A Tour of the Plot - Part Two

Day two of our tour of the plot brings us to the Net Tunnel and it's lovely sheltered atmosphere. 

The plants usually love it in here, not many bugs can fit through the small netting that covers it so things tend not to get nibbled too much ...except by the mice that tunnel in.  When I need something pollinating ... like the Blueberry bushes for instance ... I usually put them outside for a few days.

We made this ourselves from the framework of our old polytunnel which was wrecked by the wind just before our move from our first farm.  We simply went back to the same company we had bought the polytunnel from and ordered a large roll of their widest netting.  We used three long strips of netting, joining them together where you can see the wooden strips along the sides of the tunnel and sewed it up at the front to get the shape we needed.

At the front doors I now have two new stacks of tyres ... the truck needed new tyres last week to get it through the MOT ... I was very pleased to bring the old ones home with us.

As you step in the first thing you notice is the calming light and atmosphere. It diffuses the harsh sunlight, softens the fall of rain and the rush of winds and generally gives the plants a calmer, more protected place to grow.  It's a great place to work in ... except on a wet day when big blobs of accumulated raindrops fall on you at regular intervals.

To the left as you walk in are the ready to be harvested Garlic heads and a Courgette plant.

Further along the bed are three more tyres that were all supposed to be full of Carrots ... the added depth to the bed by using tyres as well gives you lovely straight, strong carrots ... well that was the plan, the mice had other ideas and have eaten most of the seedlings as soon as they came through.

At the front of the tyres are two Cabbages, leftovers from the outdoor planting that I did last week.

Further along we have a bucket of late sown potatoes, a Long Tom pot of Carrots that are doing very well, although they now need thinning out a bit and a tiny tree sapling that does not look very well at all  after Alan rescued it from somewhere he was working round the place last week.

You'll recognise most of these plants from the previous post, they are the potted on Chives, St John's Wort and Ox Eye Daises from the polytunnel post.  Most things come into the net tunnel to be hardened off, either before being planted on the Veggie Patch or before being sold.

The boards you can see in this photo on the outside of the Net Tunnel are, along with a trench of concrete, holding back the earth of the Veggie Patch.  As we live on a hillside we have had to step the growing areas to make them easier to work in.  So although the Veggie Patch is sloping, the Net and Poly Tunnels sit on two flat areas that we cut into the hillside (with the help of men and big machines) and reinforced.

The last bed on this side has the Strawberry plants that wouldn't fit in the outdoor bed and in the centre of the bed are four Pea plants growing round a willow support. The troughs in front of the bed also have Strawberries in them, the one on the left some of  this years new runners.

To the opposite side of the tunnel now,  in the first bed is profusion of Potato Plants.  This year we have predominantly planted 'Estima' potatoes as we love their versatility.  Here there are two plants in a tall zinc planter outside the bed and then two plants each in four bottomless pots placed on top of the soil in the bed and two plants directly in the raised bed.

Along from the spuds are two sparse beds of onions.  I didn't plant many onions this year as they really are so cheap to buy in the shops and take up a lot of space in the beds if you let them.  But I couldn't resist two packs of reduced to clear onion sets, one of Red Onions and one of White.  As you can see they are just about ready to harvest.

The next bed along is Beetroots and Radishes.

The final bed on this side has two Courgette plants. 

This year all my Courgettes are the 'Green Bush' variety.  If we want some yellow courgettes we are picking from the Marrow plants, which are all a yellow stripe variety.  I kind of assumed that if courgettes are allowed to continue growing they become marrows so it should work the other way round ... and going by the flavours and textures we've found on cooking them I would say this is pretty much the case. 

Down the centre of the tunnel are the Blueberry bushes, they are having another bumper cropping year this year.  I pick every other day and after a quick rinse and dry add them to a large box in the freezer.  This way they stay free flowing and we can eat them as and when we need them.

In between the bushes you might have noticed these ... two trays of Turnip seedlings, these will go out on the hillside as soon as they are big enough.  The tray on the left contains the thinnings from the tray on the right ... waste not want not  :-)

Stepping out of the back door of the Net Tunnel you can see the Strawberry bed. 

It's not been a good year for strawberries for us due to relocating all the plants from the front of the polytunnel where they were in the tyres last year.  The ones that have managed to grow have been snaffled by the mice and squirrels before they even turned red.  We will have to think of better protection for them next year when they should have settled down after being moved and should fruit much more prolifically.

Coming next .... The Veggie Patch

Sue xx

In The Net Tunnel This Week

I love this time of year, the seedlings that only a few weeks ago were tiny little things needing lots of protection from weather and temperature fluctuations under their propagator lids are suddenly big strong plants.  Some in the process of being hardened off ready for transplanting outside and some already in situ in their final growing places.

This Courgette is happily ensconced in the net tunnel, as are a couple more.  They have lots of room to grow, good compost to grow in and the safety of the net to keep hungry rabbits off.  Not that there have been anywhere nearly as many bunnies as there were last year on our hillside, the dreaded myxomatosis seems to be infecting rabbits here in North Wales at the moment  :-(

On the opposite side of the tunnel at the far end are pots of potato plants, then white onions inter-planted with some radishes, then come the red onions.

The top left hand corner has the strawberry plants all grown from last years runners, with a pea support and three pea plants in the centre.

Nearer the front doors on the left is the garlic bed and another of the courgettes.

I've not planted as much garlic this year as we are only just finishing eating 2015's garlic and are just about to start on last years large crop.  I want us to catch up a bit, because although it has stayed perfectly edible it would be nicer to be eating it that little bit sooner after harvesting.  All this years plants are grown from our own garlic cloves harvested last year, and so have cost us absolutely nothing to produce.  Hopefully I will be able to do this every year from now on.

Just in are the carrot seeds, planted in the raised bed, in the tyres and in the pot for extra depth (and length of carrot).   I was a bit late sowing them this year, but with the warm weather, sunshine and this weeks lovely, much needed rain, hopefully there will be signs of growth nice and quickly.

Also just back in the centre of the net tunnel, in their own large pots, are the three Blueberry bushes.  They had been sat outside at the back of the tunnel (as in this photo), since their flowers first appeared but now that the bees and other pollinators have done their work and had their fill of nectar, the bushes are once again safely under the protection of the net tunnel.  Fingers crossed for a bumper crop like last year, it's looking very promising.

So that's a round up of the Net Tunnel as it is today.  I love working in there ... except when it's raining when you get big drips of rain right down the back of your neck ... it's a slightly shaded protected feeling that I'm sure the plants enjoy as much as me :-)

Sue xx

For Comparison

The Net and Polytunnels.

Inside the polytunnel as it is this year ...

... and as it was on this day last year.

Where are all the veggies .... the chickens have been eating them during their enforced stay undercover during the Avian Flu crisis over the last few months.  Also sacrificed as chicken treats and something to peck at that they could find suddenly hanging from their tree when they got fed up with layers pellets and corn, were all my Purple Sprouting Broccoli plants from the net tunnel.

Oh well, it's a fresh canvas in the tunnels to start from now ... and the chickens have had their freedom since the first of the month so they are busy scratching for bugs, eating the last of the over-wintered windfall apples and rummaging through the woodland on wet days   :-)

Sue xx

Continuing the Cladding

The workshop cladding is coming along nicely ...much slower than either of anticipated, but then we didn't take into account the measuring needed around all six of the windows. 

WHY didn't we have just one enormous picture window on each of the two walls we wondered yesterday as Lovely Hubby measured and re-measured before cutting out all the little strips .... and then handed them over to me the new 'creosote queen of Llanrwst' to do my stuff and slap the evil smelling brown liquid all over both sides of the timber.

But slowly and surely we are getting somewhere, and hopefully next weekend will see even more improvement.

I did manage to get a bit of weeding done in the Net Tunnel yesterday too, it's looking nice and neat on this side now .... you don't want to see the other side do you?

Sue xx

Daily Pickings

I don't remember planting any yellow tomatoes, but I've got lots of them .... and they are lovely big, sweet and tasty tomatoes too.  When they first started growing on the plants I was waiting for them to turn red and then I had a 'der' moment and realised they were never going to do that.

We are still harvesting an unusual amount of Blueberries from our last remaining fruiting bush, the other two finished about a month ago, it really has been a bumper year for Blueberries.  It must have  perked them up no end moving them into bigger pots with fresh compost and then popping them over into the Net tunnel where the only insects they are harbouring are the spiders that make their webs from one side of the tunnel to the other using the central Blueberry plants as a support.

I open freeze each picking and then tip them into the boxes in the freezer when they are frozen, which means I can just grab a handful at a time when I need to add them to a recipe.

I'm off over to the tunnel in a bit to get some more tomatoes for tea, it's Mediterranean Veg for tea tonight .... yummy ... but of course I should call it Welsh Veg as it was virtually all grown here :-)

Sue xx

What a Difference a Month Makes

What a difference a month makes at this time of year.  Using the net tunnel photo that I already had for yesterdays post, I realised just how different it looks now just under a month later.  So this morning I went out with my phone in my pocket and took a couple more photos for comparison.

I think the main difference is in the Sweetcorn and the Tomato plants, but the Purple Sprouting Broccoli and the cabbages have put on some pretty impressive growth too.

Last months photo.

This is how it looks taken from the other end.

The Blueberries are still cropping profusely and I have an enormous tub of picked berries in the freezer ready for use.

There are now two beds empty in the net tunnel with the onions and the garlic all having been harvested and strung,  so I'm about to start off some crops for Winter.  A few Mooli radishes for sure and perhaps a few more Cauliflowers, I feel a mooch through the seed drawer coming on.

It's nice working in the net tunnel and I enjoy being in there, I can watch what the dogs are up to as they tend to stay nearby when they see me in the tunnel, funnily enough they don't like it in there at all,  because of the close weave of the net the edge is taken off the wind when it blows a hooley, and the heat of the sun when it's out in all it's full force is subdued slightly, the only thing it's no defence from is the rain ... but then that also means that I don't have to water so much.  

We were sat having a break on the bench at the top of the Veggie Patch one day over the weekend and we both agreed that if we knew then what we know now about growing here, we would probably have put in two net tunnels to grow in, as well as the polytunnel, and just have a smaller outside area of raised beds.

Oh well maybe it's an idea for the future.

Sue xx

In the Net Tunnel in July

The Net Tunnel in July is a lovely place to work in.  

The over-Wintered things have mostly been eaten,  by us I hasten to add not any pests.  I have just pulled up the last of the onions and I did have them drying in the sunshine ... until the rain came, now they are over in the polytunnel drying off in the heat.

Down the centre of the tunnel I have the Blueberry bushes which are cropping very heavily this year, and hopefully, as the birds can't get in to pinch them, we will get to eat most of them for a change.  In the left hand bed I have a Butternut Squash plant (a trial for this year, with an identical one being in the polytunnel), the Cauliflowers, the Peas and the Lavenders and Borage.

And in the beds on the right hand side are Carrots, Beetroot, and Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

Looking at the same bed from the other end of the tunnel you can see the Tomato plants at the back, with the Cabbages in front and the Garlic is closest to us in this photo, which is lying down and just about ready to be harvested.

Looking at the other side from this end you can see the Pea supports a bit better, and closer to us in this photo are some of the Leeks that went to seed, I decided that as they wanted to go to seed to let some of them remain so I could harvest the seeds for using next year ... and I love all Allium flower heads so they will look lovely when they open.

At the moment resting on the bed that the onions came out of, are the young Lavender plants and some spare Cucumber plants waiting to be added to the sales box when there's some more space.

So that's it ... that's what the Net Tunnel looks like right now.  

It's lovely to work in there with the netting shading me slightly from the sun, although it's little protection from any sudden showers.  Most of the plants love it as much as I do in there, and Mr and Mrs Bunny have yet to find a way in thank goodness.  I do make sure that I open the doors for a while when I'm working in there or in the polytunnel to let beneficial insects in (and out).

And did you notice we now have a lovely thick layer of bark chippings on the floor, so no more kneeling down getting muddy knees   :-)

Sue xx

In the Tunnel on a Rainy Day

Yesterday the builders finally arrived to start the process of cleaning up and repairing the house after the awful Winter downpours of a few months ago, that saw one side of the house letting in water above all the windows.  Their first job was to wash down the roof with a pressure washer so the state of the ridge tiles and slates could be checked properly.  

Rather ironically Mother Nature decided to give them a hand,  and after just a couple of  hours of working and with only two thirds of one side of the roof cleared of moss and debris the heavens opened in spectacular style.  A good rinse for the roof but not safe for being up there for the chap at the top of the roof ladder, so tools were downed and everything was cleared away, hopefully they'll be back on Monday to carry on.  Of course it cleared up for a couple of hours just after they'd packed everything away such is weather here on our wild Welsh hillside!!

While they were busy outside I was tucked up safely and dryly, if rather noisily in the polytunnel, weeding, potting on and doing all the other little jobs that needed doing.

I swear sometimes that I could be out there all day everyday and never actually run out of things to do.

As you can see the tomatoes are coming on really well, it doesn't take much warmth and sunshine for teeny, tiny little tomato seedlings to put on a spectacular spurt of growth and they are making good use of the strings that are this year taking over from the bamboo canes in the polytunnel.

I have planted some of the excess of tomato seedlings into the net tunnel so I can compare the two growing temperatures.  I am also considering  having a couple of the plants out on the hillside planted in the warmth of an old tyre just for an experiment, although I doubt they will do as well, we are quite exposed here.

In front of the tomatoes in this net tunnel bed are my ordinary Cauliflowers, I was going to add some Romanesco cauliflowers to the side of them in the same bed but when the heavens opened I got pretty wet and had to retreat to the polytunnel, before giving up completely and coming in the house to change clothes and grab a cup of coffee.

Today although still looking very grey it is a lot drier and Lovely Hubby is out cutting grass and having a general tidy up of all the green areas, of which we have lots.  After finishing this post I'll be going to clean out the henhouse and then back to polytunnel pottering, as I said there's always something to do.

Have a good weekend everyone, and lets hope for some more sunshine.

Sue xx

Come and Have a Peek in the Net Tunnel

It's about time I let you have a proper peek inside the Net Tunnel.

In the last couple of weeks the central area has had masses of bark chippings poured in over a layer of membrane in a bid to keep weeds out as much as possible, and the last couple of beds have been filled with sifted soil, compost and some 6X fertiliser.  The tunnel has been in use since it was first covered in net but has never been fully productive as the beds on the righthand side were waiting to be topped up and the middle was a bit of a dumping ground.

As you can see the Blueberry bushes are now stood there and are currently a mass of flowers.  Eventually there will be another raised bed in the centre ... I have my eyes on something in Lovely Hubby's shed that will make a great deep raised bed for depth loving vegetables   ;-)

It's nice to be welcomed in with flowers  :-)

On the left as you step in th front doors are some over-wintered Rosemarys and Lavenders.

Next to them some Primula Auriculas that I separated out from a single pot that was bought last Spring at the garden centre, on one of mine and Mum's lunches out.

Further along past the triffid-like cabbages, are the Leeks.  They are doing really well in here and are the best and quickest growing Leeks I have ever had, to the right of them are some onions.

Opposite is the Garlic bed, there are lots of lovely healthy garlic plants in there that should keep us going for the next year.  We are currently almost coming to the end of eating last years crop, we have about enough for the next month or so hanging behind the kitchen door, so these could be available just in time.

This is what it looks like looking back the other way,  the empty beds are now on the left soon they will be filled with the seedlings from the polytunnel, lettuces of every description, spring onions, radishes, rocket and other tender crops that I don't want to risk on the hillside.

And that's the idea of the net tunnel, to be able to have more crops growing outside of the polytunnel, but to be able to protect tender salad crops from the ravages of rabbit attack, which was at an alarming level last year.   It also diffuses the wind and is a degree warmer than outside the netting.  It means plants are 'almost outside' and can benefit from the regular rain, and slightly less regularly the sunshine will be diffused so things don't become as parched and scorched as they would be outside.  

The idea seems to be catching on around these parts, we've spotted another tunnel that used to be plastic and is now net covered, and a few people have asked us for the details of where we bought the netting etc.  

Just in case you want to know ... we got it from First Tunnels the same folk that we bought the polytunnel off,  the framework for the netting is our old polytunnel frame that we also bought from there.  There is a link to them way down on the sidebar, under the photograph of the henhouse.

Someone was keeping an eye on me while I was taking these photos!!

Sue xx

In the Net Tunnel This January

It's a bit desolate in the Net Tunnel at the moment, the pathway is still waiting to be covered in membrane and a layer of bark chippings, we've used all our supply for now though but we've been promised some more by the guys that cut tree branches down as they grow too near the electricity wires in the area.  I should have weeded it but I've damned if I'm going to go out in the rain to weed a path :-/

There are of course some edibles in there, mostly the cabbages.  I've been simply picking a couple of outer leaves of each one whenever we need some for the many pots of soup that I've made recently.  It keeps each plant growing and hearting up nicely.

The garlic on this side is looking a little bit weedy, but it is growing albeit very slowly.

The garlic on the other side is stronger and more upright, yes we have A LOT of garlic growing!!

Something has eaten it's way through the netting, I don't know what but nothing has been eaten inside the net tunnel, just a bit nibbling by some slugs, so whatever wriggled it's way through the net didn't like what it found inside.  I'll have to have a little sewing session here before the hole gets any bigger.

Although the promised snow didn't land on our fields overnight, it is on the hills opposite and now the black clouds have rolled back in and the rain has started to fall again after a day of clear skies and sunshine.  The dogs have the right idea and at every opportunity take to their beds and snuggle down in the warmth of the kitchen. 

For me it's time for a cup of coffee and a spot of blog hopping :-)

Keep warm.

Sue xx