...And they're off!!!

Even though it's January it feels like Spring is springing into action a little earlier every year. All the Daffs are on the way up and some of the Hyacinths have been flowering since before Christmas.
I am also pleased to announce that all my girls have started laying again for the year and Basil is keeping them all in line, or should I say giving them all a good seeing to, to keep everything moving! I found 2 brown and one white egg this afternoon and was elated at the sight. The chickens have been out and about scrabbling all over the dormant veggie patch today in the cold Winter sunshine. They are actually helping me quite nicely in keeping the weeds down and digging over the soil so the pesky roots don't take. They look happy and healthy and a world away from the miserable specimens they were when they went into molt at the end of last year.

A fellow Patcher of mine gave me some Elephant Garlic bulbs for Christmas so they were the first things to grace this year's patch. I have put them in where the potatoes grew last year to ensure crop rotation and potatoes are always really good for cleaning up the soil ...or so I have been led to believe. Parsnips will take up the rest of the spot where the spuds were last year as I have read that they should do exceptionally well! So there you are, another busy year has started and I am frantically trying to plan the patch for this year's croppage and am going to attempt the 'Art of Staggering', not home from the pub I might add, I have already perfected that, but to learn to stagger the sowing of vegetables so that hopefully I should have them growing throughout the year instead of having an abundance of any one thing at any one time.

The Bramble Jam was a real hit this year and went down a lot better than last year's recipe which included all the fruit and pipps. The secret for
the best flavour is to strain all this crap out and then the flavour is really intense. After demolishing his 3rd Jar my Father offered me £25 for a fourth. I had to refuse as stocks were limited and I can't imagine the wife being to happy with that!

He has been very busy too, pulling out all the stops to repair my beautiful big greenhouse. It took a reall battering a couple of years ago in some very strong winds that managed to lift the whole structure up and slam it down in it's place. Needless to say, the glass didn't survive and it's been standing there ever since looking very sorry for itself. All the glass has now been replaced and all it needs is a bloody good clean and then we're good to go. Let the growing begin!

Black Beauties!

There is an abundance of free fruit out there at the moment so grab your pales and start picking! The sheer plumptiousness of the blackberries this year is staggering. I have already had several good picks and now have a range of different jellies and jams in the pantry with the stocks building for the winter once more. My favourite at the moment is Blackberry and Gin jelly, a real favourite with the old boy!

I was in the middle of a picking session on Saturday last when I picked up my large green trug and moved it to a part of the bush I hadn't yet visited. As I put it down on the grass next to me I heard this very peculier swishing sound, like a cheap carrier bag being rustled and stood confused for a moment. Out of the corner of my right eye I suddenly caught movement of the back end of a ocre coloured snake with small green detail on it back, moving into the fullness of the blackberry bush in front of me. I think I had placed my trug on the old chap and he wasn't best impressed! It moved so fast that my brain couldn't digest the pattern on it's back and as I had never seen a snake in this country before (only a slow worm that had been half chewed and delivered on the doorstep for me by the cat a few years back) and wasn't too sure if I was in any danger.


I called my beloved and was promptly reasurred it would be a hospital job if the bugger came back and bit me. I had my sturdy walking boots on and jeans and figured I was ready to take the fastidious beast on should he return. We should all be allowed to frolic by the Blackberry bushes and was determined not to be beaten by something that couldn't discuss things rationally. The pick continued and I was not bothered again I am pleased to say and returned with a glut of berries which were cooked squished and strained in the jelly making process. A wonderful natural dye too, easily set with salt, Just think ...purple pants!

How Does Your Garden Grow ...

Everything has been leaping into life during the wet then dry spell of late. The pumpkin seeds that I saved and dried from last years Halloween pumpkin have really taken off in the patch. I saved some similar gourd seeds and they too have proved themselves and are getting bigger by the day.


This flowerhead picture was the start of the pumpkin and now is the size of a tennis ball. There is another one, slightly smaller, but growing away quite happily beneath the huge furry leaves. there was also a third but I had a bit of an accident with the lawnmower and managed to launch chunks of baby pumpkin all over the veggie patch in a moment of madness! I am hoping that the two I have left will be of a reasonable size come October 31st as they will be expertly carved and put in pride of place at the front and the back of the house to ward of the spooky things!


The onions are doing really well and are really tasty. We had one the other day and they have a really mild taste and go very well with cheese in a warm squashy baguette! These onions are the size of a honeydew melon they really are monsters. Thanks to Brian next door for the set that he gave me. It won't be long now before I can take the stakes out and hang them up to dry to let the skins brown a little.


The courgettes just keep coming and coming, I have never known any plant let alone vegetable to grow with such ferocity. You have to keep cutting them to keep them flowering so they produce more but you have to keep your eye on these little tikes as within 3 days a baby courgette can turn into a something the size of a marrow! You can eat the flowers as well, very colourfull in salads and pasta. Jamie Oliver did a wonderful 'real' Carbonara dish and finished it with the flowers thrown in at the last minute, it really did look great. I think you can find that little beaut in his new book 'Jamie at Home'.


The dwarf beans are going nuts as well. I have also managed to house a small snail colony in between the leaves but they aren't eating the beans so I'm not that bothered. A few have been launched over the fence though! Again, they grow really fast so you need to get out there every other day and check on them otherwise it's bean burgers, bean fritters, bean curry ...

People always say it and it really is true, there is nothing like eating stuff that you've grown yourself, it really does taste different. I think human kind needs to take a step back and go back to how things used to be done. I find it unbelievable that some children don't actually know where this stuff comes from with a belief that it just comes from the shelves in the supermarket. We are going wrong somewhere in educating (or not as the case may be) children. they need to know, they need to grow!



The broccoli is coming along a treat although I am having to fight the chickens off whenever I let them out to go for a wonder. I found little holes pecked in the crown when I came back from making a cup of tea the other day, little buggers. I originally had 4 plants but it looks like cabbage root fly may have had two of them.


The sweetcorn is progressing and concentrating on reaching for the sky rather than producing any ears of corn at the moment. They do look very impressive but I really must get around to tackling the weeds beneath them! I don't know where I got it from but I had some mad belief that you only got one cob per plant. I am pleased to have been proved wrong and to learn that there are probably 2-3 per plant instead. We love the stuff in our house and can't get enough of it. This will be one of my really big achievements this year, growing my own corn! I'll do a bigger block of corn next year in a slightly sunnier spot as I think the current plants could have benefitted in being in a less shady area, they look good though so I'm not complaining!

I've created a garden vegetable soup to help use up some of the veggies that are in excess at the moment. It's a goody so give it a go, you won't be disapointed!

Veggie Patch Winter Warmer
1 Large Onion finely chopped
Splash of Olive Oil (to sweat the onions)
2 Large Corguettes courseley chopped
2 Large potatoes courseley chopped
4 Large Carrots courseley chopped
1 Litre Vegetable Bouillon (stock)
150g red spilt lentils
Salt & Pepps
1 Large stock pot

Fry off the onions in the olive oil until nice and sweaty, don't let them brown though. Add the vegetable stock, potatoes, carrots, corguettes and lentils and let them cook away quite happily on a medium heat for about 20 minutes. Check it now and again with a little stir. Once the vegetable have softened and the lentills have pretty much disintegrated, take the pot of the heat and divide the mixture into 2. If tyou have a liquidiser, this is one of the occasions you can drag it out from the back of the cupboard, blow the dust off and let it have it's chance to shine!
Whizz one half of the mixture or maybe just over that, and transfer to a clean bowl/saucepan. Add the chunky half to the smooth half and give it a stir. This is a really yummy wholesome soup that gets right where it needs to be on a chilly day! A good one for freezing too, enjoy!

R.I.P Little Dovey

Friday was a very sad day. My next door neighbour arrived at the back door wondering if I had lost Constance, our white Chicken. Knowing I had just thrown some corn for her in the pen and she was fine I was a little confused as to why she asked. She had discovered an eruption of white feathers and a mauled mess outside her garden gate and assumed that the poor little thing had been Constance. To my horror I discovered it was my little white Dove,Dovey.

I had taken some photos of her a couple of weeks back to post onto my pages here but had not had a chance to download the pictures. She was a really lovely little character that was becoming tamer and tamer by the day. I would scatter a hand full of mixed corn in the stable yard for her every morning and she became so used to this little routine that she would come and look for me and tap on the cat flap for me to come out in the morning. Dovey was the only white Dove left out of eight. The others had been shot by a young reprobate who is no longer part of the farm I am very pleased to say. She was very timid at first but became more trusting by the day.

There was one particular morning when I was a little upset and had been hanging out the washing on the whirligig. She had been perched at the top of it in the centre and would be turned round like a carousel when I needed to make use of a new section of washing line, very sweet. I held out my arm and stretched my finger and called to her. She flapped up quite close to my hand at first about three or four times and then she made contact and came to rest on my fingers. It as was a magical moment and for a second we really connected. As I had been a little sad on that particular morning I saw the incident as a little sign of hope, her being a little Dove and all, now my hope and my Dove have gone.

Butter wouldn't melt and I am sad to say that I think this is the culprit!

The Broody Bunch

Things are a little unsettled in the chicken house of late. Lavender has decided to go broody and sit on anything even slightly egg shaped. The thing is, she will set Betty off down the same path if she's not careful as Cochin's are very prone to the broody bit!

Constance is a little confused as she always lays her eggs next to the others that are already there, except that Lavender is all spread out over them and Constance can't see where she's meant to lay. Not the most intelligent of Chickens, in fact she comes across as a little nervous librarian spinster, but she's a great little layer and very much loved.

I gave the hutch and pen a good clean out at the weekend with Mum's help. The green monstrosity over the roof are two waterproof picnic table covers. The roof started leaking a couple of months ago and they seem to work a treat. I had to de-louse the chickens and as they are so big and heavy now it's almost impossible trying to do it single handily. Basil is the size of a medium turkey and trying to hold him upside down by the legs with one hand whilst he's flapping about is no easy task. The powder needs to be sprinkled and worked into the areas under the wings and all around their bottoms as they are nice warm snugly places where lice love to breed. Mum and I will certainly be louse free now as I think we got more on us than the chickens!

I was hoping that the big disruption and clean-out of the pen would kick the broodiness out of Lavender, it seemed to for a bit but as soon as someone else had snuck in to lay she was straight on the egg like a rat up a drainpipe! How do you stop a chicken from being broody? Any advice is welcome!!!

I made the mistake a few months ago of letting both Lavender and Betty continue with their broodiness and sit on an egg each. I really didn't think it would come to anything and we were 2 layers down every day as a result. To my amazement I heard chirruping one afternoon and sure enough one of the eggs had hatched and this beautiful little chick stood there and chirped it's little socks off. He was totally black and the egg next to it just had a beak poking out, it really was very funny.

I called my chicken man in Windsor and relayed the happy news and he advised me on how best to go about the rearing of the little darlings. Now as two hens were broody my main concern was rivalry over the chicks. If both chicks were heading for the warmth of one mother then the other hen may get jealous and actually peck the chicks to death. I found this news quite harrowing but kept a watchful eye anyhow.

The following morning I went to check on them and the other egg had hatched too. This little chap had a black back and a yellow tummy he was absolutely gorgeous and looked like a little penguin. When I got home from work that afternoon it was the saddest of sights. The little black chick had either stumbled out of the hutch or been tossed out and was laying on the mud to the side of the hutch and crawling with lice. He was still alive but only just. I rushed him inside and warmed him up in a bowl of warm water keeping his head above all the time. I then rubbed him dry and dusted him down with louse powder. He started to come back really strongly and had a good tweet for his mummy. I put him in the drying room as I had no special lamp (I really should have prepared myself better for chicks) and checked on him intermittently. He seemed fine and so to bed. I woke at about 4:40 am and went and checked on him. He was freezing cold and really struggling. I tried everything as I had done before to try and warm him up but he just went down hill and slipped away in my hands. I felt so bad, just a horrible start to the day. After several cups of tea and boxes of tissues later I went to let the girls in the hutch out only to find the other chick freezing cold, dead and tossed aside in the hutch with neither hen near him.

Nature can be so cruel. I learned a very big lesson from that whole ordeal. if your thinking of having chicks, be prepared for them, at the very least invest in a proper heat lamp and if you let the hen's sit on the eggs (they do make the best incubators) the chicks need to be removed as soon as they hatch. It's not worth leaving it to chance. It will distress the hens a little but they will get over it. The simplest thing is to collect the eggs every day and not to let the hens go broody! I think I shall have to have a word with lavender!

What a Plum!

I took a wander down to the tree line on the farm on Sunday. It was a beautiful evening and I sat at the base of an oak tree and had a think for a bit. In this particular tree line there are four fabulous plum trees, two red and two yellow. The yellow trees are massively more established and the branches are just dripping with fruit.

Dad discovered the tree last year and brought some samples back up to the house which were very well received, so I armed myself with my big green trug and ambled across the fields to the source.

My gatherings didn't last long though as the chaps really tucked into them like sweeties and there were four left in the end for chutney making! I shall have to grab the trug once more head off down the field. Other than having bowls of the little beauties around the house I made most of them into Chutney last year which was very well received I'm pleased to say! and the few jars I made didn't last any amount of time and a real winner at Christmas.

The yellow fruits are incredibly sweet and great for chutney's. The red ones are a little more tart and work better as puddings and jams having been sweetened up a little. I just love all the gathering of free food and turning it into something that can be preserved and used throughout the year. I have learned a lesson from last year though to make many more jars as whenever anyone comes to visit another jar seems to leave the house with them! I'll put the recipe for this on later as is too good not to be shared!

Blight in Blightey!

After having attacked the long grass at the weekend in and around the veggies, I noticed that some of the leaves on the potato plants had gone black and crispy. I put it down to the amount of rain we have had of late but was advised later by Janet, the 'growing things expert' from next door, that it was 'Phytophthora infestansa', a touch of the old blight, which was apparently the cause of the potato famine of Ireland in 1845 ...there you go, a little bit of history for you!

A healthy plant should be bushy, lush and green whereas the blight affected specimens will start to flop and look very miserable.

The best thing to do is keep an eye on it. If it starts heading for the stalks of the plant and they turn black, patchy and twiggy, nip it in the bud by cutting the plants nearly to the ground and start digging up the potatoes as soon as you can to avoid the disease spreading to the tubers.

By Thursday, the plants were looking even worse and totally unlike the lush green specimens they once were. I decided to lop the plants down and see if my efforts had amounted to anything. About a month ago I had some friends come to stay for the weekend and was very excited about presenting a homemade potato salad to compliment the BBQ. I'd had a good dig around beneath one of the plants with a garden fork only to find one small potato about the size of a conker! The others were barely the size of large peas even though the plants had been fully grown for sometime and recently flowered.

My efforts hadn't gone unnoticed and Mother Nature had rewarded me with a fine harvest of 'Harmony ' potatoes. The other variety I have growing is the 'Picasso' which has pinky shades over the skin. The Picasso variety have also contracted the blight, not as badly as the 'Harmony' variety, although they are beginning to turn that way now. I'm trying to leave them in the ground for as long as possible as it's going to take us a little while to get through this lot!

It's a great feeling digging for potatoes and just when you think you've got them all up you'll find another one ...and another one...

Once you've cut the plants down your supposed to leave them in the ground for a couple of weeks to let the skins harden. They looked pretty good to me though so we got stuck in that evening and they really were yummy and totally organic! fabulous!!!

The girls enjoyed the harvesting too and eagerly stood around waiting for a worm to come up in the dug soil. They are turning into very spoilt chickens but happy ones none the less! Constance (the white chicken) is beginning to get a little bolder and will come and snatch the odd worm out of my hand. Betty on the other hand is just a piggy and will wait right by my side, clucking at me to dig faster to find her another fat juicy worm!

Fig Chutney

I have been waiting for this moment of the year to arrive. I never really knew what to do with the amount of figs that we get every year, until last year. We went and had dinner at a nearby pub and stumbled across a starter of Mediterranean breads, Olive Oil and homemade fig chutney. This stuff was amazing and very addictive! I got chatting to the landlady (the creator) who swore me to secrecy, but shared her magical recipe with me. I must stick to my word and will not be divulging same I'm afraid.

The figs this year seem to be absolutely enormous, about the size of your average mango, I guess it's to do with all the rain we've had this summer, although I'm still waiting for summer to arrive. The veggie patch has thrived though and you could watch the amount of growing that's going on in the kitchen garden at the moment it's so fast. There are still masses of figs on the tree but there were a good 15-16 that were good to pick. I halved and stewed them forward of making the chutney. I shall have to dig out the jars now which are hiding in the depths of the pantry somewhere. I get very excited when I see the shelves in there filling up with the next year's supplies of Jam's, Chutney's and sauces. It's real way to make all the fruit and veggies last throughout the year.

First Pickings

This evening saw the first harvest of the vegetable patch. My prize peas were ready for the picking, so armed with a pint of Gin & Tonic, I went about stripping the first batch from the plants. As a first time veggie grower I haven't really got a clue what I'm doing and am learning as I go. I read earlier in the week that you should pick the peas as soon as they're ready to make them flower more thus, producing more peas. Also, they tend not to be as sweet if left on the plant. I think a few had gone this way but they were still bloody yummy!

I had some help in the garden whilst prancing in and out of the pea sticks. The girls and the lovely Basil were enjoying an evening stroll on a bug hunt. They definatley have their own language and communicate to eachother in a series of heated and hasty clucks. If one of them finds a little insect treat they will cluck unstoppably until the others have gathered round to look at the findings. Basil is the best at this, he will let his ladies know that there is a morsel to be had where the ladies usually keep quiet and get it down their necks as quickly as possible without a sound ...I have to say I'm not unlike this when it comes to Ben & Jerry's!

After my rich pickings I sat on the railway sleeper next to our makeshift pond and shelled the peas. The girls showed a lot of interest and Betty kept trying to steal the finished product, very fond of a pea or two! Naughty bad chookie!

The pond is well established now and has 6 fishies in it. Five of the fish were found in an inch of water at the bottom of this trough at the bottom of the fields when the last people renting the land for horses left. I thought I was seeing things at first one day on my stroll around the farm, then another one, oh and another one and two little white ones! I went and got a bucket full of water and rescued the little blighters as they had about a week at best in what water they were in.

A month later we hauled the galvanised steal trough up the fields and put it in place where it now sits. We ended up putting our house fish in there too as he would have some company at least instead of staring at the side of a microwave and a bread bin for the rest of his life! He was immediatley at home when we put him in. It gives you that "I've so done the right thing" feeling! As I'm writing this I can smell the fig chutney cooking away and it's making me really hungry ...give me cheese!!!

The Chickens

There are four chickens altogether, 3 of which are Cochin's and one being a Leghorn. Cochin's are a very fluffy feathery breed with feathers covering their feet, so much so, that when they walk they look like they're on wheels! There are three girls and the lovely Basil who struts around his kingdom like an extravagant hat! He can be quite intimidating sometimes and his feathers get particularly ruffled at egg collecting time when he usually squares up to me with a lot of verbal abuse and pecking of the legs, ankles and feet ...flip flops are never a good option around Basil!

Although I love them all to bits I have to say that Betty (the little black one named after my Granny) is my favourite. She isn't scared or timid of me in the slightest and will help me dig in the vegetable patch for worms and yummy things such like. If I find a treat for her she'll come over to me with her tuneful warbling's and take it from my hand with a seemingly thankful set of clucks! The grey one is the lovely Lavender. She and Betty are the best of friends, although at times, have been known to rival each other for Basil's affection's. Then we have the amazing Constance. She is a Leghorn and an amazing little egg producer. She's the most timid of the lot but produces the most exquisite eggs that aren't far off that of a duck's egg. I had no intention of keeping a Leghorn but was recommended one as they don't stay in molt for long in the Winter (the period of time when the chicken stops laying due to the short days, lack of light and lower outside temperature's). Most chickens will molt for around 4-5 months but this little beaut will only stop for around 4-5 weeks and then she's off again popping them out! She'll look after us through the winter. The Cochin's will produce around 120 eggs per annum whereas a leghorn, being a more prolific layer, will give you around 200. If you are thinking of keeping hens then I strongly recommend you go for a Leghorn as they will never let you down on the egg front. I even had two from her in one day her a couple of months back! One of the best things about the chickens you keep and eggs you get is the smug sensation you have as you glide pass the egg aisle in the supermarket!

I got the Chicken's on 10th December 2006 after my brilliant birthday present being a beautiful chicken hutch and pen from Gary, the most wonderful chap in the world. I'd never even held a chicken before let alone housed, fed, watered, de-loused and wormed one! I have taken to it like a chicken to mixed corn and love to sit with them and watch their crazy antics, they really are funny. When I originally ordered the Cochin's I had wanted two Orpington's as well. To me, these are the typical large fluffy clucksome chickens you think of on a farm, really plumptious and clucky! I hadn't realised that they were so sought after and found myself joining the bottom of a very long waiting list to get a couple. Now seven months on and my chicken man in Windsor has recently advised me that he has two put by for me and is waiting to find out what sex they are. They are a little young to tell at the moment.

Funnily enough we went down a similar route when we got the Cochin's. When they were little and we first brought them home to the farm there was one Grey and two black Cochin's. As time went on one of the black Cochin's started to change colour here and there around her neck. Then called 'Babs', she began to grow a little faster than Betty and I really thought I had a prize chicken on my hands. Strolling up to the pen one morning the penny dropped, as well as my jaw, when I was cock-a-doodle-dooed at! Bab's was not Babs, but very much Basil!!! We had a few teething problems at first with a rampant male teenager, but the a routine is now set and everything has fallen into place ...let's see what happens when the other three arrive!