the daydream fund challenge thread

RAS

rhiwfield wrote: »

RAS, some apples and pears:

Winston
Winston close up

Well that is definately spur-bearing. Yippee.

Hope you have recovered from the stress I caused!

RAS

Davesnave wrote: »

Winged one, I think choille and RAS, would be the ones to ask about growing stuff as far north as Inverness. That's north all right!

Dave - I am not that far north, although I have spent time between Skye and Tromso over the years!

Winged One - near Inverness? There are lot's of microclimates near Inverness. Nairn? The Black Isle? Inland?

One of my favourite allotment sites is at Kabelvag, well inside the Arctic circle.

They grew potatoes, broad beans, spring onions, endives, lettuce, dwarf french beans, peas and carrots, cabbage and other things including massive quantities of thyme. Given that location they did not grow swede, parsnips, onions or leeks because their season was too short and winter too hard, although all would be fine in Scotland.

Given how harsh these last two winters have been, a lot depends on exactly where they are. Someone I know had 100 gallon drums of water freeze right through near Aberdeen; but I suspect Inverness may have been warmer.

Winged_one

Thanks RAS - I'll send you a pm, but good to know!

rhiwfield

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Will anyone have any surplus veggie plants this year i could buy off them? I really do need to distract myself now away from all the poo around me and just lose myself in the garden.

CTC, have PMd you.

RAS

Winged_one wrote: »

Thanks RAS - I'll send you a pm, but good to know!

Another thought; Lidl of all people sell swiss chard Lucellus for 29p. Last year that spent well nigh two months under snow in temperatures down to minus 15 and came back in the early spring to produce leaf. It is one of my stalwarts for the hungry gap.

lostinrates

Beginning to accept trying to tame so much garden at once is pushing limits too far.

Lotus-eater

lostinrates wrote: »

Beginning to accept trying to tame so much garden at once is pushing limits too far.

Been here 8 years, my garden is not tamed yet and it is a fraction the size of yours. So don't panic

I keep thinking I've got bits tamed, then it all gets out of hand again. I've found to my cost, that doing one bit right is best, rather than doing it all badly.

lostinrates

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Been here 8 years, my garden is not tamed yet and it is a fraction the size of yours. So don't panic

I keep thinking I've got bits tamed, then it all gets out of hand again. I've found to my cost, that doing one bit right is best, rather than doing it all badly.

And I have a fraction of your experience and knowledge!

It took AGES to day to cut the grass. I even put the horses in the back garden to help (still unmown...)

That ruddy ground alder back in the bits I've been over an over and dug over and sieved.

I've also been looking at our very beautiful horse chestnut and thinking it could do with some off the height. Its a diversionary tactic I think.....can't cope with the alder so think about chopping a tree down instead

Tomorrow is a day we have to spend going through rubble and I just feel exhausted before we've begun! (and no way will I want to weed after that!)

edit: and if I don't fancy chopping into a tree than I fancy planting one. Been missing a burnt sugar tree I left at a previous home...think I migt buy one to go outside the kitchen when its done.

Davesnave

lostinrates wrote: »

Beginning to accept trying to tame so much garden at once is pushing limits too far.

With the experience we're having here, I'd say take it steady and don't expect too much too soon. This is a very busy time of year when growth goes into overdrive, so demands are made from so many directions that keeping up becomes impossible. Later on, you can play catch-up, but right now, just holding things together in a basic way is about all you'll manage.

For example:
Today, we put out a few plants at the front, so our selling season started, but at the same time I was out in the field shooting thistles while they're still at the rosette stage. In the nursery area we're also potting-on all the toms, pricking out smaller plants and trying to get more perennials into selling condition. We are doing this wading around in grass cuttings, because I left that job too long and had to slash it all with the brushcutter! As it's been so dry, this morning I watered everything, including the new beech hedge, the yews and as many of the elms as could reach, and that alone took nearly two hours. Then there were the parsnips to put in, because they have been in their toilet roll inners far too long.....and so on.

We stopped and had a proper meal tonight + half a bottle of wine, then went down late under the full moon to shut the hens in. Despite letting them out at 6.15 this morning, seven of the [STRIKE]bu99ers [/STRIKE] little dears were still socialising out on the windbreak at 9pm! One of them laid the most enormous egg today, fully 105g in weight, while two more laid torpedo shaped eggs, so there's definitely something in the air! :cool:

Dolly, the only hen with a name, has gone broody. She is spending more time than is good for her sitting, so we pop in now and again and turf her out. She grumbles, but then acts like a competitor in that old game show 'It's a Knockout,' rushing down to the food, eating madly, moving rapidly on to the drinker and then literally running the length of the orchard to get to the dust bath. A quick flap around in there and she's done, so finally it's a sprint back to the chicken house and another long sit.

choille

Goodness - you've all been incredibly busy.

I managed to get in my onions & carrots. OH repaired a raised bed & we spent a while this evening raking the slope that I've been attempting to get bracken & bramble free for a while now. The primroses are hitting now. They were out at the shore side a few weeks back. The bluebells are coming up & I swear that there's more coming where I raked the dead bracken off last Autumn.

I ache tonight but managed to get some packing up of ebay sales to post on Monday - just some cheap items, but it all counts. Getting a lot of eggs now - so that's good.