May 2011 Smallholding Update

Well. Bloody hell, this baby lark is really getting out of hand. You see, I used to have spare time in which I could do things (including writing blog posts), but now my only spare hours are the last two before I go to bed, by which time exhaustion has rendered me completely useless.

And a lack of photographic evidence makes me feel like any update would be less than complete... But I have decided not to worry about this (that is, if you don't mind too much) - damn it! - I shall plough on, illuminating and illustrating with words alone if necessary. Onwards!

It has been a good month on the smallholding, with many achievements and changes for the better. In no particular order:

Energy: We had the guys from Llani Solar come to install our PV (photo-voltaic) and solar hot water panels behind the house - ironically the day they arrived was the day the weather broke, and since then the sun has been mostly hiding behind a cloud. Nevertheless, our water has been hot, and we have been able to observe our electricity meter at a standstill thanks to being able to use the energy we are producing ourselves. Phil and my dad have been preparing one of the sheds for the wood boiler, which will hopefully be installed later this summer.

The Vegetable Garden: My mum has been an absolute hero and deserves a medal, or at least a very large cake. She has taken on the horribly dull (but necessary) job of going over all of the potato-beds-to-be (newly created this spring by my dad) with a fine tooth comb and extracting all of the evil buttercup roots, as well as the demonic docks and endless nasty weeds. She has very kindly (and completely selflessly) allowed me to waft along, whenever I fancy (OK, whenever Meg spares me half an hour) and do quick, interesting things, things like planting out the squash, or sowing spinach; things which have an immediate feelgood factor, things which tick boxes and which are extremely satisfying. Thus we have mulched the onions with our year-old kitchen compost, planted out red oak-leaf lettuce, thinned the parsnips, planted out four varieties of dwarf beans (or are they French? I don't know, I'll have to ask them) - one of which is especially for saving as a dried bean and is a gorgeous rich brown colour with hints of gold. It's great to see the plants starting to really thrive in these warm, wet conditions. We have all sorts of things in the ground including some asparagus crowns from a friend (thanks, Tall Paul!), beetroot, broad beans, lettuce, onions, potatoes, squash (including Marina de Chioggia from Tom - thanks Tom!), kale, purple sprouting broccoli, parsnip, rainbow chard...

The Polytunnel: And again, my mother has been the workhorse, weeding and enriching the horrible soil (after my dad made some very nice looking raised beds), whilst allowing me to plant out the cucumbers and make little trellises for them, and put the basil in next to the tomatoes for companion planting, though I can't for the life of me remember what each one does for the other... We have only a couple of beds left to fill now, the rest being planted out with tomatoes, peppers, aubergine, sweetcorn, cucumbers, courgettes, white custard squash, coriander... The plants desperate to go in are melon, butternut squash, um... I thought there was something else too, but now my mind has gone blank...

Wild Food: We have been eating the purslane which grows abundantly beneath the apple trees - it makes a tasty salad, and I have heard rumours that it contains omega-3 fatty acids, and even that it is a super food - wow! - isn't pretty much every vegetable a super food?

Pests: There are slugs, millions of mini slugs, living at the edges of the beds, beneath the grass. Their tiny size makes them difficult to spot, so we have to actually seek them out, combing through the grass stems with our fingers, the scissors of death gleaming at the ready in the other hand... Something ate the tops off all of our carrots, and we are starting to feel cursed never to be able to grow a single carrot ourselves. Parsnips yes, carrots no. The cats have been using our newly dug beds as their personal toilet, scratching without heeding our tiny seedlings carefully planted out at precise distances from one another. There was a rat in my kitchen at the beginning of the month, but the rat traps must have scared it away, or perhaps one of the cats managed to corner it. The dock beetles have been turning the dock leaves to lace and laying their little orange eggs on any leaves they can find which do not yet resemble lace, which means that the rainbow chard is no longer its laid back self, and in fact has started to look rather paranoid...

Megan: My big girl cut her first tooth in the middle of the month, and we've had some difficult nights due to the discomfort of teething. Her mobility is increasing daily, she's fallen (gently, and without even noticing, it would seem) off the bed twice (I was only washing my hands very quickly after a nappy change!) and can't stop practising her crawl posture, not even when it's bedtime. She's definitely going to be crawling within the next couple of weeks... Oh dear, we'll need to get hold of a cot and stair gates, as well as shifting everything off the floor and raising it to higher (safe!) storage. Interesting times. Here's what we were up to last year at this time, if you're interested. I'd forgotten all about the epic heartburn I was experiencing, wow, isn't it amazing (and mysterious) how memory works :D

Meggie getting the feel for teeth, whilst working on her comedy routine.

A Delicious Marrow Recipe

Squiggles is late. Nine days late so far, and I must admit I'm getting impatient! Since the arrival and passing of the due date on 16th August, it feels like I'm waking up on Christmas morning over and over again, only to be told that it has been put off until the next day. You start to feel like Christmas will never come. It becomes harder and harder to believe in Christmas. You start thinking maybe you made Christmas up. Then you get a punch in the ribs (from the inside) and Christmas is real again, it's just not here yet.

Anyway. Why am I thinking about Christmas? Oh yes, because the weather has turned. To begin with we didn't quite believe it had turned for good, but now everyone seems to agree that there's a distinct taste of Autumn in the air, a cold and damp nip... The mushrooms are out (every day I go for a walk and spot at least three new varieties (new to me, anyway) from weird, big, black rotten toadstool things to tiny, delicate, bright red mushrooms. My dad thinks he's found an abundance of Death Caps. Which is worrying. But there are edible mushrooms too - nice creamy white (familiar looking and smelling ones) with blushing pink gills. The only problem is that we already have so much food from the garden that it's hard to make sure everything gets eaten before it goes off.

I've been admiring the developing nuts and berries on the trees alongside the lane (I'm trying to walk Squiggles out, which has meant I've had a good excuse to explore the surrounding area), and looking forward to picking and making use of them when they're ready. We've got loads of hazelnuts (and cobs), rowan berries, sloes, elderberries and acorns, as well as blackberries and wild raspberries by the stream. Being mostly at home (rather than regularly leaving to go on tour) has been such a great change, and has made me realise how over the past few years I've been logistically unable to keep an eye on the wild harvest, it would always be a matter of luck if I happened upon ripe berries or nuts... Now I see them every other day, which is giving me a chance to really get a feel for the turning of the seasons, as well as time to think about what I could make with them when they are finally ready. I'm pretty sure I'll be telling you about it as it happens!

Now, what to do about all of those overgrown courgettes?! OK, marrows. They're massive, and we just can't keep up with them! Yesterday I found myself meditating on the stripey green marrow which has been sitting on the kitchen worktop for about a week now, and wondering what to do with it. I've made plenty of Marrow Provencale over the past month or so, so I needed an alternative to that. I started thinking that I could stuff it, knowing I had half a packet of brown lentils taking up room in the back of a cupboard somewhere... Anyway, I happened to mention this idea to my mum and she gave me a delicious recipe which turned out beautifully - it comes from one of Nigel Slater's cookbooks, but is also to be found online here. Click on the link and go right to the bottom of the article. :D I served us half the marrow each, accompanied by a small portion of lightly boiled French Beans. I couldn't manage all of mine, half a stuffed marrow is quite the mountain of food. Now that I look at the recipe again, I see that it is supposed to serve 4. Yes, perhaps that's what I'll do next time, ha ha!

Right, better go for another walk in the rain. Ah, what a blissful August, eh? Ha ha.
Here's a pic my mum took of me at 40 weeks:

July Smallholding Update

The Baby: Yes, the baby has moved to the top of the list as (s)he's been the priority for me this month! :D We've now less than two weeks to go, and are pretty much as prepared as we're going to be (please ignore the filthy mirror in the above photo, ha ha). Physically, I've become quite uncomfortably cumbersome. I find myself out of breath even when climbing the stairs slowly, and have been having what can only be "practise labour" pains! Short distances have started to seem longer and longer, meaning I have to really think twice about heading down to the garden, or up the lane. I've started having a lie down in the afternoon, and even if I can't fall asleep it helps with the slump in energy levels. Squiggles is huge (so it seems to me!) and has very chunky feet which (s)he likes to regularly exercise against my ribcage, but at least (s)he's in the right position and is engaged and ready to go according to the scan we had last Thursday. Speaking of which, the head circumference measurements taken in the scan seemed to imply that the baby was more like a 39 week old than a 37.5 week old, though the abdomen was a little smaller than the average at this stage... We're going to have a baby with a massive head and a tiny body, argh!!! Phil is convinced that the baby will come sometime this week (wishful thinking, I reckon - he's probably just tired of me asking for help with the washing up), and I'm hoping it will come early too - isn't that what everyone wishes for, though?

Going to Aberystwyth for the scan meant that we could pick up loads of the bits and bobs we'd been promised, so we now have a huge quantity of prefolds, fleece liners/wipes, enough washable size 2 nappies to take us to potty training, a door bouncer, some washable breast pads and various other useful baby-related things... I feel ready now. Come on, Squiggles!


The Vegetable Garden: We've continued having our weekly smallholding supper (with extra variety almost every week), and everything seems on the verge of abundance. Phil and I haven't bought a single vegetable for a couple of weeks, and although we've been getting through a lot of potatoes, we're not tired of them yet. They just taste so good! Most of our meals are made from vegetables we've grown, perhaps with a bought addition such as a fillet of sea bass, a cheeky pie or some grated cheese. It feels great to gather what we need when we need it - it's so much healthier, and we're saving money too.

The Orchard: Plans are afoot for a massive cider-making project, as the old apple trees (which looked dead when we got here) are absolutely loaded with fruit now. Phil's been making blades for a machine which will chop up the fruit, and either we'll buy/borrow a secondhand press, or he will throw together some kind of apple press using a car jack or some such...

Drinks: While I'm on the subject of cider, I ought to mention that this month Phil's been inspired to start off some homemade wine - just some grape wine from cartons of juice, but it's great to see him getting excited about his demijohns! :D After I made a good quantity of elderflower cordial last month, I wanted to make a load more (but this time with citric acid so that it would last up to a year) but the rain came and destroyed the flowers, so I'll have to wait until next year for that now. Never mind, I followed the same recipe (for elderflower cordial) to make lemon balm cordial (with the citric acid) and it worked out beautifully, so I have a very refreshing replacement! This is the recipe:


Elderflower/Lemon Balm Cordial

20-30 freshly picked heads elderflower (or a big bowlful of lemon balm leaves)
granulated sugar
4-5 lemons, for juice
tartaric/citric acid (optional, keeps for several weeks in fridge without it)

1. Place elderflower heads/lemon balm leaves in a large bowl and cover them completely with just-boiled water (about 1.5 - 2 litres). Cover and leave overnight.

2. Strain liquid through muslin, gently squeezing to extract all the juice.

3. Measure the amount of liquid, and pour it into a large saucepan. To every 500ml of liquid, add 350g sugar, 50ml of fresh lemon juice, and a heaped teaspoon of tartaric/citric acid (if using).

4. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar, stirring occasionally. Bring to gentle simmer and skim off the scum.

5. Let the cordial cool, then strain once again through muslin, pour through a funnel into clean bottles (sterilised if you'll be keeping it) - filling them to within about 2-3cm of top. Seal with screw-tops or corks.

6. To serve, dilute to taste with ice-cold water - at least 5:1 water to cordial.

The Polytunnel: The cucumber plants had been starting to turn the polytunnel into a hazardous jungle, preventing access to most of their hidden fruits, as well as the courgettes. Something had to be done, so I hacked away ruthlessly until we could walk between them and the pepper plants. The tomatoes are doing really well, the fruits are much sweeter than they were in the early stages - much softer and tastier and more like we'd hoped they would be. :D The 'Gold Rush' courgettes are also very fruitful - and as they are my favourite vegetable I've been happy to eat so many.

Pests: With the coming of the rain we have seen a huge increase in the slug population. I don't want to talk about how it feels to snip their rubbery, oozy bodies in half with the slug scissors.

Wild Food: The crab apples are growing (imperceptibly!) but won't be fully ripe until late winter. And we've got our eyes on the masses of hazelnuts in the hedgerows and up the lane, though the chances are that the squirrels will get to them before they're ready to pick. Phil has been bringing back all sorts of mushrooms and fungi from his long walks with the cats, but upon examination most have turned out to be worthless in the kitchen. My dad found some horse mushrooms (which were strongly flavoured), but won't tell us where on the land they were growing!

Rabbit in the Pot

This is a meaty post, so click away if you find meat in any way unappealing!

I'm warning you...


It was Phil's birthday yesterday, and my parents bought him a sight for the air rifle. We seem to have an unspoken policy involving gifts being handmade or "smallholding-centric." Though both kinds are great, the latter kind benefits all of us, so we all get to experience a bit of the excitement.

I didn't know that when you put a sight on a gun, it needs to be calibrated, so Phil did that this evening before going off to find us a rabbit for supper. It didn't take long, and he was soon back with the goods - one fine furry meal!


As he (the hunter) skinned and gutted it, I (the gatherer) went down to the vegetable garden and collected some broad beans and kale, stopping off outside our house for some tasty herbs (bay leaves, parsley and chives). Then I chopped up some chunky potatoes, carrots and parsnip, as well as the beans, kale and beetroot tops for the greens.


And now, at this very moment, I'm sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the sizzle of frying meat and onions, and feeling quite self-contained and excited about our (mostly) homegrown meal. I shall have to add a picture of the finished dish, if I remember (though I'm sure the most important thing on my mind will be tasting it, by then!)...

I was a vegetarian from the time I went to university until about four years ago, when I unexpectedly started fantasizing about roast chicken... I don't eat meat very often, but I remember explaining to someone that I was very careful that the meat I chose to eat was "quality" - ethically raised, from an animal which had enjoyed a free and healthy life. Somehow I described the animal as having to be either organic and free range, or roadkill - wild and free until the last moment. Now I can add "hunted by Phil" on the smallholding, which is as wild as you can get.

EDIT: Here's how the stew turned out: delicious! :D

June Smallholding Update

It's been a busy month!


The Vegetable Garden: We've started having a special meal every Tuesday night, consisting of only what we have grown ourselves or found growing on the smallholding... So far it's been a huge success! The meals have been simple, but incredibly tasty - the potatoes (although not hugely prolific) are amazing, the salad leaves fresh and flavoursome (especially with the addition of herbs such as basil, chives and parsley), the beetroots rich and sweet. I have started making fresh drinks from lemon balm, mint and elderflowers, which have gone down a treat. We now have 17 fully planted deep beds - the additions this month being: a bed of purple brussel sprouts and turnips; rainbow chard and celeriac; leeks; and a bed containing two spare squash plants and three cucumber seedlings.


The Orchard: The massive, old apple trees (which were here when we arrived) are laden with fruit, by now the apples are about one and a half inches in diameter. I don't yet know very much about fruit trees, but it would seem to me that these are all cooking apples rather than "eaters." I have winter pies in my mind, but Phil and my mum are getting very interested in the idea of making lots and lots of cider!

Pests: Still no major signs of slugs, partly I suppose because it's been so dry. There have been some mysterious scratchings and diggings in some of the beds though, which has resulted in the loss of several of the celeriac seedlings. I wondered if it might be our naughty toilet-making cats, but have been assured that "no poo has been found in the disturbed areas" so we still don't know who or what is the perpetrator.


The Polytunnel: The first red tomatoes have been eaten! I think we've had about seven or eight in total so far, so don't get too excited. The plants are heavy with bulging trusses, however, so we're ever-hopeful that we might at some point be overwhelmed with fruits... The cucumber plants have exploded in size and are climbing rapidly up their supports. Though they look healthy, the fruits have been turning to mush before they really start to develop, so we're not really sure what we're doing wrong. A quick look in The Vegetable and Herb Expert shows that this can be caused by over- or under-watering, so we are none the wiser. The courgette plants have also grown exponentially over the last month, and there are several mini golden courgettes waiting to be eaten in our special meal tonight, as well as a stripey green one.

Water: It's been so dry, we're starting to realise how lucky we are having our own water supply. If we were threatened with a hosepipe ban, our vegetables would certainly die. I have friends who have to carry all of their water up a steep hill to their vegetable plot, and there's not enough time in the day (or energy in the body!) to fully provide for the needs of the thirsty plants. In the house, I've started drinking water from the tap (water which comes from our borehole) as the sulphurous smell seems to have gone away - perhaps both houses making use of the water has cleared out the staleness in the collection tank, and allowed fresher water to enter the system. It's good water, and has none of the chemicals we had to put up with in town - it's a pleasure to drink :D

Plant Feed: The comfrey tea was great, but after a while we started to realise that some of the tomato leaves were curling up at the edges and looking rather ropey. When we investigated the causes of this, it turned out that comfrey is really great for root development, and what we hadn't noticed was the fact that the affected plants had developed ridiculously excessive roots. They had grown out of the bottom of the pots, and along the surface of the soil on the polytunnel floor, and were hating having nothing to cover them. We covered them up with more compost, and set about making a new nutrient tea, this time one full of nitrogen (good for leaves): one made out of poo.


Wild Food: The elderflowers are out, and elderflower cordial has been the flavour of the month! It's so easy and quick to make, yet I've not had time to get around to it these last few years, so it felt really good to be back on track, and enjoying seasonal delights.


Baby: At 34 weeks, I've finally got my head around what we have been given and what we still need. I spent a day researching washable nappies and their components (I have been given some Fuzzi Bunz pocket nappies, but nothing to go in the pockets!), and found a great list of what I'll need. My advert on the Machynlleth Swapshop brought loads of promises of nappy and baby bits, so I'm really pleased. I also spent a day (yes, it took a whole day!) going through all of the clothes we've been given, ordering them into sizes/ages and washing everything from 0-3 months. It felt really good to be getting everything in order, and so exciting to be holding these tiny and incredibly cute garments... I can't wait to put Squiggles in them! Here's how the bump is developing:


Things can only get... bigger, I guess! Er... :D

May Smallholding Update

A summary of the month is in order!

The House Situation: After a very quick sale, we moved all of our furniture and boxes of STUFF out of the house in Machynlleth and over the mountain road to the smallholding. The job took two days, and we were very fortunate to have my parents there to help. My dad helped Phil and my friend Martin to carry the heavy furniture and boxes out of the house, and did a great job of loading the trailer. My mum cleaned the house from top to bottom and offered much needed moral support! The first trailer load was fine, but the second resulted in a tire blowing up, so the process became much more long-winded than it should have been. It was strange to find that my attitude towards many of my belongings changed dramatically as soon as I tried to fit them into our much smaller home. In the house in town, I had found it really difficult to get rid of so many things, but once they arrived at the smallholding I saw a lot of it as excess weight, and the lightening process was incredibly easy - enjoyable even. Phil and I are starting to feel the stress of the house sliding away, selling it has relieved us of a huge burden of responsibility and anxiety.


The Vegetable Garden: It's been a little slower this month in terms of creating new deep beds. Partly because I can no longer help with the digging (due to the fact that my heartburn has been getting worse and worse, and kicks in the minute I bend over, then lasts all day and night), but also because the grass and (more specifically) the docks are growing so quickly that they make the job much more difficult. Last month I found myself taking loads of "before" pictures, hoping that soon we'd be looking at a veritable jungle of healthy greenery, and I'm glad I did as the beds are really starting to fill out now. It's so satisfying to see progress! My parents have done a great job getting the raspberry canes into what must have been the most nightmarishly weed-bound, root-clogged area we've come across yet, and they have been cracking on with more vegetable beds. We now have 13 fully planted beds, containing: onions (white and red), shallots, potatoes (earlies and main crop), broad beans, runner beans, climbing beans (rare Native American Indian 'Trail of Tears' and 'Lazy Housewife'), lettuce (various, including a number of Chinese salad leaves), spinach, parsnips, beetroot, peas, celeriac, kale, and purple sprouting broccoli. There are another two unfinished beds. As of a couple of weeks ago, we've been getting all of our lettuce from the garden - with a little more available every day, it's very rewarding, and unbelievably tasty! :D


The Orchard: Some of the baby apple trees had mysteriously been losing what few leaves they had, and at first we thought it might have been some kind of insect attack. Later it was discovered that a very bolshy lamb had been getting in through the slightly rickety fence which divides us from our neighbour's land. The little scavenger was coming in whenever he felt like it, and helping himself to our goodies! So my dad fixed the fence. No more naughty lamb.

Pests: Incidentally, (touch wood!) we've seen no more evidence of rabbit activity in the garden - perhaps they were put off by the fleece we laid down to cover the parsnips and beetroots, and the cloches and chicken-wire frame we used to protect the lettuces. Perhaps they've heard the rumours about the two black and white killing machines which steal their young and show no mercy. Our cats (especially the female of the two) have been quietly decimating the local rabbit population, regularly bringing decapitated baby rabbits into the house and eating them whole - fur, feet and all - bar the very bitterest organs. Slugs are starting to appear amongst the leaves, so we're going to leave a sharp pair of 'slug scissors' down in the garden. I hate killing things, but in this case slugs are The Enemy.

The Polytunnel: Once the polytunnel was declared fit for use, we avoided it for a week or two - it just looked like it was going to be so much hard work trying to open up the compacted earth, not to mention somehow enriching the pale, lifeless soil. Eventually we realised that we needn't expect miracles of perfection this year, but would make do as best we could. We would make the most of the protected space and awesome heat (the thermometer was recording a reading of 50 degrees most days). We now have plants in pots, as well as some in the ground (planted on top of a generous bucketful of well-rotted manure) - these are all in the left hand side of the tunnel (which is pretty much full), the right hand side has yet to be worked on...

In pots:
Tomatoes (10)
Basil (17)
Peppers (6x Hungarian Hot Wax, 4x Marconi Rosso)
Aubergines (5)

In a bed:
Cucumbers (3x Crystal Lemon, 4x Marketmore)
Courgettes (3x Gold Rush, 1x Cocozelle)
Squash (2x Custard White, 4x Butternut Squash)

Here's a picture of my wacky cucumber supports, three were made out of spare sections of trellis, the others are clearly an experiment in bamboo canes and binder twine, ha ha!


Water: There is a trough set up in the polytunnel with the option of water from the borehole or the stream. As explained before, our borehole water is very alkaline, whereas the stream water is acid, so we fill half the trough with one and then divert to the other - though the results may not be perfectly pH neutral, at least it's an attempt at a compromise!

Plant Feed: Next to the polytunnel we have a large bucket of comfrey "tea" - made by stuffing comfrey leaves into an onion net, then throwing them into a covered bucket of water where they "brew" for a couple of weeks. When the smell becomes disgusting, the tea is ready! We dilute a mugful of the liquid in a watering can of water from the trough and feed the plants as we water them. Our tomatoes are fed every day, but other plants have the tea once or twice a week.

Wild Food: As the trees came into leaf, and then into blossom (some of them, at least!), we were excited to find that we have an elder tree quite close to the house - I can't wait to make elderflower cordial and elderflower champagne! And later in the year the berries are great in crumbles and puddings. There's a suspected wild damson tree down by the river as well, and some other as yet unrecognisable fruit trees dotted about the land... We shall see what they are in due course. The oyster mushrooms have not returned, though I try to check the log by the stream every time I go to collect the post.

The Baby: We're at the 30 week stage, so only 10 more weeks to go! Squiggles is growing so quickly, and loves crashing about in there - it's quite amazing to see the kicks and squirmings. I have started investigating washable nappies and other essentials: we have been given a number of different types of nappies, now I just have to get my head around them and make sure we have everything we need! The hormones have been up and down, as one might expect, and I've been struggling with depression, but I'm optimistic that once Squiggie is out and in my arms I'll feel a lot better :) Phil and I are both very excited (and a little nervous!) about the future, but I'm sure it's going to be a fantastic adventure!

Here's a pic of my friend Martin and I, after we'd cleared most of the house: it serves as a good bump update! :D

April Smallholding Update

The much needed rain has come. Finally, a chance to get some long overdue jobs done in the house, and take stock! We've been here for just over a month now, and neither Phil nor I can believe that so much has happened in such a short time. It's been continuously sunny for the past month, with a couple of overcast days thrown in, and we've been busy outside in the vegetable garden almost every day. Perhaps it's time for an update:

The Vegetable Garden: From humble beginnings, the fenced-off area now boasts 10 deep beds for vegetables - mostly potatoes and onions at this stage, but we've also planted out some broad beans, peas, parsnips, spinach, and beetroot seedlings. We're crossing our fingers and willing the experimental row of carrots to sprout, and have sown a hopeful row of broad beans between rows of potatoes. The rabbits have already shown interest, daintily destroying half of the parsnip seedlings overnight, and leaving their telltale droppings. The battle has commenced. We were afraid we might have to invest time and money in rabbit-proof fencing, and it looks like that might turn out to be the case - but for now we have had to be cunning, creating makeshift protection out of odd bits of mesh, fleece and corrugated plastic.

The Orchard: We have planted 5 apple trees of different varieties, as well as a damson tree. They are still very young (two years old?), so we'll have a bit of a wait before we can actually harvest any fruit, but it's a good start. We are still debating the pros and cons of planting the soft fruit bushes between the fruit trees - I saw it done like that on a forest gardening documentary and it looked like a great idea, but we're not sure whether or not we should just bunch the soft fruit together in cages so that we can protect them from the birds... There are some really old apple (and some as yet unknown) trees which were already here when we arrived - they looked gnarled and moss-eaten and completely dead until a few days ago when they exploded with blossom. Their yield shall decide their fates... :)

The Polytunnel: The sheer duration of the demonstration DVD should have served as a warning to us, but our optimism knew no bounds... What should have taken a day (or two at the most) has become an ongoing saga. There have been several setbacks in the way of missing parts, but that still doesn't justify such a lengthy project! The digger came in and flattened the area, then we found we needed to gouge out more space by hand. The water and electricity pipes were laid at the same time, and the trough connected - so now we have water in the vegetable garden at least. The hoops have been screwed together and painted (so as not to absorb too much heat), and the hot-spot tape has been stuck on... Slightly prematurely... And now, finally, all the hoops are up, the crop bars have been attached - it looks like the skeleton of a giant metal beast who laid down to die amongst the freshly dug graves. Yes, deep beds look like graves. Which is ironic, given that from them life flows. It reminds me of when I was in Guanajuato, in Mexico, and we were walking up to the Mummy Museum when we stopped at a shop which sold both coffins and fresh vegetables. Clever, I thought to myself, they've got something for everyone, whether living or dead.

The Water Situation: We've got two options for water - the first is the borehole, which goes down about 300 feet and is serviced by a pump. This is the water which comes out of our taps in the houses, and it gives off a smell of sulphur and upon testing was found to contain rather high quantities of manganese. It is alkaline. Hmm. The second is the stream, which would need a good slow sand filter to purify it if you wanted it for drinking water, and due to its course through peaty valleys, it is acid. The seedlings we have been raising in my mum's house have started going yellow, perhaps due to being too alkaline, so we've had to start mixing the two waters to get more of a balance in pH. So far so good, but thank goodness it's raining, because all that carrying is hard work!

My dad just discovered that I am writing this, so has emailed me over a couple of pics (thanks Da'!)... Here's one of the men looking very proud of themselves after the first hoop went up:

And here's one of the women in action - preparing the bed for the beetroot seedlings. You can see the broad beans and peas to the left, and the dead area to the right is where the rabbits found the parsnips:


Wild Food: It turns out that we have some really pernicious weeds in the garden, and it just so happens that some of them are edible. I'm planning on cooking with ground elder for the first time, and the young nettles are looking radiantly healthy too. I have enjoyed nettle soups in the past (the trick being to use a handful of oats in with the nettle leaves - that way they don't tickle as they go down your throat!), but my dad has often spoken of nettle beer (only very mildly alcoholic) so I'm hoping to give that a go too. The bushes and trees around us are springing to life, so it's a really exciting time - in the next few months we'll find out exactly what the fields and hedges have to offer! Who knows, maybe there will be some elder trees, hazelnuts, wild damsons and blackberries, not to mention horse mushrooms, hedge garlic, and fish in the river!

Exciting times! :)