A Big Old Catch Up.

Hi! Well, how good has this weather been, although I did see somebody on social media saying it wasn't right to be this warm in February, meaning that the planet was warming up, I think....

On Thursday it was my youngest's Ysgol Eisteddfod, school Eisteddfod. He recited a poem, in Welsh, for of the categories and came 2nd; he also won places in two writing classes. Very proud of him.

On Friday I had a delivery of my bare root fruit canes and some blueberry plants and seeds from Thompson & Morgan.

Sorry about the last photo being a bit scew!

At the weekend our Airbnb guests enjoyed the sun. We were really very busy with that as well as jobs around the house and outside.

Jon was doing the first cutting back of trees near to the roadside. 

There is more to do but with help as we'll have to take care of the passing traffic. 

In the afternoon he took the boys down to the river for the first try out in the kayak we bought them for Christmas.

On Sunday I manged to get into the garden. Yay!!! I sowed my February onions, variety Sturton in one of the large tyres. After it being suggested to me I've planted 5 of my existing strawberry plants in a drainpipe.

I may suspend this from the rafters of the poly house. I still have a couple more along with the 12 that came in the fruit order.....!

Last Friday I sowed the following: 

Sweet Romano peppers x 4 pots of 2 seeds
Sunflower Pacino (pots as above), these have been put in the conservatory, one of the Sunflower seeds is showing its face.

I've sown a couple of other things which are in my homemade propagator again, but I'll spare you the details as its early days yet. 

Cornflowers and Field flowers in the chimney outside the poly house and I'm looking forward to those coming up as they were lovely last year.

Yesterday, after the two sets of guests left,  I got myself outside. I discovered the other day that one of my rhubarb crowns have survived when I thought it had been flattened following some work in the garden. This morning I saw signs of the second one; they are very small!

I decided to clear the space properly, which included exposing the Wild Garlic I could smell as I was working, and to build something to protect said rhubarb. The area was a BIT over grown....the crowns were planted somewhere in the bottom left of the photo so was a little tricky to find them.

This is how it looked after a bit of work.

And here is what I am chuffed with. I used branches left from Jon's tree job on Saturday and made pegs to twine them around.

I am ridiculously pleased with myself. I just really hope after all my hard work that the crowns survive. If anybody has any advice for me it would be really appreciated.

The boys were busy too, one helping our elderly neighbour with some logging and the other sorting out some kindling for the store.

That's about it, apart from since I began planning this post I now have three Airbnb bookings for this week, and it is not quite the end of February!

Weather gorgeous again today so after getting both rooms ready this morning I'm having some lunch then going out into the poly house where, about 2 hours ago, it was 29 degrees. I plan on taking up the blueberry bushes from the garden and putting them in planters along with the cranberry I was given at Christmas. I bought ericaceous compost yesterday for this job.

Bye for now.

Just A Great Day To Be Alive.

A great big sunny hi there and hello from SUPER sunny mid-Wales. What a day?! As I walked from having collected the eggs today I looked around the garden and thought just how lucky we are to be where we are and to be doing what we want to do.

Getting a post done whilst Jon is taking Harry to Sea Cadets, Alfie already at Youth Club. A catch up before the weekend. We currently have guests in the Airbnb room for two nights then we have Jon's mum and brother visiting on Sunday. Of course in the middle of this we have the usual activities like stage school and piano lesson; at least Chinese takeaway will take care of tea on Sunday!

Later on, when the guests who will be in our Airbnb room for the weekend said it must be like living your dream, I replied that it is. I also said we count our lucky stars everyday for what we do and and where we are when there are so many unfortunate happenings in the world right now. I'm going to say something a bit controversial; we are happy to be in our little bubble.

So today. I got a garden prep job done I have wanted to do for a while. At the front of the house behind the walls on each side of the door there were lots of weeds, roots etc which needed to come out before we it can be mulched with wood chippings.

Here is the before photo....

I am so chuffed with myself as it didn't take as long as I thought it would; the other side may get done tomorrow or Sunday morning.

I did a couple of other jobs; made a note of some seeds I want to sow, filled up my water bottles for the Poly House from the water butt and put some stones into the garden wall that had been dug up from various places.

Oh, the pizza oven is done!

We are hoping to use it tomorrow. Eeeek!

In the corner near the new veg patch I have dug over and hoed the little slope and scattered some mixed wildflower seeds; I look forward to those coming up, if they take it will make a lovely bright addition to that area.

Now, I might have been a bit previous but these are my early heritage variety Golden Acre cabbages. They have been out a couple of days, protected one night with fleece but all seems ok. They are fit for harvest from June to August.

In the Poly House my mixed salad leaves are really doing well.

The beetroot is looking strong so the three trays will be put out soon.

The spring onions inside are starting to look a little stronger; not sure if I need to put them outside yet but I'll wait until they get a bit bigger before I decide.

Oh, yesterday I got a couple of bargains from Morrisons; one Bramley apple tree and one Braeburn each for £5.

They are now in the fruit patch, thanks to Jon; he is also fetching from Morrisons this evening 6 bags of compost for me; 420 litres for £18.00; I think that's a good price.

Right well that is about it I think.

I do hope you all get some fantastic weather, get out in the garden, greenhouse or poly tunnel and I look forward to seeing what everybody gets up to over the weekend.

Bye for now.

Lou.x