the daydream fund challenge thread

Davesnave

stitching_witch wrote: »

Pandora, Esmerelda, Cordelia and Eileen are now happily discovering the delights of their new home! :j

Stitchy,they're lovely chooks! We'll go down the same route a bit later this year, but there's too much in the pipeline at the moment. Like you, we'll just have a few until we feel confident. Are yours breeds or hybrids? I put DW on the case, but she wasn't sure.

Hello, Butterflymind and welcome. Your land-share does sound as if it is working well for all concerned. Private gardens are more secure than allotments too. We did a similar thing a few years ago, expanding our nursery into our neighbour's garden in return for lawn-mowing and maintenance. Trouble was, he died, and his evil son, besides inheriting £300k for which he'd done precious little, soon had his father's partner out and us off the plot.

'Gerroffa moi laand!' was about right! :rotfl:

Butterflymind

Evening all (sounds like a vaguely familiar catchphrase?)

Yes, the only problem is, when the poor old chap does go, his cousins (who he never sees, and never help him) will probably come out of the woodwork.

So, might have to do a bit of nifty lifting on the greenhouse, over the fence, before they come to claim all! Guaranteed hernia time...:(

So, making hay whilst the sun shines, and trying not to plant anything too expensive apart from annual veggies, herbs, flowers, etc....

EDIT: Having to work hard on OH and neighbour to introduce the idea of a tiny amount of 'pets' (livestock). Although having 2 poorly old dogs who had to be put down a couple of years ago, has put OH off. Nothing alive in our garden except worms in wormery.

P.S. In my excitement about posting, forgot my manners, hello to you Rummer, Davesnave RP and all. I can burble on about plants, gardening, vegetables, animals (or lack of), and dream of country living... Neighbours on the other side are nice, but, are slightly puzzled about growing veggies 'as you can buy them from the shop', and think we are bordering on the slightly insane/eccentric side. (Forgot, not rich enough to be eccentric, so must be slightly crazed then!)

stitching_witch

Davesnave wrote: »

Are yours breeds or hybrids? I put DW on the case, but she wasn't sure.

I originally wanted pure breeds, but decided hybrids were a better idea first time round. The white one is a Sussex Star, the black one is a Bovans Nera and the two in the middle are Bluebelles. I wanted a Speckledy but they didn't have any Point Of Lay.

Maybe next time, but don't tell DH

Butterflymind

Hello Stitching Witch

You are so lucky to have chickens. I will be keen to see how you get on with them....

Davesnave

stitching_witch wrote: »

I originally wanted pure breeds, but decided hybrids were a better idea first time round. The white one is a Sussex Star, the black one is a Bovans Nera and the two in the middle are Bluebelles. I wanted a Speckledy but they didn't have any Point Of Lay.

Maybe next time, but don't tell DH

I think we will be doing likewise, starting with hybrids too and quite a small hen house. Then, when we are confident we'll, go larger and use the surplus eggs as a draw for our other stuff.

Round here, the going rate for free range is only £1.80 a dozen, so we won't get rich that way!

Butterflymind

Hello all

Hope you are all busy on your gardens/allotments/small-holdings? Stiching Witch, any eggs yet? (Trying not to be slightly envious )

Just to let you all know what I've been up to. I have been working off my gardening urges and now have a batch of seedlings growing:

4 gardener's delight tomato plants
4 plum toms
4 red belle peppers

Seeds planted:

2 chilli peppers (Heatwave and a new purple one)
Brussels - Peer Gynt (hope to have some for Xmas like last year)
Sprouting broccoli (hope to get them before caterpillars do this time)
Mini cucumber (great for 2 people as before we get half-way down a big one it gets soggy)
3 sweet peas (love scent - Macunata?)

But, want to rush out there and plant everything else too: beetroot, carrots, letttuce, spring onions, cut n'come again spicy leaves, chard, beans, peas, you name it. Am fighting a losing battle (resisting urge to go mad and over-plant. Again. And feed neighbours and family again - they got sick of tomatoes and cucumbers last year!) Even the neighbours were refusing their 5th cucumbers. :rotfl:

Sun is beginning to shine, a few showers, and I just want to go crazy with my spade... (Not in a psycho-serial-killer way, you understand, in a nice diggy way)

rhiwfield

Butterfly Mind, its now officially busy time And now all bar the odd bit of contruction work is done, its time to concentrate on the growing.

Planted out the early potatoes (Pentland Javelin and Maris Peer), 15 buckets and about 4' x 38' of beds. That should last all summer.

Cropping leaf beet, spring greens, welsh onions and herbs with first rhubarb a week away. April cabbage hearting nicely so ok for greens for a few months. Broad beans and peas now about 4" tall outside, onion sets are in. Finished asparagus supports to stop wind rock, its the third year since sowing so should get some to eat this year..yey!. And I know its spring when the runner bean supports go in even though I wont be sowing until middle/late next month

All the soft fruit is now leafing and buds beginning to break on the main fruit trees.

Just sown lettuce and leeks, salad leaves should begin cropping soon, tom varieties (doing well) are harbinger, garten perle, gardeners delight and san marzano. Peppers growing slowly, artichoke (green globe improved) growing quickly from seed, and have rudbeckia, echinacea, lobelia, stock and french marigolds on the way. Sweet peas are looking happy in the toilet roll inners!

Lots to come, lots to enjoy

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Hi all, and nice to see you Butterflymind. love the idea of looking after the neighbours garden, eveyone is a winner there..

I honestly dont know where the time has gone.....one minute i am all geared up for the garden, and now i am all behind:eek: if the rain stays off today i will try and play catch up in the garden.

last weekend i done my first ever vintage fashion fair:T and after expenses etc i will be putting £500 smackaroonies into my fund...

hoping to get the keys to our new unit on thursday, so will be busy in april moving stock over etc...


My chickens and ducks are like laying machines at the moment....lol... and hubby is going to one of the local farm auctions later today, so flip knows what he will come home with:rotfl:


really hope we get a good summer this year.....i.m fed up with all the rain we have had over the last couple of years....


I am sure i heard on the weather forcast that we might have snow next week:eek:




ooooooo and one more thing..

dont forget to put your clocks forward tonight:p

rozeepozee

Good to see all the activity on here. DP planted the rest of the onion sets and I spent the day planting on my baby lettuces (loads of different varieties) in our raised bed baths that are currently in our conservatory !!! greenhouse. Reckon we must have about 100 plants now so it's a good start considering our small scale. We ate huge salads daily as our main meal all of last summer (with some eggs, tuna, anchovies, nuts etc chucked in to make them substantial). Hoping that we'll be able to save ourselves a small fortune doing the same again this year.

We don't have space to grow much but we're also going to grow tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers (yes we had an overabundance of them last year too - cucumber soup, anyone?), beans and peas wherever we can squeeze them in. Can't wait for the risk of the last frost to go so we can start putting stuff outside. They can't be serious about the snow, surely....

EDIT: just checked the Met Office 5 day forecast and it says heavey snow showers for Sheffield on Tuesday night - eek! I am so over snow!

Butterflymind

Hello all

Been working off the lack of seed planting with weeding and pruning. Loads of tree seedlings from a maple (those one bladed seeds are everywhere), but, the tree's in the neighbours garden on the back. Unfortunately, they really do have the 'gerroffa my land' mind set when we asked if there was a chance of trimming it back a bit. You'd have thought I'd just offered to strip naked, do cart-wheels and paint myself bright blue from their reactions. Now, if I weed beside their hedge (more blasted tree seedlings) they yell out stuff like 'I know what you're doing'. Er, ok, so do I it's called weeding, obviously a strange and unknown/lost craft as far as they are concerned; and then they hang sheets if their hedge is a bit thread-bare in winter. Weird. Still I guess we can't all be the same (looking for a tactful way to explain 'eccentric' behaviour)

Rhiwfield: that's really impressive. We are still planning more raised beds for the Easter break, so might have to hold back planting urges...

CTC: chickens and ducks too? You are very lucky - I must have missed that part on your previous posts. I've never tasted duck eggs - are they very rich or just like chicken eggs?

Rozeepozee: I guess we are limited to growing space until beds are finished properly this year... But, we've had the snow forecast too, so perhaps it's just as well.

Happy growing/gardening/chick/duck raising to you all.