Nancy Reading

Well we definitely got quite gloomy for a bit, but I couldn't tell where the sun was, let alone see it!

I'm also hoping for a good mast year this year. The trees I planted have quite a lot of nuts on at the moment - it will be into September before they are ripe though, so I must not optimate.

r ransom wrote:I wonder if shelling, roasting, then freezing is an option?

I'm pretty sure they are supposed to keep longer in their shells than out of them.

I also think they keep better if they have been dried properly (which might involve heat?)

If you are shelling and freezing them, I don't know if they need roasting too.

I've got some nuts I harvested last year that I dried in a cool oven, shelled (lots of empty ones ), and put in a glass jar with a lid and they are still fine to eat.

bump.

It was a lovely soil test - quite expensive (£110 inc. VAT). You can get more basic ones, I'm not sure how often Molybdenum is included. Although I didn't pay for this one, I've splashed out and treated myself to the same again - once for the tree field adjacent to the growing area, and once for my new zone one kitchen garden which has been disappointing in survival and growth. The tree field one is as close as I can get to a starting reference (short of doing some digging in next door's field which is still sheep wrecked). The only changes I have made to it, is to let the grass grow and self mulch.
Yes, I'm hopeful that seaweed and bone char will help raise the element levels that I am short in. I don't know whether going higher in Potassium and magnesium is likely to be a problem?

Apparently we're going to get about 90% eclipse here, Which would be good if we didn't have about 100% cloud cover too!

Ac Baker wrote:I'm wondering if hugels would tend to dry out on the surface in our summers & suffer runoff.

some people do sunken hugels for that reason - bury the wood but leave the surface level, not raised, or even a bit sunken.

I've always been suspicious of thick mulch harbouring slugs.

The downside of a humid climate. Maybe that is going to be the silver lining for your hotter summers....

I hope someone gives you a good answer, because I'd like to know too!

Mine are much less advanced than yours though...

If not beer, then what? Mine are for beer I hope! I have a very talented microbrewer locally that wants to experiment with more local ingredients (I'm also working on the barley...)

I think hops don't come 'true' from seed, although presumably will resemble their parents. I think you get male and female flowers on different vines. Yours do look female

I'm sorry to hear you lost plants Bruce. It might be the roots rotted in the damp. Was it just the butternut and pumpkins that had the added chicken coop goodness? Did they also get flooded?

I tend to map before rather than after, although my planning is rather loose, with cross sections and rough schematics done from memory rather than measured. I often find though that when I actually do measure I have to change my ideas a bit. For example in my new 'zone one' kitchen garden my plans evolved....

This was my first design:

with keyholes along a central path...

When I actually measured it, I found the area was much more square than I thought, so I came up with this design...

with perennials on one side and a semicircular annual garden on the other.

When I came to make the beds I felt that six beds would end up rather small, so I made four:


I'm thinking now I may make a roundish bed in the centre to avoid the sharp corners...still evolving!

I think doing a plan of my whole area would be too much work now - I did have an overall scheme before I started, and again this evolved once I started digging....

Tereza Okava wrote:noodles (hold the baking soda) would be my first choice. Flour and water plus time gives some fabulous stretchy noodle options.

Oh, would pasta be an option too? Does that have to be special flour?