Growing
Storing carrots
Monday 28 November, 2011
It's been a lovely day here today - I even managed to get two loads of washing dried outside - so I spent some time in the vegetable garden. My job for today was to lift the remaining carrots.
Even though we hadn't thinned them much, we still had a really good crop. Dan has stored them in sand in trugs, in the workshop where it's cool, dry and dark.
Storing carrots in sand
It was raining this morning but
Saturday 29 October, 2011
my seed order arrived yesterday so I was all set to sort through our seed box and finalise the planting plan for next year.
First though, we had to introduce Leo, our Ryeland tup, to his ewes for this year. The whole flock was fluked a few weeks ago, the ewes were dagged last weekend and had their feet trimmed yesterday evening. We shed off the four ewe lambs and put them in Sheepfold yesterday too.
So all that remained this morning was to check Leo's feet ( they were trimmed a couple of weeks ago), slap on the yellow raddle and open the gate. Dickie has been put in with the ewe lambs.
Market gardening
Thursday 22 September, 2011
We've got quite a big area for growing fruit and vegetables - it's not commercial sized, but quite big. Our primary objective is to grow fruit and vegetables for ourselves but somewhere along the line the idea of selling surplus at the road end crept in and seemed to be taking on a life of its own. Farm shops were mentioned!
Over the last few days, we've had a review and decided to stick to our original plan of growing for ourselves. To be honest, I'm not a great gardener - I prefer the livestock - but I'm quite happy pottering and planning in the garden for us but I'm certainly not a market gardener and have no wish to be.
Druid
Saturday 17 September, 2011
Dan lifted our crop of Druid potatoes today. Although the yield isn't high, the quality is very good with no blight damage and only one potato with scab. This puts it on the list for next year.
Rooster
Tuesday 13 September, 2011
We lifted our Rooster potatoes yesterday. On the positive side, they are clean and blight free, but we're not going to get a contact with Albert Bartlett based on these yields.
The bed they were in was pretty poor - the soil is, well, sand and we didn't really weed it so it's full of couch grass. There's also a bit of a pan under the soil / sand we added to fill the raised bed. Other than that, it's great :-0
We've still got Druid and Desiree to lift, but I'm not holding out a great deal of hope for a potato-buying free winter.
Fruit garden - more progress
Wednesday 31 August, 2011
I've been working in the fruit garden this week. I'm not very quick but I get there eventually. It's hard being the weaker sex.
We've already got some raspberries planted - Joan J (a late), Glen Moy (extra early) and Glen Ample (a mid season). Some of the Glen Ample didn't take, so I'll be topping that row up with some additional canes. Clearing up empty plant pots and moving the rhubarb to the vegetable garden has given me room for two more rows so I've ordered Malling Jewel and Autumn Bliss.
Planting plan 2012
Thursday 25 August, 2011
Even though this season's not yet over, I've started drafting our planting plan for the vegetable garden for 2012, based on what we've learned this year.
We won't be growing onions. We'll do garlic and shallots, but onions take up so much room for a crop that we could buy, organic, for a few pounds. Next year, we'll do more peas and carrots. We'll also drop sweetcorn from the outdoor beds; we'll have a better chance of a good crop in the polytunnel.
Vegetable garden
Thursday 25 August, 2011
This time last year, the 3/4 acre paddock that is now the vegetable garden was grass. Since then, we've put on new gates, tidied up the fence, built five 1.2m x 18m raised beds, four compost bays and two bays for leaf mould. It's also become the site for the temporary pen for the meat chickens.
Vegetable garden September 2011
Our garden
Saturday 18 June, 2011
The garden here is lovely, although not if you like tidy, or municipal planting. We can take no credit, since all we've done so far is pull stuff out to let builders in. It's a garden full of surprises - almost every day, one of us finds a plant that we've not seen before bursting into bloom, then we all gather to wonder at it.
In spring, there was a cluster of plants in the wood - a purple hellebore, bright yellow daffodils, white bleeding heart and purple snake's head fritillaries - that was just stunning. I can only assume that it was planted like this by our predecessors, but it looks entirely spontaneous.
Tidy greenhouse
Tuesday 7 June, 2011
John had a good old tidy of the greenhouse last weekend. It's now full of tomatoes and cucumber and herbs. All the potting tables and stuff are out, and the brocolli and calabrese plants are hardening off, ready for planting once they get a wee bit bigger.
I managed to get swede and parsnips sown yesterday. Some plants in the vegetable garden look really good; others are a bit pathetic. I've thrown some "Growmore" and John had some rock dust that he's put on. But we've plenty manure to go on in the autumn, so hopefully next year will be better.
