Category Archives: Smallholding

Veg plot 2020: Fourth pick of winter salads

Posted on November 15, 2020 by james

My wife asked me to pick some salad today to go with our meal this evening. I was going to leave it a little longer as growth has quite obviously slowed down now and I suspect we’re not far off … Continue reading →

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Today I have “chainsaw back”

Posted on November 15, 2020 by james

Last winter we had a large beech tree cut down. It could easily have been close to 100 years old, but there wasn’t any way to tell as it was also hollow. The base of the tree had started to … Continue reading →

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And now the pasteurising is also done

Posted on November 12, 2020 by james

Pasteurising 140+ bottles twenty at a time certainly takes a while. But happily it is now all done and I just need to find somewhere to store all those bottles for the next six months or so whilst we drink … Continue reading →

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Finally finished bottling…

Posted on November 10, 2020 by james

After six or seven hours over the last three days I’ve finally filled the last bottle with apple juice. One hundred and forty five 75cl bottles, to be precise, so almost 109 litres or a shade under 24 UK gallons. … Continue reading →

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Veg plot 2020: Third pick of winter salads

Posted on November 8, 2020 by james

Wandering through the veggie plot during the week I’d seen the salads in the greenhouse and didn’t think there’d be much to pick this weekend, so I was quite surprised by the number of leaves available when I went to … Continue reading →

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Once again it’s apple-pressing day

Posted on November 8, 2020 by james

I posted a month back that we’d collected apples for pressing, but until today we’d not actually got around to doing the hard work. I estimated that we had 250kg to 300kg of apples ready to be pressed and today … Continue reading →

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Must have been a bit breezy last night…

Posted on November 2, 2020 by james

When I went for a stroll around the garden at lunchtime I noticed some panes of glass missing from the end of the greenhouse. Closer inspection suggests that the wind must have flexed the frame of the greenhouse sufficiently to … Continue reading →

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Veg plot 2021: Composting beds again

Posted on November 1, 2020 by james

After I ran out of light yesterday I’d not quite finished with the beds I was spreading compost on. Last night the forecast was for rain all day today, but this morning it was all change (quelle surprise!) with only … Continue reading →

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Veg plot 2021: More seeds

Posted on October 31, 2020 by james

This weekend I’ve been working through the list of what I want to grow next year and finding out where I can get the seeds I want. I placed an order for some seeds on Friday, mostly so I could … Continue reading →

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Veg plot 2021: Composting more beds

Posted on October 31, 2020 by james

The weather has been fairly poor today thanks to a storm that I’ve already forgotten the name of, but I managed to get outside for a couple of hours this afternoon and started spreading out the remainder of our own … Continue reading →

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