We started keeping chickens so that we could free range them and raise them to high welfare standards. Unfortunately, bird flu (caused by the Avian Influenza virus) has become a large issue in the UK as well as across Europe, the USA and many other parts of the world. This means that at the momentContinue reading “Bird Flu and Chicken Boredom Busters”
Author Archives: English Country Life
Jerusalem Artichokes – Underrated and Perennial
How many of you have heard of Jerusalem Artichokes? Not the Globe Artichokes that you can easily buy in the supermarket, but Jerusalem Artichokes? No? No-one? Well you’re not alone. I hadn’t heard of them either until we were researching perennial vegetables.
The last of the Fruit Harvest (thank goodness!)
If you’ve been reading our blog you’ll know that we are self sufficient in fruit. That is unless we decide we want a banana or pineapple which struggle in the UK climate. All of our apple trees can be found in the field where we keep our chickens so we make maximum use of theContinue reading “The last of the Fruit Harvest (thank goodness!)”
The Problem with Autumn/Fall…
Autumn/Fall is a beautiful season. The leaves on the trees show a myriad of colours and for a period of time the garden looks like a beautiful oil painting. The chickens love it too. As the leaves fall they take great delight in turning the leaves over, scratching at them to reveal hiding insects forContinue reading “The Problem with Autumn/Fall…”
I love HOT chilli sauce!
It’s true! Hot sauce is amazing and thankfully Hugh grows lots of chillies for me and every year grows a new variety that he’s never grown before. 3 years ago it was a yellow variety with a lemony, hot flavour called Lemon Aji. Last year it was a variety called Red Basque. This year heContinue reading “I love HOT chilli sauce!”
Maintaining Our Woodburning Esse Oven
We are incredibly proud of our little cottage. It’s bigger now but back in the 1700s it was only a 2 up/2 down arrangement and our lounge would have been the main room for preparing, preserving and cooking food. We decided to pay homage to the original purpose of the room by installing an EsseContinue reading “Maintaining Our Woodburning Esse Oven”
Time to Repair and Paint Barn Windows
We love our smallholding/homestead. Our year is dictated by the seasons. In winter we decorate the inside of the house, clear and tidy barns and build/repair coops. In Spring it’s all systems go with planting and growing fruit and vegetables as well as hatching chickens. Summer is tending and harvesting which leaves Autumn/Fall for buildingContinue reading “Time to Repair and Paint Barn Windows”
Who Knew Parsnips Are So Versatile?
The humble parsnip is a vegetable that only EVER was roasted in our home before we started our smallholding lifestyle. Like most things in our home we use the phrase “Waste not, want not” every day so we do much more with parsnips now.
Our Mixed Chicken Flock
We breed Buff Orpington chickens and anyone familiar with our social media accounts will be very familiar with the chickens either running towards us, or after us. Fiona’s accounts on both Instagram and Twitter as @theflooflady is totally devoted to the hens and cockerels stampeding across the field. In the sea of golden fluffballs thatContinue reading “Our Mixed Chicken Flock”
Blackberry Bliss
We have a large fruit cage in our field where we grow raspberries and blackberries. I appreciate it’s not pretty, but who needs pretty when we really need fruit. It’s very productive with early golden raspberries, late red raspberries and right in the middle of the summer we have lots of glorious blackberries.