The Village Carpenter

I'm not sure I have any typical days. They all seem to be different, I suppose typical in the fact I'm working wood always, doing the odd jobs around this place that keep it running, and running about after my family and feeding them. 

Tuesday was a good example of this and I had to reflect how I've become that image of a village carpenter, the little jobs coming to me and slotting into my schedule somehow. Friends popping by with a chair to fix or footstool to help make. 

One job was for a plinth, to commemorate a lady who had lived for 94 years. I planed some oak and carved a simple inscription on to it (some dates blanked out to keep it a little private), not a huge job, but one that takes time to set up and complete. 

As the rain hammered against my workshop, I listened to a book as I carved and thought about this lady I didn't know. I wondered if she'd been part of her community like me. An hour before I'd been in the post office, queuing to post some last minute Christmas orders to customers. In there I'd known four people, and met two more I knew as I left, This village has pulled my roots down and grounded me here. 

That night we had tea at a friends (after I'd taken my eldest daughter to a hospital appointment), I work for them a few times a month, but there isn't many weeks in the year where we don't eat with these friends, friends so close they become like family. With childcare shared and swapped, where the school doesn't even question one of us picking up the other's child. Journeys to home filled with laugher and silly jokes shared over a long time. 

The next day I had a farmer bring me some oak for something he wanted making. Brought in a stock box smelling strongly of sheep, the layers of dust on the wood so deep I'd never question the fact he says the oak has been milled 10 years and left drying in his barn. My brother has even done some tree work for him in the past, I could be working on the same tree as him, separated by a decade or more.

But the wood is little good, the using of the oak has cost me more in time. ripping out all the worm and splits. But I wonder if it's having the wood from his land actually used that's more important than the money saving of using it. I hope it is with the effort going into it, as I brush the brown dust from my jacket and hope I have enough from it to finish it before Christmas for him. 

I'm never quite sure what I expected my life to be when I decided I wanted to be a carpenter, but this is more. Its not easy, I work hard and long hours and I could make far more money just being a "normal" carpenter on site somewhere, But this is more. 

Adjustable Birch Ply Shelving Units

The start of this week has been taken up with this little commission of making a couple of shelving units. The house is quite modern so we took the approach of using birch ply with the bare edge showing. 

They wanted them adjustable so a series of 5mm holes for shelf pins was drilled every 32mm.

It's made for a very minimalist set of shelves that work well in this modern house. Or at least I think it does...

Last Push For Christmas

 So I'm in the last push for Christmas. The weekend was spent solely in the workshop, making up as much stock as I could. Assembling baskets that I made the parts for earlier in the week and then making a batch of my gooseberry scoops. 

The gooseberry scoops have sold well this winter, I guess they make a good unusual present to buy a gardener, I'm certainly glad to have their sales, and I hope it brings a few smiles on Christmas morning.

What's the most unusual gift you've been given? One where it took you a while to work out what it was? 

Carved Birdfeeder - Crocodiles Head!

 So a bit of a random project - this is another one for Woodcarving magazine - a carved birdfeeder. It's pretty obvious what my inspiration was for this one, the little birds that go and clean the teeth of crocodiles. 

It made for a really fun project, one I really enjoyed making. I got my carving disc out for the angle grinder - I had really forgotten how good that thing is! 

Cutting My Thumb

 You know it’s bad when it doesn’t bleed or hurt straight away. And as I looked down at this one it did neither, it just gaped at me. I swore. I moved it back and forward, I couldn’t see a tendon, but I knew it must have been close because it was so deep into the pad of my thumb. I grabbed the first aid kit I keep by the door of the workshop and made my way over to the house where I knew I wouldn’t get blood on the wood for a customer.

By the time I’d got to the house I couldn’t drink the blood down fast enough as I sucked on my thumb. I laid out the first aid kit on the table and set to cutting up a dressing to fit the end of my digit. I ran my damaged hand under the tap, trying to make sure it was clean.

Then using a combination of my teeth and my left hand I managed to get a dressing on. Tight. I then had to decide if I was going to go and wait at A&E or not.

Having an accident when you work alone is always going to be more dangerous. I’m lucky in the fact I have some good neighbours and a friend I work with sometimes who lives close by, but something like this really does make you think.

You kick yourself at first. Something so simple and it could have been so much worse. And it could have been avoided. 

It reminded me of when I was traveling at 19, I was in a bar in a tiny little town called Rapid City in Canada and got talking to some of the locals and the one asked what I did. I proudly told them I was a carpenter’s apprentice. He asked to see my hands, I held them up to him “try and keep them like that” he said, he tipped his hat to me and raised his glass in a toast, it was only then that I noticed the end of his thumb was shorter than the other.

And I’d nearly joined that club. I’d been doing a little carving commission, and was cutting up some little pieces of sycamore to make fridge magnets. Trying to save time, I had just left my usual blade in the bandsaw and was just making lots of small cuts to make the corners. As I was doing it, I knew it wasn’t cutting quite right, but then I thought I’d change the blade when I had time, and adjust the guides, this job was a bit tight as it was.

I pushed too hard and the wood split, my thumb followed and went into the blade. I drew my hand back quickly, but I knew it was bad. But I also knew it could have been worse. Like that old guy in the Canadian bar 20 years ago, I could have easily lost the end of my thumb that day, and really, I’m quite attached to my thumb.

A lot of workshop accidents aren’t really freak accidents, often they’re something that could be foreseen, or a shortcut taken so often it become normal, maintenance that should of happened but you were too busy making a living. This was no exception to that rule, the bandsaw is often seen as one of the safer bench tools, but it still bites when you’re not treating it right.

Luckily, I healed like Wolverine, the flesh knitting back together in days, the skin only taking a few weeks to heal completely, but another scar added to my already abused hands, but then I guess they are hands that tell a story of 20 plus years working with wood.

I’d like it if I could stop any more chapters being read through my hands though. So, I now try to sort anything I see when I see it, even if it will break the flow of work, if it means a safer environment for me to work alone in. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

Sash Windows

The way I earn my living is doing lots of things to try to add up to a normal (ish) income. It's tricky at times as it feels like a constant balancing act. 

Luckily the "traditional" carpentry work I do is really flexible, working for a family that manage a number of properties in the village here and in Malvern. they have 32 properties to keep on top of, and I think in total there is 162 sash windows. So there is normally a sash window to repair somewhere at some point, probably when I least want the work! 

Last week we had a leaking shower to fix and a broken pane of glass in a sash window - on the 4th floor!

Sauerkraut With Scouts

 When I first became a scout leader a few years ago, I was helping to run beavers. They are the younger scouts, and one night I ran a night where we were to make sauerkraut, it was fun but it was too much for most of them. 

Now I'm with the scouts I thought it was time to try again. I ran a fermented food evening on Monday night with them and they all seemed to enjoy it (well as much as some teenagers will show you they enjoy anything). 

It was a simple evening really, we made sauerkraut and fermented carrot sticks. I started the night off with a short talk about fermented food, why we do it, how long its been done for and what the benefits are. We also talked about food safety, washing hands, and the safe use of knives. 

Last Garden Club Talk Of The Season!

Last night was my last garden club talk of 2024. I think I've given over 20 this year! It's a fun thing to do and a good way for me to get my name out there and sell the products I make. Last nights was in a very old village hall, but with a great group of people. The one I gave on Tuesday was to a club I've spoken at a few times and it was a new talk about "The Self-Sufficient Fruit Grower" and it was really well received.

I had two talks this week and one last week. 

Last weeks was funny, it was a catalogue of errors and mishaps to get to do the speaking!

It was in Berkeley and supposed to be in a library. When I turn up I was greeted by a lovely lady, but also to complete darkness. The library had no power to it (a new library was being built behind this building and they weren't sure if the builders had killed the power to it. So for a while we tried to get the power on, looking at fuse boards and ringing people who might know. But alas to no avail.

So with all the members of the garden club there they took the decision to move it, I was happy to do this as I'd much prefer it to driving back another time and with everyone there it seemed silly not to try and make it happen.

They managed to get the common room in an retirement complex.

I was given some instructions to get there but saw a red pickup take off from the library and decided to follow that vehicle. Unbeknownst to me he had just dropped his mum to the garden club and she was getting a lift. So instead I just followed some guy back to his house!

I realised my error early (well as he parked up) and turned around and managed to find the house with a lot of worried people outside thinking I may have abandoned them!

I set up inside the very cosy room, not much bigger than my sitting room, using a set of blinds as my screen for a projector.

To be fair every looked very comfy in armchairs! Luckily I was entertaining enough to prevent anyone from falling asleep even with these new comfy surroundings.

The talk started much later due to these movements, and as it was south of the Severn I didn't get home until gone 11 last night!

I'm reminded of my favourite cartoonist who had a book entitled "Funny way to make a living..." and although his was in reference to agriculture, I'm fairly sure he'd agree that what I do is often an odd way to make a living, there isn't much glamour but it can be quite fun at times!

I'm looking froward to February when the talk "season" will start again. It really does break up the week and can be great fun.

Batches Before Christmas

It seems to happen this time every year (for the ones where I've been running this business anyway).

Whatever I'm running low on stock wise will be what I sell out of! Last week it was toolboxes!

So I made another batch and got them listed again on my Etsy shop. I'm hoping I won't run out of anything now up until Christmas, but I might have to make a few more batches of baskets to keep up. I hope I do in all honesty as it means more sales! 

It's quite a busy week this time, with two talks booked in (Tuesday and Thursday night), plus a magazine article that was in today and one in next Monday! So should be plenty to keep me moving! 

 

Making Bird Feeders At Scouts

Last week I ran a session at scouts where they all got to make a little bird feeder. I designed something very simple, a little triangle feeder with two little pieces of clear perspex at the front so the birds could see the feed.

I'm enjoying being able to tackle slightly trickier projects since moving up from beavers to scouts, this one fits the bill really as lots they can do themselves. 

I left it so each scout had to cut two pieces of wood and then they had to nail it all together. 

Her First Commission

 Middlest is always saying she wants to be a baker. Well this weekend she got her first taste of it. She had a commission to make a birthday cake for a friend of hers. 

they requested a chocolate cake with chocolate butter icing on top. Butter icing in the middle and homemade jam. 

Fair play to her as she baked it after spending the day with me at the craft fair and decorated it that evening. She was super pleased to be asked to make it though and you could tell she was proud as she dropped it off on Sunday morning (where they were having a D&D party with a professional dungeon master! 

Second Craft Fair

Yesterday I went to my second craft fair to sell my wares. 

My Middlest came with me to help all day, she was great, wrote me lots of great price labels, helped me set up and pack away, as well as being great company. 

She did had to listen to my sales patter all day though! I took two types of tomato seeds that I'd saved this year with me to give away, all my children helped me package them up on Friday night - over 120 packets in the end. Having something like seeds to give away is a great way of drawing people in, and starting a conversation with them. I also had a lot of my monthly newsletters printed out and I hope people will sign up to that as well as people seemed to be enjoying them. 

I sold enough to make it worth while, my only problem with giving my time to go to these fairs is just how much I could make hourly as a carpenter on site or as a jointer in my workshop and just sell online. It certainly boosts sales for this month a little bit, but it was time away from the workshop not making things. That said I do enjoy going out and talking to people, and it's lovely to receive face to face feedback about the products I make. 

I did love having my gooseberry scoops on display and had quite a lot of conversations about them, I think I sold three during the day. Something a bit different and a great present for a gardener that might be tricky to buy for. 

I need to do one of these a year to remind myself that although they're fun they're probably not the best use of my time. My daughter had a great day though and it was lovely to share it with her. 

 

A New Cat

For a long time now my middle daughter has been on about getting an inside cat. 

We've had an outdoor, feral cat, for about 4 years now. I feed it daily, but generally that's our only interaction with it. It was given to us by someone having to leave their farm, and seems to do the job of keeping on top of some of the mice and rats around the place. 

I've never had a cat as a proper pet before, but I wasn't against the idea, I mentioned it to a friend and she said she knew just the person. 

We got put in contact with the lady that helped us with the rescue hedgehog from earlier in the summer. they had a cat that had come in with a broken leg, it was still quite young, but very calm and friendly. Apparently it had come from a house that had 30 cats, but they couldn't afford to put it's leg right. The Vets did the job for free but decided that maybe it needed to be rehomed. 

So we visited this cat in the vets and all the children fell in love with it. He's very friendly, and the children enjoyed interacting with him. As his leg is pretty much better now we've got him back at home and he's settled in pretty much straight away. He won't be allowed outside for a good while yet and due to his leg we're trying to keep him in rooms he won't jump too high in. 

Show's how not used to cats that I am because I just can't get over how lazy he is! He does very little, considering I'm in and out the house all day. He does play with the children, and has his mad moments, but most of the time he's happy to lie around.  

 I love how much the children love him already and they've split up the jobs associated with him, so far I've only picked up one poo out the litter box, they've done all the rest! 

And his name? Varjak Paw. After the book about the Kung Fu cat with the same name (a favourite in this house), I'm sure he'll have lots of adventures on the smallholding. 

Cinder Toffee

 A couple of weeks ago we drove up to York to see some friends. With a long drive I do quite like something sweet to nibble on. 

So I decided to make some cinder toffee. The easiest, cheapest and sweetest snack you could ever make. 

Hen Gymro Wheat Planted On A Garden Scale

 I keep thinking about my challenge of a years self-sufficiency and how I need to start growing more staples. I'll need carbs and dried goods to see me through lean times and to provide enough fuel for what I do day to day. 

The main one is bread. I need lots of bread, and for that I'll need flour, and for that I need to grow wheat (and possibly rye, but I'm not there yet). A good wheat that will make a good loaf.

An Apology Tweet

 I am sometimes guilty of being an idiot, I may sometimes shout my opinion and this may have ripples that I don't foresee. I'm certainly guilty of that last week where I tweeted my life would have been easier if I had inherited a farm and just had to pay the inheritance tax. Understandably this upset some people in the agricultural industry, so looking more into the subject, and reforming my views, I have issued an apology. 

I would like there to be more routes into farming, I don't think it should become a closed shop that you have to be born to, but I also think the new tax limits being set currently are too low and will affect too many small farms, and chances are they will be bought up by the really big farms or by corporations, so any change of landownership wouldn't be in the direction I had initially thought. 

There does needs to be some change of law to make it less appealing to people buying it for tax avoidance purposes that keep the prices of land so high. 

Anyway, off to hide for a bit!

Garlic In!

 A bit later than some years, but I've got my garlic in. 

Last year I planted a huge selection of garlic cloves from a lot of varieties. this was partly for flavour and partly to see what did well here. 

This year I've decided to just plant the best blubs that I got from this years harvest, I'm not worried what type they are, although I will try to plant a selection of different ones to make sure that when we have a very different year then others might thrive instead. 

I had some good ones this year, two whole beds in, and I'm tempted to do more. The garden has quite a bit in it now - next post I'll tell you what I've put in 12 beds as a bit of an experiment. 

Got your garlic in?

Straw To Create A New Growing Space

The other day the farmer who's been having the hay dropped off his load of muck as payment and also a large straw bale.

This I wanted for the chicken bedding and a few wet patches where I walk daily. I find that even though I produce loads of shavings they work best when I put down a bed of straw first, otherwise it'll just sink away. 

This years Chillies

I love growing chillies, they truly are beautiful plants to grow. To me they're just as pretty as growing flowers. 

 This year I had a nice selection, left to right - Korean Gochugaru (for making kimchi in the future), Bulgarian carrot, Lemon drop, Chinese Chaotian, Cayenne purple, Alberto's Locoto. 

October Tour Of The Homestead

 A quick walk around the homestead, looking at what we've growing and harvesting. Also sneak peak at the area of the garden I'm giving over to growing wheat this year!

I also talk a bit about my business, and how things are going. 

Saving Sweetcorn Seeds

I'm being a bit naughty with my sweetcorn seed, as I'm going to save my own and really it should be from a bigger population. 

This is from about 40-45 plants and then only a few of them selected out. Really it should be from around 100 from what I've read. I've also read that if I don't intend to save from this lot every year then it should also be fine. 

It will help to save a bit of money (only about £7 if I bought two packets! but every little helps) and will mean I can plant a decent patch next year. 

Complete National Hive Build From Scratch

This is the whole video in one big long upload - all five parts totalling over 1 hour and 15 minutes! My longest video to date and me trying something new by combining old ones to make a longer one. 

It has the five parts - the base, the brood box, super and crown board, roof and hive stand! Plenty to go at and hopefully gives some quite clear instruction on how to do it. 

For me it was fun to make and I just hope some people find it useful. 

Dar Cucumber - Don't Bother

This year we tried a new (to us) variety of cucumber. I wanted a mini type that would be good for lunch boxes. This one was said to be great for small cucumbers, and would grow on a small plant. 

Not them in their best light - this is the end of the season and these would have been for seed saving had I thought they were worth saving.

They grew pretty well, making very compact plants. However the cucumbers didn't go down very well with the children, this was because they had bitter skins. 

I know I could have isolated the male flowers, but the plants were such a short tight compact mess that it was impossible. The children did eat them when peeled, but that hardly made them good for lunch boxes. 

Not one we'll be growing again. 

First Watermelon!

So I found a bit of an October treat in the "new" greenhouse last week - A Watermelon!

 I think that's the first that I've grown here. It's the variety "Siberian Lights" and although it wasn't huge, think about double the size of a cricket ball, it was super sweet and tasty. I cut it up and we all enjoyed a slice. 

I shoved these plants in late in the year really, and forgot about them. I honestly thought they were dead, shoved in behind the coriander, which somehow made finding them all the sweeter (if you'll excuse the pun).

I've saved the seeds from these and I'll be trying again next year. Our boy is trying to convince us that we should grow a whole greenhouse full of them! 

Who else grows watermelons?

Build A National Beehive From Scratch Part 4 - Roof & Paint Job

Part four of my build a beehive video series. This time it's looking at building a really simple flat roof and giving the whole hive a paint job using a traditional linseed oil paint. 

 

Only one more part to go - the hive stand! But I have also done a video where I talk about whether it's worth making your beehives from scratch or not. 

Adaptive Agriculture With Joseph Lofthouse & Oxton Organics Tour

Yesterday was such an inspiring day! 

I was lucky enough to get tickets to go to a day with Joseph Lofthouse, who has written the book Landrace Gardening -  Food security through biodiversity and promiscuous pollination. Although he has since used the term "adaptive agriculture" as one that maybe better catches what he is trying to achieve with it. 

Build A National Beehive From Scratch Part 3 - Supers and Crown Board

Third part of my build a beehive series of videos, this time building the supers and a crown board. 

 

Build a National Beehive From Scratch - Part 2 - Brood box

 The second in my video series on making a National Beehive from scratch. 

Making the brood box - this is where the queen lays her eggs and probably the most important part of the hive. It's essential to get it right! 

The strengthening bars in this are what make it tricky to make from scratch, I know other hives lend themselves much more to being made at home. I needed a full workshop of tools to make these quickly. 

It was still fun and rewarding though. 

Give it a watch and let me know what you think. 

Build a National Beehive From Scratch - Part 1 - Open Mesh Floor

 Since I started my bee keeping journey I really wanted to make a beehive from scratch. I'd already made one a few years ago - A Warre hive - but I wanted to make a national hive as they're what the club use and what I've decided to start with. 

Last week I managed to give myself the time to make a few hives up from scratch. It was good fun, but I have to admit that the National Hive is not an easy build. I learnt a bit through doing it though, and got to put my newly made router table through it's paces. 

I've split the build into 5 videos (I think so far) with part one being the building of a standard open varroa mesh floor. 

Part two will be out soon where I build a brood box, then super, then roof and crown board. I'll finish on building a folding hive stand for two hives. 

Watch the video - I hope you enjoy! 

A Weekend In Wales

A few weekends back my dad and me went to their house in Wales to start a big renovation job. 

The house has an old annex that they want to integrate with the rest of the house. 

Our job was to get stuff cleared before Dill the builder turned up. Wall down and gone! 

Dried Apple Time

Autumn always feel busy, the nights draw in, making the days feel shorter, yet somehow there is more to do than ever. 

I do love this gathering in of crops though. And I know the more energy I put in to it now, the more benefit we'll have for the rest of the year. 

Carved Chopping Boards - Wedding Presents

Last month we were lucky enough to be invited to two weddings, these were great fun and it seems an age since the last wedding we attended. 

 I'm never sure on what gift to get anyone for weddings, both were established couples, so not starting a home. So I decided I'd make some chopping boards and carve their name and date of the wedding on each, I also made a plain one for each couple as well so it was more of a set and one could have more everyday use. 

Carving letters like this is a nice way to personalise something, and this piece of oak had been in the shed for over 10 years I think, so about time it got used up. 

September Homestead Tour

Have a walk around the homestead with me, the garden is a mess, but the orchard is looking great! 

 Let me know what you think.

Carved Bird Box

 I made a fun project on Friday for a future article - I carved a little bird box for a house sparrow. 

It's nice as the woodworking project around it is really simple, and the relief carving is fairly simple as well. 

Make Your Own Bootjack

 I'm getting older (I'm in my 40s now) so bending down becomes more of an effort! Lol. So I decided it was time to make a bootjack for the house. 

I wanted one that looked nice and had a bit of grip for the other boot. That made the production of it quite fun as a bit of something extra to work out. 

As usual I filmed the production process, so you can watch the video below. 

A simple project that shouldn't take more than a few hours to make and be useful for many years to come! 

Maybe I need to make a shoe horn next! 

Emergency Cake Stand

 The week before last I had a semi panicked phone call on the Thursday, from my friend who was getting married on the Saturday. 

The person making her cake stand had let her down all of a sudden and couldn't do it. Leave it with me, I said. 

Luckily a month or so before I'd been given an old table. Well two old tables, but one had some very interestingly turned legs. I thought they'd do nicely. 

Rye Sourdough Bread

 It's fair to say I bake a lot of bread these days. We don't buy any. I do love baking though. 

One I bake occasionally is rye sourdough, only me and my middle daughter eat it, but it's just so wholesome and filling, it's also dead easy to make. 

I use 100g of active sourdough starter, mixed the night before. The next morning I add 200g rye flour (light or dark, I'm not fussy), a teaspoon of salt, 15g of black treacle, a tablespoon of caraway seeds (both my daughter and I love caraway seeds in our bread), plus 150g of water. 

It's so simple, mix this together in a bowl, I use a silicone spatula as this is a very sticky dough. Then when well combined together put in a 1/2lb loaf tin, I normally line mine with greased baking parchment as it's not the best tin in the world. Dust the top with a little more rye flour, because as the loaf rises in the oven this cracks and makes it very photogenic! 

Leave this on the side for 3 to 5 hours to prove. Fire up the oven to 200 degrees, then pop it in with steam (boiling water on a shallow tray in the oven). Cook for about 40 minutes, take it out and check the bottom is cooked, if not turn the loaf over and cook for another 10 minutes. 

This bread is one of those rare exceptions where it's better eaten the next day, so try to leave it before you cut it. I tend to slice up the whole loaf and pop it in the freezer. My daughter will often come home from school and have this as a snack, she'll get two slices from the freezer, toast them and have it with a big lump of goats butter on top. Perfect. 

Who else loves a rye loaf?

Making A National Super From Scratch

 A part of beekeeping that really excites me is making a lot of the things I need from scratch. Last week I got my new router table organised and I thought I'd have a mess around with it.

The first thing I made was a super for a national hive. This is the box you put on the hive when it's producing lots of honey. Hopefully I'll need lots of them!

Visiting A Garden

 Last Thursday I took mum for a morning out to see a local garden that houses the National Collection of Michaelmas Daises. I've always been meaning to have a look round so it was really love to take mum. 

Now although I love flowers and plants there was a few things that I really loved in this garden, things that stuck out to me. 

The first was this beautiful potting shed. The colour of it, the rusty tin roof, it just looks so "right" in the garden, I love it! 

Last Beekeeping Lesson - Malvern And Upton Beepkeepers

 So last Thursday (the 5th) was the final beekeeping lesson for beginners at our club this year. 

It's been a really fun year when it comes to learning about beekeeping and I feel like I've landed on my feet with this club, so I was a little sad to see the season finish. 

Carved Vegetable Fridge Magnets

With our daughter's diabetes, we like to keep really organised. The main thing we have to keep on top on is the insulin. We have to keep three sorts in stock, all in date, even though we're only really using one regularly. 

I decided that rather than having these out of sight, out of mind, we should have a reminder in the form or a white board with the note written on it. 

Of course this is a bit of a depressing board really...

So I decided to try and make it a bit more interesting. 

On The Cover Again!

On the cover of Woodcarving magazine for the third time! This time with a lovely picture of my boy doing some carving with me. He was pleased to see his picture there. 

This issue of woodcarving magazine I also write the opening letter for the issue (always a fun bit), I got to interview am amazing carver from America called Bob Yorburg, and I carved up some vegetable fridge magnets (more about them in another post).  

Outdoor Tomatoes

Ever since leaving our last house, I've never really grown good tomatoes outside. 

That house had a suntrap garden, with white brick walls I used to grow them up against. They'd often do better there than in the greenhouse (which was a little shaded).

This year I thought I'd have another go outside here, having failed in the past. I planted two types, one Primabella, is a late blight resistant tomato that I you can save the seed from. The other is Crimson Crush, also blight resistant but an F1 (so no seed saving) and also not the most tasty tomato you will ever eat, but still streets above the supermarket ones. 

Longest Season Plums - My Plan Is Working

My plan with any fruits that I like and that grow easily here is to try and have the longest season possible of fresh fruit.  

Now this can be done in a few ways. I can take advantage of any micro climates my plot offers, so taking advantage of suntraps like sunny walls or places under glass. The other is with variety. 

It' really with variety that I've doubled down on. I've been slowly collecting and planting as many varieties as possible with apples, pears, plums and damsons. All grow really well here and all have so many interesting types. 

What I really look out for when building my collection is the earliest to crop and the latest to crop. For me this is most important in the plum harvest. Plums just taste the best when fresh off the tree, and yes we preserve lots each year, but that fresh harvest really takes some beating. 

The earliest I've put in is Herman, but that is yet to fruit here. Then I have quite a few more early plums, with opal being trained against my shipping container to try and ripen them even sooner (although again no fruit yet). 

Victoria was the first to fruit this year, although it is also the oldest fruit tree I have planted here. It fruited so heavy a big branch snapped off it and ruined the harvest. 

As the Victoria's went over the Marjories seedling kicked in. I'd be tempted to say it's be a better plum than the Victoria, although the fruit clings to the stone. Funny that this one was next as the place I got it from said it would be ready the end of September - and they're going over now. 

Some other plums just coming ready now down int he orchard and the Merryweather Damson is at it's peak - these are almost a plum rather than a damson. Smaller than a plum, but the fruit is free stone, so it's really easy to prepare for cooking and making preserves, we normally dry some each year. 

I'm looking froward to a year all my plum trees fruit and then I can really see how long a season I've managed to create for fresh plums. So far so good though. Looks like I have a few weeks left yet! 

Homegrown Peaches

The middle of last month I forgot to share one of our best harvests. 

This little box of peaches!

They were incredible, grown in the polytunnel and hand pollinated with a brush by my Middlests and me. We were going on holiday in Wales for a week, so rather than miss them I harvested them to take with us. 

Sweet, juicy and an amazing treat. My neighbour (now into his 80s) was telling me how the "big house" here used to grow them in the one glasshouse, and how 'd always be given some, and how he could never to give into temptation of just taking one. 

Having a tree like this down one end of the polytunnel seems like a good use of space, a taller crop, with roots that must extend down below where I'm watering other crops. 

Who else grows peaches? 

August Abundance - Tour Of the Homestead

 Last week the weather turned nice so I thought I'd get out and do a tour of the smallholding. 

As per usual the garden isn't looking great, but the fruit and everything else is. I filmed me walking round and during the whole thing I'm finding things to eat! 

I just love this time of year! Such abundance everywhere.

What's your best crop at the moment?

Seed Packets

With the seed swap I help at each year in Hereford, my talks, where I give packets of seeds rather than a business card and the items I sell, that each have a free packet of seeds with them, I end up giving away a few thousand packets of seeds each year. 

This is such a big thing for me that I have to plan the garden accordingly. I want plenty of seeds and of things people want. for me the ones that seem most popular are the packets of tomato seeds. You only need a few in each packet so it works out really well for me, and I love growing new varieties each year to give away. 

From Waste To Wonder - Scraps

 Okay, to conclude my series on my business "waste" is the last bit - the bits that are truly unusable. This can be for many reasons, split, knots (dead knots fall out), too small to work safely. the list goes on. I try to keep it to a minimum, and being a one man band I know the amount of wood that gets to this point is really small. 

But I've loaded us up with enough kindling to last a year (and I tell everyone here to burn a lot of it when starting a fire) and our elderly neighbours have politely asked me to stop bringing it to them. 

Instead, I'll see if I can sell it in bags locally. 

From Waste To Wonder - Bird Feeders

 As a carpenter of 20 plus years I can assure you I never aspired to make bird feeders. Nor did I ever think I could compete with cheaply made ones made in the third world. 

But the same with the scoops, when making things, this time with reclaimed pine, I end up with lots of small bits. The tree put some sort of effort into growing that, so I think it's only fair I try to use it all. 

That's where these bird feeders come in. Not only do they use the small bits of pine, they also use up the small strips of mesh I end up with when making my baskets. 

Hopefully what I've created is an eco friendly product that helps nature and at £9.50 is still fairly affordable for a present. 

From Waste To Wonder - Scoops

 There is something incredibly satisfying, even after 20 plus years of being a carpenter, of taking a pile of wood and turning it into something. 

Of course when you make things every day you end up with a lot of offcuts. I don't like waste, it hurts my pocket and it hurts the environment. There's a lot of energy gone into making all these materials that I make my income from. 

So I have a habit of saving up all the regular sized offcuts and putting them to one side. This works well with my potting trays that produce a strip of ply waste and sometimes the 9x1 redwood boards are split and unusable for them. 

Newsletter

Just a quick blog post to remind everyone that I'm doing a newsletter each month at the moment. I've been putting it in with every order and I've had some really nice feedback. 

I also have an email list, so if you'd like to be added use the sign up link by clicking here. 

I'm only sending it out once a month (so if you sign up now you probably won't get an email until September). It looks at jobs to do in the coming month, a recipe and then a nice look back at all the things that have happened over the previous month, all with some good pictures. 

I might run the occasional competition or special offer in there as well, and maybe, if I get brave enough, share some of my creative writing! 

Thanks as always.