Butternut Avalon

First picking of winter squash. I decided to cut the large ones to encourage the smaller ones to swell to a decent size in the last couple of good growing weeks. These are whoppers, haven't weighed them yet but much larger than any butternuts I've grown before, more like the over-sized ones available at the supermarket, weighing in at about 1.5 kg each. So much for being 'compact' as described in the catalogue! Not perfectly matched for exhibition purposes, but I suspect I might enter them in the village show anyway.

The stalks were quite compact, I hope they are a good keeping variety. 

Duck (Indian Runner) FAQs

I get several hits a day on my personal website asking very basic questions about duck keeping, particularly runners as I occasionally breed them and advertise them on their own pages. I've been meaning to do a FAQ page for ages, and so here goes. (These questions are lifted from my stats records, so it's not my fault some appear particularly dim).

Can I keep ducks?

I would suspect yes, but only if you have the time, space, and a genuine need for the gallons of duck slurry that they produce.

How big are Runner Ducks?

Runners are a medium-sized duck breed, fairly low in weight compared to the heavier breeds but quite a bit bigger than a mallard. Do not be deceived into thinking this makes them easier than larger kinds; Indian runners need more space than any of the other breeds as they are very active and nervous. They are NOT suitable to keep in an ark for instance. 

Do Runner ducks need a pond/water?

ALL ducks need access to bathing water. They need to submerse their heads regularly to bathe their eyes, and their eyes can become easily infected if access to deep water is limited. They also need water to help them preen and keep their plumage in good condition, and also like to wash food items before eating.

For just a pair of ducks, all of this can be accomplished in a large washing up bowl or, better still, a plastic child's sandpit. The side must be low enough to allow the birds to get out easily and not become trapped, and be light enough to tip the water out. Bear in mind that water must be kept fresh at all times, which might mean filling and emptying a couple of times of day, and that all the dirty water has to then go somewhere. If the effluent goes on to bare earth, then after about two days you have a quagmire. Ideally, the bath should be sited on concrete that can be hosed down, angled so that the water runs off to a drain/sump.

My own set up is that I have an 8'x4'x6" custom-made fibre-glass bath on constant drip from a mains hose. It is raised about 9 inches above the soil level, and has a gutter that runs off to a sump hole. This is okay for about 12-18 ducks at the most. It is thoroughly cleaned every week in summer, less often in winter. And yes, it is a lot of work.

Can you keep ducks in a wildlife pond?

Yes, but only if you don't mind the ducks eating all the wildlife. I also have a 20'+ diameter pond which the ducks enjoy, but I rarely let them free range these days as I can't bear the amphibian carnage that ensues within minutes of letting them out. The younger ducks will also dive and catch goldfish.

Can you use algicide in duck ponds?

I don't see why you would need to. A well-managed duck bath in a poultry run should be kept constantly fed with fresh water, and any algal build up washed away regularly. If algae has had time to grow, so might a whole-host of other pathogens. Blanket weed in a garden pond is a sign of too small a water volume / chemical imbalance, and algicides will kill a number of pond plants. However, ducks love blanket weed and will eat it. They may trample and dig up all your decorative pond plants at the same time though.

What plants are poisonous for ducks?

I'm sure all the same one that are poisonous to us, but ducks are actually quite bright and never eat any green matter that is unpalatable to them. I really wouldn't worry about it. The only edible things that have killed my poultry were a batch of mouldy/contaminated wheat I got from a local farmer (which only poisoned the hens; the ducks were too canny to touch it) and a duckling once choked on a large slug.

Are duck eggs poisonous?

No more than any other eggs. All eggs carry a risk of contamination with salmonella. This can due to shell damage (bacteria entering via a small hole) or very occasionally via internal transmission from the duck, visible as a small, grey bacteria mass when the egg is broken open. Obviously dirty eggs will carry a higher risk of contamination if there is any damage to the shell, cuticle or membrane, and duck houses tend to be harder to manage for a number of reasons, which is why duck eggs have acquired the reputation of being more likely to be a problem. However, duck eggs usually have very good shell quality, with tough membranes and thick, waxy exterior cuticle (intended to protect the unborn duckling from damp conditions); they are much tougher than commercial hen eggs in this respect.

Clean-water management can be an issue with ducks, and the combination of stagnant water, bird faeces, rotting green matter and warm weather can cause anaerobic conditions that favoured by botulinum bacteria. However, the ducks are much more likely to succumb and die from botulism themselves before passing the toxins on to humans.

As with all eggs, keep duck eggs clean at all stages, discard really dirty or damaged ones and refrigerate others asap. Don't use any that are found in the run or duck bath, especially if you are not sure when they were actually layed. 

If you find one with a grey spot in the albumen when you open it, don't use it (red blood-spots are fine). If you are feeding eggs of any kind to the young, old or invalids, make sure they are well-cooked.

Why aren't my Runner Ducks laying?

This depends on a lot of things. Time of year, age of birds etc. Given that this question appeared in September, there are two possibilities. If your birds are youngsters, hatched earlier in the spring, chances are they are too young. Only the ones that hatch very early are likely to produce eggs in the following autumn, and then only if they are a particularly prolific egg-laying strain.

If the birds are older, then they will go out of lay through the summer as they need to devote more of their metabolism to growing new feathers during the moult. Some will lay through this period if they are a good strain, though not necessarily every day. Personally I'd prefer them not to lay and have a rest. 

Some strains just aren't very good layers. I used to keep Silver runners which laid far fewer eggs than the black ones. 

Are Runner Ducks noisy?

They can be. Drakes are virtually silent, but females can be a very vocal, and have fine, strong voices capable of conversing with other ducks of their acquaintance half a mile away. A pair may not be too bad but once you have a number of females, they can be quite noisy. Ducks, unlike hens, don't have any 'roosting' instinct and are quite happy quacking all through the night, especially from late winter onwards. 

If you just want ducks as pets and have snotty neighours, then a couple of drakes will get along very well and make virtually no noise.

How to mix young ducks

With caution. Mixing young birds in with adult males should be done very carefully. Runners are particularly bad in this respect and can be very aggressive towards ducklings. I don't mix my youngsters in with the adults until they have grown to be the same size, and even then there can be quite a bit of bullying. Youngsters take the best part of six months to get to this stage (another reason why I don't breed very often) and wouldn't encourage anyone else to do so unless they have the time, space and dedication.

Do Runner ducks moult?

Yes, all birds moult.

Can I use duck eggs for making pancake batter?

No, it's about the one thing that duck eggs aren't good for. Older, watery hens eggs are best for pancakes, and also soufflés. I'm not wildly keen on them scrambled either; hens eggs make lighter, fluffier scrambled eggs. Duck eggs are good fried and poached, as the strong albumen hold it's shape and doesn't spread out. They are also excellent for all kinds of baking.

Do Runner ducks swim?

Runner ducks are just a variety of domestic duck, which are all derived originally form the common mallard; like all waterfowl are adapted for aquatic life and yes, they do swim. 

Unlike some other breeds of domestic duck, they can't fly. This has some benefits (they can't fly out of your backyard into the blue yonder, as my Black East Indies have done) but isn't so good if a predator attacks.

Brown Eggs

On the topic of eggs, here's an old photo of a mixture of nicely-coloured eggs from cuckoo marans and welbars (dark-egg laying, auto-sexing hybrid between Welsummer and Plymouth rock).

The darkest ones are from the welbar, and also had an unusual, torpedo shape. They were not prolific layers, about every other day for the first couple of years, but the shell quality and colour were very good. They lived to be ten, and all died within a few months of each other of congestive heart failure.

My current 'dark brown' hens are a commercial hybrid, Plymouth Rock crossed wtih Pl/Rock x Copper Maran (black hens shown below). Egg numbers/quality have been good, but the colour has faded from dark copper to ordinary buff colour through the laying season. I will probably order in some more hybrid POL pullets early next year to keep numbers up, and hatch a handful of Welsummers or Copper Black marans if I find I have the time.

Sweetcorn

Mixed results with the sweetcorn. The main variety is Sundance F1, with a few of the "Indian Summer' bicolour that survived damping off.

 The ones used to interplant the winter squash near the duck bath sump are doing well, with good-sized cobs developing. Those that went into a bed of their own two weeks later have not thrived, and are only half the height of their neighbours, with rather pathetic looking coblets. Interestingly, despite being sown and planted at two week intervals, they have produced cobs/male flowers more or less simultaneously. As the saying goes, "what's the difference between a good gardener and a bad one?" "One week".

Poultry greens, weeds and other poultry stuff

The poultry yard has many uses. As well as a provider of the ton or so of composted manure I need for the soil, the birds also consume a large proportion of the weeds I pull every day through the season. Most of the annual weeds that infest my beds are palatable to the birds:Sow thistle, Fat hen, dandelion, hairy bittercress, rough Hawk's beard. I should make a photographic record, but this site covers most of the edible weeds, albeit listed for tortoises rather than poultry.

Greens should be an important and regular part of laying birds' diet. They improve the yolk colour and improve levels of omega 3; research by Artemis Simopoulos published in the New England Journal of Medicine has shown that eggs from birds fed on a varied died rich in greens (purslane) have a much higher ratio of Omega 3 to 6 than ordinary supermarket eggs (1:3 as opposed to 19:4). They also get bolted lettuces and brassicas, beetroot leaves etc in season.

The run is also proving useful as a support for a 'Jack O Lantern' pumpkin variety, which has started setting and swelling fruit since clambering up the run apace.

Brussels Sprouts

I don't particularly like Brussels Sprouts. They take up a lot of room, aren't that easy to grow well, and I find them fiddly and time-consuming to harvest and prepare. For years I have been putting a few in just for my father at Christmas. This year I planted them nice and early, before he was taken ill.

I planted these in what I thought was a rather moribund asparagus bed, little fern having emerged in the spring. However, the latter rose from the dead with a vengeance in the June heat wave. In theory, the settled ground should have been nice and firm for the sprouts, which were also well 'healed in', to avoid the sprouts 'blowing' and developing into loose, soggy bundles of leaves rather than tight nuts. The plan does not seem to have worked; all the plants have set an early crop of loose sprouts, now reduced to lace by copious number of caterpillars that I was not around to squash.

They are being enjoyed by the toadlets, which are clambering all over the large leaves to pick off the wriggling swarm, though not in a great enough number to halt the damage. Theoretically I could spray, but the plants should recover from the damage in the Autumn, and put on a bit more stem growth with clean sprouts. The looseness is more of a problem. I don't suppose I shall grow any more sprouts, at least for a while, so will never work out how to avoid the problem. I did manage to plant some purple sprouting broccoli 'Rudolph', which I'd prefer to give space to, but not any black kale, which is my favourite through-the-winter green.

Bean feast?

I like this variety of French bean, Neckar Gold. Apart from being very productive, the pods are much more visible than the green types, which means that they are far less likely to be left behind and set seed, thus reducing the productivity of the bean plants.

I'm not sure how big the crop from this single wigwam of 6 poles has been, having been away. Our neighbour said he helped himself to a few decent pickings, and since returning on the I've picked 2 lbs in less than a week. This batch should continue for a  couple of weeks longer.

My bean schedule did not go to plan. The early runner bean plantings ended up in Swansea, as my father was worried about not having put any in himself this year. They grew weakly, and ironically their fate pretty much paralleled that of his. 

Despite planting several more batches on rushed trips home, very few germinated in the care of my husband, and the odds and ends went into a single wigwam in the front. I did not have enough 'Sun Bright' runner beans (with decorative golden foliage), so I added my only two plants of French Bean Blauhilde to fill the gap. These proved rather more vigourous than their companions and are now up and away onto the pear arches, feet ahead of the runner beans. They are also rather more precocious, having already set a few edible-sized beans. So far it looks a vigourous and productive variety, again with the advantage that the purple pods should be easy to distinguish from the rest of the vine. When the runners finally set a usable crop, they should follow on neatly from the French kinds.

Wild Plums, Bullace

It's very annoying having such a heavy crop of the wild plums that creep over my boundaries when the domestic varieties do so badly. I'm tempted to bud the latter onto a branch of the wild tree to see if they do better. 

Wild plums are just about edible as desert if very well ripened, and if you take off the skin, but I think I'll just jam these or better still, make plum gin. 

I don't particularly like them, but have to pick them as the windfalls attract rats to the poultry run; the stored stones keep them going well into the winter (despite the cyanide). Soon there will be copious purple fox droppings in the garden, all full of tell-tale stones. Foxes appear to be largely fruitarian between July and September from the scat I find in the garden.

How does growing your own save you money?

I keep on reading that growing your own vegetables is a good way to 'beat the credit crunch' (though how this helps you get a loan or mortage is never explained). This makes me realise that I've never actually sat down and totted up the net cost/benefit of my fruit and vegetable growing and poultry keeping. But then, decades of practice and parsimony passed through the genes mean I don't do things in the same way as many people. 

I suspect if I added up the cost of materials and food for the poultry over the years (even with all structures home made or free-cycled), I would be well out of pocket despite buoyant egg sales. But then, the birds produce about a ton of straw manure which makes vegetable growing possible in a very thin and porous soil, and it's sentimentally valuable to have many generations of ducks or hens you've raised yourself. 

If the your sole reason for growing food is economic, then here are some tips.

Don't spend too much on seeds

Most of the catalogues that spend a lot on marketing have very expensive seeds. In fact, some are so overpriced that the companies have a number of half-price seed sales through the year. T&M harass you with a lot of junk emails if you get on their list, but among those will be some half-price veg seed sales. I've bought about half my seeds from their sales in the last few years.

Some garden centres also reduce seeds by half at the end of the season, around June-July.

And some seed merchants are simply better value than others even without reductions. I buy a lot from D T Brown

Also consider some budget brands, though seed quality can be variable. I recommend those from Lidl which were only about 35p for small packets, c. 55p for larger packs of peas and beans. They have good range of largely continental varieties which personally I like a lot. (The one vegetable I'd insist on quality seed for are parsnips, which can be hard to germinate at the best of times.)

Don't throw away last year's seed packets

Most vegetable seeds will actually remain viable for a number of years (the exceptions are parsnips and lettuce, though I find the latter will germinate the following year with reduced fertility). I just planted a row of Forono beetroot with a sell-by date of 2003 and it germinated with as much vigour as if it was new. Opened seed does need to be stored well, in a dry, cool place.

Save your own seed

This sometimes happens by accident if you find a pea or bean pod that has escaped picking. Dry any of these off and then shell. Discard any that look too shrivelled or brown.

Don't buy seed potato or onion/shallot sets mail order

Self-evident; the postage will be astronomical and chances are you'll find exactly the same varieties in your local garden centre unless you live on mars.

Don't be tempted by gadgets

If you do end up with a seed catalogue full of weird and wonderful things, don't be tempted by any of them. The one exception is a roll of environmesh which is essential for keeping caterpillars of brassicas. All the others are a waste of money.

Don't buy lots of fertilisers or pesticides

If you're creating a vegetable plot from scratch, then the soil won't yet have been denuded of nutrients or have built up a lot of pests or diseases. Soil treatments are really for those who have been cultivating a plot for a long time, and need to return what has been taken out to stop the soil becoming exhausted.

Don't buy fruit bushes/trees from catalogues

The fruit offered by the glossy catalogues is very over-priced in comparison with smaller, specialist nurseries, plus postage will be astronomical. Also, all fruit is a medium to long term investment, and it may take a few years before you get the value of the purchase price back in fruit. Check out any local nurseries first. Buckingham Nurseries used to be the best value mail-order supplier of the more popular varieties of top and bush fruit, but I haven't bought anything from them for a while.

Some catalogues do offer good deals on strawberries though, I've bought them from Marshalls on a couple of occasions when they've had a good offer.

Don't create gluts

If you sow a lot of one vegetable in one go, then you'll probably end up chucking a lot of it away. Sow little and often, leaving gaps between sowings. Learn how to store things properly. If you don't have a cool place to store sacks of potatoes, they will germinate in mild weather and will have to be thrown away, so grow a mixture of varieties you can use through the season and a small amount of maincrop until you're sure they will store well (I've ended up storing mine in paper bags in the bottom of the fridge).

Pumpkin support

Last year the poultry run proved to be a very good support for squashes, so this year I'm encouraging a pumpkin variety to cover the wire. I would have expected something to set and start developing by this point in August for there to be any hope of decent, fully ripened fruits, but yet again the season has been disappointing. The biggest pumpkin I ever grew was in my allotment in Wolfson College. I remember going into college on August bank holiday to work, and finding someone had tried to steal the nearly-mature fruit. It was too heavy for them to move, so they had hacked out a slice. We decided to take it home and use it ourselves before the thieves came back for some more. It took two people to move and filled a small wheelbarrow. I doubt my current pumpkin will produce anything like this in time for this year's bank holiday.

Squashes

The squash bed around the 'duck sump' has become a jungle in my absence. I'm sure the irrigation helped them establish during the brief heat wave, but constant rain throughout July hasn't helped the fruits to set without rotting off. Some leaves showing mildew. Normally I'd put this down to being too dry at the root, but I suspect the drip from the duck bath plus the rain might have been a bit too much. Now the vines are attaching to fences and other supports, hopefully there will be enough air to allow some to set without rot from the blossom end setting in.

You might notice some sweetcorn interplanted between the squashes. I've done this before with some success. However, none of my sweetcorn is looking very vigourous this year, the later-planted ones not in the squash bed being the weakest.

Potato: Nicola - with no scab

A very clean crop of Nicola, about 1Kg from one of the later sown tubers. This year I treated the ground with sulphur powder at the rate of 15g metre before sowing. So far it seems to have done the trick, not a trace of any scab, though Nicola isn't the most scab-prone of potatoes but it does sometimes show some brown scarring where earth has attached in a lump. I'm even hopefully the early-sown ones might yield some large and clean enough for exhibiting at the Autumn show. I'll reserve judgement until I harvest some of the Rooster which were quite badly affected by scab last year.

Nicola is my favourite potato as it is so versatile. A salad type second early, it can be used early (after flowering) as a new potato, or left to attain a larger size as maincrop as it stores very well. It has dense, yellowish flesh with a lovely buttery flavour. It has smooth, fine skin and isn't as prone to scab in my soil as some varieties. It's slightly less prone to slugs than some, perhaps because it is denser. Larger tubers bake well too, though be very careful to look for any tiny slug holes before baking. I'm going to miss this variety; I'm not sure I can bring myself to use dithane to control blight.

It scores 3/9 for Blight resistance, 7/9 for scab and 8/9 for potato eelworm.

Tomato Blight

Another disaster. I had been growing bush tomatoes in the Growmate greenhouse. Unfortunately the design isn't blight proof, as water can enter in the gap at the top of the pyramid, and splash blight spores on to the tomato foliage below. I can probably find a way round by covering the gap loosely, but I won't be able to grow tomatoes in here next year.

Luckily, very little of the fruit had been affected by the infection and I managed to rescue a couple of pounds of tomatoes.

Blighted!

Returned from Wales to find all the potato crop badly affected by blight. Fortunately the infection was still on the leaves, and hadn't spread down the stems to the tubers (as far as I could see) so there was a hope of saving the crop. Fortunately I had been earthing up very assiduously which would help stop infection spreading to surface tubers.

The only way to save the crop was to remove the haulms at soil level and destroy them. I dusted the ground with some Bordeaux powder and slug pellets then covered the ground with at least 6 inches of straw (to cover the pellets from birds and act as a barrier to spores. I've just dug some Nicola, and this approach seems to have words.

This is the first time in more than twenty years of gardening in Oxford that I've had potatoes affected by blight, though outdoor tomato crops have always been affected from mid-August onwards. I had one plant affected last year, but the rest of the crop was unaffected. Sadly my favourite potato variety Nicola has little resistance to blight. The other bed of Rooster was also affected. I'm really glad I experimented with planting early, a couple of weeks before Easter. This meant the early tubers made a lot of early growth and the haulms were twice the size when blight struck; this certainly seems to have a more or less doubled the yield between the early and late-sown rows (though I didn't have time to weigh the crop unfortunately).

Now that blight is well and truly established in the garden, I will have to choose blight-resistant varieties.  T&M claim their maintcrop variety Sarpo Mira has 'unprecedented blight resistance'; I might give it a go and report back.

July

July was a horrible month. Not only because it was so wet but because I spent most of it at my father's side in hospital, leaving the garden and orchard completely untended, and nearly all the summer fruit unpicked. He died last week. Only now do I realise how much of my urge to grow fruit and veg was tied up with my relationship with him and his world; partly competitive, partly to provide things that he liked. I wonder how I will feel about it now, the amount of work that has built up, and the amount of produce that needs picking and eating seems an enormous burden at the moment. July is the one month one cannot afford to be away from the garden, growth is so rapid, disease so rampant and production so high.