Compost

Over the last few days I have been sorting out my compost heaps, a job that here has never really been bothered with much.  Sounds crazy I know, considering the amount of plant material that is produced here, especially as I like to follow organic principles as far as I can.

Which got me to thinking - What actually is Compost?

I tested the internet with exactly that question and the first answer courtesy of Google was (and I'm quoting here),
'noun - decayed organic material used as a fertiliser for growing plants',
(read organic pertaining to once living, not as in the application/undertaking of organic farming principles)

'verb - make (vegetable matter or manure) into compost'

OK, so reading between the lines of those two statements, compost is the effect of decay on plant material and manure, which turns said material into a highly nutritious source of food for currently growing plants.

That sounds pretty darn good to me, free fertiliser that will help my existing plants grow big, strong and healthy.

According to www.bonnieplants.com and again I'm quoting here -
'Composting transforms garden and other vegetable waste into a dark, rich productive soil amendment the gardeners call Black Gold'

So in a way not only is it a form of fertliser/soil conditioner, it is a form of recycling too, and once said compost is incorporated into the soil it immediately improves the condition of that soil - making heavy soils easier to work - loosening them off and giving light soils better water retentive capabilities.  All round giving the plants better access to nutrients, therefore increasing the productivity of the soil.  WOW!

So, having turned all three bins, emptying one completely onto the manure pile I noticed that none of my resulting 'compost' looked like 'Black Gold'!  One was particularly dry, one particularly wet and the other wasn't too bad, although not quite decomposed enough.  More trial and research needed methinks!

First one emptied straight onto the manure pile, and yes I had help!

The other two still to go

The one that I thought didn't look too bad after turning

As above, but needs a bit longer I think

This year's potatoes - First earlies

We had already bought a 'net of first early potatoes before I went to the Potato day at Stonham Barns last weekend, so they have sitting, chitting quite happily in the office and are now ready to go in the ground.  The variety is Duke of York, a very old, high quality Scottish bred potato.  They are an excellent first early, boiling potato, quickly maturing into a good all-round potato as the season progresses.  Shall look forward to trying them, can't remember that we've had them before.

Duke of York, first early seed potatoes, chitted

Potatoes bought from the Potato Day were researched for their high resistance to Common Scab, which on our sandy soil we suffer from quite badly.  On entry to the Potato day I purchased  - 'A guide to seed potato varieties', by Alan Romans, and it's thanks to him that I was able to do the research, something I've never done before, so I shall be interested to see the outcome.

Common Scab is a bacterial disease that affects potato tubers particularly in dry soils when the tubers are forming and growing.  It doesn't affect the yields of the potatoes, but does affect their saleability, rendering tubers unsightly.  We live with it here, but try and get as much manure into the soil and water like mad whilst they are growing to try and alleviate some of the problem.

Arran Pilot is the other first early I've got, again an old variety, probably classed as Heritage by now.  Again a Scottish bred potato, bred by Donald Mackelvie, a potato breeder on the Isle of Arran (hence all 'his' potatoes are pre-fixed Arran).  It was hugely popular in the commercial world for approx 30 years, but earlier 'earlies' have taken its place.  It's a good boiler, not disintegrating to mush if over-boiled, but sizes do vary.  This should be a good variety for me as I do have a tendency to over boil them.  Looking forward to tasting these.  I may even plant these non-chitted as a trial, to satisfy curiosity and something that I have just read too, but more on that later.

Arran Pilot, first early seed potatoes, un-chitted currently

Stats today - 

Eggs produced = 6

Sales - 1 dozen eggs £1.95

Expenses - Seed potatoes £9.45 (forgot to add them in on Sunday's post)

Potato day

On Saturday morning I spent a wonderful couple of hours at the annual event at Stonham Barns, Suffolk that is the Potato day.

This annual event plays host to approximately 80 varieties of seed potatoes, across the board of first, second and maincrop.  It was the first time I had been and I was amazed at the spectacle that hit my eyes.

All the varieties were laid out in alphabetical order with a short description about them, you then grabbed a brown paper bag and a pen and set to deciding on which you fancied.

I arrived at 10.30am and some of the varieties had already sold out it was that busy and popular.  A catalogue of all the available varieties was on sale, which was a handy reference as it contained more details on each variety - the resistance to scab, blight etc.

I came away flabbergasted, but with some potatoes - more on that in another post.  What a great morning out!

Cut flowers - an update

Well, I must have read every book on the subject, looked in every mail order catalogue and raided the internet for information on cut flowers over and over again, and I still don't know where to start!

I think it must be something that sorts itself out once you get started, maybe I'm just a bit nervous and apprehensive, this weather isn't helping!  February is a dreadful month I always find, it's crappy weather which practically leads to hibernation and a bored Angela!

I have got a long list of cut flowers I would like to grow, but the list is extensive and if you've read my other posts on the subject, you'll know that the garden isn't laid out sufficiently to accommodate all these plants just yet.  So I've bought some seeds and awaiting some others, and am trying to be patient until the weather is sufficiently warm enough to sow them.  I have also joined the Cottage Garden society - www.cottagegardensociety.org.uk and have also joined Flowers from the Farm, which was featured on the BBC's Great British Garden Revival programme - www.flowersfromthefarm.co.uk.  Plus I have booked to go on a course organised by the organiser / creator of Flowers from the farm; the course is entitled 'Start growing flowers for market', so hopefully all this information should give me a head start and give me confidence for when those seeds go into trays of compost at the end of February.  Wish me luck!

Stats today -
Eggs produced = 4
Sales - 1 doz eggs £1.85
Expenses - Nil

January stats

Bit quiet on the stats front, but then I suppose it's to be expected in January.

Here you go -

8 & 1/2 dozen eggs £15.60.

Told you it was a bit quiet!  February's not looking much brighter at the moment either!

Expenses balance = £128.55

New deficit balance = £112.95

Taking it's time to get rid of this balance, but at least it's going in the right direction.  Sales, I don't suppose, will pick up until spring, patience is not one of my virtues!

Stats today -
Eggs produced = 5
Sales = Nil
Expenses = Nil

Girls are back in town

Or at least back at home!

The girls and boy have been off on their holidays for the last couple of months grazing a friend's pony paddocks, just to nibble off the tops and generally give the paddocks a 'sheep health check'.  It's a great way to revitalise paddocks that get used solely by horses, it really does clean up the paddocks and gets rid of any nasties!

Hello everyone!

Trailer waiting for it's cargo, with hurdles to go either side of the gate posts

Now normally we don't have any problem loading up the sheep, we just drop the ramp and up they go, but as it was raining, they didn't want to come home.  Good job we took our reinforcement with us -

I had to share the front seat with her and the seat belt!  Although she wasn't too impressed with either, but she won't sit in the back.  This is Cerys, our sheepdog.

Loaded, phew!

And all home, happily tucking into some tasty haylage

Always good to have them home again, like knowing where they are and knowing they are safe!  All a waiting game now to the middle of April when they are due to lamb.  Exciting times ahead.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 7

Sales - 1/2 doz eggs

Expenses - Nil

2014 Garden started

Today has been the day when I feel that we have made a start in the veg garden, or garden full-stop really, for 2014.

Michael has dug over and added manure to the two beds in the polytunnel, ready for one side to be filled with new potatoes.

I have weeded the microgreens, also in the polytunnel, which are coming on a treat -

Apart from a few rows in the middle, which were Beetroot, Chives and Basil, plus one row of Rocket which hasn't grown, all the rest are doing just fine.  I'm well pleased.  Some of these I may leave to grow on, especially the salad leaves as Michael is beginning to moan about not having any salad's recently - partly due to the fact that I won't let him buy tasteless tomatoes and cucumbers from the supermarket!

I also did a few tidying up jobs - collecting up some smashed glass from under the fruit trees in the veg patch, where a cold frame had been; moved some left over Laurel plants - left over from a job of Michael's, which will come in handy for my Laurel hedge that I've been wanting for years, am also going to do some Topiary with it too, if the plan comes off; plus I've made a start on the hoeing, which already makes the place look better.  I even cleaned out the three chicken sheds.  So I feel good tonight that things are moving in the right direction, I can go to bed happy and tired tonight - the weather helped too, it's been gorgeous and sunny all day.  Already looking forward to see what I can accomplish tomorrow.

Stats today -
Eggs produced = 7
Sales - 1 dozen eggs
Expenses - Nil

Chickens tonight

Hi all, we're on chickens tonight - Exchequer Leghorns to be precise, a breed profile.

These are one of the breeds that we bought from the auction last September time.  I was attracted to their stunning plumage, their upright and proud strut and general all-round handsomeness!

Just to remind you here's what mine look like -

Tom, with Barbara and Margo

Now Tom is a lively cockerel, loud with a look at me attitude, which is typical of the breed.  He is my wake-up call at 5am, regular as clockwork, regardless of whether it's light or not!

The breed is reported to be a productive egg layer (although I haven't seen any signs of it yet, but the hens were quite young when they came to us last year), usually about five eggs laid per week, but not a meat breed, being quite light in body frame.

The cockerel has a large comb, as you can see from the photo above, and the females should flop over, this is normal.  They are active birds, happy to roam about the paddock next to the house, and because of their light bodyweight can run at a fair speed!

Unfortunately having read up on them, they are not a maternal bird, so I shall have to invest in an incubator if breeding is going to be successful.  They can also be quite aloof, as I've found out, often running away even when the red hens come running towards me.  I do believe they have got friendlier over the months though. 

I often catch myself watching them more than the other breeds, their feather patterns are mesmerising and they are such a proud show off, of a breed.

Apparently they are not a breed for the faint hearted, but I enjoy having this trio of show-offs around, they make the place feel special!

Look at that stunning plumage, the black shines irridesant green when the sun shines on it.

If anyone knows of any Exchequer Leghorn breeders out there - I'd appreciate them letting me know, as I haven't stumbled across anyone else who has them yet.  They might not suit everyone, but I love them.

A new venture for 2014

Now I've been mentioning that we are going into new ventures this year, and I can now reveal what one of them is!  Cut Flowers.

You already know that we have planted daffodil bulbs which will be part of the new enterprise, but I have decided to go into doing flowers for the cut flower trade.  I have spent numerous hours researching which cut flowers to grow, spent hours in the library and then trawled through various seed catalogues, (never a wasted moment spent there I find!), to see what's available and I still haven't got an indefinite list - there's so much choice!

I don't know if you've watched the Great British Garden Revival TV programme, an excellent series on all aspects of gardening, that are sorrowfully in decline, but they covered the decline in the UK cut flower trade in some depth.  Apparently people are wanting British home grown cut flowers now as well as home grown veg and meat.  This wasn't where the idea came from, but it did convince me that it was a good idea.

Part of this new venture is also to install some herbaceous beds in the garden, currently the garden looks like this -

This is the view from the patio, this morning, the back door is behind me.

So you can see I have rather a blank canvas.  The fence down the side of the veg patch is in the process of being replaced with some more closeboarding like is already in place.  I'd like to put in several large borders, especially down the long side along the fence line (see bottom picture).  This will enable me to have perennials from which to collect more cutting material as well as from annuals in the veg patch.

If you have any ideas on design etc, they would be gratefully received, as I'm no garden designer!

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 7
Sales -  1/2 doz eggs £0.90
Expenses - Nil

Hate saying goodbye

It came round to that time yesterday when we said goodbye to two good friends - the pigs went off to the abattoir.  I don't know about you but I hate it when you have to do it.

We discussed keeping the two girls for breeding, as they were such wonderful natured pigs, but we didn't think that a pig breeding operation would be viable as there are so many other people doing it and pig feed being so expensive, so off they went.

Loading was easy.  We backed the trailer up to their compound and I scattered pig nuts down the ramp. Having not fed them that morning, they were hungry, so just scoffed nuts all the way up the ramp until they were in!

And Yes, these are the same pigs we bought in July - see the post from last July when we first brought them home!

Ear tags next -

Ear tagger machine with tag loaded

Both tagged - lets hope they stay in until they get to the abattoir!

And then they were off -

Michael exchanged the tractor for a 4x4 once out of the muddy field and that was it.  The butcher told me he would be sorting them out on Monday, so probably by the end of next week/beginning of the following week I shall be collecting a whole heap of lovely home-grown, tasty pork - can't wait!