I had to do a rescue mission late last evening on the cabbages. My prized Kilaxy cabbages were under attack by the above monster munchers. I *think* they’re cabbage white caterpillars. I can certainly see the ‘cat’ in caterpillar.

Whilst I expect and don’t really mind the cabbage whites’ spawn feasting on a couple of my cabbages, I’m not happy for them to go the whole hog. After all obviously I do want a few left for myself.  So I spent a while picking of laced leaves, removing the furry fiends (and a few slugs to boot) and taking them far, far away with the defunct half-decimated cabbage leaves. As much as people probably roll their eyes, I still try and stick with my no-kill policy.

So the remaining cabbages are relatively pest free. I let Maureen our hen have a run around under the tent cloche for good measure, she’s got a keen eye and would soon draw my attention by making excited ‘o! boh! bop bop!” sort of noises. Hopefully I’ll still have a few to enjoy in the next few weeks, the hearts are coming along nicely and I’m smacking my lips together in anticipation.

With Autumn’s cooler days just around the corner, I’ve been thinking for a while about our dogwood problem. It’s like a monster that we hack back every year, and it just grows like billio, threatening to invade the whole Smallest Smallholding with it’s annoyingly persistant runners. I don’t really want it here, the only reason that it’s stayed is that it gives us some privacy and also provides the birds with a glut of berries come Autumn. But it’s getting far too big and out of hand.

But as we have a multitude of pyracantha bushes all over the joint now, I think it’s time to start thinking about removing the dogwood. It’s just far too difficult to manage, too thuggish and not really that useful. So I was thinking perhaps I could replace it and make better use of the whole area it swamps (quite large, as nothing grows underneath it apart from it’s own runners and bindweed) with a coppicing area. I would like to grow hazel that I could regularly harvest, season and use for firewood. Given that it would be grown in an area with a lot of trees, a renewable resource, and it would heat the whole downstairs of the house from the fireplace, I think it’s a pretty environmentally-friendly sort of approach, don’t you?

But with futher reading, it seems like on such a small scale it might not be viable. This is because it could take 7/8 years for regrowth for any other than ‘faggots’ - smaller 2 metre bundles of hazel around 300-400mm thick and tied in three places. Faggots are used for things like fencing and riverbank erosion repair. But to me, they look like good kindling. I’m just not sure though. I suppose you could always shove it through the chipper and use the wood chips as fuel too? In fact, I suppose you could do this on a small scale with willow too. I have a feeling willow is much faster than hazel. Perhaps a mix of both? Worth looking into.

The other great thing about hazel coppices is that they’re brilliant for wildlife. The stumps from which the new growth grows is like a miniature wildlife habitat, with old wood, leaves and soil offering food and shelter.

The point is that I want something renewable and fairly fast growing that I can harvest year upon year. We need to reduce our central heating usage in the winter, given the rising costs and our responsibility as consumers. I’m going to make curtains this year for the winter to replace the blinds downstair, as our old sash windows are draughty and not very efficient. An open fireplace will actually draw in draughts, so I need to think of ways to maximise the energy output of our fireplace, especially if we’re to grow our own fuel.

Tip: If you want a bee and butterfly magnet in your garden, plant a buddleia. One of ours had 10+ bees today. It’s a wildlife hot spot - Great stuff!

Well I had a quiet couple of days after Pattie. And thanks for all the comments, it’s the most I’ve ever had on my blog and it’s good to receive supportive messages. To some people, it’s ‘just’ a chicken, but to us she was a little beauty and a valued pet.

I’ve had a couple of tearful moments, I probably will do for a while. I miss her little chatty noises and sweetness. It’s very quiet out there, so Rich and I have decided that we’ll probably get another couple of hens. Yoko isn’t as busy and venturing as she used to be, so quite often Maureen is off scratching about on her own. I think giving another couple of hens a retirement here is something I’m keen to do. We’re not sure when the next hen rescue is, so we’ve been wondering about getting a couple of hybrids to begin with and then introducing another couple of ex-batts.

The only thing is, despite her weight and egg size, for all intents and purposes Maureen is quite a small hen. She was always second in the pecking order (Yoko still firmly rules the roost) though and is more than capable of looking after herself. But the hybrids we looked at yesterday would stand taller than her, and we don’t want to stress her out with having to introduce two new birds that could threaten her position as Yoko’s Number Two. Either way, we’re not sure about financing another couple of hybrids at the mo - they’re £13 each (fully innoculated) so it might be that we just wait and get a couple of ex-batts a bit later on. It just depends on Maureen really, she’s been getting a bit clingy and is louder than normal. I just don’t know if I’m reading too much into it and humanising her behaviour.

On the veggie front I’ve been mostly harvesting, and I’m going to do a bit of a show and tell here. Every few days I’m able to pull up some onions. I’m still getting pathetically small ones out of the row nearest the edge of one of my onion patches, but I’m keeping them for pickling a bit later on once they’ve dried.

I’m told summer onions are best for storage, whereas Autumn onions tend to be meant for use straight away. As I only have summer onions at present I’m going to be trying to braid them together to store them. I think Mum has a couple of old onion nets that I might see if I can pinch too.

I was really really pleased to be able to harvest my first ever cabbage. It’s a kilaxy (round) cabbage, and I thought I ought to pull it out whilst it was whole and untouched. The cabbage whites have got in and laid some of their eggs, and a couple have got a bit rotten underneath. This one though is a beauty and hopefully the remaining ones that are forming hearts will follow suit. I can’t wait to eat some of it tonight. If you want to try cabbages, I really recommend this variety from a growing point of view. Obviously jury is still out on the taste because I have yet to sample it, but it seems very crunchy so I imagine it’ll be good.

My tomatoes are also finally ripening (see top pic), I’ve already started offloading them onto Mum and anyone else that’ll take them. My whole greenhouse has been taken over by wild, widthways-spreading tomato plants so I’m expecting a bumper crop. So far, so good. As I’ve said before, it’s a real shame I don’t like raw tomatoes. Somehow can’t help but grow them though…