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…

We have a Victoria Plum tree here at the Smallest Smallholding. It’s a proper old, knarly tree that we think was here as part of the original market garden that the land was once a part of. The remnants of the market garden include said plum tree, a damson and perhaps the crab apple. There is another cooking apple tree but unfortunately for us it belongs to next door now (yes, I am quite bitter about it).

The problem with our plum is that every year the plum moths come along and lay their eggs there. So you never quite know when you slice open the plum with your fingernail whether you’ll be met with nice, juicy plump flesh:

…or not so nice plum moth larvae and their excrement:

Needless to say, I don’t have the pleasure of being able to pluck a plum from the tree and take a big, juicy bite from them. It’s not worth the risk, seeing as most of the plums are riddled with the plum moth larvae. Now, you could say it’s my fault for not killing the moths in the first place. Well, call me an idiot, call me sentimental, call me what you like, but I don’t like killing things. It’s just not the sort of person I am (although, I do dispatch fleas quickly and efficiently. Where’s the difference? I don’t know, I don’t even feel particularly easy about killing fleas. Ridiculous? Maybe.). I especially HATE and detest those sticky pheromone moth traps. They’re indiscriminate and dangerous to other wildlife, and I don’t particularly like the thought of something dying a long, horrible death like that. I’ve also read stories about blue tits and other small birds getting trapped and dying on them. I just don’t go there, it’s not part and parcel of my ‘green’, wildlife friendly ethos. You might think humanise things too much, but to me suffering is suffering. I’m all about me doing the hard work rather than just killing things so I can get the most out of them.

But of course I want to be able to eat my plums. So what do I do? Well this year obviously I’ve missed the boat on this one. But next year I’m going to road test a preventative, non-killing sort of method. I haven’t worked it out yet, everything I’ve googled goes on about plum moth traps, so it make take a bit of research. I’ve read lots of things about peppermint and mint keeping a whole host of insects away, so perhaps that will work.

Besides, I’ve nothing to lose really. If the plums aren’t got by the plum moth then a wasp usually comes along and has a feast on them anyway!

But one can dream… so here’s a recipe I might have used had I had a decent crop of plums to make some preserve with. Perhaps you’re luckier than me and have a crop, so why not give it a go and make me green with envy?

Plum Preserve Recipe, ‘Plum Pot’ courtesy of my WI Jams, Pickles and Chutneys book*:

Makes about four 450g (1lb) jars
Prep time: 20 mins + standing overnight
Cooking Time: about 45 mins

Ingredients:
1.3kg (3lb) plums, washed, stones and chopped into large pieces
450g (1lb) raisins or sultanas
2 large oranges (175-225g/6-8oz each), sliced and chopped into small pieces
1.3kg (3lb) sugar

Method:
1. Put all the fruit and the sugar into a large non-metallic bowl. Cover and leave overnight.
2. Next day, transfer the mixture to a large preserving pan and heat slowly until the sugar is dissolved, stirring al the time.
3. bring to the boil and then simmer until the mixture is fairly thick - about 30 minutes. A knob of butter can be added during cooking to reduce any scum.
4. Pour into cooled, sterilised jars and seal. Label and store.

*Best Kept Secrets of the Women’s Institute Jams, Pickles and Chutneys by Midge Thomas
Simon & Schuster UK, 2002

In addition to my post below,we also have a small spattering of the other sort of corn - err, corn. Field corn? It’s been growing under the crab apple all summer. I thought it looked good, especially as we have lots of poppies growing close by. It’s also been a handy place for wildlife to shelter, and I took a picture of one such resident:

I have been wondering if I can do anything useful with the corn though. I can’t really see myself grinding it down by hand with a pestle and mortar (partly because I don’t own one). So my little project is to find out harvest corn, how to mill corn by hand, and how much you need to do something decent with. Corn chips, anyone? Does it make flour easily? Am I completely on the wrong track? It’s actually quite embarrassing that I’m so baffled by the whole thing.

Anyroad, I’m not totally opposed to the idea of having a mini corn field here next year. The only problem is the chickens and cats have a tendency to sit in the middle of it and flatten it…more investigation needed me thinks.