the daydream fund challenge thread

rhiwfield

Frost last night of course and well protected with everything wrapped up. Except for 3 trays of tender seedlings, including runner beans and sweet corn ready to plant out, that for some reason I missed entirely :eek:. Teach me to be glued to the election news.

Things cant get worse I thought as I trundled the coop to a new spot and tore off a branch of one of the trained apple trees with the protruding nestbox.

Still, the hens are now taking bolting cabbage shoots threaded into the run mesh and dont seem to mind the garlic clove in their drinking water.

Roll on some warm weather!!

lostinrates

The frost was amazing this morning. My chickens looked so disgusted with it it made me laugh. Their water was frozen up too.

Is this a good thread to get advice about fruit.. tree selection? I've seen some great posts by RAS about apples and tried to PM him/her but in box is full.

Orange_King

Thats amazing lostinrates. Where abouts in the country are you? We haven't had a proper frost here in weeks but it must help being on the coast perhaps?

lostinrates

Orange_King wrote: »

Thats amazing lostinrates. Where abouts in the country are you? We haven't had a proper frost here in weeks but it must help being on the coast perhaps?

We're in the comparitively ''balmy'' south!

Davesnave

A bit of whiteness on the ground here this morning first thing, but I am not covering-up anything in the open polytunnel now. I've had chillies in there for a week or two and they're fine.

Glad to say we cleared over 100 tomato plants at the weekend, so only another 100 or so left to go! We had over 250m of tanalised board delivered last week to do the veg beds and other edging; fortunately, our takings on Sunday more than paid for that.:)

This week, it's fence posts, poultry and sheep netting. I reckon if VAT is likely to go up, we may as well stockpile what we will need.

I will try to post some more photos soon. Time is a bit pressing just now and I thought I'd mislaid my Imageshack password......Just realised, it was Photobucket. No wonder it didn't work!:o

Davesnave

Lord, we have slipped to Page 3! Lucky it's not The Sun!:rotfl:

OK here are the few pictures I promised of our tomatoes, plus one taken at last weekend's Plant Fair. We did a rough calculation, and it seems we made about £70 on tomatoes alone, so perhaps being unable to retail them through the local farm shop wasn't such a hardship.







I didn't feel that my peppers were ready for that sale, so we will have a few to shift later. Spent a day this week doing computer things for the local Flower Festival in June, so that looks like a possible venue.

lostinrates

Davesnave, do you do any gate sales?

Davesnave

lostinrates wrote: »

Davesnave, do you do any gate sales?

That's why the digger man is coming; half the front garden is to be parking and sales, at least for a year or two until people know we're here. Longer term, we have a better location in the back yard, which some neighbours won't like, but it's not going to be possible to alter the house and sustain a sales area out front, so we will have a legitimate excuse......

Rural politics, don't you just love it?

lostinrates

Davesnave wrote: »

That's why the digger man is coming; half the front garden is to be parking and sales, at least for a year or two until people know we're here. Longer term, we have a better location in the back yard, which some neighbours won't like, but it's not going to be possible to alter the house and sustain a sales area out front, so we will have a legitimate excuse......

Rural politics, don't you just love it?

ahh, clever!

We'll have a handy area for gate sales.....and nothing to sell:rotfl::rotfl:

rhiwfield

Love the photos, Davesnave, you must have a real production line going

Our modest efforts are doing ok, with cabbage, leaf beet, rhubarb, onions, asparagus and herbs cropping atm. The onions (welsh ones) are being used for all sorts including sage & onion stuffing, flavouring for pot roasts and heated gently in butter as a side dish. The books say to cut the leaves for stir fries but we're using the bulbs as well. They're growing around carrots and parsnips as companions and the many flower stalks promise loads of flowers in a month or two.

Greenhouse is now empty apart from the tomato plants and marigolds. Leaving much more space between plants than last year and more ventilation to try to avoid the botrytis that got last years crop :mad:

Sowed kale yesterday and will be sowing other brassicas today as succession crops when the potato beds are clear. In part for us but also for the chickens, who wont mind the odd caterpillar or ten on any un-netted plants! Left them a bit close to pea plants yesterday, amazing how far their necks will stretch thru the mesh to get at tasty shoots!

Anybody notice how lovely apple tree blossom is?