New Camera!

Hi!

This post is a little self indulgent as I wanted to properly try out the new camera we have just bought, Ebay bargain for a great point and press - suits me just fine.

I decided to take photos of the Poly House to give a good outing. 

These are the three main varieties of tomatoes I have growing.

Cuor di bue, an elongated beef variety

The above are beef toms, obviously, but not sure if they are the Costoluto Fiorentino or regular beef! Monty is growing Costolutos.

These are the Capriccio F1 variety I am growing for bottling but leaving them as long as possible, keeping an eye on them not splitting, before I pick them as want to do as many as possible at once.

Onto the beans and squash. The beans are growing really well so hope to harvest some of those in a week or so as would like to have some to go in the freezer but I only have about four planted, I think, so not sure what the yield will be.

The squash was really overgrown and no light was getting to the underneath so.......

....I gave it a good haircut and there was a pile of leaves for the chooks.

Next up is the corn. I checked back and ;ast year I was harvesting the small amount I did manage to grow at the end of September so this has a bit of a way to go, but looking good.

Here is something which is off the shopping list; these are looking good....

as the gherkins continue to do, too. I have pickled some but we are using them in stir fry and I hope to dehydrate some if the weather is good over the weekend. Talking of dehydrating, I have dried this oregano for the kitchen and today put some sage leaves in.

These are something I am chuffed with, look at my piquant peppers! Dawn, anybody, what colour should they be as I did not have a packet; the seeds were a gift from Dawn.

I am very confident my Sweet potatoes will be a much greater success than last year. They are getting watered well and having had a little root around I can tell they are a good size at this point already; I LOVE Sweet spuds.

I usually say that I only grow things which we can eat, however I love the sweet peas and even more the freesias I have managed to grow!

Finally my broccoli Raab is coming on well...

as are the Spring Cabbages.

Yesterday i spent some time preserving some of the damsons by making jam, courtesy of Marguerite Patten.

All the damsons were put in my preserving pan along with the water - soooo excited about using this as I had it as a present last Christmas!

When the fruit had gone quite soft.....

I added the sugar.

I had to fish out stones, did get most of them but won't be entering this in the preserve section at this year's horticultural show!

Then it went into jars...

and I have a few to keep in the cellar store room and one has gone in the fridge.

That is about it I think. I love the camera and it is super easy to use. I just put the card into the laptop and download really easily instead of having to plug my phone in or email them to myself. I just have to get out of the habit of grabbing my phone when I want to photograph something!

By for now.

Lou.xx

Happy Homestead.

Good morning!

My last post was on Wednesday so what has been going on at our little homestead since then? Well, I have to say the weather has been very wet since then, as it is now, so I have not done too much outside. 

The most important thing is that happily our boys came home on Thursday from a few days with the Gramps.Yay! Ready for them coming home baking for the tin was required, almond pound cake - so easy and so delish.

Also this was the day's little harvest. Some wonky carrots, gherkins (the glut has begun!) and some toms and turnips.

I was brought from Grandad's garden the gift of a big basket of damsons and a box of cooking and eating apples. (Attempting to keep the basket!)

We have sold a few punnets of damsons outside along with the eggs and have given some to people in exchange for stuff, always useful to be able to trade. I plan on making damson jam this week. It's something I prefer to do when the kids are not around so I don't have to stop in between the process; I may do it in the evening after a quick put together tea, that is probably a better idea. Apple crumble has been requested so that will definitely be made this week and of course eating apples are off the shopping list for now, yay! 

We had burgers with everything for tea with the boys, a family favourite, and I had one of my Slimming World burgers with gherkins (not mine as they need to sit a little bit longer) and chips made with our Salad Blues and Maris Piper spuds. Mmmm. Gotta love purple food!

We had guests arrive for the the Airbnb room on Friday for two nights, lovely people. Then we were without Harry again as he was taken into Aber that evening for his Sea Cadets summer camp in Llanelli; Alfie was in line to help with a few jobs over the weekend. He is such a different boy when Harry is not here but he does miss him.

O

ne of these was to put some meshed holes in the cellar store room door along with the draught excluder around it; the door was not shutting properly plus flies had to be kept out.

On Saturday I discovered some cucumbers hiding and these are hopefully going to be ready by the end of the week. On Sunday I gave my strawberries a snip on the leaves and a bit of fertiliser and hope they will have a little sleep until the fruit again; not had a great deal of success with strawbs so hope these two plants do ok.

After I said goodbye to our guests yesterday morning I took up some more Maris Piper spuds; getting on for 2.5lbs. I know now to sow more first and second earlies next year as I should really still be harvesting some of them now and not the maincrop quite yet but that is something learnt which is a good thing.

We fetched Harry back from Aber at 5pm last night and he was tired and glad to be home but had a great time shooting, swimming and messing around in kayaks; he has a boating weekend in September, too. We were happy to all be back together, again.

This morning, as I said, we have rain but the forecast is wet and warm for most of the week; tomorrow I have to clean out the chooks so hope I miss the showers for that job - never a pleasure in the rain!

Right, there are beds to change, vacuuming and other mundane stuff to do today so better get on with it. Looking forward to seeing what everybody got up to over the weekend.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx