July Potato harvest roundup

So, how has our harvest been in July? 

It has been very dry here - we have had  some rain, but not enough in quantity regularly to be helpful and it has been very hot, so a lot of crops have suffered or been delayed.

BUT our potato harvest is exceptional this year - last year was around half the weight and a fair few were badly slugged.

I suspect the hard winter killing pests, the good weather early on letting me get them in the ground early and, of course the magic of growing them in my own compost ( no soil, just compost...I have five, 2 m x 3 m raised beds filled with the stuff!)

We have lifted the potatoes now, apart from a few late planted "earlies" which are to give us new potatoes in the winter.

We got 100 Lb of Charlotte potatoes from the first of the raised beds, grown in my home made compost - from 18 seed potatoes weighing 3 lbs in total, so more than 5 lb per seed...pretty good going this year considering how dry it has been!

The Nicola bed had a similar yield from a similar number and weight of seed tubers so we are really pleased with this harvest. 

These keep well and we have a good mixture of sizes for baqking and other cooking purposes.

We also have a lot of Desire- good sized ones for baking- and some Maris Peer as well as some Rocket and Orla to finish up ( they are earlies so need eating first)

In total we have about 300 lb of spuds now in store for the winter and a lot of buckets of  "forked" or slightly damaged ones which we will eat up first over the next few weeks.

Am very pleased..even tho' in the scheme of things it doesn't save that much money and is a lot of hard work, I love our home grown spuds so much....even the best local organic ones just don't compare!

D is for ...

Dedication

A word which I have heard said a lot about the way we live " Wow, that takes some hard work and dedication and commitment, to grow your own veg/make your own jam/wine/lotions/candles/run an Environment centre/teach children Woodcraft - I could NEVER learn how to do that!"

And it got me thinking. Yes I do dedicate a lot of time to doing stuff here, in the wood, the garden, the orchard, with the hens, the house and my work as an teacher.


I dedicate a lot of time to growing veg ( which I guess I could buy from a Supermarket with no effort, instead)

We dedicate a lot of time and money doing things in a more sustainable, low impact, non polluting way - I don't use any chemicals in the garden, I make compost to improve soil fertility rather than buying chemical fertilisers, we use a scythe rather than the petrol strimmer, we fell, saw up, split and stack our wood for heat rather than using the oil fired central heating - stuff like that.

I dedicate a lot of time and effort working as a volunteer Master Composter and Master Gardener to help people who want it learn how to compost and grow their own food. I have dedicated a lot of time to training and learning how to be a better teacher and communicator and trainer so I can pass on the things I know to other people so THEY can pass on the knowledge to other people...

It takes time and effort but it also gives back so much in oh so many ways ...It allows me the precious luxury of being able to really think about what I am doing, and why I am doing it. I feel a part of what I am doing, rather than simply purchasing someone else's efforts.

So....dedication is hard work - yes. But oh so worth it, to my mind at least. And to those who say " I could never do ..." YES YOU COULD - it just takes a little time and a willingness to have a go. So what if you get it wrong first ( or second...) time? That is how we learn...by making mistakes.

D is also for Discipline, which I have a lot of so I get on with stuff when I need to. This can make me very intolerent of others who are not the same....

D is also for Discretion. I am very good at this - I do not spill confidences - if you tell me something I keep it to myself. But sometimes I feel like my head will explode with all the stuff I know about...but can't say!

D is also for Damsons, which make the BEST JAM EVER and pretty nice wine as well ;-) Ours are nearly ready and I can't wait to get preserving!

C is for ..............Chickens

Well, I couldn't pass the chance up to talk about my hens!

I LOVE my feathery flock. I only have 7 hens now as I have had a number of visits from Fox lately and so I have lost 5 hens in the last 6 weeks...which is very sad. But that is the risk I take by letting the hens free range in the wood, a more natural life for them BUT a risk.

But I am still getting 5 eggs a day from the 7 feathery laydees, which considering one is more than 4 years old and another is an ex battery hen of 3 years old    so they do not lay very often

is pretty good going.  AND I get the joy of feathery company whenever I am working outside AND the delight of watching their mad antics around the garden!

Hens do not lay every day even when in their first year. And once they are past their first moult ( at 12 to 15 months old) they tend to lay less eggs, The hybrids bred for egg laying commercially ( the standard "ginger" hen) do lay most days BUT they tend to die earlier, from ailments and diseases associated with being bred for maximum egg laying.

Regardless, I love my hens. I love hatching out eggs from under a broody hen. I love seeing them croon and dustbathe and run around like mad things when they have a tasty treat.

I guess this comes under a personal trait of Caring.

B is for ..........................................

BLOGGER – I love to blog. I love writing posts which explain stuff to people and allows them to "have a go" at it. I love getting comments which tell me I have helped. I also love your emails! AND I really really love the sense of community which blogging taps into.I have some really good real life friends who I have met via blogging and I have lots of friends whom I would love to meet in real life but count as friends in the blogosphere until I DO get to meet them in RL.


BOOK WORM – I am a bookworm. I have a LOT of books. They might be technical tomes, fiction, chick lit, degree level Eng Lit, various Engineering, Maths, Biology, Physiology, Education, History, Physics textbooks, historical non fiction, reference, cookery, gardening, pottery, engineering, reference of all sorts - I LOVE books. AND I need them to be printed on paper, please - no Kindle e-books for me.

BARE FEET – My feet love to be without shoes. I have horny soled feet , even though I pumice them regularly, because I am barefoot SO much. I am a Hobbit.


BUSY – Always. I feel deep guilt if I can't be doing something worthwhile...even when I am ill ( which unfortunately is frequently, as I have a rather rubbish immune system and all sorts of arthritic problems)


BIRDS– I am an RSPB member, a Wildlife Explorer Group Leader and I love birds. We feed the birds here, and with 4 acres of organic, woodland and garden to protect for the local wildlife we have loads of birds to marvel at.

Alphabet challenge in August

Chiot's Run  has thought up an interesting blog excercise. The idea is to come up with words or ideas to describe yourself using  each letter of the alphabet. Since it’s always good to exercise your creative side, I thought it would be great to do it here on my blog.

It should be fun to think about words to describe myself for each letter, some will be easy and some will be very difficult for sure – like X & Z. I’m not sticking to positive traits either, since I’ve got just as many bad traits as good ones!

So

A is for

Amazing
The work we have put in to renovating our sitting room. We are NOT serial re modellers     - we tend to do a room and are happy to just touch up the paint on the walls for the next 15 years. ( we have only lived here for 15 years, so I can't project further than that!)

Astounding

The harvest we have got from 3 lb of potato seeds - 100 lbs of Charlotte and the same of Nicola...we have a LOT of potatoes stored now for the winter!

Apologetic
Sorry if this is a bit sparse - I am not very well and am having a bit of a job thinking up stuff to go with "A" titles!