the daydream fund challenge thread

Rummer

Choille your land sounds amazing!

choille

It is Rummer, but it is somewhat feral!

rhiwfield

You must be a hardy lot! We've had the oil ch on low first thing in the morning for a few weeks now, and the woodburner on most evenings. Its one of the pleasures we allow ourselves, nice and snug at night with a good book, fire and maybe a glass of red! For the most part september and october have been fine and dry, if a little cool at nights. Lovely weather to work outdoors

Frost again last night and one tonight, so picked very last of the french beans. Cut the hedges today, piled up most of the cuttings for Tues/Wed, when a tree surgeon is coming to cut down and chip part of neighbours pine tree that is overhanging and shading garden. We'll use the coarser wood chippings from the tree work to form veg bed paths, the rest will do as mulch.

Emptied 2 compost bins and turned material into one of the new wood-lined heaps, will see if weve got the mix right in the spring.

Will carry on with the last set of veg beds again on monday, had a few other issues over recent days so the champagne stays in the cupboard for a couple of weeks at least

Davesnave

Your land may be wild choille, but on the right days, it is surely in one of the loveliest places in the country. Round here the scenery is pretty good, but when I look at my photos from old holidays in the Western Highlands that puts a bit of perspective on it! As you say, the light is amazing and the colours at this time of year must be fantastic.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I have 3 kinds of willow, only half of them the ‘whippy’ kind, so not enough to sell, especially as they've been left a while. It’s the same with the apples; about 40- 50 different varieties, which is interesting, but not so good for marketing. I will contact some cider makers/ juice people and see what they reckon I could do in future. I’ve been told that some of them are old local varieties, maybe rarities, but having tasted all of them I'm not surprised if some fell from favour! Others are fine. All we could do this year, apart from use as many as possible, is number each tree, make notes and take some photos. I also have these huge, yellow pears, which must be for cooking, because raw they taste awful. A bit of time in the pan with some sugar and they change, becoming quite peachy. I will try to find those on t’internet.

I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for my courgettes Lotus; they are only just starting to produce, but I felt I had to plant something. At least the garlic will be going in at the right time.

choille

Yes - it is so beautiful. With the apples & pears - can you make some chutney?

You'd make more money off that than selling them in the 'raw'.

Chutney keeps, just as well as I have stacks of it - makes a good XMas pressy for those new neighbours you'll have acquired. I've also got a bucket of apple on the go. Old motto of mine, make it into a) Wine - feed the pulp to the animals.
b) make it into chutney - feed that to the neighbours come X Mas.

C) Process it & freeze it - forget about it until you're snowed in.

Rummer

The Western Highlands are truly stunning, do you not find the land quite hard to work though? I am in Scotland too and I find it really hard to grow a number of different things although that said I have very little experience and do not devote anywhere near enough time to my garden!

Dave your place must be huge to have so many different types of apples as well as all the rest!

choille

Hi Rummer,

The ground is, in the main, quite acidic. I created raised beds for the veg & have really worked a load of organic matter in - dung, sea weed, hen pen, compost etc, plus I make comfrey feed which I water on. the wet is the main thing - that's the real reason I made raised veg beds. Although we had drought early this year & in the summer. Then we had deluges since Aug. The increasing wind speeds are a big problem - lost the poly tunnel, and we had concreted in the ends. they were 10ft up in the air with their balls of concrete feet, yet a plastic chair in the corner with a couple of seed packets was still in place - must have been a tornado!

I have, & am trying to create micro climates with shelter belts, but I wish I'd been here decades ago.

I have been eating courgettes & lettuces since may & still am eating them - grown outside by the way - as everything is until I can get the poly-tunnel back up & running.
I'm self sufficient in carrots, onions, but the tatties have been a disappointment this year - new beds, rubbish soil - I think. It's been a strange year having to move into a caravan, so not as much tme spent in the garden, but I am quite pleased with it - in a way. It's all work in progress.

Where in Scotchland are you?

choille

Davesnave - you should get a couple of weaner pigs come Spring - they'd love those apples & pears & are great for clearing unruly ground.

Davesnave

Rummer wrote: »

Dave your place must be huge to have so many different types of apples as well as all the rest!

It's 5.5 acres, but the coppice and the orchard are linear and split the fields in two, so they don't seem to cover that much of it - maybe an acre. The oldest trees are only about ten years from planting. While some have done well, others are poor little things. Likewise the plums and cherries in the market garden bit, though I expect the birds get the latter anyway. There's not many squirrels, so we had the hazelnuts. Anything that likes them can have the medlars though!

You could fit more than ten of my trees into the Bramley my last neighbour had, a remnant from an orchard dating back over 100 years. He had all the shade, but I used to get at least 1/4 of the apples. They were lovely, but the tree was so large, many were damaged by falling from a height.

I agree, choille, the freezer is the way to go at this time of year. We inherited a monster, but it's filling up.

As I was saying to someone on this forum a few weeks ago, it's surely better to find out what fruit tree varieties grow well in an area, then plant those. My predecessor seems to have experimented rather than ask the locals. Silly man.:rolleyes:

ETA: Just read what you said about wind speed increasing, choille. So it's not just me thinking they are worse? I think you're right about using micro climates; behind the hedge here it can be quite quiet, even when there's a bit of a south-wester going.

I will think seriously about the pigs. They were several years down the line rather than soon. Don't want to run before I can walk!

choille

Agree about the apples - need to be suited to the locale. Winds are increasing, that's why we are 'over engineering' the house. When the poly tunnel was ripped from it's roots the wind was recorded as 138mph. We are getting ever increasing gales - even in August - weird, and the gusts are frequently reaching 100mph, not noted on the BBC weather forecasts - or any for that matter.

Pigs are easy - but you will need an electric fence. You can buy weaners for £30, but wait till the Spring, too harsh for taking them over the winter. Shouldn't be breed to produce at this time of year - wrong, wrong , wrong.