Planning poultry pens

 Mr J and I are so pleased with how well the chicken walkway has worked for us (and the chickens) that we have decided to build further runs in the chickens' fields and to that end I have ordered some more of the roofing battens like those that we used for the walkway.

 Rather than runs that use a building as one wall, the new runs will be freestanding, well not exactly freestanding as they will be anchored into the ground, but they will have four sides made from posts and netting.

Our thinking is that we could create a series of large runs that, during lockdown, will provide covered areas that the chickens can use and for the rest of the year we can leave the doors open for them to access the runs or remainder of the field.

The runs would allow us to keep family groups together which would be especially useful when we want to ensure that a set of females are breeding with a particular cockerel. The downside to this plan is that I will be back to cleaning out several small houses instead of using a deep litter bedding system in the chicken shed. But that seems a small price to pay for being able to ensure that the correct male is with the girls that we want to collect eggs from.

When we made the walkway it was very much a hit and miss affair, we didn't have a firm plan of how we'd do it and just felt our way through it. For the next pen or two, we will have a clearer idea of how to put the wood uprights and cross piece together to make the structure that we want.

The only part that we really struggled with, when making the walkway, was making a door or gate that fitted the allotted space. Making it the correct size was simple enough, but to stop it from twisting out of shape was more tricky, not helped I think, by the uprights each side of the door not being a) completely perpendicular and b) not being completely in line with each other. It's something we will work on for the next pens.

Once the new pens are completed I will section off an area inside each one that the chickens will not have access to and I will grow some vegetables in it. Then when lockdown happens next year, there will be some cabbages or other green leafy vegetables that I can feed to the birds by opening the restricted area a little at a time. And of course, even if there is no prevention zone order next year, the chickens still will be fed the leafy green vegetables during the winter months.

We haven't decided as yet whether the new pens will have a gently sloping roof like the chicken's walkway or a pitched roof like the duck run (above). I think the gently sloping roof option will be easier to build and as neither Mr J or I have advanced construction skills, the simplest option may well be the best.

The other design of run that I will build from this wood is a mobile run about four metres (13 feet) long and one metre (just over 3 feet) wide with handles at each end to help carry it. It will be a low run about 90cms (3 feet) high. This will fit on top of the raised beds in the annual vegetable garden and once lockdown is over, will allow me to put the chickens to work on the raised beds. They can eat the weeds and any crops left in the bed, till the soil and add manure to it. A few chickens should be able to make light work of the bed preparation in a couple of days and each evening they will be allowed to return to their usual house for the night. 

This was fairly successful last year when I made a makeshift run and now we have the opportunity to make sturdier and mobile raised bed chicken runs I am keen to have them ready for the chickens to go into once the lockdown ends.

The raised bed chicken runs will then be used to cover brassica crops to protect them from cabbage white butterflies and cabbage moths, both of which did substantial damage to the January King cabbages and red curly kale. Having dual purpose mobile runs means that we won't need to find a place to store the runs when the chickens are not in them.

The local builder's merchant have just delivered the wood and I'm heading out into the chicken field to do some measuring up. Although, I'll have to walk past the kettle on my way, so perhaps first of all, I should have a cuppa!

- - - - -

If you'd like to receive my blog posts direct to your inbox just enter your email address in the box below and follow the instructions. You'll probably need to confirm by clicking a link in your email inbox and then you will receive my blog each time a new entry is published. You can, of course, cancel your subscription at any time.

Enter your email address:

Food for winter

Vegetable Garden August 2016

After Storm Angus and Jack Frost had thrown their worst at the garden, I took a walk around the vegetable beds to see what had survived and was pleasantly surprised. Although the vegetable garden looks less than orderly or pretty at the moment, there is still plenty of produce to put on our plates for the coming months.

Here's what we have in the garden
Leeks
Oca
Dwarf kale
Purple curly kale
January King cabbage
Red cabbage
Swiss chard
Perpetual spinach
Parsnips
Swede
Beetroot
Lambs lettuce
Red oak leaf lettuce
Purple sprouting broccoli
Herbs

Stored in the freezer
Borlotti beans
Runner beans
Broad beans
Purple French beans
Patty pan courgettes
Tomatoes
Rainbow chard stems
Celery
Carrots
and fruit that includes
Apples (windfalls from our neighbours' garden)
Blackberries
White Currants
Rosehips
Elderberries
Plums
Mirabelles
Grapes (a gift from a friend)
Herbs

And stored in the larder
Onions
Garlic
Potatoes
Herbs
Plus a collection of sauces, jams, jellies and syrups.

Given that this is our first year, I am delighted with the range of vegetables and fruit that we have to see us through until the next crops arrive.

We have had to buy a few vegetables, but not very many, since the garden starting being productive and it feels quite strange to go to the fresh produce aisle. We have, of course, had to buy fruits like bananas, pineapples and citrus fruit. 

Since starting to plant the food forest I have discovered that we should be able to grow peaches, nectarines and apricots so I will be ordering trees very soon, to join the apple, pears, plums and cherries that I have already planted. I have taken hardwood cuttings of red, white and black currants, tayberry and loganberry. Although I don't eat nuts, Mr J does, so I have planted several hazel trees for hazelnuts and will be ordering a sweet almond tree too.

With all this abundance together with the eggs and meat from the chickens and ducks, I feel as though we have much more food security than we could have hoped for and, being able to buy meat from our friends, like the pork from Martha, means that we can be more certain of how and where our food is produced.

As Christmas is now only three weeks away, I have started to think about what we might have to eat over the holiday period, one thing that I can be sure of is that a large portion of it will be coming from our garden.

- - - - -

If you'd like to receive my blog posts direct to your inbox just enter your email address in the box below and follow the instructions. You'll probably need to confirm by clicking a link in your email inbox and then you will receive my blog each time a new entry is published. You can, of course, cancel your subscription at any time.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Moving gestures

 Our new friends James and Dee of Happy Homestead are due to move house very soon and because they are moving to a remote croft on the Scottish islands of Orkney, they have decided that taking their chickens on the long journey north would be too much for the girls. So we are giving them a home with us.

Yesterday afternoon they brought the girls to our little smallholding to start the next phase of their lives. We have put them into a house of their own in a section of the field away from the other chickens for a week or two to allow them to settle in before they join the main flock of layers.

As it was dusk when they arrived, the chickens were put straight into their temporary house, so we didn't really get any time to spend with them. They also brought with them a selection of fruit bushes that they are kindly giving to us. The plant pots were put on the edge of the shrubbery for ease of storage until I had the time (and daylight) to move them into the food forest.

I am so excited by these gifts, James and Dee's generosity should give us years of harvests and I feel touched by their kindness. They were going to give us the water butts that they have been using to collect rainwater, which we could definitely do with more of.

 But over a cuppa yesterday, I suggested that they took these bulky items with them and filled them with items that they are taking to their croft, so that the smaller items were protected by the plastic and they could save on the cost of having large items delivered to their new home.

As sun rose this morning, I let the birds out of their houses for the day and spent a gentle half an hour or so moving the new fruit bushes to the food forest area. Placing them where they might eventually be planted and then repositioning each one until I was happy with their placement.

James and Dee returned this morning with a second car-load of plants for us as well as some bags of potting compost and ericaceous compost. We talked some more about chickens and ducks, about how easy the different breeds are to care for and they told us more about the new life upon which they are about to embark.

So in a blink, the food forest has a dozen or so additional bushes which include raspberries, gooseberries, currants, honey-berries, a loganberry, rosemary, mint and several varieties of blueberries. Growing in one pot, below the blueberry, is a cluster of strawberries, which I'll use as ground cover.

Earlier in the week, we had more new arrivals. Three little chicks hatched on Wednesday and Thursday. One is the offspring of Big Red and either Jack or Diesel (we aren't sure which one yet) and the other two are white Jersey Giants to add to our small flock of these majestic white birds. The Jersey Giants are from a different breeder (and different line) to the ones that we have here already, which means that next year we will have a breeding flock and will be able to offer hatching eggs for sale.

I also had another nice little surprise on Thursday. 

When this month's Country Smallholding magazine arrived in the post, I found that I had been included in an article about the first few months of smallholding. I'd been asked to write a short piece about three months ago, but didn't know whether it would be included in the magazine. It was equally nice to see that our friend Helen had been included too, with her pigs, the Swanbridge Porkers. 

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been posting a three-part review of our first year on the smallholding. There has been a lot happening here and it has left me feeling quite tired. The tree surgeons have been to remove the spindly trees behind the piggeries, I've raked up and moved several cubic metres of leaves to make leaf mould and I've also been busy studying. 

I've enrolled to take an online course with Oregon State University and have been engrossed in reading, researching and absorbing information from the Introduction to Permaculture course. It's been useful to confirm that many of the practices that I've used (in the garden) fit perfectly from a permaculture perspective and I've learnt in more depth about using the natural lay of the land and water flow to make the most of the space we have. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will have completed the course and done well enough to be awarded a badge, which I will proudly display on my blog page.

So this evening's plan is to watch a couple of gardening programmes that I've recorded and then get back to studying. But first, it's time for a cuppa!

- - - - -

If you'd like to receive my blog posts direct to your inbox just enter your email address in the box below and follow the instructions. You'll probably need to confirm by clicking a link in your email inbox and then you will receive my blog each time a new entry is published. You can, of course, cancel your subscription at any time.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Year One part 3 Permanent Planting

   The Shrubberies were put in early in the year to make a colourful welcome as we drive along the lane into our yard.

 Our friend Jane gave us several shrubs and others were lifted from the area next to the piggeries and stables.

  I planted the perennial shrubs along the length of the border and have added a few more since. 

 After a few months of growing the long shrubbery has filled out and has given us some colour every month. Some of the plants in the shrubbery have uses in addition to looking attractive. The buddleia has attacted many butterflies and other pollinators as have all the flowers on the shrubs. I've harvested the lavender flowers, dried them and I will use them to make lavender bags, lavender sugar and to refresh the pot pourri in our home. The roses will produce rosehips which I will add to the rosehips gathered from the hedgerows and other sources (read about rosehips from my sister's home here).The fushia bush should provide us with berries, although as yet it hasn't produced very much and having never tried fushia, I'm keen to find out whether the berries from this particular hardy bush are sweet or have a bitter aftertaste.

The short shrubbery is still only half completed but is already starting to look good.

 We brought with us several pots of raspberry plants that had been lifted from Mr J's parents' home, together with shrubs, herbaceous plants and a couple of small trees.

Jane helped me to dig the turf from the area that would become the herbaceous border (actually Jane lifted the most of it) and we planted it with the plants that she had given to us and some that we had brought from our previous house. Over the year I haven't weeded the area anywhere near as much as was needed and as a result we've had a display of weed and wild flowers amongst the cultivated perennial plants.

The Food Forest

I decided that creating a permanent planting area filled with edible plants and supporting plants would be a good use of a large space. The more I explored the ideas behind permaculture and the way to use the land in harmony with nature, the more I realised it fits exactly with our thinking and a food forest should work really on this site.

I've had to make some compromises with how to start the food forest, but I'm happy with how it is coming along. Wood chippings have been poured onto the area and composted wood chippings used to make planting beds. It was a bit tougher than just pouring wood chippings, because finding a source of wood chippings took me several months. My budget for the garden is close to zero and it was important to find a free source of materials, but luckily I have now found a local tree surgeon who brings a trailer load of chipped wood on a reasonably regular basis. It gets dumped in the front garden and I then move it one wheelbarrow load at a time to the place I want it. 

 We made a small wildlife pond using a butyl liner that was already on the smallholding when we moved in. It's not very pretty, but as the planting around the edges grow, it should hide the liner and attract beneficial wildlife.

We've recently bought 17 fruit trees which I am in the process of planting and below them I've put fruit shrubs like currants and raspberries (lots and lots of autumn fruiting raspberries), herbs and ground cover plants like strawberries. I've been researching perennial vegetables to include in this area and in the meantime, for the next couple of years at least, I will use some of the food forest area to grow annual vegetables that will act as good ground cover (like some of the squashes I'd like to grow).

 It will take a few years for the food forest to establish and there will always be some maintenance tasks to do there, but it should be more productive in relation to the effort put in as time goes on. 

Hedges and boundaries 

There is very little hedging around the boundary and whilst that gives us fabulous views across the adjacent land, it also gives us no protection from the wind that whistles across the area from the Severn Estuary.

In early spring, Jane helped us to plant a hedge around the east and south sides of smallholding. It is mixed native hedging, that will be good for wildlife, pollinators and food and although still very small, it has started to fill out over the year and I'd imagine that by their fifth year, the hedge plants will be around shoulder high and knitted together to form a thick wind shelter and a good place for birds and other wildlife to live. I used weed supressing membrane and planted through it in an effort to slow down the invasive weeds coming through the stock fencing that surrounds the smallholding. 

I've put up some wind break fabric on the stock fencing to reduce the impact of the wind on the plants in the garden and as some relief for the chickens who were getting blown around by the wind. Much of the winter and spring brought winds of 30 to 40 mph and a few times it reached up to 60mph, which, if you are a small chicken (or a large human) is pretty miserable to be in.

We still need to plant some hedging along the west boundary and I've ordered some more native hedging to put in the ground later in the year together with some elderberry trees that we can lift from below our trees. I'm also going to add some fast growing trees like eucalyptus which I'll keep cut back so that they are large bushes rather than tall trees.

Now that we have divided up the paddock and are happy with the area designated for the chickens, we've put in a more permanent fence. I've started to plant some fruit canes along the fence that can be supported by it, offer more protection for the chickens, look attractive and be productive.

I've written further blogs looking at the vegetable garden and our animals . The best way to ensure that you don't miss them is to subscribe to my blog, which you can do below!

- - - - -

If you'd like to receive my blog posts direct to your inbox just enter your email address in the box below and follow the instructions. You'll probably need to confirm by clicking a link in your email inbox and then you will receive my blog each time a new entry is published. You can, of course, cancel your subscription at any time.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

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!

 If you'd like to receive my blog posts direct to your inbox just enter your email address in the box below and follow the instructions. You'll probably need to confirm by clicking a link in your email inbox and then you will receive my blog each time a new entry is published. You can, of course, cancel your subscription at any time.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Rooty fruity

As part of our plans for the garden we want to surround the plot with native hedging and plant numerous trees. Although the smallholding is not very big, by careful planning and planting we will have space for plenty of fruit trees in the Food Forest.

Today we headed to a supermarket that had bare-root fruit trees for sale for £4.50 each. I expected to find small trees or whips, but to my delight they are healthy looking plants around four feet high. The roots are wrapped to keep some moisture around them and as yet I haven't inspected their root systems, but the top of the trees look good. They are grafted onto M26 rootstock and other semi-dwarfing rootstocks, so the eventual height of each tree will be around ten to twelve feet. For us, this is an ideal height, not so short that the trees look out of scale in the available space, but not so large that we'd need ladders to reach the fruit (or not for many years at least).

The fruit trees that I selected are

1 x Apple Cox's Orange Pippin (which were my father's favourite apple)
2 x Apple Elstar
1 x Apple Jonagold
2 x Cooking Apple Bramley

1 x Pear Doyenne Du Comice
1 x Pear Conference

3 x Plum Opal
1 x Plum Victoria

2 x Cherry Stella
3 x Cherry Morello

All these for a little over £75!

These will be the bulk of the fruiting trees in the food forest together with an apple tree from my neighbour (not sure what it's called but the fruits are delicious) and a mirabelle tree that I lifted from the root system of a mirabelle tree in the duck enclosure. I'll also plant some young hazelnut trees and elderberry trees moved from behind the piggeries. I'd like to find some quince, mulberries and a medlar tree, but those will have to wait until I find them at a reasonable price.

Tomorrow I will start to prepare for their planting by digging holes and incorporating plenty of well rotted wood chippings and garden compost, I will add a very little granulated organic plant food and prepare a mycrorrhizal fungi gel which should encourage root development and give the trees a good start. Where I can't dig down into the soil, I will build Heugelkultur mounds, piling old logs onto the ground with smaller branches on top, then cover them with a mix of topsoil and composted wood chippings before planting a tree on top of the mound. The mounds will be ideal on the areas where there are gentle slopes, so that water naturally gravitates towards the tree mound and the woody material will absorb the water, giving the trees access to moisture when they need it.

I plan to under-plant the trees with comfrey that has deep roots to draw up nutrients from the lower levels of the soil and leaves that can be used as a chop-and-drop mulch and also strawberries which will wilt quickly when they are lacking water and give me a hint that the trees may need a drink too.

Hopefully by next spring the trees will be settled into their new positions and will reward us with a lovely display of blossom.

If you'd like to receive my blog posts direct to your inbox just enter your email address in the box below and follow the instructions. You'll probably need to confirm by clicking a link in your email inbox and then you will receive my blog each time a new entry is published. You can, of course, cancel your subscription at any time.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Chicken tractor and new feeder

The chickens have kept us busy for the last few days. The youngest chicks are now 9 weeks old and last night we moved 4 of them into the chicken shed with the older birds. 

So this morning we dismantled the run that was attached to the house that has been their home for the last five weeks and stored it in the back part of the stable. Then we moved the house into the stable too. It won't be needed for more chicks until next year and by keeping it inside we will protect it from the winter weather, hopefully helping it to last longer.

It will be interesting trying to get the four to go into the shed tonight, each time we move chicks into the shed we have a couple of evenings that we spend chasing small birds around the field herding them into their new accommodation.

This afternoon I created a vermin-proof feeding system (fingers crossed that it works). I had bought a set of toggles online, so following the written instructions that came with them, I made a hole in the base of a large bucket (a fermenting bin), dropped the toggle thingy into the hole and headed outside. I partially filled the bucket and popped the lid on. Outside I hung it on a rail to see if the birds would be get the hang of how to feed themselves.

 Mr J will make a tripod stand for the bucket to hang from and it should need topping up about once a week or two (depending on how much the birds find to forage and how much they get given from the garden, instead of eating feed).

The birds need to learn to peck at the toggle hanging down which is allow a few pellets of feed to drop out. It took Big Red about five minutes of inspecting the new feeder and watching me tap the toggle to work out how to get more food from it. Hopefully he will teach the other chickens how to use it.

After that, I dismantled the temporary fencing that we had put around the youngest Australorps' house so that I could move them to another part of the garden. They have done an admirable job in reducing the weedy grass to a flattened state and fertilise the ground, but it is time for them to move on to the next area that needs preparing for plants. The permaculture idea of different elements of the smallholding working together works so well for us. The chickens prepare the ground for us to plant in and at the same time get a constant supply of new, fresh green food. Win - win!

Freed from the confines of their run, they headed straight for the 'all you can eat buffet bar' and tucked into some spinach, chard and kale. It's a good job that I am growing these vegetables for the chickens or our greens supply would be severely compromised this week.

I pushed the hen house to the new spot. The young Australorps are in the house on wheels that we bought a couple of months ago, which makes moving it around relatively easy. Their next task is to clear some of the overgrown area into which we will be putting raised beds for vegetables next year. I moved the chicken wire netting with it's bamboo stakes and the makeshift gate, made from a couple of fence stakes and ready-made chicken run panels.

Once their new home was ready for them, I easily gathered up the chickens. They didn't seem to notice me walking towards them as they were too busy scratching in the ground for worms (the protein section of their buffet). They seemed quite happy to start exploring their new allotted space and immediately set to work on scratching the ground and pecking at the weeds. 

This process would be faster and easier if we could use flexible chicken netting that comes with its own spikes to push into the ground, but these little chickens are still small enough to squeeze through the gaps in the netting, so chicken wire and canes it needs to be.

Next year I hope Mr J and I can build a portable run that we can move from raised bed to raised bed so that the chickens can clear each bed as a crop is finished. And, once the food forest is more established the chickens will be allowed to roam through that on a semi-regular basis as they will eat grubs and insects and fertilise the ground. Of course they will eat some of the plants, but I think that's suitable price to pay for the removal of bugs and the adding of rich nitrogen matter.

Anyway, after all that work out in the garden with the chickens, I was pleased to head back inside and put the kettle on for a cuppa.

If you'd like to receive my blog posts direct to your inbox just enter your email address in the box below and follow the instructions. You'll probably need to confirm by clicking a link in your email inbox and then you will receive my blog each time a new entry is published. You can, of course, cancel your subscription at any time.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Bit of a squash

Having worked out my planting plan for next year in the vegetable garden (which you can see here) I now know that we will be using a large area at the far end of the paddock as a pumpkin patch among some young fruit trees that are going into this area in November. I won't only plant pumpkins, but all of the squash, pumpkins and courgettes that I want to grow next year.

I've been surprised at how easy the pumpkins have been to grow. This year I planted them into small soil pockets on the top of a straw and spent grain compost heap (see how I made the compost hot bed here) and I've fed them twice with a nettle tea, I have watered them when I've noticed the leaves wilting badly but other than that, I've pretty much left them alone to do their thing. Of the four young plants that I put in, one was eaten by slugs very quickly so only three grew, but I've been rewarded with 9 good sized pumpkins. The smallest of these is approximately 9-10 inches across, similar in size to a football, the largest is, at a guess, 20 inches across and 18 inches high. I'm looking forward to them being ripe enough to lift from their sprawling vines and weigh them. 

The courgettes have totally failed, not a single plant survived the slugs, but I did have some success with summer squashes and have harvested a couple of dozen (or more) patty pan squashes from the four plants that have grown in compost heaps and interestingly fewer per plant from the couple of plants that have grown in the ground.

Three butternut squash plants that looked like they had been eaten by slugs managed to survive the slimy onslaught and produced some small fruits, but sadly they have come so late in the year that I doubt whether they will ripen enough to be able to store for use later in the winter. But nothing goes to waste, if they aren't quite ripe enough for us, I can cut them and give them straight to the chickens, who will happily tuck into them.

So, buoyed by this year's encouraging experience I've decided to grow more (and different) squashes next year. I will start preparing the ground this autumn by making hugelkultur beds. I will pile up logs of wood, small branches, well rotted manure, leaves, garden compost and composted wood chippings and I will cover them with a thick mulch of straw from the duck houses to protect them from leeching too many nutrients in the winter rain.

I've been sorting through the seeds that I have in my seed box and already have several packets of squash seeds that I can use next year and I think the only seeds I'll need to acquire are of some type of spaghetti squash. As my daughter has offered to give me some seeds for Christmas, I will ask her for some spaghetti squash seeds. 

These are the pumpkins, courgettes and squashes that I plan to grow next year.

Image & info at Premier Seeds Direct

Squash delicata (winter squash). 
I really like the look and description of these heirloom squashes. They are sweet like a butternut squash but the skin can also be eaten. I've found some lovely recipes using this squash including a maple glazed one which I will definitely be trying.

Image & info at Premier Seeds Direct

Jumbo pink banana squash
Another heirloom squash that has good keeping properties and as it names suggests, it's a biggie! This recipe from Firesign Farm blog is for a squash pie looks very simple to make, I would probably only use cinnamon and nutmeg as my spices as those are our favourites.

Pumpkin Howden
This is the pumpkin that I've grown this year and I've been very pleased with it. I will grow less of them next year as I don't think we need quite so many.

Image and info at Premier Seeds Direct

Butternut Waltham
This is the butternut squash that we've grown this year and as I still have seeds, I will give it another go next year. We both like butternut squash soup and I like them baked in the oven with goat's cheese and pumpkin seeds.

Image and info Premier Seeds Direct

Courgette Verde de Milano
A deep green courgette which I hope to pick when they are still quite young as I prefer baby courgettes roasted in the oven with a host of over vegetables, garlic, salt and pepper and fresh rosemary.

Image and info Mr Fothergills

Yellow courgette
I currently have seeds for courgette Soleil F1, which look fabulous, but if I can find an organic seed that looks as appealing I will swap these seeds for organic ones. I much prefer yellow courgettes to green ones as they are sweeter, with less course skin and make extremely nice cakes!

Courgette, lemon and poppyseed cake from Riverford Organic Farmers

Oven baked summer squash Sunburst stuffed with Bolognaise sauce

Summer squash Delikates and Summer squash Sunburst
I've grown both of these this year and have been enjoying them baked, friend in ghee, stuffed, shredded and have frozen quite a few of them, sliced and ready to use in meals during the winter. The photo at the top of my blog shows these squashes (and the cabbage) used in this meal. The yellow ones look like sunny pork pies and just ask to be hollowed out and filled.

There are so many other squashes that I'd like to try to grow, but I think it would be better to try a few at a time and discover which ones we most like to eat.

Wherever possible I am using heirloom varieties and organic seeds. By avoiding F1 varieties, I should be able to save some seeds from each plant for use the next year. Our aim is to reduce our living costs and saved seeds will do their part to lower our costs. There is, I guess, a risk that plants will cross pollinate and that we'll end up with some peculiar squashes, but I don't mind, that's all part of the fun of growing our vegetables!