Q update for June June 15, 2009

sorry no pics at the mo as trying to just getting around to posting…

• Potatoes are now all in and storming.  Including fast growing shoots in the tyre stacks.
• Measly few peas are hanging on in there, but a poor effort for one of the family favourites that did so well last year.  You don’t seem to be able to get them in the garden centers/wilkos either…
• Because of the above I bought 6 mange tout plants… they’re doing ok
• Carrots are coming on nicely as a forest and a new sowing now coming through too
• Parsnips are storming this year - first year of success after two failed years
• One smallish green tomato coming on so far.
• No peppers yet and don’t even ask about the spanish pepper efforts…
• strawberries are growing but being swiped by some critter or other before we get them
• Rainbow chard is a nice new addition this year
• Can see rasberries coming on which good (pressie from my mum’s garden)

..and so a brand new season begins.. February 1, 2009

Well I know that gardening/allotmenting should be a year-round activity but we’re not there yet.

Today has been a milestone for getting things started for this year…..

 

We bought seed potatoes.  Around 75 specimens – 50% first earlies, 50% main crop.  Two varieties each.  So assuming a yield of 8 per plant (though we won’t probaly be able to get them all in) that’s 600 potatoes!! For a grand total of £8.00.  Woo hoo.  Asda price? £3 for two bags totalling around 30 potatoes?  Excellent.

It struck me that it’s amazing in today’s society that a bag of seed potatoes are still so cheap at only £4.50.  I would have thought it would have had a massive mark up these days.  So I guess they must be worth virtually nothing at cost?

A second sexy element is digging over the plot and beginning to prepare. Last year’s collected and piled turf has turned once again amazingly into wonderful top soil.  Sexy Earth once more.

And it was a beautiful sunny moment as I sweated digging into it.  I even added nigey-compost (apparently that sounds bad – I just mean nige-made from veg kitchen scraps) to it to help get even richer.  It is probaly destined for the potato tyre stacks.

This year should see:

• Shifted around beds following a rotation as per chapter 1, page 1 of all books.
• A cleared pond side hopefully with bench (freecycle wanted)
• Another shed (freecycle acquired already) for chickens to try out breeding/stroking chicks/killing/eating….
• A major assult to beat the nettles from taking over…..
• A new gardener to join the team as Baby Yogi joins in (will be 18m in the summer).

Hope to see all others active on their plots too……

Wot an Autumn Haul….. September 2, 2008

Back from two plus weeks away on holiday with the parents in Spain.   Hope to post a pic of us helping to harvest their potato crop when we finally get fully unpacked!  It was quite a laugh, hard work and fully un-rewarding as they had a very poor yield.  Stubborn oldies meant they re-use essentially the same plot each year, don’t use any fresh composty type input, and shallow bury the seed potatoes with no earthing-up!!  ah well.  Around 100 potatoes yielded around 200 potatoes.  ah.  Still have 200 though so better than a trip to Carrefour for them.

 

Our garden however….  We had already brought up and used the earlies which were ok, and with the wet weather decided to get our main crop haul in rather than unpack from the holiday! It was quite wet but starting with the tyres we were immediatly smug and joyous esp with the comparison with the Spain outcome.

 

  In the basket is the yield from two potatoes in one of the tyres (about 20-25 i think)

 

We had some other good growths over our holiday period including a bumper crop of jalepeno peppers, a reasonable haul of cherry tomatoes, two pretty good sweetcorns, a forest of carrots at last, another nice big marrow (our third and we planted squash seeds!!),  and two stonking sunflowers:

Wot a haul July 24, 2008

Last year we planted four seed potatoes and got a haul of about 100.  This year we planted a rainforest of about 30 and so far have dug up half – almost all the earlies as we were a bit worried about blight.

A good haul

Average only about 10-12 per plant this year but some huge ones (we didn’t pay attention to the map of different types so not sure which ones are the baking potato type but assume the humungus ones are them).

Started to see some bushing of the carrots too so thinning them a little more reaps some tasty baby ones.

 

This together with our lovelingly produced home fresh free range eggs (lots off required) leads us nicely to be able to produce delish family receipe/cooking style spanish tortillas which are just the best ever….

garden update – July July 14, 2008

So update due.  Good weather and a bit of tidying at the weekend….  pls excuse the rubbish photos/graphics compared to most peoples blogs – 1) I barely grab a chance to grab pics and upload them 2) we don’t have a flashy camera, 3) see 1 again.  :>  4) updates’ existence first perfection maybe second  5) see 3.

 

 

 

 

definitly some learnings this year – more fustrations too this year, but potatoes, peas, lettuce and onions are really pleasing.  Hoping that carrots, peas and tomatoes (and chillies/peppers) come out at some point!!

Sorry, not too good at this regular update thing June 26, 2008

Well this house is failing at doing our blogs regularly, so I can now offer a brief update.  I’ve been out in the garden (allotment) tonight so I feel quite in touch.  Over the previous months we’ve had major failures (carrots almost totally failed for 2 crops, but now have a third set seeming quite strong) and some major successes (peas are now producing beautiful crops!).  The greenhouse re-site has worked well and is a tropical jungle of tomato plants and peppers (2 cherry tomatoes).

The chickens are all still alive (!) and we’ve had a fairly regular 3 or 4 eggs a day.  They are so lovely, and so social – although I’m a bit worried that they are so friendly when I do see them cos they’re a bit socially deprived.  Usual kids thing of slightly losing interest in pets after a while….

We now have cows in the field to the right, and sheep/lambs to the left.  Horses still in front of the house. 

The house and garden sound idyllic and in many ways they are, but we do suffer on other wavelengths – like no easy walking routes for prams / toddlers etc so ultimatly house/garden bound or car-dependant, no pubs easily visitable so limited adult time out, no close friends/neighbours so again no adult time out but also limited visitors and no-people-dropping-in.  I’m sure others in smallholdings might also feel these kind of things – especially where people have moved to it. But then a lot of people who have done that seem to be older and child-less so it’s a different experience/set of issues.

I remain positive, connected, learning and at home.  Just want to solve some other non-garden connection areas in our life.

We did have a very good party (nigey-fest) a few weeks ago and it seemed to work quite well.  Good bonfire, bbq, lots of drink and cocktails, decks/music/guitar in the garden til late/dark and all ages seemed to enjoy it.  I just need to sort out a way of actually enjoying my own parties rather than running around hectic trying to make everything work!!

Will get some pics soon!

a proper update for mid-may May 18, 2008

Wow.  It’s all coming through.

Lots of updates for all the few but appreciated readers!

All been going well – seriously ran out of water the other day but then it rained for two days and everything got a nice proper drink. The potatoes are run-away climbers and a little hard to control/earth up! hope they’ll end up doing ok.

Greenhouse is doing well with now 2nd-littlest daughters’ tomatoes being first in line with some flowers coming through.  Chillies and spanish peppers basically failed but have some other chillies I bought now doing well and basil doing well too.

We’ve decided to make a few small efforts to make the house a little more pretty, so my hanging baskets and now some forget-me-nots and alyssum planted down the path at the front.

Note the nigey-bodge of not quite bothering to cut the line straight, or to make sure the plants were evenly spaced (mis counted and thought I had 15 not 12! duh!), and that the earth was even (as in moistness/color/type etc).  ah well.  might look nice if I can keep the grass from over-taking it.

less potato fustration…. more potato joy!! April 30, 2008

Went to check on the tatties in the rain today.  They’re popping up nicely and it’s a lovely moment of joy and pride when you realise things are working ok (again - 2nd year for us!)

 

In the main plot (center) we have – (earlies) Accent, pink fir, Jersey royals, ?bakers?, [main] King Edward, Desiree.  Then we have a couple of randoms in two tyre stacks to the left of the picture. 

To the right of the picture we have a random four plants that I cheekily chucked in at the end of last summer when I took up the sweetcorn plants.  Told dear her indoors the other day and she at the moment is saying we should leave them there although they are growing on the path and the roots plot.  :>  Q funny really.

Bets on how many potatoes in total we’ll end up having – last year 4 seed pots = 100 potatoes.  This year 27+2+4 = ? answers on a postcard please!

Question to readers too – how many seed potatoes can we fit in a tyre stack? (standard size tyres?)

nigeybodge? I think nigey-cunning!! April 30, 2008

The cunning greenhouse rain collection contraptions are a success!  Today was a manky heavy rain day and my rain collections worked really well – one was full when I checked before work and the wheelie bin on the other side had definitly increased at least a little.

 

The side shown above works really well with all the water draining to this end.  I duck-taped a cut-off coke bottle to the side of the greenhouse, put a kids’ drink bottle lid on it and duck-taped a hose to this.  Then the hose runs down to a knackered old plastic barrel I stole from the horsy neighbours.  The greenhouse guttering needed something to let the water drip properly in so I bodged-on a piece of scrap plastic (from a kitchen bin)!!! nice!!

The other side just has a scrap bit of plastic shoved into a hose which runs to a wheelie bin next to the greenhouse.  That side of the greenhouse isn’t sloped enough so water collects in the middle bit of it and not run very well into the hose and bin.  ah well.  I siphoned a load out of the main house water butt so I think I’m doing ok although am planning to transfer as much as I can to stash before a hopefully hot summer…

Part-way through weekend update…. April 26, 2008

Random wanting to post with some updates-:

- Finished raised beds with ends and top soil procured previously from freecycle.

- Admired many shoots now appearing in the potato area

- Transplanted many things including peas, brassicas, nastersiums etc

- Put up some more fencing to sort out the chickens who keep escaping next door!

- Syphoned waterbutt off to stash some rainwater for the coming anticipated dry spell

- Completed a nigeybodge/cunning solution for collecting rainwater off the greenhouse.  [another post with pics to follow shortly]

- Completed a nigeybodge to replace some glass in a shed thing here.

Busy busy busy……

interesting pea in transition to the outside world:>

 

And a funny find whilst emptying the waterbutt->

 Toddler admitted to putting a flowerpot, a small gardening kids’ rake, and an egg-box in there a few months ago!!