Mindful Thoughts For Gardeners

Good morning!

I'm reading the book in the title of this post, written by Clea Danaan; I've been dipping in and out and really enjoying it.

This morning over breakfast I came across the chapter concerning harvest. Now I know gardeners in many parts of the country are praying for some Spring-like weather; some let up in the wintry conditions we are still experiencing would be wonderful.

However I found the words about harvest similar to our hopes for the change in the current season, for whatever the reasons are behind the slowness of Spring's arrival, We have to be patient because the ground needs to be ready for the journey from planting to tending and back to harvesting the land to begin. In ourselves we also tend to want life to hurry up! We want immediate improvement in our lives in every aspect because life is now so very instantaneous; we have 24 hr news, constant communication and food delivery right to our doors if we so wish.

As the author says
"The garden teaches us that we cannot hurry...We can only sit and allow things to unfold, meeting them where we are with the watering can".

I can thoroughly recommend this little book and it is perfect to pop in your pocket; when you have a moment take the time to enjoy it and your garden.

Bye for now.  

Lou.xx

4 Years, Is That All?!

Good morning! Time for a little anniversary.

Four years ago, TODAY, we arrived in wonderful mid-Wales. We fell in love with Aberystwyth and the surrounding areas before we properly moved here and we still feel just the same.

The boys, and us, knew about 10 words of the Welsh language when we arrived, This week they are back in school after the summer break speaking Welsh regularly and my youngest has begun his year 7 at a Welsh medium secondary school. This means only a couple of his lessons are taught in English! Children are so adaptable and we are immensely proud of their progress.

The first of these two photos was taken the weekend we arrived, sorry a bit blurry, and the second was taken in May of this year. I have very few photos in roughly the same location.

For the first 4 months or so the garden was a jungle at the far end, 

 and at the house end, too, so there was a bit of work to be done there, too!

Now the garden, my little patch of paradise, our outside space looks a LOT different.

It has been a hell of a ride for me, Jon and the boys. We now have a beautiful outside space, a growing area for fruit and veg and chickens.

One of the highlights of this year have been Jon bringing back from the brink one of the lambs that was born on our neighbouring farm. We have enjoyed being involved with the lambs, helping out since the first year or two we were here. This little thing, born toward the end of lambing this year, was not expected to last the night....

but here he was strong as an ox at the end of April and in June and he continues to thrive.

Also this year our Airbnb listings have gone off the chart with the inclusion of our first self-catering unit. 

We look forward to increasing to four next year hoping to add to the bookings we already have for the Eisteddfod which comes to Ceredigion for the first time since 1992.


As usual I could go on and on and one with before and after photos. I burst with pride really at how far we have come in just four years. Just the other day Jon asked me if it wasn't five years and I said nope, and look what we've done.

We look forward to the future and all it may bring us all.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Sun, Salad, Strimming and Such!

Hi!

The last few days have been very busy for us. Jon has mown and strimmed the lawn and its looking just fantastic. Even the patches at the far end of the garden where the bamboo was and the place where we used to have a fire are looking wonderful now; we are sooo enjoying the garden with this wonderful weather.

We sat and had lunch at the picnic table yesterday and the addition of the brolly was perfect; we are eating salad leaves and herbs at just about every meal just now which is very satisfying.

We purchased a new strimmer and Jon has been around  the main veg patch

and the fruit patch too. I've raked it and I've decided to put membrane down and Jon will get wood chippings to go on top and this will keep the weeds down. I so wanted it to be an au natural area but the weeds are no good when you want to look after the fruit trees and bushes properly so they've gotta go.

On Saturday afternoon, again flippin' hot, I put down membrane on the floor of the greenhouse. Sweat was dripping off the end of my nose! We shovelled sand onto it and laid it level; this will do for this year then we'll set it up right in time for next Spring probably with staging and raised beds.

I know it probably isn't the traditional floor of a greenhouse but it suits me.

Oh, on Friday and Saturday I received some parcels in the post. I've been filling in some online surveys (won't be doing it any more as I seemed to be getting lots of spam email) and decided to cash in my £15 Amazon reward voucher. I went for the Sarah Rainey 3-ingredient baking book - there are lots of things in it I am going to try -  along with Frances Tophill's First Time Gardener. The latter is a lovely book with different chapters of interest and not just about sowing and growing, which for me is a change. I also chose some cute macaron-design writing paper to use when writing to my pen pals.

On Saturday the things I ordered with my letter voucher from Grow Your Own Magazine courtesy of Thompson and Morgan came. 

I went for some spray weed killer - I know some people don't like to use it but I need this for some small areas around the sleepers of my veg beds. I also bought rubber tops for bamboos canes to prevent poking my eyes out,

and some fly papers to hang in both the greenhouse and poly house. I ordered my sweet potato slips which will be here by the end of the month and to plant these in I bought four growing bags. Finally I treated myself to a fantastic Kent and Stowe trowel which is pure quality and just feels lovely in your hand, very posh I am with this and my RHS gloves!

On Friday I tied the front door rose back a bit and its in flower and already looking lovely.

Yesterday afternoon I took up a few spuds because one came up by accident when I was earthing up so wanted to check progress. I brought these in...

I'm now in a slight state of anxiety as when I took up the spuds on a couple of the plants there were a couple which were mushy. All the leaves are fine, no blackening and looking extremely healthy so fingers crossed that the rest will be ok, even though there are so yellow bolting-like looking flowers.... Hope my spud campaign hasn't finished before its started.

Here are the Robin chicks; they are growing and often seen with their little mouths open wide ready for food.

The sunflowers,

supermarket-bought lettuces potted on and

 

broccoli seedlings are all doing well. I plan on putting the latter in the spot where I'll be taking up the first early spuds.

Well I think that's my update done; the weather is forecast to be the same as recently until Thursday when we hope to get just a little bit of rain.

Hope everybody else is enjoying their gardens.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Happily On Our Homestead, Once Again.

Hello hello!

We were home from our holiday early Wednesday evening and cannot be happier. 

It will be our last trip abroad as we have come to the conclusion, after feeling it for some time, that we are happier at home and to travel in the UK for our holidays. The weather for us was too hot, high 30's and over 40 one day. The boys were in and out of the water but they can do that at home in the river down the road; they are happy to be home, too.

Onto positive things, my sowing and growing were looked after by our kind neighbours and on coming home I couldn't wait to see what had been going on in the Poly House and outside.

Well, I had a jungle in the Poly House where some of the tomatoes had ripened, not loads but some, I had four huge gherkins so looking for a recipe to long-term preserve those if anybody has any ideas? There were carrots, salad blue potatoes - thanks chic - well see here my little harvest.

Last night Jon made us a wonderful chicken and veg broth with all our own veg and herbs and it was delicious. So satisfying - wish it could have been our chicken, but one day.

Today I tied up the dried onions; great to have red, white and brown ones.

Some that have no tops on them to tie up have been taken to the kitchen and others left down stairs.

I also took up the garlic. 

There was just no time to do it before we went away; due to the rain last night the soil was a bit cloggy therefore I think they will need a good few weeks to dry out.

I bought a lovey basket on holiday to store the finished product in the cellar room; I figure it will let the air circulate very well.

These photos are a bit random but I took them before the holiday and didn't have time to post them. Jon has been working very hard getting the grass in the garden looking smart as visitors are booking for the Airbnb room.

Talking of the room, by the time we came home we had two bookings for the room and two more came in yesterday! (I try not to think of how many bookings we could have had if we hadn't gone away!) Jon is getting everything gathered together so he can start work on the next room very soon - looks like we are going to need it!

Right, I have guests arriving shortly so better do a last minute check of the room and I'll catch up later in the week when I have actually done something!

Bye for now - so good to be back.

Lou.xx

Wheely Good Fun!

The boys were on an Inset day yesterday. On days like these (love Matt Monroe!) I am very pleased I do not work as I know it can be very difficult for some families to sort child care, although we do get quite a lot of notice.

I got the boys to see how I clean out the chickens ready for when they have the job themselves; still not convinced it will go as planned but we shall see...

I told them we should go out for a walk at least as the weather was not cold and was dry apart from the odd spot or two. I took a few photos up to and back from the cycle path.

They opted to go on electric scooter and bike.

Last one is a bit blurry as had to get them together when moving! I am suffering a bit today as it is the first time in a week or so that I have walked a couple of miles!

Plus I can now, very excitedly, share with you the photos of the finished chicken and duck enclosures! We were going to move the fencing and have one gate but have now opted for keeping the original chicken gate and have created a second near the pond; you never know, we may need to separate some of the birds some time and this would make it easy.

The log that straddles the pond has been cut a little short to allow more room around the back of the house. We have cut back the foliage which has made the area so much lighter and I just think it is such a pretty part of the garden now. I love Jon so very much for being able to create all of this for us, and for other reasons of course!

We may be getting the ducks this weekend but I have to contact the supplier today. Eeeek!!!

Well, had better crack on as I want to get the morning jobs done so I can catch up with Call The Midwife at lunchtime.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

A cosy good morning to you as I type this. 

Jon lit the Rayburn just before he went to work; I dropped him off as I need the car to fetch the boys from Urdd then him from work this evening. I have lit the living room fire, too, so we are more than ready for the cold weather they are forecasting for later on tonight. 

Bring it on I say!

Prep for Christmas has begun, a little. When food shopping on Friday I picked up these little bits in Lidl. Not sure what to use the little bags for, maybe to put teacher presents in for school, hope to make biscuits with the boys and have them decorate them. 

 The clips will be used for holding up decorations or maybe on the tree. 

The tags on the right I bought from Waterstones. Aaahh, I feel the same way about Waterstones as Holly Golightly does about Tiffany's in Breakfast at Tiffany's; nothing bad could ever happen when you are there, especially when you are stroking lovely notebooks! I plan to use the tags to make garlands as part of the decorations for the boys' rooms.

I have wrapped the small presents we have bought for the boys and they are languishing at the bottom of our wardrobe but the larger ones are in the shed; some need packing and some need big bows on them.

This week I made some red onion relish/chutney. 

To be honest I needed to use them up before I started to use our own onions (eeek), some of which I have in the kitchen; it's yummy and had it this morning on some of our eggs and my toasted homemade bread. Sorry, bit of a smug fest there. 

We had a very short notice Airbnb booking come through on Friday night but money is money so there was a bit of frantic work on Saturday morning. They were coming from Hastings to pick up a puppy; they were a lovely couple and we would gladly have them as guests again. They were the first paying guests to have our delish continental breakfast and they very much enjoyed it.

Yesterday I made my mincemeat and it will sit until I make the first couple of batches of mince pies at the weekend. I think I've made enough but who knows! It's a recipe my mum used to use but I have altered it a bit over the years.

Also yesterday we were doing a few jobs in the garden and here we have some before and after photos. Our latest building project to begin is making a better parking area. Currently we park at the side of the house; you can just see the old car in the distance I think. (Obviously this a photo from earlier in the year!)

This is ok but if we are, hopefully, having more people eventually staying as paying guests we need to have better arrangements for a larger number of cars.

So.this is how the garden looked at the side of the conservatory previously....

and this is now we are starting to look. 

The wall has been cleared as it will be knocked through to make the entrance; Jon will then make a fence where the initial posts have now been placed. We will have to make a trailer trip to the local quarry to find some gravel to make it suitable for the cars to stand on the area.

After I had cleaned out the chooks and got round to covering over three of the tyres near the veg patch,

the small number of turnips I'm growing in the Poly House, hopefully for Christmas or early New Year seem to be coming along..

and the leeks look strong but small; they are about the thickness of my index finger so have some way to go or will be nice as just baby ones.

I was inside doing a few chores; I made a big pan of veg and pearl barley soup for lunch - it was yummy so will be today's lunch, too.

On the list of jobs today is to make a pie for tea - pastry and filling - my bread yeast mix has been started, eggs have been collected, a large rat has been spotted in the compost bin!, Alfie's bed is stripped for making later and I hope to get a couple of the last pages of my December Daily finished; I am sooo close to being done and can't wait to show you the end result. It makes me feel really festive when I am working on it. I have a few things to check on my Christmas plan today as well because the calendar slots of jobs to do and events coming up is filling up fast!

Best have my last cup of coffee and get started.

Bye for now.

Lou. xx