TRANSPLANT OR LEAVE?

    Another week passes and unfortunately little done in the garden! That east wind is blooming cold! Still, some work done. Another bed forked and weeded. That bed will be turned into a "no dig" bed. One more bed started only to find lots of self seeded parsnip seedlings. I will more than likely just thin them out and let them be. Parsnips are a difficult seed to germinate and when they do so without any encouragement, well, one has to go with flow!  I am now thinking more about where to sow stuff and as the end of January creeps up it will be time to buy seed potatoes! The propagator will need dusting down.

Self seeded parsnip seedlings

   Chickens are being chickens and the main flock has really got the hang of the treadle feeders. No more feeding the rats! Not that there are any at the moment. My campaign to eliminate them has worked!  Slight drop in average daily egg production - 3.7 per day, however, despite giving thirty six eggs away I still have fifty five in trays!

Bed 2 (without the chicken) ready to make into a no dig bed

 

TAD ON THE COLD SIDE

     Reality has struck! Real winter weather has arrived of the last week with frost and very cold over night temperatures. The ground has gone from wet to workable to frozen! 

     At the start of the week I was able to clear two beds, fork and weed them along with putting mulch back onto the Hugelkultur beds that the chickens has scratched off! Since then the ground has frozen to a point of being unworkable. Chicken coops moved and the two groups of chickens that lived close to the garden have been merged so now there is one cockerel with four hens! He is happy! The other larger group are doing just fine. Average of 4.4 eggs this last week down on the week before. Good job! I have eighty four eggs to eat! LOL!

    New varieties of seeds have arrived. Giant Japanese cabbage, giant pumpkins, giant Russian and Mongolian sunflowers (for the grand kids, of course!).  Also a new variety for me of long outdoor cucumber called Suyo long (Chines, 10 to 18 inches!). Should be a year for the giants!

Large Hugelkulter bed and cleared/forked beds

ANOTHER YEAR BEGINS

    Happy New Year! Surely it has to be better than last although from a gardening perspective as far as I am concerned it was a very good year. Anyway, onward and upward!

    Another quiet week but when the weather allows I will be out and about doing stuff in preparation for sowing come the middle/end of February. This last week there has been frost and snow showers! A white cabbage cut (they have been very good) and a good size too. Some tidying up done, which to be honest, should have been done a while back! Netting and supports removed from the strawberry bed and weeding/forking started. I have now finished forking and weeding the bed and also have mulched and replaced the netting but really that sentence should have been in next weeks blog!

   Chickens are still laying well with an average of 5.6 eggs a day

White winter cabbage

REVIEW OF THE YEAR

      Another year draws to its close. Overall the year has been good. Yes some crops did not do well, tomatoes, for example, but despite tomato blight a reasonable number were gathered. Potatoes did well, again, despite the blight, that fortunately with my earlier planting of the seed potato had only a small affect on the plants and less on the eventual crop. Haricot vert and buerre did ok as did the water melons. Over wintered broad beans did well as did the follow on spring sowing. Onions ok but could have better I fear and there was a good crop of shallots which I turned into pickled onions! Beetroot. Well, those self seeded in the poly tunnel did very well. Outside, not so good. Squash. Yes a good year. Pumpkins. No, a poor year. Brassicas. A very good year although the sprouts have left a little to be desire for but we got enough for Christmas dinner! Cauliflower. A couple of heads but I have always found cauliflower hit and miss. Carrots. Oh yes very good year with, what, at least six sowings with at least three being very good. Strawberries. Wow! New plants planted in a no dig bed and a crop of strawberries I have never had before. Sweet peppers, good, chilli's good. Sweet corn good. Peas. Well, one good sowing which would seem to be the norm. Successive sowings just fail for whatever reason. Lettuce did well in the poly tunnel with some very good heads of Great Lakes (like an Ice Berg lettuce) but later sowings outside did not produce. Parsnips poor but enough for Christmas dinner! Courgettes, round and straight, enough for what we needed. The vegetable plot more than paid for itself. 

   January 1st was a very mild day so I took the opportunity to weed and fork the seed bed at the end of the poly tunnel. I also created a new one where the chicken manure compost heap had been. I also covered up the rhubarb patch. Beds covered over to stop the chickens from scratching!

   The hens produced 1209 eggs which includes 8 cracked ones but did not return a profit. I fear a lot of feed was lost to rats and I have now invested in pedal feeders so hopefully that will reduce the wastage. A campaign of rat extermination has been conducted and a very marked reduction in the rat population has been noted. The campaign continues on a watchful state.

Estimated value of the total crop before expenses: 1,133 euros

Estimated profit: 922 euros

All potatoes: 203Kgs from 12Kgs of seed potatoes (Anoe, BF-15, Desiree)

Haricot vert/buerre: 19Kgs

Seed beds and rhubarb patch.

FROST

    Four out of seven mornings this week has seen a frost on the ground. Tad cold in the morning! Another week slips by and not a lot done! Do not get it! Where does the time go? Carrots dug up and  repairs made the the two Hugelkultur beds made after chicken raids! I have been putting their dirty bedding on the beds and there is some grain/chicken food amongst it and chickens being chickens this food is far better than the stuff in their feeders! Also there is a layer of leaves on the beds and once they have been down for while the chickens love to scratch and look for bugs and worms. Finally managed to arrange for the three cockerels to be despatched. Two went in the freezer and a small one became the foxes dinner. Sorry to see them go but peace now reigns in the garden once more. Egg production is well up with an average of 6.1 eggs a day being laid. That is more like it!

   There will not be a blog next weekend! Its Christmas! Wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New. Lets hope 2022 is a lot better than 2021.

My Christmas tree 2021

Damp, just damp!

      What can I write? I look at my log and what do I see? Blank entries! Well, almost. On two separate days, clean out the wooden chicken coop and lifted some BF-15 potatoes! Talking of which nearly done with lifting them now. One more lot I reckon. But it has been a very quiet week. Why? Do not know. Have not been anyway, done anything in particular. Three days of morning frost but not really cold enough to stop doing stuff. Must have done something! Lol!

    So this blog will be more about the chickens than the vegetable plot. There are still cabbage, carrots and swede in the beds and there are onions, garlic, squash (butternut and another) and kilos of potatoes in the pantry! In the freezer broad beans, chili's,haricot vert and haricot buerre. The chickens. Well, they have come back into lay with a vengeance! Total of twenty four eggs this last seven days making a daily average lay of 3.4 eggs! Well done chickens! The excess cockerels will dealt with next week and readjusting of the flocks will need to be done incorporating the new hens into the other flocks. That is probably going to be a challange!

    Two weeks to Christmas day! 

Home made short bread

ANOTHER QUIET WEEK

    It  has been dark, damp, cloudy and miserable! Not a very good combination to try and do some work in the garden. Those conditions and short daylight days do not make to encourage one to get out and do some stuff. Very little done this last week. Some BF-15 potatoes lifted (another four kilograms!) and a little forking and weeding. There are now three chickens laying although not every day and the average daily total is now up to 1.6. A significant improvement!

   Yes there is lots to do but the conditions are not good and I am happy to get on with Christmas preparations/decorations. First batches of mince pies made and some short bread to accompany the glass of sherry while decorating the tree. Here is hoping for a drier week (I should be so lucky!) and being able to do some work in the garden.