A Calm Day at the beginning of February

After a grand selection of storms, gales and rain we had a fine day today so what did I do? I watched the geese for a while in the sunshine as they preened themselves and then cropped the grass. Then I watched the bees around their hives for a bit as clusters of them were busy round the hive entrances. .. It wasn't all gazing around though as we had hen houses to clean, repairs on greenhouse again (gales recorded at 80mph in Gwynedd yesterday), kindling to chop and the most important task for me was to sow the chillies, sweet peppers and aubergines in the propagator!!

I know the containers dont look that professional but it means I can get loads in the propagator at once.Chillies are Thai, Habanero, Palivec, Black Hungarian, Lemon Drop and early Jalapeno. Sweet peppers are Sweet Chocolate and Californian Wonder. Not forgetting Aubergine Ophelia! More seeds to sow next week. I enjoyed sending off a parcel to my seedy penpal in Germany and looking forward to what might come through my letterbox! However, I am still enjoying the fruits of previous seedy penpal treats with oca and mashua from Carl Legge being a great addition to the kitchen garden and winter salad courtesy of Bethan. A gift of seeds and plants can last for ever and can so easily be passed on to others as well.

Some of the garlic doing well. I have kept the bed free of weeds so they should do ok. We are still very well supplied with a variety of winter vegetables and stored veg so that we still havent bought any veg or salads but expecting the hungry gap in the spring! Luckily  broccoli is just beginning to spear despite the  'trunks' being a bit battered into twisted shapes by the wind.

A delightful little clump and sadly one of only two clumps of snowdrops so I must order some bulbs in the green to naturalise.

I checked through the coldframes today and found this  cheerful Hellebore.

We now have seven ducks and two geese who have made a bit of a mudbath! We are planning a new pond for them and making the current rather small pond into a wildlife pond

Some of my sweet pea plants which seem to have tolerated the gales that have passed through the greenhouse on several occasions since Christmas. I became a regular at the glaziers!

 

 

 

 We are expecting a week of further gales but now all the beds some of the beds are ready for a bit of soil warming so I am bracing myself to build some industrial strength cloches next weekend!

Mustard Pickle Recipe for when you don't know what to do with all that stuff from the garden!

This is an excellent pickle for using up surplus courgettes, cucumbers, onions and beans from the garden. It is my adaptation of an Australian recipe in the book, 'Perfect Preserves' by Joan Wilson. Hence, the amounts are in cups but this makes the preparation much quicker anyway.

Mustard Pickles

Makes about five jars

2 cups peeled chopped cucumber

2 cups chopped onions

2 cups small courgettes chopped

2 cups of sliced runner beans or green beans

As long as I have 8 cups of veg, I make this in any combination and small florets of broccoli or cauliflower can make up the amount.

3/4 cup salt

5 cups water

2 1/2 cups malt vinegar

1/2 cup plain flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp mustard powder

1 tsp turmeric 

1/4 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp chilli powder

1/2 cup water

Put all the veg in a large ceramic bowl and sprinkle the salt over before adding the five cups of water. Cover and leave overnight. When you are ready to make the mustard sauce, sterilise the jars. Strain the veg, rinse and then drain thoroughly.

Mix together all the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Add the 1/2 cup of water and blend into a paste. Measure the vinegar into a large pan, stir in the mustard mixture and heat gently so that that it boils and thickens as you stir. Stir in the vegetables and heat until the mixture returns to a boil. Remove from heat and put into the hot jars. Cover the jars until the pickles have cooled, then seal jars. 

This is tasty and crisp and is even good to eat in a sandwich on its own. I cannot always keep up with consumption and hide some of the pickles so there are some to eat at Christmas!

In praise of a summer

There are times when I look around our garden and find it difficult to remember the empty beds, bare trees, blizzards and deep snow of the winter (and the spring!!) months. Foliage and flowers clothe everything and a walk around the garden involves plenty of ducking and dodging as plants have outgrown their spaces in the most glorious fashion.

Our cut flower beds have been producing enough to fill several marquees!

We only moved here in October 2012 so this is our first growing season at Ty Hen Cottage. We could not have asked for better sumer weather and we have been overwhelmed with the amount of produce. We have made mistakes so have learned plenty and can do some things differently next year.

Garden produce dried, bottled, pickled , frozen etc. Still loads more to do!

We have been extracting honey and have about 100 lbs. Now I am rendering the wax to make some candles. We shall be selling our honey at the Honey Fair in Conwy on 13th September. It is a set honey as we have so many OSR fields nearby.

 

In the spring I received a parcel of assorted seeds and tubers from Carl Legge as part of the Seedy Penpal group that he organises using Twitter. It was such an interesting assortment and I got to try some new things. These Giant Sugar Peas have been amazing mange tout... they do have huge pods that stay really tender and the flower is very pretty! I shall be saving some of the seed  for next year.

 

 

This is a newly cultivated area of our field. Paul had a surge of enthusiasm after visiting CAT and created this huge allotment space. In our eagerness to get going we forgot all about the fact that we had disturbed a seed bank and have not been able to keep up with unwantd grasses and dock plants etc. Next year will be better and the areas we did get to grips with have been very productive. We made the mistake of economising on canes and the beans climbing up strings were decimated one windy weekend. We now have a great bundle of beans growing wherever they can get a hold.  After talking to others at CAT Paul  has been keen to ensure all our effors result in some sort of  'harvest' so all the stones dug from here have been harvested and used to repair the road and its made us think more seriously about composting as much as possible... needs a lot of space though! Our existing kitchen garden  of raised beds will be for  a wide variety of more unusual veg next year and this big space will be  for some of the staples.

A tranquil scene as I write this but sadly we lost a duck to a fox.

July

Sarpo main crop potatoes  a week or so ago in our new plot.  We are eating our way through the delicious early potatoes and due to the weather, blight seems to be less of a problem this year but didn't want to chance it with the main crop, so went for these blight resistant varieties for the first time.

http://www.sarvari-trust.org

Harvesting this month.... Leeks, chard, beetroot, Romaine lettuce, salad leaves, basil, broad beans, early potatoes, purple teepee french beans, radish, courgettes, onions,  cucumber, sweet peas, strawberries,raspberries.  

     

The bee hives have been so busy for weeks now and when Paul is checking the hives I spend a a bit of time indoors  away from a few angry bees which seem to follow him back to the house! Forgot about this recently and got dive bombed as I weeded! We have decided to leave areas of white clover uncut as its a great nectar source... Also it's very fragrant on a warm day as an added bonus for us!

White Clover... Paul is just keen to maintain all the hives and build up colonies this summer but I am sure we shall have some honey again this year too! We are also enjoying discovering the number of wild flowers and grasses  in the paddock.

We have disturbed so much ground that poppies have grown everywhere so we shall enjoy these and control next years seed distribution a little.

We are beginning to get a few good colour combinations in the garden. I love the Lysimachia and Aconitum growing alongside but the former is taking over.... Anyone want a clump??! Lastly we have to thank the previous residents at Ty Hen Cottage for planting some great roses!

Next post will be tomato and chilli news! Also seedy penpals!

June

Meet the new resident of Ty Hen Cottage, Maureen. Recently we lost one of our young cats, Maeve, to the cat virus FIP.  It was so sad to see her short life fade away but she had been a very happy, loving little pet. So, from a friend, came this beautiful cat, still getting used to life here but we are very glad she seems healthy and strong.

Our garden and paddock continue to keep us busy and we are quite used to eating dinner after 9pm as we get carried away outside after getting in from work each evening. Flowers, fruit and veg are now threatening to take over the place. I think everything is about two weeks behind, we usually have a house full of sweet peas by the second week in June but they are now just into full swing. Strawberries, usually plentiful in time for midsummer, are just beginning.

Paul's veg garden in the paddock which I showed in the last post is now fenced and partially planted, the Sarpo blight resitant maincrop potatoes are doing well. Photos soon! Our raised beds nearer to the house are very productive and its great not to have to buy much food at this time of year.Every night is a garden dinner so we are determined to grow a bit more variety next year. 

Tomatoes, cinnamon basil and habenero chillies in the glasshouse.

Broad bean leaf showing  advanced chocolate spot! I have sprayed with biopesticide, Serenade, which contains Bacilis subtilis so there is no harvest interval. It seems to have worked!

Like all other veg gardeners we are swamped with lettuce so today I made lettuce soup. It was not strong flavoured but fresh and pleasant tasting. It also looked pretty. Wonder whether we liked it enough to make some more this week!

First Dahlias in flower today, cant wait to start picking! I managed to get these going early by using bell cloches during the cold spring.

Some of todays cut flowers. Sweet pea seed from Eagle Sweet Peas

We have worked very hard  here since we moved in but cannot take credit for the fantastic wild flowers surrounding us!

A weekend in pictures

Friday evening spent stripping off the turf for new vegetable beds as the raised beds in kitchen garden are now full!

On Saturday the cultivating began.The area is 10 metres by 16 metres.

Sunday afternoon, the ducks check out the work.

Seeds, trees and weeds

Ty Hen Cottage was in danger of becoming engulfed by seedlings but thankfully the weather warmed up so that my charges could be introduced to the big wide world via the cold frames and greenhouse. I also sold plants at Crug Farm Plant Fair  (and only bought one!) so had some new space.

Rhubarb Victoria, seed sown in March, now potted on.

Everything changes so quickly at this time of the year so that photos I took a week or so ago now seem positively wintry. So many more leaves on everything.

Cheery spring flowers. Short tulips are great in a windy spot.

We were left with various aviaries and converted sheds by the previous owners and Paul has been busy demolishing, renovating and moving them. One of the aviaries has defied our efforts, being of such strong consrtuction that it would be the envy of an ancient civilisation with thousands of slaves at its disposal. So we have now decided to use it as a shelter for our washing and it now  houses a washing line! It is an ugly structure so we shall pretty it up with various rapant climbers!

Renovated shed now chicken house. Notice CCTV just in case anyone has eye on the blackcurrants!!!

I have begun to tackle the patch of ground elder in the front garden, I did try eating some as I weeded but I didnt really like it. We have enough leaves to provide salad for the entire Anglesey population  but decided instead to donate to the recycling centre!

As I write this, it feels aa chilly and breezy as a day in March but the weatherover the last weeks has certainly warmed with potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, shallots, onions, beans, salads, sweet peas, celery, broccoli, oca and mashua (my treasures from seedy penpal!) looking bigger everyday. I am overjoyed that the Astrantia Ruby Cloud is finally germinating after having been in and out of the fridge! I shall celebrate by buying myself an onion hoe later. Our ducks and hens are enjoying the run of the field and have spent some happy days in the spring sunshine. I havent had time to sow  the parsnips so am off outside into the rain to finally get them  going.

Onion Bed,  I need that onion how!

Broad Beans

Mashua on right and Oca on left ready for planting

Whilst I have been busy sowing, planting out and potting on, Paul has been planting trees in the field, to form an additional windbreak. Our willows rods from @poshplants are shooting well. We have also planted many birch and a few poplar... these were saplings aquired so not our first choices but thought we could harvest later if necessary. Paul spent the week at the Centre for Alternative Technology and came back with lots of enthusiasm for more growing projects for the future!

It finally feels like spring!