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

A Bit of Lunchtime Randomness.

Over the weekend we were lucky enough to have a sky like this!

At 11.15pm we were stargazing in our back garden, in deck chairs, coats and wrapped up looking at this amazing sky. We saw quite a few shooting stars but one especially spectacular one which went right above us and had an almost green tail to it. 

It was awesome! 

We sat for about half an hour and then we got some cloud cover so were no longer able to see anything but it was a fab experience. Alfie was too asleep to wake up but we did get Harry to come downstairs and we were so lucky we saw what we did!

In the Poly House my piquant peppers are finally showing themselves, albeit only just.

 I have made a start on some seed sowing, too. Here you can see Broccoli Raab and then Spring Cabbage, Offenham 2 (Flower of Spring), which are already germinating and I only put these in on August 8 so very pleased with them.

Finally lots of tomatoes are ripening! These two plants are doing really well and are specifically for bottling; I have another plant for this, too, so hopefully I will have plenty.

Now outside this is how my sweetcorn is looking.

I don't remember last year's crop looking like this but hope all will be well.

I have been harvesting lots of things from the garden since we have been back from our holiday which I am loving.This little lot I took up on Wednesday and the blackberries came from me and the boys foraging in the hedgerows' getting on for a 1lb. It looks as if there are loads more to come. This lunchtime it has been great to have salad using our own lettuce, beetroot, spring onions and tomatoes.

We have now had the last of the salad blues which have been great fun and the carrots are great with plenty more to come, too. The few climbing peas you can see are always lovely but I have learned a lesson for next year. I will not be growing them in tripods. They are so bushy that it is hard to get to the pods and I don't think they grow as well. Next year I shall put them in a row against netting but in the same spot; learning all the time as my dad used to say.

Right, that is it for me as I am going to an early Slimming World group today; yesterday both the boys went to stay with the Gramps and won't be back until Thursday so I don't need to be in Aber late this evening for Harry's Sea Cadets. Jon has to go to a family funeral tomorrow needing to leave home at 5am as it is in the Lake District; he won't be home until late so I'll have a long day on my own, not that I mind, but must not waste the time and will do my best to use it wisely.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

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

Pre-Rain Round Up.

The weather here is atrocious, really. The forecast said the rain would be with us hour upon hour upon hour and it surely is. Anyhow I managed to get to and from the room to ready it for a short notice booking we received yesterday afternoon for this evening.

I have some photos to share which as you will see were taken when the weather was MUCH better in the run up to and at the weekend.

Jon has had a couple of quad bikes in the shed needing some work to get running for the boys. He got one working and they both had a good few minutes riding up and down the garden.

Unfortunately they both still need a bit of work but there you go.

Recently I took part in a stationery swap and this was the lovely haul I received; post cards, post it notes, stickers, washi tape - all just lovely; thanks to Fiona my swap partner.

In Aber at the weekend I popped into Craft and looked, as usual, at the glassware, crockery etc and found these two bottles for £1 each. They will be great for when I, hopefully, make blackberry cordial later in the year.

We had been trying to sell the ride on mower recently but found it quite tricky. However, Jon was doing his best Forrest Gump impression yesterday mowing the garden and he has decided now to DEFINITELY keep it; much easier than strimming!

Now into the Poly House. These are the latest three tomato plants to be put in their final pots. If all the plants I have growing come into fruit I will have tonnes!...

and there are flowers on two or three of the plants which is great!

I have planted two piquant pepper plants in a trough but have three more plants. I am running out of floor space so will try and keep all these plants bushy, if I can, so they will fit under the benches a bit.

Here are my gherkins, four in total, which may be too many for the space I have given them but I guess they will support each other...

I had a sneaky look at my Arran Pilot spuds yesterday and found one a bit smaller than an egg so earthed them back up again as they shouldn't be ready for a few weeks yet but very exciting!

The strawb plants are fruiting well and spotted a couple of red ones yesterday.

The spring onions in the sink are finally really looking good with more small ones coming up, too. Shame we have eaten all of the lettuces, which also grew brilliantly in the sink; I have sown some more but need to do them more regularly than I have been.

I think that about covers everything. 

I am soooo excited for the harvest to come. After the rain I will do a post about the veg patches as it is all looking how I could only have dreamed before we moved here. The idea of me really producing a good amount of our own food, trying to be self-sufficient and self-reliant is amazing. I know it will take a few years to get the amounts right of things I grow to keep us fed, getting through the gap where much doesn't grow etc but I hope to keep good records from this year's harvest and into next year so I see how the numbers stack up.

Right, going to get some lunch now.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx