Category: berries

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Hedging our bets

One of our neighbours a few miles away is Phil at Wildlife Croft Skye, a woodland croft, and an inspiration of ours.

He and his family have been planting and managing their croft for years now using sustainable regenerative principles and have a wonderful. maturing array of local trees growing on their land. He propagates and grows using locally collected cuttings and seeds.

Recently he advertised that he was offering some of his hedging, shrub and young tree seedlings for sale, and we jumped at the chance to get our hedging started before Spring advanced too far.

Having tree stock generated from locally grown seeds means a good chance that they’ll thrive in our wet and windy conditions, having grown in the same.

We bought a trailer load of cuttings and seedlings so that we could start hedging inside the newly installed deer-fenced area of the croft. The ground is saturated at the moment now that the snows have cleared, making it a good time to dig these in (and slightly less work, although poor husbands back is disputing that this morning!)

This is a good mix of Rowan, Oak, Scot’s Pine, Hawthorn, Grey Willow, Wych Elm, Hazel,
Purple Willow, Downy Birch, Holly, Goat Willow,
Elder, Honeysuckle and Dog rose.

Husband and Phil worked through the rain heroically to clear and plant most of them on the croft yesterday. They’ll eventually provide shelter from the wind for our vegetable beds and the fruit orchard that we plan to plant next spring.

They’ll also most importantly provide a haven for wildlife, insects and birds, and food in the form of holly, elderberries, brambles, rosehips and rowan berries. Bringing this croft back from bare land to a richer, more diverse ecosystem is important to us both, and depends upon this.

It feels good to be taking the first steps towards our ultimate goal of a woodland croft. It’s an enormous task, but we’re determined. Watching David Attenborough on Wild Isles over the last week just reinforces how much we’ve lost already and how important every patch of nature is.

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Burnished with righteousness

There’s been a distinct drop in temperature over the last few days. Enough for a sharp intake of breath whilst slipping legs between bedsheets at night. I think we may have to put the electric blanket back on. That alone saved us last winter, I’m sure of it.

Autumn blackberries

The hedgerows are full of blackberries which we must find time to get out and plunder. Autumn isn’t worth having without homemade apple and blackberry pies.

Perched atop our windy hill croft

The shed is now built and it’s so startlingly big that I did warn husband that if we weren’t in the house soon we’d be moving the bed into it. It’s better insulated than the caravan and you could seriously house entire families in there.

One of the bays inside

I know better than to get used to its exquisite emptiness, though. It’ll be full of boxes and building material in no time, and glimpses of the floor will soon become a rarity.

The house build continues after a few weeks hiatus with husbands back problems. We will clear the building materials out over the next week and hopefully continue the electrics, kitchens and bathrooms.

Stuff everywhere

We’ve been testing Osmo oil wood treatments on slips of spare wood for the cladding in the bathrooms. The second coat is drying at the moment then we’ll head in and compare. Everything looks so different in situ. The light makes a huge difference.

Osmo oil

We also made a second visit to Skye Sawmills yesterday to try and source oak planks for our sills.

The challenge is those enormous windows in the living area, which will need 4m long pieces, something that it’s proving almost impossible to find. If possible I didn’t want joins.

Brendan didn’t have oak that long, however he did have something interesting – old church pew planks from a dismantled church in Broadford. They’re at least 150 years old, burnished to a patina with the feverish righteousness of all those worshippers bottoms.

I love the idea of reusing old wood from a local church, and having a bit of history in our sparingly new home, so if the price is right we’d love to take them.

The holiest sills on the island!

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Christmas thoughts

It’s beginning to look as if we have another uncertain Christmas on our hands with the latest Covid variant running amok globally. I was hoping that this year would be different, but I guess we need to realise that this may be the new normal. Husband and I have our booster shots booked in for next week, and it feels like it’s not a moment too soon.

We may have one of the stepsons with us for Christmas, we may not. His travel plans are a bit up in the air just like everything else in the world at the moment. I’ve ordered supplies as if we have him here, happily eating us out of house and home. Well, caravan and home really.

Last year we cooked a piece of venison in the slow cooker for Christmas lunch. This year we have a piece of local highland beef, and with a year of kitchen juggling experience under my belt, moving things in and out of my tiny caravan oven, I’m hopeful that there will be roast potatoes too.

I only really start to feel as if Christmas is a reality when I see the lights start to go up in the village cottages and I’ve written and posted my Christmas cards. Christmas has always been such a big thing in my life. I’m getting used to a second year of no table, no big gathering, and life in a wee space where the normal arrangements can’t be made. We will definitely be in the house for next Christmas.

However different and sparse Christmas arrangements might be this year, I am grateful above all that we are all well. Health and happiness are so much more important than any of the other trappings that we associate with this time of the year. I will gather berries and foliage to decorate the caravan, put up some fairy lights, plan trifles and mince pies to take to friends, but mostly just savour the time that we have together.

Wishing you all a stress-free and happy run-up to the holiday period. Remember, it’s about the people that you love, not whether you’ve managed to bag the last turkey in the shop.

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Blackcurrants and Beetroot

The food preserving gene is kicking in strongly now that August has rolled around and the croft produce is starting to come in.

I neither have freezer nor room to store jars of produce yet, but the inner ancestor is urging me to start putting up food for winter.

I am trying my best to resist. Even though there is little more satisfying on a cool, cloudy summers day than preserving jars of loveliness to enjoy over the winter.

This week with my veg bag I scored a punnet of local blackcurrants. I am growing these in the fruit bed on the croft, but the bushes are still only inches tall and too young to produce anything yet.

Blackcurrant coulis

As they’re as tart as they come without the addition of something sweet they’re best cooked. So I weakened, and made a simple blackcurrant coulis, filling a couple of small jars with it. I reassure myself that surely we have room for these…

Drizzled onto breakfast muesli

These will live in the fridge and be used drizzled on pancakes, porridge, meringues or venison over the coming month or so. They won’t last as long as a jam, but that’s OK because we will use them more widely and often than we would a jam anyway.

Beets ready for pickling

I also grew a few rows of beetroot which are starting to reach maturity. A mixture of Touchstone Gold and Pablo. I picked a few earlier this week to make into a jar of pickled beetroot, or maybe a roast beetroot relish.

Note to self: must grow more beetroot next year.

I love the process of making something delicious from things you started from seed some months ago. So satisfying. Growing is wonderful..

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Sunday musings

As I sit here with my feet up in front of the fire and a blanket across my legs, the rain is lashing the sides of the caravan. There is a small, furry dog snoring by my side, I feel content that it’s been a productive week.

The weather broke yesterday from a four day dry spell. It held long enough for us to finish the guttering at the back of the house after a great deal of effort and frozen fingers.

Do not ask me what husband is doing at this point on the flat roof….. I couldn’t resist a quick shot. 😊 (Cyprus Joe, that’s a metaphorical shot before you start with the death of husband jokes.. 😉)

It may have been dry but it was only about three or four degrees centigrade at most, and especially cold whilst up the ladder.

Husband says that he’s developed a death grip from hanging on grimly whilst working at height ..

There’s been some progress too on the croft side. The seeds are coming along nicely. The potatoes are chitting. I’ve pricked out lettuce, beetroot and parsley seeds, which seem to be growing well despite the rather makeshift greenhouse arrangements in the caravan.

I’ve also planted out the garlic into the raised beds and have the hoops and enviromesh ready for when anything else goes in. Which the locals advise shouldn’t be until the end of April at the earliest to avoid the threat of frost…

I’ve sowed some borage, calendula and nasturtiums as companion plants: we may as well start to provide food for beneficial insects and bees as quickly as we can. I’ve now run out of room completely for seed trays…this last batch are balanced precariously on the cooker…

On the compost side, husband has ordered the material for the compost bin roof and we’ve started adding our household vegetable waste to the bins.

A neighbour is happy to keep her composting food waste for us too, so this should double the rate of build up. I’ve also sourced donkey, horse and chicken poo locally from crofters and stables, so as soon as we can collect we can add these to the mix.

And the berry bed that I have been planning for so long is starting!

I now have honeyberry, tayberry, raspberry and blueberry plants all ready for planting. I also have cuttings of jostaberry, red gooseberry, and blackcurrant which have survived the worst of the winter so far and which have started to bud..

A good week.

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Ice ice baby

The snow may have stopped falling for now but it’s still cold and very icy out there.

The barrel containing my berry cuttings has frozen with a thick disc of ice.

The steep access track and drive have become an icy slope, and the pools of water on the gravel are solid ice.

I’m not going out until the sun has melted everything a little, but will sit here by the fire and try and stay warm here in the caravan.

I think it’s safe to say that we’re now properly into winter..

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Seedily Yours

I may be getting ahead of myself a bit here, as we don’t have any vegetable beds dug yet, but I couldn’t resist buying a few seeds to start things off next spring.

I had to do it. I was starting to get worried about reports that the pandemic was causing seed companies to run out, and that there wouldn’t be any left if I ordered too late. So over a cup of tea and a few rainy afternoons I pulled together a seed order, and they arrived last week.

It’s such a lovely feeling when the post arrives and you open the parcel. The fat little paper seed packets fall out, sparklingly full of promise!

Many of these things need a few years to establish before they can be cropped, so it made sense to start next year even if we are busy with the house build.

I just need to find a few days in the Spring to get my husband to help build windbreaks, plant protective hedging, make a couple of raised beds and get the soil prepared. I’ve worked out the most sheltered spot for the raised beds and a planting plan.

Most of these seeds aren’t sown directly into the soil until April/May or even later, so there is time.

I’m also looking at cold frames for a bit of protection for some of the young plants, although wherever possible I will plant into the beds directly. I don’t have a greenhouse or polytunnel yet and there will be no room in the caravan for lots of trays of seedlings.

I’m going to try to grow beetroot, onions, carrots, kale, salad leaves, cabbage, potatoes, rainbow chard, and winter squash (I know this one might be a challenge, but it’s worth a try). I also want to have a berry bed, and grow rhubarb, so am looking for varieties and crowns that will work well in our extreme climate.

I’m going to start with just a few berry bushes and vegetables and increase the variety next year once the house is finished and we can start to spend more time on the croft itself. It’s going to be a busy year of experimentation, working out what grows well here.

Once we start growing things I think the process of rooting ourselves to this land will finally have begun properly.