Tattie planting

[Stonehead]

First, you start with a pig pen measuring 20m by 20m, leave the pigs in it for a couple of months and add plenty of straw...



Then, you remove the pigs, break the soil into largish chunks with crowbar, mattock and fork, and enjoy the farmyard smells as masses of fermenting manure and straw break the surface once more.

Then you run the rotavator through the pen, first up and down the slope, then across - this helps slow the water flow and increase absorption while also preventing erosion. If you're on wet land, then do the opposite to improve drainage.

Then work your way back and forth, handcasting seaweed meal to further enhance the microbial content. Take your wheeled cultivator and push it through the soil, preferably at a medium jog, bringing up the rocks and mixing the seaweed meal in.

Next comes the ancient ridging plough - with a well-polished plough share set to leave a 12in wide, 4in deep furrow with 30 inches between furrows. This is seriously hard yakka (work to the non-Aussies)...



Then plant your tatties (spuds, potatoes) by walking along the furrows, placing one sprouting tattie in front of your wellie, then putting your other foot in front of the tattie, then another tattie in front of that wellie, and so on across the field. Get the OH to help...



Then, narrow the wheels on your ridging plough so the plough share now sticks out past them. Run your ridging plough along the ridges beside the tatties so that the wheels just miss the tatties and the plough turns the ridge into a furrow and neaty buries the tatties. Repeat on the other side of the furrow. (No pics as the batteries in the camera died!)

If you do it right, you'll end up with a rows of ridged up tatties alternating with empty ridges. This is very important as when it comes times to earth up, you'll want to run your ridging plough through the empty ridges, turn them into furrows and have the dirt pile up on your tatties.

I'll try to get a photo of completed ridges tomorrow.

Then having done all that, repeat again the next day, and the next...

Stonehead

PS Ice-cold homebrewed ginger beer or cider are the best refreshments, but don't drink too many or you furrows will start to wander!

[Tigerhair]

So jealous.......

So how many tatties will you grow!?

[Stew]

Blimey, that does look like it would keep you fit.

Out of interest, how long did it take from start to finish to get the ground prepared and all the tatties in?

[Stonehead]

Blimey, that does look like it would keep you fit.

Out of interest, how long did it take from start to finish to get the ground prepared and all the tatties in?

Nearly five days of backbreaking labour to break the ground up enough to bring the rotavator in (the ground was extremely hard). Then a day's work with the rotavator.

Another two days fertilising, cultivating and removing boulders and stones (15 big wheelbarrows worth).

Another day ridging and planting.

We still have about a quarter to ridge and plant - hopefully tomorrow will see it done but I'm on my own so it will take most of the day. We leave it late as we have frosts into May and lost quite a few potatoes last year after a hard frost on 4 May (we'd planted two weeks earlier than this year).

Frosts at the end of the year matter less - they may kill the plants but the potatoes are safe under the ground and we can lift them up until October.

Note that the times are not consecutive - we try to swap the jobs around a bit to give ourselves a break and stone removal is an ongoing job. However, the ridging and planting were the last jobs.

Stonehead

PS And now for a reality check - if you're thinking of doing something similar to what we're doing - I've spent the last four days with my left leg strapped and lathered in pain killing gell after I slipped on a patch of damp grass and seriously strained my calf muscles. It's absolutely agonising, but when you're doing the hard-core self-sufficiency thing you still have to do the work or you starve. I'm not looking for sympathy (and nearly didn't add this) but I think people should be aware of the cold hard reality. We're out in all weathers; nursing colds, flu and injuries; and all sorts of moods; but no matter what happens the work must be done...

[Stonehead]

So jealous.......

So how many tatties will you grow!?

Last year, we produced 150kg (6 25kg sacks) of potatoes from 32sq m of beds, but that included early losses from frosts. This year, we're aiming for 1.8 to 2 tonnes from 400sq m.

That's 200kg for us (we'e just using the last of last year's crop now), 1.5 tonnes for the pigs, and anything over that for sale/barter.

Not bad for a largely hand cultivated crop. We're also trying mangels and neeps (turnips) on a larger scale this year.

Who needs a tractor when you've more muscles than sense!

Stonehead

[Tigerhair]

You don't have to tell us about hard work! I have to scale what I do up a LOT to get to anything like what you guys are doing... I only have a smallish veggie patch in my garden. That is bad enough, and when you work and have a rug rat too...

As Rohen said somewhere... not enough hours!

Sorry about your leg - I would find that really frustrating! Are there jobs you can still do? Seeds/seedlings, etc?

[Stew]

Blimey - that's even more impressive that I thought at first.

[Stonehead]

Sorry about your leg - I would find that really frustrating! Are there jobs you can still do? Seeds/seedlings, etc?

Sorry, I should have been more clear - I've kept on working since hurting my leg so that meant doing all the jobs outlined above with a bung leg. The worst was doing the ridging as using a hand-propelled plough takes a lot of leg work.

And I still have to do the other jobs as well - feeding, watering and cleaning out the animals, doing more fencing today, entertaining the boys (anyone for rugby?), and so on.

But that's not really the point. The OH had to fit in six hours of study today (she's doing two master degrees simultaneously) as well helping me, so she's under the hammer too.

No, the real point is that we do what has to be done and enjoy the fact that we have a great place, great boys, and are creating something tangible with our own blood, sweat and laughter. (We don't do tears here very much! )

Stonehead

PS Off to bed now as I've finished potting up the tomatoes, which I've been doing in between firing off posts here. I must learn to type with my toes!

[ina]

Do you and your OH have the same size wellies - or can you tell afterwards which rows were done by her and which by you?

Boot size was a bit of a problem on a place where I worked - the boss left very narrow paths everywhere, just right for her (size 5 or so) tiny feet. I had to tiptoe to avoid trodding on plants with my size 8 flat feet! I once sat on a tomatoe plant because I just couldn't balance on that narrow strip of path.

As usual, I'm impressed by your energy. My veg plot is only 5x5m; but then, I've got more growing outside the plot than in it! Tatties in the front garden; tatties in old buckets in the poly tunnel (for an early crop); tatties just about everywhere. And it looks to be going the same way with beans...

[Millymollymandy]

What is it with the Nouveaux Scots and their tatties? Where are you gonna put your neeps then?

[Stonehead]

What is it with the Nouveaux Scots and their tatties? Where are you gonna put your neeps then?

Ah, but do you really want me to get started on my neep (favourites include Willemsburger, Airlie and the every reliable Joan) and beet obsession as well as my potato one?

In fact, the local farmers think I'm mad to be eating neeps - as far as they're concerned they're stock fodder only. Mind you, these are often the same people who won't eat fresh, locally produced lamb, pork and beef, preferring the delights of the frozen "beef" burger, the microwave meal and the frozen Yorkshire pudding. I can't even give them surplus eggs - they much prefer the cheap ones bought two dozen at a time from Costco.

Weird!

(Oh, and I'm not really Nouveaux Scots - more of a wild goose who's returned. Almost all my paternal line were crofters, blacksmiths and farmers from places like Mull, Argyll, Inverness-shire, Moray, and Dumfries and Galloway. My Grandma was among the last wave to leave Scotland in 1926. Just another part of the diaspoa and hence my preference for tatties, neeps and oats... )

Stonehead

PS Lots of lovely rain falling here at the moment.

[Stonehead]

Do you and your OH have the same size wellies - or can you tell afterwards which rows were done by her and which by you?

She gets in more per acre than me, but I get mine done faster. Just don't tell her the shoe size makes a difference!

As usual, I'm impressed by your energy. My veg plot is only 5x5m; but then, I've got more growing outside the plot than in it! Tatties in the front garden; tatties in old buckets in the poly tunnel (for an early crop); tatties just about everywhere. And it looks to be going the same way with beans...

It is proving hard to stay on top of everything - largely thanks to the water crisis that hit us early in the year. I spent so much time carting water, harassing people and coming up with solutions that the already heavy workload fell well behind.

We're still trying to get a pedigree boar up from England, for instance, but the cars keep breaking, we have to borrow/hire a better livestock trailer, and there is a huge amount of pressing jobs to do. I'd like to get him next weekend, but unless I can find someone willing to loan/hire (cheaply!) something like an Ifor Williams P8 then we're stuck.

Our ancient and rickety trailer is roadworthy, but only suited to short trips and smaller animals (the sides are only three-ply attached to steel).

Oh, and as for energy - I started nodding off while using the rotavator on Wednesday! It's a big beast and was thumping away at the ground, but I still found myself falling asleep. Don't worry, I put it away and got the hand-propelled plough out instead.

Stonehead