Wet, wet, wet

Thankfully, the monsoon season seems to have come to an end. We got off lightly during Storm Desmond (which only took the sand off our beach), but the whole last month has been extremely wet and windy, with water lying in the fields. A few days before Desmond our little burn had turned into a raging stream after a particularly rainy day and one of our wee bridges was underwater. This was also the day I could check which of our land is potentially water-logged, but luckily everything drained away the next day.

Back to its normal calm self

It doesn't feel very Christmassy around here yet. Temperatures are still very mild, some roses are in bloom, the grass is green and nothing has gone dormant yet.

 

 

December rose

Green, green grass, almost looks like a lawn now

Because of the wet weather, we haven't made as much progress on the log pile as we would have liked. But progress is being made.

The wood stacks are growing

Soruss has not wasted any time in amalgamating the flocks. He seems to be quite the disciplinarian, much to the chagrin of his mother Amber, who's probably regretting her harsh treatment of him when he was little.

Grazing under Soruss' watchful eye

We're slowly working our way through the large Pink Fairy pumpkins and are currently on number three of six (the freezer is filling up with pumpkin, too). Pumpkin ale is planned. In the veg garden, the garlic has shot up and everything else keeps growing slowly. The first of the winter broccoli is starting to appear, while we're still harvesting a couple of the summer broccoli plants. Amazing.

Our one red cabbage this year - earmarked for Christmas

Celeriac - lots of these guys around this winter

December veg garden - still looking quite busy

With all the bad weather, the season has turned from gardening and harvesting to DIY. Three rooms are on the agenda. Good thing Domino is helping out!

DIY cat strikes again

Loaves and logs

The 25-tonne log pile

The time has come at last to tackle the mountain of logs from the Forestry Commission. For this job, Christmas came early and Jim's got himself a nice Swedish chainsaw. Much as we love hand tools, this one did require power!

All tooled up

Already the woodshed is full (always a reassuring thing) and next we're going to fill up the area next to the garage with stacks and stacks of wood. Next year, we'll hopefully get around to roofing this bit over to create proper wood storage. The little shed really only holds enough for six to eight weeks.

The weather has gone a bit unpleasant at times. We've had plenty of rain and a little bit of hail:

Hail stoned patio

It's been a good time for indoor jobs, baking, cooking and eating. 

Cosy dinner

Friends of ours have kindly given us a sourdough so at last we can bake the kind of loaves we really like. The bread baking is Jim's domain and he's made some fine loaves so far: Borodinskys (a Russian rye with coriander seeds), wholemeal sourdough rolls with linseed and even sourdough tea cakes. Our bread consumption has almost reached French levels!

Borodinksy and sourdough rolls

The winter veg are doing well in the veg garden, but it's just not looking its best at this time of year. I've sown the overwintering broadbeans (and peas and sweet peas in the greenhouse), weeded the overwintering onions and spread the Egyptian onions around a bit, but other than that there's not much doing gardening-wise.

Leeks, cabbage, swede, parsnip and celeriac

The muddy-looking broadbean area with the garlic bed in the foreground

Spring cabbage coming along

Looks like there'll be sprouts for Christmas

The conservatory's had a major autumn clean, and the greenhouse is awaiting the same treatment.

Cleared-out conservatory, just the overwintering plants left

I'm afraid it was time to say good-bye to old Russell this month, before he and his son would start fighting. He made a couple of very tasty soups and a casserole. He served us well in death, as in life.

Russ was not a friendly animal, but did a great job keeping the flock together and safe. He loved a good fight with us and our visitors and is survived by his five children, Soruss, Magnolia, Brown, Charcoal and Ash. We'll always remember him. The cock is dead. Long live the cock!

Russell RIP

The bottom line

Bottom paddock with hedge divisions outlined

We've finally decided what to do with our bottom paddock. This is our winter project (and beyond). Since digging up and moving 45 little oak and ash trees that had been scattered throughout, it has just been an expanse of grass with a generous sprinkling of docks and tussocks. We're going to divide it into five areas with hedges between all of them: a wildlife area around the pond, a soft fruit and nut area (which has already been planted) and three areas for extra bedding. For the hedges, we're thinking field maple for colour, willow to help with drainage and then some tbd to turn it into a nice mixed scheme. Nothing thorny needed here, unlike the outer hedge that needs to keep out the mooligans.

There will be six large beds for easy rotation of the big crops (potatoes, onions, brassicas and grain), for which it can be difficult to find a space in the veg garden that hasn't been used for the same group in the past few years. The remaining beds can have green manure in it or maybe sun flowers (which would save on wild bird food!). We plan to put plastic on them shortly and leave it for at least a year so they should come on stream in spring 2017.

Although several people suggested keeping animals down here - a pig was mooted a few times, ducks, geese and turkeys were mentioned - I think chickens and cats are enough animals for me. I'm reluctant to just keep an animal for meat, especially an intelligent animal like a pig. It's somehow different to 'souping' a chicken that has had three or four good years foraging about. And ducks are just too mucky and such easy prey for Mr Fox.

Soruss and Brown perching

Chickens - fun animals: Ash and Charcoal

The last carrots were harvested and processed today and the last pumpkins came in this week since the ground was sodden after a lot of nocturnal rain in the last fortnight.

More Pink Fairies

We still have half of the 10.85kg pumpkin left, which is seriously delicious. I've made three soups from it, put it into two venison casseroles, made several lots of pumpkin scones, two pumpkin pies and 12 pumpkin muffins.

Pink Fairy inside

We've also started on our Jerusalem artichokes. Chips and roasted whole so far. I especially like them roasted whole in olive oil, skin and all.

Jerusalem artichoke flowers

And tubers

Both the tea plants and the asparagus are doing well 'under cover'.

Asparagus looking a bit more substantial

Jim's got a favourite new toy, a mandolin slicer. This is very useful for slicing our last remaining mooli radishes paper thin, but its main use is going to be making home-made crisps. Just one potato can provide a decent-size snack for two. Makes you wonder about the profits of the crisp manufacturers.

Sliced, washed and dried

Deep-fried in small batches

Drained, salted, peppered and herbed

Best crisps ever!

Two-year mark

This is where we're at two years after moving here:

Middle paddock 2 years ago - a rough paddock was all it was

On the way to being an orchard

The veg garden 2 years ago - you couldn't see the beds

And today

House and patio area 2 years ago

And today

House and weed fest at the south-east corner 2 years ago

Heather slope and black face today

'The Glen' 2 years ago

Natural regeneration after the weeds were removed

Chicken housing area 2 years ago

Wild flowers have replaced nettles

The apple orchard with Cedric the Peacock RIP

And today's fowl

The old conservatory complete with ant colonies

New conservatory

Top corner clearance under way

Turned into a useful space

October chores

The middle paddock has been cleared up already

Our amazing weather has held all week and the garden clear-up has continued apace. The top two paddocks are mown and all the mulch has been distributed. We harvested the comfrey (in the bottom left corner of the picture) for the first time and are making fertiliser tea in two rain barrels from it.

All the tender plants have been taken inside or covered up with cloches or fleece. Jim made nice little cages from a bit of fencing wire (our old washing line) and we got the tea plants covered just before the coldest night so far.

Winter quarters for the tea

In the summer months, these cages will have to be covered with chicken wire as our chicks have developed a bit of a taste for tea - maybe that's why their bedtime is later than that of the adults. But, to be fair, they try everything and eat pretty much everything apart from nettle (pity, but at least they do seem to enjoy dock leaves very much).

Young ladies of leisure, but next month they'll need to start working

This fine young cock has discovered raspberries

In the veg garden, the beans, broccoli and courgettes are coming to an end and all the winter veg (leeks, celeriac, parsnip, kale) are starting to come on line. There are still lots and lots of carrots. The Jerusalem artichokes are flowering, but we haven't dug any up yet - very soon. And, of course, there are still squashes ripening. It's always hard to tell when they are ripe the first year that you grow a variety. All the repeats are obvious to me, but I don't want to harvest the new ones too early.

The sweetcorn is more of a baby corn alas, no comparison to Canadian peaches & cream, but then we weren't expecting much after the cool summer. Good to have a taster this year and we'll try again next year.

The one thing that is early this year is the Christmas cactus:

Not bad, Mr Lidl

Now we just need to tackle the bottom paddock (and start on the huge pile of wood waiting to be processed) and then it's time to celebrate two years here next weekend. With pumpkin, of course.