HMS Dilligaf

Aside from growing and showing fruit and veg, during the dark winter months I like to take on usually impossible projects to keep me occupied. This year I have obtained a 13 ft sailing Enterprise Dinghy to restore. It was an eBay gamble which may backfire, we'll have to wait and see. I drove to South Wales to pick her up with the usual amount of drama. Had a puncture on the trailer, forgot the light board, didnt take a coat for the classic Welsh driving rain and then the weight of the boat caused my vintage trailer to collapse. Nevertheless we limped home and popped her into the garage.

The following day I had a good thorough look over the state of the boat with some trepidation. It was soon apparent that I may have a bit of a job on. While most of the hull seems fine the deck will require replacing as will the transom. I consider this a minor task but my wife thinks I'm an arsehole. So that's the winter project up and running and we'll just have to wait and see. It may be a bridge too far but remember....,,

If you fall on your face, your still moving forward!

Red Mite, this is war!

A few weeks ago, whilst cleaning out the chickens, I spotted what every chicken keeper dreads, the infamous red mite. I thought I had them a few months before, but a quick look on the net confirmed I had in fact just spotted a red spider mite. Similar looking, but not harmful to the chooks.

Red Spider mite:

Red mite:

 

After as bit of searching around the coop, it became apparent that the infestation was far worse than I first thought. I couldn’t understand how it had got that bad. I have a chicken routine. I try to do a quick clear out of the chickens every day, I change their bedding and wood shavings once a week and about once a month, everything has a scrub down. I hadn’t noticed any of the signs before, the chickens were their normal selves, but they were there and it was time to act swiftly!

First I panicked! I’d read that red mite was a real pain to get rid of, if not impossible. There were stories of people having to burn their coops! That was something I didn’t really want to do if I could help it. So after I calmed down I thought it was best to do some research.

It soon became apparent that in order to win this war, I needed to understand my enemy. Red mite live in the nooks and crannies of the chicken coop. They are not like fleas and don’t live on the chicken itself. They come out at night and then feed on the birds blood for an hour or so before going off to hide again. I have a wooden coop with many nooks and crannies so that was going to be an issue.

 

Red mites can cause low health in your chickens, their egg laying can drop and in extreme cases the chicken becomes anaemic and as a result, croaks it. The mites have a 7 day life cycle, it takes 2/3 days to hatch out their eggs and then by the 7th day, they become a mature adult. This was the first information that was really handy, if I could get them before they became an adult and before they laid any eggs, then I would stop that mite in its tracks.

I also browsed the net for the weapons I'd need to win. The two that seemed to stand out were Diatom Powder, this is crushed up fossilised algae that apparently dries out the mites shell and in turn, kills them. The second was Poultry Shield, this is a liquid that you dilute with water and then wash the coop down with. It breaks down organic matter, eradicates the environment that mites love and live in, dehydrates them, then they die. Both seemed to have the desired effect.  So after a bit of online shopping and a day waiting for them to arrive, I was armed and ready for the war to begin.

My plan was simple. I would take the coop apart as much as possible. I would then jet wash the coop, paying particular attention to the places I thought the mites might be hiding. Then I would scrub everything down with Poultry Shield, let that dry, then dust the whole thing with Diatom Powder. If I repeated this every 6 days, thinking about the life cycle of the mite, I might just win.

So that is what I did, four times in the end.  It was such an awful job. Every time I tried to let the coop dry, it would rain. I lost a few screws, forgot where parts went and on a couple of occasions, accidently jet washed a chicken. Don’t worry, all chickens are fine. However, a month on, there doesn’t seem to be a red mite in sight (I can't see much though due to the volume of diatom powder in there, I did get a bit carried away). I have now made this a monthly operation, I certainly don’t look forward to it, but if I can keep those little buggers at bay, it’ll be worth it.

 Andrew.

Bob's Plot Update

Popped down to the plot today to check on things and all seems well. We've had a few frosts around the midlands which have seen off all the tended crops. The new strawberries I planted seem to have taken ok and hopefully will overwinter then flourish in the spring. Also I planted a few rows of broad beans (Sutton) which will be ok through the winter then in theory produce a nice early crop of beans.

What does Jodi do?

Ambles into work at ten past eight,
No respect, doesn't care if she's late,
She sits in the office like some sort of Queen,
Like Jonny Wall but not that mean,
Clueless and stupid and daft as a brush,
But to get back to work she's in no rush,
So what exactly does Jodi do,
Absolutely nothing and that's SO TRUE!

Varieties The Spice of Life

I'm going to prepare a list of which variety of seed I grow with a brief description of why, so I'll be able to refer back in future years.
Tomato: Cedrico, Shirley and Harlequin.
Cedrico is a great tomato for the showbench and is also very tasty on the plate. This is also the case with Shirley but I believe Shirley does better , certainly for me , when the summer isn't what it should be. Harlequin is a smaller type of tomato. Just slightly larger than a cherry tomato they are a good looking and very nice flavoured tommie. All these types of tomato are cordon grown and I grow them all in the greenhouse.

Weed Torching

Today saw myself and my pal, using the paraffin fuelled weed burner to clear his giant marrow patch. This is am excellent tool for clearing land at the end of a season. Not only does it kill the weed, but also destroys seeds along with any slugs or other nasties. It has the advantage of not having to use weed killers or other chemicals on the land. A brisk wave with the burner today, followed by another tomorrow(to clear the dead debris) and the ground will be turned and tilled ready for covering.
In the spring we will then take a soil sample to determine what adjustments need to be made to get soil into prime marrow growing medium. We'll discuss this nearer to the sowing dates!

Remember....

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change!

The blame of blight...

As I'm an avid twitter user, I have had the full backlash of the potato councils comments on blight steaming through all day. The likes of Monty Don, Mark Diacono have all been putting their own views forward on this subject. For those unaware, Allan Stevenson, chairman of the potato council, has urged people to buy supermarket spuds rather than grow their own. He said, "it would be preferable if people bought healthy, well produced potatoes from their retailer rather than grow their own." Now I'm no expert, I'm just one of the awful 'amateurs' he refers too who do try and grow their own, but if you have bought any spuds from a supermarket recently, you'll find they are far from 'healthy' and 'well produced'. Half are bruised, the other half are sprouting and beginning to rot. And lets not forget the bland and watery taste!!

His main point for all of this nonsense is the large blight problem mass producers have faced across the country this year. Allotments and amateur gardeners have been given a large proportion of the blame for not dealing with blight infected crops. He seems to fail to mention the chemicals used by large producers just haven't been up to the job this year and as we all know, this years wet and mild summer is not a one off. So just like us 'amateurs', the large producers have to adapt instead of relying on chemicals to sort everything out. Blight resistant varieties are out there and for some reason they choose to ignore this. As for the blame coming down onto us, composting blight infected potato foliage is not the problem, there is no evidence that the blight spores can live in compost and in turn, go on to infect next years crop. I hardly think our few rows of spuds can make that much of a difference. The other suggestion is that blight spores are being transported to commercial fields from allotments and gardens, has he not stopped to think this works the other way round and they have a lot heavier thump on us than we do on them?

I for one wont be taking a blind bit of notice of Mr Stevenson, I'm already planning which varieties ill be growing next year. And until the mass producers show any willingness to adapt their ways and even grow a decent tasting spud, ill be growing my own and dealing with the blight how i see fit. So Mr Stevenson, how do you like them potatoes....?

New Carrot Bed

Today saw me finish constructing a new raised bed made of sleepers. It is approx 4.5ft high and will hopefully accommodate 18-20 long carrots. It will be filled with sand into which I will core holes to be filled with a secret mixture. There isn't any secret really and I'll talk more about the mix I use nearer to the sowing date. One thing which I do think is important to mention is that when transferring sand from drum to drum (to aerate) I like to sterilise every ft with a weak Jeyes fluid mix. This should hopefully get rid of any nasties hiding away before next season. It's also important to allow the sand to settle before coring.
My plan is to house this bed along with a smaller one for stump carrots in either a greenhouse or a polytunnel . The jury is still out on which will be most suitable. Moving my quality carrots out of the existing tunnel, frees up more space for my giant parsnip and carrot attempt next year. Seed for this has yet to be sourced.
Most of my seeds have now been ordered for next season and I'll be making a note of these on the blog for future reference.
and......
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

It starts with a dig...

So today I officially took ownership of Plot 18, I've been fairly lucky as the man who had it before me has moved to another plot to be closer to his new girlfriends plot.  It still has vegetables on it, although the majority are Caterpillar riddled cabbages, it is fairly well cleared.  My neighbour told me that he moved partly to do with the Dock problem he has on it.  There are a fair few Docks on there, more than your average plot, but that's something I'm not too concerned about for the moment.

 

 

 

These two photos show you two different angles of my new plot.  I have plans to change the layout a bit.  I want to add a composting area at the back.  The paths are crumbling with wood chip spreading allover the soil so that needs a re-think. The shed needs some fixing and it all needs a real good dig, but other than that I think Ive landed pretty lucky really.

This is my latest addition to my ever expanding garden.  I first put a small vegetable patch in the back garden when i moved in 3 years ago.  This has slowly crept its way up the garden and recently, I added 4 chickens to the mix, thats where most the cabbages will go one thinks.  I had no-where else to go, so an allotment was the obvious next step.

My aim is to be as self sufficient as possible with vegetables.  Easier said than done I know, but if i could get 80% of my produce from my garden and allotment, I would be satisfied.  I would love to make it 100%, but we'll see how I get on. I also have an idea for raising meat birds, but thats still in it's early stage. You may also know that Bob, my fellow blogger, is keen on his show vegetables, so I may even try my luck with that.  I'll need some serious mentoring though.

I will keep this blog updated with my progress on all my many quests. I would like to explore a few topics along the way and hopefully publish a good arguement on all sorts of debates.  I'm already trying to decide what kind of gardener I want to be. Should I go chemical? Organic? Can there be a happy medium?  I'm looking at this now and weighing it all up, so watch this space....  Thanks for reading. Andrew.

If winning isn't everything...........

Hello and welcome to our blog, Growing Pains. Follow us as we endeavor to fumble our way through the wonderfully frustrating world of growing fruit and veg. 
 The 2013 season starts here for the avid gardener. Work put in now, pays huge dividends next year. A brief list of the jobs I like to crack on with in October are as follows...
 Jet wash the greenhouses
 Clean all garden tools and equipment with diluted Jeyes fluid or Amarillatox
 Cultivate the soil with compost or well rotted manure (where appropriate)
 General maintenance (sheds paths etc)
 I also add a dose of lime to certain areas to "sweeten" the soil
 Remove the sand from my long root drums to sterilize and aerate it
 Cover up whichever portions of ground will be planted up initially next year, firstly to warm it slightly and secondly to keep the weeds down

 Last but not least is to order my seeds. This is by far the highlight of many a cold winter evening. To dream of harvesting the sweetest corn or the biggest spud, or to win the heaviest marrow at the Village Fete, is what its all about. Sipping Dr Pepper with home made pickled onions is a treat that only the luckiest few have savoured .
 And remember, 

  If winning isn't everything, then why do they keep score?