- rough plans for the front garden. i decided on six zones (not the permaculture ones) based on various guilds.
- helpful wife and less-helpful dog
- cabin-fever aubergines are going out a bit early, but i think they look strong enough. and it’s been 18c/64f this week, so maybe they won’t die…
- diy cloches for cucumbers and green beans
- optimistic early-season beets
- the back garden is pretty active as well
we had just over a tonne of compost delivered yesterday from dow’s garden supplies, a company based in west lothian. i used it to build up the two border beds and the window boxes (note the nosey dog in the window). we have two bags left which should work for a couple of pots and the north-facing window boxes.
- a couple of aubergines getting cabin fever
- the first of this year’s seedlings are coming up
- my leek and green onion forest (also pictured is my succulent standing stones circle)
when you come in last at the pub quiz, they give you a box of maltesers to make you feel less bad about yourself.
my two avocado trees are still going…
I literally know nothing about growing food, but apparently all you have to do to re-grow leeks is to stick them in some water. Rad.
Also works with green onions, according to Lifehacker
a friend of mine posted this a little while ago and i thought i’d give it a shot.
some green onions (bound together with a rubber band) and a leek after one day of growth.
the hunter bicycle fleet.
- my schwinn traveler [the bike i use everyday]
- lauren’s schwinn collegiate [i borrow this bike when i need to move something big, and when using my trainer]
- [not pictured are an early ’70s fuji road bike and an early ’80s schwinn voyageur xtra lite - both of which live with our family in the states]
ira is a tail-wagging photo-bomb maniac.
Everything on this table = £2.40 total
lauren and i are both without day jobs at the moment and feeling the credit crunch. i remembered that when i worked at the coop in creagorry everything that had reached its expiry date was marked down to nearly nothing at the end of the day. we spoke to someone who works at our local tesco and heard that after 6:30pm is the best time to shop. we’ve been going most nights for the past couple of weeks and the photo above is of our biggest/cheapest haul yet. all the better because the percussionist of the band i’m playing with at celtic connections is staying with us this week and he is a swedish mountain of a man.
i know it’s a lot of plastic, and we’ll be better prepared for next winter, but there is a lot of green in those bags…and beggars can’t always be choosers. especially in glasgow in january.
the Little Veg Company
lauren and i have been getting our fruit and vegetables delivered once a week since we moved to glasgow in september. we’ve used local box schemes before in both edinburgh and seattle (where we also had our eggs and butter delivered) and have never been fully contented.
the little veg company are a family farm just south of glasgow. for two vegetarians we’re getting just about all we eat from the weekly box (a mixture of the small fruit and small veg boxes) for £21.50, which is certainly better than most other box schemes i’ve seen. years ago in edinburgh my flatmate and i were getting a veg-only box for £15 which only fed us for about three days.
anyway, they are great and very friendly and i highly recommend them to all my glaswegian readers.
our two south-facing windows.
- there are the two avocado seeds i started a while ago (one is doing much better than the other, but i haven’t written the little one off yet).
- there’s the strange two-headed leek that started sprouting in the compost. i’m still not sure it’ll amount to anything edible, but i’m giving it a chance.
- a couple of weeks ago i stole some leaves from various exotic succulent plants at the glasgow botanic gardens. some of them look pretty crazy, so i’m really hoping the ‘cuttings’ i made survive.
- also pictured are some sad little vegetables i had hoped would grow well enough in our dark little scottish windows over winter.
since we moved in a couple of months ago i’ve been meaning to build something to go in the bay window in the space behind the sofa that we can put some planters on. our landlord left an odd shelf-thing that we certainly weren’t going to use, so i chopped it up, made a stand for the planters and brought the plants in from the outside ledge.
and one of the avocados is doing really well.
i took the rest of the plants from the fridge drawers in which i started them today. though some are outside now, all will spend the winter indoors, once i’ve built a suitable perch for them all in the bay window (south-facing)…which should be sometime this week. we’ve got:
- 2 butternut squash (kind of a gamble, but i thought it was worth a shot)
- 2 avocado (one is doing well and the other…not so much)
- 2 aubergine
- 3 more aubergine (currently on the outdoor ledge due to lack of indoor space)
- 10 beet root and 5 pak choi (also on the outdoor ledge, and not all are covered yet…still scavenging for plastic bottles)
i finished the first weekend of my permaculture design course yesterday at the local community centre. not a lot of new information (i’m sure the rest of the course will be more exciting), but i meet meet some really nice people. our course director runs a co-operatively managed allotment in queen’s park here in glasgow and i’ve been offered some space (including use of the greenhouse). this is fantastic news, because it might take a while to get our front garden fully functional. anyway, i’m in queen’s park every day with the dog anyway, so i’m really excited about both having some space in an allotment and meeting more glaswegian horticulturists.
this weekend coming i’ll be attending a two-day introduction to urban permaculture workshop at the local community centre here on glasgow’s south-side. £40 is no small expense for us, but it looks to be the least expensive fee for a course like this in the UK, and i can ride my bicycle there in ten minutes, so i’m going for it. it’s so great that we have an organisation devoted to making things like this available to those of us in glasgow who can’t afford the fee for the full course (most of which are down south anyway).
the full permaculture design course will start in february and run one weekend a month for five months (£200-£600, based on income). the workshop this weekend can count as the first of these five.
some of my compost was ready so i filled a planter and started some basil. i couldn’t find the seeds i saved for the other herbs i was wanting to plant, so for now a lonely third of the planter is full of basil seeds.
the two avocado seeds i started a while ago were ready to go as well. i’ve tried the tooth-pick in water method before and nothing ever happened. the method i used this time (so far so good) can be found here.
as i was out turning the compost i saw that the bottom of an old leek sprouted roots and two new stalks. i put it in the ground and i’ll take a photo if it looks like it’s going to make it.
