My local Gardener’s Association has an Autumn Show coming up. It’s just a shame that I don’t have anything to enter. I missed out on the Summer Show too, it just happened that I was at that ‘inbetween’ stage where I’d gobbled everything that I’d pulled out of the ground, and everything else was nowhere near ready. Maybe next year I’ll be more prepared and have a much bigger range to choose from. My flower growing has been a lot better this year, with my Cosmos being a veritable success. I gave some to my mum and now they’re almost as tall as houses, and like mine still going strong (”yey!” say the bees). I might even have a go at entering the photographic and cooking entries, although they don’t appear at the Autumn Show, so I’ll have to wait for next year.By that time I will be 25 and probably one of the youngest entrants there! I just wish more people my age had the same interests - growing your own veg and eating it is just SO good for your soul.

I’ve also been collecting some seeds from the garden - namely Hollyhock and sweet pea, those good old English standards. The bees just go mad for the hollyhock, and they loved the sweet peas this year too. It was so nice to walk past them on a slightly damp summer evening and catch the smell. Over the summer I kept cutting them to encourage the flowers, the bonus being that my kitchen was filled with their aroma. So I’ll definitely be trying to use those seeds again next year. There’s something really satisfying about cracking the sturdy brittle pods open and thumbing out the seeds. I think I’m going to make some handmade seed packets to store them in. Maybe even tins. I’ll add it to the list of the other twenty five thousand enterprises I’m planning on doing.

Well we took Yoko to see another vet more experienced with poultry. She basically said that we ought to keep going with the baytril and that she thought Yoko wasn’t alarmingly thin at all. Clear chest, good colouring, she seemed well hydrated and not too much diarrhoea staining. She gave Pokey (Yoko) a steroid injection and said that we should get a faecal sample to check for any worms, parasites etc. But all in all not to worry too much.

Yoko has gone very broody and we think this is perhaps why she hasn’t been eating very well. She has definitely perked up but still has her moments of lethargy. Lately she’s been charging around the henhouse trying to get into the nestbox to no avail (we were trying to stop her being broody), but the vet advised us to let her settle in so that she’d be happier in herself. We have to monitor her eating but maybe if she’s not so hellbent on getting into the nestbox she’ll take more time to eat. So I’m really hoping that she’ll get better as I haven’t yet seen her regurgitate and although her crop was still fairly squishy yesterday, today it seems better - although she hasn’t eaten much apart from layers mash and lamb’s lettuce this morning. We’ll keep an eye on her but I’m hoping that she’ll improve with each day and get over her broody phase more quickly. So now she’s in the nestbox and I can hear the occasional piping coming out. She’s less anxious which is great, I wish I could have had a steroid injection to make me feel less anxious!!!!

I’ve been up every morning around quarter to half past six observing the hens solidly for about 3 hours. I think people around here must think I’m a very strange chicken lady - no, I just like to know what’s going on with them! I was out in the wind and rain yesterday complete with umbrella turning inside out every now and then. We had a tornado pass through about 10 miles away, but luckily I just got a bit soggy and windswept. The girls were confined to the run with the extension and seemed perfectly happy as they were chomping on their breakfast under the dry bit.

Since I’ve been so involved with Yoko I haven’t really done an awful lot else. I managed to lay the path in the greenhouse with some of the free block paving, and Maureen christened it by doing the smelliest poo from a height, with maximum splat factor, whilst perching on Rich’s garden chair that’s currently in there. Luckily the stinker misesd both Rich and me, but we had to do a rapid evacuation due to smellypoofumes. Anyhow, Rich has six million and thirty nine things to do, so I’m not sure when we’ll get the greenhouse staging in. As long as it’s in time for me to start growing my herbs, I’m not *too* worried.

On the vegetable front, I have still yet to sow my agricultural mustard (eek!), although I’m still waiting on my Radar onions and Thermidore garlic to arrive from the Organic Gardening Catalogue, so not sure whether I’ll be putting part of that bed to ‘fallow’ anyway. Hopefully they’ll arrive soon. In the other bed my Chatennay and Autumn King carrots are going ok, despite Pattie’s mining attempts and the other hen’s discovery that they quite like carrot tops - so the fleece tunnels have gone back on. Not sure if they’ll do anything because to be quite frank, they’re looking pretty weedy at the moment…so we’ll see… Leeks are going ok too, although again the hens got a bit carried away and trampled on a few, but they seem to be still going despite this. Right, I need a lie down.

I’m all worried again. Today we had to take Yoko to see the emergency (Saturday) vet. A couple of days ago I thought I saw her sort of ’spitting’ water out of her beak. I only saw the drops of water land on the floor infront of me as I worked on laying the path in the greenhouse, and Yoko was nearby but I couldn’t be sure it was coming from her. However, today she was acting a bit under the weather. After I’d collected the eggs she made her way into the nestbox for the umpteenth time. I opened up the nestbox and peeked at her as she stood on the perch before she went in, and what I saw made me worry a lot.

As she peered down the ladder from the perch, the motion of her head going forward released a stream of water, bile or mucus from her beak. So I knew she had definitely been regurgitating something. In a panic, I checked the poultry forums and found heartbreaking stories about hens that had been really lethargic and thin with similar symptoms (but Yoko’s are not as acute) that had died. So I booked her into the emergency vet and took her in pronto. I’m not one for leaving things - if I think there’s a problem, I want it sorted out sharpish.

The vet conceded that she was not a poultry expert, and so gave Yoko some baytril to go in the drinking water. We decided the others should also have this, as the vet thought that Yoko’s condition - whatever it was - was chronic and not acute, and we thought there might be a chance that the others might have lost some weight like her. So they’ve got to have the baytril in water for 5 days and we’re giving them probiotic yoghurt to help with the ‘good bacteria’ in their guts whilst on antiobiotics. Yoko has lost weight, but the vet thought she was ‘very thin’. Rich disagrees, he thinks it’s normal to be able to feel the breastbone of a hen and says that although she has lost a noticable amount of weight, she is not dreadfully thin. I hope that we have started the treatment early enough so that she can get back to normal health quickly.

So now I’m fretting and checking on her every half an hour almost. She is up and about, just slower and quieter than usual. Her crop was very squishy and empty and we don’t think she’s been eating and drinking enough, so if she doesn’t pick up we’ll put her in a run so that she can’t free range so much and will go to the food more. They’ll be restricted to the run in the mornings to make sure they’re going to the layers mash, corn and antiobiotic water and nothing else first. I gave the house and their feeder a really good clean today too (fret fret fret). I have read that she could have ’sour crop’ (although I haven’t been able to smell her breath and I haven’t seen her regurgitate any more water yet) - we’ll be contacting the BHWT and trying to find a ‘poultry expert’ to see if we can get any more info on this. She did a plop on the vet’s table and we had a look - there were tiny red lines in her poo and I hope and pray it’s not blood. The vet wasn’t sure, she said the poo itself looked fine. I just hope that she starts putting on weight and chirping up a bit very soon. At least her diarrhoea has stopped - we cleaned up her feathers and bottom a couple of days ago and she did perk up afterwards. However she’s only doing small droppings because she doesn’t seem to be eating enough.

Anyone with advice or experience on this - I’m all but willing to hear if there’s anything else I should be doing or looking out for.

Digging, cutting, pruning, raking, wheelbarrowing. That seems to have been my life for the past week. There is SO much cutting back, re-shaping, digging out, composting, shredding and green-tipping to do that I think I am starting to go ever so slightly raving mad. It can be a bit demotivating thinking about just how much work still has to be done to get the smallest smallholding into any sort of working shape for next year. It seems that the autumn and winter are going to be dedicated to mostly re-shaping the land to make better use of it now that I have some inkling of how things work and just how much veg (and herbs - remember the herb project!) I want to grow.

Thing is, I bloody hate digging out my veg plots with a passion. But with my mega-plot extension, it’s just got to be done. We did consider hiring a mini digger for the day, but as much as I would LOVE to get one to help, it’s just too expensive for the likes of us, the piss poor church mice that we are currently. So it looks like the next few weeks I’ll be out in the rain and wind (long hair constantly being blown into my face is possibly the most aggrivating experience - even when tied up and wedged down underneath a dodgy beanie hat) digging and uncovering goodness knows what. Previous debris uncovered (or recovered) from the plots include disturbingly large animal bones, terracotta drainage pipes, wire, wrangled metal, old bottles, bits of random china, a lot of glass and whole bricks (useful!).

We managed to score some free used block paving at the weekend. My aunt works for a local school which had taken up a few pallets-worth of this very weathered and worn block paving. So rather than it going to the skip, and then on to landfill, my aunt declared that we’d take it away and use it. So there was me, Rich, my mum and dad, my aunt and step-uncle, all loading our cars up and taking the stuff away. The ultimate in recycling! I have already laid some down next to my greenhouse so that I can put out pots in the summer on it. It actually looks pretty good - not as utlitarian as I thought. Because it’s been weathered nicely, it’s quite mellow-looking and actually looks as if it’s been there quite a while already. Anyway, I’m going to use the rest to lay down a path into and inside my greenhouse (also a freebie from freecycle), and if there’s any left over I might even do a small seating area outside the greenhouse.

I splurged last week and bought some 3mm UV-resistant acrylic panes for the greenhouse, so now that’s all in one piece, no gaping holes. I decided on the seemingly less-”green” option of acrylic rather than glass as I thought it would probably last longer, so I wouldn’t have to keep buying (and someone manufacturing) the brittle horticultural glass. The acrylic, although pretty much just as good as the glass (and safer for the likes of the accident prone like me) does tend to sag a bit in the middle in the roof panes, so Rich reckons he’s going to construct a little support for it. This is when he’s constructed my greenhouse staging - are you getting this Rich? Greenhouse staging - need it pronto!!!

N.B. Pic is me digging for victory with our hens at the very beginning of this year, just a few weeks after we’d got them. Take a look at my “meet the girls” page to see what they look like now - beauties!

What a weekend - it started with me innocently pulling down some ivy and ended with a very sore face and puffy eye. There is a wasp’s nest not far from where I was pulling the ivy down, and unbeknown to me, one had flown at me from behind, and I managed to get stung just below my eye. Cue lots of screaming, pain, burning sensation in my eye “it’s stung my eye! it’s stung me eye!”, more shouting, and dancing on the spot whilst Rich tried to pull the blighter out of my hair. Poor thing was half-mangled by the time it was freed from my locks, so Rich had to stamp on it. Feel a bit sorry for it really, I should have been more careful! I’m just steering clear of any wasps at this time of year, they’re mental - like a group of lager louts, completely pissed and up for a fight at the drop of a hat. Much prefer bees anyway, they have something distinctly more laid back about them.

My face was painful and sore and a little swollen for the rest of the day, but I went to bed and woke up the next morning looking like a Klingon. Puffy, half-closed eye and a distinct lack of defining of cheekbone on my right side. Oh how very! Bit better today, although it did puff up again overnight - but you can’t really see it that much anymore. Which is a good thing. My grandmother goes into anaphylactic shock when she’s stung by bees - I have never been stung by a wasp or bee before, so I don’t know. Well, didn’t know - I know about wasps now.

It seems this clearing of land is taking forever. The hedges are just MASSIVE, but it’s not so much the cutting that takes forever, it’s the clearing up and disposing of afterwards. And it’s quite boring work if I’m frank. Our compost heap is gigornmous, so I really don’t want to add a few extra feet to it, so I’m insisting that we take our cuttings to the local Tidy Tip, where they have a green skip. So at the moment we have lots of piles of hedge trimmings, ivy, buddleia and soon bionic Dogwood cuttings all over the joint. I’m waiting to dig out my extra veg plots (Rich thinks I should ditch the bordered beds that I currently have and just have one massive plot…not sure about this) when it’s rained a bit later on, as the ground is just rock solid at the moment.

I bought a load of herb seeds yesterday because I was a bit bored - can’t decide whether to do a trial run or not. I don’t want to waste my time or money, but I think if I have been more patient I could have got the seeds a lot cheaper. It seems that it’s totally the wrong time of year to plant any sort of herb, save a couple and the ones that you can grow indoors all year round. I think the people at the garden centre thought I was a bit mental - they were taking off the seed packets from the display whilst I was frantically trying to grab the herb seeds that I could salvage from the remnants of the display before they were put away. I might do some research and see if it’s viable to grow them all in pots over winter under cover. It’s all on a whim, I haven’t really thought forward about potential farmer’s markets, about how I should source the seed etc. I have done some research into how the different herbs are used in cooking - so that’s giving me some ideas for my own cullinary activities! Anyway, at least if I can’t grow them until early next year, I can have more time to plan this slightly bizarre venture.

I’m currently drawing up a plan to grow loads of (mostly cullinary) herbs next year - part of a little commercial enterprise I’m cooking (ho ho!) up. The other day I was out in the car with Mum, and we had to take a little detour through the grounds of Woburn Abbey (belonging to Duke and Duchess of Bedford). Mum had been there the day before and she was explaining about the walled kitchen garden. Apparently there used to be upwards of 40 gardeners at Woburn Abbey - now there are only 6. How times have changed! Anyway, we stopped and I had a quick chat with the deer that were hanging around the side of the track that leads out of the Park grounds, and then whilst we were driving along and talking, Mum revealed to me that the land and surroundings (about an acre and a half) that our house was built on (and the bit left over next to our house that was left fallow for decades) used to be a proper market garden, with chickens, vegetables, and the remains of the orchard. The neighbouring 70s terrace was built on the remaining land after our cottages and the nearby railway cottages were built, but with their postage stamp sized gardens, a generous bulk of the fallow land was left for some 20 odd years to become overgrown with brambles and bindweed. So much so that we didn’t really realise that there were all these fruit trees growing there until we cleared it when we bought it in the 90s.

So it’s really made me want to almost “put it back” to what it once was. You see, we have two parts to the Smallest Smallholding - there’s what we call the “garden”, and then the “working” Smallest Smallholding bit. The garden is obviously for flowers, socialising, pottering, and the like. The working bit is the centre of the smallest smallholding, although with my love of all things wildlifey, I admit it will be more like a potager/kitchen/market garden than just land turned over purely to arable means.

Cynthia and Maureen have been doing synchronised dancing routines.

Today is the 5th anniversary of the introduction of two of our cats into our household. We got Lilla and Mindu (just don’t ask about the names) on 1st September 2002, as two rescue 4 month old kittens from the Godmanchester branch of Wood Green Animal Shelter. They love life at the Smallest Smallholding - apart from the annoyance of other cat Tom and the late great grandoise Tubby. When I got my fleece tunnels for the veg patches earlier this year, I’m sure that they thought it was just another fun toy put there solely for their disposal. And yet I can’t berate them too much for it!

I often walk by the plots, only to see a flash of fur and a sharp exit from under the tunnels, and when I peel back part of the fleece, I discover that my carrot seedlings have been sat on, and are rather ‘bent back’. They seem to make a speedy recovery though, despite being sat and rolled on at least one or twice a day. In fact, my Autumn King are doing very well at the moment, so it might be possible that I got them in just the nick of time to get a sizeable crop before the winter.

I also captured Mindu using my veg plot as a convenient WC. I know it seems a bit strange, but she had such a stupid look on her face, I couldn’t resist taking a picture as I had already got the camera on me. So I shall have to take some (pleasant-looking?!) measures to stop them using my plots as super-sized litter trays. It’s just the girls that do it - the boys suprisingly are far more private (thank goodness).

Rich and I have been a bit ‘otherwise engaged’ this week. With the advent of an evening wedding ball and other ‘things’ to do, we haven’t been able to dedicate as much time to doing what needs doing at the Smallest Smallholding. I did get out and about the other day though, snapping away in around the veg plots, and took a macro shot of the sunflower seeds that are slowly but surely developing in the heads of the ‘happy accident’ sunflowers. I read somewhere (I believe it was Rosie Boycott’s book ‘Our Farm’) that sunflower seeds actually grow in a fibonacci sequence, from the inside of the flower out. It’s a sort of nature by numbers - apparently it grows in this way so that the maximum amount of seeds can be fitted into the head of the flower. Amazing really. Makes you think about the architect of nature - just stunning really. Rich has also taken a close up picture of a fly, and it really is fantastic. So many iridescent colours, structures, lines, angles and tiny details in the fly’s ‘engineering’. Part of my challenge as a Smallest Smallholder is that I won’t kill anything (I’m all for prevention) - so I’m left with things like plum moths nibbling away at the plums and damsons, and other ‘problems’ and pests that could easily be dealt with. But when I look at things this close up I sort of remember why I’m like that. I’ve always been like that, and I can’t really see it changing. It does make life harder - and for a Smallest Smallholder it means that I can’t really keep livestock as such (but am a great applauder of those that can give their livestock a great life and swift end) and so I will have to diversify a lot more than usual.

Actually, it’s made me think really - at the moment the Smallest Smallholding is not the main income of this household at all. The egg problems we’ve had have meant that we’ve had a drop in eggs - I’ve had mum on the phone saying she’s got a few people who are waiting for help us out with our usual glut. But it’s made me realise how much one small thing like a few hens not laying properly can have such an effect. Pattie’s eggs have been coming out thin and cracked again, and keep getting squashed in the nest box. So it’s onto Plan B now, I’m hoping that it’ll sort itself out soon, and I’m hoping and praying it’s not something awful that’s causing it. The fact that she laid the other day has kind of given me hope that it isn’t anything complicated that I can’t sort out for her.

Going off on a tangent slightly, I have received a few packets of seeds this week - all part of ‘The Plan’ (Coming Soon), so I shall start getting going with those very shortly. Already turned over one bed (apart from my parsnips which seem to be a little small compared to everyone else’s - hoping for a growing spurt after I feed them some seaweed extract) and started re-conditioning and feeding the soil. Soon I’ll have to start constructing the new compost beds (part of The Plan) - we currently have a 10-15ft long compost heap dumped under the Bionic Dogwood, partly because it’s out of the way and partly because it stops the Dogwood sending out any runners. But it’s not easily accessible for turning or bagging up, and it’s not really particularly pretty, and so will need sorting out soon too. I’m all for function, but I do like to pay attention to the aesthetics too, being a girl and all.