Winter chores - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Saturday 27 December, 2003

by Dan at 12:35pm in Anything goes Comments closed

Today was the first opportunity for a good month that I've had to get outside and catch up on a few small jobs which have been lingering on the 'To Do' list. A great chance to blow away a few Xmas cobwebs too, and work off some of the excess calories from the past few days.

I'm growing autumn-planted onion sets for the first time (just 100 or so as an experiment) and they seem to be doing well. Weeded them, and the netting covering them was getting ragged, so some reshaping of the wire hoops and renetting was needed.

Moved a load of well-rotted horse manure onto the pen vacated by the pigs in October with the intention of turning it in with a rotavator next week, in preparation for vegetables this spring.

In March 2002 I planted several hundred feet of native hedging - dog rose, blackthorn and quickthorn, alder, hazel - which has been doing well on our northern and eastern boundaries. Pruned them down to about 2 1/2 feet this morning.