Looking back

Now that we're well in to our second year here on the smallholding, I am taking the time to look back to see what we were doing this time last year, to learn from, to replicate, to reminisce and to spur me on. Running this blog is a fantastic way of doing this.
I'm ahead with my tomatoes this year, by a good 4 weeks I'd say as the flowers didn't come until 12th May time frame.

We had the 5 goslings plus Ryan hatch and we lost 1 of them as is the nature of the beast.  This year has been cruel and we lost our only one.  The mother is still sitting on another clutch but I don't think they will be any good as she left them when the gosling arrived and went back when it died.
As we did last year, we'll let nature take it's course for so long and when we feel we should, we'll remove the eggs so she can go about her business again.  She's been sat for the full time already and it really takes it out of mother geese as they don't eat and drink as much as normal and seem to lose quite a lot of weight when sitting.
We have harvested rhubarb earlier in the year this year as I bought the early variety which was worth it.  I am going to get more too as it is simply divine and you can do so much with it.  I think we're also harvesting the old rhubarb earlier too as we've had it all through April, so that may be down to the crazy mild Winter we've had of 2016 season.  It's amazing the speed with which the rhubarb grows.  One day it's small and unappealing and the next day it's enormous and has you frantically searching all of the recipes for different tips and tricks.

The hard work we put into the veg bed soil last year paid off no end and the lasagne method I used on the weeds worked a treat.


One thing I learnt from last year is that the asparagus goes crazy very quickly so I am trying to stay on top of it.  We've already had 6 meals from it, so I plan to start to do alternative things with it shortly.


We're continuing to have people come for the rotted horse muck, something which is worth thinking more about for next year.  Also our eggs are continuing to be a hit with people buying them.  We had a guy come for some muck at the weekend and took a 30 tray with him!  He must really like his eggs!


I do like to look back to see what we and others were doing this time last year, and I'll be using this post for this time next year too!
Does anyone know what the below is?