A Mini Country Smallholding in Cornwall – Part 5, Ladies! Ladies!

Posted on September 21, 2018 by Admin

Hens. There is something so charming about them, so quintessentially country. I am sure most people who muse about country life imagine a beautiful feathered gal flouncing along a cottage border, delicately picking out a bit of rosemary here and a spot of sage there. Eeeek! Nope. Reality check required. Lovely yes they are, and if you did have two seconds free, as a smallholder (and mother) it would be wonderful to while away an afternoon, watching their merry ways, picking and scratching the earth for bugs, and lounging in dust baths in the sunshine. So … lovely, yes but delicate they ain’t. They could churn up a manicured garden quicker than a JCB.

And oddly enough it was hens that drove our house making decision. A big garden, lovely as the ones we’d viewed were, just wouldn’t really do. The little ladies could massacre it in no time at all, and let us be honest, we would all like free range to be free range. While looking gorgeous, they are also quite mucky, for want of a better expression, pooping everywhere, continuously … nearly as much as they breath in air. Quite hilarious really, reminding me of the ladies at court in days yonder, in their great layered skirts going wherever they please! In essence, we needed a bit of scrub-land that could handle the onslaught. So great luck that we found our 1.5 acre plot. We started by bringing 10 White Sussex home to at last start our live-stock family. (Light Sussex as they are dual purpose, good layers but also good table birds – thinking like small-holders from the off). We decided to house them in the stable, building them a tall perch, hopefully too high for Mr Fox, chicken meshing the windows for safety and adding mobile nest boxes in a corner. They settled in, providing us with beautiful creamy, proud, bright, golden yoked eggs.

Our plot is surrounded by fields, and neighbours had dutifully warned of fox and badger attacks over the years in the village. With this in mind, we initially let them out of the stable (which is light and has good free-ranging space in it’s own right) only when we were in the field to ensure they got used to their housing accommodation while we acted as guards. Over-time as things went well we soon let out the gals early in the morning, they enjoyed the full field all day long, eating merrily the bugs worms and ticks! (I will write more thoroughly on the subject of ticks in future posts).

After months of chicken bliss, one darker afternoon, I roamed up as usual to plant some vegetable plugs from the greenhouse. The hens were looking somewhat startled. I could see nothing out of the ordinary, but my two labradors, Rhys and Thom thought otherwise. Despite their age they immediately started to sniff the long grass and appeared on a mission to ‘find’ something. Alarmed by their concern I hunted too alongside them, till alas I found a white trail of feathers. Heart racing I followed the feather trail … leading me to the edge of the field where it bordered with our neighbours land by a stone wall … right up to a fox den – or at least I think that is what is was drawing on my extensive knowledge of The Gruffalo with my two 3 year olds.

I shan’t repeat what I called Mr Fox, but drastic measures had to be taken for their safety. We locked them in the stable fearful that he or she should strike again, in broad daylight! Cheeky so-and-so! But what about the free ranging? Something major was needed. Something courageous and brave to protect our poor gals 24/7. After some considerable thought we came up with a plan. What about Alpacas? 🙂

Verm X Layers pellets, 20 kg for hens, great for continuously creating a non-friendly for worms gut environment day in day out, available from Amazon

Fancy Feed mixed corn for hens 20 kg, available from Amazon

Snowflake Dust Extracted Bedding 20 kg, available from Amazon

Light Sussex hen dust bathing

Our Light Sussex hens with growing chicks

Light Sussex hen in the sun

A Mini Country Smallholding in Cornwall – Part 4, To Dig or Not to Dig That is the Question

Posted on September 7, 2018 by Admin

No Dig, surely that has got to be the go to method for vegetable growing. I’m a bit sketchy and often DO … before I think, (I will address this failing in the future). Therefore my knowledge of no dig has holes to say the least. However from what I have read it sounds wonderful. Cover the weeds, grass or both in a mulch, compost or manure for example. Cover with cardboard or carpet to keep the light out. Leave for several months or more depending on the wrath level of your weeds. When ready, uncover and pop in your vegetables or seeds. That’s it! You don’t have to dig, the soil structure is undisturbed and aerated, the worms are happy and in one piece, it’s all dandy and natural and no visit to the chiropractor needed.

Back in the real world, I did it all wrong. But there were reasons. During the cold frosty start of 2018 … I embarked on the no dig method for the soon to be vegetable plot. I thought, tarpaulins! What a great idea, they will automatically make a vegetable bed shape and sort out the aggressive weed situation in one fell swoop. So we bought them (a lot, at least 30 🙁 ) We laid them out and tent pegged them down in a vaguely structured format. Now, I was unable to put any compost down. Firstly we did not have any as this was our first year of have a go hobby smallholders. Secondly the whole plot is vertically challenged and lugging big bags of compost or manure up to the top would be worthy of a ‘Rocky’ montage circa 1985.

So simply tarps it was. We laid them down for several months.

To address the manure issue we needed to get a vehicle up into the plot. Turning … to my lightweight 4×4 short wheel based Toyota RAV. A lovely old banger that I traded my Bongo in for (I am not a great passing place country lane driver, the smaller the better please, breathe in everyone). Now I am sure most 4×4 specialists would laugh at the thought of this little Japanese number getting up the slope (bear in mind a tractor had failed) and even I had my doubts (musing over the genius of the Landrover Defender Ggrrrrr). However, after digging out a trip hazard step at the entrance of the field, my little RAV did it with road tyres to boot! Yes it slipped and spun on wet weather days and I don’t hold out much hope when the ground gets sodden again, but after this super dry summer it’s been up and down many a time. Hoorah! Husband did much of the bagging of manure and driving up – I give grateful thanks to our neighbours and their manure pile from their beautiful ponies.

Back to the tarps, did they work? Unfortunately not. Our super-strength docks and ferns ripped through them leaving a patchwork Beast of Bodmin style trail. We took them up, salvaged the ok ones and re-thought the problem.

Solution? The rotavator. We hired a big boy rotavator for a day and churned up two long stretches either side of the plot. Then over to our Mantis Tiller for the fine churning. A great little machine for fine tithe soil, easy to manoevre in small areas with a lovely hum to the Honda engine. (Sorry worms).

The Cornish soil was divine, having had years of pre-owners goats, sheep, cow and horse poo disintegrated in over many a year. We tumbled in the manure and voila! We were ready for vegetable planting.

Finishing of the soil with the Mantis Tiller.

This had overgrown again with grass since we used the first rotavator so the Mantis did a good job for a small machine.

Honda engine.

Mantis Tiller.

A selection of heavy duty rotavators available from Amazon.

A selection of Mantis Tillers available from Amazon.

A Mini Country Smallholding in Cornwall – Part 2, Fencing & Mowing

Posted on August 31, 2018 by Admin

“Blimey we’d better cut that grass!” This was the mantra we found ourselves repeating during year 1 and the beginning of year 2 at our Cornish smallholding. The 1.5 acre plot is steep and I believe no one had ever managed to drive a vehicle up it, so hiring a tractor to do the job was a no go. It thus stayed as meadow-land for 1 year and 3 months … until … we got scything!

Now I love my husband dearly, but Aiden Turner he ain’t. I must say I thought his idea of scything the grass was hilarious at first but I take it all back. Step aside Poldark, my husband is brilliant. I am no expert, but if you relax into a quiet rhythm and your scythe is sharp then the green green grass slices down to a clean carpet. It’s also good for the planet and no where near as heavy as a petrol strimmer that would take the same side to side action to complete.

We started to carve out paths across the plot leaving swathes of long grass, natural thistles and flowers for the bees and butterflies. We created a play area for our two girls with the hope that they would be wholey occupied and happy while we addressed smallholdery things, aka hard graft. For the wider grass cutting areas, we used a petrol mower, post scything to finish off.

Now really and truly we wanted natural lawn mowers, maybe sheep, maybe goats, but had not mastered the dark art of stock fencing. We needed to address a long 130m stretch along one side of the field before livestock would be safe to roam freely. This most valued skill was also needed to address a smaller creature, the rabbit. We needed a rabbit free zone for our vegetable patch and thus needed a safety rectangle to keep Peter and friends at bay.

We decided to start with the vegetable patch as our greenhouse, now May, was bursting with plants. We ordered the posts, going for slow grown Norwegian timber, bought the one strand wire to run around the posts, and chicken wire mesh to drop down from the wire, creating an L shape at floor level to prevent rabbits burrowing under. We attached the floor mesh with a few tent pegs. The grass grew through and secured it properly.

Hand Stock fencing is a great skill to have under your belt as a smallholder. You do need the tools which can be a bit of an outlay. The post rammer for whacking in the posts, good wire-cutters and the strainer for keeping things tight. The hog ring tool is also a handy bit of kit to secure mesh to the wire.

We knocked together a gate from leftover wood and voila, our vegetable patch was complete! Now came the question … to dig or not to dig!

Broccoli, albeit it ended up bolting from being in the greenhouse too long.

Peas, I think I may well stick to planting directly into the soil as I have found this a better method for stronger plants.

I placed plastic bags over plants while propagating to keep out Mr field mouse.

Kale, dill and lettuce growing under tomatoes, I won’t do this next year as the tomato crop in the greenhouse was a little lacking, the outside ones all grown from shoots of just these 3 plants have been amazing, although we have had a super hot and dry summer.

Things moving on despite the cold start to 2018.

Leeks, celery and broad beans (the first things planted).

Runner beans, these are still providing crops now, late August 2018.

We’d better cut that grass!

To mow, or to scythe?

Fenced vegetable patch in the distance.

Ever faithful labs.

Addressing 130m stock fencing.

Enjoying the view after fencing.

Sun setting over the Tamar Valley

A Mini Country Smallholding in Cornwall – Part 1, Finding Our New Home

Posted on August 30, 2018 by Admin

Although loving our country life as it was, husband and I longed to live the life of a country smallholder. Having spent years enthralled by countless repeats of River Cottage, My Dream Farm and It’s Not Easy Being Green, we were charmed by the magic of growing our own vegetables, eating our own eggs and maybe even rearing a few sheep and pigs.

To be fair it seemed out of reach, as another dream and miracle had come true for us. We have been blessed with two baby girls, twins! To say the baby years were intense is an understatement and we were somewhat preoccupied for the first year of their precious lives.

After year 1 however we decided to make the bold move and move house. Now or never! The girls would be coming up to their second birthday and we would need to know where we were living to ensure their new nursery and school.

After many viewings we were optimistic but a little bit hit by the financial reality of our dream. We saw many beautiful detached period cottages in big manicured mature gardens, but the exercise really honed our checklist. We wanted no street lights, in order to enjoy the perfect inky black skies and bright stars of the Tamar Valley, we actually loved the area we were in already and wanted to stay there and we needed space for chickens to scratch around in and make a mess, a space where you could have a pig roast and dance about with corn in your hair. We needed an acre really. The house itself was way down on our priority list. Thing was, to meet the criteria on our budget was extremely rare.

Until … our new home came on the market. A period house, built in 1840 of stone blocks, much like our beloved old cottage, but my god way bigger. It had an enclosed safe garden for the girls and wait for it … a 1.5 acre plot just behind the garden! Yippee! It was however, a pigsty. I kid you not the place stank to high heaven as it had been so neglected, it was damp, sticky, dirty and had been home to more animals than Bristol Zoo. However despite the stench and filth we both loved it. Weird I know but luckily we both saw through the muck to it’s romantic potential, and my god the view from the field was amazing, worth the trek up the sharply steeped terrain – well … it’ll keep us all fit!

The day of the move was intense. We had to stay in a nearby self-catering annex on a cow farm for several days to give a team of contract cleaners time to blast out the residue of the past. We moved in on day 3. What a mess, but we were all excited. The girls, now two years old, had great fun running around and losing mother in the extra rooms we now had. We were so used to an open plan small miners cottage that we lost them several times in the rambling floor plan of the house. We walked around the field as much as we could drinking in the ruralness of it, but year 1 was consumed by make do and mending the house to make it at least habitable. We painted the interiors white to ‘make clean’, fixed all of the radiators, plastered walls, corrected damp spots and ripped up carpets, cleaning and linseeding floorboards as we went. We felt the pull of the land, after all that’s why we moved in, but simply could not fit in the time to set-up a smallholding alongside the mammoth task of making good the house. Not fancy, just liveable.

Christmas year 1 came and went and ushered in 2018. A freezing cold icy start to the New Year that went on way into April, but as soon as the frost broke we started planting vegetable seeds in the greenhouse, Hoorah! We were off the mark. Once that first broad bean hit the soil we were on our way, our smallholding journey had begun!

Work on the sitting room

The girls helping!

It’s white and clean!

White!

Cleaning the greenhouse

View from the top of the smallholding.

Looking onto the woods.

Brights skies.

Ever faithful labs.

River Cottage Collection DVD: We loved this series, well worth a watch for the would be smallholder, the genuine Dorset neighbours featured in it really made the series magical, available from Amazon

River Cottage All Seasons DVD: Great follow up, available from Amazon

My Dream Farm with Monty Don