The winter planting

While there's still warmth in the soil I thought I'd sow direct these heirlooms into our newly revamped produce area. In winter it is a sun trap until about 2pm.

Row one (closest to the house).

Row two.

Row three.

Row four.

Row five.

Before I sowed I turned over the soil with dolomite lime and blood and bone

Before laying down some straw and watering it all in. Around two sides Meg planted broad beans which we can tie against the fence.

Now with our winter seeds planted, our autumn produce booming (to the left and all around the garden), our summer onions, garlic, artichokes and potatoes stored in the cellar, and autumn and summer's fruit preserved in bottles or sun dried, we're ready for the cold dark spell.

Building a greenhouse from scratch

I was asked to make a greenhouse for Zeph's school, so I thought I'd document the process and share it with you.

With stakes and string lines we set out the site.

We hammered in the stakes and leveled off the tops.

We measured the hose and cut six arches the same length.

We popped the hose over the stakes and created a dome.

We fixed horizontals using a spacer to speed up the process.

We then began to apply the clear laserlite sheets.

The weight of the timber and laserlite flattened the dome.

Which was fixed with a central post and some angle bracing.

Thanks to Shay, Joe, Gabe and Zephyr for your help, and to Paul, the boys' teacher who said it was OK they stayed out of class to help. Yes, a rare and wonderful school.

I made a smaller, but similar structure at home last autumn using reclaimed materials. It's much smaller so you couldn't conduct a class in it. Nonetheless, any size greenhouse is helpful in cool climates, to keep food production going through the winter.

Garden and forest foraging

We've been extending our local winter food base by eating local edible weeds. A friend of ours, Alexis, takes an edible weeds and wild food workshop at our local neighbourhood centre. We took his course last weekend and have been harvesting food this week we never thought we'd be eating.

It is so exciting to find new food plants in abundance that have taken no effort to produce and are highly nutritious. This new food supply is so beautifully radical and is collected and foraged with so much pleasure. It's more 'do-nothing farming' than we imagined was possible.

The primitive is alive and well in us and the skills we've lost are profound, we're realising. Yes! We are reclaiming a public food commons. Uncapitalised food is go!

Here's a recipe for a Greek-style horta dish adapted from one of Alexis' recipes:

Wild horta served with potato and leek soup from our garden.

Rinse under running water: foraged hawksbeard, wild fennel seeds, chickweed, water cress, spear thistle, garden kale and flatweed and boil for 10 minutes. Rinse again under cold water and again boil in salty water for another 10 minutes. This removes much of the bitterness.

Rinse again and mould into a ball, squeezing out excess water. Cut across the ball into slices. Throw into a bowl and drizzle olive oil and lemon or lime. Crush some fresh garlic and throw into a hot dry pan. Heat for several minutes, while tossing.

Sprinkle wild fennel seeds and throw back into the bowl and serve warm as a side dish to the soup. We ended up throwing ours in with the soup. It was delicious, however I was so exhausted after our afternoon walk that I didn't think to take a final pic. We were happy to have yet another gorgeous meal 100% gathered within walking distance of our home.