight inches deep, so that would cost £80 per raised bed and there are twenty-two raised beds. My budget for creating the annual vegetable garden was, well, zero. So bought in top soil was not a sensible option for filling all the beds. But making my own compost was. It meant that a little top soil could be mixed with a lot of the compost to create a reasonable growing medium. 

Trying to be realistic about my capacity to make compost I've started with beds that are three to four inches deep so that I could at least start growing some food and I plan to build the depth of them year after year. I also didn't make all the raised beds in the first year, but I hope that by the end of 2017, all the raised beds will have been created.

So my composting adventure began quite soon after we moved in, I made one compost bin from three pallets that were lying around the smallholding and that was it, I was hooked on pallet compost bins. 

Since then I have built a fence made from pallets around the vegetable garden, which has made a series of compost bays. Some of the bays will also be for storage and for water collection, but most of them will be filled with compost in its varying stages of decomposition. 

At first I struggled to find enough material with which to make compost, but now that we have the poultry I have a never ending supply of woodshavings with poultry manure and the grass cuttings from the areas that could be loosely described as lawns, masses of leaves from the huge sycamore trees and of course all the green matter from the vegetable garden.

I used a fair amount of straw in the first compost heaps, but I am less convinced now that this is a very good idea. The straw has to be bought in and we have no way of knowing what chemicals were used on the crops before they were harvested and the straw cut. So I will use what is already on site, but will wait until I find a source of organic straw before buying in more for compost making.

Anyway, back to my trial of the compost accelerator, I plan to make a couple of compost heaps next to each other and try as best I can to fill them with the same proportions of materials, so that whenever we take out the kitchen compost bucket, I will divide it between the two heaps, likewise grass, woodshavings, wood chippings etc. will all be divided as equally as I can between the two heaps. Once the compost bays are filled I will use the Bio-P4 on one of the two heaps and see how it works. 

I can check the temperature and also see how well the organic matter is breaking down. Health permitting, I hope to turn the heaps at least a couple of times to add air and mix the 'ingredients' and will water them if necessary during dryer weather.

I will be honest in my assessment of this product, although I was given the product to try, I am not being paid for a review. I will give my honest opinion and as the two heaps will be next to each other, it should be fairly easy to compare the results.
You can find more information about Bio-P4 here and if you want to try it out too, I see that the product is currently half price. If you do decide to give it a go, please let me know in the comments below and we can compare our experiences with it.

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I also post vlogs daily (almost). You can find my YouTube channel here.

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Chickens out, spring in

After all the excitement of the last week, a relative calm has descended upon our smallholding. The house is no longer filled with the cheeping and peeping of many little chicks and the cats have once again taken to lounging around in 'relax mode' rather than twitching at every sound of a small bird moving around their small cage behind a shut door.

I have moved the miracle chick together with the other eighteen chicks to the newly reinforced nursery pen in the chicken condo and today is the day that birds are allowed back out into their fields. 

The empty chicken fields have been a slightly sad sight for the last three months while the birds were in lockdown and now that I have completed the required self-assessment form (find info about it here), checked the bio-security measures that we have in place and checked the fields for signs of contamination, the birds are allowed out onto the grass again. We have to keep the ducks and chickens separated, but that's fine, we had done this months ago due to an overly amorous drake (Frederick) and there is now a 35 feet separation zone between the chickens and ducks.

We took the opportunity to use the time the fields were empty to have a think about how best to use the space and we have started to build a walkway from the chicken palace to one area of the field that the Jersey Giants will be using. This will keep the birds safe and also separated from each other because we don't want the breeds mixing unless we've decided that is what we want. 

The Australorps have their own house in one section of the field. The run that I made has been their only access to grass until today and I have now positioned the run so that the chickens can access the run but also their area of the field. Their food and water will be kept under the run, which is covered, so that wild bird poop can't get into their food or water. 

All the other birds will continue to be fed inside their indoor spaces. The mixed flock have a hanging feeder with a lid that is wild bird proof and kept under their covered walkway and the Jersey Giants had one inside the chicken palace, but they were so rough with the feeder that they tore the hanging toggle dispenser out of it, so today I will be making a new one with a smaller hole in the base, so that although it will dispense food more slowly, the toggle won't be able to to be pulled from the base. You can watch how I made the hanging feeder here 

Tomorrow heralds the start of spring and the beginning of the new growing season, I have done some preparation of the annual vegetable garden, but there is quite a lot left to do. We are still enjoying the harvests of last year's sowings, leeks, parsnips, red cabbage, swede and purple sprouting brocolli are still abundant in the garden and we still have food in the freezer and pantry that I preserved last summer and autumn. 

I put a planting plan down onto paper (and online here) which is a rough guide to what I will sow where, but it is not set in stone and I anticipate having to be flexible because some crops may not be out of the ground in time to plant whatever crop I had hoped to put in the space. But a few of the beds are now cleared and ready for seeds or young plants to go into them and it's all starting to look rather promising.

As I type the sun has come out and is beckoning activity, but it would be foolish to put seeds into the soil today. It has been freezing for the last few nights and a hoar frost this morning gave a hint of just how chilly the ground actually is. I think the average temperature outside needs to rise a good few degrees before I would want to put seeds into the ground. 

I can, however, continue to plant seeds in trays to go into the greenhouse. Last year the kitchen table, windowsills and work surfaces in the boot room were packed with seed trays, but this year we have Monty and Tabitha living with us and offering them what they would interpret as neatly laid out litter trays may not be such a smart move. Tabitha in particular is not terribly fond of going outside to empty her bladder when it is very cold, windy or rainy. We've kept a litter tray on the floor of the boot room since the cats arrived with us in December and I suspect that in the cooler months of each year, we may have to resign ourselves to a litter tray for her use.

Anyway, back to thoughts about the annual vegetable garden. There are tasks that I can continue to do outside like creating the last of five raised beds, laying down pathways and covering them with wood chippings, clearing away abandoned 'stuff' that I meant to put away at the tail end of last year, but didn't because other, more pressing, tasks needed our attention. I plan to move the Swiss chard plants and everlasting spinach into the food forest and then sow fresh seeds for them in the annual garden. I want to keep the older plants as they are useful duck and chicken food, but they don't need to be taking up growing space in the annual garden. 

It still feels a privilege to have so much space in which to grow food and having learnt a little about the soil (or lack thereof), the way the light moves around the garden, the natural flow of water through the area and the prevailing winds, I feel that this year the garden may well be even more productive. Mr J and I enjoyed trying different food crops and have been happy to admit that some things may have grown well, but that doesn't mean we actually like the taste of them. And there is little point in growing masses of something that we don't want to eat!

Except for kales, cabbages and squashes, I will be growing plenty of these this year, tucked into corners and empty spaces, into gaps between other crops and the old circles of love (the straw circles we put down for the chickens to scratch in). These kales, cabbages and squash will be used to feed the birds next autumn and winter. We will cover them late in the year to protect them from wild bird poop and then they will be suitable for feeding to our chickens and ducks during next winter's lockdown should that occur. And if it doesn't, well our birds will still eat well during the coolest months. Winter squashes will keep well for months in cool dry conditions, so I plan to store them in crates in the barn and then they should be available for both poultry and human consumption throughout the winter.

All this talk of food is making me hungry and it's not really a meal time as yet, so I guess I'll just have to make do with a cuppa!

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I also post vlogs daily (almost). You can find my YouTube channel here.

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Aspirations for 2017

 Happy New Year!

I'm not going to do a look back over 2016, I feel as though I've documented it enough already and reviewed our first year on the smallholding during November and to me the best part of the new year is the possibilities that lie ahead.

So, for 2017 my hopes include

To learn more
I'd like to take more courses, read more and research more. By continuing to learn I'd like to not only increase my knowledge, but to keep my brain engaged and alert. I've been looking at a variety of courses including a Permaculture Design Certificate, a horticulture certificate and practical skills like charcuterie, cheesemaking and woodworking.

To start driving again
I haven't driven a car on the road since September 2015 and while Mr J is more than happy to drive me anywhere I want to go, not having the independence is irritating. I stopped driving when I became too ill to be safe on the road, after all it's no good to be behind the wheel when you keep falling asleep, your ankles are too swollen to be able to move your feet properly and your legs jerk uncontrollably. The decision to stop driving was entirely my own, I just wanted to keep myself safe and respect the safety of others on the road. Both the jerking and falling asleep are now as good as gone and the swelling has reduced far enough to have almost full movement in my feet, so it seems to make sense to start getting myself back on the road.

To raise our own ducks

Early last year we bought Frederick and Mrs Warne, the ducks that we weren't going to name. We hatched two ducklings from eggs laid by Mrs Warne and we also hatched a further five ducklings from eggs brought via eBay. We enjoyed raising the ducklings, we were surprised by how endearing they are, but when the run up to Christmas arrived we said goodbye to five of the ducks. Frederick, one of the two and three of the five were despatched. This leaves us with one of Frederick's sons (whom I've imaginatively named Frederickson), Mrs Warne and two girls from the five as our breeding flock for 2017. Mrs Warne has continued to lay eggs throughout the winter, she had a short pause during early autumn and is now back to laying around 5 eggs a week. The two younger girls haven't started laying yet, but I don't think it will be too long before they do and Frederickson has started practising treading on the girls, although nothing is actually happening as yet other than a lot of noisy quacking and some fairly inelegant balancing tricks.

To increase the flocks of Australorps and White Jersey Giant chickens
We have seven white Jersey Giant chickens of varying ages. Little White has been renamed Big White as he is huge and he shares a house and pen with three females, one of which is at point of lay and two are a month or more away from laying. A younger male now lives with the 'spare' cockerels, young males destined for the table that I have separated from the flocks to prevent fighting that could lead to injury. The two youngest Jersey Giants were hatched late in the year and are now eight weeks old. Normally at eight weeks I would integrate the chicks into life with the older birds, but because of the lockdown, the chicks would have no escape from (possibly unwelcome) attention of bored birds and I will wait a while longer before the integration process.

There are six Australorps, two females, four males. Two of the males are separated and now live with the other young cockerels. The older female (hatched in late June) is just coming into lay, at least I think she is and the younger female is about a month behind her. I'd very much like to hatch several more Australorp chicks, the boys make good meat birds and they are all very affectionate and more girls would give us a constant supply of Australorp eggs. What I can't decide is whether to wait and hatch eggs from the birds that we have or whether to find some eggs from another breeder to widen the gene pool of our flock (we currently have birds from two different lines).

To complete the raised beds in the annual vegetable garden

In 2016 I created seventeen raised beds and there are still five more to be created to fill the annual vegetable garden. Together with the pumpkin patch and food forest, we should then have enough space to grow just about all our vegetables and herbs for the year. This level of self-efficiency would be very pleasing.

To plant more trees
I still have masses of trees waiting to be planted. There are approximately two hundred hedging trees and shrubs for the west perimeter of the smallholding and around 12 larger trees waiting for their permanent positions. I planted fourteen fruit trees in the late autumn and have selected some other types of tree that I'd like to add to our food forest to give us an even wider choice of fruit in years to come.

To expand the Food Forest

The main part of the food forest is now laid out, small trees and fruit shrubs have been put in place, perennial plants and ground cover plants are planted and should romp away this year. I have decided that I would like to extend the food forest into the chicken fields, so that although there would be fewer fruit bushes, there will be some fruit trees, herbs, flowers (for the bees from next door's hives) and berry canes will be able to scramble up and along the netting that divides the chicken fields. The herbs will provide an additional source of food for the chickens, the trees will provide some shade and the windfalls will give them rich pickings and no doubt the chickens will share the berry crops with us. The chickens' manure will continue to add fertility to the soil and their pecking and feeding activities will help to reduce the pest population.

To install a large duck pond

View to behind the piggeries

We have identified two areas that would be ideal for a large pond. One is behind the piggeries which would be a good use of the space and the other is within the existing duck enclosure (an area about 150 feet by forty feet, so plenty of room for a decent size pond). This second site is the one that I'd like to complete this year. By digging out a large pond, we can use the soil from the excavation to create a mound for a swale. The pond would be dug out of the highest point of our land (which is not quite, but almost flat) and the mound would encourage rain water to move more slowly through and across the ground, it would also give me a raised area to plant another hedge of currants, berries and nuts together with wild roses for rose hips. This hedge would then act as a wind break and reduce the damaging impact of the winds that whistle across the whole smallholding. This particular hedge would help to protect the vegetable garden a little more.

To offer volunteering opportunities
We would like to offer a chance for people to come and experience life on a smallholding built on organic principles. For this to happen we will need to find a suitable caravan for volunteers to stay in and I think installing a composting loo on site would be a smart move too (some comforts are important to establish early on!). In exchange for their volunteering effort, we will provide accommodation and meals and share what we've learnt. We aren't by any stretch of the imagination, experts in any of this, but we do have some experience, our trial and error has taught us a huge amount in a short time and I'd be delighted to share some of that experience with other like-minded folks.

I have no doubt that as the year goes on we will find other projects and activities that we want to tackle. The back of the piggeries needs work if it is not to become a tangled mess of brambles and weeds, the piggery buildings need attention to prevent them from rusting and collapsing, sections of the stable roof need mending and gutters need replacing... the list goes on and on.

Right now I need to go and complete the project that I've been working on for a couple of weeks, but as it's jolly cold outside first of all, I will make a cuppa!

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Year One photo tour Vegetable Garden

Little and often gets a job done! While many days I feel like I haven't done very much, the cumulative effect of the small tasks quickly build into big changes. This was the paddock as we moved in.

The deep green grass on the right has become the shrubberies, the large area on the left has become a perennial border, vegetable garden, the start of a food forest and the chickens' fields.

To celebrate the progress that's been made during our first year, I thought I'd share some of the photos that we've taken over the course of the year.

The first night in our new home

The first of many compost bays. I was delighted in early May to discover that I had made good quality compost in just a little over three weeks (read about my 3 week compost here)

In early Spring I started making the annual vegetable garden.

  I remember feeling a little daunted by the amount of work it would be to create all the raised beds that I wanted.

 But I found ways to create raised beds that didn't need us to use wooden edging. (read about my super-quick raised beds here)

  This bed was made deeper by inserting spare pieces of wood around the edge, including a couple of drawer fronts so that parsnips would have a deeper root run.

   I've used old pallets to start making a fence around the annual vegetable garden, the pallet fence also provides me with compost bays.

   We've created 17 of the 22 beds that should provide us with a wide variety of vegetables throughout the year. 20 are for annual vegetables and two for perennials, globe artichoke and asparagus.

And I think it turned out pretty well. I've written further blogs looking at our animals and permanent planting areas . The best way to ensure that you don't miss them is to subscribe to my blog, which you can do below!

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Wisteria hysteria

There's a wisteria planted just outside the front door and although it is beautiful, it is entirely mis-placed for such a vigorous plant. We don't have a long expanse of wall for it to grow on and to show it's wonderful mauve flowers, all we have is a narrow space of wall that goes straight up to the low roof.

And that's exactly what has happened this year. The wisteria flowered in early summer and gave a pretty display of hanging flowers and then it grew. And grew and it kept on growing! It grew to the top of the house and wound itself around the guttering and into the eaves.

It became a focal point for wasps and having had one wasps' nest removed from the porch, I watched more wasps start to explore the possibility of building a nest close to the shelter of the wisteria. I dislike wasps, I am frightened of their sting and Mr J has an allergy to their sting, so without wanting to get hysterical about them, I was pretty scared of the prospect of yet another colony of them living just outside the door.

Clearly this lovely climber is in the wrong place. I am sure if it could talk it would tell me it likes where it is, but for us, it isn't working. I don't want to get rid of the wisteria, but I do want to move it to the front garden to allow it to grow along the long low fencing that surrounds that part of the garden.

So on Sunday, we tackled the task of cutting the plant back prior to moving it.

 We cut it to waist high so that it will sit nicely in the new place we have in mind for it.

 Then we set to work removing all the long leggy growth that has happened this year.

 We were surprised at how quickly the snug and hallway became much, much lighter. I think we hadn't realised just how much light was being blocked out by this vigorous beauty.

 We simply can't reach the very top growth and are leaving it to shrink back and hopefully it will then fall out of the eaves and guttering once it is no longer wedged in place. The next step will be to carefully lift the root from the ground, but I am going to wait until a little later in the year when the wisteria is dormant and the shock of being moved will be minimalised.

We tried to shred the stems so that they could be composted easily, but the bark kept wrapping itself around the central spindle of the shredding machine, so we have left it on the ground to rot down (more slowly). 

After all that cutting and chopping we were both ready for a cuppa!

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