Sowing Seeds And Potting On

With a break in the weather at the weekend I managed to catch up on a bit of gardening. First job was to pot on a good quantity of chillies and tomatoes. 

Some of these haven't grown at a rate I'd expect. And I think the compost is to blame, bought in, but it's so unpredictable. I'm going to start adding a bit of seaweed feed to the watering can, not something I'd normally do this early on, but I feel they all need a bit of a boost. I don't normally buy liquid feed to be honest but the comfrey won't take kindly to being chopped already. 

Best Time Of The Garden Year!!

I love this time of year when we start to pull more than just salad out of the garden! 

Creating meals with lots of fresh veg is always exciting, and I love that the garden is now starting to produce loads! Last nights tea contained two of my favourites, garlic scrapes and broad beans! I need to grow more of both next year.

Frost In May

Round here this is not uncommon, but I think many have been caught out. It was quite a hard one and even froze the puddles.

But that's not to say I didn't take some risks!

Another Corner Controlled In The Garden!!!

My garden beds are looking pretty tidy, with only a few left to seriously weed out before planting. 

But there are some big areas of my veg garden that still need a lot of work. This bottom corner is one of them. This area used to be really wet until we drained the field around it, so while it was wet I put in some raised beds (2015 can you believe!). This worked a little bit but in the end they got neglected and the nettles have claimed them as their own.

So now seems the ideal time to take back control and gain a bit more growing space.

Some serious digging and pulling went into clearing this area! I had three barrows full of nettle and dock roots by the end. But with a little path down it I've now gained two more 10ft beds to grow some veggies on.

This is great news as I'm already running out of space and trying to figure out where things could go!

Have you tackled a neglected garden area lately? How did you do it? Plain elbow grease or a better way? Wish I could have got the digger in here to deal with this instead of my spade!

Hellens Garden Festival 2019

We've had another great day at Hellens garden festival. 

It's become an annual trip for our family, we love it and really look forward to it. 

Looking At hydroponics

This is a collaborative post.

So following on from my post about conserving water I’ve also been thinking lots about different growing methods and if I’d like to try any others, particularly if they’d be better in a hot summer.

From searches about straw bale gardening, to no dig, to minimum tillage, one that keeps popping up again and again is growing hydroponically.

Straight away I can see one major downside to this, the initial cost of set up. Having a good hydroponic system set up isn’t going to be cheap but once its set up all you have to provide are the hydroponic nutrients, water and a medium for them to grow in and keep the system working.

I remain sceptical about it all but I did speak to a strawberry farmer, who is a friend of my fathers, the other day and he said to me “No one growing strawberries commercially does it in soil anymore, that’s a thing of the past.”

6 Gardening Tips for Hot Weather

This is a collaborative post.

This year has made me see some real short comings in my garden lately, mainly in the fact that I’m not that well prepared for really hot weather. With the soaring temperatures we’ve had lately it’s something that we all need to give a bit of thought to.

Provide Some Shade

The greenhouse got up to some crazy temperatures on sunny days. I noticed one day that it was well over 50 degrees C in there. I temporarily shaded it by using an old dust sheet on the south side.

Having some gardening supplies, like pots with water reservoirs would help as well. I think I might even move back to having greenhouse beds rather than growing in buckets in the future.

How did I do against my self sufficiency goals for 2017?

It's nearly the end of the year so I thought I'd do the cliche post of looking back at how things went. I'll look at how I did against my 16 self sufficency goals that I set for myself for 2017. These were rather optimistic though so please bare that in mind...

1. Gain Better control over my growing areas.

This is a yes and a no to this one! I certainly have the veg garden under control now, but I still need to work on the edges and find a way to control round the outside. I have planted comfrey around the perimeter so I hope this will form a barrier that I can mow up to. Weed mebrane has been a game changer as well.

My fruit garden on the other hand is completely out of control and I'd go as far as saying it's beyond saving. My plan with that is to cover it over with plastic and leave it for a year. I'm going to start a new fruit garden in the orchard, with wide rows and hopefully some annual beds in between, watch this space for that one!

2. Garden Smarter Not Harder

I've been really trying with this one!
All my garden beds are now the same size and I think by the end of the year I am up to 54 beds at 10ft by 30inches. I love this size, find it easy to work, although I do have a few double the length. I have weed membrane burnt with the right holes for different crops, hoops and net that will fit any bed, it just seems a great way to work.
A push seeder has also helped me be far faster when it comes to direct sowing and using standard cell trays has made me better at transplanting.

I also had a few failures as well. The strawberry planter I made up (behind the girls in the photo above) is a great example of this. It just wasn't working, taking too long to water in the hot weather so I just abandoned it!

3. Record Keeping
Well I certainly tried at this one but unfortunately I seem to have stopped around August time!
I will try harder next year, it is the key for success I think! At least I know when I started to grow things and how early things went in. The peas are certainly something I'll be trying to get in just as early this next growing season, as well as beets and carrots. I was pleased with how soon we were getting proper harvests from the garden this year.

4. Money
Well this didn't happen! I did sell excess produce at playgroup and at the school gate. I supplied a couple of friends with veg boxes during the summer, one friend had one every couple of weeks, there isn't much money in selling veg but it helps pay for the obscene quantities of seed that I buy each year!
I had a good lambing and sold the lambs as stores in October, not great money but it's nice lump before Christmas.
I did my first paid garden club talk, this was something I really enjoyed so I'll be looking at putting myself out there more next year, I already have a few talks booked up.
Next year I'm going to concentrate on getting the extension finished then I can look at finding some other revenue streams that can be based from here.

5. Staples

I certainly made some effort with this. I grew a double bed of quinoa which seems to have cropped well. I've still not processed it yet though so I don't know the yields! I think I'll plant it again next year, its a handy crop as it doesn't take much care and fits easily into a rotation as it's not related to many of the standard families.
I grew a good amount of early potatoes, which we really enjoyed. I'm going to grow more potatoes next year and maybe create a bit more growing space for them...

Didn't bother with chickpeas though but grew soup peas instead. They taste great but look horrible so I need to find some that will dry green rather than grey! My wife eats with her eyes!

6. Be better at harvesting and preserving

I've been much better at cropping out beds rather than just leaving a few things in the ground that never get harvested. This has meant that I get more crops from each bed if I'm careful. There are still some crops out there that I should have got in though!
I've been dehydrating lots of things with my new dehydrator, this has meant that we can use summer gluts (squash) in the winter. I'd like to dehydrate more veg though as I seemed to concentrate on mainly fruit (mainly apples, lots and lot so of apples).

7. Be More Proactive at dealing with problems
I've been out there a lot more this year so I guess that's been the main thing helping me keep things in line. I certainly could be better at trapping rodents (although I've made lots of boxes for traps) and I need to be better at covering areas that aren't in use so weeds don't take control.

8. Grow more
I have never grown so much as I have this year! We have had so much food from our homestead it's unreal. We've eaten more veg than ever, with multiple crops from each bed, and having our own lambs and chickens from the land has been great as well.
The meat chickens in particular have been awesome and something I'm looking at doing again next year.

9. Seed Saving
I've had more plants in to save seed from this year. I still need to process some of them but I'm pleased with what I've got.
I joined my local seed saving/swap group and have been going to meetings, this has been a great source of knowledge as well as a good way to meet like minded people.
On top of this I have also joined the heritage seed library and have grown a few things for them as well.

10. Hard and Soft Fruit
My wife worked hard to be able to get at the soft fruit early in the season, battling the nettles, and only because of her did we manage to have so many raspberries. But I do think the area is beyond saving and needs to be covered over and start again somewhere without so many nettles!

We also managed to plant another 13 apple trees in the coppice so in the future that should help to stock our larder!

11. Improve the coppice area
I didn't increase the willow numbers but I did plant lots of apple trees.
We also made a log circle and enjoyed the area earlier in the year.

12. Building work
I'm certainly not where I want to be with this one!

Inside the extension is still not at all usable as I haven't knocked through yet. A couple of rooms are plastered and I've made and fitted the doors but there's still plenty to do. I'm hoping it all comes together next year when my little boy starts going to nursery for a couple of days a week.

Outside things are looking a bit better! The top patio is finished and is totally amazing, we had a few great BBQ's out there in the summer and the space worked really well. I still need to get moving with other areas but at least we have a nice area to eat outside and for the kids to ride their bikes.

13. Herbs and Spices
I grew mostly the same number of things as what I normally do, there was a few new ones, like Korean mint and summer savory for example. I really enjoy growing and using herbs so I'll be looking out for more interesting ones next year. I have been talking to some local restaurants and the chefs have tried some of the more unusual things I've grown. The black mint is one that they are interested in so I might put a bigger patch of that in next year!

14. Baking 
Well I've kept up with this one! Even had a proposal due to my Chelsea buns the one day! I bake so often now that it's become second nature, I don't have to look at many instructions or recipes but just know what I'm doing. If I'd could tell my younger self that he'd never believe me!

15. Animals
The sheep have been good this year and haven't destroyed my will to keep them, like they have in the past, they still don't make much money but they are great for the kids and I do enjoy it.
As I've mentioned above the meat chickens have been a great addition this year and having 20 laying birds in pasture pens has also been great. My new pens have really helped me keep my birds healthy and even when it was down to negative 12 degrees c the other night they were fine in their heras panel pens with just a tarp and one side filled in.

16. Declutter
Nope.
Just nope.
I just think there's something wrong with me.



One thing that wasn't on the original list but should have been was learning and training. This is something that I've put a lot of effort into this year, I've attended talks, spent the day with a market gardener, visited another market garden and spent a day there, went to a days course at garden organic on unusual veg and read lots and lots on the subject. Some might even call me obsessed...
I have tried to put it into practice where I can and I have some plans for next year forming in my mind!


So there's my review of my goals that I set myself at the start of the year. I don't think I've done too bad but there are certainly areas to improve!

What do you think?

Did you achieve your goals for 2017?

What do you think should be on my list for 2018? I won't be offended!

Importing Fertility into The garden

A video where I talk about importing fertility into the garden and what I'm trying to do to produce more from my own land. 

What do you do to improve the fertility of your soil in your garden?

What Type Of Gardener Are You?

In any industry, profession or hobby there is a lot of terminology or buzzwords and in the world of gardening and self sufficiency there is more than a few to describe what you can do.

I remember a while a go I had a few people come over to view my garden and the one lady asked "if I practised permacuture?", well yes and no I said, there are many ways to describe current gardening methods:

Conventional 

Organic

No Dig,

Back to Eden,

Double dig,

Min till (minimum tillage),

Permaculture, 

Bio-Intensive

Bio-dynamic

Sustainable agriculture,

Regenerative agriculture,

Hydrophonic,

Aquaphonic,

Urban Agriculture,

Plasticulture, 

And Many More!

And I fit somewhere in there. Some I certainly don't do (double dig or bio-dynamic) and many I certainly do!

I'm not sure where I am on that list but I certainly don't like to put a label on my gardening "style" as then I feel I can't experiment or mess around with other methods.

My current method of gardening would best be described as "an organic approach that used no dig or minimum tillage (or though I occasionally dig over a plot completely) , whilst practising some aspects of permaculture when it comes to fruit and trees, some of sustainable and regenerative agriculture, but with many annual veg with a bio-intensive spacing utilising plasticulture to suppress weeds where necessary.

Actually I think what I'm trying to say is it's best not to label the type of gardening you do as you might end up restricting yourself. 

Do what works, try something new every year and keep experimenting to keep it interesting. 

Just make sure you look after the soil and the rest looks after itself.

What buzzwords would you add to that list?

What over the top way could you use to describe your current gardening methods?

Garden Talk By Phil Allen

Last night I went to my mothers gardening club to sit in on a talk they were having. 

She quite often tells me when there's a talk I might be interested in and I have been before although only once. When I do go I think I must half the average age in there, there's lots of hushed "is that her son" going on as well! 

I'm doing a talk at her club later in the year on unusual vegetables so I'm look forward to that, hopefully i'll make it funny and informative. 

Head Gardener - Phil Allen at the entrance to the garden area

I was really keen to go this time because the talk was by Phil Allen, the head gardener at Apley Walled garden. I went last year and spent the day with him (you can read the post here) and it was one of the most interesting and inspiring days I'd had in a long time. 

He's a really passionate guy with a great sense of humour and this really came through in the talk he gave about the history of the walled garden. I had loads of questions for him afterwards and he also gave me some great ideas and revenue streams that i could follow up on. 

I also said I'd love to volunteer up there for a few days to see him in action and learn even more, he seemed keen on this so we've swapped details and I'm already looking forward to learning more from him, there is no better way to learn in my mind that to go and do something and to be shown by someone who can do it well.

Has anyone else been to a good talk/lecture about something they're interested in and given them loads of ideas?

Mum's Open Garden For The NGS

Thanks for all your kind messages for my wife, she's much better now and went back to work today! 

My mum sent me a link last night to show that she's going to open her garden for the charity this year with the NGS.

I've posted about her garden before (click the link here to see) and it's easy to see where I get my love of gardening from, although mine is a very different type of garden!

Her garden is simply stunning any time of the year but she has planned this garden to be at it's peak during July and that's when she is opening to the public for the first time. 

The dates for your diary will be Sunday the 16th of July and Sunday the 23rd of July, so everyone keep your fingers crossed for good weather!

The link on the NGS website can be found here as well. 

Although it's a long way off I hope to see some of you there, it's for a good cause and I guarantee  you won't be disappointed! 

Would you ever open your garden to the public?

Survival Growing (if SHTF)

Okay, so most folks reading this blog keep a selection of seeds to grow each year, or if not then keep some in case of an emergency that might result in having to grow some of your own food (financial collapse, zombies, etc).

But I was reading something the other day and it made me think about what if I didn't have my collection of seeds to grow from? What then? What if something happened to your supply or you had to leave them behind and at your new location you had to grow food to feed your family?

It's amazing when you start looking though there is plenty of things you could grab to grow in the right (or wrong) situation. 

I started looking in the kitchen and within a couple of minutes found these.

Tomatoes, popcorn, fennel seeds, onion, garlic, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, mustard seeds

Now the seeds are fairly self explanatory, the tomatoes (it could be peppers, or any fruit with a seed in) could be taken and the seeds extracted to be planted. 

The onion could be planted in the ground and the green leaves harvested, or with the hope that it might go to seed and provide you with the material to grow the year afters crop. The same would be true of any root crop you found, if you got them in the ground then by the end of the next year you'd have more than enough seed to grow all the carrots you could possibly want. 

The popcorn could be grown and used just as a normal grain then used for flour.

But it doesn't have to stop there. Out in the shed I've got wheat for my chickens, oats for the sheep and sunflowers for the birds. These could all be grown easily. The wheat could even be eaten as wheat grass or ground to make flour and the rest grown for another crop.  

The other thing would be to look in peoples gardens and see what gone to seed, or what young plants are growing (depending on what time of year it is) but you need to have a good gardening knowledge to be able to do this well. 

Where else do you think you could look for good sources of growing material? 

What would we find around your kitchen and garden?

Garlic Harvest

When I came back off holiday I saw the neighbours (who'd been looking after the place) then went round all the stock and then went into the garden. 

Everything has been growing like crazy and I could see a hundred jobs to do. 

One that needed doing straight away was harvesting the garlic. It's smaller and earlier than I'd like but it was badly affected by rust and I think it had stopped it growing. Looking at my crop it should have been harvested a week a go as some of the skin around it has started to go bad and soft. 

Batch one

I pulled it up and laid the three types into three apple different crates I made earlier in the year (I copied these ones here). I left the garlic out in the sun yesterday to dry off. 

Batch two

Batch three

Really pleased with these crates although I think I'll make some mesh bottomed ones for drying garlic and onions next year rather than the slats. 

I certainly haven't harvested it at it's optimum so I hope it will all keep. If it starts going bad I'll look into different ways of storing or preserving it, I'm tempted to pickle some anyway.  I'm sure it will dry up nice and I'm worrying about nothing. I still have my elephant garlic to harvest as that's not ready yet. 

Next year I'll plant it further apart so that the air can circulate around it more, one thing I really need to start doing is giving plants more space, there is no greater false economy than planting things too close together and getting smaller plants as a result. 

Has anyone else harvested their garlic yet? Anyone else suffer with rust on their alliums and have a good organic cure for it?

Windowsill Gardening

The growing season here can be pretty short, we aren't really frost free until the second week in June, although it can be much earlier than that, anything before is a risk. So to extend the season I start most tender plants off in the greenhouse or in the house.

Pepper plants and other seedlings coming along, melons and cucumbers mainly as well as more strawberries.

 This year I've been using the windowsill to their full potential, starting lots of seeds in my heated propagator as well as potting on tomatoes and letting them grow on in the house. I've still got lots growing in the greenhouse but this way I'm hedging my bets encase it freezes hard one night and I don't realise in time. 

Chilli Pepper plants in the living room

 So all my south facing windows are full, there's about nine varieties of chilli peppers, three types of tomatoes (with another 6 types in the greenhouse)  and then some Minnesota melon seedlings, heritage cucumber and a Mexican herb I've forgotten the name of spread all round the house. The only room I've haven't put plants in is my girls bedroom as it has a blackout blind and I'd rather go without tomatoes than that in the summer, as it makes them sleep past sunrise! 

Some leggy Tomatoes, they should be okay but it shows that starting them too early can be a bad thing. Some are just forming their first truss.  

Who else has a house that's filling up with plants desperate to go outside?

Sheep's Wool As A Garden Mulch

It's fairly common knowledge that sheep's wool is a pretty low value commodity in this country, the cost of the wool only just covers shearing and that's not including your won time or taking it to the wool yard. 

It's a shame when you think that much of the wealth of this country was built on wool hundreds of years ago.

So I've been trying to think what to do with what I've got left from last year and one idea kept popping into my head - a garden mulch.

Covering a 4ft by 10ft bed

Reading about it there seems to have been a few people that have tried it and they all say good things. 

Here are a few of it's characteristics that will make it work well as a mulch - 

 It's good at suppressing weeds, 

Has good water retention, 

It's 100% natural, 

It'll bio-degrade over time, 

It'll hold the heat of the day and warm the soil, 

The lanolin in the wool acts as a natural slug deterrent  

It'll be great for the local bird population who'll have the best nests for miles around

As it rots it'll also put nitrogen back into the ground. 

Mulching between some newly planted Rosemary

I think this is worth a try so I've got a few fleeces out and set them in place and I've also added a few to sell on Etsy to see if other people are willing to give it a try.

What do you think? A good idea or not? anyone have any experience with using wool in this way?

Apley Walled Garden - A Days Tuition

Back at Christmas mum gave me a voucher for a days gardening tuition at walled garden over by Bridgnorth in Apley, She was also coming with me, so it was a great way to spend time together (and she loves anything to do with gardening) and hopefully I'd learn lots.

I thought this was a great present but it turned out to be so much better than I thought. Apparently she'd booked the course just before they cancelled running it, but they decide to honour our places. This meant that we got a private course for just the two of us for the whole day!

Head Gardener - Phil Allen at the entrance to the garden area

We met the head gardener, Phil Allen, at Apley farm shop, had a drink, discussed what we wanted to learn and talk about during the day and then headed down to the walled garden. As soon as I met him I knew it was going to be a good day, he's completely passionate about what he does and it was obvious from the start that he had a wealth of knowledge and a willingness to share it.

The garden is amazing, four years ago it had been completely over grown, untouched for forty years. Now the whole four acres were under cultivation and looked after by Phil pretty much on his own. Add to that the fact that the garden is starting to make a profit and supply the farm shop and local restaurants and it gets really interesting. 

I think the thing I like most was that this was a proper working model of how large scale gardening/small scale agriculture can work in the UK. Every plant or area had a purpose, a simple example was in the one poly tunnel where there was a load of Pak choi that had bolted, but this had been deliberate so a local Thai restaurant could buy it as they like to use the flowers on their dishes. The garden wasn't weed free either, and he made no excuses about this, the time isn't there for it to be like a show garden, that's not it's purpose.

Fruit cage area - this picture showing peas growing under the cage.

The garden was split into different areas, with roughly a quarter split off for fruit production where he single handedly picks over a hundred punnets of raspberries a week in high summer! There was also a large area where he was experimenting with a no dig method of gardening and other areas where he was trying a biodynamic approach to gardening. 

In it's day there was many (and I mean many) glass houses, all with different purposes, from melon houses to ones for house plants and over 33 staff to run them and the gardens. There isn't any glass left in any of them and they're all in various stages of disrepair. Instead of letting them sit empty though, Phill has covered some of them in plastic and is using the space inside to grow many crops that either need the warmth to grow or to grow crops early to catch the best marketability for a certain crop. 

Glasshouse in use

A glass house not in use yet

Early crops

Seedlings ready for potting on - well over twenty varieties of tomatoes being grown here. 

I think what I liked best about the whole garden is it's willingness to try to find a market for something different. As Phil said to me at one point in the day "We live in an area of farmers, so why is a restaurant going to buy carrots off me when he can buy them cheaper off a farmer whose growing a field of them, I have to offer something different. Baby carrots, different colours, ones grown for taste and not transport." He was offering so many different and unusual plants to restaurants, ones they couldn't get from wholesalers, so they were using him to set themselves apart as well. The one Thai restaurant had been winning awards with their food and they attribute good local produce to helping them win. 

I learnt so much from the whole day that I'm still trying to digest the information that I was given, but the main feeling I've been left with is that of inspiration. I feel inspired that I could make my patch of land here make some money so I can reduce the amount of time I have to spend away from here. I've been given ideas about market areas and revenue streams that I never even considered and I think I have the energy, drive and enthusiasm to make it work. 

He really embodied a "Farm better not bigger" attitude and it's one I'd love to emulate when I take back over with childcare from September, getting things in place to slowly change how I provide my income, even if it's just a tiny percentage of it to start with, and produce food for more people than just my family.

I'll do some more posts on some of the tips I learnt at a later date - the one is amazing and I can't wait to share it with you all! 

New Rhubarb

I'm always on the look out for new things to grow or new varieties.

The rhubarb I grow is from my mums garden and she inherited it from the gardener who lived there before her. It's a great type, keeps it's shape well when cooking and isn't too sharp, we've no idea of the variety but I know I'll certainly keep growing it. 

That said I've always wanted to see how it compares to other types and if there's much difference. 

I saw this "Raspberry Red Rhubarb" at the weekend and I decided to give it a go, it says it's a newly developed strain that doesn't need forcing (I hardly ever force mine any way) and should be slightly sweeter with thinner stalks. 

Anyone else have different varieties of rhubarb? What's your favourite variety?

Garden Apprentice

Few things make me happier than having one of the children help me in the garden. I managed to get out in the greenhouse after work one night this week with the lighter evenings.

Between us we managed to sow a few seeds and pot on some cuttings I took last year. The cuttings were of some of my more expensive plants, so I was quite pleased, having another 5 cocktail kiwi plants around the smallholding will be great in a few years time, as will some more blueberries and Chilean Guavas. Just need to find places to plant them all now. 

Each and every night when I get back from work she has to come and shut the chickens in with me (wearing my hat - not the one in the picture), she's not worried about the dark at all. I think I've got myself a little apprentice in the making (although the wife says she's too young to learn to shoot yet)! 

Tour Of Mum's Garden

This is a very picture heavy post! 

Mum has finally opened her garden to some local gardening clubs and the NGS next year. She has worked on the same garden for over thirty years, although it has taken many forms in that time. 

When my brother, sister and I were young she used to grow much more vegetables and we had a big lawn to play on with swings and even the climbing frame that our primary school chucked out as they deemed it unsafe! 

Now the garden is divided up into different areas, with two ponds, a stream, BBQ area, raised beds, parterre, even an area for the grandchildren with a sandpit and a veg bed for them to grow things in. 

BBQ area added last year, we built the patio years ago using the old slabs that used to be the floors inside the house

The fencing I put up earlier this year - looks really lovely with things growing up it now.

The pond was added about 15 years ago

Add caption

veggies in the raised beds

Children's area

Parterre

The Brick garden shed that took a few years to build and finish - finished it last year but started it about 3 years ago! 

The stream - mum added this some years ago and everyone who sees it thinks it's natural!

Second pond at the bottom of the stream

Stream with the oak bridge that my brother made for her

Greenhosue and lawn

The walled garden area was built to separate the farm yard from the garden

Thirty years of hard work and constant design and development have created a beautiful space, she spends every spare minute in there and it's not difficult to see where my passion for growing has come from! I like the fact that each year she adds something new whilst maintaining everything else, 

Let me know what you think.