Self-INsufficient living....

If we were trying to be self-sufficient we would be starving to death this year.  Our attempts at saving our lives are rocket seedlings in a pot, all other salads having been eaten by rabbits,

....peppers, aubergines and tomatoes grown on the windowsill in the kitchen.  I resurrected the old plastic 'greenhouse' we had in Chedzoy, bought a new cover for it in Chaplins and potted up the survivors this morning.

The herb garden is mostly intact with chives, thyme, parsley, mint, fennel and oregano despite occasional prunings by the odd rabbit that should be brave enough to come so near the house where the hairy black thing lives.

The highly prolific little apple tree by the back door seems to have survived my pruning efforts in the winter.  Hestercombe put on a really good apple-tree pruning workshop back in January.

The beds in our supposedly 'rabbit-proof' patch in the field should be green with sweet peas (sown twice), french climbing beans (sown three times), sweet corn, cabbages, purple sprouting, broccoli and lettuces by now but alas the rabbits got them all.  Apparently they have bitten a hole in the wire netting itself - I'm worried Ian might be turning into Mr Macgregor and is on the lookout for a shotgun.....

It's not all bad.  At least our pride and joy, the strawberries - are still ok.  Thanks to Ian's ingenious re-use of heating pipes, roof battens, netting and old plastic bags.  I'm proud of his 'making good use of the things you have lying around' attitude to gardening.

The rhubarb has at last taken off and the asparagus has started, not to mention the raspberries behind.  At least we did manage to harvest some potatoes before the blight got them all, and broad beans have been delicious despite getting rust.  So, having written it all down, I don't think we'll starve after all!  Gardening is definitely a battle against nature though.

I'm rather proud of our compost bins...

....and the mushrooms!  They came in a kit.  After at least 8 weeks of keeping them damp and warm the compost looks like someone's dropped miniature polystyrene balls on it.  I think it could be mushrooms.

This one's a funny shape...... but it could be a mushroom!

Staying at home...

There have been no new arrivals of the animal variety this week, though we have been asked to 'adopt' two goats that keep escaping from their current home near the motorway and have to be rescued by the Police and returned home like naughty adolescents. Although the prospect of more waifs and strays is quite appealing in an 'all are welcome' sort of way, the reality is our fencing situation is far too ramshackle. We have already experienced a herd of our neighbours milking cows shuffling around outside our shed-home at 2.30am not to mention his 3 sheep that seem to wander at will around the farm - and therefore our land too.

Still, never mind the sheep, our flock of 3 geese seems to have settled in well though they haven't really moved from their spot near the water trough at the top of the run. Apparently they prefer walking on short grass to the ivy covered woodland floor we've given them. So this week, we've been making a concerted effort to get the veg patch fenced in so we can let the geese out into the field and garden. The chickens have already taken a liking to the salad leaves, particularly rocket it seems, so the addition of more poultry could see us without salad for the rest of the summer.

The veg patch itself is fantastic. It's been so exciting to create our own patch from bare ground - we've felt like early American settlers digging up massive tree roots and coaxing the soil to provide food. Thankfully we can resort to Sainsbury's so the comparison ends there....and actually with a digger on site ground preparation is a darn sight easier! The Old Lady even left us a mountain of nicely rotted horse manure to get things going.

Here's Ian with his favourite gardening tool - though you can see he does still know how to use a spade!

On the house front, our loyal builders, Steve and Lee, who have done so much for us finally left for another job. We've kept them for two months longer than expected due to our rotting roofs, and we have the mixed feelings of being stranded without their expertise, but also the delight of 'having our project back'. We can now make all the mistakes we want to without anyone to tell us the 'right' way to do it.....hmmmm. Come back Steve and Lee.

Actually this week has been quite shattering. It started with a lovely couple of days in Pembrokeshire - where God gave us a one day heatwave by the sea. We then drove over to Shropshire where Ian was sitting on the platform at a farming event, followed by work for both of us. Thursday brought major stress when our window manufacturer refused to accept responsibility for the damage to several of the windows. I do know that these things don't really matter in the grand scheme of things but it hurts at the time. Yesterday kind of made up for it as everything went well so I could enjoy it again. Most of the outside drains have been laid now and stone put down, so it can rain all it likes and it won't turn to mud. That feels better.

Ian meanwhile has gone off to Cornwall for another event (how does he keep going?) while I stay home and crash out.