Argh. Just checked forecast, and as per usual the weather has responded to me planting up the polytunnel by scheduling some chilly overnight temperatures at the weekend. Need to try and rig up some kind of water barrels/fleecing. 🙄

Patience exhausted, polytunnel loaded. 🍅🍈🫑🌶️🍆🥒

Really depends on what you want it to do. The model we have would be great for 2/3 pet hens in a garden (which is what we were doing 6 years ago!)

While our ambitions (and flock size) have outgrown it, it gets plenty of use as a quarantine coop, and as of day 2, is working well for the teenagers.

Yep, the "Go Up" wheeled model with a homemade ramp and 1m run extension.

Pros:
Still in good nick after 6 years
Secure.
Well made.

Cons:
More expensive than other plastic coops, particularly if adding a run extension (necessary, imo).
Not recycled plastic.
No "proper" nestbox or roosting bars.

Closest match I can find online is the Black Swedish breed, but they're a medium-sized domestic duck, and these two seem too handy in the air for that.

Pair of wild ducks has taken to visiting the last few days, and the female appears to have some kind of unusual black-and-white feather pattern and a dark bill.

She's wild duck size rather than chunky like our domestic Orpingtons. Anyone have any idea what variety/breed of duck she might be?

Teenage chickens have also responded with vast enthusiasm to the soy-free growers pellets we introduced today (probably because the size of each bit of food is larger so looks like an upgrade? 😆)

So, onto the next stage with that as well.

Goose lodge is finished. Bit of an investment this, and definitely a luxury when it is possible to keep geese in any old shed!

But this is easy to move & clean, solid as a rock, has capacity for the birds we want now & room to keep more in future. It will hopefully last us for decades.

Amazing that a mere 6 weeks ago today, these guys were hatching. And these are a "slow-growing" traditional breed...

Teenage chickens have finally acquired enough feathers to be evicted from the house (phew! 🐔💨🤢)

Minds were duly blown at the discovery of sky, grass, weather etc.

These have the honour of being the first animals living on our field. Minds will be blown further when the geese arrive.

Goose lodge kit arrived today. Quality looks great pre-assembly (build is for a day with another pair of hands available!) But got the wheels on the base, so could use it as a massive dolly to heave the weightiest sections uphill to the field. Pleased to have that done. 🥵

No, I don't know why cat bowls are involved in this process either.

Tomatoes, cukes and chillies being introduced to the concept of "outside" today. Hopefully toughening them up for when my patience runs out and I inevitably get them in the polytunnel too early...

April dramas continue with an escaped duck, taking full advantage of my focus on bees this afternoon. 🙄

Now retrieved, and escape route identified.

End result: 1. I still have all my bees; 2. I have no idea how. 😂

Assume the hive has queen cells. No idea if queen is still there or lost in the chaos. Will leave it overnight then inspect early tomorrow to work out what is happening and whether I can do an artficial swarm. Bees, eh.

My attempt to shake the clustered swarm into a box was a failure and sent them all airborne again.

But, rather than flying off somewhere else, they purposefully headed back into the hive (note for non-beekeepers: this is Not Normal) 🤷🏻

Had I not been somewhat distracted yesterday I might have considered that a 20°c day in April might induce swarming. 🐝

Very weird one this, as the cluster formed underneath the hive.

Chick growth continues. Almost a month, and the last few days their necks have grown significantly. They are now very lanky: almost a full covering of small feathers on the body, but a fluffy chick head. The pace of development is amazing to watch, and these are a "slow-growing" traditional breed!

I am a self-taught orchard keeper, so this could potentially be a case of a little learning being a dangerous thing, and a dead sapling. But, the tree has survived complete neglect in a pot since it was grafted, so hopefully this will give it a decent chance of getting away.

🤞, as ever.

My understanding is that you don't usually enrich the planting hole for trees as you want roots ranging, seeking nutrients. But in the short term, I want this tree to avoid that. So hoping that, by the time the compost is exhausted and the roots wander, the tree will be strong.

Microrrhyzal fungi powder is also meant to help, so chucked some of that in too.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Smallholderific project if I didn't do something wrong, and in this case, it was backfilling the hole with pure mushroom compost 😬. But hear me out...

So, to try and get around this, I've removed all rooty bits and a fair bit of soil from the hole. I've also lined it with cardboard. The idea is that this buys time for the new tree (a Tydeman's Worcester I grafted a few years ago) to settle in strongly before the roots hit "infected" soil.

The saying exists because of apple replant disease. Theory is, as a long-term crop, apples are in the ground for a long time, pests and diseases build up in the soil, and weedy new trees planted on the same site can't cope.

Now, unfortunately, it is right in the middle of the pattern of our old orchard. So it needed replacing on the same site. Also, the orchard is zoned with apples and pears at the bottom end, so the adage to "follow pome with stone" would have meant a plum/cherry tree sticking out like a sore thumb.

One of our Bramley apples has died. Not particulary old, but lots of rotty bits & always had low vigour. My attempt at topworking it last year was obviously the final indignity, and it gave up completely. So, got our fencing contractor to push the remains of it over with his digger.

April. Time to kick my little potted calamondin out of the conservatory, and get that small handful of Maris Piper maincrop spuds in the ground, to complete this year's trio of classic Cambridgeshire potato varieties.

Only ever used dried ones (in sauces, stuffings, risotto etc), but they have a really good flavour, so you're definitely in luck!

Yum. Did you add spawn, or is this just some excellent good fortune with your woodchip supplier?

Nice little army of plants growing on well on my propagation table. They will be shifted into the polytunnel over the next month.

(Of course, this also gives us more than enough space to move ahead with the next phase of our smallholding plans... 🪿🤗)