Taking my life in my hands!

yes, I have lived through the night!  After going on a Fungal Foray last week (42 species found only one edible!) I have started eating the autumn fungus the total so far:  Field Parasols, ink-caps, horse mushrooms (by the side of the road!) All after a ridiculous amount of time looking at books and pictures on the Internet - perhaps not an economic success but very satisfying (and delicious) anyway.

Horse mushrooms

Harvest time in full swing

We are busy harvesting and processing to have food to eat in the winter months.  This year there are amazing blackberries and we are cooking them with (traded) windfall apples to make jam and crumble fillings to freeze. yesterday we harvested the Almond and walnuts (yes we beat the squirrels this year!) see photo for harvesting with a rake tied to a long pole!  We gathered about one and a half three gallon buckets of walnuts (a good harvest) in their green overcoats.  Also busy processing seeds; Spinach and spinach beet, rocket, lettuce, melon, leek and onion,celeriac and celery, beetroot (red and white). Busy, busy,  busy!

Summer Roundup

Here at last is a (rather guilty) post.  Somehow the summer has gone by in a flash without my making the time to catch up, sorry.
This has been a good productive year in the garden and with the bees.  Three months of drought in the main part of the summer led to my spending an hour a day watering the vegetable plot from the reed bed and well (managed to avoid the use of mains water)  The forestry commission came through with their permission to carry on coppicing the wood and plant more trees to fill the gaps (all winter work)  I gave/sold 9 lots of bees to beginner beekeepers and go into the winter with 13colonies (I will have to sell some of them in the spring).   We had over 60 peaches on our 3 year old tree in spite of having peach leaf curl in the spring.
The chickens have reared 17 chicks at least 9 of them cockerels (a few not big enough to tell yet!).  One high point was our open weekend last weekend with 152 visitors.  This followed a major interview with BBC Essex radio (now on our website) which brought a lot of people in.  The harvesting and processing goes on apace.  bottling fruit, freezing beans and tomatoes etc.  A good treatment for powdery mildew from the Internet was spraying the leaves with (dilute) baking soda mixture.
Anyhow I will try and make time to post now as the days grow longer
happy equinox (nearly!)
Chris

Dry and cold but still food to eat.

yes its been a difficult spring this year for the garden and the bees!  Very little rain in the last 2 months making it difficult in the garden with the late frosts and cold have kept us on our toes protecting potatoes and runner/french beans.  I found cut down plastic milk bottles much better than fleece as crop protection. I spite of the cold we have had plenty of salad, early peas, strawberries and beetroot in the poly tunnel and lots of purple sprouting.  The purple sprouting is an interesting case as it was stripped to a skeleton last year by cabbage white caterpillars and yet recovered to give us a great crop!  The tomato plants in the green house now have small fruit and over wintered broad beans will soon be pick-able.  On the negative side the overwintered carrots (under polythene) which we would be eating now have nearly all gone to seed - maybe I sowed them too early in the autumn?  On the bees; I had the same (new) problem as last year with two of the hives with queens that weren't laying?  I am re-queening them with queens from an early swarming hive.

Ok, so I didnt quite get elected!!

I got 1.2% in the election but I am not downhearted (in spite of loosing my deposit).  It was a positive experience for me with lots of positive feedback and good networking/ connections.  Now its back to local campaigning - the Essex shoreline management plan is up for consultation - sounds innocuous enough doesn't it?  It proposes abandoning Jaywick and Seawick to the sea (anytime) in the next 30 years. I suggested to the environment agency representative that they might make an effort to talk to the people at threat about it. Their answer was that they had consulted with the 'stakeholders'!! Not good enough!!, lots of work to do here.

The first Swarm of the season

The first Swarm of the season today - not great weather with a cold north east wind making it cold when the clouds covered the sun.  The went for a raspberry bush which meant they ended up on the ground but were persuaded to clime into my bee basket when it was placed over the pool of bees.  I hived them from a sloping board at about 5.00 and they went in  OK but with a large lump hanging on the front of the hive.  Hope they will have taken up residence properly by morning.  I am up late for the count tonight, three o'clock they say which is very late for me the I will see if I have lost my deposit (I am expecting to!)

A lesson in survival of the fittest

I had a lesson reinforced yesterday as our next hen hatched her chicks.  There was one late chick having trouble getting our of the egg.  Against my better judgement I helped it out.  It stayed next to our stove under a hot water bottle for the day and went back under the chicken for the night.  The next day I was optimistic as it was weak but mobile. But as time went on it was clear it couldn't look after its self - not brooding under its mum often when it needed to and getting stepped on!   So it came as no surprise to find it dead in the evening.
Nature is hard but efficient in ensuring that the strongest survive, we can interfere but it is rarely successful.  The human race should remember that nature will deal with us in the same way if we destroy the systems that support us!