Anglesey Smallholder

A shiny new vehicle was delivered to the house a couple of weeks ago: a Mountfield sit-on lawnmower!  I’ve used it a couple of times now, and it’s fantastic.  Cutting the field with the old lawnmower was a Herculean task involving dragging it backwards around the entire field and restarting it every 50cm because it cut out.  With the new mower, the task is reduced from a weekend of hard labour to an hour of sitting down!

I had my worries about a sit-on lawnmower coping with the uneven ground of the field, but it’s performed admirably.  It does struggle in some of the larger ruts, but overall it makes and extremely good job of it.  The large tyres really help here, as well as cushioning some of the bumps.

The hydrostatic drive is simplicity itself – a single foot pedal allows for both forward and reverse motion.  It has a brake too but I’ve never needed to use it, because there is no clutch and so the hydraulic pressure slows it down when you release the accelerator.  It was a bit more expensive than the manual drive version, but I think it is worth it.  There’s very little to go wrong with a hydrostat, too.

The fields have been a source of worry for me since moving here – I haven’t had the means to keep them under control, but I don’t want to let them go wild.  Now I can finally keep them cut, and prevent them from turning to worthless scrub.

The growing season is well under way.  Strawberries have appeared nice and early and they’re delicious!  There are too many for me to eat by myself, so I’ve already given some to the neighbours.   It’s nice to have enough produce to share!  Everything is growing well, except for the sunflowers which have again been eaten by slugs.  The good news is that the slug damage seems to be less than last year – there’s still plenty of them about, but not an overwhelming number.  This could be due to a few factors:  the tunnel now has a path down the middle that is probably less inviting than bare earth; I have fastidiously removed all the weeds, clearing out the last of the hiding places around the edges; I have used anti-slug grit around the seedlings; and I’ve also noticed what seem to be hedgehog droppings, so maybe there’s a hedgehog eating them for me.  I’m afraid I’ve also taken to squashing them instead of throwing them over the hedge.

Currently growing are: Strawberries, sunflowers, tomatoes, chillies, basil, spring onions, patepans, courgettes, leeks.  I forgot to get any cucumbers this year which is a bit annoying, I’m not sure if it’s too late now.  I think I also forgot the beans, argh!

I spent some time last week clearing the last of the weeds out of the polutunnel and picking the dead leaves off the strawberries, leaving it all neat and tidy and ready for the new season.  At the weekend we added edging to the path down the centre of the polytunnel – nothing fancy, but it will help keep the place neat.  The black felt will stop the weeds coming through, and will at some point be topped with something more durable like bark chippings.  Half the edging used to be a base for my mum’s greenhouse, which was unfortunately destroyed by a gale.  The rest of the edging is just old planks that were lying in the dairy when we moved in.

As well as edging the path we also built a rough brick standing for the doorway and the table – this should help to keep it from turning to mud in the wet autumn.  We even dug a small soakaway hidden under the bricks to try and keep the water from pooling on the surface.

Everything is ready for the spring, now I just need to get some seedlings growing!

The polytunnel is getting into full swing now!  The two courgette plants are doing well, both heavily loaded with fruits and still producing flowers.  Most of them will be picked early, but I think that I will allow one or two of them to go over and swell into marrows.  A few of them have been lost to slugs – once the protective outer skin is nibbled away then they rot very quickly – however there are still plenty remaining.

The very first tomato has reddened.  Some varieties are doing better than others, but all of them have at least some fruit on.  I must keep more careful track of the varieties next year – this year everything was thrown into the border in somewhat of a hurry.  I’ve also picked the first two cucumbers.  I think I may have left it a little late, not realising that early picking encourages the production of more fruit, however I can see that there are several tiny cucumbers on there waiting their turn.  At the time they were planted, I didn’t have any canes for them to run up so I stretched a length of rope from the ceiling for the plant to climb up.  I didn’t have quite enough rope either, so one plant had to settle for CAT5 computer networking cable.  It turns out that computer cable is a bit too slippery for the cucumber’s tendrils, so the poor plant is left in a kind of puddle on the ground.  That hasn’t prevented it from fruiting, however.  The spring onions are ready for eating, and I’ve planted out 40 leeks that are now coming along nicely.

The weather here has been a little unpredictable of late.  The lovely spell of sunshine was broken last week by a short thunder storm.  The wind was fierce, and caused damage to both the chicken coop and the polytunnel.  The coop was pushed off its stand, and the lid was torn off its hinges.  I pity the poor chickens that were inside it at the time, they must have been quite scared.  The damage to the polytunnel was fortunately not severe – some of the plastic came away from around the door frame.  It should be quite simple to re-insert it into the door frame and batten it down.

Egg production is currently way down.  A little while ago I started finding broken eggs, and was blaming one of the chickens, however I’ve since discovered that magpies are going into the coop and stealing the eggs.  I’ve seen them go in there on more than one occasion – cheeky little thieves.  I can’t really think of anything I can do about this, so I’m just trying to check the coop regularly enough that I get there before the magpies do.

The polytunnel has arrived!  For the benefit of American readers, you would just call it a greenhouse.  It’s a series of metal arches covered with plastic. We have put the frame up, we now need to dig a ditch all the way around and bury the ends of the plastic sheet in it.  Digging the ditch is going to be very hard work, the soil seems to be quite heavy clay.  The good news is that the field has dried out a lot since the ditch was cleared with a digger.

It has been rather a stressful week.  First Victoria the sheep became ill – it turned out that she had a chill after being sheared, and is now fine.  Once again, I sheared her myself with a pair of hand shears.  This is not the 2-minute job you see on TV!  It took me a full 3 hours of cutting, without a break.  Victoria was very good, and didn’t struggle or try to escape while she was being cut.  I cut her closer and more evenly than last year (which was my first time ever), and again got the fleece off in one piece.  My biggest worry is cutting her because the shears are exceptionally sharp and in places where the skin is loose it would be very easy for it to get caught, however I went very carefully and didn’t cut her at all.

Second, one of the chickens died without warning.  On Saturday, I noticed that one of the other chickens was not looking well.  Looking at her closely revealed that not only did she have an egg stuck, but she was crawling with parasites.  The vet next door was away for the weekend so I went to see the Adrian, our next door neighbour on the other side and the chicken farmer that originally gave us the chickens.  He confirmed what I suspected, that the kindest thing to do was to put her down.  He kindly offered to come around and see to it himself, and thus her life was ended.  It wasn’t all bad news, however, as he brought with him three more chickens!  We really are fortunate to have such knowledgeable and generous neighbours here.  The new chickens are setting in well, and seem less shy than the previous ones for some reason.

There will be no sunflowers this year – not unless I plant another batch.  I returned from holiday to find that the slugs had eaten every last one of them.

I will hopefully plant some more, however “real life” has taken a turn that will severely curtail my outdoor activities this summer.  I’ve been offered the opportunity of a second job.  I already have a full-time job, 8:30 to 5:30, and so taking on another job in the evenings and weekends is a real push – however I managed it over Winter and so maybe I can manage it again.  I’m very short on money, and the house needs some expensive repairs.

I am disappointed that I will not be able to spend any time outside this summer – I had been really looking forward to planting some things and watching them grow.  Now it looks as though I will be lucky to find enough time to cut the grass, let alone do anything else.  However, the extra money will undoubtedly be very helpful.  The house needs to be re-rendered, as the render is hollow or falling off in patches.  Re-rendering should help relieve some of the dampness in winter.   Many of the stone walls and outbuildings are crumbling and in desparate need of repair.  I had planned to do it myself but now I will not have time, so I will have to pay for those to be fixed as well.  In spite of this, the freelance work should hopefully pay enough that I will come out on top.

It is a shame to lose another summer, stuck in front of the computer while the world continues on its path around me, however I need the money and so I will have to put my plans on hold for yet another year.  C’est la vie.

My first seeds have been planted!  My inaugral crop is going to be: sunflowers.  If they survive the gale-force winds here, my hope is that they will attract birds and insects.  Once the seed heads are ripe I shall harvest them and store them unti l the winter, when I will give them to the chickens to peck at.  If the chickens don’t like them (which is very likely – the chickens are fussy and just like their special food mix), then I’ll let the wild birds have them.  Or I may just eat them myself – we’ll see.

I have planted two varieties, red and yellow, in individual pots in compost.  Once they germinate and grow large enough, I will transplant them into the garden.  I’m not sure where I’ll put them yet, as they will need a sheltered spot.  Here’s hoping that they germinate and survive the gales.

I’m currently drowning under a tidal wave of bills: house & contents insurance, car tax, service and MOT, water, oil… I’m living from paycheque to paycheque and barely managing.  Hopefully once this round of bills is paid there will be some respite, and I’m also awaiting payment for a job I did a few months ago – when that comes through, it will really ease the situation.

The other thing threatening to swamp me is the sedge.  After being cut by the farmer last year, it has all grown back.  I can’t for shame ask the farmer back (his giant flail mower was badly damaged last year after hitting a telegraph pole dumped at the edge of the field), so I have been tackling it myself.  I tried to cut the bottom field with the strimmer last year and didn’t get very far.  This year I’m trying to cut the top field with the lawnmower.  The only way I can do this is to take the box off and drag the mower backwards over the clumps of sedge, while lifting it slightly so that it doesn’t get stuck and cut out.  It’s at times like this I wish I’d been born a shire horse, but I am making some slow progress.  I’ve spent a few hours and I’m probably not even a quarter way through yet, but if the weather holds then I will try to do a little every night and I’ll get through it eventually.  I hate the sedge – the grass won’t grown, and animals won’t eat it.  I was told that if it’s cut repeatedly then it will eventually die (although it is tough as hell – I had a bonfire on top of a patch and it just grew right back up through the ashes).  I also dug up a few sedge plants near the septic tank, so Victoria’s paddock is now sedge free!