Hedgehogs here are wildlife in badly declining numbers, unbelievably adorable. The demise of the one that visited our previous house came when it found some antifreeze. Other hedgehogs die from eating slugs that have eaten anti-slug poison pellets. Well-meaning humans set out a dish of something for them to eat or drink that they can't cope with, such as milk. They face so many hazards, it's a wonder we ever see any.
We always feel honored on the rare occasions when we see a hedgehog. It only happens at night unless the hedgehog is ill. They're still adorable when they are big (by their standards).
Nope! Remember, we wanted to preserve a lot of the back garden as play space for very fast 20+ kg dogs who play like they're killing each other. Sweet gentle Bertie in particular looks like a cartoon monster when he's playing. Zola runs faster than the eye can follow. Raised beds would get in their way (and would have to be very tall to keep Bertie from peeing on them).
You'll see what we've done as the story of the garden transformation progresses.
I love seeing and hearing about other peoples' gardens. I had the perfect climate and soil when I lived in Maine. On my 2-1/4 acres I had pear and apple trees and raspberry canes planted by the previous owner, and I added three peach trees that bore fruit the following year, highbush blueberries, and a large veggie garden. The land had been a cow pasture, and the lawn was a lush green mixture of whatever grass grew naturally, and dandelions. The back quarter-acre I mowed for hay to mulch the garden with. Then there were flowers galore! My yard in Oklahoma is much more challenging. It was neglected for years, and I fear much of the wildflower seed I planted in fall (as was recommended) has blown away in the expensive compost scoured off the clay in our famously fierce winds. I rototilled the hard clay six inches down along with compost then top-dressed with a soil conditioner. I over-planted, hoping for at least a ten percent survivor rate. I have extra seed in case of massive failure, but many species I had only the packets I planted. I hope you post photos of your gardens. Are you planning ways of preserving your harvest, too?
I feel your fears about your Oklahoma property. The Midwest has such extremes of temperature, nothing to break the wind and can get so dry... English walled gardens make more sense to me now that I live here than they did when I read about them as a child. They could make sense where you are too, but they would interrupt the sense of wide open space that you have. We don't get that here. We have hedges or walls everywhere. I do miss the openness you have in so much of the USA. I'm not sure how you could protect your garden from those fierce winds without hemming in the wide open spaces.
We aren't great at canning. Some produce goes into the freezer, sometimes already cooked. Fridge/freezers here are considerably smaller than in the States, so we can only do a limited amount of that. We have a countertop food dehydrator. It's especially good for drying fruit. In summer when we get plenty of sun, we can run that as much as we want using power from the solar system. Food preservation for free!
The very first house we lived in here was the smallest, coldest and had a longish narrow garden, but its soil was highly productive. It sounds like you had similarly excellent soil in Maine. We made a long strip of veggie garden along the fence at that first house. When floods cut off the roads and supply trucks couldn't get in for three days, our guinea pigs delighted in eating only fresh lettuce from the back garden with no commercial produce.
We also had eight purple stem broccoli plants. We had to defend them from caterpillars at least twice a day. I once picked off 60 from the first two plants in the morning and then just as many in the afternoon. The caterpillars got ahead of me on our ninth plant and stripped it bare in no time. But the eight that survived fed us purple stem broccoli every day for two solid months.
Yes, you will get photos of our garden alongside the story of its transition. I hope you will like the most recent photos a lot more than the first ones.
Since you are seemingly close to many neighbors, are there any that do canning? Maybe you can trade off a few jars (and/or some money) in exchange for them canning it?
Energy costs here are high. They probably wouldn't want to do it outside their own familiar kitchen. We would be uncomfortable about asking someone else to do the canning for us, knowing how expensive it is.
Here's what we decided to do instead, and why.
A number of types of plants simply do not thrive in our garden. Anything like cabbage or kale or broccoli is eaten to death by slugs and caterpillars. (I'm thinking of putting a cat flap in the front fence to encourage any local hedgehogs to visit us and eat slugs. We aren't using poisons on our garden.)
We decided to grow whatever we can grow. We won't try to grow only enough tomatoes or beans or whatever for ourselves. We'll grow whatever does well here. If we have too much of something, we'll trade it with neighbors or friends. That is common practice here. As harvests come in, people often give extras to other people around them.
In the past couple of years we've also traded baby plants. We are well set for sprouting more seeds than we can use.
Nobody keeps a tally of who has given what to whom. Somehow it all balances out well enough for everybody to be happy with what they got and happy about what they gave away.
And it occurs to me that if everything goes to hell in a handbasket, the most priceless resource to have is a gaggle of good friends who are already in the habit of collaborating this way.
I'd forgotten about the energy issues. :( I've never done any canning, so I didn't realize it was expensive to do; I suppose that defeats the purpose.
A neighborhood co-op is fantastic to have! One reason why I stay on facebook is the Buy Nothing group; we've become a fairly close knit group, especially after the ice storm 2 years ago, and the support everyone offers is amazing. I hope you can build something similar in your neighborhood.
None of our gardening is about saving money on food. It's about access to food, flavor, and sometimes access to types of food that aren't available for sale at the grocery store, such as chard.
The Buy Nothing group is intriguing. We aren't in anything like that. We do have active online places to post availability of stuff to give away or ask whether someone wants to give away stuff that you need. A local Facebook group is very active in that regard.
We aren't trying to make a formal group and aren't sticking with only close neighbors. All this swapping is happening among neighbors and friends. One friend stopped by tonight to take a redcurrant plant a neighbor gave us that is too big for us to put anywhere. It will become part of an "edible hedge" in the Welsh hills about 30 miles away. This week I can think of a sewing machine and a roll of fencing that are changing hands, and that's just what I know about.
It's informal, loose, but more active than a few years ago. I guess that says a lot about the times.
We thought about it and decided against it. We don't want to kill the wildlife (except for encouraging a hedgehog to eat some of it). Bees, butterflies, moths and birds have all been dying off at an alarming rate. We'll let other people who are better situated to fend off the moths and butterflies grow what we can't.
For the slugs, we tried various things that are supposed to discourage them (including diatomaceous earth, bits of eggshell, coffee grounds, copper strips, etc, to no avail... with one exception, which I'll get to during the description of what we've done. As I said, we don't want to make them dangerous for other creatures to eat. I'm serious about putting in access for a hedgehog to get into our garden. We were visited by a hedgehog at a previous house and didn't have so much trouble with slugs there.
Do you have those little hedgehogs that are sold as pets in the US? They are so adorable. I guess they are good pest-eaters, too. So are chickens.
Hedgehogs here are wildlife in badly declining numbers, unbelievably adorable. The demise of the one that visited our previous house came when it found some antifreeze. Other hedgehogs die from eating slugs that have eaten anti-slug poison pellets. Well-meaning humans set out a dish of something for them to eat or drink that they can't cope with, such as milk. They face so many hazards, it's a wonder we ever see any.
We always feel honored on the rare occasions when we see a hedgehog. It only happens at night unless the hedgehog is ill. They're still adorable when they are big (by their standards).
Instead of a "crisis garden", what about a "hope garden"? It's a bit more positive sounding.
Looking forward to seeing your photos of it.
Oh, I see! Kind of like Victory Gardens, a name that focuses on where we want to go instead of where we seem to be! Good idea.
Exactly!
Since the male dogs like to claim everything, are you using raised or box beds for some of the produce?
Nope! Remember, we wanted to preserve a lot of the back garden as play space for very fast 20+ kg dogs who play like they're killing each other. Sweet gentle Bertie in particular looks like a cartoon monster when he's playing. Zola runs faster than the eye can follow. Raised beds would get in their way (and would have to be very tall to keep Bertie from peeing on them).
You'll see what we've done as the story of the garden transformation progresses.
I love seeing and hearing about other peoples' gardens. I had the perfect climate and soil when I lived in Maine. On my 2-1/4 acres I had pear and apple trees and raspberry canes planted by the previous owner, and I added three peach trees that bore fruit the following year, highbush blueberries, and a large veggie garden. The land had been a cow pasture, and the lawn was a lush green mixture of whatever grass grew naturally, and dandelions. The back quarter-acre I mowed for hay to mulch the garden with. Then there were flowers galore! My yard in Oklahoma is much more challenging. It was neglected for years, and I fear much of the wildflower seed I planted in fall (as was recommended) has blown away in the expensive compost scoured off the clay in our famously fierce winds. I rototilled the hard clay six inches down along with compost then top-dressed with a soil conditioner. I over-planted, hoping for at least a ten percent survivor rate. I have extra seed in case of massive failure, but many species I had only the packets I planted. I hope you post photos of your gardens. Are you planning ways of preserving your harvest, too?
I feel your fears about your Oklahoma property. The Midwest has such extremes of temperature, nothing to break the wind and can get so dry... English walled gardens make more sense to me now that I live here than they did when I read about them as a child. They could make sense where you are too, but they would interrupt the sense of wide open space that you have. We don't get that here. We have hedges or walls everywhere. I do miss the openness you have in so much of the USA. I'm not sure how you could protect your garden from those fierce winds without hemming in the wide open spaces.
We aren't great at canning. Some produce goes into the freezer, sometimes already cooked. Fridge/freezers here are considerably smaller than in the States, so we can only do a limited amount of that. We have a countertop food dehydrator. It's especially good for drying fruit. In summer when we get plenty of sun, we can run that as much as we want using power from the solar system. Food preservation for free!
The very first house we lived in here was the smallest, coldest and had a longish narrow garden, but its soil was highly productive. It sounds like you had similarly excellent soil in Maine. We made a long strip of veggie garden along the fence at that first house. When floods cut off the roads and supply trucks couldn't get in for three days, our guinea pigs delighted in eating only fresh lettuce from the back garden with no commercial produce.
We also had eight purple stem broccoli plants. We had to defend them from caterpillars at least twice a day. I once picked off 60 from the first two plants in the morning and then just as many in the afternoon. The caterpillars got ahead of me on our ninth plant and stripped it bare in no time. But the eight that survived fed us purple stem broccoli every day for two solid months.
Yes, you will get photos of our garden alongside the story of its transition. I hope you will like the most recent photos a lot more than the first ones.
Since you are seemingly close to many neighbors, are there any that do canning? Maybe you can trade off a few jars (and/or some money) in exchange for them canning it?
Energy costs here are high. They probably wouldn't want to do it outside their own familiar kitchen. We would be uncomfortable about asking someone else to do the canning for us, knowing how expensive it is.
Here's what we decided to do instead, and why.
A number of types of plants simply do not thrive in our garden. Anything like cabbage or kale or broccoli is eaten to death by slugs and caterpillars. (I'm thinking of putting a cat flap in the front fence to encourage any local hedgehogs to visit us and eat slugs. We aren't using poisons on our garden.)
We decided to grow whatever we can grow. We won't try to grow only enough tomatoes or beans or whatever for ourselves. We'll grow whatever does well here. If we have too much of something, we'll trade it with neighbors or friends. That is common practice here. As harvests come in, people often give extras to other people around them.
In the past couple of years we've also traded baby plants. We are well set for sprouting more seeds than we can use.
Nobody keeps a tally of who has given what to whom. Somehow it all balances out well enough for everybody to be happy with what they got and happy about what they gave away.
And it occurs to me that if everything goes to hell in a handbasket, the most priceless resource to have is a gaggle of good friends who are already in the habit of collaborating this way.
I'd forgotten about the energy issues. :( I've never done any canning, so I didn't realize it was expensive to do; I suppose that defeats the purpose.
A neighborhood co-op is fantastic to have! One reason why I stay on facebook is the Buy Nothing group; we've become a fairly close knit group, especially after the ice storm 2 years ago, and the support everyone offers is amazing. I hope you can build something similar in your neighborhood.
None of our gardening is about saving money on food. It's about access to food, flavor, and sometimes access to types of food that aren't available for sale at the grocery store, such as chard.
The Buy Nothing group is intriguing. We aren't in anything like that. We do have active online places to post availability of stuff to give away or ask whether someone wants to give away stuff that you need. A local Facebook group is very active in that regard.
We aren't trying to make a formal group and aren't sticking with only close neighbors. All this swapping is happening among neighbors and friends. One friend stopped by tonight to take a redcurrant plant a neighbor gave us that is too big for us to put anywhere. It will become part of an "edible hedge" in the Welsh hills about 30 miles away. This week I can think of a sewing machine and a roll of fencing that are changing hands, and that's just what I know about.
It's informal, loose, but more active than a few years ago. I guess that says a lot about the times.
Have you considered BT to control caterpillars? bacillus thuringiensis
We thought about it and decided against it. We don't want to kill the wildlife (except for encouraging a hedgehog to eat some of it). Bees, butterflies, moths and birds have all been dying off at an alarming rate. We'll let other people who are better situated to fend off the moths and butterflies grow what we can't.
Have you looked at diatomaceous earth? I think it's safe for pollinators, it's edible, but it isn't a friend of roaches, fleas, and assorted bugs.
Hi! What is BT?
I was thinking of diatomaceous earth to help her plants.
For the slugs, we tried various things that are supposed to discourage them (including diatomaceous earth, bits of eggshell, coffee grounds, copper strips, etc, to no avail... with one exception, which I'll get to during the description of what we've done. As I said, we don't want to make them dangerous for other creatures to eat. I'm serious about putting in access for a hedgehog to get into our garden. We were visited by a hedgehog at a previous house and didn't have so much trouble with slugs there.
That helps with slugs. BT: http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/btgen.html