Living off the land

Going self sufficient in Norfolk

Saplings & Seedlings

February 22nd, 2012 by · No Comments · Growing, Preparation, Projects

We planted 33 hazel, willow and elder saplings in our field yesterday. Then we planted five berberis hedge saplings, two climbing roses and a quince in the garden. The words ‘stiff’ and ‘knackered’ need re-defining.

Quince

Quince

The quince will be fan trained up against a trellis. This is where we put our table and chairs in summer so it should act as a wind break, and we’re hoping for fragrance from the blossom and fruits too. We got all our woody plants from Ashridge Trees http://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk – we bought hazels and fruit trees from them last year and they all lived, despite the drought. We can recommend this firm and will use them again.

The newly acquired propagator is germinating seeds well, we’re getting quite a collection of seedlings on the living room window sill:

Seedlings

Seedlings

There’s a danger of turning your whole house into a garden nursery at this time of year but, what the heck, it’s all good fun.

Clearing up after coppicing

February 18th, 2012 by · No Comments · Cropping, Preparation

The forecast was for rain later today, so we got straight out to clear up the wood we coppiced and get the bonfire of unusable remains started. The latter required at least a jam jar of paraffin to get the fire up to temperature, probably because the wood was so green. We will spread the ash from the bonfire onto the veg patch, so even that won’t be wasted.

Bonfire of garden debris

Bonfire well underway

Here’s a few images of our ‘crop’ from the coppicing exercise:

Pea sticks and garden poles from coppiced hazel

Pea sticks and garden poles

We don’t know what tree this was from (below), but it has produced some very bendy whips which Susan hopes to weave into a garden trug and plant supports:

Whips from coppiced wood

Whips for basket weaving

The conifer in the corner of the photo above was given a hair cut to let more light into the garden. The largest trunks will be seasoned and then used on the wood burning stove. The smaller ones should make good straight garden poles. The leaves were mowed to break them up then put onto the blueberries as an acid mulch.

Conifer, cropped for burning and mulch of leaves

Conifer being stripped of its leaves

The blueberries are in a separate container with ericaceous compost. Our soil is boulder clay and too limey for acid loving plants. We started the container off with bought peat based compost. But we want to use alternatives from now on as peat is a bad choice environmentally. A quick check on the internet told us that fir needles, leaves, cones, and chipped wood can be used both as a mulch and to improve the soil of acid-loving plants. Apparently spring is the time to add a mulch. We shall wait and see what the outcome is.

blueberries

Blueberries with conifer leaf mulch

Coppicing

February 16th, 2012 by · No Comments · Cropping, Preparation

It has been a mild day with gentle wind today so we got out and worked. We coppiced and shortened a couple of mature hazels, the big stuff will be dried out and burnt in our wood burning stove. The straight poles will be used for making wigwam supports for beans, sweet peas etc, the twiggy branches will make good pea sticks and the rest will make a bonfire.

Coppice - before

Coppice - before

Another reason for doing this is to let more light onto the pightle bed. It should receive about one and a half hours more direct sunlight a day, making it more viable.

Coppice - midway through

Coppice - midway through

It’s amazing how much wood you get from what looks like a shrub. Just reducing two hazels took both of us half a day. Now comes the equally long job of cutting it up and sorting it according to use.

It was great to be out in the fresh air, doing stuff.

Pightle

February 14th, 2012 by · 6 Comments · Growing, Preparation, Problems, Storing

‘Pightle’ is a Norfolk name for a pig stye. It more commonly refers to a small strip or ‘pigtail’ of land and that’s probably why it got changed – pigtail/pig stye. Anyway, we inherited a disused pightle with our house and we’ve converted it into a potting shed. We cleared it out today, ready for action:

Pightle

Pightle

Amongst things chucked out were some rotten marrows, we don’t think we’ll bother with them this year:

Marrows on compost heap

Marrows on compost heap

They don’t store all that well and there’s a limit to how much marrow we want to eat. Squashes, on the other hand store very well and we can eat any amount of them:

Squash and spuds (in the bags)

Squashes and spuds (in the bags)

Once we’d cleared the pightle we sowed Tomato Gardeners Delight, Tomato Yellow Tumbler, Tomato Nectar, Chilli Cayenne and Aubergine – all to be started in the propagator. When they’re up, we’ll make another sowing of the same things.

Green manure

February 13th, 2012 by · No Comments · Growing, Preparation

A big 5˚C today and the snow’s largely gone. The green manure (mustard) was frosted and has turned yellow. Apparently, you can dig it in or just leave it to rot and get dragged down by worms. We’ll try using worm power and if that fails, we’ll dig it in.

Yellow green manure

Yellow green manure

We’re thinking of using under sowing this year, for example sowing clover under courgettes. This should give us mud free paths and when you mow it or dig it in it’s supposed to enrich the soil. Any advice on this will be gratefully received.

-16˚C

February 11th, 2012 by · 1 Comment · Cropping, Growing, Storing

The BBC say it got down to -16˚C last night. It certainly looks like it around here. Everything’s frozen hard. Oddly, one of the geranium cuttings we’re over wintering on the kitchen window sill chose today to flower:

Geranium in flower

Geranium in flower

Everything in the garden is looking limp and cold. Brussels sprouts are tough though; this one is just about to be cut off and taken indoors:

Brussels sprouts in snow

Brussels sprouts in snow

Everything’s welcome at this time of year. The last of the courgette and sorrel soup was eaten yesterday, very nice too:

Courgette soup

Courgette soup

It seems a long time since we were getting more courgettes than we could eat. This soup was made as part of a large batch on the 9th July, put into recycled large yogurt pots and frozen. With additions (wine, cooked chopped Brussels sprouts, or whatever) one pot is enough for two bowls of soup.

Last onion

February 8th, 2012 by · 8 Comments · Growing, Storing

We’re down to our last onion (apart from pickled shallots). They stored well in a cool, dark, frost free shed but we needed more. As a rough estimate we had 120 medium sized yellow and red onions. These lasted us from July to January inclusive – seven months. So, we need about 205 onions for a whole year.

Last onion

Last onion

It’s cheaper in the long run to over produce rather than run out (cost of a seed relative to the cost of a shop bought onion).

Garlic, squashes and potatoes are lasting well in store and, when the ground unfreezes, we hope we’ll have plenty of parsnips, leeks and salsify. The broccoli and kale should be OK and with a bit of luck the chard will recover.

Closer inspection of field crops in snow

February 5th, 2012 by · 4 Comments · Uncategorized

We’ve been out for a walk and discovered that the snow is at least 10cm deep, with deeper drifts. We had a closer inspection of the crops in the field. The green manure – mustard has finally bitten the dust. This is OK though as it needs chopping down and digging in, so now we don’t have to do the chopping.

Mustard grown as green manure killed by snow

Mustard grown as green manure killed by snow

The over-wintering broad beans are looking very sad. We hadn’t considered protecting them from the snow, until now. Oh dear, they may not recover from such neglect.

Broad beans in snow

Sad looking broad beans

The brassicas will hopefully be hardy enough to withstand the snow. They are looking rather pretty in their wells of snow.

brassicas in wells of snow

Brassicas in snow

These sunflowers look quite lovely, if cold and wind blown.

winter sunflowers

Sunflowers in the snow

sunflower seed head in deep winter

Sunflower seed head

 

Snow’s arrived

February 5th, 2012 by · No Comments · Problems

The weather forecast was bang on target. It snowed over night and and now it’s freezing. If this doesn’t kill off our white fly infestation, nothing will.

Field plot under snow

Field plot under snow

The fruit cage netting is off, the olive tree is fleeced up and the onion seedlings are back in doors so all in all a cold snap is welcome. OK, that’s enough, time for spring!

Frozen fingers

February 4th, 2012 by · No Comments · Preparation, Tips and tricks

When we bought our fruit cage from Harrod Horticultural http://www.harrodhorticultural.com it came with instructions to remove the top netting in the event of snow. Well, snow is forecast for tonight so the netting has been dutifully removed:

Fruitcage netting off

Fruitcage netting off

The clips are small hard plastic things – too fiddly to remove whilst wearing gloves – they had to be taken off in two shifts as fingers needed defrosting. The cage, by the way, is very good and we recommend Harrod Horticultural.

We’ve put cloches and fleece over some of the kitchen garden salad plants but seriously doubt if much will survive the severe cold:

Fleece and cloches

Fleece and cloches

Oh well, it’s nearly time to start salad catch crops off in the unheated greenhouse…