Frost hits the runner beans

I’m feeling rather foolish this week. If I was eating an egg, some would most definitely be on my face, and if I had a blackboard to hand, I’d be scribing “Patience is a virtue” 100 times.

After nurturing my runner beans into fine specimens, and blathering on about “there’s still a risk of frost”, what did I do? Well, I’ll tell you… I got a bit giddy with excitement at the sniff of a bit of warm weather a week or so ago, and I planted my beans out. For a couple of days they were going great guns. They looked fit and perky, basking in the balmy climate, and I was envisaging a bean-filled summer ahead.

Then one night… just ONE NIGHT… the temperature cooled and we had a frost. And the beans now look decidedly sick.

Before the frost

After the frost… spot the difference!

I could have avoided this disaster in a number of ways. Most obviously, I could have left the beans in the greenhouse for a few more weeks out of harm’s way. But as they were already out, I could have protected them more from said frost. A blanket of fleece or bubble wrap might have done the trick, as might a cloche. Anything really, to keep the cold air off them. But the damage has been done, so on to Plan B.

The beans have well and truly carked it, but all is not lost. I have planted some stunt doubles up in the greenhouse. Runner beans grow quite quickly, and you can even plant them straight in the ground from the middle of May onwards, so the new plants should have time to catch up. I may end up with a later crop, but any crop is better than none at all.

Dashing out in the garden to soak up some Bank Holiday rays last weekend, I also cracked on with some other jobs.

I’ve planted out my vast collection of leek and onion seedlings. These should fare better than the beans, as they are now a good size, and have been totally outdoors now for a couple of weeks to harden off. They should laugh in the face of any cold snaps, and establish themselves into prize winning specimens now they can stretch out a bit. A good watering after planting them should help them on no end too.

In other news, we’ve had four new chickens. We were down to just two, and as they are quite old girls, the egg production has been a bit sporadic of late. So we popped out at the weekend and bought four new hens. They’re only 17 weeks old, so should start laying at any time. We were expecting a riot when we introduced them to the old girls, but touch wood they are getting on fine so far. I think it helps as there are four against one – Winnie and Maud are outnumbered. We just need to think of names now…

Four new chickens

This one appeared in The Hinckley Times 0n 9 May 2013

The Hinckley Times 9 May 2013

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Cluckingham Palace

Time to raise our game in the garden

With the news that family were visiting for the Easter break, and the (once again) chilly weather forecast, we didn’t hold out much hope of any gardening.

However, the weekend didn’t quite pan out to be the stream of gatherings and get-togethers we’d anticipated, but on the bright side, provided an ideal window of opportunity to tackle our raised beds project.

We’ve decided to install raised beds as we lost so many plants last year due to the continual wet weather. Raised beds should let excess water drain away more easily, should allow the soil to become warmer, more quickly, and should be an ideal shape and structure for us to net against birds and insects. Oh, and they should look rather smart, too.

As our vegetable bit of the garden is quite large, we decided to initially build the first raised beds on the lowest part of the garden.

The wood was delivered last week, courtesy of our cheerful farmer friend: nine lengths of 8ft planks. This would be enough to make three beds measuring 8ft by 4ft (or 2.44 m x 1.22m for the metric-savvy amongst us). They would be long enough to provide a substantial growing area and narrow enough to be able to reach all the plants without trampling all over them.

Staining the raised bed wood

After staining the wood, the other half set to work. Sawing three planks in half to provide the end panels, he attached the ends to the sides using small angle brackets in each internal corner. We then knocked a length of wood (re-used from some old bed slats) into the soil at each corner to provide a sturdy anchor to attach the bed to.

A quick check with the spirit level, a couple of screws later, and Hey Presto! The first bed was made.

This is how it looked before…

Before the raised bed was installed

And after…

I lined the bottom of this with a layer of cardboard. Apparently this should rot down, enrich the soil, and suppress weeds in the process. Next in went a layer of chicken coop waste, which we’ll follow with a layer of rotted horse manure. I’ll then empty the compost bins and spread that around, and judging from the size of the frames, I may well have to invest in a bit of top soil at some point too.

The garden is still too cold for planting, but I have stretched a couple of polythene cloches over parts of it to warm up the soil before anything goes out. The chill can’t last forever, so the better prepared I can be for start of warm weather, the better.

In other news, the cold snap got the better of Mildred, our chicken last week. She was fine one day, gone the next. Mercifully, she didn’t appear to have suffered and slipped away peacefully during the night – she was still perching in the coop when we found her.

So my final thought for this week is:  “Rest in peace, Mildred… you laid some cracking little eggs…”

The Hinckley Times 4 April 2013

The Hinckley Times 4 April 2013

Farewell Mildred

If you are of a sentimental disposition, I suggest you look away now, for I am afraid the news is not good.

A couple of days ago I nipped down to check on the girls, and discovered Mildred, our Cuckoo Maran sparked out in the hen house. On further inspection it transpired that she wasn’t just having a sneaky kip… The prognosis was worse than that… She’d carked it.

I had noticed she had a bit of blood on her comb the day before, but as she had seemed quite perky in herself, had assumed one of the others had simply got a bit over-enthusiastic near the feeding bucket. Obviously it was a tad more serious than that.

We adopted Mildred and Maud from the RSPCA a good while back. I’d dubbed them ‘the evil twins’ as they were inseparable and always appeared to be hatching cunning plots and plans from the back of the coop. They were a good deal more skitty than Winnie, our other bird, and if you tried to get near them or pick them up, they screamed blue murder.

Aside from that though, they laid cracking eggs…

So, we duly removed Mildred’s stiff little body, wrapped it tenderly in black bags, and she is currently in the chicken morgue otherwise known as ‘the black bin’.

The other two didn’t even seem to miss her: Maud simply dashed into the nesting box to squeeze a quick egg out. It was as though she just couldn’t concentrate on the job in hand with her prone twin stretched out before her.

In other news, our omelette intake is down.

A nice shot of Mildred, Winnie and Maud

Mildred is on the left. so called because when we first had her, she came with a red tag around her ankle. Mild-Red… see what we did there?

Snow fails to impress chicks

Snowy, squally, sleety, slippery, skiddy.

I bring you last week’s weather courtesy of the letter ‘S’. Please do feel free to add to this list with any other words that might pop into your head.

Apparently we have had the coldest March in fifty years. You heard correctly… FIFTY YEARS! And it’s not altogether very funny. Could we have a quick word with whoever’s looking after the weather: “Lay off the wise cracks, and send us some of the bright stuff please”.

I nipped down to the chickens at the weekend to make sure they had plenty of fresh, not frozen water. Replenishing the water supply with a fresh container, I hoped they wouldn’t rumble me and realise this had worming drops in it. I decided to start the year as I meant to go on and worm the girls regularly. Worms can live in the digestive tract of the birds, and if they take hold, they can be pretty tricky to get rid of.  And obviously a dose of worms can be fairly unpleasant for the birds.

As the garden was covered in snow, I decided to let the girls out for a run around. Since they scoffed the green manure I planted last year, and demolished the entire crop of runner beans the last time they were out, I figured that they couldn’t really do much more damage. Flinging open the coop door with a flourish, I tried to tempt them out with a handful of corn. I know that they love corn, as I made the mistake of mixing it with the layers pellets – just once – a couple of weeks back. Since then, the girls are on the constant lookout for the stuff, flinging all the pellets out all over the run in their quest for it. It became apparent that not even corn would to do the trick this time though.

Winnie, Mildred and Maud came to the doorway, looked at the snow then looked at each other. I swear they all then collectively looked at me, with an expression that simply said, “Are you crazy?”, before retreating back to the coop.

Mildred is not impressed with the snow

Leaving the door open in case they had a change of heart, I then had a quick check on the greenhouse. Remarkably, everything seems to be surviving the cold in there. Don’t ask me how, but the celery seeds began popping up in the week. I covered the pots on the bench with bubble wrap, to keep any impending frost off them, and trudged back up to the house.

A short while later, I was impressed to see the girls slowly but surely making their way up the garden. They weren’t exactly skipping around with glee, but they did have a bit of a mooch and a scratch around before taking themselves off to bed for an early night.

The Hinckley Times 28 March 2013

I’m back

Yoo hoo! Yes, I’m speaking to you… yes, and you too…

After a bit of a lull in the old blogosphere, I’ve finally found the time and the inclination to put fingers to keyboard and ‘ahem’ bash one out.

I’ve had a rest from The Hinckley Times articles over Christmas, as even I can’t bobble on continually about ‘it’s a bit nippy out’. But you know what? After the bleak dreary nights, where all you want to do is light a fire and get your PJs on, I do believe that spring may really be around that corner.

Only the other morning, I looked out to see blackbirds blatantly flirting…nay.. near on cavorting… in the garden, and a blue tit was definitely having a good old nosey in the bird box.

And so, on to the vegetable plot. The garlic and onions I planted at the back end of last year have survived the snow, and healthy new shoots are pushing up through the ground. The broad beans were doing marvellously, right up until the point I let the chickens out for a run around the garden. In amongst all that green stuff they could have found to eat, they happily chomped through the entire crop of beans and left me with nowt but spindly stalks.

No matter, I’ve planted up two varieties of replacements in the greenhouse. Bunyard’s Exhibition as they did well last year, and a heritage variety I’m trying for the first time: Dreadnought. It’ll be interesting to see which are the top croppers. They are all planted in empty toilet rolls, as apparently when it’s time to plant them out, the whole thing goes in. The tube will rot away in the soil, and the roots won’t get any unnecessary disruption. Happy times.

I’ve also planted aubergines, chillis, broccoli, leeks and onions. There was a slight seed-related mishap, whereby a good few of them got wet due to a leak in the shed roof. So I don’t actually know if any will pop up, but for the moment they have the benefit of the doubt. I pop down to the greenhouse every day, peer encouragingly into all the pots, and give them all a ‘come on old chaps’ kind of pep talk.

If nothing startling happens, I may resort to buying seedlings from the garden centre. That’s not cheating is it? Please tell me it’s not…

This one’s for you Edgar

Snow

After weeks of moaning about the incessant rain, this week brought something new for us all to grumble about.

Snow.

In the space of just a couple of days, the temperature dropped, the heavens opened and we must have had, ooh, about two inches of the white stuff. Us Brits LOVE the drama of a good weather story, so instantly TV presenters were gushing on about ‘The Beast from the East’ and spreading doom and gloom about the impending cold snap. Facebook suddenly turned into a weather channel, with all and sundry posting snowy scenes, just for the benefit of those of us who may not have windows of our own. We had a running update on how skiddy the paths were and success stories of people braving the school run… and getting back alive.

Others were sagely advising us  to take care and not to go out unless it was completely necessary: “It’s like an ICE RINK out there!” For goodness’ sake,  Twitter even developed a hashtag-snow!

Even the chickens weren’t that keen on the stuff – and they’re supposed to be hardy farm animals. I love to see the girls free ranging in the garden, but can’t let them out during the summer, because basically they’d poo everywhere and either dig up or eat all my meagre attempts at self-sufficiency. So in the winter months I like to let them out to have a grub around; with any luck they’ll sniff out and eat any slug or snail eggs in the process.

Yesterday, I popped off down the garden and opened the coop door with a flourish. Taking a tentative look outside, they didn’t know what to make of the snow. Eventually they ventured out, and cautiously came out onto the lawn. A little later in the afternoon, I glanced out of the window and they were nowhere to be seen. All three of the girls had  disappeared into thin air. Donning my wellies, I trudged off down the path to make sure they were all OK, and found them looking decidedly miserable, perching in the coop. At three in the afternoon, they’d had enough of the weather, and had taken themselves off to bed for an early night.

The first job of this morning was to make sure they had access to water and not ice, so I whizzed down with a clean, full water container.  At the sight of me, Winnie, Maud and Mildred got slightly excited at the prospect of a fresh drink and freedom. Sliding back the bolt, I tugged on the handle of the coop door. Slight problem afoot – the door was frozen shut.  Luckily the little door to the nest boxes wasn’t, so I left this open for them to hop out, and left the water container just outside.

Sure enough, half an hour passed and they had figured out their alternative exit, and all three of them came trotting up the garden, noticeably happier than yesterday.  It wasn’t quite ‘Dancing on Ice’ but they certainly weren’t eyeing it with the suspicion of yesterday. They made a beeline for a sunny spot on the patio, and there they have been ever since, basking and preening. When it starts to get dark I’ll pop down to the coop to make sure they all made it back safely.

After all, the paths are treacherously slippery at this time of year…

Chickens in the snow. Yes, snow… just in case you don’t have a window of your own

Mildred – getting braver

Mildred, Maud and Winnie (behind the pots)

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Tomato splits

You may recall we had ‘tomato-gate’ earlier in the year, where the other half took it upon himself to whip out the stems in the ‘v’. Since then, he’s become a veritable tomato expert, and takes care of all the watering, pruning and feeding of our crop. If he’s nowhere to be seen, it’s always worth a check in the old greenhouse: more often than not he’ll be lying horizontal along the path in there, snipping off the lower leaves to let the fruits have a bit more light.

Although why he’s taken on our tomato crop is still a slight mystery. The tomatoes are romping along, but he  doesn’t actually eat them. Slight amendment – he forces a couple down with a salad now, just so he can taste the benefits of all his hard work, but I’m not convinced there’s any chewing action going on just yet

There are three varieties we’re growing:  Gardener’s Delight and Sungold for eating and Roma for cooking.

We noticed recently that a few of the fruits were splitting. If  you catch them in time this isn’t a problem – just cut them along the split before serving, and Hey Presto – who’d know the difference? Left a little longer however and they can go a bit mushy around the split. Those ones have gone to the chickens, and Winnie, Maud and Mildred LOVE them!

Apparently the splitting can happen when your watering’s a bit hit and miss. They like a constant amount of water, at regular intervals. If you give them loads then a little bit, then loads again, this can cause them to keep sucking up the water on the inside, and split through the skin.  Apparently.

I’m not convinced. Being a Virgo, the other half has been meticulous in his watering. Some of the plants are even drip fed by an irrigation system hanging in the greenhouse.

We’ve also read that splitting can be avoided by harvesting the tomatoes just before they ripen, and finish them off inside. That looks like a plan: from now on, we’re going to check every day for potential splittage, and bring them all in a touch early.

Our crops look to be bumper, so I think my ‘Cooking with Tomatoes’ book will be out before very long.

Bon appetit!