This week feels like we’ve finally caught up in the garden – albeit a month or so too late! We’ve struggled to make enough time to keep on top of things over the summer and have ended up losing a lot of our fruit and vegetables as a result. So this weekend we mostly cleared plants that had bolted, or had been eaten by caterpillars; or the unbelievable amount of weeds that had made their way in. We focused on the kitchen garden for the most part, although I also took down all the tomatoes which had been very disappointing this year. We certainly need to rethink our approach next year and try to find sunny sheltered patches to keep them – the only sunny patches we could use this year were too windy and all the plants kept blowing over.
We did learn from last year though and emptied then moved the plastic greenhouse into the shed ready to be taken down and stored next weekend. Our previous one didn’t survive the winter and we didn’t want this to turn into an annual purchase!!
This week we also finished our annual nematode treatment in the orchard. This involves three weekly sprays of the nematodes (tiny roundworms that feed off codling and plum moth larvae) covering the tree trunk, main branches, and then the ground beneath the tree’s canopy. You have to cover all the cracks in the trees – the idea is that when a larvae comes across a nematode it has no route of escape – and if it drops off the tree then there are more nematodes on the ground waiting. As nasty as it sounds, it’s made such a difference to the quality of our fruit. When we moved in we lost 30-50% of our harvest – I can still remember cutting into apples and waiting for earwigs to come scurrying out!! This year (4 yearly treatments later) we’ve only found a few in the damsons and greengages – so it’s worth all the hard work! It’s a relief to get it finished though – you can only apply nematodes in September and October and you have to do it at dusk (and ideally when wet) to stop the nematodes frying in the sun. With the nights drawing in, it means finishing work at a reasonable time to get out there and finish before it gets dark. I remember one year I was spraying practically in the dark, which wasn’t fun!!
Keeping with the biological pest control theme – this week our lacewing larvae arrived. Our new chilli greenhouse has been beset with aphids and blackfly – and being too late in the season to order ladybirds – the next best thing I could find online was lacewing larvae. I’ve tried buying ladybird larvae before which was a complete failure – and I’m starting to think the lacewing is the same. The container arrived on Thursday and quickly sprinkled it across the chilli plants. Four days later there is no difference in the number of aphids – despite lacewing larvae apparently eating 200 per day! The suppliers say to give it a week – but after a tip from a friend I’m going to try putting the plants out for the birds to see if they’ll clear the aphids for me. Anything is worth a try!
This is the first week we’ve had a gap in guests since August so John booked in various different services and essential maintenance work. It’s been pretty busy here!! We’ve had all the electrical items PAT tested, and the chimneys swept in both the Farmhouse and our shippon. And we tried unsuccessfully to get two problems fixed – one with the hot water cylinder (we thought the immersion had broken but actually it’s the device that links our solar tiles to the hot water cylinder and works out whether to send the power to the grid or heat our hot water) – and one being the TV projector in the Games Room that still won’t connect to a laptop despite several attempts and new parts! This week the TV projector was swapped out for a new one as a last resort – and it’s still not working! We’ve been given a few more troubleshooting steps so fingers crossed something works…
We also took the opportunity to touch up some of the farmhouse – although trying to squeeze jobs in before and after work wasn’t easy!! With the hot weather the house has shifted a bit and horrible cracks have appeared in the wooden windowsills so our priority was to fill these and then paint over them. There were also marks left from the building work on various skirting boards that irritate me every time we clean, so I touched them up as well. We still have a bit more wear and tear to touch up but at least we got some of the house tidied up!
Our autumn calendar is filling up after a flurry of bookings this week. Our half-term gap is now filled (thank goodness!) and we have another same day changeover – luckily on a Saturday so I don’t need to fit work around it. Last week’s guests left a lovely review on facebook, and this weekend’s guests (a family celebrating a 60th birthday) said how much they’d enjoyed their stay when they left. It sounds cliché but it really does make everything worthwhile when you receive positive feedback. We also added a new feature into the games room in the New Barn – a board where guests could add their recommendations for things to do for future guests. Anything to help our guests make the most of their stay here.
Ley Farm Cottages 