Yesterday's farm..what if it comes back?

RAS

Davesnave wrote: »

Sorry, I'm not being clear here. By 'not doing well,' I mean that since they were planted 8 or 9 years ago, some have become stunted and look unhealthy, which is hardly surprising with the amount of neglect & weed growth.
We will give all, except the weakest, a bit of pruning, a dose of manure and at least another few years of trials before doing anything drastic.

More firewood?

Davesnave

RAS wrote: »

More firewood?

They won't give us much. We'll do better elsewhere, but we're lucky in being next door to the area's main log supplier, so while wood from this year is seasoning, we'll have a cheap and ready external source.

....And the way the wind is building-up this evening, there will be quite a lot of 'free' wood around in the morning!

RAS

Getting back to the questions you asked.............................

rhiwfield wrote: »

Read a book recently "yesterday's farm" by Valerie Porter and I was fascinated by the difference between pre industrial farming and the energy intensive farming of today. What struck me was the physical labour needed to work the land by hand (or with oxen or horses) and how almost anything organic was used as a soil improver, including night-soil (and sugar bakers scum and fellmongers poake, whatever they are!)

Even modern farming can be very hard work at certain times of the year; the EU working time directive is irrelevant. I watched the local farmer make hay whilst I was staying at my sister's last summer. He had obviously been working some hours when I got up and was still working by the headlights at about 10.30pm.

As children, even my sister and I (infant school age) would be roped into to drag the smaller hay bales over to the sledge so they were undercover before the rain came. We helped in the kitchen garden and with fruit harvesting.

I think that we will be in a much better situation than in WW2, when a massive number of adults were diverted into the war effort, but people are so lacking in skills and knowledge that it worries me. And I find it hard to believe that people would tolerate the sort of rural accomodation that was used for many land workers then or the hours.

I found reading Edward John Collis, "The worm forgives the plough" illuminating. He describes the impact of one combine-harvester and the speed with which it harvested a field compared with a horse-drawn team.

At the moment I have Rebecca Laughton's book on successful small-holding. She describes the joy with which Tinker's Bubble greeted their renovated horse-drawn hay making kit. It massively reduced the human toil.

rhiwfield wrote: »

IF one assumes that oil supply will steadily fall I'm just wondering how we will cope feeding 60+ million people. What would you do faced with escalating energy costs combined with food shortages and, if part of the answer is to GYO, what would you use to keep your soil fertile? And would you use them now while you have the choice?

It used to be estimated that one third of a farm was required to keep the horse power and some Danish farmers now allocate 15% of their land to grow bio-fuels to power their farm machinery. and a human engaged in heavy agricultural work needs about half as much food again as an indoor worker.

So whether we use bio-fuels or livestock or humans to replace fossil fuels, there will be an additional demand on agriculture in order to feed the new power source.

With respect to soil fertility, we will need to use everything available. Lotus-eater posted on the great wee debate today. Do other people understand what night soil is and that is is a major source of phospates?

I understand the concern about the use of humanure on salad crops; societies that practice it do not generally eat raw vegetables. But in other areas of food production, it is perfectly sensible.

I compost clothing (well often rags) and a speaker from York Rotters suggested that rubbers compost nicely too. personally I do not add cooked food to reduce the rats but any rats that are killed go in the compost bin.

Behind the Food Futures document published today is research showing that pasture or leys are vital carbon sinks in temperate climates.

http://www.soilassociation.org/Whyorganic/Climatefriendlyfoodandfarming/Foodfutures/tabid/565/Default.aspx

The general reckoning is that we can feed 60m or so people on a basic diet, with some meat from grass fed livestock. The whole business of getting the food to the population is such that I suspect it will be easier to move the population to the food.

Personally I am running the lottie and could produce more with more time on there (and less on here) but intend to move out of the city to a smaller town in the next five years. In the mean time I will do what I can to develop local food networks but the backpacker in me feels safer when there are fewer than 750,000 other mouths needing feeding in the immediate vicinity. However, this will have to come with access to at least as much land as I currently have and preferably more.

ukmaggie45

Davesnave wrote: »

The Aga will have to go within a year or so. It isn't fully up to temperature yet, but we have some quinces in it, poaching slowly. Must admit those had me fooled for a bit, as I initially searched the web in vain for my 'hairy pears!':rotfl:

Hi Dave, glad that you have a quince! Do let us know how the poached quinces go. We heard yesterday from the EAs that our vendor hopes to get here next Thursday or Friday so I'll be asking if we can take the quinces from under the bush in the front garden as it seems so awful to just leave them for the slugs!

Maggie

mardatha

I personally think we should not let the whole concept get to us, but all do what we can. Right up to WW2 most people had gardens with veg, some chickens, even if possible a pig - bacon, egg and chips LOL!
Plus in these days of high debt & uncertainty, we can stop buying expensive out of season fruit/veg and get back our old fashioned taste buds.. it might even force supermarkets to drop prices a wee bit if people aren't buying.
And if Tesco started using local prawns locally prepared then the damn roads up to Ullapool wouldnt be so busy lol !

rhiwfield

RAS, many thanks for your very full responses.

Re apples I've put in 7 trees over the last 5 years some of which are just beginning to fruit (they're on mm106 rootstock and trained because of space limitations). No room for any more though despite your helpful list.

Varieties are:
Bountiful (cooker Oct-Jan)
Red Falstaff (dessert Oct-Mar)
Cox (dessert Oct-Jan)
James Grieve (dual Sep/Oct)
Scrumptious (dessert Sep/Oct)
Cobra (cooker, Sep/Oct)
Fiesta (dessert, Oct/Mar)

The use times are per the nursery that supplied them. This year is the first time enough have been grown to store for a while though they will all be used in next 2 weeks. Storage is in an unheated garage but I've yet to see whether the apples will store the length of the use period. The Coxs (bite sized only!) are still ok but have begun to lose their crispness while the remaining Cobras are still usable. So in theory when fully producing I should have cooking apples Sep/Jan and dessert apples Sep/March.

If they dont store then its conversion or sale, barter, let it rot or giveaway. The trouble with the last option is that then you are literally giving away the fruits of your own labour. Perhaps in due course, maybe a TT initiative, a system will be devised to barter or sell surplus produce to avoid wastage and ensure fair reward for effort.

Re transition Initiatives, I hadnt picked up on the burn out element. I can see that some people would see the challenge as too great to face but I'm all in favour of the idea that a journey begins with the first step... who knows where it will lead ? Equally, I'd like to see people taking the "easy" steps first, then the more difficult ones. So converting a garden to grow crops is an easy win, unless one feels that the garden space should be used for say recreational purposes in which case I would question whether that person's commitment is rhetoric or genuine. Maybe judgmental but a few million backyards in production would probably have a lot more impact than a thousand high profile forest gardens. No reason though why you cant have both and more.

Re potential scarcity of meat in future in favour of veg I've found that gyo, and the strong desire to avoid waste, means that as a family we are eating proportionately more veg than previously, which saves money as well.

choille

Does anyone know what apple trees would suit here - the West Highlands?

I have two old crab apples that were here, but the apples are always filled with brown veins.

I have planted some cheap apple trees that I got out of Morrison's, but they haven't done much so far - if they ever will.

rhiwfield

choille,

RAS seems to be the one to advise but here's a couple of websites:

http://www.orangepippinshop.com/products.aspx?collectionid=1006

this one looks a good site but almost sold out! still, recommends varieties and an alternative supplier

Charco_2

rhiwfield wrote: »

If they dont store then its conversion or sale, barter, let it rot or giveaway. The trouble with the last option is that then you are literally giving away the fruits of your own labour. Perhaps in due course, maybe a TT initiative, a system will be devised to barter or sell surplus produce to avoid wastage and ensure fair reward for effort.

Have you thought about cooking (even the non cooking apples) and turning them into something you could save in jars etc

I love diced apples in my home made curry!

choille

Thanks, that's a great site, but I think you are right & they have sold out - which probably bodes well for here - in that people are planting fruit trees!