Bank Holiday weekend has been pretty busy at the Smallest Smallholding. With all the rain and mirth of the past few weeks and million gazillion other things that need doing around the place, parts of the Smallest Smallholding are looking very scrappy and unloved. But this weekend I’m trying to change that. We’ve started putting the glass back into the greenhouse (and have now found we’re a massive 8 panes down, so will be getting those on Tues), levelling out the ground around there and then sorting out the pitted ground around the crab apple. The hens have been digging out great trenches and the birds in the tree have been dropping the sunflower hulls all over the joint, so I’ve been trying to make it look just a little bit more pretty and clean.

I gave the crab apple another haircut today. Just a few branches here and there, so it looks a bit more balanced. However we’ve been talking about getting a ‘Green Skip’ a bit later on in the autumn, as there is a lot of pruning to be done at the Smallest Smallholding and nowhere near enough space to compost it all down, even when chipped or shredded. Hedges, trees, buddelias (bee and butterfly magnets) including a 20+ year old specimen with a TRUNK (yes - trunk!) circumference of about 5′ that needs some serious pruning, as well as a bionic dogwood that is threatening and to engulf and destroy all that lays in its path. So that’s a huge job on the cards for autumn. Lots of hard work but well worth it in the end - much more useful space!

For all concerned, Pattie is doing much better - thanks for the comments. She managed a full (thin, but full!) egg today - we’ve been holding back on the fruit and pasta and giving them boiled eggs, shell and all. Seem to have lost the Poultry Spice but we’ll buy another lot next week. After a dodgy egg yesterday, Yoko on the other made 2 unsuccessful trips to the nestbox today. She’s had a spot of projectile diarrhoea (lovely) but I did notice she’d been munching on some fallen damsons, so I wonder if they’re partly to blame. Hopefully tomorrow morning she will have laid again. She does very large rotund brown speckled eggs that always manage to draw some sort of exclamation from both her (she has to let half of Bedfordshire know that Yoko Is Now Laying Her Egg) and the recipients of her eggs (”good grief! would you look at that!”).

So busy, busy - nothing spectacular happening, more of a prolonged tidy up job over the next few days. Then I’ll probably have to start on my Smallest Smallholding Winter Plan. It’s still formulating but I will soon have updates and full briefing on The Plan.

Poor little Pattie Cake. She keeps laying soft eggs. I know it’s Pattie because they all have very distinctive eggs. We did have a spate a few weeks ago, but her soft eggs have been coming out almost daily now for over a good week and a half. I fear it is partly my fault.

You see, in my last post I admitted I am an avid feeder of animals. I think I have been spoiling the girls and giving them way too many treats -bananas, strawberries, pasta, cheese, plums…things that I thought were actually ok for them (apart from the pasta). But doing my research today I’ve learnt that too many treats can mean that they fill up on things that aren’t necessarily rich in the vitamins and minerals they need to make the eggs - although Rich swears that cheese is good for them. But probably not the amount that gets chucked down by me.

No I’m feeling quite foolish really. Pattie is bottom of the pecking order and so I’m wondering if that has anything to do with it. Although, to be fair, Yoko only lords it over her where the mixed corn and worms are concerned. They have constant access to layers mash, and free range all day on grass, grubs, worms and other poor unfortunate creatures. But I think perhaps I need to start supplementing their water with some Poultry Spice again, adding more oyster shell to their food, or possibly even worm them too? We’ve just had to treat them for red mite, but that seems to be more under control now.

There just seem to be so many explanations for soft eggs - some horrific, and some as simple as “just a phase and nothing to worry about”. Well, I am a worrying worrier! I’m going to switch to giving them a treat - just one - every other day, and apart from the above, also try and feed them some more greens. They seem to absolutely adore baby lettuce leaves, so maybe a few more of them and less of the pasta and sweet stuff would be best. That’s another thing I learnt - sweet and acidic foods can contribute towards soft shells (plums…strawberries…oh gee wizz I’ve been a crap mum!) Here’s hoping there’ll be a change in the nest box over the next few days!

I’m an avid feeder of animals. I just can’t help myself. Aside from the Smallest Smallholding’s resident cats and hens, I also feed hedgehogs (we occasionally release hedgehogs for Bedfordshire Wildlife Rescue too) and wild birds. As different wild birds prefer to eat different foods in different ways - for instance, goldfinches like to eat niger seed from hanging tables or feeders, and blackbirds like to eat fats, berries and seeds from the ground feeders - I have a variety of feeders and feeding stations at the Smallest Smallholding. However, keeping hens means I have to be careful now and try and keep everything clean, so I’ve tried to reduce the amount of sunflower seed that gets scattered directly on the ground.

However, this year, a few sunflower seeds made their way into a small vacant bed I half-dug, and low and behold some beautiful and striking sunflowers started growing there. I couldn’t pull them out, they seemed so happy there, and aside from the occasional water from me, they didn’t require any feeding or help. So I left them there, like a bristling collection of happy little accidents, waving and bobbing around in the breeze, bringing some much-needed colour into a current sea of green.

As far as I know, part of the Smallest Smallholding is sited on the remains of an old orchard, most of which has vanished in the intervening years. We have a very old, knarly Victoria plum tree, two damsons and crab apple. The crab apple, when uncovered after years of struggling to grow under 6ft brambles and bindweed, flourished and every year has provided us with a pretty impressive crop of apples.

Thing is, we never really knew what to do with them.

A few years ago the main bough had split, but as the three fruit trees were in a handy triangular position, we used them as interim washing line posts. The washing line kept the crap apple together and it seemed perfectly happy like that. It seems though that the wind and rain of late (typical English summer weather), as well as this year’s quite frankly ridiculously large crop of apples had taken its toll, and today I discovered that the largest branch was precariously hovering and swaying about. So Rich did the manly thing and sawed the bough off, leaving me to contend with breaking the branches down into firewood for the winter. Handy!

But it seems we should have really bolted the thing together as now, we’ve lost a good third or half of the tree. Still, it seems pretty happy with what’s left. And I have less apples to contend with.

Apparently crab apples have a high content of pectin - great for jams and jellies. But to be honest, I usually leave them for the birds in the late autumn, and any left overs get slung on the compost heap. This year I was hoping to use at least some of them, so any tips or ideas of what I can do with crab apples, beside crab apple jelly, would be greatfully received!

Apparently at this time of year I should be experiencing a glut of veg from my ‘harvest’. But for me, it was more of an experimental year at the Smallest Smallholding. The quality of my soil was so poor, I wasn’t sure anything would be able to grow, and so didn’t really plan the seaon too well at all. And so I find myself in mid-August with one bed completely vacant, one with only Excalibur parsnips growing, and the remaining plot newly planted with Autumn King and Chantennay carrots (sowing was late, but I thought hell, I’ll give it a bash and all seems to be going well so far), some chives and mixed leaf salads to make up the space. So I think I’m going to have to get going with my overwintering crop plan.

So whilst everyone else seems overrun, it’s just a little bit too quiet here at the moment. Well, was a bit quiet - two days ago I picked up my FREE greenhouse. It’s a good size too - 6′ x 8′. There are a couple of panes of glass missing (plus we managed to break a few in transit), but they should be pretty cheap to replace. I managed to get the greenhouse free through an initiative known as Freecycle. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s basically a global organisation with branches all over the joint - there are at least three local to me - where you can post for wanted items or something you no longer need but don’t want to take to the tip. It really is the ultimate in recycling. So when there was a post for a greenhouse, I mailed the guy saying “oh yes please!” and explaining why I could really do with one. Well you can imagine my delight when he emailed back asking when I could come and collect it. It’ll make a big difference next year, as I was previously using with one of those useful (but small) plastic mini-greenhouses, and cramming it to the rafters with my seedlings.

So we spent 4 hours yesterday in the pissing rain putting the frame up and making sure I’d dug out enough room in the corner of the Smallest Smallholding, conveniently next to some existing veg patches (but check out my expansion plan for the next growing season). Luckily Simon, the bloke I got the greenhouse from, also managed to pull up the wooden base it was sited on, so we’ve got to stake that back in the ground, put some sort of base down, whack the glass back in, put some guttering in (have also done a ‘wanted’ post on Freecycle for a waterbutt, currently awaiting replies), and see how I go! Owing to the success with his gate, Rich has offered to make me some greenhouse staging - says it should be ‘easy!’.

Alas, it’s pissing it down with rain again. So I think I ought to get on with those crop plans…

My Mum was always baking when we were children. Suffice to stay, she’s still baking and now so am I. Love it. I love the way it makes the house smell (like ‘good times’). It’s like a kind of therapy, especially the bit where you get to eat your work.

Mum’s latest fad is courgette cakes - my cousin is currently overrun with the blighters, so to help her out my mum offered to take a few off her hands. Instead of the usual courgette offerings - grilled, roasted, stuffed etc - Mum decided to make a courgette cake. And my word, is it tasty! The recipe is from Mum’s cousin Sue, who in turn probably got it from somewhere else…but here it is:

Courgette Cake

(Makes 2 x 1lb loaves or can be Tray Baked)

8oz Courgettes - grated. Peel if you don’t want a green cake!

5oz Margarine

9-10oz sugar

4 Eggs (Beaten)

11oz Self-Raising Flour

2tsp Ground Cinnamon or Mixed Spice

4-5oz Seedless Raisins

3oz Chopped Nuts

2tsp Vanilla Essence

Method: Preheat oven on Gas Mark 4. Grease tins or tray. You can line the tray bake with greaseproof paper. Cream the marg and sugar, beat the eggs and then add the flour alternatively, making sure that it is well mixed. Beat in the cinnamon, courgettes, raisins, nuts and vanilla essence. Cook for 1 hour. Make sure that you leave the cake to cool once it is done, as the mixture is quite moist. You might find that you have to really gently ease the cake out of the tin with a pallet knife.

N.B. Rich tore down half the ceiling in the kitchen and made a big mess, so when that’s cleared up, I shall have my own picture of my courgette cake. For now, there’s some nice courgette muffins to look at.

I have always been a worrier. In recent years, I’ve learnt to curb the habit of worrying about things that just may not happen.

But yesterday afternoon little Cynthia was not well, and it worried me a lot. I didn’t sleep so well. What had happened was that she withdrew herself and would spend ages sitting with her head in a bush, looking rather listless, hunched, and doing the occasional diahhroea. We gave her some oyster shell to nibble on, which she seemed to do with some enthuasiam at first, before going to stand under another hedge or shrub to look listless again. She drank a little and wandered around, but seemed like she was in her own little world.

Overnight she laid an egg where she was perched and then for the first couple of hours she plodded about, hunched and tentative, not wanting to eat at all. Having let her out, a couple of hours later, I got up again to check on her. As the girls heard me coming through the gate, all of them, including Cynthia, came barrelling out of the hedge, looking eager for the cheese cubes that I had brought them. They were all gobbled up, and it seems that all is now well. I’m hoping that it was just a dicky tummy or the heat as far as Cyn is concerned…I’ll keep an eye on her to see how her next egg laying venture goes.

But for now the status quo seems to have been restored at the Smallest Smallholding.

Been eating my onions almost every day for the past week. In soups, chillies, in baguettes with tofu weiners (no, really, they are not as disgusting as they sound) …So no scurvy for me!

They’re seriously tasty though - Rich has made a declaration that they are the best he’s ever tasted. And for Rich that is some serious banter. I think he’s just used to the blander Spanish onions from the supermarket. Although mine are smaller, they’re so much sweeter - whether that’s the variety or because I’ve pulled them up relatively earlier than I think I ought to have done, remains to be seen.

So next year, I’m doubling the size of my onion plot. I eat onions like they’re going out of fashion, and hopefully by then I’ll have room to store them. There will be Hercules planted again, but I’m introducing some stiff competition to the almighty Hercules, in the shape of Bedfordshire Champion onions. Being Bedfordshire born and bred, I couldn’t resist.

It seems I am more than halfway through my current growing season. I didn’t really plan ahead so much - having spent so long digging out the plots (which included the removal of whole bricks, old drainage pipes, random bits of metal etc), I was more in a rush to get things in the ground before it was too late.

However, here I am the beginning of August with all my new potatoes eaten, almost all my carrots gone and only half my onions left. Thereafter all that will remain are my maris pipers and parsnips. The conservatory is currently overrun with tangles of lanky tomatoes, chillis and peppers, but a meal they will not make!

So my job this week is to try and plan ahead for the winter, really make the most of my current veg patches whilst I try and eek out some sort of plot expansion plan. I’ve already put in some leeks that I bought for 95p from the local WI stall, as well as chucking in my Chantennay and Autumn King carrot seeds. I’m hoping that the fairly mild and humid conditions, along with the rain, will give them an extra-fast germination time, and it seems to have worked thus far. In the remaining space I sprinkled a few lettuce and chive seeds in, and under the fleece tunnels they seem to be doing fine. Despite my efforts to hermatically seal the fleece tunnels to the ground, one of the cats has somehow worked out how to slide in underneath. So I’m not sure how my seedlings will fare if they are forced to continually endure being covered in a fat blanket of fur each day. At least the Hens haven’t seen the lettuces yet. All it will take is one nibble, and you can guarantee that the whole lot will be gone within a matter of minutes.

But back to my winter plan - the idea is to both grow a few bits and pieces for next season, as well as being able to grow some veggies to eat over the winter. We don’t have the space at the moment to store anyway, owing to our miniscule shed that is rammed with all manner of garden machinery and equipment. I tend to pull whatever I need up, and then eat it that evening. I’m thinking winter onions, cabbages (if possible) the leeks that are already in (although they probably won’t be ready until next spring?!)…. Good grief, I really have to do some research into this. It’s still a huge learning curve.

Today my other half Rich put the garden gate up. Or should I say hung the garden gate? Either way, we’re very proud of our garden gate. It might seem trivial to some, but Rich managed to build the gate entirely by himself, without any power tools. There was a lot of grumbling and the occasional bout of swearing, and owing to our distinct lack of useful power tools, it took a while to construct - but he managed it.

The gate is there to stop the hens from escaping from the top of the garden, making their way up the drive and onto the road, and from there - who knows! Before we had hen-proofed properly we did find them in the neighbour’s front garden flower bed, starting to dig a hole for some dust bathing. Luckily our hens are obsessed with any sort of running water, and a quick perfunctory splosh on the floor of Rich’s cup of tea managed to do the trick, and soon we had them herded back into our back garden.

But back to the beloved gate. The gap that had to be gated off was a tricky size, and all the pre-made (and somewhat twee) gates we came across were either too small or too vast. Not to mention ridiculously expensive. So the only solution was to create our own bespoke five-bar wooden gate to suit. Having put it all together on the kitchen floor, and avoiding the cat bowls and my attempts to cook dinner around him, Rich finally managed to get the structure into an upright position, ready for painting. On further inspection we decided it looked far too new - in contrast we fondly refer to our semi-detached cottage as rustic or tumbledown - and as such we felt the gate should match. So I took to it with a hammer and bolster chisel, thumping random impressions into it and rounding off the edges. It might sound like an odd thing to do, but I remember seeing a programme about a cockney crafstmen who used to construct everything from salvage, and this is a technique he used in ageing his rustic kitchen table.

Anyhow, it’s up there now, and once it’s weathered down from it’s new(ish) slightly orangey-just-been-painted-with-wood-preserver state, I think it’ll do very nicely indeed. There’s something extremely satisfying about being able to construct home-crafted pieces. Although Rich might just wish that he hadn’t proved how handy he is with a hammer and saw, as I have a few more projects for him up my sleeve now!