The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: gardenjeannie on January 08, 2013, 02:38:32 am
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Hi :wave: I'm originally from Lancashire, but wanted to live in Scotland from my first holiday to the Highlands (Tain), 15 yrs ago. Ayr was not far enough north for me, but is still Scotland, and circumstances brought me here 7 years ago. The promised land it was NOT, then, even tho I got to live on a large estate, with lots of land and promises for use of :( I now live a couple miles from there, in a tiny hamlet, with a decent sized garden. Enough for 5 veg beds, a fruit cage, good lawn for my 2 boys to play, a play area with trampoline, sandpit and room for our lge paddling pool, and flower beds. My fruit cage was originally a hen run when I moved in, so it was a toss-up between keeping it that way, or beating the birds to the raspberries! I chose the rasps, as the hens will be easier to move around, once I get them, and if their run fits the veg beds, they will be very useful for bug, slug and weed control in the winter, as well as being lovely little rotovators and fertilisers. My rasps were a jungle the 1st 2 yrs, thanks to all of that fertilisation!
I would love to have more space for livestock, but will have to make do for now. Strangely, there are very few veg that I will eat, but I love to grow them, and my boys love most. I love alliums of any kind, and tomatoes. My boys hate both! They also hate courgettes and aubergines, as do I, but I still have to grow them every year, even tho' only one neighbour likes them!
Do any of the rest of you very friendly, helpful people grow things that you hate? And if so, why?
Thank you all for a lively, friendly site. Would like to get to know you all better! There is such a lot of good reading and advice here.
Ruth.x
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Hi Ruth
Welcome to the forum!
Personally, I don't grow veg I don't like... Garden is too small as it is. But a friend of mine tends to grow stuff, just because she likes growing it - like leeks; and none of her family will eat them... (She does, but doesn't have time to cook them just for herself.) So whenever she does have time for the garden, I and a few neighbours profit. Last year, however, what with one thing and another (weather and work), she hardly grew anything and had to buy in.
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Hi from the Isle of Mull :wave: .
I love growing veg, even the stuff I don't like to eat. Don't know if I will get the opportunity to grow any veg this year :( (very long dull story).
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:wave: Hello, I would love to live further up North but will stay put in the Central Belt.....
I eat everything and grow nothing...well I do have some fruit trees but the birds and hens eat them :innocent:
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Hi Ruth and welcome to the forum from Carmarthenshire :wave:
I have a 2.5 acre smallholding but as yet haven't grown any veg. I do have some chickens though and thank them every day when I pick up the eggs.
I also have 2 old geese (inherited from the previous owners) 3 ducks, 5 sheep and last year had 2 weaners which are now in the freezer.
Sally
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Hi and welcome from Woircestershire :wave: I grow masses of rhubarb which I give away bar one or two early season meals, and did have 2 incredibly productive redcurrants, but got them dug out this last winter :eyelashes:
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Hi and welcome from Carnoustie :wave:
My father-in-law is now in charge of the veg garden but I eat pretty much anything. I'm just so grateful that anyone grows it and cooks it for me ;D
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Hi from North Yorkshire :wave:
mandy :pig:
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helloo from ayrshire too.....we're over mauchline way
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:wave: Hi and welcome from Shropshire. I grow veg but only what I will eat, partly due to lack of space and partly as there's not much in the veg department that I don't eat. I also have three - shortly to be two - goats.
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Hi gardenjeannie,
I was in hollybush a couple of months ago- my sister and I remarked how nice it must be to have Hollybush as your village address. Nice little place.
We're in central Scotland, Falkirk area, and have just about an acre.
Beth
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Thank you, everyone, for your lovely welcomes. :wave: I need to learn to type much more quickly so's I can have a chat on every topic! Although I have wonderful neighbours, differing ages and interests mean that I don't often get the kind of conversation that I like best. So you may all soon get sick of hearing me! Hope to meet you all on other topics soon.
ttfn
Ruth
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Hi Gardenjeannie :wave: from way down on the South Coast my Mum was born in Ayr but lives down here with me now. look froward to your posts
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I don't often get the kind of conversation that I like best. So you may all soon get sick of hearing me! Hope to meet you all on other topics soon.
ttfn
Ruth
You'll have to be fast to keep up with some of us. :roflanim:
I lived across the water on Arran for eleven years and it is still my favourite place in the world.
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Hello and welcome from the bigchicken from the kingdom of fife. nice part of the country you have there many moons ago I lived at Raithhill farm on the Coylton high rd , also have fished a small trout fishery just of the Ayr rd not much success this year growing anything green house was a waste of time everything outside bolted beetroot never got anywhere only think that was any good was the tatties in barrels. Here's hoping for a good growing year this year. I,m with you on raspberries they can take over, courgetted we're my least favoured but I now like them
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Hi & welcome Ruth from a few miles north from you :wave:
We rent our smallholding from the big family dairy farm just down the road.
We have a large garden at the from of the house - where I do try & grow most of our veg (if I can keep my OH's fowl of it!). We have planted some fruit trees & bushes (ditto the fowl ::) ) & the 2 beehives sit in the "orchard". We have 2 byres we can use at the back - 1 set-up as a piggy maternity wing & another the main herd overwinter to keep them off the 2 acres of VERY slopey (& muddy) woodland where they live in the winter.
Originally from South Wales, we've been up here for 3 years now & met loads of the lovely folk on here too :eyelashes:
:love: :pig: :love: Lynne
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:wave: hello and welcome from Durham. we have two allotments with a couple of hens, fruit and veg. I love growing fruit and veg whether I like it or not. The things that do too well ( nothing last year :'( ) I swap with neighbours for things that I don't grow. It works well.