A self-evident truth I have discovered. The more there is to write about the less time there is to write. 

It has been a sad time in some ways since my last post. A number of the hens and George became infested with a feather mite. These horrible things eat the feathers, and the other chickens peck at the mites, and before you know it there is blood and ...... It is not a good thing. The only way to deal with it is to humanely and quickly cull the flock.
We now have 2 of the old black hens left. They are sleeping right outside my office door as I sit here and type!
The 5 'chicklets' are off running around somewhere else. The two groups of hens seem to be integrating well, but we can't put them all togather until the chicklets are old enough to eat layer pellets. They are still only 10 weeks old, so it will be another 8 weeks. As a result egg production is way down!! Only one or occasionally two a day.
Having 7 chickens roaming around the gardens can be a little much. But mainly for the nuisance they can be inside, rather than the damage they do outside!  They love sneaking in the house and exploring. The bathroom counter was a big hit!!

The 'upstairs roof greenhouse' is really churning out the produce now! We seem to have just about come to the end of the cucumber crop, just as the peppers and tomatoes are hitting stride. We have enjoyed our first egg plant too.
In the outside garden the garlic will be pulled later this week, onions will be ready in a couple of weeks and we have been eating potatoes for a month or more. Pole beans are flowering but not producing yet. Lots of carrots and beets too. They have been great grilled on the BBQ.

What a fabulous drying day! Washed all the towels from the Cabana, and had them bone dry in less than 35 minutes. The smell so fresh, nice and crisp on your skin, a a lovely natural, gentle exfoliation!
Whilst looking at the towels on the line, I realised that the Cabana goes through a lot of 'sets'of towels. This fact I realised some time ago, so I resorted to buying white towels. As soon as one part of a set has a stain,  like inadvertent lipstick or make-up, I have always assumed the whole set to be out of commission as one can't put out odd towels.
The Eureka moment was that all those odd towels are still excellent towels and the Cabana should be having harlequin sets of towels. Hope our guests agree, as this will be a new policy forthwith!! We can't be wasting towels like this! Definitely not a sensible ecologic choice. Besides, Matt thinks it is a real bonus, now the guys will know which is their towel!

We have a new woofer, Sandra, who is helping landscape our entrance from the street. Sandra is from Stuttgart in Germany, and is a delight to have around the house.
This gives me time to do some much needed weeding in the vegetable garden!
Last night we hosted 11 members of the Garden Club to a "Lavender Social" and garden tour. I have to say this is the best the garden has ever looked.
We have been concentrating on putting in vines along the fence line too. It is lovely to have a new winery almost next door, but we need to redevelop our privacy screening.
There are lots of lettuce, spinach and herb leaves now to pick for really tasty fresh green salads
Noticed our first few beans breaking through the ground tonight, both bush and pole beans..... finally!

About 3 weeks ago we took delivery of 30 day-old Red Rock Cross chicks from Rochester Hatchery. For just over 2 weeks, they lived in our TV room! At the end of that time they had started to peek out of the box, and Matthew was afraid they would start demanding the remote control, so they moved out to the garden shed. They grow so fast. We now have 5 chicks left. The other 25 have been sold to new homes, and as a result we have covered the costs of our little venture!
These are definitely layers. We have thought about breeding meat birds, but the killing and eviscerating stops me cold! It is very difficult to even get a service to come in and do the work, since regulations tightened up a few years ago. It is becoming more and more difficult to be self-sustaining, from the meat perspective.

Despite the colder and wetter than normal weather, the garden is coming along well. Potatoes are hilled. Garlic thickening up nicely. Picking green onions already! Have eaten our first 3 cucumbers from the new greenhouse. Tomatoes are formed and ripening.
It was a great help to have our second woofer, Emma, from Devon in the UK, helping us. She fit in like a second daughter!


The whole garden is scented by lilac at the moment - wish this could go on for the whole summer! It is so lovely to catch wafts of scent as you move around the garden.

Having spent the last two weeks traveling, first to Courtenay on Vancouver Island and to Gabriola Island, and then to Calgary, it has been interesting to see how the weather varies by region. I was disappointed how far behind our spring was compared to the Island, but we are so far ahead of southern Alberta!
It is odd how we are behind with weather in March but catch up and surpass very quickly, usually in April.
The mandeville we succesfully over-wintered for the first time is flowering! Cucumber and tomato plants we started from seed are now 12-18" tall, and the cucumbers are flowering. The lettuce is bolting and going to seed already in the greenhouse. Lots of new leaves on the banana plants, and also on the taro. Almost time to put them outside, but there could still be the odd frost so we must restrain ourselves!

A  woofer is a member of the WWOOF organization (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) - commonly known as a Willing Worker On Organic Farms! Room and board is traded for some work time. We had our first woofers last year and really enjoyed getting to know them - we had a gal from England, a gal and a couple from Germany.
We are looking forward to the arrival of our first woofer for 2011 at the begining of April. It will be Isabelle from France with her dog, Omega, also from France!
Now we know she is coming, we can plan one more thing we'd love to get done but don't have time to get done by ourselves. 

 A movable chicken run would be perfect. They would slowly mow the cherry orchard, organically fertilising as they go! They would love the shade too. 

We will be increasing the "bulk area" this year with a new area for the potatoes to work over, and a new area for the squash to beat out the weeds. Rotational farming almost imposes itself on you. Turning and combing the compost needs to be done soon too.


Hopefully we will have some weather soon to entice me into the garden with a notebook and pencil to build a good "to-do" list for the regular chores!

I was hoping for a more mixed crop of lettuce but the fact that we are producing enough lettuce to take it off our shopping list is awesome. Next sowing will have more red leaves and some more peppery varieties. I am interested in finding ground cress seeds, which are available in UK. Tastes like water cress but grows on land. Pepper, tomato and cucumber seedlings are coming right along too. Maybe a bit cool and early even in the new upstairs greenhouse, but we are going to give it a try.

Seed potatoes ordered - ordered 4 varieties this year, all different to last year. 
Our earlies will be Carlton and Norland. Carlton is an oval, white skinned potato with shallow eyes. Norland are also oval, with white flesh but red skin. The combination should be pleasing in potato salads and boiled. Agria will be our mid-season crop. Apparently Agria are a great all round potato that holds well for roasting, great for mashing, do not hold too much water and have an "old fashioned" potato flavour.  German Butterball will be the late season crop. German Butterball is an heirloom variety known as a “butterless” potato; because it’s so good, you don’t need butter. Apparently hey store exceptionally well, and possess a deep yellow flesh and flaky texture. We are still eating last years crop so we have conquered winter storage! 

Just got back from 2 weeks in the UK, so haven't been very active on the blog.
What a great trip. Visited friends in Hampshire who have an organic small holding with chickens, ducks, bees and pigs. Every meal revolved around their pork! Lovely sausage casserole, stuffed loin of pork and a brunch with their own bacon and eggs! Lovely to sample some of their late season "ivy" honey too. Quite a different flavour.
Up in Malvern we visited our first Woofer from last year, Gil. Lovely to see her allotment, and her organic gardening in action.
Noticed that none of the folok we visited use a dryer for their laundry. All have outdoor clothes lines and indoor drying racks. This is not an economy measure, it is ecological and a practice built on lifetimes of experience. Felt good to be able to get a load dry outside here yesterday!