The permadventure continues
Plotting, pacing and drinking tea
We’re (I’m) officially 2 weeks into our permadventure as I’ve decided to call it. What I’m enjoying most about it so far is that it doesn’t necessarily require a lot of effort and it’s a gradual process. It takes the pressure off.
Last week I set some goals & this is where I find myself:
Measure out the plot & create a rough sketch of the area
Ta-da 🎉
This was a satisfying process, I kept it super simple, walking round the perimeter counting my steps. I then did the classic stride measurement and came up with a rough idea of the size of the garden.
What I haven’t included here is ‘all’ the trees. We planted 20 hawthorn saplings in April which are still teeny weeny and then we have a selection of more mature trees dotted around. We have hawthorn, willow, sycamore, elm, rowan and even a wee horse chestnut. A robust mix, but still pretty small!
Seeing the garden sketched out like this got me thinking about the water flow, not only is the garden sloped from the top, I mean of course it’s sloped from the top! The top is the corner where Doug and the compost bin are (top right) and the lowest point runs along the bottom. This keeps us quite safe with water flow, heavy rain tends to flow down the road and into the stream to the east of us, which then flows into the sea. The drainage under the house is superb but the area between the house and the field next door is pretty flat so it can get a bit waterlogged. We also have another flatttish patch which definitely has potential for bogginess which I like.
I’ve been enjoying the images ChatGPT has been creating for me, but not going to lie, this one hurt a little bit. Ok, so I’m perimenopausal, but I’m not THAT hairy…
Log weekly weather reports, inc. wind direction + daylight hours
Still struggling to find a decent report of past weather to include the amount of rainfall and the wind gust speed but I’ll get there. Happily someone posts a monthly weather report from the Rackwick Weather station at the top of the island so this along with last week’s weather report is at the bottom of the post.
Keep an eye on the changes to the fauna, which birds are visiting, are the caterpillars and bumble bees still out etc.
The bumble bees are still, out mostly buzzing around my giant sunflowers and the last of the borage and it seems as if most of my grass knot caterpillars have cocooned themselves for winter.
We’ve had new bird visitors along the lane, snacking on whatever remains of the cut field next to us. I think they must be migrants passing through because they weren’t here a couple of weeks ago and now we have LOADS. They are bigger than a sparrow & smaller than a starling, pale brownish in colour with what looks like a streak of white on their medium length tails. They’re either grazing from the ground or perched along the fence lines and when they fly they kind of bob up and down. So if anyone can ID what they are for me based on the description, I would be delighted. I should probably head to the Orkney Birds / Orkney Wildlife FB pages for help.
Other than that we have a brand new Hereford calf in the field behind us and another one due any day now.
Notice any new plants popping up, is anything flowering?
Nothing new but the small flax plant growing by one of the piles of earth we have is still flowering. It’s a very delicate looking plant with soft purple flowers, I’ve pinched some seed pods off so I can sow more next year. There is also the odd wild carrot and yarrow on the verges along with red clover and hairy cat's ear, giving me just enough to pick a tiny weekly posy for my desk.
Hairy cat’s ear is also known as flatweed and false dandelion, but hairy cat’s ear is my preferred name for it.
The trees are turning, some of the leaves are going through the red/orange phase but many are just going straight to brown/black & dropping off! I’m hoping this is usual and on reflection I don’t remember much in the way of typical autumn leaves last year so perhaps it is.
Carry out simple at home soil tests
I haven’t started this yet but plan to get started with it at the weekend. There are lots of simple ways you can test your soil at home which will probably take me a few weeks and once I’m done I’ll share my findings along with how to do each test as you may want to give it a go yourselves.
Drink tea, lots of
Mate, I totally smashed this one ☕️
Catalogue my kitchen garden seeds and making a plan for autumn sowing in Doug
This is where I went back to my trusty friend ChatGPT and asked it to help. I decided to talk to chat rather than type (that would’ve defeated the object) and after reading out the seed name and sowing time, chat was able to arrange it into a spreadsheet for me, with several columns including what category of plant it is, e.g. legume, brassica, gourd, root veg etc.
Honestly what a tool to have when you have a ridiculously massive seed collection! Tune in next week & I’ll share the spreadsheet along with the Chat prompt.
Much like the 2 years in Orkney ta-da list I shared in August, I thought there hadn’t been much progress, but when you start writing it down you quickly realise that you’re further ahead than you thought.
Plans for this week(end):
Start soil tests
Sowing seeds for winter and spring cropping along with a few flowers.
Drink tea (standing weekly task).
See if I have any potatoes in the overgrown (with weeds and grass) potato patch.
Think about weeding the pumpkin patch.
So folks, over to you. Here’s a little challenge:
Take 10 minutes this week to sit outdoors and just observe. Are insects buzzing around? What sounds do you notice? Is it birds, wind, maybe the hum (roar) of a car? Where does the light hit strongest, and what’s growing there?
If you don’t have space of your own, why not borrow someone else’s, head to a park or sit on a bench by a verge.
One of my favourite things when I lived in York was spotting those defiant little plants growing through a crack in the tarmac or sneaking between bricks in a wall. Tenacious little buggers.
Let me know what you see 💚
The weeks report: w/commencing 24th September 2024
Daylight hours (29/09/24): 11h37 - 7:14am to 6:51pm
I got the sums wrong last week, the correct figures for 23/09/24 are: 12h07 - 7:01am to 7:08pm
Temp: max 13℃; min 5℃
Max wind: 24mph.
Rainfall: more than the week before!
In brief last week was overcast, damp and windy which brought a nasty chill to proceedings.
September weather report courtesy of my local FB page:
Total rainfall: 117.2mm
Highest rainfall in 24hrs: 31.1mm
Average temp: 12.0℃
Highest max temp: 23.6℃
Lowest max temp: 10.0℃
Average max temp: 14.8℃
Lowest min temp: 3.0℃
Highest min in temp: 14.7℃
Average min temp: 9.2℃