Steadily Sowing And Gradually Growing.

Good morning.

I do hope you have some good weather you can be grateful for and enjoy if you are able to get outside. We have been very lucky recently and the forecast is good for the rest of the week so much so that our boys are camping out in the garden tonight.

How is everybody? Well I hope and staying safe under the circumstances; we're ok with the odd wobble here and there. We were back in home-school mode yesterday so at times I needed to help the youngest with the writing of a theoretical business plan and then an imaginary diary of a sheep drover from the 1880's - in Welsh, suffice to say I was helping before translation. Today it is French, Science and Maths but the last one is Jon's domain if help's needed!

The chooks are laying well at the moment. We gave a box of eggs to each of our neighbours at the weekend and yesterday made use of a few more. It was a bit of a kitchen day so I managed to make chicken and tops-of-the-leeks soup, over-ripe fruit crumble, apple and cinnamon oat cookies with some shamefully slightly past best eating apples and two cakes - almond pound cake and chocolate.

In other kitchen news I was able to get some yeast from the catering company my sister uses so I am good to go with the bread making now!

I took a turn around the garden after tea last night and did the watering; some of the chickens were free ranging and quite happily shared the garden with the lambs. 

The red and green lettuce in the shallow sink is doing really well; hope it results in as good a crop as last year!

Arran Pilot first early spuds are coming along in all three of the tyres.

Even the lilac, which only flowers once every couple of years, made me smile.

The strawberry pots outside are looking very healthy after over wintering...

and they will, along with those from the large crate, VERY soon be transferred to the poly tunnel (PT) because I'm expecting it to be delivered TODAY or tomorrow.👏👏 Soooo excited. The plan is to get the frame up at the weekend and Jon is going to build beds each side with a middle walkway. We hope to have compost delivered at the end of the month when we share a big order with our neighbours so the supplier makes just one journey. We'll be looking at putting a good eight inches or so over the manure we have already laid on the area and then let the planting commence!

One slight nuisance I have in the large bed are the rogue spuds left over from last year; they have popped up here and there so I think I'll have to take them out so they don't bother the new planting out I'll be doing.

I checked the conservatory last night, too; things have been coming on gradually in there over the last few days, too. I did my first potting on the other day and that was the squash, Butterbush variety, which are suggested as a container plant but I'm actually putting them in the ground.

I've sown aubergine Black Beauty this year, again, and they are showing, not huge yet but...; really want to be able to have these in the PT.

This is the first year I have tried multi-sowing,  a la Charles Dowding, and these are my leeks!

Tomatoes are not very big yet but looking healthy.

One crop which will be ready to plant out soon, allowing for the last frost, are my dwarf beans; it should be safe to put these out by the end of the month.

Well, I'd better get a brew so I'm ready to start with the boys. 

I hope you are all managing, coping and maybe enjoying or at least making the best of this forced situation we've found ourselves in; we need to stick to the rules to protect everybody. I know it seems like it will never end but it will and when we come out the other side life will be different for sure, but we'll be able to reconnect with people again without the use of a screen and hopefully appreciate so much more who and what we are lucky enough to have in our lives.

Take care and stay safe.

Lou.xx

Our todays and our tomorrows.

Good morning.

We are being very lucky with the weather just now and the weekend was beautiful, very bright and sunny but the wind dropped later in the evenings. Yesterday, after getting a few jobs done inside and having lunch, we headed outside to enjoy the weather as well as do some work, well I say work but we don't see it that way more like carrying on with our life what ever the circumstances may be just now.

Over the last couple of days I've been thinking about how all the financial help being offered by the government will have to be repaid. In a way a lot of it is a loan not a grant;
it is wonderful that both employed and self-employed people, families, businesses etc are being given holidays from mortgages and overdrafts and that there are increases in benefits etc. 

However, once the social distancing is over, people begin to return to their places of work and travel is again allowed for domestic, national and international reasons I really do feel there will be austerity plans which will need to be in place for some time. Unfortunately I feel the people who were still enjoying their time in Richmond Park on Saturday (the park was closed yesterday) are some of those who will not understand that, although life will return to some semblance of normality, things will be some time before we have the freedom to be as we want and do as we choose.

With all of this to consider we, on our little homestead, intend to continue with our routine which has changed to something a bit different in the last 4 weeks or so; they say if you change a habit it only takes 22 days for it to become permanent. Our aim is to provide for ourselves as much as possible; this spurred me on over the weekend as I just wanted to be sowing some hope and positivity in all of this so I spent some time getting seeds in the garden. I have parsnips and turnips in the garden and in the conservatory things are looking good to which I have added today more dwarf beans, spring onions and leeks using the multi sow system. It simply felt great to be outside.

This morning I've walked around the garden after we had rain last evening; not much to share but new life is there. The fruit bushes we have are all looking great. The blueberries continue to look really healthy and I am hopeful for even a half decent harvest this year.

The large crate which has strawberry plants in it has been weeded a little, too. 

I need to take some of the plants out as they were too close last year but I'm waiting for the poly tunnel then I'll move them.

I weeded the herb sink, put fresh compost in and sowed some lemon balm.

Something I just love just standing and looking at is the Magnolia Strellata. I feel so lucky that it was in the garden when we moved here, but sad it only lasts a short time when the flowers finally appear. It'll get a good pruning this year as didn't get round to it last year.

The veg bed in the corner of the garden has been a little bit of a pain; the left hand side of it has been sorted. I've properly filled it with compost and garden manure after getting roots, which I seemed to get hold of when I was spreading the first lot of compost, that turned out to be those of last year's unsuccessful spud plants. I hope what I've done works out on that end and I need to do the same at the near end, too. Not sure what I'm going to plant there yet, to my mind it needs to be something which hasn't got too long roots as I don't want the spud ones to take over.

Sorry if the start of my post was a bit of a rant but I feel happy in that we have a good idea of how we would like life to be after all of this but realise things will be different for some time yet.

The garden is a wonderful place to be to just forget for a while and to clear my mind. It lets me know that the things I sow today will, hopefully, grow in the future and sustain us just as we have to work now to sustain a different life by focusing on those tomorrows.

Bye for now, Lou.xx