~ WORLDWIDE Vegetable Allotments ~ REVIVAL of last years thread ~

[Hattie the Hen]

Hi boggy b !!

Great avatar & a great blog..........I love the dog too!

My it is hot here, they say it is 84*F but it feels a lot hotter in the sun. I know this is not so bad compared to what some of you suffer but not many people have A/C here. I'm lucky as my house is made of a very old construction which is basically a clay mud & straw mixture, called Wychert. It is verycool in summer & warm in winter. It was one of six built in the 1920's by a local builder who specialised in this method. I think the construction should be revived. There is a local man who repairs them & adds to them. It is a very local thing but there are buildings still standing from hundreds of years ago.

My vegetables are loving the weather but I need to keep up the watering & mulching. My corn is now shoulder height and looking great......I'm thrilled. My bean & peas wont be long before I get a good harvest -- the peas are nowover 6ft tall & in full flower.

Good luck to you all & may your harvests be huge........

:coolsun Hattie :coolsun

 

[lupinfarm]

Not sure if I mentioned this (and I've been gone a while!) but a new allotment has opened up near me. The owners of the land own a large farm meat shop and breed belgian horses. They have opened up a large parcel of their land north of the city and are renting allotments out. Whats the kicker you ask? The land is tilled and maintained using horse drawn machinery!



Ps, Hattie, my mum used to live in a house that was Wattle and Dorb. Then again, she also lived in a farmhouse as a child that was built on top of Roman ruins.

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Hi lupinfarm !
Welcome back from wherever you have been.............. Hope you had a great time? Oooooh! I would love an allotment with the chance of seeing it being worked by horse-drawn machinery! I.m lucky enough to overlook a couple of fields with ponies in them as one of my neighbours dreeds & shows them. They also very kindly deliver loads of sacks full of a mixture of horse poo mixed with grass cuttings (they have a machine which I call a 'POO-VAC' which sucks up the droppings along with cutting the grass)....it composts very fast as it heats up a treat.

Your mum sounds as if she has had a very interesting life......!

How are your renovations going on at home ; you will soon be off to uni.,won't you?

Have a great summer & I hope your garden will bring in a great harvest, mine has just started as we have had great sunny , hot weather for a few weeks.......it makes a huge difference.

****** Try to buy some Rockdust it has helped produce the most amazing veg in my raised beds ( & it is totally organic).
Have a look at this link-- this is the company I use but you can get similar stuff all over the world. I am stunned by the results as I was pretty cynical about the claims for it when I first heard about it. Now I am totally convinced.

http://www.seercentre.org.uk/


Hattie

 

[lupinfarm]

Renovations are going okay. Came to a bit of a standstill though as the windows had to be ordered custom to fit this old house and the company is bogged down with orders so it'll be a while. In the meantime we are putting a new roof on the chicken shed and relocating it as well as building a new goat pen for the goats.

I'll get photos next time I'm in Belleville of the allotments, its a huge span of land and the allotments are called "Back to the Future Gardens" and are run by a local farming family that own "The Farm Meat Shoppe" and raise chickens, turkeys, cattle, hogs as well as breeding Belgians.


This is a little overview of them done by Harvest Hastings

http://www.harvesthastings.ca/harvesthastings/producerprofile/merryville-farms

I've also become a fan of this farm in Hastings, Ontario..

www.wholeearth.com that are working in the "Slow Food Movement".

They raise Tamworth pigs and operate a Garden CSA

http://wholearth.com/gardenshare-vegetable-csa

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Great stuff lupinfarm,
I really enjoyed reading all the links. It was such a treat seeing all that beautiful Canadian coutryside again. I remember it as being very lovely I worked a lot, over the years, in Ontario & in Alberta........very different landscapes of course.
Those farms/organisations are certainly doing a great job; I hope they prosper over the years to come. It is good you could add the info to this thread.


I caught up with your work on your family farm house etc over on SS......A lot more stuff has been done......It looks great.

Hattie

 

[Hattie the Hen]

I thought I would add this short link that shows how you can use a small space in a large city & turn a mess into somewhere which is beautiful & productive. Well done in Seattle......!

http://hillsandplainsseedsavers.blogspot.com/2009/12/growing-not-just-food-but-life.html


:bee Hattie :bee

 

[boggybranch]

This article just came out on MSN.COM.....

http://local.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=25750327&GT1=24000

AND

Loads of info on urban farming and gardening with a whole LOT of resource links

http://beginningfarmers.org/urban-farming/

 

[RickF]

Thanks for the link to the beginning farmers site.. I got other links from that site that look interesting! Thx!

I should note that reading this thread cost me $15US today.. I had to buy a couple of PDF editions of Backyard Farmers magazine linked to in the above link.. I also got a free edition of Backyard Aquaculture magazine (edition #1) in PDF as well.. I'll be reading them -- I like publishers that offer books/magazines in PDF formats..

 

[lesa]

Very interesting MSN aritcle, boggy. I just learned that our city has an ordinance against composting. I met a woman who was ordered to stop composting on her own property! Says they are afraid of rats, etc. I have never seen a critter near my compost (unless a chicken escapes!) Go figure...

 

[boggybranch]

Very interesting MSN aritcle, boggy. I just learned that our city has an ordinance against composting. I met a woman who was ordered to stop composting on her own property! Says they are afraid of rats, etc. I have never seen a critter near my compost (unless a chicken escapes!) Go figure...

Hey lesa.......Ignorance BY the law (makers) is no excuse. If they are soooooo worried about rats.... maybe, they should ban restaurants.....huh?

NEVER have seen a rat or mouse at ANY of my compost piles.