Resilience in the months ahead

Gladiola, Aug 2019

Though the Vegetable Challenge ends at the beginning of November, there is some uncertainty about national food security for the coming autumn/winter here in this country.  I'm trying to grow and preserve what I can to help assuage that uncertainty for my own family;  depending on the national situation, we may not have much choice of fruit and vegetables at the store when the Challenge runs out.  If we want to keep eating vegetables, it's entirely possible they'll have to come from our own garden or allotment.

I mentioned before that the whole food growing engine I caretake has overwhelmed me this summer.  However, now the houseguests have left, and I'm feeling a bit better (though still not fully), I luckily can now do some light gardening, and have even been to the allotment once or twice.  I'm trying to put by a little of the harvest every day, using as little effort as possible:  dehydrating, freezing, salting.

It's true the freezer is pretty full now, and I don't actually freeze many vegetables;  but this summer I've added a bag of mixed berries, along with half a bag of cherries and a bag of chard stems (leaves were dehydrated or eaten as salads).

I've finally got the first jar of salted runner beans going.  It's not a big jar.  I didn't get many runner or French beans last summer (too hot and dry), but I've had better luck this year;  I just need to remember to keep skimming a few off the top for salting and not eat them all.

And dehydrating some cherry tomatoes and figs.  Small batches.  I was given a sack of beets and considered pickling them, but decided to go the easy route and dry them--they filled up a small jar once dehydrated.  The dry peas are all threshed now; we'll probably get only a couple meals off them, but they represent the future:  this year I had two rows of peas, next year I want four rows at least, and the year after maybe eight rows.

Reaping (someone else's) harvest at the allotment

Well, I admit I've been pretty shameless in scroungeing up free food at the allotment.  My own plot has given me a modest harvest this year--but the weeds really are getting the better of me.  I've not been visiting regularly over the past few weeks, but a few days ago I said to the son that we'd go and have a little look, and maybe take the insect mesh off the purple sprouting broccoli (which we did, and brought home the dried mange tout vines in order to collect their seed).

But my real reason for going was in hopes that someone would generously offload some of their excess vegetables, and I did not go home disappointed!  We were given sacks by not one but two fellow allotmenters, one full of magnificent beets and the other with tomatoes and sweetcorn. 

My tactics?  I always greet people and ask them how they're doing.  I compliment them on something I can see or that they've shown/given me in the past, or I ask questions.  Sometimes just the greeting is enough:  I've been asked if I want so and so just on the strength of a hello;  the sack of beets was one such victory.  However, a bit of conversation and praise will generally do the trick, I've found.

Actually, I've even come home with free food without actually seeing the giver:  some people will leave extras just outside their plot, at the edge of the path, and I gratefully collect these whenever I see them. 

I hope that next summer it will be me pressing an overabundance onto other people but for now, I'm very happy to accept anything I can get.

Only a few tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes at last, August 2019

Last summer was excellent for tomatoes here.  This one is cooler and rainy: more like a typical English summer--but still my tomatoes are ripening, or at least the ones on my patio are. 

I have about six plants out in the further reaches of my vegetable beds, but they don't look very promising;  I'm not sure I'll even get worthwhile green fruits from them.  And to be honest, the four or so regular tomato plants on my patio all have fruit but none much bigger than the cherry tomatoes.  These, like the cherry tomatoes, are now ripening one or two at a time.  I don't think I'll be making salsa this year, green or red.  If I get enough fruits to fill two trays of my (small) dehydrator I'll dry some, but even that looks unlikely.

It's a bit disappointing, but I can't complain too much:  this is not a tomato growing climate, and to get enough for salads two months of the year is good enough.

Figs, 2019

One at a time, Aug 2019

I do love my little fig tree.  I got it as a cutting;  I think I bought it off ebay.  For the first year it lived in a pot on the patio, then the husband dug a big hole in the most choice location (right next to the house and patio, facing south), lined the sides of the hole with concrete pavers and the bottom with bricks and rubble, then planted it. 

For several years it's been growing well, though slowly.  I got the first fig harvest in 2015, though I had to share it with nibblers (I told the husband at the time it was probably birds, but I think it was actually rats--we washed them off and ate them anyway).  It's only been a few figs a year since then--last year was the first time the harvest made double figures.  We haven't got to double figures yet this year, but I'm hopeful!

Though there are a lot of figs on the tree, about half of them are too small to ripen fully I think.  I'm looking forward to having too many to eat: maybe next year?

Pea harvest, 2019

One third of the pea harvest, Aug 2019

I was thinking that maybe I'd get a medium sized jarful of dry peas this year, but it turns out I've got a whole sackful.  The mother helped me pull up all the plants at the allotment once the pods were all dry (in late July), we loaded them all up in the wheelbarrow and got them home.  I let them dry another two weeks on the vines in the garage, then the son and I have been threshing them a batch at a time.

We'd really like to be able to just thresh them straight off the vines, but don't have a sack big enough, so have been pulling off the pods and chucking them into a canvas bag;  once the bag's full, we hang it up and the son starts thwacking it with a big stick, pinata style.  The empty pods rise up to the top and the heavy peas sink to the bottom, making them easy to winnow.  I've been throwing the empty pods and vines into the chicken yard as straw (they're still mostly confined there, much to their misery).

I planted around 500 pea seeds in February, and though I don't have a final total, I would estimate I've harvested a few pounds of dry peas.  I hope to double the amount next year:  1000 seeds.  I've definitely got room for them at the allotment.  And we'll look forward to some lovely mushy peas later in the year.

An arbor

My new arbor, Aug 2019

The husband and father built me a grape arbor in the corner of our patio.  In the photo you can see the grape vine climbing the fence (and the fig tree).  For the rest of this season I'll let the vine run, but once dormant I'll cut back and start training it next spring.  This vine has one grape cluster which ought to ripen, given its prime location--it's the first time it formed fruit.  There is one other vine on the other side of the garage, climbing up my almond tree;  it has several small grape bunches, but I'm not as confident about their prospects. 

It'll be the first time we get grapes from the garden if they do ripen;  and they're green/white grapes, so hopefully the birds won't bother with them.

It's getting away from me

At last, a photo of the chicks, Aug 2019

Well, in the spirit of Telling It Like It Is, I guess I might as well mention the garden, allotment and poultry are all too much right now.  I'm not keeping up.  We had houseguests for two weeks, I've not been well, and though my hayfever is gone now, it drove me indoors for more than a month.  All this combined means that my personal food growing operation is only just limping along. 

The allotment is more weeds than vegetables and the slugs are nipping off most of the seedlings that are just coming up in the sheet mulched areas.  I've only been there about three or four times in the last two weeks--the husband has been up once, I think.

And then in my kitchen garden nearly every brassica has cabbage caterpillars, the Misc bed (the furthest from the house) is mainly weeds, and though they're flowering, the runner beans aren't forming pods (maybe this last one isn't my fault).  I haven't been picking chard regularly.  I haven't been watering the containers regularly, though only one has actually died.

And the poultry.  The son is in charge of feeding and watering;  he's off school for the rest of this month so luckily they won't starve.  But I've not been putting the chickens into their tractor daily--they've mostly been stuck in their yard.  The new chicks are so cute--now just over a week old--but I've not been out socializing with them to get them used to me.  And the ducks are just getting on my nerves.  We know they're still laying eggs, but we can't find their secret nests!  And both the son and I have had to give some stern discipline to one of the young males who thinks he's allowed to jump on people's shoes--luckily ducks are much less agile (and sharp) than roosters.  He might be duck soup if he keeps it up though.

So there's my whole sorry story.  It's all gone to pot.  I'm still not 100%, and I can't see the situation improving until then--plus we're having more houseguests this weekend...

Food Totals July 2019

A few pears but not ready yet, July 2019

Vegetables:

4.5 oz beetroot
43 oz mange tout peas
30 oz broad beans
33 oz spring cabbage
20 oz chard
7 oz kale
5 oz snap peas
77 oz cauliflower (heads and leaves)
65 oz artichokes
0.5 oz radishes
8 oz spring onions
60 oz zuccini
3 oz French beans

Total: 356 oz, or 22 lb 4 oz

Note:  I weigh all my vegetables after preparation:  peeling, trimming, etc.  Does not include some fresh herbs which were too small a quantity to weigh, i.e. less than 0.5 oz.

Fruit:

48 oz mixed berries (redcurrants, blackcurrants, raspberries, blueberries, sweet cherries)

Eggs:

Total: 174 eggs from 12 hens and 2 ducks
Total feed bought: 1 bag each layers pellets, mixed corn and mixed seed (20 kg each), 1 bag chick crumb (5 kg)

Preserves:

3 medium jars dehydrated strawberry chips (picked at a local farm)
1 large jar sauerkraut (from a gift cabbage)
1 small jar pickled snap peas

Homebrew:

Elderberry/blackberry wine still fermenting
Cider still fermenting

New chicks in 2019

A food totals post is due, but I'll get it in for the next one because we have new chickies! 

We have nine new chickies as of today--hatched three days ago.  Cookie sat on eight eggs and hatched six;  Rainbow sat on four and hatched three.  Both mothers have their own little house with a shared bit of the lawn, though as far as we know the chicks haven't mingled yet. 

Rainbow doesn't seem quite as assured about the whole business as Cookie, but so far she's managed to keep her three alive.  Rainbow "helped" Cookie last summer by deciding to go broody during Cookie's last week of sitting and shared the nest with her.  Those three chicks all attached themselves to Cookie and Rainbow didn't get much parenting action.  As I've mentioned previously, Rainbow is a rescue hen from an egg laying farm:  she's five years old and her breed is known for not ever going broody.  Well, she's proved us all wrong, including me;  I thought she couldn't do it but she has.

We won't know for about six weeks who's a boy or girl, but I'm hoping for an even split.  If they're all girls we'll have way too many chickens over winter...