Busy, Busy, Busy…..Again

It’s that time of year again, where everything needs doing now, and I find out all of the things that I didn’t get done over the Winter. Having not posted for about three weeks, there is also a log jam of things to write about, but rather than try and catch up with everthing in one post, I’ll explain why I’ve not been keeping up with the blog bits here, and then try and put the other stuff into shorter posts, by category.

My Permaculture Blog is Two Years Old

Hi All

The Second anniversary of The Sustainable Smallholding Blog slipped by a few days ago, without me celebrating. This time last year, I was celebrating over 6,000 hits on the blog in it’s first year. At the end of the second year, that has climbed to almost 19,000.

Last year’s post can be found by following the link. Permaculture blog

Another Month Slips By at The Sustainable Smallholding

Another five weeks have elapsed since my last post, but with the days shortening, I once again find myself with time to share with you. Things are still busy, with the end of the beekeeping and vegetable growing season, and the start of the tree planting and wood harvesting season overlapping. Before I start posting on what I’m up to now, I thought that I would post a quick round up of  what I’ve been busy with over the past few weeks.

Water, Scythes, and the Mystery Swarm

Hi All

It’s been nearly three weeks since my last post, and there are a number of reasons for that. primarily, it’s busy at the moment. That hasn’t been helped by my computer crashing(it’s still down). I have’nt had/made the time to sort it out yet. The three biggest draws on my time at the moment are scything, watering, and bees, especially swarms.

No time to Spare here on the Smallholding

Today I had a call from Lincolnshire Pride Magazine, asking me to do a feature on Natural Beekeeping, but had to decline, as I haven’t time to spare. Everything needs doing yesterday, and after a weekend away with my son, I’m already behind.

Jobs that are behind include the start of my scything season, the cutting of comfrey and nettles for liquid feed, soaking bean seeds, potting on of trees, shrubs, and vegetables, putting out additional bait hives, planting Eucalyptus, and of course keeping up with posts on the blog.

Catching Up with Work

Forgive me for it has been nearly two weeks since my last post, and I find myself with very little exciting Smallholding stuff to update you on, but quite a bit of the more mundane work. For much of the past week I have been distracted from the real work that needs to be done, by family matters, and Transition Town Horncastle work.

We had visitors for the whole weekend, from Friday through to Monday, and I was not able to do as much work as I needed to. On Sunday, I spent all of the morning feeding the flames for my Pizza oven, followed by eating and drinking for the rest of the day. Great fun, with my two daughters, along with husbands, eight Grandchildren, a sister in law, and a mother in law. We made pizza, bread, and rhubarb crumble. The oven needs more insulation, but this will have to wait a few weeks.

Another Successful Month

Hi All

March was another successful month for The Sustainable Smallholding Blog. We exceeded 1,400 hits, which is 300 more than the previous high, which was Februaury.

Last year, I posted much less frequently during the Summer, which is my busiest period, and the numbers of visitors to the site dropped too. It’s difficult to know whether it was the lack of fresh content that was behind the fall, or simply that potential readers were also too busy to spend the time on their computers, looking after their own plots.

My intention is to try and post at least once a week. This is less than during the Winter, but hopefully enough to make it worth coming back to the blog, to see what’s been keeping me busy.

Thanks to all of you who come back regularly, to read what I have to say. For my part, the idea behind the blog is to record what I’m doing here, and to provide useful information for people. The blog isn’t really a chatty, social site, and perhaps that’s why there are not a lot of comments posted, but that’s fine.

Here’s wishing us all a successful growing season.

All of the best

Deano

Sustainable Smallholding Pictures and Update

Hi everyone

A few of my recent posts have not had pictures. It’s difficult to take them when your hands are covered in soil/compost/muck, so today I did a quick walk around, before work, and again afterwards, to help keep you up to date with what our place looks like, and what we’ve been up to.

Winter and Spring Work Overlapping

This is a particularly busy time of year, with the need to complete any Winter jobs, and with the new Spring work requiring action. The last few days has seen me doing both kinds of work, but with mixed results.

The Sustainable Smallholding is Growing

At the same time as I’ve been planting trees, and creating my own wood, this blog has grown too. February saw the monthly total of hits on the site go above 1,000 for the first time. The total was 1,091, which is more than 200 higher than the total for January, which was also the highest total to date, and had three extra days. The highest total for a single day was 103.

Thank you all for reading what I post, and I hope that it’s interesting, and useful.