The Homestead Garden week to week
- Thread starter British Red
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Mary I missed your reply sorry I would have commented!!
Friends got chickens I've had woodshavings with manure in it??
Mary I have got two tonne bags of leaf mould on the go (oak leaves) but was looking at a green manure this time, have you tried anything on yours?
My friend uses the wizard field beans which I have now thanks to Hugh but I believe mustard is good for clay??
Got my spuds finally in today with parsnips and carrots just finished before dark!!!
By the way Mary the black currant is looking good this year.
😄
Friends got chickens I've had woodshavings with manure in it??
Mary I have got two tonne bags of leaf mould on the go (oak leaves) but was looking at a green manure this time, have you tried anything on yours?
My friend uses the wizard field beans which I have now thanks to Hugh but I believe mustard is good for clay??
Got my spuds finally in today with parsnips and carrots just finished before dark!!!
By the way Mary the black currant is looking good this year.
😄
spuds are very good at breaking up clay, one harvest (winter?!?)just plant the entire patch with spuds, and let the roots break the soil up. keep the soil turned over to a foot or deeper, average plough depth. Pits, dig a foot down strip and fill with household green waste and cover overthat improves the soil, worms toing an froing from it. Seems air and drainage and lively soil is the best.
i have thought about bark chips in smallish pieces dug in to a foot to improve the soil ecosystem, but it means alot of work. Flower potters seem to quite like bark mulch.
i have thought about bark chips in smallish pieces dug in to a foot to improve the soil ecosystem, but it means alot of work. Flower potters seem to quite like bark mulch.
Drilled 100 sq ft of self supporting bush peas today
The netted it over - otherwise pigeons will eat all the shoots as they emerge (to be fair I also eat the pigeons
)
Weeded out the overwintered onions
and the shallots and garlic
I also noticed that our first early spuds are up (we are trying Duke of York and Sharpes Express this year)
What are you guys up to?
Red
The netted it over - otherwise pigeons will eat all the shoots as they emerge (to be fair I also eat the pigeons
)Weeded out the overwintered onions
and the shallots and garlic
I also noticed that our first early spuds are up (we are trying Duke of York and Sharpes Express this year)
What are you guys up to?
Red
BR have you ever had any issues with maggots in those bush pea?
Mine were pretty infested last year
Mine were pretty infested last year
Sorry yes pea moth it looked like.. nearly every pod had them... I've read about netting them or earlier varieties??
Net em over is the only safe bet - I use a very fine net for keeping the white butterflies off my brassicas - a similar arrangement should sort your peas
Do you need more seed mate?
Do you need more seed mate?
I've got parsnips and beans left.... Not sure how much peas as I composted a lot due to the maggots I kept a few of my own plants back for seed.... It will be next year I'll struggle for parsnips as mine I'm guessing won't be viable 3 years old ???
Just been looking at bits on Real Seeds but there too busy to post at the mo!!!
Thanks BR though....I've got a few thousand poppies to sow soon.... I'll net them over not sure about the carrots as I've never had any problems with carrot fly?? Maybe I'm lucky ??? 😄
Just been looking at bits on Real Seeds but there too busy to post at the mo!!!
Thanks BR though....I've got a few thousand poppies to sow soon.... I'll net them over not sure about the carrots as I've never had any problems with carrot fly?? Maybe I'm lucky ??? 😄
Parsnips are dropping in viability for next year Dave. However, your friendly neighbourhood seed saver has some second year growth parsnips that will make thousands of seeds this summer - so drop him a PM when you need some more. If you need pea seed let me know.
I'm trying three new bean varieties this year (all open pollinated) so I'm looking forward to getting to the perfect "baked bean"
I'm trying three new bean varieties this year (all open pollinated) so I'm looking forward to getting to the perfect "baked bean"
This years "experiment" for us is to try three new varieties of beans. We have had great results with "Wizard" field beans and "Trail of Tears" Cherokee beans, but I need to find the perfect "baked bean" - high protein, good crop density and great flavour.
We have three candidates - all of which we have had to import as they are not available in open pollinated varieties here
So, our contenders are
Your actual soybeans.
Ever tried to find a real soybean that's not been GM'd or generally messed about with? Not easy. We have only found the green variety so far. If anyone can find black open pollinated soybeans, please send me a link.
Next up a traditional contender, but again, hard to find here - the Cannellini Haricot
Nice to see packaging that features pure bred open pollinated status. Shame its not English
....lastly we have a bean that I have never known grown here - but I hear its delicious - the "Dutch brown"
We have put in fifty square feet of each variety which should be enough for sample recipes and seed saving enough to vastly increase that space on the chosen variety.
Red
We have three candidates - all of which we have had to import as they are not available in open pollinated varieties here
So, our contenders are
Your actual soybeans.
Ever tried to find a real soybean that's not been GM'd or generally messed about with? Not easy. We have only found the green variety so far. If anyone can find black open pollinated soybeans, please send me a link.
Next up a traditional contender, but again, hard to find here - the Cannellini Haricot
Nice to see packaging that features pure bred open pollinated status. Shame its not English
....lastly we have a bean that I have never known grown here - but I hear its delicious - the "Dutch brown"
We have put in fifty square feet of each variety which should be enough for sample recipes and seed saving enough to vastly increase that space on the chosen variety.
Red
Fantastic stuff. I look forward to seeing your results!! I'm particularly intersted in knowing how you get on with the soya beans as my beloved is a veggie + lactose sensative so we use organic soya milk . I've not heard good things about it being gm??
I've just spent 1 1/2 after work strimming 😳
The crop I'm excited about this year is baby sweetcorns👍 I've got them in the cold frame and they look good even though I got caught by a frost 😳
I tried them straight in the soil last year and had 0 plants.
I've grown toms from seed peppers and cucumber as I got seeds for my birthday..
D
I've just spent 1 1/2 after work strimming 😳
The crop I'm excited about this year is baby sweetcorns👍 I've got them in the cold frame and they look good even though I got caught by a frost 😳
I tried them straight in the soil last year and had 0 plants.
I've grown toms from seed peppers and cucumber as I got seeds for my birthday..
D
If the soya works well you will get some of my seed Dave!
Awesome job on raising your own plants - well done you fro growing them all from seed! Next job will be to get open pollinated seed (unless you already have?) - then you never need to buy seed again which is great! We are slowly building up a personal seed bank of useful seeds so that we don't have to grow the same things every year, but can preserve them properly. Its another of those endlessly fascinating subjects - some seeds are easy (beans), some are tricky (beets), some are fiddly (carrots) - but being able to produce good seed is one of the most fundamental of skills
Awesome job on raising your own plants - well done you fro growing them all from seed! Next job will be to get open pollinated seed (unless you already have?) - then you never need to buy seed again which is great! We are slowly building up a personal seed bank of useful seeds so that we don't have to grow the same things every year, but can preserve them properly. Its another of those endlessly fascinating subjects - some seeds are easy (beans), some are tricky (beets), some are fiddly (carrots) - but being able to produce good seed is one of the most fundamental of skills
Thanks for that!
It's all a bit of a learning curve as I've said before.
What I am slowly coming to realise us that Mother Nature can be a funny thing.... some times things work out sometimes they don't. I'm learning not to beat myself up about losing plants just try another method/way and learn from my mistakes.
Open pollinated is the way I'm going 😄
It's all a bit of a learning curve as I've said before.
What I am slowly coming to realise us that Mother Nature can be a funny thing.... some times things work out sometimes they don't. I'm learning not to beat myself up about losing plants just try another method/way and learn from my mistakes.
Open pollinated is the way I'm going 😄
You aren't kidding on the learning curve! As you say, don't beat yourself up. Every year, we set aside an area for "experiments" and try to grow something unusual and different. Many of these things have now become part of our regular garden (e.g. Oca) and part of our diet too. Others (long stemmed wheat), were hopeless. The great thing is to enjoy the discovery and accept that many things don't work out - so try something else until you find something that does.
I have a very small garden, at least by the standards of BCUK homesteaders it seems. The productive area of the garden, the bit that gets the most sunlight, is approx 8m x 3m. In this I have a single 4'x16' raised bed, 12 apple trees, 9 blackcurrant bushes, 12 strawberries, half a dozen raspberries, a hazel, an oak, a grape vine, some rhubarb, 2 triffids hops, a christmas tree, and a lot of bind weed.
So far this year I have pruned the fruit trees, and the fruit bushes, weeded the raised bed, sewed beetroot, and generally been tidying up.
I have also taken over the entire living room with plants. Several dozen tomatoes (2 of which are in flower already!), several dozen chilli/sweet pepper plants, some squash plants, and a few others. These I am just waiting for the risk of frost to pass to start moving things outside.
Some of the peppers will be grown indoors, the rest will go outside. During the summer months my living room is a bit like a rainforest.
In the next week I am hoping to get a new pile of poo for the raised bed, then get the spuds in the ground. I'm sure chitting isn't supposed to involve 6"+ shoots...
Julia
So far this year I have pruned the fruit trees, and the fruit bushes, weeded the raised bed, sewed beetroot, and generally been tidying up.
I have also taken over the entire living room with plants. Several dozen tomatoes (2 of which are in flower already!), several dozen chilli/sweet pepper plants, some squash plants, and a few others. These I am just waiting for the risk of frost to pass to start moving things outside.
Some of the peppers will be grown indoors, the rest will go outside. During the summer months my living room is a bit like a rainforest.
In the next week I am hoping to get a new pile of poo for the raised bed, then get the spuds in the ground. I'm sure chitting isn't supposed to involve 6"+ shoots...
Julia
