2007
A new cockerel and a new incubator - no stopping us now. Finally, after several false starts, we hatched our first chicks. The first cheeps hatched in early May - three in number (one male and two females); the second batch hatched at the end of May - four pure Light Sussex (three males and one female). By October, the first cockerel was ready to eat- and we did eat him, and very tasty he was too. The three pullets came into lay and were integrated into the laying flock - which now numbers twelve (five Light Sussex, one Light Sussex / RIR cross, two Black Rocks, three RIR and the Brown Leghorn) plus Hobbes. The three Light Sussex cockerels are destined for the roasting tin before the end of the year.
We got two Tamworth boars in April. These will be slaughtered mid-October.
Sadly, Copper died in March, just a week short of her 18th birthday. She's buried in the garden next to Homer. We continued to have trouble with Cass's extraction site and in February, we were told that the bone was tumerous. However, this turned out to be a misdiagnosis, and at the time of writing (October 2007) he's fine. Felix is fine and seems to have reached a truce with Cassius.
In late September, Tess ruptured her cruciate ligament and is waiting to have surgery to repair the damage. Meg is fine but still nuts.
Smokey and I progressed really well with our driving until we had an accident in May. Neither of us was seriously hurt, physically, but our respective confidences took a real hammering. Recovery is slow.
I took responsibility for the vegetable garden this year because Dan was away a lot on business. I was seduced by the seed catalogues and grew stuff we NEVER use. Lesson learned.
We pulled out the asparagus - finally admitting that neither of us really liked it - and the blackberry - which hadn't cropped for two years, took up a lot of room and anyway, the hedges are full of the blooming things.
In the fruit garden, the rhubarb benefited from lime and vast quantities of manure; the raspberries did well with a mulch of comfrey. The blackcurrants and gooseberries did well; the strawberries were OK as were the red and white currants. Dan bought me a blueberry which produced four berries, which the hens ate. It has now been moved to a less conspicuous site.
In the vegetable garden, we had the best carrot crop yet. I used carrot fly resistant varieties, interplanted the rows with coriander and kept them fleeced. Clean carrots, at last. Unfortunately, I took the fleece of the brassicas too quickly and they were eaten by a variety of bugs and then by the pigs (although the latter was deliberate). Swedes are fine; beetroot did really well (Forono); broad beans were fine, but should have been picked quicker; runner bean crop - monster; sweetcorn - tasted great but a poor crop due to a combination of the weather and the growing position. The potatoes were fine - no blight, here, fortunately. We grew Cara for the first time and will grow it again.
In the greenhouse, I grew tomatoes, peppers and aubergines. Next year, I'm only growing tomatoes. For variety, we grew Sweet Millions, Sungold and Shirley. Sungold is delicious. We grew Gardener's Delight outside and it did OK, considering the weather. The outdoor cucumber were fine in terms of quality (Burpless Tasty Green) but not prolific, unlike the courgettes. Two plants only next year! We had some decent marrows, which are in storage but the squashes were poor and I don't think I'll grow either next year. I'm also going to cut down on the amount of onions next year and make a better effort to store them properly.
We had the best crop of fruit so far from the orchard. Four pears (never had any before); a reasonable crop of plums and gages; lost the battle with the birds for the cherries (again) and, for the first time, have apples in store.
In September, between outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, we took delivery of our three pedigree Ryeland ewe lambs - Juno, Jura and Jinx. We plan to breed off them next year, so at the moment they are very cute (and vocal) lawnmowers.
We'll keep the diary updated with progress throughout the year.