My microholding.

[preppingsu]

Thought I would share with you my little piece of land where we grow and experiment. Each year more of it is given over to growing space. We try out different ideas from polyculture to hugelkulter. We often have a summer project. Sometimes that encompasses the garden, often linked to prepping but wrapped up in the guise of self sufficiency ( this to us is the greatest prep of all, being as self sufficient as possible).

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We live on the side of the hill so gardening has been interesting. This photo shows one of the limited flat areas so we have erected 2 small polytunnels. One was in play last summer and we were very impressed with the yield from it so the second one went up earlier this year. Currently they have been planted with a polyculture mix of salad leaves, lettuce, spring onion and radish, 8 strawberry plants (just to see how they hold up) and broccoli and kale.
For warmth I have peppers, sweetcorn and squash seeds in pots inside them. More will be added as part of our succession planting.

The cold frames in front were built from parts of an old wooden playhouse and old windows that were replaced with double glazed. They have inside them courgettes, celery, French beans, cucumber, tomato seeds in pots.

To the right of this photo is our experimental Hugelkulter bed. This will have leeks, onions, squash and courgettes planted in it.

A the front of the picture is our fruit trees, fruit bushes and herb selection. There are two heritage apples trees, local to this area and two plum trees. Herbs - currently have thyme, rosemary, mint, sage, fennel, dill. I have planted some sorrel seeds (currently in polytunnel). Once established this is a perennial herb which is great for easier gardening. I have planted some currant bushes and cranberry.

Behind me is the chicken area. We used to let them roam the garden but is just got destroyed by their scratching so they are currently fenced in.

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For the next photo I have turned 45degress anticlockwise from where I took the top photo.

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There is a fence and gate that leads into our main growing area. The fence is to stop the wild rabbits.

The greenhouse on the left is currently empty. This is my project this year. My aim is to grow some more exotic plants (lemon tree etc) so I aim to warm it with a hot compost bin.

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To the left are 2 long beds with summer and autumn raspberries (plus weeds... ). Then there are 6 square beds, 1 1/2 have early potatoes, the end left has rhubarb, walking onions and wild garlic. I have just added last years strawberry runners to the other half of the potato bed. The triangle bed currently has strawberries in it.

In the front is 1/3 bed of a polyculture mix of carrots, parsnips and leeks.
The big bed to the right (it has 2 compost bins on it) has 2 rows of peas and I will continue succession planting with those.

We have 6 compost bins which doesn't really give us all the compost we need.

We also have 4 water butts (2x190l, 1x120l, 1x80l - I think). Doesn't really give us all the water we need for the garden if the weather is dry.

On our patio is the clay oven and cold smoker (see thread about clay oven).

So there it is. We are constantly adding to it. It excites us but exhausts us. It is not easy to live a self sufficient lifestyle. I hope that someone can be inspired by this.

[Bad Wombat]

Thanks for sharing those Su. I think it looks amazing.

[FEISTY]

Wow! Fabulous! Your raised beds are constructed exactly the same as ours , except ours are 8' by 4', because I'm
to(a)tie (sp? ) and have short arms and you have a lot more (I'll be speaking to hubby about this - construction of raised beds is his department). Do you have any problems with pollination in a polytunnel? I'm thinking of sweetcorn, for example. Is your rhubarb always this early? Ours is up, but not as much as that. Where do you get your polytunnels and are they horrendously expensive? We have one greenhouse, which was already deteriorating when we took over and is missing a couple of panes of glass and the new one we have hasn't had a site prepared for it yet . We have two large hexagonal composters - one is filled whilst the other is cooking, but there's never enough. You used to be able to buy them from the council, but they're not doing them anymore and I don't find the smaller composters really work well. Our council have a scheme whereby you can buy bags for about £2 and then re-fill them "for free" as many times as you like until the compost runs out. I haven't used it yet, but might give it a go. You're local council may have a refuse/recycling plant offering the same. Do you have rabbits (pet or otherwise) - they love dandelions! Dandelion tea? I just pulled a batch today and washed a few leaves for the pet bunny, but distraught how many dandelions are out there getting ready to set seed. I think tomorrow I will have to spend at least an hour digging the blighters out if I can even get to them all. I hope you don't mind me copying your idea of the long, narrow beds to contain the raspberries, etc. I was thinking about where to plant those, as ours were planted by the previous owner with other shrubs at the back of the house and, as well as not getting enough sun, I can't really get at them to prune, feed, etc. I'm never very sure, even, whether they are summer or autumn fruiting and, therefore, how to treat them. Starting afresh with new ones might be the best bet. Anyway, thank you so much for the inspiration. Wish I had the nerve to get chickens, but that's a prep too far for me right now .

[jansman]

Nice stretch of ground there Su. Plenty of scope. You are right about fencing in the fowls. They destroy a garden in double quick time. great pics.
I really must learn how to post pics. Must have chat with eldest Daughter (I.T. type person, She is), I don't have a piggin' clue.

[nickdutch]

Fantastic

[preppingsu]

@feisty

The first polytunnel was from a garden centre, cost £100. The second I found through google, £80. Very good quality.

Rhubarb - is going mad this year! All we do is cover it in compost in the autumn. We don't do anything else except eat it...

We don't have pet rabbits or any pets at all. The chickens are not pets as they gives us food. Dandelions normally just get dug up but I do need to look at them as a food source as well.

Raspberries - see which ones fruit first in the summer, there's your summer ones. If you get fruit in September there's your autumn. Now, after fruiting cut all of your autumn canes right back. On the summer canes just cut back thenines that have fruited. The beds don't keep ours contained - I noticed lots of raspberry sprouting along the path . But the beds do make it easier to manage them.

Chickens- think about it for next year. That'll give you time to plan for them. It took us a good 18 months from deciding to get them to actually getting them. We researched all we could so we felt confident about being able to look after them. I love having them. The eggs are much better than the supermarkets ones, they are funny to watch and each had a character.

Compost - not sure about our local council doing a scheme like that. But I have a good source of horse muck which we chuck on the garden in the autumn, rake it and leave it. We use a Bokashi bin system so all our raw and leftover cooked food eventually ends up in the compost.

[pseudonym]

Fantastic, thanks for taking the time to document and share with us.

[FEISTY]

@feisty

The first polytunnel was from a garden centre, cost £100. The second I found through google, £80. Very good quality.

Rhubarb - is going mad this year! All we do is cover it in compost in the autumn. We don't do anything else except eat it...

We don't have pet rabbits or any pets at all. The chickens are not pets as they gives us food. Dandelions normally just get dug up but I do need to look at them as a food source as well.

Raspberries - see which ones fruit first in the summer, there's your summer ones. If you get fruit in September there's your autumn. Now, after fruiting cut all of your autumn canes right back. On the summer canes just cut back thenines that have fruited. The beds don't keep ours contained - I noticed lots of raspberry sprouting along the path . But the beds do make it easier to manage them.

Chickens- think about it for next year. That'll give you time to plan for them. It took us a good 18 months from deciding to get them to actually getting them. We researched all we could so we felt confident about being able to look after them. I love having them. The eggs are much better than the supermarkets ones, they are funny to watch and each had a character.

Compost - not sure about our local council doing a scheme like that. But I have a good source of horse muck which we chuck on the garden in the autumn, rake it and leave it. We use a Bokashi bin system so all our raw and leftover cooked food eventually ends up in the compost.

I'll have a think about polytunnels - not as expensive as I'd have thought. Not this year though - too much to do already .

I think our rhubarb needs to be moved to get a bit more light. I'm letting it grow this year and then moving it.

Hubby's going to do a few more beds for me including long, narrow ones. I honestly think our canes are dead on their feet. New ones this year if I'm not too late, I think. Last house owner planted a lot of stuff at the back of the house - only gets morning sun - and she planted stuff too close together - I guess every gardener has their own ideas.

I've discussed it with my daughter and she and I both know I wouldn't be able to kill a chicken (unless I was half-starved, of course). No-one in my family's going to help me out with that either . I always buy organic eggs, but as I don't eat them except in baking, I can't judge whether they actually taste better and I've just started to get my chicken, etc from an organic farm in Fife. The disgusting, flabby, wet stuff in the supermarket was turning my stomach and I'd stopped buying it. Lovely chicken, but expensive. Just have a bit less of it now. I will definitely consider having chickens in the future.

For the moment, I'm happy putting the green stuff, shredded paper, grass clippings, etc into the two large composters we have and send leftover cooked food off in the small green bin. Anyway, absolutely knackered - off to bed. Springtime is hard work . Some good tips, thanks.

[PreppingPingu]

Fab stuff, thanks for sharing. Gives me a fair amount of inspiration that does! One day I hope to move somewhere that I can have land to provide, but at the mo, my small allotment will suffice. I feel spurred on now *grin*