2023 has been a brilliant year for birds on the croft – I mean the small, tweeting kind, not the chicken and duck kind. We always have lots of Wrens, Sparrows, Starlings a few Blackbirds and the obligatory Robin. This year there is a large community of Goldfinches down the side of the drive and masses of Swallows. I’m not sure where the Swallows are nesting but they enjoy dive bombing the croft. The Sparrows and Wrens live harmoniously together, but the Goldfinches seem to be having a turf war with the Swallows. The Blackbirds spend most of their time trying to figure out how to get into the fruit cage, once they’re in there of course they can’t figure out how to get back out again and a human has to go and chase them round and round. The Wrens view the greenhouse as their own personal property, they help me out by eating slugs and caterpillars. If I get too close they do a lot of angry clicking.
The smaller birds seem to appreciate hawthorn bushes as a nice safe place to build a nest. Once the leaves fall off the trees we start finding little nests, mostly in the hawthorn.
I have two markets this week, if I sell a lot at the first one I think a lot of high speed jam making will be on the agenda.
I’m managing to resist picking the sprouts for this week anyway, I think I’ll start on the Autumn veg next week. There are some leek sized leeks, there’s always a danger leeks will bolt in September, hopefully the warm spell forecast will convince them it’s still Summer and not time to flower. Better to pick them on the small side, than bigger and bolting. There weren’t many bolted onions this year, hopefully the leeks will be similar.
The peppers are ripening fast now, and there are more flowers on the plants. I can’t imagine there’s time for more peppers to mature fully, but there might be some smaller, green ones.
This week’s Croft Shares have the following:
Small – Tomatoes, peppers, purple sprouting broccoli, French beans and tree cabbage.
Medium – Tomatoes, peppers, purple sprouting broccoli, green broccoli, mustard greens, courgettes and tree cabbage.
Large – Tomatoes, peppers, purple sprouting broccoli, French beans, dazzling blue kale, tree cabbage, courgettes/Summer squash, salad leaves, onions and potatoes.
The mustard greens are called green wave. It is very spicy eaten raw, but loses the heat on cooking. It’s very good in a coconut curry and I think it would be good in noodle soup.