This And That - Outdoors and In.

 Hello, I'm celebrating! 

This is because my laptop is now my own again as my youngest has bought himself a new device and therefore no longer needs to use mine for his homelearning, hurrah! This celebration comes in the form of a new blog post.

This is a little ramble about what's happening here on our little homestead, also know as #mylittlepatchofparadise, from the end of last month and into February. February! How did that happen? Also I'm talking about jobs and this 'n' that around the garden in the coming weeks.

February is a wonderful month really. Even though we are still having some wet and chilly days, with it comes the promise that Spring is just around the corner. It's also the time to be chitting seed spuds, if that is your thing. Not everybody bothers as you can see in February's issue of Grow Your Own magazine; Blake and Laura debate whether it's a necessary job to do. I always chit mine, I'm still waiting for my Charlottes to be delivered, as I think those early shoots give them a little kick up the garden path to a good start and a hopefully healthy harvest! 

As for existing plants/edibles and in garden, the frosts in the coming months need to be prepared for so make sure you have your closhes, fleece etc ready; our last frost should be in April, fingers crossed.

In February you may be able to spot Wild Garlic underneath hedgerows and in woodland and be lucky as English Country Life to have been to pick some already. (You can find them on YouTube, Twitter and Instagram plus their YouTube channel here with oodles of help and advice for the smallholder, budding or experienced.) If you are forraging for it always be careful to only take a small amount; we're lucky enough to have a good clump growing in the garden. 

However, last year we lost most of it to the chickens and orphan lambs nibbling away at it. This year I think I will take up and re-locate it to somewhere safer!

Whilst out forraging you may be lucky enough to spot the odd primrose or catkins on the Hazel branches and of course snowdrops are for a lot of people one of the first signs of Spring not being far away - their nick name is flower of hope as they bring that hope of lighter and brighter days to come.

Each month no-dig guru Charles Dowding - find him on Twitter, Instagram and here, too - has a column in Grow Your Own magazine dispensing help and advice so here are a few snippets ready for next month. At this time of the year he says it is too early to start tomatoes and best to sow them in the 3rd week of March to be kept on a warm windowsill then be planted out under cover in May. It is worth remembering that seeds need more heat when germinating than seedlings need for growing; windowsills are a great place for the first 7-14 days after you've sown your seeds.

Lambing is not far off now. We had the lambs scanned and we hope for 26 singles and 17 twins, no empty ones. 

In January Jon refurbished a trailer incase we need to transport ewes from the fields down to the barn should they be in trouble.

We have medecine, injections, tube feeders etc. ready if we have any mums or their lambs needing help. All set but fingers crossed for not too many problems.

Indoors now. I've never made Seville marmalade before - I normally go for a much easier 

all-in-one method which I took from I don't know where! I decided to give it a go and used the recipe, complete with this YouTube video, from Pam The Jam Corbin. I'm going to be honest and tell you I needed to do the dreaded "re-boil" as it didn't set the frist time! Consequently my batch is a good thick preserve but I'm very pleased with myself as we have a jar in the fridge and five more to add to the cellar stores. (An embarrasingly small store but you have to start somewhere.)

I was determined to start the year off with a bang and I will, hopfeully, continue to make and store as much as I can from things I've grown.

My new blog, Put That Light Out, is so much fun. I'm reading my books for research but also enjoy watching some TV programmes, often on the Yesterday channel, plus YouTube videos

to give me more detail for my posts but also just to extend my interest I have in the 1939 - 45 period.

To finish up, the weather here today, Friday, is damp and miserable. We've had snow this month

and the forecast says we can expect more this weekend....It won't make much difference as in Wales we are now into another three weeks of lockdown. We just continue our usual routine; I shopped on January 22 so I won't be going again for a week of more except our local fruit and veg cabin and meat deliveries from the butcher in the same town if we need them.

I hope you are all excited about the sowing and growing season being around the corner. By tomorrow it will be 5pm when the sun is setting so the days are defintely getting longer; before we know it we will be in our gardens, poly tunnels and greenhouses until all hours! My last post was about my own plans for next month and I'd really love to hear about what you have planned for the coming weeks and months. You can find me on Twitter @Goodlifeinwlaes and Instagram @livingthegoodlifeinwales.

Take care everybody and stay safe.

Bye, 

Lou.xx 

Tales From A Local Show!

Well, as my Dad used to say "learning all the time".

Yesterday was our local horticultural show. I had been really looking forward to taking part as I missed it last year, as you know, with us moving here the week before.

My cakes were made on Friday and yesterday morning I filled the Victoria sandwich and popped some strawberries on the top. I put three iced flowers on my lemon drizzle and finished off my chocolate brownie with some icing and pecan nuts.

I got everything over to the show and left it until later in the afternoon as we had family here and the Rayburn was being installed.

Before I say anymore about the show see how well the Rayburn looks. It went in really quite easily; Jon had help from his dad and then a pal from work came later on in the afternoon to help put the one we took out into the shed to sit until we sell it.

It is amazing. The water is sooo hot, I'll be able to boil the kettle and cook on the top and can't wait to go back to cooking and baking in it. All in all it is a great asset to the kitchen. I'm so grateful for Jon being so handy in order that all the refurbishment was done for not a lot of money to save us a great deal of money now and in the future.

Back to the show. I popeed over to take a look at everything and see the prize winners.

I have learnt a lot if I take part next year! My eggs when broken looked super but I had three the same colour and one not quite. Next my cucumbers  were a lot smaller than the rest but I didn't mind that; they were not going on taste just looks. My lemon cake passed without incident but I did win 2nd prize for my chocolate brownie! I won 75p for that.

 Now on the jams and jellies etc I had decorated tops on the jars which I wondered whether or not they had been taken off at all....

I didn't win anything for my button based craft item but this will be a nioce gift for somebody. 

Now, my Victoria sponge. They didn't even bother to cut into it! It had cream and strawberry jam in it -  nobody else seemed to have cream in theirs - but I have to say it look so much better than enybody elses, even if they were following the criteria or rules - which we didn't know of course. Look.

(This is it cut into when we ate some last night.)

I looked this morning and the lemon curd and marmalade had not even been opened! I was spoken to by a lady at the end of the show who said, if I wanted to go further in competition, that I need to have a plain lid and plain label - mine were Cath Kidston! Hate to blow my own trumpet but my lemon curd is a bit special, even more so now with our own eggs.

With all this I was laughing my head off and one lady told me that back in the day when the WI held shows you didn't even get a look in if you put anything other than raspberry jam in your sponge cake!

So it was a bit of an experience, Jon said I should stuff 'em!

Right now we are cooking on the breakfast on the Rayburn!

How fab is this. We have achieved one of our main aims, to heat the house, water and cook with out paying for the fuel!

In other news this last week I turned over the compost heap. I chose to do this on the day it was 77 degrees!

It has broken down really quite well apart from some of the straw so really hope I can use it soon.

Right, must dash as breakfast soon then we are going into Aber before Jon's dad and his wife go home. I have Harry's birthday cake to make today or tomorrow ready for his pals coming after school.

Of course, will keep an eye on what people have been up to over the weekend.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx