The chickens in winter

Posted by louisa on Monday 29 November 2010 in chickens | 3 comments

I had to crack the ice on the chickens drinkers a few times last week but yesterday, overnight, they froze completely solid. That, more than the inch or so of snow on the ground, drove home to me the fact it’s winter now.

Since the temperatures started dropping last week, I’ve reinstated my first thing runs down to see them in the mornings – since we fitted the automatic door, we hadn’t needed to prioritise them in the morning chores list but now I’m back to it. I go down to the run with a kettle full of boiling water now – to melt the ice and to warm up the over all temperature of the water in the drinkers.

After The Compost Lady recommended it, they’ve had a warm layers pellets porridge too. Also, like The Compost Lady, I’m liberally sprinkling corn around at lunchtime as a treat since they can’t scratch in the dirt as normal.

They thanked me for these comforts with a 100% laying rate over the weekend. The new ones still haven’t started laying but the four existing ones produced an egg each, each day – pretty good for snowy November!

In related news, I had to scrap lumps of frozen poo off the coop floor yesterday. Which was fun. I’m on the look out for ways to insulate it. I’m thinking maybe a fake floor (with insulation underneath and an easy-clean top) and a layer of insulation on the roof too. Just got to keep an eye out for materials…

Winter preparations now it’s winter – things still to do

Posted by louisa on Thursday 25 November 2010 in frugal, green | 2 comments

We’ve had our first snow of the winter today – quite heavy flurries but not sustained. There are few snowy patches around the garden but the sun, which is shining brightly in between the showers, is quickly turning the snow to transparent ice or melting it all together.

Or at least that looks like what’s happening from up here. Even before I knew it was going to snow today, I’d decided to do the frugal thing and stay in bed for as long as possible. I’m still there now. I’ve got up for a few dashes around the house – feeding the animals & myself, a wee run, a delivery arriving – but other than that, I’ve stayed under the duvet and not had to use any form of heating for five hours and counting. (John’s out at his office today, I’ve got all the cats & dog as mobile heaters up here with me.) I will have to get up soon to take the dog for a walk and probably won’t return to bed again after that but until now, *warm*. My view has been of tree tops not trunks today:

This weekend is supposed to be a very cold one. Around here (Yorkshire), it’s not supposed to get above freezing at all on Saturday – and that’ll be positively tropical compared to other parts of the country. It’s the first time I remember it being this cold in November – the colder weather has usually waited until late December (as happened last year) or well into January or February (as is more typical). It’s made me realise how far behind I am on my “things to do for winter” list… I’ve done some of the stuff on it – some important stuff like curtains for our office, which makes a considerable difference down there – but not other bits.

Five frugal ways I’ll be staying warm this winter

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 23 November 2010 in frugal | 6 comments

This winter looks like it’s set to be a cold one – and that means that heating bills can easily go through the roof. But there are plenty of frugal ways to keep warm without resorting to hugging a radiator – here are five things we’ll be doing this winter to stay warm on the cheap.

1. Staying in bed

Mmm, bed. I love it when it’s frugal to be lazy…

I was chatting to my mum & dad on instant messenger the other day and they commented that even though it was 11:30am or so, they’d only just got up and “saved on three hours of heating”. My dad is retired and my mum only works part time so they spend a lot of time at home – but instead of getting up & relocating to their needs-heating living room, they had breakfast & read in bed until they had to get up to do other things.

Here, we work from home and use laptops so it’s easy for us to start the day up there. Working at desks helps us concentrate later on but the start of the day stuff – checking email, websites, writing to-do lists – that can be done from bed with our animals around us for extra warmth.

We’ve put in hours of hard work building up a cocoon of warmth overnight – we should make the most of it!

2. Getting our blood flowing

What’s in your veg plot over winter…?

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 8 September 2010 in growing | 0 comments

A weekend away (on a great cheesemaking short course) means I’m behind on the garden again, sigh…

As well as trying to give encouragement to the bit behind the curve summer veg in the greenhouse, I’m trying to clear space for the winter/spring veg too. I know I should be grateful that most of the courgette/marrow plants are still giving forth their bountiful and succulent fruits, but I’ve got about a hundred brassica seedlings awaiting their moment in the fading autumn sun.

Like my summer growing this year, I’m still experimenting with my winter/early spring selection – to see what grows in this garden – so I’ve got a range of different things to try this year. My leeks are already planted out and doing well. So that’s something. And there are some late-autumn-cropping broccoli on the way. But the rest of the aforementioned brassicas (two types of winter/early spring cabbages, two types of kale and cauliflowers to over winter) are causing me the most concern at the moment. All those seedlings are currently in our sun porch/nursery. I want to get them out into the garden ASAP – they really want to stretch their legs – I’m just not sure where they’re going to go. I think I need to get more mercenary about the dumping the underperforming squashes (another story, another sigh) – and perhaps even cull a still very productive courgette plant, since it’s the only thing left in one of my little curved beds on the middle level. There are also a few containers/planters that could be recommissioned and if I ever get around to building the large/low raised-bed style planters I’ve been planning, that would buy me a lot more growing space, although I had mentally allocated that for garlic…

I can’t forget that the summer harvest from the greenhouse will largely be over and done with in the next few weeks, so I’ll have some space in there for more sheltered growing. I’m not interested in heating the greenhouse really but it’ll be more sheltered and warmer than outside so I suppose some of the tubs of brassicas can have a slightly easier life in there… I’m going to use the (also unheated) sun-porch for winter salad because it’s easier to keep an eye on in there.

…So that’s another half dozen tasks to add to my to-do list. Busy busy busy!

What are you growing this winter? Is there anything you’re starting now/soon to overwinter? What do you grow in an unheated greenhouse overwinter?

Preparing for winter

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 27 July 2010 in growing | 1 comment

I claim to be rather disorganised (usually as a bluff for why I haven’t done something I don’t want to do…) but gardening – and more simple life in general – forces you to plan ahead. Despite it being the middle of the summer (in the calendar, if not observably from the weather), I spent most of my gardening time over the weekend thinking about the late autumn, winter and next spring.

I planted on leeks, tended to my many, many winter squash, sowed spring cabbages & attempted my third batch of kale (the first lot got too hot, the second lot got too wet…). I also fretted slightly about where I’m going to plant my garlic when the time comes later in the year – I was hoping to have a good chunk of a bed for it but I’m not sure there will be room. Lack of decent bed space is one of the biggest problems with our garden but I don’t have the time to tend to both our garden and an allotment (if I could get one…) so I’m going to have to keep working around that. I’ve also got mental calendar notes for starting autumn-sowing cauliflower and over-winter lettuce.