Update w/e 31st May - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Sunday 31 May, 2009

by Rosemary at 8:00am in Anything goes Comments closed

Well, summer seems to be here at last – even if only for a few days. Actually, I hate to say it, but we could really do with some rain.

In the vegetable garden, we've been mostly weeding. The broad beans are doing well and the peas are coming away. The runner beans that were started in the greenhouse are already shimmying up the canes but the direct sown ones have yet to make an appearance. Our gooseberries and redcurrant have fallen victim to sawfly and had a spray of derris. The redcurrant has almost no leaves left – and that happened almost overnight. Still, it has set plenty fruit, as have the gooseberries.

I picked up our Hubbard meat chicks on Saturday from Jamesfield Organic Centre near Abernethy. It's the first time I've been there and I was sorry I hadn't taken any cash. The centre sells all manner of organic produce in a purpose built shop. Much of what it sells is grown on the land around it and the folk I was buying the chicks from also produce ducks, guinea fowl, turkeys and geese fro meat plus organic eggs. I'm going to buy some point of lay pullets there next time I need some.

We're keeping 10 Hubbards this time. They will be ready for slaughter at about 10 - 12 weeks. I'm going to “dilute� the pellets with mixed corn this time to try to slow the growth down a bit. It's hard to believe when that these tiny bundles of fluff will be fully grown in a few weeks. They will have a heat lamp until they are feathered at three weeks or so, but I switched it off for a while this afternoon as they were all sunbathing.

The pigs moved into their second pen today to let the first one recover a bit. The grass in the new pen is so long, sometimes all we can see is moving stems to show where the pigs are. However, they will soon eat it down.

The sheep are on the third quarter of the field. The first quarter is starting to recover – but a bit of rain would certainly help. The worm test that we did last week came back as “medium� so I'll worm them with Verm X this week then retest to check that it is working. They are feeling the heat and the new shed has been a Godsend, allowing them to lie in shade at the middle of the day. They will get such a shock when their fleeces come of at the end of the month.