Keeping my roots

What To Do First

2012-02-04T16:36:00.002Z

Big plans this weekend and the snow has stopped them all!
Still It means I can draw up some plans in the warm. I've decided that the first smallholding job I should do is to build a chicken pen and coop. I left my old coop at the old house as it was built for the pen that its in. I'm thinking of having around 8-10 laying birds to start with, hybrids probably, as we had 9 before and it seemed a manageable number to deal with. Also with this amount we can sell the surplus eggs to the neighbours and passers by to help pay for food and bedding.
Any one got any ideas on the perfect coop. I'm going to raise it off the ground by 18" to stop rats and give the birds something to shelter under and have some nest boxes on the side.
I've also got to think about the work to be done on some of the trees. Many of the large oaks need their crown raising as there are some heavy lower branches on them and it would benefit the trees if they were removed (also benefit the firewood pile!). Good job I've got a kind hearted brother to help me with this!

Big Plans

2012-01-19T22:44:00.005Z

I've neglected this blog lately but I've been busy!

Firstly we've moved house (if you read my other blog then you'll already know this), so know we live in a beautiful countryside location at the foot of the Malvern hills with 5 acres of land to play with.

Secondly we've just had our first Child - little baby Evalyn - who is taking up lots of daddy's time as he can't draw himself away from her!

This year is going to be a busy one, not only have I got to earn enough money to pay the bills (and massive mortgage) but we've got our daughter to look after and a smallholding to start up. I plan to give up our old allotments (as they're too far away now) and get planting vegtables here quite soon (although digging may be done with a tractor), the start of an orchard in before spring gets here (already have some trees to plant), a large chicken pen for some replacement laying hens, a pig pen for some weaners to fatten up over the summer and maybe the start of a little flock of sheep.

And that's just for starters! My head is spinning with all the things I want to do. where do you think I should start?

I Love Squash

2011-12-15T22:44:00.002Z

Dilemma - I forgot to go and collect veg from the allotment at the weekend (no sprouts this week) and we wanted some veg to go with our tea. What comes to the rescue? Squash.

They sit in the house happy for months (last year they were still alright in may) and they taste amazing. Tonight I roasted a squash with some home grown shallots and peppers, with a little olive oil, to have with salmon, and they tasted so good. I even left the skin on, I just washed them, chopped and de-seeded them and chucked them in the oven - what could be easier? I could have cooked the seeds as well for a snack.

These could be bordering on the perfect vegetable (I love growing them as well)! What do you think?

A Visit From Mr. Fox

2011-11-14T21:00:00.003Z

Woke up this morning and went through all my usual routines, then unlocked the back door - but didn't hear the chickens going mad like they usually do when I go outside. I knew straight away what must have happened, I grabbed a torch and confirmed it.

All nine chickens dead. The fox had only taken one and killed the rest for fun, they lay around the pen, heads bitten off.

I guess I've only got myself to blame as for the last four years I've only shut them in when its been cold and the one pen I thought was pretty fox proof. I'll learn from this and make sure in future I always shut them in - being in a village with a big fence all round the garden is no obstacle to a fox!

Even though I know the fox will be back tonight I don't feel very good about waving my 12 bore out of the bedroom window in the middle of a village (even though one neighbour has asked me to) and I can't set any snares or traps due to to other wildlife.

Looks like the fox won this one.

I'll have to wait until the spring now to get some more chickens so no fresh eggs this winter.

Drying Chilli Peppers

2011-10-30T19:09:00.003Z

Its that time of year again when everything has to be stored up for winter use.

My Chillies have done well this year, although we never really use many they're nice to have in the store cupboard. Last year I tried drying them on a string in the kitchen but they went moldy in a few weeks so this year I've gone back to the food dryer as that worked so well before. We're still using chilli flakes from three years ago dried in this way so it seems silly not to use it again, I might also make some chilli and tomato chutney if I can find enough jars!

How does everyone else store their chillies for winter?

I've met hugh!

2011-10-16T22:09:00.004+01:00

Well today I met one of my hero's, someone who I can say, without exaggerating, changed my outlook on life and my life in general.

When I brought the River Cottage Cook Book all those years ago I had no idea what an influence it would have on me (and now my wife) and I'm sure this will continue for the rest of my (our)days. This book made me look at all food differently, I planted an orchard and started to garden, made my own wine and preserves, started to eat what I shot, it influenced our first house purchase (as I wanted a large garden), it made me read more on all the subjects of food and then on other items that should be locally produced. There were other influences in my life that have lead to this but it was reading that book that actually made me start to do all these things instead of talk about them.

Of course I didn't say any of this. Just told him my name for the signing and then stood behind him for an awkward photo! Still I was beaming as I walked out of the tent!

Squash!

2011-10-02T17:49:00.003+01:00

I think that one of my favorite vegetables to grow is the squash.

They're easy to grow (if you've got the space)

They keep right through the winter and into spring (we just keep them in a box under the spare bed).

They taste great with loads of ways of cooking them.

They look great with hundreds of different colours and varieties. This year I grew lots of different types (can't figure out which is which now though!) and although they're a little small we had quite a good harvest from them.

I can see why they were such a staple in the past.

Neglect

2011-09-04T16:30:00.003+01:00

Well I've certainly neglected this blog in favour of my other one @ http://sawdustinmysocks.blogspot.com/

But I've still been quite busy growing and preserving. As I speak I've got a load of apples and raspberries in the food dryer and we'll be having our own cauliflower, cabbage, beans and potatoes for tea.

The allotment has suffered a little this year as there is no way we could get down there to water it as much as it needed so some crops look terrible (sweetcorn looked bad but now the mice have eaten it anyway, so that doesn't matter anymore!). But others, like the squashes, are doing well.

The raspberries are brilliant this year and from one row we're picking a huge punit each week.

I think I'll be putting some more in next year!

Planting frenzy!

2011-05-02T19:05:00.003+01:00

I glazed my new/old greenhouse yesterday so I've got lots of new growing space.

Today I went mad and planted every type of seed I had in my box and pretty much filled the new space. Is it bad that my mouth was watering as I planted some of these seeds, thinking aabout all the tomatos, chillis, brussel spouts, strawberries.... (yum yum)

River Cottage Weekend

2011-03-20T20:05:00.003Z

For Christmas my lovely wife brought me a present (and her) of going down to Devon for the weekend and having a four course meal at River Cottage. I was excited - I've read all the books, watched all the programmes now I was going to get to eat there!
The whole weekend was just perfect, the B&B was lovely in a Victorian mansion with a 4 poster bed, at the B&B we met another lovely couple staying there who were going to the meal as well.
I got to go to Axminster tool shop (my favorite shop in the world) and the river cottage canteen during the day as well as a wonder round Lyme Regis trying to find fossils on the beach.
The meal that night at River Cottage HQ was amazing. To start with we had four different canopies, each lovely, before we were seated down two long tables. This created a really nice atmosphere as people weren't just in their little groups. Gill the chef came out and explained what we were to be eating and a little about where the food had come from.
Our courses were:
-Ham hock terrine with sour dough and piccalilli (I don't normally like piccalilli but this was lovely)
- Stinging nettle soup with a poached egg
- Black bream with Jerusalem artichokes and home made chorizo
- hot carrot cake muffing with panocotta

There wasn't a single course I'd change, it all tasted great and the portions weren't too small!

I didn't take any pictures inside but I got one of their meat curing area as we were waiting for the tractor to take us back to the car park.

Onions in!

2011-03-14T22:16:00.003Z

I've finally managed to get all of my onions in, leaving enough room in the allum bed for my leeks when I get round to planting them! This Sunday the ground worked perfectly and you only had to tap the clods with a spade and it fell into the idea seed bed. My rows of shallots and onions looked as happy as little bulbs could!

We also had a big push on weeding, trying to get rid of the grass that's springing up everywhere, I think we might bark the fruit area to stop this and make it easier to maintain.We moved a couple of raised beds as well to give a larger seating area by the shed and it meant digging about 20 kg of parsnips up. I've never seen my wife make so much soup!

Allotment Orchard

2011-02-22T19:31:00.004Z

This weekend Ive expanded my fruit garden down at the allotment. A nectarine, plum, braeburn apple, cox apple, redcurrant and a gooseberry bush have all gone in. I planted the nectarine on the south side of the shed to give it added protection, so I will hopefully get a few fruits from it. The apples and plum were planted on the furthest south fence so they don't shade any of my plot. I also dug in some Jerusalem artichokes in my new perennial area so that should keep us farting next winter (mind you I've never tried them so I might not like them!).

Last Sunday's roast

2011-02-06T15:15:00.003Z

The cockerel has crowed its last crow.
After a light hearted complaint from a neighbour, I decided it was time to silence the cockerel and his mate (one was just starting to crow) and make a nice dinner out of them. Not only was he noisy but he also liked to get violent, my wife didn't like to be in the pen with him.
"Little chicken syndrome"
They both had loads of fat inside them (from their mainly corn fed diet) and the leg meat was much darker than what you buy in the shops (mainly because he'd been using them). Very tasty and they fed three of us easily with big greedy portions. Might have to hatch some more meat birds later in the year.
The rest of the hen are fine and enjoying themselves, spending their days scratching in the dirt and eating all the brussel sprouts that have "blown". I will have to find these new hens homes soon so I can replant the lawn for the summer! They've just started to lay (21 weeks old this week) and I keep finding little bantam eggs dotted around the pen.

marmalade

2011-01-24T21:09:00.004Z

Now I love preserving, I make jams and chutneys all the time, but I've never made marmalade. The main reason for this is because it tastes like the most bitter orange minced up into a paste with chewy bits in. But my wife likes it and she was given a large bag of Seville oranges at work so I thought it was best to try my hand at making some - at worst it would make the house smell nicer than boiling vinegar for a chutney! I found a recipe on the Internet and loosely followed it (as usual). This involved poaching the oranges for a couple of hours, then cutting them in half and scooping out the insides and pith into a separate saucepan. This pith, flesh and seeds then gets simmered for a while before getting poured into muslin cloth and suspended (precariously) over the rest of the liquid.

The peal is then cut into thin strips and added to this liquid as well. As I had about 4 lbs of oranges I added about 6lbs of sugar and after squeezing the last bits of juice from the cloth into the pan I boiled it rapidly until setting point was reached. This took f-o-r-e-v-e-r, I must buy some petin when I see it!

In the end I made 12 jars of marmalade and Claire said it was lovely (I think it smells nice and keep trying it, but every time it taste terrible and leaves a bitter taste at the back of my throat - I don't think I'll ever be a fan!). Bad photo at the end sorry!

Allotment HQ

2011-01-23T22:01:00.004Z

A phone call the Thursday before last from my mothering law told me that one of her friends had a shed going spare, but it had to be gone by Sunday.

I got dad to meet me there on the Saturday with a trailer (I'd already taken it down) and we drove it up to the allotment. The shed is in great condition but it was quite heavy to carry across a very muddy field - I'm fairly sure my arms were 2 inches long by the time we'd taken the final load across.

This Saturday (with the help of my friend Terry) I managed to put up the shed at its new home down on the allotment. I've re-felted the roof but I've still got to board up the window and give it a lick of paint to make it look a bit nicer. It already feels like a nice base on the allotment - I'm looking forward to putting our little ball bearing lawn mower and car boot tools down there.

I'm really pleased with our freebie - Thanks to my mothering law!

Wassail!

2011-01-16T19:39:00.004Z

Drink Hail!

I was a bit heavy headed this morning as last night we had to scare the evil spirits away from the orchard and drink a fair amount of cider in the process.

It was a bit of a random night, we went to the Flease Inn in Bretforton (the next village over from ours to join in on the Wassail. When we first got there I could see that my friend Terry was unconvinced as there were Morris dancers everywhere and "black" woman (faces painted, dressed as witches) all dancing and singing in the courtyard of this national trust Inn. We battled our way to the bar, got some "proper" cider (flat and rough - just how I like it) and after the first pint we were loving it. Toast was dipped in cider and hung from the branches and cider poured at its roots, then more singing and dancing.

I think at these sorts of events you have to just jump right in and get involved, we were all enjoying the dancing and the folk singing by the end of the night.

We met three lads who had just the right attitude, (randomly they were from Shrewsbury, where Terry used to live and they knew him) every month they pick one random event somewhere and just go along and get involved. Last year the one chap broke his leg cheese rolling and next month they're off to run with the bulls in Spain. What really struck me was how even though they'd never been to this pub before they were the first to get up and dance and get the locals up and involved, I thought that was great and I think I need to take a leaf out of their book and not stand at the side so much.

Really great night, I'm smiling just thinking about it.

Not a football fan

2011-01-09T21:34:00.002Z

To anyone that knows me this will not come as a shock. I don't like football.

But today I got guilted into going to watch a match at the pub. The trouble was its the first time I've seen the sun this year and I was going to waste two hours of daylight, I wasn't happy!

In the end we came to a compromise, I would watch the football with Terry if he gave me an hour digging on the allotment. He agreed and I think we made real headway on turning the soil over on the newer half of the allotment ready for the spring. A few more Sundays like this and I'll be ready for the planting season!

Christmas Dinner

2010-12-31T14:56:00.003Z

Well I'm quite pleased with myself. Yesterday was the end to a good gardening year, we had a group of friends over for a late Christmas dinner and all the veg were homegrown. We had potatoes, butternut squash, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, carrots, swede and leeks, I felt quite smug at what we'd achieved and how good it all tasted (with some good cooking from my wife). The turkey was from a friend of my fathers so it was quite an accountable dinner.
On a less positive note my allotment is constantly under a couple of inches of water and the carrots have started to float to the surface (I wish I dug them up sooner and clamped them).
Here's to next year where I aim to be self sufficient in veg (and maybe I can talk Claire into having a couple of turkeys on the garden!

No fun for the chickens

2010-12-22T21:33:00.003Z

Well without wanting to say what everyone else is saying but I'm fed up with the snow, its cost me a weeks work and my chickens are pretty much too frightened to leave the coops. At least the garden look nice!

A little bonus

2010-12-05T19:10:00.003Z

I had a little bonus this week in the form of 3 brace of pheasants from the couple who I've been working for. They host the shoot dinners (a posh meal after the "guns" have been shooting all morning) and get as many pheasants as they like, these were shot Monday.

Mind you I almost didn't get any as they had been left out overnight and the next morning there was half as many (and a fat fox somewhere)!

Today I've plucked and dressed two of the birds and cut the breast and leg meat off the other four. The whole pheasants are in the oven at the moment, surrounded by vegetables dug out of a slowly defrosting allotment, should be a cheap and rich dinner!

Medlars

2010-11-14T17:36:00.004Z

As I've already said, this year is the first year that our Medlar tree has had a good amount of fruit on it.

Last week I decided that the fruit was "bletted" enough (rotten) so I picked the whole crop. We decided that we have made enough jam lately to last us into next year (and then a bit) so chutney was to be made instead.

Looking on the Internet I came across Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall recipe for a spicy chutney using the Medlars (in fact there weren't too many other recipes that I could find). His recipe called for the use of the left over pulp from making Medlar Jelly. This was going to be a long process.

Monday night I stewed the Medlars and set them to strain overnight through a jelly bag.
Tuesday night I made the jelly with the juice (only a tiny jar full - it better taste good!)
Wednesday night I made the spicy chutney using the pulp from the jelly (the house still smells) but by 11.15 it still wasn't thick enough!
Thursday night I put the chutney back on the stove, thickened it and put it into jars.

A long process so I hope it tastes good once it matures. Out of the pan it nearly took my head off with its spiciness! I've a feeling it might be more like a cook-in-sauce!

Drying Chilli Peppers - Fail

2010-11-07T21:23:00.001Z

Well our lovely string of chilli peppers turned from a dark green to red and then to mouldy. Never mind, I will have to try something different next year!

Chicken Run

2010-10-31T22:04:00.004Z

Well our 10 (not so) little chicks and mum have gotten a little bit too big for the arc that they were hatched in, so last weekend I fenced off a large area of the garden and wired up half of the old shed for a coop.

We moved them in on Friday night, after clipping their wings , and they love it! Running round scratching in the leaves and grass while the mother hen clucks away. Trouble is it looks good now but by the end of the week I'm sure it will be like a mud bath! Never mind, its a more natural way for them to live and they should be big enough to eat by January so we should have grass back in the spring, unless we hatched another batch...

The sad thing is, at six weeks if these were Ross Cobs then they would be killing weight now and end up as the cheap chicken in the supermarkets! Mine have got another couple of months yet, to grow at the speed that nature intended them to. It's ridiculous that they still allow chickens to be reared so fat and so fast.

Drying Chilli Peppers

2010-10-31T21:57:00.003Z

It's the time of year again to dry the chili peppers that we haven't used.

This year I've decided not drag out the food dryer and instead I've just strung them from the ceiling in the kitchen. Hopefully they won't go moldy and since I strung them up on Monday night the rest of them have started to turn slowly red.

Apples!

2010-10-24T23:00:00.004+01:00

I love apples, I eat two everyday of my life.
I know this goes against my seasonal eating but I have a packed lunch and I need my fruit. I eat English apples for as long as possible and then grudgingly make the switch. But I love this time as year as I get the crisp lovely apples for free, just a few hours spent picking them, which is a treat in itself!
My parents farm isn't great for eating apples, although I have planted many different trees over the last 5 or 6 years they are only just becoming useful, so our store mainly contains cooking apples.
The three on the picture above are my three favourites, Warner King, Scot Bridget and the good old Bramleys Seedling.
The Warner King doesn't keep over a month but is very early to be ready and I think tastes better cooked than any other apple.
The Scot Bridget is duel purpose (although its skin is quite tough), we've managed to keep them till May and it always has a huge crop no matter on the year.
The Bramleys Seedling comes from three trees down the bottom of the old orchard we've got loads of them and they store quite well, also good for a baked apple.

My mother and I have both wrapped up our apples in their paper jackets for storage, so now its just a case of thinking of enough recipes to cook them in.

Bright Eyes

2010-10-18T21:08:00.003+01:00

On Friday night my wife was out on the town living it up. On the other hand I was being driven round fields in the dark with a .410 stuck out of the window. I know where I'm happier!

Lamping rabbits is a great way to bag some free meat and to try and keep their numbers in check. My father and I didn't have to spend long doing it before I had four good sized rabbits suitable for the pot (it then started to rain so we went back to the warm). I gutted them that night and then butchered them in the morning turning them into bags of fat less meat (about enough for 4 good meals).

My wife was less than excited about the prospect of eating rabbit so I thought I'd cure her by serving up some hot rabbit rolls instead of bacon - a risky move that could have gone wrong as nothing to hid the meat as anything else! I chose the best bits of meat from each rabbit (the saddle across the back) and rubbed them in olive oil, an Oxo and a little pepper and then fried them quickly. Served in fresh french stick with some salad out of the garden my wife could only say how lovely it was - Good job, I intend to fill the freezer with the furry little critters....

Rabbit stew, rabbit curry, rabbit burgers, rabbit and white wine (more ideas please)

Pickled Cauliflower

2010-10-13T22:26:00.005+01:00

I think Cauliflowers are like buses - they all come at once. Last weekend we had three very fine looking specimens waiting to be harvested. Rather than let the slugs eat them we decided to pick the lot.

I was already on a preserving rampage with jam and chutney under my belt (not literally that would be messy) so I decided it was best to cook the one for lunch and to pickle the remaining two. It is a know fact around our house that my wife is rather keen on pickled veg and will eat a whole jar in one sitting if allowed! I'm not so keen and struggle to eat a few pieces with a bag of crisps!

To pickle them I consulted a large number of my preserving books and then did my own thing (heavily influenced by said books).

First wash and cut the cauliflower in bit sized pieces
Then leave it in a brine to draw the moisture out for 24 hours(the brine was 100g of salt to 1 litre of water)
Sterilise the kilner jar and fill with the vegetable
Pour over the vinegar making sure it is all covered

Seal and leave for a few weeks before eating

I'm even considering hiding this from my wife as she might eat the lot when I'm not in and make herself ill!

Red Tomato and Chilli Chutney (and Sloe jam)

2010-10-12T21:21:00.006+01:00

I've been preserving things again this weekend. I started off with a wild Friday night making chutney (I know how to live!), although I might have dozed off and burnt the pan a little (a lot). I pretty much used the green tomato recipe but used ripe tomatoes, one big Cayenne pepper, a teaspoon of coriander seeds and a table spoon of fennel seeds. It only made three jars (so I wont be giving any away) but it smelt nice - I've just got to wait for two months to let it mature before I can try it.I spent Saturday shooting, well I say shooting but I mean carrying my gun around, as I shot nothing, very disappointing. I did pick lots of apples and over 2kg of sloes (I've never seen so many) so my trip wasn't completely pointless.

On Sunday night I made some of these sloes in jam (there is only so much gin you can drink). Sloe and apple jam is something I've not tried before and reading a recipe on the Internet it says to use

1 kg of apples,

500g of sloes,

1.5 kg of sugar

by the time I stewed the fruit and pushed it slowly through a sieve I had a lot less mixture so I only added the same weight of sugar. The resulting jam I'm unconvinced about, its sweet but has the same dry taste of cranberries, I'll have to have it on something nice to judge it properly (its a great colour though).

Squashes and Apple Pancakes

2010-09-26T21:59:00.005+01:00

Another very full weekend.

Yesterday was Malvern Autumn Show and we made our twice yearly trip. It was a great day and we managed not to spend too much, although we did buy a wormery (I've wanted one for ages) and 5 different types of garlic to try - This year I plan to grow it at home and the allotment and see which soil type it does best in.

Today I've spent quite a while down the allotment, I've started to harvest the squashes as the leaves have started to die on some of the plants and they've hardened up nicely. I also started to knock in the fence posts for our next allotment although I had to keep tapping the end of the sledge hammer as the head was threatening to fly off!

The chicks are growing up fast and becoming less cute by the day. Its funny how annoyed Claire now get when people question us for having chickens to eat, saying its cruel or they don't know how we do it, when we both see it as natural and how we'd prefer to get our meat. It's really nice that we both have the same values where food is concerned.

Allotment Open Day

2010-09-19T18:57:00.003+01:00

Another busy weekend. Yesterday was our first ever open day for the allotments and Felix Dennis (the owner of FHM) was meant to come down to open it officially but couldn't make it due to illness (he gave the land for the allotment to be built on).

I managed to talk my mum into coming up and helping me weed the plot before people started to look round, so the plot was looking quite tidy. The day was really nice with Claire's family coming up as well, there was a little veg stall and a raffle as well as a guess the seed competition which I was gutted I didn't win (I'll never know which I got wrong!).

Yesterday evening I also managed to pick a massive bucket full of hazel nuts off of our single tree, not sure what I'm going to do with them but its a shame to leave them (any ideas?).

The chicken and her little brood of chicks are doing well, the chicks are so fast now its almost impossible to catch them. Its great fun watching the mother fuss over them and break food up so they can eat it, although she is quite rough when she scrats at the grass and knocks an unsuspecting chick flying!

Teenage Mother

2010-09-12T22:22:00.004+01:00

Well our Teenage Mother of a broody hen has hatched out her random assortment of eggs and so far there are 10 bundles of fluff of all different colours keeping their mother busy. There are still a couple of eggs left which seem to have chicks in, but if they haven't hatched by the morning then it will be a total of 10 out of 16 hatched. Not too bad for her first time sitting on eggs.

I'm now a bit worried about what we're going to do with our new chickens when they grow up. I've planned where they're going to go in the garden (they're going to have the area under the hazel tree and some of the old garden shed to live in). The boys will be fattened up for the freezer, the ladies will have a longer future I think...

Plum Weekend

2010-08-30T22:12:00.004+01:00

We've had a great bank holiday weekend. To start with My wife had her best friend and her daughter over (which I took to mean two extra pairs of hands). We managed to get loads done from car booting to digging the rest of the potatoes off the allotment and picking a huge bag full of french and runner beans (as well as filling our mouths with raspberries as we worked).

In the afternoon we decided to make plum jam. On Friday I had picked a big bag of Victoria plums from the farm after I finished work and brought them home with me, the only trouble was I think the bag was too big and we ended up making 21 jars of jam! I would have preferred to have used yellow egg plums but they were over (I managed to put 6 bags in the freezer last week), the jam tasted good and had a bit of a tart taste like a plum jam should. To make it we used 5.1 KG of stoned plums and the same of sugar (this looked like a lot of sugar!).

To round the weekend off we went to Pershore Plum day, this was much bigger than I thought it would be and spread over the whole town. We brought a few bits and bobs like plum cheese and black pudding as well as having some lovely plum cider, I also brought a book on the history of Evesham orchards and learn how there is a cider making circle in the next village to ours. Might have to see if I can join...

Trying To Rotovate

2010-08-22T21:27:00.004+01:00

This weekend I had planned to rotovate the new half of our allotment, and today I managed to get down there for about 4 hours and achieved the grand total of nothing. The rotovater just bounced off the top and I ended up just leaving lines across the top. I think I'm going to have to admit defeat and get the man in with the tractor to do it the first time. I'm a bit gutted though as I got myself all worked up to do it.

We did manage to dig up one row of potatoes today and have trug completely full with them (I think if it had rained earlier we would have had more). Also we've been on a freezing mission - I picked a large bag of yellow egg plums and froze all of those and tonight Claire has been blanching beans by the hundred weight to put in the freezer (as well as cooking a Sunday roast with more vegetables than I can count (well five but it doesn't sound as impressive)).

I also brought another fig tree at a car boot, it has the biggest leaves I have ever seen on one and it's about half the price you'd pay in a nursery. I'm not sure what it is about trying to grow an exotic fruit that is notoriously difficult to grow but I'm determined to have some of my own figs at some point even if I have to have 10 trees!

What to do with a Broody Hen...

2010-08-22T20:49:00.005+01:00

Normally I get quite annoyed by my hens going broody but this week I decided not to keep chucking her off the nest or put ice cubes under her. Instead I've been given 16 quite random eggs ranging in colour and size to hatch out.

The eggs were given to me from a nice couple who have a smallholding just down the road from my fathers farm, I'd never met them before but my dad sells them corn and straw for their animals. When I picked the eggs up they showed me the possible ex-owners of the eggs and the two possible cockerels who could be the fathers (one large barnavelda and a small buff arpington bantam). The hens ranged from welshsummers, light sussex, rhode island red and a large number of crosses (big and small), I'm pretty sure if this hen manages to hatch out these eggs then anything could turn up!

My worries are that I've put too many eggs under her (16 - anyone know if this is too many), the hen is very young (not even a year old - teenage pregnancy!) and she is a hybrid and although she is being a good mother now (and very vicious with it) will her broodiness last 21 days and how will she behave when they hatch?

Extreme Survival

2010-08-19T21:41:00.004+01:00

At the beginning of June, I spent a week in Scottish highlands on an extreme survival course with my brother and a group of 6 other like minded strangers and three instructors.

We had to first hike into an area to camp, carrying all we needed for the week long course. When we arrived (we were knackered) we then had to make camp, constructing an area for a fire as well as enough shelters for the 8 of us.

We manged to just get up the frame of shelters big enough for purpose and the realisation that collecting enough water and making it safe to drink was going to be a major part of this course as the nearest stream was half a mile away over some quite rough terrain. Before we could settle we were taken down the side of the wood for our first lesson - game preparation - deer. We all had a go at jointing and skinning the animal and it was much the same as a rabbit but on a bigger scale.

The next four days were great, we managed to get our shelter pretty much water proof (with one minor disaster), we learnt more game preparation including squirrel, we learnt about making signal fires and how to fire a flare (very good fun), we also had quite few lessons on map reading and navigation. Also the water situation was one of the key things we all learnt - you must have water on the boil all the time or suddenly you've run out and that's when a situation can become dangerous.

The week was simply great fun. I learnt loads as well as spending plenty of quality time with my little brother doing what we both enjoy. I'd never been to Scotland before but the landscape was amazing and it seemed so empty of people (one of the reasons I enjoyed my naked wash at the stream a little bit more). We also made some great friends, people who I hope we will keep in touch with and go camping with again, so we can learn bushcraft from each other and have good company while we do it.

On a rainy summer afternoon...

2010-08-14T18:26:00.003+01:00

Well I've been neglectful of my blog the last few months but I've been extra busy (not sure anyone reads it anyhow!).

I'm going to do a few posts with what I've been up to (Survival course, allotment, etc) but at the moment I'm sat in the house looking at the rain on an August afternoon. Last week we went on holiday to Tunisia and had a great week doing things like ridding camels and seeing how they grow dates on palm trees. We even did a trip down to the Sahara Desert and although I don't think I'll go back to Tunisia (bit too much of a beach holiday destination for me) I definitely want to go back to the desert, there's something about it...

We got back on Wednesday and after unpacking I popped down to the allotment and came back with well over a bucket full of veg to be dished out to friends and family. Not sure what we're going to do with all the french and runner beans - good job we've brought a bigger freezer!

New Chickens!

2010-05-04T22:31:00.005+01:00

I came back home with 5 new little egg laying machines in the back of the car, these were in the form of 5 point of lay pullets. We purchased 3 Speckledy and 2 Blue Rangers (all hybrids), although they all look very dark in colour, a little like 5 chicken Ninjas.

We clipped their wings straight away (Claire is getting over her fear of birds as I'm forcing her to! she had to do the cutting of the feathers without stabbing me everytime they move) and let them play in the pen for a bit before I caught them and put them to bed. This is the down side to having a raised coop, although they should get used to it fairly soon and put themselves to bed.

I think at the weekend I'm going to make a few things in the pen to keep them entertained as I don't want any problems with feather pecking or boredom (although my others were fine).

What a difference a drop of rain makes

2010-05-03T22:25:00.003+01:00

Now we can't even walk across the allotment. It's gone from rock hard soil to the stickiest mud in the world, when Claire walked across the plot she was 6 inches taller by the time she got to the other side! The ground just holds water, I'm sure it will be better once I've added some muck and soil improver but the gooseberry bush I planted last weekend has sunk! Everything else is look quite good though and the broad beans are running away!

We managed to get all the posts in and some grass seed down on the paths but it was just too sticky to do anything else. Back at home I planted my sweetcorn in toilet tubes, I plan to grow loads with my squashes so there should be some left over for our new chicken (I didn't want to make too much noise about it but our old chickens have gone to a "better" place to make way for some that will lay eggs. we have 5 POL being picked up tomorrow).

In preparation for the summer on the allotment I've brought an old ball bearing lawn mower to mow the paths (£10) as well as starting to collect tools at car boots (also brought a drip watering system for £4 today to water the greenhouse at home, I love car boots!).

Starting on the allotment

2010-04-25T22:14:00.007+01:00

Well I've finally made a start on the allotment! Yesterday mum came round and gave me a hand to mark out the paths and the different beds for crop rotation, the fruit area and an area for a shed and compost bins (all marked with blue string).

Although its been rotovated twice the soil it still like concrete and takes a lot of digging, no good for sowing seeds directly into the ground just yet! We did manage to plant a few things though.

A nice long 15ft row of raspberries went in (pinched from mums garden), along with rhubarb, a gooseberry bush and some comfrey. Today we also managed to put in the broad beans I'd been growing in pots and net them over to protect them from pigeons and rabbits. The main trouble, besides the rock hard soil, is the lack of water on site, I've been taking a large drum of water every time I go down but it doesn't go very far!

I've also put in four raised beds, these are quick fix pallet collars that I've stained up, but they look nice and they will help me grow root crops until I get the soil sorted out (then they can be used to grow asparagus next year). My plan to get parsnips and carrots in now is to import some soil (there's some nice soil at the farm) and mix it with a little compost along with fish, blood and bone. At least then I'll have some for Christmas dinner!

Next weekend I'm thinking about fencing the whole plot with rabbit wire as everyone else seems to be doing it and there seems to be a lot of wildlife.

Charcoal Success

2010-04-25T21:59:00.007+01:00

The Second burn produced a bucket full of charcoal

The third burn produced a big bag full of charcoal

Well it took us four "burns" in total but we can now produce a decent amount of charcoal from a 45 gallon oil drum. The trick is to leave it longer than you think and when it is burning really hot put the lid on but wedged open a bit, leaving the air holes open for about 15 minutes till the smoke changes colour. Then seal it up and don't open it too soon (we opened ours the next morning and I realised that some was still on fire in the box).

We had a BBQ last night and it burnt really well (with no smoke) so I was quite pleased. Dave's on about selling it, but it is quite labour intensive to make, we'll sell some and see if we can make any money from it.

Trying to make Charcoal

2010-04-19T22:23:00.003+01:00

My brother is off his usual work this week and instead splitting some firewood to sell. As he's up the field all day we thought it would be good to try and make some charcoal.

We modified a 45 gallon oil drum so it had air holes in the bottom and made sure that the lid would fit. We then started a fire in the bottom and quickly stacked the wood inside letting the fire build up. Once it was going well we sealed the top and the air holes at the bottom using soil and let the drum cool down.

For our first attempt we made a little tiny bit of charcoal and some warm logs. Reading a few sites on the internet we need to leave the bottom holes open longer and let the fire build up more in the first place. I'm going to get to the farm early tomorrow so we can try again.

Peak District and gardening

2010-04-18T22:09:00.004+01:00

Last weekend we went to the peak district for a couple of days and really we enjoyed ourselves with a nice long walk and a stay in Bakewell. We finish the trip off with a visit to Chatsworth House, which is beautiful (although I much preferred the kitchen garden with rows of sea kale being forced than the house).

This last visit was slightly marred as we called into their famous "farm" shop on the way home. The first two products that we saw were rhubarb and asparagus, both available and in season now (although asparagus is difficult to get hold of), the first was from Holland and the second from Mexico. I turned into an old man the second I got home and wrote a letter of complaint!

This weekend has been spent in the garden planting every seed in sight and longing for the allotment to be rotovated (I put my name down to have it rotovated and now I just seem to be waiting and unable to do anything else, the soil in like concrete at the moment and the spade wont go in!). All my little seedlings are looking healthy and I've even enjoyed the fruits of my labours by eating some rhubarb I forced in the (old) shed, its so sweet.

I did venture out of the garden to a car boot sale to buy another set of tools for the allotment and managed to buy a fork, dutch hoe and a draw hoe (£7 total). The draw hoe is beautifully made (although the handle has woodworm - a replacement from Dave's shavehorse is needed I think) and is a proper old fashioned, made in England tool, this wont be going to the allotment its too nice.

Allotment and Rain

2010-04-02T20:18:00.003+01:00

I've been earing up for this weekend for ages so its been somewhat of a let down.

On wednesday night we went to Honeyborne to sign up for our new allotment along with 40 other people and paid our yearly fee of £20. We were given, in exchange, a long list of rules (more donts than Do's) and a 15m by 10m patch of land in the village of Honeyborne. This allotment is totally new so I wasnt sure what to expect but my hopes were high for at least some grass and resonable soil.

Today (Friday) was the first day I could get down there and I invited my Mum along so we could look at the site, do a little planning and marking out and hopefully aome planting of the fruit bushes I've got sat in pots. Wrong.

Today it hasn't stopped raining for more than 5 minutes and when we went down to see the allotment we were the only people in a field of mud and water. I say mud but it is mostly clay.

I took my spade so I could see what it was like and I could only get it in to half a spades depth, the clay was that thick and strong. It was raining so hard we had to come back and warm ourselves with some fish and chips and decided that planning was best done on paper. I had used a compass to find out which way north was so now a bit of arm chair gardening is called for!

One thing I do need to get is a shed for my allotment (not another shed!) to store gardening tools in but I dont really want to spend any money down there, I might try freecycle unless anyone has got one they're taking down?

27

2010-03-29T22:05:00.003+01:00

Another year of my life has flown by but I have to say I'm pretty happy with where I am.

At the weekend we had a bit of a birthday party and "shed warming" with about 25 friends turning up with much drinking and merriment, all was good. The home brew on the other hand wasn't, it tasted like Doctor Pepper and that was when we could get a bottle open without the foam hitting the ceiling (which it did quite a few times, along with the chairs, table, floor and anyone stood within a miles radius!).

To make matters worse, tonight we sat down for tea (and for the first time in ages we had it in the sitting room instead of round the table in the dinning room, luckily) when we heard a massive bang and glass go everywhere. One bottle had exploded, well I say exploded but I don't think that does it justice as there was no bottle left! I quickly moved the rest outside and opened them, each one producing a line of foam about 10ft long and then fizzing till empty.

Oh well made dinner quite entertaining!

On a happier note my peas have come up!

Busy times in the garden

2010-03-14T21:45:00.004Z

It really felt like spring had come this weekend and I managed to get loads done.

I cleaned out the greenhouse and washed it down ready for the new season as well as replacing the plastic cover on my mini greenhouse that's on the patio.

I've also managed to plant peas (in the ground and in guttering for when I get my allotment) these are both sugar peas and normal, I also sowed some more broad beans into pot and a complete raised bed of red onion sets. As well as this I divided my rhubarb, planted a plum tree, made a present for my mum for mothers day, nearly finished off making the set of garden shelves, started to clear out the old garden shed, impregnated some more straw to make mushrooms, put my seed potatoes to chit, dug up, cooked and ate the last of my leeks and parsnips. So I'm feeling pretty productive at the moment!

Shave Horse

2010-03-07T21:47:00.005Z

I've always had a keen interest in green woodwork (this is where wood is worked freshly cut or "green") and in the past I have done courses on it making a stool from ash and elm. so I've was pleased that my brother has started doing it without me even suggesting it. He's been making lots of spoons along with axe and hammer handles for the last few months so for his birthday I decided to make him something that should help him loads - a shave horse.

(Picture of the bench before the clamp is added)

This is a work bench that was used by bodgers (chair makers that lived in the woods), where you sit on the bench and then push your feet onto an arm that clamps the pieces of work at the top of the bench. The idea is simple but it enables you to clamp work really quickly and using a draw knife you can shape any item you want from a comfortable position.

(Turning the parts of the clamp on the lathe)

Like making any present it took longer than I though it would, some pieces being turned on the lathe and the rest being cut by hand but I was quite pleased with how it turned out and Dave's reaction was great when I gave it to him. He even asked if I'd brought it (not sure where you could buy one from if you wanted to!)!

(Picture of the finished shave horse)

I've told him that he's got to make me a new handle for my mattock as one of his first projects, as with a new prosepects of a new allotment coming up in April I might be using it quite a bit and the current handle is part plastic and cracked, much better to have a nice ash handle made by my brother I think.

Beer and Woodwork

2010-02-21T22:36:00.003Z

I've spent the weekend in my shed making two things, one I can't say as its a present and the other is a set of shelves/cupboard for my garden shed. This is as well as putting up a shelf in one corner of my workshop for my radio, as everytime I walk past it the damn thing looses reception. The set of shelves are looking quite good but I now need to make the cupboard bit and oil all the wood.

I've also started to make 5 gallons of home brew beer, it shouldn't take long to brew and it'll be ready for our party at the end of March. The total cost is about £7 with the sugar so much cheper than store brought stuff- I just hope its drinkable!

Great week

2010-02-14T21:22:00.006Z

This week has been great. I had a good couple of days plasterboarding with my brother, trying to get the little utility room ready to be skimmed. Then I worked for Dave on Wednesday in a little woodland in the middle of Ludlow. I grew up in Ludlow and I never knew that there was such a large wood and about 7 fields right near the middle, it was amazing! It was a hard days work but in the end we felled about 8 trees (having to use ropes to get them to fall the right way) and stacked the logs and the brash.

Thursday and Friday were spent (with my brother again) training and taking our trailer test. This is so we can tow a trailer on the road (if you took your driving test after 1997, a bit unfair that grandfather rights never seem to affect me!). We both passed but it was pretty nerve racking as its the same examination as if you did your HGV licence, lots of reversing around cones and trying not to drive with one hand around Gloucester.

My brother is starting a new job tomorrow, so that's going to feel pretty weird as I've been working with him so much over the past couple of months and he's going to be lodging away during the week. It sounds like a good experience for him as it combines tree work and building.

The weekend was lovely and warm so I did a little gardening, planting some broad beans (more than normal as I'll have more space when I get my allotment, the dibber in the picture I made myself at wood turning classes but I'll talk about that on another post) and pruning my apple trees and fruit bushes. I was quite pleased as I seem to have two new gooseberry bushes that rooted themselves from branches of my main bush, so they'll be moving to the new allotment soon!

I also finished the shed, as well as making and hanging the door to make it nice and secure. I'm determined to keep it clean and well organised, so I made a tool rack for my main gardening tools today, every tool now had a space and I'll make sure they go back there! I also plan to make some shelves and a cupboard to store all my nets, cleaners, chicken medicines, glue bands, string, saws, knives, fertilisers, etc.

Anyone else got any storage ideas?

Allotment news!

2010-02-07T21:35:00.006Z

In the past couple of weeks since my last post I’ve been quite busy.Work wise I’m still working for mum and dad on the farm but I’m starting to look a bit more for other work (although I’m still not sure what I want to do!). I’ve been working with my little brother loads so that’s been really good and he even came round the weekend before last so we had a mess around in the garden trying to light a fire by friction. I think if it hadn’t got so dark so quickly then we would have succeeded but unfortunately we didn’t and we’ll have to try harder next time!

I’ve also started work on the baby shed for all my gardening tools, as the one we inherited when we moved here leaks like a sieve and is a complete mess. I’ve built the shed flat-pack-able so if we move house I can bring it along, but it weighs a stupid amount because I can never build anything small enough!

I managed to get it erected this weekend and most of the roof on so I’m feeling quite good about it, although I’ve run out of cedar and I’ve still haven’t got a door to put on it!

The exciting news is that I’ve been told I can have an allotment! Its about 5 miles away but it will mean I can grow loads more veg and I’m really looking forward to the social side of it. It’s not until April as at the moment it’s just a green field and this is a new site. I'm not sure what to grow but its time to have another look in the seed catalogues, I feel like a kid at christmas!

Dave’s Climbing hole

2010-01-24T17:34:00.009Z

This is a bit random.
I’ve been putting the floor in the barn/wood shed joined to the house at the farm this week with my brother. The only trouble was when the floor goes in it ruins Dave’s climbing gym where he trains most nights.

Mum and Dad are both big softies so when I suggested we make him an area in the floor to carry on training they agreed, but it did involve quite a bit of extra work.

Once we'd framed out the loft hatch and the cimbing hole with the carcassing timber we completed putting all the floor boards down (this made it easier to complete the frame around the hole as well).
We lined the hole with fair faced WBP ply so it looked better than bare timber. The hole is over twice the depth of the floor and allows plenty of space for his head.

Dave then added his climbing holds and started to show off.

My spoilt little brother, playing in his climbing hole. Maybe I should copyright it!

Weird week

2010-01-18T20:34:00.003Z

Last week was an odd one. Couldn’t go to the farm for a couple of days because of the snow, I had a rubbish weekend and some really bad news, but I wont go into that here. The days I managed to go to work was the best bit for a change, I’ve got to admit its quite fun working for dad – the drive isn’t though (its not in a tractor!) I managed to do lots of little jobs, like putting tin up the side of some of the barns and sealing them up, also feeding the sheep (which aren’t ours) hay as they can’t get to the grass. On Firday I went to a farm sale to have a look and to try and take some photos for an article I’ve written, but it was far too wet and rainy. decided that my boots aren't waterproof as my socks looked like they had just come out of the wash.
Today has been good fun as I’ve been working with my brother putting a floor above the wood shed, I really enjoy working with him and I love getting my hands dirty again – the more time I spend away from management the more I keep thinking I can’t go back to it!I do wish some divine inspiration would hit me on what job I should do next!
Any ideas?

Time to warm up

2010-01-09T17:22:00.003Z

Things are pretty cold at the moment and all covered over so today I cleared an area on the lawn and up some fruit and nuts on it for the birds. The blackbirds had the bits of apple away in minutes. My chickens enjoyed having some of their pen cleared, as well as some cut up spouts for them to peck at. We also needed some warming up so I decided to cook one of my childhood favourites – Jam Roly Poly. It’s really easy to make, just add 8oz of self raising flour, 3 oz of suet & a pinch of salt to a bowl. Mix it all with a bit of water, roll it out about 5mm thick and then spread loads of homemade jam on it. Roll it up and pop it in the oven for 40 minutes – Lovely & stodgy! Snuggled on the sofa with full bellies I think I ruined the moment by wanting to watch a DVD my Dad had lent me on sheep farming in New Zealand. This was called “Sheep Station NZ” and I’m sure I enjoyed it more than Claire but it was really good. Farming over there is so different to what we’re used to. It makes keeping 300 sheep, like we used to, seem like a little hobby! These farms are huge, some having up to 40,000 sheep with over 30 sheep dogs; this was as well as rounding them up in helicopters and controlling wild pigs and goats everyday.
I went backpacking to NZ when I was 19 and loved it, I only really went to the toruisty places but watching this DVD really makes me want to go back and experience work and how they do things (rather than drink), the trouble is I’m not sure I’d come back (they've got so much space)!

Heavy duty shelves

2010-01-08T18:35:00.008Z

Well I’m not going to talk about the snow (I think everyone else has done that) but I did have some time on my hands yesterday so I though it was time I built some heavy duty shelves to house my power tools and other bits and pieces.

Lately I’ve been feeling very disorganised with my tools and I’m going against what I was taught when I was an apprentice:
“A place for everything and everything in its place”
It was important then as I could have been on five different sites in a week and loosing tools cost money and time. In five years of being a site carpenter I never lost a tool – now I’ve not lost any but I can’t find them either!

When I lived at the farm I used to have a small workshop with a set of shelves next to the door, this used to hold all my usual power tools and made them easy to load into the van. This is what I’ve made for my workshop to do the same type of job.

I started by working out the height of the shelves to make sure that the power tool boxes would fit and my tool box that contains my hand tools (which is very heavy) would fit underneath. I also wanted to make sure it could house some stacking boxes to put all my none carpentry items in (electric, plumbing and painting stuff but organised so I can find things).

I decided to build it almost to the door (about 1.1m) leaving enough room to hang a coat on the end. The height would be almost to the ceiling but with enough room to store boxes of nails and tubs of glue. Cutting the 4 timber posts to length I then marked out the ‘housing’ cuts. I used my mitre saw to trench these out, but you could easily do it with a saw, making lots of cuts and then removing the waste with a chisel. The housing joints mean that the shelves can take a lot more weight as they’re not reliant on mechanical fixings.The cross-rails then just have to be cut to length and knocked into the housing joints. I’ve decided not to any glue as the temperature is so low it won’t work very well and I might want to take them apart when its time to move on, so I just used 50mm screw. (The screws I used were self cutting but if you’re using cheaper screws you might have to drill a pilot hole first to stop the wood splitting)With two ‘H’ frame assembled I then needed to connect them up with more rails, I wanted the shelves to be 500mm deep so I took the depth of the two frames off that measurement and cut the rails to length. To make sure they held the frames nice and solidly I notched these rails around the post, they won’t be taking much weight so they’re just screwed into the posts.For the shelves I used some 9.5mm ply I had left over from cladding the inside walls of my shed. (The items I’m storing span the whole width of the shelf so the ply isn’t important, if it was smaller, heavier items I’d use thicker ply.) I notched this around the posts and fixed it down using 25mm screwsAlthough the shelves are very stable I still fixed them back to the wall before I filled them up.

10 seconds after I'd put them up the shelves were full. I think I might have to build some more!

No rabbits for tea

2010-01-05T22:26:00.003Z

Well today hasn't really gone as planned.
My brother and I worked all day clearing out the old wood shed ready to put the floor in tomorrow but with the snow I almost didn't get here, it was falling thick and fast and the lane up to the farm was like a sheet of glass.
The talkabout Victorian kitchen gardens that was ment to be held tonight has been cancelled as the speaker can't get to the village hall where it was meant to be held. I'm really disappointed as I was looking forward to that so I just hope it's put on later in the year.
In the end Dave and I just went shooting (as the picture shows I have a terrible habit of dressing like a hill-billy!). I think we both knew we weren't going to see anything as it was snowing quite heavily and any animal with some sense would be tucked up in their burrow. It was nice to go for a walk in the snow though. The animals had obviously been busy as there were tracks everywhere and we both enjoy trying to figure out what had been going on, we even found where a fox had been stalking some rabbits. I hope he had more luck than us!Forecast is more snow in the night so I don't know if I'll be getting home tomorrow night either.

Missing Sheep

2010-01-04T22:23:00.006Z

I never, ever, thought I’d say this.
But for the last few years around this time I always seem a little restless in the evenings, kicking my heels and not knowing what is wrong with me. Last year I worked it out and it turns out that I miss the one job that I used to moan most about!
Even though (with my “semi-employed” status) I’m back on the farm on week days, it doesn’t feel the same without the sheep going crazy, thinking their going to get fed every time you walk near the shed.
We had, at one point, about 300 sheep on the farm. For as long as I can remember I’ve always helped with the sheep but lambing was the bit that took the most time and caused the most stress. Everyday was the start of a massive list of chores that had to be completed only to be redone the next day. When I was at school we used to feed twice a day and I used to help both times, sometimes getting changed out of my overalls in the school car park. Luckily in a rural community smelling of sheep isn’t the worst thing you can smell of!When I started working we switched to feeding at night only, just chucking the sheep some hay in the morning to give them something to chew. I used to get home on a cold winter night after spending far too long on a cold (and probably wet) building site, warm myself up for half and hour then go and feed the sheep with Dad. This would take upwards of an hour but sometimes a lot more if we had a ewe on lambing, a lamb that wouldn’t suck or a ewe that wouldn’t “take”.
When I was doing this I didn’t realise how much Dad was doing it for me as much as the farm, because when I left home and moved 50 miles away he gradually got rid of all the sheep over a couple of years.
Now two years later I still think this is a little sad, with no sheep of our own left but he seems so much happier for it and mum no longer has to suffer the January and February depression that used to accompany lambing.
He’s much happier sticking to growing crops and selling machinery, now his business is expanding fast with two full time employees and my brother part time, he’s much happier talking to people than sheep. And less likely to find one of them has drowned in a water bucket over night (hope I’m not tempting fate here!).
Me on the other hand, I forever long to live in the past, where keeping sheep would earn you a decent living and to start your own farm you didn’t have to be a retired judge with ambitions of having a pony!
I really do love the upbringing I had, bottle feeding pet lambs, watching lambs race round the pen, the quiet that falls in the barn after the sheep have been fed. I hope that when I have children I can give them some of the same type of memories that I have and hopefully they can learn the work and effort that’s needed to raise animals for meat ad learn to enjoy the process.
Anyway enough of my ponderings. Tomorrow I’m back on the farm looking at putting an upper floor in the wood shed, I’m going to stay over as in the evening I’m going to an extremely uncool meeting at my mums gardening club about Victorian walled gardens (of which I am a little obsessed). Then I might go for a little spot of rabbit shooting with my brother so I can do a rabbit stew for Claire and I in our new slow cooker.

Golden Oyster Mushrooms (Hopefully)

2010-01-02T18:32:00.008Z

With the weather being as cold as it is there isn’t really much I can grow at the moment. Inside there is no such weather restraints so I thought I’d have a go at growing some mushrooms.
I got given some Golden Oyster Mushrooms spawn for Christmas and its only growing condition is that it needs to be grown at room temperature - the spare room isn’t very full at the moment so I thought that would be the ideal place!

First of all I sterilised the straw by pouring a kettle full of boiling water over each bag (I wanted bigger bags but this was all I could find, although it’s big enough to see if it will work) and then seal the tops and left for two hours. This stops the straw being contaminated by any other fungi.

While I waited a couple of hours for it to cool, I left my rather ill wife at home and went for a nice long walk to the next village and back, using different footpaths. I really enjoyed it, but a couple of the fields were so muddy my boots were twice the size by the end!
When I returned the bags had cooled down so I tipped out the excess water (leaving just a little water in the bottom to keep it moist) and then I added the spawn to the bags. The spawn is carried on dried cereal grains and although the pack says to add it all I just put about a teaspoon in each (it’s like yeast and so long as there is a bit it will grow but it will just take a little longer to multiply). I then tied the bags again and shook them up to spread the spawn. Placed near to a radiator they should have the heat they need (but not too much) with a couple of small holes in the top to allow it to breathe.

Happy New Year

2010-01-02T17:19:00.003Z

Well I’ve recovered from the hi-jinks of new years and spending the night in a 6ft yellow duck outfit was not the best idea ever! Good fun though, and it was nice as my sister came up and had fun with us all in my friends Terry’s pub.2009 definitely had its ups and down. I got married and had the best day ever, travelled to Thailand on our honeymoon, had a great Christmas and New Year with family and friends.
On the downside I worked on a job I hated for most of the year whilst commuting and as a result had no free time to do the things I liked.
This year I’m determined to find a job I enjoy, not too far from home and spend more time doing what I enjoy.I’m not one for setting New Years resolutions but I do like to set aims for myself, even though they might seem a bit daft to some people:

Find a job I like
Get my 5th Cup Yellow Sash in Kung Fu
Take part in a 10km run and run the whole way
Grow more fruit and veg (I’ve applied for an allotment in a local village so I should be able to grow on a bigger scale)
Hatch out some Quails
Grow lots of different mushrooms (I’m always saying I’ll do it and never get round to it)
Pass my trailer test (my brother booked me on it so now I’ve got to do it!)
Do all I can to improve my survival skills
Write a lot more

I'm sure this list will get longer.

Last day of the year

2009-12-31T15:16:00.005Z

Almost time to reflect on what I’ve managed to do in the last 12 months, but not quite!

Today has been a nice dry day so I decided to have a bit of a tidy up in the garden and a good weed of all my raised beds, its looking decidedly better for a mornings hard work.
I’ve also been sorting out some of my other gifts. I got loads of camping equipment ready for my week’s extreme survival in June. Going on this course is my brothers and mine bit of extravagance, where we will spend a week in Northern Scotland being trained by an ex-Royal Marine Commando with a minimum of kit. We’ve done things like this before but not for a week, hopefully we will both carry on to do the next course after that as well.
The kit list isn’t massive but I want it all to be good quality stuff as the OS map of the area we’ll be camping in only has two houses on the whole map, so no chance to buy any more!

Claire brought me an excellent self inflating mattress that’s tiny when deflated, her Nan brought me a compass, and from my mum and my brother I got a small dry bag (to keep a camera and phone out of the wet in), a mossey head net, small screw shut bottles for salt, pepper & cooking oil and a Spork (I’ve always wanted a Spork – not a fork and not a spoon! The best of both worlds!)Claire and I both got to try some homemade yoghurt today by using the kit my best mate had brought us for Christmas. I don’t think I left it to set long enough as it is quite runny but tastes really good (had it on my muesli for breakfast), next time I’ll make sure I leave it a bit longer. With this kit you don’t use milk but bags of powder you have to buy, it works out slightly cheaper than yogurt and its meant to be better for your digestion (which I have plenty of problems with).

Spoilt

2009-12-30T15:17:00.005Z

Not Christmas – Me!

We've been surrounded by so many family and friends and I’ve had so many good gifts this year, I’m really pleased! But I’m also pleased to be at home for one night, we’ve been driving constantly to see said family and friends since the night before Christmas Eve and this will be the first night in our own bed (I’m looking forward to it now!). Still it was worth it and after New Years Eve things should go back to normal.Christmas day was lovely, we spent it at my mum and dads on the farm and there was still snow on the ground. Claire and I went for a lovely walk down to the river (so she could take pictures with the camera I brought her) with a very lame dog (Milly is dads dog, and she caught her paw when jumping out of a tractor two days before, but we think she’s faking it as she keeps holding the wrong leg up).I’ve got so many new things to play with/read/watch that I’m not sure what to do first. Mum and Claire both got me books on wild mushrooms (so if I kill myself it’s their fault) as well as lots of seeds and other goodies. I also got a big Victorian style glass bell cloche (something I’ve been hinting at, this should look really good in the garden). As well as this I was given a wood turning course, cookery books, camping stuff, DVDs and clothes but I’ll talk about some of those in another post or I will make people think I’m really spoilt!

Nearly Christmas

2009-12-20T17:37:00.007Z

It’s been great having loads of time off, although I’m not sure I’ve been making the most of it – I think I’ve slowed down!

Last week I picked up my mum and dad from the airport after their trip to New Zealand and then worked on the farm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It was nice having them back (they also brought me a couple of hunting books back, hunting in New Zealand looks good).
I did a couple of jobs for mum in the house (jobs I’ve putting off for years, like putting skirting on around 6 heating pipes) and also a bit of farming. Although Dad has no sheep on the farm since I left he’s now letting the land to another farmer to over winter his sheep. The trouble is we have to check them and as our fences aren’t very good we have to keep moving the electric fence to stop them getting out. Still this job kept me entertained for a day. Whilst I was wrapping up the wire I was next to a little woodland and I noticed some Jew’s Ear Fungus (One of the only ones I can remember from the fungal foray I went on earlier in the year). I was pleased I could identify it and its also a fungus you can pick all year round, all the fallen wood was covered in it. I think if I learn an edible fungus a year I'll be doing quite well (maybe wise to learn about the ones I can't eat as well!).

After Christmas I plan to go back there and gather a load of these mushroom to add to stews and to dry to make mushroom powder for stews etc, if I do I’ll post it on this blog. Not sure what they'll be like, they feel like rubber!

Wet

2009-12-07T22:10:00.004Z

Things are very very wet at the moment. I've been working on the farm part time but this week I'm off to visit my sister in Manchester so I've decided to spend the rest of it at home.

Today was a bit of a write off as it rained all day. I have ordered the timber to build my garden shed (one shed is not enough for me!) and finished insulating the walls in my workshop, but I didn't nothing outside. I wanted to move my two useless big black compost bins so I can make some bins with old pallets that will actually produce compost, but with the rain I decided against it.

I did give the chickens a wad of straw to try and soak up the mud in their pen (didn't do much good but they like scratching around in it).

Big changes

2009-11-30T20:49:00.002Z

Well I've gone from having no time at all to having all the time in the world. Work has laid me off - not that i'm disappointed, I was getting to the end of my tether anyway, but it's always annoying when its not you that made the desion.
Claire has said to me not to look too hard before christmas for more work (I get paid till the end of December anyway) as she's worried if I find anything then I'll have to work over the holiday period.
I dont think she should worry too much as there isn't a fat lot of work about anyway, got a few things lined up for the new year if it comes to it, in the mean time I'm a kept man (although I'm trying to spend as much time as possible finishing my shed & helping dad on the farm).
On the bright side I'd forgotten what it felt like to have free time and cook tea for my wife.

Courgettes in November

2009-11-08T19:45:00.005Z

I can't believe how mild the weather has been, I've still got courgettes in the veg patch and roses in the boarders! Not thats I've seen them much as I haven't got back before 7 during the week but I've had a great weekend.Mum and dad both came round yesterday. Dad to give me a hand putting the roof on my shed, and mum to tidy up a few areas in the garden.

In all it was really productive, we got most of the roof on (I finished it off today) and it looks great - its got me keen to finish the inside of my shed and get making things again.

Mum worked wonders in the garden and cleared two areas that I've been "storing" rubbish. We did uncover a hedgehog at one stage but we built it another little house with dried grass and roof tiles so I hope it will be alright.

Green Tomato chutney time again

2009-11-01T18:13:00.008Z

With it being such a mild autumn ~I've left the tomatoes longer this year. Last weekend I went to pick them and had over 7lb of green toms plus loads of red ones!

This year we thought we'd try to make enough to last us the whole year, we used the same recipe as last year but on a larger scale. I did feel sorry for Claire though as after spending two hours pealing tomatoes her hands looked like that of a ninety year old!

We did get to use one of our wedding presents which was a nice big copper bottomed saucepan to make it in (although I did burn quite a bit to the bottom) it took ages for it to reduce down and the mixture was still a bit runny.

All we've got to do now is wait for it to mature...

Fungal foray

2009-10-18T08:39:00.006+01:00

Been so busy this week that I haven't had chance to write my blog. Work has been killing me, haven't got home before 7.30 and I leave the house a little after 6.00!

Last weekend was good though, very much in the countryside. Saturday was spent doing a few jobs in the garden then driving over to mum and dads farm for a spot of shooting. I went pigeon shooting for starters but they didn't have to be scared as I didn't even see a pigeon let alone shoot one!

Afterwards my brother and I went lamping for rabbits, he drove and I shot, managed to get a good few for the pot and lessen the numbers a little. (I had planned to make rabbit stew in the week but in the end I never had chance as I got back too late each night so they got wasted, I was a bit gutted about that)

Sunday was spent with my brother, we went up to some woods just south of Iron Bridge for the fungal foray we had booked. There was 28 of us on the course (which was too many), we all met up in the green woods centre and then headed for the trees in search of any mushrooms we could find.

After being told how to pick mushrooms safely and what to remember about where we found them, we were quite amazed with how many were about considering how dry it has been. straight away me and Dave found some edible ones (although the slugs had been there first) and soon everyone was coming up with more and more.

After a dinner of mushroom soup we then went to some different woods to find some truffles! My brother was like a little truffling pig and found about five before anyone else had found any! unfortunately the instructor didn't tell us until we'd found them that this type could not be eaten so we were all a little disappointed.

The day was really good and we went home with enough mushrooms to make a nice meal and a little bit more knowledge on what to look for without killing ourselves.

Planting Garlic on a Sunny Afternoon

2009-10-05T20:29:00.005+01:00

Had a wonderful lazy sunday where we went for a nice long walk to the next village across from ours and then, once we'd failed to find a good picnic spot, we ended up having our lunch in the garden!Afterwards I planted the four different types of garlic in where the potatoes had been eariler in the year, with a little blood, fish and bone added in for good measure.

Being the good husband that I am I also cooked a nice roast dinner. The whole meal could be traced. The Potatoes I brought from the farm shop, the runner beans, carrots and shallots were from the garden and the lamb (which was lovely) was from my fathers farm. I felt quite please with that and tonights tea was all the leftovers fried up with some extra shallots and courgettes so although not as glamourus as yesterdays dinner but still tasty and local.

Squash it...

2009-10-03T18:57:00.006+01:00

I had to go to work this morning which is always a bit of a blow, but I was looking forward to a nice afternoon in the garden. All was going well until the heavens opened and I had to run back inside!

I did manage to pick two more vegetable spaghetti squashes but we're still not sure what to do with the first one! Going to leave them to mature first as I don't want them tasting like the first squash we had last year!

Also prepared the ground for the four different types of garlic that I brought last weekend at Malvern show but the rain stopped me planting them!

Drying French Beans

2009-10-01T21:06:00.006+01:00

My french beans had definatly come to an end a few weeks ago, so I just left the last few pods on the plant to die off and dry in the weather we've been having lately.

Tonight I had half an hour in the garden before it got dark so I managed to pull all the beans off the plant and empty the pods into a seed tray. These I'll leave in the shed until they're dry and then store them in a kilner jar.

I hope I can use any sort of french bean for drying! Does anyone have any information?

Malvern Autumn Show

2009-09-28T21:09:00.002+01:00

Our twice yearly pilgrimage to Malvern show was this weekend.
The show was great. My favourite was, as always, the giant vegetables. Although these weren’t as big as last year they are still impressive and all the other vegetables categories were also impressive- I think I’ll have to look into trying to enter next something next year!
As for buying things I was very well behaved and only brought four different sorts of garlic which I will be putting in the ground as soon as I manage to get home in the light. I also brought some multiplier shallots (not sure if they are perennial or annular as the man selling them was a little confusing) which you’re supposed to pick little shallots off as it grows.

Damson Vodka

2009-09-27T20:08:00.004+01:00

With the leftover damsons (the ones that couldn’t fit in the saucepan!) I’ve decided to make a vodka liqueur. I half filled a kilner jar with damsons then added 3oz of caster sugar.
Then I filled the jar to the top with a litre of vodka, sealed it, shook it and I’ll now leave it in a dark cupboard for as long as I can bare to wait (shaking it when I remember to help it mix).

Damson Jam

2009-09-27T08:19:00.004+01:00

Last weekend we made some damson jam.
I managed to leave work early for the first time in ages so I drove over to mum and dad’s farm to pick some fruit.
As well as picking up a massive bag of russet apples I also managed to come back with two huge bags of damsons. I love eating these raw but one of my favourite childhood memories is eating rich damson jam (that’s as solid as rock) on hot cross buns, so I thought it was about time I dug out the old recipe book and made some.

I could get just about 2.5Kg of fruit in two saucepans and stewed it down, before I read in the instructions that I’m to try and remove as many pips as possible. This turned out to be a massive task and I think I spent the best part of an hour using every appliance in the kitchen to try to find an easy way of removing them, in the end I used a potato masher to try and push the flesh through a colander and picked out any pips that may have escaped (I'm still putting a disclaimer on the jar though!).

I then weighed the mixture again and added an equal quantity of sugar and boiled it until setting point was reached (where it wrinkles when placed on a cold plate and you push your finger through it).I had some jars warming in the oven and a plastic funnel (can believe I don’t normally use a funnel!) to help get as much as possible in the jar.
In the end we made 11½ jars and if I do say so myself it tastes pretty good!

Red Mite Hell

2009-09-20T22:01:00.005+01:00

Well the red mites on the chickens just dont seem to go away.

All through the summer I've been having trouble keeping these vampire bugs under control and no matter how many times I clean out the house, put powder down and dust the chickens, they keep coming back. I do seem to be on top of them a bit more now, the chickens are looking healthy besides all the trouble and they're laying really well - We've started to sell a few again which is nice.

Other than that its been a lovely weekend, I didnt have to work saturday so managed to do a few jobs round the house and in the garden and had my brother round for a BBQ. Afterwards we watched the channel 4 series "Alone in the Wild" which is amazing and it's started me off looking at doing more survial courses in the future.

Trimming my Bush

2009-09-13T18:19:00.006+01:00

I had to work this weekend which kind of knackered my plans about going to the Ludlow food festival but we did manage to get there just before it closed, then stayed out in the pubs around town with some friends. It was also my little sisters last weekend before she goes off to uni in the big bad city.

Coming back home I forgot to borrow mums hedge trimmer again (for the 10th time) so I decided that I should invest in one. Its not great but its done a good job and it'll be alright for what I want to do with it (no good for my tree surgeon brother) and the garden looks so much tidier for it.

The super yeast keeps bubbling away and when we're sat having dinner in the dinning room we can hear it pop pop popping away. I think this will be a good gift to take with me when I go and visit my sister at Manchester uni.

The garden seems to be doing alright despite the neglect its had the last couple of months, I've just got far too many tomatoes to use up. I think tomato soup is on the cards for one night in the week...

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No its super yeast!

2009-09-07T21:24:00.006+01:00

Started my super yeast kit yesterday to make 20% alcohol. The kit is fairly straight forward although it says to fit an airlock straight away and when I've done this in the the past its always bubbled over. It hasn't yet but I've put a tray under it just in case.

I also brought a set of "Kilner" type bottles to store it in as it's only meant to take three weeks to brew and its not really the type of thing where you drink a bottle in one sitting! They also look pretty cool and I thought I could flavour each bottle differently, so far my ideas have ranged from herbs like mint and rosemary to herbal tablets and Vimto! any ideas will be greatly received.

Work today wasn't the usual inner city mess that I normally have. Instead of going to the centre of Birmingham I got sent to a warehouse in deepest Dudley to move the bathroom pods for the project I a foreman on. I sent the one wagon off and another one just didn't turn up!

We got bored of waiting and saw that there was a canal and decide to go for a walk. Turns out there is a massive nature reserve right by where we were, in the end we walked for well over an hour and picked a massive bag of blackberries (after Steve had worked with me all last week he had decided that jam making sounded like good fun - I start to rub off on people!).

Also managed to get home before 7.30 so picked some runner beans (this is a big achievement for me as so far they've produced none and none last year) and also picked off about 200 caterpillars from my brassicas!

Marrow rum - part two

2009-09-06T21:43:00.004+01:00

I'm on a real buzz for making wine again at the moment.

Went over to my best friend in Shrewsbury on Saturday night and had a mad lock in, as he's the landlord, till four in the morning drinking all sorts of weird drinks, the one with peppers in I will never drink again! So its got me keen to get all my wine going again as they can be great fun to drink, strong and a talking point as people don't realise how easy it is to do.

Also went to Mum and Dads this weekend (the miles I do is unreal) and had a good tidy up of all my old brewing and wine making gear and cleaned some up ready to make some more in the next few months. I've got about 6 gallons of wine ready to be bottled up now - plum, strawberry, elderberry, crab apple and damson.

The made up marrow rum seems to be working. Its started to drip into the bowl and gone soft so today I made a slit in the bottom and drained it into a demijohn. I'll leave it until the morning before I'll fit an airlock on it.

Marrow Rum

2009-09-01T20:49:00.008+01:00

Managed to get away from work an hour early so it let me cook tea and do a few other little jobs.

For tea I made a tomato and basil sauce with pasta, nearly everything was out of the garden except the pasta - haven't found a plant for that yet.

Whilst that was cooking I've also managed to dig out my food dryer and started to dry some sage leaves for making my own dried mixed herbs to use over winter.

And then the fun bit! Haven't made any wine or alcohol in ages and I've decided its time I start again. Tonight we began making marrow rum.

First we hollowed out the marrow (well its an over grown courgette but I'm not telling anyone!)

Then packed it with brown sugar

Before pouring over it some bakers yeast we had activated a couple of hours earlier (with a little lemon juice to help things along).

We then taped it back up,
Before hanging it in a pair of tights in the airing cupboard (something mum would never let me do! hope it doesn't make our towels smell!) with a bowl under it to catch the drips. I will keep you posted on the next stages of development.

Quite keen to make some more wine soon, so keen I went online last night and brought some "super" yeast that can make wine up to 23% - should be fun for parties!

It's been a long time...

2009-08-31T20:40:00.003+01:00

A couple of months since my last post, but I have an excuse, I got married!

Claire and I tied the knot on the 25th of July and had a really countryside-type wedding. We got married in Ludlow castle and then headed back to mum and dads farm for the reception, the weather was perfect and everything went to plan - I even got some laughs on my speech!

Everyone turned up and we had a bout 175 people there in the evening. Everyone enjoyed themselves and had a good few drinks, some aunts even got sent home in disgrace for getting too drunk (I didn't send them home I thought it was funny)!

We then spent two lovely weeks in Thailand for our Honeymoon before coming back down to earth with a bump and doing 14 hour days in Birmingham! Every weekend has been jam packed with stuff and so I haven't had time to update my blog, although I think I should be able to from now on. We've even been to another wedding this weekend, must be the time of lift we're going through!

Strawberries

2009-06-14T21:18:00.007+01:00

The sun has been shining all weekend and I’ve had my first big lot of strawberries. It was a rather decadent breakfast for the two of us but very nice. I’ve decided to pull my garlic and set it in the greenhouse to dry off. I’m not sure if this is a bit early as some of it was quite small, but last year I left it in too late and lost half of it, the leaves on what I pulled had all started to go yellow and wilt. In its place I planted loads of pak choi and some frilly red lettuce, the plan this year is to have lots of days where we don’t have to take sandwiches and take salads instead. Already we’ve been having lots of salads as I planted up a grow bag by the back door with mixed salad leaves so it handy for adding to meals.
My next door neighbour has just got some ex-battery hens, these are in a much sorrier state than the one’s we got, hardly any feathers at all but they’ll soon look like new chickens in no time!

A whole month without writting!

2009-05-17T12:21:00.010+01:00

Its been a busy month. I've had no internet for most of it so thats the main reason I havent written on my blog.
Mum, claire and me went to Malvern spring gardening show a couple of weekends ago and brought a few different herbs and salad seeds as well as a late brithday present - a automatic watering system! Really good day out, can wait till the autum one again

This Bank holiday weekend has been great for gardening, I've gotten hundreds of jobs done! As well as catching up on all my seed planting I've started to put in my wigwams of hazel for my climbing french beans and runner beans (popped up to the woods to cut the sticks so it cheraper than bamboo).

I've also managed to make a fruit cage out of "build-a-balls" and hazel to cover my gooseberries and blackcurrents.

Yesterday I also managed to start to install my automatic watering system across half of my raised beds, seems to work well but it was hard work digging under all the paths. It will be worth it in the long run as these 13 hour days are killing me in birmingham and work have now said we've got to take it in turns to do late nights as well! Rubbish!

Jam making!

2009-04-27T21:13:00.004+01:00

My weekend was cut a little short, as I had to work Saturday morning (not best pleased) but I still managed to cram a lot in. Saturday afternoon after speeding out of Birmingham I managed to get the time to go to a farm sale, something I haven’t done in years, it was good fun looking round all the tat but I didn’t feel the urge to buy anything. The rest of the day was quite social, catching up with people I haven’t seen in ages and going for a walk with my sister (which turned into a bit of a run thanks to an April shower!). On Sunday I was very productive, spending a lot of the day in the garden (weeding mostly), and I cooked some roast lamb (my dad had given us this the last time he had one killed) with all the trimmings, first time I’ve cooked in ages as I’m always back too late with my job.
As the rhubarb is running rampant I decided to do something with it and make jam (we’ve nearly run out of blackberry and apple jam). The recipe was simply equal amounts of fruit and sugar (in weight) with a bit out ground ginger. This is simmered until its all mushy then boiled rapidly until setting point is reached (it wrinkles on a cold plate). Making jam is so easy and it didn’t take long, not sure why anyone would want the supermarket stuff with all its preservatives in it.

Homemade stuff always tastes better as well!

Picnic

2009-04-27T20:58:00.002+01:00

(An entry for last week as my internet was down!)
This has not been one of the best working weeks of my life! Between the rain, thunderstorms and the gear box going on my car I was pretty down by Friday afternoon, especially when I found out how much the parts were for my car, but the weekend has been a complete turnaround.
I was an usher at a very good friends’ wedding on Saturday and the whole day was filled with sunshine and apple blossom, it really couldn’t have been any better! And the weather on Sunday has been great as well, so Claire and I went for a picnic by the river (about an hours walk from our house) and then lay in the sun for a while. Perfect recharge for the rubbish week I’ve got ahead of me!

Sunshine!

2009-04-14T21:59:00.003+01:00

The weather over the weekend has been lovely, complete sunshine for three days, not like a normal bank holiday.
We went away for the day on Saturday to Hay-On-Wye, one of our favourite places on earth due to it having about 35 second hand bookshops. A really enjoyable day, I only brought two books (one on farming and the other on Kung Fu) and spent the rest of the day browsing even having fish and chips by the river. Sunday and Monday were spent in the garden planting hundreds of seeds, repotting blueberry bushes and herbs as well as trying to make it look nice. Also got a little done on my shed, which seems to be going a lot slower now I’m doing 13 hours a day in the week! I will get it finished by the end of the summer though.
I’ve also managed to talk Claire into letting me hatch out some quails to make use of the old chicken pen. I’ve got to find somewhere that sells fertile eggs and borrow the incubator from mum and then we can add to my growing little garden economy!

Lovely Rhubarb

2009-04-05T21:12:00.004+01:00

Well after working in Birmingham all week with an hours drive either side of a 7 till 6 day I was looking forward to the weekend a little more than usual. Even though one of my jobs was to fix our toilet as it had leaked and soaked the dining room ceiling – I’m always glad I can do jobs like this myself or it would cost a fortune to get a plumber in.
I spent almost the whole weekend in the garden pottering round, tidying up, mowing the lawn and doing other odd jobs. I even managed to sort out some of my herbs and pots.
Planted my early potatoes yesterday (rocket as these did well last year), also took a bit of risk and transplanted my tomatoes and left them in the greenhouse overnight (even though there was a frost – they seem alright today so I’m really pleased).
Also brought and planted some herbs, angelica so I can use the roots to ease the indigestion I get all the time, and chamomile to relax me after a day at my stressful job!
Gave myself a little treat tonight as I had a bit of the rhubarb that I’ve forced dipped in a sugar – so nice! It’s much less sharp than unforced rhubarb. I’ll take some with me to work tomorrow so I can pretend I’m not in the city centre for two minutes!

Forced

2009-03-29T21:40:00.004+01:00

My rhubarb forcer is working, although this rhubarb hasn’t been in that long it has already started making new crowns so I thought I’d put the forcer over one of them. Not on quite the scale as what some of the farms do in the village where they us upturned 45 gallon oil drums to cover their crop! And theirs is twice the size of mine as you can see in the picture below.

Birthday Weekend

2009-03-29T21:31:00.007+01:00

I turned 26 yesterday, can’t believe how fast time has gone! But I did get loads of presents!
My fiancé brought me some DVDs, a new pair of trainers (she’s fed up as I’ve had my last pair 7 years and glued them together 4 times!) and many other things. My brother and sister both brought me some nice gifts and it was nice of Dave to have thought so far ahead as he’s been in South America a month now.

My Mum and Dad concentrated on more gardening type gifts. I got a red gooseberry bush (as my other has died), a strawberry plant, plant labels, lots of books on smallholding and old crafts and a nice sized garden bench to go in the vegetable garden so I can sit and watch the chickens in the summer.

Another job I did this weekend, besides working slowly on cladding the shed, was to make a very cheap cloche out of a water cooler bottle cut in two (not sure what pow wow would think of this), I’m using this to protect my young lettuce plants from the cold, should do the job just as well and it didn't cost £10!

A busy day today

2009-03-15T22:18:00.007Z

Managed to finish the new chicken coop, which the hens seem to love, although I had to catch them to put them to bed – I’m sure they’ll learn where they’ve got to go soon enough! Tried to get them up the ladder by leaving corn on each step, seemed to work as they were in and out all day but couldn't do it in the dark! Really pleased with the coop and pen, their old one is now sitting empty for a while and I’ve promised not to get anything else until I’ve started my new job and got used to it!
Claire sent off for some seeds from Blue Peter to encourage bees so I’ve planted a little wild flower boarder next to the chicken pen with these (as well as adding some poppy seeds) and made a “bee hotel” out of bamboo to give them somewhere to live.
We went for a lovely walk tonight just as it was getting dark, walked up to the river past all the commercial vegetable gardens, its really interesting seeing how they do it on a bigger scale.

Advanced Fruit Tree Pruning Course

2009-03-15T08:49:00.006Z

I had a great day yesterday on the second part of the course that I took in November last year.
This course was nearly all hands on as we’d done the theory on the course before. The trees were older as well, meaning we were doing tree renovation rather than designing how a tree will grow. When doing this it nearly always means cutting big limbs off, and sometimes over a course of two or three years you take the tree right back down to a stump to start its structure again.

How to train trees in their different forms was also covered in more detail (this is what I'll be trying to do in my garden) and we got to see behind the sences at a kitchen garden thats currently being renovated with rows of different shaped trees being grown.

We also learned to tell different tree problems like canker and woolly aphid (although the damage can look similar) and when these problems occur. Apparently becides the varitey just mentioned you can eat aphids and they taste sweet - I'll be trying this in the summer! Below is a picture of wooly aphid damage - looks just like canker.

This was another brilliant day run by the RHS and I’m going to book myself on their summer pruning course to finish my learning of this subject as well as booking up their cider making course (although I’ve made cider in the past, it sounds like another fun day).

New coop

2009-03-07T19:00:00.006Z

Well I’ve started using the shed before it’s finished! I’ve been making a new coop for the chickens and the shed was the perfect place out of the wind to make it. So far today I’ve managed to make the framework up (all with halving joints) and stain it as the timber wasn’t treated. I made something similar for my mum a few years ago and the design seemed to work well. As it raised off the ground this stops rats from making a home under it, as well as providing the chickens with somewhere to shelter in bad weather and keep their food dry. I should have it finished by the end of the weekend, but I probably won’t move them into it just yet, I might just put it in their pen so they get used to it first. I’m also making it so it’s flat pack for when we move in a few years time.

I have planted my tomatoes, peppers, basil and chilli seeds today, in my windowsill propagator. I’ve probably planted far too many different varieties – I always get carried away!

I’m trying to get as much done as possible in the next couple of weekends as I’m starting a new job in a few weeks time on a massive tower block with an hours drive either side of working from 7 till 6 in the middle of Birmingham, I’m looking forward to the work as it will be interesting but the hours scare me. Hopefully it will mean we can save a bit more money and it means getting our own smallholding will be that much closer.

Down on the farm

2009-03-05T19:02:00.008Z

My brother and his girlfriend have just gone off on their travels on the weekend just gone so we went to my parent’s farm to see them off. they're off for 4 months around South America so we’re all quite jealous. Other than that it was nice to go back and feed the sheep and see the lambs. Really missing the lambing season this year, doesn’t seem right not having to drag yourself from a warm house to count how many have died overnight! Dad has lambed outside this year for the first time in as long as I can remember, but he down to about 30 sheep now so its not the big job that it once was. Also popped across to the neighbours farm to have a look at the cattle and pick up dads digger that been on hire. I always love looking around other peoples farms, every one is so different, really hope one day we can make our mark on one! Getting back home I’ve planted some snowdrops in the (now chicken free) lawn area (we dug them up from where a drain is going on the farm) and my mushroom kit has finally worked – fried mushrooms for tea (not very many though)!

A very productive weekend

2009-02-22T19:45:00.006Z

The sun has been shining all weekend and its been great to work outside with just a T shirt on.
For a while now I’ve been thinking about making the chicken a bigger pen as they’ve made the lawn look like a soil and sawdust bomb has gone off, as you can see from the picture. I move them everyday, but every day they dig another hole! So I got my brother to come over (before he goes travelling) to help me make a secure pen in an area of the garden I have just left to weeds.
In a weekend we turned this area:
Into this area (Digging the wire into the ground properly as well to stop Mr fox).

And the chickens seem to love their new pen and here they can dig as many holes as they want! I will build them a new coop in the week or next weekend to go with it, on stilts to discourage rodents, and hopefully make it so we can collect the eggs without going into the pen.

To make sure it wasn’t too much too soon for the poor hen we put their old pen in with them but with the door open, this also means they’ve still got somewhere to sleep. The new enclosure measure 18ft by 7ft so it should be plenty of space for them.
I think I might use the ark for some quails in the summer (might even use the incubator and hatch them out!)
Also planted up four biggish tubs with round carrot seeds and put them in the green house (it seems silly to have it nearly empty except for a few slow growing radishes) so should get to eat those in a few months!

2009-02-17T21:06:00.002Z

Well the last month has been eventful but sorry I haven’t written anything but there is very little going on in the garden.
My onion seeds haven’t come up, although the radishes have in the green house. And I’ve had no luck with my mushroom kits which is sat in our dinning room doing nothing.
Outside I’ve put some black plastic down on a couple of the raised beds to try and warm the soil for carrots to grow earlier in the season, and I’ve been using up the parsnips, Swedes, brussel sprouts, leeks and kale whilst waiting for my purple sprouting! The shed is coming along slowly, got the windows and one door in (the one set of hinges were missing and I’m still waiting for them to come!). Started to clad the shed the weekend just gone, so it’s looking pretty good (if I do say so myself), and managed to insulate about one third of the inside so it feels a bit warmer!

Planting fruit trees

2009-01-11T21:45:00.006Z

The weekend has gone in a complete blur. I have managed to get a few gardening jobs done but no progress on the shed.

I managed to plant the two fruit trees I was brought for Christmas. These were a Conference pear and a Cox apple, I know these are not very interesting varieties but when you can only fit a few trees in you have to go for the tried and tested ones and I’ve planted other pear trees back on the farm and they don’t compare! I’ve now got 5 fruit trees in the garden.

I also pulled up the rest of my carrots as the slugs are starting to win the war on them now, so it’s either make carrot soup or have carrots with every meal over the next week or so!

Start as you mean to go on

2009-01-03T19:39:00.005Z

Got the New Year off to a flying start (even if I did feel dodgy on new years day)!
My brother came round again yesterday to help me put all the timber work on the roof of my shed with the ceiling joists. It does feel massive – I’m sure it’s the biggest shed for miles around!
Then today I managed to persuade my dad to come and give me hand putting the ply on the roof. We also managed to get polythene on top, as a temporary cover, so it should be dry inside until I get the felt on to waterproof it properly.

Looking Back - I think everyone does this post!

2008-12-31T12:35:00.016Z

The last year has seen some major changes around our place. We’ve only been here 18 months but we’ve made it feel like home doing up quite a bit of the house. The garden is another matter. We’ve pretty much started from scratch this year with everything other than the lawn area (the only area that looks worse due to the addition of chicken digging up the lawn!).

Me taking down one of the old sheds

As you can see by the photos I started with a fairly bare, weed riddled plot but in a short space of time managed to build all the raised beds (planting them up the second they were finished as time was against me), remove an apple tree (although I’ve planted and apple and plum to replace it, and I got given an apple and pear tree for Christmas), build the greenhouse and give it a nice blue brick plinth, replace 100ft of fencing, make a good start on my shed, plant fruit bushes, build an arc and keep chickens and best of all grow plenty of vegetables to keep us well supplied nearly all year long!

Building and planting the raised beds

The raised beds finished just as spring was begining!

Full veg plot in Summer!

Greenhouse built and full of tomatoes.

Some happier ex-battery hens!

All in all I feel pretty happy with how this year has turned out, but I’ve got some big plans for next year!

A Merry Christmas Had By All

2008-12-30T21:43:00.005Z

With all the merriment and visiting family and friends almost over it was nice to spend the day in the garden having a quite tidy up and to start to use some of my presents!
I’ve been quite spoilt this year and I’ve had numerous things for the garden – a posh dibber, some mushroom growing kits and two old fashioned rhubarb forcers amongst other things. The one forcer has gone straight onto the garden (although I know it’s too early, it looks so nice!).
I’ve also had some lovely books and mum managed to find me an old copy of John Seymour’s self sufficient gardener, as she knows that his guild to self sufficiency is one of my favourite books. As well as this I got a copy of the old 1980’s series of the Victorian Kitchen Garden on DVD, as ever since I was given the book from the series and read it cover to cover I’ve been hinting I want to watch it. (got lots of other none garden related presents as well but I wony list them here as there is far too many!)

I’ve started one of the mushroom kits today - white button mushrooms - so we should have some in a few weeks time. I wonder if I can save the spawn from some of these mushrooms to start a new batch when this one gets worn out – I’ve got a book on it somewhere I’m sure! As well as this I’ve planted some onion and radish seeds in the greenhouse, not sure how well they will do but its worth a try to get some veg a little earlier.

The shed to end all sheds

2008-12-21T11:06:00.004Z

I’ve had a patch of concrete down since the end of last winter, but with doing the house up and the garden I haven’t had time to start on my big project - the shed!

I’ve just had a weeks holiday (got to use it up before Christmas) and I’ve managed to get the wall panels made and on Friday we had the big erection (if you pardon the pun).
My brother came round and in a day we got all four sides up and fixed. It’s a monster! 4m by 6m – the neighbours don’t mind as its sitting where two very rough sheds were before. It should make a nice workshop to do some carpentry in, I’m going to make sure it is fully wired and I might even get the inside plastered (as it will be insulated and heated) so that it will be a selling point when we want to move on from here (a summer house or gym for someone).
Over the Christmas holidays I plan to get the roof on and windows in (weather permitting).

Claire does think I'm building a bungalow at the bottom of the garden though!

I’m Not a Pheasant Plucker

2008-12-18T19:21:00.005Z

I’m not a pheasant plucker,
I’m a pheasant pluckers mate,
I’m only plucking pheasants because the pheasant pluckers late!

My brothers’ girlfriend got given a brace of pheasants at the weekend and she wanted someone to dress them for her. They had been hung for a week and were ripe enough for cooking.

I’m a bit rusty at dressing game birds, and my brother wanted to learn on one, so they’re not going to win any prises for looks, but they didn’t take too long to do and should taste pretty good.

I was a bit worried when my brother stuck his hand inside the bird and then smelt his hand - he was almost sick! But what did he expect the week old guts would smell like! My bros bird did look like road kill when he’d finished though as he pulled off a big patch of skin by mistake.

Frosty Mornings

2008-12-07T18:44:00.004Z

It’s been nice to be at home when it’s light. I hate having to get up when it’s dark and get back when it’s dark again, so I've been looking forward to the weekends even more lately.

Managed to catch up on a few things, cleaned out the chickens and had a good tidy up. As my parents came over for Sunday roast (with five vegetables out of the garden!) we spent the afternoon planting spring bulbs in the flower boarders and by the cob tree, should add a bit of colour in a few months time.

Also managed to do a job I’ve been putting off for sometime (because it’s not garden or outside related), I’ve added another layer of insulation to our loft! It’s a job I hate, dirty, dark and horrible, but it should save us some money in the long run. I’ve also managed to catch one of the mice that are keeping me awake in the night, so I bated all the traps again to try and catch his mate in the loft. I think his mate is the one that wears lead shoes and likes dancing on the little bit of ceiling above my head!

Fruit trees and mushrooms

2008-12-01T22:33:00.009Z

I spent a nice Sunday on my parents farm pruning the fruit trees in the new orchard with my brother. After doing the pruning course last week and the fact that my brother is a tree surgeon, I felt quite confidant. It was a cold day and we had to wait for the trees to defrost before we started, but we soon had the 3 and 4 year old trees pruned to size, we should hopefully get a bit more fruit off them than we have up till now, they’ve been slow getting established and we’ve only had about 2 apples so far. The plum, gage and damson trees will get pruned in the spring to prevent silver leaf.
After a warming roast dinner we braved the cold again to use up the dowel mushroom spawning kit that had been sitting in my fridge since the spring. To do this we drilled holes in some freshly cut logs every 6 inches, knocked in the inoculated dowels and then sealed the tops with wax. We then found a nice dark corner of mums’ garden to store them in where they won’t dry out. Hopefully in about 6 to 12 months time we should have some Shiitake mushrooms to eat.

Fruit Tree Pruning

2008-11-22T18:29:00.004Z

I’ve had an excellent day at Hanbury Hall learning how to prune fruit trees. The course was run by Pershore College and covered everything from standard trees to espaliers and fans.
The course started with a bit of theory, in the polytunnel they used as a classroom, and then moved out into the orchard to prune the trees ourselves. They took a lot more off the trees than I thought they would, but in doing so showed us the shape we should be aiming for and how to manipulate the branches that are left. I’ll be pruning the trees in my garden tomorrow so long as it doesn’t rain! I’ve also got about 24 fruit trees on my parents farm that I planted four years ago to have a go at, so that should be good practice!
We were given so much information in just one day, I think I’ll book myself on the advanced pruning course in March to make it sink in better (and maybe the summer one as well).