Breaking down composting

August 21, 2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

We’ve spent an absolute fortune on topsoil and compost since we moved here. I’ve long intended to start making our own compost but it’s taken an age to get around to it. Our local council gave me a free 100 litre compost bin that I brought home to be smirked at by our gardeners. With […]

The Hen Hatch (Patent pending)

July 11, 2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

Our chickens in our original brood used to free range widely around a couple of paddocks. When we got our new hens after the poor first lot got snaffled by a bloodthirsty fox (henceforth known as Land Pike), we decided to take the opportunity to give them an upgrade in accommodation. Enter a new hen […]

Fort fox(proof): building a luxury chicken enclosure

May 6, 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

After the shock of finding that the chickens had all been taken by a fox last week, we decided to fortify the new poultry enclosure somewhat. It used to be a composting area behind our barn and was utterly overgrown with weeds that were literally above waist height. The irony of our loss is that […]

Snow joke: cold weather is for the birds

March 3, 2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

Life in the UK has recently been brought to a standstill by the revelation that we on this Northern European island have had some snow fall on us. It was admittedly something of a shock for us ex-Londoners to see just how deep snow falls out in the rural countryside and we woke yesterday to […]

Planting an edible boundary hedge

February 25, 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

Our little smallholding is surrounded by very appropriate but rather ugly stock fencing. We needed something that would fit in well with the rural nature of our village, but that would keep our livestock safe (and, frankly, would keep other people’s dogs out). However, the stock fencing that was in existence when we moved in […]

Gather ye roses if ye may (and ye can’t, the sodding ground is undiggable!)

January 14, 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

In the spirit of trying to do as much as we can around our little homestead ourselves, we had a good crack at the main flowerbeds in the front garden. This is a slight change of pace for us as we’ve focussed mainly on practical projects thus far, chicken-proofing the paddock for them to free […]

We are determined to DIY (or DIO!)

January 8, 2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

We’re facing a massive project here with our smallholding. We’d eventually like to be self-sufficient in most fruit and vegetables and meat, as well as cut flowers and so at the moment we’ve got a lot of big “one-off” tasks. Planting the orchard with our 32 trees was obviously one of them, and creating a […]

Free range chickens: once you cluck, you can’t stop!

January 5, 2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

So it turns out that having chickens about the place may well be addictive. I find that I’m really enjoying having them around. They burble imperiously at me when I bring them corn, and I like the pompous way in which they strut. Yet I have to say, I don’t feel actual affection for them, […]

DIY irrigation using soda bottles

April 7, 2017.Reading time 1 minute.

Years ago I decided to install a homemade drip-feed system of soda bottles to water my pots and raised beds. But having filled the one nearest to my beloved plum tree yesterday, I noticed this morning that the water level hadn’t dropped. The culprit was the lid of the old water bottle I was using. […]

Cat-proofing the garden

March 20, 2017.Reading time 1 minute.

As our son has grown and changed, so has what we need from our garden. Whilst I want to grow as much as I can, GarlicBoy also needs some grass to play on, and we also need space to keep the kinds of things that I don’t want him playing with (think secateurs…) so we […]