Harvest Summer 2009

I am pleased to report a much better harvest this year. It has not been without problems but it has been a great improvement this year. The rabbit proof fencing worked well around the old veggie patch and the deer/rabbit proof fencing worked a treat around the new area we created at the beginning of the year. The main wildlife problems this year have been pigeons, slugs, snails, caterpillars and mice and although we try our best to protect out crops without killing wildlife the mice were so destructive and prolific that we had to trap them but it was a bit late as they had eaten all the cauliflower, most of the broccoli and they had had a good nibble of the red cabbages, swede, beetroot and strawberries - we will be on our guard next year! The dreaded slugs and snails were quite slow to attack the crops during the early summer but are making up for it now!

So we had good crops of courgettes, squash, potatoes, raspberries, red cabbage, rocket, lettuce, radishes, cucumber, tomatoes grown in hanging baskets, runner beans, mange tout, sunflowers, beetroot, fennel, broad beans, rhubarb, plums.
Not so good but a reasonable crop of strawberries, carrots, garlic, outdoor tomatoes (although there was some blight).
And very poor / non existent crops of dwarf beans, French beans, blackcurrants, blueberries, Jerusalem artichokes, gooseberries, koli rabi, Florence fennel, cauliflower, horseradish, broccoli, summer cabbage, sweetcorn, peaches, apricots, apples ( I think out old trees have had it!)

We are hopeful that the celeriac, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, leeks will give us a good crop soon and that the asparagus bed will flourish next year.

Much of our produce is now preserved bottled, pickled, jams and jellies, frozen, dried or stored in crates to see us through the winter. Steve is also trying wine and beer - watch this space to monitor his success!

The chickens have given us plenty of eggs and remain a joy to watch!

Musing from the Moor - Swine Flu

Swine Flu seems to have fallen out of the news this week so I thought I had better revive it, its been such a good topic of conversation for the past few weeks it seems such a shame to let it fade away without comment.
I have had a cold this week, an ordinary summer cold with the usual sneezing (such a waste of energy and so annoying) runny nose, vaguely sore throat which started at the weekend and by the time I went into work on Monday it was on its way out.
I had hoped for a little sympathy but I spent the week reassuring people that I had an ordinary cold and not Swine Flu. Have we all gone mad? When does someone who obviously has a snotty nose but not much else suddenly need to be sent home from work, I refused to go, I was fine.
I would certainly have thought I was ill if I ignored a fiver on the floor, so as a test I chucked a fiver on the floor (nowhere public however, just encase someone beat me to it!) and happily retrieved it several times for a few days. Convinced I was OK I gave this up as a waste of time and energy but I do think that its a good test for those in doubt. Perhaps I could market the idea, sell a fiver all wrapped up in a plastic bag for say a tenner and people could then self diagnose (so many people like to work out what is wrong with them - consider the pregnancy testing kit market, diabetic testing etc - huge).
Then they could spend hours trying to get through to the Swine Flu hot-line confident in their diagnosis which will then be confirmed by a teenage non-medic that they are ill. Then the non-medic can give you a voucher that allows you to go and get some pills that may at best reduce the time you are unwell by a day at worst give you side-effects that actually make you unwell.
Like I said we have all gone mad! and its costing us a fortune perhaps I could promise not to ask for Tamiflu and have a reduction in my tax bill. That idea I think probably needs pondering on this week and no doubt I will return to reducing my tax liability over the coming weeks!

Musing on the Moor - tourists

I had a busy week at work and by Thursday evening I was really looking forward to a peaceful weekend, I had no great plans other than pottering around our plot. The weather forecast was good, that meant - avoid the beaches like the plague.

A sunny August weekend in Cornwall always means an invasion of 'emmits'. This is a local term for holiday makers that fed up with the queues on the A30, head off at great speed down the country lanes without any idea where they are going they usually end up lost. At this point all common sense leaves them and on strange, very narrow roads where two cars cannot pass each other without pulling into the hedge they discover the secrets of the 'Cornish hedge' which is usually made of granite disguised by some very attractive weeds and results in their 'pride and joy' ending up bent and buckled when they hit it.

The lanes are only short cuts if you know where you are going and don't think that 'sat nav' or 'pratt nav' as I call it will help it won't, the lanes are slow and don't go where you think they are going, they are the long route. They head off in the right direction but half an hour later you are back where you started and the queue is longer and slower, so stick to the main roads and just accept that there are no motorways in Cornwall - we like it that way - just come down here and relax, take it easy and expect it to take ages to get anywhere, its part of the charm. The A30 is now partially a dual carriageway which means that Cornwall is accessible without having to leave home at 4.00 am and it taking 12 to 18 hours to arrive but just as I think of the ferry to France (I hate the Channel Tunnel) as the beginning of a holiday and time to get into relaxed mode, think of the single bit of carriageway east of Bodmin as the transition from the hustle and bustle of everyday life to holiday.

Its only about 3 weeks until the kids go back to school and we can reclaim the A30, the lanes and beaches again.

Early Summer 2009 on the Moor

Well, its been a few months since I last posted anything, but the weather here today is wet and miserable so I thought I would do a bit of catching up with life on the moor.

The weather during May has been lovely with clear blue skies and the wonderful quality of light that is rarely experienced outside Cornwall. The Moor is springing into life with the winter born lambs venturing further from their mothers and young foals and calves roaming wild over the new grass.

All our hard work animal-proofing our plots are now under test. Crops are sown and are beginning to grow. The old veggie plot is almost entirely devoted to a variety cabbages, sprouts, cauliflowers, pak choi and koli rabi with just a row of broad beans (because the upper veggie plot wasn't quite ready when the beans needed to be planted out). And a row of celeriac because I had space and a wonky row of parsnips because I thought I could plant in a straight line without the string - as it was pointed out to me I can't!
Down here but not in a protected area are strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackcurrants, garlic, asparagus and home-grown rhubarb.

In the poly-tunnel we have had our first crops of radishes, lettuces and rocket it is lovely to have these so early in the year. We have great hopes for our gerkins, cucumbers, courgettes, patti-pan squash, tomatoes in hanging baskets, and cordon tomatoes which have all been grown from seed. The greenhouses also have cucumber, tomatoes, and squash we are trying to decide which produces the best crops. There are also peppers, aubergines and a few lemon plants grown from pips. For some unknown reason the orange and lemon trees that I bought at great expense earlier in the year have died - the orange died first and a few weeks later the lemon died as well, they were growing beautifully with lovely blossom and new leaves. I have no idea what caused their demise as I nurtured them according to the instructions, used citrus compost, watered and fed them, kept them warm - so if you have any ideas let me know!

The upper animal-proofed plot has carrots(traditional orange varieties plus some purple coloured ones which were freebies), onions, mange tout, runner beans, sunflowers, jerusalem artichokes, french beans, various squashes, red cabbage and there was an area for sweetcorn but these never germinated so there was a gap which is now filled with a few left over sowings.
The other area that Steve cleared up the top has potatoes growing and these seem to be ok without being caged off - the rabbits and deer seem to be ignoring them.

I will try and post a bit more frequently but its very weather dependent - sunny days are for outside!

A Busy Time on the Moor

Well its been a while since I lasted posted an update but today is Easter Bank Holiday Monday and its pouring with rain and blowing a hooley so time to look back over the past few weeks.

This Winter has been a season of contrast; cold with more snow and ice during March, the local weather buff reports that it has been the snowiest winter since 1997. Despite the cold it hasn't been too wet and we have had some lovely sunny days. Wearing tee shirts in early March was great with temperatures on the patio reaching 23.7 degrees centigrade - not bad for Cornwall!

We have lost another chicken to a dog, this time our next door neighbour's dog who spotted one of the hens in our woodland and managed to get through the fence and killed it instantly, it still had food in its beak! Our lovely neighbours were very upset and have replaced the hen, however it was not welcomed by the others and we had to take drastic action to stop them killing it. All three hens were aggressive towards it, one jumped on its back and tried to peck it's eyes out! two had to be isolated as they were such bullies, one was liberated back into the hen house after a few days but the other one took nearly four weeks to accept it. It is no longer attacked now but is obviously way down the pecking order.

Following last years disasters in the garden where we fed the wildlife rather than ourselves we have been busy preparing the various vegetable and fruit growing areas by erecting rabbit and deer proof fencing - just the pigeons to deal with now! It was a big decision to make to do this as it was expensive to buy everything - the cost of fence posts and wire is high and drastically increases our production costs but hopefully will last a long time especially after all Steve's hard work.

These plots have also needed digging over and as they are so large Steve hired a rotavator which reduced the workload but was still back breaking, since then we have bought a tiller to break down the soil even more and speed up the process. He has also added four tons of compost bought from a local recycling farm; the delivery of this was like a comedy show itself. It was dropped literally, with one dumpy bag landing up-sided down, at the gate and then had to be wheel-barrowed to the plots.

The poly-tunnel has had to be recovered as the polythene had gone very cloudy and very little light got through to the plants. This was another job that was more difficult than we first thought; rectangular sheeting and curved frames are not compatible when trying to get it all taut and it took us all day to get it as-good-as we could, many thanks to Rodger for his help, he thought he was just coming for some supper - he earned it! Steve has also dug out all the old soil and replaced it with a good layer of compost.

The greenhouses survived the winter storms but took me ages to clean all the grot off the glass. They are new slowly filling up with all the seeds that I have planted and potted on and we are hopeful that we will have a good variety of crops this year.

I have planted strawberries, pruned fruit bushes, potted up bare rooted fruit trees of oranges, lemons, peaches and apricots. I am planning on replacing some huge dogwoods with dwarf fruit trees. I have started by digging out a couple of the dogwoods that have spread many feet from the original plant with numerous rooted layers and planted a Victoria plum and a Sunset apple tree on dwarf root-stock.

Gradually all the seeds and plants ordered have arrived and I am now just waiting for the asparagus plants that I ordered in February to arrive, the bed is ready and waiting! So fingers crossed for a warm sunny spring and summer.

Snow on the Moor

Following my last blog the winter here on the Moor has gone from cold to colder, the wet days have become snowy and therefore far more interesting. The forecast was snow and our neighbours warned us that if it was heavy we would struggle to get around and access up to our smallholding would be difficult. Steve decided to hibernate on the advice of his boss who suggested that if he went into work and the weather turned he would need a tooth brush, so not wanting to take up residence at work he didn't go to work on Monday morning. I went in but left early following a phone call from Steve at about 15.45hrs saying that it had been snowing at home for about and hour and a half and was settling. I had no idea as it wasn't even snowing in Liskeard but heeded his warning and got home just in time; although the granite gatepost at the bottom of our drive suddenly loomed towards me as I slid into the drive - fortunately it stopped moving before it hit me!



The next morning we woke to several inches of snow and it was soon clear that work was off the agenda for the day. The locals that tried it (even those with 4x4's) soon became stranded at the bottom of the hill and had to abandon their cars as they couldn't make it back home or up onto the A30 - which was closed for about 40 miles. I cancelled all my work, made lots of phone calls and then went out onto the moor and took lots of photographs of our new white world. I met lots of the locals out walking that day, many I hadn't seen since last summer, all enjoying an impromptu day off.

The day went from heavy snow to beautiful sun and then back to heavy snow several times. Our dog Saffy had experienced snow several times over the years and generally behaved like a puppy rather than a mature dog. At first the chickens didn't really know what to make of it and avoided it but as the day went on they became more confident but I think due to the cold generally stood on one leg rather than two. Egg production fell slightly for a couple of days but it is now generally quite good with 3 or 4 per day - even our injured hen is now laying again - although her limp hasn't really improved.

The next day it was snowing again when I got up but by about 08.30 this turned to rain and by 11.00 it was possible to get out and I went into work. The rest of the week and into the following week we had a mixture of wintry weather with several inches again on the Friday night. The snowy weather didn't last and life on the Moor resumed as normal but it did make me think how hard life would have been in the past with harsher winters and little transport, people then would have had to plan ahead and help each other.

Winter on Bodmin Moor

Christmas and New Year celebrations have been enjoyed and gone, there is nothing better than the company of good friends, especially when accompanied by tasty food and excellent wines.



The weather in Bodmin this winter has been either wet and warm or cold and sunny, with rather more cold, icy mornings than last year - my geraniums have now succumbed to the frost unlike last year when they happily overwintered outside in the garden. The dry sunny days have meant that we have caught up a bit with the chores, we have focused on clearing the land adjacent to the road and are hoping to plant fruit trees as it is relatively sheltered from the prevailing winds by the high Cornish walls. I love planning the years crops and have spent hours looking at catalogues and websites for ideas and I am now waiting for my purchases to arrive although I think this shopping could go on for a while yet, as tonight I have just been emailed a great review for a new type of tomato!



The chicken that I wrote about last month is still alive and not exactly thriving but is looking less plucked although she appears to have a permanent limp. She has had a tough time as she has been bullied by two of the other chickens and initially we isolated her by putting her in a separate coup overnight but now the main aggressor has been removed however we may try and reintroduce her at a later date. Egg production has just started to pick up again.

Larger animals in the form of cattle have been causing Steve grief recently. He got home from work in the dark and set off torch in hand to take the dog out for a walk. He was walking past the chickens up the little path towards the woods that leads to the moor when suddenly his way was blocked by a huge cow coming down the path in the opposite direction. Saffy, our dog had spooked her and she almost crushed Steve in the dark, he was still shaking when I got home an hour later! The morning light revealed about twenty cows in the top field and closer inspection found three gaps in the fence where the cows that graze on the moor had gained access. They were reluctant to leave but eventually we got them back where they belonged. Steve then had to repair the fence so off to the agricultural suppliers for fence posts, fencing wire, barbed wire and a new gate. He spent the day repairing all the gaps watched by the cows who by this time were getting very brave and challenging Saffy and trying to break back in. Another job completed!