Mish-Mash Monday!

Good morning.

Monday and I find myself in from the garden after a few jobs including preparing the Airbnb room for guests arriving this evening; we had a last minute booking for Saturday night, too. 

This was the garden this morning. I just love it here beyond words!

Now this post is a bit of a mish-mash round up of the last few days I think; not sure what happened when with everything but here goes.

I don't grow many edibles but my wild flower chimney pot is coming along a treat...

I'm continuing to harvest lots of salad leaves along with kale, radishes...some bolted so have re-sown..

and the first early spuds. Still love digging for treasure when it comes to harvesting spuds!

Here we have patch to plate. Potato salad, nom nom!

In the cellar we have been doing some re-jigging so I now have a much cleaner laundry area. Jon had a few little plumbing issues to deal with first but now after we acquired the really deep sink from friends it is just fab for washing.  Awkward shaped stuff, really dirty things I don't want to have in the kitchen sink, like footy boots can be taken care of down there and I have storage space, too so I'm chuffed to bits with it.

The other end of the cellar has had a good tidy up, too with boots and shoes being brought down from the conservatory to stop if being a dumping ground. Winter coats, hats, gloves etc have been washed ready for later in the year or grown out things to go to the charity shop.

I took part in another of my Stationery Swaps recently and these were the goodies I received at the weekend! I'll have to up my game to match up to these beautiful things; pens, notebooks, stickers, cards, eeeeek!!!!!!!

I've planted out my Sweet potatoes; two types, Erato Orange and White - three of each.

Progress on the greenhouse has been halted as we haven't managed to get glass for the missing pains yet. I've put five tomato plants in the gh as they are on the side with glass in low down so hope they get the benefit of some extra warmth. The leaves are curling so of course I am panicking but I keep watering them well, no flowers yet and the texture of the leaves is a little leathery....

The poly house should be covered by next week. I'm just working on the basis that everything is growing outside due to the weather being good for the next 10 days or so and praying for good results.

I have had some growth on my two different types of courgettes I'm growing this year.

Goldena, teeny tiny I know!

and 

Tondo di Piacenza, like a golf ball!

I made a lovely salad for tea last night. All the salad leaves and herbs were ours but then I added peaches, parma ham, mozarella, carrot, boiled eggs, cucumber, tomato, pepper and red onion. I do hope that later in the year I'll be able to make this again with all our own produce apart from the ham, cheese and peaches. Have to say it was scrummy.

Right, better get on as have Harry home from school with a nasty cough and need to get up some lunch.

Looking forward, as ever, to seeing what people got up to at the weekend.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Aaarrggghhh! Veg Patch Panic!

Good morning.

The weather today is a little overcast and a little less windy than when we got up.

I've been out and watered but feel there may be a shower later on.

As I walk around my little patch of paradise at the moment there are a few things I'm a little concerned about. We are having this kind of weather just now after three weeks or so of wonderful sunshine and not a lot of rain.

My Poly House is still uncovered in the main but really hopeful this will be rectified in a week or so. I have "in" there my tomatoes in planters and I'm not sure if it is a watering issue or something else but the leaves on a couple of the plants are curling. In the raised bed I have two gherkins and a cucumber which seem to be ok for now.

In the main patch, top of this photo, my first early spuds are not flowering but the second earlies are! They are all well earthed up so just leaving them be.

On a positive note the salad leaves, bottom of above photo, are going great guns and we eat them every day. In the back of my mind I'm thinking the sun has increased the foliage on my swede, also in this photo, as they are seemingly doing well.

In the small bed next to the fruit patch I have done well with radishes so far and plan on sowing some more. However, I sowed parsnip seeds underneath the radishes and I'm not sure if that has been an epic fail or they are not meant to show at all just now, because they are not doing!

My climbing peas are beginning to flower quite well but no pods yet so I don't think I need to worry about them, but I'm thinking about the foliage thing here, too, with it racing ahead and possibly the pods will not come....

Most of my anxiety is hopefully just to do with the late start to the good weather after the snow and bad storms, trying to be optimistic on all levels!

Any advice or assistance regarding all of this would be warmly received and, of course, much appreciated.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Book Review - First-Time Gardener by Frances Tophill

I recently bought this book. I don't normally buy garden books unless they are solely about sowing and growing edibles. However, this caught my eye as I've been enjoying Frances on Gardeners' World helping out on an allotment in Bristol.


I like the book for various reasons. There are lots of visuals to give you instant inspiration but in the written content you are not overloaded with information. Because I don't tend to grow many non-edible things I found it interesting to be reminded what an annual, a biennial plant etc is and then have suggestions made for the kind of plants to grow in various area of the garden. In general Frances gives around ten or so recommendations of things, be it which climbers, choices of trees, suitable grasses, vegetables to grow and border planting.

As the title says it's a great book for a first time gardener who wants to make a fresh start on an existing garden or deal with a new garden they have inherited. She gives advice on how to assess what you have, areas, soil type and a great questionnaire to identify how you want to use the garden. Following on from that she suggests ideas to consider when coming up with a design; this is done by looking at what style of garden you prefer.
Frances talks about hard landscaping including the materials you might use. She includes a small section on water in the garden and I enjoyed this as I'm hoping to refurbish our own garden pond.

At the end of the book she talks about planting and maintaining the garden and finishes with lists of seasonal jobs to do in various areas of the garden.
I think I would describe the book as uncomplicated and I have taken some really useful information from it without feeling overwhelmed. I fell somebody could read this and know exactly where to start in order to achieve the kind of garden they really want. 

Sun, Salad, Strimming and Such!

Hi!

The last few days have been very busy for us. Jon has mown and strimmed the lawn and its looking just fantastic. Even the patches at the far end of the garden where the bamboo was and the place where we used to have a fire are looking wonderful now; we are sooo enjoying the garden with this wonderful weather.

We sat and had lunch at the picnic table yesterday and the addition of the brolly was perfect; we are eating salad leaves and herbs at just about every meal just now which is very satisfying.

We purchased a new strimmer and Jon has been around  the main veg patch

and the fruit patch too. I've raked it and I've decided to put membrane down and Jon will get wood chippings to go on top and this will keep the weeds down. I so wanted it to be an au natural area but the weeds are no good when you want to look after the fruit trees and bushes properly so they've gotta go.

On Saturday afternoon, again flippin' hot, I put down membrane on the floor of the greenhouse. Sweat was dripping off the end of my nose! We shovelled sand onto it and laid it level; this will do for this year then we'll set it up right in time for next Spring probably with staging and raised beds.

I know it probably isn't the traditional floor of a greenhouse but it suits me.

Oh, on Friday and Saturday I received some parcels in the post. I've been filling in some online surveys (won't be doing it any more as I seemed to be getting lots of spam email) and decided to cash in my £15 Amazon reward voucher. I went for the Sarah Rainey 3-ingredient baking book - there are lots of things in it I am going to try -  along with Frances Tophill's First Time Gardener. The latter is a lovely book with different chapters of interest and not just about sowing and growing, which for me is a change. I also chose some cute macaron-design writing paper to use when writing to my pen pals.

On Saturday the things I ordered with my letter voucher from Grow Your Own Magazine courtesy of Thompson and Morgan came. 

I went for some spray weed killer - I know some people don't like to use it but I need this for some small areas around the sleepers of my veg beds. I also bought rubber tops for bamboos canes to prevent poking my eyes out,

and some fly papers to hang in both the greenhouse and poly house. I ordered my sweet potato slips which will be here by the end of the month and to plant these in I bought four growing bags. Finally I treated myself to a fantastic Kent and Stowe trowel which is pure quality and just feels lovely in your hand, very posh I am with this and my RHS gloves!

On Friday I tied the front door rose back a bit and its in flower and already looking lovely.

Yesterday afternoon I took up a few spuds because one came up by accident when I was earthing up so wanted to check progress. I brought these in...

I'm now in a slight state of anxiety as when I took up the spuds on a couple of the plants there were a couple which were mushy. All the leaves are fine, no blackening and looking extremely healthy so fingers crossed that the rest will be ok, even though there are so yellow bolting-like looking flowers.... Hope my spud campaign hasn't finished before its started.

Here are the Robin chicks; they are growing and often seen with their little mouths open wide ready for food.

The sunflowers,

supermarket-bought lettuces potted on and

 

broccoli seedlings are all doing well. I plan on putting the latter in the spot where I'll be taking up the first early spuds.

Well I think that's my update done; the weather is forecast to be the same as recently until Thursday when we hope to get just a little bit of rain.

Hope everybody else is enjoying their gardens.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Garden, Gifts and Guests!

Hello!

Busy few days here on the Homestead. We had Jon's family here for a couple of days as the boys have been on half term this last week - gone back today, aaaand relax!

This is a bit of a mish-mash with what happened when but never mind! 

I've been busy in the garden with more of this glorious weather. Lots of the tomatoes have been put into planters ready to go into the greenhouse hopefully by the end of the week. I potted on some of the smaller toms and planted out some of the courgettes.

I have earthed up the first early spuds and I'm using up the last ones I bought so we can hopefully try our own by the weekend. Eeeek! Last night we harvested our first salad leaves and had them with herbs for tea; (no photo as too busy enjoying them!) soooo tasty and I'm chuffed how the salad leaves are coming on and I'm very glad I have sown and will continue to sow more as we go along.

We have cut the grass this weekend as Jon acquired a mower after doing a job over the Bank Holiday weekend and was paid with that. Alfie helped out with one side of the garden whilst Jon was putting the greenhouse on a base. I have membrane to put down and we hope to get the glass in this week.

We have also acquired/been gifted a couple of other things for the garden like this fab picnic table which was in use for lunch yesterday; perfect as half in the sun half in the shade. 

And for the garden, along with some onions and leeks,

these Kelveden peas have been put in a planter which came with a couple of pods already! Apparently they grow to about 17 inches tall so have installed some willow sticks as support.

I seem to be embracing the mixed planting ethos in the main patch. Here I have the leeks in the main patch

along with the lettuce, one broccoli, a courgette and a cabbage. I'm looking forward to trying the spinach beet which is also in there, I've a little more space but once the spuds start to come up soon there will be a little more area to use. The onions have been put in with existing ones in one of the tyres.

Talking of spuds the first earlies are just flowering.

In other news we had a one night Airbnb booking on Saturday night. They left at 10am, I received another booking at 2.45pm and they arrived at 6.45pm on Sunday evening! What is mildly exciting is that one of the guests was working updating a travel guide for Wales. What a hoot it would be if we got a mention in that? Also I expect a comprehensive review for these guests and frankly I can't wait!

Today is an inside day as much as I can manage. I'm on my second wash load, the guests have left and the bed is stripped. I'll get the room top and tailed after lunch when I have to pop our for chicken pellets and go to the post office. I need to fit in making some biscuits or a cake as the tin is empty and I was given rhubarb by our neighbour and Harry has requested I make a crumble. There are a few other things on my list but we'll see how we go; phone calls and admin/paper work can be done whilst I eat lunch - oohI need to watch the 2nd part of the British Scandal thing with Huge Grant, first one was ace!

Right I had better get on.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx