A Touch of Orange

Simon came for the weekend to help Lovely Hubby get the net tunnel up and ready for use, the orange van parked outside the house is his. He had to tuck it in close to the house to allow all the builders, roofers, brickies and delivery wagons to get in.  My car is actually behind his van right under the living room window.

Between the two of them, on Saturday, as well as coming to the Llanrwst Show with me, they got all the netting on the tunnel frame and one of the raised beds in place and partially filled,  Today LH has reduced the height of this bed as it really was unnecessarily deep and he's now working on filling it to the top with a mix of riddled soil, compost and '6 Ex' fertiliser.  Now that we know how poor the condition of our soil is, we are working to improve it whenever we can.

Everywhere I look I see touches of orange, the van, the little digger in the background ....

... both of them wearing orange T shirts for working in !!

It's Lovely Hubby's favourite colour and it's Simon's work colour ....

... when he's not driving these brightly coloured trucks ....

.... he's in the garage fixing them, now he's almost a fully qualified mechancic as well as a HGV driver.

And yes, you might have noticed his van in the top picture is an ex-company one.  Bought to do up and convert into a van to live in.

Meanwhile, and not a drop of orange in sight, the building work is going on a pace.  Since this photo was taken the workshop floor has been poured and has now set, the scaffolding around the roof has come down and the brickies have been here all this morning filling in the gaps around the top now that they can get at it without the poles being in the way.

And I'm busy sowing and harvesting more food ... no oranges here though :-)

Sue xx

Success at the Show

This is like 'Show and Tell' at school, only in my case it really is 'Show'.

We had a really good afternoon at the show.  As we were busy here on Saturday morning with my eldest son coming to help Lovely Hubby get the net tunnel finished off, we had to go and stage the entries on Friday night.  I had my fingers firmly crossed for not to much droopage!!

But when we got to the show at around 2pm yesterday we were greeted with the sight of lots of winners cards on our produce  ... yay  :-)

Second for 'A Truss of Tomatoes' - Amateur Section

Second for '1 Cucumber' - Amateur Section

First for 'Five White Potatoes' - Open Section

First for ' 3 Sticks of Rhubarb' - Open Section

First for '2 Cucumbers' - Open Section

First for '2 Peppers' - Open Section

First for 'Salad Basket' - Open Section

Second for 'Liqueur' (Damson Whiskey) - Homecraft Section

Second for 'Celery' (2 Bunches) - Amateur Section

Second for '3 Long Carrots' -  Amateur Section

Second for '5 White Potatoes' - Amateur Section

Second for 'Miniature Tomatoes (10)' - Amateur Section

Second for 'Any Other Vegetable' - Amateur Section

First for 'Collection of 6 Cut Herbs in a Container' - Amateur Section

So I managed seven Seconds in the Vegetable Classes

A Second in the Liqueur Class and ...

Six Firsts in the Vegetable Classes.

So a very successful first showing at the Llanrwst Show, and very profitable too, as there is prize money attached to each win, which I totally forgot about until I was presented with a big envelope full of little envelopes all containing money.  I came away with £19.50 :-)

After the prizegiving we had a quick whizz around the showground, watched the Tug of War finals, a trick bike demonstration, and made one or two visits to the Beer Tent, the men had freshly made hot lamb buns and beef burgers, and we all finished the day with whopping big icecreams before heading back to the Vegetable Tent to pick up all the vegetables and pack them away to take home.

Once there I set out all my cards for the photographs and made us a tea using the fruits of our labours followed by a Rhubarb Crumble ... well you can't let prize winning rhubarb go droopy now can you.  ;-)

All in all a brilliant day.

Now it's back to work on the net tunnel ..... I have a bit of sewing to do!!

Sue xx

It's All About the Potatoes

I spent some time on Thursday afternoon digging up one of the beds of the 'Estima' potatoes.  We didn't really need them up just yet but I wanted to pick out the best for the show this Saturday in Llanwrst and had my fingers crossed that there would be at least some that were usable.

I was pleased with the 5.5 kg haul from one bed, there's still another bed to be dug up but I'll do that in a couple of weeks, giving the skins time to harden off a bit now all the greenery has been cut off.

In 'old money' 5.5kg is 12 lbs, well according to our scales anyway!!

I laid them all out on a towel on the ground, along with the 'Swift' that I had dug up last week, to dry off a bit and so I could pick and choose between them.  I ended up with four rows of five, then down to three rows of five.  Then I went in the house for something, when I came out there were two rows of five and one of four.  I scratched my head and, thinking I'd miscounted or just gone mad, I found another one to go with the four.

Anyway I chose the ones I wanted bagged them up and put all the others in the 'potato bag' in the cupboard ready for eating. 

When I went out later to go over to Chicken World look what I found in the grass .....

.... a certain little doggy had decided to have a snack while I had gone into the house ... mystery solved.

Oh well, at least I'm not mad .... YET!!

Sue xx

Parcel Delivery

Now when I go out and come home to find a parcel on the doorstep it is usually a new book, or some kitchen gadget that I have succumbed to, so you can imagine my delight when I got back from the shops the other day to find a box waiting for me on the step.

I couldn't remember ordering anything, I've been so good recently, so I was pretty excited .....

... until I looked a bit closer at the label on the corner.

Yep, this is one of Lovely Hubby's orderings!!

Oh well, we are a bit short of worms in the polytunnel, and on the hillside, and some of them are destined to be tipped into the compost bins.  :-)

I found this little cutie when I was picking yesterdays tomatoes.  Two tomatoes sharing one calyx ... awww how sweet.

Sue xx

What a Worry

What a worry these chickens cause us sometimes.

 I spotted Caldwell snoozing in the sun the other day ... he stayed there for hours.  Hunched over and not responding to any movement around him.  I went over and checked him once and although he was very still with his eyes shut, he was warm and seemed to be just sleeping.

Then a few hours later Lovely Hubby shouted to me that Caldwell looked worse.  By the time we got over into Chicken World he as lying down and appeared lifeless.  LH picked him up and there was no resistance, he passed him over to me.  I stroked his feathers and his eyes opened, he seemed to pull himself together and sat himself more comfortably in my arms.

After a thorough looking over and checking every bit of him I sat him back down on the grass in the sunshine and he seemed to have perked up a bit.  I put a small handful of corn in front of him and he did his usual thing of calling the hens over to him to eat their fill.

They came and soon the corn was gone.

Then all through the day the hens took it in turns to come and sit by or simply loiter by the man in their lives.

Fussing around him and encouraging him to nibble at grass and the things in it.

He seemed to have a hen near him all day, which is unusual, he usually sits alone slightly apart from the girls and their clucky female busy-ness.

At the end of the day we kept an eye out for him in case he wasn't well enough to make it into the henhouse unaided, but by dusk he was on his usual perch on the top row in the henhouse.

And then this morning 48 hours after causing us lots of worry, he's back to his normal fighting fit self, strutting his stuff and most definitely being the head of the flock.

Now I only have to wait for him to attack Lovely Hubby and I know he completely back to normal.

Sue xx

Polytunnel Progress - August

The polytunnel this month is looking very green .... AND orange!!

No wonder Lovely Hubby keeps going in there, he loves orange ... did you guess the other day  ;-)

The 'Dwarf Marigolds' are anything but dwarf, and lots of them have already been dug up and put into pots, a couple of which flank the conservatory doors back over at the house.

The view from the other end.

Outside it was looking rather forlorn as I had just harvested the last of the peas, so I decided to pull up the plants,  Normally I would have pulled off the few dried out pods that were left to save for seed next year, but I wasn't impressed with this batch of peas so I decided not to bother.

The pea plant on the other side was almost hidden behind the now almost fully recovered Magnolia tree.

The Tomtato plant next to the pea tyres is doing well ...

... but not quite as well as the other two at the far end of the tunnel which gets much more sun throughout the day which radiates back off the polythene of the tunnel and warms them on both sides.

So to get some of the 'orange out of the polytunnel and to make some more space for the soon to be planted Winter crops I decided to fill the tyres on both sides with some of the Marigolds.  Four in the tyres and two yellow ones in the Artichoke tub.

There are two in this set of tyres along with my new Blackberry bushes, which will have the tyres to themselves once the marigolds have finished flowering.

There it looks a bit brighter now.

So it's looking slightly less orange inside now and I have a bit of much needed space.

At the moment from the tunnel we are eating -

Cucumber

Radish

Lettuce

Tomatoes

Herbs

Spring Onions

Courgettes

Spinach

Kale

Beetroot

Peppers

Carrots

... and the Chillies are almost ready for picking, including some lovely ORANGE ones  ;-)

Sue xx