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