How are the veggies coming along?

[AHPP]

I still can't get excited about growing plants. I like ones that get above the weeds quickly and I can identify easily. That to me is potatoes, onions, peas and rhubarb outside and tomatoes inside. I reckon I should be able to hack asparagus, garlic and chillis too. Fruit trees (and to an extent hardy bushes like gooseberry) are fine.

 

Animalhusbanding comes far more naturally. Chickens and sheep can outrun slugs. Yes they do crass things and die but so do plants and at least there's some certainty and finality to it rather than fretting over yellow leaves and slug holes.

[Stere]

I always grow to much then most  goes to feed the chickens or compost heap

 

Atm have  shit load of little gem lettuce that the hens like.

 

No beans? - beans are easy to grow & you get a good harvest from them from a small area....

 

 

Did you make the greenhouse then?

 

 

 

 

 

[sime42]

42 minutes ago, AHPP said:

I still can't get excited about growing plants. I like ones that get above the weeds quickly and I can identify easily. That to me is potatoes, onions, peas and rhubarb outside and tomatoes inside. I reckon I should be able to hack asparagus, garlic and chillis too. Fruit trees (and to an extent hardy bushes like gooseberry) are fine.

 

Animalhusbanding comes far more naturally. Chickens and sheep can outrun slugs. Yes they do crass things and die but so do plants and at least there's some certainty and finality to it rather than fretting over yellow leaves and slug holes.

 

Interesting discussion topic this one.

 

There's pros and cons to both I think, growing plants or animals.  Growing vegetables is certainly easier to get into, from a space, time and money consideration. You can grow herbs or even some salad veg on a windowsill in a flat with no garden. Until they invent those square, stackable cows you've got no chance of doing similar with animals. If I had more land, and more time I'd love to go down the full on self-sufficiency route. We've quite a big garden, by urban standards, but nowhere near big enough for livestock. Even chickens. Unless I wanted to sacrifice the veg, if I were to let them have free range, which I don't. No good them eating all the slugs, if there's no lettuce left either. Also, it feels as though you've got far more invested with animals, I don't just mean money. If a crop fails you just sow more seeds. There's no real infrastructure required, other than a green house, and that's only really a luxury, not a requirement for growing. 

 

Chillies and Garlic are well worth hacking, they're cash crops. I'm not sure about Asparagus - not enough return for my liking. I'd add Courgettes and Beans to your whitelist too. Easy, heavy cropping and easily IDed, both of them. Gooseberries are good, they're a doddle, not at all fussy.

 

Where's young @peds when you need him? I'm sure he'd have a two penneth to add. (Looking forward to your thoughts on this one when you rejoin us mate).

 

[AHPP]

4 hours ago, Stere said:

I always grow to much then most  goes to feed the chickens or compost heap

 

Atm have  shit load of little gem lettuce that the hens like.

 

No beans? - beans are easy to grow & you get a good harvest from them from a small area....

 

 

Did you make the greenhouse then?

 

I've got lettuce growing (outside) primarily to feed the chickens. Was advertised as producing year round. Will put some in the tunnel; interested to see whether it grows better inside. Would do beans too, since the idea has now entered my eyeline. Again mainly for chickens. Not big on eating them myself.

 

Polytunnel was already there but in poor order. I built new ends, made the doors open the right way and put new plastic on. Laid a slab walkway, put some potting benches along one side, manured beds the other side. Recommissioned it as it were. Same as the other buildings. It doesn't take a lot of ripping out broken shit and installing a few straight lines to make something neat and usable (capable even). Like the pavilion, my HQ. Pulled out the floating floor, put some wall panels on some drafty bits, took the broken roof off, spent ages flipping tin sheets around on the ground to overlap the nail holes with good bits of others, put it back on, installed a gutter into a load of linked barrels. Inside, built benches, put some old cupboards in. Even have a work bench with a vice on the corner. Just put a door on it to keep the hens out and the broody one in. It's a lovely place to be. I go up on a morning and read John Seymour on Self-Sufficiency and arbtalk. Occasionally twat rats with the 22 from my chair. When the coffee runs out, I find something that looks shit and potter on making it less shit.

 

Whole story is this. My mate rents the whole 2000 square metre (half an acre) compound but only uses 700 (a sixth of an acre). The 1300 (one third of an acre) "my" side was trashed from a previous tenant. Broken glass and Monster cans everywhere. Holes in everything from air rifles. Total vandal. I'm in there primarily to tidy it up, make it a blank canvas for someone who could really make something of it. I enjoy doing infrastructure like buildings and water but since I'm there it seems silly to not do a bit of actual gardening so I'm dipping my toe in. That's part of maintaining it anyway, having things happening with the soil.

Edited June 3 by AHPP

[AHPP]

17 minutes ago, sime42 said:

 

Interesting discussion topic this one.

 

There's pros and cons to both I think, growing plants or animals.  Growing vegetables is certainly easier to get into, from a space, time and money consideration. You can grow herbs or even some salad veg on a windowsill in a flat with no garden. Until they invent those square, stackable cows you've got no chance of doing similar with animals. If I had more land, and more time I'd love to go down the full on self-sufficiency route. We've quite a big garden, by urban standards, but nowhere near big enough for livestock. Even chickens. Unless I wanted to sacrifice the veg, if I were to let them have free range, which I don't. No good them eating all the slugs, if there's no lettuce left either. Also, it feels as though you've got far more invested with animals, I don't just mean money. If a crop fails you just sow more seeds. There's no real infrastructure required, other than a green house, and that's only really a luxury, not a requirement for growing. 

 

Chillies and Garlic are well worth hacking, they're cash crops. I'm not sure about Asparagus - not enough return for my liking. I'd add Courgettes and Beans to your whitelist too. Easy, heavy cropping and easily IDed, both of them. Gooseberries are good, they're a doddle, not at all fussy.

 

Where's young @peds when you need him? I'm sure he'd have a two penneth to add. (Looking forward to your thoughts on this one when you rejoin us mate).

 

 

Ducks are messy in a wet sense but I understand don't tan your plants as badly and do eat slugs. Chickens will ruin everything. Ducks characterful too. I'll probably get some. My mate's geese wander round my side already but are fenced out of the vegetable patch. Good guard animals, good eggs.

 

I've got courgette seeds in the outside bed. And sunflowers, onions (seed, not set) and some other stuff probably. Away from it atm. Interested to see if anything's broken through the weeds on my return.

 

I do feel wasteful in a sense. I have the space and time a lot of people would kill for. If it was truly my patch, I would probably try and get other people in there working it harder. But it's my mate's and he's fed up of other people so I'm just ticking it over for him. I could do with running a commune type thing really. Or maybe just having a wife who likes the aspects of gardening that I don't. Apply within. Position comes with own copy of Mrs Beeton's and after passing a probationary period, a cow.

 

How big's your garden? I bet you could do chickens. I don't find them that dirty. The rats are 90% overspill from the chickens, ducks and turkeys my mate's side. Have had no problems to speak of with them so far (six months). Probably lost about an eggcup of grain.

[sime42]

Same again this evening 

 

 

[sime42]

 

Last picture of strawberries, I promise!

 

The investment in all new plants last year was obviously worth it. They're paying dividends now. 

 

 

[sime42]

On 29/04/2025 at 17:09, difflock said:

Ah! Ha!

Two bunches of grapes shaping  up.

Fingers crossed.

 

Ah! Ha! Me too. 

 

I must have missed these back in April. Too impatient.

 

 

 

[Squaredy]

Well I am not much of a gardener, and only nature can take the credit for these; but the wild strawberries on my site this year are laden with fruit.  My dogs were loving these today (right level for miniature dachshunds!).  This lot were growing just behind my office.

Edited 19 hours ago by Squaredy

[sime42]

It's a great year for strawberries by all accounts. Those wild ones have a lovely flavour if you can be bothered to pick them.