In between this year’s growing season at The Secret Acre, from Flaming June to September’s Harvest, we have also been carrying on with our project to rebuild the Pig Sties.
Having completed the demolition with family help earlier in the year, we enlisted ‘Bob the Re-Builder’ for expert guidance in the shape of Al from Omnijob.
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It’s been a while since we undertook any major building work at the Secret Acre. Choosing instead to just enjoy living in the house for a while after its extensive eco-makeover.
However, the need to eventually also replace the yard’s pig sties, barn and shed complex was always being planned in the back of our minds. And with it, a much needed sorting out of the various materials that ‘might one day come in useful’ which had been stored there after the house renovation, along with our growing collection of gardening equipment as we reinstated the vegetable garden.
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It may be the Chinese year of the Rat, but 2020 kicked off at The Secret Acre with a distinctly horse’y theme.
Before Christmas, fellow smallholder and gardening author, Kim Stoddart, reminded me that we could take a first light harvest of horseradish, just over a year on since we first planted it. Continue reading
Half way there
Rebuilding the stables and pig stys in the Yard at The Secret Acre is on the long list of big renovation jobs to get round to eventually. Hopefully before they finally fall down!
But the concrete base that forms the Yard oddly stopped short of running the full length of the outbuildings, petering out into a rather unstable set of York Stone slabs placed on the grass. Continue reading
The Secret Acre 