Show and Tell

I realised when I was planting up this planter that I totally forgot to do my usual ... and now very customary ...  'show and tell' after my garden centre bargain hunting expedition with Mum last week.  And it's almost time for another one ..... although I suspect that the bargains will have all gone now  :-(

Last week after our spot of lunch we grabbed a trolley and hit the aisles with an open mind.  I quickly spied a Wisteria marked down to half price (and then it was reduced to 70% off at the till),  and knowing how expensive Wisterias usually are I was really pleased to snap this one up for just £7.49,  it had originally been sold at £24.99.  I also bought two ground cover plants for just £1.49 each and a shock horror .... full priced Gerbera at £3.99, just because it's lovely shade of vibrant yellow looked so good with the other plants in the trolley.  I just love anything vaguely daisy-like  :-)

It doesn't look much at the moment especially from a distance, but in years to come I hope the Wisteria will be trained around the column and then hopefully fan out either side almost at roof level along wires, to soften the front of the garage space with a froth of pinky creamy flowers and foliage.  Fingers crossed!!

I also bought two of these.

With it's copper banded bottom edge to keep slugs out and fine mesh sides to hopefully keep out all other 'nibblers', my crops on the top most raised beds on the Veggie Patch should be safer.  And with a zip for easy access so you don't have to unpeg it all the way round to get things out it should make life easier.  That it was reduced from £29.99 to just £9 made my day...... so I got two.

Lovely Hubby said I should have got half a dozen ... but then he likes buying anything in bulk!!

Click on the photo to be able to read more about it.

They also make very good Pug traps  :-)

Sue xx

What a Difference a Month Makes

What a difference a month makes at this time of year.  Using the net tunnel photo that I already had for yesterdays post, I realised just how different it looks now just under a month later.  So this morning I went out with my phone in my pocket and took a couple more photos for comparison.

I think the main difference is in the Sweetcorn and the Tomato plants, but the Purple Sprouting Broccoli and the cabbages have put on some pretty impressive growth too.

Last months photo.

This is how it looks taken from the other end.

The Blueberries are still cropping profusely and I have an enormous tub of picked berries in the freezer ready for use.

There are now two beds empty in the net tunnel with the onions and the garlic all having been harvested and strung,  so I'm about to start off some crops for Winter.  A few Mooli radishes for sure and perhaps a few more Cauliflowers, I feel a mooch through the seed drawer coming on.

It's nice working in the net tunnel and I enjoy being in there, I can watch what the dogs are up to as they tend to stay nearby when they see me in the tunnel, funnily enough they don't like it in there at all,  because of the close weave of the net the edge is taken off the wind when it blows a hooley, and the heat of the sun when it's out in all it's full force is subdued slightly, the only thing it's no defence from is the rain ... but then that also means that I don't have to water so much.  

We were sat having a break on the bench at the top of the Veggie Patch one day over the weekend and we both agreed that if we knew then what we know now about growing here, we would probably have put in two net tunnels to grow in, as well as the polytunnel, and just have a smaller outside area of raised beds.

Oh well maybe it's an idea for the future.

Sue xx

I've Come a Long Way

I did something this morning on the way to the paddock with the dogs that made me realise what a long way I've come in this 'new life in the country'.

Yes I grow our food, (I'll have to take a more up to date photo of the net tunnel it's looking nothing like this at the moment), we are pretty self sufficient in veggies at the moment, it's just the peppers that have failed me completely this year.

We have lots of our own and our neighbours fruit nestled in the freezer ready for use.

I've not had to buy an egg in years.

I seem to be best friends with one of the sheep :-)

I evict spiders from the house, okay with the use of a jug and cover, but hey years ago I would have just screamed and ran.  I reuse, recycle and re-invent all sorts of useful and helpful things around the place.  I remove dead chickens from the house when nature has helped them off this mortal coil.

And then this morning .....

... I carefully extricated a big dead rabbit that had got itself completely stuck in the fence, possibly after a mad dash across the road in the dark.  I hope it died quickly poor little thing.  

But I managed, with a struggle to get it's poor soft body out of the fence and throw it over the fence onto the grass verge where hopefully it will go to feed the wildlife.  I didn't want it to decompose in the fence and perhaps risk our dogs eating it at a later date when I wasn't around to tell them to 'leave it' which they did straight away this morning.

Touching dead rabbits with my bare hands ..... yes I've come a long way!

Sue xx

Trelawnyd Flower Show

It's been a busy weekend!!

Condensing two days worth of jobs into just Friday we managed to have a whole day off to go to the Trelawnyd Flower Show and take some time for ourselves for a mooch about Prestatyn and a spot of lunch.

As you can see I did a little bit better than last year. when I got two Second places for my tomatoes and potatoes, this time I managed a First and a Second for two of my jars of preserves.  I was really pleased.

None of my veggies cut the mustard this time, but it was lovely to be able to talk to fellow growers and see what they had been able to grow in this strange weather we've had up to now this Summer.

My tomatoes were pretty good ... mine are the ones on the  bottom left.

My little Aloe Vera succulent was dwarfed by the other entries  :-)

As was my trug of mixed vegetables!!

The readers of John's blog filled the walls with their photo entries.

And unfortunately although my egg was pretty perfect from the outside it needed another minute of cooking to get the yolk a perfect solid colour, although I was pleased to see I had managed to get the yolk bang in the middle.  Mine is the one on the bigger lettuce leaves, second from the bottom on the left.

It was a brilliant day, and John's speech on behalf of Auntie Gladys went down really well, as did her little impromptu addition to it at the end.  We met a lovely couple called Joyce and Bob and sat chatting with them for a couple of hours between coffee purchases, with us all having a good look at all the entries and having quite a few goes on the raffles.  Bob had been in a similar line of work to Lovely Hubby before his retirement many years ago so it was nice to hear them chatting about changes in technologies in their field.

So its been a good weekend, lots done at home, a couple of certificates to add to my collection and I now know that a lot of my crops are very small for the time they've been growing.  So I now have two weeks to water, feed and mollycoddle them ready for the next show.

I have a lot to live up to with that one  :-)

Sue xx

Mum's Garden

Last week after my 'Ladies who Lunch - Round Two' post, someone asked to see Mum's garden so here, in all it's small but perfectly formed beauty it is.

Mum lives in this little bungalow in a small development in Sale, Cheshire.  Hers is the brown door with the two windows to the left of it, confusingly the little brown window to the right of Mum's front door is her neighbours on the righthand side hard up against the flats that form the rest of this development.  The other window on the far left with the greenery growing around it is her other neighbours.

The communal gardens that wrap around all four sides of the development are kept immaculate, with the grass mown regularly and trees and bushes trimmed by a regular gardening team.  The floral delights and extra maintenance is all done by Mum's neighbour to the right Hilary, who works really hard keeping everything in tip top condition and who took over from Mum last year in making sure the little fountain is always clean, not an easy task when the Magpies, Rooks and other birds all come to bathe in it daily.

Mum's little bed, that runs just underneath her windows, was neat and tidy when she first moved in but very sparsely planted with just generic plants to match into the other borders.  After a couple of months Mum set to filling it with all her favourite plants.  Growing some from seed on her little kitchen windowsill and buying others from the various garden centres she goes to either with me or my brother.  She soon had it looking lovely, and each year the colour scheme varies slightly, with more and more pots and planters being added near the door.

Hilary's little patch next door is equally colourful and is full to bursting with all sorts of flowers and shrubs.

It shows what a lot you can fit in a small space if you crave colour and beauty.  While Dad was the main vegetable grower of the family, Mum always loved flowers and their allotment was softened with lots of flowery areas, attracting all the beneficial insects to their plot.  You can see where I get my green fingers from looking at Mum's plot ...

... and seeing the plaque that fellow allotmenteers put up to honour my Dad, outside the Trading Hut at the allotments where they used to grow.

Oh .. and there might have been a few more sale purchases made yesterday .....

Sue xx

Guess What I'm Reading ......

Well this is the only clue you'll need!!

And the book I'm currently reading .....

..... is

Through the Kitchen Window by Susan Hill.  Now do you get the clue?

I've had this for years, it's a sweet little book with brilliant illustrations.

I sit poring over them for far too long.

AND ... it has recipes, well I mean what more could you want from a book  :-)

I got it down off the shelf last night when I wanted something easy for a quick bedtime read, it was nice to go back to a book I have read over and over again, some books are like old friends, not that I sit my friends on the shelf .... well not often  ;-)

Sue xx

A 'Non Chicken'

I got on the computer pretty sharpish this morning as I needed to send out some emails, it's always a good way to have breakfast on a Monday with the dogs snoozing at my feet after their walk around the paddock.  After I had done my 'work' I thought I just had to show you this ....

... a certain little 'non-chicken' eating with the girls first thing this morning.

Did you spot a certain little cheeky Jack Russell in amongst the hens at the trough feeder.  She came away when she noticed that I had spotted her :-)

Just click on the photos to enlarge them.

Sue xx