How things stand so far

The weather has turned a lot milder today and hopefully my Shallots will appreciate the easier conditions as they seem to have done nothing since i planted them on the 21st December, i have had to keep a fleece over them almost all the time and had a 60 watt light bulb on under them to give of just enough heat so as to stop them freezing solid, the leeks have been growing well though in the warmer environment that i rigged up for them and are putting on a lot more leaf i put a good covering of Vermiculite around them this morning as one or two pots were starting to get some mossy growth on top of the compost, hopefully with gently lifting it of and covering them with Vermiculite it should inhibit the green mold from growing. I got some of my seed potatoes yesterday which is a bit sooner than usual but being about the first customer i was able to have a good sort through and pick out some nice specimens of Kestrel, i did think of trying Bonnie this year instead for the coloured potato classes but was slightly disappointed with the ones on offer so stuck with the old faithful. I will still need to get hold of some Winston though for the white potato classes as they didn't have any of them in stock yet. The Onions that i sowed last week have been in our airing cupboard all week keeping warm, but i have taken them out in to my propagator in the green house today as i expect them to strike soon and they will need some light, the lupins that were sowed at the same time are now starting to push through.

Show Time

Seems an age since i had a chance to blog Simon has been and still is on holiday and i have been left in charge on the farm, the veggie plot i'm afraid has had to take a bit of a back seat recently but i did manage to put some entries in to our local show the other night first time i have had a go at this sort of thing so not to sure how it will go but hey it's not about winning just having a bit of fun. I have entered Beetroot , Carrots , Potatoes, Runner Beans, Broad Beans, Onions and Shallots, today i sorted out my Shallots the first 4 were fairly obvious but the 5th one took some finding they look a bit ordinary as do my onions but next year will be better. the Beans Broad and Runner seem to be growing fast now so should be OK the rest will need looking though latter in the week, although i did sneak a look at the potatoes when i removed the tops just over a week ago and they seemed clean but maybe a tad small, oh dear worry worry.

The first new potatoes

Today i am going to pick the last of the gooseberries , I have not got on with picking just as fast as i should and the blackbirds have been having a feast still theirs enough to go round and i will have plenty, they were held back a bit by the early dry weather but have made up for that this last couple of weeks.

I got the first pick from my potatoes on Friday they were just a shade on the small side but with the shallots that i picked as well they should go down a treat for sunday lunch. The tops of the potatoes had been destroyed in the gales a couple of weeks back so they weren't going to grow anymore the plants with the tops that still intact will be left to fill out a bit more.

The last row of carrots and parsnips are romping away now that conditions are ideal for growing i took the picture just after i finished thinning them out it always seems a waste to throw away a lot of thinning but when i try to sow them lightly we end up with a lot of gaps in the rows, the beetroot have just been earthed up to stop them from being rocked about and if you look to the left the runner beans are starting to pick up a bit after being battered in the gales when a lot of leaves were blown clean off leaving them with a bald patch in the middle

Putting on the mulch

Have taken the chance to shift a lot of the bark mulch that i managed to get hold of earlier in the year in and around my Rhododendron plants it seemed an ideal opportunity after the downpours of recent days which had given them a real good watering so with a good covering of mulch now they should avoid being stressed for water as often happens late summer, which can have an adverse affect on the following years flowering , I was fortunate in that Margret and Allan next door are having some landscaping work done and so i was able to get pretty close to where i needed it by nipping across their ground with a tractor so that saved a lot of work barrowing it, as the only other access is from the front of my home and that would mean pushing it all about 75 yards instead of no more than 10 yrds when you consider i have moved at least 12 builders bulk bags full it saved a lot of hard graft.
After last weekends wild weather it has taken some time to collect up all the broken tree branches and other bits and pieces that were scattered about, the only possible lasting damage was to my Brussels Sprouts which were knocked flat and twisted they do now (Thursday) seem to be coming back although the stalks are still bent and misshapen and i am not sure weather to try and stake and straighten them out or just leave them to their own devices so for the moment i have just left them, other than that was my drum of Maris Bard potatoes were flattened fortunately they were my earlies and they were almost ready to harvest anyway, all the others potatoes Kestrel and Desiree were not affected at all.

Spring bank holiday round up

Any one in the south who has had enough rain could they send it north .Last time i blogged we were ready for rain and so far not a drop in fact it's been really hot with strong winds drying everything, OK for washing on the line but it's making my clay soil dry into solid lumps and the beetroot and parsnips that had just come through seem to have wilted and died off, i have been watering them but it seems as if it not enough i will give it a bit longer to see if they do make it but if by next weekend things don't look any better i will scrap them and try again.


The Potatoes seem nice and healthy and to be doing really well although i

have been giving them lots of water, the variety is kestrel and were planted on the 18th of April and are now earthed up to the top of the buckets that they are growing in









On the right are some Brussel Sprouts that have been planted out about a week although they have been kept watered they do seem to be a bit stressed in the hot drying wind we have had over the few days, the wire netting round them is to keep out the local rabbits.







To the left are my Runner Beans i thought they were really growing well when i planted them out but they seemed to standing still at the moment ,probably need a cooler damp day or two so as to kick them into top gear..................................................................................................

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And finally a look at some of the long carrots i am trying this year not sure quite how they are doing but a least they have got growing lately.

Where are the Swallows

It's been quite a while since i last did updated but i've been working all daylight hours and some more with lambing, but today i left Simon to it after lunch as we are down to the last 50 or so sheep the pressure is of and with it being warm and sunny all should be fine. The weather has been cool and showery for the most part but things have gone quite well, maybe a slightly lighter lamb crop than we usual get but that's probably because i brought in a lot of younger sheep last September, the older sheep are the ones that have the most lambs but with foot and mouth last backend depressing prices i made a decision to reduce the age of the flock when young replacements were available at bargain prices.


The sheep in the picture is one that lambed this morning it is a Swaledale ewe with a greyfaced mule lamb which was sired by a Bluefaced Leicester ram. We don't keep a lot of Swaledales just enough to breed our own flock replacements for the main flock which is all Greyfaced mules that are run with Texel rams to produce lambs of supermarket quality.



I've been keeping an eye out for swallows this last week they are a bit later than usual we normally get them arriving in Cumbria the first week of April but their has been no sign yet if any one has spotted any swallows drop me a line. I hope that isn't a sign we are in for a late spring as the cows a fairly munching through the silage and we have just enough to last till the 6/7 May. We will be taking our first batch of store cattle (last springs calves ) to market on the 17th and as that's all so my birthday let's hope it is a good omen regarding prices. The cattle in the picture are the batch that we will select a trailer load from. The food in front of them is a mix of silage and brewers grains that are left over from making beer.



Anyway that's enough farming for one blog as i said i had this afternoon of and took the chance to get some work done in the veg plot mainly spent the time setting up some buckets with the base's removed and set in to the ground to grow potatoes (Kestrel variety) i put in six litre's of compost mix in to each bucket and come next weekend will plant one in each and just keep earthing them up with the same mix until it's full, normally i use large barrels and plant at least 4 per barrel but just thought I'd try it this way this year so we will see how it goes. I did manage to get the long carrot stations planted up on about the 4th April but as yet nothing has shown perhaps it's been a bit to cool for germination we will see. The greenhouse is bursting at the seams with bedding plants that Judy has been bringing on and i just found enough room to get some runner beans and Dahlias that i split and planted in pots in, neither will probably be planted out till end of may when we hopeful seen the last of the frost i had taken some cuttings of the Dahlias but they failed miserably probably because i didnt give them enough attention just to busy i guess.

Bird Nestboxes and all the rest

Just like most of the country we have had some fairly severe winds to contend with, luckily we have avoided too much damage just the odd tree blown over and a couple of wall gaps blown down where they are next to trees that have been rocking in the wind.

Last night (Tuesday) managed to get to see United play Luton we won 2/1 but saying that Luton put up a good show especially in the second half when the wind seemed to play havoc with Uniteds play, as they say decent teams grind out a result and that's what they did. Following on from wins away at Crewe and Nottingham Forest it keeping promotion hopes well on track.

Tonight i planted my first lot of potatoes in a barrel in the greenhouse just to have a few just that bit earlier than the main batch, very seldom do i grow potatoes in open ground i prefer to grow them in barrels as they seem to have a lot cleaner skins and i don't have to bother lifting them in the autumn i just cut the tops of end of August time and lift them as i need them when the weather gets a bit colder and we might get a frost i just pop the barrels in the greenhouse and put some old sacking over them it's a bit like having new potatoes from June to the end of February the main thing to do if growing them this way is make sure you water them a lot and i mean a lot.

The council have started resurfacing the main road this week near to my home and never wanting to miss a bargain i have managed to get about 20 Tonnes of the plannings that were being removed prior to resurfacing to provide some hard standing base it is really good stuff if you can get hold of it because it packs down like the original road surface in about a month but as it is planed and relaid also free draining.

I have spent most of this afternoon putting up some bird nest boxes on the farm we have a couple of small wooded areas and as part of our effort to help the local environment this years plan has been to try and help and encourage more of the local wild bird population. We tend not to use any or very little sprays or fertilizers in habitat rich areas and so are hopeful that they will soon move in, the species that are most likely to take advantage are Chaffinch/Flycatchers/ Robins/Blue Tits etc plus one box for the local Tawny Owls. (see pics)