Pottering

Saturday

I was pretty busy trying to get some artwork finished but I managed to squeeze in a hour or so to do some much needed weeding.

The Cauliflowers are starting to show their heads now, am getting excited imagining fresh cauliflower cheese!



We have 5 cauli's in, only 4 seem to be doing well, I think the 5th got a bit too munched by the caterpillars.

I spent the rest of the time in the garden digging up a load of potato's, we had finally use up all the ones I had squeezed into the fridge so I dug another large bucket full, that should keep us going for a while.

While I was doing all this Rich was chopping up a load of the gash wood we where given a few months back, its love dry pine and makes fantastic kindling.




And lastly before I finally gave up and went in to make mash spuds, I picked the apples from the eating apple tree, they had developed funny mottled spots all over them, I had been leaving them alone and hoping this was just the usual dimples and marks you get on home grown apples (as a possessed to the picture perfect ones in the supermarkets) but the spots have been looking more like some sort of fungus and I saw something that looked similar on Gardeners World the other week . They said to strip all the apples off and take them to a recycling center (if it is a disease and the apples when in the compost bin then it will just live in there till it can infect the trees again, recycling center usual hot compost which kills the bacteria)
Anyone else come across this on their apples?




Sunday

As usual it started with a trip to the car boot sale, next week is the last one before winter, how will I cope till next Easter when they start again!!!

Anyway I managed to grab some really beautiful old french coat hooks for £3, bargain!



When we got back I finally tackled a job I've been meaning to do for weeks, I trimmed our lavender bushes outside the front patio. It was a bit of a shame as they look so pretty but the lavender heads where starting to turn brown and die of anyway.



Every year I dry the lavender and keep it, it is great for making last minute birthday and Christmas presents or as we're starting to plan our wedding for next year so possible confetti?! I will leave it hanging in the greenhouse for a month or 2 to really get all the moisture out of it then store it in kilner jars in the house. I also did a bunch of rosemary this year too as the little bush of it I have has really gone mad this summer.



Now on to the best bit of the day, the laying of yet more bricks in the veg patch (for anyone who is new to this blog, please read back through the archive, and you'll see I'm slightly obsessed with the use of bricks in the garden!!) anyway, I had yet again got some bricks from the local Freecycle, and they have been waiting partially for me to do something with them.
I have used them to replace the old rotten wood borders of the veg patch, which are lethal slippy when wet.



So now we have this...



Happiness is a brick boarded veg garden!!

A Belated Thank You

Its a bit late in coming, mostly because I kept forgetting to down load the photos of the camera, but here it is, our tiled living room floor



So a huge, huge thank you to Richard and his Dad Rick, who both worked tirelessly for a week to get this done, thanks to Rick for giving up a week of his well earned holiday (and thank you to Rich's Mum for lending him to us!), I fear we may have ruined Rick's knees forever!
Thanks to Richard who spent months cleaning and dressing the tiles (I helped a bit, but Rich did the lions share!) then spend several days getting drenched trying to cut the tiles in a monsoon and gale force winds!



I also need to say thank you to my Mum and Dad who where kind enough to drive to Derby and back to collect 280 tiles I brought on ebay and thank you to Rich's mum for letting us keep them all in her garage (some of them are still there!)

I'm so chuffed with this floor, it looks beautiful and more importantly looks like it has been here for about 200 years!

Arrr only 2 more rooms to go before the ground floor is finished! I may need to give Rich and Rick 6 months to recover!

Finally, A Little Sun

Mmmmm, love the sun shine, was so nice to get in the garden and not need wellies!

We had a pretty busy weekend again, I finally got the pea frame dismantled and put away, I've been meaning to get round to it for a couple of weeks but I really couldn't be bothered to get drenched doing it!

Anyway this is what it looked like before



and here it is after some energetic digging over



and here's where I was starting to plant some more rows of carrots.



Thank god that's done, it was starting to look really messy.

One other job I have also been meaning to do was plant out a tree our neighbour left us when she moved out, I was a bit surprised when she gave me this pretty big apple tree which was squeezed in a tiny pot. I've been waiting to rescue it for a few weeks and it finally went into its new home down in our mini orchard on Saturday.

Now the fact that it was in such a small container had worried me a bit as although fruit tree don't mind being grown in tubs they have to be big enough to give them some room, here's the pot it was in...



I dug a good hole for it and put some compost in the bottom, then I tried to remove the pot. I have never see a plant more pot bound before, I also discover that this woman hadn't bothered to drill any holes in the pot for drainage, half the roots where rotting from sitting in this manky pool of water! It is at this point I should mention that I have promised my Mum I would stop swearing on this blog, so I wont tell you what I think of people like this!

Anyway, I trimmed the rotted roots and planted it with crossed fingers, I gave it a good watering and will just have to hope it makes it. It hasn't got a vast amount of room in our garden but anythings better than that pot!



Sunday was another lovely day and we managed to get out blackberry picking, something I've been promising Rich we'd do for a while. We came back with a huge tub and have since enjoyed a pretty good blackberry and rhubarb crumble and there's still loads left!



There's a hill near our house which is great for blackberries, and also has a fabulous view on a sunny day!





I hope next weekend is as nice!

The Tin Church Fete

Sorry for not posting for well over a week, has been madness here what me trying to find another part time job as I've jut been informed my current one will be terminated come October!! it never rains but it pours!

Anyway we had a really nice weekend so that cheered us up a bit, my sister Sal and her boyfriend Ollie came to stay, my sister is a jewelery designer (among other things) and has just finished her official web site which I am shamelessly going to put a link to as I promised her I would: Ollies Dolly!.
As is usual with most of our guests they were dragged out of bed on Sunday morning and forced to go car booting (as its been rained off for the last 3 weeks and i was get withdrawal symptoms!) it turned out to be a blinder and we came back with some brilliant swag (which i forgot to photograph before they when home!)

Then on to the main event of the weekend and the reason they had dragged themselves up the M4 in their complaining little car, the local village fete, know by everyone in Bath as The Tin Church Fete!

The Fete has been held every year for god knows how long in the little field opposite The Tin Church, the church is actually not a church any more (De-commissioned in the late 70's I think) and is now home to Graham, local artist and nutter who takes on the mammoth task of organizing the fete, all money of which gets donated to child line.



I absolutely love this old church, it's a bit of a local land mark, every couple of years Graham has to replace the corrugated iron which its made from with new as it rusts though, hence the slightly shinny looking roof and bell tower.



The lane runs between the church and the field so you do get the odd motorist who tries to force their way though just so they can us this local short cut, they usually get a fare amount of abuse for this!
As you can see they build the stage for the bands in front of the church, so everyone had a pretty good view.



Most importantly here's the bar called 'The Moon on a Stick'.



here we are making use of the bar...





Here's the first of the bands, I think they were called The Mighty Pea, although I could be wrong so don't quote me, I've never heard versions of Eminem, Greenday and Girls Aloud quite like it, they also some how managed to heckle the passing traffic while singing, they were brilliant!!



They where follow by Sargent Peppers Only Dart Bored band who where pretty good too!



Around 3 o'clock Samba Sulis, a local drumming band appeared to officially open the Fete.



They where joined by Lady Margarette (guy from the local theater group in a delightfully spotty dress and hat) who always opens the fete, this year she was carried through the field in a litter, last year she appeared in a replica of the Tardis (complete with sound effects) and the year before that she parachuted in then claimed over the roof of the church, to much applause!



Here he (sorry she) is abusing a chap who decided to drive his big blue van past just as she was cutting the opening ribbon, snapping it in half! that was some brilliant language and before the watershed too!!




Around 4 is the balloon release from the church tower, this involves Graham and volunteers filling the whole tower with helium balloons then opening the bit where the bell used to hang to let them go.





So basically a brilliant time was had by all, its so nice that this little village fete still exists and hopefully will continue to do so, although Rich's back may not recover from helping to put the tents up!

Returning To Weird Carrots!

Well I've been back for about a week but have been hampered by the weather and my own lazyness form taking any worth while photos.

I finally got round to it this morning when we had a brief glimpse of the sun (so dont be fooled, Bath doesnt always look this sunny!)



The Cauliflower plugs have been in about a month now and seem to be doing well, I am having to go and pick the caterpillars off them each morning put despite the odd wholes munched by them the little Cauli's seem to be storming along.

I put in some Broccoli plugs next to the Cauli's, again I feel as if I'm cheating a bit but with everything going on right now I haven't had time to grow stuff from seed so this will have to do. Lets hope the caterpillars leave them alone till their a big bigger and able to cope with the onslaught.



I'm pretty proud of the herb bed, its really filled out and everything seems pretty happy, it gets quite a bit of sun and I think the wall behind helps as it tends to store the heat of the day so they stay pretty warm all the time.



Something else I'm really pleased with right now is the raspberries, their huge! not bad for the twiggy stumps we were given the end of last winter. I don't know why I'm so surprised, this is the sort of thing Raspberries are supposed to do, as any veg gardener knows but I still find it terrible exciting when I plant some thing and it doesn't immediately die!



The Raspberries at All Golds but for some reason one of the off shoots has decided to produce red berries? I thing you can just make them out in the middle of the photo, is this something Raspberries normal do or is mine just a big freak?

Speaking of freaks, marvel are my wonderfully weird carrots!



I don't care, the fact that they grew at all was amazing, and they taste lovely.

That's it for now, hopefully another up date at the weekend with pics of how Rich and his Dad got on with laying the tile floor and surprise, surprise, here come the rain again...

Dad

I will be taking a little brake from blogging for a week or so, I'm traveling up to Shropshire on Sunday to go and see my Dad.

Dad has always been a bit of an inspiration to me, him being a bit of a pioneer of the whole recycling thing back in the 80's when I was little (before it was cool!), most of our house and garden was furnished with bits and pieces he pulled out of skips or rescued from building sites, it would then disappear into the wondrous recesses of his shed to emerge and week or so later fixed and beautiful! the reason for this sort of things was mainly we didn't have the money to buy much new stuff plus Dad really hates to see something useful thrown away (I have the same problems, I'm a bit worried I may be becoming a hoarder)

He was also the one who taught me how to paint, we used to spend endless weekends when I was little making complicated stuff out of cardboard and paper-mache, he's an amazingly musical chap too (sadly something I didn't inherit, although my sister used to be a wonderful clarinet player) he has taught himself to play guitar, clarinet (when my sister was finished with it!) and recently the piano.

Probably the best description of my Dad was when my sister Sally and her boyfriend Ollie were staying with us, Ollie said Dad remained him of someone but he couldn't think who? Richard, Sally and I immediately said Winne The Pooh, then fell about laughing, but I afraid he does, hes quiet and very funny and some of his furs been loved off over the years but that's definitely him

So why am I telling you all about my Dad on a gardening blog? well he was the inspiration for me starting all this way back in March, that's was when he started his chemotherapy treatment for cancer, basically the idea was if he couldn't come and visit because he wasn't well then he could at least see what Rich and I were up to on the blog (one of the reasons I post lots of photos), luckily the chemo hasn't been to ruff and he's be able to come and stay a couple of times.
This week however he starts his bone marrow transplant, a lovely fun experience I sure he's looking forward too!



So I'm going home to spend some time with my Mum and my Sister and wait for the doctors to give us our silly old bear back!

Fighting the Weather

Sunday was a crazy day weather wise, I seemed to be legging it back up to the greenhouse every 5 mins to keep dry. Anyway in between we managed to get loads done, what with one thing and another we haven't really done much in the garden for a few weeks so it was badly in need to sorting out (the russian vine weed was once again making a bid to swamp everything)
The greenhouse needed a bit of a tidy and a sweep.



The aubergines are finally putting on some growth.



This was the state of the potato patch, the plants seem to have gone really leggy and then been munched by snails (who have finished eating my strawberries and fancied a change)



and here it is a couple of hours later



I planted a row of beetroot seeds where the potato's had come out, I'll add another row in a week or so.



Notice my lovely blue plastic bag streamers, this is to (hopefully) stop the local cats using it as a litter tray!



I pulled quite a few of the onions and laced them into bunches to dry in the greenhouse, not the ideal place to dry them but our kitchen too small to have them hanged up in there (plus I don't want my whole house smelling like onions) and the shed has a small posse of mice who are quite partial to the odd onion.
While I was harvesting onions, Rich was working away like a maniac on the unending mountain of tiles, we're laying them next week so we need them all cleaned and ready to put down, poor Rich!



I feel it is worth noting that pink was the only colour they had when I went to buy the rubber gloves he's wearing!

As it was Sunday we managed to nip out to the local car boot sale, I once again managed to find treasure at a reasonable price!



I got these lovely little terracotta pots (some are quite old ones) for £2, I use the ones I already have a lot so I'm always on the look out for more, and while I was admiring my new pots Stella was making herself comfortable.