The green sedum roof remains one of the highlights of our eco-makeover at The Secret Acre.
Visually striking, it is a daily joy to behold as it changes and evolves across the seasons.
In June and July a profusion of small white and yellow flowers have blossomed in the green, attracting a mass of bees and insects.
“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land” – Abraham Lincoln
If Abe, the dollar bill guy was right, then we ought to be celebrating our heroes of self-sufficiency.
But who are your own personal heroes?
Take our poll and let us know! Continue reading
No sooner had we opined that our new veg bed might successfully produce some harvest after all, than our first veg duly arrived in the form of Broad Beans.
In fairness the young broad bean plugs has been gifted to us by a kindly neighbour, rather than being fully our own work, but we are still taking it as a win.
Fortunately we also happen to love broad bean pesto discovered a few years ago thanks to the services at the time of an Able & Cole veg box, and can highly recommend it to you if you’ve never tried it.
Our first ever step on the road to greater self-sufficiency, even before discovering wild garlic, was making Elderflower Champagne.
Once someone has shown you what Elderflower looks like, you can’t help but see and smell it everywhere you go in early June.
And what’s not to like about an alcoholic fizzy drink that is as simple as sticking it in a bucket for 6 days, bottling and drinking! Continue reading
So the house is finished and the vegetables are growing.
Surely time now then to simply lay back in warm summer sunshine and enjoy the good life!
The American humorist, S.J. Perelman, apparently once wrote that –
“A farm is an irregular patch of nettles, containing a fool who didn’t know enough to stay in the city.”
Little did he know that this fool has a hammock!
The Veg Beds in May
Well at least (most) things are growing in this year’s first test vegetable beds.
Already we are learning lots of useful things for next year, including the undoubted benefits of more manure, lots more manure. And the sensible advice of our much more experienced neighbours to provide a good level of protection on certain crops. Continue reading
If I’m honest, up to now I’ve been a bit of a Flower Nazi, much to Emma’s annoyance.
In my defence, being an urban container grower with a flat’s six foot balcony, or a terrace’s five foot square concrete backyard, doesn’t leave much room for flowers taking up valuable growing space. Continue reading
Spring’s arrival of wild garlic has usually been our second major event in the kitchen store cupboard calendar, even as urban foragers before moving to The Secret Acre.
Of course moving to a new area this year first necessitated seeking out local woodland areas suitably carpeted with the Ramsons. But wild garlic has to rate as the easiest of forages. Continue reading
The guerrilla growing movement has taken off in cities across the globe in recent years as citizens reclaim unloved urban spaces for veg growing.
Most city authorities now embrace and support these movements, recognising the positive contribution thy make in creating healthier, happier, edible cities.
So it was intriguing to read a ‘weak signal from the future’ via Forum for the Future, about the work of the Guerrilla Grafters in San Francisco. Continue reading
So, six months ago we discovered the rural reality of broadband (there isn’t any), despite OpenReach calling our community an “Enabled area” which turns out to really mean that the area is actually un-enabled and unconnected!
Half a year later the update is er…. no change. Continue reading
The Secret Acre 