Easter Was Crazy!

Hi there!

Easter weekend was crazy as both our Airbnb rooms were busy from Thursday until the last guests left on Tuesday; this is the first Easter we have been soooo busy. We had some lovely guests who brought with them dogs and vintage cars. The car was a 1934 Talbot and its owners were taking part in an event at Devil's bridge.

So I've been catching up with washing and ironing as well as getting the rooms ready for our own visitors who came yesterday. The boys don't go back to school until Tuesday but uniform has been in the ironing pile to make sure that all is ready. Me and the boys went to town on Thursday for the barbers and had lunch then did the food shopping so I could come home to finish both rooms. 

Another job I've had was to clean the bathroom from top to bottom. Being an old house the walls are very thick and it isn't a quick job to put in an extractor fan so we have to keep an eye on any mould spots, also in readiness for our visitors; we plan to install the fan some time this year.

I baked an almond pound cake and iced it yesterday ready for having with tea and coffee for my friend who arrived yesterday afternoon.

I also made an apricot tear and share scone to be served with chutney and apricot Stilton as part of anti pasta as Jon's cousin and her fella weren't getting to us until 9pm for supper and drinks.

We had a great evening with fantastic food, some guitar playing a singing before taking ourselves off the bed far too late! We are just about to head into town for some lunch and hopefully Storm Hannah, who arrived this morning, will have calmed down a bit by the time we get there.

Now enough of inside so here are photos of how things are coming along in the poly house and the garden. 

Starting with the poly house here are my courgettes Tondo di piacenza; they're going great guns! I grew these last year to about the size of a tennis ball.

I'm growing a variety of Squash called Butterbush this year to be grown in containers and they'll be planted in one of my big tyres.

Now the Meteor peas are growing really well but I'm not going to pick them yet; I'm slightly concerned as I'm supposed to be planting my cucumbers and aubergines in the poly house bed.

My tomatoes are a little bit behind some people's but never mind; I'm growing Ailsa Craig, Gardener's Delight, Red Alert, OutdoorGirl, Cuor Di Bue and Yellow Delight!

Leeks for the first time seem to look like they should; I've sown another tray, too. 

Oh, I have a third variety of courgette which is Goldena; I loved growing these yellow ones last year as they look great when pickled with radishes and in stir fries!

I moved one of the strawberry plants from the bench into the poly house and it has flowers!

Here are my first early spuds Swift on the right with the radishes peeping through.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Go the Rocketeers, Again!

Good morning!

Last Friday I spent a lovely couple of hours with Kim Stoddart on one of her fab Green Rocket poly tunnel courses. Kim is also know as @BadlyBehavedOne on Twitter, is a gardener, journalist and a regular writer in Grow Your Own magazine, Country Smallholding magazine and The Guardian.

Kim hosts her courses on her smallholding near Synod Inn, Ceredigion in mid-Wales, not far from me luckily. The short course I went to was an informative and fun-packed two hours based on time and money saving hints when growing in a poly tunnel; I don't have a poly tunnel as you may know but we covered so much that helped me, too, and would benefit you when growing outside in open ground on an allotment or in raised beds in your garden.

We started off by talking about watering our edibles. Considering the very warm weather we had last year Kim managed to keep her watering to a minimum. The way she managed this was to water deeply and less frequently because surface watering will really do very little good. This is a far more effective method and, coupled with watering at cooler times of the day, you should be able to maintain your plants through any spell of warm weather as well as not needing to spend so much time surgically attached to your hosepipe or watering can.

Another time saving method is not to always take up plants when their harvest has finished. If you leave some plants in your poly tunnel/veg bed when they run to seed they will self seed and this can cut down on sowing some plants. A by-product of allowing this to happen is the encouragement of pollinating insects which can only be a good thing.

Talking of insects there are easy ways to attract predators into your poly tunnel or onto your veg beds to eat things like slugs, beetles and caterpillas and aphids; the latter are eaten by lady birds. A pond in your garden or the addition of a small one inside will attract frogs and newts. An easy way to distinguish between prey and predator is that the former move more slowly than the latter!

We also covered the subject of cutting back, pruning plants as you would fruit trees, bushes and canes to prolong their harvests. This is very effective with brassicas working well with sprouts, kale, swiss chard and purple sprouting broccoli as seen here on the left of the photo.

I hope you've enjoyed reading a little about the things we covered but you will get so much more out of the courses;all those who attend the courses are at different stages with their sowing and growing so shared experiences, hints and tips contribute to a great time. I really enjoyed myself and Kim has let me know that a new range of workshops will be launched soon so I suggest you keep an eye on her website, Facebook page and Twitter account as I'm sure there'll be something to interest you.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Weekend Work? No, Homestead Harmony!

Hi!

This weekend we had some fantastic weather so we made the best of it with us all doing our bit where we could.

Yesterday I had an early jaunt to Aber to take Harry into Aber as he was boating with the cadets. I came home and as we had Airbnb guests due in the afternoon I made sure the room was ready. We had to head back into town to run a few errands, pick up Harry and grab a quick bite to eat.

Once home Jon and Harry went down to the field for logs and they split and stacked more wood to add to our supply for next winter. Funny, on our little homestead as with lots of other people, in Winter we prepare for Summer and in Summer we prepare for Winter. Alf and Harry were helping today.

Alf and I headed to the poly house.things are looking great in there at the moment. 

We set about potting on the last two sunflowers Pacino and a few courgettes Tondo di Piacenza. 

We also sowed butternut squash Butterbush - I'm growing this smaller variety in one of the big tyres this year and it also stores well - and Alf filled up water bottles and watering cans. A few more kale seeds were added to the small bed outside where it IS showing signs of life from the first sowing.

We had a bigger job as we needed to lay membrane in the bottom of the third veg bed, I think I've shown this image before so sorry for that. Then we spread out the compost which had been in the now removed raised beds; this didn't take too long then I also put a barrow full of my own compost - always very satisfying to make and use your own goodness; the bed does need a bit more to fill it completely. 

Quite a satisfying job. I think the first thing I'm going to put in there at one end are the second lot of Meteor peas I've sown and have growing in a drainpipe in the poly house. 

Talking of the peas, look, I have pods! 

This is very exciting as I checked my diaries and I sowed these on October 22 lasy year and successfully overwintered them in the greenhouse; they were then planted in the poly house on January 17. 

Today with a little help from Alf I've planted my 2nd early spuds, Charlottes.

These are in bed 2 which is in the far right corner of my little patch of paradise.

Jon came back from the field after chopping some of the trees to get the trailer and said I needed to go with; I took these photos of just at the gate where he has taken down the trees. 

The stream is to the left of the gate....

and this is the view with the gate behind you and the field itself is a few minutes walk down this way and spreads out at the bottom. 

This is the map of the space lined in red with the narrow end to the right being where the stream is and the main gate

My last job of the day was to level out the main veg patch using some of my compost; its matured nicely....

and the beds are all looking great ready for the fun and games of the coming season. 

I'm so very excited about getting them full of edibles!

Right, that's my little round up finished.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx