Sunset, Snug and Sunflowers.

Good morning. I'd sat down to finish this post when Jon arrived back from the saw mill with logs for the Winter woodpile so we have spent half an hour stacking those. Very satisfying.

My little patch of paradise is great right now; this was the sun setting over it the other night. Aaaahh, I soooo love where we live, we are very lucky and must always remember that.

I'm getting fairly regular harvests of things, not truck loads but with the second early spuds Alf and I took up a bit over 5lb from two plants the other day which is fab, but wait 'till the maincrop spuds come in!!

Some are already in flower and I'll be making sure my hessian sacks are clean and ready for storing them in the cellar. Very excited as I love the idea of having our own spuds in the cellar for whenever we want them for the next few months, fingers crossed.

The harvests are enough for me to be proud of and, again, I've really learnt lots this year ready for when I begin planning for next year, and boy do I like to plan.

Things I still have coming through are climbing peas; not sure what the harvest on those will be but I'm giving them a last go.

Talking of spuds, my second cropping ones for Christmas were planted out on the first days of this month and are already showing proper signs of life. I'll keep a really good eye on them in case of blight....

I ordered 2kg of tubers and this proved just a few too many for the containers/grow bags I have so I've given a few away to neighbours but still managed to plant about 17! Nom nom.

In the poly house I have some things growing away nicely; red and green lettuce in the drainpipe..

parsley to hopefully keep over winter...

 mizuma in the long planter..

and I've rather nervously decided to start off some spring Cabbage. It is looking ok just now and it'll need potting on this weekend. I've decided they will be planted out in some of the now empty tyres as I feel I will be able to look after them easily over winter. I hope to be able to keep anything from eating these ones!

I have this and another large cucumber out front to sell as I have plenty coming and need to make sure I have two for the local show at the beginning of September. You really don't have to wait too long for them to get this big, just a bit of patience; these are Marketmore. I sold two at the front door yesterday, too!

The kale is doing ok but not as well as I had hoped; I've it covered over with netting now, perhaps a little late, but this is also protecting some beetroot. Another lesson.

In the greenhouse are my four pepper plants and they have teeny, tiny fruit on so I think I'll move those into the poly house for some extra heat and help.

The tomato plants are still not heavy with fruit but it is coming. I've invested in some good quality feed and hope this will help. 

I've moved two of the plants outside to see if that makes a difference; I covered these over as I was nervous about birds getting them, and still am!

Alongside these two plants are my beautiful sunflowers.

These multi-head flowers are bloomin' gorgeous I think.

Now we have been working on a project that will be added to our Airbnb listings.

This is the summer house we have been giving a revamp for guests, and us, to enjoy.

We have the two comfy chairs, a small table with a little cloth and a fabulous storm lantern with a candle, not LED.

On a small side shelf we have provided dominoes and postcards for people to send....

along with a radio, a drawing game and a couple of books.

We thought it would be fun to provide binoculars for bird watching, along with my old bird book from school, or for stargazing on a clear night.

We plan on getting a couple of throws for the chairs but right now it is quite warm in there. We really do hope our Airbnb guests will enjoy using it - the room has been ridiculously busy this month with hardly a vacancy which is FAB U LARSE! This is the view from The Snug up the garden which we hope they will also enjoy.

I've done some baking, apple turnovers yesterday with some of my bottled apples

and have dried sage I'd cut back. I love having fresh herbs in the garden and the house.

Harry is back from cadet camp so we are a complete unit again. Whilst he was away Alfie has been a star as I was unwell for a couple of days and he cleaned out my car, moved some things into the shed for Jon and went to the sheep market with our neighbour - properly earned his pocket money and then some. Harry is going to have to keep up!!

Today we may be taking a little trip out to collect a piece of furniture we have won on a well know auction site to go in the next Airbnb room. We are waiting delivery of beds that can be twin or a double to maximise business and then I have shopping to do for bedding and all the twidly bits, love that part of it, so Charlies in Aber look out because I'm a coming!

Right better crack on with something.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Bits and Bobs Into The Weekend.

Yesterday the May issue of Grow Your Own magazine arrived through my door. I am so pleased I decided to subscribe to it as it's helped me a great deal since my journey of sowing and growing began. I love that you get help, tips, advice, offers and free stuff, like peas and beans this month!

Now, a good while ago GYO were asking for readers to submit gardening tips so I duly sent in mine and look what happened!

It's me having one of my letters published, again, so I will be very happily receiving £40 worth of vouchers by the end of the month to spend with Thompson and Morgan. I am ridiculously excited and it couldn't be a better time to buy things for the garden; I think first on the list will be my sweet potato slips but not sure what else just yet. Wish I could get paid to write stuff, that would be just fab.

Another exciting thing happening is that tomorrow I am going on a one-day poly tunnel course. Now I know I don't have a poly tunnel but it will still be a beneficial experience. Even more fab is that it is one of the courses run by the lovely Kim Stoddart at Green Rocket Courses here in beautiful Ceredigion whom I wrote about recently. I shall be setting off bright and early whilst Jon takes care of the boys for the day. I already have parental guilt piling up as I always feel I am skiving off my family duties when I get to do something on my own, but I'm getting round to the idea,  butI am on duty for Alfie's football tournament on Sunday morning.

In other news, yesterday was absolutely glorious here so once the Airbnb guests had gone, washing up done, washing on the line and a quick tidy up I put the boys to work on the leftovers from a fire we had recently; it needed shoveling to fill in a gap where Jon had been doing some building near the tractor shed. 

I then got round to tidying out the shallow sink where I grow lettuce and spring onions, sowing Kale seeds in the old cold frame, Basil seeds for the kitchen window and coriander and flat leaf parsley in the herb loo and sink! I also took out some poorly performing onions from one of the tyres; it was a waste of space for so few and I'm going to possibly put Marketmore cucumbers in there instead - I've never grown them outside so we'll see how we get on.

I had a quick look at the fruit patch; bushes, canes and trees are mostly looking really healthy with lots of shoots so chuffed about that. 

Ok, I think I better get going as probably going food shopping in an hour or so and need to tidy up the breakfast things.

Hope everybody has a lovely weekend and can't wait to report back after my exciting day tomorrow.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx