More pissy weather this week then. Hasn’t exactly been conducive to a lot of work. I haven’t been near the allotment for ages and I fear that Mr Mole has wreaked havoc with my onion sets and potatoes. Oh well, I never was really that bothered about planting in straight lines.

Urgh, the chicken saga continues. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m actually spinning around on some level of Dante’s spiral of Hell and damnation when it comes to grappling with sick hens. Oh of course, I’m being melodramatic. They seem ‘ok’ today - Yoko is in better spirits, having had a really good day on Monday, and then a couple of crap days. I think the breakthrough in sunshine today is helping. She has one or two days of baytril left, then we have to assess. She could be going in for a bit of a risky procedure to try and drain off some of the egg yolk in her abdomen.

Pattie laid a tiny ‘wind egg’ (a bit of egg white, aka albumen, no yolk laid in a shell about the size of a large grape) three days ago and hasn’t laid since. Apparently wind eggs (also known as cock eggs, since people once thought cockerels laid them, and fart eggs - can’t answer that one) are fairly common. But the problem is that Pattie hasn’t laid since. I have read that it can be something to do with coming to the end of a ’strain’ of eggs, and that it may take them a few days to get going again. But Pattie refuses to perch at night. Before Yoko comes in, she makes a beeline for the nest box, intending to settle down for the night. Cue the big bad Yoko who, thanks to her sterile EYP, needs the nestbox, Pattie is pushed out. At the moment Pattie is refusing to perch, which is worrying.

More worrying!

I had the rabbits out and about the other day. The hens were not too pleased, as they spied the rabbits charging about. Yoko assumed a rugby-type stance before pecking Smudge on the head for getting too close (I think Smudge was just coming up to investigate), and when Smudge did an about-turn and charged off, she was met by Maureen and Pattie. Pattie flapped her wings and both she and Maureen jumped on the poor wabbit. Chickens are so vicious sometimes. There’s no way I’d leave them out there unsupervised together. Smudge was fine though, I think she was just having fun running around under the hedges. She and Snoopy were doing lots of investigating.

I also brought them in last night to meet two of my cats. The other two live upstairs, they’ve sort of paired off and have their own private routes in and out of the house. Tortoise and Tom, the downstairs cats, weren’t too sure about bunnies charging around the living room. Tortoise is a moody mare sometimes, and she got in a right huff and grumbled as she waltzed off to the kitchen. I swear she was pouting. Tom is a lovely scallywag, totally in awe of Tortoise, sometimes nothing else in the world matters. He can be a bit dim and scatty, and didn’t seem bothered by the rabbits. Not even when Snoop worked out a route up onto the back of the sofa. Eventually they all settled down together, and by 11pm everyone was crashed out in the living room.

Right. Enough about animals.

SEEDS.

It’s going well!

My early Snowball Turnips have come up trumps - they’ve germinated really quickly under the fleece tunnel, so I’ll be pricking them out very shortly. Aubergines are going really well, although a couple withered and died in the seed tray. Peppers popped their heads out of the soil a few days ago, and the tomatoes are going great guns.

My rosemary and lavender cuttings are also establishing themselves, although the rosemary seems to be doing much better. I might try and take larger cuttings of the lavender, and give it another try. i sowed trays of Cosmos too. Last year the flowers lasted right into November, when the bees were still out. They are fantastic for colour, height and most importantly, attracting and providing food for bees. The bees and butterflies could not get enough of them last year. I thoroughly recommend them. Try growing them in seed modules, transplanting to large plots (about 2 or 3 per pot). Wait until they’re fairly well established and quite meaty in the stems, and then plant them out. I did this last year and they were poker straight, strong and lasted for months.

The Tendersnax carrots are doing well in the pots, but my seed scattering skills are not exactly desirable. I sowed most of them in a big cluster in the middle. I think by the time I’ve pricked them all out, I’ll have about 5 carrots per pot. Not exactly a veritable success. I’m still undecided about growing carrots in pots. I don’t think I would recommend it, unless the pot is massive, and unlike me, you are actually able to sow thinly.I suppose you could just harvest tender baby carrots instead. I might try that.

Garlic and super early onions are doing ok too, although the super early onion sets were put in late, so should really be described as fashionably late.

Oh, and I have still neglected to label anything I have sown. I’m too lazy to find a pencil or a waterproof pen. So I am relying on my somewhat currently patchy memory to recall what is what and where.

On the allotment, I managed to inherit two large patches of rhubarb with some impressive crowns. I was actually surprised at how early you can harvest rhubarb, even without forcing it. See, I still have a lot to learn about growing veggies.

So off I trundled on Sunday, having decided that rhubarb crumble was on the menu for dessert, following our Sunday (veggie) roast. Whilst being blown to pieces, I pulled up a whole armful of sticks of rhubarb of varying sizes and thicknesses. Here’s a completely au naturel action shot of me approaching aforementioned rhubarb:

The ones that were far too thick and stringy were cut up (to aid decomposition - yep, MORE compost talk) and thrown (literally, from afar) onto the compost heap. I’m rubbish with portion sizes so I kept pulling and snipping the leaves off, and deciding that I didn’t have enough for one rhubarb crumble, would pull some more. This went on for a fair few minutes. I have a fear of cooking and not producing enough food for a meal that will leave me feeling satisfied. Or full to bursting. So as a consequence, I pretty much always cook far too much.

Now, bear in mind that there are only two of us here at the Smallest Smallholding. This is how much rhubarb I ended up with for my one crumble:

Once I got home, I washed and chopped up the rhubarb, cooked it with about 3/4 of an inch of water in the saucepan, and added about 6oz sugar. Once it was soft, and wafting delicious sweet acidic smells out of the kitchen, I strained it a bit and had to divide it into two dishes. I rubbed together 8oz of plain flour, 4oz of (fair trade) demerera sugar and 4oz (organic) butter together for the topping, sprinkled it on liberally, put a little more sugar on top and put both in the oven at gas mark 5. After about 20 minutes, my rhubarb crumbleS were ready. We served them up with Green & Black’s caramel and hazlenut ice cream.

Fan-bloody-tastic. My first allotment harvest was a veritable success.

I’m sitting here with a big fat headache, and I think I must look like a right old grump.

I had to do a dash outside into the FREEZING COLD (when *will* this winter end properly?!) haily-slushy-rain to grab the washing. I’d completely forgotten about it until I’d gone to put the hens to bed, and ended up having to sprint back out into cold and wet to retrieve it. I think what I have now is a sort of prolonged ice cream headache.

What a moany moaner.

I just wanted to address a few comments from my Compost post - thanks for the advice regarding the pallets. I wanted to prove that I’m not completely useless and post a pic of the compost heap I refashioned from pallets at the allotment. It’s made from everything that was already up there, left by the last tenant. I managed to dig in the pallet sides so they’re solid, wire them together with some spent wire from where the dead raspberries were (managed to save a few though that are looking promising), and line it with chicken wire I found.

However, the reason I’ve not used the three pallets we have here at the Smallest Smallholding, is because of a size issue. Basically, the decomposing heap we had (it’s not worthy of a compost heap label) was just far too massive to be contained into pallet-size bins. So why not just get more pallets, I hear you cry! Well, the simple is answer is because my back is crap.

I come from a family of crappy backed people, and things like digging, whilst being utterly inane and BORING, actually cause havoc. I have disc damage in my lower back, so certain movements when bearing loads (e.g. turning compost) do not do me any good. We designed the new wooden compost bin so that I could easily access it, turn it etc without having to stoop. Pallets are just too low down.

HOWEVER, I will be rigging up a natty little pallet bin for preparing compost. It means that I can deal with small amounts just as they become ready to be used, and keep the bigger pile moving and turning.

I’m sure by now you’re probably sick of hearing about compost. I’m very into it at the moment, thanks in part of a fellow forum user from my Rural Muse forum sending me three books on allotments and compost. Fascinating stuff. Soil is like this big living, breathing entity. It needs feeding, watering and nuturing, just like most plants or organisms. Before my Smallest Smallholding days, I thought of soil as just dirty dust really. Oh how I have been enlightened!

Anyway, enough about compost and soil.

Some good news on the seed germination front - the peppers are slowly but surely unfurling and making their entrance into the big wide world. Tomatoes are repotted, and as ever I went mad and sowed the whole packet, and now am trying to flog all but about 6 of my 25 plants.

Broadbeans are finally making a breakthrough, so I’m going to belatedly put up the supporting canes. Tendersnax carrots are germinating in the pot outside, but thinning them out is going to be a complete pain in the arse. I don’t think I’ll grow carrots in pots again.

And OOOhhhhh - bargain…went to Homebase to get a fixture for our broken loo, and had a quick jaunt around the garden plants section. I, as ever, made a beeline for the reduced section (always a champion of the underdogs, me) and bagged myself a half priced £4.99 ‘Goldtraube’ blueberry bush! So I’ve just got to find another one so they can pollinate each other. GOOD STUFF. Cheaper to buy from nurseries, but I couldn’t resist.

THIS WEEK, I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN MAKING COMPOST!

Rich finally managed to finish making our new wooden compost bin. It’s HUGE! I have no idea what the capacity is, but it’s around 120cm in width and length, and 120cm tall at the back. I’m rubbish at maths, so I’m sure that there’s someone out there that can work it out for me.

My new compost bin is yet to have a lid (we were thinking a wooden lid on hinges eventually), but it does have a gate at the front, the idea being that I could easily access the heap to turn it and fill it, and eventually empty it. It doesn’t really matter about the lid - there are both aerobic bacteria (need oxygen/air) and anaerobic bacteria  (don’t need oxygen/air) that work on breaking down the soil, and do just as good a job as each other.

Monty Don says it’s best to have two or three open compost bins, but because we bought the wood from a DIY centre, it did end up costing a fair amount. So for now I’ve just got the one. I’d previously advertised on Freecycle for wood odds and ends without success, and the compost scenario was getting a bit desperate.

What I’d called my compost heap beforehand was basically a 20ft pile of rotting matter that was never turned or tended to. It was just too big to handle. For really good compost, you need to keep turning it and there was no way I could access it properly. So I’ve taken the top layer off with the least rotted matter and put it in the new wooden bin. The stuff underneath, although in places full of sticks, is gorgeous. It smells divine - so earthy and rich, one of my favourite smells.

I still have to finish transferring part of the old heap into the bin, inbetween the really laborious task of sieving the good stuff through my garden riddle into the barrow. I’ve been filling some of my vacant (currently, not for too long) veg plots with the home-made compost in a bid to boost the nutrition and structure of our free-draining sandy soil. There’s PLENTY to go around, and the idea is that eventually it’ll all be used on all the veg plots and borders at the Smallest Smallholding, as well as on the allotment. A big job, but someone (i.e. me) has got to do it…

Either way, I’m sure that the amount of compost I’m going to have available will save me a tonne of money, even recouping the cost of making the wooden bin.