Selfsufficientish.com

Rather than hijack Green Aura's polytunnel post, I thought I would start a new one that hopefully others can add to.

Things are growing apace now and it's nice to be able to relax a bit and view the results of our labours, although harvesting is well underway so not that much relaxing.
Anyway this is what my small tunnel looks like today ....
On the extreme right are a couple of bushy Butternut squashes, then the next 2 brassicas are PSB, the brassica forest in the background are Brussel sprouts and in the foreground are several January King cabbages. The climbing French beans are on the left.
Further down on the left are my parsnips, especially photographed for MKG ....
My bigger tunnel is not quite so full, mainly because it is between crops, on the right is my autumn cropping peas, with 2 more rows of peas at the back right, tall peas on the left with conventional height peas to the right, plus my pathetic sweetcorn on the left, They were planted before the polythene cover was replaced and never got over the trauma. Note the (unintentional) grass path.
My small greenhouse is just tomatoes ...
My bigger greenhouse is a bit of a jungle .....
on the right is my Apricot tree which is in full production now, I have already picked 2 kilos of fruit and I can't really see where I've been, many more left to be picked over the coming weeks
.... and my hydroponics tubes are a bit of a riot. Due to be modified this coming winter, the 2 pipes are going to be separated with one moving closer to the front windows
Finally my tomato wall in the conservatory. What you can't see behind the toms are a Nectarine tree loaded with ripening fruit, a lemon tree and 3 fig trees of various sizes.

Those green things are parsnips? Why did no one ever tell me that?

Mike

PS - I'm envious.

I knew yours would be neat and methodical. As well as an overall picture, here are some closer pictures of the different areas. We got the biggest tunnel we thought we could fit into the available space, but it's nowhere near big enough.
Down the left hand side we have a few fruit trees and soft fruit bushes - these will probably be dug out next spring and potted up so we can grow them outdoors in the summer and move them to more sheltered areas - we have very high winds which blow straight off the loch. These were the plants we found buried under tall grass so the polytunnel is doubling as a hospital. Having said that they're all looking fabulously healthy now - no sign of fruiting though.

We've inter-planted with peas and beans, then there's the ubiquitous nasturtiums and parsnips and also a couple of caulis (we think) - all self sets. In the terracotta troughs we grow mixed cut and come again salad leaves. The tall flowering one is an edible chrysanthemum which we tried this year, very tasty. We're hoping to get seed from it for next year, hence the pretty flowers.
Down the right hand side bed we have an unidentified fruit tree (more of the Lidl ones we found buried) another fig, tomatoes and aubergines in pots. We've also harvested several weeks worth of red mustard (self set) and Kometsuna (planted) which have been used to make kimchi. They've now gone as the tomatoes are taking up most of the room. There are also pots of tomatoes, pepper, courgettes and herbs along the back wall on varying heights of staging. The hanging baskets contain strawberries.
Here's a close up of our centre beds, with a lemon tree, a lime tree, jostaberry, redcurrant, several tomato plants (in the bed and in pots), a fig, spaghetti squash, onion squash, beetroots, spinach beet, a red kale and, of course, the self set nasturtiums and parsnips. Oh and there's the odd lettuce dotted about where there looked like there might be gaps.

The citrus trees are struggling a bit, although they are much healthier than when we had them in the house. I think they're being watered far too much, b eing in the middle of various other very thirsty plants. So we've been making a point of not watering immediately under them, except when they're being fed and they seem to be happier. We'll probably pot them back up in the autumn, and then leave them where they are, so we can control the watering better.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that we plant French and Pot marigolds amongst everything else - since we've started doing this we've never had an aphid problem. We just need to find something that does the same for snails - in this jungle they hide everywhere!

One more thing to add, we've just started to reclaim the rest of the garden and having partially cleared this bit, directly in front of the polytunnel, we realised how much bigger it is than either of us pictured. Anyway, after much deliberation we discarded the idea of another polytunnel in favour of a 4.5m geodesic dome. We bought the plans a couple of weeks ago, but we need to save up for a good table saw (any recommendations welcome), so - watch this space.

Yes to the table saw. I bought an Evolution Fury 3 http://www.evolutionpowertools.com/uk/p ... mitresaws/
I have got a lot of kitchen cabinet doors to make, that I still haven't made (winter job) but I've used it for umpteen other jobs, plus it cuts aluminium and sheet steel, plus nails in wood, and it really does without destroying the blade.
AND, I was extremely lucky, they were on special offer from Evolution, and I went to B&Q and they had a special offer on top of the manufacturers, then as it was Wednesday I used my old fogies discount card and got another 10% off. In all it cost me about €75.00 and worth every cent.

EDIT: I see Amazon have it for £69.99 free delivery.

Good call, Tony. We're looking at the Fury 5 table saw, the video of it looks good and it seems to have some good reviews. May have to wait until payday, but that's one thing off the list. Now we need to decide what wood to use - larch or cedar, both pretty expensive in the quantities we'll need. Larch will be easier to get round here though, I think.

Haven't hijacked your thread, honest.

Odd name for a saw

FURY!!!

How do you post images Tony?

I always seem to get an error message when I post an IMG from photo bucket

Ah, I've just discovered how to do this. For years I've loaded them via Flickr, but since they "improved" it I can't do it any more. Anyhoo, Tony informed me of a little button down the bottom of the post reply page marked "upload attachment*. No need for any third party host! Woohoo.

The only thing is you need to make sure your pictures are no bigger than 640x400 pixels.

Simple. I can't believe I hadn't spotted it before.

Doofaloofa, their pro range is called "rage"

Green Aura wrote:Ah, I've just discovered how to do this. For years I've loaded them via Flickr, but since they "improved" it I can't do it any more. Anyhoo, Tony informed me of a little button down the bottom of the post reply page marked "upload attachment*. No need for any third party host! Woohoo.

The only thing is you need to make sure your pictures are no bigger than 640x400 pixels.

Simple. I can't believe I hadn't spotted it before.

Thanks

I'll try it out

Also, dont use powewr tools angry!

name the plant