Posts (page 2)

Where on Earth did Christmas go?

The bin men have been today and took the remainders of the wrapping paper which I had put in out black recycling box.

All in all, I had a lovely Christmas and I got some lovely, thoughtful gifts. The main present being what I am writing to you via now, my new computer. I also got a Nintendo DS and various books, mainly revolving around the same theme 'The Good Life'. To be honest all my presents revolve around this theme, I even got a cockerel hand puppet which I am sure will entertain me for ages.

I've tried to dodge the sales as much as possible, turning down shopping trips to Birmingham, but I could not help being pulled into the mass of bargain hunters at Redditch and Stratford over the past 2 days.

Over Christmas my stick insect had babys. Problem is they don't have 1 or 2 they have hundreds! I'll have to find new homes for them all.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas too and I hope Santa brought you everything you wanted!

 

Martin

Just a quick note to say Merry Christmas to you all.

It's not just about the presents, remember that!

 

Martin x

Well I am almost there. The next step on the ladder to self sufficiency.

 

I have just been to a farm in Arrow and negotiated the tenancy of an orchard. The orchard is absolutely full of apple, pear, plum and damson trees aswell as elderberry, raspberry and blackberry bushes. This will not only supply me with a vast amount of fruit, but the biggest bonus comes from the homemade honey I will be getting.

In January I am starting a beekeeping course in Stratford Upon Avon, it is for beginners and hopefully it will teach me all the basics of beekeeping. Last time I was booked in for the course, Alcester was flooded and I couldn't get out of the house to go on the course which was a real shame. I hope to get my bees in April so I will have the whole season ahead of me.

I am going to opt for the national hive compared to the more traditional WBC. Mainly because the national is cheaper, but also the National is more versatile in my opinion.

It's going to burn a small hole in my pocket but I think it will be worth it. Honey and Mead and all that like.

 

Martin

I have come up with 10 top reasons why you should grow your own food.

- It gets you out in the sunshine, 9 in 10 people say that they feel happier when they work in the sunshine.

- You get a great deal of satisfaction from seeing the results of your efforts.

- You feel more motivated to eat fruit and vegetables when you have grown them yourself.

- Food naturally tastes better when you grow it your self. (Psychological)

- It's good excercise

- You will cut your food miles down to food yards, saving all the aviation fuel used to transport produce and reducing the damage to the planet.

- Many aspects of gardening seem miraculous when you are actually involved in them. (Homemade compost is the best, it's absolutely delicious, you know what is going to happen every time but when it actually happens it's sensational.)

- There is always something to look forward to.

- You understand what food really is.

- You make friends.

 

Just a few I'd like to expand on:

It's good excercise - It certainly is. Believe it or not I've lost just over 3 stone since September.

Food naturally tastes better when you grow it your self - It certainly does. Everything of mine tastes brilliant. I think. People may beg to differ but my eggs, my courgettes, my quail taste much better than the identical products that you see on the supermarket shelves.

  Generally growing food is so much better that buying imported goods at your local Tesco or Asda. You know where it's come from, you know it's really free-range and you know it is genuinely organic.

 

The last one in the list. You make friends. You certainly do. I've met many new people up the lottie, I've met thousands of new people all around the country via the Omlet forum, several who I see quite often. I've met many new people via my blog network, even in places like Ontario, Michigan. The list goes on.

Grow what you can. You won't regret it. No big or small, you can grow something and if you don't then that's just called Laziness.

 

Martin 

A month or so ago, I bought one of Omlet's new 'Superglugs' to use in the rablu for them to drink water out of. Problem is, I woke up this morning and they were frozen stiff. The chickens water was solid ice and the quail bottles had frozen aswell!

 

Can you see the little nipples on the base. The drinker itself is an absolute revalation but the nipples may be a slight problem. Normally with school I don't get to feed the animals until after I get home, I wouldn't want the rabbits to go without water all day. If it stays as cold as it has been today then it looks like they won't be getting any.

Just the one exam today, 2 tomorrow, but thankfully they will both be complete by around noon. After my Technology exam this morning I popped up the allotment and added some oxygenating plants to the pond. I also dug up some more of the earth where the onions will be. I had a bonfire which was quite fun, despite being very smokey, I can still smell the fire on my hands. I burnt some rubbish that I had in my room before it was re-done, it was mainly old school worksheets.

I want to get all the onions in the ground by Saturday and I will hopefully get the last of the Kale seedlings out too and of course I will be wanting to add fish to my pond at some point.

Just a short one today, I need to go and warm up by going to bed. That's if the hedgehogs let me sleep. Why, oh why did I agree to look after some nocturnal animals!!! ;)

 

Martin

When will it stop raining?

It's been raining for most of the day and it has interupted what I planned to be a day up the allotment. I had wanted to dig the new strawberry bed and then dig up the old strawberry beds and transport the plants across before finally putting in my winter onion sets.

I only managed to dig the new bed and one of the old strawberry beds before finally deciding that the rain had got too much. The mud was just unbearable.

Here is the start of what I hope will be a successful crop of strawberries in the summer time.

 

Lots of dug in muck too! I managed to transport a few plants (far right) these are the Marshmellow variety, they are round, plump and juicy strawberries. The sooner you pick them the more strawberries the plant will produce. A great type to have in small gardens or the like.

My allotment has a nice covering of 'grassy' weeds. I should be able to hoe them out relatively easily. Here is the normal view up the allotment.

 

Not too bad. At least it's not 6feet high with weeds. Inbetween exams and studying this week I hope to get it dug over.

Note the brassicas infront of the tree. All of my red cabbage for Christmas has become infested with some sort of maggot so that will need to be inscinerated. The sprouts seem ok and I am hoping they will be big enough for Christmas. Fingers crossed.

I have lots of paper and timber which can be inscinerated and then spread over the allotment. It should keep more warm this week.

It's not just my allotment which is infested with weeds, all of them are like it and the place looks like the black death. I suppose it's to be expected with these short daylight hours and then of course the inconsistent weather.

 

They are some of the neighbouring plots. The ones that are owned by the reitred or elderly people seem to impecable despite the time of year.

Couldn't help myself posting this picture. He comes coming back to our garden, time and time again.

 

Very festive. We've also put the Christmas tree up today, I'm sure I'll post pictures at some point.

 

9 days of exams now, I can hardly wait.

 

:(

 

Martin

A couple of days ago I published my allotment plans for 2008. Well you may have noticed that I had included some new ways to encourage wildlife to the allotment in my quest to form the a strictly organic and sustainable food source. If I am going to cut out the use of chemicals then there is surely no better way to get rid of pests than to encourage animals which eat the pests onto the allotment.

Yesterday night I travelled to Beckford near Tewkesbury to collect 2 young hedgehogs. Vale Wildlife Rescue has recieved in excess of 100 hedgehogs to its centre in the last week, this is down to the inconsistent weather we have been experiencing in this country. The last few months have been relatively mild considering that it is winter. Therefore the little hedgehogs have been fooled into a having a third litter of the year, the little babies are too young to survive winter so therefore they need "over-wintering" the centre alone can not care for the number of hedgehogs so it has appealed to anybody who could "overwinter" a pair of hedgehogs to come forward. It is on the strict understanding that the hedgehogs are returned to the wild, so in my case they will be released onto the alltoment.

Tiggy and Winkle will be living indoors until March when it should be warm enough and they should be heavier enough to survive. I will probide a hedgehog house and food for them, so hopefully they will stick near to my allotment and if not then hopefully more will be attracted to it.

The hedgehogs enjoy eating dog food.

The costs of keeping the hedgehogs are going to be quite expensive, so any donations of hay, shredded paper, dog food or newspapers are greatly appreciated. The hedgehogs and Chicks need cleaning out every day so the more stuff the better!

Here is a picture. Sorry it is not too clear.

 

You get the general impression.

A busy tomorrow methinks. I'm going to look at ponds and then I plan to dig my new strawberry bed and the area for the pond.

 

Night Night,

 

Martin

...more of that later.

 

Well tonight is Alcester's traditional St.Nicholas Christmas Market, problem is it's hammering down with rain which has driven the locals and the store holders away, not much there to be fair.

I don't think it is meant to be Alcester's year. The town is in a state of depression after the tragic deaths of the two young fire fighters at the blaze in Atherstone Upon Stour. There are black ribbons in all the shop windows, the weather is grey and walking home from school yesterday after the procession the atmosphere was quite uncomfortable.

I managed to get a few snaps of the market, the church was all lit up like normal but unfortunately I couldn't get a good photo. Only a few charity tombolas to show. However Sean and I did manage to get a free curry and samosa from the Asian people who own the shop where CostCutters used to be. They do it every year in return for a small donation which is split 50/50 between St.Nicholas Church and Alcester's Homeless Community.

 

I was under cover at this stage because the downpour was so bad. My samosa was very soggy and my curry very watery.

The traditional St. Nicholas march proceeded through the town centre. Young children from local schools represent Mary, Joseph and some other characters from the nativity as the play passes through the lit street.

 

Have you noticed our new state of the art christmas lights? Only joking, they're about 16 years old AT LEAST and they are plain stars. What a load of tosh, compared to our neigbouring towns who seem to put us to shame every year. If there is any fundraising to be done it should be to raise money for some new christmas lights!

 

Night Night,

Martin

Good evening!

Only 19 days until Christmas Sean tells me repeatedly! Are you looking ahead to Christmas or the New Year? Well aswell as looking forward to those I am planning for the growing season already. I have just spent 40 minutes doing a quick little sketch of how I would like the allotment to look next year come July. I have made many modifications already and I have spotted a few things since I have uploaded the picture which I am not happy with, I'm sure it won't be the last of the modifications.

 

You might need to click on it to get a decent view.

First of all in teh bottom left corner you can see the Rubharb and that big blank rectangle is where the greenhouse is. There is a small bed all the way around the edge of the greenhouse and this will be stuffed with Iceberg lettuces. That little blue circle is one of my newly planned features.

A POND! I am going to be buying a pre-formed pond and digging it into the ground. Eventually filling it with water, pond plants and a couple of fish. I know it is not advised to put fish in a wildlife pond but I don't see what the problem is. I am looking to attract frogs and I know that the frogs will not mind a few orange goldfish as we've seen them in goldfish ponds before. Hopefully the frogs will eat some of the many slugs on the allotment.

I am also looking to welcome hedgehogs to my allotment. I have put the hedgehog house pile next to the pond but I think it would be better to put it on the other side. I have just registered myself with a Midlands based wildlife centre to rehome some orphaned hedgehogs on my allotment. I like the idea of this, and they said that I could potentially have them as early as next  week but otherwise I will definately have them in the spring. Hedgehogs eat foods high in protein, so thankfully for me slugs and  snails are a plenty on my allotment. The small rectangle above the pile is the composter and behind that is the new strawberry bed. The strawberries are currently where the pond is going to go so I will dig them up and move them to their new home next week.

Those circles in the next 3 rows will be all sorts of Brassicas. There will be more than 3 rows, but repetitively drawing small circles is not my idea of fun. Next there are 3 rows of beans, which will most likely be 8-12 rows, but yet again drawing the same thing over and over again is not fun.

Moving on again, those big orange circles are the pumpkins, I currently have my winter leeks in this position. The green lines and red dots are a symbolisation of my bramley apple tree which I am praying will come into fruit this year. At the very front of the row will be courgettes of which I had great success with this year.

There is a bit of a gap next which should allow for extra rows of the veg already stated or perhaps some unnamed varieties.

The next 3 rows (purple dots with green leaves) will be beetroot and turnips which again I had great success with this year. Next 4 rows of potatoes. As I will have the allotment all year I will be able to plant earlies, main crops and lates.

Those little brown dots are onions, I have 3 bags of small onions to go in the ground next week over winter.

The last two rows are a mixture of Leeks and Carrots.

I still have find a place for sweetcorn and runner beans, but I need to have a look at the posistioning of the sun so that I do not have them shading everything else.

The allotment has been abandoned for about 1 month. A combination of football, poor day light hours, bad weather and illness have restricted my access to it. I have 1 and 1/2 weeks of study leave now and I plan to get up there in the day between exams and revise at night. That's a plan! I have my great aunty coming down to have a look next weekend so it will need to be spick and span for her!

I'll keep you updated with the hedgehog and pond situation over the coming weeks.

Well that's all folks.

 

Martin

Well, the last rescue of the year. The first of 2008 is on 19th January, so I'm looking forward to that already.

Today was the worst rescue I've ever been on, the weather whilst at the farm was hurrendous and when we got to John and Monica's again the garden was slightly water logged, I was slipping all over the place in my crocs and even fell over into a puddle so I had to borrow a pair of John's wellys!

The birds were absolutely soaking when we got back to John and Monica's to unload them, many of them were 'oven-ready' and they were absolutely freezing. Some of the worst cases were isolated and put under a heat lamp. About 10 birds were isolated throughout the day but in the end we deemed all birds suitable for re-homing. You may spot some eggs in the next picture aswell.

 

John had come up with an ingenius new idea of washing the crates, which took us an hour to manufacture rather than 20 minutes like normal. The first customers arrived at about 11.30, 30 minutes earlier than stated and I was left doing the crates. There was a whole influx of people before 12.15 and people were actually queing up for hens. Thankfully the weather had brightened up by this point.

By the time I got around to the normal group shot I recon at least half of them were gone.

 

Remember Albert the cockerel? He has really picked up, here he is now.

 

227 hens happily rehomed and 19 crates loaded and ready for use on the 19th January.

Just to end on a festive note..

 

Sean has bought the costume for a fancy dress party next week, I just couldn't refuse a try.

Not all of us are so festive.

 

Oh well.

 

Keep well,

 

Martin