My mini-hugel berry banks are definitely not on contour, but they still collect water which puddles in the winter in particular.
So they aren't a swale, but still create wet microclimates which gives me a variety of planting conditions - a nice place for my skirret plants for ecample .
We had a treadle machine when I was a child, I'm not sure my mum still has it. The advantage over a handle manual one is that you have both hands free for managing the fabric.
I don't suppose the information manual is neccessary, but it is nice to know about the history of a vintage machine like that. I'm just fnding lady fayre pottery information on a duck duck search some possibly useful results from Brave, but still nothing specific...
Another week not much change. The liquid still tastes much nicer than the vegetable pieces! They are obviously not quite the same as fresh rutabaga, but I suspect that I will use them more as a cooking ingredient than neat. The liquid level has gone down below the level of the top vegetable pieces, so I have topped the jars off with some fresh brine at the original concentration.
ferment jars before topping up brine
May, I didn't peel the rutabaga (they do seem to be showing cut faces against the glass), although I did scrub them pretty well as I didn't want soil in my ferment. The cabbage leaves were my own, and barely rinsed, so should have had a good coating of natural microbiology. I think my main 'problem' is not cutting the root pieces small enough. The fermentation started OK, but is just very slow now. I think I will give it till the new year and then maybe start a new batch with grated roots and see how those go.
Does it need to be a stick-woven basket? It seems to me that the same effect woud be had by making a tower of loosely stacked rocks. As long as the roots can reach the goodness decomposing in the middle I think it will have a beneficial effect and will last longer.
I'm not sure everything has to be permanent. I know permaculture stands for 'permanent agriculture' amongst oter things, but nature is a moving target: rivers flood, ponds fill in...There is always some interevention if we call it gardening or farming (rather than just foraging).
I saw a shooting star on my way down to the shop and a pretty good aurora on my way back this evening. I do like dark skies!
This is how it looks just now (source)
Hi Blake, We hear more about how grand houses and monasteries gardens were laid out than how the common people grew around their houses. There are some interesting vidoes on this thread you may find of interest. I suspect that most people had a fairly small space around the house to grow and it would have been a mixture of flowers, herbs and vegetables to gather fresh, with a fence, hedge or stone wall to keep livestock from eating the cabbages! Haddon's guide covers a range of European medieval gardne information, which might be of some use too.
I went ahead and ordered the peas from Hodmedod and they arrived very quickly! This means I'm all set now to try a new landrace for field peas that (hopefully) will grow reasonably well for me without support.
all the peas
I couldn't resist the rye grain and Susan's book on beans too (although it doesn't seem to cover fava beans much unfortunately)
Johnny's winter growng guide suggests that plants need at least 10 hours of daylight to grow well, so you'll probably struggle slightly I suppose, even with some heat. You might have better success with leaf crops like lettuce and oriental greens that cope with a bit of shade. Or leave sowing until the day length starts to get longer again.
You could do an experiment and sow some now and some in a month's time and see what happens.
mossgiel x torpenhow real organic cow-with-calf 2kg truckle matured for 6 months....ooh, so tempting to buy my self an xmas pressie for next summer.....
Finally got round to sorting the wellies (I'm obviously in love with them...)
Della inspects the dead wellies
Tell me why I ended up with 5 left hand wellies and 1 right hand welly? I must be very right footed. How ever when put in the bath none were any good so I have cut off the tops and will check out the thread on dead wellies for uses for the material. They are at least more compact when cut down and aren't cluttering up our hallway.
A graduate scientist turned automotive engineer, currently running a small shop and growing plants on Skye: turning a sheep field into a food forest.
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some possibly useful results from Brave, but still nothing specific...
