Far Lands

Last week when we were away in Scotland something got into our kale cage. Some one , to be more precise. But who? As you can see from the photos, they have chomped 3 or 4 whole plants. Very annoying because kale should be the final thing we eat (pushing us through the Spring hungry-gap ) while we wait for the first of the Summer crops to grow and ripen. Not badgers because the veg garden is badger proof. Not birds because too much has been eaten. The cage is also netted. But it has got holes. My prime suspect is a squirrel. The acrobats and athletes of the locale. Of course, my self-sufficiency guru, John Seymour, says that you shouldn't mind if marauders eat your crops as long as you eat them!

February is a month for pruning and planting fruit trees but not if it is too cold like it is at the moment. Then there is just chopping and sawing logs and staying warm, so it's a good time to go away. Somewhere hot, you may be thinking? No! We are currently munro-bagging; there are 284 munros (hills over 3000 feet in Scotland) and our week saw us climb 6 more. 75 now. Maybe we will be the first smallholders to finish? We went to the Sisters of Kintail which is near Skye.

The stepover bed is now complete. Really, it should be called the stepover-and-espalier bed. But it isn't. The wires are all in place, and I have planted three stepover trees: an Egremont Russet, a Herefordshire Russett and The Big Purple (my favourite wilding from Reading - see previous blogs). The most exciting bit is the espalier, a Cox Self-Fertile. I grafted it last March and three shoots grew so its future as an espalier was self-promoted! As you can see from the photo, the espalier is now in situ with one lateral trained left and one trained right. The stem grows straight up and will in due course create the second and third tiers. Espalier training is an art and this is my first go:- So, the first step (now) is to prune for the second tier. I have left the stem so it just reaches the second tier and pruned it just above several buds. The terminal (ie top) bud should continue upwards towards the third tier. Hopefully other buds just below the terminal bud