It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

 

Hello all.

I'm in red type mode because here at Bronllan we're in full Christmas mode and there will be no apologies. I'd just like to say I hope you're all still keeping safe still social distancing and wearing your masks. The news of the vaccine is fantastic and a real positive thing but it is not going to solve things over night so we need to persevere and keep going a bit longer. Christmas and all that comes with it will be very different this year but I hope your are able to still do your shopping, maybe supporting some local businesses, and see your nearest and deastes somehow, in person or by the power of zoom.

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So, I thought I'd share how things are shaping up for Christmas on our little homestead.

This year I wanted to make my front door wreath out of totally natural elements so I headed off to meet Jon at the sawmill on my way back from Aber at the end of November to collect some fresh moss and left it to dry in the cellar for a few days.

We normally put up the tree over the first weekend of Decemeber but due to the way the weekend fell this year we were up and decorated on November 28th! That day I managed to get quite a lot done, with lots of cheery Christmas music on in the background, obvs!

After the tree I began with the other decorations which I like to have around the house; this is how my kitchen table looks at this time of the year! I have lots of tags, chains and hanging decorations I've made over the year and love using these along with new ones I make.

I began with the wooden box which was made for us, the actual box, by Jon's very creative cousin. It now sits on the kitchen side table which I can see from my reguralr spot at the table.

I sooo love my baking bench at this time of the year with lights and homemade chains of vintage paper. I whipped up a couple of batches of pastry for the fridge ready for mince pie making; I always use Mary Berry's recipe with orange zext and icing sugar and it never fails.

A couple of days later this is now the hall way looked. I made this star from some of the ceiling we had to take down in the living room when we arrived at Bronllan five years ago. It was sort of wattle and daub with the thin pieces of wood between the beams; I hope you know what I mean but this is a fabulous memory of our first Christmas and I hope to keep it for a long time.

It is decorated with had made tags, 

the old church shelf underneath it has this mixed media decoration of mine and the wonderful felt gnome made by the wonderful Maryline of Rural and Rustic.

In the kitchen I got down to the first three dozen mince pies. 12 went straight in the freezer, as usual, as that way we will always have a few for emergencies....

This sign I made a couple of Christmases ago but thought for this year it needed a bit of a make over. My very creative youngest added the decorations on the lower part and Jon did some new outlining. I love it!

In this photo the sign is leaning against our beautiful vintage sideboard which turns into our lovely drinks bar over the festive season. You may be able to see my bottle of Advocaat from which I am already enjoying a Snowball here and there, complete of course with a couple of Marachino cherries, would be rude not to!

After a little walk around the garden I brought in some greenery to go along wit the moss and the front door wreath was completed.

Over the next couple of days more decoations went up

and more pies were in the planning, of course.

We're really feeling very festive now. Presents are being wrapped, but not under the tree just yet, and although the family we were hoping to have travel to us for a few days are now not able to, we will enjoy our wonderful family time together. There's still quite a lot to do, such as very important jobs of printing off our A - Z game we play every Christmas Eve, buying presents for playing bingo on Boxing Day and lots of other things on my Christmas Planner which will gradually get crossed off one by one to ensure nothing is forgotten and that we have a joyous time.

I hope your plans are coming along well for however you plan on spending the festive season.

Bye for now,

take care

Lou. xx

Inspiration, we all love a bit of that!

Hello there. How is everybody? 💖 Not wishing to sound like a broken record but we are just keeping on keeping on here, except for the fact that my youngest was sent home on Monday. A classmate tested positive and he has to isolate but is returning to school on Wednesday, something he is VERY pleased about as he is not a big fan of online learning!

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Saturday.

I'm in the living room, no woodburner lit yet so have an extra layer on, but having some ish-quiet time with a brew and a biscuit. The weather outside is miserable as sin, the dog is asleep in the kitchen, Jon has popped to Aber for dog food (missed off my shopping list yesterday) the boys are upstairs putting up Christmas lights and Aled Jones' dulcets are wafting down the stairs, don't ask, as I sit here and write my blog post.

This morning I came across a note scribbled in my Household Notebook about sowing some tomatoes which can be grown outside. I've never been brave enough to do this because my efforts growing toms have never come to much with those IN doors, although this last year I did have better results in the poly tunnel. So this coming growing season after feeling inspired by my good friend Tracy of Our Smallholding Adventure, as usual, I've decided to give it a go. She's always very enthusiastic when it comes to growing tomatoes, most things really, and tries so hard sowing early, different varieties etc. So as well as trying some outside I'll be sowing a good variety of this very useful fruit - yes I think we all know tomatoes are a fruit not a vegetable!😄

So here are the sowing choices I've made for next year.

IDI F1: Quite a tasty variety I found this year and great to add some different colour to a plate. They are small, yellow and pear shaped, an indeterminate, vining variety and produced by the RHS and Mr Fothergill's.

Tomato F1Tumbling Tom Red : Next year will be the first time I've grown tumbling tomatoes, these seeds are from Simply Seed, and thought I would have them in a hanging basket in the poly tunnel as this variety is not frost hardy.

Maskota : This is a cherry variety by Mr Fothergill's, the seeds of which I was given by a neighbour. Now these were not a real success last year however I'm trying with them again which gives me the chance to grow at least one variety outside. These are also a bush type and ideal for pots, tall ones as they can tumble.

Big Mama F1 : I so do want to grow some big plum tomatoes to make sauce, my dream is to have jars of them in my cellar store room. These are said to be good for sauces, soups and salsa and they skin easily after par-boiing; wish me luck with these seeds from D T Brown.

Maghrebi : These are from the Heritage Seed Library and originate in Morocco They are said to be blight resistant and work well fresh, cooked or pureed. 

Marmande : From Kings Seeds these seeds produce large, attractive fruits which mature slightly later so you can hopefully extend your growing season. They are bushy and don't require side shooting. I hope to do better with these next year.

I'd be interested to know if you're growing anything different or special next year - inside or out.

Inspiration also struck after watching  on Homesteading Family on YouTube who are based in North Idaho in the States- I was put onto them by Tracy! In one of their many videos Carolyn the lady of the house talks about home management including about turning from consumers to producers. Now I think this is pretty much the main idea of those who own or wish to own a smallholding or homestead depending on your description of choice, see my blog post wth some of my thougts about that here.

Obviously we'll still be trying in what will be, amazingly, our 6th growing season to provide as much food as we can; with the advent of my poly tunnel I hope to improve on my harvests as we will have 4 extra months at the beginning of the year compared to last. I'm constantly learning when it comes to sowing and growing and I know those who have been doing it much much longer than me are also still learning and I think that's just great. When it comes to indoors and providing food I think next year I'll try having a couple of days a month to batch bake and make in the kitchen. This will cut down on buying certain things like snack biscuits but also to have meals and dishes to just take out of the freezer when at times we need to make things easy for ourselves or we are busy. We plan on getting a bigger downstairs freezer for the cellar room next year so I'll surely have space. 

Inspiration also came from Hugh and Fiona over at English Country Life on their latest YouTube video. Suggestions were given for books as Christmas presents for those who wish to learn about or gain more information about smallholding and all it can bring. I will now be asking Santa for a copy of this: 

I really want to up my game next year and I think this could be the book for me. Funnily enough Tracy has this on her list, too. You get the feeling we are a couple of peas in a pod!

....Life continually gets in the way so I'm now finishing my little ramblings on Sunday morning at the kitchen table. I've already fed the chooks, lit the Rayburn, put a wash load on, put another load to dry and had my first coffee. Jon took Belle out first thing and I can hear the kettle boiling for a second cup as we've now had breakfast and he and the boys are on a shed clearing out day.

I'm continutally inspired, like lots of people, by lots of people and I'm sure you are, too. 

Please leave a comment if you have time as I'd love to hear about how you are inspired along with any plans you have for the coming growing season.

Bye for now, 

Lou.xx

Poly House, Crafting and Christmas.

 Hello.

I'd hoped to get this post published on Monday when here in Wales we came out of our circuit breaker. I'm hoping people will not see this as a time to celebrate the end of restrictions but to instead keep asking themselves what they can do to keep the virus at bay and from spreading.

Also in the news this week there has been real progress with vaccines. It is said there is a chance of maybe two being available by the Spring; this is wonderful but in the meantime we need to keep up with the rules:

                                                HANDS                  FACE                SPACE                                              

Moving on. Here on our little homestead we're been cracking on with jobs and the most exciting one is the re-covering of the poly house. I'm not sure how long it had been in such disarray but it is months. 

The job was started last week, in the wind and rain.

Because of the weather this last week we had to wait until Satruday morning to start again so Jon fetched new battens and he and the boys set to work et voila!! 

I am absolutely chuffed to bits that it is useable again and in the afternoon I set about tidying up, putting all the pots above the door where they belong and gave it a good sweep out. 

I'm sooooo looking forward to getting back to doing inside outside jobs again, but also to just spending some me time in there with a brew, thinking about the sowing and growing I'll be able to do in there in the coming months.

I didn't actually wait that long to get in there to do something as on Sunday I planted 62 red onion sets in individual pots! 

I had ordered variety Electric but I was sent a replacement vairiety called Roelin which I'm asured is a suitable substitute. They are Autumn planting ones but I just thought I would experiment and plant them like this and then put them out later, just because....

I received a fairly big order of seeds last month which I talked about on my last post and I'm hoping for that my last order, I think, will arrive in the next couple of days. (Post man has just been so won't be today!) I'm waiting for the following:

courgette Gold F1

tomato Big Mama F1 

cucumber Diamant (gherkins)

Nasturtium Alaska

sweetcorn Swift F1

I've been getting back to a little more crafting after taking a break after finishing my mammoth project of my festive journal. You can see a flip through of it here on my YouTube channel. This shadow box is something I've been working on for a while until I had the special lights. You can see how it makes such a difference to the effect.

We're really looking forward to celebrating Christmas this year, even though it will be a little different. We normally love having friends and neighbours round on Boxing Day, kitchen table heaving with food, treats and a few glasses of bubbly but we won't be doing that this year. It won't stop us having a lovely family time, though, as we always do and a part of this is me decorating in my own, special way which I can't WAIT to do. 

With the cake already sitting in the cupboard waiting to be fed, which is normal at this time of the year, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

I know some people don't like to think about  Cristmas too early but I'm just thinking what the heck. The turkey is ordered, there is mincemeat in the cellar store room from last year waiting for the first lot of mince pies and even a box of crackers we didn't get round to pullng and our youngest has got his music playlist sorted. Doesn't seem to be a way of stopping the festive juggernaut and frankly I'm not too concerned in doing so, but I do draw the line at Christmas songs being played before December 1st. 

And to that, in the words of the fabulous Matthew McConaughey, I say "alright, alright, alright"!

Ok well, enough of my ramblings. Today is Jon's birthday so better get that cake iced.

Take care of yourself and each other.

Bye for now,

Lou.xx

Simply Sowing And Growing.

Hello all.

Here is the usual opening to my post. Things are constantly changing all over the UK with the pandemic so with best wishes all I can say is I hope you're staying safe and doing what you need to in order to continue as best you can under the circimstances. 

I was trolled on my Twitter feed the other day; accused of being selfish and middle-class, hiding away from the virus just because I said I was extremely grateful I had somewhere I could keep safe with me and mine, soooooo I'm just keeping on keeping on. 

Today I've had a couple of exciting deliveries. The first thing was my order of seeds from the online company Simply Seed, the postage for just seeds is a flat rate of £1.39 and the prices of the seeds is very reasonable.

The seeds I have ready for next year are:

Carrot Autumn King 2

Leek Mussleburgh

Leek Tornado

Beetroot Bolthardy

Radish French Breakfast

Cucumber Femspot

Tomato Tumbing Tom Red

French Bean Montano

Turnip Purple Top Milan

Khol Rabi Delicacy Purple

Salad Leaves Musclun Mixed

Butternut Squash Butterbush

Courgette Sure Thing

There are a couple that I still want but will hopefull get them soon.

Only issue is that I got a little excited and ended up ordering three packets of Bolthardy Beetroot, two types of leek and two packets of Radish French Breakfast!😂 Never mind!

The other delivery was the polythene covering for the poly house and my boys have been removing the batons for us to, hopefully, get it on over the weekend weather depending. 

Woop woop!

And then yesterday I took a little look around the poly tunnel.

I have a few flowers on my Meteor dwarf peas which is great. No idea when I might get pods on them; the things in the poly tunnel are a bit experimental - Tracy over at Our Smallholding Adventure knows all about that.

The carrots I have sown, two lots, are germinating and I may get some through in who knows! 

Very pleased that my sweet peas have popped up.

I also wanted to share some photos of the delicious Cawl we had for tea last night. It was made from the left overs from our Sunday roast. 

The meat was from a lamb Jon butchered; a long time since he used his chef training to that degree. It was delicious, served in wooden bowls as dictated by tradition, along with some of my homebaked bread and Welsh cheese.

Well, that is all my ramblings for now I think. The weather is blustery but bright here today so not unpleasant, especially with the Rayburn warm on my back.

Take care,

bye for now.

Lou.xx

 

To Rotate or Not to Rotate.

Hello All.

I hope you're keeping safe wherever you are. Today there are some new restrictions for England. Over the weekend some people were taking the chance to have a last party and this upsets meand make we feel anxious. I hope that Wales stops visitors coming from these high risk area. I also hope people follow the rules and things start to improve soon for everybody.

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The posts here on my blog are not generally that thought provoking and I just tend to ramble on wondering if anybody finds them interesting enough to read. However there is a little more to my post today. It was sparked by me clearing the sweetcorm from the bed in front of the poly house/gazebo, but before that I need to talk about how we sometimes listen to other people's advice a little too much and don't always experiment when we are sowing and growing. It has taken me a long time to, sometimes, throw the rule book out of the window and just go for it. Don't get me wrong, I read lots of books looking for 'advice' and am so very grateful for all the accounts and people I talk to on Twitter as I love hearing how they go about things on their little patches of paradise, but sometimes I just think what the hell and give something a go! My very good friend Tracy over at Our Smallholding Adventure inspries me as she isn't afraid to give stuff a go!

Back to the sweetcorn.My plants have grown very well there this year and not too bad two years ago. I was thinking that its the best place to grow it above anywhere else in the garden so I started thinking about crop rotation. In the garden, as a rule, I don't plant things in the same place in consecutive years, and never potatoes, but I certainly don't leave it four years between crops; I read somewhere that if you grow in raised beds you don't really need to practise crop rotation.

So I went on a bit of a research run; didn't fall down a total rabit hole but got advice from a couple of people incuding Hugh over at @engcountrylife on Twitter as well as well as chatting to Kev of @Englishomestead also on Twitter. Generally people said that they are thristy plants and if you are going to grow them in consecutive years to add some good organic matter before planting.

Then I decided to look at some videos after somebody tagged Charles Dowding in a reply to my tweet. He replied, loved that, saying it should be fine to grow again. I checked his You Tube channel about crop rotation and that of Huw Thomas as well. Because Charles and Huw both practice no dig in their gardens, which I pretty much do, in a nut shell the act of not disturbing the soil due to not digging helps to keep the soil structure in a healthy state therefore negating the 'dig' principle.

Charles said he had has some good results when keeping plants in the same spot but other times the harvests were not so bountiful year on year; you can see what he says about it in more detail here. 

Over at Huw Richards' You Tube channel here he talks about why crop rotation is a waste of time. He points out that with frames for bean growing no rotation means no moving of the frame to a different part of the garden or allotment. 

So, I do hope you have enjoyed my ramblings. I'm definitely going to plant my sweetcorn in the same spot next year, I'll look at my planting plans and get ready to open the window and get ready to throw out that rule book a bit more, just to see what might happen!

Bye for now,

take care and stay safe,

Lou.xx

Planning Without Panicking

 Hello

The other day I responed to somebody on Instagram who had been talking about lots of sowing they were going to be doing. I commented that I don't like thinking too far ahead with my sowing and growing. I explained that I love the winding down and changing of the seasons. 

I haven't in the past done lots of sowing in the Autumn but I do always put my onions and garlic in this month and in the last couple of years I've planted some bulbs to make the Aribnb listings more attractive. Even though I now have the poly tunnel to grow things over Winter - I already have peas, cabbage, khol rabi, salad leaves and carrots growing or started in there - I still feel I need a break from the need to always have to be doing SOMETHING outside. If I don't I have a break I get a panicky feeling and this takes the fun out of things for me.

For me Autumn into Winter is the start of the year winding down and here is how I explained my thoughts in another post on my Instagram account.

 

I have to admit my garden is not looking so favourable just now - leaves to be collected and saved for veg bed mulch and pots and trays to be packed away (tricky when your greenhouse is more like a gazebo) but also exciting things like onion and garlic to be sown in anticipation of a tasty harvest next year. Hmmm, next year; good to have some positivity to keep in mind there. Gardening is perfect for that and Clea Danaan in her book Mindful Thoughts for Gardeners tells us 

"The harvest period is a time of letting go. When we go through personal growth the same is true.... we rejoice in our new discoveries, we need also to give ourselves time to grieve and let go. And then, when we have fully released our old selves, we can crack open the fruit before us and discover what lies inside - seeds for the future. This is the nature of a harvest: a release of the past, a gift in the present and a promise of hope for the future." Let's all look to some hope for everyone in everything in the months to come.

I really am going to try and keep this in mind for my STATE of mind! It is wonderful to have things growing all year round, where you can, but the change in the season is about being grateful for the past, appreciating what it has given by way of our harvests, but we and the land need to recover. The land needs to re-charge its batteries and we benefit from that also. The nights are drawing in so we're beginning to have shorter days and less time to work on our little patches of paradise. I love the bright, chilly mornings where I enjoy looking around the garden and now will do so in the poly tunnel, too.

I will be making plans for next year, in fact I'm looking at a few things just now,

but I'm taking my time and enjoying it and not feeling forced to be out there all the time because frankly right now its just too wet!

Bye for now, Lou.xx

Inside and out, this and that, keeping on keeping on, still!

 Hello.

I really am loathe to start with my usual how are you all doing opener. Things are detreriorating with the pandemic in many places just now which is very sad indeed; we really have gone back many steps. I continue to feel very guilty about not wanting to go out more than necessary, yet want the boys to get their education in school as I think that is so important - I can't do a good enough job with the home schooling. I've been shopping and stocked up, sensibly, on top of the shopping trip I made last week so hope to not need going again for a couple of weeks at least apart from fresh fruit an veg if needed until the garden get going with autumn growing.🤞 We're going back a little to how we cooked, baked and ate in the early days of lockdown so I feel this will start to make me feel a little more comfortable. I hope with the nights drawing in that people MAY beginto stay in more and help with slowing the spread of infection but who knows. 

I continue to say we're doing our own thing andTracy at Our Smallholding Adventure talks about here in her latest post, what we are dealing with right now IS right now, normal for the foreseeble and we just have to deal with it - keep on keeping on.

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Anyway, here's me cheering myself up with inside and out of my little patch of paradise. 

If you read my last post the week was set to end with some really warm days and it did, however this weekend there was a distinct change. We'd already lit the wood burner on Friday night...

 and on Saturday morning with this lovely ice pattern on the bathroom Velux window.

the decision was made to light the Rayburn; yes, the old girl was fired up!

I feel sooo cosy just looking at this photo and as I type this my back is lovely and warm! We cooked our chicken Sunday roast in and on it yesterday and I'm looking forward to start baking bread and goodies for the tin.

The woodpile has been ready for this moment for a good few weeks now, even having a third extension plus roof so the Welsh rain doesn't ruin Jon and the boys' stacking efforts, so we're good to go for a lovely warm Winter indoors.

On Saturday afternoon the temperature in the poly tunnel was a surprising 32 degrees but I started work on something Jon and I had talked about; just a little project outside in the garden. The sink outside the poly house was cleared and will have new compost added and the sage, thyme and oregano are now housed in one of the tall planters on the garden side of the veg patch.

We plan on putting herbs in all the three planters so I'll need to check which herbs like living together. I know there three are happy house mates but will have to do a little homework reseach - just may ask the lovely Sara at Hawkwell Herbs for some advice.

I'm planning on growing flowers in the sink and toilet so have to move the two mint plants, replace that compost and get my bumbs organised - I would love to have some cutting flowers.

Also around the garden my multi-sown leeks seem to be coming along very nicely so fingers crossed we can have those on Christmas Day - unlike my second cropping spuds as blight has done for them I'm afraid.

  

Looking around I spotted these strawberries in some  planters I've left outside for some time. 

Still seem to be fruiting and just today I saw these others in the poly tunnel. They are some of  the runners I've planted - obviously one pot had some seeds in it already which I didn't realise!

My tomatoes are just about coming to an end. They are finally ripenening and read somewhere that laying the plants down can help with the process so giving that a go.

We haven't had anywhere near as many tomatoes as we would have liked but what we have had have been much better quality than in the past so maybe I'm getting there, finally!

I'm so pleased that the runner beans are really flowering now but not sure when I might get any pods.

I'm really please that the first lettuces I sowed and planted are doing very well so hope for the same with the ones planted later.

Earlier this morning I took a llittle walk a few minutes from the house and picked a couple of things to go with the crysanthymums and gourds I bought yesterday. A taste of Autumn in the kitchen so brighten my days.

That's enough of my ramblings and, as usual, I say stay safe.

Bye for now,

Lou.xx