Raised beds

We have closed down our Farside allotment. We had 13 raised beds there, all of which were filled with our own homemade compost. They all had to be moved to our Nearside allotment. That meant shovelling all the compost into the wheelbarrow and wheeling it over a distance of about 100 metres to the Nearside. The wheelbarrow also came in handy for moving the raised beds – they are heavy and made from slate boxes. It took a couple of weeks to do the move but I’m pleased to report that everything is now on the Nearside.

We were however not able to recover all the compost. We had enough to fill 9 of the 13 crates. The empty ones will for the year ahead act as compost bins. Once their contents have rotted down next year, we will plant them up. 

The raised beds are on part of the allotlent where it is otherwise impossible to grown anything. The ground is concrete and dolomite. The raised beds therefore have given us the opportunity to bring this space into use.

Finally, 2 of the raised beds are planted with strawberries, 3 with rhubarb and 3 with raspberries. A further bed is full of compost waiting to be planted up.

This bed is filled with potato stalks – we’ve just finished harvesting the potatoes. There are also lots of stripped out nettles in it. The warm weather this autumn means the weeds are continuing to grow.

Until 2009 I was working in London, UK, but I gave it up to pursue a life of self-sufficiency. My aim is to grow or forage for all my food, produce my own power and live a healthier and greener lifestyle. I left London to return to my home village of Sunniside, near Newcastle, in the North East of England. I have a couple of plots of land there as well as the garden of my house. Our village is a commuter area for Newcastle but we are surrounded by countryside which we use for picking wild foods. My mission in life is to show that it is possible to live well without destroying the planet in the process. I am also keen to ensure knowledge of historic recipes and cooking is kept alive. I regularly try out recipes from old cookbooks using the food we have grown. I make videos about our progress and about how to cook home-grown foods. These can be viewed on www.youtube.com/jonathanwallace.
www.self-sufficientinsuburbia.blogspot.com