Kaarina Kreus

Thank you! Brilliant article.

There is one thing I was left pondering about: heating or warmth. Some people keep their chickens in undeated henhouses even in cold climates. The birds seem to adjust just fine.

My henhouse has two doors, and I only close the windward door in winter. Otherwise the doors are always open (but covered with hardware net to keep predators out). The air smells sweet, because there is a foot of hay and plant substrate.

My carrots kep well into July next year in moist sand.

Portable rockets stoves are great, as they burn with any kind of stickes. No fancy firewood needed. You might want a pressure cooker, which would further need less heat as things boil in lower temperatures.

But the pot is going to get dirty, so I have dedicated a couple of pots for rocketstove use. I don't clean them, and my kettles in the house stsy clean on the woodstove.

Mine is purchased, because I am totally helpless in metal working. But if you are not, you can save by building it yourself.

https://wildchefkitchen.com/product/petromax-rocket-stove/

Charming "vegetable". Is it a boy or a girl ❤️

Welcome Murat ❤️
I live in Scandinavia so we have approximately the same climate. My advice is to plant as many varieties as you possibly find. Potato is supposed to be easy, but summers are different and your own soil and microclimate affect what grows best.
So start with looooots of different cultivars and you will soon see which like your conditions best.

I have lived on my tiny little farm for three years now. I often feel like I am not accomplishing anything and nothing gets finished.

So I dug up some old pictures. Whoaa. I had forgotten how primitive everything was in the beginning!!!

You should do the same! Take pictures before you start any task, and then snap a pic of the result. Real feel good - hack.

I would just dye it. If you have washed it thoroughly, it is clean. Just hide the color.

There are also color removers that you can use before dyeing. Sometimes I got tid of stains using those.

Well, first it was really cold. Like spring, not summer. And after that - extreme  drought and heatwave. Not a single week of optimal conditions.

I would be on cloud nine if I could get some seeds!!! Here all garden centers (and shops) sell the same half a dozen varieties.  A bit like apples, where the entire world chooses between Golden Delicious and Granny Smith 🙄

You can see the size of my potato field here. Pretty mighty for a lone old woman 😂

I got several dozen seed potato varieties from an old farmer. I planted them all,thinking that this winter, I will eat lots of potatoes.

Not so quickly. The plants themselves grew OK, but there are very few bulbs underground. And intriguingly, almost half of the meagre harvest I reaped is blue. I mean an exotic blue variety that nobody has ever heard of. The various traditional yellow potatoes were either really tiny or there were just sporadic potatoes at all. This year has generally been bad for potatoes everywhere, so I am not alone.

Now I don't dare to eat these miracle survivors. I hope to use them as seed potatoes.

So, even though I planted 120 yards of potatoes, I will have to buy mine from the shop.