The Cottage Smallholder

  I’m continuing to practice biodynamic principles this year. Last year, when I followed the planting and harvesting days religiously, I had great results. Good strong plants, more disease resistance and better harvests. With the exception of battling with cabbage white fly that nearly decimated the Sutherland kale*. I tried to save our crop but Read More »

  Cabbage whitefly has been this Summer’s bane and it is causing problems this Autumn too. Cabbage whitefly are different from ordinary whitefly. When you brush against the plants, clouds of minute white winged specs fill the air. On the underside of the leaves you will notice tiny lesions which are sucking the sap out Read More »

  We have mice in the chicken run, mice in the garden, mice in the larder, the kitchen, the bedrooms. In fact there are mice everywhere. Looking ultra cute and messing up our cottage big time. Something had to be done. I tackled the larder first. Trapped one within minutes and no more came. Just one Read More »

  I’ve just discovered that cabbage white fly is attacking our Sunderland kale.  This is my first year growing this variety and it had been romping along – growing quite tall and bushy. Last week I noticed that the strong green leaves were yellowing and by yesterday they were looking very grim. When I touched Read More »

  “It’s nearly the end of July. Surely there’s something we can eat from the garden?” Danny was exasperated – forgetting that we have already munched loads from the garden in the past few months. Spuds, orach (German Mountain spinach), calabrese, turnips, broad beans, raspberries, strawberries, tayberries, loganberries, peas, lettuces and salad leaves. But then Read More »

  We planted some Swift potatoes in a bag in the greenhouse on January 20th – Swift are First Earlies so we were hoping for new potatoes in 7-8 weeks. They took ages to peep through, in fact I was just about to dump them after a couple of months when I saw the first Read More »

It’s all very well growing 2000 flower plants but having started planting them out in the herbaceous borders it was clear that I was quickly running out of space. Some of my large swathes of perennial plants just had to go. I cut the more rampant ones back and dumped the ones that I didn’t like 100%.  Read More »

  Danny has been frantically busy for weeks now. So he swapped cooking for seven nights running (simple quick food) if I finished off his potato border and planted the spuds. As you know I’ve started practicing biodynamic principles in the garden this year. I’m hoping for an increased harvest and a healthier garden all Read More »

  I’ve been busy tackling the mystery of what was eating my pea shoots. These peas were planted in October under fleece. They germinated well and were at the stage where they needed to be supported by twigs. At first I suspected slugs. My open beer traps didn’t attract a single slug. Then Cath gave Read More »

  Our basic electric propagator has been brought into service again as I’m really keen to get my tomatoes and peppers started early this year. Also I wanted to sow the Florian strawberry seeds to get a May/June crop. The propagator hasn’t got a thermostat but it is a real little cracker. Germinating seeds very quickly. Read More »