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Self-Sufficiency in Style

september 2002 diary

 

Respectability again.

September was a month with its good points and its bad points.

Most of the bad ones were in the garden.
Suit and tie replaced the open neck shirt for a family wedding.

Even self-sufficiency types have to clean themselves up and behave occasionally.

We thought we were going to have to rush back from the reception to milk the cow, but the calf is still with her mother and did the job of milking for us.

So the day avoided the usual battle between us and the calf for the milk.

 

Relief milker - for the day.

Despite the best efforts of the groom, the wedding was a great success.

He might forget to order the car to take his future mother-in-law from the church to the reception, but he can milk. 

There can't be many girls today that get a man that can milk a goat and deal with fly-strike in sheep.

Which only goes to show that a boy brought up on a smallholding is an asset to any girl, even if he does show an inclination to forget the important social niceties.

Anyway, it was a wonderful day, and these were the writer's thoughts. 

A Present for the Bride

The potatoes caught blight for the third year running, as did the tomatoes. Oddly enough, the only tomato not to give problems was a white heritage variety.

They are two important crops for us. The early crops were OK, but eventually virtually everything succumbed.

We have also had a serious rat infestation. They got into the tunnel and decimated the melon crop. We were slow off the mark, having failed to notice that the trap was not set and within days they did an incredible amount of damage.

So far we have caught seven. Not only have they eaten all the melons, but also dug holes under the plants killing them too.

At this time of year, the rats come in from the fields and it is a constant battle to kill them off. If you have chickens, you will always have rats....and rats are the one pest you cannot tolerate.

Last year they got into the roof and the problem with poison is that they will often die somewhere awkward.

We trap them and drown them - there is no option.

    

This one was caught but the damage was unbelievable.
In general, we tolerate most pests accepting that we will lose a proportion of the crop, but this year has been bad - everything from wasps eating the indoor grapes, to exotic insects on the citrus.

Some crops we protect with some moveable crop protection. This works really well.

Highly successful

The autumn fruiting raspberries have been a big success. We are really pleased. There would be plenty of fruit for a family of four from a bed 20 feet x 5 feet.

We did have to get the cage erected quickly as the birds were after them.

Main crop varieties have done badly around here and we switched to the rather different late cropping varieties.

We had only planted them in January see Diary

The asparagus bed looks good too. The standard 20 x 5 bed next to the raspberries was planted back in March see Diary.

We should, with care, be able to get our first crop early next year.

Asparagus

Rhubarb

The same is true of the Rhubarb. We were careless and lost two of the four plants, but the two remaining will give a small crop in the Spring.

We will replace the two missing plants this winter.

The rhubarb and the asparagus are really important crops, they come early in the year when fruit and vegetables are at a premium.

The idea of putting strawberries along the walls under the top fruit, was not such a good idea.

It is rather dry there, they did tend to bake in the sun ...and they were hard to protect from the blackbirds. So we have made some changes...

Not so successful

Awaiting a fruit cage in the spring.

...so we decided to use one of the standard beds specially for strawberries.

Ten varieties, propagated from runners, that we hope will give a good supply of fruit from late Spring to Autumn and will be easy to protect from the birds.

We also planted some runners in the black buckets used for the disappointing  tomatoes.

These will be brought into the tunnel in spring to give an early strawberry supply.

Nuts to the squirrels!

Having had so much trouble with pest, we took no chances with the almonds.

We made sure that we got there before the squirrels..

It is the time of year for collecting Elderberries and Blackberries from the hedgerows.

For some good recipes see Elderberry Tart and Blackberry Cobbler.

Elderberries

 

The long summer evenings when we sat out after dinner long into the night are gone now, the days shorten and the mists appear again on the meadow.
One of the great delights of self-sufficiency is enjoyment of the seasons. Each brings its trials, each its tribulations. All have their challenges, and all their rewards.

Changing seasons at

  Hangman's Cottage, just to the south of Misery Corner.

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