Smallholderific
@smallholderific
Posting about our cottage smallholding. Fruit and veg, orchard, rare breed chickens, ducks & geese, beekeeping, cats, foraging, home brewing, country wine, cider & juice making, preserving & cooking. No pigs... yet.
As ever, a coat of paint makes all the difference. One or two more, then will add sand and the chickens can start ruining it. 😂
Today's project: disposing of a broken pallet, some tongue/groove offcuts and old roofing felt from the shed of Maybe It Will Be Useful. 🪚🛠️🧑🏻🔧 Voila: covered chicken dust bath. Will add another layer of felt, as it's a bit holey, and give the whole thing a coat of fence paint.
Big move of our laying flock this morning: from the area that's been chook HQ for 4 years into an electric fenced bit of field. Looks nice, doesn't it? We even built a reed-roof shade area. Did the move go smoothly? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦
Stringing the onions this afternoon. This year's aim was to grow enough to see us through. Not entirely confident we got there, given the small size of some specimens, but it should make a good dent in the coming year's needs.
Smaller and younger of our two goslings. Growing on a bit slower than the other, but wing feathers now starting to show. 🪿
✅ Kitchen full of fleeing ants? ✅ Fingers stained and full of holes? ✅ Everything smelling of vinegar? ✅ Globe artichoke hearts pickled? 😋
Saw article about Jagodzianki, Polish bilberry filled yeasted buns with streusel top. @margogerry.bsky.social had just harvested the blackcurrants. Blackcurrant version coming right up!
Has been a week of death and life. Death: first losses to the fox in 5 years. Two of our Orpington ducks. Sad times. 🙁 Last few days spent reinforcing bird security, and we need to hatch some more Orps as a priority. Life: Hatch day just started on the Marans eggs we set 21 days ago. 🐣
First bedtime accomplished. Did the gander walk in with our lullabies and gentle encouragement? No he did not. Did he follow the trail of lettuce? Alas. Did he sit down sulkily on the floor and get an unwanted carry into the goose house? Yup. Hissed a bit, but hoovered up the lettuce... 😂
New West of England goose team safely transported to the East(ish) of England! 🪿🪿🪿 Goslings are lovely and very tame (walked at heel from field to car when we collected them). Photo credit @margogerry.bsky.social.
As we are getting goslings... tomorrow (!!! 🤗) they are going to need somewhere to hang out outside, but protected from our numerous buzzards and kites. Goslings are a convenient snack size for a big bird of prey. So today was spent building the mk1 goose run!
The wildflower bit under our growing Bedfordshire heritage apple orchard is getting more diverse and full of insect life every year. 🌿
Beetroot. Handy veg as it yields a double crop. Leaves will be chopped, blanched, squeezed out a bit and frozen. Aiming to make a super-stainy risotto for dinner with some of the roots. 😋
Purple garlic, elephant garlic and artichokes, all prior to clean up (soil needs to dry and be brushed off the garlic, and the artichokes need the usual obscene amount of wildlife removal).
Away last week in a fairly cool and damp Dorset. Evidently has not been the case here, and smallholding has taken full advantage. 🌿🌿🙄🌿🌿 Heatwave + active beehives nearby means an early morning raid on the first earlies seemed sensible as a first step.
As our spring-hatched chicks hit 14 weeks, we are setting up the incubator for a second batch. Copper Marans this time, as we need more brown egg-layers. 21 day countdown to little badger-coloured chicks starts now. 🦡🐣
By far the most laborious bit of homebrewing is bottling (if, as you should, you make sure everything is clean and as near sterile as possible). Pressure barrels dodge this issue for ales, but for lager with enough fizz, it's either bottles or kegs & I don't have any kegs. 🙄 All done now tho! 😁
Ducks in the (slowly) growing local variety orchard/wildflower area. We are all having a lovely time.
Both peas and strawberries are getting going. These two were both bred by Thomas Laxton in the late 1800s: Progress #9 peas, Royal Sovereign strawberries.
Decided today that this spring's hatch are ready for further freedom. We have since added a poultry net perimeter, so they have 21.6m² per bird (minimum outside space for organic-label chicken sold in UK is 17.2m², so feel like we're on track for good practice.)
Right, that's me done for the day (apart from lighting the bbq later). Dappled shade & a well known brand of French lager: sadly not my kit, which while tasting promising needs to drop a few more degrees before priming. Oh, plus a splash of lime cordial and some chilli rice crackers. 👌
Conservatory a little too toasty for the squash seedlings(!) so have evicted everything but the chillies, which, given the unlimited water a self-watering pot provides, seem to be thriving in it. 🥵