Le Mouse wrote:Sounds great! Do you have a frame / suspended tray or suchlike hanging from your velux window or have you stuck a table under it? I'm trying to picture your set up. I'm considering makeshift hanging pots for seedlings myself so all information is valuable!redskies wrote:We've just picked up thirty or forty tyres and a big bag of partially rotted down kelp. We should be able to get the spuds planted tomorrow - they're up in the velux window chitting atm! Also in the velux window are onion, echinacea, strawberry stick, rosemary, lemon basil, melissa, feverfew, calendula and various other seedlings. OH is off to go and pick up some old windows, so we can turn some of the tyres into wee cold frames, get the sprouting seedlings out and get some more planted. We also ordered tobacco seeds, which should arrive this week. Those will need to go up in the velux window permenantly, as they wouldn't cope with the wind here.
All in all, a good start for this years crops so far
I have a set of very basic shelving under the window; it's my soap drying rack. I just cleared my crap off the top to make space for the spuds and seedlings.
The spuds are in egg boxes, the base of one sat in the lid of the next one to save space. The seedlings have been planted in the cardboard tubes you get at the centre of kitchen roll etc. Just cut them up, set them on newspaper in an old baking tray, then filled em with with compost and seeds. I do have some pics, I'll try and get them uploaded when I get time!
When they go out, two tyre stacks will make beds, window on top will create a cold frame sort of arrangement. The spuds will start off in two tyres, four or five to each two tyre stack. Those are a bit different after that. Once the first two leaves show, there will be another tyre added and filled with earth, covering the leaves. You do that until you're half a dozen tyres high. Come autumn, you just spread a tarp, knock the stack onto it and harvest a whole pile of tatties. Apparently one of the most space efficient ways to grow a lot of spuds!
I'll have a lot of herb processing to do come autumn too. I've got more seeds to plant, some nice ones, like dyers woad, and yet more to order too. And there's a nursery I've discovered, over on the Black Isle. It'll bankrupt me, but it'll be worth it to grow my own golden seal and tea tree and eucalyptus trees and stuff!
so I'm feeling sorry for all the farmers out there. On the plus side the ducks are liking the weather and I've got a water vole 
