pork Rare breed meat boxes We’re now taking orders for this year’s rare breed pork boxes, which will be ready for collection or local delivery in September. We also have gammon, bacon and sausage boxes available to order now for collection / delivery in December. If you’re interested in buying some delicious joints,
pigs The patter of tiny trotters We made our annual trip to Kenilworth a couple of weeks ago to collect seven weaners (8-10 week old pigs) from the breeder that we source our pigs from. Collecting the pigs is always a highlight of our smallholding year to as we love to have pigs in our field.
2018 Looking back on 2018 January is our quietest month on the smallholding. With only a few chickens and ducks to look after it's a good time to catch up on odd jobs around the house and to reflect on the previous year. 2018 for us was dominated by extremes of weather -
pigs Four legged rotovators Rain, rain, go away... Like many other parts of the country we've had a very wet end to winter and it seems as though it's taken forever for spring to properly arrive. As we write this however, the sun is shining, the puddles are drying and
cider Making cider Our small collection of mature apple trees have done very well this year, producing loads of fruit and leaving us with the very enjoyable challenge of wondering how we're going to use them all up. After spending a couple of weeks stocking the freezer with apple pies, apple
website A fresh look If you're a regular visitor to this site then you might notice that we've made a few tweaks recently. Most of these are to the template that's used for our page layouts, but we've also made a couple of changes behind the
summer Summer 2017 As you may have guessed from our lack of posts, it's been a busy summer on the smallholding. Now that the days are getting a little cooler, and the nights a little longer, it feels like a good time to update you on some of the highlights since
overwintering Overwintering veg One of the real assets on our smallholding is our polytunnel. It came with the house when we bought it and, whilst we were initially unsure if we'd use it all year round, we've found it ideal for getting the growing season off to a good
chickens A busy start to the year You'll have to excuse the lack of posts so far this year. We welcomed our second child (a healthy little boy) into the world at the end of January so have been a little busier than usual. Whilst you could mistake a lack of posts for a lack
2016 Looking back on 2016 Early January is a good time for reflecting on the previous year. With not much to do out in the garden / field and weather conditions often not being conducive to working on the few items that are in the to-do list at this time of year, it's an
courgettes Courgette glut recipes Whilst it's pretty much the end of the courgette growing season in the UK, if you still have a few left that you're wondering what on earth to with then you could do far worse than to try the following couple of recipes. * Courgette and pistachio
sheep Views from our field One of the joys of doing morning and evening rounds every day is that we get to see our land in all weathers. The last month or so has been particularly good as the slightly later sunrises that we get at this time of year coincide with the time that
honeycomb First honey harvest After keeping bees for a little over a year, last weekend we were finally able to take our first proper harvest from one of the hives. Smallholding can definitely be a game of patience sometimes. We’re glad to say that the wait was worth it as the honey, which
aylesbury A growing flock Last week we moved the final two ducklings from this year’s hatches out to their permanent home in our field. Having reached that little milestone we thought it was a good time to look back and reflect a little on how we’ve done with our ducks this year.
vegetables Summer harvest As well as rearing our own pigs, lambs and poultry for the table we also enjoy growing as much of our own fruit and vegetables as time permits (we are only part-time smallholders after all). Despite a slow start (thanks to a cooler-than-average June) the warmer weather in July and
pigs Pigs 2016 Wow, that two months went by quickly! Time to bring you up to speed on how some of our livestock are doing... At the end of May we brought home six Tamworth pigs from an award-winning breeder in Warwickshire. It was a bit of a squeeze to get them all
bees Swarming bees It's been six months since we did our last full hive inspection so the recent warm weekend gave us a long-awaited chance to see what the colony had been up to over the winter. The bees had ideas of their own though; rather than waiting for us to
marans Marans chickens Regular readers will know that we hatched out three Cuckoo Marans chicks [https://www.limesendcottage.com/marans-chicks/] towards the end of last month. Being slightly disappointed with only getting three chicks from a dozen eggs (and realising that we had two cockerels and one hen) we decided to look around
pork Rare breed pork boxes We’re now taking orders for this year’s rare breed pork boxes, which will be ready for collection or local delivery in September. If you’re interested in buying some delicious joints and sausages then please take a look at our pigs [https://www.limesendcottage.com/tamworth-pigs/] page for
marans Marans chicks The weekend after our last post [https://www.limesendcottage.com/getting-ready-for-spring/] we had four little Cuckoo Marans chicks hatch out in our incubator. One of them was sadly a little too weak and didn't make it through the first 48 hours but the remaining three all appear to
incubation Getting ready for spring The first day of March marks the official start of spring in the meteorological calendar but things have already started to get a little busier for us as we gear up in anticipation of longer days and warmer weather. After the long dark evenings of winter the lengthening days are
chickens A new arrival Towards the end of January we came across a bantam cockerel wandering around the entrance to one of our local woods. It was getting dark and we found the headless remains of another chicken nearby (presumably the result of a fox attack) so we decided to take the cockerel back
bees Feeding bees in winter After a week of snow and frost it seems as though we’re back to the combination of mild and wet weather that’s been the backdrop to most of the winter so far. On the upside, with daytime temperatures reaching 12°c last weekend we were able to do
turkeys Christmas turkeys 2015 Happy New Year everyone! With the festive period already feeling like a distant memory we thought we'd look back at our second year of rearing turkeys to remember what we got right and think about where we can improve in 2016. Sticking to the basics We’ve had
pigs How to make home-cured bacon Now that the weather is finally getting colder a whole host of opportunities for home curing, smoking and air drying meat become possible. One of the easiest of these is making your own home cured bacon. There's a few good reasons for making your own bacon as a
