On the Smallholding | August

On the Smallholding | August Reflections

August has been hot, busy, and - right at the very end - wonderfully, gloriously wet.

A few things from last month we forgot to mention

A huge bough came off the willow tree. We made a garlic and sprats butter so good we were eating it straight off the plate from the fridge. And we bought a hosepipe, which, as any British smallholder knows, is basically ordering rain. Sure enough, just a week or so before the Bank Holiday weekend, the drought broke with heavy downpours and, reportedly, some beautiful lightning storms. I say reportedly because I slept straight through them. By 1st September we're already planning the next strimming session. The weeds are thriving in the rain.

The school holidays

We promised ourselves a day off a week with Holly during the school holidays, with her choosing where we went. St Fagans, the Rhayader dams, Porthcawl beach, and a school uniform shopping trip later. It's been lovely. We've learned over the years that without deliberately planning this kind of thing, it just doesn't happen, and we get to the end of the holidays with regrets.

Not this year. So I'm taking that as a win.

New arrivals

We have a kitten. Bandit. A lawless, chaotic, utterly adorable ball of fluff who spends his evenings purring on my knees and giving me big love eyes, immediately after trying to gnaw my feet off. He's perfect.

The ducks, meanwhile, still aren't laying, and had absolutely no idea what to make of the rain when it finally arrived, never having seen it before. They're very happy quacking outside as I write this.

The pumpkins

The pumpkins have had a brilliant summer. They've loved the heat, though they've needed watering almost every night. I have spent so much of this summer carrying buckets of water around the smallholding that I now have muscles like Popeye.

What are all these pumpkins for, exactly? We've sneaked a couple of hints out on our socials already, but take a (somewhat sketchy) look at what's coming here.

The fudge

The summer season is almost behind us, and our autumn range arrives in the first week of September. We'll have some summer favourites at the food festivals this month, but the autumn line-up is a good one: pumpkin spice latte, chilli and chocolate, white chocolate chai, spiced honey, and fig and balsamic vinegar are all back, and we have a brand new flavour joining the fold, Cider. We can't wait to see which one becomes this season's favourite.

Find out where we'll be this autumn here.

Christmas

Yes, already. With autumn practically here, Christmas planning is moving into full swing. Quite a bit has been ordered, there's another trade show to visit, and tree numbers to confirm. We have 500 growing in the fields, but they won't be ready to cut this year, so we'll be buying them all in again for Christmas. More details on opening times and everything else coming soon.

Full potato harvest

The potatoes are in and looking lovely. Shame I'm not eating carbs at the moment.

And finally

It really has been a month of keeping on top of things. Harvesting, tidying, watering, deadheading. The one unexpected upside of the drought was barely needing to weed at all. Every cloud.

Until next month,
Annabelle x