The chickens have been let into the vegetable plot to help go over one of the beds prior to planting with over-wintering lettuce, rocket, chinese mustard and parsley. They are very good at scratching out weeds and eating the occasional bug but mostly go for the worms. All are looking very healthy including the bullied Black Rock from earlier blogs.

Himalayan balsam is a very invasive plant and gets a very bad press but the bees love it. This one was caught just turning round and ready to come out laden with pollen.

In the garden these young peacock caterpillars are devouring a patch of nettles. Just like the swallow chicks, they look very alien at this stage.

Follwing advice from Alan Schofield from Growing with Nature, this year we tried planting a run of both broad beans and climbing french beans in our greenhouse (we would have used a polytunnel but don’t yet have one).  The french beans in particular are cropping much better than outside and are easier to pick and manage.

Everything has been late this year because of the cold start. Our first Maris Bard new potatoes were dug today.

One large bed in the vegetable plot is planted with Phacelia tanacetifolia, a crop used as a green manure to build up the soil fertility. It also has the benefit of lovely purple flowers which bees love. The whole bed seems to hum as you walk past it.

This weekend, we have been making nest boxes for blue tits, great tits and coal tits to be sited in and around our vegetable plot and orchard. This is to encourage the birds to eat sawfly and codling moth caterpillars that damage our soft fruit bushes and apple trees. Pressure is on as blue tits are regularly seen now inspecting our existing boxes so the new ones need to be put up this week.

The boxes make use of offcuts of timber, waterproof roofing membrane and ECOS paint sample pots from our resource centre work.

Last years’ scions grafted at South Lakeland Orchard Group’s grafting day at Growing Well Sizergh are now being transplanted in our orchard. Rosemary Russet, Oslin, Tom Putt and Howgate Wonder are just a few of the 18 varieties planted. See the National Fruit Collection website for more information about apple varieties. Once planted they will have rabbit and deer guards placed round them.

Our bullied blackrock is recovering well with most of its feathers having regrown and looking much happier.  The are all enjoying the milder weather and continue to have access to the vegetable plot while there is not too much there for them to damage.

As part of the expansion of our fruit and vegetable growing area, we have asked Alan Schofield of Growing with Nature to act as a consultant to advise on crops and varieties that are particularly good for this area, succession planting and on scaling-up to more commercial production. We hope to supply as much of the produce as possible when the resource centre opens later this year.

Alan has over 30 years experience of commercial, organic growing and is a founding member of the Organic Growers’ Alliance.

The snow and ice didn’t go down well with our hens. They couldn’t scratch the ground for grubs or get at their usual greens, they don’t like standing on ice and don’t much like the cold. As a result they either stayed indoors, perched in the hawthorn tree in their run or stood looking miserable on one leg. Unfortunately, they took out their stress and frustration on one of the blackrocks and pecked out most of its feathers.

We did consider isolating it but it would get bullied even more when it re-joined the group and the next in the pecking order would probably have been attacked too.

The good news is that as the ice has thawed and weather improved the group seems to have returned to its usual routine with all the hens getting on very well and the blackrock’s feathers growing back.

As well as liking to eat strawberry plant leaves, the deer are also partial to the new buds on our young apple trees. The main orchard will have deer-proof fencing put up this year but several trees have been planted out on the golf course and they each get their own protection. This will be just enough to help them get established.

In a previous blog we mentioned using human hair as a deer deterrant. This idea originally came to us from a friend and farmer Benni Melin from Sweden. Somewhat more dramatically, he used the hair to deter bears from attacking his sheep!