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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Volunteering on our smallholding

A little while ago Lisa from Cottage Coppicing got in touch to ask if I would like to swap a day of her energy for sharing some of our ideas and practices with her. As this sounded like a fabulous swap, I jumped at the idea. So this morning Lisa came to our smallholding for a chunk of the day. 

Because so much of my day revolves around food, growing, tending, harvesting, preparing, cooking and eating it, I thought our day together should start with 'second breakfast'. So earlier this morning a made a sticky ginger loaf and some fruit salad to have with a (decaf) coffee before we got started.

Lisa was having a 'me' day and chose to spend it with us as a change from her usual routine. I was chuffed to bits to have some additional help in doing some more physically demanding tasks.

So Lisa asked a few questions and I told her about how we came to live here and how my health had impacted on our decisions about the way we would live in our new home.

I showed her the eggs in the incubator, the 3 week old chicks, the young cockerels who are 6 weeks old, Big Red and Little White who are 11 weeks old and the rest of the chickens. She met the ducks and asked whether, if I could only keep one would it be ducks or chickens. I said ducks, because I like their independence and Mr J said chickens because the ones we have are friendlier than our ducks.

Lisa turned one of the compost heaps in a matter of minutes. This task would have taken me about an hour and then I'd need to rest for a couple of hours or so, I don't think Lisa knows how grateful I am for her volunteering.

The compost heap is coming along well, it certainly isn't going to be three week compost, but it will probably be an eight week compost heap, which I still think is pretty good going.

We then went inside for a cold drink, in the heat of the day (and it being surprisingly breezy here) I am extra careful about keeping up our fluid intake and taking breaks from the sunshine.

 

We headed into the stable to continue the mucking out that I have been doing bit by bit since we moved here. Lisa shifted five barrow-loads in no time, so I emptied the wheelbarrow each time it was full, into the area of the chicken field that is becoming the 'circle of love' for the part of the field with the shed in it.

 

Lisa sat in a chair in the field and held some kale for the birds to peck at and true to form, Big Red and Little White jumped up onto her lap to eat the kale and be stroked.

I think that Lisa was up for doing plenty more, but I was starting to get hot and tired and it was definitely time for lunch, so we had a picnic lunch at the kitchen table and talked some more about our plans and ideas for the smallholding and Lisa's plans for the summer holidays. Lisa works with wood and makes lovely items that she sells in her etsy shop, (link above) I particularly like some of the little garlic chopping boards. I've asked Lisa to make me some robust plant labels to go under the currant bushes, so that we can identify the variety of currant for years to come.

After Lisa had gone, I wandered back to have a look at how much had been achieved and I am delighted that she has cleared about a third of the old muck in the back half of the stable area. There is still one more barrow load to take outside, but that will have to wait until it is a bit cooler.

The other thing that I spotted in the stable was that Red and White have finally discovered the shallow bucket with sand in it that I put in there over a week ago. They were very happily have a dust bath in the nice clean sand. These two little birds are such a pleasure to spend time with. I suspect that if Lisa wasn't 100% sure whether she wanted to keep chickens before that, the two young birds sold the idea to her.

 

If you'd like to spend a day with us on the smallholding exchanging ideas, enthusiasm and energy, please get in touch.

Being resourceful

Yesterday was exciting, not only was it grandson number one's birthday, but I also had two good pieces of news. In the afternoon, Mr J and I went to Bath to give my grandson his birthday gift. We gave him a selection of garden tools suitable for a five year old. My daughter and grandson are creating a small garden area for him to grow flowers and vegetables, so these should help him to create and look after his garden patch.

In the morning I received a message via Twitter (and if you don't follow me on Twitter, you can click on the button on the right to follow me), it was someone who lives reasonably locally asking whether they could come and volunteer on the smallholding.... well yes please! In exchange for a day of labouring, they'd like me to show them how we do everything here. Perfect swap, some physical help for those of us who struggle to get things done and an exchange of ideas.

This is really exciting for me, I am flattered that someone thinks our little smallholding is worth visiting to learn from and delighted that it is someone fairly local. Part of our plan when we moved in was to offer WOOFing opportunities, but I feel that we need to find a caravan or small wooden lodge for people to stay in if we want to do this, so a local resident who can visit for just a day or two without having to stay is the ideal start.

I've been thinking about sources of material for composting to help build our dreadfully poor soil. The compost heaps that I've been making are great and will certainly be useful for improving the quality of the sand and clay soil that we have here. The soil goes concrete hard in spring and at the moment (well over a week since it rained), it is cracked, looks baked, is pale and when I can scrape at the top of the soil, it becomes a dry, dusty powder. When it rains the soil becomes water logged and shows just how compacted it is. Neither of these situations are very good for growing luscious crops. So the answer is to add mulch, lots and lots of compost mulch, the ground is too hard to be able to dig it in, so placing it on top of the soil and letting the worms and microbes do what they do naturally is the best answer to the issue.

What I could really do with is a source of wood chips. We have enough space here to be able to leave large piles of wood chips to rot down and form lovely compost. I've contacted a couple of tree surgeons locally, but neither was terribly interested in bringing chipped trees. I can't find a municipal source (I know that in some places people can go and collect chipped trees for use in their gardens) and so I have had to think about other sources of materials for composting.

Yesterday I phoned a local small brewery to see whether I could have some spent hops and grain. The joy of talking to someone locally is that there is an instant connection because of proximity. I'm also keen to source local materials because there is less transporting. They explained that they currently give their spent hops and grains to another smallholder in the area, but that they would be happy to spread the love and they agreed to give us some spent hops and grain too. The brewery has to keep records of where its waste materials end up and there has to be traceability, so from their point of view a local smallholding is ideal. So now I am waiting for a text to say that they are brewing that day and then we'll need to drive to the brewery, which is just under two miles away, to collect the bags of spent grain and hops. Apparently each brew day will give us about half a bag of hops and seven bags of spent grain.

Spent hops and grain are green materials for the compost heap, rich in nitrogen and other minerals. I will need to make compost heaps by mixing the spent brewery grains with brown materials like sawdust, straw, wood chippings or dried leaves. Looking online, it seems that I will need to make a mixture of about one part spent grains to three parts brown material, so I had better speak to my neighbour and see if they have any more used wood shavings that I can have!

I will need to get the spent grains into compost piles pretty quickly, if I just leave them in a heap on their own after a couple of days they will start to ferment and smell nasty. So, it looks like I will need to find another source of brown material to mix with the spent grain. I am very excited at the prospect of being able to create large amounts of compost over the next few months and look forward to being able to improve the soil not only in the kitchen garden, but also the herbaceous border and shrubbery.

The other thing that I can do with fresh spent grain is to give some to the chickens. Not in vast quantities, but in small amounts to start with. I can offer them some grains in the field and allow them to scratch around to find them in their 'circle of love' - the name that we have given to the area we've made from straw bales and use to put the chicken's kitchen scraps, weeds, wood shavings etc. because the chickens love scratching about in it looking for tasty morsels.

So today, we are off to collect some more straw bales to use to mulch the vegetable beds and in readiness for the spent grains arriving next week.