New Inventory Page

Below is a copy of the inventory page that I have just made. The link in future is at the top of the page

This is a summary of our expenses and our harvests from the land. The idea is to give a rough idea of what you can get out of a given piece of land (the plot I am currently working is 600m2). We gave a similar summary from one year of our allotment in the uk. This showed a loss as during the first year a lot is spent on fences, perennial plants, tools ect which we would hope to only have to buy once.

I’ll probably change the format of this as I gather information to try and present it as clearly as possible. I will first give our expenses, grouping them into a few categories. Then I will give a table of our crops, sowing date, planting date, first harvest, last harvest, and totals. Zobaczymy..

2013 Expenses: Values given in Polish Zloty

Category	Price Zloty
Seeds	300
Trays, Pots, String etc	300
Plants	100
Fruti Trees/Bushes	360
Polytunnel Material	260
Fence Wire	600
Oil/Petrol Chainsaw	50
Tools	100
Total Zloty	2070
Total GBP	415

2013 Plant Inventory

Plant	Number	Sowed	Planted Out	First Harvest	Last Harvest	Total  Harvest	Notes
Peas 1	16	12/4/13					Indoors
Peas 2	100	5/5/13					Out
Peas 3	200	1/06/13					out
Potatoes 1	270	5/5/13
Potatoes 2	270	10/05/13					Trench 1ft Deep
Potatoes 3	270	18/05/13
Carrots 1	Small Tray	13/04/13					Inside
Carrots 2	Few Hundred	06/05/13					Under Poly
Carrots 3	Lots	2/06/13
Tomatoes 1	50	Late Feb	18/05/13
Tomatoes 2	60	13/04/13	22/05/13
Sweetcorn	100 odd	7/05/13
Brussels	100	13/04/13	13/05/13
Cabbage	100	18/04/13	31/05/13
Parsnips 1	50	13/04/13	25/05/13
Parsnips 2	Lots	2/06/13					Out
Celery	Small Tray	13/04/13					Indoors
Courgette 1	8	13/04/13	1/05/13				Yellow
Courgette 2	9	18/05/13	7/06/13				Green
Spinach 1	20	13/04/13	6/05/13				Indoors
Spinach 2	20	6/05/13					Out
Spinach 3	Lots	02/06/13					Out
Salad 1	20	13/04/13	9/05/13				Indoors
Salad 2	Lots	02/06/13					Out
Salad 3
Beetroot 1	90	13/04/13	15/05/13				Indoors
Beetroot 2	Lots	6/05/13					Under Poly
Beetroot 3	Lots	02/06/13					Out
Leeks 1	60	13/04/13	31/05/13				Indoors
Leeks 2	30	31/05/13					Out
Cucumber	30	16/04/13	9/05/13				Indoors
Cucumber 2	45	2/06/13					Out
Basil	Lots	16/04/16	23/05/13				Thinned to 6 pots 10/05/13
Peppers	5	End Feb	22/05/13
Peppers 2	30	April					Indoors
Aubergine	5	End Feb	22/05/13
Melons	8	24/03/13	31/05/13				Under Poly
Broadbeans 1	30	22/04/13					Out
Broadbeans 2	100	05/05/13					Out
Onion Sets 1	50	22/04/13					Out
Onion Sets 2	100	06/05/13					Out
Radish  Every 2 Wks	2 Rows	22/04/13		25/05/13			Out
Pumpkins	6	End March	02/05/13				Indoors
Squash	4	End March	06/05/13				Indoors
Glob Artichokes	8	End March	23/05/13
Strawberries	50	01/05/13					Out
Rasberries	30	April	Sprouting 05/05/13
Gooseberries	3	5/05/13
Currents	3	5/05/13
Grapes	5 Vines	06/05/13					2 Old

 

Planting Almost Complete

In the last couple of weeks we’ve been doing lots of planting. The average last frost date for us is 28th May, with this out of the way we had to get on with it and get everything in the ground. We had a mixture of stuff we started off indoors to plant out, and seed to sow straight to the ground. I’ll be putting on a little inventory of what we have later, alongside a rough costing of the allotment work and harvests.

Potatoes Ready For Earthing Up

Yellow Courgettes on the Way

Red Brussels Doing Well

Strawberries.

Sweetcorn

First Pea Pod

Small Pumpkin

Grapes Ready to Flower

Flowers on Our Young Lemon Tree

Carrots Coming Along Nicely.

Grapes Almost Flowering

On our last allotment everything was done in a bit of a rush during our spare time before or after work. As such I didn’t take any special care with planting techniques. Now we have a bit more time I’ve been doing my research and have been trying to follow the instructions I’ve found. Most things seem to be common sense, but I found some good tips on planting cabbages, Brussels, and Leeks.  Planting out leeks that have been started off indoors has always mystified me, and I still don’t really know what I’m doing, it seems a bit odd making a big hole and just dropping the young leeks into it, but I’ve seen this done at my old allotment and read about it, so I’ve given it a go. They are still alive after a week, so maybe they will be ok. A short video below of what I did, any tips welcome for next time.

 

Stop-Motion Polytunnel Construction

I’ve been putting off building a bigger polytunnel for a while, as I didn’t really have a clue how to go about it. But after a few weeks the tomatoes have outgrown their 5Ltr waterbottle houses, and I found some old bits from our caravan awning that looked right for the job.

It’s in my rustic style, a little wonky, but it has survived some strong wind. We’ve missed the latest band of heavy storms but I think it will get a proper test very soon.

 

Scything Update 150m2 per hour

So I’ve been working on my scything over the last week with three more mowing sessions. I found some videos on youtube about how to peen (bang the blade with a hammer), which I put into practice. Marta’s Dad also gave me an old sharpening stone holding, which had an old sharpening stone inside. This proved to be much better than the one I had, and I think my blade is now sharpish. I also found a scythe handle in a slightly different style which allowed me to mow with a better posture.

Neater Rows

To go some way in answering Eddy at Winkos, who mentioned how long it would take to cut his meadows using this method, I worked out over the few sessions I’ve done that I’m averaging 150m2 per hour.  I normally do from 4:30am till 8ish. I reckon we have about 10,000 m2 of meadow, which would take around 67hrs at my current pace. Or 8 days worth of 2 four hour sessions.

I am finding the mowing easier as my technique improves. We found out our neighbour used to mow his wheat fields using the scythe back in the day. I’m hoping to pick his brains a bit about technique, sharpening and setting the blade etc with the aim of getting my mowing to 200m2 per hour.

Hay Rack.

Raking into Piles.

Hay from 500m2, 3hrs mowing.

I also managed to have a go at actually doing something with the grass. I made a hay rack, according to what I remember seeing in a youtube video, in my style I made a rustic version. It is the alpha version, I think a few more pegs are needed for the final design, but I’m happy with it as a first attempt.

 

A look around the Allotment & More

This week I did a lot of planting and pottering around in the allotment. Everything is growing very fast now, I know from my old allotment how much things change through the year. I thought it would be interesting to have a look around the allotment now in early spring so there is something to compare it all in the Autumn.

Looking S.W.

Peas and Beans

Video Of Allotment:

 

Also did a bit around the house with Tadeusz (Marta’s Dad)

Bricks Ready In Second Room

Not Sure What I’m Doing.

Taking Out Bath

Job Done!

 

 

Scything

I was bought a scythe a while back and I’ve been itching to use it. A couple of weeks ago I did some research about how to sharpen, set it, and use it. Last week I managed to put it all to the test.

My research showed that the best time to scythe is before dawn. There are various witty quotes, which I can’t find now, which say by the time the sun is up and the dew has gone you should be resting with you work done.

With this in mind I started my first session just after 4am. It was a beautiful morning, already quite light. My first swipes of the blade didn’t seem to cut much and I was tempted to give up. I carried on and started to get a bit of technique going. I ended the first day at 8:30am, extremely tired and feeling quite sick. I should mention another quote I found on http://www.scytheconnection.com/adp/docs/movement.html  ”If you cannot rest yourself while mowing, you are not doing it correctly”. From this I deduce I am definitely not doing it correctly.

 

I had another go a couple of days later on a nicer piece of land, with less mole hills and trees. I found it a little easier going but I’m still not cutting the grass close enough to the ground. There are three things that effect cutting: Blade sharpness, blade position/angle, and technique. I pretty sure I’m a bit out on all of these. Now I’ve had a good go and I have some internet I’m going to do a bit more research and do some more cutting next week.

 

Work Begins!

Lots of stuff went on the last couple of weeks. I don’t have time to organise it into a proper post. Here are some pictures.