Car Booting and Planting

This morning we were up bright and early, and by 7.15am we were at our pitch and selling at the local car boot sale.

The big sellers of the morning were our free range eggs and the cabbages and herbs potted on especially, the few we have come home with will be planted out now in addition to the ones already in the raised beds.

We were also starting on our big de-cluttering drive and the house is starting to look a little clearer, and now I have some space in the boxes I will be sorting out again ready for the next one in two weeks time.

This afternoon will see us finishing off the new pig enclosures in the paddock with electric fencing. Lovely Hubby managed to get the two new arks assembled yesterday, it's amazing how small they look sat in a six and a half acre field, the same ones in the orchard look big!! We will be picking up a new resident for one of them on Friday of next week, another boy for the farm.

Once that is done there is more planting to be done in the polytunnel. Yesterday I managed to get 55 tomato plants potted on, though they are still tiny at the moment. This cold spell has not been good for us gardeners, holding everything back or completely wiping out whole crops in some cases.

This is a bed I planted on Friday, with peas at the back, cauliflowers in the middle and a couple of rows of spring onions at the front. This bed is part of the long one underneath my planting bench, I waste no space in here!

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Oh well, that's my coffee drunk so back to work.......

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Sue xx

Polytunnel Planting

In this bed - on the left, peas around the back with my Grape Vine in the very corner and then carrots in front and in the right, lower bed, tomatoes at the back with courgettes, peas and poached egg plants around the edges and a tiny section of French Marigolds in the top righthand corner as companion planting for the tomatoes (keeps the black flies off).

As you can see I like to get a lot into a small space.

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Today after a mad dash around getting the car MOT'd and various other shopping I am back on the farm and about to get back into my now regular workplace, the poly tunnel.

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On the agenda today is potting on the peppers and celery. I am also about to re-do the herb bed, planting them instead into a pot style planter to leave me with a bit more bed space for other crops.

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Everything is coming on well and we are steadily working our way through lots of lovely mixed leaves and lettuces. Indeed, we have so many lettuces that we are taking a crop to the Car Boot sale on Sunday along with the cabbage plants and the eggs.

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Oh, well back to work. Have a good day whatever you are up to.

Sue xx

Chicken Portions

I seem to have no end of rear photos just recently! In chicken world everything is fine at the moment, she says, touching her head (wood) quickly. The new girls have settled in well, too well, one of them has decided she doesn't like being followed by a Jack Russell and mercilessly chases Rosy whenever she sees her to get the upper hand straight away. Feed times are a manic free for all, for the first five minutes at least then peace resumes and they all go around hoovering the grass for missed tasty morsels. In the hot afternoon sun the birds all take to the lilttle wooded area at the back of the house, and settle down for a siesta, little blobs of white, black and brown fluffed up against any breeze, eyes closed, relaxed. At piggy feeding time some of the lovely ladies follow me to the orchard and spend a happy hour helping the pigs tidy up. They pop in and out of the pig arks looking for bugs and insects and do a very good job of keeping the pigs bug free. There are lots of shady little avenues for them to forage up and down around the farm. All the birds range far and wide now, having the confidence to wander, worrying I know, but I'd rather they had freedom with a hint of danger than be caged and frustrated. The only exception to the caged rule is my lovely Lavender Pekin Bantams. They are tiny, only nine weeks old, but just starting to fill out and get lots of lovely new fluffy feathers. # The picture above is Caldwell, the Cockerel, with his favourite girl Isabel. The other three little ladies are called Prudence, Lucy and Alice, they are getting used to being held and chirp incessently. # They most likely will never be allowed to free range because even at full size they will be small, small enough to be carried away by the Buzzards and Red Kites that we have circling the farm. Once they are bigger we are going to adapt the old chicken enclosure for them, lower the perches and re-install comfortable nesting boxes. Safe behind bars they keep together. They are getting used to Sophie the dog running round and round the Eglu. Once again she is obsessed, remember the Welsummers when they arrived, she could not leave them alone. Again she has made a bare track of earth around the Eglu which she pounds incessently with a far away gleam in her eye. # So we have happy hens here on the farm. Thirty five in all. A nice mix of colours and sizes, and by and large they are getting on fine, they have quickly established their own pecking order, which was unusual to watch. The White Stars and Welsummers seem to know their place at the top of the order and were content to be aloof when the new girls arrived, it was the Speckledys who were quick to defend their postitions with much pecking and pulling of feathers. # Now peace reigns and they queue up in the morning to use the nesting boxes, sometimes happy to sit two in a box, laying us a glorious mixture of brown shaded and speckled eggs, we are averaging about 19 a day at the moment, with some of the new girls at point of lay. # Chicken Facts and Figures 5 White Star Hybrids - 3 years old (Little Lovely, Milly, Jemima, Molly and Capachino) 3 Welsummers - 1 year old (Bourneville, Coco and Fudge) 10 Speckledys - 30 weeks old (one named RoadRunner) 12 Rhode Island Red Hybrids - 22 weeks old (one named Gorgeous) 5 Lavender Pekin Bantams - 9 weeks old (Caldwell, Isabel, Prudence, Alice and Lucy) So 30 layers and 5 (eventual) breeding birds. # Happy hens (and cockerel, sorry Caldwell keep forgetting you're a boy!!) on a happy farm and now the sun has come out and melted all the frost I will go and give them their breakfast. # Sue xx

Piggy News......

Lulu and Lottie are getting bigger by the day, they are now 12 weeks old and have doubled in size from when we picked them up. They eat three pounds (in weight) of pig nuts each per day with a handful of greens and chopped up fruit. They are obviously loving it. Their favourite foods are apples and plums.

Maud and Martha are as big as Betty now and are in their own enclosure, soon they will be moving into the Paddock to enjoy the summer on the lush grazing that's there, they will also be joined by a surprise guest. They are almost eleven months old now and just about fully grown. They have six pounds of pig nuts each day, plus greens and fruit. Their favourites - bananas (pigs eat the skins too).

My beautiful Betty is enjoying her new larger pen, with it's private ark for her and her babies. With lots of long grass and weeds to chomp her way through, there's no more tussling and jostling at feed times so she can eat at her leisure, and she really does eat more slowly now and savour her food, she has eight pounds of pig nuts a day. Her favourite - avocado pears.

I've had to label the buckets now to save confusion on who gets which amount.

How many bottoms can you spot in this photo? What is it about my camera that makes them all turn their backs even the chickens.

The lovely Lottie, who's party trick is to roll ecstatically on her back while you tickle her tummy. Which is fine now, but will be amazing to watch when she's fully grown (she'll be bigger than Betty then).

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Our piggies Official Names Hewellgrange Stonebow 338 - Betty

Offleyhoo Fair Lady 51 - Maud

Offleyhoo Fair Lady 61 - Martha

Burtonfarm Bess 1 - Lulu

Burtonfarm Bess 2 - Lottie

Back tomorrow with chicken news.

Sue xx

Calm and peaceful......

Calm and peaceful is how each day should begin.

As I stepped out with the dogs this morning the sun was battling with the clouds, there was a definite 'nip' in the air and my hands were cold after feeding and watering chickens and pigs.

We stride the fields the dogs and I, each looking for different things.

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Rosy is obsessed with pheasants at the moment, eyes glued to the growing crops to look for the tell tale bobbing up and down of the heads of the magnificent boy birds. When one is sighted she leaps joyously through the field to flush him out and make him take to the air in a cacophony of squawks and protests, and happy barking, then she rejoins us, job done, til the next poor victim is spotted and disturbed from his mornings rest.

Sophie is nose down, tail wagging, looking for the 'definitive' stick. The one that feels right, that will fly through the air when presented to Mum. The one she can fetch and carry and lie next to while Mum catches up.....the perfect stick is always there.....somewhere.

Me.......I'm looking for calm, and I usually find it.

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First thing in the morning, the fields are deserted, apart from the hum of the motorway three fields away on the horizon, there is no sound. That is there is no sound until you find the calm......then it is all around you. The birds singing their beautiful spring songs, the rustling in the bushes of rabbits hiding from the dogs, the insects buzzing all around.

This I let wash over me, it won't last, it never does. But while it is there I soak it up, restoring me and preparing me for the day ahead.

All too soon we are on our return journey, the dogs trot side by side, I follow. Rounding the last bend to the house, a helicopter flies low overhead, a tractors engine is starting up in the field near our Landlords barn and a delivery truck chuggs up our farm track......the day has begun.

But deep in my soul I still have my calm.

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Sue xx

Piggies in the Orchard

Betty had her last days of orchard freedom over the weekend.

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From now on she is confined to her new larger quarters in the far end of the orchard. She is there to await the arrival of lots of little Bettys, hopefully due on the 18th of this month.

Her new area is fully equipped with trees for rooting under and lying in the shade of, her very own pig ark with no unruly Middle Whites pushing and shoving her anymore to get the best position at bedtime. Her very own water and food troughs, no sharing with greedy 'sisters' for the tastiest of morsels and best of all (in Bettys' opinion) her very own mud wallow, to cool her down on the hot days we get (every now and then).

We moved her in on Friday afternoon, but Betty had other ideas and soon learned how to open the gate so she could go and visit everyone. We woke up on Saturday morning to find her fast asleep under the trees at the edge of the orchard with a chicken sat on top of her (two of them have been living in the pig arks this week).

Now this was not the general idea, she is meant to be taking it easy, not forming 'Colditz style escape committees' and sleeping under the stars. She is at last though, starting to get the idea. She has little conversations with Lulu and Lottie in the adjoining pen, and seems to enjoy rooting around in the little trees at the side of her ark for tasty morsels of root.

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She takes herself off to bed whenever she gets the urge for a nap, and comes over to the fence for a cuddle and an ear rub whenever we pass.

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Now, I'm off to plant out my cauliflowers............

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Sue xx

Cabbages and kings.......

Cabbage - Golden Acre/Primo (II)

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Today I am mainly.....planting cabbages. Well transplanting cabbages really, from trays and toilet roll tubes. Some to space outdoors in the raised beds, some to their own bed in the polytunnel and the rest into plant pots. Loads of cabbages. Some for us, some for the animals and some for sale at next weeks car boot sale.

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The money I make will more than cover the cost of the seeds and the compost that I have used to plant them, the plant pots are all ones that I have bought other plants in (some from car boot sales funnily enough), therefore, we will be eating free cabbages in the months to come.

When they were babies.....aww!!

Well that's the way I like to look at it. After I have got through this cabbage glut I will be planting some more, ready to see us through the winter months.

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I have decided that from now on, as we will be eating mostly our own produce that our diets should be simpler, so I will be buying from the Farmers Markets and local shops only things that I need to compliment our own produce. And as I can now supply lots of our own vegetables, shopping bills should be cheaper and, therefore, I am going to try to stick to only spending the money that we make on our stall as my housekeeping money.

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If we have a good day it will be steak and salad, if we have a bad day it will be freshly-laid free-range eggs and salad, so really we can't go wrong can we? Either way we will be eating like kings!

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Sue xx