Lesson Number One

Well the chamomile I planted out is doing well (please ignore the weeds) and is lovely in tea.

Tomatoes are doing well too and looking healthier after a bit of a sickly spell.

Some mysterious beast has been wandering through my purple-sprouting broccoli seedlings and destroyed one of them. I just hope it gets in trouble for having very muddy paws.

And the cucumbers are doing well, despite the death of their brother. Its nice in the garden just now cos there aren't any huge jobs to do except watching things grow and eating them. Nice.

Oh, and Lesson Number One is never cut a hedge without gloves on. A tiny and painful skelf has taken up residence in my finger and a week later I still can't seem to evict it. Ggrrrrr...

From building site to beauty

Well, this is the idea anyway...

Now that the extension on the side of our house is getting underway and going up fast I am dreaming about how my building site of a front garden will look once I can get my muddy hands on it. I am too ashamed to even post a photo of how it looks now. All there is really is a tree in the middle which I think might be dying, the hedges round the edge and the path. Just now in the top left of the picture there are two trees which I am going to cut down and turn the stumps into a seat.

The soil is clay and heavier than my back garden where the veggies are so the beds in the middle will all be raised beds (I am going to have to fork out for some new top soil for these). It gets some sun in the late afternoon and evening.

Although I don't want the tree in the middle to pop its clogs as I love the pink blossom in spring, it might be a good thing. Maybe I could replace it with an apple or plum tree?...

Allotment Advice Wanted...

I feel that now is the time to come clean about a secret project of mine...

I have been desparately trying over the last few weeks to get something done about quite a large piece of land in my local area that was once beautifully kept but has now been left to go wild. After lots of emails and letters it seems like the local council might be about to listen to my idea to turn it into allotments for people in my village, and we are about to set up a meeting to 'take it forward' (in their words.)

So I am wondering if anyone reading this has ever done something similar and has advice, or knows of any good websites that could help me prepare for the meeting. I know this sounds great but I am not getting my hopes up just now, just keeping my fingers crossed!

Broccoli coming out our ears

Well despite what I thought was careful planning all the broccoli I planted is ready at exactly the same time, and today there are another four massive stalks that need picking. I heard that you can lightly steam florets then plunge them in ice water, then freeze them so I might try that. Otherwise I will have 20 litres of broccoli soup in the freezer.

And never to learn, I have planted out lots of purple-sprouting broccoli seedlings where the early potoates used to be so I guess I will have the same problem last year. I shouldn't complain though cos it tastes fantastic. Mr Butternut is extremely impressed!

I've also been spending a lot of time jam-making, first blackcurrant and then endless raspberry. All this comes from the wild fruit bushes in the countryside near our house. The only thing better than raspberry jam is free raspberry jam. (Apart from the sugar...) But something odd happened with the second batch. It has set beautifully but in the jars it has separated with all the seeds at the top. Mysterious, not sure what I did wrong...

And here is a picture of my gorgeous Cosmos 'Chocomoca' plant which smells just like it sounds.

Blogging for Positive Global Change

I am really honoured to have been nominated for a Blogging for Positive Global Change award by the very lovely TopVeg! Especially since I am so new at this...

The award was originally created by Climate of Our Future to recognise bloggers who ”are trying to build awareness among their readership in order to create a more sustainable and enlightened future.”

TopVeg is a fantastic site with a wealth of info on everything to do with growing your own that you can think of, and who have definately solved a few mysteries for me.

So now I have to nominate five of my own, though I'm going to have to think about this and add my list in a couple of days.

A Momentus Day...

Oh yes. Believe it people. What you see below are the very first potatoes ever grown in my garden.

I really didn't expect these to be ready as they hadn't flowered yet but were supposed to be earlies. But they were starting to smother my broccoli overflow area (!) so I thought I would dig them up and see, if the spuds were tiny I reckoned they'd still be tasty.

Only I got a bucket-full from about six plants! I did a little dance in the garden and immediately called my mum to celebrate. I will be eating them for dinner - way-hey!

Elsewhere in the garden things are still going well, apart from a cucumber plant which has died. I'm ashamed to say that it was totally my fault - I was transferring it to a bigger pot when I snapped the stem in two. Oh dear. I tried to bandage it (feel free to laugh!) but it Withered and Died to quote Kate Rusby. So now I only have three left, but never mind.

For some reason I'm not being allowed to give this post a title...

Hurray! Look what I found this morning! It seems like everyone else has been eating strawberries for weeks but up here things are slower and we have only had two or three a day. But with a bit of sunshine this weekend everything is speeding up.

My squashes are beautiful and I picked the first Costa Romanique courgette today. Its hard to get a sense of scale from this photo but please believe me that its huge!

I now have some teeny tiny baby cucumbers so this year am going to try removing all the male flowers and see if I can get some bigger fruits. And some of the wild raspberries near my house are turning ripe so it won't be long before the annual jam making and sweating over hot sugar begins again.

By the way - how long does garlic need to dry out? And how do you know when its done?

What is up with the weather?

Complaining about the weather at the moment is getting a bit boring but I can't help it. Are we ever going to see some summer?

My garden was totally waterlogged at the weekend and I couldn't get into the greenhouse because the path is flooded. Although I realise that this is nothing compared to the poor folk further south who have had whole allotments washed away.

I did manage to get to the garden centre though and buy some beautiful plants for the pots in the back garden. And I discovered a beautiful Autumn Bliss raspberry plant which is now sitting very happily at the back door.

In between the downpours I managed a bit of weeding and dug up a garlic plant (thanks for the advice soilman!) which is beautiful and now drying out. I'm going to leave the other 60 or so plants in the ground for a few weeks and see if they get any bigger. Family seemed very impressed and the smell is fantastic.