The Geordie Smallholder

After the great chainsaw event of last week where the berberis, Stan and Olly and some others met the wrong end of Geordie Smallholder’s chainsaw, we decided to tackle the front garden, or Jurassic Park as it turned out. The pictures below look innocuous enough, but it turned out that 80% of the flora had morphed into strange thorned plants from a time long ago when they had to defend themselves from dinosaurs.

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Some of these plants had barbs on the thorns, which made pulling them out of our clothes very difficult. In fact, Geordie Smallholder sat down one evening with a well deserved glass of wine and had to stand up very quickly (nearly spilling his wine, the horror) because one thorn was sticking through his trousers into his, er, unmentionables. As you know, unmentionables are very sensitive body parts, so this was sore. And the thorn got him again in the finger as he sought it out to extract it from the material. Thorn 2, GS nil points (but the tree it came from has been thoroughly chipped so we Smallholders get the last laugh). Any more of this jaggy stuff and we will all have to visit the district nurse for a tetanus jab – more jaggies!

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So what’s the plan for the front garden? I have ordered a cottage garden kit of plug plants from our seed merchant and we will put lupins and tall plants at the fence, with plant height reducing to ground covering types at the white wall. We are going to put in an ash path meandering through so that GSM can look at the flowers. This is all only going to happen if we can stop Jurassic Park trying to regrow. I can feel the need for “SquareDown” weedkiller (other weedkillers are available) coming on.

This week we put some seeds in the propagator. We are trying to stagger the planting to minimise the gluts we had last year and to produce enough for 6 households per week so that we can start supplying a few customers. We are going for interesting varieties and things not normally found in supermarkets.

Seed	Varieties	Number sown	Germination time	Harvest
Aubergine	Black beauty Viserba 3	1 1	14-21 days 10-14 days	August
Purple broccoli	F1 Bellaverde Sibsey	3	7-12 days	August
Celeriac	Monarch Giant Prague	3 3	12-18 days	June
Cucumbers	Paska F1 F1 Baby Telegraph	1	6-9 days	July
Sweet Peppers	California Wonder Citrina	2	10-21 days 7-10days	July
Tomatoes	Ailsa Craig Black Moneymaker F1 Honey Delight	3	7-14 days 4-7days 7-14 days 7-14 days	June July June July
Marigold	Boy-o-boy		5-14 days	–
Lemon grass			Up to 28 days	July
Sage			10-21 days	June
Basil	Plant with tomatoes		7 days	June
Parsley	Attracts lacewings		Up to 21 days	May
Mint	Attracts bees		7-16 days	July

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I started to clear the flower bed directly outside the kitchen door thinking it would be good to grow the herbs there. However, when we cleared the area, we found some bulbs and hostas. The berberis had to go as it attacked people coming out the kitchen door (revenge is sweet) and the flowering currant got a haircut or “pollarding” as GS likes to call it as he wielded his trusty chainsaw. I left the viburnum but took its lower branches off to let more light in to the bed.

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Having wielded his chainsaw on the berberis, GS looked about for other targets – Stan and Olly, the two conifers blocking light from the kitchen were next on his hit list. They are no more, rest in peace o light blockers of the garden. We then got the woodchipper out, you may remember it from the laurel clearing we did last year.

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Whilst GS and GSS were busy with Stan and Olly, I started clearing the beds near the house. The plants had reverted to prehistoric conditions, the rose was inches thick with nasty thorns which looked like dinosaur scales. I got two splinters in my fingers and various cuts, even through thick gloves. The bindweed and brambles were all over these beds too, and again there were poor crocus and daffodils trying to grow underneath.

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We are thinking of paving up to the walls of the house. This would give us space for planters, we will need to keep things like mint in pots otherwise it will go for garden domination like the brambles and bindweed.

This week, the Assassin has been gathering support for her dark plans. First, she tried to get the dog on board, but Doofus is too literal thinking for her subtle plotting.

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Having not got far with the dog, she set her sights much higher…the GSM!!!

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We later found GSM knitting camouflage jackets for herself and the Assassin.

I’m going to start this post by showing you how much of a grip winter still has on us.

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The wind chill was at -5’C yesterday, but those hardy snowdrops, first sign of spring were suddenly out in abundance. The hellebores have stared to flower too.

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I’m learning about herb growing just now and we have some established in our garden:

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And this plant is flowering, don’t know what it is:

Other signs of spring include the Geordie Smallholder taking off his outer layer to free his movements so that he could climb up and fix the guttering in the barn. Thanks to his efforts, the track to the hen house is much dryer.

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The vegetable beds we used last year are to be left fallow this year to recover. We are going to dig in some manure and leave them. We still have beetroot in the ground, so I brought some in and roasted them with other veggies to go with our roast chicken Sunday dinner, lovely!

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Burns’ Night celebrations are international, and with GSW being from the land of Burns, we decided to have a Burns Night, Geordie style.

Main course was haggis, ‘neeps and tatties, accompanied by a dram or Irn Bru for those who don’t like whisky so much (not saying anything, but both those people not so struck on whisky, or the water of life as its known, are Scottish, weird huh?).

Wee aside for those not familiar with Irn Bru (the day-glo orange drink in the photo above), it is a Scottish fizzy soft drink often described as ” Scotland’s other national drink” by the manufacturer’s adverts. It contains an ammonium ferric citrate salt which gives the drink its rust colour. So although it contains trace amounts of iron, it’s not made from girders. But it is very popular in Russia, possibly due to the fact that it is an almost universal mixer for any alcoholic drink, especially cheap blended whisky (my personal least favourite drink).

We served a mild peppercorn sauce with dinner as haggis, neeps and tatties can be a bit dry despite the fact that I mashed the turnip with butter and black pepper.

The second course was home made sticky toffee pudding and custard. I only decided to make this when dinner was half cooked so there was a bit of a gap between the main course and pudding. But it was worth waiting for. I hate to think what the calorific content was though. We will all have to go for a brisk walk tomorrow to burn it off.

To round off dinner, we had black coffee, shortbread and after dinner mints. GSM refused coffee, preferring to savour her whisky and ginger.

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During the meal we played recitations of Burns’ poems. We tried to get GSS to recite “Tam O’ Shanter” but he was too cool for that. To make up for it, here are my favourite passages from the poem which should be called “How a lovely horse lost her tail saving her drunken sot of an owner”. They are all still true…

“…our hame, where sits our sulky, sullen dame, gathering her brows like gathering storm, nursing her wrath to keep it warm,”

“Ah, gentle dames, it gars me greet, to think how monie cousels sweet, how monie lengthened sage advices, the husband frae the wife despises”

“But pleasures are like poppies spread; you seize the flower, its bloom is shed.”

“…Nannie, far before the rest, hard upon Maggie prest, and flew at Tam wi furious ettle; but little wist she Maggie’s mettle! Ae spring brought off her master hale, but left behind her ain grey tail: the carlin claught her by the rump, and left poor Maggie scarce a stump.”

“Now wha this tale o’ truth shall read, ilk man, and mother’s son tak heed: whene’er to drink ye are inclined, or cutty sarks run in yer mind, think! ye may buy the joys o’er dear; remember Tam O’Shanter’s mare.”

A couple of years ago we went to see an exhibition of Goudie’s paintings depicting scenes from Tam O’ Shanter (some were quite gory!) in Ayr (Auld Ayr, wha ne’er a toun surpasses, for honest men and bonnie lasses). Maggie the horse looked like a grey version of our own Cushy Butterfield. I’d be sorry if Cushy lost her long blonde ponytail! And when you think of it, Tam got drunk in Ayr and the rode all the way past Alloway and Maybole to get to Shanter which is nearly at Maidens, not a small distance. In the pitch black (no street lights in the 1700s), in a storm, riding past places where murdered children were found, where Charlie broke his neck, where Mungo’s mother hung herself etc. This is the Scottish equivalent of Sleepy Hollow. Read it if you dare!

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For once we had dry powdery snow so GSM got togged up to inspect the preparation work in the poly tunnel.

I took the opportunity to get the horses out. They loved making snow horse angels by rolling about in the fresh cool whiteness. I don’t put them out when it’s slippy because Cushy has arthritis and the last thing she needs is to slip and possibly do more damage to herself.

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1. Grey Squirrels

Since the chickens are on lockdown, we’ve noticed they are going through a lot more food than we expected, even with us supplementing their rations with corn, fruit and veg. So the mystery was solved when we found a grey squirrel helping itself to hen food in the coop. GS tightened up the personnel door by nailing plywood along the bottom, which also helps keep draughts down. But on a nighttime check yesterday, he noticed the little mouse sized hole in the hens door was tripled in size. To fit a grey squirrel.

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The grey squirrels had been eating through the door to steal hen food. So GS put in a grey squirrel proof repair. Don’t be sorry for the grey squirrels, they get plenty at the bird feeder (which is really for the wild birds). And don’t think grey squirrels are cute wildlife, they are not. I think they are what the Gruffalo was based on: big yellow teeth, long black claws and an evil temper, bullying each other and other animals including the poor hens. And there are thousands of them…

Needless to say, if it had been red squirrels round the farm, we would have been trying to feed them and take photos.

2. Pooing Cats

GS has been sorting out the poly tunnel for spring planting, however the Assassin thinks he has built the best covered loo for cats EVER.

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The Assassin’s Plan for World Domination

We are resigned to the fact that the Assassin is plotting our downfall in a well orchestrated coup in the future. She practices in the hay shed where both my hands and the hay nets get leapt on with claws out, ready to shred all those who stand in her way.

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GSS Tests the Ice

It’s been so cold lately that the pond froze over so thickly GSS could walk on it. The pictures show a perfectly camouflaged Assassin overseeing the tests. Was this giving her ideas for the coup, we wonder?

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The previous day GSS had made bread dough and left it in the boiler cupboard to prove. He baked it after the ice tests, if you look carefully you can see the steam rising from the baked bread in the picture below. Between the four of us, it did not last long enough to cool down. We had it buttered with hot soup, delicious!

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It’s so cold during the day and night (-3’C day/ -5’C night) that in deference to the horses’ advanced ages, I got out their stable rugs to keep them cosy. We keep animals under cover in the winter to protect them from the elements, but this reduces their ability to walk around to keep warm, so if it is really cold, they need an extra layer. In the pictures below you can see Cushy B sporting her rather large fleece rug and Tim cosy in his duvet.

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It’s our second Christmas time at the farm. This year we couldn’t have family to visit, which was a shame. The photos below are of our New Year’s Day walk. It was minus 3 degrees Celsius in the afternoon so we went down to inspect the river and found long icicles at the edge, brrrr.

New Year’s Eve

There is a strange tradition from GSW’s country for New Year’s Eve (Ne’erday) where at 11:55pm on the 31st December, any tall dark handsome men in the house are chucked out into the cold to await the turn of the year. Once 00:00am has come, they knock at the door and are welcomed in bearing gifts signifying luck and plenty. This torture is termed “first footing” and the tall dark and handsome are the “first foots”. In our case, GS and GSS both being over 6 feet tall and handsome (two out of three ain’t bad) were ejected from the warm house into the bleak midwinter night to await midnight.

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We hope you had a good New Year and wish you all the best for 2021. Goodbye to 2020.