Historians say it's the saving of hay that helped the Romans conquer the world. Apparently they never visited Ireland ('Hibernia': "Land of eternal winters") but they knew of it. Me not understand? How can you know of somewhere if you have never visited it? Mind you millions of people believe the Titanic was sank by an ice berg. But nobody ever took a picture of it, did they? There's also a theory that man never went too the moon. It was just Hollywood movie sets. I digress. The saving of hay allowed the Romans to travel by horse even in winter when the grass didn't grow.
Any road. We got twelve bales of barley and the barley growing experiment looks too have been a success. The Fodder Kale is also doing very well. I say lets get away from monoculture and grow something different on the land.
Lifted some potatoes the other day. It's been far too hot to eat them lately. Noticed some holes in some of them. So we soaked them in a basin of water and waited to see what crawled out. Black slugs are the culprits. It doesn't matter what you grow. There's some creature too destroy your crop or you. The old 'Doctor Flies"have been taking chunks out of us all. Think they are horse flies. They call them "Doctor Flies" because they land on you and give you a painless injection. Then your arm throbs with pain. Good job we always keep a packet of Piriton tablets in the cupboard.
Here's a photograph of the mower cutting the barley into windrows. You can see the fodder kale growing too. That's Bantry Bay in the background. The old digital camera is still displaying the wrong date - sorry!
See you later.
Sounds good, how long will a big bale last 7 cattle in winter, with some fresh kale for greens?
ReplyDeleteYes, the slugs always beat me to any potatoes I ever tried to grow, I stuck to onions and beans, they seem safe from most bugs except black-fly on broad beans. My 6 potted peas are ready to eat, not as many as I thought, but very nice, and my bucket potato seems to be thriving as well.
Weather today is cloudy and breezy, No 2 son got the back grass cut, a good job done, just leaves the little front lawn for me to do, funny enough it doesn't seem to grow as fast as the back.
Raggy cat been asleep on my desk all day, just gone out.
Welcome back Cumbrian.
ReplyDeleteI usually go through 1-2 silage bales a week in winter. Plus a bucket of beef nuts every day. I am going to (hopefully) strip graze the Kale behind an electric fencer and give the cattle exercise in the fields. If the inclement weather (like this week) gets really bad I will bring them some in the transport box.
there's always something that attacks your fruit or veg. Seen lots of cabbage whites recently. Hope they don't like Fodder Kale?
Glad to hear Raggy Cat is OK.
Thanks!