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Any advice - my garden is subject to really severe winds which blast the place with icy salt from the sea. Growing is hard - as is the motivation to go and do something in the garden.
I can't afford hedging - which would probably be wrecked before it took hold - fencing is down within days.
I have planted a couple of trees to break the wind's path - but we seem to catch a 'whirlwind effect' right in our garden . (We live on a peninsula - water on three sides).
Would 'sunken beds' help - stuff I have in old sinks does well.
Any clever - cheap ideas?
The garden is very big by todays standards - mostly mossy, scruffy grass. Sandy soil - and bedrock lower down.

Am I right in saying you're in Troon?

When I lived there we had a sunken garden behind a low wall and didn't have too many issues, however we weren't very close to the shore. The sandy soil was the main problem we had!

I'm sure other people will have more practical ideas for you! Good luck!

invisiblepiper wrote:Any advice - my garden is subject to really severe winds which blast the place with icy salt from the sea. Growing is hard - as is the motivation to go and do something in the garden.
I can't afford hedging - which would probably be wrecked before it took hold - fencing is down within days.
I have planted a couple of trees to break the wind's path - but we seem to catch a 'whirlwind effect' right in our garden . (We live on a peninsula - water on three sides).
Would 'sunken beds' help - stuff I have in old sinks does well.
Any clever - cheap ideas?
The garden is very big by todays standards - mostly mossy, scruffy grass. Sandy soil - and bedrock lower down.

not to seem flipant but have you thought of a wind turbine ??

invisiblepiper wrote:We live on a peninsula - water on three sides

So do I, and I know exactly what your problems are.
The best thing I did was to plant cuttings of trees/bushes everywhere ... that was about 12 years ago and I am reaping the rewards now.
The cheapest way I found was to take cuttings from willows growing wild around here, they take root very easily and can obviously put up with the climate. Plus now is the best time to take cuttings.
Then .. around the vegetable garden I put up strong fencing. 4" x 2" rough sawn timber for the posts, first treated the bottoms with creosote substitute and then concreted in. Then I got some 3" x 1" rough sawn and screwed it to the uprights about a foot apart to make a post and rail type fence. Then I painted the whole lot with fence paint and finally covered it with green plastic windbreak (which also stops the salt blasting).
It was not horrendously expensive ... I only fenced the windward side, and you should look upon it as an investment. It's been up for about 5 years now and has survived winds of over 100 mph on many occasions and allows me to grow over-winter crops without them being blasted out of the ground.

Thankyou so much Odsox - I will get started next week - the weekend looks none too promising. By chance , someone gave me a willow today - just a wee thing but its a start!

Thanks Loobyloo - were you here for long?

YYes - surprisingly we have thought of a turbine - but its too windy! - seriously!

I grew up in Troon, its where my mum's side of the family are from, My great grandfather used to run the portland cafe fish and chip shop many moons ago and my Gran was a teacher at St patricks primary.

Its been a long while since I've been back though, none of my close family live there anymore.

I have used Privet and Rowan as peasticks, and they have grown roots - I think we could do with a we drive over to Ayr or Troon sometime anyway, fancy a bagful of prunings? worth a try?

I have been reading a book about no-dig gardening - a piece of advice given is that if you lay seaweed and compost on top of your plot about now, the worms will do their job and come spring you can plant straight into the compost... and carrots and parsnips like sandy soil

invisiblepiper wrote:Yes - surprisingly we have thought of a turbine - but its too windy! - seriously!

How can it be TOO windy for a wind turbine ?
I can understand that you may need a more substantial tower than most people, but the turbine itself should turn out of the wind when it gets too strong and survive.
I'm seriously thinking of getting a wind turbine here but never thought about it being too windy. (Too windy at times for me maybe)

Annpan - you would be very welcome any time you are heading in this direction! PM me for directions when you like.
Odsox - I know it seems crazy - but (now for the 'science' bit) - a turbine has an optimum working level - the best speed to create resistance to generate power. If the wind is too fierce - then the sails spin too quickly and there is less resistance - which makes the turbine inefficient.
If this is rubbish - blame my OH - cos he explained it to me ........................I can also do the offside rule..............

invisiblepiper wrote:sox - I know it seems crazy - but (now for the 'science' bit) - a turbine has an optimum working level - the best speed to create resistance to generate power. If the wind is too fierce - then the sails spin too quickly and there is less resistance - which makes the turbine inefficient.

Can't say I've heard of this, so I can't say that it's rubbish or not.
All the info I've read about turbines and looking at the various power curves is the more wind the better ... up to about gale force 9 then it starts to turn itself out of the wind to protect itself.
I will have to read up on this subject a bit more.

Let me know!

invisiblepiper wrote:I know it seems crazy - but (now for the 'science' bit) - a turbine has an optimum working level - the best speed to create resistance to generate power. If the wind is too fierce - then the sails spin too quickly and there is less resistance - which makes the turbine inefficient.

OK, now that I have my brain in gear and firing on at least 3 cylinders, I have been looking at several wind turbine sites on the Internet.
I couldn't find any details about the effects you describe although I'm not saying they are rubbish, just that I didn't find anything.

My own thoughts on wind turbines are that there is no real optimum working level, the quoted output from any given turbine is somewhere near the maximum that it will generate, although most of the time it will be a lot less. As an example a 1 kw turbine will start to produce electricity at a wind speed of about 3 metres per second where it will generate 30 watts, at 8 m/s it will generate 500 watts and will generate 1000 watts at 14 m/s. It will then produce even more up to it's rated maximum usually around 25 m/s (gale force 10) after which it will turn out of the wind slightly to stop it from spinning too fast, but will still be generating maximum electricity.
The faster the blades spin the more electricity it will generate, which could be where some misunderstanding occurs. You need to use all the electricity it's producing ... if you disconnect the load from a spinning turbine there will be zero resistance and the turbine will spin out of control and probably damage itself. If you have a grid connect system then this can't happen as any excess power is automatically fed into the national grid. If you have a battery charging system then you have to provide a "shunt" for those times when the batteries are fully charged and the turbine is producing more electricity than you are using, this shunt is usually an immersion heater which is automatically switched in by your control gear.

I would have had a turbine myself long before now as this is an ideal place for one, plus in Ireland you don't need any planning permission for a small domestic turbine. The down side is our electricity company will not pay for your excess power (unlike UK) and I'm far too mean to give them my excess power for free and battery charging systems require expensive, fairly short lived special batteries which all adds to the initial (very finite) expenditure.

Hope that helps a bit and I trust I'm not talking complete tosh.

Odsox wrote:

invisiblepiper wrote:sox - I know it seems crazy - but (now for the 'science' bit) - a turbine has an optimum working level - the best speed to create resistance to generate power. If the wind is too fierce - then the sails spin too quickly and there is less resistance - which makes the turbine inefficient.

Can't say I've heard of this, so I can't say that it's rubbish or not.
All the info I've read about turbines and looking at the various power curves is the more wind the better ... up to about gale force 9 then it starts to turn itself out of the wind to protect itself.
I will have to read up on this subject a bit more.

Tis true. We have turbines up the hill from us and if the wind gets over 5mph they shut down......

Big Al wrote: Tis true. We have turbines up the hill from us and if the wind gets over 5mph they shut down......

I trust that is a typo Al, at 5mph they are just thinking about starting up

A further point I ought to have made in my earlier post ... if turbines don't like wind, why do they stick them in the most exposed places they can find ?