Tiles, Seedlings & Bunting

Phew what a busy week I've just had, sorry for the little blog break but I had a week in Shropshire with Mum & Dad doing some much need organizing and decision making about the wedding, it all seems to be coming together well and Rich and I are stating to get pretty excited about it now!

While I was away Rich was yet again doing more tile laying in our cottage, you may remember that we (and by that I mean Rich!) laid our quarry tile floor in the living room, we had always intended to do the whole ground floor of the cottage but as its very small and Rich's time is limited we are having to do one room at a time. Last week was the turn of the dinning room/my work room/hall/room thats too damn small to do much with! Once again Rich was helped out by his Dad who gave up a weeks holiday to put himself through mild physical torture on his knees on a cold concrete floor (thanks Rick!!) and the result as you can see is beautiful!



Rich has also been watering my seedlings in the greenhouse for me, they seem huge after not seeing them for so long, the Peas are going really well, I'm hoping to plant then out this weekend (hopefully the frost will keep off!)



The Onions are also doing really well, I need to get some more on the go this week, but its quite exciting growing them from seed!



My Tomatoes have also at long last made an appearance, helped along by the warm weather at the beginning of last week.



I'm hoping to get a few hours in the garden some time this week so I will have a better up date on whats happening.

My next little project (in between working on artwork, stuff for my shop, the garden and my part time job!) is making stuff for the wedding, Mum and I managed to get some really lovely fabric last week, including some beautiful old hand stitched linen place mat's from a charity shop (for the grand total of £3.30!) we'll be using these to stand kilner jars full of wild flowers on at the reception.



And as buying ready made bunting is so exspensive I'm going to try making my own...



I have a feeling this week is going to be just as busy!

Happy Birthday!

Two Birthday s actually, I have just realized that my little blog was a year old on the 2nd of March! so a slightly belated Blog Birthday to me, which brings me on the the more important Birthday of the two.

Happy Birthday to my lovely Dad who is 60 today! I have mentioned my Dad on here before so I won't go on to much (but just enough to make him feel embarrassed!) sufficed to say he's had a very crap year, there's nothing like a load of medical professions killing off your bone marrow then pumping you full of drugs to really put a dampener on your day, put he has come through it all wonderfully (in fact we recons he has more hair now its grown back than he had before, score!)

So this is just to say we are all so proud of you Dad, we weren't ready to do without our silly old bear just yet!

Sun At Last!

Mmmm lovely sun shine, how I've missed you! Its warm enough to walk to work without a coat at the moment! Its been so nice to stroll down to the greenhouse after breakfast and have a look at how the seedlings are getting on. Their doing pretty well actually, even the onions have finally made an appearance!



The Garlic is also rampaging away in its sink...



And as the weathers improved a bit I got some of my Victoriana Nursery's Spinach seeds planted, they are also in one of our freecycled sinks!



As the Pea seedlings are coming on so fast I thought I would take the opportunity to get the pea bed ready for them. I'm using the same bed as last year, I know your supposed to rotate the beds to stop problem build ups in the soil but the end bed is so handy for peas as it narrower that the others and I can get at them from both sides.
For the last 2 years I have used the method of burying a layer of corrugated cardboard about 2 foot down to act as a sponge layer, peas really don't like to dry out so this should mean that the card retains any moisture in the soil so the peas roots can borrow down and get at it. Now in theory this works fanatically well, unfortunately the last 2 years have been a total washout as far at the summer was concerned, so dried out Peas really haven't been an issue! But I believe firmly in forward planning and every man and his dog recons this year will be a scorch so here I am yet again digging a bloody big hole...



Then lining it with cardboard, a layer of wood ash from our stove (quite a big layer, I really must empty it more often!) and a layer of worm filled compost from one of our bins...



Then the fun job of back filling it, my thighs are still aching 3 days later!



Hopefully all this effort will give the Peas and Squash the best possible conditions to give us loads of lovely veg this summer.

I love this time of year, so many things are sprouting and showing tiny bits of green, our All Gold Raspberries are just starting to shoot, they where a huge success last year apart from it being slightly too wet for them meaning quite a few of the fruits went moldy before they had even ripened.



So generally the whole garden is looking pretty promising right now!



Apart from all the fruit and veg we grow I try to grow as many flowers as possible, not just because they look nice but to attract the insects, especially the Bees which seem to be having a very tough time of late. I like to try and grow flowers for cutting as well, money being so tight means cut flowers from a shop are an unaffordable luxury right now, so to make sure I can have flowers over the summer I'll be planting my favourite Sweet Peas in tubs on the patio by the front door.
I managed to buy another old galvanized tub the other week for a mere £3, so Rich kindly drilled some holes in it for me...



then it was filled with wild flower seeds and will hopefully also have the Sweet Peas planted in it but the end of the month.



I put it next to the pond where it should end up covered in Dragonflies like the pots I had there last year did. I already have my Pansies planted up which the Bees seem to like.



So a pretty productive day Sunday, its so nice just to be out a working in the garden again. Who needs foreign holidays when you have all this on your door step...

First Spuds In!

Woohoo, the first spuds of the year are in, they have been sat chitting on my front room window sill for a month now, and looked ready to go to work.



So the beds got a good dig over yesterday and a nice layer on compost to help them along. I am putting the spuds in the bed that had the onions in last year, I don't have a lot of room for rotating as I only have 3 small beds (and the peas will be going into the same one again!), hopefully they'll be happy here.





Its very satisfying to finally be digging again! I also saw the first signs of life in little pots in the greenhouse this weekend, my little peas are stating to pock their way though! I can't wait to be eating fresh peas this spring!



The Garlic I planted at Christmas is also on its way...



...and here are further signs of the approaching season.



we suddenly have millions of purple crocuses every where, I even spotted tiny green shots on my Grape and Raspberries!!!

I will have to go and have a sit down, this is all to exciting!

The Long Awaited Wood Shelter

Yes it's official, I am a very sad person, most women my age dream of lovely designer clothes, the perfect handbag, height heeled shoes that don't rub or pinch.... not me however, I dream of wood shelters!

I am not mad, there are valid reason why I should be so obsessed with having a wood shelter. Our little Stockton stove is a truly wonderful thing, it keeps our tiny cottage very toast (even with me and the cat sitting right in front of it socking up most of the warm) but keeping enough wood dried and ready to use has been a bit of a problem, you see we've been using the greenhouse to dry the logs and store them, however I am now in desperate need of the space in there plus we couldn't really get a huge stockpile as the space was limited.

This is why we decided to convert the old coal bunker that's is on the one side of our shed, the bunker has not really been used for anything since we brought the cottage and has just sat there looking ugly and useless, it leaked so much we didn't even bother to store garden tools in it. So on Monday my Dad came down from Shropshire to help Rich redesign it (ie knock the hell out of it till it surrendered) just the sort of activity you should force a man recovering from a bone marrow transplant to do!

So Monday afternoon Dad and Rich got to work, here they are having ripped the roof off and now contemplating whacking the wall with lump hammers...



I should point out that it was a little more complicated than just whacking the hell out of it, as we have no money the whole thing had to be re-made out of bits and pieces we had around the place, so the breeze blocks had to be reused.



Arr here's Dad displaying surgical precision as he hits it with a lump of case iron...



Once the front wall of the bunker was down it was a case of build the one end up as that had had a door in it.



Here they have managed to get a roof on it , incidentally the roof is made out of the door of a broom cupboard we ripped out of our kitchen 2 years ago, Rich and I never chuck anything in case it comes in handy!



So then it was just a case of getting some roofing felt on to keep it dry, and sawing up an old pallet to keep the logs of the floor and it was all finished, yay!



Isn't it beautiful!! ok maybe not beautiful but a lot better than the waste of space that was there before, and now it means we can really stockpile wood for next winter.



Hopefully the poor old shed will get a makeover this summer too, as this is the veiw from the front room window, but I'm happy to look at my lovely logs which I know will be keeping us warm for free!!

So a HUGE thank you to Rich and Dad who both worked very hard for 3 days to get this finished and for managing to not spend a penny on it (they even reused the nails and roof tacks, how eco friendly is that!)

Valentines Day

Happy (slightly belated) Valentines Day to you all! I hope you had a nice day? I did! Want to see what I got...



A sure sign of a man who knows me well!

Richard and I have (well mainly me) have been trying to get in the garden for the past 3 weeks or so, but a combination of art jobs, our part time jobs and snow have meant things have had to be left. So as Saturday was dry, the snow having finally melted off and it was actually trying to sunshine I managed to start planting some of Victoriana Nursery seeds I was sent before Christmas.



Technical I think I should have had my Giant Exhibition Onions on the go by now but I had a lot of work to get though...and it was cold...snow...not sitting in front of tv or anything.......guilt.

Anyway down to planting my lovely seeds, I got the Giant Onions started first, I've never actually seen onions seeds before having always used sets from the garden center, they look like tiny little stone chips!



Don't they look all neat with their little labels in. This year I'm trying out fiber seed pots (thanks Rich!), last year I used pots made from newspaper, which worked brilliantly, however this year we have our wonderful log burner so any newspapers in house are used for lighting the fire, meaning their was none left for pots!

I planted a few of the tomatoes seeds, again possible a bit early but a chat with our veg growing neighbor reassured me I'm not the only one starting early, also our greenhouse has been at a steady 20c for the past week (we're lucky it is south facing on an open slope) we tend to get an early spring down here in the south west and if these 4 fail I've got quite a few left (and several people willing to re-home if I germinate too many for us!)



The tomatoes we'll be growing are Giant Delicious, apparently brilliant for sauces and soups with some individual fruit getting up to 8lbs in weight! I hope our little greenhouse can cope with these big buggers! We'll also be growing Sungold's again, we had one of these last year and it was brilliant, I've never tasted such sweet little toms, perfect in sandwiches and salads...I'm getting hungry just thinking about this.

My very generous parents brought us a few bits when we were home the other week, including some more seed potatoes, I've now got Sharpes Express early and Desiree main crops, so the Sharpe's have been started off chitting in the greenhouse.





My Mum also brought Richard a present, a mushroom growing kit!



I haven't seen these before but Richard does like his mushrooms, so we'll give it a go. It all looks pretty easy, although it does rely on me remembering to spray the compost with water regularly so that may be the down fall right there, although my New Year resolution is to be more organized in the garden (and leave notes around the cottage to remind me to do these things!)
Here's the mushroom compost that is in it:



You just empty it in, then put the lid back on and spray with water every few days, then 10 days later you add mushroom seeds (I think, I'm trying to remember the instructions, which of course I've left in the greenhouse, I'm off to a great start already!)

So a busy day, here is the finished results, I keep nipping back out to proudly look at them.



And while I was trying not to kill his mushroom kit off, Richard was being a sweet heart and finishing off my half constructed fruit cage for the Blueberry's.



He even weeded it for me, what a good Valentines Day!

SnowSnowSnowSnow!

Snow! Yes snow here in warm sunny Somerset, normally we get a light dusting that lasts about 2 hours before melting off but today the whole of the county has ground to a halt, the buses and trains aren't running, there isn't enough salt to grit the roads and best of all the schools are shut (meaning Rich gets a day off!!) this all just goes to show how rubbish the English are at coping with snow.

Anyway, as no one else was bothering to do any work today we didn't want to be left out, so we got up and went for a walk.

Here's me not feeling guilty about not doing any work on the garden today...



Here's the lane that leads from our cottage to the fields, not many cars where braving it.







Doesn't Bath look pretty in the snow!



Rich and the snowman he built...



and me with the snow dog I built (with help from Rich!)...



And then it was back home for hot chocolate and cake, much better than working!