Potato Lifting

[Brian]

We have been lifting some of our Cara potatoe today and they are HUGE!! So big infact that they are pushing their way out of the sides of the baulks. I had bought a set of narrow wheels for Dotty from e-bay so decided to use her to lift rather than Nuffy on the harvester which would increase damage.







Also decided to lift them with the Wild onion harvester which I found earlier in the year and which did a great job on the onions. It needs a tidy up at the moment but it works well enough behind Dotty for what I want. It shakes the potatoes out of the baulk and leaves them nicely on top of the soil to dry. Unfortunately we had picked them all up before i took these pictures.

The lifter has two oscillating shares with metal tines that move from side to side shaking the soil between the tines but moving the onions (or spuds in this case) towards the rear.





Very simple and effective and it does not damage the sensitive crop as the chain link lifting webs on the harvester would.





And, of course, Henrietta has to get in on the act too.

[oehrick]

What a nice scene Brian, only the reg plates give the era away

I've not seen one of those onion lifters before - looks like it does a pretty good job

I was waiting for a punch line on the size of the spuds............

[Brian]

Rick, no punch line they really are HUGE !!!! as we say here in Norfolk. The small ones are coming out as "Sainsbury's Bakers" and the big ones weigh around 1 to 2 lbs (.5kg to 1kg) each. They really have gone mad this year. All varieties except Romano are big.

I have tried "Mira Sapro" (think that is right), a red variety that is resistant to blight and slugs and have been very pleased. They do not break down when heavily boiled, like the Cara and we have some customers who boil potatoes to soup.

[Pavel]

That's brought back some memories for me, Brian. When I was a lad of 15, just out of boarding school, I got a job on a farm just outside Diss for a few months. One of the first jobs amongst the lovely Suffolk Punches was picking up spuds spun out by a new, then, E27N. It lasted for weeks and I admit my back was relieved when it finished.

Pavel

[Brian]

I have got one of those spinners on the scrap heap at the moment! We are rather flush with potato lifters what with that, a Johnson Hoover and the Johnson Harvester as well as this Wild. Those have rod link chains rather than the continental web variety and are a bit hard on the spuds if the skins are not quite set.

My back comes out in sympathy

I have just got back from the Physiotherapist.

[Pascal]

Great pictures, Brian! Thank you for the update....I guess your customers will love the big potatoes?

What about the square in the back, on which the potaties didn't grow? Did you found out the cause?

[henk]

Handy implement. Looks great behind Dotty.
Sounds like Ann can make a lot of friet this year from those large patatos.

[Brian]

Hi Pascal, no I did not find anything yet, as you saw the tops died but the area did not spread and it was just the one variety. Very strange.

Hi Henk, these ones do not make good freits we leave that to the Nicola and they too are HUGE but not quite as big as the Cara and the Valour. The Cara are best roasted or baked in their skins, we call them "jacket potatoes" and eat them with prawns, tuna, cheese or just butter. I must say we eat a lot of them this time of the year, one cut in half and baked in the microwave is a great meal for Ann and I.

Will get some more pictures of the lifter, I am going to lift Valour with the harvester today as the skins have set according to my test dig last night.

[Brian]

Got a couple of pictures of the lifter when I took it off Dotty today. Here you can see the shares and the rods for separating the crop from the soil.





And here is the harvester! Straight out of the nettles Pascal. little bit of grease and straight to work. Certainly speeded up the harvesting and a lot easier on the back.

[Brian]

Got more spuds lifted today, (in between answering Adrian's questions about hydraulics ) These are Cara and especialy good for "jacket potatoes". We are even supplying the Conservative Club in Dereham so Mr. Cameron might have one if he ever comes to Norfolk.





Coming up the elevator to the sorting table.



On the sorting table.





Henrietta is on the harvester as Nuffy decided to throw a wobbly and is in bits at the moment. Should be back in action later this week.

[Dandy Dave]

Nice Crop. We see what you will be eating this winter. Dandy Dave!

[oehrick]

Looks like far too many to eat Dave, my money is on fermentation followed by a quick boil & trip through a magic spiral - its amazing what you can get away with by calling it an 'unusual cold starting attachment' painting it true blue then hanging it on a Fordson and from what I've heard the products of such industry could easily be mistaken for Easy Start if drunk

Strangely, while Norfolk has a long history of producing Barley, Malt, Beer Cider & Mead I have found no indication that there was ever a tradition of Moonshining, although we now boast a Whiskey distillery, something the Scots may have overlooked if they think they can fund their proposed separation from the UK by a crippling tax on Scotch

[Dandy Dave]

LOL... Back here they use Corn Mash, but I have had a little taste of the potato shine one time when I was young. Wwhhaaaaa Hooooo... Burns good in oil lamps as well. Dandy Dave!

[Brian]

Obviously Rick has never heard of the Norfolk Cider Industry!

Gaymers of Attleborough used to make the best cider in the UK yet everybody thinks of Devon and Somerset as the cider counties. Gaymers Olde English was the king of ciders and straight from the wooden cask in the factory it was like drinking liquid gold.

Gaymers got taken over by Bulmers and the cider making moved from Attleborough causing the demise of a great drink. Think the water makes a difference to the flavour.

Another local cider producer got into trouble with the Customs and Excise back in my youth, he was producing cider that was actually a very high proof and was known locally as "apple whiskey". We used to drive to his farm and collect 5 or 6 1/2 gallon bottles for our own consumption and for the chaps at Wrights. My friend Terry, who lived in a bungalow on the Wrights car park, always kept a bottle in his fridge and when i came back to base in the evening after a day working on combines or balers in the Summer, always had a pint ready for me with ice. Just the thing for cutting the dust from your throat.

[Dandy Dave]

Back here they would take the hard cider and freeze it. The part that did not freeze was called Apple Jack... Waaa hooooo. I haven't seen any good hard cider around here for quite a few years. A number of years ago the Feds mandated all the cider sold had to be pasteurized. Took all the goodness out. Dandy Dave!

[oehrick]

Re Norfolk Cider industry

Oh Brian, y'll hatta wipe some of that Fordson exhaust spray off yer specs and re read me last para agin

Adding water that turns cider into eurofizz but even some of the traditional makers do that now to keep down the alcohol level and eke out the apples, I sometimes wonder how these old time labourers managed to keep upright, however hard they worked. I guess that water type has as much effect on 'cider' as it does beer.

Was this rocket fuel actually distilled or just very strong cider ? with the right apples that have so much tannin in they are inedible, and left clamped like mangolds to gather sugar, scrumpy can ferment out at 15-20%

I keep expecting to see your postings in upsidedown text – when are you off ?

I've heard of the freeze & skim the ice method Dave, our winters are rarely cold enough to be able to experiment

Had a poor apple crop this year (lost my bees during the winter) so there will not be any cidermaking unless I snaffle some from elsewhere

[Brian]

Just strong cider, it was very "rough" and still had bits of apple (and possibly rat!! ) floating in the bottle. It came from the farmer where the zoo is now at Banham if you know where I mean.

Sorry to hear about the bees, was it the varroa mite? We used to keep 11 hives but over the years the mite got to them and they got weaker and weaker as the strips did not seem to work.

I love rape honey and we had loads of fields around here but the best honey came from the borage that a friend used to grow. we used to get all the hives on that if we could and the bees really enjoyed it It seemed every bee in Norfolk was in the field when it was in flower and you could park by the field, shut off the engine and listen to it hum.

I took my nephew to the Royal Show in the 1980's in my old model Range Rover, on the way home we called in on some bees I had in Ramsey Mereside on a small field of runner beans being grown for seed. When I drew into the yard the next door farmer came to me and said that there was a swarm on his plough headstock. We had no bee equipment with us so i borrowed a cardboard box and carefully dropped the swarm into it, folded it down and put it in the back of the car. My nephew was petrified all the way back home in case the bees got out but all was well. We drove many miles with the hives in the back of that old car and the bees climbing up the back window and waving to passing motorists.

PS Polished glasses and saw what I missed Only a few days left now before we head to the plane.

[Dandy Dave]

We have the same problem over here with loosing bees and it is not good at all. What would we do without them? A very scary thought.... Dandy Dave!

[oehrick]

I'm a fairly new bee keeper and I think the loss was down to me leaving them their own honey which would be mainly rape and Ivy, with hindsight this had set like concrete and they couldn't get enough water to it during the cold snap.

I've been running with mesh bottoms to the hives and periodic dusting with icing sugar if the varroa count starts to rise seems to keep things reasonable, the new Thymol based treatments are supposed the be OK but no doubt the little varmints will develop a resistance like they did to the last stuff.

Contrarily, I hate the rape, don't like the smell in the fields, dont like the look, don't like how waspy it makes the bees and don't like the honey, or trying to get it out of the comb if it sets - you might say I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about it Don't see much borage about but someone nearish is experimenting with lupins again

The first time I handled a swarm I was amazed at how docile they were and have been a lot easier about handling them since as a result, the chap who has been teaching me finds it amusing that I describe swarms in pints I was having a rest this year but discovered that a swarm had started squatting in one of the hives, so far they have ignored my eviction notice

I know where the rocket fuel came from, I wonder if the Banham Cider house is a successor

Glad your specs are clean and shiny for your epic voyage, if you go to Sydney, the Powerhouse Museum is a must.

Safe travels to you both

[oehrick]

Ooops, missed your comment DD - the farmers will only stop their spraying when lack of pollenation starts to hit them in the pocket, if its not too late

We have a lot of uncultivated land around here as well and have had a very good year for bumble bees of all sorts - I even extracted a nest for a former neighbour a month or so back who's roofers downed tools when they disturbed it, he didn't get near enough to see they were not honey bees and they were not so well behaved either but I managed to get them and their larvae out and relocated behind his garage rather than destroy them.

[Brian]

Our first experience with bees was with a man I had known for many years who worked for the Melton Constable estate. Every lunchtime Stan would have a different flavoured mead for you to try and he won many top prizes for it at the Royal Norfolk Show. When Ann and I started to get interested Stan took us on a tour of his 50+ hives in rape.

He had been quite specific to tell us not to wear blue overalls and equipped us with white ones for the visit and also said wear wellington boots. For some reason I had not got a pair so he told me to tuck the bottom of the overalls in my socks to prevent bees crawling up my trouser legs as they are wont to do. Guess the colour of my socks! Your right! Empire Blue! On the first hive we approached Stan opened the top and gave them a bit of smoke, 60000 bees came out of the lower opening and hit my blue socks! They were clustered on my ankles like furry leg warmers all lining up to sting. I must have been hit 30 or 40 times in a few seconds.

Eventually we got them off and left the field but I have never worn anything blue again when working with bees. There is another part to the story though, I kept bees for around 15 years and was stung many times on my arms and head with no problems, however, if I get one sting on my ankle, I have about 5 minutes to get a piriton or apies mal tablet or two before I go into shock with violent shivering and pass out!

I have nearly as many bee stories as tractor related ones from collecting swarms to getting into trouble with ny neighbor who owns the garage. He had a car wash and the bees were a constant nuisance as the cars were being washed and waxed. They used to sense the hot wax and descend on the car being done and try and nick the wax as it was applied.

[oehrick]

Lovely picture Brian Alan who has been learning me has his hives on slabs, mine are in grass, I went over to see an artificial swarm and suddenly discovered I had several visitors heading North up the trouser legs, (where my bees had never dared explore) had to go and strip them off in his shed, thankfully without getting stung, a pair of cycle clips got added to the bee toolbox thereafter !

I've not tried making mead yet but my melodeon reed securing wax is being used by a few squeezebox wranglers,likewise furniture polish by friends & family - beeswax has such a lovely smell when its not over refined, a trace of pollen and propolis left in does wonders.