the daydream fund challenge thread

lostinrates

Davesnave wrote: »

One advantage of this location is that human activity during the day inhibits fox incursions, but I notice rabbits have moved into the second part of the orchard, which is the other side of that coin.

Do you know, all day long we were out there, heard nothing, and I was rolling the field around where dh saw the fox. LAter had other people here, so we were working in three separate groups in the area where the chooks are and no one heard/saw a thing. Not even a feather. There are many days when the hens are out there all alone. But today was probably the busiest day since the drains were done!

choille

LIR - sorry about the hen. They are so wiley & maybe have young - that makes them braver in the daylight I think.

lostinrates

choille wrote: »

LIR - sorry about the hen. They are so wiley & maybe have young - that makes them braver in the daylight I think.

I think that will be it. I understand there were four cubs there last year. I love foxes, just......around the hedges casing bunnies, not around the farmyard chasing chickens. I'd leave the dogs over in that yard but for the dodgy fencing :mad::o. It seems I might have to make arrangements to let them come through in late summer with the hounds.

I have one chicken proof gate, so might do some gate swapping this week.

Winged_one

Sounds like a busy weekend all around.

I am in work early to write stuff for others to do interviews and speeches later today but can't get woken up yet. So just pottering here for a few minutes first!

I DID manage to get to the plot and got all my onions planted on Saturday morning, even though I had to dig an extra space to fit them all. (Had to dig as much again as I already had ready). And I had carefully cleaned off the weed suppressant membrane I took up from there (2 rows of it), as that was the brassica bed - and then forgot to tie them down somewhere so they will probably have flown off by the time i get back.

I also planted out the other 3 broad bean plants (the first 3 are in the garden) and pulled a bit more grass from around the fruit bushes and the compost bin. And put the contents of 1 bag of loo roll holders (and 1 kitchen roll inner) around some of the leeks that are left there, to try to blanch them a bit higher up without getting too mucky! I only brought home rhubarb this week - but enough for 2 nights of deserts and it was soo tasty! I had lovely fat sticks, and the local F&V shop had skinny little sticks at €1.99 for 4 sticks, so I brought home at least €6 worth this week alone! (having had more than that last week, and plenty yet to come).

I will be bringing more leeks as well next week though, to have our special leeks dish - per DH's special request. I made buttered leeks on Saturday night with 3 that I'd brought home the previous week, and they are delicious at the minute as they are so small and sweet (I was late getting them in).

Yesterday morning was lovely and warm, and DH took DD out to the park. So I managed to get more seeds sown in the garden - a short row of radishes, another of turnips, and a third of spring onions. I am sowing these in curvy patterns around where I have some cabbages and will have lettuces to try and make it pretty as well as edible. I also got the first few lettuces planted out from the pots to the ground but they are still very small seedlings. And I put slug pellets everywhere as they are already going nuts (I caught one having eaten a cabbage seedling and onto #2 the other night - DH squirms when I do catch these as the salt comes out immediately!).

And I sowed pots of: Leeks, sorrel, lettuce - all for the plot as much as home. And successional pots of basil and coriander (I expect to start using the first coriander this week and basil in about 2 weeks, so the next pots needed starting).



On clay - the soil on parts of our plot was heavy enough clay (not totally awful, but bad enough) when we got it in Jan 07. It is too far in to get much into it by way of extra manure etc, so it's been a few little buckets of compost from home in spring, and whatever I can find up there. And I covered over soil when I wasn't using it as much as possible (to stop it drying out too much, and prevent weeds getting hold). If I have weeds for composting when I am covering, I will just throw them on the ground underneath the plastic.

And I found that this spring, I am suddenly able to dig it myself instead of relying on DH (just as well as he is refusing this year). I think most beds have now had spuds once, except this year's spot (but that had roots last year and wasn't too bad), and that has helped too. But I've still got stuff out of the ground every year and made back more than I've spent on rent, seeds, slug pellets and compost (for seedlings at home). There is probably a fair bit of potting compost gone in too as I prefer to plant out decent sized seedlings to give them a chance, I go through a large bag a year (you know the big blocks?) at home and most of those plants went to the plot in recent years. And the bits that were hard last year still, I had used as the pumpkin bed. So I only needed to dig relatively small holes, throw in a good chunk of compost in the base, and plant out the squash family seedlings on top. They did reasonably well there too!

I'd better go and start thinking speechy stuff rather than gardening stuff. I am hoping to grab an hour before work tomorrow morning to dig and plant part of the roots bed, as we are supposed to get rain later tomorrow and all day Wednesday, with more later in the week. So I want to get that bed started before I can't make any progress again.

lostinrates

Well, the foxes are forgiven...Pet has turned up this morning saying ''puck, puck, puck Wha-aa-aaaat wasallthefussabout, puck puck whaaaaat wasallthefussabout?'' looking rather smug.

Neighbouring farm have peacocks, so maybe she's been away looking for a fancier male.

So, plan b this morning is to leave the hens in (I have meetings all morning to day, five of them, get me being busy!) and I'll put the dogs IN the yard with the gates closed to the bad fencing, and they'll be furious with me, and make a lot of noise, which will hopefully warn a vixen to head the other way for bunny for a couple of days at least.

Do you thin ts rude o ask men visit for meetings to ''pee long the wall there to deter the foxes?''

Davesnave

Hurrah for the return of the prodigal hen! :j

rhiwfield

lostinrates wrote: »

Do you thin ts rude o ask men visit for meetings to ''pee long the wall there to deter the foxes?''

Only if you watch!

lostinrates

Well, where she's been too. She's up in a hay loft sitting, I kid you not, on about fifty eggs, like a cartoon hen. I suppose I best just keep an eye on her and them and bring them down in three weeks with whatever she's hatched: I can't get chick crumb up there, and god forbid she should get them t jump!

rhiwfield

Still on fairly light duties but been to compost place twice and filled 40 x 15 litre buckets with lovely stuff. Was given a tour of the facility, the kitchen waste (collected in corn starch bags) is mixed 1 to 2 with green waste, all shredded and then goes thru several bays in succession, with at least 3 x 48 hour periods of 60C+ heat to kill off the nasties.

Stuff I took was well past this process but still pretty warm, car felt (and smelled) like a mangrove swamp

So topdressed the rows of potatoes and the strawbs, and made beds ready for peas and courgettes. Some of whats left will be mixed with topsoil for containers, but will be using it as is for the toms and cucs. GH is filling fast and yes!.....its time to cut the first asparagus :j

Scavenged a couple of pallets from nx door build for kindling, so breaking those up will channel my aggression for a while

Davesnave

Rhiwfield, glad you are on the mend. Those don't sound terribly light duties to me!:)

Does your local compost facility give the stuff away or make a nominal charge? I'm not sure what happens in this neck of the woods, but Bath was (as usual!) expensive in that respect.:( Wiltshire was OK though, and that was a private outfit.

Also where did you (or others) get your anti-pecking rings? We have a Dorking that's recently taken to pecking feathers randomly from other hens, so it might be necessary to go down that route for a while. She is even taking feathers from Top Hen, so it's a bit of a worry!