Real life has a way of stopping you doing all the fun stuff, but thats not the whole reason. This year I just didn't feel like I had anything new or insightful to share and so would occasionally I'd find myself with my fingers paused over the keyboard waiting for inspiration and finding none would come.
One of my most time consuming activities this summer has been writing. You can read more about that on my other blog The Scribbled Mess. Don't be alarmed by the adult content warning, its safe for work, no nasty pictures I promise!
Anyway most of this year has been about working out our available time for growing food and maintaining the land and has found us woefully lacking.
Our main problem is keeping on top of mowing the grass around the beds. Our very wet summer meant a perpetual circle of wet grass that grew longer and longer so that even when we had a rare dry day the grass was still too wet to cut.
There are many times in the past I have silently wished for a "normal" sized garden, even more so when I can no longer see the raised beds for what passes as Scottish jungle.
Although we've talked about it in the past we've never got round to laying a surface around the beds (like bark or gravel) purely because of money restraints. Our plan is though (after we finally attack the jungle!) is to lay paper feed bags around the beds and start dumping the wet shavings from the stables in leu of traditional bark. This isn't as yukky as it sounds. we'll be separating the horse poo and depositing that in the muck heaps and raised beds and so long as you don't make the wet shavings layer too deep the weather soon dissipates any smell. We did something similar a few years ago for a pony riding arena and the plus point is also that the paper and shavings will rot down in time, so are not as permenat or as long term damaging as treated bark or chippings.
Theres also the problem of the dark summers we've been having the last couple of years, almost constantly overcast.
The first few years we lived here we were blessed with a run of beautiful summers and the small inroads we made into gardening where stupidly fruitful.
Think three courgette plants and more courgettes than a person could ever eat EVER! However they really don;t seem to like a dimpsy wet summer and this year I had ONE courgette... I mean... come on...
A big problem is not being able to plant out early. with frosts that can be harsh enough to kill a tender leaf plant like that as late as the 2nd week in June I'm constantly left with two choices... Risk it (and it never works) or try to grow in the green house then plant out. But my green house is small and also home to many othe plants in a similar situation and so they get pot bound and once they're planted out they do nothing for a few weeks while they re-establish themselves... And then its October and frosty again.
Of course the answer would be a nice large polytunnel but again, money (or lack of) is the problem.
It wasn't all doom and gloom though.
For the first time ever I actually managed to grow tomato's.
Carefully grown from seed on my windowsill (in February!) and then planted in the green house, for a few weeks I didn;t have to buy a tomato. Next year we're going to make a designated tomato house so that they get maximum sun for as long as possible, our greenhouse being in shade for some of the day.
We also had a nice outcome with the hens after a bad start to the year.
This year we lost all but Sally and Blossom and the two of them looked very unhappy about it. Then Blossom went broody and because she wasn't listening to my pleas of the impossibility of virgin births, I finally put a couple of eggs under here that we'd been given (to eat!) by a friend.
I didn;t really expect anything but a few weeks later we had two chicks! Which was pretty amazing and dare I say it, made us feel almost like "real" crofters.
The chicks are now bigger than "mum" and are likely to be HUGE, but they still try to bury under her at night!
We were also given a pair of hybrid POL who are leggy and robust, so here's hoping 2012 is a bumper egg year.
The chicks, about a week old.
With "Mum" Blossom.
..... erm... They're actually quite a bit bigger than when this was taken about two weeks ago!
The whole flock. This group really get along well, no fighting or bullying, a joy to watch.
