Busy Weekend

I seem to have been very busy with barely enough time to come on the computer, never mind to update my blog. I'm thinking I should be a once a week blogger and I can just report in about my weekends all in one as really weekdays do not have enough hours in to do much smallholding work.

I was lured back here yesterday when I bumped in to Frugal in Suffolk and her husband. We were both at a yard sale of a fellow smallholder who is moving away and downsizing.
I love yard sales, there is so much there you never knew you needed!!

So yesterday morning we were there and this is our little haul

We actually got 3 orange crates but one is already in use! We thought they would be handy for holding the pots of seedlings when we start them off rather than them all being over the workbench in the greenhouse and would make carrying the seedlings to the top of the garden easier.

I actually went to buy a scythe, I ended up with a short handled one and then a long handled short one and then as we left we were told he has a full size one we can buy in August!!

The membrane was the biggest bargain we got - we paid £35 for it, who knows how much is on the reel but DH had been looking for some membrane ready for the gravel which is arriving on Friday and for the little area we wanted to do it would have cost about £35 alone. We have cut off what we needed and have tons left - not sure where we will store it!!

The pine shelves are for our kitchen (when we get round to decorating it); DH was going to make one but this is perfect.

We paid a total of £50 for all of this and we think we got a bargain. We are looking forward to his next sale!

My DH also got this item; he does not know what it is but it looked interesting so he wanted it, even the seller does not know what it is!! Can anyone tell me what this tool is for (someone else suggested a thistle remover)?


I also wanted to show you my turkey poults; we had 7 which we hatched - unfortunately 2 died (as turkeys are prone to do ) so we have 5. Also Mummy turkey had 2 with her - she has managed to rear them successful but has now moved on and has hatched 6 eggs over the course of a week and has started sitting again!!
They could be fertile even though she has been with us for weeks as turkeys keep the sperm inside them until they need to use it so it will be interesting to see what happens.
Here are my lovely 7..

It's quite funny because when they settle down for the night they stay in their 5:2 formation!! (We evicted the 5 from in the shed a few weeks ago as when they live on our field they will roost and not use a shed (although they have one available) so we thought it best to get them used to it early.
If you look to the bottom left of the picture there is mum in amongst some lovely big stinging nettles!
I have slowly been working my way towards that end clearing as I go so she is not as well covered as she was a few weeks ago but luckily she has her eggs in the end section which we will leave for chickens when we start rearing them (before they go up to our field).

This is what I have been doing so far at the top of the garden.

Before:

In progress:

We have planted our runner beans, french beans and peas - they are in the first 2 beds (which DH has kindly numbered!!) and in the far bed are my squashes.

The blue fence is part of one we got off Freecycle - this is the start of the fence for the rearing area we will have.

When I have cleared the rest of the stinging nettles it will look lovely.

This week I hope to start on the left hand side.

We have also used all our compost which has been festering untouched for a long time - I am surpised it is a lovely as it is as it has been somewhat mistreated. Most of the compost has gone into some raised beds down near the house and the rest has gone in these beds. I have taken down the composter so we can move it and the compost left behind is where I have planted my pumpkin (Alan Titchmarsh said it was a good idea!!)

So we have had quite a busy and productive weekend (I have also fallen in love with Aspall's new cyder, Isabel's Berry which I found at a local fete!)