We have had a few tours and an Introduction to Forest Gardening workshop this month. They were all lovely days with some wonderful participants. Thanks to everyone who came and shared their own experiences and ideas. It is a pleasure to show people around and see the place with new eyes.
Our new bantams are in their coop and enjoying the upstairs and downstairs levels. The coop was made from recycled old pallets and offcuts of tongue and groove panelling-very tricky to piece it altogether but it turned out fine in the end. We are planning to raise our own chicks so have constructed the new pen and coop for them to raise the little ones in.
We are just waiting for one of the ladies to go broody now!
Hazel the goat joined us last year and has been really delightful, a bit of a Houdini but we think we have outsmarted her now.
Well that was quite some year! My new resolve is to try to keep this blog a bit more regular...we will see.
We have made a lot of progress on the project with a large batch of plants planted in the shrub and herbaceous layers. It's an ongoing planting scheme and it's sometimes hard to wait for the right timing of these layers but if you do it too soon without the shade of the canopy or small tree layer you may lose a lot to the ravishes of the sun.
The land at the moment is at its most beautiful, everything is so lush and green, it's a joy to wander and work amongst it.
Asparagus, tasty wild salads and perennial brassicas are the treats of the moment. We are eagerly awaiting the bamboo shoot season for more tasty dishes. Eating in season and from the plants and trees you have grown gives you a great feeling of anticipation for the forthcoming harvests which are often quite short.
We lost our milking goat Morganne at the end of last year, she died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 14. Thanks Morg we miss you.
Spring in full flower
Over the winter we have been busy with different projects here. An area of the land, we affectionately called Wales,and have never done anything with, was cleared from all the dense dark growth that had become much too shady for the trees on the terraces below.This slowly revealed a lovely space with huge granite boulders at the back and a mature oak stand above, forming a wonderful backdrop wrapped around three pools.The existing medronhas were coppiced and more chestnuts were planted along with,wild cherry and various berberis species.We will be adding more small trees and shrubs in the future. Thanks to Andy Rees for all his hard work on this area.
Almost there
The bread oven now has its chimney and awaits its final coat of granite. First, sand will be put between the fire bricks and the granite to form a layer that will allow movement and prevent cracking when the oven is heated.
The worktop has been tiled but still needs facing and a general tidy up and then we're ready for our first bake!
Stable and paddock
Our goat has moved into her new stable and small paddock near the house. It was built using old recycled pallets and mimosa posts cut from the land here during the winter.
We are planning to convert her old stable to a workshop.
Morganne
Being an old lady and set in her ways she took a while to settle in but here she is relaxing and cogitating in her new quarters.
Drip watering system being installed
Sadly, Anna a friend of long standing who was very dear to us all, died recently and we decided to dedicate one of the beds, as a memorial garden to her, in a part of the existing gardens. Here it is being planted up with blueberries, cranberries, lettuce,violets, shasta daisies and echinacea.
Anna had a passion for trees like us, and a wonderful generous spirit. We will miss her.
September was gorgeous, the sun shined warmly without the intensity of previous months and it's been enjoyable to work in the garden and on the land. I have been sowing and planting out all the winter chinese leaf greens, carrots, onions, salad crops and winter black radish.Black radish is a wonderful vegetable they grow quite large and can also be cooked when all the heat will go out of them. Lovely in stir frys and stews.
We are sorting out the winter fire wood and selecting and cutting timber for some construction work that we have planned.
Bread oven base.
Like a few people seem to be doing at the moment, we are in the process of building an outside bread oven with an attached 3x1m work surface for preparing the dough and pizzas etc. It will be a great addition to our workshop area and fantastic to be able to continue to make bread during the summer months when it is just too hot to light the woodburning oven in the house.
In this picture you can see the base of the bread oven, under which we will have a space to store the wood. To the right of this is the preparation surface.
Still a little way to go...
Our second workshop was also great.The weather was perfect for us and we achieved a lot over the weekend.Thanks to those who came and shared the weekend with us.
Preparing fruit for solar drying and chatting round the table.
By the end of the weekend we had made all this.
Our first Autumn Harvest weekend was great,We had a fantastic group of people who were all keen to learn and get going on making all the things we had chosen to do.
It was fun working and preparing the fruit and vegetables together and we had some interesting discussions while we were working and around lunch and dinner. A lot of sharing and exchanging went on and we felt we had made some new friends.
Thanks Pedro,Antonio, Patricia, Paula , Valeri, and Manu for coming and making the weekend so enjoyable.
Thanks too, to Kate, who as always, prepared for us the most delicious meals. She got many compliments from the participants for that.
This is what we achieved in the end.... a wonderful array of produce and lots of happy faces!
Don't know where the time has gone, it's been really busy these last two months, with lots of visitors and things going on.
Apologies to anyone who is actually following this blog, I just don't get the time to work on the computer as there is too much to do on the land or in the garden.( Anyway, I do prefer to be amongst the plants and trees if I can)
I am trying oca ths year for the first time.It's a root vegetable, a tuber that has a lemony taste and can be used rather like a new potato. It is supposed to produce well.
I decided to plant it under the tomatoes for the shade and to get the benefit of two crops from one area.I am glad I did as the oca that isn't quite so shaded by the tomatoes is struggling with the high temperatures we have had recently. Interestingly, the ones that were right next to some self-seeded chicory, in the bed, are doing much better than the others.Good companions?
We had a great valley work day here with all our neighbours and spent the time generally tidying up in the new project.A large mulch mound was created which followed the contour of the land, it will rot down and provide a good place to plant shrubs in as we add the other layers.
Trees were pruned and firewood carried to the track for moving up to the woodshed, with a chain of people it didn't take long
The shitakes are doing great,slowly colonising the oak logs, they will be ready to move to their fruiting positions in the autumn.
With various members of the family coming and going during the summer we decided to start work on the mosaic we had planned for the front wall of the large spring water holding tank.It's slow work as we have to fit it in around all the other jobs but it's progressing nicely.
The potato plants are growing well,we have been adding compost regularly and they are now over the top of the pallets.
We have been slotting in planks on the open side as they have grown taller and the soil level has risen.
To answer Gonçalo's question, we lined the inside of the box with recycled cardboard which holds the earth in and also helps to stop it drying out.
We were visited last year by Jude Dunn who wrote a four page article about us for Permaculture Magazine.The issue came out recently and there we were!
It's Issue 64 Summer 2010 and has lots of photo's in from this website plus a few others.
It's nice to know that people find what we are doing interesting.
The end of May and the first two weeks of June were crazy, with us trying to catch up with all the work on the farm that we hadn't managed to do because we were all working outside or were away.
With our first Open Day advancing it was great to have the focus and get it all done.
A huge thanks here to Chris who arrived with his family a couple of weeks ago and got stuck right in with us, cheerfully working long hours to help out. You're a star Chris!
We have caught up, managing to get the strimming done, gardens all planted up, the worst parts of the track levelled and sorted out some of the wood for next winter.
At this point we feel ahead.
Our first Open Day was brilliant. It was wonderful to share our experiences and love of this place with such a great group of people.We had perfect weather for it and Kate's lunch was spectacular.It was nice to know that most of it came from the land here.
We ended the day feeling inspired and happy.
Everyone enjoying the lunch and each others company
The lunch table set. The salad including several types of edible flowers was appreciated by all.
Lunch was a place to continue discussions of the ideas that had been brought up during the morning part of the open day
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