Living off the land

Going self sufficient in Norfolk

Cold frame

April 12th, 2012 by · 9 Comments · Growing, Projects

Right, the cold frame is finished and ready for action, just in time, no sooner was it in place than we filled it. Until the tomato, cucumber, aubergine and chili plants are ready to go into beds, the greenhouse is used to bring on seedlings and to get a quick catch crop of salad leaves. It is now full so the cold frame is a useful overflow area.

It was quite tricky working out how to make the sloping top fit the lid. In the end, I (John) made a rectangular frame to fit the lid and then attached sloping triangular bits to each side of this frame and built up the rest on the fly – almost like making a sculpture. Anyway, it works well and I think it looks OK too.

Cold frame

Cold frame

Susan wants me to make another one now – we’ll see…

Making the most of it

April 9th, 2012 by · 3 Comments · Growing, Problems, Projects

We bought a 6×10 Palram GREENLINE Greenhouse from webretailuk.co.uk which turned out to be a bad idea. The thin plastic panes fit badly, blow out in high winds and ‘drum’ in the wind. webretailuk.co.uk weren’t interested when we complained so we took it upon ourselves to fix it. Needless to say, we won’t be shopping from webretailuk.co.uk again!

So, we’ve replaced the panels that kept blowing out or ‘drumming’ with glass, the latest panel fixed today.

Greenhouse with glass replacements

Greenhouse with glass replacements

You can see that the second panels along from this end are different – they’re glass. The cloche to the left was made using replaced panels. The latest plastic panel will be used in making a new cold frame. So, nothing was wasted, except our time.

The cloche, by the way, is over carrots in a raised bed. They’re up now so the cloche can be moved on to protect something else, maybe French beans.

Hosepipe ban irony

April 5th, 2012 by · No Comments · Projects, Topical

The hosepipe ban comes into force today. It rained all day yesterday and the pond we made last year is full to the brim for the first time since it was lined!

Pond full to the brim

Pond full to the brim

Although this is ironic timing, there’s no doubt that we’ve had an exceptionally dry year. The big natural pond next to our garden is dry as a bone and the moorhen that used to nest there has abandoned it. And anyway, we’ve just found out that we’re exempt from the hosepipe ban as we have our own private borehole. We’re limited by the daily abstraction rate, which we don’t even come near to using.

The yellow flowering plant in the pond is a marsh marigold. It got frosted in the late winter cold snap but has recovered well. We’re hoping that the other pond plants will do as well this year – horse tail reed, purple loose strife, red flowered water lily, water forget me not, a small leaved native water lily, cotton grass, yellow flag and some spiked milfoil oxygenator.

Four hot years

April 3rd, 2012 by · 3 Comments · Growing, Tips and tricks

Chili peppers are normally grown as annuals, or at least that’s how we usually treat them. We’re starting new chilies off from seed again this year but we have one plant that’s in its fourth year. It wasn’t very special as a yearling but it was squat enough to treat as a house plant. We potted it up into slightly bigger pots each year and gave it living room heat in winter. Now it’s in a 7″ (18 cm) pot and hopefully it will rise to the challenge!

Chili in its new big pot

Chili in its new big pot

No idea what variety it is – lots of small medium hot chilies produced in a good year though.

Bore hole water saving

April 1st, 2012 by · 5 Comments · Problems, Projects, Tips and tricks

If you have your own bore hole water supply, admittedly that will not apply to many, here’s a water saving tip. The de-mineralising equipment back flushes iron and/or other minerals and discharges them, with a good deal of water, in our case into a ditch. We’ve decided to capture this discharge and use it to water the garden. It’s perfectly good for watering plants, including vegetables and fruit.

Water butt

Water butt

So, in times of drought, at least we have a water butt of water a day and for no additional expense (the overflow pipe – green hose pipe – currently discharges onto a flower bed, if the drought doesn’t end soon we might add another butt).

Fresh crisp salad

March 29th, 2012 by · 4 Comments · Growing, Recipes

The ground is dry, hard and cracking. But all is not lost, our new seed sprouter is working really well. It was being sold off cheap so we got a real bargain. This little lot is mung beans, alfalfa and radish:

Sprouts pushing the lid of their sprouter

Sprouts pushing the lid of their sprouter

When they’re ready, like this, they just need a good rinse in a colander – for hygiene and to swill out the seed cases:

Sprouts in the colander

Sprouts in the colander

For lunch we had seed sprout sandwiches with mayonnaise/mustard/hummus.

Sprouts in a bap

Sprouts in a bap

It’s really nice to have fresh crisp salad available this early in the year. For dinner we had baked potato with soya ‘cheese’ and a cooked purple sprouting broccoli with bean sprouts salad in a balsamic vinegar, olive oil and lemon zest dressing. Mmmm.

Strawberries tucked up

March 23rd, 2012 by · 2 Comments · Preparation

What a brilliant day – sunny and really warm all day. We weeded and tucked up our strawberries with plenty of straw ready for when they start to flower, which shouldn’t be too long now.

Strawed strawberries

Strawed strawberries

Our seed order, using the £10 gift from vegetableseeds.net arrived (thanks) and we’ve already sown a few things.. With the weather being so good, things are generally coming on well but we’re a bit worried about the drought. March has been very dry again in East Anglia and there’s talk of a hosepipe ban. Maybe this year we’ll get ’round to sowing living mulches and under-sowing to slow down evaporation…

Runner bean supports

March 20th, 2012 by · 2 Comments · Preparation, Projects

Last year we used bamboo canes tied together to support our runner beans. The field is very exposed to wind and we were regularly having to make repairs as the supports got bashed out of shape. This year we’re putting up more robust supports.

Beanpoles - getting ready

Beanpoles - getting ready

We’ll add bamboo canes at regular intervals, sloping up to the top rails in a sort of inverted ‘V’.

Beanpoles - up

Beanpoles - up

This view is looking more or less south so hopefully the beans will get plenty of sun. There’s a row of Jerusalem artichokes against the north east fence, about a metre away, so the beans should get protection from cold winds.

Are rotavators any good?

March 19th, 2012 by · 3 Comments · Preparation, Projects

We aren’t getting any younger, well I’m not anyway (John). I was wondering if a rotavator would make cultivating and weeding any easier. I’ve only used a rotavator once and that was a great big heavy old beast that took a lot of controlling. I’ve started off a forum at http://vegblogs.co.uk/forum/?topic=6 hoping that people who have experience of rotavators will share their wisdom. I’m tempted by descriptions of the new breed of mini rotavators, like the Honda and Mantis ranges.

Mantis tiller

Mantis tiller

They aren’t cheap but back pain is no fun either. So far I’ve decided that four stroke petrol mini tillers look promising. Any advice will be gratefully received…

Spring confirmed – for a day

March 15th, 2012 by · No Comments · Cropping, Tips and tricks

We’re all scanning for signs of spring. Here’s one: the automatic vent on our greenhouse opened today. OK, it opened a bit on previous days but today it’s really open.

Vent open

Vent open

Here’s a tip: if your oriental salad plants bolt, let them. The flowers are edible and taste just as good as tender salad leaves. They’re decorative too. Here’s a sandwich using them:

Sandwich open

Sandwich open

Yes, it’s just a sandwich but look what is in it: sorrel, flat leaf parsley, oriental salad leaves, spring onions and oriental salad flowers – all fresh from the garden. The ‘cheese’ is a soya Mozzarella style product. And, of course, the finished article was polished off with a side order of cooked broccoli (most of our meals include broccoli at the moment).

Sandwich closed

Sandwich closed

I can verify that it all tasted really good and it was especially pleasant to eat it in the warm spring sunshine.