Already making plans for next year?

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 15 June 2011 in growing | 5 comments

I know it’s not even midsummer yet but I’m not the only one making growing plans for next year, am I?

• More strawberries: As I said the other day, our current strawberries should give us a long season of fruit but strawberries are so damn useful that I’d like to expand our crop. While hopefully our current ones will send out runners which will we can cultivate, I’m thinking about adding another variety to result in more of a summer glut for turning into jam etc. I’ll be reading the Which results reposted in brief by Gillian on My Tiny Plot for inspiration. They’ll be planted in the “mini forest garden” beds to add more low height crops. (The silver birch bed is doing very well, btw – four levels so far, a fifth to go in, and the strawberries would be a sixth.)
• More soft fruit bushes: John’s dad has been building us a Lily-dog and hen containment fence on the shared boundary between our garden & our neighbours – and it’s made me think more about the stuff on that border. I’m going to pull up two shrubs and replace them with fruit bushes. I nearly bought a couple of (presumably 2 year old) redcurrants for cheap at Focus at the weekend but think I’d prefer more raspberries.
• Another cherry tree: Just near those bushes is a taller treelet, which everyone asks is fig because the leaves look like fig leaves. I don’t think it is – and even if it was, it’s not the right climate here to it’s a bit pointless. So I think I’ll replace that with a cherry – perhaps a sweet cherry to complement the sour morello we’ve already got.
• Even more fruit bushes or trees: On the lowest level of the fence, there is a narrow bed underneath the fence – that could be used for more fruit bushes or even espalier fruit trees.
• Another raised bed? We currently have two semi circular raised-with-stone beds with a space inbetween them. I usually fill the space with containers but it would be more efficient to wall the front of the space into a third raised bed. The builders who’ve just finished work on our house freed up a load of suitable stone so I might do this one this year. It would be a deep, south-east facing bed — even if it’s not vast, it could certainly be useful.
• A long bed at the front? I meant to make the front garden more useful this year – it’s currently being used as a dumping ground for non-useful rubble (from the building work) and random stuff from use clearing out the garage — not quite what I imagined! In time for next year, I’m going to try to build a really long bed along the side of the porch (about 4m). I’ve got some salvaged long lengths of decking which would be fine to use from both a structural and aesthetic point of view – even if it’s just for perennial herbs, it’ll be useful.
• More shade-loving things: I meant to start making better use of the shaded bits of our garden this year, but didn’t get around to it. I wish I’d put in some rhubarb, and some more herbs.
• And that’s all before thinking about what annuals I’ll grow…!

Are you getting ahead of yourself too?

Monday & Tuesday

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 14 June 2011 in chickens, frugal, growing | 2 comments

There were some ox-eye daisies (yes?) in the horses’ field yesterday – they confused John, made him think he’d shrunk or was suddenly in the land of the giants. He picked one and carried it home for me.

The garden looked very fresh and green after Sunday’s rain; the chickens, on the other hand, looked slightly bedraggled in the drizzle yesterday morning. They have three dry places that they can go when it’s wet but what do they do? they stand out in the rain. Also, Ginger the chicken seems to be thinking about going broody AGAIN. She only came out of being broody at the start of May. Apparently it’s not unheard of for chickens to go broody again if they didn’t set any eggs the first time round. I’ve poked her out the nest boxes two days in a row now, bah.

We’ve had very little slug damage this year – presumably because it’s been so dry – but the bloomin’ things have found our ripening strawberries. *shakes fist* Strawberries have now been relocated to the balcony and I’ll steal some of the chickens’ bedding straw to use if the attacks continue.

Yesterday, I ordered us a monthly meat box from Swillington Organic Farm. They’re not cheap but they tick a lot of the important sustainable/organic/local boxes for us. We should receive our box at the end of the month – can’t wait.

And I actually did two mini-goal things today: got a new phone deal (which was a May mini-goal – only 13 days late) and got a new gas/electricity arrangement too. On the former, I got a new phone & new inclusive mobile internet allowance just by asking – didn’t have to play any “I’m leaving, convince me to stay games”, which was nice. The gas & elec isn’t going to be quite as cheap as it was last year (when it was very cheap) but we decided to go for an 18-month fixed price arrangement – we don’t usually like fixed price things but it was barely any more than the variable so seemed worth it. I did think about play the cashback game – swapping suppliers every six weeks or so, and picking up the cashback deals each time – a friend of mine (who may not want to be named..?) pays for more than half of his yearly energy costs doing that – but decided that I’m a bit too disorganised to do it and I’d probably mess it up by getting locked into a more expensive deal etc, so it wasn’t worth the effort/risk for me.

How has the start of your week been?

This week’s meal plan: using up stuff from the freezer

Posted by louisa on Monday 13 June 2011 in weekly meal plans | 2 comments

We’re swapping things around here at the moment, with our formerly sealed coal hole becoming a proper lovely & useful utility room-ette, we’re moving our undercounter freezer down there and have got a more space efficient (and generally more efficient) fridge-freezer for the kitchen. Anyway, long story short, we’re going to have more freezer space in the long run but are using it as an opportunity for a clear out now.

Sunday brunch – sausage & egg sandwiches
Sunday dinner – pasta with John’s special pasta sauce (from the freezer)

Monday lunch – croque monsieurs, since I’ve had a craving for them for weeks :)
Monday dinner – Spanish omelette with chorizo, garlic mushrooms & peppers (to use up some cheap potatoes we got last week), with salad (homegrown!)

Tuesday lunch – sandwiches or fish & chips if Strowger gets his way ;)
Tuesday dinner – spicy smoked mackerel kedgeree (smoked mackerel from the freezer)

Wednesday lunch – curried egg mayo with toast
Wednesday dinner – John out with friends; an on-toast or doggy bag for me

Thursday lunch – tuna and salad in wraps
Thursday dinner – slow cooker beef goulash (beef from the freezer) (thanks to Katherine for the inspiration :) )

Friday lunch – samosas with pickles and salad
Friday dinner – leftover beef goulash

And a note for me for next week – use sausages from freezer to make a casserole :)

Overexcited about baby fruit & vegetables again

Posted by louisa on Friday 10 June 2011 in growing | 6 comments

Buff aside, things are going well in the garden at the moment. I had a nearly full day out there yesterday – digging, potting on, planting out, sowing more successional stuff and staring into space under the pretext of “planning”. I also spent a lot of time checking out how things are progressing…

Weeee! our first pinkening strawberry!

We’ve got quite a lot of fruit but this one is the first to go red. They’re Flamenco strawberries – starting a little late but should fruit right through until the autumn — a few at a time for a longer season will be better for us this year, although I think I might add an early crop/June-July cropping one for a jam-making glut :)

I also spotted my first set of to-be-courgettes this week – they’re only about 15mm by 5mm at the moment so we might need quite a few to make a ratatouille…!

They don’t need pollination so should just grow now – and knowing courgettes, by tomorrow they’ll be marrows ;)

In the winter squash department, I also spotted some round-bottomed female flowers on a few of the pumpkins – I think they will need pollinating when the flowers open up. There are plenty of male flowers open but I’ve not seen many bees around over the last week, so I might get in there with a little paintbrush, just to be on the safe side.

There are little tiny bumpy baby cucumbers appearing up too.

We’ve also got a few apples starting – it’s the trees’ first year here so we shouldn’t really let them grow apples (they should concentrate on growing up and out first) but we’re going to let each tree grow a couple, just to see what they’re like.

I think I’m especially excited about all these things because, aside from the courgettes, they’re all first for our garden – never grown strawberries, pumpkins or cucumbers before, and there is always the “what if they don’t grow?” worry.

How’s your fruiting going? Any suggestions for an early/summer glut strawberry type?

RIP Buff the Chicken

Posted by louisa on Friday 10 June 2011 in chickens | 10 comments

Buff, our buff Leghorn chicken, died overnight last night.

It wasn’t unexpected – every day for the last week I’ve gone down to the run and been surprised that she was still alive.

On Wednesday, after a good few days in isolation with her own protected food supply, she did look a bit brighter but yesterday seemed to fade again. When I checked on her yesterday evening, she looked like she’d gone but when I touched her, her still bright eyes bounced open and she bwarked a bit to let me know she still didn’t like me, no matter how much time I’ve spent looking after her and giving her treats over the last few days.

Buff wasn’t the friendliest chicken, in fact she was a bit of a pain in the bum – not laying for ages and being noisy – but it’s still sad that’s she’s died. She was a pretty pure breed leghorn, with a fabulous floppy comb and her eggs, when she deigned to lay, were pure white.

She’s buried in the wooded bit of the garden.