Hello

Hi Folks, I'm Claire, a keen but relatively new gardener with a fascination for 'resilience' - something I always thought of as a bit of a permaculture buzz word but now take quite seriously, possibly due to change in personal circumstances and the downturn of the economy in general. Continually find myself asking how I can best use the land I own to create something useful (edible etc).

My plans for this year are detailed roughly here although since the time I made that post things have changed in so far as the people who own my low maintenance patch have decided to put raised beds in. This will be my first time working with raised beds. I think they do waste some space but for situation such as this where mice, moles and rabbits are a big issue the space loss is offset.

Today saw the base and frame of my greenhouse completed. Next weekend we should get all the glass in - very exciting. I'm a bit disappointed that the greenhouse isn't already up. I find it's so hard to harden things off properly when you grow them in the house. I have in the past often ended up with straggly seedlings. Beggars can't be choosers though. We got the greenhouse through a Time Exchange and it didn't come with instructions.

We keep hens and I'm forever toying with the idea of bees. Have been on a bee keeping course but there seem to be more disadvantages than advantages for that one right now.

I'm running a workshop for one of our local community groups about hen keeping later this month. I'm very nervous about it as I've not done this before.

Oh, what else? I made my first living willow structure last year and it is still there and very much alive. Made a new smaller structure last week. Another gardening interest.

I'm going to a talk about permaculture at the beginning of April.

Look forward to hearing about what other folks get up to on their patch.