Flaming June

We had an inch of rain on Thursday - in less than 12 hours. It was typical Cumbrian weather. But worse was to come. We had 2 inches of rain yesterday, in 24 hours, and in the evening and night, it blew a hooley. Lupins smashed to the ground, buddleja pummeled and worst of all, broad beans thrashed to within an inch of their life. We have done our best to resurrect them today, propping them with canes (they had already had their usual baler twine supports put in place), but as it has rained on and off all day today, and it's still pretty windy - they'll have to take their chance.
3 inches of rain didn't manage to stop Husband having a furtle about in the tatie rows in one of the brief 'dry' periods today. Guess what we're having for supper? Yep, the first of this years crop. These are Pentland Javelin.........

Update on The Allotment

Most of the credit for work done in the allotment goes to Husband. I am often swanning about on several thousand pounds worth of horse whilst he is toiling away. I can however claim credit for the grass being mown, and some of the seeds being planted - either the ones which get started off in the cold frame, or the really fiddly ones like Parsnip, for which I have more patience. The straight lines? Well I think you can guess who is responsible for those!
Fruit bushes were pruned and are now setting fruit nicely

Runner Beans have been planted out in the last few days, into a bed which had been under polythene for a month or two, so is lovely and warm. Chantenay carrots under the cloche (to avoid carrot fly) and courgettes over the far side

The remains of the winter sprouting broccoli, which is still cropping, broad beans, space for leeks which are currently in our friends greenhouse, Beetroot under the cloche

And the same bed again - beetroot under the cloche, parsnips, shallots and onions, with Sugar snap peas on the other side of the trellis

Out of view are some summer sprouting plants in the nursery beds, along with a few more carrots, some chard and some spring onions

I don't think we'll be going hungry this year.

Catching Up In The Garden

Gardening this spring has been fitted in around the social life, racing, horse, sheep, hens, walking and other things that seem to fill our days. We have pretty much redesigned all the planted areas in the garden, so it is now maintenance and veggies.
Like all gardens, it changes from day to day, but here is a taste of what it looks like at the moment.......

In the Front
The side bed is growing maincrop tates (Wilja) along with some rocket, radish and red Chard, with the willow screen along the wall intermingled with wildflowers which have been seeded from local stock (with the landowners permission!) and left to their own devices.

The Newest bed in the front is just beginning to get going, by this autumn, there should be a bit of colour and height in this corner
The Acer has settled in well to it's new position - here's hoping we don't get too many Helm Winds while it is in leaf
Another few weeks, and things will really start to fill out

And in the back.........................

The bottom bed has been under water many times this winter. It is heavy, cold soil and we have moved a couple of things (a variegated abelia and a lavender) that were struggling to cope with the wet conditions


The pond creates a brilliant focal point - the wall is just the right height to sit and gaze into the water. At least six frogs and a newt (which is likely to get rehomed any time soon!) along with scores of tadpoles and millions of snails. A few Great diving Beetle and a whole host of other pondlife.
The two veggie beds in the back are growing Pentland Javelin and Charlotte. All other veg are in the allotment - and that is the next post I need to do!

Playing Catchup

OK, back again. A lot has happened in the last couple of months, but I'm not going to try to catalogue things in any proper fashion. A brief selection of what's been happening should do the trick.

Early February saw us in Scotland, doing our annual House, Horse(s), Dog(s), Guinea Pig etc.etc sitting. A very sad time. Richard and Trina have been friends of mine - and then ours - for far more years than I can remember. We have known each others dogs almost as well as our own, and Harry (Trina's cairn), Nip (one of Richard's Springers) and Hattie were all the same age. Harry passed away last year, and dear Nip, who had a very special place in our hearts passed away just a few short weeks before our visit. Tug, his son, seemed to be coping pretty well.
We came home and had a fortnight here. Not a happy time as this was when we lost Hattie. She is very sorely missed.



We headed off to Lincolnshire at the beginning of March to House, Horse(s), Dog and Cat sit there for our other annual holiday! We were a bit subdued for obvious reasons, but we managed to catch up with lots of old pals including Sharvee and Rachel (named after me - the first cade lamb of the season in 2009 when Sharvee and I were the chief Shepherdesses at Mount Farm). Rachel very obligingly gave birth to twins while we were there this time.


As well as socialising, husband managed to chain harrow both of the main paddocks for Simon and Sal, while I got acres of grass mown and did a bit of weeding. Simon and Sal have an awful lot on their plates at the moment, and coping with about an acre of garden, another acre of orchard as well as three paddocks must take it's toll.


Back home and it was straight back to work! Well, for an hour or so, as we were drafted in to help unload 6500 point of lay pullets. It's amazing what we get involved in!

We have both been busy in the garden, though it has to be said, Husband has done far more than me.

The allotment has been cleared of rubbish which was the result of our 'stale seedbed' approach, to the huge bank of weed seeds we inherited. Then dug over and planted (on various dates) with......... Shallot sets, Onion sets, parsnips, broad beans, carrots (under plastic), salad (under plastic), Summer sprouting Broccoli (under glass), peas and some chard. Husband can take the credit for all of that, bar the actual sowing of some of the finer seeds as I have a bit more patience than him for tasks of that sort!

The various fruit bushes and trees have been pruned as necessary

and two out of the three plots we have at home have been dug over, prepared and planted with second early tates. The third plot is dug and prepared, ready for the maincrop.

Whilst all of this has been going on, we have been feeding ourselves with curly kale and one of my favourites, sprouting broccoli from the garden. The sprouting has done incredibly well and just keeps on coming. YUM! YUM!


The remains of the conifer tree which was semi disrobed in the autumn, has now been felled
and the rest of the garden given it's early spring tidy up.

We have had a few visitors, some staying with us, others staying locally and meeting up for a walk. As the estate behind us have miles of permissive paths, but do not allow dogs on them, we have taken the opportunity to explore these, as hopefully before too long, we won't want to walk where we can't take a dog. If you were to plot a line on the map from here, due west, it would be 20 miles before you came to another house. When you walk up over the hill behind us, you really can believe it. Not a human soul in sight. Silence, punctuated by Curlew, Skylarks and sheep. It really brings it home to us - and our visitors - why we love it so much here.
It was busy once though - as this limekiln suggests

Apart from that we have both been busy through March. I am now into the third week of lambing , helping a friend out in the village. A brilliant arrangement which means that I just go first thing in the morning to get everything caught up from the previous night. Most days I am back home by 9 at the very latest, so it doesn't interfere with any thing else we want to do. Occasionally it has involved further work during the day, but then Mr B has joined in as well, more hands make light work!
Horses still feature highly on the list of things that happen on a frequent basis, with James and Vicki both calling me up whenever they need a 'Jockey'.
Yesterday was our turn to watch though as we headed east to Sedgefield to watch one of Jame's horses who was running in the big race of the day. It was an atrocious day. Wind, rain, snow. Ground that was getting deeper by the minute. But an awesome effort by a very brave horse. It was hugs all round in the winners enclosure as we headed off for a glass of Champagne courtesy of the course sponsors, and an evening of celebration courtesy of Kealigolane.

Reorganisation and a Colourful Visit

We were in for a treat this morning. Bull Finches have been around in the hedges locally all summer, but today marked the return of them visiting our garden. Mum and Dad are visiting in a couple of days, let's hope he comes back while they are here.



Meanwhile, a long term plan finally started to take shape. Last autumn we planned to rejig the back veggie plot, but the weather closed in before we had finished harvesting the leaks and we never got back to it. This time, with the allotment to grow our winter brassicas and leaks mainly growing in the side plot in our garden we made sure everything would be pretty well finished in the back to give us chance to get it done. Nothing fancy, just making it into two narrow beds so that we can reach to pick veg without having to stand on the bed. The beauty of having turf edges is that you can change them as often as you like

Just lift the turf on the left hand side, and build a path in the middle with it. Dig over the newly exposed soil and let the weather do the rest.

Down The Allotment

Whilst we will miss our Friends From Across The Road, they have made damned sure we won't forget them!
We agreed a some time ago that we would look after their veggie patch/orchard whilst the house is rented out.

It will be good for us to have a bit more room for veggies, whilst still knowing that we don't have the long term tie of a big garden.

It will keep us busy in the meantime though.
So if you call in for a cuppa and we're not here; have a look down the allotment.

Feasting

Like everyone else, we have been feasting on new potatoes straight from the garden for weeks now. Salad leaves and radish have also been producing quicker than we can eat them for weeks. Chard has been used as both salad and a spinach alternative, but finally, the really important season is getting underway.
My life wouldn't be worth living if Husband didn't get his beetroot fix every now and then. They really unbeatable when they go from soil to saucepan in one swift move.

Beans are (one of) my favourites. We are way behind all our friends and relatives who have been eating these little beauties for weeks, but given the altitude and lack of shelter, we are prepared to wait.

Definitely worth waiting for.

A Genius at Work

Glorious spring weather, reaching 19 degrees today. What a day to be outside. After riding out this morning, I spent the afternoon faffing in the garden. The village puddle is keeping me well out of Husbands way, as he cracks on and plants more veg. I did give him a hand planting the tates for what it's worth!

Windy Wall

A couple of days of showers (heavy ones!) and winds of around 18mph, gusting to 30mph. Little can be done in the way of proper gardening, but sorting out the edges of the new 'Village Puddle' has kept us out of mischief.
First the turf at the far side needed lifting, then the slabs on top of the wall needed to come off. The hardest of all though is building the wall on the right hand side, as this needs to be higher than it was, in order to get the levels right.
Fortunately we have an endless supply of very local, free walling stone. Sadly though it doesn't come supplied with a dry stone wall expert.

Social life stopped play eventually, but a bit more playing around at the far end, and it should be OK.
Plenty more work to do on the inside of the puddle, but it is beginning to look something like we planned.
Oh and just by way of recording, we had the first of this seasons Rhubarb last night!

More Digging

While Husband digs over both Vegetable plots, I start digging elsewhere. A project which had been planned for the autumn, but never happened thanks to the weather. With the forecast predicting a breakdown in the current dry spell for tomorrow, I was keen to get this job well on the way before that happened.
So having planted one lot of broad beans (the others are in the cold frame getting a head start as they are going into a colder bed) and two varieties of parsnip; Husband helped me with the digging in the later stages. Ferrying soil away as I battled with rather large stones to try to get below the 3 feet deep target. Once that deep, it was time to do battle with the liner....

Once in place all that remained for today was to fill with water and leave it to settle for a day or two.

Now it can rain!

Sugar Beet?

With apologies to those who have really heard enough about beet this season. It seems a little ironic though that in the worst season for beet since way before my time; here we are in late February, digging parsnips which are bigger than many of the roots which get delivered to Newark!



The larger of the two weighed in at nearly one and a half pounds and measured more than 18". That will go very nicely with home grown broad beans and runner beans (out of the freezer obviously!)

If only the ground would dry up, we could start doing some prep work for this years veggie crops.

Christmas Comes Early

The local Blue Tits seem to think it's Christmas (more of that later). They have been eating coconut for many months, but suddenly they are far more interested in it. It's quite satisfying, sitting less than a couple of yards from a Bluey hanging upside down.



Meanwhile, those that can't get on the coconuts (they are not keen on sharing them) or the seed feeders and peanuts (for all the other birds) have decided that now is a good time to demolish the sunflower heads that have been left standing, for precisely that reason. It's lovely to see them going to good use.



Christmas has also come early for us today. We thought we'd try something a bit different this year. Having grown new Potatoes in tubs as opposed to in the ground this year and found it to be incredibly successful; we thought we'd have a go at growing some for Christmas. One of the tubs has developed a drainage problem in the last week or two, so rather than let them rot (if indeed there was anything in there), we decided to have a dig about and see what was what.



The variety is Kestrel, and I am hoping they will taste as good as they look. I wonder if any of the other tubs will still be intact by December 25th?

Soil Structure

Having both spent far too much of our lives trying to educate farmers on how to achieve the best possible soil structure for root crops, it is pleasing to see that we did have a bit of an idea what we were talking about!



Unfortunately, just to prove that you can never tell a crop by it's appearance - they are not the best eating parsnips we have tasted. The variety is Gladiator F1, and we think we will try something else next year - if only Husband could remember what variety he used to grow!

Vegetable varieties

For our own use, we thought it would be a good idea to summarise what has done well or otherwise in the vegetable garden this year. Hopefully this will help decide the plans for next year.
Most of these are still feeding us and will be for some time yet.

Rocket - good yield, bolting quickly
Lollo Rossa - good yield.
Radish (Long White Icicle) - Big yield, bolts quite quickly.
Beetroot (Botardy) - A bit slow, but successive plantings will keep us going for many more weeks.
Spinach (Emilia F1) - bolted very quickly
Spinach Beet (Perpetual) - good so far, just starting to crop it.
Courgette (Patriot F1) - Good, but need to be in back garden to make most of sunshine. Blossom end rot a bit of a problem.
Courgette (Golden) - slow but same as above
Carrot (resistafly) - good yield but inedible due to Carrot fly.
Carrot (Autumn King) - watch this space. We are hoping a later sowing might beat the fly.
Broad Beans (Masterpiece Green Longpod) - phenomenal. Will move to side to shelter from winds next year.
Runner Beans (Armstrong Stringless) - also phenomenal.
Parsnips (Gladiator F1) - Looking good but none pulled yet.
Tomatoes - of the 4 varieties planted only Ailsa Craig has been really impressive. Outdoor Toms at 1000 ft is probably a bit too much to ask. We will probably try them in the window of the garage next year.
Peppers (Big Jim & Mohawk) - both have yielded well, once moved indoors.
Leeks No idea what variety - a neighbour brought them from France, but they are HUGE!
Red Cabbage Also unknown as a gift from neighbours as young plants. Done very well, but take up too much room.
Potatoes (Maris Peer) - Not the variety either of us would have wanted to grow, but the only one we could get late in the day when we decided to grow new tates in containers. Despite not being our kind of tate, it has yielded incredibly well and is still feeding us as it will be for another week or two. Different variety next year, but well worth growing in tubs.

Other than what has already been mentioned, no late season veg have been planted as we intend to do a bit of reorganising the veggie plots.

Harvest Time

No cereals, OSR or Beet for us this year, but we thought it was high time to see how the carrots are doing...............







And while we are at it, today seems like a good day to lift a few tates too.


I think those will go very nicely with the joint of local lamb we are having for supper.

Back to Beet

Don't panic, neither of us are hankering after our careers back. But having spent more than half our combined lives advising other people how to manage their crops, we thought it was time to start managing ours.
Our beet was drilled fairly thinly so that the only thinning necessary was now that the roots are beginning to swell.
The first few thinnings tasted divine!



On a different note, we have had a Hosepipe ban for the past week here. If ever you want it to rain, you know what to do. Since the ban was imposed, we have had about an inch and a half of rain, taking July's total to date to about 2 inches. Now that's more like Cumbria. I guess it will be a little while before Haweswater and Thirlmere are back to normal, but it has been very welcome rain.

The Promise Of Things To Come

Since my first days as an agronomist, I have enjoyed this time of year with all the crops are at their best. Sadly I also know only too well, that a good looking crop does not necessarily mean a good yielding crop.
We have high hopes for the veggies - let's hope we are not going to be disappointed!
We were late planting our tates, so they are not quite ready for harvesting. The flower buds are there, but still tightly shut.
Lettuce, rocket and spinach have been feeding us for weeks; Red Beet is not far off giving us the first few baby roots; carrots and parsnips doing well; Broad Beans are just beginning to pod, leeks and cabbages are romping away. The first of the runners are just about at the top of the poles with the first flowers just beginning to show red buds. The first Courgettes are now about an inch long.
I guess to many this all sounds late, but up here in the hills, ours are as far ahead as most in the village.