Review of our 2011 season

Based on our aims (outlined on the home page of our web site www.questforthegoodlife.co.uk) :-

1. Produce enough fruit and vegetables for our needs
2. Produce some home grown meat
3. Create a diverse natural habitat for wildlife
4. Develop our preserving skills
5. Make much more beer wine and cider
6. Use more wood to heat our home

This is simply a review of the year and an assessment of how we think we did.

1. Produce enough fruit and vegetables for our needs

2011 was the first proper season of growing, 2010 being involved with clearing grass and conditioning the soil.

We were heavily guided by the “Dig for Victory” planting guide from the second world war.

Dig for Victory plan

This gave us some traditional structure to our growing season and the intention was to extend it and have a more consistent supply of veg. The results were a vast improvement on the previous season. Vegetable seed instructions on the packet give a range of sowing dates. If you are not careful you can plant too many at once and not really extend your season.

The plan helped to spread sowing and planting throughout the year and help make the garden more productive over a longer period.

The types of crops in the plan are very traditional. We do want to vary that and perhaps reduce some and introduce new ones. That's just natural tweaking. But the plan works and will be continued in 2012.

This plan also gives a three year crop rotation with the same plants returning in the fourth year. Basic good husbandry for keeping pests and diseases under control.

Nothing grows though without good soil and nutrition. This is where we look at the garden more “holistically” and build in organic practices and some good old common sense from years ago.

We keep Continental Giant Rabbits which sell for pets, but they also produce considerable waste.

Piles of Rabbit waste

This is mostly hay and chopped straw with some urine and excrement in it. Once composted to get the heat out from the urine, it is added liberally to the garden. Because 90% is straw or hay, it has little nutrition but does a great job in lifting the heavy clay soil. So it is more of a soil improver than a fertiliser.

For nutrition, we do not add any bought or commercial products. Good soil conditions means bacteria and fungi doing their bit to create natural cycles. Low levels of nitrogen will be available from the ammonia breakdown. For plant tonics we use Nettle and Comfrey tea. Superb organic fertiliser. 

Comfrey plant

 As we have clay soil, good levels of nutrients already exist but we have to work hard at keeping it loose and workable so the plants can exploit it. We just top it up each year.

So how did our vegetable growing go?

TOP VEG FOR 2011

Potatoes, Charlottes as an early salad and Cara/Ambo as the main. Superb is all we can say.

 Potato crop

Beetroot, good early and main crop performance, more than we could eat or freeze

Turnips, after a hard start in dry conditions, they came good in the end, delicious

Calabrese, never managed this before and delighted with the results

Savoy cabbage, first time for these and they have done really well

OK to GOOD PERFORMING VEG 2011

Leeks, good crop with an early and late variety, always have short stalks though (down to me!)

Broad Beans, nice early beans but the dreaded black aphids always spoil the last ones

Winter Cabbage, good solid hearts formed, but prefer the Savoys

French beans (Dwarf), good producers, plenty for the freezer

Onions, red and white seemed to produce fairly well

Kohl Rabi, lovely first early crop, but dry conditions soon took its toll.

WEAKEST VEG 2011

Runner beans, perhaps the dry conditions had their effect but not the best year

Celeriac, just didn't seem to get going. We'll try again though.

Carrots, early one's fine but struggled towards the end

Peas, always think they are difficult to crop well, with pigeons and pheasants I think we have to give up on peas and look for an alternative.

 Lets move on to our fruit production.

The fruit trees we planted 2 years ago are now in various stages of growth. The best performance this year has been from our Fiesta apple tree.

Fiesta Apple Tree

 Then a new Gala tree. The older, more traditional varieties have been slower to develop.

Our Victoria plum tree has done well, but the Damsons have been limited.

This is early days for this part of the garden and we look forward to improvements in 2012.

The Blackcurrants and Redcurrants have done really well and the best crop yet.

We have tested a Blueberry and the results were tasty so we have purchased a further five bushes.

The fruit takes longer than the veg to develop but things are heading the right direction.

Other crops included hops, in small quantities, that went into home made beer (mmhh) and some grapes which were small but the first decent crop so far. We also had one, yes one, apricot. The figs are still to produce a proper crop.

So lot's to look forward to in 2012.

Have we fulfilled our aim in “producing enough fruit and veg for our needs”?

In terms of vegetables we have produced a surplus that has kept us going through the winter to date (Jan 2012). We have winter crops in the ground, summer ones in the freezer. I think we will manage without buying much.

Fruit is a different story, we have been at the mercy of the trees and we have produced only a fraction of what we need.

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Now lets look at aim number 2, to “produce some home grown meat”.

We have had rabbits, quail and chickens that would generally be able to supply some home grown meat. The rabbits were New Zealand Whites, a traditional meat variety. We looked at the costs of keeping them well, humane killing and then butchering. We produced many meals worth of rabbit meat but looked closely at the resale value of offspring for other would be rabbit breeders, and decided that it was not cost effective. The only benefit was knowing where the meat had come from. This was not enough on it's own. 

Quail were kept as a trial for the same reason. Small units, easy to keep. The rearing was relatively simple, their needs were few, but the fiddle of getting the meat at the end out weighed the rearing time. The eggs too were nice but a job and a half to peel.

So that leaves the chickens. We had some hybrid birds initially which were perfect for producing eggs. They came into their third year and laying rate starts to decline then. As they had no meat on them we decided to give them away. We replaced them with a cockerel and three Light Sussex hens. The intention being to raise young to lay eggs and go for meat. So far we have reared some birds but have not yet tasted them.

So have we met our aim? We have produced rabbit meat and quail meat for our table so the answer is yes. We haven't got a sustainable source yet though and we are looking to the chickens for that. 2012 will see that happen.

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Aim 3 was “to create a diverse and natural habitat for wildlife”

We have continued in 2011 to add more and more features to our garden that will attract wildlife. Most of this comes from developing the cottage garden theme with herbs and flowers that are favoured by insects and birds.

Cottage garden

We have added two bee hives to our garden in 2011 and this has built up the numbers of pollinating insects for the fruit trees and vegetables. We are taking an active role in planting stuff that is especially good for them and of course other bees and butterflies too. This is more of a “holistic” approach. Realising that if we look after the bees, they will help us by pollinating and we can take a small amount of honey too. By building a rich source of bee plants around our garden, we are directly inputting into the quality of the honey for the bees and us. You might argue that bee hives are not natural, and we would agree, but this is an area of huge concern now with agriculture destroying the local ecology so it is down to gardeners and small holders to redress the balance.

Our pond has done really well in 2011. The dry conditions meant it fell to a record low but not enough to dry up completely. This meant the newts, frogs, toads, water beetles and dragon flies could still do their thing. 

Newt in our pond

Purple Loosestrife and Reed Mace have established themselves and we plan to build bigger swathes of these in 2012. The honey bees also use the pond as a watering hole and the local bird population use it every day.

The pond was built to drain wet clay soils in winter, it does that well. It has now become an integrated part of the garden ecosystem and the role it plays is so very important.

So have we created “a diverse and natural habitat for wildlife”? I think so, but we can build it up further. By looking at the flower garden from the bees point of view we can improve it for all insects. Then the birds, frogs and toads will gain strength too. It's that holistic approach to your garden.

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Aim 4 “Develop our preserving skills”

Whenever you are successful at creating a surplus in your garden, preserving skills kick in to make sure it lasts as long as possible. In 2011 we invested in a large chest freezer. Not the most skilful means of preserving but the most sensible one.

Debi also did a lot more jam making using some of our fruit like Blackcurrants as well as the local hedgerow produce.

Jams & Jellies

We would love to try drying fruit and smoking fish or even chicken, but that is some way off yet.

We dry herbs too which means we have them in the winter.

So in summary I think we have started to do more than we did but we are still a long way off from mastering this art.

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Aim 5 “Make much more beer, wine and cider”.

Well who wouldn't? No we haven't done nearly enough in this area. We have made some beer, some wine but no cider (bit short of apples still). Beer has been primitive but drinkable. The best was in the autumn when our single hop plants yielded enough for a brew. It was very good, but didn't last long. More hops needed in 2012.

Wine was made from some plums but we really need to do more in this area.

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Finally Aim 6 “Use more wood to heat our home”

A nice ecological argument to burning wood as it releases the same carbon that it absorbed when it grew. We do burn a reasonable amount of locally sourced logs, but we do have to use coal as well. Wood burns all right when it is kept burning furiously, but the addition of some coal makes the fire more stable and seems to be more efficient overall when the two are mixed. So we haven't gone totally to wood, but it does make up about 50% of our heating fuel intake.

And so for the grand summary of 2011 . . .

A very dry year here in Lincolnshire, near drought conditions at times. This did cause stresses on plants and much watering was required. However we have been delighted with our vegetable production and the arrival of our honey bees. Our chickens have become a step closer to being sustainable as we now breed our own. The wholeness of the garden has grown, its parts benefiting from each other and a mini ecosystem developing. It's been a good year.

And for 2012 . . .

We continue to develop the holistic nature of the garden. We grow each area as best we can in the hope that the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. In doing so we develop ourselves and grow with it.

David & Debi Harmston

Quest for the Good Life