Pond Watch

Okay. I looked out of the window today at the front garden. Mortified. It looks like the garden of an abandoned house.  No wonder everyone goes to our back gate instead of the front door!  The beds are a mess of weeds with a strangled looking plant every so often.  The path is more moss than gravel and the gate is so dodgy that the postman has wedged it open with a brick so he doesn't have to compete!  No amount of bulbs is going to save this lot, this needs an overhaul!!

Right in the middle of this garden come field is our pond, which was a solid mass of slime - although beneath the slime I discovered pretty clear water!  I determined that even if I did nothing else I would clear out the slime so I set to it it.  Eugh...

But I was surprised to discover that amongst the No No slime there was some Very Much Hurray slime in the form of some Frog Spawn.  I am very pleased with this, I have been wanting the pond to be more wildlife friendly and in particular attracting some frogs so this was a great sight for me.  

I am going to keep an eye on this little group and hopefully bring you updates on how the little wrigglers are getting along!I don't know whether there is anything I can do to help them - protection wise so at present I am just leaving them alone!

Well Manicured Smallholder

Y'all may have noticed a gap in the reporting on the farm.  The Farm family have been on holiday.  I shall give you a quick update before bed, hopefully I can elaborate on all points separately later!

This was Farm Baby's first trip away.  We had decided that 9 months was a reasonable age to start galavanting around the countryside.  We chose to visit the Lake District for a weeks break.  It rained most mornings but the afternoons were much warmer and more pleasant.  We did the usual holiday doings, relaxing, walking around the holiday centre, which was in the middle of a red squirrel nature reserve.  However, we also did some trips that were very 'us'.  The best of which was to a couple of Car Boot Sales.  We made some good purchases.  I have been trying to perfect that cluttered look that farmhouses have. Somehow farmhouses manage to have rooms full of stuff, stuff on every surface and it just works!  So far all I can manage is looking like I have too much stuff!  It is definitely a learned knack, or perhaps I am trying too hard. LOL.

Anyway, we managed a few good buys but my favourite by far is a beautiful wicker trug.  I have been looking for one for ages.  But modern ones are expensive, not ridiculously I know but trying to live cheaply and efficiently and self sufficiently means that I am always on the look out for the most economical choice.  New wicker trugs are even more expensive, presumably due to the work required.  So when I saw this sitting lonesome on a rug by one of the stalls, that was it.  I was having it!  I also got a quirky copper jelly mould shaped like a hen - for the wall in the kitchen - farmhouse clutter people!!

Regular readers will know that we recently purchased eight Lohmann Brown hens with whom we have been having a laying problem.  While we were away they were being cared for by Farm Dad and then Farm Mum.  As you know their egg production had fallen away to practically zero before we left.  We had started them on a good solid diet and regime and were just crossing our fingers.  As you can see from our 'What's The S-Coop?' module egg production has increased.  The last two days we have been up to four!!  Much better.  I had been expecting 4-5 a day so this is a much more cheerful number!  Big smiles on our return to the farm, a nice welcome home present.

The vegetable patch had tried its best to give us a welcome home that we would enjoy and in some places it did.  The cabbage and brussels are doing well.  Broad Beans and peas are growing like crazy.  Farm Mum is jealous of what look like are going to be HUGE onions and the garlic is stonking along.  There was a couple of raspberries ripe and farm baby enjoyed the first taste of produce from the garden - flappy arms and kicking legs of approval there!

The garden on our return.  Potatoes in the front, onions in one tyre, rocket, celery and beetroot in the other.  Raspberries behind and the bean patch in the top left corner.

Here are the beans.  Of all the Runner Beans planted (approx 40 ish?) only 8 are clinging to life.  All the French Beans died again!  We have heard that our neighbours on the hill have also given up on their Runner Beans as they have succumbed to the same strange fate.  We are blaming the odd weather we have been having.

Onions to make your mum jealous!

Potatoes and cabbages are fighting back on the side of self sufficiency growers everywhere!

I said I was growing celery, and I am!  Here it is!  All the other 19 plants went the way of the Runner Beans but this guy soldiered on.  Spare a thought for his fallen friends!

Making the Most of Our Mint

Our herb garden I thought was a loss.  The plants looked sad and leggy and ... well... dead.  But they have burst into life and we now have very healthy looking plants. 

This is our mint.  It was taking over the herb garden so the few straggly leafless stems were transferred into their own little tyre raised bed.  When I first transplanted it, it looked like it was barely alive but look at it now!  There are two mint plants in this tyre, a kind of rough leafed one with rounded leaves (front of picture) and a second one that has shinier, more pointed leaves (back of picture).  I have no idea what each one is.  The shinier leaf smells more spearminty than the other but I don't know if it is.  If anyone recognises either then please let me know what they are!!

It was the shiny one that I choose for my Mint Tea experiment.  I have never made tea from anything that I have grown myself so this was all pretty hit and miss!

I picked a few leaves, tore them slightly and poured on boiling water.  I let it seep for a couple of minutes then took out the leaves.  The result was a very attractively coloured and very refreshing drink.  I think I will have to have it again!  Does anyone know any other herbs that make good drinks?

A Walk Around the Garden

Okay, a quick tour around the vegetable patch as it is at the moment. We are moving the beds around, as all good crop rotators should and so the old potato patch from last year is gettin' beans!  I have set up the first stage of my A-frames for Runner Beans, French Beans and Peas.  The little soles in the forground of that patch are the first of some Broad Beans, they will be joined by some others that are still at the seedling stage.  Assuming that all the seeds germinate there will be 15 Broad Bean plants and twenty each of the two beans and the peas.  I have bunged some carrots in the end of this patch too.  Yep, bunged is the technical term!

Next up is the position of the new patch.  Farm Guy said 'shouldn't we make it one big patch rather than two smaller ones?'  I said, 'You're the one digging them...'  So we are getting one big patch.  The potatoes are going in here.  Are we running late for that? Oh Yes!

After some serious clearing I retook the Strawberry patch from the nettles, separated the million strawberries and got them in order. It now looks as so, the strawberries weren't happy about being ignored over the winter and have told me so by looking very dead and sulky but they seem to be picking up now. I was kind to some of the little 'uns and gave them their own Pop Bottle Greenhouses!

The big tyres that housed the beans and peas last year will this year welcome onions - in the one on the left - and 'salad-y stuff' - in the one on the right!  Salad-y stuff consists of Celery, Rocket and Beetroot, none of which I have ever tried before!

And new to the garden is Farm Baby's Apple Tree. This is just a little tree, it won't get higher than about five feet but it was bought as a celebration tree for Farm Baby and this way she'll always be able to reach the apples!!! LOL