We have got gite bookings rolling in so I have been spending all week in the absolutely freezing hangar making a cupboard to hide the gas bottle for the gite cooker out of crappy scrap I had lying around and a splendid bronze plane. Absolutely no gardening this week due to howling winds, torrential rain and freezing mud coating everything. Still a bit to do out there though:
Finish digging (only a metre left but need a dry half hour for it!)
Mulch the beds with horse poo and compost depending on what's going where next year
Dig out a new bigger holding bed
Dig up all the ash and oak trees in the driveway and plant out in the field (have to wait for the Boys to vacate it now)
Cut and trim hedges and boundaries
Cut poles for trellis, beanpoles and pea-sticks
Prune trees and fruit bushes
Take cuttings of trees and bushes
Etc...
Thankfully, I have 5 crates of beer to get me through it - half the usual light fizzy ("mesle yellow") and a new one: a strong, dark, 7%(maybe) battle pop. Tastes great and I no longer miss the Gardener's (nearly). Need a name for it: maybe "Bad Santa"...
I'll post some piccies later.
Monday, 5 December 2011
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Earthling study final report.
They're all doomed. Worldwide financial crisis brought on by banking debts and massive consumer debt, so why not turn to bankers and economists to sort it out then.
Bit like a police force manned by burglars.
Hmm, hmm, yes - that is a worry. Less than 1% growth. Gosh. Could be a recession. Golly. Nobody's spending any money. Hmm. Euro's going tits up. Shucks.
Venus is scorched with a surface temperature of about 482° C (900° F). This high temperature is primarily due to a runaway greenhouse effect caused by the heavy atmosphere of carbon dioxide.
Probably some trouble getting seeds to germinate there, and here as well in a few short years...
Bit like a police force manned by burglars.
Hmm, hmm, yes - that is a worry. Less than 1% growth. Gosh. Could be a recession. Golly. Nobody's spending any money. Hmm. Euro's going tits up. Shucks.
Venus is scorched with a surface temperature of about 482° C (900° F). This high temperature is primarily due to a runaway greenhouse effect caused by the heavy atmosphere of carbon dioxide.
Probably some trouble getting seeds to germinate there, and here as well in a few short years...
Monday, 14 November 2011
Proper jobs for November.
Hedge done! Proper job, that was!
Double digging started! Proper job, this is!
Stones from hedge line and 1m of spud bed - doing a proper job of it!
Trees being planted! A right proper job!
Christmas ale brewing! Should be a p- oh ok, I'll shut up.
Thursday, 20 October 2011
The long view for good stuff.
Rant alert!
We're going to plant a hedge for a windbreak between the veg plot and the field (soon to be woodland). This involves taking a spade and banging away at the "turf", an aggregate of rubble and woody roots, and carting it down the bottom of the field, a staggeringly heavy wheelbarrow load. Then a fork is taken and the strip is then broken up (using all my body weight to get the fork in) for K to then come and dig up all the dandelion roots and stones (a barrow full every 3 feet or so). Then we go over it again, digging in some fertiliser (organic, people), then we plant up the hedge.
Seem like a lot of hard work? Too bloody right it is, but as with everything here, it seems that the more effort you put in, the better the result is. And there's no instant satisfaction either: everything is always next year at the shortest. Going to plant some walnut and mulberry trees so I can have nuts and berries when I'm 60. Digging this almost unbelievably hard, stony soil now so we can plant tiny saplings in 6 weeks so we can have a hedge in 4 year's time. We cart manure off the field (thanks Harvey and Gedion) so we can then dig it into the spud beds the year after next. Etc. The result is that our place is becoming more fertile and beautiful every day and we are getting very fit!
Compare this to Mr Normal's day: instant everything. Instant coffee and cereal for breakfast, on the train with his (or her, the mad cow) I-phone type trinket, getting instant messaging, downloads, email, etc. Then fast food (not really food - ask to see the Long Egg in Subway and you'll get it), then maybe on the computer games in the evening to wind down a bit, where everything is instant, failure is impossible (pause and save), and maybe some sort of short-term instant gratification at the weekend with some new trainers on the credit card. No long-term view about anything (except pensions of course, which are one of the biggest rip-offs of all time), which is lucky because the long-term result of all this is...
...a world of shit.
Use your hands.
Create for those who come after you.
Always think 'is this better, or just quicker?'
Off to eat more vegetables we planted ages ago.
We're going to plant a hedge for a windbreak between the veg plot and the field (soon to be woodland). This involves taking a spade and banging away at the "turf", an aggregate of rubble and woody roots, and carting it down the bottom of the field, a staggeringly heavy wheelbarrow load. Then a fork is taken and the strip is then broken up (using all my body weight to get the fork in) for K to then come and dig up all the dandelion roots and stones (a barrow full every 3 feet or so). Then we go over it again, digging in some fertiliser (organic, people), then we plant up the hedge.
Seem like a lot of hard work? Too bloody right it is, but as with everything here, it seems that the more effort you put in, the better the result is. And there's no instant satisfaction either: everything is always next year at the shortest. Going to plant some walnut and mulberry trees so I can have nuts and berries when I'm 60. Digging this almost unbelievably hard, stony soil now so we can plant tiny saplings in 6 weeks so we can have a hedge in 4 year's time. We cart manure off the field (thanks Harvey and Gedion) so we can then dig it into the spud beds the year after next. Etc. The result is that our place is becoming more fertile and beautiful every day and we are getting very fit!
Compare this to Mr Normal's day: instant everything. Instant coffee and cereal for breakfast, on the train with his (or her, the mad cow) I-phone type trinket, getting instant messaging, downloads, email, etc. Then fast food (not really food - ask to see the Long Egg in Subway and you'll get it), then maybe on the computer games in the evening to wind down a bit, where everything is instant, failure is impossible (pause and save), and maybe some sort of short-term instant gratification at the weekend with some new trainers on the credit card. No long-term view about anything (except pensions of course, which are one of the biggest rip-offs of all time), which is lucky because the long-term result of all this is...
...a world of shit.
Use your hands.
Create for those who come after you.
Always think 'is this better, or just quicker?'
Off to eat more vegetables we planted ages ago.
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Plagues and carrots
Being a bit on the hot side for October, we have a plague of flies - thousands of them! Like something out of a horror story, the other night they were crawling from the loft through into our bedroom through the hole for the ceiling light, so we ran for it and are now sleeping in the gite until things get back to normal.
We're going to the UK on Sunday so while K is working her socks off I am cleaning and harvesting what might go off if we get a frost (which would also hopefully kill some of these bloody flies).
Spuds, carrots and beetroot all done.
Cabbages ok, with the savoys still in the ground. Could have done with some more though...
Squashes lurking in the spare room.
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Morocco and Scotland
Grow for a wet cold and a hot dry climate to almost guarantee success.
Root veggies (Scotland) looking great, squashes and sunflowers (Morocco) covered in mildew.
Also working very hard in the hot sunshine digging a French drain to dry out the kitchen wall, and we're putting in a grey-water system as found here. It's going to water some of the trees in the orchard (we're putting in some new eating apples this winter for it). All according my favourite new motto, 'keep it simple and it won't go wrong'. It's a pipe that ends in a thick bed of wood mulch with a tree downhill of it. Mulch soaks up water, which cools, and releases it slowly to tree. Tree drinks water and makes apples for me to eat.
Some winter stuff (chard, carrots, beetroot) going well in the tunnel and the toms are getting a second wind with this heatwave. Wee thing centre is turmeric. Sowing peas, broad beans, salads, and other bits soon.
Root veggies (Scotland) looking great, squashes and sunflowers (Morocco) covered in mildew.
Winter brassicas all netted, and the new hedgeline being dug.
Chooks now in their element in the garden, weeding under the bushes for us.
We have new chooks! We worked out that if we got another three and sold their eggs, we'd break even with the cost of feed. Thing is, chickens as well as being chauvinistic, are also racist. We got one Sussex and two ISA-types and the original greys won't have anything to do with them! I've just been out to close up the coop and the browns are being kept off the perches because the perches are for Greys, and the shitty floor is for Browns, obviously... One day the browns will come out in a show of solidarity and the greys will respond with wee chicken riot shields and batons, claiming to be keeping civil order.
Also working very hard in the hot sunshine digging a French drain to dry out the kitchen wall, and we're putting in a grey-water system as found here. It's going to water some of the trees in the orchard (we're putting in some new eating apples this winter for it). All according my favourite new motto, 'keep it simple and it won't go wrong'. It's a pipe that ends in a thick bed of wood mulch with a tree downhill of it. Mulch soaks up water, which cools, and releases it slowly to tree. Tree drinks water and makes apples for me to eat.
Although they're being killed off by botrytis or whatever, the squashes are still doing reasonably ok.
So, all in all not bad. Just need to crack a few more veggies (like the sweetcorn) and dig, dig, dig. Apart from the no-dig bits...
Saturday, 3 September 2011
Main crops
Haven't got any pictures (camera's dead) but please feel free to Google "120kgs of Desiree potatoes".
Should be ok for the winter...
Also harvested the buckwheat and made a right pig's ear of it - I scythed it and the stalks went everywhere, and I left it too long and a load of the seed has "shattered" and been lost on the ground. Still, it's all a learning experience and most of it is now hanging on a line with a fine net under it (scaffold net again) to catch any seed.
It's funny what a sense of security it brings. Like Cobbett said, "a couple of flitches of bacon hung up are worth more than fifty thousand Methodist sermons even if accompanied with the horrors of hulk and gibbett". Food security.
A couple of flitches of bacon is next year's project.
Should be ok for the winter...
Also harvested the buckwheat and made a right pig's ear of it - I scythed it and the stalks went everywhere, and I left it too long and a load of the seed has "shattered" and been lost on the ground. Still, it's all a learning experience and most of it is now hanging on a line with a fine net under it (scaffold net again) to catch any seed.
It's funny what a sense of security it brings. Like Cobbett said, "a couple of flitches of bacon hung up are worth more than fifty thousand Methodist sermons even if accompanied with the horrors of hulk and gibbett". Food security.
A couple of flitches of bacon is next year's project.
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