!!wind!

February 15, 2007 · Filed under polytunnel, Uncategorized

inside the poly tunnel, d’s bench!

since the last post  d. and i have put the polytunnel up,unfortunately our (well mine really) excitement was not to last long… bloody wind…that is to say, perhaps if we had been paying more attention when putting it together and more importantly when anchoring it down there wouldnt have been a problem, however, it was a calm, sunny day so why would we think about the wind  practically blowing it away and tearing a couple of holes in it  at the same time?

since that day im not sure we’ve had another day quite so calm…

anyhow, despite being in a rush to finish before the football started d. also made me a potting bench, and it is reasonably sturdy!

 last weekend we found a couple of concrete posts in the undergrowth in a bit of the garden i had been ignoring, astonishingly they are just the right length, so we have employed them to hold the sides of the tunnel down, over which i am making a sort of rockery, into which i’ll plant some plants into for extra strength to keep the soil in place, i realise that we have gone  from one extreme to the other now, but at least it will stay put now

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polytunnel

January 24, 2007 · Filed under gardening, january, polytunnel, self sufficient

yippee! the new polytunnel arrived yesterday, that was quite exciting, though it has come in rather a smaller box than i expected, but we will see…

january is proving to be very frustrating, we have to wait for some dry weather to burn all the sawn down trees before we can get the tractor back for the rotavating, d. has done it once and i know its supposed to be bad for the soil structure, but there doesnt seem to be any other way, if you’ve got elm trees in yr garden im sure you’ll understand, this time though we are going to do about 3/4 of the garden rather than just the bit on the end that d. did before…

the more space the better really, i’ve had an enquiry about a veg box, which is great, and so am thinking i might be able to supply a few more, maybe…

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where to start?

January 18, 2007 · Filed under gardening, january, self sufficient

this afternoon i planted my first seeds of the year,  18 x greyhound cabbage and 18 x purple sprouting. im going to plant a few every couple of weeks in the hope that i get less of a glut and more of a steady supply… i hope thats not too optomistic! but it is still january so i think im allowed to be as optomistic as i like… until the year gets going proper and the fear must surely kick in.

ive started them off in paper pots,  in the greenhouse. that was my first attempt at using the paper potter… so far so good…

this is also my first attempt at growing anything like as much as i am this year, my hope is that once we get going we wont need to buy anything much at all in the way of vegetables at least.

we have a fairly large garden, which is in the process of being transformed from a beautiful (but thoroughly impractical) little wooded area, into a large vegetable plot. we have removed several trees, which was pretty scary to begin with, though i must say sawing trees down is dangerously addictive after a while! (never thought i’d hear myself say that)

we also have a tiny 1m x 1m plot that i started last year and was the sum total of my vegetable growing adventure, though it has done me proud and we’ve had something on the table from it for most of that time, at present its half full of elephant garlic that im extremely excited about, but more about that later.

further to this we have just taken over an allotment. my 30th birthday  saw me shovelling about 1.5 tons of seaweed onto it. d. collected it in his tractor and trailer from the beach, across the way and left it in the road outside the allotment gate!  happy birthday me! i was covered in the smelly, slimy stuff. having a hole in my welly didnt help!

finally, there is a plot on the farm where i am hoping to grow veg for the restaurant (not ours btw) mainly lettuces, onions and carrots.

we also have a pair of beautiful black chickens (amelia and davros)!

so this is to be a record of this years green fingered adventures… wish me luck…

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