the accidental smallholder :: diary archives

Winners and losers

You will recall my previous entry about the Clackmannanshire Horticultural Society Show, held on 10th September, and my preparations for it. I have hesitated to log the outcome, but since I have just posted a scone recipe, I feel I must back this up with my credentials!

My scones (Rich Buttermilk Fruit Scones) were first prize winners at the show (Thanks, Delia). The fudge brownie tray bake also took the red ticket (Thanks, Mike, for the recipe) and the strawberry jam took third in its class. On the down side, the blackcurrant and raspberry jams and the chutney were unplaced. I was a bit disappointed with the blackcurrant and not at all surprised about the raspberry. It tastes fine but I over boiled it and it has set almost rock solid. You have to hack it our of the jar.

Holly, my friend's daughter, took third with her blackcurrant jam. She's now making loads of bramble jelly. Well done, Holly, but you have to EAT the jam too.

I'm going for the chutney class next year, so the kitchen will reek of vinegar until I perfect a chutney. This is serious stuff, you know.

Home baking

I baked some really nice scones today - cheese, onion and olive. The recipe is in Delia's Christmas book.

Take a medium onion and chop fine; heat a tablespoon of olive oil and cook the onion for 5-6 minutes until it is brown. Keep it moving to stop it sticking.
Into a large bowl, sift 6oz of SR flour. Add half a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of mustard powder, half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper and a really good grinding of black pepper.
Grate 1.5oz of strong cheddar and 1.5oz of parmesan.
Rub in 1oz of butter to the flour and spices, then add the cooled onions, six chopped black olives and about two thirds of the cheeses. Mix well.
Beat a large egg, then add it to the dry ingredients. Mix well with a knife.
Add a couple of tablespoons of milk, to make a soft but not sticky dough. Use your hands to mix; it's easier.
Roll out to about 3/4 inch thick and cut into rounds.
Place on a lightly greased baking sheet, brush with egg and top with the remaining cheeses.
Bake in a hot oven 200F for 10-12 minutes until well risen and golden.
Cool on a wire rack.

We did all this except the cooling bit - we ate them for lunch, warm from the oven with butter, tomatoes and salad. They were really, really nice.

Carlisle Rare Breeds Sale

Well, I'm just back from the rare breeds sale at Carlisle. Carol, Graeme and I left at 6.30 this morning and got there about 8.30am.

We had a look round the poultry and waterfowl, which were just arriving, then had a look at the pigs and some of the sheep. The auctions started at 10.30, so two hours seemed like ages, but there was loads to see and lots of the breeders were happy to discuss their entries with us.

I watched the pigs being sold. There wasn't a huge entry but it was the first time for many years that pigs had been sold there. There were a few Tamworths - maiden gilts(£90), sows (£150) and weaners (£32-£70); one Berkshire gilt (£100); one Saddleback gilt (£100); one Saddleback gilt with a litter of nine three week old pigs (sold for £450, which I thought wasn't bad value); four Saddleback weaners (£45)(these were not suitable for registration as they didn't conform to the breed standard as their "saddles" weren't complete); < acronym title="Gloucester Old Spot">GOS weaners £70) and a Welsh boar (£170). There was also a pen of Tamworth x GOS weaners, which were ginger with black spots. These went for £35-40 each, which seemed a good buy to me.

We also saw the Highland and Dexter cattle sold. Top priced Highland we saw was £700 for a 15 month old heifer. Dexter cows were about £200 - £300 with calf at foot. None of the Dexter bulls sold.

The Hebridean sheep were next. Prices for females were between £5 (yes, five pounds) and £50, with most selling for about £30. Rams were selling for between £5 and £25.

Then came the Ryelands. We had spoken to a couple of breeders before the sale started. These are seriously nice sheep. They look like teddy bears, they are very docile and friendly, don't have escapologist tendencies and are quite small. Wow. Lots of people think they are seriously nice sheep. The breeders we spoke to had three shearling ewes for sale and were hoping to get £150 each; they sold for £110, £280 and £320 each. Top priced shearling ewe was £360. Ewe lambs and aged ewes were between £90 and £140, with few exceptions; rams, surprisingly cheap, we thought, at under £200. Coloured Ryelands were a wee bit cheaper. I think my Ryeland flock is on hold meantime!

Unfortunately, all this excitement meant that we missed most of the sale of poultry. If I had been better organised and focussed, I would have bought some pullets. The prices were reasonable and the stock looked in good condition. Maybe next year.

I've subscribed to a rare breed mailing list so I get notification of rare breed sales in the UK, so I might not have to wait a year for the 14th Annual Carlisle sale.

Well, it's cold and wet here, so I'm off to light the fire then to pickle pears.

Rare Breed Sale 17th September

The 13th Annual Carlisle Show and Sale of Rare, Minority and Traditional Breeds takes place at Borderway Mart, Carlisle on 16th and 17th September. The auctioneers are Harrison and Hetherington. The catalogue is available from H&H for £3 but is probably available on-line.

Carol, Graeme and I are planning to go down on the 17th, with our pocket money. Dan has threatened to immediately kill and eat anything I bring back! Bit harsh, I thought. We're taking my Ford Focus, so not much chance of bringing much back.

There are pigs, sheep, cattle, poultry and waterfowl for sale. I'm just going to look and note prices.

Honest.

Eggs - Day 10

We candled the four eggs last night. Three of the four are growing something. One was clearly empty and has been removed.

I'm having a problem keeping the humidity high enough, even though the water tray is full.

Moving house

We moved the laying hens into the small ark yesterday. Since there are now only six, the small ark is quite big enough. In fact, coming into winter (although you wouldn't have thought so today - it's been a scorcher here), they are better in a small house to get more benefit from shared body heat. It's also daft to be bedding the big ark, when the small one will do. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is going from two nest boxes to one. However, there's always the carrots and the comfrey to lay in if the nestbox is occupied!!

We moved the hens last night after they had gone to roost. That way, they know to return to the small ark tonight, since that's where they came down from this morning. You may recall our previous difficulties when we moved the ark after the hens had gone out in the morning and they couldn't find their way back at night, spending a very cold night roosting who knows where and having to be herded back to the ark in the morning.

Another reason for moving the hens is that we plan to use the big ark for the young stock from our incubation project. So it has been pretty thoroughly cleaned and will get a dusting of louse and red mite powders and probably a coat of wood preservative before being reinhabited.

I hope we're not counting our chickens before they are even laid!

Tasty roadsides

I see Smokey five days out of seven. Two days a week my friends, Karen and Linda, feed him for me. Generally I ride three times a week and on the other two days, I feed him and check him over.

Almost every day, I let him have 15 to 20 minutes grazing the roadside. I love watching him - his whiskers, nose and top lip are constantly on the search for the tastiest bites. And on the roadside, these are many.

I suppose to us, grass is grass but the roadside is full of weeds. And for Smokey, these are just great. His favourites are what we call "sticky willie" (Goosegrass or Cleavers) - he eats that like long strands of spaghetti; what I think is Knapweed - he picks the flowers off the plant; and Cow Parsley. He likes the flowers and the leaves of Cow Parsley but not the stems. He doesn't like brambles, which is good, because I eat them while he's grazing.

Today, he was going mad for the leaves on a tree in the hedge. I don't know what it is - I brought a leaf home but couldn't find the tree identification book. He was also eating the twigs, stripping the leaves off first. I suppose this is how horses would graze if we didn't restrict them to relatively small fields with sown grassland.

I must say, though, I think my roadside foraging is tastier than his!

It's showtime again!

Well, it's almost time for the local Horticultural Society Show. Next Saturday, actually. I don't think Dan's entering anything - how could he better his "Best Novice" trophy from last year?

However, I'm planning to have a go with some jams and home baking. I've made blackcurrant, strawberry and raspberry. The strawberry tastes fine but is a wee bit scummy. It's my third batch - the first was perfect but we ate that and I've never been able to repeat the initial success. Blackcurrant is easy.

I've just made raspberry - in fact, it's not in jars yet - and it seems fine. I didn't have a recipe so I sort of adapted Delia's loganberry and strawberry jam recipes.

It's in jars - looks fine. We'll try it tomorrow and see what the judges think on Saturday.

I'm also going to enter a chocolate fudge brownie in the traybake class and I might enter some scones. I'm not very good at scones - they never seem to rise - but I found a recipe using buttermilk, so I tried it today and they were really nice. They still didn't rise much but the texture and flavour was good. If I win anything, I should send the prize to Delia!

Maintaining soil fertility

A central tenet of organic growing is the principle of feeding the soil, not the plant. In practise this means keeping your soil in the best possible condition, and not relying on the application of chemical fertilisers to provide the nutrition and trace elements vital to the production of a successful crop. A lot of fruit and vegetables make great demands on your soil, sp it's important that you try to replace as much as possible.

I do three things to try to keep our soil ticking over:

1. Use green manures.

Green manures are short-term crops which are sown, grown and then dug back into the soil, normally before they set seed. They have a number of benefits including: improving soil structure; preventing panning through weathering by protecting the soil from the worst of the elements; suppressing weeds; and in some cases fixing nitrogen.

There are a wide variety of green manures you can grow, with the best choice depending on the time of year, the length of time you want the crop to be in situ, what you intend to grow after the green manure, and your type of soil. This year I'm using winter tares - a winter hardy vetch which will fix nitrogen and provide good protection, but in the past I've also used clovers, buckwheat, phacelia and grazing rye.

There's more information on green manures at the HDRA website, and I'd recommend getting a copy of their booklet (only a quid) which lists a load of different crops you can grow as GMs.

2. Composting

There's no excuse not to compost these days, with most local authorities (in the UK at least) selling bins at a hefty discount, and with the amount of sense it makes. It's not difficult - pretty much all we do is bung all our vegetable waste into our bins and leave them for a few months. The resultant compost is a fantastic soil improver, and it usually comes with a healthy population of beasties and micro-organisms which will contribute to your soil's health once incorporated into it. I tend to use our compost in spring, on beds which weren't manured over winter (see below) but which could do with a wee boost in preparation for the season's sowing or planting.

3. Manure

The only import into our fruit and veg beds is horse manure, dutifully supplied by Smokie and his pals. Since he's out most of the year it means the dung has to be lifted manually, but this year we've established a better routine, with our trailer a permanent fixture outside his field. The manure is brought back home, piled up, covered with black plastic and then left for a couple of months to mature. In the autumn months it's applied to the fruit beds, and to those vegetable beds due to have a crop the following year which will benefit from such a rich additive.

Even if you don't have a horse of your own you should be able to find some quite easily. Most horse yards maintain a large manure heap, and most will be happy for you to take away the odd trailer load, free of charge. Ideally you want manure from horses bedded on straw, since the straw soaks up urine and rots down with the manure to produce a great conditioner. Beware using manure from horses bedded on wood shavings - while the shavings will rot down eventually, it can take many months. It's best not to apply this to beds into which seeds are to be sown, since compounds released by the shavings as they rot down can inhibit seed germination. Fine for use on established fruit beds though.

This might all sound like a lot of work, but in reality it isn't. When you lift a crop in summer think about sowing a green manure - most can be broadcast sown and it only takes a few minutes. Since most GMs are fast-growing you won't need to do much more until it's ready to be dug in. Come late summer think about trying to source some manure - it's a couple of hour's work for me to get our manure back in the trailer, emptied and covered, and in the late autumn another hour or so to spread it on those beds which need it. And it pays dividends - you'll see yields increase, your worm and insect populations swell, and get a sense of satisfaction knowing that your soil is in fine fettle.

Poo picking

We got the first results of the poo picking home today. Those of you with horses will know what poo picking is. For the rest of you, poo picking is the manual (in gloves) removal of piles of poo from your horse's field. This strange equestrian pastime is done to keep the grazing clean and to prevent the spread of intestinal worms.

Smokey and his buddies, Willock, Barney and Wallace, occupy quite a small area of grass. This is because they are all native ponies and can live on fresh air. Too much grass and they get fat. Fast. Now each horse poos about 10 times a day. So the grazing gets dirty pretty quick. Horses avoid grazing areas where poo is lying, so the grass (and weeds) grows long there and gets overgrazed elsewhere. The field is then said to be "horse sick". It's bad management to let your field get like this.

So the owners of the four horses above poo pick. We left it quite late to start but we're doing well and the field looks pretty clean now. Dan and I have taken advantage of this by taking our wee trailer up to the field and leaving it there. As we poo pick into a portable box, we empty the box into the trailer. It saves us having to take a wheelbarrow back and forward to the yard and Dana nd I get the poo for the garden.

Dan's Dad brought the trailer home today and will take it back tomorrow. Dan put some of the poo on the raspberries and the rest in a pile to "mature". It has caused lots of interest for the hens and provided a plaything for Tess, who has been selecting choice balls of poo to throw around the garden. Hopefully, the raspberries will benefit too.

First eggs

Well, here we go!

Our friend, Carol, has bravely given us four Maran eggs to incubate for her. She has two Maran hens (in addition to lots of other Black Rocks) and a Maran cockeral called Malcolm. Carol has very kindly offered to let us try out the incubator with her eggs - I hope we're successful. Day 1 was 2nd September, so we'll be all a-quiver towards the end of the month as hatching approaches. We did get a candling lamp with our incubator kit, so I'll try that to check progress.

The incubator is in the guest room. It's quite noisy although you get used to it purring away in the background.

I'm going off to watch the "Tales from the Green Valley" now. And to check on the eggs!