Well this year, our lovely friends are letting me 'assist' them on the smallholding with the planting and sowing.
There is enough food for two families and since our soil at home is total tosh, I am happy to be an apprentice on t'land! I shall continue with the herbs, salad and fruit at home though.
Jimbob has a huge polytunnel and lots of land, which is divided up into areas for the sheep, pigs, ducks, hens, bees, turkeys and veggies.
He is incredibly organised with computer-generated graphs of veggies for crop rotation.
The bees are coming along nicely - it's Sam's first year keeping them, so more to follow. She saw the Queen on Sunday at the bottom of the hive, so lots of honey and wax this year for them I bet.
I have been helping prick-out and we did some planting too - he's already done loads as it's a big job and I am only a little helper :) and incredibly special, as when Jimbob said "Here, Garden Pearl" I thought he was referring to my new nickname, not the variety of tomato I was pricking-out!
Parsnips, globe artichokes, carrots, tatties, garlic, a gazillion different types of beans and lettuce, strawberries, gooseberries, rhubarb, cauliflower, chillies, leeks, squash, onions, peppers, carrots, cucumber, courgettes, horseradish...I can't think what else has been/will be planted, but should produce a wild and colourful harvest.
The polytunnel is great for bringing on seeds early, and here is little pixie having her afternoon refreshments:
A hennie sitting on duck eggs
Three baby goslings (yard geese) huddling together for warmth.
Three little pigs, although they are for meat so I shan't get too attached :(
Week old chicks - 220 of them, under a nice warm lamp.
And some freshly-harvested rhubarb which I made into individual rhubarb and apple crumbles; promptly photographed, and because I'm such a sponge-brain, deleted before download! So take it from me, they were flippin' lovely!
