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Super excited about this! I love Pink Gypsy potatoes. They are one of my favourite varieties. However, for the last year...
02/09/2026

Super excited about this! I love Pink Gypsy potatoes. They are one of my favourite varieties. However, for the last year or two, I haven't been able to find them from the seed potatoes suppliers. They've moved on to similar, but different*, varieties. So,... last year I managed to find some rogue Pink Gypsies that I'd missed digging up in previous years. Only about 6, but I saved them and stored them and very lovingly planted them this year. Absolutely delighted last night when my first fork uncovered this massive harvest, from just one of the tiny potatoes that I planted earlier in the year. I might get to eat some this year, but will definitely be saving a lot to expand my crop for next year. If the seed potato companies don't sell what you want.... save your own!
Obviously I then had to go and dig up other potatoes to eat for my dinner that night!

* They might say "better varieties" but I love my Pink Gypsies and they do well here, and I don't want to constantly have to update and change everything (yes, phone, tablet, computer, app, appliance, etc frustration coming through here too).

I've been meaning to give you an update on the polytunnel for a while, but you know how good (bad!) I am at social media...
15/08/2026

I've been meaning to give you an update on the polytunnel for a while, but you know how good (bad!) I am at social media... Today I went over there to prune the apricot tree (so I could bring the ladder back to finish a job in the backyard). Escaped 3 hours later! The actual pruning probably took about 15 minutes. Then my frustration at not being able to walk down any of the paths outweighed my fear of pulling something out that I would regret not having later!
I can now get down almost all of the paths, and have opened up access to some side beds that I haven't seen in years. There's also a lot more air and space since we're starting the downward slide into darkness and dampness and "stripping out" becomes a very important job from now on.
More comments on the photos, including updates on tomatoes, courgettes, nectarine and my baby apricot tree (just putting it in the comments to stop this being such an essay!)

Clearly I'm a bit of an "all or nothing" person... interesting to reflect on this after seeing this bit of insight online recently (https://www.facebook.com/reel/1099047276636618). Overflowing frustration / dissatisfaction leading to overambition / over-action, leading to burnout and inaction... So, I'm thinking about healthy moderateness when responding to frustration, and trying to build good habits to keep the situation getting as out-of-hand. Both in terms of garden management, and social media activity. I expect more success with the former!

I took a bunch of pictures of my trees yesterday, to send to a Woodland Trust guy who's coming out to talk to some of my...
15/08/2026

I took a bunch of pictures of my trees yesterday, to send to a Woodland Trust guy who's coming out to talk to some of my neighbours (and hopefully me, if he comes at a time I am free) about planting some trees in our crofts along the river. I think he actually just asked for a map,... but photos are always good, right? And a video of the area we're looking at? And lots of photos of the trees in the main croft too... so he can see my "style" of tree planting. Here is what I sent him...
(It's nice to have a bit of a review and (self-)appreciation of what I've done so far. Shame it was such a dreich day for it!)

It's been an incredible year for the soft fruit. A lot of it has ended up on the ground, because of the wind (and me not...
09/08/2026

It's been an incredible year for the soft fruit. A lot of it has ended up on the ground, because of the wind (and me not having time or energy to do anything with it), but I finally set myself the task of picking what was left in the vegetable garden. I picked 2.5kg gooseberries, 1.3kg blackcurrants and 2.5kg white currants. And the whitecurrant bush still beat me - it has a lot left on it. My advice to anyone who feels guilty about food waste - do NOT plant a whitecurrant bush. It will produce so many berries that you can't possibly pick and eat them all, and you'll feel guilty about leaving them all to drop on the ground. I've looked online for recipes other than jam or decorative toppings and have just found a few other people like me, looking for something non sugar-filled to do with a mass of whitecurrants. Any suggestions??
It took me 2hrs to pick all of this and another 3hrs to pull all the stems off my black and white currants. I haven't tackled the gooseberries yet and haven't made jam or anything. This is why I don't bother most of the time. I like to grow things, but processing is not my favourite thing. I'm trying to learn to love it...
PS EVERYONE will be getting whitecurrant jam for Christmas this year.

Happy to announce that Ombre is still alive and well! It was Apache's lamb (remains) that I found. Thankfully Apache is ...
03/08/2026

Happy to announce that Ombre is still alive and well! It was Apache's lamb (remains) that I found. Thankfully Apache is still alive too, but sadly B1 and her 2 ewe lambs are still missing and moving ever closer to the "presumed dead" list. My neighbour gathered for clipping last week, but was still missing about 20 sheep and I was missing 5, so, while the rest of his sheep were still in parks (paddocks/fields) we both went out at the same time on Friday and together managed to gather all of the rest of his, plus my woolies (Indira+2 lambs*, Mairi Neige+1 lamb, Ombre and Apache).
Well... all of his sheep except 1207 who has decided she wants to be my pet sheep instead! I got her and her lamb in last night (easy, because she follows me like a dog!) and clipped her myself this morning. Then had cuddles and selfies, before giving them both back to my neighbour. First time clipping a Cheviot... it took about 12 minutes, so not too bad. I'm hopefully going to do a couple more of his Cheviots, just to get some experience on something other than primitive sheep (Shetlands, Soays, Hebrideans). Just in case I get tempted to enter a shearing competition one day....

Interestingly (or annoyingly?), Indira has been wandering around with just one lamb for the past few weeks. Her ewe lamb has been mostly with Geraldine (so she's had 3 lambs), or on Friday I found her with B2... but as soon as she saw Indira, she ran straight to her and stuck with her. A good thing too, otherwise I was going to have to try to catch a lone lamb on the hill. Very difficult, and probably impossible for me.

Two things that I, as an Australian, really appreciate about living in NW Scotland:1. I can walk around in the middle of...
19/07/2026

Two things that I, as an Australian, really appreciate about living in NW Scotland:
1. I can walk around in the middle of summer, in vegetation like this, with the dogs, and none of us get bitten by a snake and die. *
2. Even in the middle of a "heatwave"**, there is still quite a bit of water around.
3 (bonus point). Middle of summer - things are still GREEN!!!

I was out on a very long walk yesterday trying to find some of the 8 sheep that I haven't clipped yet. Found one (Brunhilde), and clipped her, but didn't see any sign of the others. Not quite true... I found a pile of grey wool attached to skin which I think might've been Ombre, one of last year's lambs. Quite sad as I liked her a lot and was looking forward to seeing how she grew up. No idea what happened to her - I saw her a couple of months ago and she was doing well. 2 of the other missing sheep have been seen in the last few days (but weren't in the same places yesterday), and I'm hoping the other 4 (and their lambs) are hanging out together somewhere out of the way, where I haven't looked yet.

* There are snakes here (adders), but not many (I haven't seen one around here yet at all), and they don't have very strong venom.
** A heatwave up here counts as a few days above 20. We topped out at 27, which is pretty high for here. We haven't had it nearly as bad as the rest of the country, or a lot of the rest of the world.

Finally got out on the hill today and checked on the hill sheep. It's looking good out there - lots of grass and flowers...
04/07/2026

Finally got out on the hill today and checked on the hill sheep. It's looking good out there - lots of grass and flowers and things. I've also added some photos from when I went out a couple of weeks ago. The weather was better (although I realise it doesn't look that much better in the photos!), but the grass hadn't come through as well yet.
Nice to see everyone, anyway. Everyone I saw looked well - always a good thing!

Early last week, I ate a lot of the elephant*. I finally got around to weeding the naughty corner (the corner by the fie...
28/06/2026

Early last week, I ate a lot of the elephant*. I finally got around to weeding the naughty corner (the corner by the field gate that is always feral and out of control), and the rest of that side, and the onion/garlic beds again. A massive effort, but totally worth it - the vegetable garden is looking almost as good as it ever has! And luckily I had good weather to make it an enjoyable task (dry, not midgey and not too hot). I also planted out my broad bean and pea seedlings. Not many peas, since most of them did not germinate. I'll try another batch and see if I have more success. Old seeds, or just poor conditions for germination?

I also scythed the yard around the polytunnel. It doesn't quite count as eating the elephant, but will hopefully make the elephant slightly smaller next year. As usual, I found a delightful trove of honeyberries behind all the nettles. One bush was perfectly ripe so I just ate them all. The second bush still has a little way to go. Nice that the two varieties do ripen several weeks apart, even in almost exactly the same location so I can spread the enjoyment!

*if you don't understand the elephant comment, you'll need to go back and read the comments on the previous gardening post!

I tend to oscillate between taking lots of pictures of things, then thinking "I just have lots of pictures of exactly th...
27/06/2026

I tend to oscillate between taking lots of pictures of things, then thinking "I just have lots of pictures of exactly the same things.... nobody will want to see them" so I stop taking pictures of all the little lovely things. And then I realise I don't have any pictures of the things that bring me joy on a day to day basis... just appreciating what this place is. Nature, just doing its thing, being beautiful, or bizarre, or incredible... hopefully with a little bit of help from my management. So... here are some of those things.

We always get a few questions about "the rise" when posting about clipping..... We can't clip until the rise is up / rea...
23/06/2026

We always get a few questions about "the rise" when posting about clipping..... We can't clip until the rise is up / ready. So... for all those people I've promised pictures of "the rise", here are a bunch of good rises from today.

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