Veggies Jobs For July

Thyme flowers are out about now

Summer marches on and compared to last year, we have had some protracted spells without rain which has been an improvement to say the least. Naturally, this means that the vegetables are growing quickly and, therefore,  rapidly using up the nutrients in the soil which will need to be replenished as the weeks go by. 

There are a few ways to do this; in some instances and where possible, I dig in some more compost - earthing  up potatoes for instance. Around well spaced tomatoes I can sometimes dig in a little more compost but I also add a proprietary tomato feed, which, incidentally will also do for chilies, peppers, squashes and courgettes. I dig in compost around my beans and also lay some chicken poo (freely available from my chickens and in great abundance) around all the plants that are advanced enough to get near and not damage. This might also, thought I in a moment of severe frustration at having more lettuces dug up, deter my feline fiends from using my well hoed and weeded vegetable beds as custom made cat commodes. The jury is yet deliberating on that ruse.  

Shop bought feed is obviously expensive although the sachet type that you mix yourself is cheaper than the ready made up stuff, but you can make your own by soaking as many nettles as you can cram into a large bucket and leaving it for a few weeks or by having a wormery and using the liquid feed from this.  Worm pee - nice!  Worm farms are a useful way of turning large amounts of garden waste, food waste and used tea leaves into a very small amount of very rich and potent compost, and a liquid run-off that can be added to your watering can to water in. It's quite potent and should therefore be well diluted.

A Safe haven for Brussels away from butterflies

Remember that as your vegetable plants strive to grow you the most wonderful peas, beans, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, leeks, chard, parsnips, beet root, courgette and every other wonder of vegetarian delight, you need to supply them with the nutrients to be converted into your food. Planting vegetables and leaving them doesn't always work, I'm afraid. 

Tomatoes growing well

As for the rest of the garden, it's down to maintenance really and the first harvests of your crop should come this month. We've had garden peas and some herbs from the tunnel, the broad beans are a week or two away and the first strawberries are blushing into readiness as I type.  

Broad beans very nearly ready

There have been a couple of disasters; the French Climbing Green Beans are, alas neither French nor climbing -they are green however, apart from the purple ones! They are, in fact, mis-packaged Dwarf Beans which look daft growing next to the towering edifice I spent a wet weekend erecting in the sunniest and most public spot in my garden. No doubt the occupants of the passing traffic are waiting avidly to see the beans climb all over this mighty erection, imagine their disappointment and my embarrassment when the beans just stop growing at about two feet tall.  In an attempt to deflect my discomfiture, I sneaked out in the dark one night and planted a few runner bean seedlings I had left in the tunnel. I doubt this ruse will work either and I await the derisory hoots and beeps of my passing public.

My wormery - with tap for collecting worm pee!

All my other minor catastrophes have, actually, been caused by cats as I mentioned earlier. 

We live in the woods, acres of land all around, no neighbours, no roads except on one side and no restrictions as far as animal evacuations are concerned. Yet all three of my cats are determined to use only the areas in which I have chosen to either grow vegetables or carefully planted bedding pants. Their propensity to dig up seedlings, seeds, well buried bulbs and delicate flowers is astonishing and has also caused my wife some distress. However, as the promises I made to our cats in moments of extreme anger are in some cases physically impossible, in others, illegal and the rest involve implements I do not own, I hope she won't worry too much while she's away in Australia for three weeks. 

Really. 

All this hard work in soon to pay off, so stick with it and start looking up some vegetable recipes. 

Chickens

A Big....Rooster!

It's been a while since we had a chicken update and quite a lot has changed over the winter, not least our two new additions. We have obtained a couple of hens from Annie, my sister in law; Dilly Dilly - a lavender bantam who has so far laid one egg, and Flo a white, daily layer. So we're now getting, on average, four eggs a day - which is useful - but hardly a money earner! However, we don't buy eggs now, so that saves us about a fiver a week, but food costs us about £4 per week. Oh well.

I have also obtained a larger coop and a covered area with it, so the hens are a little more comfortable in all the wet weather we've been having, and it also gives them a larger area in which to run.

A very tame Pheasant....

...also eating me out of chicken feed....

We have a tame pheasant who comes right up to the run when I'm feeding and watering the chickens, and he now has two women whom I also have to feed..but it is handy having all the eggs we need for cooking and breakfast, so I have absolutely no regrets.

Chickens - The Serial

Scraping around in the courtyard

Well, I have to say they are fun! They're not much work, we're getting two eggs a day from our two new point-of-lay hens and they're all getting on swimmingly. Or is that ducks....?

There's something very homely and comforting about the gentle noises these birds make as they scrape around their run. It's very much a sound redolent of comfortable living, lazy days and cups of tea in a sunlit garden. Perhaps a cuckoo calls in the background as the postman waves cheerily as he passes your gate - no bills today thank you!

As I write this I'm sitting in my back yard with the hens scraping around my feet. The traffic on the A21 is slow as hoards of families head towards Hastings and the beaches, the sun is blazing down, the breeze is lazily susserating through the beech trees and I have fresh bread in the kitchen and a coffee in my hand. The Olympics are drawing to a close and Great Britain have done more than enough to still the voices of the curmudgeons like myself who initially showed concern about the cost of the games and a lack of interest in the results. The sound of screeching U turns is very loud around here! Even my son Ben, an avid tweeter of all things that feel foul, has been to the Olympic Park and enjoyed his day.

The hens love the back yard; compared to their run which is now devoid of life and where a snail can be spotted by a beady eye from 50 yards, it's a veritable jungle and I had an odd flashback to fishing as I watched them rooting around. I used to love seeing reeds flicker as the sub-surface activity of fish caused their trembling movement and in the back yard, it's the swaying of raspberry canes, rosemary bushes and sage plants. Occasionally a head pops up or a long neck is stretched to reach a ripe raspberry, but the result is the same.

So the two new girls, Peggoty and Polly, had a few problems being accepted by Molly and Hilda initially, so for one day I kept the two new girls in the inner coop cage. Then I thought "Hang on, why am I punishing the victims?" so I put Hilda and Molly in the cage instead and that did the trick, in less than 24 hours, the twins had taught the youngsters to go to bed at night and were snuggling up together in the hemp bedding. Result, and peace in the hen house.

Chickens - The Serial: The Homecoming....

Well, they're in!

Having done all the necessary work for as little cost as possible - we now have hens! Everybody I talk to, every blog or article I read; all agree that keeping chickens is not economically sound - unless you are keeping dozens of hens, selling the eggs commercially or for breeding! Whilst I agree, at least I can say, hand on heart, that I have attempted to keep the cost as low as possible.

Asher stalked the hens until she realised how big they were, then she gave up in a huff.

 But of course, these hens are not being kept solely for the economic viability of the enterprise; we are learning and we have the added advantage of adding to the family here in the woods. And so we have the arrival of Charlie, (a boy) Mollie and Hilda, none of which are going to be adding to the household budget for the foreseeable future. But that's ok, they are certainly fun to watch and definitely settling in well.

Making themselves at home...

We are now considering adding to the family by obtaining a couple of rescue hens, ex-battery babes in need of a good home to at least have a handful of eggs each week to mitigate the outlay of keeping hens who can't lay eggs for a while....

Chickens - The Serial

...and the wire goes up....

....and up.....

cute aren't they....?

Well, things are moving on apace. Having acquired almost all the materials I needed to construct the run, I only needed some more concrete for the support posts and the buried fencing wire. I recently completed a fence post job and noticed that there were some broken bags of postcrete at Homebase. Having cheekily asked, I got four bags for half price – result!

The chicken wire was buried 18” into the ground and support posts were concreted in on top. The wire extended a foot or two above the top of the posts – some 9 feet in total – to give an unsupported upper edge to outfox any agile, acrobatic Vulpes that may fancy chicken for dinner.

It’s not a large run at this moment, but as we are relative begHeners (sic) there is plenty of room for now. Cleverly, I have left sufficient space to extend the run if we need to and once the potatoes have been dug up.

We are indebted to our wonderful neighbour, Wendy Rainthorpe whose friend supplied the eggs and her hen, Babbs supplied the necessary heat to hatch them. Of the eggs that did hatch, the three Sussex Reds are for us – two hens and a cockerel, we believe. Having met them, we’re getting very keen to bring them home.

As they are only 8 weeks old, we won’t be getting many eggs this year, but that gives us time to get used to them and them to get used to us. I have to finish off the door to the run, buy the bedding and the food and tidy up around it, then we will be ready…..

Chickens - The Serial

Posts, postcrete and wire - £30

Well, the acquisitions have moved on - not for nothing unfortunately, some cost was involved but I did get some good bargains. The first items were the water holder and the red mite powder which were given as a gift from our neighbours whose animals we looked after for a while. Then I was given an idea about  a wood yard opposite us and after some negotiation I picked up 50 metres of chicken wire and 5 posts for £30. I was quite pleased with that, actually, especially as I had some postcrete left over from a recent fencing job. Foraging isn't just about food you know...I also forage for firewood in the woods around us and this chicken keeping project is also about acquiring things as cheaply as possible - even bartering if I can. Five posts are needed for the four corners and a door post. I intend to dig the wire in at least a foot and a half into the ground and cement it in too. The posts will be over 6 feet high and the wire will extend loosely beyond this to discourage any foxy climbing. If a cat can get in, so can a fox and I'm determined not to lose my hens to foxes.

Our eggs are being incubated by Babs right now and will be grown on for us, so I still have a few weeks yet. Two posts are in and I have to find some more concrete, but apart from the work of assembly, most of which is digging, I'm pretty close now. Updates to follow.

Water Feeder and Red Mite Powder

Forest Grumps

Feeding the neighbours sheep

Since we moved into the Cottage a little over two years ago we have got to know the woods around us very well. The diversification is good; some heathland, some deep woods, some light woodland and some estate park with larger trees and open aspects. There is a grand house, an old castle, a farm, a hop field and a small meandering river. There are footpaths, sheep paths, rabbit paths and even the odd deer run or two. There are uphill paths and (obviously) downhill paths – there’s even the odd level path!

The deep woods are predominantly sweet chestnut – many areas around Kent and Sussex are, their long, coppiced trunks ideal for hop farms - but there are two or three marvellous beech groves, some pine (used for growing and selling on), lots of oak and a remarkably ancient pollarded hornbeam. Being an old estate, there are copper beeches and an old pinetum which even contains a Sequoia (Giant Redwood) which is not 100 yards from our front door. But there are woods of impenetrable thick hazel and silver birch, a haven for animals, plants and birds alike.

We have acres of bluebells coming up right now and in a week or two they will carpet our landscape with a misted haze of cerulean which, when lit by long beams of mote flecked early morning sunlight, turn the deep woods into an ocean rather than a forest – as if a colour blind artist has been at work on the canvas.

So fortunate are we living here that we have found it only too easy to share our walks with friends and family. We frequently have visitors for walks, meals, coffee or tea and barbeques. But always walks. There is so much to see and to discover and then to pass on. Children love to run through the glades, looking up “walking” sticks, finding the grass snakes, picking heather, wild flowers and even foraging for mouth reddening blackberries. The sheep are friendly and inquisitive and usually a squirrel or two (or three) will put in an appearance. If we are really very, very lucky, we might see a roe or fallow deer, or perhaps a fox.

My daughter, not really an outdoors sort of person, recently brought her husband and my only (so far) Grandchild, Eli-Lew to spend a day with us and as it happened, at that time, we were taking care of our neighbours sheep and hens. Having six Grandparents means that finding a different name for each can prove to be a minor difficulty, but I am known as “Grumps” suiting both my (very) occasional grumpy demeanour and the need for an alternative to “Granddad or Grandpa. Naturally, living in the woods, or forest, the additional appendage to my name seemed appropriate.

Grumps scaring children at the ancient Hornbeam

Eli is a little too young to appreciate all this, at a month less than 1 year old, but I hope he will come to appreciate the outdoors rather than sit in front of a computer or TV all day as the youngsters seem to in this time of rapid technological overkill. Phil, his father seems to enjoy being outside and has dabbled with chickens and vegetables and is a keen photographer – and anyone who would rather cycle to work than catch a bus – even in winter – can’t be too afraid of the big outdoors.

Still, we had an invigorating walk, fed the Jacob’s sheep, the hens and the bolshie bantam and picked up a few pinecones for firelighters. We didn’t get wet or cold, Eli-Lew didn’t fall out of his back pack and we went back home for a brew and some home made Herman Cake (A future blog post – perhaps?).

I wish we saw more people in the woods, I would love more people to get outside and encourage their children to explore. There is far more to see, enjoy and to educate than ever there could be in a shopping mall or in front of a Playstation.

Scotney Castle – where we live – fosters the walking ethic with Geo-cache, well laid footpaths, clear signage and maps and we hope to see more and more families roaming the estate and learning about the environment in which they live.

As Land Rover used to say in their wonderfully evocative commercial – One Life, Live It!

Chickens...The Serial

As I grow older I find it quite difficult to find things to do that I’ve not done before. That is to say, to do something I would find interesting and - dare I say it – stimulating. I have never kept chickens myself. I’ve looked after them for others, I have killed and plucked one or two and I have eaten many, as well as their eggs. But the owning and maintenance of chickens is something I have not had the opportunity to do, but have aspired towards for some time.

Gone are the days when buying something excites me, those times when I thought that spending my money on the latest DVD or CD would cheer me up or provide some interest in a busy, or tiring week. In fact, the opposite is true – I find it more delightful to not spend money. This is born somewhat of necessity, but it does add a frisson of challenge to try to do things cheaply, or better still, for no cost whatsoever. I am by no means a miser, but fun is fun, after all.

That was the requirement I set for myself when I first considered keeping chickens – it’s not as if eggs are the most expensive item in the shopping trolley, yet, at any rate – but if you add up the cost of feed, bedding, housing and all the protection, it could easily become an uneconomical enterprise and one that I would have trouble justifying. So the plan is to create a hen run and provide three or four chickens for minimum cost and maximum educational, culinary and entertainment value.

So, as a smallish coop had come my way, almost new and for a fifth of its original price, I considered that the time had come to commence the project. I have some old fencing posts lying around, and whilst these will not be tall enough when concreted in, they will at least be a base upon which to build. That is an additional requirement, I suppose; a coop and a run which can be extended. The other idea I have in mind is an extra portable run into which we can place the hens in various areas around the cottage in order to give them a varied feeding area as often as possible, whilst still sustaining maximum protection from the marauding rural foxes.

So, it has started. I don’t know when part two will appear and I cannot put a timescale to the overall operation because it will largely depend upon the availability of  low cost materials. But I will keep this blog updated and Tweet and Facebook details as and when they change. @SnowdogMikey is my Twitter address if you want to follow me….My Facebook page should be HERE.