MAKING THE GOOD LIFE EVEN BETTER! For dreamers and realists
January 2017 | Issue 106 | £4.25
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January 2017 | Issue 106 | £4.25
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BAKING QUICK-AND-EASY YEASTLESS BREADS
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OUR GUIDE TO GROWING GREAT WALNUTS
LIVESTOCK | GROW YOUR OWN | RECIPES | FORAGING | CRAFTS | DIY
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WHAT’S INSIDE 03
THE EDITOR’S BIT Paul ponders…
06 NEWS Home Farmer related news.
YOUR KEY TO PRACTICAL SELF-SUFFICIENCY
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SEASONAL FORAGING David Winnard contemplates some edible fungi lookalikes.
26 GOING WILD IN THE GARDEN Elizabeth McCorquodale lends winter garden wildlife a helping hand.
10 INTERCROPPING Mark Abbott-Compton shows how to increase harvests by intercropping. 29 HEATHER Heidi M. Sands investigates the 14 WALNUTS diverse uses of heather. Helen Babbs discovers walnuts – healthy, abundant and easy 32 GARDEN GUIDE to grow. Paul Melnyczuk guides us through the January garden 18 GARDENING UNDER COVER chores. Sue Stickland plans the 2017 36 A SMALLHOLDER’S DIARY harvest in a warm and mud- Dot Tyne’s October entries free polytunnel. include lamb sales, housing livestock and TB tests.
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THIS MONTH’S ISSUE 41 KEEPING SHEEP Jodi Fenwick explains what to look for when buying your first sheep.
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45 HOW TO BE A SMALLHOLDER 66 Debbie Kingsley provides advice on buying livestock for the smallholding. 69 49 POULTRY SECURITY Terry Beebe shows how to keep poultry safe and secure in winter. 74 54 FEEDING YOUR PIGS Jo Montagu, BSc (Hons), considers the dietary requirements of pigs. 78 58 BEE-KEEPING Claire Waring describes how you can have control over the queens you raise.
WORSLEY QUAILS Colin Brown explains how he got his quail eggs onto a restaurant’s menu.
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SPEEDY YEASTLESS BREADS Elizabeth McCorquodale bakes breads which can take just fifteen minutes.
KNOW YOUR DONKEYS We feature six striking donkeys, including the very rare Poitou.
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CROP FOCUS – PARSNIPS Gaby Bartai begins a new series about growing and preparing different veg.
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INNOVATIVE FARMERS Michael Wale reports on a scheme putting farmers at the forefront of research.
THE COMMUTER PIG KEEPER Michaela Giles provides tips on keeping pigs for busy commuters.
YOUR SMALLHOLDING TALES Phil and Charlie show how they 94 HOME FARMER CLASSIFIEDS built up a thriving smallholding Courses – breeders – seed and farm shop. merchants – livestock for sale, etc. COUNTRY WINES Sylvia Kent creates real apple 96 SMALLHOLDER ROUND-UP cider vinegar the traditional way. Richard Thompson reports from the smallholder community.
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WALNUTS
Helen Babbs
Helen writes, gardens and keeps goats on her family smallholding in West Wales. In the best HF tradition, her writing work is done in a converted stable block. Examples of her articles about all aspects of smallholding can be found on her website: helenbabbs.co.uk
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f you have space in your garden or on your smallholding for a few trees, most home farmers might think of planting fruit trees, but an increasingly popular alternative is to plant a couple of walnut trees. They are easy to grow, reliable, and very productive: two or three fruit trees will give you a good taste of apples or plums, but the same space planted with walnuts will give you an entire year’s supply, and far more cheaply than they could be bought from a store. In addition to this, walnuts are also very good for you ‒ antioxidants and unsaturated fats may not sound overly attractive in their own right, but in the form of freshly harvested, home-grown walnuts they are extremely tasty and decidedly moreish!
THE EASY-CARE NUT TREE I had always considered nut growing to be rather exotic and out of the ordinary, and likely to be much more difficult than growing the usual vegetables and fruit trees, but growing walnuts turns out to be surprisingly straightforward. They are strong and sturdy trees which establish
All about growing
WALNUTS Helen Babbs discovers walnuts – one of the most reliable nuts you can grow easily at home
WHICH WALNUT TO GROW?
Photo © Martin Crawford.
themselves well, and quickly outgrow the need for staking after just a couple of years. Unlike my apple trees they also need no fiddly annual pruning, and crop reliably each year without any problems of biennial bearing. And this isn’t just a one-off, either ‒ Alexander Hunt, a long-term walnut grower and chairman of the Kentish Cobnuts Association, describes them as “hardy, very resistant to pests and diseases, and very low maintenance”.
According to Alexander, the most important thing is to choose a variety of walnut suited to your location. While you might get lucky with a seedling, the best choice is one of the many named varieties propagated, like fruit trees, by grafting. For gardens in the South, West and Midlands regions, Alexander recommends ‘Broadview’, ‘Buccaneer’ and ‘Lara’, and for the North and Scotland he recommends ‘Fernette’ and ‘Fernor’, both French selections which come into leaf later and avoid late frosts, so do better in colder areas. While a walnut tree will eventually become a large, spreading tree reaching up to 30m high, they don’t reach this size overnight! After twenty years the average walnut tree will be 8‒12m high, but will already produce a yield of over 50kg of nuts each year. However, even if you only have a tiny garden there’s still a walnut tree variety to suit. “The ‘Rita’ variety has
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Walnuts can be planted as a group in a ‘plat’ ‒ the nut equivalent of an orchard ‒ but also make attractive garden trees in their own right. There’s even a red-leafed variety which produces pinkish-tinted walnuts, and although gardening myths suggest walnuts can have a detrimental effect on other plants, this is not proven, and I certainly haven’t found any evidence of it in practice. An ideal spacing is 7‒10m between trees, or 4m in the case of dwarf varieties.
‘Broadview’ walnuts in their shells (left) and in their green husks (right). Photos © Martin Crawford.
ONE, TWO… OR MORE?
Even a relatively young tree will provide excellent cropping. Photo © Chris Jeffery LRPS.
a restricted growth habit, so is ideal for growing in a pot or a ‘postage stamp’ of a garden,” says Alexander. “The nuts are a little smaller and not of the very finest quality, but it’s still a productive tree.”
Walnuts are different to fruit trees in that they have separate female flowers and male catkins on the same tree. While this means they are technically self-fertile, the catkins and flowers don’t always appear at exactly the same time. Consequently, pollination and nut yield are better if two different trees pollinate each other. As walnuts are wind-pollinated, Alexander reckons this is not too much of a problem, and says: “If you have another walnut tree as far as a mile away, yours is going to get pollinated.” Planting more than one walnut tree on your own holding, however, will make the process more reliable. Trees of two different varieties are best, so the early catkins of one can pollinate the early flowers on the other – a ‘belt and braces’ job.
A walnut ‘plat’. Photo © Chris Jeffery LRPS.
GETTING GROWING As regards planting and day-to-day growing, walnuts are pretty much the same as any other trees. They’re generally sold as three-year-old grafted trees, still quite small but well branched. Whether pot-grown or bare-rooted, these should be planted whilst dormant during the winter. Walnuts prefer a rich soil, and a near-neutral pH of between 6 and 7. This means it’s best to add plenty of organic matter to the soil while planting, ideally leaf-mould, which
WHERE TO BUY Although many fruit tree nurseries offer a type of walnut tree, to get a wider choice I found it necessary to go to a more specialist nut tree supplier. In the UK, these include: l
Agroforestry Research Trust (www.agroforestry.co.uk). l Orange Pippin Fruit Trees (www.orangepippintrees.co.uk). l The Walnut Tree Company (www.kentishcobnuts.com). l The Sustainability Institute Ireland (www.fruitandnut.ie).
Walnut catkins (left) and female flowers (right).
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AT-A-GLANCE GARDEN GUIDE
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’m really not one for getting anything going too early. Perhaps that’s because I live in the North of England, and the record has simply not been that good – the earth is usually wet (or hard, if the frosts have hit) and the temperatures can be a couple of degrees lower than in the South. But it’s still early, and I reckon that planning and strategy are equally important when it comes to getting it right in the garden.
Chit pots r eds under cove I tend to sow se art st when I’ll also in late January, as w t spuds in wha chitting some – she’d hter’s bedroom once my daug t she’s bu , dly to that have reacted ba t really n’ es ia, so she do now in Austral ms oo dr noccupied be have a case. U r fo ideal place tend to be the h the one fiddles wit chitting, as no n’t get es do d the box an , re tu ra pe tem still all the time. I’m moved around ed, ed ne ting is really not sure if chit it g ent for doin but the argum their d it can’t harm an makes sense, ad he a n been give prospects – if I’d re su I’m m y bedroo d. start in a nice dr di I an th a lot faster it I’d have grown so , om st come a cu Anyway, it’s be gets done.
My main chore is tidying up around the garden at the moment. The wind and rain have made it a particularly unpleasant place, and I can’t hide my envy when reading Sue Stickland’s article about the polytunnel being a perfect mud-free place to sit and do your planning – if I did that in the garden I’d have a bad case of piles! We live next to a wood, and that means lots of leaves, which means a great opportunity for leaf-mould, but there are only so many leaves you can capture and store – after that it’s a question of just disposing of them.
JANUARY garden ‘things to do’
Given the cold of Lancashire, I’m a great belie ver in warming up m y growing area, so gettin g out the plastic liner is go ing to be my next task. It doesn’t look great, but it does warm things up by a couple of degrees, an d with the addition of som e compost it should be go od and weed-free by th e middle of February for so me planting out later in the month.
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Gardeners shou ld not be fearful of prun ing back trees and bushes.
I am going to get a couple more small fruit trees and bushes in the ground this month, and I shall be pruning the apple trees in the coming weeks while they remain dormant. It’s been a particularly good year for apples here, and I’d like to keep the momentum going, so I’ll give them a good feed, too.
Growing fruit really should enjoy parity with vegetables
At the moment there’s never any certainty of what the temperatures are going to be, so it can play havoc with plans for the garden, but I’m always careful to listen to the weather forecasts before I go to bed, then I can think on my feet; one of the good things about being an editor is working from home – I can garden during the hours of daylight, then edit when it’s dark, thanks to Edison’s invention of the light bulb, self-discipline and self-imposed flexitime.
As regards harvesting, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, celeriac, sprouting broccoli, leeks and Jerusalem artichokes should still be available, if you’ve been conscientious with overwintering crops. Give them some TLC, too, as it’s a long time till you’ll have anything else to harvest outdoors, so you’ll be reliant on the shops to supplement your diet unless you’ve got a polytunnel.
no more gluts
Needless to say, all seedlings should be acclimatised by hardening them off during the day – ideally under a cloche if temperatures are low ‒ prior to planting out, then put them back under cover overnight, whether or not a frost is expected. But chill out – it’s still early in the season, so a couple of weeks here or there is going to make no significant difference to your overall harvest. At this time of year it’s more important to prepare the ground and make the garden a pleasant place to work and spend time when spring does eventually arrive. Rest assured I’ll start ringing the sowing and planting alarm bells in a couple of months.
should do!!!! The weather is generally variable in January, so do try to get out and do a bit of preparatory work when the sun is shining. You may even have a couple of inches to lose after indulging over Christmas. l
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If you were diligent in November and December and sowed anything indoors, you could look to harden plants off in January, preferably protected by a cold frame or cloche, but watch out for any sudden changes in temperature, or your hard work will be destroyed. Watch out, too, for slugs and snails on warmer days – they are still around!
l Make a New Year’s resolution
to be realistic about what you plant – do you or members of your family really like it – and the quantities that you plant; remember, there are good gluts, and bad gluts!
Going out with out winter protection wou ldn’t do you any good, so w hy do it to your veg?
UNDER COVER As regards sowing under cover, late January is good for lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, radish, spinach, salad onions and turnips, and onions, too, but seeds rather than sets. All can then be planted out in February, with the help of cloches if you live further north, of course. Alongside them you can also sow lettuce, radish, peas, broad beans, spinach and salad onions direct from next month on, as long as temperatures don’t drop too much; otherwise, wait till the beginning of March. Apart from lettuce and radish it’s just not worth sowing them under cover, as it just creates lots of extra work planting them out later.
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KEEPING SHEEP ne of the most asked things in response to the question of what type of sheep can I keep, is: “What is your grazing like?”
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Do you have lush, fast-growing grass and little in the way of weeds and sparse areas?
GRAZING
TYPE ‘B’
There are a vast range of different types of grazing, but for the smallholder or home farmer, it will usually come under a variant of the following two types:
Do you have slow-growing, less lush grass, with a lot of weeds and a large amount of sparse areas? Strangely enough, you can keep sheep on both these types of grazing, although
TYPE ‘A’
Body Condition Scoring (BCS) BCS 2Thin.
BCS 4 Well covered. BCS 3 Lean.
BCS 5 Fat. BCS 1 Emaciated.
it would be best to spray those weeds, as they will both strangle the grass beneath them and affect the nutritional value of the grazing in a large radius around them. This is because the nutrients and minerals in the soil are hogged by the weeds ‒ they have a bigger root base and take no prisoners when it comes to dominating and suppressing the neighbouring ‘good plants’. Although thistles and nettles hold some medicinal value, they are really not necessary if the sheep are healthy and getting decent forage. You must be wary of thistles, as they can be a factor in the cause of a contagious virus commonly known as ‘orf ’. It is
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SMALLHOLDING
HOW TO BE A SMALLHOLDER Part Five Debbie Kingsley continues her series on what’s really involved in the smallholder life, by tackling the important matter of breeding or buying-in livestock to rear for meat
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earing meat for your own table is a topic that most would-be smallholders will have to tackle at some point. It’s a pretty primaeval moment when you first look at a chicken and contemplate what it will look like defeathered, beheaded and roasted to a nice crisp golden brown, surrounded by your best roast potatoes. Once you start to pick up your birds not for a cuddle but to check the quantity of breast meat under all that feather, you will be mentally prepared for feeding yourself on your own home-reared meat. So, do you have to breed your own livestock to produce meat? Well, the simple answer is: No, you don’t. There are many ways of buying-in animals and taking them to meat weight, which simply involves rearing them for the appropriate period of time, dependent on the age at which you brought them home.
PIGS FOR PORK AND BACON Unless you are happy to be entirely overrun with pigs, buying-in weaners rather than breeding from a sow is almost
“A sow can produce 25 piglets a year – that’s around 1,125 kilos of pork, or 17,000 sausages!”
always a far better option for most smallholders. A sow can produce 25 piglets a year ‒ that’s around 1,125 kilos of pork, or 17,000 sausages! It’s far more sensible to buy-in just a couple or more weaners each spring to grow on for meat. A couple of weaners at meat weight will give you around 90‒100 kilos of pork after butchering – certainly plenty to keep your family in roast pork, bacon and sausages. Your pig area can then recover over winter, you’ll have no feed bills for 6 months of the year, and you won’t have more pigs or meat than you could deal with in a decade,
or the bother of keeping or sourcing a boar. If you take on a couple more, you could also cover the cost of keeping them by selling the meat to friends or family, but make sure you arrange all the details with prospective customers prior to taking on the extra responsibilities.
POULTRY You have a range of good options for rearing and breeding poultry for the table. You can keep a selection of reliable broody birds, who will sit on fertile eggs and raise them naturally, and what’s fantastic about this approach is that the success rate of natural rearing is high; there’s minimal work needed from you, apart from provision of food, water and protection; and broody hens will happily sit on eggs of other species, so your Silkie (Wyandotte,
January 2017
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