Archive for August, 2010
Potato harvest
The good spell of dry weather we had over the bank holiday weekend came just at the right time for harvesting. Not only was the local farmer able to cut his wheat field at long last, it was also the perfect time to dig up both the onions and the potatoes. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re back up to 4 eggs a day now. Whiskey (our de-beaked chicken) seems to have come back into lay after nearly a month of not paying her way! Hopefully the new way of feeding them has helped her to take in more food, and in turn the nutrients (like calcium) that she needs to produce eggs. So plenty of omlettes are back on the menu.
Every drop helps
Water is something we have in abundance in this part of Wales. While parts of the UK have had a very dry spring and summer, we’ve continued to have more than our fair share of rain. This has meant that there has been little need for extra watering in the garden, although we did get a few weeks in June when it rained very little and the watering can was out most days. Like many people these days, we are on a water meter, and while the price of water is not really that expensive, you tend to be more conscious of how much you are using (some would say a little obsessive). Read the rest of this entry »
A "glut" of beans
One of the benefits (or maybe an issue for some) is that growing fruit & veg often brings gluts. August is a prime time for gluts, as the warm (and often wet) weather makes everything grow at a phenomenal rate. For those of us wanting to become more self-sufficient this is a bonus. Fruit and vegetables are of course eaten at their best when freshly picked, but to enjoy a bit of summer in the dark winter months, storing your produce is an important task in the gardening calendar. We bought a chest freezer last year in anticipation of a bountiful harvest (a must for anyone wanting to eat their own produce throughout the year) and we did enjoy a few runner beans in the winter last year. However, this year I’ve planted a lot more of everything, so that we can regularly dip into the freezer and hopefully fill some of the so-called “hungry-gap” with our own produce. Read the rest of this entry »
Trooping in
This weekend has been quite eventful on the bee front. At the moment, we’ve got just a single hive, cobbled together from various sources. The equipment’s pretty ropey, and there are gaps between some of the boxes that the local wasp contingent has been eyeing up.
After we moved to Wales nearly two years ago, we had great plans of having our own bees at the bottom of the garden, but after attending an auction in Pembrokeshire I rather went off the idea. The recent decline in the honeybee population, coupled with the sudden uptake in interest among the public, has driven up prices to a shocking degree. At the auction, bees were fetching £200+ for just 8 or 9 frames of bees, i.e. not even including the box let alone any other equipment! For a hobbyist beekeeper like myself, that’s an absurd amount to pay for bees. Read the rest of this entry »
Blighted leaves
It was inevitable given the weather we’ve been having this summer. While many have been basking in glorious sunshine (and wishing for rain), here in south-west Wales we’ve been hoping for a few good days of warm sunshine to remind us that it’s summer. Actually it hasn’t been quite that bad, it’s been warm(ish) but it has rained quite a bit, and warm and wet only leads to one thing…blight! Read the rest of this entry »
Not my good side
De-beaking in chickens is still fairly common amongst those destined for large enterprises, even free-range ones, and our warrens were de-beaked at one day old. We didn’t know about this when we bought them, but having now read up about it, and understand a bit more about the physiology of a chicken we would avoid buying chickens that have had it done. It has apparently been banned in some countries, and there was talk of doing it in this country, but this seems to have fallen by the wayside for now. It is meant to be a harmless operation, but our chicken Whiskey, is now suffering the consequences of a somewhat botched job, and has bit of an under-bite. Read the rest of this entry »
If you like carrot cake you’ll like this.. and it uses up courgettes. You can probably ice it with a cream cheese icing, but just as nice without. Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »
This recipe came from a neighbour as a way of using up marrows (and cooking apples). It can be eaten straight after making, rather than waiting a few months to mature – although the longer its left the better the taste. It makes about 3lb of chutney. Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »
…you’d be sure of a big surprise. 
After last year’s disaster with the courgettes (i.e. none), and now armed with the polytunnel I planted 3 plants inside the tunnel and 4 outside. The ones in the polytunnel we started eating in June and the ones outside a month later, and they haven’t stopped since. Unfortunately the outside plants had been forgotten, until a few days ago when I found the courgettes were now large marrows. Read the rest of this entry »