The first seeds of the year

It's not till March that I get the main bulk of my seeds started but that doesn't stop me getting a few things going in February.  This month I've begun with:

Broad beans and snap peas.  These get chucked into a plastic bag with a handful of wet soil/compost, and placed in my unheated garage to sprout in situ.  I prefer to pre-sprout them before I sow them in the ground, to give them a better chance of actually coming up (and I do them in the garage so I don't have to acclimatize them to cold temps like I would if I'd done them in the house).  Direct sown, mine usually never even appear.  Mice?  Slugs?  Both, no doubt.  I started 150 broad beans and 200 snap peas last week.  When they are sown, I'll pre-sprout one more batch.

Onions.  Today I broadcast a small handful (maybe 100 seeds) onto a small tray on my kitchen windowsill, to be pricked out individually once they pop up.  I don't have a good track record with onions.  The only year I got a decent harvest was the year the rest of my garden drowned (that was one soggy summer).  So I presume they need a bit more water than I usually provide, but to be honest I'm probably not going to water them any more than usual this year either.  We'll see how it goes;  they'll be planted out into well-manured soil at the allotment, at least.

Tomatoes.  In the past I've sown tomatoes a bit later, but last year I sowed them early and was much happier with the resulting harvest.  These I did today and they are next to the onion tray on my windowsill, both wrapped in plastic bags to keep a little more warmth in.  Unlike the onions however, they'll be potted on once or twice after pricking out, and not planted out until May.  I have cherry toms, salad toms (a variety I've been saving myself for years), and plum toms from a free packet--I mean, why not?  Maybe this will be the year of the tomato.

Eating from the garden in February

Is there anything to eat from the garden/allotment still?  Yes!

• Self seeded winter greens such as lambs lettuce and miners lettuce.  Throw in a little chickweed and I have a nice little green salad.
  
• Newly sprouting perennials:  chives and garlic chives, daylily shoots (these are so yummy they rarely make it all the way to the kitchen).
• Some veg have overwintered successfully, including a few stray kohl rabi, kale, leeks, a cabbage or two--although sadly quite a few of the cabbages decided it was too cold during our prolonged frost and have bit the dust.
• We only just finished eating my precious single squash of 2022, which was proudly displayed on my front windowsill until then.  It was perfectly sound and very tasty.  Not to mention several bags and jars of various frozen, dehydrated, and fermented/brined veg (for example: frozen beets, dehydrated tomatoes, garlic/rhubarb pickle)

What else is coming up?  More of the above (except my prized delicious squash that is).  And a lot of work, to get the new crops started for this year's harvest.

Working on the woodpile (still)

I was pleased and somewhat surprised to have a sunny and mild two days last weekend--normally that sort of weather is reserved for weekdays when I'm at work.  The daughter and I spent several hours in the garden, both having fun and getting work done;  the son also made a brief appearance too, although on his watch the loppers were broken beyond repair (though they were pretty old).

With the loppers gone, and pretty much all of our spare cash pledged to pay for essentials only (we've saved up to replace our single glazed windows with double glazing and so aren't making any other purchases for the next few months), resolving the coppice firewood pile might be a little tricky.  I still have some secateurs and a variety of hand saws--though to be honest I'm a little short on elbow grease.  

So instead of cutting up the long lengths of laurel still draped over my patio, I stripped them of their leaves and stacked them up to dry;  I collected the leaves because I thought they would make an acceptable straw substitute for the floor of the chicken house;  we just so happen to be out of straw.  After coming to this conclusion I raked out said coop--not a fun job--and shoved the big pile of leaves in for the chickens to spread around.  These leaves are thick and glossy still and should make the next raking out a bit easier (the compacted straw/manure was pretty solid).  I'm not done with all the laurel either, so I'll be continuing this experiment while my small flock is still confined (under a poulty housing order by the government, due to the avian influenza outbreak).

Once the laurels are finally all dealt with, I'll move the hawthorn trimmings up to the patio next;  these are mostly narrow diameter, to be cut with secateurs--no leaves attached.  This will be the end of this winter's coppicing.  It hasn't made much of a contribution to our woodpile, I must admit.  Still, it's free;  the trees are excellent wildlife habitat, good for privacy, and grow like crazy.  It's winter, and I might as well do something productive, right?

Hibernating

It's getting lighter in the afternoons, after a very dark midwinter.  We get very little winter sun most of the time;  even if it's clear (unusual), the sun rises late and sets early.  It's still definitely too dark, but at least we've at the point where it's starting to feel like there will be spring sometime in the future.

We had a prolonged cold snap in December--almost two weeks without a thaw;  we're coming out of another one now, though this one has only been one week.  I like to have a sustained frost in the garden, to set back the slugs and bugs;  if we don't have one I know it'll be a bumper year for them (and a bad year for me).  Thankfully no snow (yet).

On the other hand, a frost means no real work for me in the garden.  I have been thinking about starting some onion seeds (indoors) and maybe the first batch of broad beans;  I need some potting soil.  I've done a little bit of pruning, and have been gradually working on the new batch of firewood:  cutting it to stove lengths and splitting a few pieces too.  However I'm still in hibernation mode, probably for another month at least.

Grand total of garden food, 2022

Vegetables: 135 lb 6 oz (incomplete)

Fruit: 14 lb 15 oz (incomplete)

Eggs: 457

Some good news:  I beat 2021's totals in veg!  But not in eggs or fruit (though I might have done in fruit if I'd weighed the apples and plums).  Still not beaten my highest total of 201 lb, back in 2017 however.  Note: the veg totals are incomplete as I did not weigh the garlic or corn harvests, among a few others (though only up to about 5 lb at the most, I'd guess).  

 

I'm happy to have achieved a higher total than the previous year, at the very least.  Here's to a productive 2023;  let's get growing!

See previous grand totals: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016

Food totals September-December 2022

Some of the harvest (Sparta apples) from September 2022

Lots of apples (Laxton Fortune variety), September 2022

Nice cabbages too, September 2022

My one and only squash of 2022, though still in storage for 2023

Vegetables

 

227 oz tomatoes, green and red (mainly red)

1 oz chives

147 oz kohl rabi

71.5 oz cabbage

59 oz kale

125 oz beets

3 oz carrots

4.5 oz achocha

0.5 oz fennel

4 oz baby corn

2 oz French beans

Total: 644.5 oz, or 40 lb 4.5 oz

Fruits

 

23 oz figs

17.5 oz kumoi pears 

Total: 40.5 oz, or 2 lb 8.5 oz

Does not include (counted individually, not weighed):

73 Sparta apples

55 Laxton Fortune apples

24 Czar plums

Eggs

 

56 eggs from 5 hens and two ducks

(Look for 2022's grand totals next week)

Growing firewood

I'm not quite prepared to do the year end food totals until next week (though I haven't posted the monthly totals here, I've been logging them on paper).  I've had my blogging break, and my life is somewhat on track.  Sort of.  I'll see if I can get back into the swing of things here.

This weekend the whole family got together out back to start coppicing our various hedging trees for next year's firewood (kindling, actually).  I have been saving trimmings from the garden for several years now;  the hedges are hawthorn and laurel, but the wood includes some elder, rose and fruit tree prunings too--among others.  The hawthorn and laurel both take coppicing very well, producing a lot of growth after a big cut--these I try to leave several years between trims, though I stagger the harvest and try to coppice a couple every year.  It sort of depends on which is the tallest/bushiest.

We don't produce enough trimmings to run our wood stove on, but certainly enough for kindling and for barbecues in summer.  No trees are killed for the sake of our barbecue--coppicing is a renewable, free source of wood.