Sallygardens Smallholding

Raised Beds

The days this time of year are busy with sowing, planting and weeding. Growth is so sudden and prolific that it's hard to keep on top of it all and the choices for dinner expand by the day (just as time to spend cooking it diminishes!). Gone are the days of late winter when kale and chard were just beginning to fall out of favour and instead we are now spoiled for choice. Everything in the polytunnel is doing well. Melons, grape vines, strawberries, peach, mixed lettuce, chop suey greens, golden and red beetroot, broad beans, peas (pod, mange tout & sugar snap), french beans (purple & golden teepee), runner beans (Lady Di and Polestar), artichoke, chard, rocket, carrot, herbs, tomatoes, pepper, chilli, aubergine (black beauty), courgette and sweet corn are all coming along nicely. I did manage to kill off six lovely cucumber plants (paska and marketmore) by planting them out too early, the cold nights were too much for them so that's set me back a few weeks on one of my favourite vegetables.  I just couldn't help planting them even though I knew it was too early! One melon plant also copped it out of three, but luckily I've a couple of spares in a seed tray ready to take it's place. Having a few extra of each thing is a great insurance policy, then if they're not needed they come in as great birthday gifts ... just pop a selection of salads, or a couple of tomato or melon plants into a grow bag or even a hanging basket.

One thing I haven't really indulged in greatly are brassicas. We always have purple sprouting brocolli but this year I've tried my hand at a handful of cauliflowers, cabbage and calabrese. To accommodate these we've been working on a couple of new raised beds. With this extra outside space I'll also experiment with some swede, turnip and kohl rabi, parsnip and leek. Hopefully these things will mean we'll be providing ourselves with food during the winter this year too. It's all been a lot of hard work, but it's well for some ...

Divine Salami

A couple of months ago we began processing the meat from the two most recent weaners we raised for the table. Some of it went into Ox Runners (large intestine casings) to make our very first salami. We experimented with three recipes; plain, garlic and last but not least peppercorn, garlic & port. I was glad we had the comfort of our book which reassured us that the growth of white, blue and green furry mould was perfectly normal and indeed a very good sign.  We decided against using the preservative salpetre which keeps the meat artificially pink but also reduces the risk of botulism in air dried meats. It's something to read up on and to consider carefully before you embark on processing your own pork. Time ticked on and the salami hung tantalisingly in the wood shed to air dry.

Regular groping of the salami gives a crude indication as to when they're ready to sample. Finally, eight weeks later, the time had come to cut down the first salami. Before sampling the bounty the mould is wiped off with kitchen towel and the salami rolled in wood ash. And the moment we waited for .... sheer bliss.

Welcoming Our Newborn Kid Goats

The arrival of our two new kid goats didn't run quite as smoothly as it could have. In fact the whole thing was a bit of a trauma as a number of events took the wrong turn at every possible opportunity. It all started five months ago when the goats visited the billy, our first mistake was not writing the expected due date on the calendar immediately. A couple of months later we accepted a very special invitation to attend a baby welcoming ceremony for my best friends child. This event was to be very special as her arrival  into the world six months ago had put both herself and her mother at serious risk. With mother and child now thriving, celebrations were truly in order.  A couple of months later I counted up the days and realised that the goats due date was three days before the baby welcoming ceremony date. Pants.

I was certain that fate would be kind to us and that the goats would kid several days before we were due to leave, meaning we could be confident that both the mothers and kids were safe to be left with a carer to keep an eye on them. But, this was not to be the case! The morning we were due to leave one goat went into labour. Against our better judgement we set off with a great sense of trepidation. Their carer was great and she texted us five hours later to say two kids had been born with no complications and they were both up on their feet.

After seven hours of driving we reached our destination, the beautiful town of Kenmare in Co Kerry. We checked into the Hostel and found a great little pub for dinner. We chatted excitedly about the ceremony planned for the following day, and how we would then take a boat trip out to the Skellig Islands the day after, and before heading home we would stay in An Daingean (Dingle) to swim with Fungi the Dolphin. Spirits were high.

Then my mobile rang and it seemed that all was not well. The kids weren't yet suckling and they must do so within six hours of birth in order to ingest antibody rich colostrum. After six hours the ability to absorb the colostrum through the stomach and gut lining is lost and the kids then have no defence against illness. Their chances of survival would be minimal. She tried all the tricks in the book, including bottle feeding, but as the six hour deadline loomed and darkness fell their carer milked out some colostrum from Esme, loaded the kids into her car and took them to the vet for a tube feed.

At this stage Dan and I knew that we had made the wrong decision to leave our goats at such a crucial stage, so following a tearful phone call to my best friend to explain what was happening, we packed up and left Kenmare after only two hours! We arrived home at 2.30am and stayed up till 4am looking after the goats. At 8am I got up to check them and was delighted to witness the smaller doe suckling but the larger doe was still not managing it. Although she licked the udder she seemed to have no sucking reflex. I tube fed her again.  Tube feeding can get the vital colostrum into their system, but it's only an emergency solution. For a weak kid it can give them enough energy to get going and suckling, but having a full tummy also inhibits the sucking reflex ... vicious circle.

Happily a few hours later hunger kicked in again, and before the fine line of exhaustion took hold she finally managed to suckle. Exhausted we all breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed a good nights sleep.

Hatching Chicks

It's three weeks since the chicks emerged from their shells, you can watch one hatching on this video clip.

They come out all sticky with their fluff stuck to their skin but immediately begin to try standing up. A comical couple of hours follow as they dry off, fluff up and topple backwards and forwards on their little stick legs. They also begin to peck at the ground and soon find their sources of chick crumb and water. By the following day they are running about at high speed, preening their imaginary feathers, scratching the ground with their feet and nodding off for thirty second naps slumping to sleep in the most peculiar poses. After just a few days their true feathers begin to emerge at the tips of their stumpy little wings, and a few days later the tail feathers. The rate of growth is amazing, and so is their rate of consumption for that matter. A daily litter change, or sometimes more than that, is required to keep odours at bay! They now sleep for longer spells, all together, in a little heap.

They currently reside in a large box under a heat lamp in the spare bedroom. Their loud chirps and constant scratching and pecking sounds have become part of the household, but in only eight weeks or so they will be having their first ventures outdoors and will have to find their pecking order in with the rest of the flock.

You've Got To Be Kidding

Five months ago (151 days to be precise) our goats were covered by a billy. Yesterday was their due date but it's not unusual for a goat to go a few days before or after that. This week I've been out to the field every couple of hours to try and spot any signs of impending labour but as yet, nothing. I'm still not entirely sure if they are both in kid. I'm pretty sure I felt kids kicking in the belly of Esme but then again ruminants tend to have massive belly gurgling events as a matter of course, in fact it's a sign of good digestive health. The same goat is definitely 'bagging up' which means her udders are filling out, a sure sign that something is afoot.

Their shelter is ready with clean fresh hay, baby bottles just in case, some lubrication jelly, a pair of long plastic gloves and antiseptic for the umbilical cord wound ... with any luck I won't need most of it! I'm hoping to milk out a small jar of milk in the first few hours after the kids have had a feed. It contains antibody rich colostrum which is vital for their survival and must be ingested within hours of birth or the kids won't survive. Having a small amount in the freezer for emergencies is an indispensable  and wonderful insurance policy.

Right, I'm off out to check the goats again!

Fr Niall Molloy

Please take a moment to read this extract written by my cousin. If you feel compelled to encourage the path of justice, follow the link to sign the petition. On behalf of the family, thank you.

'In July 1985 Niall's body was found in the blood spattered bedroom of a friend's house in Clara Co.Offaly, Ireland. He lay beside an eight foot streak of his own blood, his face deeply cut. A priest who was first to be called to the scene, reported Niall's death to the Police & asked "Is there any way you can keep it quiet?". A man was eventually charged with his killing but the Judge WHO PERSONALLY KNEW BOTH NIALL and THE ACCUSED dismissed the case.

The judge in his ruling stated that Niall had Heart Disease (not borne out by the Autopsy) and it was possible Niall might have died from a heart attack. He said "It's a little bit unusual but not improper of me to say that no one intended any injury to be caused". THE INQUEST JURY CAME BACK WITH THE FOLLOWING; "It is the unanimous verdict of the jury that Fr. Niall Molloy died as a result of acute brain haemorrage consistent with having suffered a serious injury to the head".

In October 1988 Ian Maher sent two files to The Garda Commissioner in response to his request for new evidence. Both files contained medical opinions that Niall was left to die over a lengthy period of time. The Gardai to this day have taken no further action.The Family,Parishioners and Friends of Niall still want Justice to be done and a full Public Inquiry into the events surrounding his killing and the subsequent COVER- UP.'
Copied by kind permission of Bill Maher, Fr Niall Molloy Petition

Want to know more? I think we all do.

Wildflower Meadow

Last autumn we decided that we would try to replace part of our lawn with a wildflower meadow. Several reasons led to this decision. The garden already has plenty of lawn and keeping it mowed is a major undertaking particularly when there's so much other work to do on the smallholding. I also like the idea of reducing the area I mow due to the fuel that's consumed simply to keep nature under 'control'. So I thought, why not let nature run riot in a mass of colour that will attract plenty of wildlife and feed my bees with nectar for the hives. It will also provide a little hay for the goats as it needs cutting once a year after the flowers have set seed.

The first thing to do in order to convert an area to wildflower is to remove whatever's growing on it already. Enter pigs stage left. We put them on the front lawn for about a month when they first arrived and they did a good job turning it over. Three months later there was quite a lot of new growth grass sprouting up so we put the pigs back on the lawn, and being much bigger by then, they turned the lot over in less than two weeks. With a wildflower meadow less is more, it prefers a nutrient poor environment, which in practical terms meant any pig poo had to be removed daily and put in the compost.

The soil has laid fallow since October. It's clay and so digging it while wet is next to impossible. This week the soil has dried out quite a bit and so I've begun digging over a couple of meters a day and seeding it with a native wildflower mixture that I bought on-line. It's very hard work, perhaps it won't all get done this year!

I can't wait to see some of the widlflower seedlings begin to push through. Hopefully by the end of the summer, or perhaps next summer, I'll be able to show you the transformation from muddy slop to a meadow of flowers.

Interactive Food Map of Ireland

Paul O Mahony of Siopa Eile has launched the Interactive Food Map of Ireland. It's a brilliant idea for both producers and consumers. If you wish to locate an artisan made food product zoom into the area in question and click on the pointers to read contact information and product descriptions. Anybody can add or amend information on the map so if you are a producer go ahead and add your details, or if you know of a producer who isn't on the map please and add them. The success of the map depends on it's users adding information so don't be shy, jump in and help to make it a fantastic resource ... and don't worry you can't break it either!

What better way could there possibly be to start International Downshifting Week than to support a local food artisan in your area.

Spread the word. If you're an Irish blogger add the badge.

Now Its My Turn To Receive A Free Gift

I've been asked to review a Toyota SPA 15 ergonomic design sewing machine and afterwards I get to keep it.  This is going to fit in nicely with International Downshifting Week. How? Well instead of watching TV in the evenings I want to try and use up all those pieces of material I seem to have collected over the last few years. I'm going to start by making clothes for my children (mainly because they are the only recipients who would be delighted with my efforts!).

As well as various materials bought from bargain bins in fabric shops I've also got a variety of old clothes to cut up and remake into new garments. Another great source I've discovered are the sample books from interior design shops. Just call in and ask if you can have their out of season samples. They are only too happy to pass on their waste rather than pay to put it in the rubbish bin. Some of the pieces are really generously large and the smaller samples are perfect for various crafts, particularly quiltmaking or collage.

And The Winner Is

I'm delighted to announce that Carillon in Minnesota has won the beeswax hand balm. Thank you to everybody who entered the draw.

International Downshifting Week

It's International Downshifting Week Saturday 19th until Friday 25th April. You can join in with the campaign by visiting the official site and choosing an inspiring action from their list of suggestions. There are three lists to pick from depending on whether you are an individual, company or child/school. I have chosen not to turn on the television for a few nights next week and instead I plan to have a practice on my fiddle along with my husband (who plays the accordion) and my older daughter who is also learning the fiddle. The brainchild of this inspiring campaign is Tracey Smith who also writes a blog well worth visiting, called Sustained.

I was alerted to the fact that it's International Downshifting Week soon when a journalist from the Irish Examiner rang yesterday and asked if we would give an interview about our reasons for embracing this new lifestyle. I don't know if they will use us in the article or not, but it will be fun to see if they do!

Come On In For A Chat

The Sallygardens Smallholding forum for Sustainable Living is gaining momentum slowly but surely (click on the goat in the left hand column). It's open to anybody interested in all aspects of sustainable living. Categories range from growing your own vegetables in urban or rural gardens, raising livestock such as pigs, goats, chickens and rabbits, beekeeping, polytunnel gardening, even compost toilets, biofuels and all sorts of discussions on anything that may lessen our impact on the environment. If you have an eco product to sell or recommend, a link to a great on-line resource, questions to ask or experiences to share please drop in and join the group. You don't have to be living in Ireland or a smallholder, just have a keen interest in doing your bit to ensure we leave the planet in a decent state for tomorrows children. See you there!

Recently we've been talking about ;
How to stop a chicken going broody
What fencing to use for pigs
Do I need to mix soil with compost
What to grow from seed and what to buy as seedlings?
And an amazing post from Sheila about urban/suburban gardens
Using worms to accelerate compost toilets

ps don't forget to comment in the post below if you'd like to join the draw for a free gift

Chicks Emerge

After a bit of a disastrous start we put some more of our chicken eggs into an incubator three weeks ago. The 'due date' was last Wednesday so we all skipped downstairs that morning and looked straight in to check if there was any sign. You can't imagine the squeels of delight when several of the eggs had tiny cracks in them and some sections of eggshell had chipped off. The sound of chirping was surprisingly loud even before any chicks hatched and we spent the next three hours glued to the tiny window on the incubator watching our first sticky damp chick emerge into the world.

There were family squabbles about who should carry the first chick or two, but once five were out there were plenty to go around. After about ten minutes to dry off in the heat of the incubator we began to move them to a cardboard box with chick grain, water and a heat lamp. For the following two days chicks were emerging every few hours, day and night. At first they can't stand up, but it only takes a couple of hours before they are up and walking with some comical falls backwards or forwards on their little legs. They even begin pecking at their feed and water as soon as they are upright. Within the day they are zipping about and preening their fluff.

So far fifteen chicks have hatched and all are doing well. There are nine more eggs in the incubator, two of which have been heard chirping, so I'm still confident at least some of them will hatch. The children are delighted with the whole affair but we have reminded them that some of these birds will be for the table. I'm hoping that one of our hens will go broody soon because although its been great fun to watch chicks hatching at such close quarters in an incubator, I'd rather they were raised by one of their kind and lived to enjoy the comfort of snuggling under their mothers wing.

A Natural Handmade Gift For You

A bar of healing beeswax skin balm is on offer to one lucky reader as a way to say 'thank you' for your continued support.

So why beeswax? Everything about it is amazing. When taken direct from the hive its healing properties are most potent, unlike the beeswax found in many products which has been heated, strained and depleted of the many components that are beneficial. The wax is an emolient (hydrating), calms inflamed skin, forms a protective barrier, acts as an antibacterial agent, it's antiallergic, antioxidant, antibactericidal, germicidal, skin softening and has elasticity enhancing properties.  Bees secrete it from wax glands on their bodies and chew it before sculpting it into perfectly shaped honeycomb. It may also contain remnants of pollen and propolis (plant resins that the bees use to strengthen the comb).

Well we can read as much as we like about the various attributes of beeswax but there's nothing like trying out the real thing. Dan and I work long hours outside in all sorts of weather and this takes its toll on our hands. We've tried all sorts of creams but nothing has worked as well as our own home-made beeswax skin balm. I've even started using it on my cheeks and it works wonders to keep them moisturised in winter winds. It contains comb scraped direct from my hives which is gently melted, then mixed with avocado, olive and chamomile essential oils. It's  then poured into a mould to cool. Because the beeswax is very much a limited resource I only have enough to make a handfull of these balms but I've kept one aside to offer as a gift to my readers. Just leave a comment below this post and in a weeks time I'll pick a winner. Anyone may enter from anywhere in the world (only readers from Mars are excluded). Good luck everyone.

Making Cheese

This summer I really want to try my hand at cheese making. Last year I made some soft yogurt cheese but I'm ready to move to the next level and try a complicated hard cheese. This involves the use of rennet and a starter culture, and following a recipe to the letter. Unlike the soft cheese I won't taste the results of my efforts immediately, it will be a tantalising few months before I first cut into my cheese.

I've been reading up on cheesemaking for over a year now and I am sooo impatient to get stuck in. I keep looking at my two goats for signs of pregnancy and I'm hoping at least one of them is in kid.  We will know one way or the other when they reach their due date in roughly three weeks time. Unless they give birth I won't have a milk supply this year.

Being ever optimistic I have just ordered a few bits and pieces from a cheese making supplier in the UK and I'm waiting for the delivery like a child anticipating Santa's arrival on Christmas Eve. So assuming the delivery arrives safely, one of the goats has a successful birth and my cheese making skills are up to scratch we will be consuming our own home made cheddar and blue cheese by the end of summer.

I'm always thinking ahead for my next project and at the moment I'm toying with the idea of home made wine. Cheese and wine, the perfect combination!

Spring Cleaning the Beehives

There are signs of life from the beehives on sunny days and as honey season approaches it's time to get prepared. It's important to clean any hive parts to prevent the spread of any diseases that might be lurking in the build up of the previous years wax and propolis. Large scale beekeepers sterilise hive parts by dunking them in baths of caustic soda solution. I only have two hives so I use a blowtorch to clean boxes, roofs and floors. Once the weather warms up I'll be swapping the cleaned parts into the hives, then I can clean up the parts I've replaced ready to expand with new colonies in fresh hives.

I've also been making up new frames of foundation. Sheets of beeswax can be bought with a hexagonal imprint. This is slotted into a wooden frame (Beansprouts clearly describes how). When the frame is put in the hive the bees begin building up cells happily using the imprint provided. This means that the bees very conveniently store their honey in the frames rather than building unmanageable wild combs in haphazard directions all over the inside of the hive (as they do in the wild). The frames can be easily lifted in and out for inspection and harvesting.  On this frame of foundation you can see a wire embedded in it. This adds strength, preventing the wax from collapsing under the combined weight of wax and honey in the hive, and especially during spinning of combs in the honey extractor at harvesting time.

Once the bees have drawn out the foundation into cells the frame can be used again and again. In these modern times of bee disease management frames are generally changed every three years, but in previous generations beekeepers often used the same blackened comb for decades.  When the wax is first drawn its almost pure white, but as the years pass by the wax darkens with age from bee traffic. This is a frame of drawn comb in its first year.

Making up new frames of foundation in front of a winter fire is a delight. Tapping away and enjoying the delicious aroma of beeswax makes it one of those jobs that's a real pleasure.

Eating Weeds - Nettle Soup

Nature provides a wide range of free 'weeds' that are bursting with vitamins and minerals. The nutrient levels found in weeds are often far in excess of  home grown herbs and salads.  Don't let this time of year pass by without indulging in the delights of nettle soup and harnessing its nutritional potential.  As the tender new spring shoots rise above the soil it's the perfect time to harvest this plant. As spring advances the leaves become tough and once flowers appear the nettles have passed their peak in terms of nutrients. Spinach has an iron content of 4.1mg/100g and magnesium at 51 compared to  nettles with iron at 7.8  and Mag at 71.  In terms of the healing effects of nettle recipes they are said to be a great tonic during menstruation or the menopause. In Ireland the plant was also added to bedding to treat rheumatism, although I wouldn't advise trying this!

Our children were enthralled by what seemed to them as the totally mad notion of eating nettles and couldn't wait to taste the final product.

I came across a lovely little recipe for nettle soup in a book called 'Cooking Weeds: Vegetarian Recipes' by Vivien Weise which I adapted slightly. Choose plants in areas that you know without doubt have not been sprayed with chemicals or contaminated by animals. Take care not to get stung!

First collect 100grams of nettle leaves by snipping with a scissors and letting the leaves fall into a paper bag. Rinse the leaves several times in fresh water. Chop two onions finely and fry them in olive oil for eight minutes in a soup pot, stirring occasionally, until golden. Add one clove of crushed garlic, 500g of diced potato (I leave skins on) and one litre of water. Bring to the boil for fifteen minutes, then add the nettle leaves and boil for another fifteen minutes. Add 200ml of cream, milk or soya milk and leave to cool slightly before using a hand blender. Add salt to taste and prepare to be amazed (by the taste, not the photo!).

Serve garnished with grated carrot, beetroot, cheese or a dollop of creme fraise. It's delicious and you can literally taste the goodness, chi, prana, or whatever you want to call it.

Fanfare ... Launch of Sallygardens Pig Rearing e-Booklet

When we first started offering pig rearing courses to smallholders here at Sallygardens we got a steady flow of interested participants. Its been a real pleasure meeting other like minded people setting off into the world of self sufficiency and more often than not the teaching and learning has been a two way process. Many of our visitors have had expertise in other areas of interest to ourselves. Some have even kept pigs before on an intensive commercial basis and were delighted to see how things might work at the opposite end of the scale.

What I hadn't anticipated was the high level of interest expressed by people, not only from all over the country, but also from abroad. Since many folk can't travel to us for our two hour course, and at times we don't have live pigs on the smallholding, so we decided to offer an alternative in the form of an e-booklet that covers all the topics you need to start with raising weaners for the table. It's aimed at the smallholder and currently includes details of Irish agricultural law, but as requests for the booklet are received from abroad I'll be adding sections for the UK, USA and Australia.

Heres an introductory paragraph from the booklet:
Why I decided to write this booklet
We began life on our smallholding in the Spring of 2005. With no previous experience of livestock, and only a dabbling in fruit and vegetable growing, the learning curve was exponential! Hours, days, even months were spent researching everything from pigs to potatoes. Books, forums, websites and friends were, and still are, valued sources of information. As we progressed we collated all the collected knowledge in various files and boxes … this booklet is a distillation of all those nuggets of wisdom, something we wish we had found presented to us in one useful source! I hope that in these pages you will benefit from our research and save yourself hours of time, with information at your fingertips, direction to further sources and plenty of inspiration.

If you wish to buy the e-booklet please leave a comment on this post and I will contact you directly with a Paypal invoice or you can arrange to post a snail mail cheque. The e-booklet will be emailed to you on receipt of payment and costs €8 for an emailed version, or €10 for a hardcopy printout (A4 pages) plus postage.

I'm also working on similar e-booklets about goats, and another on poultry.

Good News And Bad News

Which shall I start with? The bad. I know you are all waiting for news on the candling of our incubated eggs, as promised. Well we closed the shutters and turned off all the lights in the spare bedroom and held our breaths to see if the torch showed up the expected signs of life ... the first egg was placed on the candling torch ... and ... nothing. No telltale veins or dark spots were evident to suggest a developing embryo inside, and what we saw didn't fit the illustration in our book. Well incubators don't get a 100% success rate, so we moved onto the next egg ... nothing ... and the next ... all 18 eggs were duds. We were all so downhearted, especially the children. We began to wonder if our temperature and humidity sensors were correct or if we'd stored the eggs at too cold a temperature during the week we were collecting them prior to incubation. They were all removed and placed in a basket ready to go on the compost heap next morning.

Just before I took the eggs out after breakfast the next day I decided to crack a couple open, to see if there was any clue for failure, or sign of initial development. We all gathered around and you can't imagine how gutted we all felt, and how our faces dropped, when inside every single egg was a developing embryo the size of a large marble. The big eyes and little beaks were clearly visible, and their little bodies and wings. They had been developing after all, but for some reason our candling didn't show it up. For the rest of the day we all moped around knowing that we had removed perfectly healthy chicks from the incubator. 'Aaarrrgh', is all I can say. The mistake was understood and accepted by all but the youngest, who is still angry at me for being a chick killer.

And the good news? Well we need some after that! Another batch of eggs has now been placed in the incubator, this is day two. We won't even bother candling, we'll just wait the three weeks. And more good news? Today saw the arrival of three new birds to our flock. We got two silkie cross hens (one crossed with a speckled sussex, the other with a buff sussex) because they are the most reliable broody hens. Once they go broody the incubator will be out of action and mother nature can take over. The third hen is an 11 week old Rhode Island Red hen which is an ideal utility bird (reliable egg layer but also heavy enough for the table) for smallholders.

Why I Blog at Sallygardens Smallholding

Quite a few people ask me this question, and sometimes I ask myself too! I remember when I first came across  a blog, it hit me that it was a really exciting way to reach out to an audience in an interactive way. When I considered starting my own blog it was for a variety of reasons. Initially I was looking for a way to promote my craft work for sale, so that I could fund my new rural based life. I wanted to find a way to earn an income so I could work from home and the internet offered a global audience to a farm down a lane in Co Leitrim! After a while I realised I was thoroughly enjoying writing and the photography. The contacts I made with readers and other bloggers was very fulfilling, true friendships were forged.  A few months into my first craft blog my subject matter was increasingly about life on our smallholding, it was what I wrote passionately about, and so I started up this blog to purely focus on sustainable living. Since finding my niche I haven't looked back and doors began to open. Soon after the launch of Sallygardens Smallholding blog it became evident that there was a huge interest in our type of lifestyle, with many people hungry for more practical information. This, in turn, lead to the launch of a range of courses on various aspects of smallholding ... pig rearing and goat keeping, with vegetable gardening and possibly a poultry course to follow soon. I also run felting courses, thus getting my necessary fix of crafting.

Before I started blogging I had no previous experience of this phenomenon. If you can write and send an email, you can manage a blog, it really is simple to get up and running. There are free blogging platforms such as Wordpress, and others with an annual fee such as Typepad (favoured by professionals), which is what I use (see the link on the left for free 2 week trial). The only downside is that you may be totally sucked into a virtual world ... I set myself an hour each weekday night and try not to go to blogland other than that, otherwise you can get lost in there for weeks on end!

Recently I got through the first round of judging in the Irish Blog Awards which was a huge boost to my 'on-line' confidence. As a consequence, I was contacted by TaraIT (a web development firm in Cork that do blog consultation) who graciously offered me a blog consultation free of charge in return for a mention. As I'm the opposite of a blog expert I jumped at the opportunity. I answered a questionnaire and received back a list of recommendations which I'm working through, alongside a blog guide they sent me. Its quite a lot of hard work on my part but I hope to see some positive results over the coming months. You may notice some tweeks in design, but there will be other changes behind the scenes. I might even ask you, the readers, some questions to find out what topics you'd like to see more of. For a professional who is setting out in the world of blogging, and is hoping to seriously raise their company profile, the route of blog consultation might be a worthwhile consideration as it saves an awful lot of time and legwork on the learning curve.

Why not start up your own blog on a subject you are passionate about? Beansprouts, one of my favourite bloggers, recently challenged her readers to do so... 23 of them took her up on it. If you do too, be sure to let me know.
 

Sowing Seeds

This month is a very busy one in the garden. I am spending a lot of time in the polytunnel. I have bee sowing a lot of plants in seed trays which I leave in the polytunnel to germinate ... things like lettuce, amarynth, chop suey greens, beetroot, swiss chard and pak choi. There are a few things that I plant direct into the soil because they are tough enough to survive without the luxury accommodation of a seed tray to start off. These include radish, rocket, perpetual spinach (beet), carrot and a range of herbs. We are building a new raised bed for the brassicas which won't be ready for a while so I'm also planting cabbage, brocolli, calabrese, cauliflower, swede, turnip and brussel sprouts in seed trays.

A month ago I planted three potatoes in the polytunnel and these have already pushed up leaves. I've earthed them up ... that means I've piled some more soil over the emerging leaves to cover them which promotes production of more potatoes. You can earth up a potatoe plant two or three times. These three plants will give us an extra early treat of new potatoes, but I wouldn't plant more than that in the polytunnel as the space is needed for everything else. The rest of the spuds are to be planted outdoors in a lazy bed like last year, but with St Patricks day being the traditional day for planting potatoes we are already a week behind schedule. You see, stress can still exist outside the rat race, it just takes on different guises!

Seedlings that need special care in terms of extra warmth have been sown indoors in a heated propagator on our bedroom windowsill. The plants that need this care to survive include tomatoes, cucumber, melon, aubergine, sweet pepper and chilli. These plants all need a long growing season and so they are started off that little bit earlier than other plants. I have just potted all of  these up into individual pots.  I will keep them indoors on our hallway windowsill for another few weeks before planting in the polytunnel. The propagator is now ready to receive a new sowing of another batch of warmth loving plants, this time sweetcorn, courgette and squash seeds.

Most of the hard work is done now but the seedlings need to be watched closely for a couple of weeks in their seed trays. They are at risk of drying out so I need to check them a couple of times a day when the sun is shining. To lose all the trays now would be a huge set back, so vigilence is required to keep them safe from a variety of possible  calamities ... cats love black seed trays to sleep on, dogs run through polytunnels with glee, hens would scratch through seedbeds and devour seedlings, visiting children unknowingly 'play' with  seed trays etc etc. Its a tense time!!! Going away on an Easter break is not on the agenda, but luckily we have no desire to head off anywhere soon because what we are doing here is so rewarding.

If you are tempted to grow your own vegetables for the first time an easy way to start is to visit your garden centre where they sell seedlings that just need planting into a prepared bed. The initial cost of the plant is miniscule in comparison to the money you will save from harvesting your own crop. Its a great way to dip your toe into vegetable gardening. If you get hooked and grow from seed next year, the savings are even greater. With the way the world economy is going, the rising cost of fuel is impacting on the cost of food on the supermarket shelves and space for food crops is now competing with the growth of biofuels. There has never been a better time to start your own veg garden because as months pass the percentage of your monthly income you spend on food is going rise considerably. If I lived in the city and had a garden I'd be utilising available space to grow edible plants and would be lobbying my local TD/MP to provide allotments for those who don't. If I were designing cityscapes I'd be including fruit trees and fruit bushes instead of pure ornamentals (bravo to Drumsna in Co Leitrim who recently planted up a significant part of their roadside with a selection of apple trees). Are there any urban readers who grow their own? What space restrictions do you have, what do you grow and where? Are there urban readers who would like to grow their own but don't know where to start? Depending on the response I could begin a series of articles on this subject.

What is Sustainability?

It must be the biggest eco buzzword of the decade, yet what exactly does it mean to you? We claim to be living sustainably here at Sallygardens Smallholding, but how does that translate into our typical day? When people describe our lifestyle they often use the words 'self sufficient', but that's not what we are aiming for, maybe 'living sustainably' is more accurate.

I suppose living sustainably is more about how we think before we act. Its not about keeping chickens, rearing our own meat, beekeeping, growing our own central heating fuel or organic vegetables. Its not even about leaving the rat race or relocating to an idyllic rural setting. These changes suited our family and its the lifestyle we have chosen, but equally we could have stayed in the city and lived sustainably too, as many do.

Now I'm waffling around the topic and not giving a concrete answer to my own question, which is exactly the problem when it comes to putting a definition on 'Living Sustainably'! To me it means living with the constant aim of  'closing the loop'. Ideally everything I require to survive should be provided by the land I am responsible for, and on which I live, without degrading it in any way. The waste I generate should be composted and reused within the closed system, thus sustaining the cycle of use, while conserving the quality of the land in terms of biodiversity, productivity and beauty. Wherever practically possible I try to arrange my life around this ethos. That's it in a nutshell.  When it's not possible to operate within the loop I try to choose an alternative which operates within the same ideals which often (but not always) means buying, sourcing or bartering local goods or services from local people.  I also always ask the question 'do I really need this' and more often than not, the answer is usually no! I try not to let marketing hype persuade me of my needs.

Within our own lifestyle we looked at our main areas of consumption. The first thing we tackled was the oil central heating and its impact on the environment and our pockets. Working long hours to generate income to pay an oil tanker to carry our heating fuel half way across the world just didn't make sense ... now we manage our woodland and field hedges to provide us with wood to burn in our woodstove which heats the water and radiators in our house. We also invested in solar panels, but having read a lot more on that topic recently I think we should probably have tried making our own (hindsight being 20:20 vision) ...  these changes to our heating means we no longer needed to raise a couple of thousand Euros a year for oil bills, thus freeing up the time we would have worked in employment to instead manage our woodlands and spend time together as a family. Our food bill was the next biggest expense, both economically and environmentally, so we invested in a polytunnel and within a year it has paid for itself and provided us with endless delicious food, literally on the doorstep. If we didn't love gardening so much we could have bought vegetables from our nearest growers instead, it depends on what appeals to each individual.  At the rate things are going perhaps home made biodiesel is the next step, and dusting off the bicycles. Soon even our sewage will be recycled and our only waste will be a minimal amount of plastic packaging. And so we continue to look at each of our 'expenses' and assess how they can be changed or tweaked to 'close the loop' as much as possible. Closing the loop is fun and hugely rewarding, it minimises impact on the environment and a very attractive side effect is the fact the we need less and less money to sustain our lifestyle.

How can you achieve these things in the city? It's still possible to embrace renewable energy systems, either DIY or ready made. If you can grow even some of your vegetables and fruit in your garden or an allotment thats fantastic, and you will make significant savings in your weekly food bills, not to mention the benefits to your health. If you have no garden then whats the most local and close to home alternative? A local farmers market if you can afford it? If at all possible walk to work, or where offered take public transport.  Support local artisans who produce art, craft and specialist foods. Spend your money within your community whenever possible. Join Freecycle which allows reuse of items rather than putting them in landfill. Set up a LETS network in your area to barter expertise. Start a liftshare scheme at work. Join  Carpoolworld or a car sharing scheme. Many people in urban settings can easily keep a couple of hens, or a beehive in their garden or on a flat roof. Take recycling and reuse to a practical level by buying in charity, brik-a-brac and antique shops. Arrange clothes swap evenings with friends. Make yours a Transition Town or neighborhood. What are your tips for sustainable living in rural or urban environments?

Been A while

Its been a while since I've written because we've been in topsy turvey land over the last week. Our little girl had to be admitted to hospital on Thursday and we only just got home today. We are all shattered and I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it feels to be home again, normality restored, and the family all back together ... even if the children did manage to get back to bickering within a couple of hours!

On a lighter note, if you fancy a giggle you can read an article about Dan and I which was published in the Sunday Independent newspaper this week. It's in the 'Living' supplement, in a section on 'Relationships' and its titled 'A different Dan and Becs', which is a title only Irish readers will appreciate! If you haven't a hard copy to rummage through its also online here, but without the photograph of us both perched up in one of our apples trees. I suffer from vertigo, and although I'm smiling in the picture, I was actually petrified!

Hatching Easter Chicks

We have just set up an incubator in the spare room with fourteen hens eggs. That means we ought to have some of the cutest ever fluffy little chicks hatching out just after Easter (1st April to be exact) ... another lifelong wish granted!

Our Light Sussex hen began laying just over a week ago (every day so far) and we have been collecting her lovely pale eggs, along with a few of the red hens eggs too. Our beautiful red, but lightweight, farmyard  rooster has flown the coop to pastures new so now our mature Light Sussex rooster is the only contender for fatherhood in the flock. I bet you were thinking that last sentence was a polite way of saying 'he went in the pot'! But no, joy, the old rooster has gone to a friends farm where a suspected fox attack resulted in all but one of their sixteen hens being taken. He is to be new husband of the single remaining hen, but in a few weeks we will send over some of our incubated chicks to join his new hareem. And thus reveals the source of our incubator, on loan from our friends, in return  for some of  our hatched  eggs to replenish their flock. The perfect barter ... well maybe we have a slighter better deal in that we get to watch chicks hatching from their eggs.

As the twenty one day countdown commences to hatch day, the children are ecstatic and I am just uncontrollably excited! Fingers crossed, as this is far from a failsafe plan and success is not guaranteed*. We need to turn the eggs several times a day, monitor and keep constant at certain  levels the temperature and the humidity for 21 days. I have to say the whole thing is probably more exciting than when we watched our cat give birth to her kittens. Tune in again on day seven when we 'candle' the eggs to see which ones are developing normally. This involves shining a light through the egg to view the developing embryo inside. I promise to give updates along the way over the next three weeks and, if successful, will post far too many images for you of fluffy chicks emerging from their shells ... and maybe even a U-Tube video clip of the new arrivals.

* nitty gritty info ; For the first 18 days keep eggs at 37.5C, then reduce to 37C until hatching at day 21. Humidity levels at 52% until day 18, then increased to 75% until hatching. Turn eggs several times a day.

How to Store Apples

I'm still using the cooking apples we picked from our orchard back in September 2007, but I'm now down to a final basket.  We have been enjoying apple sauce with pork, apple crumble and apple tart for the last six months.  I have to admit that I was a bit cynical when I first read about apples keeping fresh all winter, but I have a memory from my childhood that spurred me on to try it out ... I was playing at my great Aunts and I found a stack of boxes in an empty stable. Inside the boxes were layers of red apples. I remember being amazed when it dawned on me that these were her own apples that I'd so often eaten from her orchard, yet it was the middle of winter, and there they were all sitting perfectly ... and still delicious!!!

There really isn't much to it. All you need is a dry cardboard box and a collection of cardboard fruit packaging trays.  Both these things are available free of charge at our local Supervalue supermarket ... an excellent example of  reuse, 'one mans waste is another mans gold'.

Collect your apples from the orchard, both from the branches and windfalls on the ground. Only store the ones whose skins are totally unblemished because the slightest bruising or break in the apple skin will quickly cause the apple, and all those beside it to rot. Make sure no apples are touching each other. Stack several layers in each cardboard box and store them in a cool dry place. Check through your stash every three weeks or so and remove any apples that are showing signs of bruising. This is a good time to bring a basket full indoors, otherwise its easy to forget about

When you are reading up on what varieties of apple trees to plant around your garden make sure you get a good book. The information on each variety should include details on whether or not it stores well. You don't need a vast area to enjoy home grown apples either. As a child my parents grew two beautiful apple trees flat against our city garden wall, a technique known as espalier.