Welcome back to Bryngwyn and my attempts to record our life on an organic smallholding. Things ticking over quite nicely with no major catastrophes to report.

Still busy in the kitchen. We have decanted the wine into a demijohn and it’s bubbling away nicely. God know what it will taste like, but it’s a beautiful colour. Jane has been busy making jars of quince jelly which have turned out really well. Picked apples that have survived the storms for storage.

Greetings from the Bryngwyn smallholding and our attempts at self-sufficiency. A couple of people have recently asked me how self-sufficient we really are, and it’s a good question. At this time of year we are able to grow most of our own food, but of course we are never fully self-sufficient. (You’d have to be a pretty exceptional gardener to grow coffee in west Wales!). Realistically we probably produce between half and two thirds of our food over a whole year. We can grow most of our own veg and have a freezer full of pork and duck and we haven’t needed to buy eggs for years. We also have plenty of honey year round.

Continuing to crop well with leeks, swedes and figs now coming on board. The great thing about this time of year is building meals from what is available and needs using rather than being overwhelmed by choice in the supermarket. I have been known to be so fazed by the variety of food on display in Tesco’s that I have sometimes just given up and gone home empty-handed.

It’s well and truly harvest time here in west Wales. I love this time of year as there isn’t much work to do except bring in the (hopefully) abundant crops. In fact one of the problems tends to be over-abundance which throws up the challenge of saving produce for the lean times in the spring. An obvious example are apples. In a good year, and this is a very good year, even a handful of apple trees give far too much fruit to eat. Sadly lots of people end up simply letting surplus apples rot. Of course in a rational society the local authority would collect surplus apples for food, processing or redistribution. However capitalist societies aren’t rational so huge numbers of apples simply go to waste.

Welcome back to the Bryngwyn smallholding. Sad news on the pig which sadly didn’t recover despite visit from vet and the painkillers and antibiotics. Still not sure why it died following its injury. However the other two are thriving and enjoying a diet of fallen apples and acorns. John Seymour, the self-sufficiency guru, once described pigs as the perfect animal for a smallholding- they will thrive on almost any veg, damaged crops, peelings etc, and that has certainly been our experience.

Having initially settled in well one of our new pigs somehow injured itself and sustained a puncture wound in her front right thigh. Clearly in some distress we called out the vet (first time we’ve ever had to do this) who examined her and concluded nothing was broken. However she remained unable to weight-bear so we have been giving her pain-killers and daily injecting anti-biotics. Thanks to my nursing days I am experienced in injecting human patients. Fortunately the injections are intra-muscular and not intra-venous. God only knows how you find a vein on a pig! The main difference of course is that you can’t explain to a pig what you are doing and why, so she understandably flinches whenever I go near her. She has still not recovered and we’ll keep you updated.

Came back to an abundance of produce ready for picking, storing and pickling and of course eating. Pretty much self-sufficient at this time of year. Freezer filling up nicely with beans, peas, carrots and blackberries. Shaping nicely as a good growing season.

Then the winds struck! I am sitting on the patch with high winds battering. The runner beans have blown flat. Worse still they landed on a bed of leeks! Some of the turnips have literally been blown out of the ground. I have stood the beans back up with extra support, but they are not looking good, so I’m not too optimistic that they will fully recover.

Everything growing like mad at this time of year. Good harvests of peas, dwarf beans, beetroot etc. Courgettes producing prolifically. In fact too prolifically! Don’t get me wrong, I like courgettes, but even I draw the line at courgettes for breakfast. Took second cut of comfrey which I will compost, having made more than enough evil smelling liquid feed to see this year through. Also dug up one potato bed to store in cardboard boxes. Remember, they need to be kept in the dark or they go green and start sprouting.

Veg growing well. Now harvesting in abundance. Peas continue to crop well, courgettes going mad and sweetcorn looking good following the dried blood treatment. Runner beans have bounced back after the gales of a fortnight ago and dwarf beans and broccoli ready for picking. One schoolboy error. Transplanted some left-over swedes one evening and ran out of time to net them. “Not to worry,” thought I, “ I’ll do it in the morning”. Ha! By 7.00am the following morning the pigeons had massacred them. The trouble is that they get up at about 5.00am at this time of year. Oh well, that’ll teach me.

Excellent news – the ducklings have hatched! Six out of seven eggs were successful, with our intervention only needed for one which was unable to break out and required mid-wifery skills from our daughter. They are now living happily in our downstairs bathroom. We chose this because it is rat-proof (we hope) and also avoids the attentions of our lurche

Weather pretty awful this week. High winds, heavy persistent rain and lower than normal temperatures. On a positive note, I’m hoping that with all the people taking up gardening due to lockdown there will be much more awareness of weather and climate change. When you grow stuff, the weather becomes a much more direct and important part of your life than when you shop in the supermarket.

Welcome back to Bryngwyn smallholding. Things holding up pretty well, despite being battered by 45 mile an hour winds. Runner beans suffering by losing blossom and giving me dirty looks. However best soft fruit I can remember. Just picked 4 lbs of jostaberries off one bush. Raspberries and redcurrants cropping well. Need a bit of warm dry weather though. Onions and shallots ready for pulling. However experience has taught me that it is best to do this in a dry spell as they store much better. Most veg progressing nicely with courgettes, peas and beetroot coming on line. Planted out some more, yes more, leeks. You have probably gathered by now that I am obsessed with them and believe them to be the veritable prince of Welsh crops.