My Little Patch Of Paradise.

Hello there. I'm here and we're back in lockdown, again! For fear of sounding like an old record I hope you are staying safe and keeping sane. I'll leave it at that.

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As is my want with my posts I start I rarely finish them without some sort of interruption, like a day or two. My husband quite often tells me I try to do too many things at once, the same as when I try to carry too much if tidying up or putting away the pots - I do drop things! We're currently on day two!

Anyhow, I'm here thinking about the outside of our little homestead, my little patch of paradise althoug it isn't looking much like right now! We have had our polytunnel since April 28 2020 so I didn't have time to make the best of it but I was however quite pleased with some of the results; amongst others we had salad leaves all Summer into Autumn, a fabulous amount of kale even though only I eat it but hope to change that. My point is that I want to get it up and running as early as possible to maximise the space over this year.

Currently it is home to the following:

-    20 or so dwarf peas Meteor

-    spring onions

-    a variety of salad leaves

-    a small amount of garlic and onions left over from the ones planted outside

-    10 or so khol rabi

-    three small broccoli with teeny tiny heads

-    2 small kale 

-    pots of parsley, oregano and lemon balm 

-    sweet peas

Some of these are seemingly in suspended animation but look fairly healthy. I hope that once the weather starts to warm up a little next month they'll kick back into life. Something which has come back inside are the strawberry plants; these are about seven or eight I think which were runners off those I cleared out at the end of summer. I gave them a tidy up and have hopes they will develop nicely -  they are called Delizz which are a late fruiting variety.

So looking towards sowing and growing for 2021 I'm not keen on starting many things too early in the year, but I may put some Nante carrots in later this month as these will possibly give us a small crop before those outside. Mainly I'll begin next month when I'll be doing my best to follow Charles Dowding and his sowing schedule with more multi-sowing than I tried last year. My polytunnel book by Joyce Russell says peppers and chillis do well in an unheated polytunnel so I'm crossing my fingers for those to crop this year as I've never done well with either; the latter will have to be a mild variety with more flavour than kick! Any suggestions?

A job for in the polytunnel before much else is to clear some un-successful turnips out; shame about those as I love cooking with them. (Since beginning this I've had another look and there may be a couple growing better. Anyhow, they'll eventually come out and all along the back wall I'll add fresh compost and that is where the tomatoes will be this year. I think they will get more light there due to the way the polytunnel is positioned  to the rising and setting of the sun. I have compost I bought some time ago, which is great seeing as we are in lockdown and cannot get any unless buying feed or bit and pieces for the sheep or chickens.

I'm aiming to do a post by the end of the month about my sowing plans for at least the next two or three months, wiggle room allowed obviously, but I've also set myself a little challenge; check out my freind Tracy over at Our Smallholding Adventure, along with her YouTube channel, as she absolutely loves a challenge. Mine is simply to make a YouTube video where I speak as I'm not keen on my voice when it is recorded but I'll do my best; I want to show the growing area, polytunnel and poly house, oh prepare for some work in progress shots! No point not being honest, real life is what you get in my garden. I'm not good outside in the bad weather but I really am looking forward to sharing my plans for when I'm up and at it when a little of the warm Welsh weather returns.

Aaaah, I knew I'd sneak some in-house stuff in! I have some Seville oranges and will next week be turning them into marmalade to add to the stores of preserves I have in the cellar, some made by me and others gifts. My first time of making it so wish me luck; I'm a nervous preserver but very keen to have a go at things. 

NEWSFLASH - In my last post I showed photos of inside the polytunnel and poly house but I have just uploaded that video I talked about and you can find it here.. I watch a lot of YouTube and people are soo good at it, like Tracy and also Hugh and Fiona over at English Country Life. Me I managed to film the whole 11 minutes in portrait only realising at the end. Duh! Hope you still like what you see!

Bye for now,

Lou.xx

2021 - A Fresh Start.

 Hello! 

This is my first post since December 7! We enjoyed our quiet Christmas the same as we always do, so no change for us really. New Year's Eve, too, was quiet as normal - just the Hootenanny with a glass or two of bubbly then to bed.

To hope the coming year of 2021 will be an improvement on the last is an understatement for most people and for those I feel so sorry for all the loss, heartache, difficult times and challenges they have had to face. However I am and will forever be full of gratitude for our being safe on our little homestead, Jon still being able to go to work, our boys carrying on with their schooling at home (though challenging at times, too) not missing going abroad and just happy to be where we are on my little patch of paradise.

I wish everyone a healthy 2021 and look forward to sharing all your, and my, doings in the coming year, be it your sowing n growing, baking n making in the kitchen or craft projects.xx

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Anyway, onwards.This is the view which greeted me at the back door this morning. We had a good covering of snow yesterday and a little more over night but the brightness of the day had already begun to melt it; beautiful sky anyhow.

Yesterday and today I took a few photos inside and out, in the poly tunnel, the garden and the poly house. However, the first photo is of the man who came to scan the pregnant ewes on the 30th. We had a fantastic result as out of  43 ewes we had 26 singles and 17 twins! Fantastic.

Back to sowing and growing. I have very little growing but here goes!

These are my leeks; I haven't harvested any from these tyres but plan to do so soon. I did take up a few from one of the other beds as they were the only thing in it and I wanted to cover it with some mulch; I'm going to try those this evening; they;re more like baby leeks but...

The onions are still coming along nicely...

and in the top of the toilet I have some annual flowers peeping through...trying to grow quite a few flowers this year for a change. Ooh, that reminds me I must make sure I've Marigolds on the list to go with the tomatoes...

plus the bulbs I planted last year appear to be coming to life once more.

Talking of coming back to life the Stellata Magnolia is showing some buds and ...

on the ground beneath it I think are the beginnings of the daffodils!

I don't have much going on the poly house but these are the red onion sets I planted a good while ago and so far 20 or so of them are springing into life;I intend to plant these out in February.

In the poly tunnel the sweet peas are doing ok, need to check when and where I'll plant those out. I was just way too late last year and I had none so fingers crossed I'll get a much better result this year.

I have a few pots of herbs just pootling along which are two pots of  Champion Parsley, some Oregano and then there is Lemon Balm. I'm still hoping to make a good herb 'garden' in the tall planters outside this year.

I'm very pleased that the three broccoli plants seem to be in suspended animation along with the dwarf peas and salad leaves. Apologies for the green algae stuff on the surface; need to clear that off.

So, that was the show now for the tell! 

I've made my list for seed sowing and I've been really thorough, I think, to really try and not have empty beds outside from about July/August time which is what usually happens.😖 Going to keep sowing and keep planting out to try and avoid that hungry gap.

I'm going to do my best to make the most of the poly tunnel as we were already getting on for half way through the year when we bought it in 2020, sounds weird saying that already. I have plans for starting things in there are well as seeds for germination then to be planted in the beds and areas outside.

As we're not intending to take any Airbnb guests for the whole of 2021, this gives us the chance to do some projects in the garden when we don't need to worry about there being some mess and upheaval. A lot of clearance needs sorting around the beds and tyres as I'd eventually like to have membrane and pea gravel down to make the area a lot more tidy.

I'm really quite envious of people with big compost bins so that's something I have room for and Jon has access to any number of pallets we need for the job. 👍

I'm sure there are lots of things I want to do, would like to do, need to do but we'll get to that at some point.

That is about it for me. I can't wait to hear about your plans for inside and out over the coming months so why not drop me a line in the comments? 😊

Bye for now, 

Lou.xx

Simply Sowing And Growing.

Hello all.

Here is the usual opening to my post. Things are constantly changing all over the UK with the pandemic so with best wishes all I can say is I hope you're staying safe and doing what you need to in order to continue as best you can under the circimstances. 

I was trolled on my Twitter feed the other day; accused of being selfish and middle-class, hiding away from the virus just because I said I was extremely grateful I had somewhere I could keep safe with me and mine, soooooo I'm just keeping on keeping on. 

Today I've had a couple of exciting deliveries. The first thing was my order of seeds from the online company Simply Seed, the postage for just seeds is a flat rate of £1.39 and the prices of the seeds is very reasonable.

The seeds I have ready for next year are:

Carrot Autumn King 2

Leek Mussleburgh

Leek Tornado

Beetroot Bolthardy

Radish French Breakfast

Cucumber Femspot

Tomato Tumbing Tom Red

French Bean Montano

Turnip Purple Top Milan

Khol Rabi Delicacy Purple

Salad Leaves Musclun Mixed

Butternut Squash Butterbush

Courgette Sure Thing

There are a couple that I still want but will hopefull get them soon.

Only issue is that I got a little excited and ended up ordering three packets of Bolthardy Beetroot, two types of leek and two packets of Radish French Breakfast!😂 Never mind!

The other delivery was the polythene covering for the poly house and my boys have been removing the batons for us to, hopefully, get it on over the weekend weather depending. 

Woop woop!

And then yesterday I took a little look around the poly tunnel.

I have a few flowers on my Meteor dwarf peas which is great. No idea when I might get pods on them; the things in the poly tunnel are a bit experimental - Tracy over at Our Smallholding Adventure knows all about that.

The carrots I have sown, two lots, are germinating and I may get some through in who knows! 

Very pleased that my sweet peas have popped up.

I also wanted to share some photos of the delicious Cawl we had for tea last night. It was made from the left overs from our Sunday roast. 

The meat was from a lamb Jon butchered; a long time since he used his chef training to that degree. It was delicious, served in wooden bowls as dictated by tradition, along with some of my homebaked bread and Welsh cheese.

Well, that is all my ramblings for now I think. The weather is blustery but bright here today so not unpleasant, especially with the Rayburn warm on my back.

Take care,

bye for now.

Lou.xx

 

Bank Holiday Weekend Work.

Good morning.

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I'm going to start off by saying that I absolutely love living in such a rural place but it can be challenging at times regarding the circle of life. We all need to make sure we are keeping to rules and regulations and respect everything around us.

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Hi everybody, how did you get on over the Bank Holiday? Obviously another strange one but didn't stop a lot of us getting outside I am sure. However, I started off the weekend on Saturday by catching up with Gardener's World - lovely start to the day but still a little sad not seeing Nigel. I decided to do a bit of planning for work in the garden so I knew what needed doing for the next few weeks. Love doing that, makes it very exciting knowing what it coming up, in more than one sense of the word!

Sunday was a great day outside. I planted kale in the poly tunnel and broccoli outside. 

The broccoli are the plants in the middle of the bed (radishes at the far end and courgettes closest in the photo). They will have a frame to protect them as I've never managed to grow it without getting eaten by something other than us! We're utilising this which was over the bed behind the poly house and our eldest and I made a good start but just needs the netting putting on it now.

I did some potting on outside the poly tunnel in the sunshine.

This involved cabbages Greyhound, a Black Beauty aubergine (always have trouble germinating those but keep trying) and a sunflower to hopefully have outside the tunnel if the lambs don't eat it!! Oh and what I think is the last tomato plant.

The eldest also helped me put up my bunting in the tunnel, need a little girly-ness in there.

I have now moved the Brown Turkey fig tree into the poly tunnel and it is going great guns already. 

A couple of other jobs included earthing up the first early spuds; these look to be recovering from the frost damage with plenty of new growth showing.

I've been saving woodash from the Rayburn and read somewhere that it is good for onions when they start bulbing so I'm giving it a go - can't do any harm.

Finally I cut back the oregano in the herb sink and it is now drying nicely in the conservatory and will be added to our box of herbs in the kitchen; 

this is something I really want to keep doing when I can this year. It was the last job of a really satisfying day and the best thing was we had another day to do it all again!

Yesterday morning, after a lovely brekky of scrammbled eggs, I set to deciding on the jobs for the day. These were partly helped by watching the latest YouTube video by Kev here at An English Homestead; he gave us a great tour of his garden and poly tunnel and I took a few hints and tips along the way. 

I got outside and sowed the following:

Dwarf Bean Speedy in a tray of 15 cells

Dwarf Pea Hurst Green Shaft the same

Beetroot Bolthardy, again in a tray of cells 

These have gone, along with a pot of Sweet Basil, into the poly tunnel so I can pick them at the same time as salad leaves.

The bed shown here is from where we took the old frame to use for the broccoli protection. It was going to be for parsnips but I've changed my mind. I found a number of weeds that seemed to have something like rizehomes but it wasn't the dreaded ground elder as far as I could tell. Anyhow, it is all prepared as I covered it over with cardboard, which I luckily still had, and then covered in fresh compost no dig style. I'll add some more when I get it but this bed is now going to be for cabbage or cauli, not decided which yet. 

I'd already started putting down cardboard around it so hopefully nothing nasty will get in.

My tunnel is coming along well but there are still has a few spaces as, obviously, I'm starting from nothing so don't have a full year of sowing and growing happening. 

Here is a butternut squash Spaghetti given to me by a friend. Funny, she says mine is doing better than hers!

However, I'm chuffed how things are working out but we did have a little visit from a mole the other day - I check today and all seems well, fingers crossed.

This year I am sooo late with my sweet peas but have a few called Bright and Breezy that germinated. I planted up three in a fairly big pot plus wigwam then in the top of the herb loo I've put a couple to brighten up the poly house area. The only other things I potted on yesterday were half a dozen All The Year Round cauli.

We're still feeding the youngest of the lambs who is really taking time to bulk up but I fed him a good 400ml of Lamlac this morning which is great.

After we came in from the garden I did some of my papercrafting. I've just started on my second junk journal. I think you can tell I love the vintage look and feel of things when I'm in a creative mode. I love finding anything from old sheet music and magazines, old adverts, books, paper, letters, labels, stickers, you get the idea. So... should you come across anything like this you know to give me a shout.😀

Ok, time to get on, after one more cup of tea. Not a lot on the agenda today but maybe a little bit of baking later on and deciding what will be on the menu for today and the rest of the week.

Hope you enjoyed the Bank Holiday and that you are just keeping on keeping on and managing mentally. With restrictions starting to change here as well as things in the news I've been feeling rather anxious. I've had to delete my Facebook feed since the weekend as too much negativity going on that is affecting my anxiety, plus I've muted some things from Twitter for the same reasons. Here, we are just concentrating on simply staying home and staying safe so I hope you are doing what ever you need to do wherever you are.

Bye for now,

Lou.xx

Progress, Plants and People

Hello.

It has been over two weeks since my last post - sounds like I'm at confession!! so settle down with a brew as this may take a while!

Things have been pretty busy recently in all aspects here on our little homestead.

You may see in my left side bar the latest of our Airbnb listings. We are so very excited to finally have this available. The progress of the project was great fun when putting it together because of the theme and we absolutely love it. It isn't like the other two rooms we have as people book those last minute for a night away or a couple of days when the weather is good. Because this new listing is a self-catering unit I think we have to be a little more patient for bookings; we expect people to come and stay with us for a few days which obviously needs a little more planning on their part but are optimistic for a good season once we get some reviews in.

Talking of reviews, we've had fab great reviews from all the guests over the last two weeks; we were busy in the run up to and over the Bank Holiday of the year which was fantastic.

Now, the garden. My little patch of paradise is coming along very nicely thanks very much. Due to the wet and warm weather we've been having recently it seems all the plans are getting what they need.

This is the main patch with the maincrop spuds; (they're actually a bit bigger than this now)

obviously I'm having a bit of a potato panic due to there being so much foliage - praying (back to the confession theme) the spuds themselves come out ok especially after last year's dis-ar-ster dhaling!!

I have to admit that these seem to be doing better than the early ones...

In the background you may have seen the onions..

which I'm chuffed with; they are looking so healthy and I'll be keeping an eye on the tops dying back in the coming weeks ready to take them up, hopefully when they can dry out in the sunshine.

As usual I've planted quite a few courgette plants! This is the first of two outside which are currently flowering very nicely.

Yesterday I took the peas up out of the poly house ready to plant two cucumber and a squash plant. I harvested the last few peas - the plants I had in there gave me almost 1.5 lb of peas which are in the freezer. I have more plants in bed three and the one outside the poly house so hope to get another couple of lbs. I had a nice little harvest to take indoors.

The sweet peas are growing really well, I'm cutting them regularly and I just love the fragrance, 

here are some with one of the front door roses, eeek I love them!

Salad leaves are having their best year yet; I think I've finally got the successional sowing of these figured out. Yay, go me!

The turnips are one things that didn't do well with the wet and warm weather; they had all pretty much gone to seed so I picked one and gave the chooks a treat of the leaves. I've already sown some more in with the cabbages and will probably re-sow the bed.

The cabbages have been a real revelation. These were overwintered in the deceased greenhouse and planted out in about February. These were only about five and some were sold or eaten as Spring greens, some given away and we are still eating them now - just two left. Nothing nibbled them, they have grown really healthily so I think I'll go for them again.

I was given some begonias and trailing plants so I bought hanging baskets to make up for the rooms. I'm quite pleased withe them for my first effort.

Something else not quite so welcome but here due to the wet and warm weather were the weeds. This is the far end of the growing area where the weeds had consumed everything...

and then Jon strimmed it for me...

and NOW you can see the planter I'll be using for the outside tomatoes - I love a before and after photo!

I have two fruit trees and two blackcurrant bushes towards the back as well as the raspberry buses which run alongside veg patch 3 (2nd early spuds on the very right). I'm very grateful the ground elder hasn't spread from near the poly house and if we do our best to keep on top of the weeds and grass it should be ok. Because the far right hand side of patch 3 is stony with lots of tree roots I'd love to see if I can use the area to grow borage.

Ok, I've rambled on enough I think and anyway its lunch time.

Bye for now.

Lou.x

Just How Tired?

Hello!

Flippin' heck, tired?

We went to the Spring Festival at Builth Wells last Saturday. Before we left the house at 7.30am a booking came in for one of he Airbnb rooms. Everything was ready but I still like to be home some time before guests say they will arrive in case they call for directions due to being lost! We had a good time at the festival. Having been out I had a few jobs to do in the afternoon so that is where it began. 

On Sunday we set to cleaning the new listing from top to bottom. After lunch we headed into Aber, looking like not sure what still in our work clothes, to start getting stuff basically. We bought towels, bedding including quilt, pillows, topper, toaster, kettle etc. All very exciting! We were tired but still found time after tea to take a drive and walk up near Teifi Pools.

On Monday it was the turn of the fridge to get a spring clean so that could be turned on. With other regular jobs to be done, too, I was pleased Alf had decided to stay at Urdd club then I had to fetch him at 4.30pm. Harry came home from school and said it was boating with cadets but his name wasn't down, however he managed to wangle himself a space - he wasn't going to miss kayaking! This meant after tea I had to drop him off in Aber just after 6pm, came home and went through with Jon what we still needed to buy, then went back again at 8.30pm to fetch Harry getting home at about 9.45pm. I did take some great photos of them coming back into the boat yard, though!

Then yesterday I headed into Aber, again, with a long list to finish off the listing. I managed to get ALMOST everything, along with pillaging from the house and changing my mind on a few things but, I washed all the new things, got it dressed. We're also building planters and need to buy compost and plants to finish off the outside of the listing

After tea I finally got into the poly house and was determined to get a few things done but to just relax a little.

Things are really looking fab now. Salad leaves and herbs are growing well enough to pick every other day.

Both First and second early spuds are coming on well. In the 1st bed I also have radishes and spinach.

 

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Other progress is happening with the strawberries,

blueberries

and Autumn planted onions.

I have taken the plunge and planted out the courgettes...

a bit close maybe but what the heck - the foliage can grow over the sides of the tyres!

The sink where I planted more lettuce and spring onions are doing ok;I always seem to have trouble with spring onions. In the tyre at the top of the photo I have planted out a couple of cabbages, too,and the others are ready to go out, too. I am PRAYING the last frosts have passed but our weather is set to be lovely other the bank Holiday weekend when we are full of guests!

Here are the first of my tomato plants in their final places; these are called Red Zucker and to be grown indoors,.

The sweet peas are starting to flower which I'm very pleased about - hope to get lots.

Today I have taken things a little easier but still jobs need to be done so I'd better post this.

So that's a little update of what is happening her on my little patch of paradise and I always enjoy seeing what everybody else is sowing and growing, too.

Bye for now.

Lou.x