A hard winter for smallholders (From Smallholder)

A hard winter for smallholders

9:47am Friday 26th February 2010

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What a long cold winter it has been – and in some places, still continuing. My snowdrops have been very late this year and didn’t even emerge as green spikes until mid February – and I don’t blame them.

It’s been a hard winter for smallholders everywhere and speaking personally I know our hay and straw stocks are far lower than they usually are at this time of the year.

I only hope that the somewhat trying winter is going to usher in a delightful spring with bright, cheerful weather and every opportunity to get on to the land.

In this issue of Smallholder we are taking a special look at seed sowing which I have already started to do albeit on windowsills and inside my heated greenhouse.

Never did I think, when I bought the large old iron greenhouse heater with evaporation tray from our local car boot sale for £2, that it would be so used as it has been this year.

I fear that the spring gardening season will telescope into a bit of a rush this year as sowing, weeding, digging, clearing and sorting out all gets pushed into a few weeks as it’s been so hard to do anything this winter.

This has done one thing for me, it has crystallised my ideas of getting a poly tunnel into action – by the end of the summer I shall have a modest tunnel of my own.

My Dream Farm on Channel 4 with Monty Don as presenter/adviser has been interesting viewing.

It’s hard to imagine that as smallholders we are now (almost) mainstream and dare I say, even fashionable?

Although so far, much of the series appears to have been shot on lovely summer days, Monty has not pulled his punches with the really quite hard hitting advice he has been giving on his visits and certainly has not under played the amount of hard work needed to live from the land.

In our new series on Starting smallholding we have the practical advice of someone who has made the move to the country and how she and her family have become smallholders.

She is honest in her account and not afraid to admit her problems but I know that she has become successful in her new life and I respect her words of wisdom as a result.

We also look at how to find the perfect smallholding property for you and how to get started with pigs.

I was very interested in our waterfowl article this month about ducks and water. My new Abacot Rangers (a breed with some Runner origins) have been really quite nervous despite spending their early life on view at an open farm. I have a very small pond in their pen but am keen for them to come out and forage.

The first time I let them out they purposefully headed for the great open fen and I had to move far quicker than I have for some time to head them off back into the yard.

Lesson learnt, I kept them in a bit longer and spent time with them and again tried to let them out.

This time an open door would not induce them to come out so finally I encouraged them into the yard.

All went well until the evening when they had completely forgotten where they lived which meant I had to turn into a sheep dog and quite literally round them up back into their pen.

This involves lots of patience, slow and careful moves on the whole but some quick ones when necessary.

Now they will come out on their own and hover around near the pen in the evening but I’m still offering encouragement for them to return.

I’ve never had ducks behave like this – normally they very quickly learn to go out and come in – so it only goes to prove that just when you think you know it all, you actually don’t know as much as you thought you did!

I shall be watching the dog and ducks at the RWAS Smallholding and Garden Festival on 15-16 May with much more respect.

Food is high on the agenda everywhere – watch out for Oscar nominated Food, Inc in which film maker Robert Kenner looks at the USA food industry.

The film claims that the USA’s food supply is controlled by a handful of corparations and believes that they often put profit ahead of other considerations.

Although this film is about USA agiculture, it does remind us all wherever we live that each of us still has the ability to influence how our food is produced by choosing what we eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

For more information check out www.foodincmovie.co.uk The Soil Association is the film’s official charity partner of the film’s UK release.

Meanwhile I hope the weather is kind enough to allow for some early spring salads and that my poultry come into lay as the weather warms up so I can at least have direct control over some of what we eat!

And that’s before the weather is warm enough for me to dare to check over the bees.