Getting to MF one step at a time

beanielou

You can do it. 

debtfreewannabe321

Loving the sound of the food forest. I had a friend who was doing a permaculture course and I helped her do a community garden a few years ago around this theme. It was very interesting and have since incorporated little bits into my gardening as I go. 
Good luck with the OPs and the building work! I can't believe how much prices have shot up since before lockdowns...it's outrageous how much things cost now compared to before. DP thinks a new extension is going to cost X amount and I'm like try X times 2 and then probably a bit more 😆

Cheery_Daff

Hello 😊

Just spotted your name on @beanielou thread and thought I'd pop in to say hello. I have a mini food forest too 😊 And I did a permaculture diploma a while back so lots of plotting and scheming around that over many years! 😊

My food forest was designed as a windbreak for the veg patch 😂 We are pretty high up (1300ft above sea level) and very exposed. We have apples dotted about (although we've only actually managed to eat ONE apple since we've been here 🙄) but in the food forest bit we have damsons, crab apple, elder, red gooseberries, blackcurrants, comfrey, rhubarb etc. An area of it has gone very soggy after a drain broke in a field, so we may have lost the crab apple, but I've added in some willow to try to soak it up a bit and might turn part of it into a bog garden 😂

We had chickens too for several years, and it was always funny seeing them hop up to grab a gooseberry or a blackcurrant 😂 Dont have any at the minute sadly. There's an MSE chicken thread on the Old Style forum if you're ever over that way 😊

Anyway, just thought I'd say hello and subscribe to your diary 😊 As for overpaying- I reckon pay the higher interest first! The bigger one might move to higher interest later, but the other one is higher interest NOW so chip away at that, I reckon. You can overpay the other one later! They will both come down over time 😊

Good luck! Do post some pictures of your food forest if you're happy to (although I appreciate they are not always the easiest thing to take a nice picture of 😂)

PermacultureGirl

Thanks all  . @deptfreewannabe123 -yeah, the change in costs has been huge especially if you look at steel beems, one quote we had each beam was 4 times the cost three years later. We have tried to incorporate environmentally friendly building materials (e.g lmiting concrete and using british wool insulation) which has increased costs, but not as much as steel. Good luck with your future extension. 
Hello @Cheery_Daff , very nice to have you here I have been reading your diary for ages (lovely patio BTW). Love your food forest X wind break X bog garden....its just an evolving process, right  ? Have your damsons fruited yet, or are you mid way through a 25 year wait for them too? I will have to head over to the Old Style board for the chicken thread, that sounds very nice. I do have a (procrastination) problem in getting sucked in to other people's diaries....so I will perhaps limit myself to one (or maybe two, maybe three) chicken threads. Sounds like you might need some more chickens in your life, Cheery. 
Thanks for the mortgage tips too, I'll update that after payday. 
To do list for this diary:
1) sort out signature....I think @beanielou has a good 'how to' post on this somewhere...
2) take some Food Forest pictures (was going to do when sunny  but might be waiting till 2025 for that, so some cloudy pictures will be heading your way)
Happy Friday everyone
Permie xx

beanielou

Hello. Click on user name & then profile. Then you will see a figure shape. Click on that and scroll down to signature & go from there ☺️🫶

Cheery_Daff

My damsons have fruited already! Seems to go in a two year cycle though, nothing, then loads, nothing, then even more! I have an excellent stock of damson gin from last autumn 😁 and some in the freezer that'll eventually be jam, but not anticipating any more this year 😂

The MSE chicken thread won't take up much time, people don't post too regularly but it's nice to hear the odd update 😊

I'll try and get some pictures of my food forest too although it's rather a tangled mess at the minute 🙈

PermacultureGirl

Thanks very much Beanielou, I'll get on to that this weekend. 
Oooh, Damson Gin, Cheery_Daff, that sounds rather delish! I can recommend Damson ice cream if you've ever got a spare 500g. The darkest purple ice cream and very edible 

ladybird1106

We also have a bloody ploughman and it did take a couple of years to get establish and fruit. The apples are delicious so worth the wait. 
Love 🐞

PermacultureGirl

Well that's great news, thank you @ladybird1106. I'm sure it will feel better about life as the shelter belt gets more efficient as it grows too. Yum, I'll look forward to those future apples.

PermacultureGirl

This is what the slope looked like when we moved in. Totally dead. We spent some time shaping it with gabions (filled with stones that came out of the hole for a pond - weare on glacial drift, so no shortage of stones). We put in some paths too. But you can see it really was a blank (dead) canvas.