A Smallholder's Diary, Week 4 (13th-19th July 2021)

13^th July 2021
I resow carrot seeds – another area damaged by the chickens on Sunday. I then cover them with a low tunnel, to dissuade other birds from investigating the disturbed soil. There is a constant battle against entropy in the garden – the weeding, the slug-hunting, the seed-covering. Somehow, through handpower, sun, and water, with no real expertise, this leads to abundance.
 
6 eggs
 
14^th July 2021
Allotment Club. Hot but successful. The harvest is beginning to mount as we take the first few Welsh onions (only a very few now, though). These are a small form of onion akin to spring onions or chives, and can be grown and used in the manner of either, and can also be used as small green onions.
 
We have beans, peas, and lettuce with dinner, which involves chicken in a tomato sauce. We will have tomatoes later in the year – in fact, the first few are starting to ripen now! – but we’d need more scale to make any amount of tomato sauce. Possible, though. Even a bit of land, however, would let us keep our own meat chickens.
 
7 eggs, 4 heads Beauregard lettuce, 0.3oz Welsh onions, 10oz Aquadulce broad beans (3oz shelled), 1.5oz Meteor peas (0.65 oz shelled)
 
15^th July 2021
Twilight working, which avoids the heat. I water the plants – we watered with liquid compost yesterday, but this time it’s more for hydration. Especially as stuff is fruiting or podding, we need to keep the plants satiated.
 
7 eggs
 
16^th July 2021
The hottest day of the year so far, with tomorrow predicted hotter. We have allotment radishes in our chicken pasanda dinner – with land, we could also add the chicken and the garlic, and perhaps other things.
 
I visit briefly in the earlier evening to pick up eggs and drop off scraps to the chickens (illegally!). I don’t have the time to water now, but did water yesterday, and forcing the plants to push deeper is no bad thing. Sometimes fruiting plants suffer for that – you can’t risk too much drought – but a day should be fine.
 
I return later, after dark, to lock up. Most of the chickens have gone on top of the coop, led by the cockerel. The door is still open; this is voluntary. Why? Well, it’s still 16c – they’ve made a judgement about staying cool. I weigh up the minuscule risk of a fox getting into our secure yard, and – contrary to any advice you’ll get – leave the chickens out. They will ordinarily judge much better than I can what is good for them. I deal with the edge cases, or where our needs clash.
 
The sky is clear, and light pollution isn’t overbearing. The heavens really do look like a vault studded with jewels.
 
I lie down on the stone path which I laid myself, feeling the comforting cool on my shoulders. I look up, as Venus rises in the east, a glowing pale yellow, herald of the sun. In the west, stars seem to swim down into the haze beyond the horizon, the brightest still shining but their dimmer brethren swallowed up.
 
Above, the spheres whose music I cannot hear but know by every intuition and by revelation is everpresent and perfectly harmonic. The perfect order of a Divine universe, fully on display and available for free, every night under cloudless skies. What troubles have we wrought by turning on the lights and shutting the curtains?
 
7 eggs
 
17^th July 2021
Quick trip to collect eggs and check on plants. I do a bit of watering. The difficulty accessing the potato bed – which is in an enclosure beside the chickens, in half of their old yard – reminds me that we need to finish the internal fence and add a gate. The potatoes are growing mightily, however, including the main croppers. I suppose in a month or so the earlies will die back, after which we’ll leave them in the ground for a few weeks to dry and settle before harvesting.
 
6 eggs
 
18^th July 2021
Sunday School at the allotment. The sun pounds down but the children are watered and enjoy themselves. I give out some lettuce at the end. The first courgettes are now visible, too – we’ll probably harvest a couple this week!
 
We pick a few wild raspberries on the way home, and share them out amongst the family.
 
Some plants have been kicked out by foraging birds – probably feral chickens, perhaps pigeons. It’s more chicken-like behaviour, though, with the plants often uneaten. We have netting and mesh spare, so we’ll cover them. In the morning I simply replant the victims.
 
By the evening the plants are grubbed up again – so I net some uncovered strawberries, and also the raspberries, though in their case more to protect the fruit. The canes are quite well-set there.
 
8 eggs, 2 heads of Beauregard lettuce, 6 raspberries
 
19^th July 2021
In the evening I water the plants with a friend, after checking on the chickens. The orange Sapphire has something like a cold, sneezing repeatedly, but is otherwise vigorous and happy. One thing with chickens is that if they get seriously ill there’s no point treating them, and if they’re mildly ill the curatives are usually food, water, and perhaps cider vinegar.
 
7 eggs