Further adventures in Anglo Saxon (ish) gardening.....

[tombear]

Armed with information from Butser and West Stow we have ordered some more seed to go in as soon as they have arrived.

wild oats
carlin peas
Wild sea cabbage
Lincolnshire spinach
bullsblood beetroot

and we have a bid on some Afghan purple carrots.

We are, gasp!, even planning autumn crops so we need to source some winter spelt (unhulled) and some Bread wheat, Red Lamas, although I suspect the latter will not do well on our poor acidic soil. We are also thinking of trying a small patch of rye, just need to find out the most suitable strain.

ATB

TOM

 

[British Red]

I don't know about Red Llamas Tom, but I have hard red winter wheat (the best bread wheat) in modern form and some really old long straw heritage wheats

 

[tombear]

Cheers Red, I'll get back to you on that if i may as a chap at West Stow hinted that they may have some spare seed...

ATB

Tom

 

[Goatboy]

Glad to hear your sowing your wild oats Tom. Never too old!

 

[tombear]

Well, I will when the postie brings them! Just in after another 4 or 5 hours in the garden and waiting my turn to shower ( with 5 of us we need some pit baths sized affair ). The new bed is ready now, weed ridden turf removed, dug down a spades blade deep and lots of compost added and finally and viscously hacked about and then raked by a 15 year old pumped up on testosterone who seams to have a personal grudge against soil! Strange to watch but surprisingly effective.

Oddly enough just these bits of gardening have done a lot to get the tone back in my legs after last years 4 months in a cast. Quite gratifying as its the only part of me I'm vain about. It all goes horribly wrong when you reach the groin...

i think one of those 8m by 4m bird nets from Wilco' will nicely cover the new bed, allowing a metre drop all round.

atb

Tom

Just seen your post boatman, and no it hadn't entered my furry head to do flax. That's. very interesting site and with my fetish for linen.... However I've just got a wonderful panicked expression from the wife with the comment that I should let her get her head around pinning wool before I start on flax! But that's definatly one for the future! Thanks!

 

[boatman]

Have you thought of planting flax?
http://www.flaxland.co.uk/

 

[tombear]

By any chance does anyone have a source of soapwort seeds?

looking for the right sort of flax seed I saw mention of soapwort, which I'd forgotten about as a useful plant to, well, plant.

atb

tom

 

[cranmere]

Soapwort seeds are sold by a number of the herb companies, I have long dealt with Chiltern Seeds for all sorts of unusual stuff.

http://www.chilternseeds.co.uk/item_1141D

 

[tombear]

Thanks I will try them,

its a bit late but the seeds for bullsblood beetroot, carlin peas, Lincolnshire spinich, afghan purple carrot and wild sea cabbage have arrived and will be going into pots tonight when herself gets back from her nalbinding lesson. We are quite far north and high up so I reckon they would have gone in late rather than early spring although this year we haven't had much frost at all.

Since its likely the AS would have direct sown we will also be doing that and if they don't take, wll we will have learned something. Ill be netting them up.

We are still waiting on the wild oats so better go rattle their cage!

atb

tom

 

[cranmere]

I tend to throw seeds into the ground when the weather has warmed up. Or whenever it occurs to me that there is a spare bit of ground and some random seeds in my box. It's surprising how often you will get a crop even if you plant at the "wrong" time.

 

[tombear]

Cheers! That's reassuring!

im still hoping to get some more trial blocks of cereals in, if I can find the seed. Come the end of the year there will be some winter spelt and bread wheat going in, if I can get some unhulled seed in relatively small amounts. Also if I can get some unhulled spring spelt I'd get that in straight away even if its only good for drying the stalks for craft work this year.

Herself has left a message with the folk supposedly selling us the wild oats ( they've taken the money anyway), hopefully that's only been delayed.

I'm now looking for a forged small sickle or grass hook to restore and stand in for some late Anglo Saxon jobs herself found illustrations for searching the British library site. All a plank to make a wooden spade.

ive been eyeing up another section of garden to make a 4th bed in. It will involve shifting the wood pile, moving the contents of one of the boys slit trenches ( don't ask ) where we have been chucking all the old bricks and random bits of concrete we have dug up ( will use them as filler for a couple of projects we have planned, a stone base for a forge hearth and the same for the base of a bread oven. ) . We need to remove the woody bits from the old big fire pit and fill that in a wll as the before mentioned slit trench. Not as much as it sounds

Anyway that will give us 4 beds, 3 to rotate and a 4th for crops which only seed in the second year.

On the paths I've been leaving we have a big bind weed problem that needs working on as well. All good not so clean fun, jnrs arms no longer look like pipe cleaners and my legs are muscling up a treat!.


Atb


tom

 

[tombear]

The wild oats finally arrived! So since this is the only decent day forecast for the next 5 days here. I will get us all out planting as soon as everyone is back from school and work and had some tea with lots of sugery stuff!


atb
Tom

 

[tombear]

Well, we got the net on the new bed up as it was starting to get dark but this is how the AS garden stands so far

as at 6/6/14


bere patch: bere


main patch top half:
wizard beans 2 rows
bush peas 2 rows
welsh onion
shallots red sun & golden gourmet
(planted & eaten collards yates)
(planted & eaten collards georgia southern)
(planted & eaten Good King Henry will see if we have seed left to start again but with more protection)
(planted & eaten kale thousand head ditto


bottom RH quarter:
spring onions reddy
spring onions savel
wild parsnips
parsnips tender & true
Bere plants from the trial pot I grew on a windowsill.


bottom LH Quarter:
wild carrots
wild thyme
wild marjoram
wild basil


long strip: done today
spelt ( hulled seeds, herself claims to see tiny green sprouts coming up on the trial pot I set 2 weeks back so we are trying a area of this.
bullsblood beetroot
wild sea cabbage
lincolnshire spinach
afghan purple carrots
carlin peas
Wild oats.
(all seeds planted 6/6/14)


proposed collards patch:
collards yates
collards georgia southern


anyway, does anyone know of a resistant form of kale? There's a type that was popular in Scotland for hundreds of years which I'd like to try. Of course I forgot the name of the strain!

Atb

Tom

 

[Goatboy]

Hi Tom,
we just always got seeds from my grand-dad, but there are some good traditional types mentioned in here http://www.askorganic.co.uk/organicgardening/Kale - How to grow this hardy crop.pdf

Hope it helps?
GB.

 

[tombear]

Cheers, that's the sort of info I need! Herselfs just found "kale yard kale" on eBay from a guy we've used before.

also we are looking for wild celery but so far its either in giant packs or the postage is more than the seed, which is taking the, well it sits ill with me.

atb

Tom

 

[tombear]

Well we won the kaleyard kale with a second chance thingy on eBay so it should be here in a couple of days.

i found some mosquito/ midge netting left over from making ahead net so I will do some pyramid shaped nets to go over the second lot of collards when they go out. Also we saw in Asda some organic slug pellets, we'll get some of those. There's a holly in th backyard as well so ill pluck a bunch of leaves from that and pack them around the stems to see if that deters the slimy little monsters.

atb

Tom

 

[Goatboy]

Well we won the kaleyard kale with a second chance thingy on eBay so it should be here in a couple of days.

i found some mosquito/ midge netting left over from making ahead net so I will do some pyramid shaped nets to go over the second lot of collards when they go out. Also we saw in Asda some organic slug pellets, we'll get some of those. There's a holly in th backyard as well so ill pluck a bunch of leaves from that and pack them around the stems to see if that deters the slimy little monsters.

atb

Tom

You can also try ale traps (which is always a good excuse if you're found wandering the garden with a flagon of the stuff! "I was just topping up the traps love!")

 

[Goatboy]

Hi Tom, was just talking on another thread about umbrelifers and Candied Angelica came to mind. (Angelica archangelica) Nice old fashioned herb though my favourite thing as I said over there was when Gran used to candy it. (She used it in baking like peel and dried fruit) but it was also a lovely sugary snack when out for a walk or it your stomach had been upset.
Quite a striking plant with a history in the garden and lots of uses including musical instruments!

 

[tombear]

I used to grow Angelica years ago, a handsome plant indeed. I never used it but visitors would on invitation take bits.

id forgotten all about beer traps, we tried them once and they certainly work but the kids found the emptying disgusting and none of my mates who visit drink beer so we no longer get it in to have stale stuff to use. Ill have to buy a bottle of cheep muck to just use for that!. Ta!

If the bere crop is decent ( big if ) herself is considering making some pre hops type ale. Now this wouldn't be a problem if I still drank but the stuff goes off really quickly I've read.

Atb

Tom

 

[tombear]

Well today we will do some weeding ing and waiting when everyone's home. Not done owt since seeding the new bed the end of last week. Unsurprisingly there's no sign of anything coming up in that one yet but the bere is coming on well

In theory it's 90 days is up on the 1st of August.

on any I devices that's probably upside down. No idea why it does it.

atb

Tom