New Arrivals

The family O'Brien has been smallholding now for over a decade, but until this past week we've avoided the tie of keeping a dairy animal. However the draw of a more complete self-sufficiency has overruled our desire for flexibility and freedom (which was very partial in any case what with pigs, sheep, poultry and bees as well as the dogs, cat and seedlings in the greenhouse). So into the fold we welcome Sepia and Sophie, two Golden Guernsey goats aged two and five years.

Sophie, the big girl, is in milk, if producing just a pint or so a day, but it's the third year since she last kidded, the end of a lengthy lactation. In a couple of months, as the leaves start to colour, both goats will be sent away for a holiday romance (we don't want a billy here thanks, to stink and spray us with pee), but with luck they'll return home contented with a sparkle in each eye, to result in two pairs of twins born next spring, and gallons of milk for cheese and yoghurt.

Goats are friendly, lively creatures, much more curious and intelligent than sheep or cattle. They make ideal playmates for children, always up for a game of hide-and-seek in the field by day, or a quiet cuddle whilst they meditatively chew the cud in their shed of an evening. I've milked Jersey cows by hand in the past, a herculean task since they produce such vast quantities, but with only two teats and a much smaller udder, a goat is a pleasure to milk out, not a chore. And much to the surprise of all our sceptical visitors, Sophie's milk, fresh today, chilled in the fridge, has proved indistinguishable from the bottle of cow's milk usually delivered to our doorstep.

Bees and honey

The garden is humming with bees, bumbles of many different species, and of course our honeybees, gathering pollen for their brood and nectar to make into honey. Sunny June suited them well, and I had high hopes for a good honey harvest, but with the washout of July, my expectations are no longer great. Any day now I will take off some combs, perhaps tomorrow if it's fine so lots of bees are flying - the fewer in the hives to defend against my burglary, the better.

I prefer to err on the side of generosity as a beekeeper, leaving them plenty of their own stores for the winter, and mixing 10% honey back into the sugar syrup that I feed to replace the stolen booty. I also add a few drops of chamomile tea, a biodynamic technique, to aid their digestion of the refined white sugar (they cannot metabolise brown). This year for the first time the chamomile is homegrown, so I trust the tea will suit them especially well - and my family too, to soothe indigestion or calm troubled nerves.

Wildlife in the veg garden

The vegetable garden is in full production, the beds that held garlic, onions and shallots in the first half of the year now contain many varieties of salad leaves and roots that should feed us through next winter.

I've replanted the banks between the two veg terraces with herbs and bee-friendly flowers, and now they are in full flower and alive with flying insects and butterflies. I fear however that they are also harbouring my deadliest enemies, the slugs and snails, as once again a wet summer has ensured they are in plague proportions. Where are the frogs and toads I've tried so hard to attract, with a pond, plenty of cover and choice hibernation sites for overwintering? Next year I plan to raise an aquarium of tadpoles that I'll nurture right up to adulthood, only then releasing them into the garden - we'll see if that helps.

June in Mid Devon

Flaming June after two years of washout – it’s been pure bliss – particularly a picnic supper at the top of the hill, basking in the sun’s lowering rays, debating the location of church towers in the far-flung distance, and feasting on the first strawberries, with gooseberry puree, honey and clotted cream. The cream was not from Bertie’s Cottage, but skimmed from the milk of the very cows that grazed the sward on which we were sitting, then ‘scalded’ by our kindly neighbour, on her kitchen stove.

Smallholding may be hard work, and I’m permanently grubby and dishevelled, but what better way is there to end a day than sharing food fit for gods with your family, smelling roses to the serenade of birdsong, and following the slow trajectory of a still-warm sun as it dips down over the horizon?

I had guarded the secret of the first strawberries zealously to allow for the crucial extra day’s ripening that deepens their red and maximises flavour and sweetness, but now, in addition to the slugs (foiled by growing them in hanging baskets) and blackbirds (scared away by pendant CDs), an altogether trickier pest (of the tall tail-less variety) is plundering the patch!

Bertie's Cottage Smallholding courses

Patti will be running day courses on sustainable small-holding at Bertie’s Cottage on July 4, August 22, September 19 and October 10. Price £75 per person. For more information please contact bertiescottage@hotmail.com or Tel. 01647 24704

Alchemy in the compost heap

The art of rotting animal and vegetable waste might sound unappealing to the uninitiated, but the rewards of successful composting cannot be overstated. I recently parted the straw that covered a heap I made late last autumn (and had not touched since). The contents were even, moist, crumbly brown, a-wriggle with worms and with a pleasant earthy, almost sweet smell. Five star compost – I was very excited – from weeds, straw and animal waste (plus a dose of seaweed, some ground limestone and eggshells to counteract acidity, and the biodynamic preparations that help guide the process), I now had at my disposal the ultimate present for my plants. Feeding the food chain right at the base, by stimulating the soil life makes for healthy plants with good resistance to pest and disease. In turn these plants pass on their vitality to the animals that eat them, and on again to humans, at the top of the chain. How simply amazing that inside a tepee of thatch, decomposing kitchen waste and chicken poo transform into the elixir of life!

I photographed the giant heap I built last week. The first image shows it three-quarters made, with a bath of water to wet the straw, and a cloth to cover the heap during the scorching hot days. Can you see it’s already steaming from the microbial activity inside? This heat should kill any weed seeds and pathogenic spores – I’ll find out if it was sufficient in the autumn when I spread the compost on my beds.

The middle photo, in the afternoon the following day, shows thick sticks inserted to make channels for my arm to insert the biodynamic herbal preparations right into the centre of the mound.

In the last picture my work is finished, the heap is thatched with straw (saved from stoking a thatcher’s bonfire). This allows it to ‘breathe’, whilst guiding rain to run off and affording protection against drying winds and fluctuations in the temperature. Now I'll just have to wait till November!

Late spring flowers and Allium 'Purple Sensation'

Now even the oaks are fully in leaf, our valley is a verdant paradise - the fields are dotted with fragrant pheasant’s eye narcissi and pink spires of spotted orchids, the verges froth with wild flowers – bugle, bluebells and stitchwort, buttercups, dandelions and wild strawberry.

The ornamental garden is at its most fresh and colourful too. A red-leaved japanese acer contrasts well with white wisteria, blue ceanothus and yellow Azara serrata. The latter shrub is invaluable for the delicious, heady scent of its pompom flowers that permeates the entire pond garden.

Another signature plant of the season is Allium x hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’. An inedible member of the allium family, that fortunately lacks an onion or garlic scent, I introduced a handful of the bulbs into a border eight years ago. They obviously loved the heavy clay, seeding prolifically so the front garden is now packed with glorious purple spheres, a great companion for both late tulips as they finish and hardy geraniums and irises just coming into flower. An added bonus, they are a great favourite with many different bees and the first butterflies of the year – if you don’t already grow them and have a sunny patch with moisture-retentive soil, why not place an order and plant some in the autumn?

A sheep that moults

Manx Loughton is proving to be my favourite breed of sheep. Unchanged since the days of the Vikings, they are far from the big, white commercial bruisers that spring to most people’s minds - our two girls are small and brown, but what we lose in terms of fast-fattening productivity is more than compensated for by resilience – they lamb without problem, don’t suffer from foot rot, their tails are skinny so don’t need dagging (shaving to prevent muck sticking to the wool which attracts egg-laying flies). And now, with the weather warming they are naturally moulting their fleeces – and we are spared the usual dilemma of either paying a shepherd over the odds to shear a diminutive flock or to do it ourselves with a long pair of scissors (quite tricky, not fun for either sheep or smallholders, and with results that are scruffy-looking at best).

With luck the black lamb in the picture (fathered by a black welsh mountain ram) will fatten slowly but steadily on a diet of grass and wild herbs in our fields, and will produce a satisfactory if not exactly ramboesque carcass, packed with flavour. Quality before quantity all the way!

Scent and colour in the ornamental garden

Bulb foliage has greened up many of the borders. Narcissus ‘Thalia’, just off-white, multi-headed, delicate and blissfully fragrant, looks good drifting between mature stands of purple-pink hellebores. Under Magnolia stellata, a mass of white stars, blue daisies of Anenome blanda and chunky Dutch Hyacinth ‘Delft Blue’ make a sensation (and the latter perfume the air all around).

Clumps of broad –leaved Erythronium 'Pagoda' give solidity and substance. It resents disturbance, so care must be taken to avoid the bulbs whilst they are dormant. I'm delighted they appreciate damp, solid clay - every year they look fitter, despite marauding slugs. The first yellow pagoda flowers are just opening now (photographed with Anenome blanda and frilly poached-egg foliage).

Ducklings learn to swim

Thank God ducklings grow up quickly! Little darlings, my clutch (that think they’re called 2-4-6-8-phew!) monopolised life for three weeks. How with sunshine outside could I keep them cooped in, when an exploratory ten minutes showed they were dying to race with each other across the lawn, dibby their beaks between grass shoots, rummage under shrubs, and splash about delightedly in two inches of water? (no deeper, they are not waterproofed without the mother duck’s oils). And how at night could I keep them warm and safe if they didn’t come into the house? With ravens and buzzards circling above by day, and the threat of predation by rats at night, it was either their box (1msq) or a close eye – every five minutes! Anyone feeling broody? They’re a sure three week cure.

However now, remarkably grown, and producing their own oils, they have moved up to the veg garden, in the company of the scarecrow, at whose feet they often sleep, reassured by a human outline. The wildlife pond is the star attraction, almost like a swimming soup as duckweed covers the surface. Sticking together like glue, they peep with distress if separated from their siblings, and should the dogs bark or I call the alarm, they run as one body to whichever is closest, my feet or the safety of the water.

A new arrival

One of the Manx ewes didn’t rush down for her oats and seaweed this morning - I found her behind a fallen branch, sheltering a tiny, black lamb. At the sight of my bucket, greed overtook caution, and calling to the lamb, she encouraged him onto his feet, nuzzling him to reaffirm their bond. Then slowly she picked her way down through the daffodils and he followed, wobbling and staggering - obviously organising four legs at the same time is not as easy as it looks!

The ewe began to tuck in, and I scooped up the lamb, examining to find he was a ram, the jet black miniature of his Black Welsh Mountain father. I sprayed his umbilical cord with iodine (as usual managing to squirt myself with a stain of the enduring stink) then putting him back down, thought how much more difficult it would be to catch him in three days, to castrate him and dock his tail. Returning up the field to the fallen branch and birthing site, I checked to find the ewe’s afterbirth had successfully been ejected.

Munching appreciatively on the last mouthful of oats, she looked satisfied, rather than expectant. I doubted a twin was on its way. I was pleased. I don’t like to feed lots of cereals and concentrates - the meat tastes inferior; and with just an acre and a half of pasture available, a dry summer could mean a shortage of grass. Also, the mother is a skinny, old girl - I’m glad for her sake she is spared the burden of twins.

Spring at last

The snow melted and for ten days or so bright, warm sunshine blessed the valley. Daffodils, tightly closed through the snow, responded, unfurling in drifts - a profusion of yellow blooms scatter the terraces and fields.

There was no garden at Bertie’s Cottage when we arrived ten years ago last January, just parking and a rough field. The pasture, originally cider orchard floor and never ‘improved’ with fertiliser, was full of ‘weeds’ with beautiful potential, but the spectacle of literally thousands of daffodils made a wonderful surprise. At some point, generations ago, a keen gardener from the farm now next door must have loved the wild Narcissus pseudonarcissus, and have planted the double, all yellow form with bunched, feathery trumpets that thrives in the shade of one of our two ancient apple trees (Can you picture Demelza in Poldark?)

Pregnant ewes in the snow

Just as the first daffodils (Tete-a-tete) were starting to open, sunny yellow, and the purple-sprouting broccoli hinted their intent to extend flower stalks, seven inches of snow fell, unexpected, in the middle of the night. Unlike last month’s batch, it felt neither novel nor exciting!

I trudged around the garden shaking and lifting prostrate evergreens, clenching my fist as I noted more broken branches. Then on to the animals who, apart from the dogs, and well-breakfasted geese, hate even a light dusting of snow.

Commiserating with Twist and Shout, our two heavily pregnant Manx ewes, I poked around with a stick to locate and dig out their trough. Oats and seaweed seemed a little meagre, so Iona fed them some extra ewe nuts. Whilst they chomped, I anxiously examined their back ends – udders definitely swelling but, fingers crossed, no sign of little hooves yet! I'm glad they have an ark.

Ducklings in the dining room

As soon as the lane thawed enough for us to get up the hill, we set out to collect eight tiny ducklings from a local, organic poultry farm. They travelled home in a box with a hot water bottle floor, then moved into the dining room, to more spacious accommodation with chick crumbs ad-lib and an infra-red lamp to keep them warm. Unlike chicks, ducklings are obsessed with water right from the start. I lowered in a drinker with a channel of water too shallow to drown in (without a mother’s oils, their down is not waterproof) and, as if magnetised, they all raced to it and settled down to dabble their beaks and splash as best they could. Within an hour the drinker’s reservoir was empty, the shavings around were all soggy, and a pile of happy ducklings lay concked out, comatose, tucked up to each other under the lamp.

Abeliophyllum distichum

Abelio-phyllum distichum, or white forsythia is not closely related to its namesake, but like forsythia, sprays of tight buds, cut and brought inside the house, will open early in the warmth. Increasingly rare in its native Korea, due to overharvesting for medicinal uses (reputedly similar to witchhazel), my abeliophyllum is thriving in Mid-Devon, trained against a south-facing wall. It’s habit is rather spindly, without much grace or aesthetic contribution outside of late winter, but, as I compete with foraging bees to nuzzle close to the delicate, almond-scented blossom, I’m reminded of why I give it precious space.

Harbingers of spring

The second half of February was mild, a promise of spring. Honeybees came out, several days on the trot, to contentedly buzz between snowdrops, crocuses, hellebores and honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima).

A tray of old English apple pips I planted last autumn has germinated – I’m delighted as it’s the start of a coppiced orchard I’m hoping to plant. A Permaculture concept, the trees’ primary role will be to make lots of new growth to cut, chop and compost - easily harvested fertility to divert towards greedy vegetables. My pips, from a friend’s orchard of vast, ancient specimens, were open-pollinated (by bees), so their gene pool is unpredictable, unlike the grafted, named varieties you would choose for reliable fruit. Unless I’m unlucky however, they should be super-vigorous and strong, well-suited to local conditions as their parents live just down the road.

Six inches of white stuff

Our lane is now passable with a four-wheel drive, but apart from avalanches that roar like thunder from the thatch, thumping to the ground, there is little sign of a thaw.

Geese are such resilient birds. Within the fox-proof fence they are open to the elements, and have prospered for eight or nine years without so much as a shed, just a bath refilled weekly and a fresh bowl of water every day. The bath is frozen, but thawed water is essential for them to preen their insulating, waterproof feathers, and, with the consolation of an increased ration of corn, they’re not remotely upset by the weather. The chickens, by contrast, hate it. They take it in turns to emerge from the pop hole of their house, out onto the ladder, then cluck in disgust and go back inside.

Six inches of snow blankets the beehives. I’m glad for the extra insulation as it will freeze again tonight. The vegetable garden looks comfortably tucked up, apart from one tunnel that has collapsed onto the plants, the fleece having disappeared, indiscernible under a layer of white.

In the ornamental garden a few of the evergreens have suffered from the major dump. Azara serrata has a broken branch, but the box spheres, flattened into cushions, soon sprung back with a gentle kick and a shake.

Snow holiday

Snowed in six-inches deep, with our only close neighbours away, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed a holiday in blissful isolation. After feeding and carting water to the animals, we spent the morning tobogganing, slogging up the steep hills, unable to resist shooting back down. Whilst relishing the muffled quiet, we ruined it with raucous high spirits. Then later in the day another family and dogs’ noise echoed across the valley. Other life was out there, after all. Did they know about the prickly gorse patches that dot that hillside under the snow?

Snow at Imbolc

Last week ended with gales tearing through the valley, seizing anything loose to fling across the terraces. The wind bit the skin of our cheeks, icy sharp. Taking refuge in the kitchen, the girls and I spent an afternoon flicking seeds into fir cones, weaving dogwood cages for apples and confecting seed and pig fat into gateaux for the wild birds. Very cheerful, satisfying and simple work, by the time Jim returned home, the sumach (Rhus glabra ‘Laciniata;), still sporting crimson seedheads on antler-flocked branches, was decorated for Imbolc (Candlemas), and a-flutter with little birds. (Spot the robin and the goldfinch in the picture).

Ideal timing! On Monday the wind stilled, the sky turned azure blue and to our amazement, minute snowflakes condensed as if from the sun, glinting as they fell like fine dust towards the ground. But over the horizon a great, grey front was building, carrying in its wake millions of fat flakes. Soft, powder-dry, they flurried down till a pristine blanket united all.
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Winter-flowering shrubs

For a sheltered, warm wall, Winter-sweet (Chimo-nanthus praecox) takes some beating. There aren’t too many shrubs that pip snowdrops into flower, let alone ones that scent a room with a single sprig. Once established, it requires little attention save an annual light pruning and training. We had to wait five years for the first flowers to appear (quite often it’s six), but now I regularly pause on trips down to the yard to sniff at the bunches of cream petals on bare blanches - the clove scent on clean, cold air is guaranteed to make me smile.


Better suited to a shady spot, ideal by a gateway or a path, Sarcocca (Winter box) come in two sizes, three or six foot (1m or 2m). Glossy, evergreen shrubs, you have to search for their tiny flowers, but you won’t miss the cloud of perfume that takes you by surprise a short way down the path.

But Daphne x bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’ (image above), takes the mid-winter crown, purplish-pink buds open into clusters of bells that exude a sweet, heady fragrance, as easily discernable as a rose. Not a speedy grower, nor cheap to buy, this daphne is well worth the investment however, as flowers are produced even whilst the shrub is small, and the mature eight foot (2.5m) cone is structural and elegant. Plus, surprisingly resilient for such an exotic-seeming species, I’ve seen it unblemished and flowering copiously from the depths of a chilly frost pocket. Daphnes have a reputation for being tricky, and as I’ve lost three D. odora ‘Aureo-marginata’ that I planted over the years, I’d hesitate to recommend that particular beauty, but the only thing I’ve known to kill ‘Jacqueline Postill’ was a savage prune to a six-inch (18cm) stump.

Plants’ water content is at its lowest around the time of the New Moon, so it is the ideal moment to prune, with the least likelihood that sap will bleed from the cuts. Therefore, on Saturday, a ‘fruit’ day, and in the afternoon (while plants’ energies are drawn in towards the earth), I thinned my blackcurrants and gooseberries, and cut the vines back hard. Then by good chance, rather than design, on the actual day of the New Moon, Simon Hall, a tree surgeon friend came to visit and lop the oak that was brushing our neighbour’s chimney pot and casting shade on our greenhouse. Fantastic timing!

He took out a good half of the boughs, with all the lower, spreading branches cut off close to the trunk. Shaped more like a vase than a mushroom now, the oak still casts an elegant silhouette against the sky. Rather than opting to thin the remaining crown to let in more light, I wanted the branches unblemished by stumps, so every remaining branch is intact from start to finish, and no hideous stumps mar their beauty.

Cutting back hard to the trunk is almost always a good policy when pruning shrubs too, if you want them to retain a ‘natural’ outline. Secateurs, loppers and saws are the tools to use, not shears or hedge trimmers. My all-time gardening bête noir is the ubiquitous ‘blob’ bush, all it’s natural character obliterated by ‘trimming’. Two-inch-thick woody stumps rear up waist high, sprouting bunches of spindly fingers on the ends, that within only months will once more undergo the attentions of the shears. It’s nothing short of cruelty!

Hellebores and snowdrops are beginning to peep and Sam the gander is already anticipating spring, running at the dogs, hissing on the end of his outstretched neck. We’ve learned from past experience to keep the geese separate from other fowl at this time, as Sam’s violent rushes of testosterone have provoked bloody murder. The children take care to avoid him, but he’s never had a go at me yet, and still pecks corn from my palm, albeit with a little too much vigour.

The Wolf Moon

Happy New Year Bloggers! Apologies for the long silence – the month-long high from Siberia forestalled all garden activity at Bertie’s Cottage superfluous to the most basic survival. Apart from strewing fleece, too late I fear, over some of the more tender plants (the six-inch high broad beans look utterly miserable, and I still need to discover if the Mexican agave has made it through -6°c), I only intervened in the garden by watering evergreen plants in pots and six large box bushes that I’d moved in the autumn, hoping slightly warm water would warm their roots enough to give them a drink.

But yesterday at last, south-westerlies blew in a gale of slate-coloured clouds to wipe away the crystalline blue and thaw the frost. Soil began to soften its icy grip round trunks and roots, the goose bath melted to much honking and delight, and along with what felt like the whole natural world, I heaved a huge sigh of relief – it may be wet and windy, but at least it’s sufficiently warm for much of life to resume.

And what about yesterday’s full moon? It’s the ‘Wolf Moon’ according to Medieval tradition, an appropriate label I reckon, as the time is just beginning when wild predators are driven by hunger to prowl into the farmyard. I suppose I should be glad it’s only foxes and badgers that threaten us here, but the recent cold, clear, still nights make it all too easy to imagine packs of wolves stretching up their throats in unison, to howl desolation to the uncaring moon.

And after a month of drought, Saturday and Sunday nights both brought some showers. Can it be a coincidence that once again the full moon was accompanied by rain? According to biodynamics, the moon’s influence works through the element of water, and at this most powerful phase in the waxing-waning cycle, plentiful moisture is essential – certainly, according to my observation over the past year or so, it has consistently rained around the time of full moon. (Not hard in Devon, might I hear you comment?!)