the accidental smallholder :: diary archives

Caurnie Soaperie

One thing we did buy at the Country Living Fair was soap from the Caurnie Soaperie from Kirkintilloch (warning - most bizarrely worded website ahoy!).

Rosemary chose a rose scented soap, while I went for the more manly (or so I kid myself) peppermint and something else, I forget what exactly. It's fab stuff, produces a great lather and the peppermint really gives your bits a zing in the morning, reminds me of when I was a bit slapdash with the ralgex in my football-playing days.

Homer's Odyssey Part 2

Homer's journey to becoming a full member of the family continues. Physically he looks really well - his coat is black and glossy and he's probably about optimum weight. Mentally and emotionally, he's making progress, too.

Firstly, he now acknowledges his name and will come when you call him (usually). Secondly, he's much less nervous around us. He rarely starts away now if approached, he's happy to be brushed and we can stroke him with two hands at the same time (this used to freak him out). Thirdly, he is treating the dogs with the same disdain as Copper and Cassius do. He now comes out of his room when the dogs are around, particularly at feeding time. He's also chased Tess, who's back at bottom spot in the heirarchy. Finally, he started getting out and about right through the house - on windowsills, the settees and the chest of drawers in the kitchen, which is one of Cass's spots.

His progress has probably been helped by the fact that Cass has been lame for about 10 days. He's been to the vet twice but she can't find any injury. In fact, he'd been going around on three legs for a few days but when Dan took him to the vet, he sauntered out of the box sound as a bell. Anyway, he's been on house rest for a week, stir crazy. But his inability to whack the other animals seems to have reinforced Homer's confidence.

Homer still has a way to go, though. He likes to sit on the windowsill, and to look out of the french doors and through the cat flap. But if you open the door, he retreats pdq. During a grooming session this morning, I gently tried to lift him - no way! He skedaddled. So, progress but not there yet. It's lovely to see him coming on though.

If you're thinking about getting a cat, do consider homing an older cat. They have a lot to offer, and, generally, they don't run up the curtains! Try contacting Cats Protection League

Tamworth Breeders' Group

We've had a number of enquiries lately from people looking to buy Tamworth weaners, or looking for more information about the breed. The best first point of contact is the Tamworth Breeder's Group:

Tamworth Breeders' Group, Broad Leaze, Boyton, Warminster, Wiltshire, BA12 0SS. Tel: 01985 850208.

In the short term, if anyone is looking for weaners we know of a breeder in Biggar who has piglets available which were born last weekend. Contact us or leave your details in a comment and we'll put you in touch with him.

Country Living Spring Fair

We took the day off work to go to the Country Living Spring Fair Scotland at the SECC. It wasn't bad, basically of a subset of the craft, food and clothing areas at the Royal Highland Show. We agreed that at half price (7 quid for the 2 of us) it was just about worth the entry fee, and since we stocked up on sauces from the Curry Sauce Co. at a special price we shouldn't grumble. The Red Thai is my favourite, and thankfully they will be at the RHS again this year so we can get further supplies in June!

Gooseberry Sawfly

The little bastards are back, but this year I've caught them early and fully intend to destroy them. This morning the first evidence of the annual gooseberry sawfly invasion was found - a few leaves low on the larger of our two bushes had the tell-tale dotted lines of eggs running along their veins, and about a dozen leaves were swiss-cheese holey, meaning some of the eggs had hatched and the baby caterpillars were already munching their way to adulthood.

They are a voracious pest, and, as I can testify from a couple of years ago, can defoliate an entire bush overnight if left to their own devices. Luckily our bushes seem to be pretty hardy and admirably withstand the best efforts of the sawfly to do them in. In previous years I haven't managed to catch them early, and control has been impossible, with damage limitation the only hope. This consisted of picking off the mature caterpillars and feeding them to the hens, and a liberal application of derris powder. This year though I've picked off all the infested leaves I could find, and will exercise daily vigilance during the next few weeks to try to stop them getting a grip. It's easy to be lulled into a false sense of security - they can have 4 or 5 hatchings a season, so I may have won this battle but the war has hardly begun.

15 minutes organic teas

A quick plug. When we stayed in the Scotsman last month they provided a nice range of teas and coffees in the room, including some of these 15 minutes organic teas. I was disappointed when visiting their site to find that they only sell to trade, but an enquiry got a friendly response advising that they can now be bought by consumers from a couple of vendors.

I ordered from The Tryst and they arrived safely and quickly. The Sweet Camomile and Berry teas are particularly good....

Wholesome Food Association

A part of our smallholding activities involves selling produce like eggs and pork to colleagues, friends and associates. Although we practice organic principles, using no chemicals anywhere and feeding only organic, gm-free feed, it just wouldn't be worth our while at the moment to consider organic certification. Enter stage left the Wholesome Food Association (thanks to the Smallholders On-line newsletter for the prompt).

Now, I've not taken the time yet to read through everything affiliation with the association involves, but at first glance it looks like an ideal alternative to organic certification for small-scale producers like ourselves, and would enable us to advertise the way we produce without risking trouble from the organic bodies. We'll do a bit more research and report back here.

The Beautifulest Gate

If this site had a strapline it would be "If we can do it, anyone can". As a child I was officially The Least Practical Boy in the World. Anything to do with using my hands that didn't involve a keyboard, joystick or mouse was beyond me, and my family despaired. But now behold my gate, crafted this morning by my own fair hands from the raw materials. It's not perfect, and I made a couple of elementary errors, but I'm proud of myself nonetheless.

The reason I was outside at 8am building said gate is that the pigs are going to be moving in the next few days, since they've done so well in their first pen. It's only a temporary move, to allow them to get some more grazing, and they will be moving back to their current pen in a couple of weeks. But it will allow me to fork over the current pen to expose the roots of the grass, and to loosen the pan that is already developing. So I better get on. The gate was just the first step, there are fence rails to be nailed and sheep netting to be pinned before the boys can pack up their belongings and flit.

Honest toil

Our early spuds - Red Duke of York and Pink Fir Apple - finally went in the ground today, in last year's pig pen. Although the pigs did a fine job of clearing the grass and weeds, they didn't eat the stones, bricks and varied detritus located about 12 inches under the soil. So preparing the trenches for the spuds took just about all day, instead of the few hours I'd bargained for. It's not even a certainty that they'll grow into anything worthwhile - the chitting was less than smooth due to an alternately cold and warm shed, and it was only in the past few weeks that they've had a decent chance to sprout in our spare room.

There was enough time at the end of the day to make another batch of soil blocks, and to block on the last of the pepper (Hungarian Hot Wax, Jumbo & Sweet Nardello) and tomato (Harbinger & Super Sweer 100) seedlings. Another batch took some brussell sprout (Braveheart) seeds, some leeks (Musselburgh) and some beetroot (Libero RZ). A quick wander around the garden saw the onion sets (Sturon) sprouting strongly, the broad beans (Stereo) and early peas (Douce Provence & Pilot) pushing through the soil, and the spring onions (White Lisbon) sprouting.

Sausage-tastic

The last of the pork from last year's Tamworths was defrosted overnight, in readiness for the weekend's main event - sausauge making. Over the past few weeks we've gathered together everything we needed: 2 sizes of casings, from the Natural Casing Company; a nozzle attachment for our Kenwood Chef; acidophilus from the health food shop in Stirling; and finally a good sized gigot and rolled shoulder from the freezer. We'd also identified our recipes, one for pork sausages and one for salami, both from the River Cottage Cookbook.

In the end it was easier than expected to get reasonable results, once we'd mastered the mincer attachment for the food processor (the trick was to keep it at a high enough speed for it not to clog with stray sinew). Although a bit uneven we're proud of the kilo of pork sausages we made, one of which is shown here. The small amount of sausage meat left over was fried and tasted superb, so hopefully the sausages will prove to be as tasty tomorrow - they need to sit for a day or so to let some of the moisture leech out.

Tomorrow will also see the salami made. The process is similar, but the end result should be quite different. We'll post photos of any spectacular moulds!

Asparagus

Asparagus is something we've always intended to grow, but have never really got around to doing (other than a thoroughly unsuccessful attempt to grow from seed). This year though we ordered 10 crowns of Connover's Colossal, and they arrived yesterday.

Last weekend, in anticipation of their arrival, I prepared their bed. The perennial raised bed will be their home for the next 20 years or so, and it needed considerable attention to get it ready for the asparagus. The resident strawberry plants were removed, the soil dug deep and then riddled to a depth of 18 inches to remove large stones and other debris. Finally a good quantity of compost and well rotted manure were added, together with a few handfuls of sand to aid drainage.

The crowns were planted as per the instructions - 40cm apart, with the tips 10cm below the soil level - into a trench which allowed the lengthy roots to be spread out. It may seem like a lot of work, but considering their productive lifespan it should be worth it.