Jobs Between The Showers.

Hello.

How are you all doing? Not too bad here; there have been some and will be more changes to the coronavirus restrictions regarding lockdown here in Wales. However, as a family we are not rushing out to the shops or anywhere else any time soon - staying home and staying safe is still our motto - but our boys will each be attending school one day a week from the beginning of July. We are confident that both of their schools are putting in place the necessary precautions needed to keep them safe; I'll be taking them to school myself, leaving more space for children who may need to travel by bus - I am lucky that I can do this sort of thing because I don't go out to work.

This week was my monthly trip to the wholesalers which we do along with a weekly shop and deliveries now and again from a local butcher, mainly for their gorgeous sausages. We're now fully supplied with flour of all sorts, plus we have plenty of other dry goods like rice, oats and pasta in stock.

I like the big tins of beans and chopped toms we get as with the boys being home they are great for lunches, adding to pasta dishes etc. ,with these basic items we'd never starve!

The weather has been quite wet at times this week so Wednesday was also a day for baking - chocolate and marshmallow biscuits (winging that one as didn't have all the ingredients normally used in the recipe!), cheese scones and almond pound cake with a little dried fruit. I always kid myself that this will keep my three men going through the week but I think the biscuits were gone by Thursday afternoon but I still have one cake in the freezer and three of the scones. Not too shabby. 

I also managed to do some more papercrafting on my junk journal which I'm absolutely loving. I'm gradually getting pages completed but still have around ten to do; here are a couple of pages I particularly like from this week.

So to outside. This is the polytunnel at the start of the week but as you all know things change very quickly.

The butternut squash in the far right corner has turned into a monster, I have the first tomato fruit - a ciuor di bue - along with the peas getting lots of pods now and the kale is doing brilliantly

Today the rain has been on and off since about 10am, but yesterday was a great day and I was able to get lots done outside. I didn't really do that much outside this last week as it has been so wet, but warm, too, so this weekend has been great as yesterday was lovely and today I did manage to get a couple of things done between the showers one of which was sowing more khol rabi. 

Yesterday consisted of planting more dwarf peas but outside this time and some peppers in the polytunnel; I used some old drink bottles as mini cloches for those as well as the one aubergine plant I am nurturing! They seem to be having a positive effect already.

I did other little jobs like pinching out the tomatoes, potting up a sunflower and also doing another round of sowing swede, not a good result from the last one so hope this one works.

I noticed that my broccoli is now too tall for the frame I had covering it and I've spotted pesky cabbage white butterflies. Therefore I have created a slightly Heath Robinson-esque protection effort until my delivery of butterfly netting arrives middle of next week, thank goodness. I'm determined not to lose this or the caulis and cabbage. Talking of cabbage, the bed where they will eventually go still has quite a lot of onions in it but I took a couple out up yesterday as they hadtheir little gone-to-seed hats on; I took a few other things into the house from the garden - soooo love having lots of salad and herbs.

A few weeks ago I put a load of nettles with some water and today was the big day to sieve them and bottle up the goodness. Here it is after going through the sieve... 

and the sludge went into one of the compost bins. 

I now have six four pint bottles of feed which I can use on the tomatoes, leeks, brassicas, courgettes and cucumbers. Very pleased with my efforts.

The sheep were put into the flock this morning from the garden which means I can now leave the polytunnel door open without the netting, if I choose to, but I can also have things outside like the cabbages and PSB before them are planted out. 

Ok, today is Fathers' Day and I have the fixings to do on a coffee and walnut cake for the man of the moment. We'll be enjoying it with a brew whilst watching a film in a little while; we are done outside for jobs today even though the weather has cheered up a bit.  

Hope you enjoyed my ramblings and that you have a good rest of the weekend. 

Bye for now. 

Lou.xx

How Are You All Diddling?

Hi!

Its been just over two weeks since my last confession blog post! A lot has happened at home and in the outside world, too.

Here in Wales the schools have said they will open on June 29; my boys may not be going back until later in the proceedings or at all; we just don't know which children are going to go back in first. I think it would make more sense for the vulnerable ones to go and catch up with their teachers along with those choosing options and the ones who were expected to take their exams this year. Fortunately, neither of our boys fit into any of those categories and a lot can change from now until then as shown by the English primary schools no longer opening before the summer holidays.

Ooh, just have to say I am typing this post on my new laptop as the other one went caput at the weekend. It is lovely!!

Anyhow, where was I? 

Yes, changes in the outside world. With restrictions being lifted in England, which is all the 
P M talks about and pretty much ignores the rest of the UK, Wales has had some unwelcome visitors in various locations, there have been openings of certain places for the public to visit and some rules have been put in place for seeing family and friends. 

To be honest, we are not changing any of our habits really; I'm still happy to stay close to home generally. I remember thinking that when we get back to a sort of new normal people will have to be different, live their lives in a changed way with an altered mindset because of how we have been forced to live. However it doesn't seem to me that people are willing to "pause the system" as it is sometimes described. Seeing the queues a mile long and more  just for people to get a McDonald's takeaway does not fill me with hope that people have considered what they can or cannot really do without in the grand scheme of things.

Aaaaanyway, onto here at home and our little patch of paradise.

We've had a mixed bag of weather over the last couple of weeks - sunshine, showers, wind, hail! - which in the most part for our sowing and growing has helped bring on things which have been planted outside as well as those in the poly tunnel. I can't believe how different it looks. The first photo is me planting up the dwarf beans on May 9th and then today which is just about five weeks after that!

There are still trays and pots of things waiting to be potted on and planted inside and out.

These include more dwarf beans and peas, cabbages, PSB and peppers.

In the outside beds and tyres edibles including the courgettes, sweetcorn and broccoli are all coming along nicely, as are most of the potatoes.  

I've chosen not to make public the Heath Robinson-esque netted frame I have over the broccoli! 

We've been eating lots of salad leaves and had our first radishes this week. 

The carrots are looking healthy although Wednesday was meant to be the June day for last sowing but the weather was not too clever then, or for the rest of the week it seems, but hope to get those in by the weekend. (Not bothering with a photo as not too clear.) Recent new sowings have included radishes, khol rabi, marigolds, chives and garlic chives, parlsey plus two varieties of basil. I've planted out caulis, an established khol rabi I was given and potted on peppers.

In the poly tunnel I've been pinching out the tomatoes in the mornings, supposed to be the best time to do it, and there are flowers on the four biggest plants; I have some nettle feed soaking so when I sieve that next week I'll feed them with it, will need a mask for that! 

The peas, even though they're a dwarf variety, need supporting so held them up with some hazel sticks. The third and final kale plant has been put in as well as an aubergine; the whole of the poly tunnel is coming on really well and I just can't wait to see how it looks at the end of this month.

The onions are so close to coming up; 

needed to use one the other day, the top of which had completely fallen over. Can't wait to get the cabbage in here but need to sort our some netting to keep off the retched cabbage whites!

At the weekend we unfortunately lost the smallest of the orphan lambs we've been looking after. To be honest it was not right or well from the start, struggled to take any milk, had an issue with its back and front legs, seemed to have a couple of fits towards the end and we even think it may have been brain damaged. He spent his last hours, luckily, laying in the sun with the sound of the chooks in the back ground and drifted off to somewhere without pain we hope.

Today a lovely thing happened. I met a friend who lives about 20 minutes away from me; she was going to Tregaron to fetch a prescription so we socially distanced and had a lovely chat! She brought me some PSB and perpetual spinach - love that - which is now in the bed with the cauli,

and I swapped with a Jerusalem artichoke! 

I just HAVE to show you the fig tree now it has been in the poly tunnel a few weeks. I'm sooo chuffed it's doing this well!

So, I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings, but more importantly that you are all keeping well and safe but seeing family and friends when it is safe to do so. 

Bye for now, Lou.xx