The plans are in!

No i did not draw this, my garden plan looks much better (see last picture). I found this in an old book which had various designs you could use for your veg patch. I went with the traditional plot as it suits my space i have and what i need it for.

Here is there key not scanned very well.

Here is my plan try not to be too impressed. What i have done is dedicated a huge section to squashes because that end of the plot is pure stones so i plan to load it up with manure and compost and hopefully it will crop well. Then i will do crop rotation on the rows,but at the end of the rows i will have a few corn because they can't cast any shadow that way. The beans will grow up the fence and i can create a bean trench easily there also i have already started adding compost there. The very end where there are some red dots that's going to be my strawberry patch because we as a family are great strawberry eaters. Also i have planted a rhubarb at the end of it.

Experiment 2

To save money we are only using the fire in the house and no heating. That would be great if there was a fire in all the rooms but there is only one and that's not even in the main room, so i have many layers on , i look like a little bear. Back to the point my father hired a chainsaw and we have cut up all the stored wood and fallen wood we could get our hands on there is allot of wood in the picture but that's just a quarter of it, i promise, because it was I who had to put all the logs away. However we got left with a tone of sawdust, so using my initiative i scattered it onto my plot for another experiment maybe it will do something mulch down or it could act like a poison and i have just basically killed my soil we shall soon see.

Bird Housing Market

I have been redecorating the bird houses we have. Those lucky birds have been getting some new straw to keep there little beaks warm, because they probably can't afford heating this year with the credit crunch and one of the coldest winters.

Also to chear them up i have decorated one of the trees .

Experiment 1

Gardening can be an expensive hobby and so i am going to become more experimental with my gardening in order to a) save money b)use the facilities i have c) invent new ways of gardening and become the Einstein of the vegetable gardening world. The last one would be cool if it became true. On a serious note and non related veg subject i have been growing these Edelweiss seeds for months now and so far i have these tiny little seedlings which is great but they grow so slowly and my mother wants them off her window sill. So i have a wine crate and covered the base with straw to keep some warmth in. Hopefully because they are quite well established seedlings they will survive and you are meant to simulate the temperatures of the Swiss Alpes, i am praying they will be OK and not die on me. If anybody knows anything about Edelweiss at this stage in their life because i can't find any information on what to do with them as seedlings i just keep finding lyrics for the Sound of Music.

Disaster

The wind came and blew down my kiwi plant, from the sound of the bang i thought it was a burglar. As you can see the wind pulled it right over but luckily the root ball didn't come out, but all the leaves have been pulled off and it was touch and go for a few days but i have propped it back up and jammed it into a corner. I think i will feed it something to give a little boost, because it is looking very sorry for itself.

Feed the Birds

Nothing much has been going on in my garden because i didn't want to plant any overwintering vegetables because i wanted to give my soil a really good period of time to get more nutrients. So i planted a tone of green manure, but i planted it to late and none of the three packets i had sown grew. I was really irrated because i had spent two days breaking up the soil taking out enough rocks to build a house with and then racking it all over ready for the seeds. Then thank heavens above only a depressing three weeks later little green shoots appeared so i must have done something right.
Now the frost has kicked in they have stopped dead in there tracks, but at least the frost is breaking up my soil.

I have also emptied the entire contense of my composter and dumped it on my old veg patch coverd it with newspaper and cardboard and some old bit of fencing and fleece to hold it all down. The idea of this is to a bulk up the soil there and get the soil to get some more nutrients in there. I did a similar thing to another bed where i had grown some beans and it worked a treat until the rabbits bit off the stems.

Lastly don't forget to feed the birds!

Nearly to the finish line now

I tidied up my sliver of a plot raked it over and dug in some compost to benefit the soil. Since then i have put some straw round the brussels and fleeced them to protect them from the frost. It doesn't look like i will be getting brussels for Christmas they are still really small.
I have also tided up the old apple tree for years we haven't been able to get apples off them they always were rotten. So i have pruned off all the interlocking branches to provided better air circulation, put a gum band round and when my next batch of compost is ready i will be putting that round the base to and hopefully that will help.
Back to the plot which is now all dug up and now just needs raking over, because we have put a rotovator through the soil to break it up because it was so compacted. Then i started to fork it to keep the gaps and to pick out the stones, because there is millions of stones. I got to a section and got stuck so i moved on a little bit think i might find the end of this huge stone. Forty minutes later i have uncovered what looks like  9ft of solid stone. 
I thought who would put this in here and why. So i started to dig up and make my own little exervation site and i have dug up 11 breeze blocks. Why were they in there i don't know will there be anymore who knows, my back hurts and i have had to take time off from the plot. However the lack of breeze blocks have left me with huge holes and i will now have to invest in some top soil.

Feed the Birds

I made some coconut bird feeders using some old coconuts which i drilled through. Cracking them open took a little longer that used a few more tools, a hammer chisel and saw. The insides were done with bird seeds (obviously) and melted lard which you mix together. Big tip here feed your string through first with a twig on the end so it doesn't fall out, and make sure you fill up the hole before you but in the mixture i learned this the hard way, my lard went everywhere!

I left them in the fridge over night and they turned out really well, unfortunately no birds got them because the squirrel got them and the insides fell out and the dogs got them. So bad news for birds.

I painted a piggy bank and plan to use it as an honesty pot to put out with my gluts of vegetables which i will be getting. Yes i know i am overly hopeful.

The mystery squash revealed, this is the squash i grew from and unknown plant i got at a market and actually it is lovely i am going to be bold enough and say its nicer then butternut squash,it was that good. So i have saved some seeds ready to plant next year. I still don't know the name.

Apple Harvest

I only have one apple tree which produces edible apples i have know idea what type they are but they taste great. So i have wrapped them in kitchen paper on a wire wrack and kept them in a well ventelated room.

Busy Bee

I have been busy making a bee home for the now rare bee. I made it from bambo cut down to size. It now sits in my plot so it will attract those great pollinaters.

Not in the Plot

Off on one of my many breaks away from digging up my future veg patch i went crayfish fishing with father. Its very enjoyable until you have to pick them up, they are like mini lobsters, there claws do pinch and when they do it hurts my father has several cuts.
What you do to catch them is to tie some pop up nets to a rod with a bit of meat, preferable one that will let of a scent like chicken but make sure you slash it a bit and that will lure in the crayfish. You will be able to see them moving in the water because they have white bits on there claws and they walk up stream. When they are feasting on the meat lift the net up, pick them up and put them in a bucket. Easy as that.

Above is a small hall of crayfish. Below Lucas is not to sure on crayfish.

Eating options, eat them like you would lobster. I found a couple of recipes in What to Eat Now recipe book by Valentine Warner : Crayfish with hazelnut and pastis butter, Boiled crayfish with mayonnaise. What i did with mine was hand them in to my parents restaurant and there is now a crayfish bisque with crayfish tails, yum yum.

Alive Just

My pumpkin has started gorwing again after a bad case of mildew and one of my pumpkins dying from rot and one from a woodpecker. so hopefully it might have another fruit.

Brussels have had their first attack from catapillers. Since then i have put my netted polytunels over the top and looks like thats kept them at bay.

Mini harvest of courgette, beans, lavender and some sweat peas.

Last night had some of my chard with a roast chicken was lovely.

Bring on Winter

I have been trying to do my gardening from inside mainly because all of this rain so i made a bug hotel so in the rain the bugs have something to escape to and by attaching it to the apple tree in my veg patch so they can stay near by. I made it out of half a plastic bottle and some rolled up corrugated card. I doubt they will take to it but its the best i can do till the one bug hotel i really desire goes further down in price in the sale http://www.coxandcox.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=97Else where my mystery squash is finally taking shape. I bought it in a farmers market and the guy who sold t to me had such a strong accent i missed what the name of the squash was.

Even if it rains all the time i still have and extremely tall sunflower which brightens up the plot.

Inspiration from The Courts Gardens

I am now a member of the national trust and try every week to go to one of there places. This week it was the courts in Holt. I had a lovely time, beautiful house which you don't go in because people live there, but the gardens are old gardens which were beautifully planted without being overly fussy. To my great excitement they had a kitchen garden so i have posted up the photos which i took, and it may give you some great ideas. 

Clover on the side acting as green manure.
Corn and squashes growing together.






Caterpillars, they were everywhere.
This was my favorite idea training young apple trees to grow over an arch.
These are some photos i took, because i love the colors and textures.