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Chilli harvest and Autumn tidy up
Now that all our pumpkins have gone (see www.BigPumpkins.co.uk) it’s the quiet time before the wreath making season begins so time to clear out the debris from the poly tunnels, then wash and disinfect everything ready for spring. There are a few productive tomato plants left but all the rest are on the compost heap.…
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Autumn Pond Audit
The (hopefully) annual audit of our farm ponds happened yesterday with pond experts Peter and Helen visiting along with Helen’s Mum on admin duties and Millie the dog. Samples of water clarity, ph and electrical conductivity were taken along with the invertebrates and plant life which have taken up residence in the restored farm ponds…
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Work starts in our new Coppice
It really doesn’t seem that long ago that we were pricking out these trees as seedlings and growing them on in pots ready for planting out. It turns out we started planting out in this field in 2010. It was a bit of a milestone to be starting to do the first cut on selected…
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Wild Damson Harvest
It’s that time of year when our wild damsons are just coming ready so time to risk life and limb reaching over the very deep ditch to try and hook the branches and get them harvested. Probably three quarters of the fruit is inaccessible so I don’t feel that guilty about raiding the natural larder.…
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Hydroponic Ginger Trial
As some will know we try and do a little trial of the more unusual in the hydroponic tanks each year. This year it was the turn of ginger. Having read up about it I went down to our local Booths supermarket to find a suitable fresh ginger ‘root’ tuber with lots of nodules on.…
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Scrapes for wildlife
Whilst clearing out are farm ponds last Autumn, whilst the digger was on site we also took the opportunity of putting in a series of wildlife ‘scrapes’. Our scrapes quickly filled up with rainwater during one of the wettest winters on record. The scrapes are just shallow depressions in the land with gently sloping edges, which (importantly)…
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Processing Oak into wood chunks
Processing Oak logs into wood chunks for use in offset smokers It might be Bank Holiday Monday and it might have been a lovely sunny day but all I could think was to get some Oak wood chunks split, sawn and seasoning to replace all those being burnt in BBQs and Smokers. It is a…
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Farm ponds invertebrate audit
An out of the blue call from Helen Greaves changed the plans for the day as it became the day to do an audit of invertebrates in both the restored farm ponds and the newly created scrapes. A lovely hot sunny day isn’t the best sort of day to don waders but, if you want…
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Raising the water levels in a restored farm pond
It’s been a few wet months since we cleaned out and restored the main pond and despite the rain the retained water level held in the pond has been disappointing. As we had a digger on site today to prep a shed floor, it had a few minutes diversion to carry across a few buckets…
