Polytunnels on the cheap (and not so cheap)

Polytunnels on the cheap (and not so cheap)

I answered a forum post the other day that asked about how to get a polytunnel on a budget. I won’t go over how useful polytunnels are here – it’s been covered a million times elsewhere. Needless to say that if you are growing your own veg, they are...

Harvest time

Managing the vegetables has been hard going whilst keeping a tiny Lyra happy, but today we all headed out and harvested my favourite crops – garlic and onions. The garlic has its roots trimmed off, and the muddy outer skin removed, and after a few days drying in...

Abundance

  In this, our first year of growing here at Lackan Cottage Farm, we have been blessed with great abundance. Indeed so great has been the harvest of some produce that we are able to share it with others. Elaine and John from the Turnip House came to visit, and we...
Midsummer

Midsummer

  Midsummer is already upon us, and to mark the occasion, we have erected our own standing stone, which looks toward the mountains with which it shares its roots. We will mark important occasions through the year with a circle of stones. The granite here weathers...
Life in the tunnel

Life in the tunnel

  At long last all the beds in the big polytunnel are filled, and I think we officially have the oddest tunnel layout in the land.  The centre beds with a circular path and keyhole beds in the corners are designed to maximise the available edge in the tunnel, and...
Spring (ish)

Spring (ish)

  Although it might not look it here, we are finally seeing a lot of young vegetables growing and are reaping the benefit of the new tunnel in this not-quite-spring.  Hundreds of young seedlings are coming on in modules, and the first of those have been planted...
One year on…..

One year on…..

For a while there we thought it might never be sunny again, but once again we are enjoying the warmth, and  the knowledge that the sun is providing our electricity and an increasing amount of our hot water.  All around us the place is bursting into life, and the brown...

Big shoes to fill

Well, after nearly three weeks, our first proper experience as Wwoofing hosts is over, and our volunteer (and now extended family member) Bettina has left to begin her journey home to Austria. Hers will be hard boots to fill, as we have achieved much in her time here,...

New hens – but what are they?

Yesterday I set off to collect our new hens from William over in Cloughey. Daylight reveals that we have 1 Welsummer cockerel, 2 Welsummer hens, 2 Light Sussex, 2 black bantams, 1 goldeny bantamy thing, and a mystery grey hen. They are living in the new polytunnel for...

Winter skies

Midwinter is now only weeks away, and our day is finishing ever earlier. This evening brought us some dramatic skies, and the promise of a nice day tomorrow, perhaps. I am off to collect some more hens, and our first rooster, from the other side of Strangford Lough,...

Our first Wwoofers, and a new polytunnel

This weekend has been a busy one indeed. We had our first wwoofers – Andrew McMurray, founder of the Drumlin Wind Cooperative, and Mick McEvoy, Belfast representative for GIY Ireland, both inspirational guys in their own right, who came to help put up our first...

What next?

The work on the house is barely complete and already our thoughts are turning to other (and equally important) things. Because we have a waterless loo, any waste water from the house is relatively clean greywater, which can be put through a reed bed system, before it...