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LKSF
Pennine Hillbilly
Fruit and veg growing continued
Tank grown carrot:
You need a polytunnel here to grow things which other people grow outside. These onions were planted in there in Autumn, they grow a little now and again until late Spring when they really get into their stride, then by June/July they're ready for an early harvest. New potatoes were also started in there, grown in buckets then transferred outside when warm enough.
This was the last harvest of toms from the PT in September I think, the green ones were made into chutney.
In June/July we were picking peas to freeze, Kohlrabi in the background
This is how to get peas off to an early start, sow them undercover in lengths of plastic gutter, when the weather is ready slide them out into the ground outside.
When your soil is fertile it does not need a rest! Just keep on piling the plants in. As long as the soil is healthy it's happy and will support life all year round.
Here is about July/August and the peas are past their best, i've cut the tops off and left the roots in, I threw a layer of compost over and then planted more hardy stuff to see us into Winter.
Pea plants are known as 'Nitrogen fixers', they take N from the air, convert it to solid N and leave it in nodules by the roots. It slowly releases into the soil and plants following on use it as food.
Sometimes I sell on the excess, it doesn't make money. I did ponder over doing it more, but realised I would be working 7 x 12 for minimum wage at best.
It all looks good, but it wasn't a great year. As all the seedlings went in in May/June we had 6 weeks of no rain exactly when it was needed the most. After that is was nothing but wind and rain.
A lot of stuff got eaten by rabbits and other things, blight finished off the tomatoes and main crop of spuds prematurely.
Like farming, gardening is gambling, Roulette. But you can stack the odds in your favour like I did here, I put sweetcorn in bag/pots. I took them outside, but when the weather didn't improve brought them back in so we had a harvest from them still.
Sweetcorn is one of those stand out crops which taste so much better if picked and cooked straight away.
The dug and screened beds paid off with some well shaped root veg.
Most people think beetroot is red and has to be pickled, far from it. This is golden beetroot which is sweeter and less earthy than the red.
Tomatoes 'canned' to get us through until next seasons harvest.
Green beans do well inside here, a good even crop for maybe 4 months.
That's how bad the wind is up here, it actually blows some veg out of the ground!
Still loads of improving to do next year, lots of protection to put in place, more beds in the PT to dig out and screen, a fence or wall to slow the wind down, some wire fencing to grow peas up, irrigation to put in, the list goes on and on. What i'm aiming to do is cut the amount of maintenance down too.
Tank grown carrot:
You need a polytunnel here to grow things which other people grow outside. These onions were planted in there in Autumn, they grow a little now and again until late Spring when they really get into their stride, then by June/July they're ready for an early harvest. New potatoes were also started in there, grown in buckets then transferred outside when warm enough.
This was the last harvest of toms from the PT in September I think, the green ones were made into chutney.
In June/July we were picking peas to freeze, Kohlrabi in the background
This is how to get peas off to an early start, sow them undercover in lengths of plastic gutter, when the weather is ready slide them out into the ground outside.
When your soil is fertile it does not need a rest! Just keep on piling the plants in. As long as the soil is healthy it's happy and will support life all year round.
Here is about July/August and the peas are past their best, i've cut the tops off and left the roots in, I threw a layer of compost over and then planted more hardy stuff to see us into Winter.
Pea plants are known as 'Nitrogen fixers', they take N from the air, convert it to solid N and leave it in nodules by the roots. It slowly releases into the soil and plants following on use it as food.
Sometimes I sell on the excess, it doesn't make money. I did ponder over doing it more, but realised I would be working 7 x 12 for minimum wage at best.
It all looks good, but it wasn't a great year. As all the seedlings went in in May/June we had 6 weeks of no rain exactly when it was needed the most. After that is was nothing but wind and rain.
A lot of stuff got eaten by rabbits and other things, blight finished off the tomatoes and main crop of spuds prematurely.
Like farming, gardening is gambling, Roulette. But you can stack the odds in your favour like I did here, I put sweetcorn in bag/pots. I took them outside, but when the weather didn't improve brought them back in so we had a harvest from them still.
Sweetcorn is one of those stand out crops which taste so much better if picked and cooked straight away.
The dug and screened beds paid off with some well shaped root veg.
Most people think beetroot is red and has to be pickled, far from it. This is golden beetroot which is sweeter and less earthy than the red.
Tomatoes 'canned' to get us through until next seasons harvest.
Green beans do well inside here, a good even crop for maybe 4 months.
That's how bad the wind is up here, it actually blows some veg out of the ground!
Still loads of improving to do next year, lots of protection to put in place, more beds in the PT to dig out and screen, a fence or wall to slow the wind down, some wire fencing to grow peas up, irrigation to put in, the list goes on and on. What i'm aiming to do is cut the amount of maintenance down too.
The good thing about gardening is anyone can learn it if they apply themselves, i'm testimony to that 
We've been doing it for hundreds of years and it's all been recorded. So what you need to do is find it and take it in. Books, white papers, YT vids, other people, it's all there for free or cheap. It's not like some things (cough, water filtration systems) which are a closed shop or difficult to learn.
