Owning a house in true countryside of Poland - stories

In town one tends to have more neighbours, so at least some sense of shared responsibility exists. This stops unsociables from showing their true colors. In the country you may only have one neighbour. So, think up your strategy if he turns out to be a pain. Cause you will have no one to help you.

Quite the opposite in my experience, every community has a soltys (Head of the village) he knows everyone, if you need help he/she is the place to go, I don't own tractors,diggers, spreaders, plenty of locals with equipment with drivers to hire. you soon get to know everyone in the village, later on you may wish to hire out/share your own equipment even if its just a cesspool pump, its all appreciated.

Then there is church, harvest Festival, hunting society , drinking barn, for further entertainment and integration with the community.

No hunters or drinking barn in our village but a playing field with a local football team and a voluntary fire fighting brigade, instead. They are the worst drinkers of all - I saw them in action a few times. ):)

Yesterday, I collected the first crop this year - spring onion, called the 7-year-old, I sowed it last year and we had abundant produce.

Now, a little riddle, I can`t resist. :):) What is going to be the first fruit in the orchard in spring time? As early as in May. It is not strawberry or anything from a tree, because it grows on a bush. Hint - not a native Polish plant but survives Polish winters excellently.

Moles ticks and horse fly's.

:):) No ticks or horse flies, but moles are a nuisance, indeed.

Blueberries?

Sorry, blueberries come in mid summer. I was talking about honey berry, my kids don`t appreciate it because it is a bit bitter, but I like it. Vitamins virtually spring out when you squeeze it. :):)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonicera_caerulea

I am still learning how to farm. In previous years I tried to sow leek and cabbage seeds but to no avail. Today I bought and planted little seedlings of leek, together with cauliflowers, tomatoes, kohlrabi, parsley, celery. The same with onion - I tried to sow seeds twice and nothing. This year I put those bulblets in the ground and they are already shooting. What satisfaction! :)


And hares. Those madafakers come and treat my veg field as a free diner. When I kurwa catch you, I will pull your legs out of your fekking ass!

Beautiful animals. Please don't hurt them Pawian, for they soothe the soul. I have taught my dog that all natural animals are his friends and he loves trotting alongside the boars in our forest.

Don`t worry, I was joking. When we caught one (it broke through the fence around the house), we only played with it a little and let it go. :)

Recent days have been really busy. I already sowed root chicory, red and white radish, lettuce, spinache, yellow turnip, dill. Today I sowed fava beans. In May, with the risk of frost gone, I am going to sow corn, cucumber, pumpkin, assorted coloured radish, basil, marjoram, black radish (called black turnip) and to plant pepper, zucchini and more tomatoes. I am also growing seedlings of artichoke on the window sill. I am still not sure about melons and watermelons - last year`s were quite big and healthy but unsweet - I treated it as an experiment in the Polish climate - at least we could boast of growing melons to our family and friends. :)

This produce of ours is small, ugly and deformed. Better looking one is rejected by shops and sales people. But at least it is free of all toxic stuff- I don`t use any chemicals in the field. What satisfaction! :)

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Ahem...

Radiation Danger Was Worse Than Poland Admitted

latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-05-31-mn-8217-story.html

Because of its proximity to Chernobyl, Poland appears to have received a heavier dusting of fallout than any country outside the Soviet Union itself.

Environmental pollution in south Poland. Sources and effects.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8175068

- Seven out of twenty-seven areas of ecological hazard are located in South Poland, close to the Silesia-Cracow region.

- The ecological awareness of most people is rather poor, and extremely weak within some social groups

Smacznego!!! :)

Yesterday it was the anniversary of the meltdown. I am reading articles about it. Poland fared quite well, the radiation wasn`t as dramatic as you suggest. Besides, why are you linking to an article from 1986 when there was Cold War and Western press did everything to attack communist Poland? What is more, naturally they didn`t know as much as we know today.

Try harder and find a more up-to-date source to convince me.

Thanks God it has been raining since yesterday. I had always liked rain but even more after getting that property. I lost a lot of newly planted trees and bushes due to drought which afflicted southern Poland (and all Poland in general) in recent years. Two last months were also very dry, but the weather has changed at last and seems to set in for a while.

The caretaker in my school is a country guy who still cultivates his farm and keeps small farm animals so whenever we meet during breaks, we talk about gardening and farming. We are the only ones who look forward to rain - all my colleagues complain, just like the British. I don`t share their negative views so I say nothing and enjoy wet weather in silence. :)

It is a worrying situation becauset Poland is generally a dry country. I have never had a problem with water on the farm because the well has been fully functional after I cleaned it. But each year I see the level of water is lower than before. In other regions farmers are even deprived of that and on drought days they are also forbidden to use public water supply. They lose a lot of money when crops die. Experts are alarming that mild winters with little snow and little precipitation in later seasons might turn large parts of Poland into a desert one day.

Such maps are published each year and the situation has been repeating since 2015.

Drought 2018 lasted for a few months

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Yes, freedom is wonderful but sometimes I feel uneasy - especially in winter time - not a man or another living creature within 500 metres around and snow everywhere - driving there is pure lottery because the country lane is not cleared.

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We won`t be going to the countryside for the long weekend as usual because it is too wet. I tried to do some gardening today but gave up soon - the ground is slippery and clayish. The rain is going to continue tomorrow and later. Great , but faced with staying in here or there, we prefer here.

@pawian
that's good news. Here, in Lithuania, there's no such drastic droughts, but anyway last year was very dry. We watered our vegs virtually every day`

Hi, Coop. Nice to meet a gardener in the PF. :)

You mentioned watering - do you use the well or the public pipe?

Hi! we don't have public pipe (as we live 25 km away from Vilnius), so it's just our own well.

But in this fall I'm planning to move to Poland, somewhere near Warszawa and plant my garden there ))

Wow! As we would say in the UK, that is picture postcard pretty, although for sure, you would not want to break down in snow like that.


Just about everything by the sounds of it! Do you sell some of your produce Pawian? By the looks of the pictures on page 1 of the thread, your house looks to have a lot of land to plant on.

No, of course not, I am not a pro farmer, I just play one. :):) But we give veg, fruit and flowers as a gift to family or friends. Whoever visits us, doesn`t leave with empty hands/boots. Sometimes neighbours get gifts and they are surprised. People living there are very traditional and they have never seen or even heard of some things we grow.


It`s 2.5 acres. A little part of it is occupied by the house and garden, the rest is the field, half of which I turned into a fruit orchard with a few veg patches scattered around while the other half is leased by a neighbour.

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It's the ideal size for the plot imho. As I can see your land is situated among fields - do you (and your plants) suffer from strong winds?

Yes, it is surrounded by neighbours` fields. They grow either corn or wheat, sometimes other grains or veg like potatoes. I like corn best because it remain green till autumn, so the view during our summer stay is more pleasant. The pictures above show the year when they grew corn on all sides around us and we were living in splendid isolation.

As for winds, yes, there are strong northern winds, if I didn`t put those pieces of rubble on the black foil, it would fly away. Plants don`t suffer except for some trees which grow fast but have a thin trunk, e,.g, birches, one can see they are all bent southward.

I bet they are always pleased to see you :). I guessed you would share if you weren't selling, as you are growing lots of produce, and one family could never eat so much even if some is frozen or preserved! You must have to devote quite a bit of time to looking after your crops? I would love to have the space to grow my own fruit and veg. My father had a couple of allotments ( działki ) when I was a kid, so we always had fresh fruit and veg. We also had lots of pickled stuff, beetroots, onions, jam etc.that my mother made. I am sure you probably also pickle and make preserves.


Well some of the things you are growing are a bit more unusual. I guess many people would stick to potatoes, carrots etc, than experiment with herbs and melons ;)

BTW, are those sunflowers I can see in one of your pics?

Well, it depends. I treat it both as hobby and exercise. Since we bought that farm, I have practically given jogging, going to the gym and swimming. It is enough that I look after

the house and the field, especially 100 square metres of veg patches, which have to be dug through, sowed and then cleaned off weeds. I mostly find time but I admit, when I am busy with school work, I am not able to do certain things, e.g, cover the fragile plants before winter or weed the ground between veg.


So was the case with me, we had a small allotment in the city when I was about 10, but later the area was taken by the authorities and a housing estate was built there. I hated that plot because I had to carry water from a distant pipe but I remember my juvenile fascination when I saw first ready to eat radishes. What? That stuff really grows in the ground? :)

That child`s fascination returned to me a few years ago and I suppose it will also return to you. :)


Actually, no, I don`t deal with such stuff, my wife does. I do much dirtier and harder things there, e.g., cleaning the well. :)


Yes, they are sunflowers but I stopped growing them this year because the soil in the area isn`t good for them, they were tall and heavy but seeds were small; I have to learn by neighbours` example - nobody in the vicinity grows sunflowers. :):)

As for experiments, II constantly need strong incentives to dissipate boredom of daily routine which is even able to lead me to depressive moods. :)

My experience says that's it's about the quality of seeds and especially in their sort (there are ornamentals just like flowers)
)

It is possible but not too probable in my case because I tried various producers over a few years as well as different parts of the farm - in the field, in the garden, in front of the house and the result was always the same - tall heavy sunflowers with little seeds. But at least I could feed them to our pets.

It does sound like quite a lot of work for just one person, especially in spring and summer when more work is needed. You need to rope in some helpers!


I've wanted to grow my own stuff for years, but allotments are like gold dust here, and many do not have access to water. Fortunately, I never had to carry water to our allotments, but I remember spending a great deal of time topping and tailing runner beans, and preparing veg to be blanched and frozen. My fascination was with raspberries and peas, I probably ate more than I was supposed to be picking!

Do you lose many of your crops to pests and disease? You mentioned not using pesticides, so I guess some loss is inevitable, hares notwithstanding also;)


Perhaps they're a bit unusual for your traditional neighbours :) I like them , they are cheery looking flowers :)

what pets do you have? you're talking about animals like chickens?

Family helps out but only during summer, sometimes weekends. Now it is mainly work in the field or garden, but previously I engaged my sons to help me do some construction inside the house when it was being thoroughly renovated.


That is crucial, counting on precipitation to water your plants is like expecting to win the lottery. But in GB it is different.


Did you throw up like I did once as a kid after consuming a kilo or two of cherries straight from the trees? We were staying at a single room in a guesthose and I was walking to and fro and leaving indigested cherries behind me. Shocking view. :):) :)

As for losing crops, I already mentioned droughts - blamed for the death of two dozen new plants, small and big. Hares and rarely roe deer - another dozen of bigger saplings. Underground rodents like voles or mice - a few saplings and a lot of veg.

As for disease or insects, I don`t use chemicals, only natural means which I find on the internet, and if they don`t help, I just give up and see what happens next. I sow so many veg that even if half of them is rotten and devoured by pests, I still get the other half which usually suffices. :)


Once I wanted to introduce chickens there but last year I bought a rabbit and after seeing how much work she entailed, I gave up on all other farm birds. Apart from the rabbit, we take our urban home pets with us when we come for a longer stay - cats, mice, tortoise and turtle. The snake stays in the city. :)

Oh, now I remember you asked about feeding sunflower seeds to pets. So, our mice get them.

No, but I remember being put off plums for life after spending hours in the bathroom after gorging on them. Greed is a terrible thing ;)


Yes, surplus planting would do the trick. I can remember my parents putting down slug pellets as they were devouring our lettuce. Not sure if they used other pesticides/deterrents though. I do remember we had a couple of scarecrows on our allotments :) Plus, some loss was down to me. I got a right bollicking from my father for digging up many beds of newly planted seeds as I was convinced after watching a TV programme, that our allotments were full of Roman coins waiting to be discovered. Oops! You are making me thinkof things I thought I'd long since forgotten.

I'm sure though, you are more worried about the weather each year, as most farmers are. Hopefully there will be more rain than last year and you won't lose more crops. Maybe this year will be a bumper harvest for you :)

Yes, there must be some slugs because I sometimes see nibbled strawberries but they must be vampire slugs which come out at night only because I have never seen any.

I am constantly bothered by memories. :)


No, I am not. As I said before, I am not pressed to have excellent crops as our subsistence doesn`t depend on them. I bought that farm as an investment but also fun. So, when sth fails, I adopt a relaxed attitude because that is nature and some things can`t be avoided. I only observe and marvel at how wonderfully complicated those natural laws are. E.g, a few days ago I noticed a dark spot in the back part of the field - when I approached, it turned out to be a carcass of a bird of prey, much larger than the one I found during my first visits to the place. Why did it die? Old age, disease, another predator or a human? I have no idea. There were no legs with talons (I usually cut them off for our home gallery) or head, only wings and the body.