Owning a house in true countryside of Poland - stories

He means that even for Polish citizens there are restrictions - you now have to be a registered farmer in order to buy and some other requirements like living a certain amount of time there.

I haven't heard about your solution but it sounds risky - I would be very cautious about buying a building without title to the land underneath.

Yes, it is not possible. You buy the complete property: the house and the land.

After summer holidays I come to the farm 2,3 times a week. I pick up the fruit, mainly raspberries, but also black berries or kiwis. Veg is abundant, too. I plant new fruit trees or bushes. Oh, I nearly forgot my main activity - picking up walnuts from 3 big trees. I eat two dozen every day but that`s not enough to deal with the constant supply so I put the rest in the freezer coz I don`t like dry walnuts. I am going to eat them out next year. Soon, I will have to remove the fallen leaves from the lawn.

A few days ago one walnut tree lost a giant branch during strong winds. It fell onto my neighbour`s field. I had to cope with it for a few hours, manually coz I don`t possess a chainsaw - I never needed it. Now I must think about the purchase coz those trees are getting older and older.

The area is busy with tractors, farmers either collect summer crops or prepare fields for winter.

October and November are forecasted to be cool, even warm. It is good coz I can keep veg in the ground without worrying about them getting damaged by frost. Last year I lost a lot of crops after a few days` freezing temperatures. Even when they come this year, I am ready coz I have prepared a few boxes with sandy dirt in the coldest room in the house to store veg as long as possible.

The temperature dropped to freezing levels last night and are forecasted low tonight too - as low as minus 6. Fortunately, I had moved half the crops to a safer place - white and black radish (diversity rulez again!). I also dug out the remnants of cauliflower, red beetroot and leek. The rest are still in the ground - carrot, parsley, celery, artichoke, chicory, turnip.

I also gathered a few piles of veg leaves for the rabbit. :):)

The season is slowly ending - I just collected last tri colour raspberries. I still must replant some young trees and bushes which I once put in the wrong place.

That was another fruitful year in our summer place. Thank you, Lord.

The freezing temperatures have set down the period of winter hibernation for me. I need to take a rest now. See you when it gets warmer. Good morning, and in case I don't see ya: Good afternoon, good evening, and good night! hahahaha

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We brought some of our things inside at the weekend.

Having a lot of free time recently, I can devote it to my farm. Fortunately, trips from urban areas to the coutryside haven`t been banned yet. In result, it seems I am going to sow my record amount of ground in veg patches this year - over 100 square metres.

I am thinking of potatoes, too, it would be my first time.
Dolno, you mentioned growing potatoes on your own . How do you do it? I am worried about making those ridges - doing it manually seems drudgery. Can I skip ridging and still have good crop?

Professional ridging

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All I do is put old sacks of spuds out in the sun so they start sprouting , then quarter the spuds lefing one or two sprouts on each.

then I goto a patch of ground slice a slot in the earth and pop the quartered spud in, the I wait til they have flowered / and or fallen back and dig em out using a fork.

I have used the randomly throw them around a grassy area method in the past , it worked but it was hard to find them later amongst the tall grass.

You can be scientific digging properly and banking the spuds up as they grow (stop them being green) but I cannever be arsed to work that hard.

If non of the above works just buy em off the farmer next door.

Wow, I heard about it but they don`t mention it directly on those advice sites.


Does it mean you don`t do ridging?


Yes, but I will lose on fun of having my own. Everything I do in orchard or garden or veg patch is primarily for fun. Also, health. Also, money coz I am frugal. hahaha

Thanks, that was useful about quartering them. This way I can have more for less money. :):)

I never have no, the grass grows around them so I never got green potatoes .

Yes quartering works very well as long as you have enough eyes.

I see. But aren`t the plants smaller and weaker because of quartered spuds?


Yes, exposure to light makes potatoes turn green but the grass blocks the light.

I have no idea , it worked for me , you may want to investigate that further.

OK, you convinced me. I am going to grow potatoes and already checked some addresses of farmers who sell seed potatoes in bulk.

One more question - I read a lot about potatoe disease - you know, the one that caused famine in Ireland. Professional farmers always use antifungal chemicals. But I don`t want to poison my field/food with such methods. How did you cope with that problem?

I never plant crops in the same place, I have a load of land so I choose a new place each year, its going to be years and years before I plant where I started.

Logic is that if disease or bugs were introduced in last tears planting area it wont be used for 20 years so things will die out , well that's my logic, I think they call it crop rotation , I use zero chemicals and just limewash the bottom of the fruit and apple trees.

Oh, I see, you mean the disease appears when the same crops are planted in one place for several years, like it happens to professional farmers.

You need to spray spuds to prevent blight the disease is airborne and will thrive in the right weather conditions. Warnings will be issued by various organisations in Poland, you can sign up for email alerts. The correct weather conditions for blight are a warm and humid atmosphere. The best organic compounds preventing blight are copper based, dithane is used commercially. I use Bordeaux mix which is a copper based powder you mix with water and spray directly onto the plant leaves. It's major disadvantage is that it's washed off by rain and a second spray is required. Some years you don't have to spray.

Rotating crops is to prevent soil based problems for example growing spuds in the same place year after year encourages pests like eel worm to flourish. Brassicas like cabbage, sprouts, cauliflower etc should be planted in the potato patch the following year not the other way round. Earthing up spuds encourages more tubers as they come from the side shoots of the roots and protect the plant from late frosts. Spuds are easy, when earthing up which you do about two or three times a season you can kill the weeds by cutting their roots and turning them into the soil where they will die.

Tomatoes are the same plant family and also suffer from blight, you treat them for blight the same way you do spuds. I don't think Blight is as big a problem in Poland as it is in Ireland. Get your spuds into the ground as soon as you can in case you can't visit due to the election queues and let nature take its course.

Certain crops leech the soil from certain chemicals.
Like corn sucks up nitrogen like none other so the following year you plant alfalfa and plow it under to raise the nitrogen level again.

You rotate crops for that reason and that was a very basic example why you do it.
Now in dolno situation I think we should fence his place off and raise Angus beef.

I don't spray I still get crops , my grandparents didn't have spray, if you have aphids or other creepy crawlies make up a solution of soap shavings and water then spray with that .

I get crops with no spray or chemical fertiliser not always pretty or abundant but its ok and I know its all organic.

Hey Reb I know someone here with plenty of Angus he don't do too well, we have a farm back in the UK full of them, they get boring after a while.

Yes , I also read about it. But as I said, I try to keep it organic without harmful stuff. It is not commercial, I only play a farmer and orchard keeper.


Yes, but as I am getting older, I become more and more tired of doing it manually. I already checked out some self-propelled rotary tillers.


Tomorrow.


Yes, the best solution.

That means rural people, at least in my village, have stopped being embarassed with showing their support for non-PiS candidates. It is the wind of change that one day will engulf whole Poland, sweeping harmful autocratic conservatives from power. I am not sure if there is any feud between those two neighbours. :):)

The second photo: this is one of 4 patches with my crops that I need to clear of weeds immediately before they produce seeds. I have already started doing it, so you can see the difference between the first four rows and the rest. I am going to be really busy for a few days. The whole arable area which I use amounts to about 140 square metres.

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  Face to face confrontation
  
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  No chemicals policy gives this result
  

Up the road from us in Łomianki, all (yes, all) the Duda adverts on the village street have been defaced. On each one, the M in 'Mój Prezydent' has been changed to an H, and the second d in Duda had been changed, bery logically, to a p.

So, today it was an exciting day coz we dug up our first own potatoes. I had planted Arizona variety. My wife boiled them for kids while I fried them with sausage and eggs. Wow, delicious. No chemicals or artificial fertilizers were used.

The only problem is Colorado beetle. I go around the field a few times a day and collect dozens of them every day. They fly in from neighbouring fields.


I did an experiment and planted some spuds in the grassy and weedy area. Now I see it has failed - the bushes grew twice smaller than in other weedless patches and now they are practically dead coz it has been dry for about two weeks. I haven`t dug them up yet. Tomorrow I am going to see what hides under those weeds there.

Not only from neighbouring fields. Also from distant areas, coz the whole village is virtually covered with those little bastards, even in the church. So, it is a larger invasion. I read about their life cycle, it is fascinating. To keep warm during freezing winters, adult bugs can burrow themselves even 1 metre down in the ground. Amazing. And they can fly distances of 100 km.

I noticed their No 1 in my field is Physalis - Inca berry. Number two potatoes, three - tomatoes - I have found only 3 or 4 bugs on them. Normally I collect about 100, my record was 200 one day. How are they able to detect their fav fodder while in the air? My Inca berry plants cover a small patch of about 1 square metre, yet whenever I pass it, I find one or two bugs. Do they chase after the smell?

Kids help out, too. Funny. it is like in 1950s when not only families but whole schools and factories went out to pick bugs from fields.

And it is all American fault!

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Well it has worked for me again , the spud plants have died back and there is a good crop below, yes plenty of weeds all around but basically I did no real work and have sacks of potatoes, I would post pictures but I cannot be bothered to work out how to post them here.

Don`t worry, I will post them for you.


So I dug up a few plants and saw that weedy area didn`t work like you had told me before - crop is insignificant - a few little potatoes. Much better in weedless patches - half big, half small. I suppose it is a result of the dry spell during the last month - it rained scarcely so weeds have deprived potatoes of water and they couldn`t grow.

How about rains in your area?

I have a 40 meter bore hole with an unlimited supply of water, one whole hectare is covered by an automated sprinkler system so no problem with water.

Maybe you should consider watering your crops properly , then you will get a greater yield.

I grow grapes on the slopes of the valley so watering is very important

aaah, watering system. Good idea but I am frugal and prefer to invest this money into sth bigger, e.g., another property. We have just bought... never mind. hahaha

Well, preparing a weedless patch for potatoes that my family can consume is much cheaper and takes less effort than installing and maintaining a system.


I also have vine, about 10 kinds, still young, half seedless, scattered around the house on various pergolas. But again, only for us.
But if you keep such an extensive vineyard, what do you do with the crop? For profit?

Na all my crops are picked by my neighbours and kids, I only do it all for fun , sometimes the pick stuff then bring me preserves in jars later, or bimber this year I am growing paprika for the first time , but i prefer it pickled on top of pizza , so I hope neighbours pick it and send me some pickled jars.

no not interested in profit.

Yeah I am also buying my third property in Poland at the end of this month.

Oh, I see, that`s funny indeed.

Exactly , if I pay for it grow it and give it away, there is no bureaucracy involved swienty spokoj.

I didn't come here to make money but spend it for fun with friends and family