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SPRING NEWS 08 We had a late spring this year and it seems to have been raining continually since the beginning of June. On the whole we tend to prefer to plant late rather than early. For one thing it allows us more time to rotavate and clean the beds before setting the seeds. You really cannot get seedbeds clean enough and it is a bonus to get a few days of warm dry sun on newly cultivated soil. The second and equally important factor is to have the soil temperature sufficiently high to get a quick germination. This is a great help in beating the slugs that always seem to be hungriest at this time of year. As usual we raked out several wheelbarrowfuls of stones - these are stones bigger than a golf ball and where they keep appearing from heaven only knows. Suffice to say they are a useful ballast for the deeper holes in our muddy road which seems well able to swallow up everything we can offer.
We got our pig (one pig only this year - a tamworth/gloucester old spot cross) early this year. He's a quick little fellow in mind and body. We call him tiger pig and you can see why from the picture! It never fails to surprise me how the preferences and personalities of our different pigs varies. He loves his fresh greens this fellow, adores company but does not really gobble up the barley mash with the kind of relish that his predecessors have done. What kind of pork and bacon will result, well time will tell. I made a new portable henhouse during the winter which fits exactly onto our small trailer. This came in very handy when we wanted to take a break away from the smallholding during the winter as we can simply pack in the chickens and take them lock, stock and henhouse to a friend's place for safe keeping. We can do the same with the pigs using a portable wooden slatted box which also fits onto the small trailer. As usual we got seeds away early in the greenhouse and the kids have now become dab hands at pricking out the young seedlings - it's a job they are well suited for with small hands, good eyes and great satisfaction in seeing things happening fairly quickly in the new gardening year. We have given the greenhouse a good winter cleanout and put in a new smooth concrete floor which makes slug control just that little bit easier. Unfortunately our lovely row of walnut trees has now got so big the shade makes the greenhouse virtually useless after the beginning of June. But we now get a regular inundation of excellent walnuts each Autumn which is fair compensation I suppose. We have plans for a new west facing greenhouse at the top of the garden near the rampant kiwi fruits. The rain has been excellent for the potatoes, mostly Charlottes and Pink Fir Apple from last year's crop, which are bigger and more numerous than I have ever seen them in June. The salad crops have also done really well but the softfruits look pretty miserable and the plums are less than a quarter of the crop of last year. So, as always, there are swings and roundabouts in the garden. Sadly our usual spring feast of purple sprouting broccoli was virtually destroyed (once again) by marauding cattle on the one weekend when we happened to be away. I'd swear these cattle can smell the stuff from their filed half a mile away and are practically waiting for us to leave the place ungarded. They even found their way around the new garden walls and through the one small gap that remains. We enjoyed the fews meals we got and will make sure we plant evenmore of this excellent crop for next year. Last week I decided to render the inside of the block work willow bath which we made with our students last year. The only galvanised goose bath could really not be patched anymore so I laid a concrete slab in the orchard just behind the pig sty. We then built up the side walls as an exercise in block laying during one of our summer courses. The bath is about 10 feet long, 2 feet wide and 2 feet deep - quite big enough to take even our longest willow rods. But the blockwork alone simply let out the water within 3 or 4 hours. I am glad to say that the rendering has done the trick - saving both worry and water.
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