Riverbank transformation - part 2

At the bottom of our field we have the river.  There's a decent sized river bank there too, which runs the full length of the field.  I've mentioned the riverbank in a previous post, as I felt it's such a shame to let it go to waste. 
Therefore we have been putting new trees in behind the fence and far enough away so the horses can't lean over and eat them.  This weekend saw us planting 4 more along side the previous 3.  It's a bit later than people say you should plant them but they're be fine I am sure.
We loaded up 2 wheelbarrows with everything we need to get the job done and the whole family trooped off to get the job done.  The kids were smiling and the dogs happy to investigate the field.
Steven did all the heavy manual work as normal and I was there handing out what he needed and making sure the dogs didn't escape and the kids didn't take an unplanned swim.

We now have:

Hazlenut Kentish Cob

Hazlenut Red Cracker

Victoria Plum * 2

Gage Tree - Reine Claude Doree

Mirabelle Tree - de Nancy (Plum)

Quince Tree - Vranja

The last 4 on my list above (which is why I have 2 Victoria Plums) were on offer for £5 from dobies and I am very pleased with them.  We planted them yesterday with the usual couple of buckets of muck and a bucket of water from the river and staked them in for support as it can get windy over there.

So the riverbank transformation is starting to take shape.  I've not planted any of the herbs down there yet as they're still a bit small and probably delicate, so I'll bring them on a bit in the veg garden first.

 

 

 

 The hazlenuts and first plum tree were planted on 15th April (almost 1 month to the date) and have gone from this

 

 to this:

 

 They're looking very healthy and seem to like their new home!

I plan on getting more trees a long here as they'll also act as a windbreak and noise barrier from the railway line which is behind them on the other side of the river.

Polytunnel update

I've had a lady contact me via the contact form asking for details about my polytunnel.  Firstly I must apologise to her as I didn't even know there was an email waiting.
We wanted a polytunnel to help with this year's growing.  I decided to go for a budget tunnel and make it last as long as possible.  We measured the space we had available and bought a 6m by 3m. 
Here's my original post on it.  Ste did a great job of fixing it down so that the framework is going nowhere when the winds blow.  
As I said at the time, even if the cover rips, the frame will be used as a fruit cage and will be meshed, so it will continue in one form or another.
I bought it from here.  I see it's out of stock and gone up in price, most likely due to the time of year!
I paid £99.99 delivered, which was fast and efficient.  So far, it's been great.  The cover seems fairly robust compared to what I was expecting.  The zips aren't great but if you treat them with care, they may hold out. No complaints there either so far.
So if you're after a budget polytunnel, the green type with windows and doors at both ends, come highly recommended from me. 
One day I hope to upgrade to a bigger, polythene type, but for now, this suits me very well.
I've planted peas (our first ones are shown here in the pics) and broadbeans directly into the beds inside, along with early potatoes, beetroot and radish all directly sown. I've planted strawberries, swiss chard, kale, lettuce, courgette, pea and bean plugs too.  Marigold line the edges and are doing a sterling job of offering themselves to any nasty insects in a valiant attempt to save our veg.

I've got some French beans too and that pretty much takes up all of the space until we start harvesting and then I will replace the harvested items with more. This weekend we harvested our first peas!! It is the twinkle variety and is delicious!

My mornings

I am lucky.  I have 2 mornings.  1 at home then another at work.  I prefer my mornings at home ;) I thought I'd share with you some photos from my morning's this week.

I go outside around 5:30 making a mental note of what the weather has turned out like (and usually cursing the forecast if they have it wrong).

This week we have had dry mornings, though one was that foggy it felt Autumnal.

Outside our back door

Beyond the trees you see in the first photo

Looking back up to the house from the little paddock

This is where the farmers cows normally are but on this foggy morning, you can't see them.

Normally they are very interested in what I am doing.

Whilst taking note of the weather, I head straight over to the big barn to feed the horses, saying hi to the sheep on the way.

 

The sheep know that they don't get fed first, they are in to the routine now, so they generally just look up at me but don't get up.

The horses are always very pleased to have been fed. 

Ryan, our female goose (I know) sleeps in the barn and she follows me around on a morning until I feed and water her.  She prefers the sheep food to her own.  Typical!

Hello...feed me please

This water looks like mine

I also give the free range chickens (fully free range) their breakfast, heads down, bottoms up.

Notice the dominant cockerel and the less dominant one...

After the chickens, horses and Ryan, come the sheep.  By now they are at the gate waiting for their food.

After the sheep, the pigs are up.  They are usually awake and rootling around when I turn up with a bucket for them.  By gum they are boisterous now.  No manners and you better hope you don't get knocked over when feeding as I'm not convinced you'd get back up again.  Needless to say the kids are banned from going in there!

The look cute though.

Foggy morning

Sunnier morning

Beautiful afternoon

Once the big animals are taken care of, I open up the chickens, ducks and geese in the rest of the areas.

By now the cows have followed me along the edge of the field and watch intently.  These are young cows and most probably as stupid as last years, so we're going to strengthen this area as I don't want them getting into the chicken and orchard areas.

There are lots of them.  The gate in the below photo is where the bridleway (opposite direction to the gate) is, which is at the front of our house. 

 This is the orchard where the hens are, where we don't want any cow interruptions!

There is a bottoms up theme here.

 The ducks and ducklings are let out (this is before we moved them) and the make their way busily to the pond.

Over on the other side of the smallholding, I make sure the plastic pond is refilled for the geese who are often too impatient to wait.  The sound of running water entices them.  They can be mean, so are separate from the ducks.

The female joins the male.

She sees what he has in mind and makes a sharp exit!

 I make sure everything has food and water, which we usually top up the night before but sometimes we don't manage to complete them all or 'life happens', but I never leave without making sure all is well.
The Vorwerk hens usually settle down anywhere to lay their eggs just as we're leaving for school and work.  We've had some fun times trying to locate where they are laying!  It's just as well there's only 6 that free range so much.  The rest free range, but are restricted in their areas.

Once I've done this, I get myself, the kids and the dogs sorted, make packed lunches, load the car, forget where I've put my phone, dash round for 30 seconds looking and then leave on time, wondering most days how I managed to pull it off.
I wouldn't change it for a thing though, and no, it's not too much like hard work.  For now, we have to go out to work as we do to pay the bills and this is how we make the most of it. 

Smallholding is in our blood, I'm sure of it.

Duck disruption!

Part of running a smallholding is thinking on your feet and not always knowing what's coming next, but then to quickly adapt to it when the time calls for it.

We found this duckling (she's big but young) hiding away after being pestered by the male older duck.  He'd taken a liking to her and was extremely rough.  As her wings cover her back, it hadn't been obvious that he'd hurt her quite as much as he had.

We gathered her up and assessed how bad she was.  To be fair, it looks painful but she was ok in herself.

On looking at her back, we noticed how amazing her colourings are.  They're really coming through.

We bathed it quickly in cooled boiled water which we always have in the barn for such an occasion.  She let us do it and hid in my coat nice and relaxed.

Grace noticed another one had been hurt too, so we whipped that one out and they stayed in the barn for the day, recovering in the horses hay and straw.  Sadly the second one has a poorly eye where he's caught her and it's still poorly but slowly getting better.

The ducklings have all been moved to another location now, a large pathway where they can eat the weeds for me!  The will remain their until they are ready for the freezer, so it is only temporary. 

***You may wonder why we move them if they are going to be killed anyway.  As many of my readers know, the most important thing for us is that the animals are happy and have a healthy life and then we dispatch them in the quickest, humanist way possible.***

Grace, like a lot of kids, wants to be a vet when she leave education and she enjoys looking after the animals in the good and the bad times.  Here she is holding one of the ducks she rescued.

We also took the time to take the eggs from under the goose and make them up a new bed.  It was the right choice as the eggs were foul and Mother Goose needs to recover now, she's been sat a long time and has lost a lot of weight.

We're locking up around 9.15 each night now, once it's getting dark and everything has gone to bed.  The morning's are lovely and light which makes running a smallholding and working that bit easier.  One day, hopefully soon, only 1of us will have to go out to work and 1 can stay at home to run the smallholding.  That's the plan anyway :)

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?