Starting Out - We're Finally on YouTube!

Well, the start of our new venture is almost here. A YouTube channel that will document what we are up to in all the gory details! From planting seeds and growing as much of our own food as we possibly can, to building the hay store, the chicken house, the poly tunnel and anything else my husband can get away with building (he's a man on a mission .... mostly a mission to buy power tools but a mission nevertheless!). The good and the not-so-good aspects of trying to live a simpler life on the way to becoming more self-sufficient. As soon as the first video goes up, I will post a link to it so you can have a look and you can let us know what you think. 

So, apart from that there has been loads happening. After such a long time dying to get some seeds into soil, it's finally March and everything I could possibly plant is being planted. I've been planting like a maniac and pretty much all my window ledges are full of pots and trays just waiting to burst into life. We actually have some seedlings already germinated which is awesome. I love this time of year, the planting and the getting ready for the growing season ahead. The nights are getting lighter and I no longer have to get up in the dark - which I hate.

The poly tunnel is now planted with seeds. They're doing really well and the radishes and lettuce I planted 8 days ago have already germinated.

So far this year I have planted

2 different types of sweetcorn, 8 different types of tomatoes, 3 different types of courgette, 2 types of patty pan, 2 types of spring onion, radishes, mixed salad leaves, 5 different types of basil, 3 varieties of potatoes, peppers, chillies, and some cat grass for my cats, which they totally loved and was gone in like 24 hours! Luckily, cat grass grows super fast so I can plant a pot for them and it's ready in like 10 days

Potatoes chitting before planting

Potatoes just peeping through the soil

Flowers on one of my fruit bushes. 

Trying to get sweet potatoes to grow slips

Broad Beans which were planted in the Autumn now full of flowers

Round courgette plants doing brilliantly

As you can see, I have plants growing like mad all over the place and the poly tunnel is gradually filling up with germinating seeds and plants getting bigger and stronger. Hopefully we will have a really good harvest this year and will be able to become a lot more self-sufficient as a result. I will keep my blog updated on the progress that we're making and you can also follow us on Instagram. There is a link in the right hand column at the top of the page if you want to have a look at some of the other pictures I've been taking and things that we've been doing and you can now also follow us on YouTube! We've only just started and we're total novices to all this so be kind. Here is a link in case you want to have a look. It's just the little introduction bit but please let us know what you think. If you like it, please subscribe and click on the little bell symbol to get notification of our new videos as we post them.

Wow, it all seems very real now!! Anyway here is the link of you want to have a look.

YouTube

All Change. New Job, New Start and New Challenges.

Well, you might have noticed I've changed the name of my blog. I have been thinking about it for a while now and because of all the things we have planned in the near future, I thought that now was the right time to do it. It's still going to be mostly me just rambling on and on about boring country stuff but I'm also hoping to get my husband to do a couple of guest posts on things like what we have learned during all the building of poly tunnels and chicken coops and garden planning and landscaping and stuff. Technical stuff that doesn't include flowers, bunting, animals or fluffy stuff, things that he's much better qualified to write about than because he's been the one that has been doing it. I have mostly been holding stuff, passing him tools and providing tea and biccies 😊 ie.very important stuff!

So, things have been a bit hectic and frantic down here in deepest, darkest Cornwall. I have just changed jobs. I know!!  ..... it was a total shock for me too. I had spotted a job on the job site website and although the deadline had expired by about 4 weeks, I applied on the off chance because the hours were perfect and it was really local. I submitted my CV and 20 minutes later I got a call asking me to pop along for an interview the next day. Twenty minutes after I finished the interview, they rang and offered me the job! I now no longer have to work weekends! You have no idea just how amazing that feeling is after 18 months of working pretty much every single weekend. Luckily I only had to give a weeks notice in my old job and I started my new job on Monday. Talk about whirlwind! 

On the poly tunnel front, great news ..... the cover is on! It's not completely finished, despite working 'til it was too dark to see on Sunday evening but the cover is on, the doors are fitted, most of it is secured with the wiggle wire, the paving slabs are down. Although there is some finishing off to do it's almost finished and the planting and growing and of course the decking out with bunting and the installing of the table and chairs and potting bench etc ..... basically the cool, fun stuff ...... can begin. I just can't wait I'm beyond excited. My bunting is ordered, my compost is waiting and my potting bench is being built by my lovely husband. 

Not quite finished, it was too dark to take pictures by the time we finished and I have been at work pretty much ever since but will take a few more pics this weekend.

The plan is now to get the new garden raised beds and the poly tunnel stuffed to the brim with plants and veg for us to both eat and sell on. And therein lies the new challenges. The growing and the planting is pretty straight forward but getting my head around successional planting and things like how many of each plant to plant, where to sell what we grow, how to preserve the produce to keep us going throughout the year with as little a 'hungry gap' as possible and basically building a small business in the next couple of years ready for the next step. Luckily, we have those couple of years to practice everything before things need to get serious which is why we have worked like maniacs for the last 7 months to get things into place so the practicing can now start in earnest.

Fruit bushes ready to be planted.

I have set up an Instagram account so people can follow on there as well as on here so if you want to pop along and see what we're up to I have added a link both HERE  and on the Instagram button at the top of the page. And please, any comments, suggestions or advice will be most welcome. 

Dig for Survival.

I read an article yesterday in The Telegraph that said, the farming minister, David Heath, is urging families to grow more of their own fruit and vegetables in order to cope with a potential crisis caused by adverse weather conditions, disease and slug invasions damaging the crops and causing a food shortage. Mr Heath said “With an increasing population, increasing demand not just in this country but across the world, we are going to have to increase food production.” He also added, “Once we used to ‘dig for victory’. There may come a time soon when we need to ‘dig for survival’.” This is quite an alarming statement but something that is not totally unexpected. He then went on to say “We made a huge mistake a few years ago when the idea got around that we didn’t need to produce in the agricultural sector any more, that we would be able to buy our way through whatever was necessary to feed the country". Quite clearly, there is a food crisis potentially looming on the horizon. Food prices in general, not just fruit and veg, have been on the increase for quite a while and increasingly, more and more people are growing their own veg and keeping a couple of chickens for eggs in their back garden.

Now, I will confess up front, I'm not very good at growing veg. My intentions are good but in practice,  my veg growing expertise is still very basic. My mum is an absolute whizz at it. She uses a few raised beds and some big pots and planters for her spuds and cabbages and things and it's amazing ........ everything she plants seems to sprout and grow like mad and she absolutely loves eating what she grows (particularly her delicious pickled beetroot!). I am, quite frankly, terrible. I hardly ever actually eat the veg that I grow. Either I forget to pick it and the slugs get it or I pick it and never get around to using it. Appalling, I know ....... but this year, I am utterly determined to grow and eat as much of my own produce as I possibly can. The price of fruit and vegetables has increased so much in recent months that quite frankly, it's the only way I am going to be able to afford to eat as much veg as I want without it costing an arm and a leg. 

Last year, some of my most successful veg was grown in wooden crates from my local veg shop, which they give away for free to anyone who wants them. Lined with black plastic sacks, they were ideal for growing lettuces and cut and come again salad leaves because I could keep them off the ground on my potting bench and it made it harder for the slugs to get at them.

This year, I'm also going to be trying this. It's a shoe rack, the kind that hangs on the back of the door. I plan to fill each pocket with soil and sprinkle one portion of cut and come again salad leaves in each pocket so when they are ready, I can work my way down the pockets cutting one portion at a time and by the time I get to the bottom, the ones at the top will be ready to cut again :-) Again, it has the added bonus of keeping the slugs well away from the plants.

I can't wait to get started. I have gathered together a fabulous collection of seeds, some from Trago Mills, my local cheap-as-chips store for 49p per packet and some from a fabulous gardening hamper which was a birthday present from my daughter and all I need now is a couple of rain-free, preferably sunny, days so I can get outside onto the garden and this year's veg crop will finally be under way. 

Add to this the fact that I now have my chicken house and hopefully, very soon, 3 lovely chickens to go in it and I will be well on my way to being a bit more Tom and Barbara and a little less Margot and Jerry. 

My Guilty Pleasure

I know I shouldn't ....... I realise that we haven't even got Christmas out of the way yet but I just can't help myself! In between all the planning and preparations for the festive season, my mind keeps wandering ............ to all the wonderful seed catalogues for 2013 that I have been sneaking at peek at online!!!!!!

Over the last couple of years, I have started growing my own veg. It's been a very steep learning curve. I famously asked my wonderful friend (Andy !!) if the chitted potatoes I had planted would try and grow upside down if I had planted them the wrong way up. I'm fairly sure this caused a huge amount of hooting, snorting and riotous laughter on his part and I was very sceptical when he told me to just bung them in the ground and wait for them to grow. I mean ..... if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it! 

Over the last couple of years though, I have come to realise that basically, seeds just want to grow. As long as you give them the right conditions, water, light, heat and compost, they just get on and do it. It's fabulous and very rewarding although I have also realised that I have actually very little to do with it and that things will basically grow anywhere. I found that If you chuck a potato on the compost heap and leave it ...... it grows..... who'd have thought it :-)

Anyway, while the days are grim and grey, I'm planning what I'm going to plant next year. I dug a fabulous border in front of the fence I built earlier this year and I'm going to plant it with a variety of bee and butterfly friendly cottage garden plants.

The border I created this year when I put my fence up

I will be filling my raised beds with a delicious array of veg and I'm hoping to finally get hold of a greenhouse, possibly from an online auction site and, if possible, for a bargain price, so I can increase my tomato and cucumber crops .

The Raised bed I made last year

The raised beds I made this year.

I will also be putting down a million slug traps, the kind with beer in them. I don't use chemicals in my garden and the only other option, picking them off the plants and disposing of them, is a non-starter because I can't actually bring myself to pick the slimy little buggers up! It makes me feel quite queasy, so, slug traps it is and I particularly like this one ..... just for the novelty value :-)

Thrifty Thursday

Right, it's that time of the week again and time for my Thrifty Thursday Tip. Growing your own veg is immensely satisfying. It tastes fabulous and you know exactly what you're eating but, buying the containers to grow things in, even the little trays to plant the seeds in before planting them out can be really expensive so here is my thrifty tip. Fruit and veg crates, which shops are more than happy to give away for free, are perfect for growing veg. If you only have a small garden, container gardening is perfect. I have quite a large garden but things like lettuce and cut and come again salad leaves I like to keep off the floor so they don't get eaten by slugs (the slugs set up camp this year and munched their way through practically everything .... nasty little sods!). All I do is line them with plastic, any kind of thickish plastic will do, I used a llama food sack cut down the side and the bottom and stapled into the box and then I simply add a few drainage holes with a skewer, fill them with soil and away you go. You can even grow herbs and winter salad leaves on a window ledge during the winter months like this and you don't have to stop there. I also planted up an old wicker basket with herbs and an old enamel bread bin without a lid that I found in my field with a tomato plant. 

Another tip is that I save any plastic food trays from things like pre-packaged veg or the odd takeaway or ready meal that we might have and I use these as seed trays to start my veg plants off in. Just a few drainage holes in the bottom, made with a darning needle or a skewer and you're ready to fill with compost and sow your seeds. 

This year, I also planted potatoes in llama feed sacks. A couple of years ago I managed to get some potato growing sacks from my local garden centre but they were about £15 for three and this year I wanted to grow more potatoes but didn't want to spend any more money so I used some of the feed bags I had saved on the off-chance I would find something to do with them. I simply rolled down the bags and added some compost. Then I put four chitted potatoes in each bag and covered them with a bit more compost. As the potato plants grow, just unroll the bag a bit and add some more compost to almost cover the plants and keep going until there is no more bag left to unroll. When there is no more bag left just let them keep growing until they are ready to harvest. Simple and cheap. Any really strong bag will do. I used llama feed sacks but large plastic dog food sacks, the 15kg ones are fine or really thick rubble sacks. Just rinse them out and put some holes in the sides about two inches from the bottom and maybe one or two in the bottom of the sack for drainage and get planting.