Month: September 2021

Posted in Friesland Farm

Surprise 😲 a day trip & ooopsie I forgot 🤪

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Sunday afternoon: thought I would just add this in as I did do a bit in the afternoon, I hadn’t intended to but John said it was going to rain and be really windy 🙄 I thought, in that case I had better do a bit of picking while it was sunny and dry and then anything spoilable will be saved. I picked butternut squash as all the foliage has now died back, some are very small but they will still feed us and so I won’t waste them. I picked the rest of the sweetcorn, some dwarf beans, swede, courgettes, tomatoes and then I dug up a bed of potatoes as that foliage has died back to. I then had a look on my weather app to see exactly when the rain was coming, no sign of it at all on my app, I said to John it doesn’t say anything about rain, oh I thought I heard it he said, note to self, check facts don’t just rely on Johns say so 😂 I had been very relaxed and for a change my hands were nice and clean until then!

Monday 20th September 2021: So I have been very busy sorting out everything I picked yesterday 😂 I have sorted out the squash for storing and out some out for sale, put the potatoes in a sack for storing but we will probably start using them soon as the last lot have nearly run out. I have made up soup bags, one general mixed bag and one specific squash soup bag, a bag of veg for for stews with the turnips, swede, potato and carrots. Cooked the sweetcorn and vacuum packed that (had some for my lunch as well) cooked beetroot and poached some pears in honey and vanilla extract, they will be for dessert tonight. I have sorted out courgettes, cucumbers, runner beans and tomatoes to go out for sale and bagged some up for the girls.

Late afternoon I started watering the front beds as they are looking very dry and the plants are a little stressed, John came home and made a cuppa then went out to feed the birds and that’s when we got a bit of a surprise 😲 About three weeks ago the light Sussex hen that was out with the front lot disappeared, well she reappeared today with three little chicks 😂 I have never had that happen before, it’s late in the year and we have no chick crumb for them, I am just going to leave them to it and hope they survive, they should do with her to forage for them.

Tuesday: First thing this morning I got my apple catcher and picked a bucketful of cooking apples. They are not the best this year but last year we had none so I am not complaining. I spent most of the rest of the day weeding the front beds, deadheading dahlias and clearing bits of dead foliage so that the beds keep looking good for as long as possible. After a rest in the afternoon (feeling tired at the minute) I then went out and watered the front beds, I had a bit of a situation when I couldn’t turn the tap off 🙄 It had happened before and John says I turn it on too far but I only use it the same as all the other taps, for some reason this one gets stuck. I was afraid to use too much force in case it snapped off 😂 eventually I managed to move it and get it shut off but I will have to be careful I future, don’t want that happening too often. I got the dinner cooked and then once we had eaten and had a cuppa we went out to round up the mother hen and her chicks. Yesterday she let us pick her up and move her but today she just flew straight at me, we mated to get her herded towards the hut but had to pick up one with a dodgy leg as it couldn’t keep up. John went off to put the rest of the birds to bed and I picked the rest of the pears from the tree, a couple more apples and some sweetcorn I had missed on Monday. That’s today done and I am looking forward to a restful evening.

Wednesday: Autumn Equinox, Mabon, the part of the year when the wheel moves towards the Winter Solstice, harvesting, reflecting, giving thanks for the last year and giving hope for the year ahead.

I had a plan for today, I was going to pot up various plants but plans often change which is exactly what happened today. I had about 1kg of runner beans I had picked the other day and sales are slow at the gate. In order not to waste them I decided to make runner bean chutney, it’s always quite popular with family. I chopped everything and then mixed it all up and got it on the go, while I am in the kitchen I might as well do other things so I made batches of crumble mix for the freezer, an apple crumble for dessert tonight and some tomato, garlic, onion and basil sauce which I will use for spag Bol etc. Then I made a fruit cake as I had some open flour that really needed using up, it doesn’t sound like a lot but it took all the morning to make it and clear up afterwards lol. In the afternoon Shelley and Flo came round and we went up to the back paddocks to pick blackberries, lovely to be able to pick them from our own land. I had a sit down in the afternoon before hoovering round and getting the dinner sorted and a plethora of other little jobs including feeding and watering the Guineas and rabbit. The torts are still out because it’s still warm enough, they are active and feeding, no sign of them winding down yet. When they do they will go into the greenhouse for a few weeks before taking themselves off to bed for the winter, initially they will eat but it will be less and less as time goes on, they can’t go to sleep with food inside them, that would kill them.

I am having a go at making some cider vinegar with the apple peelings from the crumble, takes a couple of months but if it works I will have around 2L of it 😁

The moon tonight is amazing, I tried taking photos but they were rubbish 😂 it is a massive orange ball in the dark sky, just beautiful and very fitting for the equinox 🥰

Thursday: It’s been a long and busy day today, mostly I have been potting up plants, plants that have self seeded, plants that are not doing well where they are and plants that have needed potting on for a while. It’s a good time of year to move things, not too cold yet and still a bit of growing time to get established. I dug up a lot of the strawberry plants which have been put out for free, someone came to pick up the mint I dug up, I had the twins while Mia went for swimming lessons, then picked some more elderberries for someone, had our dinner, picked up some live plants (delphiniums for cut flowers) that had been delivered wrongly, unpacked them and watered them, sorted out produce I had picked to go in the shed, did the eggs, fed the cats, did a bit of star gazing before finally sitting down at 8pm. Pooped but had a good day and tomorrow we are off to Malvern Autumn show, the tickets were transferred after the Good Life show was cancelled back in summer so I am looking forward to a day out with plants 🥰 Pretty sure I did a lot more but can’t for the life of me think what and there always seems like soo much more to do 🙄

Friday: Road trip 😁 We went to Malvern Autumn show, the weather was lovely (a bit too hot really but I factor 50’d everywhere) plenty to see, do and admire plus lots of plants and bulbs to be purchased, I obliged naturally 😂 When we arrived home we had a cuppa and then I got on with planting some of my purchases. I watered the front beds again, I think it’s a few weeks since we had any decent rainfall 🙄 I then got started on another little planting project I have in mind in the front. The dog kennels are looking old and tired, we don’t use them for dogs anymore but they will make an excellent framework for climbing plants. At the moment I have a hop, and climbing rose and the wisteria slowly covering it, the hop looks lovely there, but I have a jasmine I want to use as well and a hydrangea that needs to be a statement piece, so I have been trying to put it all together this evening before it got dark. It is just sat in situ until I can get it all planted up but I think it will look good 😊 John did the animals and collected the eggs, the little chick that had a dodgy leg didn’t make it 😕 To be honest I didn’t think it would but there is always hope.

Giant veg 🙄

It’s 10pm and John has gone to get fuel if he can, he needs some in the van for work but the panic buying has been ridiculous, queues everywhere and garages selling out. It would be rough justice if someone who had panic bought rang up Monday because they needed him but he couldn’t get there because he had no fuel lol.

Ooops it’s Monday and I totally forgot to publish this yesterday 🤪 Saturday morning I had to get a few things done including moving the electric fencing for the horses and then over to Sams to look after the kiddies, I was then away until Sunday afternoon. Later after a bit of a nap I dug up potatoes, these were from the straw method I was trying out. I didn’t have a big haul but it was ok and it was easy to pick them, considering I didn’t think it would work at all I would notch it up as a success 😁 I also dug up quite a few herbs, before it got dark, from the section I am moving, I will aim to pot them up tomorrow.

Week over sorry I forgot to publish 😝

Posted in Friesland Farm

Tomato soup, a picture & a relaxing weekend.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th September 2021: The morning after the weekend before 😂 and while it took us a week to put up the hen do village it only took a couple of hours to take a lot of it back down. There is a lot left to remove and sort out mind you and that is mostly what I have been doing today. Sorting out all the things that have been borrowed from other family members, washing up plastic storage tubs to return, putting everything in piles for people to collect. That took up most of the day apart from Smallholding things I had to get done in between. Early evening John came home and we took down two of the tents ready to store and bought in as much as we could from the field to get it all in the dry because it is due to rain tomorrow.

When we were planning the hen weekend I wanted to make sure that as much as possible was eco friendly in one way or another. That meant either reusable, recyclable, biodegradable, compostable, begged and borrowed rather than bought new. Some things we had to buy but things like plates and cutlery were bamboo and wooden, doilies and wallpaper for table settings, lots of fresh greenery and flowers in with artificial ones that some of us already had, we did pretty well with that side of things I think but it is quite difficult to cover everything on a tiny budget. I often say that I don’t have any food left overs and we also did quite well in that department, this week will be one of only a couple of times a year I put it out, it is small but it is not full up. One of the reasons it has anything in at all is because I accidentally left a tub outside over night and didn’t want to risk using or freezing the meat and cheese that was in there even though it had a lid on.

Tuesday: Today I really needed to get out on the garden and get some picking done, not least because a customer had asked why there were no vegetables available lol. So I picked, cucumbers, tomatoes, courgettes, jalapeños, peppers, Thai chilli, runner beans and French beans. I am definitely going to save seed from the French climbing beans, they produce lovely long slender beans and because they grow upwards are much easier to harvest than getting down on the ground to pick dwarf beans 🙄 I sorted all the veg out and put out for sale anything I wasn’t going to use or prep for the freezer. I then went on to sort produce I had picked last week but hadn’t managed to get sorted, apples, pears and tomatoes mostly. Some were beginning to spoil or go soft so I made a batch of tomato soup and then some apple and pear butter which cooked in the slow cooker for about 6 hours. Chop up apples and pears, add maple syrup, cinnamon, ginger and a little bit of water, leave to cook on low and then whizz when it’s done. I put it into sterilised jars but it needs keeping in the fridge or freezing as it won’t store for more than three weeks in the fridge. Use to spread on toast or ice cream or in yoghurt, whatever you like really. The tomato soup is now in the freezer, another batch which will be lovely on a cold winters day. It absolutely poured day for a good part of the day so I spent most of the rest of the time indoors sorting stuff out, putting away, putting washing on, although that had to be tumble dried today 😕 Later in the afternoon Charlie came to pick me up and we went off for her final dress fitting, very exciting and it all looks beautiful. When I got back John was home and so he went out to feed the birds and collect eggs and then we shot off to get some shopping as I haven’t been able to get to the shop for over a week due to being busy with people coming and going here. Before we went we had to get the cage into the boot room and get Jill the cat safely shut in the cage as she is going to the vets tomorrow to be spayed, she isn’t impressed 🙄 but I don’t want to risk her disappearing like Jack did 😂 After shopping, dinner then John put the birds to bed while I jarred up the fruit butter and the tomato soup and popped them into the freezer.

Another batch of homegrown tomato soup.

I have so many jobs in the garden to get on with that I haven’t got round to yet, seeds to sow, plants to dig up, plants to pot up, plants to chop down, weeding, dead heading, rearranging the garden, I am trying to get a little bit done each day here and there and hopefully eventually it will.

Wednesday: Trying to think what I did first thing this morning lol, a fair bit of deadheading in the front flower beds as I haven’t done that for a few days. At some point John came home and we got the cat in a basket and she went off to the vets to be spayed. I fed the Guineas/rabbit and torts (mindful that they need a clean out but not sure when I am going to have time to do that) Still tidying up stuff from the hen weekend, oh yes that’s it, I was trying to get one of the tents down and packed up but the breeze was making it difficult by myself lol. Eventually got it rolled and then it was too big for the bag 🙄 had to get it back out in the evening and will try again tomorrow. The postman arrived with a special package, the painting of the paddock had arrived, painted by a chap called Duncan Ball https://m.facebook.com/duncanball.art/ It is lovely and such an amazing find by my neighbour 🥰

The cat was picked up mid afternoon and then I went to watch Josh get his yellow belt with a white stripe in his Martial Arts grading ceremony 🥰 Then when I got back we had to repack one of the tents that we had laid out earlier to dry the bottom off as it wasn’t quite dry enough. After that I went out and started getting up the flooring, I have a few people coming to get pieces of it so it will have another use instead of getting thrown away. By this time it was dark and so I went in and got something to eat before finally having a sit down. So many things to do, so little time to get them all done lol. I was hoping to get some seeds sown, annual flowers for next year and some spinach and parsley but that will have to wait for another day now.

Thursday: A Misty start to what turned into a lovely day. I started off with housework, I wanted to get the hoovering and polishing done and clean the bathroom as it was driving me nuts that I hadn’t been able to do it all week long. I let the ducks out around 10am and then went into the greenhouse and sowed some seeds. Annual flowers including Cerenthe Major and Californian poppies, I saved the seed from the latter, initially the seed came from Sarah Raven and I was so impressed with the quality that I have subsequently ordered from there again including the cerenthe. I also sowed some winter crops and herbs, dill, coriander, winter lettuce and corn salad. Then I went on to dig up some of the mint that has to come up from the herb bed I am going to move and after a spot of lunch and a sit down I went out to do some more tidying up in the paddock. It has taken me ages to clear things away, there was an army of people putting it up but mostly it has been me on my own until John gets home then we work until it’s dark getting more stuff put away. Every night this week we have worked until dark outside, then a bit more inside until bedtime, we have eaten snack food for tea because I haven’t had time to make anything. Tonight we had fish and chips and my sister and her hubby came over along with Shelley to get it knocked on the head. Hopefully tomorrow I just need to get the tents out to dry right off and it’s mostly then done. John keeps complaining I am grumpy every evening, that’s because I am hot and tired, ‘we’re not doing this again are we’ he said, exactly what was running through my head was the reply 🤣 we had a fabulous weekend but the clear up operation has taken its toll 😜 Due to the extra help this evening we have actually managed to sit down at 8pm whoop, whoop, probably fall asleep in the chair now.

Friday: Samantha’s birthday today 🥰 I had lots of jobs planned but in the end I spent around two hours wrestling with bell tents, trying to get the last bit of any moisture from the bottom and then the mammoth takes of trying and failing miserably to get them resembling the size and shape of the bag they came out of. Two hours of my life I won’t get back, two hours of sweating (had to do it in the sun, no choice there) and swearing profusely, two hours of wondering why I was the only donkey doing the job 🙄😜 I would have given myself the day off except I had forgotten to let the ducks out and it was now midday, I shall be glad when I can focus on this place entirely once again 🥰

Most of the rest of the paraphernalia finally got picked up which means I will be able to let the geese back out again, I couldn’t do it while there was stuff still around as they like to nibble at everything just to see if it’s tasty or not 😜 We went over to see Sam early evening and then back again before dark to put every to bed.

Saturday: Whoop, whoop we finally got to the spa weekend, up shower, pack my bags and off in the car with Sam, Shelley and Charlie for a lovely relaxing time and treatments at a spa in Malvern. I left John in charge 😁

Sunday: Arrived home at lunchtime, I have no idea what went on while I was away but all seemed fine on my return and that’s the main thing. John has been busy cleaning out the birds and tidying some parts of the front. The cat is looking well after her op, the sun is shining and I feel very rested and relaxed, ready to start another week with renewed energy tomorrow, as for the rest of today, I am still in chill mode 🤣 so probably won’t get anything else done.

I was sat outside watching and listening to the bees buzzing round all the asters, it is literally swarming with them which is fantastic. I need to photograph as many different types as I can so I know what is visiting.

I have been fairly preoccupied with the recent events and we now have a good few weeks before the wedding itself so I should have more time to focus on the Smallholding and a bit more in depth blogging (it’s been a bit sparse 🙄) Have a great week and hopefully this lovely sunshine will continue a bit longer 🥰

Posted in Friesland Farm

A busy week, harvesting and processing & the reason for the busy week 🥰

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Thursday: Yes it’s Thursday before I even realised I hadn’t written a single thing for the blog 🤣 Thats because I ha e been so busy I haven’t even had time to think about it at all.

Most of the early week was wall to wall blue sky and it was pretty hot so that meant the usual scrabble round in the mornings and get done what I could outside. Picking and some watering, all the usual feeding, watering, cleaning out jobs. I did remember to take some photos mind you so something ran through my mind at least 🙄

This time of year is very busy with picking and harvesting and prepping everything ready for the winter, mostly chopping and freezing but it takes up a fair amount of time. I have made a couple of soup bags up as well, I was really happy with this one as it was very colourful.

Runner beans, tomatoes, carrots, beetroot, onion, garlic chives and celery leaves, should make a tasty, healthy soup in mid winter 🥰

This morning I picked some elderberries but I had to wash them and freeze them as I dont have time at the minute to make some syrup which is what I want to do with them. I also chopped up windfall apples and bagged and froze those. I cooked sweetcorn in the microwave, still in the husk, which is a fab way to do them. When they are done, cut the bottom off and peel of the leaves, easy and quick. I then vacuum packed these so they will last a long time in the freezer without getting frosted. I still have not quite got fully to grips with the vacuum sealer but I am getting the hang of it and it’s a great gadget. I weighed up the pros and cons of the fact that it uses plastic but it does keep the food in a better quality for longer and I can always re use the bags for smaller quantities another time.

This weeks blog will be short and sweet as I have forgotten to do half of it and I will not be around to do the other half of it 😜 We have Charlie’s hen weekend this weekend, so Friday I will be busy getting ready for that and then the weekend itself. John will be in charge here, I will be enjoying myself 😁

Friday: An unbelievable coincidence has occurred and I am very excited about it. My neighbour messaged me this morning about a watercolour she had seen on another site, she recognised it instantly and blow me down if it wasn’t our paddock with the old hen huts in and Jack grazing. It is beautiful and in a style I love. I am in touch with the artist, he has agreed to sell it to us and it should be here shortly, so chuffed, it’s brilliant and I love it so it will go for framing and hang in my kitchen 😁 Happy Days 😁

By the time this is published on Sunday eve, Charlie will know all about her hen do so I can safely write this on Friday 😜 The reason I can’t write much about the Smallholding is because this week especially we have been working absolutely flat out to organise a hen do extraordinaire, I asked ‘can we do this’ the reply was ‘with bells on’ and so we have pulled off a boho bell tent, hen do village, with a hundred and one little touches that Charlie will hopefully love, everything we have organised and arranged was with her love of these things in mind 🥰 no doubt there will be plenty of pictures coming up very soon. High fives 🙌 to everybody who helped, spending hours with planning and building the hen weekend, you are bloody awesome 🤩

Posted in Friesland Farm

A bank holiday, more of the harvest & the sun finally came out!

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 30th August 2021: Bank Holiday Monday, it’s nice having an extra day at the weekend, shame we can’t do it every weekend. We set the alarm for 6.30 this morning even though it’s a holiday, better start practising for the working week ahead, John has jobs to go to and I have plenty to be getting on with here.

After doing the rounds John went out to get a bit more of the driveway done, by the time he finishes it will be time to start again 🙄 I had plenty to do in the garden and started off with a fair bit of picking, it’s fast and furious at this time of year and I picked courgettes, cucumbers, peppers, chillies, tomatoes, runner beans, a couple of apples that were ready, some pears and a couple of melons. While I was picking the runner beans I noticed that John had not recovered the cauliflower and cabbage plants I put in a few weeks ago. They are on the area he has been putting new boxes in and we had to work around them, when I was helping him the day before I had said we need to make sure the cover goes back on to stop the butterflies laying eggs. He worked on his own yesterday and took the cover off but didn’t replace it 🤬 I called him a few choice names and then had to carefully look over all the leaves and get any eggs off, they would be ravaged if I didn’t, weeks of growing almost ruined by being completely thoughtless 😤 He was contrite enough to say sorry but I don’t think he fully gets it 🤷‍♀️ I will have to check them daily for a while just in case I missed any. I also spent a good bit of time covering the other boxes with membrane to stop the cats using them as a toilet block. I dug in some soil conditioner that I already had and also some biochar that I ordered at the beginning of the year which I also dug in. Biochar is organic material that has been burnt at extremely high temperatures without oxygen, it helps with soil structure, it can hold onto to water and therefore water soluble nutrients, it’s beneficial for soil micro organisms, reduce nutrient leaching, basically it stabilises the soil and it will remain in the soil for 1000 years or more so they say. It captures carbon and holds onto it so it is very good from and environmental point of view as well, let’s see if it makes any difference, I hope it does, all the science says it works well.

It was one of my nieces birthdays today and so we went for a BBQ late afternoon and into the evening.

Tuesday: A housework day today so not much else going on other than hoovering polishing and cleaning.

Wednesday: I did a few bits and pieces this morning, then Shelley arrived with Josh and Flo for a visit. John called in mid morning in-between jobs and had a cup of tea with us all. Once everyone had left I went into the small tunnel and spent a good while cutting back all the leaves on the tomato plants. All that is left are the stems and any trusses that still have tomatoes of any decent size on, I will leave them on to ripen. Any fruits that were slightly on the turn from green have been picked and placed in the kitchen window to carry on ripening. I also picked some French beans and watered the greenhouse. A bit tired today so had a couple of hours sit down and catch up with some favourite programmes before sorting out dinner. Then mid evening it was time to go along to what I hope is going to be my new hobby, flower arranging 😁 It was the clubs first meeting since the beginning of the pandemic and there was a good turn out. I knew a couple of members slightly and made the acquaintance of a few more, they were a friendly lot and I came away with a list of what I need for next months meeting where I will be doing my first arrangement 😁 I have done arrangements a few times before for things like Christmas but I want to learn about techniques and form. It’s nice to have a new hobby especially one I have wanted to do for years, finally got there.

Thursday: A busier day today so far. Once the morning jobs were finished I set about processing the produce I had lying around waiting to be sorted, there were a few windfall cooking apples from the front tree so I made apple and raspberry (only had a few, bee rubbish weather for later fruiting) crumble for dinner later, chopped up peppers and French beans to open freeze along with some lemon slices which will be put into a tub and used when needed. I was saying to Shelley about not buying lemon as they get left in the fruit bowl sometimes, she said she slices hers and freezes them so I thought that was a sensible idea and decided to do that as well. Then I went out and did some picking, plenty of cucumbers this morning, eating apples, tomatoes, swede, a banana squash, carrots, celery leaves, garlic chives and a small amount of basil and coriander. The last four I have literally just frozen them as they are in tubs for use through the winter. The swede and carrot I cooked together and mashed, that will be frozen, the banana squash will keep for a few weeks so no need to sort that just yet, the tomatoes are on the window sill with plenty of others ripening and I am thinking I might make some tzatziki with some of the cucumbers, I was just researching to see how well it freezes. I also had to pick a couple more bunches of flowers as the one out front sold and I harvested some lemon grass to put out for sale as well as putting some lemon plants up for sale on social media.

Swede, apples, cucumbers, banana squash, carrots, garlic chives, basil, celery leaves.

I had to go and pick up a parcel that got delivered to next door instead, it was live plants so needed picking up fairly quickly. On the way I thought I would just have a quick look in the shed and found that someone had taken some of the jalapeño peppers from the carton they are sold in. This made me cross as they had left four in there, I weigh these out so that everybody gets a fair deal and just to take some but not all is annoying to say the least. It could be that they only wanted a few and paid for all of them but even so that’s not helpful. It could be that they just took them and didn’t pay at all I have no idea 🤷‍♀️ We run it on an honesty system and I think 98% of people are good citizens but some can’t help themselves 🙄 I don’t want to be watching all day just to make sure people are being honest, that’s not good for me and not good for the customers. I try to sell the produce as eco friendly as possible, in paper bags, loose and also cardboard cartons, the only thing I have to use are plastic cartons for fruit and things like tomatoes but they can be returned and washed so that’s not too bad. However in light of this discovery (not the first incident we have had very recently) I have found biodegradable, clear, zip seal bags and as long as I buy 500 they are not so expensive that I have to put prices up. It will be better really because I can then put out bunches of fresh herbs which I couldn’t before as they go limp quickly and I can seal the produce in the bag which will be better from a hygiene/Covid perspective, so in a roundabout way it has helped but still, why would you do that 😕

I have been following the build up to an interesting experiment, eating only what you grow, forage or barter (goods for goods) for the month of September. It is more difficult than you think, when I first listened and watched I thought, well that would be easy enough, but actually the more I thought about it the harder it became, as you will see it is things like salt and coffee that are irreplaceable lol. Although salt can be foraged from the ocean obviously, it is very time consuming process for very little return. Below is the link to the you tube channel if you are interested.

Friday: Started of with the same weather as the last couple of weeks, grey, overcast and a tad cold but the sun came out at lunchtime 😁 I did a fair bit of picking to begin the day which included a good load of plums, the Victoria’s on closer inspection seem to be mostly good, I also picked greengage and damsons. I tidied the kitchen and planned to make jam or chutney etc but the postman arrived with some plants and as I have a busy couple of days ahead I thought I better get them in the ground. They are kale plants, I didn’t sow seed in time and so had to order 10 plants, 5 different types so it will be interesting to see what they all taste like. Then as I was out there I decided to organise another raised bed and plant up some bulbs (allium of various types, tulips, and ranunculus) phlox, geum and knapweed, these are the first of my planting for cut flowers next spring. I dug up a few other small plants ready to divide, they are resting in a bucket of water for the time being as the sun was a bit too strong for me to stay out (Sod’s law 😂)

Kale planted for the winter, always good to have some tasty fresh veg in the colder months. These have now been covered so that the butterfly’s don’t lay eggs on them and the cats don’t scratch them up 🙄
This is all the greenery that is left of the tomato plants but even since I stripped them the remaining fruits have been ripening 😁

Saturday: Spent the day away from the Smallholding leaving John in charge, I went shopping for my Mother of the Bride outfit 😁

Sunday: Been super busy today, cutting back, dead heading, mowing, watering as it’s really dry everywhere 🙄 The sun made an appearance, finally right at the end of summer it decided to come out in full force 😂 I will probably do some watering this evening as well just to keep things ticking over. Some nights are cold enough for a good dew which will suffice at this time of year but with the hot day like today extra watering might be needed so everything doesn’t keel over.

Have a good week 😁