I have been (and am continuing) working like a complete madwoman. So this is just a quickie.Beavering away, chained to a laptop is not so bad when it’s a bit dull and dreary as it has been over the past week or so. But when it’s a glorious day like today - not too hot, fresh breeze, scattered clouds in an otherwise brilliantly blue sky - it’s really rotten. I could sit in my conservatory and work, but it gets really hot and I can’t see the screen properly. Believe me, I try and after a while have to give up and retreat into the darker depths of the house.

So to cheer myself up in a brief interlude after my lunch (hastily gobbled cheese baguette), I’ve decided to do a little list. I love lists.

5 Things I Love About Summer

1. Flowers. This is glaringly obvious, but when you think to some of the dreariness of winter (if, like me you’re yet to grapple with the skill of seasonal planting for colour), the riot of colour bursting forth everywhere is a joy. I think it really does make you feel more cheerful.

2. Bees, Moths and Butterflies. OK, glaring obvious again and linked to flowers, but these guys are not only beautiful and fun to watch, they’re also vital to THE SURVIVAL OF ALL MANKIND. Not completely vital, but they do play a heck of an important role in pollinating many of the foods that we rely on. As do other pollinators, but butterflies, moths and bees are pretty too. So pay homage to these wee beasties and plant lots of pollen and nectar-rich flowers and shrubs: buddleia, echinachea, foxgloves, verbena bonariensis, cosmos, sedum, lavender, borage - in fact, any flowering herb - and achillea are just the tip of the iceberg.

3. Eating my Own Veg. If you read this blog regularly (and if you do, thank you SO much) you may know that when it comes to seasonal veg growing, I’m rubbish. I just don’t pull my thumb out. I make charts and diagrams and all sorts, and then don’t take action. So most of my veg is produced during the late spring, summer and into the late autumn. Around this time of year in summer I am enjoying the fruits of my (limited) labour. There’s just no comparison to food that’s done food metres and not food miles. And yes, you do feel a bit smug when you tell everyone about how you made the most delicious meal with your own home-grown veggies and fruit.

4. Lots of Sunlight. Well yes - we get more sunlight in summer, everybody knows that. But although I’m not adverse to winter evening tucked in front of the fire with a blanket and flanked by a few cats, I do enjoy the extra energy and vitality that the extra hours of sunshine bring. I feel better, and I think I look better. I have quite pale skin, and in winter sometimes I can look a bit like the walking dead. Summer brings a glow to my skin, and I’m pretty sure I can feel the extra benefits of increased Vit D production. Also, having the extra time to work later into the evenings is a blessing.

5. Being Able to Visit Lots of Places. In the summer, if you want to visit somewhere or just go out, you don’t have to contend with wrapping yourself in sixteen layers to make sure you don’t feel uncomfortably cold (unless of course you live in London, where my friend Ben assures me you can walk around in a t-shirt all year round). I, probably like most females, feel the cold very easily and I become a grumpy, whinging lump if I’m forced to be outside when I’m feeling cold. So trips out can be a trial for Rich if I’m not happy about being there. In summer though, it’s more of a delight. Visiting parks, gardens, the beach, your local cafe - it all seems so much more carefree and easy doesn’t it?

I’m all about balance, so here’s another list:

5 Things I Don’t Like About Summer

1. Flies. I won’t use the word hate, but I intensely dislike flies. In summer, they’re everywhere - hovering around chicken poo pretty much as soon as they plop it out, scavenging around any microbe of cat food that’s left in the food bowl seconds after the cats have moved away, buzzing around my bin (especially since ruddy Council has switched to bi-monthly bin collections) and laying mangy maggots in it. YUCK! They’re just the most irritating thing about summer. And the worst part is that they can cause real damage in the form of flystrike. Pattie has been unwell lately, and her botty gets a bit messy. No sooner do we give her rear end a wash and blow dry, she squits another one out and messes the area up again. The other night we’d checked her bum whilst she was dozing in the nestbox. By mid morning the next day I was horrified to find she had flystrike and the maggots had hatched and were causing blood and general havoc. Pleased to say we got it cleared up, but it can really happen that fast - they only need around 12 hours to hatch and start feeding, so check your animals at least twice a day - particularly rabbits and chickens. Hedgehogs often fall foul of flystrike too. If you see one with fly eggs or a wound get it to a wildlife hospital or to your local vet quick sharp.

2. Heat Waves. I’m probably even more rubbish on intensely hot days than I am in the deep depths of winter. When I get too hot I get a massive throbbing headache, and everything seems to take thrice the amount of effort. So on really hot days where the temperature approaches or breaks the 30 degrees celcius mark, I simply lock myself away in our cool house and wait for it to be over. Of course, I have to tend to the animals as well and make sure they’re comfortable. The chooks hate hot weather and retreat to the back and side of the shed, were it’s perpetually shaded and cool. The rabbit house and most of the run is always in the shade as they’re not sun worshippers at all. They also have milk bottles filled with water that have been frozen in the fridge. They like to lie next to or on top of them until it’s cool enough to start hopping about again.

3. Ice Cream Van Jingles. I think our ice cream van men are in the midst of a turf war. From about Feb To Oct each year we are subjected to the incessant jingle jangle of ice cream van Muzak. I wouldn’t complain if it was once every now and then, but wherever they go, it seems to resonate around the whole town. So you end up with ‘Oh I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside/Camptown Races/English Country Garden’ etc. going round and round in your head for days afterwards.

4. Dawn Choruses. Well, I don’t dislike them entirely. They are spectacular. But when you’ve been working late and you’re awoken by an overzealous blackbird, sparrows that must have little megaphones and booming woodpigeons, sometimes it can grow a little thin. And why is it that just as you’re dropping off…they start all over again!

5. Early mornings. Sort of in line with dawn choruses. If I wasn’t magnificently tired in the mornings, I would love them. In principle, I do. Dewy grass, blue skies, the quiet and calm (apart from dawn chorus). But in reality, in the throes of summer I have to drag myself out of bed between 5:00 - 5:45am to let chookies out. If we leave them too long, they start making alarm calls and shouting from inside the henhouse. Bunbuns come out then too. Cats are usually climbing over me to wake me up for breakfast. Rich and I take turns to get up, but sometimes you can’t help but long for the relatively later mornings in winter when you can have a lie in until gone 7.

How about you?

NB: Was supposed to be a quick blog entry. Somehow it’s turned into a mammoth post. Best get back to work now…

It’s a good thing there’s been a lot of rain about. Because I have been so overloaded with work, I’ve had time to do little else (apart from sneakily watch Harry Potter on You Tube whilst gobbling down my dinner). The Smallest Smallholding is falling into decline, the weeds are threatening to take over and it all seems to have slowed into a weird state of perma-slow motion.

The tomatoes in the greenhouse have started fruiting at a perculiarly slow rate, they’ve been suspended for what feels like weeks, plump and green slowly swelling in size. But no ripe ones yet. Last year I had the tomatoes growing in the conservatory, where it gets ridiculously hot in sunny weather. This resulted in a jungle of triffid-like leggy tomato plants that needed watering twice a day and churned out more fruit than we knew what to do with. This year it seems the opposite, like a strange waiting game. Growing in the cooler, unheated greenhouse seems to have produced stockier plants, but I’m guessing the tomatoes will be of a good quality. Mum grew hers outside last year and they did really well. Needless to say, the figs are in suspended animation and I’m wondering whether they’ll actually ripen this year…

Down on plot 101 at the allotment, the onions are a sight for sore eyes. Rows of juicy red and white onions are waiting to be pulled and cooked with. Last night I used one white (Hercules) and one red (Red baron) onion in my chana masala. THEY TASTE SO GOOD. Really makes all the difference. I’ve been told to treble my onion output next year. I’m definitely open to it. The garlic is also almost ready - smells divine when you pull it up. It’s currently air drying in the kitchen, can’t wait to use it.

I’ve been pulling up a few turnips to use in cooking. The thing is, I’m not so sure what to do with them all. I decided to plant an early-harvesting, fast growing variety called ‘Snowball’. And true to form, they’ve grown wonderfully quickly and only needed thinning out. They’ve pretty much taken care of themselves (always handy) but I’ve come unstuck because I have a crop that could be harvested right now, but not sure how I can use them, apart from being really unimaginative and chucking them in soup! Their supermarket counterparts seem to be harvested when they’re slightly bigger than a golfball. Mine are well beyond that, but still surprisingly tender and fleshy. I thought I’d let them get too big, and expected them to be quite woody. Glad I was wrong!

Carrots are going well, although the weeds are creeping in left, right and centre. I’ve been pulling a few carrot top stalks out to feed Bunbuns, nice frugal way to feed them, seeing as I didn’t manage to locate (or indeed grow) any kale this year. A bag of kale in Tesco costs 98p, in Waitrose costs £1.19…and I’m not sure it’ll be in the farm shop. The farm shop scares me a bit. I don’t know why. I think it’s because I’m not used to shopping in smaller, intimate spaces where you can be watched from the counter. But then, I’m probably spied on from all angles in the supermarkets, I’m just not aware of it (note to self, don’t unwedge knickers/rearrange bra/vainly check makeup in mirror down deserted aisle, someone is still probably watching!).

Mehh, anyway I digress. We’ve been battling to keep our chicken Pattie from sliding into seriously bad health. She’s got a mystery reoccuring ailment that’s not linked to our EYP. We think. So we’ve sent off a faecal sample to a vet lab in Nottingham to see if there’s something amiss. Should have results tomorrow. We’re also putting Yoko through some photoperiod manipulation, as her EYP swelling was getting too big. It seems to have worked - she basically goes to bed around 5pm and it seems to have made a huge difference to her energy levels and eating. And she doesn’t go and sit in her carrier-come-nestbox (she can’t manage the henhouse ladder at present) when she has the urge to lay (internally). We know she’s feeling better because she’s become a big, barging bossy boots again.

And Maureen-the-wonder-hen-that-never-moults-and-never-gets-ill has got a limp and hasn’t laid in 5 days. She’s so reliable usually that it’s worrying. So having to deal with all that is an ongoing trial. Poor chookies. They’ve been so used and abused in the intensive battery system, it’s no wonder they have these problems later on. Still, they are still enjoying life. And that’s the main thing.

Usually I would be moaning my socks off about the rain, the dreaded rain! But it’s actually a welcome relief, things were starting to look a bit parched, and I imagine my water butt is brimming again. Of course, it also saves me all the watering of an evening too. Not such a bad chore, but it’s good to have ‘free time’ to do other ’stuff’.

I haven’t really been that active at the Smallest Smallholding lately. Lots of work and stress in other areas (praying for funds to clear, only to be bitterly disappointed that I am going to have to wait yet another weekend with not a penny to my name), as well as trying to forge ahead on the allotment. We are currently undertaking the UTTERLY BORING task of removing all the twitch in the ‘upper section’ of the allotment by fork and hand. It’s going in a metal bin to be burnt later on. I also cleared around the raspberries (still haven’t worked out whether they’re summer or autumn fruiting), and am currently sporting a slightly infected splinter wound, thanks to our ancient wooden-handled rake.

I managed to get at least 50 more sets of my Hercules onions in here at the Smallest Smallholding though, only 50 more to find space for. Although, if I’m honest with myself, I am really pushing it a bit now. Last year I got through 50 sets in around 3-4 weeks, and by August I had cleared them out. This year I hope at least my inability to plant anything on time has translated into a sort of successive planting plan, where I’ll be able to continually harvest. That’s the plan anyway. It really depends on the weather this year - I’m relying on another run of very mild weather to get everything going. And I’m also relying on Lilla, one of my cats, to NOT go under my fleece tunnels and dig up the onion sets. Or roll in my carrot seedlings and crush and/or displace them. I say rely - unfortunately Lilla is a law unto herself and despite my protests, she does as she pleases.

I still haven’t planted any sweetcorn, and let’s face it - I could be setting myself up for a big failure if I tried to do it now. Bunnies are chomping their way through sweetcorn like it’s going out of fashion, so I may have to resort to (shock! horror!) buying in some plugs to get a bit of a head start. I’m a bit funny about buying in plants from supermarkets or garden centres. I just feel like I haven’t had enough control over them, I can’t really say “look what I grew!” because I wasn’t responsible for the whole process. But then again, I bought my ‘leeklings’ from a WI stall last year, and leeched off someone else’s handywork and claimed those leeks as my own. It feels a bit different though, taking something from another gardener rather than a commercial outlet. Maybe I’m just far too puritan about these things.

My aubergines are going very well and need repotting now. Once the weather has improved a bit I’ll put a few of them outside the door to sell, along with my tomatoes. My tomatoes are gaining height as each day passes, quite spectacularly. I still can’t get over the fact that not long ago, they were tiny dormant seeds, and now look at them! This year I’ve been so much more regimented with my watering. I am a bad earth mother sometimes, but this year I am willing to face up to my failures and try to improve. My tomatoes suffered as a result of my haphazard watering schedule last year. We ended up with black rot under a lot of the fruit. And I had too many plants to contend with, so we ended up chucking lots of overripe tomatoes to the hens. I suppose that’s not such a bad thing, they gobbled the toms up with glee. Free food, and all that.

Oh, and the asparagus that are going to seed are looking glorious.

I am knackered. My sleep is going haywire and it’s been taking it’s toll on me.

And this post is a bit of a show and tell!

Yesterday though, I actually *finally* managed to get down to the allotment. Thankfully Mum had been down two or three times since my last visit, and it wasn’t in too bad shape. I weeded around the onions (because as all onion growers know, it’s vital to keep them weed free), hoed between the potatoes and started reeling in the blankets of chickweed that were threatening military dictatorship of my plot.

I was met by another nice surprise - we have a raised asparagus plot on our allotment. We snapped a bit off but it was tough as old boots and some stalks had already gone to seed, but nice to know for future reference. I already have a tonne of asparagus growing here at the Smallest Smallholding in the flower borders, but I let it go to seed because it’s so striking. Speaking of going to seed, the rhubarb had grown about 3ft since I last saw it, and was starting to flower. I pulled out the biggest leaves from the base in the vague hope that I’ll still be able to harvest some of the more tender rhubarb in the coming weeks…

All is going ok here. I’m still horribly behind with my sowing - sweet peas are so late now that they’re going to have to be sowed directly and I’ll hope for the best. I’ve saved some old squash bottles and cut them in half to make mini cloches, to try and protect the growing sweet peas from the clutches of enquiring hen beaks. The broad beans are coming along nicely though, despite also being about three months late. Cabbages - Primo and Kilaxy - are both coming along nice and despite being left outside in their seed modules have evaded the beady eyes of the woodpigeons.

My super duper early Tendersnax carrots are actually coming along quite nicely in the pots. I’ve been pricking them out two or three times a week, but I’m still sure I’ll only end up with enough carrots for about 2 meals. My directly sown early Nantes (I think? Still yet to put in labels) carrots are pushing through. They’ll be a bit of an experiment this year as I haven’t put ANYTHING of nutritional value into the soil yet. I might try and feed them as I go along…bit cobbled together but that’s just the way I seem to work at the moment. The tomatoes are going great guns in the conservatory, aubergines are coming along VERY nicely, and my other mystery seed trays are doing ok. The lavender and rosemary cuttings have been a bit of a disaster though, I think I neglected to water them enough and now I only have one surviving specimen of each.

The rabbits - or The BunBuns as they will be know as from hereonin - are getting through a bag of curly kale every day. So I think it’s time that I hunted down a packet of seeds and started to try and opt for the cheaper option of growing my own. Thing is, it probably won’t be ready until late autumn/winter. Oh well. There’s always next year. Trouble is, I am starting to run out of space, so I’m going to have to dig out yet another veg plot here. I haven’t even got around to finishing digging the other one yet. Hence why no parsnips or sweetcorn in the ground. Oh heck - HELLLLLLLLLLLLLP! My uncle has a turf spade which may help my plight, but it’s the digging out of the rubble (I still shake my fists at the builder that thought it was a good idea to bury it) that takes an age.

So on the agenda for next week (and yes, it’s late, I’m working at Lucy speed):

• Finally sow sweet peas direct (wildlife magnets)
• Sow sweetcorn in trays
• Sow butternut squashes (might try grow bags even though I intensely dislike them)
• Think about growing parsnips (and actually sow if have space)
• Get the last of the blasted potatoes in at SS (and enjoy very late crops of early and maincrop potatoes)
• Put in a few remaining onion sets (my version of successive sowing/growing)
• Get down the allotment and Weed for Britain

I think I need a new motto - “Better Late Than Never”

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.

Two new residents arrived at the Smallest Smallholding this weekend. No, not the little guys in the pic above. We have quite a few of them already, thanks in part to the ongoing rain and hail showers.

No, this weekend saw the arrival of Snoopy and Smudge. These two loveable lop-eared bunnies are now in residence in their two-tier palatial abode (with waterproof cover, no less). They arrived on Sunday.

I have yet to photograph Smudge (female), but let Snoopy out of the run for a bit and took a couple of snaps. He was suitably unimpressed and made a dash back to The Mrs. who was lolling about without a care in the world.

OK so bunnies aren’t exactly productive like hens - they don’t pay for themselves. But my thinking is that I couldn’t bare the thought of them being rehomed with someone who would get bored and leave them sitting in a hutch all day. I have a troop of cats and hens, I thought cleaning out two bunnies wouldn’t be much more work. They’re also great at keeping the grass down, the dandelions in check and good for stress-busting.

The hens weren’t too sure about them. Maureen in particular starting doing her “I’m Not Sure” poses - head cocked to the side slightly, looking intently through one eye, standing astride with one leg straight, one leg prancing like a ballerina. Pattie chatted away, obviously discussing these strange new creatures with her housemates. As head honcho, Yoko was suitably unimpressed and apathetic about the whole situation.