Compost...how NOT to do it!

I love making compost and every year for the last 20 years I have made varying amounts of lush compost which I use in the greenhouse to feed tomatoes and peppers etc. But this year as I went to empty my bins I dreaded it. The compost was wet and slimey and smelly.

It was hard work emptying them and as it was, totally useless. Obviously I had been turning the compost, just a couple of times during the summer and autumn so I knew it wasn't going to be great.

There was a lot of chicken manure in but also all the kitchen scraps except the ones the pigs ate. There was also some lawn clippings but not many as the chickens and cows usually get these (grass clippings can be death to good compost) so I was mystified as to why, this year, I had failed so badly!

It became obvious when I lifted the last of the compost. It was totally sodden underneath and the wet had crept up the heap. Compost needs to be moist but not wet and this was saturated. The wettest summer I have ever known has resulted in the mush.

I barrowed the compost up to the "resting" vegetable bed and spread it out. I re-located the bins on to drier land and have started again! I'll let you know next spring how I get on!

Why a wood?

A power cut terminated my connection on the last post so I didn't finish what I was saying.
My one follower!!(Hello Carrie!)asked me why we had bought a wood. Well, we have some money in savings that are earning nothing and anyway, we have no one to leave any estate to, not that there is that much except the farm. So we decided to purchase a little more land for the sole intention of quiet leisure and as an inheritance for the Woodland Trust.
It is also a sort of holiday home. We wanted somewhere we could travel to for a day but also somewhere peaceful where we could camp for a week and still have nice places to walk the dogs and have a pub lunch. We can leave the farm animals under the watchful eye of neighbours if we are not too far away and can get back for any emergencies. In the summer, only the chickens need day by day care, and they could come with us!!
So, there you go...a little bit of land to preserve and enjoy.

Extending the Empire

For some time, OH and I have been thinking about putting our savings into a new venture...woodland! We haven't a lot to invest but it is sitting in a building society, doing nothing. We have been looking spasmodically at sites around the north or England, Scotland and Wales but after 2 weeks in the east of Scotland, away from the wind and rain, I decided it definitely had to be in the east of the country!

I mentioned it to someone who lives in Durham, telling them I would consider anywhere between Scarborough and Inverness! But then this woodland came up near Hull. It is a 5 acre site with mixed trees and a south facing aspect and on windy Sunday, we went to view. It took an hour to travel there, straight off the end of the M62 and how lovely it was to walk in the sunshine and stand upright. The woodland is for "peaceful purposes only". I was quite delighted, loving the village it is near and the fact the Wolds Way is on the doorstep. There is enough to do to make it interesting but not too much to be onerous, so we came home and on Monday I called the agent.

Windy week!

It's still windy up here. What damage it does is negligable these days as we have everything tied down. The first greenhouse was up for a month and then ended up like the picture demonstrates...looks more like the work of elephants than the wind. The insurance paid out and we spent twice as much on a wooden framed, robust one.

The polytunnels have disappeared down the valley, as did our neighbour's. I am using cloches this year and the plastic ones have blown away and torn but the fleece ones are staying in place. It is so cold and windy that even the most English vegetables need protection.

I had the most amazing potato crop last year which we are still eating. They store well and haven't gone green at all! They were Marfona. Obviously I have the same ones chitting upstairs at the moment.

Windy morning.

What a morning! Gusts of up to 33mph and my new cloches with the first sowings all over the place!

I am confined to barracks as I can't stand upright! The sheep have a shelter but huddle under the wall at the top of their field. Betty and Becky are looking very pregnant and it will be just like them to wait for a cold snap to produce their lambs because they do it every year. Then I sit with my binoculars trained on them, running up the field every now and then in a panic. The first year we had to help Betty as the milk wasn't coming through and we've had 4 new lambs die very early on in 4 years so not too bad. Last year there were no fatalities at all but I did see the fox stalking Becky's single lamb. She was very assertive with her and she ran off.

Two nights ago the fox was making his eerie barking noise at night. They have taken next doors chickens and ducks and from a chicken breeder on the top road but so far we have been trouble free except for one Boxing day when it broke into a temporary arc and took 4 cockerels that were in there for fattening. Not a feather left!

Back on the farm.

My mum died so I have been in Scotland for her natural burial. Coming home was very sad but also nice to be back to a normal routine and spring like weather has helped.

Soon there will be lambs and perhaps a calf but at the minute it is time to start to think about planting. I have put in the garlic, onions and broad beans. The cloche to protect the onions has blown away but there is still growth there. The broad beans were left unwatered for 2 weeks while I was on compassionate leave from the farm and OH didn't know they were in pots in the greenhouse! There is no sign of growth there.

We are still feeding silage as Jet is still noisily demanding it. A new bale will be delivered tomorrow.

The dogs came with me to Scotland but have had no agility training and then this week it is cancelled. Today's picture shows Moss going through the "HOOP" in the field at ours.

She also did a bit of sheep work this week on a walk because a ewe had got stranded in the fenced off bridleway. Moss went off, under instruction to bring her back. Despite a perfect send-away, the ewe refused to budge and Moss ended up circling her, frustrated. In the end, we did it togther. The ewe was reunited with her flock and Moss was happy thinking she was doing what she does best!

Picking up the poo.

Oh, what a lovely sunny, mild, spring light day. What better way to spend it than to clear pig poo and apply to the raspberry bushes!

The pig enclosure has been nicely turned over but has remained too sodden or too frozen to do much with since their departure in January.

But now it is March, hooray! Daylight until 6pm and hours of sunshine!

OH had picked out some the big rocks they turned over with their noses. Rocks too big for me to manhandle. The enclosure is big and very stoney so I started to pull out smaller rocks and pick up any nicely turned soil and remnant poo for my fruit trees. The smaller rocks will be invaluable for the on-going stone wall repairs. Not much goes to waste here.

Mindful of the lack of use of my shoulders and back, I interspersed this activity with speading the muck around the trees and bushes, weeding, throwing the frisbee, talking to the nieighbour and shifting my make-shift agility course to a drier patch of land. And taking the dog through her paces on the newly erected agility course comprising of 5 dodgy jumps. a weave made out of electric fencing posts and a tyre suspended from a frame.

It was poignant to look at the pigs bed, still hollowed out of rushes and silage in their shelter. They slept so soundly in there and when I called, I had to shout loudly to get them up. Then they would startle, jump up and run, squealing, across the boggy/frozen expanse of their run, eager for more pig nuts, rotton apples, stale bread or unwanted veg.

The tin fencing will have to come down. It is unsightly and the run will be empty for at least 2 years now.