KW-33 Hot, dry and slightly autumnal

the sun came up at 6am this morning...

The Grand Design of the potager has been evolving in my head for the last three years, three months and three days, but less than most of the bigger project ideas. The overall aesthetic isn’t going to change much from the pictorial monologue I have in the slideshow imagination rolodexing through my occipital cortex.

my phone has a mode called “portrait”. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to do, but if you take a photo of a double line of sunflowers, it looks like this

Each of the six quarters has 4 sides. Which means 24 sides in total. Each side gets a brick edge, and there will be some fancy bits in the middles. (6 quarters have two middles, unlike 4 quarters, which only have 1).

In short, I have now done 5 of these 24 sides. Each one takes a few days. Maybe two or three, but I am definitely getting faster and better!

see that pretty edge on the right hand side? That’s another two edges done! It’s starting to take on a form.

There are six sections of the potager - just the right number for the Pirate Pending 6 year crop rotation for self sufficient pirates - but I can’t call them sixths. It’s not a pleasant word to say. So I call them quarters. Which also means “part of a whole” without meaning “25%”. Like the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham, UK. No-one ever asks what the other three parts are. Which confused me a lot as a child, but I have learned to embrace it now.

i transplanted the soya. Staggeringly, it seems to be doing ok. I might use this cultivation method again in the future. It seems quite efficient, and was lots of fun. Unless it all dies, it which case it was a silly idea and will be forgotten,

I was speaking with A Local this week, and she was a little surprised that I was harvesting potatoes. Apparently, around here, they leave them in the ground for three weeks after the haulms have died. It lets the potatoes mature. I don’t think I am ready for this kind of excitement in my life just yet. Maybe I shall try with a couple of plants and see what happens.

spuds

I strongly suspect that they will be devoured by creatures of the earth. But, I will give it a go. I’ve been eating fresh potatoes for a few weeks now, and just pulled first earlies out of the ground, for 22 kilos out starchy deliciousness. Next week, there will be purple ones.

a man with a trakker asked if he could use a corner of the barracks as a workspace for his big wood choppy automaton. I said yes, he said I could have some wood. So that’s nice.

The plan for next week is remarkably similar to this week.

• finish threshing peas (I did half this week. Full report in next week’s newsletter)

• make jams (there are still so many blackberries to harvest, I decided to wait)

• keep on with the kitchen woodwork

• weeding, watering, chopping wood

• some writing things. I’m really trying hard with the Manifesto for the Happy Doomer

slightly worryingly, Tony seems to be growing back his winter coat. Is there something he wants to tell us?

And with that, I shall sign off, because I have to think of a title before I hit the “record audio” button, with an especially huge thank you to everyone who has shared and contributed to the piggie fundraiser. I’ve not really pushed it yet, and it’s already sneaking up to 1000 euros mark. I’ve already spent 400 bucks of it on delicious pig food, and I promise you, ever contribution there goes directly into pig bellies. Thank you! You can check it out here, and really, sharing is as important as donating!

with pirattey love, your

Pirate Ben

xo xo