Selfsufficientish.com

I have just found one little apple on my cordon apple planted this year. It is a variety called Barnack Beauty. Very excited as curious to see what it is like - but perhaps I should be taking it off!

Seem to have forgotten to visit again for a while - so perhaps you won't see this, but thought would empathise (vicariously) re: the heavy clay soil. Round where we are, on the edge of the fens, the soil is lovely loam or heavy clay. We are lucky enough to have the loam in our garden that we moved t...

I am just starting with trained fruit trees - have put in two apple cordons and two pears to be grown as espaliers - with room for some more of both if I get the hang of it.

So I shall follow your progress with interest.

I too was going to suggest leafy/salady things as they don't mind some shade. The bushes may spread further so might need to think about that when planting perennials.

And waving as well - I come from Cambs and live in South Lincs.

We have never had problems with germination - start them in a propagator. And the plants do fine, but we have never managed to get red peppers, just lots of green ones. They are wonderfully fresh-tasting, but still a bit sad not to have red ones. Previously we were growing them in a large polytunnel...

Garden Hens in Cheshire, from whom I've bought hens in the past, are ending their rare breed chicken business. I noticed on their website today that they are asking if anyone might be interested in taking it over. They may also be selling breeding groups for anyone interested in rare breed conservat...

Hello there I haven't been on here for a while but just dropped in now and had to say hello to someone from Cambs. I grew up near Cambridge and am now living in south Lincolnshire after a couple of decades exile in Manchester. We had two allotments in Manchester and are now, like you, digging up the...

I've also just started coming on here after quite a long gap. I joined originally when looking for people to talk to about chickens, when we first got them to keep on our allotment, round about 2008. Then was doing less ish things for a bit, also hung around on another site - Downsizer - and now han...

I made rosehip syrup for the first time this year - as per my blog post -

http://veronicamarris.com/2013/11/04/roses-revisited/

I wasn't really sure if I was going to like it, but turns out I do!

You have moved further away, but it's interesting to read your first posts written when you were just about to go. I'm just coming up to a year this week since I started the blog and next week will be a year since we moved. So I've been looking at my posts written then at the point you were in April...

Thank you, bonnie. I went to have a look at yours only to find your post from last year abut giving up the smallholding. It made interesting reading. We are older, fifties and sixties, and had in the past thought of something smallholding-ish when making a move to the country. But in the end have se...

Somewhere on the web in past year or so I saw someone's useful instructions about the chicken run they built. But I have no idea where! We had chickens at our city allotment for three years and partner built a very good run which gave them plenty of room and kept the foxes out. We will be getting ch...

Is this the place to put something about the blog I write or more for writing articles particularly for this site? It isn't a blog which tells people how to do anything, just about my move, about a year ago, from Manchester to the edge of the Lincolnshire fens, so about landscape, place, connection ...

I got very excited when I saw this thread but has anybody used this? Or are there similar things already in use for the UK? I've found some different sites when I'm searching to food producers local-ish to me in south Lincolnshire, but they seem a bit patchy in how up to date and comprehensive they ...

Thanks

Have just noticed I have become a Jerry rather than a Margo as I was a few years ago. Not sure this is an improvement. I always had a soft spot for Margo