Wednesday, 2 July 2008

Garlic, Hens and One man went to mow!


Actually it was one man, two man, three man and the dogs and child! This was an experiment. Having seen eighty year olds mowing their meadows by hand and with the rising cost of oil I thought I´d give it a go! Let´s just hope we find an alternative because it was not fun and what was a small meadow became very big! In the end we cheated and got the petrol strimmer out because it was such hard work cutting, sharpening and cutting again. Man power is the key. Rain was forcast so it had to be gathered in after a few days so there was little time to recover.






The hens are free to roam in the mornings only as the birds of prey, mainly falcons, are out in force in the afternoons. They forage away on whatever takes their fancy and are waiting for their bran mash at 1pm to be put into their run under the apple tree.



The garlic had to fend for itself like most things and the first crop was harvested. In the picture is Spanish Garlic which was put onto some fairly poor soil between some strawberries but the results are not bad. The English garlic did not fair so well having been put on even poorer soil which baked in the sun.




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The Journey Begins

In actual fact the journey began some time ago. The Design course has reinforced decisions that had already been made and given me the tools to put together some sort of plan to make that first step a little less daunting. I returned from the two week course today and although extremely tired I have been so motivated not just by the course, but by the people I had the good fortune to meet, that I have created this blog. I owe a great deal of thanks to those people, for their inspiration, support and a great deal of laughter. I'm not sure what the outcomes will be, but I am sure it will be an interesting journey and welcome you to join me.