Mish-Mash Monday!

Good morning.

Monday and I find myself in from the garden after a few jobs including preparing the Airbnb room for guests arriving this evening; we had a last minute booking for Saturday night, too. 

This was the garden this morning. I just love it here beyond words!

Now this post is a bit of a mish-mash round up of the last few days I think; not sure what happened when with everything but here goes.

I don't grow many edibles but my wild flower chimney pot is coming along a treat...

I'm continuing to harvest lots of salad leaves along with kale, radishes...some bolted so have re-sown..

and the first early spuds. Still love digging for treasure when it comes to harvesting spuds!

Here we have patch to plate. Potato salad, nom nom!

In the cellar we have been doing some re-jigging so I now have a much cleaner laundry area. Jon had a few little plumbing issues to deal with first but now after we acquired the really deep sink from friends it is just fab for washing.  Awkward shaped stuff, really dirty things I don't want to have in the kitchen sink, like footy boots can be taken care of down there and I have storage space, too so I'm chuffed to bits with it.

The other end of the cellar has had a good tidy up, too with boots and shoes being brought down from the conservatory to stop if being a dumping ground. Winter coats, hats, gloves etc have been washed ready for later in the year or grown out things to go to the charity shop.

I took part in another of my Stationery Swaps recently and these were the goodies I received at the weekend! I'll have to up my game to match up to these beautiful things; pens, notebooks, stickers, cards, eeeeek!!!!!!!

I've planted out my Sweet potatoes; two types, Erato Orange and White - three of each.

Progress on the greenhouse has been halted as we haven't managed to get glass for the missing pains yet. I've put five tomato plants in the gh as they are on the side with glass in low down so hope they get the benefit of some extra warmth. The leaves are curling so of course I am panicking but I keep watering them well, no flowers yet and the texture of the leaves is a little leathery....

The poly house should be covered by next week. I'm just working on the basis that everything is growing outside due to the weather being good for the next 10 days or so and praying for good results.

I have had some growth on my two different types of courgettes I'm growing this year.

Goldena, teeny tiny I know!

and 

Tondo di Piacenza, like a golf ball!

I made a lovely salad for tea last night. All the salad leaves and herbs were ours but then I added peaches, parma ham, mozarella, carrot, boiled eggs, cucumber, tomato, pepper and red onion. I do hope that later in the year I'll be able to make this again with all our own produce apart from the ham, cheese and peaches. Have to say it was scrummy.

Right, better get on as have Harry home from school with a nasty cough and need to get up some lunch.

Looking forward, as ever, to seeing what people got up to at the weekend.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Pasg HapusI I Bawb.

Happy Easter to Everybody!!

It's still March, just, but it is Easter so here are my decorations from the living room.

I always love using my Country Diary of An Edwardian Lady for seasonal 'vingnettes' and couldn't resist the April page, although we are still in March.

My little bunny tags are sooo simple to make which just involves a little template and some sheet music then cut out and stuck on!

I had to put something on the sideboard so used my lovely pre-loved dish with lots of eggs, including a couple painted by the boys when they were young.

In other news I recently took part in a one-off happymail swap thanks to Jocelyn at  

The Reading Residence, a blog I follow.

I was sent some fab stationery goodies!

Pink Basildon Bond paper, doesn't get much better than that, washi tape, who doesn't love a bit of that, lovely French inspired 6x6 craft paper and a cute notebook which I think I may use for notes in the garden.

This evening we have people in our Airbnb room for three nights so went shopping for breakfast things this morning along with the regular food shop. After unpacking, having lunch, vacuuming up, cleaning out the living room fire should we need it later, washing up, washer ready to go on and whatever else I could jam in I went outside and cut back the laurel at the front of the house.

The first photo is from a while ago but you get the idea of the size of the thing!

It really need sorting and I'm chuffed with its shape now.

Jon is now feeding the lambs twice a day and they are thriving back with the main flock; he seems to think they are almost done with the lambs coming. I see other people are just starting with theirs.

Right, have to keep remembering it isn't Saturday although it feels JUST like it; boys need their tea as will be off to Youth Club at 6pm.

I hope you enjoy the Easter weekend and look forward to see what everybody gets 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

Monday Mumblings.

Hi. My last post was only on Wednesday but it seems ages ago to me.

This is a bit of a random post, no change there, with a few things I've been thinking about and doing.

Jon's cousin and other half came on Saturday lunch time and we have a great time. Our boys are away with the Gramps, thanks to our guests taking them back with them yesterday, until Friday so I have no time constraints for when they are due home, like snacks and tea making. Right here we are then.

My beetroot is shooting up well so I've decided to cram into the veg patch as much as I can when I plant it out.  Last year I grew what turned into approximately 3lbs and this made almost three jars when pickled.

I figure that as it is only really eaten in the summer if I grow twice, or three times, as much as that this year then I won't need to grow it next year; that is the plan anyhow!

I have been looking for seeds to grow sweet chilies but not been very successful so asked Dawn, you know who I mean I'm sure, and she gave me a good list to look for; this is one of the many jobs on my list of things to do!

As I got it into my head the other day to sow some spinach seeds the other day, a little thing came into my head

Think where things will go before you decide to sow! 

and

Label everything where possible or necessary

I decided to give my seeds in the house a little helping hand this week so...

this lot and those in the kitchen have been given some extra warmth; things are coming along well and can't wait to get them into the Poly House.

On Saturday I received a lovely parcel in the post; I have joined up with a Stationery Swap together with Jocelyn from The Reading Residence and here are my goodies...

In my parcel were pencils, a pen, post it notes, note cards with envelopes, a mini stapler, bookmarks, stickers, a notebook and stickers. All just lovely from a lady called Amy.

This Friday my blueberry bush offer arrived from my Grow Your Own mag. This morning I unpacked them and gave them a good watering, a little time yet before I get them in the ground.

A couple of photos from the garden. The herb sink is slowly coming back to life

and the garlic is doing really well.

The green picket fence, which you can just see at the far left of this photo, has been extended right up to the new gate Jon built. This is another creosoting job for me but to be honest I find it quite satisfying. When this is painted I have to do another coat on ALL of the fencing but I'll get a cuppa, my little seat and radio and be off!

Can't wait until I can see lots more things through the window of the Poly House!

I don't have photos of the process as I was too scared to look, but Jon and the boys took down a tree on Saturday morning and he is half way through logging it ready to season for next winter; he is LOVING filling up his newly positioned woodpile! (I heard about this book on the radio and I think I may have to buy it for him!


Great excitement, well at least from me, on Saturday morning. The girls gave us 5 eggs, and three today so far; things are on the up it seems.

After the boys had gone to the Gramps on Sunday Jon and I had a bit of us time in Aber. The usual, buying work socks, rodent killer and a PH soil testing kit. As you do!

We also sat and had a coffee, well Jon did. I was very good and didn't have a coffee as they had run out of skimmed milk and I watched him eat a caramel shortbread, too. (It is my weigh in tonight so looking forward to some good news and also going to the earlier meeting as don't have to get tea for the boys.)

Right, better get on. 

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Postal Delights And Other Goodies.

Good morning!

On Friday I received a parcel from Thompson & Morgan; it was my garlic cloves and onion sets! They are currently in a cupboard until they are needed. 

The boys and I left Jon at the train on Saturday morning as he went to pick up a car we were buying in Abergele. We three went to do the food shopping and a few jobs in town. I picked up a copy of Smallholing magazine and it came with a chicken mag, too.

I've always fancied taking a look at a copy of this just to see how people do stuff! I was chuffed there was a competition to win some electric fencing but then, darn it, I realised the competition time had run out! I should say that the man who owns the sawmill where Jon works has said we can have some of the piglets when he puts his sow to boar (I think that is the correct term). When home the postman had brought my Grow Your Own magazine, along with my calendar for next year and I love it; this year in addtion to the usual stickers there are fridge magnets!

I was trying to think how long I've been using this particular calendar and it must be about eight years as I know Alfie was born; it is THE best way of organising me and mine.

On Sunday morning I got busy in the garden and sowed a few more cauliflower seeds and finished the garden prep on the bed I had started; carbooard and then polythene topped with a pallet to keep everything flat. Lovely to think the manure will all rot down and hopefully the bed will be a treat for the brassicas once Autumn and Winter have passed.

On Monday morning I weighed myself following the changes to my diet and I found I had lost 2¼lbs. Wish it had been a little more but as least it is a loss.

I set to with a couple of jobs outside once the bread had been started. I finished preparing the spot on the main veg plot by first taking down the last tomato plant, giving it to the chooks then adding the contents of the grow bag to the plot and forking it through ready for the garlic to be planted.

I also put some fleece over the beetroot just to protect them a little while longer before I take them up, thanks Dawn. It isn't the prettiest looking effort but I hope it will do the job. (I have tidied it up a bit since this photo was taken!)

The postman brought more delights. I have been having trouble deciding where to put the washing line/whirly gig when we finally got round to buying one.After dicussion we decided the best thing was to have a retractable one and then it wouldn't matter where it was as we could just pull it back in when not needed, so...

and it is already in full use.

I had a friend over for coffee this morning, Tuesday, so a couple of hours of garden, craft and other chat and she came bearing gifts of more apples. Yay!

These are awating some attention and may be turned into apple sauce and stored away in my new Kilner jars! The ones given to me at the weekend I have blanched and put in the freezer for another day. 

Just as said friend was leaving the postman delivered my part of the stationery swap I have taken part in. Eeeek!

Washi tape, post-it notes, a note book, stickers AND some cute candles.

This morning I managed to dust the living room before the kids went to school then before my coffee chat put the washing on. I've also got round to sowing a few more Pak Choi seeds, collected the eggs and am currently having a very late lunch whilst writing this post. 

I'm amazed the boys will be home shortly as I'm not sure where the day has gone AT ALL!

Bye for now.

Lou.xx