We’ve had a second bout of very cold weather over the last week, with a good few inches of snowfall, and blizzard conditions.
Friends living in a caravan a few miles away whilst they self-build their house have found their water tank and pipes frozen over these last few days.
Between the snow flurries
It takes me right back to our caravan days in the last really cold snap a few years ago with husband heading out into the snow in his dressing gown and wellies, clutching my hairdryer to try and thaw out our frozen water pipes. Unsuccessfully.
It makes me doubly grateful that we are warm and dry in the house in comfort now. In the evenings we fire up the woodburner and enjoy the sound of it crackling away cosily in the corner.
Some of my seeds have started to germinate. The cucumbers raced up, and we have a few chillies, lettuce, tomatoes and beans starting to show.
I think that they’re all a bit perplexed at the moment though. Bright sunshine through those big windows, lots of solar gain and warmth, but snow flurries just a few feet away!
Confused cucumber seedlings
Winter still has us in its grip. Cottage pies, warming breakfasts and slower days.
Cottage pies
It has to be done. We don’t take any of this for granted.
We’ve been struggling with very wet days for the last month. The croft is saturated and the burn is constantly in full spate.
It’s also bizarrely mild for this time of the year. Two years ago when we moved in around now there was snow on the hills and it was about 8°C colder. This week the day temperature has been hovering around 16°C , like a Highland summer, and my plants are all very confused.
Everything still growing
I still pop into the polycrub a few days each week to weed, water and harvest what’s ready even though this is supposed to be the down season.
This week I transplanted thirty tatsoi seedlings (Asian winter greens) into larger pots and although I’m horribly late with them it will be an interesting experiment to see if they still grow. The pak choi has done well and it’ll be good to try fresh new green things over winter.
Tatsoi seedlings everywhere
Even when it’s grey, it’s still beautiful. This is a snap I took of the cloud inversions sweeping across the Knoydart mountains this morning from the croft. I don’t think I’ll ever get blasé about this view.
The deer are here in such numbers now that it’s almost impossible to grow anything unprotected in our outdoor croft raised beds. We’ve been left with no choice but to fence off an area if we want to get any harvests next year. A job for next spring, I think.
The posts and wire have arrived already. When it’s built, the fence will be eight feet tall, which is far from great to look at, but is sadly necessary.
I can’t wait to curl up by the Woodburner in the house this winter and plan out the protected growing area. The orchard will have several varieties of heritage apple, pears, damsons and maybe we’ll try cherries too.
My first tomatoes grew prolifically this year in the polycrub, but almost without fail the several varieties that I grew had very little flavour.
I don’t know whether it was lack of sun, as we had a pretty awful summer, or some other factor. But that acid-sweet bite that I’d been looking for that’s so lacking in supermarket tomatoes just didn’t develop.
This was true for both the small cherry tomatoes that I grew as well as the larger tomatoes, vine and bush types. Lots of fruit, but slow to ripen and not that sweet.
Except one variety that had some hope.
Every now and then in a handful of harvested fruit I’d get that hint of acid-sweet, intense flavour, and rummaging in the grow tub to find the plant label I eventually found it. They’d all got a bit tangled up together. A heritage Russian variety called Grushovka. One of several Russian bush varieties that I tried this year.
It’s one that I bought from Real Seeds with medium sized heart-shaped fruits that are more pink than brick red. It had good flavour, although the tomatoes were slow to ripen, despite advertising that they were earlies.
I’ve decided to try and save some of the seeds. Not only will this save a bit of money (a pack of ten tomato seeds from Real Seeds is about £3 plus postage, and I grew dozens of plants this year so it mounts up) but hopefully it will mean more success with plants that cope well in our conditions next year.
I’m discovering that our short seasons really restrict the success of ripening up here.
Fermenting tomato seeds
I’m fermenting the seeds from a couple of these tomatoes now for a few days. Then it’s rinsing, drying thoroughly and storing in paper bags until use next spring.
It may take me years but I’m determined to crop excellent, super-tasty tomatoes here. I know it can be done.
I’ve slowly been clearing the polycrub of pots of spent summer produce, the tomatoes, beans and squash plants all now cropped and done. The remaining green tomatoes are coming indoors to be made into chutney any day soon.
Winter crops in tubs
The winter sowings are largely in and have been growing like weeds. I planted winter lettuce and pak choi – too closely together, it seems, as I was short of tubs – expecting slow growth and plenty of time to pot them on once everything else was cleared.
But their rapid growth has taken me aback and we’ve been cropping lettuce and rocket for weeks now trying to thin it all out. They’re just about under control again.
The late August sowings of carrots have done really well. I tried growing a few tubs of Real Seeds French heritage carrots to see what would thrive. They’ve all grown well, but our favourite is a variety called d’Esigny which is a small, blunt tipped carrot with an incredible sweetness of flavour.
Yesterdays harvest with D’Esigny carrots
I shall fill tubs with this variety next year so that we have plenty, and succession-sow so that they ripen every few weeks for staggered consumption. I don’t think they’re a storing carrot, but that’s fine by us as they’re so delicious that they wouldn’t last anyway.
Carrots in tubs, dill, kale
The winter vegetables that have been planted up in the polycrub are purple sprouting broccoli, kale, winter lettuce, pak choi, tatsoi, rocket, carrots, beetroot, parsley, coriander and dill (not sure that dill will make it through winter). Let’s see what survives!
The nights are drawing in now, with a nip in the air and the fire in the caravan going on most evenings to keep the temperature comfortable. I wrap up in a blanket to watch films in the evening as the temperature drops. The electric blanket has gone back onto the bed.
The nights are properly dark again – which seems so strange after a summer of light. It’s awe-inspiring to look up and see the stars once again in clear, inky black skies. The clarity here with no light pollution is remarkable.
Due to the great sheep invasion I’ve decided that until we can get our croft fences repaired or replaced, any winter vegetable growing will have to just be in the polycrub.
More sheep lurking around the croft
Autumn is definitely in the air, and I’ve been slowly clearing the pots of spent pea tendrils and bean shoots, freeing up space for successional sowings of winter vegetables and herbs.
The tunnel is still pretty full of plants:- tomatoes slowly ripening, beetroot, cucumbers, sweetcorn, carrots, herbs and squash, but now is the time to start the next round of crops if we want to continue eating through the colder months.
Beetroot
I’ve been in there over the last few weeks sowing seeds. The great thing is that they germinate quickly at this time of the year – which is a good thing, as we need them to get established enough to survive the winter in an unheated grow space. I’m trying my best not to have to subsist on neeps and tatties this year.
Leetle vegetable seedlings
So far I’ve got pak choi, winter lettuce, black spanish radishes (exotic, I know – I don’t know what came over me) purple sprouting broccoli, spinach, rocket, more dill and coriander and a few more tubs of carrots on the go. They’re looking lush with promise at this stage, although I’ve been here before..
Carrot sowings
I’ve still got winter cabbage and kale to sow. We can’t overwinter without salty kale crisps and rumbledethumps (a Scottish dish of mashed potatoes, cabbage, onion and cheese, like colcannon) once the weather turns.
More dill
The wormery that we installed a few months ago is now coming into its own, and we’ve been watering the polycrub pots with worm juice every week. It seems to be doing the plants the world of good.
It looks like gravy, which I guess in a way it is. I try not to feel sorry for the worms that inevitably fall into the collection tray full of liquid and drown. It’s a hard enough life being a worm. Husband has an idea to use insect mesh to save them, which we will certainly try in the interests of worm colony morale.
I love the cyclic nature of growing: garden clippings and waste go into the compost or the worm bins, which get added back to the soil to support the next generation of plant growth.
This continual replenishment of nutrients and micro-organisms is essential in helping to build healthy soil, which is truly the heart of everything. I’ll just have to live happily with the scurrying, burrowing beetle and other insect life that it supports, and which I know is a good thing.
Someone once told me that if nothing was eating your plants, you weren’t part of the eco system. I’m pleased to report that we well and truly are.
The stock fencing around the croft is ancient and very rickety. We have plans to rip it up and replace it with deer fencing as soon as time and funds permit, but for now it hasn’t seemed a huge priority with the house build taking up all our time and energy.
However, recent events may have promoted fencing repairs to move up the priority list a bit more rapidly.
Yesterday evening Husband noticed some ghostly white shapes through the obscured glass of the caravan door as he was walking through to the bedroom.
Little ghostly white blobs on the grass…
Spectral forms they were not, unfortunately.
Rory’s sheep, tempted by the long, lush grass on our unkempt croft, had broken through the fencing and were chomping away like demons right outside the caravan!
They’ve also grazed all the purple sprouting broccoli, red cabbage and kale in the croft beds down to sad looking stumps. There goes our outdoor winter crops. As if we didn’t have enough competition from the deer!
From now on, until we have the fencing repaired or replaced, all our growing goes on in the polycrub only, where at least there’s some protection from hungry mouths. I’m going to try and sow some replacements, even though it’s late in the season.
On a brighter note, good progress is being made in the house. We have the carcasses being built in the kitchen in preparation for the template guys to come in later in the week and measure up for the worktops.
I can almost imagine it now! The hob arrived yesterday and we’ve just ordered the fridge. It’s taking shape.
We’ve not had much in the way of a summer yet despite us being at the end of July, but the croft and the polycrub continue to feed us.
We dug out the rest of the onions yesterday. These are a variety called Keravel Pink, and they’ve produced what I think is quite a respectable harvest.
I chose these as they were the closest I could find to the Roscoff onions that I used to love when I lived in France. They’re an onion with a slightly blush colour, and sweet, firm flesh. They’re now hung up to dry, ready for use.
Husband also dug the rest of the potatoes as we were starting to detect slug – and believe it or not, deer damage. We’ve had a few meals already from them. It’s a smaller crop than last year, probably caused by the cold, wet weather and they could have done with a bit longer in the ground, but they’re a reasonable size. To be honest, we like ‘em small and sweet.
I planted Edzell Blue and Casablanca varieties from Scottish seed potatoes and Red Rooster from a bag of sprouted supermarket potatoes. The supermarket ones outperformed the specialist ones by a reasonable margin for a second year!
The first of the carrots are ready now, and I’m going to sow more. They’re sweet and very flavoursome.
The sweetcorn experiment is progressing! We have flowers and silks on a few of the plants, so I’ve been hand pollinating with the hope that we manage to get a few cobs at least.
All in all, not bad for a low-effort croft nurtured using organic principles and no-dig beds, in this weather and whilst not at my best due to illness. No pesticides, no inorganic fertilisers, no chemicals. I love that we can pick produce straight from the plant. The soil is fertile and giving, and we will continue to develop the beds next year with windbreaks and deer protection.
It seems strange but I can already detect the first wisps of autumn drifting in from the edges. The leaves on the ancient horse chestnut at the end of the lane are starting to turn russet. The seed heads on the long croft grasses are ripe and heavy. The season feels about to turn.
July is underway and with it comes the first of the proper harvests from the croft.
The polycrub really has been a game changer and we’ve managed to grow cucumbers and lettuce enough for all of our salads and more to spare for neighbours and friends. This in combination with the produce from the raised beds has meant a wide variety of foods can be grown throughout an extended season.
Lettuce and young onions
The most successful lettuce has been a butterhead, which we’ve been cropping as a cut and come again lettuce. We’re also growing romaine. All the mizunas and rocket grew well initially, but then bolted within weeks and became straggly. I don’t like eating the mustards and mizuna because of the spiky texture of their leaves so I won’t bother with these next year, and will just plant more lettuce.
Butterhead lettuce
The onions were supposed to be red onion varieties, but aren’t more than vaguely pink. They sent up flower shoots so most of them have been lifted before they soften.
They’re small, but sweet. We’re using them in salads and cooking now and I have them drying in bunches ready for use later in the season.
Drying onions
The red kuri squash has a few young fruits on it, which I’m very excited about. Early days, but I’m hopeful that we’ll have a few to harvest in late summer. The French squash hasn’t shown any sign of fruiting yet.
Baby squash hiding behind a tomato leaf
The garlic was a bit of a disappointment. Sown last October I had high hopes for bigger heads this year, but they’re still small. I’ll use them in stews and trays of roasted vegetables, so despite their lack of size they won’t be wasted.
Wimpy garlic
The potatoes are also much slower than last year. We’ve just harvested some Edzell Blue and Casablanca varieties. Great taste, but not hugely prolific. We’ll hold off for a while for the main crop variety.
Edzell Blue potatoes
The kale is growing well after the deer ate all of my perennial kales from the beds last winter. I grew more Uncle Bert’s kale and red Russian kale from seed and it’s coming up nicely. I’ve also sown purple sprouting broccoli into the beds recently, so between them that should give us a reasonable winter crop.
The carrots were grown in large seed lick tubs this year as an experiment. Three varieties, all French heritage types, growing well, albeit slowly. The first of these should be ready in a few weeks time.
Carrots
The cucumbers had a very faltering start due to the cold temperatures of late spring. A number rotted and wilted beyond salvation, but the three plants that did survive are fruiting well and have produced about six cucumbers ready for eating so far. There’s no trace of bitterness to their taste either, which is great.
Baby cucumber
The tomatoes are starting to set fruit, again later than most due to our cold, late start. It will be interesting to see whether we can get them to ripen in time. The big Russian bush varieties are pruned and tall with not much evidence of fruit yet. The dwarf bushy varieties, which don’t get pruned, are happily fruiting away with no fuss.
Dwarf tomato plants doing their thing
The courgettes – I only planted two plants so that we weren’t overrun if they grew – have started fruiting, although the fruit is yellow rather than green, which is a total surprise. We’ve already had a handful of courgettes from them, and looking at the flowers there will be many more to come.
The beans have struggled. The borlotti beans are doing the best out of all the varieties and are starting to flower now, so I’m hopeful for a few fresh beans from them.
The corn is about four feet heigh although no sign of flowers or fruits yet.
The herbs have gone mad – the tubs of parsley and coriander have gone crazy and we’ve been eating them for months, the dill the same and I’ve left some to go to seed for collection. The chives, lemon balm, rosemary, lemon verbena and mint are all growing well.
All in all, I’m happy with our first months of growing with the polycrub so far. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been here since mid April. I’ve learned a lot, and when we set up proper grow beds in there next year I’ll feel confident about what to plant out.
Now to start sowing the winter seeds! The year is turning already.
We have had an incredibly wet couple of months recently, and as I look ahead at the weather forecast for the next week, I see no respite. It really doesn’t feel like summer.
No sun, just back-to-back clouds and rain for the week to come. I’m clutching my mug of coffee and peering out through the rain-smeared caravan windows as I write.
Baby cucumbers at last
Luckily the polycrub remains largely unaffected by the rain. Everything seems to be growing nicely in there, although the lack of warmth and sunshine means that my tomatoes and courgettes are being very slow to set fruit. There are lots of flowers, but only a few tiny fruits so far, despite feeding and shaking to help pollination. More patience is needed as well as more sunshine!
Baby tomatoes
We have youngest stepson staying with us at the moment. I say youngest, he’s 21 😊. Despite being a child of the city, a very definite metro-being, he’s been quite taken by the rituals of watering, pruning, planting and harvesting in the polycrub and has been helping me with this.
Which is a really good thing as it’s a busy time of the year in there and I’m still pretty limited in what I can do since the operation, with no lifting or standing for too long.
Lettuce
He pricked out baby beetroot into pots yesterday and I showed him how to take excess foliage off the tomato plants to redirect energy into the setting fruits. He’s also been building plant stakes to support the trailing plants.
Sitting in there with his music on enjoying the now rather jungle-like environment of climbing greenery, it’s been nice to see him without his nose in his phone or laptop for a bit enjoying the outdoors. Well indoors really, I guess. A polycrub is a sort of halfway house, isn’t it…😊
Who knows, maybe we have another generation of growers in the making…
I’ve started the polycrub off with growing in canvas containers. We won’t have time to build and fill beds in there until next spring, and there isn’t much depth of soil beneath it before you hit the impenetrable seam of shale and lewissian gneiss.
I figured it was the best way of getting productive and a harvest this year.
Canvas grow bags and a repurposed compost bag!
They’re not expensive, a few pounds each, but when you’re using as many as I am it soon mounts up. So I put out a call via a couple of local friends for any unwanted large containers.
Friends at the newly established Coffee Bothy in Broadford offered up a dozen or more catering mayo tubs. A perfect size for herbs and smaller plants!
Old mayo tubs
A couple of kind local crofters kept back their sheep lick tubs for me. They hold about 30 litres of soil or compost each so are deep enough for beans, potatoes or cucumbers to grow in.
Sheep lick tubs potted up with rocket
We drilled drainage holes in them and I have been busy planting them up for the last few days. If it holds soil, it gets filled with seedlings! It’s best not to stand too still around here 😊.
This is such a busy season for planting. I feel that I’m running slightly late with things this year but it’s been so cold that the seedlings that I started early have been very slow to grow.
Polycrub filling up
It’s always a balance here between waiting for the temperature to get warm enough but not leaving it so late that there isn’t enough season left for plants to mature.
Ravencroft Skye 