KW-36 Small scale growing for oil
The latest attempt for oil in 2025.
The garden is looking as good as it ever has. At least, if you look in the right direction!
The current right direction is over the greens and towards the beans. It was a pure delight to get to spend three solid days in the potager this week. I pulled two meter cube bags of weeds out of the greens bed alone. Freeing up the cabbages and kales was particularly pleasurable. I had forgotten that I had savoy cabbages in there amongst the pointy ones, and the kale will keep the barracks fed in dark green leafy vegetables all the way through winter until the hares find them, which they do every year.
For the last two years, I have followed the potatoes with grains. This is not really the plan, it has been more that the potato break was the only place clean enough to put the winter wheat and rye. Next year, I really want to return it to the “correct” (ie - pirate approved) rotation of pumpkins. I bring this up here, because at the back of the kales, you can see the gourds doing marvellously. I really want a complete sixth of the vegetable grounds to be producing squashes again next year.
And that means properly clearing the pumpkin patch behind the orchard for the grains.
Experiments with Oil.
It is really important to me, and to the barracks, for us to grow our own oil. That stuff is expensive if you buy it, and when you let guests cook for themselves, boy, do they go through it quickly.
For the first three years, I tried sunflowers. But they just don’t seem to work very well here. Up in the herb garden, they are doing quite nicely this year, and making big fat seeds, but whenever I have tried to grow them in bulk, they turn massive and beautiful sunshine heads, but the autumn gets to the seeds before they ripen. Dead sunflower seeds overtaken by early morning autumn mists are a sad sight indeed.
For two years after that, I went over to pumpkins. Now pumpkins do very well here, and the Styrian oil pumpkin makes fantastic seeds, but by gum do you need a lot of them. We made a small amount of pumpkin seed oil, and it was delicious. If we’re going to go pumpkins, though, we would need to dedicate the whole of the vineyard to the programme. Which would also be a fun option.
But first, I want to try rapeseed. It’s a notoriously brittle crop to grow, and is susceptible to a whole load of pests. The flea beetle (Erdflöhe) being the most devastating of all. If this shiny little critter gets a taste for your baby plants, the entire field will be gone in a day. Growing on a small scale might be advantageous, especially if you can water it daily. We shall find out.
First things first, getting hold of rapeseed seed.
It is monstrously expensive stuff. No one, as far as I can tell, sells it in quantities smaller than what is required for 3.5 hectares, and at about 150 euros a hectare, that comes to a bucket load of dollar. So, I went to a local farmer, and asked him if I could have some from him. He sold me about 125 grammes for 20 bucks. So yeah, that’s ten times the price he pays for it, but I still think I did just fine out of the trade.
Now, I have to prepare 200m2 of ground for them. It will be the pumpkin patch. There is some considerable amount of work to be done!
I didn’t get to start the process of sticking things in jars for the winter this week. The Matriarch of my Austrian family passed away on Wednesday. A death in the family means of course that all other things got jigged around a bit. I’m currently down in Austria for the funeral. It’s an enormously sad time for all, and although the opposite of unexpected, still tough.
Oma’s garden was a constant inspiration and well into her 80s, she kept herself and Opa virtually self sufficient with the the wildest array of fresh fruit and vegetables. There was nothing she couldn’t grow and her peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers were by far the best I have known. She was also the only person I have ever met who trained blackberries like they tell you to in the old books. Along with the ancient raspberry varieties she produced (and quinces, currants and apples and all the rest), her pantry had the best jams, and well over a year’s supply every year.
Sigrid was awesome and she might have been the most giving person I have had the privilege of knowing for the last 30 years.
So go ahead, in honour of her passing, go and be nice to someone important to you and I shall see you all again next week.
Much piratey love
Your Pirate Ben
xoxo
So glad you got to Austria. All in our thoughts today. Xx