May Daze

Come back Rain, all is forgiven

Hot sunny days and lockdown have meant that I don't particularly have to work around the weather or other commitments. I can relax a little more and still keep on top of things on the smallholding.

Having said that, our boom and bust weather patterns do make things more difficult. 7% of our usual May rainfall has necessitated watering in new plantings and watering where I sowed the carrots, one of only two crops which I now sow direct. The parsnips failed to come through this year, so did their replacements. Worse still, the water butts have run dry so I now have to use metered and treated water. At least hoeing has been easy.

The body and soul of the soil

I have steadily been moving last year's compost onto beds. The huge pile is now all gone, but the encouraging news is that I had enough to cover the majority of the 80 or so beds I have. 

It's amazing how much material we produce to feed the compost heaps. Hopefully I can persuade some to break down enough for a mid summer mulch. 

Bee-keeping Update

We have only had five swarms of bees this year so far. Three of them have been huge swarms. One we gave away, the other four we collected and created new hives. One of these disappeared again, so Sue is now left with NINE hives. Her ideal number is three!!!

It looks like a good honey year. Sue has already taken 60 jars of early honey. She is not one to rob the bees of too much and always leaves plenty for the girls. 

A welcome hair cut

The hot weather is hard on the sheep too, so it was a relief for them when the shearer came a few days back. Jason and his wife Chloe are really friendly and fantastic with the sheep. Not only do the sheep get rid of their uncomfortably hot fleeces, but they get their feet trimmed and a dose of Clik to protect against fly strike. It's also a chance for a health check by people who know much more than us and for us to ask any questions we have.

One of our ewes looks suspiciously fat. If she is pregnant, it will be a virgin birth as the three rams have been kept well away. I have my suspicions how it may have happened. We'll see if she really is pregnant and what the lamb looks like if there is one.

Rambo, our breeding ram, has lost a lot of weight and his stools are not solid. We have tried worm and fluke treatment but it has not made a lot of difference. Jason gave him a mineral drench (this is not as it sounds, but simply means given orally) and says that often cures unknown problems. Let's hope.

Respect your Elders

Another feature of this time of year is that the elders come into flower. This is the cue for Sue to make elderflower champagne. The process is very simple. Just dissolve sugar in water, est and juice lemons, add elderflowers.

Stir daily until it starts to bubble from the natural fermentation. Then bottle and burp.

Sue has also frozen about 50 heads. Don't worry, there are absolutely loads left for the birds and insects.

Birdlife on the Farm

These two swallows ended up inside the house.

One found the exit and I caught 

and released the other.

Swallows are now swooping in and out of the stables, robins, blackbirds and starlings are already feeding young. Blue tits and great tits are busy collecting food for young families. A pair of pied wagtails loiter around the stables and often fly out of there as I approach. A couple of years back they nested under some pallets by the polytunnel. Woodpigeons, chaffinches and goldfinches breed in good numbers here and we have a thriving colony of house sparrows. Further down the land there are meadow pipits nesting in the rough grass and skylarks rise high to blast out their song. Wrens sing loudly and are dotted all about the smallholding. We have thrushes breeding on the smallholding too, both mistle thrushes and song thrush. But they are outcompeted in the song stakes by our blackcap which hasn't shut up for weeks now. I saw the male carrying food into a bush in the front garden yesterday.

Above: The rewilded front garden

Below: Native hedgerows as they should look, planted by me 7 years ago.

The Little Owls are incredibly secretive at this time of year. I rarely even hear them. Excitingly though, tawny owls have moved in and I hear them almost nightly. They may have driven the barn owls out though.

Finally we have summer migrant warblers back. Our first singing sedge warbler and whitethroat appeared earlier this week. We had a reed warbler singing from the hedge for a couple of weeks, but it needs to move on and find the right habitat. 

I've probably forgotten a few of our breeding species, but every year we seem to get more and more which is a fantastic result of all the work I've put into creating a nature friendly smallholding.

It's a Rat Trap

One species not so welcome on the farm is rats. The traps are working well and at the moment I am catching young ones. The traps are not live traps but are very secure in terms of not catching non-target species. I leave the dead rats on a post and something takes them.

A few weeks back I was just checking and resetting the traps when one of our geese got trapped inside the brassica netting. In my rush to free it, I misplaced the rat trap (not set to spring) and have been searching for it ever since. Well yesterday I found it as it go mangled by the mower blades. It fought hard though, so I now need to get the blade mechanism fixed.

Poultry News

On the subject of the geese, they are still laying and we are still trying to steal their eggs. However, one is now permanently settled on the nest so we'll leave it to fate whether or not we get goslings this year. 

The glut of goose eggs means Sue keeps busy making cakes. We freeze these and they are an extremely good way of storing a surplus of eggs. Goose eggs make the best sponge.

In other poultry news, one of our turkey hens managed to hatch out three healthy poults. We put them in the poultry cage as protection against crows and they are all doing well. The other hen is desperate to sit on eggs but the crows keep finding her eggs. Hopefully she'll find a good spot somewhere in the veg plot or soft fruit patch before it's too late. We are happy to leave this up to fate again.

We have two Silkie hens sitting on Muscovy duck eggs and now one of the Muscovy ducks herself has made a nest in the corner of the chicken house and is sitting. Hopefully we'll end up with a few ducklings. Two of our Muscovy girls are now missing in action. We don;t know if they've been taken by something, moved away or are secretly rearing clutches in some forgotten part of the smallholding.

Clearing the seedling log jam.

Planting out beans. The climbing structures are made from coppiced willow rods

which the sheep strip for me.

With the last frost gone (a really late one would be a bit disastrous) I have been busy clearing the logjam of young plants in the polytunnel. I have moved most of them to benches outside as temperatures have stayed in double figures day and night for quite a while now. 

Corn, beans, tomatoes, courgettes and squashes have all gone into the ground outside. We had a couple of very windy days which was a challenge for the newly planted beans, but on the whole I've never had young plants settle in so well. They usually suffer a setback for a week or so but not this year.

The Rewards

At the other end of this process, we are already starting to get some decent harvests, particularly from the polytunnel which is yielding delicious new potatoes, carrots and mangetout. Once these are harvested their space will be required for tomatoes, peppers, melons and cucumbers. In fact, they are already underplanted. Outdoors we have now stopped harvesting the rhubarb but we have a couple more weeks of asparagus left. The gooseberry bushes are bursting to overflowing and we'll very soon be thinning out the early picking for the sharp gooseberries. The rest are left on to sweeten. 

We have salad leaves coming out of our ears. We have so many different types of salad leaf and can always spice them up even more with edible flowers or herbs such as fennel or oregano.

So, that's about all for now. As you can see, we're always busy on the smallholding. 

Stay safe.

The queen is dead

Sunday 6th May 2018
The queen is dead
Lovely Weather!
But I couldn't spend too long outside today as Sue was planning on killing one of her queen bees. I know this sounds a bit drastic, but queens don't keep laying well for ever - a bit like chickens really.
Like many others this extended winter, Sue's bees are struggling a bit. The smallest colony is barely hanging on and the queen in the largest colony has started laying drone brood - that's male bees. In the world of smallholding, males are pretty useless. One of each species is generally enough.

Today I needed to keep my distance from the bees would likely not be happy, though using lavender cuttings in the smoker seems to be having a calming effect on them.

So I decided to erect my bean poles. I use old willow for this which the sheep enjoy debarking for me - this stops the poles taking root.
I dig these in about a foot and stamp the soil back down around them to secure. They are sturdier than bamboo canes and carry a lot less 'food' miles. They are better looking too and give some real height and structure to the vegetable garden.

For the first time in ever I have actually got the bean poles erected in advance of the beans being ready to be planted out. In fact I have not even sown them yet.
I prefer to sow them in paper modules indoors rather than direct. I can get  slightly earlier start but more importantly they are protected from birds and voles. Further, germination can be a bit patchy if the soil is not warm enough, so if I grow them in modules I can make sure that every pole has a bean.

The bottle fed lambs, Flash and Rambutan, are getting big now. They have become good friends and nothing pleases them more than a little run around with the dogs. Rambutan is Boris size and Flash is Arthur size.

Monday 7th May 2018

Getting Crabby

I've just got to show you this crab apple. Look how much blossom! I am anticipating a good year for all our fruit trees this year. Even if I say so myself, I have done a good job of pruning them. We had a decent spell of cold weather in the winter to kill off some of the nasties and we seem to escaped any heavy frosts, high winds or hail storms at the wrong time of year.

Tuesday 8th May 2018
Been bean sowing

A day of seed sowing and potting up. timing the sowing of the beans is a fine art. For they grow quickly but can't go outside until we are frost free. Most of them are for drying so I need as long a season as possible. For these I prefer to grow climbing varieties as they are up in the air and more exposed. It is hard to dry the beans on dwarf varieties which are low to the ground and shaded by their own leaves.

For seeds and seedlings sown earlier in the year I use plastic trays and modules, but for those sown late which go in the ground quickly I make paper pots, wither round ones using a special wooden shaper or cube ones using origami.
I like the fact that they are reusing old paper and that they can be planted straight in the ground with no further rot disturbance.

The very best baked beans

Saturday 21st October 2017
Finally. The Borlottis are harvested.
With the holiday upon us and the weather pretty foul, I spent most of the day shelling beans.

I grow several types of beans. Apart from last year, when they all really struggled, they've always been an easy crop which produces well.
I prefer to grow climbers as they make better use of space. They tend to crop over a longer period too, though this isn't too important for drying beans.

For my fresh green beans I grow French bean Cobra. It is very prolific, stringless and very tasty.
I grow runner beans too, but I let them mature and harvest the beans inside. If harvested when the pods are swelled and beginning to yellow, the beans can be cooked from fresh. But left on the plant the pods dry and are easily cracked open to reveal the dried beans inside. These are excellent in winter casseroles. In fact on the continent this is the sole purpose for which runner beans are grown.

Some years are better for drying the beans than others. This year has been excellent. In a warm damp year they are best harvested earlier and dried artificially as the pods and beans can start to go mouldy on the plant.

I save the best pods for next year's beans.

As well as runner beans, I grow another called Gigantes. This gives a large butter bean. I used to grow runner bean Czar for this purpose, but Gigantes gives a much bigger bean. Besides, white runner beans are significantly less prolific than their cousins.

I grow Pea Beans too. They are hard to get hold of and I lost my stock last year when they failed to germinate. They produce a small bean with a beautiful ying-yang type pattern. Fortunately I managed to source some more.

The shelling out takes ages - a job for a wet day or to be done in front of the TV. They then go into the dehydrator for a while, just to make sure there is no residual moistness.

Left to right: Borlottis x2, Runner beans, Gigantes butter beans x2, Pea beans x2

The final harvest this year was a good one. It doesn't look like much but the beans go a long way and are full of protein. There was a period in my life when I was vegan (before it was the trendy thing to do) and dried beans were an important part of my diet. I love their taste and texture and all the better if I can now grow them myself.

On Sunday Sue cooked up a bean mix in the slow cooker. She followed a recipe for Boston beans and they were delicious, a great improvement on tinned baked beans, which is saying something.

We intend this winter to explore more versions of baked beans, drawing on our plentiful supply of frozen home grown tomatoes and dried herbs.

Possibly the greatest meal - we've managed to improve bangers, beans and chips.

The Bean Forest

Monday 29th May
With a bout of summery weather on the cards, main job for the day was to get all the beans and peas planted outside. I rear most of them in modules to protect them from the attentions of slugs and voles. They quickly fill the little pockets of soil with roots and are soon ready to go out. I sink branches into the ground to grow them up. These branches come from winter's tree pruning and are helpfully and enthusiastically debarked by the Shetland sheep.
The young bean plants still need protection from slugs, so each gets its own cut down milk bottle or lemonade bottle as a mini cloche. This helps shelter them from the wind too and helps to harden them off.
This year I am growing Gigantes beans along with Runner Beans (I forget the variety), Borlottis and Pea Beans. All of these I use for drying. Then there are Cobra beans, my favourite for French green beans.

I do like the bean and pea patch. It adds height and interest to the garden.

In the gaps I grow sweetcorn, courgettes and dwarf beans.

Tuesday 30th May
The sheep have been crossing the electric fence with impunity, even the two little brown lambs. I began to suspect that it wasn't working properly, so today I dug out the voltage tester only to discover that there was actually no electricity running through half of the fence!

And so began the long process of tracking down the problem. First job is to walk the fence and check for any obvious breaks. With this eliminated, it gets trickier. The voltage can drop if there is too much connection with long, wet vegetation, so that by the end of the line the fence is very weak. So I walked the line, clearing vegetation and moving the fence clear. This increased the voltage slightly, but clearly wasn't the main problem.

I eventually worked out where the problem lay - in the sections of tape which link one side of the paddock to the other. What followed was several attempts to get the connection working properly. Each check necessitated a long walk back to turn the fence off at source. Thank goodness Sue was there to help.
Eventually I managed to get a current flowing all the way around the paddock where the sheep are feeding. Doubtless the lambs will charge through it a couple more times until they actually get a shock. After that they will be a bit more wary.

Wednesday 31st May
Look what started today. More in future posts.

June goes out with a splash

26th June
Bonus beans
I'd put it off for a couple of days but decided to spend the morning trying to fix the electric fence. That was until I found that yesterday's storm had left an inch of water standing in the corner stable, the one where the fence energiser is sited.
So instead I finished planting the beans I'd raised in the polytunnel. I decided to plant out the Cobra beans as they seem to have outgrown their early deformities. And the Pea Beans too! After sowing a couple of hundred beans, I've finally got about a dozen to germinate. They'd better not get munched by slugs!

Forgetting about Brexit
The afternoon was the Smallholders Club meeting being held at a friend's smallholding. It was nice to get away from the problems of the world for a while.
Quinoa Query
Back from the meeting, I decided to plant out my quinoa plants. I grew some spares in modules just in case the direct sown ones didn't make it. As it is, I have no idea whether they made it or not as they are totally indistinguishable from the fat hen which is probably the commonest weed on my land. So I've left that bed to grow - it should be possible to tell them when they come into flower - and planted a new patch elsewhere.
53 Red Hot Pokers
As I was doing this the swallows started to kick up a real commotion. The cause soon became apparent as a barn owl swooped through the garden being chased by swallows. It appeared to come from the hollow ash tree, so with a bit of luck it's decided to roost there during the day.
Finally the rain set in again. It's certainly been a wet June. I retired to the polytunnel and potted up my Red Hot Poker plants - I got 53 from one small tray.
The polytunnel is filling quickly so I harvested a few turnips which were looking really good. In these muggy conditions it's important to thin out plants to enable the air to circulate at ground level, otherwise everything starts to rot.

27th June
Keeping the sheep in
A lovely day spent down in the sheep field. I love it down here under the huge fenland sky. I can just absorb myself in the moment and leave all the worries of the world behind.
Today's task was to work out where the problem was with the electric fence and to section off the field into smaller areas so I can rotate the sheep.
I replaced some of the wire which had turned rusty, I cleaned up some of the connections and I spent quite some time cutting the grass down under the fence. Finally I took the mower down and cut the grass short under the fence. All of this managed to raise the voltage at the end of the fence from about 800 to just over 4000. This should be enough to teach the Shetland lambs not to keep going through it. They can still get through if they put their head down and make most of the contact with their woolly back, but it won't take long before they get a shock and learn to stay where they are supposed to be.
There's still room for improvement. The far end of the fence still goes through swards of long grass and I've reluctantly decided that when the weather is good enough I will have to use weedkiller to keep the grass down. Keeping a few hundred metres of fence clear of grass is just not practical with shears or a strimmer (for starters, there are too many accidents when the lower wire gets severed) and the ground is too rough for the mower.

Dragonflies and a Hawk Moth
I was surprised to find standing water in one area, but very pleased to see dragonflies over it.

Another surprising find was this amazing Privet Hawk Moth on a fence post.

Finally it was time to move the young lambs down to their new home. I spent several hours shepherding the flock. They seemed very happy with the new food choices and there were no major arguments with the old timers. It's fascinating to watch the Shetland sheep eat. At times they munch the lush grass at ground level, other times they nibble away at the seed heads a foot or more off the ground. I guess it gives their neck a rest.

Swallow trials
A swallow colony attracts its fair share of undesirables. We never used to have magpies here, but for the last couple of years they've become more regular. With this has come an increase in violent muggings, for they make occasional visits to the nests to plunder eggs and  young birds. Still, enough of the swallows survive this ordeal and this past week some of the young have been on the wing. This makes the adults more defensive than usual and several times a day they rise into the air as one chattering loudly. It often draws my attention to a raptor of some description. Today the swallow saw off a sparrowhawk in the morning and a barn owl and a kestrel in the afternoon. But there is one falcon which is a much bigger threat, for the day the first swallows nest is the day the first hobby appears. A dapper and slender falcon which summers in this country, it consumes dragonflies in the early part of the year, catching them mid-air. But this swift and agile falcon is quite capable of catching a swallow, especially a young inexperienced one. And so it was this evening that I saw this for the first time. I missed the actual moment, but alerted to a raptor I looked up to see the hobby shooting low through the garden with a swallow dangling from its talons.
Fortunately the swallows will have more than one brood and not all the young will be predated. There are always more on the way.


28th June
I spent the morning with the sheep again, time well spent doing not very much!
Howcome my legs have come up in a terrible rash just from brushing against our deadly fenland nettles yet the Shetland can munch away on them quite happily?



Into the polytunnel. Again.
Early afternoon and the rain came again. Again I retired to the polytunnel and set about potting up the flowers I've ben raising in trays and modules. At this time of year I move them out of the polytunnel as they can quickly dry up on a hot day and I find that conditions outside are less extreme. They often get just enough water from the sky but I occasionally give them a drink. But this year they have been drowning! Quite literally. I cannot keep emptying the trays they stand in fast enough. If I don't put them in trays they can all too easily dry up.

And so I began the task of picking them out, prising apart their root systems and giving each its own pot in which to grow big enough to be planted out into the beds. My previous efforts to grow foxgloves from seed have come to nothing, so this year I sowed a good pinch of seed into each module. Well, I now have about three hundred tiny foxglove plants crammed together. Potting up this many plants takes ages. I got about a hundred done and have left the rest. They probably won't be needed, though I could try and sell them if  get time. I potted up lupins, hollyhocks and liatris too so the flower beds should hopefully be looking good this time next year, if the rabbits and slugs don't get them all.

Where are the pollinators?
The sun came out again in the evening which hailed a bright double rainbow. The bees came out too, for their feeding time has been short of late. In fact I'm having trouble with the general lack of pollinators this year, hardly a hoverfly or butterfly to be seen.

29th June
A day of relentless rain. Rest day declared!

30th June
Cow poo!
We took the whole school on their now annual trip to the Norfolk Show today. Main interest for the class I was with were the cow sheds. To be more precise, they displayed a slightly concerning preoccupation with cow poo! That and which cow had the most Kim Kardashian bottom!

Putting that aside, it's a great show, though I can't believe how much it is for Joe Public to get in. It would have cost Sue and I £60 if we didn't get free teachers tickets. Someone's raking in an awful lot of money. It's a shame they can't find a little space for a few non-profit making organisations like the smallholders clubs.
The disadvantage of going with the school is that I had to go where the children wanted to go. I glimpsed some amazing blacksmithery and willow weaving and would have liked to spend time looking at the ride-on mowers, but I just couldn't get the children interested to the same extent as the cow poo.
On the plus side, I did rather fall in love with the mini Dexter cows. And there were some great sheep in the Rare Breeds area, Hungarian Screw-horned sheep, also known as Rackas. Then there were the donkeys with dreadlocks and I was pretty impressed with the heavy horses and the old farm machinery they pulled.




Worried about my nuts
Back home and there was a squirrel on the feed feeders. Only the second time I've ever seen one on our land. I'm afraid its not really welcome. I don't want my bird feeders destroyed and I certainly hope it doesn't find the cobnut trees.
A fox heard calling late at night was a reminder to keep careful guard on the poultry. On a positive note, the barn owl seems to have settled in the area as I saw it swoop in and perch on the chicken fence at dusk.

Tomorrow it's July. Hard to believe.

One hell of a hail storm

21st June
Six chicks have now hatched and are fluffed up nicely in the incubator. There's no sign of anything happening to the other twelve eggs though, which is disappointing. We are only collecting them from two Ixworth hens though, so it took a couple of weeks to collect a clutch to go in the incubator.

I set up a broody box for them which included our new (second hand) electric hen. I am much happier using this than the anglepoise lamp we used to use. I was never quite sure I wouldn't come home to a molten plastic box or worse still.

The weather was good today so mowing was very much on the agenda. This is a job which feels very much like repainting the Forth Bridge, never ending! I don't mind doing it but it takes time away from other jobs.
In between mowing I took full advantage of the new neighbours' invitation to harvest their strawberries, which always appear to be ready before ours. Sue has dried a fair few and the rest are in the freezer waiting to be turned into jam, ice cream and yogurt.

22nd June
I am a bit surprised to report that we are up to 11 chicks. They are all safely in the broody box. The next batch of eggs will be in the incubator as soon as I have time to clean it out.

23rd June
The electric fence in the top paddock has been set on full bluff for a while now as the battery has no power in it. But the Shetland lambs have figured this out and hop through it with impunity. Within the confines of the paddock this is not really a problem since there is enough flimsy fence to still keep them where I want them. The problem is though that the lambs now have horns and I came home from work today to find one pathetically entangled. It was no great effort to set it free, but I decided that now would be a good time to move the lambs up with the adult Shetlands. The ewes' udders would have completely dried up by now and the adults need a little help keeping the grass down this year.

Before the move I did a little maintenance work on the electric fence which runs all round the bottom field. This one is mains powered and it's not a good idea to touch it! A couple of wooden posts needed replacing and I wanted to set up the strip grazing system again.

This was a couple of hours work, so at about 8pm I led the lambs down to be reunited with their mums and dad, Rambo. The two new lambs we bought from Church Farm went too. Introducing seven at once would share out the stress if there was to be any argie-bargie. As it was, the sheep mixed together very well...

... until the Shetland lambs started going straight through the electric fence and into the orchard.

This was more serious, as from there they could go absolutely anywhere if they so chose. They could also do a lot of damage to the trees, as Shetlands' favourite food is tree bark. I tested the fence and it was very weak.
A few older parts of wire had started to rust a little and in places the fence was running through very long grass indeed. It was possible that too much electricity was being lost along the fence. However, my poor understanding of the subject led me to believe that at least at the beginning of the fence the charge should still be strong. I tested it and it wasn't.
By now, the sheep were back out into the orchard again and it was raining heavily. I turned the fence off and decided to reconnect it where the lead-in wire comes in. It was while I was doing this that I received a rather sharp shock! My finger was tingling for several minutes afterwards. There was obviously power somewhere.
Still the power was low. I went right back to the energiser in the stable and reconnected the lead-in wire at that end. Still no difference.
There was no choice but to go all round the perimeter of the fence moving the posts inwards to shorter grass and pushing the long and very wet grass away from the base. By the time I got all the way round time was getting on and I was absolutely drenched. Not only was the rain coming down heavily but the water was travelling up my trousers from the sodden long grass. From there gravity took it back down into my boots which were squelching nicely.

I got back to the beginning and tested the power again. Still no difference. :-(

This was clearly going to need further investigation, but darkness was approaching so I took the decision to move the lambs back to the top paddock.
The whole evening had gone, I was drenched, the sheep were back in the same place and I now had two electric fences not working.
On the plus side... any suggestions?

24th June
The morning after the night before.
I always stay up ridiculously late on election nights. I'm addicted to the coverage. I'll keep away from the politics. Suffice to say that I'm glad I grow all my own food - it just might shield me from some of the worst effects of what's to come.

Good news today. At the fifth attempt I've finally managed to germinate some Pea Beans. I literally chucked loads of them into a seed tray and covered them in compost as a final last ditch attempt.

More good news. Sue has been away for a couple of days and now she is back. She came back to another swarm of bees. At a guess from the same hive as the last one. Sometimes they just keep swarming.
The swarm I caught a couple of days ago didn't stay in the end. By the morning the spare hive was completely empty. Hopefully we'll have more luck with this lot.

Final job for the day was to nip out the tomato side shoots. As well as those in the polytunnel I'm growing lots outside this year. This is always a risk and often comes to nothing, but if everything comes together we will have mountains of tomatoes at the end of the year. The first ones should be ready in the polytunnel in the not too distant future.

25th June

The videos, if they've worked, say it all.
I was working on the bean patch today, weeding, edging and planting out module grown plants where there were gaps. Only a couple of the kidney beans had come through so replacing these was the main job.
After that I set about erecting supports for the broad bean plants which are on the verge of collapsing under their own weight. Half way through this the heavens opened and I had to make a run for it into the polytunnel. This was to be no normal storm though. Hailstones absolutely pelted down for half an hour. Fortunately for you, in the name of the blog, I made a run back to the house to get my phone and record the event. I was literally running through about an inch of water and hailstones. My second drenching in three days.

When it finally eased off there was water everywhere and piles of hailstones.

I hadn't twigged that the brassica netting might be in trouble too. When I went back out to check all the birds and animals were okay I noticed that the aluminium poles were dangerously bent and the netting was weighed down with hailstones, which I had to scoop out by hand. It is late June and my hands are stinging from scooping up hailstones. Something is wrong here.



Fortunately the netting was strong enough not to tear and the poles sprung back into shape. Otherwise a fairly harmless but spectacular weather event could have been a bit of a disaster.

The birds and the bees... and the sheep

The first honey of the year

complete with new labels.

Sometimes I don't mind getting wet, for once you're really wet through you stop noticing it and just carry on. But today I feel like staying dry, so I'm staying indoors. Besides, in the past week of warm, dry weather I've totally failed to mow the lawns so the soaking would come from the bottom up.
Why have I not mown the lawns? Priorities.
March and April are all about getting seeds sown and young plants raised. But come the second week of May, when the soil is warmed up and the danger of frost is passed, it's all about getting all those little plants into the soil so their roots can delve and explore and nourish. Stuck in seed trays or modules the plants just stop growing or, even worse, wither up and die if you accidentally miss watering their tray on a hot day.

Fortunately we have a rather well-timed week off school in which I can hopefully catch up with everything I've fallen behind with (mainly because I've been scooting all over the country chasing rare birds).

It's not all been about the vegetables though. There's been action on the sheep front and plenty of news from the poultry pen, most of it a bit calamitous, but not all.
So here's a run down of what's been going on.

Rambo shorn - a shadow of his former self.

24th May
The ewes and Rambo came down to the paddock near the house, briefly meeting the lambs on the other side of some sheep hurdles before the lambs went down to the big sheep field all on their own. The lambs were delighted to see their mums again and started bleating loudly. Their mums pretty much blanked them, fearing for their udders which are beginning to dry up now.
The reason for the swap was that Carl the shearer was due in the morning.

25th May
I managed to get all bar one (sorry for the pun, if you noticed it) of the sheep penned in with relative ease. They still come to investigate a bucket, but I wasn't quite quick enough to sneak round and close off the hurdles. One of the ewes made a dash for it. Never mind. It wasn't long before I had her penned in too. The secret with sheep is just to move them into smaller and smaller areas, remembering to bar (sorry!) their way back to the previous place. And never try to move a loan ewe. Easier to take the whole flock, separate the one and then take the rest back.
Carl arrived from his previous job and I was quite proud that I had the sheep so well penned and ready for shearing. Shetland sheep are sort of self-shedding, but they look a right mess while this is going on and some are too late for the warm weather. Two of my girls, the ones who had multiple lambs, were pretty much self-shorn already.


Shearing went well. Carl is amazing with the sheep. Strong but gentle. Even Rambo didn't put up too much of a fight this time. I got Carl to check and trim their feet too. For an extra £1 per sheep it's worth getting it done. As it was he didn't charge me for this and was not even going to charge for the two ewes which just needed a little tidying up. I paid him the whole amount though as he deserves it.



Last year we sold the wool to some spinners. They were very, very happy with it and we recovered the cost of shearing. This year we are planning to learn how to do peg looming so will keep as much wool as we need for ourselves. More on peg looming in a few weeks.

26th May
The exertions of the weekend were still telling on my body. I used to be able to do overnight drives seemingly with no effect but as I get older my body demands considerably more time to recover. So today after work it was a rest day, a lazy evening pottering around enjoying the smallholding, just taking stock of everything.
I did get the car serviced and MOT'ed today. It's a dangerous time of year to be without car (rare birds don't hang around waiting for the car to be fixed) so I was glad to get it done.

27th May
Only 3 eggs today! That's a pretty poor return. But it happens sometimes. The spring egg glut has happened and several of the hens have chicks or are sitting on eggs. Some of the hens are getting older so are less productive. The others have just gone on strike and we have a very sudden drop in egg production. This is not unusual, but inexplicably the timing seems to vary year on year. But I seem to remember this happening last year.
I should keep records, but I've never been good at that sort of thing. I like to be more inefficient! Organic. Creative.
Anyway, I sort of suspect the crows which now nest in the old ash trees. There's only one pair but they hang around the chicken pens a lot. I know they sometimes go down for the wheat and I've seen them take duck eggs when the ducks have decided to lay on the ground outside. What I'm not sure about is whether or not they have the audacity to enter one of the chicken houses and take the eggs. I can't believe that we could lose this many eggs and never catch them red-handed though, so  suspect it's more about the chickens than the crows.

Meanwhile, in the big chicken house where our Muscovy duck has inconveniently made her nest and been sat for the last five weeks, today we had the first cheep cheeps of a little duckling. Hopefully by tomorrow they'll all be hatched and I can think about where to move the young family for safety.

IT'S THE HOLIDAYS! I have eleven days off work.

28th May
A somewhat challenging day today.
Sue took the first honey of the year off the bees. Despite the proximity of a giant rape field, the bees actually seem to use a variety of sources of food. However, the presence of even some rape means that the honey is likely to set hard as a rock. Left in the frames in the hive, it quickly becomes irretrievable, so timing is crucial. It needs to be taken off the bees when it is just capped. For non beekeepers, the bees store the honey until it reaches the correct consistency and then cap it off with wax to prevent it drying out any more.
Sue's bee-keeping skills are developing fast now (thanks to the excellent West Norfolk Beekeeping Group).
Today she managed to mark one of the queens. Finding the queen is tricky so it is useful when you do find her to trap her in a queen cage and dab her with a bright colour. But it's a bit daunting handling the queen when the whole hive centres around her. This was the first time Sue had performed this delicate operation.
She also removed drone comb. This is the brood cells which will produce male bees and is where the varroa mite can really get a hold in a hive. Since the drones are pretty useless it is best to remove. Sue feeds it to the chickens who very much enjoy pecking out the juicy drone larvae.

I said today was challenging. That's because I was trying my best to work in the veg plot despite the unwanted attentions of Sue's angry bees, who were even more grumpy than usual as somebody had stolen their honey and interfered with their queen!

I resorted to wearing a hat with a veil over. I'm pretty good at ignoring the attentions of inquisitive bees and can even tolerate them landing in my hair. Usually they find their way out again. I find I just have to freeze still for about a minute. Then they go away but I remain frozen, for after a few seconds they always come back, just to check.
However, once in a while you get a complete nutter hell-bent on destruction. You can tell by the buzz. They go for the face or land in your hair and start burrowing and buzzing fiercely. If they're in your face the best thing is to run for it, but they pursue with vigour. In your hair I reckon you've got a 50/50 chance of getting them out before the sting goes in!
One of Sue's hives is way too aggressive. They have been since the back end of last autumn and things haven't improved. Unfortunately the queen will have to be replaced. A new one, specially bred to be peaceful, will be brought in and should then produce calmer offspring. The bees which remain should calm down too.
This is why there are no photos of the bees. I used to be able to stand right next to the hive while Sue had them open.

Anyway, in the face of such challenge I still got quite a lot done outside. Most of the outdoor tomatoes are now planted. The main varieties are Roma and San Marzano (both Italian plum tomatoes for sauces), Gardener's Delight and Outdoor Girl, a new variety I'm trying which is supposed to do well even if the weather is not ideal.
What sort of harvest we get from the outdoor toms is unpredictable. If they come good we will have tons. If blight strikes we could get none. And if the summer is dull we could have lots and lots of green tomatoes.

The other job for today was to sow the kidney beans, variety Canada Wonder. I've sown these direct, but if they don't come there's still time to resow them in modules. They are interplanted with Perpetual Spinach, a new crop for me.

29th May
Sad news. No sign of the Muscovy duckling this morning. Mum has moved the nest and the remaining eggs are all over the place. Maybe it was a mistake letting the chickens back in to roost last night.
I've closed the house off now and the girl is back on her eggs. The chickens will get a shock when they try to go to bed tonight, but I have laid on alternative accommodation for them if they find it.

Today was a perfect day for working outside but all I could get done was picking out and planting French Marigolds (tagetes). These act as a wonderful insect deterrent. I've planted a load of them in amongst my turnip and swede sowings to try to deter the flea beetles which destroyed the first sowing. I plant them between tomato plants too. They keep off whitefly. Then I just dot them around the place as a general defence against insect attack.
The other type of marigold is Pot Marigold (calendula). This is a pretty good companion plant too, though tagetes is a stronger deterrent. Calendulas are more hardy though and self-seed everywhere, appearing every spring almost in weed proportions. Fortunately they are easily pulled or transplanted to where I want them.
My work was interrupted though as today was the Smallholders meeting. I so wish they would consider evening meetings but I've made my point and it's not been taken. It was tempting to carry on working on the veg patch but fortunately with holidays coming up there's not too much pressure. Besides, today there was a visit to a smallholding I'd not visited before. It's always good to visit other places, though invariably I come back full of new ideas and jobs to do. There was a very informative talk on building a pole barn as well as the chance to catch up with my smallholding friends.
I also managed to pick up a copy of The Polytunnel Book for £1. This is my polytunnel bible. If I had to recommend one book, this would be the one.

There was just time after the meeting to take a small diversion on the way home to Paxton Pits where a Great Reed Warbler had been singing for about a week. These are like one of our regular reed warblers (small boring brown birds which sing from reedbeds) but a mammoth version and they don't sing, they holler! As it was, our Great Reed Warbler was having a very shy day. We heard a few loud calls but it wasn't in the mood for climbing to the top of the reeds and belting out its song. We left with a 'heard only' record.
Today was a good chance to try the car out too. The braking had been a bit shaky before the service and the garage had replaced something on the anti-roll bar. However, the problem seems to have got worse! Over 60mph it feels like the car has a wobbly wheel and breaking requires a firm hand on the shaky steering wheel. It'll have to go back in. Let's hope a rare bird doesn't turn up while I'm carless. Over in Denmark a Sulphur-bellied Warbler has turned up. It's so rare I can't even begin to explain. If one of those turned up here while my car was in the garage I think I'd just start walking.

30th May
Today I released the turkey family. They've been incarcerated in a very luxurious stable since their birth for their own safety. Mum led them all around the smallholding. Terry the Turkey would have been so proud if he were still around.

Early evening I decided to try and put them away for the night. After a couple of failed attempts, I managed to get them into one of the new sheds which has been kitted out in readiness. It's pretty nice in there.

The rest of the day was spent planting out my brassicas. I've abandoned the idea of using carpet underlay to stop root fly laying its eggs in the soil. Firstly each collar provided a cosy home for a slug with a handy local food source (my cauliflower seedlings). I sorted this out, slugs chopped in half, slug pellets scattered (I use the organic ferric phosphate ones, though I still try to minimise their use) but today I found half of the surviving plants dried up. The underlay obviously hadn't let through enough water. So that was it. Collars abandoned. Luckily I only really needed about a third of my caulis to make it through and the ones which have survived are looking very strong. There are more on the way as I sow them in succession. This means I can fill the gaps and that they will not all harvest at once.

Today, along with the cauliflowers, I've planted Romanesco, Calabrese, Cavolo Nero, Scarlet Kale, Red Cabbage, Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Cabbage January King.
They're all under netting and I've interplanted with marigolds and hyssop as companion plants.

This is a concerted effort at finally growing and harvesting brassicas successfully. If it fails I might just give up.

31st May
And so to the last day of May. A welcome rainy day, for I was starting to get worried about the young plants and seedlings outside. The water butts are filling up nicely.
Two surprises when I let the birds out this morning. The first was a robin inexplicably encaged in one of the broody hen runs. Quite how it got in goodness knows. I released it. That was good act number one.
The second was to find a very small gosling stuck in the feed trough near one of our Toulouse goose nests. Fortunately the grey geese are not quite so aggressive in their defence and I was able to gently pick up the little gosling, which felt cold, and place it next to mum on the edge of the nest. When I looked later it was gone, so I presume safely tucked in underneath mum again.
Not such good news from our other sitting mums-to-be. No sign of any ducklings under the Muscovy, despite the first one hatching three days ago. And no sign of any Ixworth eggs hatching under the other broody hen either.
To compensate for the various failures of our broody hens and ducks, we have placed 18 Ixworth hen eggs into our new (second-hand) incubator. It'll be more work for us to raise the chicks but we should have a greater success rate.

Every time we use an incubator we have a power cut. I don't think it's the fault of the incubators! It's just the poor rural infrastructure which means that every time it rains or is windy the power cuts out. Today we had two and the second lasted three hours. Hopefully it won't affect the development of the eggs.

So that's it. May has flown by and tomorrow it's the official start of meteorological summer. Bring on the rain!