Tag: garden

Prepper

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That is to say preparing the garden to receive the seeds for this year’s food crop. Hopefully it will be better than last year’s which was pretty much a washout. Today has been about putting some goodness back into the soil. I’ve also planted the first spud crop (assuming the frost doesn’t get them) it’s a beautiful day. The sun is high and I’m pleasantly tired.

Yesterday was a scuba day with the club giving up it’s time to support a local men’s emotional support group. The guys are always so lovely and so grateful to try something scary with people who are not going to judge them. They can be openly afraid and that is a huge thing for many men. Masculinity can be so very toxic. No stiff upper lip when you’re facing your fear.

There is a saying that you should do something that scares you every day. I’d say do something that challenges you instead. No point in being scared all the time. It’s challenging to pick cat poop out of the raised beds when I’ve spent years trying to chase them off from using those as a litter tray. It’s challenging to talk to a stranger who is about to put their life in your hands. It doesn’t always have to be jumping from an airplane scary!

Next week sees the transfer of seedlings to larger pots and the plants that can go outside being planted. It’s time to look forward again after a tough year. The cycle goes on.

Fruitless Summer

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Well, not quite fruitless but weird. We grow food in our garden. Usually.  Thus summer in the UK the weather has been very odd. I know the soild was prepared. Co.post had been composting. We have a worm based bin where the little critters push the goodness out through the holes in the bin. Extra cow poo was added. The ground was turned over but boy have We had a lousy crop.

The lettuce was eaten alive by pests despite all natural deterrents deployed as usual. The broccoli never made past 3 inches because of  hungry slugs and caterpillars. The beetroot have done ok but still on the small size. We had 4 or 5 meals from the spuds where we usually have double that. Whilst there are tomatoes on the vine they are not ripening. We’ve done nothing differently but the weather…..

I’m still hopeful that there will be peppers. No chilli this year, we didn’t get any. I think I’ve sat out once, eaten an outdoor meal once. It’s been lousy.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been sunny days, but few and far between. Yes, we go on about the weather in the UK. Even by UK standards, this year has been strange. This morning ing it rained heavily. Now the sun is shining  and there are clouds overhead. Yesterday was cloudy where my parents ts live and sunny where I live less than 50 miles away.

Usually, I have more blackberries that I  can use for jam. This year, nothing. I guess it happens. We have a warm, comfortable home and enough to eat. I have nothing to complain about. I’m just intrigued as to what’s going on.

Shopping.

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It’s an ordinary Saturday. We’ve done the shopping in an hour…all the food for the week. It’s actually quicker (and cheaper) to go to the next town over to buy our food because of the traffic  around town and because  it’s market day. We try not to shop on the weekend, but this week it was unavoidable. Today’s extra purchase logs for the fire before the price goes up for winter.

We took to making a plan and a list about a month ago on account of the austerity and all that. We are still having a treat of steak for lunch with celeriac chips (fries to my US chums). Meal planning bores me senseless, but having an accountant as a partner it works for us. We have a couple of favourites and have found an app (any list) that means we can share lists across two phones. Definitely makes shopping more efficient.

As a side note, several vehicles have pulled out in front of the car todayboth forward and in reverse. Stay awake, people. I know it’s hibernation time for some of us, but safety first!

This afternoon’s tasks are to turn the veg beds and the compost. This, hopefully, will increase our yield next year. It’s been a weird one for the garden and for foraging this year. The climate changes are definitely making a difference. Even in expert hands, the growth of foodstuff has been unusual this year. Of course the garlic goes in now as it takes the best part of the year to mature, but it takes very little space or effort.

The house is almost done too. A panicked flurry of activity to prepare the room for the nieces to visit last week means the guest room is almost complete. There are pictures to hang in the living room and a cost of paint in the utility space. Next spring will hopefully see the front garden completed. We’re putting a wildflower lawn in for the bees although I think the idea of a beehive has been put to rest.

Funny Old Month

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I know it’s been a while. I’ve been distracted by going to stay with my elderly dad. He’s not too steady on his feet but won’t sit still. Mum, on the other hand, is arthritic but won’t stay still (largely because it hurts) and it heavily involved in the WI (Women’s Institute) and the Trefoil Guild of the Girl Guides. Those organisations have conferences. These may involve a long, bust meeting but they also involve a chance to go away with your chums to a nice hotel and have a change of scenery. Mum has been to a couple of these lately. I’m called in to stay with Dad. It’s not a chore. When you consider everything my parents did for me it’s my turn to give back and I do it happily.

Our plan on this occasion was to make some black puddings as well as the usual gardening and running about in the car to fetch this and that. (Dad seldom drives these days and never beyond the village). I’d ordered dried blood, seasoning and groats. Pig fat would be acquired once I’d arrived. The groats were put in to soak overnight. Dad has it in has head that his mum made black puddings with more groats (barley) than blood. This was to be the basis for our attempt. Sadly, the skins we got hold of were not edible, but cleaned intestines do not keep well and can be pretty dangerous if not cleaned thoroughly. We could peel the skins away once the puddings were cooked. We treated back fly on the broad beans, did a run to the farm shop for bird seed and to the butchers for the aforementioned pig fat, picked blackcurrants, and watered the tomatoes. Enough for one day and there’s cricket on the telly.

Day two.

The resulting black pudding

Yep, we succeeded in making a black pudding without making too much mess in the kitchen. It was a little of the recipand a little by dad’s memories, so the resulting out was a little unusual but not bad. It weighed in at close to a kilo. We let it cool and had a slice for breakfast next day. Notes to self : more blood, less barley, and cook the barley first. I still have a stack of ingredients so I’ll experiment with them til we get this as he remembers. The whole thing basically came in kit form and it’s not as hard as you think its going to be. The great thing was to do something he really wanted to do and to try together. Cherish your parents, they will be gone before you know it.

Summer’s almost gone

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Apart from being an excellent Doors song, it is true as we approach the longest day already (unless you are Aussie chums). Its been a bit on the warm side for the UK i.e. over 30 degrees. Occasional thunder storms have definitely not helped l, in our area at least. I did note that we may actually be growing mashes potatoes. This has proved not to be true as we had a great crop from one of the tubs earlier this week.

Spuds

This year we moved things around in the beds to see if they might grow better. On the whole.it seems the brassica may be better where they were and the potatoes like being in tubs not the purpose built boxes. The blackcurrant looks like it will crop despite only being put in late Feb. No gooseberries this year though.

Then came the thunderstorms. It’s not so fierce as predicted.

I did get a bit soggy earlier as I drifted between buildings at the local university where I’d gone to use the WiFi in the library for a PhD meeting online. The storms seem to have devastated our home WiFi. Not sure really but it’s been slow to none existent. Good meeting BTW. Its about now that I begin to think what has happened since I were young and how little we now seem able to do without the damn www. In fairness I’m a reader, as our local charity shops and library can attest so it wasn’t too bad but all the doctoral work is stored in the ‘cloud’ as they say. I do have backup copies, but infuriating all the same. I implore you all to save local copies of your documents. Indeed a pencil and paper seldom fail even if you run out of paper or break your pencil.

Which takes me back to the garden. My non digital starting place and a note to self that it’s impossible to rely on technology all the time and important to have some skills that don’t involve electrical devices. I’m going outside now to play my tongue drum.

Spring Into Action

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Well the clocks change tonight. Tomorrow we will be a)up late or b)up on time and grumpy. Twas ever thus. Today, however, is the planting of the food crops. To be fair the rhubarb stays out all year and garlic gets planted in November but all those delicate veg need to go outside now. Today we plant onions and broccoli and peas and beans, beetroot and carrot but only for the tiny shelter/greenhouse (only it’s not a glasshouse) with just a few things directly into the earth. Lettuce, this year, is going in the chest height herb bed to attempt to avoid slugs.

Planting
Literally a greenhouse

Last years food crop was amazing considering we only completed the raised beds in late April, so this year we have organised a bit better and hope to have more food available. We also took the opportunity to put some fruit bushes in February, though I doubt those will fruit this year. A gooseberry and a blackcurrant. Hopefully the last frost has been and gone but in the UK who knows.

Rhubarb

The compost has been fed through the winter. We have a vermicompost system buried into the raised bed thanks to Subpod (no money has changed hands) a New Zealand based company. The nice thing about worm based compost is that it doesn’t smell. You don’t need to spread it either because this system has holes for the little fellows to wriggle in and out taking the nutrients with them.

I’m not a garden expert, I’ve just realised that we can make more from what we’ve got… cost of living… pension.. blah. Between last years jam, sell by date boxes from the supermarket for soup and pickles, even marmalade. We compost anything that’s too far gone and use ash from the wood burner to add carbon to the soil. It’s all going rather well.

Hori hori

Little pricks

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By which I mostly mean bramble thorns. Autumn is coming in fast enough and the season of mists may not yet be hear but on the pastway behind the house we have ‘mellow fruitfulness’. For reason don’t understand there are raspberry canes but mostly blackberry brambles. So far I’ve had around 3 kilos and these have even dutifully turned into jam (or jelly if you’re American although technically since these have not been sieved to remove the seeds its jam.)

Jam and bread. Home-made

You’d be surprised how many people stop to talk when you’re out foraging. Family groups who want to encourage their young. Older folks who want to share a memory. Some cheeky types who feel it’s OK to stick hand into your tub and taste the fruit! Mostly I go alone and take a small plastic dish and my grandfather’s old bamboo cane. I can remember him using it to bring down the taller branches to my height so I could help when I was small. Now I use it to do the same even though I can reach higher. Its good for thrashing away nettles too. I’ve just the one serious scratch from a particularly springy ground level branch. Should’ve worn long pants.

My brother donates bags of home grown chillies so there’s chilli jam too.

In other needle related news I went for a new tattoo or two this week. Maybe I’m old enough to know better but I’m also old enough to not give a damn. They’re small enough and covered much of the time. They’re for me not you.