Food - Growing, Eating and Drying.

Hello!

This is a a bit of a round-up of where we are on our little homestead just now.

Jon had begun building the new kindling and coal stores and I have finally got round to taking a photo of the finished article; I love it. As with the main woodpile it is close to the conservatory door so really easy for bringing supplies into the house.

On Wednesday we went to Aber for some outdoor eating on the beach and had tea. I roasted a joint of pork and sliced it when cool, I boiled some of our spuds which I took up yesterday - eeek! and I made some quick chocolate cakes so all made for a yummy picnic along with a portion of chips and my sun dried tomatoes of course!

It was a little celebration of Harry coming home from his 3-day school trip to Cardiff.

Now we have a little look around the Poly House. These are Marketmore cucumbers which took a little while to germinate but are now coming along. I have one planted outside as they are billed as an outdoor variety so I'll be able to compare as they are the same size.

Here are my sweet potato growing bags. They have spread about two feet so I think I will nip those in the bud so to speak so the energy will go to growing the 'spuds'.

These are two gherkin plants which are alongside the cucumbers in the raised bed. These have flowers so fruit may appear soon.

Piquant peppers are growing well and I hope there to be fruit soon; thanks again to Dawn for the seeds.

I can't resist showing a couple of photos from the raised bed outside the Poly House. These are my Golden Acre cabbages. I chose this variety as they develop small heads which are great for growing in small spaces. 

This is not such a success. My broccoli has either failed or is just growing really slowly! I did spot the beginnings of a head here yesterday but the others seem to be doing nothing to be honest. We shall see, maybe the rain we have today will help.

I have been keeping the straw bales for the chickens between my compost bins but it was not ideal as they could get wet or the straw could fly away. So I have used a spare water butt and it is filled with the loose straw....

and the second bale will hopefully stay dry underneath the dehydrator until it can go in the butt.

The dehydrator has produced some more lovely tomatoes.

Jon has nearly eaten all of them so need to find a wholesaler and buy a tray full until our toms are ready....

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little round up. The weekend is upon us, yay, so as usual I look forward to seeing what you will all be getting up to.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Run Up To The Weekend.

This a catch up of this week in the run up to the weekend when my boys will be home for the last few days of their Easter hols. Yay!

Our Airbnb guest was still out in the early evening yesterday so Jon and I had one of our leisurely walks around the garden checking on things, talking and planning as usual.

The first thing we looked at was the Wild Garlic I was given, thanks Dawn, and it is looking really good; hope to use it in something soon.

As we walked down the garden I had to take a picture of these lovely forget me nots; as now we have lost most of the daffs and all of the snowdrops we have these lovely things instead.

The sowing and growing is definitely my thing but I always like to show Jon where I am up to. Here is the spinach; more seeds growing, too, so looking forward to trying some of that. 

I have been having my usual quality-of-soil anxiety attacks just recently and how this will affect EVERYTHING!

Here are the beginnings of my Arran Pilot spuds and appear to be coming on ok. Big phew!

These are the Gardener's Delight toms that are coming along bee-utifully. A couple more inches and they will be ready for their permanent spot.

The edge of the raised bed gives me a bit more space to put things, as well as the wooden stools I'm making use of. Dwarf beans at the end, sunflowers at this end, climbing beans at the wall side and the next lot of climbing peas on the left almost ready to go outside.

These are the Golden Acre summer cabbages, looking very sturdy just now but somebody mentioned an Arctic snap so have cloches at the ready!

Talking of potatoes, but not in a proper sense, I checked and my sweet spud slips are to be delivered; I have growing bags all ready for them to get going ASAP.

This week I have been busy sown turnip seeds, planted some freesia bulbs, put some sweet peas at the front door to replace the daffs, sowed more beetroot and beef tomatoes amongst other jobs. 

We have ordered some mushroom plugs to grow outside on logs - Shitake and Chicken of the Woods varieties; Jon is going to get the wood from the sawmill.

This morning I went out to do the watering in the hope of catching my guest before he left. I also picked some sage and oregano to dry for use in the kitchen; I dried some last year and it came out very well - the conservatory is the best place to do this.

What I want to do is make separate jars but also a jar of mixed herbs but need to wait for the thyme to come on a little bit first.

I popped out for a quick coffee at a friend's house earlier and took the opportunity to go to the bottle bank and also put some money on mine and Jon's mobile phones - a tenner for each of should last until about August, if not beyond!

Jon hopes to get the first veranda finished at the weekend so we need a trip to get sand, cement and also chicken pellets on Saturday when we have collected the boys. Also we are going to the travel agent to hopefully book our flight tickets for our trip to Menorca in July. We are taking one last holiday to stay at Jon's mum's before we dive head first into running the Bed and Breakfast next year. We owe it to the boys we feel, but they are excited, too, at the prospect of a bigger pocket-money payday when helping out more around the place, along with the money they get from the eggs - win win I think.

Right, need to finish my coffee then go and pack the overnight bag and do a bit of ironing, or I could watch a cookery programme?!

Bye for now.

Lou.xx