A Very Small Holding

The Elliffs journey into the good life

Dec
23

By

A very tidy workshop

Category: Chickens, Compost, The House, The Workshop Leave a Comment

It was the week before Christmas and we were preparing for our first winter in the village. We had the chimney swept to clear a birds nest, thoroughly cleaned out the chicken run and topped up the compost heap before sealing it for the winter.

My parents made another visit to our home in time for our scheduled Christmas Day lunch at the pub. My father immediately found more work to do, adding an extra plug socket to the workshop and moving the strip lights away from our new shelving units. I had the shelving installed so that we could empty the garage of the remaining unopened storage boxes.

Nov
4

By

A very large shed

Category: Compost, Maintenance, The Allotment Leave a Comment

The smallholder we had commissioned to build our shed returned this week to construct the outbuilding. He and his two colleagues had built and painted sections of the building back at his farm. This made assembly far easier, but the task still required three days hard graft from his labourers. The shed was built using a timber frame and plywood sheets, with corrugated metal sheets on the roof. It was a very solid structure.

The completed shed with a door at each end and shutters covering an window opening

The completed shed with a door at each end and sliding shutters covering the window in the middle

While delivering one of several trays of tea to the workmen I discussed other requirements that we had with the smallholder. As a result of our negotiations he later delivered thirty planks of wood for our allotment beds and a dozen corrugated metal sheets for a log store. I also mentioned that we would be adding a water butt to the shed, to collect rainwater that ran from the roof. Five pounds secured two large plastic barrels. The first barrel I would attach to guttering that I had ready to install, and the second I would use to drown weeds that could then be added to the compost heap.

Oct
28

By

A very encouraging visit

Category: Compost, Pigs, The Allotment, The Field, The Workshop, Trees Leave a Comment

Our family car returned with a new computer to control the electrics, which on a Rover 75 were constantly failing. We had lived with partial central locking for more than a year.

Katie and I went for a drive around the local area the next afternoon to send our daughter to sleep. On the journey we discovered a local abattoir that we could use when we eventually acquired pigs. We also visited a supplier of topsoil and turf. The soil was organic and screened for use on allotments and gardens. They also produced bark suitable for the base of our play area in the back garden. Our final stop was at an agricultural merchants who sold a variety of timber products, animal housing, fencing and tools. Each supplier was within a few miles of our smallholding and would prove very useful.

The base of our new shed lying on breeze blocks and the existing paving

The base of our new shed lying on breeze blocks and the existing paving

A smallholder that we had befriended last month arrived to position the base for our new outbuilding beside the allotment. The large shed would be raised on to concrete blocks to avoid damp rising and vermin entering the building. The floor consisted of six eight foot plywood sheets. He would return the following week to construct the shed on-site with the assistance of two local handymen.

With my first two compost bins complete I began harvesting the nettles that grew in the grass verges beside the croft. Nettles were an ideal raw material for compost heaps, containing the perfect ingredients to produce quality compost. Incidentally they are also a pigs favourite food.

The first compost bin was now half full with green and brown waste. The second bin I decided to fill with wood pulp that the stump grinder had produced when the trees had been felled. I was not yet sure how this material would be used, perhaps as a fire-starter when it had dried out or as tree mulch. Every waste product had its uses and avoided an unnecessary trip to a recycling centre or landfill.

To create more space in the allotment we moved the logs from our felled trees to the back of the workshop. The workshop, which had originally been designed to house greyhounds, had an external enclosure for them to exercise. This was being converted into a log store. It had the correct attributes; wire mesh walls to protect the wood axes from our children, a wooden frame to hold up a roof and air flow to dry out the logs.

Autumn was well underway and the abundance of trees had covered our gardens in a patchwork of leaves. Not wanting to waste another free resource I made a small leaf bin using fence wire wrapped in a cyclinder and staked to the ground. We began collecting leaves and filling the simple container. In a year or more the leaves would root down and become a leaf mulch, to suppress weeds and heat the soil, helping the bacteria to create nutrients.

Oct
21

By

A very dangerous taxi

Category: Compost, Maintenance, The Allotment, The Village, Trees Leave a Comment

The arrival of our second child was on the horizon. Katie was unable to drive and relied on me to provide transport to her regular appointments. This was the downside of our move to the countryside. There are no shops, no newsagent, no bank, no library, no dentist and no medical centre. When Matilda was born Katie was able to walk into the town at her convenience. Unless she wished to buy a pint, a Sunday roast or a curry she would have to travel three miles to the nearest high street.

Within a month we would need to make the necessary visit to North Staffordshire hospital. It was therefore the perfect time for our car to request a trip to the mechanic. The engine cut out when we were on our way to the local church play group. We were fortunate to be only a few hundred yards from the village, and had a short walk back to our home.

That evening the news we received from our car mechanic was not good. Although the vehicle could be repaired and the problem simple, it would require a new part to be delivered and cost hundreds of pounds. With a week to wait for the car to be fixed we needed to make provision should Katie need to visit the hospital at short notice.

The next day Katie was forced to book a taxi for one of her many hospital appointments at the maternity unit. The taxi driver was unaccustomed to rural life and his car was almost flattened by a horse, which he had shown little respect for and had driven far too close behind. When Katie returned home safely, I left to hire a small car to avoid another journey in an overconfident taxi.

Katie’s father delivered several wooden pallets that he had liberated from his factory. I had requested them to enable us to build a collection of compost bins. There were not enough pallets to complete my original plan, but enough to get us started.

I used the pallets to create the four walls of the compost bins. In the end there would be four compartments to allow the bins to be used in rotation. While one bin was being filled with fresh green waste, another was rotting down and a third ready to use on the allotment.

Compost bins constructed from wooden pallets and cardboard

Compost bins constructed from wooden pallets and cardboard

To begin construction I bound the pallets together with cable ties and insulated each bin with flat-packed cardboard boxes. I recovered two large wooden boards from the workshop, previously used as the base for greyhound bedding. These acted as lids for each metre wide bin. Two large plastic sheets, that a new mattress had been delivered in this week, were placed over the bins to protect them from the rain.

I started filling the first compost bin with waste collected in our old plastic silo. I added soiled straw bedding from the chicken enclosure and ash we had been saving from the wood burning stoves. On top of this mixture I placed a sheet of weed suppressor and an old carpet to provide additional insulation. As the waste built up bacteria would begin to break down the organic material and produce some fresh compost within a year. That was our expectation.

Although we had started removing trees from our land we did not wish them all to disappear. We both appreciated trees and wanted to protect the traditional trees we had acquired while removing the intruders; such as the Leylandii. Following the removal of the sixty foot Leylandii at the front of our house the Sycamore beyond it was now in full view. I had noticed it was wrapped in ivy from the roots up to the crown. To prevent the ivy strangling the life from the tree I removing it, certain that I heard the tree breathe an audible sigh of relief.

Jul
29

By

A very invasive vine

Category: Compost, Maintenance, The Allotment, The Field, The Garden, The House, The Village, Trees Leave a Comment

The largest allotment bed took a little longer than the first to clear of weeds. I repeated the process of the previous weekend, progressing along the length of the bed pulling the weeds out of the soil. I completed three separate shifts removing the weeds and wheeling several dozen barrows to the temporary compost pile.

The three allotment beds after they had been cleared of weeds

Like many gardeners I found the act of weeding therapeutic and good exercise. We had not bought a home with land to satisfy a theological principle. We were seeking a more natural, peaceful and local way of life. There would be no need to join a gym; the land management would provide all the exercise we needed and save money instead of costing us money.  There would be no need to travel by car to the country park; we had the countryside on our doorstep and several bridleways crossing our road. We felt there would be no need to take a holiday; we had moved to a location that was far removed from the rat-race.

We had already discovered we were watching very little television. Our free time was used more productively, maintaining our new home or investigating the local area. A difficultly we could see on the horizon that would interrupt our progress was the imminent arrival of our second child. How much time two children will occupy would have a bearing on what we could achieve and in what time.

Most of the initial tasks involved maintenance and restoration. In our back garden, to avoid any unnecessary injuries to myself, my family or any visitors, I trimmed all the low hanging branches. There were more than twenty trees dotted around the garden and it was apparent that more radical maintenance would be needed to make the garden a more usable space. The trees hid the bottom half of the garden. It was dark, damp and a mess. I lacked any tree felling equipment or lumberjack experience, so I decided to postpone tree management to another day.

The dark cattery interior on a summer’s day before the vine covering was removed

I moved my attention to the old cattery. It had been constructed twenty years ago and appeared that it would be able to serve its purpose for twenty more. However, the cattery was being consumed by vines that had been intentionally planted around the perimeter. The vines covered the roof and protected you temporarily from the rain, until the rainwater began to drip down long after the rain had subsided. The cattery was dark and damp as a result. The paved floor green and slippery under foot.

I decided to cut down all the vines and bushes surrounding the cattery. The vines served no real purpose and would only get in the way of any improvements to the structure. The task was made complicated by the growth of the branches weaving in and out of the steel mesh. I cut all the visible branches that wove under the mesh roof enabling me to pull most of the vine structure from the roof. I had to cut the branches in many places, every two inches in some cases, to separate the plant from the wire.

The cattery enclosure during the removal of the vine branches from the main structure

Several days of cutting, pulling and sawing removed most of the vines. I left part of the vine structure in place to maintain the structural integrity of the cattery wall. The wooden supports had rotten away in places, or had been eaten away by the insects living in the vine architecture. If we decided to keep the cattery in its present design we would need to replace several of the wooden pillars and finally remove the main trunk of the vine plant.

There were smaller maintenance tasks I slowly chipped away at over the passing days. Each time I left the house or returned from the croft I kept an eye out for weeds growing through our gravel driveway. My neighbour had commented the first time I pulled at a lone weed among the stones that it would be a futile task removing them. He had abandoned the idea long ago. I thought I would give it a try. The weeds would never be eradicated completely from the driveway due to the nature of its construction, but I hoped I would keep the worst of them at bay.

Jul
22

By

A very rotten chicken run

Category: Chickens, Compost, Fruit, Maintenance, The Allotment, The Field Leave a Comment

The chicken’s vacation was over when we returned to our old house to collect the hens from our neighbour’s garden. They briefly resisted capture as each hen was placed into a cardboard box ready for transportation. We had decided to dismantle the chicken run and take the remains for recycling. Their new home was complete, ready and waiting for them. It would have taken far longer to dismantle the run, to avoid damaging the rotting frame, and it required a second journey home. It took less than an hour to take the chicken run to pieces using a hammer, a saw and a brute force. I loaded the broken remnants into the car, tied the rotten frame to the roof-rack and drove five miles to the nearest recycling centre.

The cattery run before the chickens were released

Following a chat with our old neighbours to catch up with local events we drove home. We released the chickens into the cattery run and left them to familiarise themselves with their new residence. They quickly made themselves at home, scratching at the virgin ground and exploring the undergrowth.

There were so many tasks and projects that we wanted to complete it was difficult to know where to start. Matilda was in the care of Katie’s parents which allowed both of us the freedom to spend a full day on the allotment.

The previous owners had constructed three raised beds a foot in height and six feet wide. Each were a different size; thirty feet, twenty-four feet and twelve feet in length. The smallest bed had been maintained over the past six months. The other two allotment beds had been left in the hands of nature. The result was a forest of weeds eight feet tall. The smaller bed had raspberries, strawberries and rhubarb growing in it quite satisfactorily, with only a small number of weeds. It needed some additional care, but not major restoration work like the other two beds.

Raspberry canes, strawberry and rhubarb plants left to grow in the allotment

Katie set to work picking the ripe berries and clearing the weeds that were crowding the fruitful plants. Any dead, damaged or deceased plants or rhubarb stalks were removed and added to the compost. Katie’s tortuous pregnancy did not allow her to do too much physical activity so this task was more than enough.

I tackled the first of the other two overgrown allotment beds. The weeds were taller than me, but the roots were fairly shallow. The various grasses and plants had all gone to seed and therefore I expected a reasonable amount of regrowth after clearing them. I progressed from one end of the bed to the other, systematically pulling out the weeds, trying doggedly to keep the roots intact. It took the whole afternoon to completely remove all the weeds. Among the thistles, groundsel, chickweed, fat-hen were a dozen parsnips that must have been sown a year earlier.

I piled the weeds into a wheelbarrow and unloaded them onto the concrete base, with the expectation that they would be added to a compost heap. I knew it was a bad idea adding weeds in seed directly into a compost heap, but once they had been drowned for several weeks I would be able to utilise the organic waste in my heap. At present I had no compost heap constructed or a bin to drown them in.

The middle allotment bed after all the eight-foot weeds had been removed

The allotment bed had lost a fair amount of soil. It was clumped into the roots of the weeds that have been removed. I avoided disturbing the weed heads and roots to lessen the possibility that they would shed their seeds. We would be improving the soil in any case, adding compost and rotted manure once we had located a supplier or generated our own. We had no idea of the source for the previous owners soil. It seemed fertile as demonstrated by the exaggerated weed growth. It was had a slightly clay consistency and a loamy texture. To my amateur eyes it appeared to be good stuff, but without testing it we had no idea of its origin. We hoped no chemicals had been used to fertilise the soil, as we would eventually digest produce grown in these allotment beds.

Katie returned to the house after harvesting several bowls of strawberries, raspberries and a bucket of rhubarb stalks. She spent the evening baking several rhubarb sponge cakes. One cake was delivered to each of our immediate neighbours and the ice-breaker was very much appreciated. The berries were washed and frozen to be offered to friends and family who would visit our new home over the first few weeks.