Phew! What Didn't We Get Done?

Good evening.

Today is Mothers' Day and I've had a couple of lovely pressies.

We are big fans of Meet The Goldberg's!

Also got these!

and we went for coffee and cake in town.

Today's post is a catch up of a number of days which I've really enjoyed. I hope I'm not think repeating myself, which happens now and again at my age! Settle in with a brew as this could take some time!

Ok, been quite busy outside and so far I've planted out:
- sweet peas Mixed Old Spice in the bed outside the poly house, after topping it up with some of my compost, and a few in a container, too
- 5 strawberry plants including Elsanta in various containers (all plants on now on the outside bench where the greenhouse was)

1st early spuds Swift

Potting on consisted of:
1 sunflower Pacino
6 Sweet Romano Peppers (very pleased and hopeful these do a lot better this year.

I've been quite busy sowing edibles including herbs, too:
8 All Year Round cauliflower
spring onions Evergreen Bunching plus All The Year Round lettuce in the sink
4 courgette Buckingham F1
4 courgette Tondo di Piacnenza
4 tomato Ailsa Craig
8 cabbage Golden Acre

Thought I'd pop in a photo showing how some of my cabbages are currently growing.

garlic chives and red basil
re-sowed lemon balm in a pot and sunk into herb sink
radishes between 1st early spuds
4 tomato Red Alert
12 dwarf bean Ferrari
dwarf pea Hurst Green Shaft direct into bed outside the poly house (sweet peas at the top)

carrots Autumn King 2 in the main bed next to the onions so hope this will help 

4 tomato Red Pear

I don't do flowers that much but this year I'm making an effort so I currently have sown:
- Nigella Persian Jewels in the small rose bed at the front of the house
- Mr Fothergill free trial seeds of Marigold Alumia
- Field Poppies, Nigella and Cornflowers in two small beds I've created near the veg beds and some poppies near the wild garlic and rhubarb.
- Freesias in two planters and a few in the new beds with the wild flowers - I love freesias and can't wait to be able to cut them for inside the house.

So the poly house is starting to look really busy.

I've been having a really good tidy up, too, along with other jobs around the place.
- put slow release compost on the beds ready for the tomatoes
- top dressed my lilac, which will probably need re-homing next year in a bigger container as I've had it for a good 10 years or more
- finally pruned the front climbing rose, the other wall climber, weeded all along the front        wall, cleared the rose bed, top dressed it with compost AND weeded inside the front wall...

....and put down chippings as weed deterrent. Much tidier.

All the greenhouse glass and bags of garden waste have been removed which I'm sooo pleased as it looked super untidy, and I discovered these left over wool shearings and hope to remember to use it as a barrier against slugs!

I've covered the rhubarb to hopefully force it on a bit and it seems to be working.

Phew, that has been a busy 10 days or so!

As the chicken and duck enclosures have now been finished, super super happy with these,

one job I did on Friday was to give the hen house a good going over because yesterday the new chooks arrived! Yay!!! I just love hearing them in the background as I go about doing stuff outside or in the house. We put them away to bed and this morning took a look at them and very gratefully today collected 9, yes you read that correct, 9 eggs. They seem happy.

On Friday after school Alf and I went to check on the sheep and I took this photo of him yomping down the hill and this lovely one of some of the lambs in dappled light.

On Saturday morning Jon was busy chopping logs and he had also acquired something which is now Alf's favourite toy - a log splitter!

Jon and I have had various conversations about what to use the space for since the demise of the greenhouse. We've thought about building a bigger poly house over the main veg bed but now we are set on making the base of the greenhouse into another raised bed and have moved the beds off that base and placed them at the side.

This already has membrane down so we'll just add more compost...

then the ground here will have to be leveled a bit, new membrane in to line them (bought today), filled with compost and we are good to go; these are still going to be for the outside tomatoes.

Right, that is me DONE, and you probably. Well done if you sat through all of that. Its a good record for me as well as letting you know where we are up to.

Look forward to seeing what everybody gets up to in the coming week. Weather is supposed to be a little wetter and colder at times.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

A Big Old Catch Up.

Hi! Well, how good has this weather been, although I did see somebody on social media saying it wasn't right to be this warm in February, meaning that the planet was warming up, I think....

On Thursday it was my youngest's Ysgol Eisteddfod, school Eisteddfod. He recited a poem, in Welsh, for of the categories and came 2nd; he also won places in two writing classes. Very proud of him.

On Friday I had a delivery of my bare root fruit canes and some blueberry plants and seeds from Thompson & Morgan.

Sorry about the last photo being a bit scew!

At the weekend our Airbnb guests enjoyed the sun. We were really very busy with that as well as jobs around the house and outside.

Jon was doing the first cutting back of trees near to the roadside. 

There is more to do but with help as we'll have to take care of the passing traffic. 

In the afternoon he took the boys down to the river for the first try out in the kayak we bought them for Christmas.

On Sunday I manged to get into the garden. Yay!!! I sowed my February onions, variety Sturton in one of the large tyres. After it being suggested to me I've planted 5 of my existing strawberry plants in a drainpipe.

I may suspend this from the rafters of the poly house. I still have a couple more along with the 12 that came in the fruit order.....!

Last Friday I sowed the following: 

Sweet Romano peppers x 4 pots of 2 seeds
Sunflower Pacino (pots as above), these have been put in the conservatory, one of the Sunflower seeds is showing its face.

I've sown a couple of other things which are in my homemade propagator again, but I'll spare you the details as its early days yet. 

Cornflowers and Field flowers in the chimney outside the poly house and I'm looking forward to those coming up as they were lovely last year.

Yesterday, after the two sets of guests left,  I got myself outside. I discovered the other day that one of my rhubarb crowns have survived when I thought it had been flattened following some work in the garden. This morning I saw signs of the second one; they are very small!

I decided to clear the space properly, which included exposing the Wild Garlic I could smell as I was working, and to build something to protect said rhubarb. The area was a BIT over grown....the crowns were planted somewhere in the bottom left of the photo so was a little tricky to find them.

This is how it looked after a bit of work.

And here is what I am chuffed with. I used branches left from Jon's tree job on Saturday and made pegs to twine them around.

I am ridiculously pleased with myself. I just really hope after all my hard work that the crowns survive. If anybody has any advice for me it would be really appreciated.

The boys were busy too, one helping our elderly neighbour with some logging and the other sorting out some kindling for the store.

That's about it, apart from since I began planning this post I now have three Airbnb bookings for this week, and it is not quite the end of February!

Weather gorgeous again today so after getting both rooms ready this morning I'm having some lunch then going out into the poly house where, about 2 hours ago, it was 29 degrees. I plan on taking up the blueberry bushes from the garden and putting them in planters along with the cranberry I was given at Christmas. I bought ericaceous compost yesterday for this job.

Bye for now.

Excited About The Coming Months!

Yes! Sowing and growing is here finally! As last year I only started sowing seeds in April, very late to the party, I am super excited about getting things started for the coming seasons. I just about have all the seeds I need after finding some climbing bean ones at the weekend. I also picked up some sprouting seeds which I have never eaten before let alone grown so we'll see how we get along with those. I couldn't resist the Mixed Field Flowers as I just want to throw them in the garden somewhere with gay abandon and hope for the best; pennies if they don't work. I'm not too bothered about having that many flowers in the garden but really like the idea of the randomness of wild flowers. I still cannot find any mild, sweet chilli seeds; we don't want to grow hot ones and I really want to make sweet chilli sauce as Harry especially likes it.

 

I also recently picked up some Poppy, Cornflower and Marigold seeds. I have plans for the poppies but not sure about the others; I think Marigolds can be planted as a deterrent to something but will have to check what?

In readiness I have made myself a little dibber with a lovely smooth piece of driftwood we found on the beach in Aber. One side is in inches...

and the other in centimetres.

We celebrated Alfie's birthday at the weekend and amongst his presents were there fab 3d goggles from a very good friend of ours.

On Sunday I decided to take up some of the leeks I have been growing... Well, they look healthy even though they are quite small, baby leeks I think I'll call them!

I did put them in late last year so that is probably why they are small; starting earlier this year! Made a big pot of veg soup for lunch on Saturday and the boys thought it was lovely. Harry was not so impressed when I told him I would be growing everything that was in it - sweet spuds, leeks, onions, carrots, courgettes, peppers - as he always says he doesn't like leeks or courgettes!

Ok, needs must and I must get some baking done and there is a small pile of ironing to deal with. It didn't seem so cold first thing but the rain looks as though it may be on its way and it does feel a little cooler just now. The Rayburn is lit so i think the wood burner will be roaring after lunchtime.

Looking forward to seeing what everybody has been up to over the weekend and plan for the coming days.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx