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Paul in the woods

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Everything posted by Paul in the woods

  1. Paul in the woods
    Sounds sensible but I'd want that in writing as it seems somewhat open to interpretation. The advice still states: "Felling diseased ash requires a felling licence from the Forestry Commission, unless the trees are dead or pose a real and immediate danger. Restrictions such as tree preservation orders must also be respected. Your local authority will be able to provide guidance."
  2. Paul in the woods
    Ash.
  3. Paul in the woods
    I assume the poster is from the US, so not Fraxinus excelsior. I hope they are not in the UK if they've got emerald ash borer!
  4. Paul in the woods
    Indeed it is, and it doesn't end with planting you've got to look after the trees which means deer and squirrel control so I look forward to the Guardian encouraging that. If we genuinely don't have people to become professional tree planters perhaps some of the office bound Guardian readers could put down their iPads and volunteer a bit? Get them out of the home office and get them some proper exercise in the real world? That's from an ex office worked who's planted quite a few trees without any pay, grants etc.
  5. Paul in the woods
    This might be up your street. https://www.geoffdann.co.uk/agrocybe-rivulosa-is-edible-and-excellent/ I'd be interested is some photos of the cap before they've opened out.
  6. Paul in the woods
    One of the agrocybes looks possible, Agrocybe rivulosa and Agrocybe praecox both seem to grow on woodchip. I'm not familiar with either but it seems they can be confused with toxic fungi.
  7. Paul in the woods
    No. Do they have any smell, do they stain yellow, red or any other colour when bruised or cut? They could be some sort of agaricus but nothing I recognise and some agaricus are poisonous while others are not worth eating.
  8. Paul in the woods
    What do you want to know? I've just had a look and can see people selling chanterelle spawn but do not know anyone who has grown it. I would guess it is rather difficult to grow and could take years to fruit. Something like oyster mushrooms are much easier and you can buy spawn growing on grain to inoculate all sorts of things. I had a good crop on a new toilet roll. I would think inoculated dowels would be ideal for people here. As mentioned shiitake is easy, grown on oak. Oysters do well on beech. The logs need to be fresh from a living free so there's less competing fungi. Drill holes, insert dowels and seal with wax. Plenty of places selling what you need and offering advice. The logs do need somewhere damp for the mycelium to run and it could be over a year before you get anything. But a good sized log could fruit for a number of years.
  9. Paul in the woods
    Jules has got the answer but I'm curious with these threads. Have you moved into somewhere new or is this some sort of web homework?
  10. Paul in the woods
    I grow bocking 14 although I dont, have the heart to cut it back as the bubbles love it. It Also doesn't grow rampantly here but that's probably because we don't have rich soil. Your comments on bees is interesting, I know honey bees will seek out plants that provide pollen with higher protein constant but not really noticed a preference for colour. The season starts with yellow gorse and dandelions before going onto while and green (e.g. sycamore), white again with brambles and then purple with knapweed.
  11. Paul in the woods
    I've forgotten about them. A previous house I owned had chalky soil and to my surprise we had a decent crop of morels grow in the woodchip you get from the diy sheds. I only tried the odd one as I think a few varieties grew and not all are edible. Worth a try if you can't get the spawn but I think they prefer an alkaline soil?
  12. Paul in the woods
    One fungi I'd like to try and something I think would be ideal for anyone with large amounts of woodchip is Wine Caps, Stropharia rugoso.
  13. Paul in the woods
    Chanterelles are mycorrhizal so you'll not be able to grow them on logs. I've tried a few wood rotting fungi and found shiitake dowels inserted into fresh oak logs to be the easiest and most productive. There is a wide range of fungi to choose from but as it can take a year or two before fruiting I'd suggest starting off with an easy one. Also something recognisable as you can get other fungi appearing.
  14. Paul in the woods
    We get blight every year but it hits the tops of the leaves first, spores picked up by the rain drops. The main worry with clippings is slugs, one thing chickens do help with on a veg plot.
  15. Paul in the woods
    I think like you I'm still a bit concerned about harming the plants. So, yes, a thin layer of fresh clippings kept away from the stalks to prevent any heat building up harming them. Then build up over time. I also have plenty of course clippings, almost like chopped hay, and I'm happy to use that in a greater thickness. I might try a thick layer of fresh green clippings on a row this year as I've finally managed to get a good number of spuds in this year. Had our first earlies over a week ago.
  16. Paul in the woods
    Bottom pic looks like silver birch.
  17. Paul in the woods
    In the article Trig posted they just use straw and grass cuttings. I would wonder how the spurs taste, I have found just grown in multi-purpose compost the spuds don't taste as good as ones grown in soil, but that may just be me. I do earth up my spuds and then mulch with grass clippings. That keeps the moisture in, light out and is a quick way to add organic matter to my poor soil.
  18. Paul in the woods
    Blame the Italians for that, it looks like ground elder, introduced by the Romans as food but is very invasive. Personally I don't use weed killers so digging out carefully and pulling out fresh growth is my main method of attack.
  19. Paul in the woods
    Not the clearest pic but it could be an old dogs vomit slime mould, Fuligo septica, or similar.
  20. Paul in the woods
    I guess you just mulch the growing spuds with compost and pull the tubers out with the plant at harvest? Although I'm working towards no-dig its not without problems. Firstly I needed to remove a fair bit of blackthorn, now I'm digging out bindweed etc. When I've look into what some of the most well known no-dig proponents do it becomes clear they use vast amounts of compost which isn't always easy or desirable to get hold of. There's still a risk of introducing persistent herbicides into the garden and I'm not keen on the glass, plastic and god knows what else in municipal compost. Hence making my own but that's taken a few years to do.
  21. Paul in the woods
    You should consider the no-dog gardening method (fence them out). Our lab has always been fairly good with the garden although she's a firm believer in pick your own. All sort fruit, tomatoes, peas etc, almost as bad as the chickens.
  22. Paul in the woods
    I've collected about 8 daleks over the years and tend to pile up compost material in a big heap to start hot composting and then fork that into the daleks to finish off with the worms.
  23. Paul in the woods
    That's the only place I recall seeing them, saw a few flying about and landing on me on the streets of Croydon. Wonderful things to see.
  24. Paul in the woods
    I assume RT thinks the designer should be left to work out the number of pages and the overall design. The client wouldn't know so you can't agree on a cost per page. After all, you could put all the content of your 20 pages onto a single page but that wouldn't be much less work and wouldn't be a great site.
  25. Paul in the woods
    Have you thought about bees? After paying out a couple of grand you can spend your spare time getting stung and in the summer months chasing swarms of bees about the countryside. Very relaxing.

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