Last Autumn I planted a couple of rows of Radar onion sets, just to see how they’d go. Radar are a super early variety of onion. Although really I was super late in getting them in, which is why they’re only really ready to pull now. But my bad timing aside, these Radar onions have been a bit disappointing. I don’t want to give this variety a bad name because I’m pretty sure it’s all my fault.

You see, I didn’t bother to condition or feed the soil much before I put them in. I think I may have sprinkled a bag of compost over the area, but didn’t do much else. And I’d already grown potatoes, followed by leeks in that area. Our soil here is quite sandy and very poor in places, so I’m guessing that any nutrients that were in the soil were sucked out in the first year.

Of course last year I had grand ideas about green manure etc. But I got lazy, impatient and forgetful and hastily shoved the onion sets in and hoped for the best really. I did put fleece tunnels over them during the winter for a bit of extra help. But the result is that they’ve grown pitifully small this year. So when I cook, I have to pull up four or five, sometimes six to equal a ‘normal’ portion of 2 onions. And I love onions. In fact, I’m a big allium fan all round. So I don’t want them to go to waste, but boy are they annoyingly fiddly to deal with when you’re cooking.

So I want to come up with some ways to use them elsewhere. And I think possibly the only things I can do with my current limited time and expertise is to try pickling them. And maybe a filo roasted onion tart if i’m feeling particularly exotic that day.

I myself am not an avid fan of pickled onions. Rich loves them, and my cousin Deborah could happily eat them by the jar (and has been known to).  So I don’t know an awful lot about them. My Mum’s best friend Sue is one of those people that knows how to do almost anything, and do it well - cooking en masse, sewing a cushion/curtains/dress, plant up a beautiful hanging basket, knit, grow veggies, crush coal with her bare hands and make diamonds etc. But her pickled onions are legendary, so I may ask her for some tips. I’m not sure that these Radar onions will work - do I need specific pickling onions? Should I opt for shallots? All I can say is by the end of my onion chopping session this evening, my eyes were stinging so much that I could barely keep them open, so I think they’ll do. Forget pepper spray, if you want to deter a criminal from attacking, rub a couple of onions in their face. It was quite torturous for all of 2 minutes.

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.

OK, so I’m still reading Harry Potter obsessively, but I have been good and I have some veg news for you all.

Earlier this year I harvested my first lot of veg (although, I really think of rhubarb as fruit) at my allotment. A week or so ago Mum and I hotfooted it up to the allotment to harvest our first crop of Charlotte spuds. As you can see from the pic, they are a good size thus far. We have loads more to get out of the ground, so looking forward to going up there in a day or so (inbetween the intervals of rain) and getting some more. My first portion of Charlotte potatoes were simply boiled - and they are so tasty that they didn’t need anything fussy doing to them. I’ve found Charlottes are a winner in the early potato category, because they’re very creamy and melt-in-the-mouth. I also had enough to use in a leek, onion and potato soup. Using fresh ingredients makes a world of difference. You can just tell when you’re cutting and chopping - the knife slides through, there’s no leathery texture. Everything just screams “I’m fresh! I’m tasty! Eat me!”. So I do, thank you very much.

The red onions just need a little while longer, and then they’ll be ready for pulling up. The onions have gone great guns on the allotment this year. My Smallest Smallholding onions are struggling in comparison. They look a bit weedy and underfed, so I’ll have to review the situation and see if there’s anything I can give them to help them along. Granted, I did put them in later than their allotment counterparts, but still, they’re obviously lacking something. I’m hoping to make a lovely warm potato salad with the red onions and Charlotte or Pink Fir Apple potatoes from the allotment - and then cheat a bit by adding a dash of Pizza Express dressing on top. Makes my taste buds rev into gear just thinking about it.

I also have a few pods of broadbeans, but I was a bit quick off the mark and shelled them far too quickly. I didn’t know what to do with them, and as a result they went really wrinkly and leathery and I couldn’t use them. Which is a real shame. More thought, less haste! I understand now why pea companies are always boasting about ‘field to freezer’ within the hour. It really has to be that fast. The rest of my broadbeans look a bit miserable, thanks mostly to the blackfly that have plagued them since March. I don’t expect I’ll be getting another decent sized crop. But then I did plant about 4 plants per beanstick, which was just way too optimistic. I’ll give myself 5/10 for the broadbeans. Maybe I’ll try them again next year.

I’ve been a bit neglectful haven’t I. Since my last post, I haven’t really done all that much. You see, I’ve had a teeny break in my work schedule, and have become quite obsessed with reading Harry Potter. This week I’ve devoured three books and am currently wading my way through the Half Blood Prince. I just LOVE them. I can’t believe I didn’t read them sooner. If someone can find a recipe to match the description of the fictitious ‘butterbeer’ in the Harry Potter books - please drop me a line and let me know. Sounds scrummy. I also kept reading the name Cornelius Fudge, and in the end had to go and buy a box of fudge to eat. Subliminal or what.

I also was explaining to Rich about all the different things you can do with a wand. The thing was, it was whilst we were preparing dinner, and I was standing quite close to him, waving my knife around like it was a wand, saying things like “expecto patronum!”, “lumos!” and “expelliarmus!”. I’m a bit like this, I tend to really get into an idea and take it further than I ought to. Rich seemed a bit non-plussed, and told me to put the knife down. Probably as much for my own safety as his, given how accident prone I am.

Anyway, I digress.

Everyone else in veggie/goodlife/self-sufficiency blogland seems to be mega busy with this and that. At the moment I’m just sort of waiting for things to happen. Perhaps it’s because my choice of vegetables and fruit that I’m growing tend to be ready to harvest around the same time. I’m a bit rubbish with all this continual sustained harvest output of veg. As I’ve said before, it’s something I feel I need to get to grips with next year.

However, onions are still coming on with a treat. I am poised with my knife (not shouting spells, you’ll be pleased to read), reading and willing to gobble them up as soon as they’re ready. In fact, my onions are possibly the *only* thing I’ve managed to plant successively - this year I should have enough fresh onions to last me well into Autumn.

The sweetcorn have been an out and out failure. Of the block that I planted, a measly two plants germinated. And one of those has been almost nibbled into oblivion by the naughty bunbuns. I let them out to ‘free range’ amongst the cats and chickens, and have on occasion caught them sneakily nibbling some carrot tops or suchlike when my back is turned. I even think they may have located, dug up and consumed the sweetcorn ’seeds’ (kernels?) from the ground. Ah well. Rich’s Dad told me about how easily and quickly he started his sweetcorn off, so I think I will give it another bash. It might be late in the season, but at the moment I feel like throwing caution well and truly into the wind and just at least trying. What have I got to lose? A few seeds. Kernels. Whatever they are.

Lastly, I have found myself very much in a baking mood. Specifically sweets and cakes. Not quite sure why. I think I blame all the sweets mentioned in Harry Potter. And I keep seeing recipes everywhere for elderflower drinks, cakes, savoury snacks, champagne etc. Before we sold off a thin strip of the Smallest Smallholding, we had an elderflower tree. Then they cut it down - are they mad?!!?!?

Let’s say things have been a bit…..tight around here. Of course it’s rude to talk about money (apparently), but a couple of unpaid invoices, a backlog of work thanks to my back episode last week, and a few other factors have meant that Rich and I are…well…a bit broke.

I would love to wholeheartedly blame oil prices and rising food prices. I know that they have played a small part - after all, the cost of living has increased noticably, particularly the last gas & electric bills we had despite our best efforts to keep them as low as possible. But the simple fact is that having two of us self-employed has it’s downsides. And this is one of them. Work, and payment in particular, can be sporadic and unreliable. Especially when you rely on people paying invoices on time, and for whatever reason, it doesn’t happen.

Rich would be fine if he didn’t have me to contend with too. It’s me that’s the problem really.

I’ve almost cleared our cupboards out, trying to come up with meals using tins of kidney, cannellini or pinto beans, boxes of passata, potatoes, carrots et al. My store cupboard staples are diminishing. The freezer is emptying, now resident to unhelpful things like frozen filo pastry and 18 month old Quorn bangers. Even the car is running on fumes now.

But we’re getting perilously close to not having anything to eat, and not being able to go food shopping until next week. So far today I had to skip breakfast (not such a problem, as I was lazy and didn’t get up until mid morning), nicked a packet of Hula Hoops from my Mum’s house en route to see Nannie in hospital, came home and ate the remnants of some chewy bitesize shredded wheat, and to finish had a slightly stale roll with some spread in it. Rich ate some raw cabbage for lunch. It’s a bit desperate, but I can’t help but feel amused by it. If my Mum knew the exact circumstances she’d probably fall over with worry. Of course the animals eat better than we do. I can go a few days eating stale bread and ancient frozen food. I don’t expect them to ’suffer’ because of *my* lifestyle choice.

Anyway, this has all go me thinking about my vegetable plots and allotment. Nothing is quite ready to harvest yet, apart from some rhubarb (ooo…I have fat, sugar and flour, I could make a crumble) . I can’t wait until I can drastically reduce my food shopping bill and gobble my vegetables. I can make a meal out of almost anything, and when you have a glut of potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and turnips, you’re forced to get creative.

With things being a bit brassic, I’m wondering if I could chance an early raid on the potatoes. My radar onions are almost there, they’ve got smallish bulbs on them (one bolted, mnargh!), but I’m holding off on pulling them just yet. A few rogue potatoes from last year’s Charlotte crop popped up amongst the onions. One has started flowering, so I think that could be of great help.

At the end of this growing season, I’m definitely going to look into successive growing and all year round crops. I just can’t be doing with extra stresses on top of everything else. Once we start harvesting our fruit and veg, a little weight will be lifted from my shoulders.

If you get your hands on a copy of this month’s (July 2008 edition) Home Farmer magazine, on page 14 you’ll see my mug (and Yoko the chicken) staring back at you. Scary!!!!

Home Farmer is a brilliant magazine - it’s relatively new and at the moment is only available in independent newsagents by request, or stocked in WHSmiths. It’s a mag for kitchen gardener, allotment holder, smallholder or veggie enthusiast, and a good read. Naturally, I suggest you go out and get yourself a copy! I basically wrote the article in order to give my perspective on how the whole Smallest Smallholding idea came into fruition. I also wrote about my take on trying to live the Good Life, what it’s like being a “not the norm” (despite the fact that being a bit self-sufficientish is en vogue now, apparently) 25 year old vegetable growing wildlife enthusiast, a bit about my ex-batt hens, and how the world of blogging has introduced me to so many like-minded people*.

Actually, the whole blogging experience so far has been brill. I actually feel now that I am far from a weirdo outsider, that there are actually others out there that are my age, doing similar things and enjoying similar interests. It’s not a case of looking to other people for confirmation that my hobbies, interests and take on life are OK. It’s about sharing experiences and being able to engage in some sort of dialogue - whether face to face, via email or just a short comment on a blog - with other people that I can connect with. And I love the fact that vegetable growing, gardening, smallholding, home farming - whatever you want to call it - reaches out to so many people.

A while ago I blogged about how Facebook depressed the hell out of me. How I felt like I was supposedly missing out on living the high life in London, questioning whether I was going to feel unfulfilled or lacking in some way for not going in that direction. But last week I had my school reunion, and I can safely say that I came away feeling fine. Great, in fact. And it had nothing to do with the (relatively small, compared to others) amount of alcohol I had drunk! It was just the fact that I didn’t feel like an ugly fat dag compared to everyone else. I didn’t feel boring. I didn’t feel outdone or rubbish. I just felt fine! I spent an evening chatting to two or three really good friends that I keep in fairly regularly contact with. I caught up with old school friends who were great. One even came bounding up to me and declared she too had an allotment.

I came home and sat there and realised that I pleased to be amongst my melange of animals, looking forward to a weekend prodding the vegetable patch (I’d had a nasty back incident earlier in the week), doing a bit of writing work, cooking, visiting my grandmother (she’s had a stroke but they expect her to make a very good if not full recovery) in hospital, seeing my sister, catching up on blogs. I might sound like a complete sad sack to most people, but who cares. Really - who cares? I’m happy and I think a lot of people are missing out. It might sound crazy or a bit out there, but I really think that growing vegetables, an interest in wildlife gardening and aspiring to live in this way, whatever it is, has given me a grounding and a solid foundation that I can lose myself in when everything else threatens to drive me stark raving bonkers. Or maybe I’ve just got past stark raving bonkers…

*The only thing is for some reason the word ‘cousin’ has been replaced by ’sister’ in the article. Deborah is my first cousin, not my sister! And please excuse my slightly dodgy wonky scanning skills.

I really wish I could say there’s been a flurry of activity here at the Smallest Smallholding. But the simple truth is, there hasn’t. The sleeping problems are getting better, however I suffered yet another setback, this time due to my back. I have the back of an incompetent 70 year old. When I was 14, I managed to land a bit funny after doing a standing long jump (as instructed by my P.E. teacher) on the hard school gym floor. My cousin (my osteopath too) thinks that it’s caused some disc damage, which still plagues me now. All I did was get up from sitting on the sofa. A few moments later, there were the rumblings of a bad muscle spasm, and before I knew it, my legs were collapsing and I couldn’t stand up properly.

It’s got better though, at least I can walk upright now. And thank goodness I finished all that ruddy digging, because there’s no way I can do anything like that for a while. It sucks. It really does. But I’ve managed to do a bit of pricking out and weeding for now. I’ve thinned the turnips a few times, and I can honestly say they’re probably one of the easiest vegetables I’ve ever grown. And fast! I got an early variety called Snowball, and they’ve needed next to no assistance from me.

I have a whole lot of transplanting to do, and I REALLY need to get down the allotment to earth up the potatoes and weed the onions. And sow things. But it’s just got to all go on hold again. So very very frustrating. I should be whizzing around doing a million jobs! And to top it all off, I have the dreaded school reunion that I organised tomorrow evening. A whole evening of “so what do YOU do?” and trying not to look like a crip. I have wedge shoes though, which actually helps. And hopefully eveyone’ll get so blotto that no one will notice. Not that they’d notice anyway.

So what’s actually been going on here? Well, Pattie and Yoko had a good run, but as ever one of them had to get a bit poorly. Pattie has got her re-occurring thing again. Her comb goes dark red, she starts drinking like a fish and her crop fills with water. She then has explosions of watery poo and looks a bit sorry for herself. We don’t know whether the course of baytril helped last time, but we’re trying to get her on another course to see if it helps. It’s all supposedly linked in with her sterile egg yolk peritonitis, but I just don’t understand why it affects her in this way. Twice she’s made a full recovery, and I don’t know if it’s just her getting over it herself, or the baytril. Thing is, I don’t want to leave her and chance the fact that it’s not the baytril doing it’s job. So what do I do? She’s the happiest, sweetest little hen otherwise.

Yoko has been sneezing a bit still, but despite that is marching and parading around, when she’s not dozing off to sleep in the shade. In the warm weather they all go a bit quiet and dozy. There’s a massive hedge by the shed that they gather under. They preen, they doze, they make small chatty noises amongst themselves, occasionally they’ll wander about but until much later on in the day they don’t do an awful lot else. What a life!

We’ve also had another round of hedgehog releases here from Bedfordshire Wildlife Rescue. At dusk we pick the carriers up, and leave them open so that the hogs can be merrily on their way to finding a new nest/mate/food etc. There were so many to be released that I ended up taking a load over to my aunt and grandmother’s. They live next to each other and both have 200ft+ gardens, both of which have dedicated wildlife areas and plenty of scope for the hedgies to move in and out to other gardens as they please. Last night I ran into two of my released fatties (they’re gargantuan!) that had met each other under the hollyhocks and borage. I have a feeling we’re going to have lots of tiddlers running around come mid summer…

I have to say I do not have a problem with slug munched flowers or veg at all. If you’re interested in encouraging hedgehogs into your patch, here’s a few pointers:

• Don’t be too tidy, leave piles of leaves in inconspicuous corners or against a sheltered spot, such as down the side of your shed. Leaves not only provide nesting material, but are home to lots of hedgehog food such as slugs, beetles and worms.
• If you have a pond, try to make sure that there is an escape route for hedgehogs. They are brilliant climbers but cannot really swim. If your pond has sheer sides (fatal for wildlife), try to provide ladders out of the pond. Even better, why not make a wildlife pond with shallow shelves (needs to be about 18 inches in its deepest part). This way wildlife can come and drink without the danger of falling in and drowning.  Likewise open drains can be an accident waiting to happen, so make sure they’re all covered.
• In dry spells and cold spells, hedgehogs struggle to find food and water.  You can buy special hedgehog mixes (such as ‘Spike’s dinner or hedgehog mix with nuts, fruit, insects and fat from noahsarkgardens.co.uk) or provide them with meaty chicken flavour cat food (without jelly, as it is too rich and can cause diarrhoea) and biscuits. Hedgehogs love to crunch! They also have a sweet tooth, so will appreciate the occasional bit of dried fruit, but don’t go overboard as like humans, they can suffer from dental problems. NEVER give a hedgehog bread or milk. Bread carries little or no nutrition and will cause upset tummies. Milk is far too rich and will cause diarrhoea, which can be fatal.
• Be vigilant with your compost heaps - never plunge your fork straight in. I’ve seen hedgehogs that have been impaled in this way, and don’t forget that female hedgehogs will abandon their litter of hoglets if they’re disturbed. A better way is to take small layers off and carefully turn your compost.  This method is better for your compost anyway!
• Never leave a bonfire pile for hours or days before lighting it. This one is pretty self explanatory.
• Make sure you have lots of places in your hedges or fencing where hedgehogs can get through.  You’d be surprised at how nimble they are, and how flat they can go to squeee themselves through the smallest nooks and crannies! Hedgehogs can travel up to one mile in an evening to find enough food, so obviously the easier they can travel, the better.
• If you ever see a hedgehog out in the daytime, it’s in trouble. It doesn’t matter how well it looks - it’s in trouble. Pick it up, bring it in, wrap a water bottle in a towel and place the hog on top if the towel in a box. Then call your nearest wildlife hospital or the RSPCA.
• Slug pellets are evil and should be banned. NEVER use them.

This weekend I finally finished digging out the big veg plot. It’s not that big really - it’s only about 5 or 6 metres long, but when you consider that I have a crappy back, and Rich resolutely left me to do it all myself, you can understand why it’s been quite an undertaking for me. I managed to unearth about 12 small bag’s worth of rubble and hardcore (bricks, ceramic roof tiles, drainage pipes etc), about 30 ant’s nests (hens ate the eggs, bit of a delicacy) and untangled an underground thicket of root systems.

Last time we went down to Biggin Hill to see Rich’s family, his Dad gave me two bags of compost which have been put to use in the plots. Otherwise I’d be growing vegetables in dirty sand. The soil is so poor that I think it’s going to need some super manuring, conditioning and feeding over the winter. Still, my Autumn King carrots like it, despite their daily dose of being rolled and slept on by Lilla the cat. And the Hercules onions are coming along. I’m hoping to get my ’snips in (for a roast dinner without ’snips is a sad sight to behold) too.

A couple of days ago I also moved my tent cloche (another gift from Rich’s parents) to cover my newly transplanted Kilaxy cabbages. I’d started them off in seed modules outside, and they’d vastly outgrown my Primo cabbages that had been sown earlier. So I decided now was a good time to transplant them. I took the seed tray off the garden table and put it down beside me whilst I made little holes for the cabbages to go in. My back had been turned for a few seconds, during which time Yoko had strode over and discovered a tray of tasty morsels.

In the space of about 10 seconds, she’d decimated about 5 of my cabbages. Good work, Yoko. I think she thought she was helping - a sort of quality control and selection process, as I always make a point of growing a few extras. Feeling that her work was done, Yoko soon got bored and wandered off somewhere else leaving me to plant in the remaining cabbages. I didn’t want to take any chances though, and staked down my tent cloche. Because I actively encourage the birds to come and feed, I don’t want to inadvertantly invite a load of pot-bellied woodpigeons down to finish off the rest. I still have a tray left to plant down on the allotment, but have nothing to cover them in. So there it’ll be a case of blind, foolish beginner’s luck where brassica growing is concerned.

Today though, I have to resign myself to a few hours of cleaning. So I’m just about to brandish my Mum’s super duper Dyson in one hand (our vacuum is, for want of a better word, crap) and a bottle of Bishop’s Finger real ale in the other. BORING!

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.