A Re-invigoration to nigeygreenposting May 16, 2011

It’s been a long time, we’re in a new place, things have started to grow and we’ve been creative to get more growing space.

This first pic is from our LANDSHARE,  a lady down the road who is pregnant with her second child and responded to some posters I put up asking for growing space.  Wonderfully in the style of ‘The Good Life’ she has allowed me to carve up her front lawn and create three beds!

So the first bed is really the only one I’m using for now and the below shows peas, sunflowers, sweetcorn and other seedlings like leeks, chard (although these seem to have been dug up)

This next photo is the end result of…….. 2 years of….. decomposition of…… our COMPOST TOILET from the wedding.

Yes this is wedding poo soil!!!

The wedding poo soil is great, and is now a part of our adjusted garden feature of the wedding-freegle-washingup-sink that is shown below.  Northing planted yet – we’re thinking about it.

At the back is cucumber plants to grow up.

And on the sink drying area is the mud/straw nest/cat basket that the 3 year old had me make at the Wildheart Gathering festival at the start of May.

Then back to our garden – raised bed brought from old house – has the two wedding asparagus which are now delivering one stalk at a time, salad, chard, radishes.

The below shows the next asparagus poking up….

The now-5-year old has her trough brought from the old house too – and put in some salad and chard seeds…. then sneaked in a pea which has started to grow really well!

The other raise bed we have, now has two rows of peas, sunflowers and sweetcorn.

It already had a veritable bush of raspberry canes, then lots of ivy and annoying weedy things.

Also from the wedding, we had a blueberry and a whitecurrent plant – each still alive and one seeming quite fruit-filled.  We didn’t really get anything off these last year – so fingers cross for this season!

2010 Q Spring Update May 18, 2010

blog? what blog.  oops. I’ve been one of those.

Spring update for May 2010:

– Just polished off the last of last years champagne.  Still VERY VERY nice – and strong.!! :>

– Still loadsa nettle beer.

– Peas are doing well this year – now out in the garden

– tomato effort as every year is under-way and probaly underwelming as always.

– we have lotsa nice additions this year particuarly as wedding presents -white currents, apple and pear tree (in large pots), asparagus (not edible till next year or 2012), 2 rows of raspberry canes etc

– going for potatoes and carrots mainly in tyre stacks and veg bags this year (as been doing so badly in the ground in previous years….

– we have 7 chickens now – one was pretty poorly and the wife did the deed whilst I was at work, then to compensate we got 4 new rescue hens from a battery farm that was due to kill them off.

– Had a great DIY job recently as we got a v large playhouse from freecycle

playhouse mid construction

BTW – a garden growing wedding project June 24, 2009

I keep forgetting that I have a (mandated, inherited) project for growing towards the wedding.  The wife wanted sweetpeas homegrown for the September wedding which we talked about for a while before she got itchy worrying that it was getting late….. so we had to vigorously debate where to locate them, then I dug over two strips in the front garden and we bought sweetpeas from a garden center (rather than from seed) and got them in.   Since then, they have been my babies – mainly due to hectic real baby antics for the last few months and so the wifes’ inability to get out to them.

So I’ve weeded, watered regularly, got canes (freecycle of course, although I did buy some peasticks initially), tied the sweetpea shoots up, set-up the canes, got more canes, regularly strimmed the whole area (as it is trying to remain a nettle pasture….) etc etc.  Wifey did get out there regularly and I think she is pleased.

1) I’ve been making up the care policy as I don’t really know when to break off side shoots or where or how to do this….

2) There are a few ant nests in the strips and this seems to have killed off a few plants

3) The replacement plants I’ve put in for any failures aren’t really taking – even those not in the ants nest….

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.