I'll start off with hedgerow photos. Outside my house starts a bridlepath. There's a multitude of things along the bridleway however at the start of it, where my fence is, are bramble bushes. Now I was mightily excited about these when I moved here, thinking we'd have hoards of brambles coming out of our ears and planning all I could do with them. So I was disappointed to say the least when we got none! They looked like they were starting to develop but just never did. So I am wondering if we should cut them back down to the ground and let them start a fresh?
I think we will strim the whole area and see what's what. I think there's room to plant some small fruit trees/bushes out there. I'll chat with Steven about it this weekend. We do have enough on our plates already, but my brain doesn't switch off it seems!
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| Poor quality, my hands were freezing and wet. The area I'm talking about is on the left. Hi Rodney :) |
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| More of a close up |
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| My gorgeous girl, she could run this place single handed, she is so good. |
Seen as though Rodney snuck into the top photo I thought I'd show you the dogs (I still call them puppies a year on) playing in the barn the other morning, whilst I was doing the horses.
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| Obviously something has been here, but what? 15 mins then were here for. |
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| Rodney got bored before Buster |
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| He realised he may be there for some time, waiting for his brother |
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| We didn't find anything Mum |
Finally to the yukky bit. My veg box arrived on Wednesday as expected so I used some of it to go with tea. Jack, my son, love cauliflower at the moment so I was pleased to see one in the box. Cutting into it, the flesh seemed a strange texture and on investigation it looks like slugs have been enjoying their winter in there. I rescued some of it but as you can see in the yellower coloured photo on the top middle floret, there was lots of slug slime (?) all over. I think I stabbed the slug when splitting it down. Ooops.
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| The joys of growing your own (even if I didn't grow this one) |
Happy Friday everyone and have a fabulous weekend. We're hoping to start our next project this weekend, more soon.
Tracy :)
Hey chic. Your puppies are gorgoues; I still call Jake puppy dog sometimes and he will be three next May! Shame about the brambles this year, but I have to say the ones here seemed to come into fruit later than where we used to live. It occured to me the other day that I have a raspberry bush which I bought from the pound shop in the Spring .I put it in a big pot after a while and it seems to be comong on really well so at least we will have that growing for next year and once I get the apple tree pruned we may be a longer harvest from that next year. There I go rambling again! Well, I've just put a lattice topped pie in the Rayburn for tea, just the veg to do. Have a great weekend and look forward to hearing about your latest project.xx
ReplyDeleteI love your ramblings as always :) Lattice topped pie is just the ticket at this time of the year, yum. xx
DeleteI would definitely cut back the old growth from the brambles and leave this year's new stuff. You will probably have to cut quite a few years old stuff back, but it should be nice and brittle. The problem will be that others will probably pick "your" brambles too!
ReplyDeleteMight be a good idea to see what comes up next spring from the other stuff to see what you have there.
A bit of slug never hurt anyone did it?!
Gill
I am guessing the brambles haven't been touched, if ever. So as you suggest, I bet there is a lot to do.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the thoughts, sounds like the best option. I might try and grow some from cuttings.
That's what I said re the slug lol
Cutting the brambles back and strimming the grass will help as grass is awful competition for anything it grows beside, it steals a lot of the resources from the soil.
ReplyDeleteStrange as it sounds if you want more fruit from the brambles it would be a good idea to have a wee there occasionally, the free nitrates massively help plants produce more fruit and for longer