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.
Patch:
This is a good time of year for the vegetable gardener. Following all the hard work over the spring and summer, now is the time to quietly reap the reward and harvest the crops. Still picking the last of the peas and beans. Managed to salvage about a third of the runner beans following the storm damage. Kale, spinach, carrots, beetroot, red cabbage and chard still going well. Sweetcorn now on line and the winter crops such as turnips, swedes, and parsnips are coming on nicely. The sprouts appear to be recovering from the caterpillar onslaught. The butternut squash are looking quite good but some years they don’t grow very large for reasons I am unable to fathom, so we will have to wait and see how they turn out. And of course the good old leeks are growing well as per norm.
We have four large freezers and they are filling up well. Freezers have transformed the fortunes of those hoping for self-sufficiency, as surpluses can now be frozen and eaten during the lean times. Have pickled a good supply of beetroot, pickled onions, gherkins and cucumber. We will be shortly starting to make cider and apple juice, and the grapes are not far off picking for wine. We grow our vines under glass as they don’t ripen outdoors in this part of Wales.
On the whole our cider is generally good and our wine not so much. Lets put it like this: we are often asked by friends for a glass or two of our cider. I don’t think anyone has ever asked for a wine top up. Says it all really, but we are getting better and last year it was drinkable if not exactly award winning. This matters because a few years ago we set ourselves the challenge of trying to ensure that everything we ate for Xmas dinner comes from within a hundred yards of the table. We have pretty much succeeded in this challenge for the last few years - with the exception of the wine - but we will keep trying.
The chickens are still laying well, though the ducks have stopped. Janes ducklings are growing incredibly quickly. We have let the turkeys out into the wide world. We used to be reluctant to let the turkeys mix with the chickens. Expert opinion is that chickens carry some diseases fatal to turkeys and they shouldn’t be allowed to mix. However we now do and haven’t had a problem. This may be due to low intensity farming on a free range smallholding - diseases tend not be the issue they can be for intensively farmed animals.
On the Wild Side:
Some evidence of rabbit visitations on the patch. We generally do not suffer too badly from rabbits which we put down to the foxes which we often see. We often find the feathery remains of wood pigeons which have been caught and eaten -presumably by foxes. Of course the down side of this is that they will also take the occasional chicken or duck. But hey! They have to live!
The blackberries are astonishingly good this year and growing faster than we can pick them. The annual race is starting between me and the squirrels on who gets the hazelnuts. Nine times out of ten the squirrels win but I’m not giving up without a fight.
Tip of the week:
When your sweetcorn is ready for picking, get a pan of hot water going on the stove. When it comes to the boil run out and pick the sweetcorn (the faster you run the better the results). Dash back to the kitchen and throw in the sweetcorn for a few minutes, drain, smother in butter and eat immediately. It is one of the tastiest things I have ever eaten. Apparently as soon as you pick sweetcorn the sugars start to convert to starch. I had no idea why it was even called “sweet”corn until I grew my own.
Have a good week and a nice lazy harvest – you deserve it.