Daydream thread continues.....

lostinrates

Alfie, i am sure you will laught but i did notice lastminute,com have spa offer on the place just down the road from you for £20 day spa. I though you should book it now ( within offer time) for a date in winter, you onow those bleak raw days when ones hair smells of chickens, one's back groans under the strain of hay bales and pushing wheel barrows through mud, and your hands smell of fire. A day on sweet smelling steam and warm water just few mins from home might be what the roctor ordered

alfie_1

lostinrates wrote: »

Alfie, i am sure you will laught but i did notice lastminute,com have spa offer on the place just down the road from you for £20 day spa. I though you should book it now ( within offer time) for a date in winter, you onow those bleak raw days when ones hair smells of chickens, one's back groans under the strain of hay bales and pushing wheel barrows through mud, and your hands smell of fire. A day on sweet smelling steam and warm water just few mins from home might be what the roctor ordered

never mind winter, i need that now !! can i have the link please...:D
ive just spent hours listing on bay and the bath i ran at 7pm is beckoning.... and i havent eaten yet come to think of it !!:o

got it ..... will look into that..

alfie_1

morning all....
ive just picked first of my runner beans :j
tomatoes are rubbish..:(

broad beans nearly ready...:D

hay being cut this weekend...:D

big custom car rally down the road this weekend so will pop in there...:D

sold more on the bay which was just relisted stuff, posting in a mo..:D

GOT MY VAN BACK.....:happyhear

rhiwfield

Always nice when relisted stuff sells.

Been selling some bulky stuff and got out of the habit of listing internationally. But listed an interesting manual, open to US and European markets, and have two European bidders slugging it out atm. Not a single UK bidder. If I dont allow for Intl posting I still get e-mails asking me to open up the bidding.

So will have to take off my transition hat and stop thinking local!

Just sent a victorian glass display dome by courier (cant insure glass) and am keeping fingers and toes crossed it arrives safely. It would be a very expensive breakage :eek:

What was left of our broad beans is now inside the chooks, but toms producing fitfully. Just trying to ignore yet more wet weather

Rummer

I have been thinking long and hard about our garden and the fact that every year some disaster befalls us either weather wise or personally meaning that our initial efforts are for nothing. It is not that we are shy of hard work, life just always seems to get in the way.

So what can I do to get the greatest return from my garden with the least amount of effort? Or even a large initial input but less ongoing management? Money is not freely available and is unlikely to be in the future so a reasonable food return from the garden would be great, although not relied upon.

At the moment we have a large area of raspberries, a huge and established rhubarb. A bed with strawberries that are doing well and a large bed filled with 3 different currant varieties. We also have gooseberries and a number of mini fruit trees that have produced next to nothing since they were in. One thing we get a lot from is our herb bed which has a huge selection and is well established.

That leaves us with two raised beds, two long beds and the potential to create other areas if we can get on top of those. All those coupled with a number of tubs/pots. So what will grow well regardless of our lack of input and the ever horrendous weather we now seem to experience over the summer.

Oh and while I am on a roll is there anything I can plant now for an over winter or autumnal crop?

lostinrates

How old are the mini fruit trees rummer?

I didn't expect anything off any of my trees, but the edgar allan poe peach put on a lot of fruit ( lost in the appaling weather, but gave me hope) and the bramley which i kicked my self for buying this winter at lidl has one fruit on it which creates a new dilemna, because two of the three terrible trees here must be pollinators for it, and one has to go defintely, and i had designs on the other two going.......

I have just been out sorting out the pears. They are good fun. The roses are in the way of course, but so far i can live with that.....in a few years a couple might have to move ( what was i thinking putting an albertine there?) . At the far end especially i am thrilled. Despite general dishevelment its starting to look just how i had planned. I took a pre sort out photo ( i am half way through now and have not got down there, not sure there is much i want to do there atm) but phot bucket is not playing ball, when it does i will put a picture up.

rhiwfield

Rummer, on the positive side your garden already covers the more expensive items, such as herbs and soft fruit, while surplus rhubarb is great for bartering.

If you dont have a greenhouse I'd personally avoid toms due to blight risk and poor ripening in recent years.

Tops for me would be:
New potatoes, so avoiding blight
Leaf beet for greens (brassicas are hard work)
Salad leaves to avoid supermarket prices
Onions/shallots/perpetual (good return from small space)
Garlic (ditto)
Broad beans (the Sutton) for rotation and freezing if any left over
French beans (tripod)
Runner Beans (row, prolific in late summer and for winter use)
Cucumbers in pots grown up mesh

If you have spare space then maybe a courgette and squash plants, I use compost heaps for mine

Autumnal: garlic and aquadulce claudia broad beans?

lostinrates

alfie_1

sorry folks but iv just had to water my garden....:o
glorious weather here, hay was cut this morning by "postie" and "uncle arthur ":rotfl:

i didnt get to car thingy, going tomorow.
son has vanknapped again for tonight so im off to a BARBEEE [at the nutters house ]down the road on THE bike again, only 1 mile so as long as i dont get too tiddled i should make it back......:p

have a good evening all......

RAS

Rummer wrote: »

I

Oh and while I am on a roll is there anything I can plant now for an over winter or autumnal crop?

Get hold of Joy Larkcom - Growing vegetables ofr maybe just Vegetables - form the library The back few pages list winter stuff particuallry salads.

I would put in a mixed row of

Mizuna
Chicories
Endive
Rocket
Land Cress
Corn salad
Mustards
Winter salad onions

As long as the winter is not like early/late 2010 they should all overwinter.

Plus a few winter lettuce in the hope the frosts are late. You would try pak choi and chinese cabbage but the slugs here are too keen

Leaf beets and chards

If you have any spare mangetout, plant a short row - I have had small but regular picking right up to Christmas when the storms wrecked them. They are frost hardy just cant cope with being battered.