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

What A Weekend!

We have had just a lovely weekend.

On Friday, amongst getting all ready for our visitors I baked bread but had a little hiccup; the water I added to the mix was too warm so killed off the yeast. Undeterred I decided to make flat breads and enlisted the help of the boys too and this is what we ended up with. Mmmm, ten of them are now in the freezer.

Our guests were both collected and arrived with us by 9.30pm and we had a fantastic evening. A few drinks, some lovely food, looking at photos, some guitar playing from the chaps and a lot of singing. Fab!

On Saturday morning we had our quite leisurely breakfast and headed into Aber for a mooch around and a coffee stop. We walked down to the beach and it was lovely, really not cold but a bit blowy and no rain! (Sorry this is a tad blurry.)

We headed home for our big pan of soup for lunch and had a very chilled out afternoon. some people had a kip, others went out for a walk with the dog and some watched a bit of TV. Just lovely.

Everybody was refreshed for our Tapas meal out in the evening. Some reviews I have read for La Taberna have said customers felt vaguely hungry at the end of the meal. However there were seven of us and we had a mixed plate of ham and cheese plus 11 tapas, these are not main courses, between us so that is one plate to share and a mathematical 1.57 tapa each. Well along with bread it was absolutely plenty for us. We had a bottle of wine, a jug of sangria and some soft drinks and the bill was less that £120. Not bad as far as I am concerned and would highly recommend it as a lovely, realxed atmosphere which the boys enjoyed, too. Lots of conversations about bull fighting and Cordoba due to the posters on the walls.

As we walked back to the car it began to rain and by the time we were driving down the seafront it seemed rude not to park up so the huge waves could wash over us. We all screamed like it was fireworks going off. Perfect end to a lovely evening.

On Sunday morning, with a full breakfast inside, us we headed to Borth for a walk on the beach and hope in our hearts of maybe an ice cream?! Here were the views of the beach, wild and wooly!

We then walked back along the beach part of the way and part way on the road. I took photos as we went. We did stop off at a cafe, by which time the sun was shining and the sky was blue; we treated ourselves to goodies including coffee, ice creams, cake and waffles, hot with ice cream!!

And the last photos include a lovely little basket and some wonderful old pegs I bought in a quirky antique shop along the way.

It was a lovely time and almost forgot we needed to get my friend back to Aber for her train at 3.30pm. We got home and packed up cars, which included the boys bags as they were heading to the Gramps, courtesy of Jon's cousin and her fella, to stay with them until they are back with us on Saturday.

And then is was just me and Jon and we had a relaxing evening ready for the coming week.
However, at about 8pm we had a phone call as Alfie had said he would call me when they arrived and he did just that. They drive me to distraction at times but I love them so much and miss Alfie's cuddles when he is away as he is tops in the cuddle department!

I've been out and collected the eggs this morning and checked things over in the rain. I've put some of the stinky rhubarb liquid on the broccoli which, very excitingly, is just starting to show. My dwarf beans have not been very successful at all so will have to try harder next year with those. The sweetcorn seems to be progressing well with the stragly strands on the tops turning brown. I think my bag of potatoes may be ready for harvesting as the folliage has died back quite a lot and I did put in my diary to check this week if they are ready. Dawn, could you remind me again when the sweet spuds and oca might be ready; I know it isn't just yet. The tops of some of my onions are starting to show so I hope these do not get nibbled at by anything; some are bigger than others and the green tops are still green at the moment.

Right I think that is enough from me for now. I don't plan on doing a lot today; the beds and washing from the weekend can wait until tomorrow but I will probably do some baking for Jon's packed lunches this week.

Going to see what everybody else has been up to over the last couple of days.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx