Snapshots from nature

Perhaps it's because it's such a beautiful time of year, with the countryside so lush and full of life, but, just recently, on my daily dog walks I've been snapping away with my camera at things that have caught my eye. Sometimes it's a plant or a particular view, other times it's just the clouds blowing across the sky or the way the sunlight catches the grasses. The beauty of nature never ceases to amaze me...

Wild Dog Roses

Hog Weed, much prettier than the name suggests

Silvery grass against a stormy sky

Hog Weed seed heads

Meadow

Just grass and sky

Under attack!

My young vegetable plants have come under attack from a slimy old adversary; the slug.

A few weeks ago I planted out several Butternut Squash and Courgette plants, and two different types of beans, all of which I’d grown from seed. Just a few nights later, the slugs munched their way through the lot. Thankfully, I had a few spare plants left over, so I re-planted and have since take steps to protect them.

Dealing with slugs poses a real dilemma for the organic gardener. For me, using highly toxic slug pellets to kill these insatiable little pests is not an option. Aside from the fact that I have dogs, a cat and chickens in my garden, pellets also pose a threat to birds, hedgehogs and other wildlife. Plus, I’m opposed to the idea of using chemicals in my garden and determined to work with nature, rather than against it.

So, how best to tackle the problem? In the past I’ve tried all kinds of supposed solutions, from spreading used filter coffee and crushed egg shells around the base of my plants (disappointingly ineffective) to creating slug traps filled with beer (a waste of beer!) to lure slugs to their (highly alcoholic) death.

Reels of copper tape, available from garden centres, work well around the base of individual plant pots, but it would be very costly to put the tape all the way around the vegetable patch.



Copper tape around a pot containing young Courgette plants.

 Last year, I bought packs of Nematodes (roundworm) from a gardening website. You water these naturally-occurring, microscopic organisms into the soil and they kill off the slugs. Whilst this method did seem effective, it proved a rather expensive solution as you have to re-apply Nematodes to areas blighted by slugs several times during the growing season.

This year, for the time being at least, I’m using a combination of copper tape around my pots and Fito Slug Stoppa granules to create a barrier around the base of my vulnerable young plants. This has helped to keep the nasty little critters at bay so far, but every morning I check to make sure the barricade around each plant has not been breached.

I’ve also resorted to hand-picking slugs from the garden by torchlight and storing them in a box overnight before feeding them to my chickens for breakfast the next day.

Fito Slug Stoppa granules create a barrier around the base of plants.

I’m doing my best to encourage hedgehogs and birds to visit the garden and also considering introducing a small area of water in the hope of attracting frogs and toads – all of these creatures are natural predators of slugs and keep the population under control. In an ideal world, my chickens would free range over the entire garden devouring slugs as they went, but, the trouble is, that they’d also feast on my young vegetable plants too. I’m told that ducks pack away more than their fair share of slugs, but I’ve yet to convince my husband, Jonny, to add a couple of ducks to our menagerie; never say never!

Auntie Elsie’s Elderflower Cordial

With its heady scent and frothy cream-coloured blooms, the flowering of the Elder tree is considered by many to signal the start of summer.

If the appearance of Elderflowers is a reminder of the changing seasons, then those who have tried recipes made using the flowerheads will no doubt associate their deliciously fragrant flavour with the British summertime too.

While the Elderberries that form later in the season are often collected in the autumn to make wine and jam, many people overlook the Elderflowers. Yet, they were once prized as an ingredient in a wide range of recipes, as well as for their medicinal properties.

At one time, it was even thought that the Elder, a native of the British Isles, had magical properties and could ward off evil spirits.

Elder trees grow in abundance throughout the hedgerows and woodlands of Yorkshire, and they’re just starting to come into flower.

If you want to try using the flower heads as an ingredient, then this cordial recipe is a great place to start. It’s a family favourite given to me several years ago by my Auntie Elsie.

The flower heads are at their best when picked on a warm, dry day, when they’re in full bloom and laden with pollen. Try to avoid picking them from alongside busy roads, where they will be dirty and tainted with pollution from passing cars.

Although you may feel the need to wash the flower heads, it’s actually better not to. A good shake to get rid of any little insects is enough.

Ingredients

25 Elderflower heads

3lb caster sugar

2oz citric acid (available from some chemists and shops or websites selling jam-making equipment)

Two sliced lemons

2 and-a-half pints of boiling water

Method

Tip the sugar into a large bowl and add the boiling water, then leave to cool. Add the other ingredients and press the Elderflower heads firmly into the liquid. Cover the bowl and leave it for 48 hours, giving it a good stir from time to time.

Strain the cordial and bottle it. It can be stored for several months.

When diluted with water, this cordial is delicious served chilled over ice with a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint. It can also be frozen to a slush to make a refreshing sorbet or even used with gin as an alternative mixer.

And here's this year's batch, made at the weekend with the help of my God daughter, Jodie:

I fell asleep among the flowers, for a couple of hours...

Is there anything nicer than strolling through an English meadow on an early summer afternoon?

This one is scattered with Oxeye Daisies, Buttercups, Vetch, Cow Parsley and a host of other native wildflowers and grasses. I could happily while away an hour or two on a picnic blanket in the sunshine listening to the gentle hum of the bees and watching the butterflies idly flitting from one bloom to the next.

Even Wolfie, my two-year old German Shepherd, paused to admire her surroundings.

First harvest from the vegetable garden

We've harvested the first of our new potatoes from the vegetable garden. We planted our seed potatoes, an early variety, back in mid-March and they seem to have done really well, despite taking a battering during the recent high winds.

It's the first time I've grown potatoes myself and I'm really pleased with the results. We'll enjoy these this evening with lashings of butter and some fresh mint from the herb garden. Pulling up a couple of roots of potatoes has left me with enough space to plant a few extra Leek plants, which we'll be glad of later in the year when there's not much else in the vegetable garden.

We've been harvesting Rocket and Lamb's Lettuce for the past few weeks, as well as Chives, Basil, Lemon Balm, Oregano, Rosemary, Mint and aniseed-flavoured Fennel tips, which are great mixed into a salad. The salad and herbs have done really well and we've had a near constant supply; it's weeks since I've had to buy any from the shops. The trick is to sow salad seed at regular intervals so that you have a continuous supply through the summer months.

Our Beetroot, Radish, Onions, Garlic, Spinach and Peas are all doing well, but my young Squash, Courgette and Bean plants have all suffered slug damage. More about that later...

Comfrey: A beautiful and useful wild plant

I love the vivid blue of the flowers on this Comfrey plant. The colour is strangely exotic for a native wildflower, yet the tiny bell-like blooms give the plant the appearance of a typically English cottage garden plant. Comfrey likes to grow on riverbanks and other damp, grassy spots, and is abundant at this time of year. You're likely to see a range of different hues, ranging from the deepest pink to a soft mauve, right through to this stiking cobalt shade. 

As well as being very attractive, Comfrey is also an extremely useful plant. For centuries, it has been used for medicinal purposes and, when applied topically in ointment form, is said to speed up the healing of broken bones, sprains, fractures and bruises. This explains why it is sometimes referred to as 'Knitbone'.

It's also an excellent fertiliser for the organic gardener. 'Comfrey tea' is made by rotting the leaves down in rainwater for a month or more. I dilute the resulting liquid (at a ratio of 15 parts water to one part Comfrey tea) and use it to fertilise my tomatoes, although it's great for all fruit and vegetable plants, and even your hanging baskets, pots and tubs. Comfrey can also be added to your compost bin to add extra nitrogen and speed up the composting process.

Did the recent thunder storms cause our hens to stop laying?

At this time of year, with the longest day just over a month away, our eight hens are usually at their most productive. So we were more than a little surprised when they suddenly stopped laying last week. Egg production dropped from five or six eggs per day to as few as one a day or, sometimes, none at all.
Wondering if the coop had been invaded by red mites - a nasty parasite that plagued our hens last summer - or some other pest, we gave the hens a health check and the coop a thorough clean-out, as well as sprinkling some red mite powder in the bedding. Thankfully there was no sign of anything sinister; all our hens appear to be in rude health. This made the sudden lack of eggs all the more puzzling.
It was only when my husband, Jonny, ran into another local chicken-keeper that we discovered that our hens were not the only ones to have stopped laying.
It became apparent that the problem was not unique to us, so we began to look for other explanations. The penny dropped when it was mentioned to us that thunder storms can have a detrimental effect on hens - we'd had powerful storms, with thunder and lightening, the week before. A bit more research revealed that, when healthy hens suddenly stop laying, it's usually because they've had a shock of some sort. Several websites and forums that I've looked at appear to suggest that thunder and lightening frightens hens, disrupting their laying patterns.

Thankfully, two weeks after the storms, egg production is now picking up again; we had four yesterday and three the day before. Looks like we'll have to sound-proof the coop next time a storm is forecast!