Blog – Page 27 – Small Plot, Big Ideas

Real life can slow you down

There haven’t been enough updates lately mostly due to a change of job, preparations for a wedding (No.2 daughter) and at times some atrocious weather! However that will soon change now that normality is slowly returning and other plans can start to move forward.

New job in easy commuting distance

After 2 weeks in the new job things are beginning to settle into a new routine rather than with the old job which involved travelling away quite a bit. There is also the added benefit that the garden and veg beds can get some attention after work.

Unfortunately in the last 2 weeks the weather has veered wildly between two extremes with some lovely sunny days but plenty of grey, damp, miserable ones too.

The big wedding day

The impending wedding is now only a week away and should be a great event over a couple of days. However this also means that the whole thing will all be over by the end of next weekend and our lives can move on to other things.

Smallholding plans

In particular I’m impatient to get some progress with the house sale and the other general changes needed to get us closer to the smallholding idea. There has been some slow and careful progress with our future plans but we are still not completely clear on the best way forward or how much can sensibly be achieved

First things first

This weekend I need to get a few hours in the garden to assess the progress with the veg beds because the potatoes are starting to show signs of flowers. According to my information this is quite a crucial phase and it won’t be long before I can check the results. Initial checks on a plant which had suffered some damage shows a poor yield but maybe it’s too early to tell?

I also need to take a closer look at the chickens because one of them has occasionally laid a “rubbery” egg recently and is looking a little off-colour. However these phases only last a few days before she apparently returns to normal for a week or so – It’s time to study some more chicken books and ask around on the various forums.

A belated growing update

What a busy couple of weeks! A change of job to work nearer home, ongoing preparations for the impending wedding for No.2 daughter, Open University assignments and of course the work needed in the garden.

Recently planted runner bean seedlings Finally I think I have managed to find time to update the blog with a few key pictures to show the progress made.

Newly planted

It was fast becoming clear that my plan to follow the potatoes with the runner beans was not going to work. Mainly down to my impatience and planting the beans a bit early.

As a result I had some healthy looking runner bean seedlings desperate for planting out and nowhere to put them.

A quick trip to the local pound shop soon solved this problem with a large tub so now i have the canes in place and the first batch of runner beans in.

Limited space

Onions in pots among the flower border

There is something of a common theme developing as time goes on now with a distinct lack of space for the many big ideas – hardly surprising though given the name of my blog!

This means that I have assorted veg plants all over the place and a very good example of this are the onions in a range of spare pots that I have managed to sneak in among the flower borders.

I have previously avoided plants in pots because they are higher maintenance with care and watering but this time there wasn’t much choice with the amount of plants I wanted to get in the ground.

Pride and Joy

Potatoes nearly ready, just waiting for flowers to appear

I am most proud of my potatoes though and to my untrained eye they look as if they are doing really well.

I noted on a comment made on Gardeners World this week that watering is not needed until the flowers appear but with our recent damp weather that hasn’t been a concern.

I might be deluding myself but I’m sure that on closer inspection there are some early signs of flowers…

A mean brew

Ginger wine successfully bottled

And finally the ginger wine has now been bottled. Obviously it needed a quick taste beforehand just to check the quality and it’s a mean brew with quite a kick on it!

I’ve got no idea if its supposed to be cloudy like this but im just impressed that something vaguely drinkable came out of all my efforts.

Not a bad result after 3 weeks of fairly low-key effort on my part but then I haven’t tried more than a couple of sips.

I’m a little worried that this may have the potential to take paint off the woodwork and disinfect the kitchen floor.

We won’t know until we try some but I leave that for later this week…

Pleasing potato progress

First early potatoes coming along nicely

Just for the record here is the current progress with my very limited potatoes after 6 weeks in the ground. There may only be two short rows but I have very high expectations for them!

It’s all looking very good at the moment and there has been very little signs of weeds or pests (so far). Last weekend I even went through a token effort of earthing them up.

It may not have been strictly necessary to do any earthing up but the work helped to emphasise the progress the plants are making.

To my untrained eye these are looking good and I anticipate a first harvest somewhere around early July.

However I’m not sure I can resist the temptation to dig up one plant towards the end of June just to see how things are going.

I’m not so sure that my efforts with chitting in two batches has made any difference though. The row nearest the fence started chitting a few weeks ahead of the others but the plants all seem to be the same size at the moment!

The only remaining work that I really should get sorted out is to install a soaker hose which I plan to run off the newest water butt. At this rate I think the harvest may well be in before I get around to putting the irrigation in place!

Ginger wine

After hearing about a ginger wine recipe from Twitter (big thanks to @Geordie_racer) it was off to the local homebrew shop for the necessary equipment.

Being a complete novice at this I was a bit lost but blindly following the instructions I had been given. Luckily the very helpful man in the shop gave me lots of useful advice and then sold me all the right bits of kit.

On the way back there was a quick stop at the greengrocers for the produce needed and then everything was set for some home chemistry play on the cooker.

That is only about £20 outlay in total and we now have a 5ltr demi john gurgling quietly in the corner. I’m starting to wonder where I can put 5 litres of ginger wine but according to the instructions I have 2 weeks to come up with an answer!

Vegetable progress update

The potatoes are finally starting to show signs of life which is encouraging. That is only when compared to the apparently interminable wait for anything to happen of course. I’m sure that I will soon need to worry about earthing them up but for the moment they should be okay.

early potatoes coming up - May 2012

The onion sets that were planted in the veg bed are looking very good – it may not look like that in the photo but trust me on this! Even the extra ones that I planted in various pots around the garden a little later are coming on nicely. I would have planted more but I ran out of space and containers to put them in!

onion sets coming on nicely (with cabbages)

In a probably futile attempt to seize some more vegetable space in the garden I decided to hide some broccoli seedlings behind a few French Marigolds. I’m not sure if that will help with the companion planting but I had some marigolds left over and didn’t want to waste them.

This area is really supposed to be a flower bed anyway but I don’t have anything special to put in there at the moment so I figured it was worth a try. I think I got away with it but only time will tell..

trying to hide the broccoli behind some french marigolds in the flower bed

It’s a jungle out there

The other evening at chicken lock up time it was pouring with rain – nothing new there of course! However, as I went out the back door I spotted a small green visitor on the back step just at the last minute.

I don’t think he realised how close he came to being under my welly boot or how unwelcome his visit might be with the lady of the house in particular. It is enough to say that she doesn’t generally welcome uninvited visitors like this round at our house but of course with the weather being so wet there are quite a few around.

We’re never certain where they come from but suspicion usually falls on the neighbours pond a few doors along. I’ve blocked up any holes at the bottom of our fence but a few still manage to get through apparently. I don’t mind them though and at least they help to keep the slug and snail population down to a manageable level!

The visitor was last seen heading off under our bay tree after I moved them away from the back step. That should also be far enough from the hungry chickens to keep him/her safe for the moment.

It made we wonder though as we have also had a hedgehog in the garden recently and I’m not sure whether hedgehogs and frogs get along. Presumably they would compete for similar food sources but I’m slightly ashamed to admit that I don’t know for sure so I’m off to research the subject!

Further bread making adventures

After my first 2 attempts at bread making (white bread rolls and after that a loaf) had proved fairly successful if slightly stodgy, it was clearly time to up my game and try making brown bread.

We had a great time up at the Rothbury Food and Craft Festival yesterday which had lots of interesting local produce on offer including a tasty goat burger made with meat from Lakewood goats and some excellent Brinkburn goats cheese from Northumberland Cheese.

Stoneground wholemeal flour from Heatherslaw Corn Mill Apparently the goat burger was made by the clever butchers at Blagdon Farm Shop so as we had never been there before we headed over afterwards for a flying visit.

I spotted this (probably over-priced) bag of stone ground brown flour which led to the idea of making some wholemeal bread.

The fact that it was produced relatively locally by Heatherslaw Corn Mill at Cornhill-on-Tweed was also an influence I suppose but I didn’t need too much encouragement for a new bread experiment really.

After going through the process which is now fairly familiar to me, the dough was left to rise in the loaf tin on top of the oven as it warmed.

dough risen in the loaf tin before going in the oven This time I decided to learn from the stodgy past experience and give the dough more time to rise – a total of 1.5 hours rather than 1 hour during my previous attempts.

Immediately before it went into the oven the whole thing looked very impressive and remarkably professional for me!

There followed a tense wait with much peering through the glass door on the oven while enjoying the fresh baking smells that filled the kitchen. Eventually it was time to take it out of the oven and assess the results of my efforts.

A truly majestic wholemeal loaf and even when sliced it looked good… I think that this lunchtime will be wholemeal bread and goats cheese!

The finished loaf

sliced home-baked wholemeal bread

Size isn’t everything…

I’m not sure where this one came from but it was completely unexpected and out of all proportion with the normal eggs we’ve been getting.

In fact I’m not even sure which one of the three dropped this on us and we discussed the likely suspects but when I checked afterwards none of the chickens were walking funny.

There are regularly 3 eggs by mid-morning each day but nothing on this scale – the moment just had to be preserved for posterity with a picture and a dedicated blog update.

Right now it’s still in the fridge for the moment as I think we’re all a little nervous about what may be inside!

Classical conditioning with chickens?

It has been a regular event over this past weekend (before the rain came) for me to spot a chicken that has “jumped” the fence and got loose in the garden. That isn’t a major crisis of course but as a relatively inexperienced chicken keeper I think it’s important that I show them who’s the boss.

When I see an escapee making a dash for it I set off down the garden whistling The Great Escape theme in a jaunty fashion and prepare to chase down the miscreant before she can get near my seedlings.

The thought has crossed my mind that the chickens could become conditioned to this famously catchy tune and they might somehow link that with getting out of their run. Obviously I don’t profess to have a background in Classical Conditioning (as with Pavlov’s dog experiments) but perhaps in future if I whistle the tune before they escape they may feel an inexplicable psychological response and try to get out?

Chickens – stupid or crazy?

I can’t quite decide whether our chickens are stupid or crazy but they’re definitely just a little bit bonkers. This makes for some entertaining times for us as relatively new chicken keepers but we’re still not completely sure what constitutes normal chicken behaviour sometimes.

The most likely explanation is obviously that this behaviour is not something unique to our chickens but as with most domestic pets (or even children perhaps?), it’s nice to think that yours have that something special, that distinctive feature or talent which makes them stand out from the crowd.

The mad rush out of the door in the morning is always good to raise a smile at 7am but I’m not sure whether I’d be rushing out just to peck wildly at some chicken feed or to scratch about in the grass. Of course, I could be underestimating the taste of chicken feed but I’m not curious enough yet to find that out for myself.

On the other hand, our chickens are obviously not completely stupid because they seem to have realised that when one of us comes down the garden there is a faint chance of a treat. That may possibly be just a few hours out to roam around the garden or maybe just a hand full of meal worms but it seems to cheer them up immensely.

However, they must be a little crazy because this weekend we witnessed a brief struggle between two of them over what we thought was a bit of twig or leaves. Closer inspection showed that it was actually a small frog with skinny legs (hence the twig mistake!). After resolving the dispute over ownership of the frog, we were very surprised to see that the winning chicken promptly pecked the hapless frog a few times (to subdue it maybe?) then apparently swallowed it whole.

I was quite sorry to see the little frog go although perhaps not as sorry as he was! I’m sure he was doing his best to keep my cabbages free of pests but it was a timely reminder that it’s a jungle out there and only the fittest will survive. In future I’ll keep on the good side of my chickens…