New Beginnings

Yes, finally, finally we have moved. It was all very uncertain for a while but on the 19th of November we where assisted by friends, family and neighbours an we're finally all in!

And as we are making so many new beginnings we have decided to start a new website which will be all about both the house and the garden, we hope that everyone who has been kind enough to follow my ramblings on here will take a little look at the new site, I assure you it will be the same old nonsense just under a different address.

So a big thank you to everyone who has taken a peek, left a comment and linked to us here, we hope to see you again soon!

Kat & Rich

xxx

Still Here....

....Grrrr why, why does selling a house take so loooong! How very boring the whole process is, and why do people who are selling house to other people think its ok to not have any of the vital paper work that potential buyers need to see ready and waiting?!

Calming breath...as you can tell we still have not moved, but you really don't want to hear all about that, its boring and results in me swearing colourfully. So what else have we been doing besides tearing our hair out. Not much actually, hair pulling takes up a crazy amount of time, as does the number of jobs we have recently got from our agents. The exact same thing happened last year in the run up to the wedding, although I cant complain as we really do need the money...mostly to pay the enormous solicitors bill for all this extra leg work he's doing!!!....calm...calm.

So I thought I'd put up some picks from our recent 1 year anniversary trip to London...

We stayed in Kensington just up the road form the Natural History Museum, which was as brilliant as I remember it being when I was 12!

Look me next to dinosaur bones...cool!

I was amazed that Rich had never been, I think its fair to say he was pretty impressed and its free to get in...FREE!!!











Another reason for visiting the Natural History Museum was that over the summer they have been running and exhibition called Butterfly Explorers, which is basically a big poly tunnel on the front lawn, full of live butterflies!

Knowing my obsession with butterflies Rich kindly indulged me by taking pics of my holding them, it was amazing, the best part of the whole weekend!

After all that culture and butterfly taming I dragged Rich off to Spitalfields Market on the Sunday, it was brilliant! I think Rich lasted about an hour and a half before he'd had enough of the crowds!!

So I whisked him off to the Tate for a calming coffee and muffin (how much to they charge for a bloody muffin at the Tate!! it is only a snack not modern art!) Sadly no pics of the Tate as we ran out of shots! 

So a pretty good weekend, a nice break from the monotony of the house stuff....can I go again this weekend please!!

So Much Happening

So so much happening at the moment, visits to the bank, our solicitor, trying to find enough boxes to pack my growing piles of stuff...wondering if the new house will be big enough for all this crap!

So the blog has been a bit neglected, sorry! So here are some pics form the last few weeks...

My first Courgette, it was very tasty!

Tons of lovely Raspberries, both red and yellow!

The Pears are just about ready now, I still can't believe how many there are!

Here we have a few of our latest boot sale finds, some really cool metal and enamel drawers for the new studio and an enamel industrial light shade, which we're hoping to use in the new kitchen when we redesign it.

I'll try to put some more stuff up in a few days, there never seems to be enough time at the moment! I really can't wait to get the move over with!

The Move Is On!

WOO and indeed HOO!

Yes we've sold our little house! Well excepted a good offer from a lovely couple and had our offer on the house 2 doors over excepted, so its all down to the boring paper work and surveys now!

Fingers crossed we'll be able to complete by the end of September! So then will come the task of tackling the new garden...oh my god I cant wait!!!

More Secondhand Rubbish!

Ok, I know its supposed to be a gardening blog, but some of the cool secondhand stuff we pick up is just so great I have to show people!

Isn't the old travel trunk AMAZING! I loved it the moment I saw it propped against a dirty old transit! the very nice people who sold it to us wanted £5 but I mercilessly beat them down to £2.50! No idea what we'll do with it, it would make excellent storage for winter woolies.

I'm so chuffed with these, I love old pictures and have a thing for old etchings!

This pretty flower one isn't that old, its repro but quite a nice one and at only £1 down from £2 I couldn't say no.

This is definitely the find of the day, I LOVE it way more than is healthy, we already have several very old etchings of Oxford, this one is of a school in Newcastle. The guy wanted £5 but we only had £3, which he very kindly excepted after I said it would be much loved at our house! Its now hanging next the Oxford one in our bedroom.

Rich also did well this week with a whole roll of large wood drill bits (£1) and a rev counter for the Landrover  (£2 down from £3, He's been after one for about a year!) no pics as Rich is taking the rev counter apart and making little happy noises, I hate to disturb him when he's having fun!

The only question remains is why are we buying more stuff when we're trying to sell the house?!  Who knows, its definitely some sort of affliction!

BBQs, Leaf Curl and Other Things

 Bit of a bitty post this one, I've been meaning to post for ages but selling a house, running 2 shops and writing a children's book is surprisingly time consuming!

With the lovely weather we've had over the last month Rich and I have finally got ourselves a BBQ, so one evening a week a go I made some nice roast veg with herds...

...and Rich made FIRE...with various meat accompaniments!

So onto the garden, I haven't been able to spend as much time as I would like out there, also I haven't
wanted to put to many new plants or plugs in, in case we do move and I have to leave a lot of it behind. I will take some thing with us but I don't want to leave the next person with a garden of huge bald patches.

Talking of bald patches, my poor Peach tree is suffering a bit at the moment, its developed Peach Leaf Curl (sorry for the bad pic, camera refused to focus on the leaf!)

I've been feeding it with nitrogen feed since it started and giving it lots of water, just have to keep my finger crossed that it survives.

The tomatoes are doing ok, not amazing, they are getting just to hot in the greenhouse I think, lots of green fruit put they don't seem to want to go red, I've left these 2 that have done on the plant in the hope that the rest will get the idea!

The major success the year has been Richards chillies (they are insanely hot so I haven't even tried them, Rich who must have a asbestos mouth, he eats them right of the plant!)

The Polka Raspberries are coming through, but only about half of them, 3 of the plants failed to grow at all, I'll have to grub these out as they just look like dead twigs right now. The ones that did come up however seem to be going well and we've had a little bit of fruit of them.

The peas finally got going only to then have nearly 2 months of really dry weather which despite Rich and I watering them twice a day seems to have dried most of the peas in their pods, also we seem to have some sort of little grub getting in and setting up home in the pods. We managed to rescue some and very lovely they where to, I don't know the last two years everything has been to wet this year its to dry...bloody global warming!

One of the few plants to like the hot weather has been my little Petite Pan Courgette I put in a couple of month ago, I cant wait to harvest the veg of this, its so cute looking!

Another small success is my pear tree, its been in 2 years and never even made the attempt to fruit then all of a sudden this year its covered! It was slight belatedly that I realised that you should really have 2 pears for cross pollination and seeing as we cant fit any more trees in the orchard I was wondering whether to dig it up and give it away, glad I didn't now! One of the neighbours must have a secret pear tree somewhere!

Sadly the dry weather had yet another victim, my poor little blueberry bushes have really suffered this year, the fruit has dried and shrivelled on the branches, they look like very tiny raisins.  We really struggled to keep everything alive. I think these bushes will come out in the autumn and be transplanted into pots (if we move they will come with) I'm really gutted as I LOVE blueberries and they are a bloody crazy price in the supermarket.

Things are looking a little scorched in the garden right now!

We do however have some Cobnuts on the bushes so it not all bad!

6 Months

Another Sunday morning and another carboot sale (the best way to spend a Sunday in my opinion!) When we go round the boots sale I have a little list in my head of things to look for, stuff for us, stuff for friends, keeping an eye out for unusual presents I can squirrel away until the right time. When I see the prefect thing for someone it is the most exciting moment, then the rush to get to the stall before someone else beats me to it and the haggle (its only the right thing if I can get it at the right price!)

This morning wandering round I got that little shiver of excitement, "Dad would LOVE that" I thought, oh ya...right... laps of memory there..."Dad would have loved that" I'm 6 months to the day to late.

So Rich and I brought it anyway, in the knowledge that yes Dad would have loved that, so we'll have to love it for him.



Dad would also have appreciated my haggling skills, should have been £10, I got it for £5!

Moving On Up

Ok so huge apologize for the lack of posts, but here is the reason...

Yes peeps, its time to let someone else take on the Shoestring Garden, after much sole searching we have decided to try to buy another house that we have seen (in here you should probably insert the sentence "Kat badgered and harangued Rich into buying another house mere weeks after finally finished our existing house")

The reason for the move are many and varied...ok no there not, basically we just need a bigger house, ours is only 1 bedroom and we always knew we'd have to move eventually. Working from home takes up a lot of space and quite frankly we've run out of it.

So were will we be jetting off to if the house sale gods see fit to bless us...

Well about 2 doors over actually!

So things are a little tense right now, we have to wait to see if anyone wants a little cottage like ours (with an amazing garden attached!), we're not kidding our selfs here, the chances of us getting the new place are slim...I'll probably be back on here in a week saying we're staying put!

So the garden posts will continue unless something major happens, and of course the blog will move with us if we go! On the plus side the new place has a bigger garden, a whole 5 feet wider, I can hardly wait!!!

Fingers crossed!

Things Are Afoot...

...Yes indeed, things are afoot which have been taking up rather large amounts of time, leaving little for gardening or blogging, but more on that in another post.

Our Rocket that I sowed in the last post is coming on well, we're looking forward to having it in our sandwiches soon.

So many of the flowers are finally out and are looking amazing!

The tomatoes are looking good, we've got our first green fruit on the vine, one of the striped Tigerella...

...buts that nothing compared to the Chillies which are going mad, covered in flowers (Rich is already planting to dry some and make chilli oil with others!

The main veg patch is doing well not we've got some more sunny weather, the weeds are also doing well, so I'm out there as often as I can to try and keep on top of them.

The Peas are really taking off after a slow start, they got very munched on by the the damn slugs again so we had to resort to the organic slug pellets (we tried several other method last year and nothing worked so in desperation of having some peas at all this year I've fallen back on the pellets) They are looking very pretty on the willow wigwams.

I picked up a little Patty Pan Courgette when we where back in Shropshire the other week, from the Ludlow farmer market. We haven't done courgettes before so I fancied giving them ago.

I'm so enjoying just be able to wander down the garden of an evening and water a few things, blissful!