...Not again!!!

In the wake of Basil and a very apparent re-structuring of the hen pen, some important news fell by the way-side.

Having just returned from a week out of the Potting Shed in our favourite place in Cornwall, a sinking feeling descended on me as I went to say hello to the chickens when we got home. As I strode towards the run I realised that Minnie was in fact Malcolm. It was so obvious to me now having been away from my normal surroundings for a week.

On the run up to the holiday I had been keeping an eye on her as she had been so sick with the Coccidiosis when we nearly lost her. In just 1 week she had doubled in weight and those tell-tale long cockerel feathers were draping themselves like ivy around her neck. "Not again" I thought, surely I can't be stung in the same way twice, and what on earth do I do now? Minnie and Dora are an inseparable pair and Minnie's temperament is so gentle.

Knowing that attempting to keep two cockerels in such close proximity was out of the question (I've been told they'll fight to the death) I knew I was going to have to make a decision in the very near future.

Fortunately, Basil helped me make that decision yesterday. He had been attacking Little Jen, my good friend from the Dales, when she was here last week looking after the farm in our absence. She couldn't get near them to change them out as he would rush up behind and fly at her. My Mother was also terrified of Basil and I have been intimidated by him for a long time but would never show it to him. There is no way I can have behaviour from an animal like that with Children around, so, the decision was made and acted upon.

I know it sounds like I'm trying to justify the whole episode to myself, which I probably am, and the reason for this is believing that all life is sacred and should be nurtured. Basil was a stunning creature, a really beautiful specimen and a total testimony to his breed ...in looks anyway, and boy did he know it! His attitude stank though!

So now Minnie is Malcolm, although I am not keen on the name so have decided to rename him Charlie, Charlie the Chicken, it really does suit him. He has some big shoes to fill now and quite a role to take on. Just a few weeks ago when he was so ill the other hens would just beat him up and wanted him gone. Not Dora though, Dora was always his friend and there for him. Now, he has gone from the very bottom of the pecking order and is now required to sit on the throne as top dog in the hen house with his pick of the ladies!!! He must think he's died and gone to heaven!

During the afternoon I went and sat with the chickens for a while and just pondered on what had been and what will be. Charlie came over and jumped up on the log next to me and then walked on to my lap and sat down for a bit. It made me feel so much better about what had happened. I just pray to god that he remains so well natured

He has started to do the strutty sideways stamping that cockerel's do when they are about to 'tread the girls' ...a very English way of putting it! He has also started to find his voice now which is more of a yodel than a cock-a-doodle, but I'm sure it'll be perfected in time.

To make the unexpected event of Basil's demise a little more proper, we decided that it would be the best thing to eat him! There was no point in wasting a perfectly good chicken, so, he was promptly plucked, de-gibleted and blasted with a blow torch to rid of the remaining stuborn feathers. I was very surprised to see him featherless, not in a bad way, but there was just nothng to him. he was all mouth and no trousers, feathers and no substance. His skin was like buffalo hide and incredibly tough. I knew by looking at him in this state that he wasn't a breed for meat, but covered him in butter and slammed him in the oven non the less!

I had invited Charlie (Basil's executioner) and his brother Harry over for dinner to share in the eating of Basil. Realising the bird was such a skinny specimen I had to think quickly and pad the meal out with some sausages and stuffing. I couldn't have my guests walking away hungry!

So the meal was a success. Everyone had a little bit of Basil and rounded him off nicely with a nice Farmhouse Apple Crumble & Custard.

That'll stop him whistling in Church!

Today is a landmark for the hen pen and the farm.

Since Babb’s turned into Basil over 2 years ago, the relationship between man and beast has been a temperamental one. You can never turn your back on Basil for a moment as he will plant his beak into your leg and has on several occasions drawn blood on me. I always justified his existence to myself in thinking that when we eventually get our meat birds set up on the farm, he would have the job of keeping the whole thing going and making sure that we continue to have fertilised eggs to hatch out.

Being heavily pregnant now, my protective maternal side kicked in this morning and I had to make a decision. I visited the hen pen with a bowl of bread ends and some salad as I normally do, as I approached the pen I could see Basil chasing Constance all over the place with a real attitude on his wings. I went to open the door to the pen and he immediately started lunging for me which made me raise my voice. Baby started kicking and I was annoyed that I'd shouted.

As Lavender and Betty are both broody at the moment I turfed them out of the hutch for something to eat and noticed on doing so that a screw had become loose on the flap to the nest boxes. I fetched a replacement screw and set about repairing the flap when Basil charged up behind me and tried to launch himself beak first at my legs. My quick movement sent me flying into the hen house and I was just trying to protect my bump. I picked up a piece of timber that I keep in the pen to keep Basil at bay, and shunted him to the side of the run and shouted at him again, but he was still in the mood for a fight so I knew I had to show my dominance over him. I squashed him to the ground by the back of the neck (not an easy job with Bail as he can spin around so fast and lock his beak into your arm) and shouted at him to stop. His comb went beetroot coloured with anger and you could see that he was outraged. He struggled to get free so I squashed him harder into the floor until he stopped squirming and realised I wasn't going to back down. As I had been shouting, baby was kicking furiously, obviously wondering what on earth was happening.

I let Basil free and for a little while he just stayed there not daring to move, then got up and clucked a bit and strutted off in the direction of the other hens. The whole ordeal left me feeling very emotional and upset, so I wiped the tears out of my eyes and left the hen pen for a breather. I just wanted to talk to my betrothed for some support so decided to give him a call. He arrived back home 5 minutes later with Charlie, a very good friend of ours, donning a pair of thick workman’s gloves. It was time, Basil had to go.

I went and stood in the kitchen next to the washing machine on full spin so to drown out any sound. I didn't think that would be enough so decided to call Mum as well and have someone to talk to as I knew the deed was being done. It’s a very hard decision to have to make when you've reared a bird from a 13 week old fluffy thing, nursed them through illness and made sure they have everything they need. I knew though that I would never be able to send my little girl into the hen pen on her own to collect eggs from the chickens, god knows what Basil would do. Chickens should be a happy fun thing, not something to be feared.

Eventually I heard the back door slam and voices from beyond the door. The deed was done and Basil is no more.

Coccidiosis (Cock-syd-eeo-sis)

Over these past 3 or 4 days of beautiful weather it seems that Minnie (one of the new recruits in the hen pen) is not quite herself. I have been keeping a close eye on behaviour in the coop as it’s been so warm. There has been open beaked panting from all and much hiding in the shade from the unforgiving rays of sun. Minnie however has been very slow. Her usual chicken jerky head movements have been replaced by a slower dizzy-like movement, not unstable on her feet but, just not quite right. She has also been totally off her food and hasn't touched a morsel for quite a few days.

Since having the Chickens I have collected a fair few books and so decided to do some research as to what might be troubling her. After reading through most chicken diseases and illnesses, I came to the conclusion that it may be Coccidiosis, a single celled organism that lives in the intestine of a chicken but can really knock young birds around, sometimes fatally. She was showing most of the symptoms, excluding paralysis, so my hunch went with this one.

When I let them out this morning I checked her breast meat and weight. She was so light that I knew it was time to call the vet. There aren't many vets that specialise in chickens but very luckily we have one not too far from us and she is a fabulous lady who really knows her stuff. She sorted Basil the cockerel out earlier on in the year when he had a problem with his leg.

I managed to get an emergency morning appointment and promptly put Minnie in the cat basket and whizzed her off to the Doc. She confirmed my diagnosis in just a couple of minutes and decided to keep her in to start treatment. Although she was slow she was still very strong and active, trying to get airborne on a couple of occasions during the consultation. The vet assured me that she would be fine and that we had caught the complaint at a good stage. She would need to stay in overnight but could return back to the pen tomorrow.

There is now a woodchip floor in the coop as the birds were getting so brown and muddy when it rained. The coccidiae eggs hide away in such flooring and instead of disinfecting, the vet has suggested that I thoroughly rake over the coop thus exposing the eggs to the heat of the sun and killing them off.

As I have never kept chickens up until now, every day is a learning curve so every illness or problem that arrises arms me better for future care. The whole idea on keeping this blog is to help others who are just starting out as I did. If I can help just one person then my plan has succeeded!!!

"Coccidiosis is a complaint that arises when a chicken is infected with Coccidiae, tiny single-cell organisms (protozoans) seriously affecting the chickens intestines. Coccidiosis usually raises its ugly head during hot weather, often with fatal results for young birds. Also, damp bad hygiene and too little ventilation can stimulate an outbreak. The disease has many different symptoms that may occur alongside each other, but sometimes there are not many symptoms or none at all.

Symptoms include:
Chickens sitting hunched up with ruffled feathers
Becoming emaciated
A decline in laying
Yawning
Paralysis

If you suspect one of your birds to be infected, you should have its droppings analysed to see if the bacteria is present. A vet can provide you with various preparations to control the disease".
The Complete Encyclopedia of Chickens
Esther VerhoeffAAd Rijis- 2003

Scorched!!!

I was totally devastated when I went into the greenhouse yesterday evening to water the various seedlings. It really had been a beautiful day but the sun had taken its toll on the new life sprouting under the glass and burnt & withered a great deal of my hard work in a matter of hours.
Some of the glass remains free of whitewash as I just hadn't got round to doing it, and those seedlings that weren't protected by the dulled out windows didn't stand a chance in the glare for so long. That will certainly teach me in the future, don't put things off!!!

The casualties were as follows:
Lobelia - Mixed variety
Sweet corns - over half have died
Courgettes - Totally brown and dead
Money Maker Tomato plants - these took a real battering and I'm hoping they pull through although it doesn't look good!
Calebrese (broccoli) - Totally dead
Lupins - Totally dead

It is very disheartening to find your hard work completely ruined. As I had been having such a snail problem in the greenhouse I had kept some propagator lids on things to stop them from being munched ...I may as well have put them in the oven at 200 degrees!
I put my self to bed early feeling very sorry for myself and just wanting the day to end. I shall get home from work today and start new batches of everything I lost; they will just appear a few weeks later in the year than planned. All is not lost!

Main Crop Planting Begins

Sunday saw the main hub of our vegetables for 2008 enter their newly rotavated patch. I had some help for the day from my better half as there was so much to do. Before the planting began, I popped into the greenhouse to see how things were coming along. I found a new colony of snails that had taken a liking to my little Magnolia which is currently struggling to keep it's leaves! The Tomato plants had also taken a bit of a hammering along with the Morning Glory seeds I planted a couple of weeks ago. I found single seedling stems just left while all their leafy greenery had just been chomped into oblivion! ...I wasn't happy.

I am not one for killing any form of life, much to the ranting of my loved one "they're taking food out of our mouth's honey, for god sake put some slug pelletts down and be done with it!!!". I have been collecting garden sieve fulls of the little blighters from inside the greenhouse of late, being the most humane way, to my mind, but I'm sure they're finding they're way back across the garden to the warmth of the glass house once more. I have filled all possible ways in now with a special expanding foam ...at least I think I have found them all!

The first in the new patch were the potatoes. We are sure to have a plentiful supply this year with both varieties now in situe.

The Carrots were the next in, of the old fashioned purple kind and a mixed variety of organic white, yellow and traditional orange.

The Beetroot seeds I had were out of date so I went for a Crimson Globe version from Thompson and Morgan. I spaced them in the hope that they wouldn't need thinning later on but we shall see how they develop. Although the patch looks huge, my eyes were bigger than my tummy and I have sown many more seedlings than we have room for.

We will only be able to house 24 Cauliflower but have 46 growing happily away in the greenhouse! They need a few more weeks in the warm to establish themselves properly in order to stand up to the elements in the patch. The leeks are also doing well but are not quite big enough yet either, so I have left large gaps for things to go in at a later date.

I have no room in the patches this year for Butternut Squash, Pumpkin or Marrow, so I shall go for a walk around the farm with some seeds and scatter them here and there and see what happens. It makes for an interesting walk anyway!

I will also have to find another spot for my lettuces and the special little polytunnels that I found in Lidl. I would like to sport them somewhere in the garden but I shall have to put my thinking cap on for that one.
The Chickens helped to rake out the patch before the planting began. Dora and Minnie are right at home now on the farm, although a little skittish! Gary and Basil ended up having a face-off with both parties refusing to back down. I said to Gary to just walk away to which he was most annoyed! "I will never back down to a Chicken honey, you should know me better than that!". It all went quiet so I carried on pulling bits of tree root from the soil only to glance round and find him flicking soil over Basil with a garden rake! I had to separate them in the end and put one of them in the chicken pen!

It was the first really beautiful day of sunshine this year and we stopped for a lovely sandwich and beer lunch, sat on the log by the fishpond. The chickens found a liking for cheese as it dropped from our sandwiches into the grass and the odd grape seemed to go down well too.

Poodle came over for a bit and had a long drink out of the pond before settling down in a shady bit of grass next to the log. Her wheeziness is so much better in warmer weather and you wouldn't even know she had cat flu come mid-summer. She sounds like the bag pipes in the Winter but seems happy enough!

After the patch was filled to bursting point we retired to the greenhouse and drank Vodka and Orange juice whilst planting up a few more Courgette's, Lupin's, Foxglove's and Aubergine's. I became quite liberal with my sowing towards the end, convincing myself that we would find somewhere in the patch to plant everything! ...We now need another patch in retrospect with a clear head!

The Buff Orpingtons

I ran out of mixed corn for the chooks this Tuesday and headed up to my local country stores to pick up another sack. They had lots of lovely new livestock consisting of gorgeous bunnies, bantam fowl, white doves and BUFF ORPINGTONS!!!

I have been on a waiting list with my chicken man in Windsor (The garden Hen - please see link on the right handside) for nearly 2.5 years now for 2 Buff Orpingtons but haven't been too successfull. The two that he had put aside for me last year turned out to be chaps and I really can't house another cockerell as I know it would put Basil's beak out of joint!!!

I stood in front of the pen with these beautiful Jersey cow coloured creamy birds in front of me and instantly knew the two I would take should I decide to take the plunge. 'Sod it' I thought, I never make enough spontaneous decisions, so promptly asked if the two could be boxed up and popped in the back of my car. I was so excited I nearly forgot the mixed corn!

I got back to the farm and decided to put them in one of the stables before introducing them to Basil and the girls. Once they were settled in there I sat down with my Chicken encylopedia to read how best the introduction should be made and when. A night time encounter seemed to be the go once the other birds had gone to roost and felt all sleepy in the dark, that way they would have a peaceful night and wake the next morning to find they're new roomies there when they opened their beady eyes! I followed that advise to the letter and promptly stuffed Minnie and Dora into the hen house under the cover of darkness.

The next morning however the teething problems had set in. I was initially concerned about Basil the cockerell and how he would take to the change but in fact it was the other girls that I really needed to watch. Constance (the butt of most of the jokes to date) really started to put the beak in now that she was off the hook. I'm still having to keep a close eye on her as she really does go looking for trouble. Lavender is a close second in trying to cause agro and Betty has turned out to be a bit of a sheep and just follows her peers in their thuggish behaviour, although not quite as bad.

By Friday there were still problems in the coop so I took some further advice on spraying them with watered down vinegar so they all smelt the same. So far, this has really worked and I have really noticed a difference in behaviour since. I just wish I had done it on the first night, it may have saved a world of trouble!!!

Spring Snow Dump!!!

This morning was a surprise to all. That eerie silence was all around and on lifting the bedroom blind and 'Oh My Godding' we raced outside as quickly as possible to explore the newly covered white land.

I couldn't wait to see how the chookanoos would react to the white blanket of snow covering their pen and donned in my nightie, green wellies with chicken hat, I raced into the pen taking pictures of the landscape as I went. The new recruits, Dora and Minnie were first out trying to escape Basil's amorous morning affections, while the others point blank refused to come out of the hen house being scared of the new floor before them.

The newly rotavated vegetable patch was under an undisturbed blanket of its own leaving me puzzled as to what to do this Sunday. Not easy to plant when you can't even see the borders! Plenty to do in the greenhouse though so not to worry. The tomato plants need potting on for a start.

By 12:30pm the snow had all but gone and the sunshine came out and that Spring feeling reigned once more. I decided to tackle all the weeds growing up through the gravel in the greenhouse as they were begining to overtake everything else in there. The heat from the sun had really built up by the afternoon and I kept having to pop out for a breather. I must have collected over 120 snails out of there a couple of weeks ago only to find the rest of their reletives and friends today among the weeds. I'm hoping I'm snail free now and that no more of my prized seedlings get munched!

Minnie and Dora are finding things a little more easy going now on their 5th day with the old crew. The constant squabbling and pecking has now faded and peace seems to be descending on the coop once more. I didn't realise how tame and friendly Buff Orpingtons were.

I sat with them for a while today in the sunshine and Dora hopped up onto my outstretched legs and made herself at home after snuggling down. On day 2 they were eating corn out of my hands and made it very clear that they felt safer with me in the pen for the first two or three days, not daring to leave my feet! I'm just trying to work out the pecking order now and who sits where? ...time will tell.

Chitty Chitty Spud Spud

I have been hunting high and low for last years variety of potatoes I planted called 'Picasso' but have not been able to get hold of them anywhere. So now I have gone for 2 varieties of good all-rounders, 'Kara' and 'Record'.

Once you have your potato seeds you need to 'Chit' them. This means letting them sit in the light for a couple of weeks or so to let them sprout. Egg boxes are ideal for this as they sit very snuggly in rows in the same position. You will notice little shoots appearing from the eyes on the potato seed. The longer these grow, the better, but you must be careful when it come to planting so as not to not to break them. From these shoots will grow further little shoots where colonies of potatoes will start to grow. Once planted, look for these shoots coming to the surface of the soil, when you see this, cover them over again with the soil which will encourage them to grow further, thus producing more shoots for more potatoes. Theoretically, instead of getting 20 potatoes from one plant, by doing this you could get around 20 kilos!!! So don't forget girls ...do your roots!

I have decided to dedicate around 2/3 of one patch to potatoes this year. We generally use them on a daily basis, so the more, the better and they store so well. Just leave them in the ground and dig them up when you want them. The best time to get them in the ground after chitting is mid April time. Some people plant out as early as March but your really risking attacks from frosts then and you don't actually gain anything time-wise either. Having dug over the patch to get it ready for this years crops, I have stumbled acoss the odd ones that we missed last year. Great for a Vegetable Patch, Patch Soup to use up all the odds and sods that may still be lurking beneath the brown soily waves!

Planting season is here!!!

Well, this is the month where it really kicks off!

So far, the greenhouse is sporting both red & Yellow cherry tomato plants and the same colours for the larger adult tomato plants. The seeds took nearly a month to break through their cosy little soil beds but have emerged all green and healthy, as they should. On wandering around my local garden centre with a friend at the weekend, I found a fantastic variety of tomato called 'Mr Stripey' . It does what it says on the tin really in different tones of red, but will look great in the old salads this summer

The real medal winner so far on the seed sprouting front has to go to the Cauliflower. I have over 40 plants now and plan to adjust the veggie patch in order to host them all. I shall waffle a bit about that later on!

I thought I would start a few onions off in peat pots in the greenhouse as opposed to sticking them straight in the ground. I went for both red and the normal brown skinned onions, the red being 'Red Baron', sharing the same nickname as Gary when dressed in his motorcycle enduro gear. The boys in France gave him the name last year during a 3 day rally in the French hills. He certainly lived up to his name, as I hope the onions do!!!

The brown skinned variety are called 'Turbo'. Whether this means they are going to fly out of the ground at terrific speed, or produce masses of lovely sweet bulbs is anyone's guess. The name grabbed me and the description of flavour sounded rather good, so I went with it!

The potatoes are well into their chitting process now. They have been on their respective window ledges for the past 3 weeks and are sprouting quite nicely. By the time the other 2 patches are ready the spuds should be chitted well enough for planting out. For now though, they are quite happy on their window sills in the light watching the days come and go.

The Silver medal winner in the greenhouse have to be the Leeks. I have never attempted to grow these before, so don't really know what to expect. They are just over 2 inches long now and have unfolded from there bent over stance when first coming out of the ground. I have an abundance of these as well so it's a good job the patch has been made bigger to accomodate them all!

This weekend saw the second and third entries to patch 1 this year, being the parsnips and the Feltham First Early Peas. I have split the patch into thirds and am planning on growing equal amounts of Onions (red & brown), Parsnips & Peas. The chickens were very intrigued with the drill digging and as soon as they saw little green morsel being strategically laid out in a zig zag fashion on the soil, they thought that Christmas had come early! I lost a few to a very persistant Constance who would not take no for an answer. In the end I had no choice but to put them back in their pen to have any chance of planting any further seeds! Now that the 3 cherry trees have gone from the patch near the fence, I am hoping that the side of the workshop will provide enough shelter for the peas as they grow. I have another packet of 'Main Crop' peas to sow a little later on in the year, thus attempting the staggering of growth!

The parsnips went in like a dream although the seeds are very flat and not good to have exposed in strong winds! I dug each long gully about 1 inch down and thinly sprinkled the round flat seed all the way along the row, with a little handful of Growmore fertiliser to help them on their way. I decided not to 'water in' as I was monitoring a very large black cloud heading straight for the newly planted up area and knowing it would save me a job!

The Elephant Garlic that I planted at Christmas is now about 2.5 inches high, despite Constance nipping the top of the shoots off in their earlier stages! I took the little cloche protectors off that I had carefully made out of carbonated water bottles, to let them get a good soaking underneath the rain clouds.

Now that the patch is taking shape, the chickens will be banned from their weekend explorings and diggings in and around the patch. I shall have to get busy on chicken fencing the garden gate and ushering them into the main gardens instead so they can't massacre any new shoots that appear!

...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.