Birthdays / Champagne / Newburgh - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Monday 30 June, 2025

by Rosemary at 8:34am in Smallholding 1 comment Add your own

Monday 23^rd June

Dogs got me up at 5.30am. Overcast and breezy, mainly, with some sun.

Baked ginger nuts and mincemeat cookies, the latter for the event at the hub tomorrow evening.

The roofer came to measure up for new gutters on the house. The existing ones are the originals and have come to the end of their life. It would be great to replace with cast iron, but it’s prohibitively expensive and needs too much maintenance.

Alistair dropped off three ewes, to join the nine here. One was at the Highland Show and was here until last week, the other two he bought in-lamb; they lambed later than the rest of the flock, so have just been weaned. So they’re now in Home and up to their bellies in grass.

An even dozen.

Hub this morning, for a Yes Carnoustie committee meeting, then follow-up for part of the afternoon. Finally got out for an hour before dinner, so managed to get a bit of dead-heading and tidying up done in the front garden. Not pleasant in the wind though.

Tuesday 24^th June

My maternal grandmother’s birthday; she was born in 1900, the eldest of six children. Lived through two world wars. Lost her beloved husband aged 24 years. Had two children; lost her son in 1944, when he was 21 years old. She was a remarkable woman.

Still windy. Got a call from APHA to tell me they’re coming to do an inspection tomorrow. For twentu-one hens. Hey ho. Dan and Andy processed some comfrey orders. The advert in “Gardener’s World” magazine seems to have had no impact at all.

The tall delphiniums have taken a bit of a battering in the wind.

Wind-broken delphiniums.

I have developed a love of Heuchera. Dan bought me three Heuchera "Marmalade" as an early birthday present.

Heuchera "Marmalade".

Baked Mary Berry’s American Spiced Carrot Cake traybake for tonight. It’s rather nice; the topping is Philadelphia cheese, honey and lemon juice, sprinkled with chopped pecans and walnuts.

Lorna and I had a windy walk along the front at Arbroath.

Hub event tonight on housing; it was really interesting with lots of good questions from the audience.

Wednesday 25^th June

So Vladimir arrived this morning to do the APHA inspection. He is from Slovakia. Everything seemed to be in order except I didn’t have a medicine book for the poultry; I did point out that I’ve never given them any medication, so there was nothing to record.

Dan topped Sheepfold. I started planting up Far Ditch bed and got about half done.

These Dianthus "Rocking Red" are fantastic.

Dianthis "Rocking Red".

I love these pink campanula.

Pink campanula.

Thursday 26^th June

Good rain overnight and into this morning. I know this because Bertie came in soaked about 4am and wanted under the duvet.

I was so tired this morning, I went back to bed after doing the morning round. I felt SO much better when I got up again. I fed the plants in the polytunnel and at the sitooterie, and also the leeks. Cleaned out the hens; put up a line of electric fence so that the ponies can get into Far Ditch, for a change; emptied the plant containers in the back garden – alliums and narcissi, which will go into the front garden.

The Bluefaced Leicesters are real sun worshippers. They never seek shade. The Coloured Ryelands would have been peching under the trees.

Sunbathing sheep.

There’s an ugly patch of concrete in the back garden that I hide with pots; we’re going to make it into a raised pond, with surplus sleepers from the sunken garden. Of course, the sunken garden needs to be done first, to see if we have surplus.

Murdo was here today; he was weeding and mulching the trees in the Spinney.

I laid out more plants in Far Ditch bed, but didn’t plant them, but helped Dan with weeding in the vegetable garden. We weeded the brassica bed in 20 minutes, one of us going up each side. So satisfying. That’s them done except Beds 1 & 6, which we will do on Saturday morning.

Our salad plants have finally taken off. Seeds from Seeds of Scotland. I can't eat supermarket bagged salad but I love this.

Glorious salad leaves.

Slightly concerned about one of the new pullets; nothing obvious,  she just seems a bit “off”.

Friday 27^th June

Pullet is fine. Planted out the plants from yesterday and laid out more. It’s getting a bit “samey” so I think a wee spurge at the garden centre might be in order.

After lunch, I emptied the containers in the back garden. I remembered the alliums but forgot about the narcissi – so I’ll be planting them up next week.

Saturday 28^th June

Sunny and windy. It’s Gwenna’s eighth and Dot’s second brthdays.

Gwenna's birthday lie-in.

Dot.

Dan spent the morning strimming and cutting the vegetable garden grass. I weeded the northernmost bed at the West range – lots of ground elder, so quite satisfying. I’ve left in Pulmonaria, Sedum, a fern, Rosemary and Catmint.  I will use some of the surplus plants from Far Ditch bed to plant it up, although there might not be many, given that I also have to fill in some gaps in Near Ditch bed. Then I planted out those that I had laid out on Thursday.

After lunch we took a trip to Ashbrook Nursery; we bought three plants for Far Ditch bed – Scabiosa incisa “Kudo White”, Gaura lindheimeri “Compact Pink” and Penstenom “Blackbird” – a geranium (Orkney Cherry) for Meg’s bed, and a few bedding plants to cheer up the containers in the back garden. I planted them out / up, while Dan sowed carrots, beetroot and swede. Finally.

Then we quaffed some elderflower champagne in the garden.

Elderflower champagne.

Sunday 29^th June

Hot. Spend the afternoon viewing the lovely gardens of Newburgh on their Gardens Open Day, with Aileen and Karen. Lots of inspiration, but my favourite was the creeping thyme that was covered in bees. I think I have seeds for this somewhere.

Creeping thyme.

No disrespect to the gardens on show, but it’s made me quite cross that the Scotland’s Garden Scheme “inspectors” rejected ours.