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On My Oasis – Harvesting Beets & a Fondness for Fushias
It seems incredible that it’s already August. How did that happen? It seems like yesterday I was constructing the raised beds and now they’ve gone through a season of growing and I’m already sowing my second lot of successional crops! It’s been all go here over the past few weeks – hence the lack of updates. Firstly, a HUGE thanks to those who’ve subscribed to my Brimwood Farm YouTube. FIFTY subscribers now! That’s amazing!
My latest video was on harvesting beets, and I thought I had quite a decent crop.
However, it seems when you cook beetroot down and shove ’em into pickling jars, it doesn’t amount to much; three jars to be exact. I will, therefore, be using Charles Dowding’s tip of NOT pricking beet seeds out but growing them in clumps. That should mean that I get 3 or 4 times the crop in the SAME space, though I will probably increase the size of the bed in 2016 a little too.
The beet harvest from that video? THREE pickle jars. That’s all. Oops. Lesson? Grow more next year!
The Poultry Yard
There’s been a lot going on with the poultry. The quail chicks have matured, and that means I’m getting a TONNE of eggs. My hens are also laying a lot, despite going through a bit of a moult. The latest incubator has (probably) confirmed that myco is present in the main coop. I’ve previously had 100% hatch rate with the eggs, but this time it was ZERO. The two d’Anver eggs (the parents of which are separate) did hatch, however. The only difference is the parents of the main coop eggs were different, but all were fertile; they just didn’t reach hatch. It could be a coincidence but I that’s more like wishful thinking. Alas, it does throw plans askew a little as I cannot hatch from my own birds any longer. That means I’ll have to buy in eggs or chicks to rear for meat…until we move to the farm, at which point any birds left in the myco flock will be culled.
A lovely rooster I would’ve sold, but with possible myco in my main flock, he’s now destined for the cooking pot.
This funny little Poland rooster has found a place in my heart, so he’s staying.
1.5 days, 19 hens – 29 eggs!!
However, I am very happy that Gertrude the silkie and my d’Anvers don’t have myco present. I will do my best to maintain this over coming months and years, and I hope to breed some show birds from these so all is not lost.
A Fondness for Fushias
I’m not terribly keen on fushias, particularly gaudy flowers with bright, clashing purple and pink clashing colours. However, one of the very few plants inherited with this garden was a woody, leggy fuschia shoved in a pot. I took a few cuttings, they took quickly and these are the resulting flowers. Wonderful! I think I’ve finally found a small fondness for these flowers.
I don’t know the cultivar, but I love the upturned petals.
Another plant I’m loving at the moment is the fennel. It was actually bought as bronze. It’s not; it’s the bog standard variety. However, it offers some structure and height to the garden, and the flowers aren’t bad either.
Fennel’s a lovely sculptural plant to offer height.
I can’t believe the gardening year is actually going to start winding down now. HOWEVER, we can look forward to all those glorious autumn plants, getting bulbs in, sowing winter crops and – I REALLY hope for – some heavy frosts this year to kill off all the pests!
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