pip's blog

What's growing in the garden Pip ?

Posted Tue, 10/08/2010 - 08:59 by pip

At the moment down the road on the farm we've been colloborating by growing Spuds and Onions together. We've been digging the Spuds out gradually, the early Spuds were lovely, and there seems like a sea of Spud tops to go at  yet.

The Onions are still growing and not falling over yet, so we have only had a few of those out so far.

We've planted  a whole pile of greens for winter, I grew a lot of Sprout and Kale in pots up here in my home nursery, tthey've started going in the ground down there where the Spuds are coming out. I still have another 25 or so Sprout plants groiwng in my nursery, I'll need to get those down the road soon.

The plan is to grow more than we need for our two families and sell the excesss to Green Valley Grocer.

The poor old chickens had a scare last night

Posted Mon, 12/07/2010 - 10:58 by pip

Last night a visitor arrived in the dead of night to nosey around where the chickens live.

I was woken at 2.30 this morning by lots of loud clucking, I sleep in an attic bedroom over looking the garden, and I'm somewhat deaf, so the cluckng must have been loud.

Its that clucking that chickens make when they are alarmed, you know it, sure you do, its the sound we all make to signify chickens laying an egg. Well that sound also signifies alarm, distress ( young chickens certainly make this noise as laying their 1st eggs seems to upset them quite a bit).

Also I could hear from the attic a familar sound, that weird noise that signals a fox near by calling loudly.

A book review-- Plants for a future

Posted Wed, 28/04/2010 - 21:04 by pip

"Plants for a future---edible and useful plants for a healthier world"

Its written by Ken Fern, published by Permanent Publications, it cost me £16.95.

This book is so useful I don't know how I could manage without it.

Ken has pulled together lots of edible plants , trees and shrubs and bunched them together in different catagories.

Such as trees and shrubs, woodland plants, walls and fences, hedges, screens and shelterbelts.

He tells you what the plant is good for , whether he has ate it or has heard of it being eaten. He gives the common names and the latin names too, which is so useful if you are tryng to trace down a plant that you know will make allthe difference to your garden.

A book review---Edible Estates:Attack on the Front Lawn

Posted Wed, 28/04/2010 - 09:13 by pip

A good book that I've just been lent by Dan is called"Edible estates: Attack on the Front Lawn" its by Fritz Haeg and published by Metropolis Books.

I like this book very much, its basically what it says in the title.

It starts with a piece about how much the lawn industry is worth in the US, Oh yes its a US book with only a small mention for the Brits , but still a worthwhile book for all that.

Yep lawns are big in the US, and I mean really big, 1000's of acres of the things over the whole country and they gobble lawn mowers, fertilisers, and very much millions of gallons of water, etc. Not to mention the effort that goes into maintaining lawns.

A Radio Programe for you to listen to

Posted Mon, 26/04/2010 - 15:06 by pip

Todays offering is a radio programme made in Canada, I believe, that opens up the concept of what resilience means.

At least at the end of listening I had a better idea of what the word means.

Pea Shoots

Posted Thu, 22/04/2010 - 20:24 by pip

Yep tonights pressing issue is about pea shoots. 

A couple ofweeks I watched a lady called Alys Fowler on TV presenting a gardening programme about making an edible garden.

In that programme there was a bit about growing pea shoots.

Now I have never tried pea shoots, but our Chris says they are really good to eat.

So anyhow, Alys took a handful of marrowfat peas from a box that she brounght from a supermarket, nothing fancy there you see, and she simply scattered a veryliberal amount of siad peas into a box. She said they'd happily grow abd provide her with plenty of young pea shoots to add to her salads.

The 2nd Permaculture video from Jordan

Posted Sun, 11/04/2010 - 08:26 by pip

So folks here's the 2nd video from Jordan, stick with the video as it starts in the same fashion as the 1st video. So you may think its the 1st video again but it ain't. Its the 2nd.

 

A video from Jordan showing how Permaculture can work.

Posted Sun, 11/04/2010 - 08:13 by pip

I've been not quite getting what this permaculture thing is until the last weekend course, we watched a video about this guy in Jordan (the country) changing desert into usable beautiful farm land.


 


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You watch this and then watch a few more of the permaculture videos there on youtube and tell me it don't work, if you dare.

Spuds

Posted Tue, 06/04/2010 - 21:58 by pip

Soon I'll be heading down to Steve and Rosie's field to plant spuds. I say soon when I mean sometime this week.

Hopefully. The trouble is that work has gone a bit frantic for me so getting a bit of time off will be a challenge.

S 'n' R 'n' me have been laying out beds of very mature horse muck and then covering the beds with weed control fabric.

The beds are mostly about 10 metres by 4 metres and the muck is approx. 6" deep at least.

The idea is to plant the seed spuds through a cross cut in the fabric and into the muck.

Last Night

Posted Mon, 05/04/2010 - 21:19 by pip

Last night I watched that popular film "4 Weddingsand a Funeral"

And I heard, again,that gorgeous poem by W.H. Auden, called Stop all the clocks.

So I've copied and pasted the poem here for you to read, just in case you are unfamilar with this poem.

It makes emotion well up in me when I hear this poem and gets me wondering what I'd like to hear at my funeral, which believe me is the one thing thats guaranteed in this world we live in.