Independence Days Update - end of July July 31, 2008

1. Plant – planted more salad leaves (italian mix and extra rocket), oregano, parsley, beetroot (mainly to finish off the packet – might be lucky and get a winter crop), also planted the top of a pineapple in the hope it might grow. Planted out my biggest melon plant into the ground. It’s doing fairly well so far.

2. Harvest – eaten peas off the pod. Blackberries although they weren’t all ripe. Boo.

3. Preserve – I’m really bad at this one, I dried heaps more tomatoes as they go so quickly in this house.

4. Prepare for the future – I got a pressure cooker off freecycle so I can cook stuff quickly and make jam and that.

5. Cook something new or use up old produce – am rubbish at cooking new things I’ve been living off risotto ever since I learnt how to make it successfully, but I’ve used up a heap of berries and eaten the potatoes we dug up.

6. Manage your reserves – err…..actually I’ve been making the OH eat lots of leftovers. But could really do with reorganising the kitchen soon. Actually I’ve spent the past couple of weeks redesigning the allotment on paper so come the autumn that will be the big task, so we can have heaps more produce in a small space.

7. Work on local food systems – got given the website of a place that rents out cherry trees (we can’t have trees of our own), found a place that does 3kg bags of pulses.

See more progress on: work on the independence days challenge

The other blog July 21, 2008

I started another blog here : www.shrublayersandclimaxvegetation.wordpress.com

Bit of a mouthful but I couldn’t think of a name and I took the phrase from the page of a permaculture book I was reading at the time. The new blog is just to chart my allotment progress really, mainly for the sake of a couple of friends, I decided to separate it out to make it a little easier.

Independence Days Update. July 17, 2008

I’ve been lazy, well with writing blogs and stuff. Well I was at Glastonbury, then have been nursing some of my dead plants back to life. And I noticed that part of the Independence Days Challenge stuff I’d written down was wrong. In there somewhere is supposed to be ‘learn a new skill’ and some other stuff. I’ll hunt it out at some point and modify it at some point.

Planted: aubergines, radishes, quinoa, tomatoes, started propogating strawberry plants, oregano, italian salad leaves, spring onions. Attempting to grow a pineapple.
Harvested: basil, chives and potatoes.
Preserve: made basil infused olive oil. Dried tomatoes.
Prepare for the future: Have started to sort out our plant pot collection and punnet collection, and got a few seeds for planting at the end of the year.
Cook something new or use up old produce: I’m a bit stuck on this one. Although I did go vegan so I guess I’m just having stuff without eggs and cheese now.
Manage your reserves: Got rid of some old stuff out of the freezer again…
Work on local food systems: Found a shop to get some local produce from when our veggie box doesn’t provide enough. Also discovered what else our veggie box scheme sells.

Our allotment is being hard work. But fun. We are about 75% up against the slugs i.e. they take about 25% of the stuff we plant. So we’re not doing too badly. And gradually I’m pulling away the cardboard coverings from the earth and planting stuff so weeding is getting less and less too. A lot of the soil needs improving, so I’ve sowed alfalfa (which has long roots which pulls up nutrients from the subsoil), on the bad bits, then before it flowers I will cut it down and let it rot on the surface as a kind of fertiliser.

The strawberry plant (yes, just the one) has been putting out lots of runners so I decided to let it out of its hanging basket and put it in the ground and let it run and get some more plants from it.

All of our tomato plants died in the heat whilst we were on holiday. However, somebody in my parents street had left a load of tomato plants out on their wall with a sign saying ‘free plants’ so we have two. Although they are a little straggly at the moment, hopefully they will do well.

The melons are doing extremely well. I just need to fashion a mini greenhouse for the allotment then the biggest plant can go in the ground as it is desperate to get out of its pot.

That’s all the news for now, garden wise!

See more progress on: work on the independence days challenge

glastonbury July 2, 2008

Glastonbury was great. Lots of lovely shiny things. Some good talks and good fun times. I will update on it when I am fully recovered as right now I can barely sit up straight from being so tired!