You may have noticed that we haven’t posted for a while here at the Holding. We have been so busy preparing for and dealing with our new arrival! Our beautiful daughter was born at the end of June.

Along with the arrival of our little ray of sunshine we have had so many other things going on at the Holding from exciting births to heartbreaking deaths and crazy house renovations thrown in for good measure. We can’t wait to bring you up to speed with everything that’s been going on and share our highs and lows.

We are also closely following a review of legislation which directly affects the future of our smallholding and our family’s livelihood. The Small Landholders Act is currently under review by the Scottish Government.

While Aimée has been on maternity leave she has been following the review closely and corresponding with the government. We hope to share matters as they progress on this subject in the hope it may assist others who are affected directly by this legislation.

With the birth of our daughter it has become even more crucial to protect our rights and push for improvements that not only benefit her future but also the future generations of smallholders.

We’d love to hear from other smallholders or anyone who loves the country life with your stories. Please share links to your blogs as we’d love to read them and trade tips.

Graeme & Aimee

This week we made an extra effort to concentrate on planning our outdoor growing area. We have marked out an area for three raised beds for vegetables, an orchard and a spot for a bee hive.

We called in our friend who happens to be a horticulturist to give us some much needed advice and assistance. She has gave us great ideas for our raised beds including alternative methods of growing specific vegetables outwith the beds. We have also been advised to create worm boxes which will enrich our compost area.

A few weeks ago we planted some lleylandii hedging which was unsuccessful. The hedging turned brown and seemed to die off. We have since learned this was the effect of wind burn also known as wind scorch; a direct effect of being in an exposed area. We have never realised before now how exposed the Holding is.

This has made us rethink the types of plants we can grow. We are researching solutions to this problem including looking for trees, hedges and plants which are natural wind breakers. We may have to place wind break materials around our hedging until it is established.

We further discovered we have an existing cherry tree hiding in a corner of our garden area. We had no idea what this was previously however our horticulturist consultant has confirmed to our delight that it is a cherry tree.

Last week we won a Loch Ness Blackberry bush over on our twitter page. Thanks to Blackmoor for our prize. This is our first fruit bush planted in our growing area. We may need to give consideration to moving this due to fears of wind burn. Blackmoor also provided us with a helpful fruit growers handbook.

Looking ahead it seems we are destined for rain all week. This may hinder our plans for some fencing repairs, we do however hope to catch up on some renovations in the house.

If you have any suggestions re. wind burn please let us know in the comment section.

Graeme & Aimee