Monday 26th September 2022: Arrghh where is the year disappearing too 🙄 I will try to be a bit more efficient with writing the blog this week 😂 Today the weather is squally, windy, rainy at times with the sun occasionally appearing and definitely a tad cooler. I did think though that today would be a good day to get some washing dry and apart from one dash to retrieve it from the line I managed to get two lots dry 😁 I also planted up a few plants, three to be precise before the rain started, and I have sown some sweet pea seeds (long stem) The dinner was in the slow cookers early on, chicken stew with dumplings for John and Parmesan chicken for me. I do love this time of year, it’s when you get to reap the rewards for all the veg growing and foraging. I also made a sponge pudding which will be cooked in the microwave, I cooked down some blackberries with sugar, they went into the bottom of the pudding basin and then a basic sponge mix with added diced apple mixed in went on the top. That will take only a few minutes to cook and voila, dessert, it’s not corden bleu I know but it will be tasty and filling and that’s all that it needs to be 🥰
I checked the bulbs I planted in the big tunnel, the last time I looked a mouse or something had dug up an anemone bulbs and chewed on it 😡 but luckily it does not look as though any more have been got at. I did leave the door open so that the cats could patrol it and help out a little. It is kind of coming to the end of the cut flower season, having said that I had prepared in advance for flowers to take me up into December, chrysanthemums are ideal for this and I have them planted in tubs so that I can move them under cover if I need to. I have early spring bulbs in pots that can be forced in stages for the new year and I am much more aware of what needs to be done than I was this time last year 😂 I would say my first cut flower season has been a success, I have sold flowers and plenty of them, next year I plan to build on that by reviewing what I have learnt, honing my skills and learning more over the winter months. I have a new planner for 2023, one that means I can keep all the information in one place, what, where, when, how, who and I am looking forward to using it fully. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and my only regret is that I didn’t start years ago 🙄 It was a pretty rough introduction with the weather we have had this summer but as with veg growing, no two years are ever the same and so next year it will be different obstacles to overcome, bring on the challenge 🤪
Tuesday: Dmard bloods first thing this morning, it will be interesting to see if they show anything, been feeling quite fatigued, stiff finger joints, cramp everywhere, sore feet. I could of course just be getting old and falling apart 🤪 Once I got back I started on my project for the day, an indoor one today. Operation thermal lined curtains 😂 I will say first off that I can sew and I have in the past sewn all my curtains and fitted bedcovers. I spent a good few years sewing coats in a local factory when I left school so am well practised but I didn’t want to sew these. I wanted to do a no sew project and see how it came out and so I bought some thermal curtain lining and some stick on Velcro, it’s pretty successful! The lining does not fray so needs no seam sowing and the Velcro sticks well, so I cut it to the size I wanted, put the Velcro on and then the opposite on the back of the curtain and ta da, thermal lined curtains the easy way. The curtains are already lined and it was a toss up between buying new thermal curtains or using the curtains I have already and putting another lining on, I went for the latter. It is almost impossible to detect that I have done it, you wouldn’t know unless I showed you really. You may wonder why bother, well because every little helps as they say, plus in the summer they will work in reverse (keeping the heat out) win, win I reckon 🥰 We already had thermal door curtains for the back door and the door between the kitchen and the boot room. I got those a couple of years ago because we did have draughty spots around those doors, they don’t stay up all year but today I got them out and put them up for the winter 🥶 I rather like making sure that we are as cosy and toasty as possible for as little money as possible and as I have said before, I like to challenge myself to do better.
Wednesday: Mid afternoon sit down 😁 This morning I got the dinner ready to go in the slow cooker, the last bit of hogget from the freezer. It was a breast and I have rolled it and put in plenty of rosemary and garlic. I also made some flatbreads for my soup at lunchtime, Greek yoghurt and self raising flour, mix it up, pat it out and dry fry, easy peasy. Then I had a hair cut and after that I was able to get out side and get some work done. I have planted plants, sown seeds, dug up self seeded plantlets and potted those, dug up the scented pelargoniums (they will not survive outside) and potted those up. I have taken some cuttings of those in case the plants don’t make it through. They don’t even like being in an unheated greenhouse and so they are going to Mums as she has a conservatory 😂 There is a ton of work to do still 🤪 but I am getting there slowly, I need to write this down every day just so I know where I am at 😁 The bed that had the pelargonium has been cleared and now has direct sown seed of pink love in a mist, some daucus and something else that I have completely forgotten already. I covered the bed and hopefully they will sprout over autumn and winter and I won’t need to tend to those until next spring. There are plenty of flowers still growing but you always have to be thinking six months ahead otherwise you miss the timings. For instance I already have my dahlia tubers ordered and paid for but they won’t be delivered until next year.
Thursday: Quick sit down mid afternoon before a customer comes for their flowers. I have made lamb and sweet potato soup today in the slow cooker, left over lamb from yesterday plus anything else that needed using up, courgettes, mushrooms etc. I left the juices form the lamb last night to cool down and have taken off the solidified fat which I will freeze for roasting potatoes another day and the delicious jelly that is left behind is incorporated into the soup mix. I have sown some Ammi seeds today, picked courgettes and around 160, yes 160 eating apples from a dwarf tree that is growing in the veg garden. Wowsers, it cropped heavily this year 😁 Approx two thirds are storable so they will be wiped and dried and then wrapped individually in newspaper and stored in the apple rack in the pantry. They are delicious 😋 I had one with a chunk of Stilton for lunch.
All the apples are now sorted and those that will store are wrapped and safe in the apple rack. It’s this time of year I get my ‘squirrel’ head on 😂 I don’t know what it is but I like to start stocking up, it’s not like we live in the back of beyond or anything so I guess it is a primal trait 🤪 A well stocked pantry is a thing of beauty especially when a lot of it is home grown, it feels like a great accomplishment, bring on six foot of snow I am ready for it 🥰
Sunday: Ooops missed a couple of days lol. Friday we went out with George and Lucie to show them the fish at the garden centre and have cake of course 😁 Saturday I spent the morning doing a dried flower wreath and the afternoon dividing and potting up achillea plants ready for next spring. Today was another lovely sunny day, Charlie, Macca and Oscar came over in the morning and in the afternoon John carried on with boarding out the back area, all the gaps where the wind blows in are nearly filled now. I spent some time in the greenhouse potting up self sown rock soapwort or tumbling Ted and planting a couple of plants in the beds. I had a customer come for flowers, I have done quite a few bunches and bouquets this week and I don’t really want the season to change, the leaves are beginning to die back of lots of things 😢 I guess that is what it is all about though, the changing seasons and so we will move into the next season and who knows I may even love it.
Monday 12th September 2022: After last week who knows what this week will bring but one thing it’s already brought is rain! Seriously 😐 months of drought and high temperatures and then wham rain, rain, rain, when is a girl supposed to get the washing dry 🤷♀️ We had a dry day yesterday, that’s the first day for over a week that the washing hasn’t gone out, come in and gone out again 🤪 I was hoping to get some of the bigger stuff washed and dried before winter but at this rate I won’t succeed.
Mid morning and I am sitting down for a coffee, I already have the dinner on, two batches in the slow cookers 😁 One is chicken stew and one is chicken korma, if I am making dinner for this evening I might as well make bigger batches and then freeze some portions for another day, all part of my cost saving drive. I read an interesting article this morning, it appears that Mr Putin (and I don’t know him so I can’t confirm lol) was hoping to freeze Europe into submission over Ukraine this winter by turning off the gas. His thinking, I guess, is that we are so reliant on it that we would have no choice but to let him have his way. It has had the opposite effect and apparently European businesses have shaved a whopping 22% off their energy needs 👏 If that can be achieved collectively for the domestic consumption as well then it would definitely be a two fingered salute in his direction. So as well as helping your bank balance you can also help in the effort of standing up to a bully by tweaking your own energy consumption wherever possible 🥰
The next two jobs on my list, we’ll they were not on the list but they needed doing, were to clean and tidy the boot room and the pantry. They have both become dumping grounds over the summer and it was time to sort them out, put things away, hoover, clean and tidy. I needed the pantry floor area cleared so that I could get into the apple rack to store apples for the winter 😁 I have some lovely apples and still more to pick as they become ripe and I want to store them for as long as possible. Each one will be individually wrapped in paper and stored in the racks, they will be checked over each week and any that are spoiling will get used quickly. The carrots will also be stored in there, I have tried storing them in sand but they end up rubbery so some will get chopped and frozen and then the ones in the pantry will get used up first over the next couple of months.
I have a very long list of jobs to get through but I feel I have made a great start this morning, let’s hope I can keep it going 😂
Onto cleaning hoovering and cleaning the kitchen, smashing a milk bottle while I was in the process 🙄 then hoovering the sitting room. While I was doing that I had the top half of the stable door open and when I went back into the kitchen I had been invaded, by flies. Urgh there were approx 30/40 of them buzzing round so I closed all the blinds and curtains and opened the windows, by now they were in the sitting room too. They head for the light but once behind the fabric can’t find their way out again, that was the idea anyway, eventually after about an hour and a half I had managed to get rid of all but two or three persistent little buggers. I had a flurry of enquiries about flower bouquets so I will be quite busy with those over the next two days, I am hoping the rain holds off although I have done the washing Hokey Cokey again today 🤪
The weather tomorrow looks shockingly wet across the country and so I cut flowers tonight for two lots going out tomorrow. After eating our dinner we went out to the yearly local fair, Witney Feast, we have been going every year for over 40 years and only missed a couple for various reasons. We no longer go on the rides 😂 but love walking round and soaking up the atmosphere of a big fair. This one goes back over 700 years ‘Witney Feast started in 1243 when King Henry III granted two deer from the Royal Forest of Wychwood to celebrate the rededication of the church’ Over those hundreds of years it has changed from feasting to selling livestock and wares and these days it is adrenaline pumping rides, flashing lights and traditional hook a duck stalls as well as food stands which used to be just fish and chips or sweets and now includes all types of fast food. It is the point in the year that John always says ‘that’s it, Witney Feast is here and so is Winter’ 😂 The fair moves onto Chipping Norton after it’s two days at Witney and becomes the ‘Chippy Mop’ which was a hiring fair in origin also dating back hundreds of years. I love that these events like so many others have been happening for that long, all part of the rich history and traditions of our country 🥰 The rain didn’t come.
Tuesday: No sign of the rain yet but I don’t doubt it will arrive at some point today 🤪 After getting the eggs sorted and out I cut some more flowers and foliage, I did some dead heading and I cut a few bits for drying as well. Next job was to batch up and freeze the food I made yesterday and then think about todays food 🙄 While I was in the freezer I found a lamb bone from a past roast so that went into the slow cooker along with various veg, it will make a nourishing soup for today. I also decided to give a pudding a go in the other slow cooker, I found a recipe and loosely followed it 😬 It was a basic sponge mix (but without egg, interesting to see how that works out) milk was added as per the recipe to create a batter. Grease the slow cooker dish pour in the batter (thickish) put chopped apple all over the top of the sponge, drizzle a couple of teaspoons of honey over those and sprinkle cinnamon (I used nutmeg instead) I also sprinkled a dash of lime juice for added flavour. No idea how it will turn out 🤷♀️ I will let you know but it does mean I am free to get on with the rest of my day 🥰
Wednesday: I spent the morning costing up and ordering for the wreath making evenings, finalising all the details of dates and time plus terms and conditions and points to note. It looks like I will have to put a third night on as there is interest which is great. I now have to chivvy John up to get the ceiling sorted and make a cover for the pool table, I have ordered an oil cloth to go over the top of it all. The. I will need to get myself into gear to make up all the willow rings at some point but I made one up yesterday and covered it with moss and it looks great and certainly will make a good base for a wreath. I also went out and picked rose hips, stripped the thorns and placed them in a glycerine solution to keep them supple and hold the colour if possible. There will be quite a lot more to get done and organised but I am happy that it’s all going in the right direction. Mostly in the afternoon I had a sit down, as always I am usually researching or looking things up, you can never know enough 😂
Thursday: I took a chance and hung out some washing, I checked the rain radar and nothing of any great amount is showing up even though it looks like it might rain at any minute. I spent an hour or more cutting flowers, these are for jam jars going out tomorrow, mostly stems that are too short or flowers that need cutting to let others come on. I also cut a fair amount of cosmos which I had made up into a bunch to go out for sale.
Friday: Busy morning, busy afternoon, then lost me mojo 🙄 I can’t remember what I did first thing but sometime in the morning I cleared two raised beds and planted a lot of bulbs. There were 80 bridal crown narcissi, 25 gladioli, approx 30 fritillary and 25 allium, I have a lot more to plant but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Some of them will go into pots to sell in flower next spring and some will go into the ornamental beds as well. Oh I remember what it was I did first of all, fetching the willow whips I cut down at the beginning of the year, I tidied them up by cutting off any branching bits (putting them to one side) and then sorted them into sizes. I need to soak them in order to make willow wreaths with them, some of the smaller branches I cut off were supple enough to have a go at making mini willow wreaths so I made a couple of those as well as a fresh willow one to see how well that worked. In the afternoon I did a fair bit of dried flower work, I have been making dried flower broomsticks in various sizes as I thought they would be nice for October. Then I revamped my two dried flower wreaths, I always keep the Christmas wreath bases and dry them out, they can then be used in a number of ways including dried flower wreaths. I have used the flowers that were for Sam’s wedding so that’s a nice keepsake 🥰 I tidied up and then lost my mojo, no idea where it went but it’s definitely gone 🤪
Saturday: Busy morning, I started off in the big tunnel clearing away dead stuff, the cucumbers are struggling and I think I have enough tomatoes to last me a year 😂 so they got cleared but it was sunny and became a bit hot in there. I then went onto planting up loads of plants into the front shrub bed, I also planted lots of bulbs. Meanwhile John was putting up the ceiling in the pool room, it was insulated when he did it but needed boarding over the top and as that is where I will be doing the wreath evening, I wanted him to get on and finish it in plenty of time. I cut flowers this morning for a birthday tomorrow and made up a bunch of dried flowers for a birthday. Talking of birthdays it is Sam’s today, they have taken the caravan away for the weekend but not too far so I went with Shelley, Josh and Flo plus a cake and we met them at the campsite. We had a lovely couple of hours, the kids went out on their little boat on the river and then we got a lift back to the car via the river. It was lovely and serene on the water and a great way to spend a couple of hours in the afternoon. John stayed home to get on with the ceiling, he also cut the lawn and did the chickens, I should go out more often he gets more done when I am not here 😂
It’s definitely chillier in the mornings and evenings but the sun in the daytime is still pretty warm.
The wreath evenings are booking up and I am certainly looking forward to doing them, I collected some gorgeous red Virginia creeper today and have put it in glycerine to see if it holds its colour, I also collected ash keys to see if they will too.
Sunday: Not a terribly productive day today, food shopping, round to Mums for a coffee on the way back. Then a trip to the garden centre to find they didn’t have what I wanted so we went to a different garden centre, still couldn’t find it so came home empty handed (I know 🤪) Sat down and ordered it online instead 🙄 Had an easy afternoon watching a very old film 😂 cooked and ate dinner, John washed up while I got some flowers ready. That’s it! Some days you just have to slow down a little 😁
Still no rain.
Have a lovely week, I am sure we will all be watching the state funeral, big occasion. I hope they have excellent security in place, nothing like having all the major heads of countries in one place for someone to try for a new world order 😬
Monday: 25th April 2022: A new week, tad chillier this week in the morning but it did warm up as the day went on. John had to phone the doctor this morning about his arm, who sent him to the MIU (who didn’t want to see him at the weekend) for an x-ray, when he got there they said he couldn’t have one without a referral from the doctor (who had just told him to go there 🙄) so he called the doctor who sent the referral over, got the x-ray done, no break which is good but they said they would send the info over to the doctor next week. Next week! He was kind of left in limbo then as he has to get his job finished but he is having real problems with the mobility and pain in the arm, next week pfft. We had the conversation that many people are having about what has happened to the NHS since covid. Don’t get me wrong I fully support them and I think overall they do an amazing job and during the pandemic the strain would have been unbearable but the service does not seem to have come out the other side yet. Multiple factors I am guessing like massive back logs and workloads but the basic functions of connecting departments seems to have fractured leaving people in limbo and I know I am not the only one saying this. Having said all that John must have said something to them because in the afternoon he had a call from the doctor who was surprised at how quickly she got his results back 😁 Anyway the upshot is that the elbow joint is worn out, I told John that is lifting too many cups of tea 😂 didn’t go down well 😝 in all honesty it will be the years of plastering, grouting and heavy lifting that has done it and he is basically getting old and falling to bits. The doctor was great though and has given him stronger painkillers, told him that if after his holiday and rest it is no better, to go back and they will look at more options, can’t ask for more than that it was just the getting there that was difficult.
Meanwhile back here I was busy getting on with the day, weeding, pottering, watering, checking things over, all the usual stuff and nothing more exciting than that really.
Tuesday: Still a chilly start to the morning almost cold enough for a touch of frost I think. Once the eggs were done and out, the washing was on, the household bits done, I went out to cut some flowers for a hand held posy someone has ordered and collecting g later today. Doing a smaller posy is lovely because you can use the smaller flowers that don’t have the stem length needed for a bouquet and there are some delightful flowers to use.
I have started to wash my tops with the UV wash which gives me just a little added protection from the sun in the coming weeks. Every little helps as they say and I have already started to get itchy raised bumps on my arms so I need to be more careful going forward. We often think the spring sunshine is not strong but the UV rays are still capable of doing damage to my skin and it would be good to get it under control as soon as I can, that is the best way to avoid a flare up.
I went out to look over the plants for sale out the front to find something has dug out some of the strawberry plants. Judging by the smell it’s fox looking for worms 🙄 yesterday it stole the butter left by the milk man and it has been leaving its smell and making a mess tipping out various rubbish here. We have know it has been hanging around for a while because every morning when I open the back door it stinks of fox, it has tried digging in the run where the front chickens are as well. All of this does not bode well because the mandatory housing restrictions for the poultry is being lifted on May 1st, we will need to get something sorted before they are allowed out.
Another fiasco we have had is that someone has hit Johns van while it was in the driveway 😡 hit it and then just driven off, it’s not the damage so much as the not saying anything that is infuriating. He has been like a little rabid dog trying to figure out exactly when and who it was. I get it, I really do but chuntering on and on and on about it will not solve anything at all. It’s done, the damage is done, we have an idea of who it was but no way of proving it so 🤷♀️ what can you say except that some peoples morals are not very high 😏
I said back in the middle of the pandemic that I thought we were in for a bumpy few years ahead, not sure why I just had a sense of foreboding 😏 The pandemic was bad enough, the invasion of Ukraine by someone who can only be described as an out of touch despot made it all worse and the knock on effect of both of these events are food shortages, a fuel crisis and big price rises. Now to add to the misery we could well be heading for a drought year, a dry Winter, lack of rain in Feb, March and April and the longer forecast showing not much sign of rain for most of May 🙄 John and I have been saying for weeks that it’s not looking good this year, the water tanks are almost empty and no rain ahead to fill them up again. I know we have mains water but that all adds to the bills so we try and use as much rainwater as we can collect for the animals and garden. The soil has a deficit of 23mm of water at the minute which doesn’t sound like a lot but it is Spring and 51% of the rivers are below normal levels already. Hopefully we will get some eventually, probably a deluge just when we don’t want it 😂
A small hand held posy made to order today for someone who has lost a family member, this one has one small sprig of symbolic Rosemary in it which represents remembrance ❤️
Wednesday: I was up before the alarm went off this morning, at first the sunrise looked promising but it soon clouded over and was a tad chilly for a while. I had breakfast, got the usual stuff sorted, washing, eggs, rubbish, recycling and then it was time to cut flowers 🥰 I don’t think this will ever get boring 🌸😁 I have two bigger bouquets to make up today, one for a birthday and one is a weekly order going forward. The tulip season is going to be over soon but there is so much more coming on, I watch the garden every day to see what is coming next, in the words of Penny (Patricia Hodge) from Miranda (one of my absolute favs) it is ‘such fun’. Once the flowers and foliage are cut they are ‘conditioned’ this means sitting in a bucket of water in a cool dark place for as many hours as possible before arranging into a bouquet. Sometimes there is a little bit of extra conditioning to do for some things, woody or hollow stems but in the whole they are all pretty much treated the same.
The rest of the day remained chilly 🥶
I did a bit of pricking out and some potting on in the greenhouse and some pottering around. I spent way too much time trying to get something up and running online 🙄 I cut a load of hazel and soaked it in the bath for something I want to try out for a flower arrangement I have to do. I made two prototypes of the thing I had in mind, one out of paper and one out of wire to see how it would all go together. Then finally I tried it with the soaked hazel sticks, half of it went well the other half not so much, not at all in fact 😝 I have good ideas but I am not very good at executing them, on that basis I have asked if anyone has anything similar I can borrow that is already made 😂
Then it was time to make up the two bouquets, one to be delivered the other to be collected, it is just delightful working with such beautiful flowers and foliage 🥰
Thursday: It’s still cold, what’s with the lack of sunshine, mind you with the total lack of rain as well it’s probably not a bad thing, everything would be keeling over by now otherwise. I did say to John I would go out and give anything struggling a bit of the wet stuff but once out there I felt it seemed too cold and they wouldn’t benefit from getting even colder, tricky one. So instead of that and after I had done the necessary jobs, I decided to play with flowers 😁 I had a colour combination in my head and wanted to see how it turned out, rather splendidly I think don’t you?
Dark purple and white tulips, an allium and some pale blue Jerusalem cowslips together with mock orange foliage and some sambucus nigra make a winning combo 🥰
Friday, still a bit chilly but I got a few things done outside including mowing the lawn. Last year I left it for no mow May but this year we have the new lawn piece and I have to keep it cut to stop anything growing in it such as comfrey. The ground that we cleared still had a few roots left in it I think and so in order to kill them off we are going to have to keep it mown. Just before lunch Sam came over with the twins, the farrier was coming late afternoon and so she came to get the horses in beforehand. She couldn’t stay because it was right over school pick up time but it meant all I had to do was get them out of the stable and tie them up on the hard standing area. Biscuit had been a bit pottery on her feet but luckily she has not developed laminitis, her feet had just grown a bit long and she was footsore. She is now all trimmed up and on a restricted patch of ground so she doesn’t end up poorly. Jack is fine so he gets turned back out on the grass.
Saturday: Up and got all my jobs done because I was off out for the day with a friend 🥰 We went to a Beltane singing group day, it was lovely, we sat in a circle, the entrance was a May bower with foliage and ribbons and we sang songs about May and Beltane and the Green Man. We went to the woods and sang among the Bluebells and really connected with nature, I feel very ‘earthed’ now 😁 Or at least I did until I got back 🤪
We have what I can only described as the most incompetent pharmacy ever or so it seems. Month after month they never have my prescription ready despite having put it in well in advance, it’s always the same, you will have to come back tomorrow, I leave it to the last possible day as it is. This time John came home with it and it was only a bit of it, come back for the rest tomorrow 🙄 he goes back today while I was out and when I got home it was only a bit more of it and by now the place had shut and I am without some of my meds until they open again. They just didn’t give him the whole lot, nobody checked to see what should have been there and realised that was not all of it. I would t complain but this is all the time, it’s fractious going to pick up a prescription from them and it’s not just the pandemic it’s been going on for years. I would change pharmacy but from what I have heard they won’t have another company in the town 🤷♀️ how is that possible and how is it that they can give such poor service without any consequences. It’s not just me saying this either, ask just about anyone in the town and they will tell you the same thing, bloody useless and that’s on a good day!
I had to help John retrieve the goose eggs this evening, one of them is sitting but the eggs are not fertile so no point her doing that. The plan I came up with was to get the other three out of the paddock that way you only have one to deal with not the other three coming to her defence 😝 I tried a stick first to see if I could get her to move off the nest that didn’t work, so I got a bucket, put it over her head and manoeuvred her towards the door and off she went while I collected the eggs 😁
Sunday May 1st, May Day, Beltane, blessings to you all on this very special day. A day celebrated throughout time in many different countries and religions, a day to welcome the ‘growth’ of all things. One of the best days of the year I think 🥰 Except that it was cold and rainy, the rain I am not complaining about as we really need it but the cold side of it can do one 😂 Not much gone done today really, John did some burning and some cleaning out, can’t remember what I did but later in the afternoon I went over to look after Mia and the twins while Sam and Luke went out for dinner.
I did make up a small bouquet for the flower shed just in case anyone wants one 😁
Monday 28th March 2022: I spent most of the day doing bits and pieces, pottering, call it what you will. I got a few plants in the ground in various places, watered some of the pots and watered the greenhouse but apart from that nothing major. There was plenty I could have got done but was a little tired by lunchtime, quick sit down and a rest then some more pottering, that’s my day, potty 🤪
Tuesday: I can’t even remember what I did for the first part of the morning 🤷♀️ but probably the usual jobs such as eggs, rubbish, washing up, social media posts lol. Mid morning I checked the post box and I had some plug plants delivered, some I had forgotten I ordered 🙄 One lesson I really have to learn is writing down the orders and keeping the book with me at all times so I can double check when I think ‘ooo look, I think I will order those’, doubling or tripling on flower orders is not a good thing 😂 These are chrysanthemums and I am aware I have others on order, they are perennial however and so I will have them year on year. I can propagate from them to increase stock and either use that stock or sell it on so it’s ok, that’s what I am telling myself anyhow 🤪 As soon as I unpacked them I made a coffee and went into the greenhouse to pot them up, they will stay in there until this cold snap moves on and then I will put them in the cold frames until the danger of frosts has passed when they will be planted out. These are early to mid season chrysanthemums, I also have some mid to late ones on order, most are spray chrysanthemums which will be fillers but some are single bloom and beautiful shapes and colours.
It is quite a bit colder today, the sun has gone and we have grey cloud and drizzle, by Thursday we will have minus temps overnight and even the threat of some snow 🙄 It’s the see saw season with swings of up 10 degrees in each direction at the moment.
Lunchtime some bare roots shrubs arrived so I soaked them in water for an hour before going outside to plant them up. There should have been five but in fact there were six 😁 I planted up four of them in various areas, one out in the front paddock where I have some other small shrubs trying to grow. Another on the edge of the orchard area, one near the pirate ship and one down in the difficult area of the bottom bed, should do ok there but veg don’t. The remaining two I potted up and put in the cold frame area where they will stay until they form some good roots and then will go out for sale. Then I decided to sow some runner beans and some dwarf French beans, these will be grown in the greenhouse for quite a while before they are ready to go out. After that a bit of pricking out, Ami Majus, which is a great filler flower a bit like cow parsley. I will direct sow some seeds for that as well but as always I like to hedge my bets and get some started under cover. I can definitely see me thinking about bigger under cover areas in the future, I am filling up every available space I have at the minute 😂
Wednesday: Very much colder today than last week, today I decided not to go outside and do any work, I stayed in the warm instead. I spent the best part of the morning baking cakes 🍰 two Madeira cakes, one chocolate and almond and one everyday fruit cake, I also made up some batches of Yorkshire pudding mix to freeze for the times when we don’t have many eggs. The reason I did that is because we have so many eggs that I really need to do some thing useful with them. I am trying as hard as I can to sell as many as I can but with all the pullets laying like crazy, we have a lot so might as well turn them into something for the freezer. Went outside early evening it is positively Baltic 🥶
Plenty of cakes for the freezer, got to use the glut of eggs we are getting.
Thursday: Today should have been the highlight of the year so far for me but it wasn’t, gutted does not come close. On Monday I tested positive for covid and today I was supposed to be going on the course day with Sarah Raven but am unable to go 😭🤬 Yeah, it sucks, worse there is no cancellation policy for covid, worse still they didn’t even acknowledge my email to say I couldn’t attend.
The day got worse as one of the Turkey ladies has died overnight so now Ted only has one lady friend. It is even colder today than yesterday and we have had quite a few snow flurries on and off through the day though none of it has settled so far. One good thing that happen though, the card reader arrived today so I can at least take card payments in the future plus get some QR codes up and running.
Going back to the covid, that is obviously why I felt quite tired last week, I also had a very sore throat (but didn’t know that was a symptom) I tested on Friday because of the way I felt but it was negative so I thought I just had a bug. Sunday evening I had a really bad headache that I still had on Monday morning so I thought I would test again. I checked the test after 10 mins, nothing, five minutes later it had a faint line 😳 Because I am on immune suppressants I have a specially issued PCR test that I then had to do and send off, that result came back positive as well on Tuesday morning 😩 However by Tuesday the illness seemed to have ‘broken’ and I had nothing but by this time the wheels had started in motion and so I was awaiting a phone call from the next stage of the chain. That was a call from a Dr from infection control 🤪 we had a discussion about when the illness started, what symptoms I had and how I was now feeling, the upshot was that he didn’t think I needed the anti viral medication that I could get to lessen the effect of the virus. I agreed with him, it seems that my immune system has done the job after all which is good news 😁 I need to watch out for the next couple of weeks apparently as breathing complications can appear well after the virus has gone 🤷♀️ Today I was amazed to find in the post box a replacement PCR test kit, I am impressed that the system they put in place works exactly as they say it will, good job, well done 👏
Friday: Still testing positive but all I have is a ‘fuzzy’ head and I often have that anyway 😂 I thought we might wake up to snow this morning, yesterday late afternoon and evening there were flurries of snow some of them pretty intense but they haven’t amounted to anything and the sun is shining beautifully this morning though it is still cold and frosty.
We had the final window fitted today so now they all match lol, before it was even in I was looking at decoration ideas. It is the spare room and was last done around 8 years ago, now a new smaller window has been fitted it will need some making good and so might as well be upgraded at the same time 😁 I love a project 🥰
I potted up some scented pelargonium that I had ordered. I am not a geranium type ordinarily but scented ones, yes please 😁 If you are ever planning a sensory garden then you have to include these, apple, lemon, mint, all the wonderful smells you can get with these little gems are amazing.
I have been watching Bridgerton 🥰 Shelley said to me ‘I can’t believe you haven’t seen it’ so I thought I would see what it was all about. Well I love it, it is multifaceted, relatable on so many levels and comparable even to modern society, social media in particular. It is refreshingly easy to watch, witty and the characters are likeable, beautiful and downright handsome. Scandal, love, unrequited love, deception, plus the costumes and sets are perfectly gorgeous, what more could you want ❤️ I think writer was particularly clever, a large family of boys and girls spanning a good few years in ages will give you reams of storylines for future series and I for one cannot wait for the next series 😁
Saturday: John spent the day taking down old fencing, mowing the lawn and getting a bit of shopping. I spent the morning in the greenhouse, moving things around, moving plants over to the poly tunnel, putting some things out into the cold frame, I actually don’t know exactly what but we did do some things 🤪
Sunday: Finally having negative tests mean I can go out, I know you can anyway these days but I wouldn’t because I didn’t feel it was very responsible so I stayed put. I wanted to go to the diy shop to get some particular flowers that the website said they had, they didn’t 😏 so we went to the garden centre to see if they had them, they didn’t and worse we thought we would get breakfast but they were not cooking 😏 called in to see my brother on the way back for a coffee and he said go to this other shop they have loads of bargains, they had sold out 😏 not a terribly productive morning on the plant buying front 😂 Called in to see Mum and Ken to wish her a belated happy birthday and then back home. I did pick up some half price lily bulbs so I planted those when I got back, I also spent a good couple of hours in the greenhouse pricking out tomato seedlings (pretty big seedlings 🙄) and potting them up. I potted on some crazy daisies, Californian poppies and some China asters. Meanwhile John cleaned out the hens at the front and the back.
I took my very first card payment now we have a card machine 😁 hopefully that will be a useful addition, since covid people don’t carry much cash anymore. I need to set up the QR codes for another easy way to pay.
Tuesday 8th February 2022: Yes Tuesday 🤬 I have completely lost the draft I started yesterday 🤷♀️ I am having a mare with technology at the minute, slow to load everything although my provider says all lines in are working correctly. I began to think I had been hacked so changed all my passwords including the one for this blog (I had a spike in stats which seemed sus) and now everything is up s**t creek without a paddle as they say. I have done all the things they suggest plus updated all the security ware and the first thing I find when I log on this site is a missing draft and weirdly some of the posts have had dates changed, I bloody hate technology sometimes. It took me all afternoon to update every install and I haven’t really got very far forward, still having issues 😫 If by some miracle I find the missing draft I will continue with it below.
Did a bit in the greenhouse first thing then Sam arrived with the twins, the farrier who was due at 12 was now coming at 10.30. We got sorted, got the horses in, filled up a hay net and a sack for the filled for when they went back out. Lucy and George helped (I say that loosely 😆) as helpful as two and a half year old can be at any rate 😁 The rest of the day was spent trying to sort the internet out, Shelley and Flo popped in for a cuppa in the afternoon.
Wednesday: I figured out why the draft is lost, because I didn’t save it before exiting doh, but all the other things still stand. I was still trying to sort it all at 9.20 last night and today it is still dropping in and out 🤪 No idea why or how to resolve it to be honest and losing the will to live trying.
No idea what I wrote on Monday and can’t remember what I actually did now either, some clearing up in the front beds I think, can’t remember what else I wrote but never mind.
I had a good day today in the garden, John was here for a while this morning, he did the rounds and then went out to finish getting the compost heap sorted. I know it seems like it’s taking ages but it had to be moved from one place to another and then again because there is not enough room to do it all in one hit. Plus he decided that he may as well riddle it after all so that takes time, he has now put all the available compost into the raised beds on the cut flower area though we still need to fill some more. I decided on four beds that way I can do four successional sowings and when one is finished in turn I can clear them. Meanwhile I sorted out plants that have been sitting all winter and are now starting to wake up, potting some on and putting some out for sale. After I finished that we stood and had a good look at the cutting patch to try and finalise where everything would be going, I think I finally have a plan. Not before time as a few things really need to go in soon so that they can start producing lovely blooms 😁 At this point, which was still only around 10am, John went off to work and I set about weeding some of the other beds. I was out there until 2pm happily weeding on my hands and knees. One of the beds is a difficult one, it has more asparagus in there and normally it is too wet to get on it and weed it, then the asparagus grows and that snaps pretty easily if you try to weed in and around it so I am pretty chuffed and more than a little amazed that I have done it already at the beginning of Feb 🙄 It has been such a dry winter that working on the soil is easy for a change. I came in and got some lunch, sat down for a rest and John came home, lol why is it always when I have just sat down 🤷♀️
I have a couple of deliveries coming this week, some more pallet collars to make raised beds and a peat free compost delivery. I should have some bare root roses arriving any day as well as more seeds 🤣 I think I need much more space than I have for these flowers, it’s becoming an obsession!
Note to self: don’t forget to save draft 🤪
Saturday: Yep I have lost some days but for no other reason that I haven’t written anything 🙄 Thursday John was home some of the day and so we worked outside as the weather was fair but that’s as much as I can remember, except that I went for my 4th vaccination and it stung this time so I came home had a cuppa and a rest lol. Friday, I did the morning rounds and pottered in the greenhouse a while then I had a compost delivery mid morning. An hour or so later Sam came over with the twins and Shelley came with Florence. I had a delivery of bare root roses in the afternoon. Back to Saturday, the wind is back and it’s cold but not freezing just feels cold and I had trouble getting warm today. Up early, because I was going out with my sister to a vintage fair in Cheltenham. I quickly planted some hellebore that arrived before I went, I wanted to get them in because it is going to rain pretty much all day tomorrow. Once I came back early afternoon, had a cuppa and a sit down, I went out to the greenhouse (not windy in there) I have been soaking some ranunculus bulbs for a day or so and now they are nice and plump I wanted to get them in pots to start them off. They will go into the cutting garden eventually (once the frosts have passed) but if I can get them ahead that’s good. I also potted up my dahlia tubers to wake them up as well, one of them has a tiny green shoot so now is a good time. The plan is to get them going and then take cutting from them before I transplant them into the garden and cutting patch. I also sowed some sweet rocket (1st sowing) Meanwhile John has also been busy today, some of the time in the garden area doing bits and pieces for me and then some other jobs on top (he told me but I have already forgotten what 😝) I haven’t put the bare root roses in yet, I am trying to decide where is going to be best to plant them 🤷♀️
I had a little play with some flowers and foliage from the garden, not a lot to work with at the minute but I enjoyed myself, I said to John I can’t wait to have loads of flowers to make big bunches with 🥰
Note to self: don’t forget to grow veg this year as well 🤣
It is just a couple of weeks now before seed sowing can start in earnest, I cannot wait lol, looking forward to the warmer, longer days.
Sunday: The weather started off ok, dry and mild but rapidly declined to bring rain for most of the day. Beforehand however we did manage to get a few things sorted, John did the animals and then a bit of tidying up in the garden, he also cleared the gully across the driveway so that any heavy rain can run away nicely. I sorted out a bit for roast dinner later and then went out to plant some bulbs that arrived yesterday and the rose bushes that arrived the day before. I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to plant these because I need to get to them but I didn’t want them so close to a patch way that up I had to brush past them, they ended up within the veg area because that is full sun which they love and not going to be difficult to get to. Then we went off to get a bit of shopping, not much just the basics, we still have plenty in the freezers to live off yet 🙄 Popped into see Mum and Ken for a coffee before returning home, we met Shelley at Mums and she came back with us to get some eggs and stopped for a cuppa and then Sam, Luke and the children turned up for an hour or two. Once they had all left I prepped the rest of the dinner and then sat down for a couple of hours. Charlie and Macca are coming to eat with us later so we will have seen almost everyone today 😂
We are, like everyone else, watching the tensions on the Russian/Ukrainian border with extreme interest, hoping that it is all some puffed up, macho nonsense. I find it difficult to believe in this day and age that one country can think it can just invade another, seems we haven’t come very far in the last 70/80 years, in fact I would go as far to say the world is dumbing down in my not very expert opinion 😏
When I went to the supermarket this morning there were rows and rows of beautiful imported flower bouquets in the front of the shop for easy access. Inside the shop behind a stack of boxes (I kid you not) we’re a few bunches of British grown tulips and daffodils, I should have complained to management really but the shop was rammed and the staff had enough to do without me adding to their problems but I may send an email.
Monday 31st January 2022: The last day of January and while I would never be one to wish my life away I am certainly glad we are another month nearer to some warmer weather 😁 John has gone to work this morning which meant I was on the rota to do the rounds, it is squally out there. The wind is from the west but it is quite cold, there are some big gusts every now and then and it’s generally unpleasant though not as bad as they are having it further North so I am grateful for that. Unless I can find enough jobs to do in the greenhouse this morning I will not be going out there until the wind dies down 😂
I realise I now have a large amount of bulbs to plant for the cutting garden and I really need to sit down and fully apply myself to the plan. I need to go through everything I have ordered that is not here yet, every plant I have already bought that is here, every lot of bulbs I have ready to go in and every seed packet that I have ready to sow. I need to organise a sowing plan both for under cover and direct sowing and make sure I leave enough room for both and then a planting plan that is beneficial to all the plants and makes it easy to harvest the flowers. I seem to be stuck on the plan but that is because I haven’t collated everything yet, I am sure once I have it will be easier to look at what need to go where. That will just be the beginning because then there will be the soil improvement, maybe raised beds to build for some things, the planting up and the sowing at the right time. Growing flowers for cutting is certainly different to growing them for pleasure, with the latter it doesn’t really matter when the flowers appear as long as they do at some point, with the former I need a steady ‘bloom’ throughout the months in order to have the best bouquets and posies. All of this will be running alongside the veg growing lol, good job I have been doing that for years and it’s almost second nature.
I finally sat down with all the seeds, a list of plants and some note markers and plotted out the cutting patch. I needed to make sure I have pathways so that I can reach the blooms with little effort and I needed to get in some sort of order what is seeded when, with or without heat, undercover or direct sow 🙄 I think I have it sorted, until I realise I have either missed something out or for something in the wrong place 😂
Mum called round and I helped her to get something sorted on her laptop so that she can hopefully get her manuscript sorted and sent off to publishers, she has been writing it and re writing it for years, time to get it looked at 🥰
I heard a noise outside and wondered what the heck it was, looked out to see our hedge being cut in the driveway. We had it done for the first time last year and John decided it was so much easier and quicker to pay someone else to do it that he had asked him to do it again this year, he randomly turns up when he has got time.
And now I can tell you what I have known for a while, we are going to have another grandchild 😁🥰 Charlie and Macca are expecting their first baby in mid August and no they didn’t waste any time but that was the plan all along! Six grandchildren 😮 awesome, we are totally delighted and can’t wait to meet him/her when the time comes.
The egg numbers dropped drastically from the hens we moved outside, arrgghh just when I need them to stabilise, I should have given that a lot more thought 🤔 it’s colder out there and they had the light on for a couple of hours after dark in the stable block, doh.
Tuesday: Positively pooped by lunchtime 😂 I spent a very busy morning outside, first I did the morning rounds and then straight onto some gardening chores. I set up a map of the beds for the cut flower garden then decided that is wouldn’t work how I had organised it so I am back to the drawing board. I cleared a few weeds from the raised bed between the tunnels, it still has some small cabbages growing in there but I also found some self set aquilegia and a primrose 🤷♀️ so I transplant those. I planted some more plants I bought at the weekend, beautiful hellebores and very bright cheery primroses. I potted up the foliage shrubs I bought a few weeks ago and I potted on various bits and pieces. I also tidied up a lot of the plants I divided at the end of last year, I leave the dead stems until I am certain I can recognise what the plant is and then snip them off. Then I went over to one of the bigger beds and started raking up debris, I emptied the compost bin nearby and started to refill it with any uncomposted materials (quite a lot of that) I got halfway through and realised it was lunchtime and I was hungry 😋 It’s breezy but the sun is shining and it is quite nice out there today.
Wednesday: The day started off on the wrong foot, John went off to work and I went to do the morning rounds and found that the hens had eaten most of the eggs that had been laid already🤬 These are the hens we moved to the outside pen and I have no idea why they are doing it, they didn’t do it in the stable 🤷♀️ I have now split them up a little, it’s not the room that is the problem but once one starts they all start. I called the supplier and ordered 40 more point of lay because these lot are now around 2/3 and they have developed bad habits 😂 It’s fair to say that they have been a delinquent bunch from the off, we have had plenty of batches in over the years and these were trouble right from day one, going where they shouldn’t, laying goodness knows where, in house fighting and now egg eating on a mass scale, time to go, once the new hens are laying well these lot will be sold off.
In order to work off my grumps I went out to the veg garden, it is a lovely day, fairly mild and the sun is out. I spent the whole morning sorting out the bed behind the fruit cage, it has the apricot tree (which doesn’t produce many apricots) the cherry tree (that the birds eat before I can get to them) the runner bean area, spare asparagus and the thornless blackberry. A bit of a mish mash and to be honest probably could do with a massive overhaul as comfrey and feverfew grow like billio in there and no matter how much I try I have a job to keep it all under control. After raking up debris and cutting down runners from the apricot tree I went on to sort the runner bean area out. This bit has some of the bindweed problem and so I have weed membrane down but I pulled it all up, cleared the bindweed roots that where surface and laid it back down. Then I did the other side of it, it seems like a bit of a wasted area really but for the time being it will stay like that as I don’t have the time or the energy to change any of it. I just need to make sure that it doesn’t get out of control because it is an area I don’t need to visit very much and so gets overlooked ( maybe call it the wild area 😉) The bindweed roots I pulled up will be burnt, don’t want to risk them in the compost otherwise the problem will get worse. I came in for lunch and a sit down, my legs got a bit wobbly, I was in need of sustenance. That’s when I sat and wrote this and I am hoping I find some energy to get back out there 😝
Thursday: I started off well, got all the morning rounds done and the hens are better behaved today, not munching on eggs, I have no idea what that was all about 🤷♀️ Then into the greenhouse to sort a few things out and pit some things up, I also tidied a few things, stuff I put down thinking I will move that later then before you know it there is quite a bit to move. I put some pots of tulips and allium out for sale, the green shoots are just pushing through the top of the soil so I know they are good and strong. Then Samantha arrived with the twins and stayed for the afternoon, normally she would then take the twins and go to pick up Mia from school, come back, drop the twins off and take Mia swimming. Today though she left Lucie with me and took George so Lucie helped me to feed the chickens and collect the eggs, she was brilliant, carrying a bucket with some corn in she fed the hens like a pro 😁 George was most upset that he didn’t get to stay and do it but he can have a turn next time though I don’t think he will be as helpful somehow. Lucie is definitely going to be an outdoorsy grafter type, George more of an indoorsy desk job type I think, he is already very precise with everything so maybe an architect lol. Once Mia came back from swimming and they had all gone home it was time to get dinner, John had pool night and I had an online masterclass about annuals, perennials and foliage 🥰 Will sleep well tonight.
Friday: Brrrr cold and raining first thing this morning with some sleet thrown in for good measure, needless to say I waited a while before going out to do the animals 😝 Once it had stopped raining I went out and got that all done, I was just sorting the eggs out when John came home having finished work for the day and it was only 9.30! That kind of put paid to my plans for the day (which actually was just a fair amount of reading and resting because I still felt tired) After having a coffee we decided to go and get some shopping done, I had made a list the night before of a few things I needed. After shopping we went round to see Mum and Ken for a cup of coffee and got back home around Midday. We actually didn’t get a lot else done to be honest, except the necessary, by the time I sorted out the evening meal, John popped out to have a quick look at a job someone in the village wants doing, and a few household bits, there wasn’t much time for anything major. Just as well really as it never warmed up at all really and the lower temps are around for a couple of days more yet.
I have another masterclass online again tonight and then one on Monday evening as well, I love it and there is always something to learn 😁
Saturday: Not sure what we did to be honest, apart from the usual jobs I rather think we didn’t do much at all in the day 😂 In the evening we went to the Cotswolds 2022 Sloe Gin competition at The Fox Inn, Broadway which is between Stow on the Wold and Morton in Marsh. The event raised money for Maggie’s cancer care charity. What a fabulous evening we had, firstly the fact that the entries wereWith members from Cornwall to Inverness, Flowers from the Farm is the award-winning membership association for artisan cut flower growers in the UK. all from the villagers was indicative of a great community, secondly the pub and its staff were friendly and welcoming. It is very many years since I have been to a pub that has that traditional village pub feel and vibe, we had great fun judging the 22 entries and giving them a score, we had some great food and a good laugh with the locals who were a welcoming, friendly bunch, honestly I couldn’t speak more highly of the whole event. We will definitely being going back to the pub and most definitely for next years competition lol. And for anyone who watches Father Brown investigates, that’s the pub they use for filming 🥰
Sunday: Despite the gin tasting last night we were up and at it this morning 😝 The windy weather is still here, getting tedious now mind you 🙄 but it is a little milder today I think. I spent the morning giving a full clean out to the quail and Guinea pig runs, once the guineas were done I went onto the quail, opened the door and one flew straight out past me and up onto the Turkey run roof. It stayed where it was and didn’t move so I went and got the clean straw, told John and he came to help me catch it. He waved a long pole in the direction of the quail who duly took off towards the greenhouse and landed in an ungainly fashion on the lawn. John went round to look for it and shouted he could find it, I went round and said ‘you have to think like a quail’ 😂 what is the first thing you would do as a timid little bird out in the big wide world, hide, I went round to the area I had seen it land and there it was tucked in some long grass. I was hoping that I would have some more quail delivered today but the chap is having difficulty getting hold of them, I am not in a hurry so it can wait. We came in for some lunch and then I sent John off to pick up a vase I had seen on marketplace, meanwhile I went into the greenhouse. It seems I have a mouse again this year because some of the sweet pea seeds have been disturbed and one which was shooting has been chewed off 🤬 I have now primed the trap with peanut butter, I need to get this one as soon as possible or I will have nothing growing, it is not an ‘all you can eat restaurant’ ya know 😏 Mid afternoon I decided that was enough outside and came in to get some compost ordered. I am swapping over to peat free, it will be good once the whole industry makes the move to only supply peat free. The only reason I don’t always use it is because I often ask John to pick some up, multipurpose compost he can mange to remember, multipurpose, pear free would be pushing it too far 😉
Some spring hope appearing 🥰
This week I joined Flowers from the Farm, this is an organisation I first saw and heard a few years ago at an RHS show. I was tempted to join back then but didn’t really have a plan going forward about growing flowers, well now I have and so I applied and became a full member 🥰
‘With members from Cornwall to Inverness, Flowers from the Farm is the award-winning membership association for artisan cut flower growers in the UK.’
If you want to read more about the association, where you can see them, what they are all about then go to www.flowersfromthefarm.co.uk they also have a live map of all members who grow flowers here in he UK (including me😁)
Monday 24th January 2022: Milder than it has been, dry and the ground is not frozen yay that means I can get outside and get something done. First though I had to get the animals all sorted as John has gone to work for a couple of hours but will be back mid morning. As soon as I could I went outside to get the job done that I had gone to sleep thinking about, sad I know 😂 The job in question was cutting back the lilacs in the veg garden. Quite a few years ago we thinned out the lilacs at the front and heeled in some whips, they were supposed to be dug up at a later point. That was probably something like seven years ago so you can guess how big they have got. They are at the end of the bed where I will be growing the cut flowers and so I cut them down by half in order to get the maximum sunshine but still provide a wind barrier, I also hope I will get some good lilac flowers from them although possibly not this year. I dug up a fair few whips to pot up and there was just one big root I couldn’t budge. John came home at that point and we went off to the diy shop to get some paint for the roadside advertising boards. I want to paint them the same colour (or near enough) to the logo background and try to pull everything together a bit better. Once back home John had to go off to the bank to shut down an account we haven’t used for around ten years but still had a small amount of money left in it. I sorted out what would be for dinner this evening and then got the smallest board in to give it a clean up and repair some little parts that had got damaged in the wind. I realised I needed to re do the blackboard paint so called John who was on his way back, he turned around and went to get the paint from the diy shop, bad management from me there but at least I can get the boards sorted. While John was out doing the afternoon rounds I painted the smallest of the boards with new blackboard paint and once it has had a makeover it will look splendid. John also went out and dug up that last root for me 😁 tomorrow we will go out there and put everything through the chipper, tidy up and that bed will be ready when I am for planting up.
Last night while checking my emails I looked at a particular website and decided I might like to go on one of the courses they were offering. I talked it over with John because it’s not cheap lol, but I am so excited to have booked a cut flower day course with Sarah Raven 🥰 She is the guru of cut flowers in the UK and I can’t wait to go and do that, yep it’s fair to say I am ‘cock a hoop’ about that.
At times I think to myself ‘whoa, what are you doing’ and then other times I am full steam ahead with ideas and plans, the one thing I keep telling myself is to just roll with it and enjoy everything, I mean what could be better than growing flowers all summer long. The one thing I did think was that at least picking flowers is an early morning job 😁
The poultry are obviously all still shut away and it would seem that it’s particularly bad this year 🙄 On the one hand it is easy for us to do them every day and they are not all over the place laying but on the other hand I kind of wonder what is the point of having them if they can’t get outside for four months of the year and so far that’s two years in a row we have had to lock them down 😔
Tuesday: oooosh been very busy this morning, after getting the morning jobs done including the animals, I got straight onto painting the primer on the advertising board for the front of the drive. I figured if I did that quickly it would be drying while I went about the rest of the day’s business. Today on the agenda was chipping up all the prunings from the lilacs and the apple trees I pruned the other week. That took around three hours and all the mulch went back onto the ground under the lilacs and around the lavender. John meanwhile was working on the area that will now be grass, it was the herb bed and I have dug everything out and potted up or replanted elsewhere. The sides of the bed need removing and all the soil needs moving so it is level with the pathway (although the path will also be grassed) He has been doing a fabulous job, riddling all the soil as he goes and putting on the rhubarb bed which really needed a top up. Around 11 John went out to look at a couple of jobs and an hour later returned, I had some soup in a mug outside, I didn’t want to stop and sit down otherwise I wouldn’t get going again. John got himself some lunch and then came back outside where we worked until mid afternoon, should sleep well tonight 🤪
In between everything else I was also painting and re writing the advertising chalkboard for the flowers.
Wednesday: Another busy day today, mild again which meant plenty of time outside to get stuff done. John carried on with the removing all the soil from the area we are putting down to lawn and while he was doing that I potted up all the lilac whips I dug up yesterday and I also planted 100 allium bulbs of various types. Some will go out for sale and some will be for the cutting garden. We then moved onto a different area, the brassica cage has been there for about four years I think, it is time to use it for something else before I end up with club root 🙄 I took off all the environmesh and hatched a plan 🤪 the plan involved re using items we already had to create a sweet pea growing area, I have some metal grid sheets that are pretty big and so I wanted one of those attached to the framework of the brassica cage and a narrow raised bed at the bottom for the sweet peas. It should be pretty successful 🤞 and a dedicated area for the sweet peas which have deep roots. I have now almost cleared the area where the rest of the cut flowers will be going and just need to make a plan of what is going where. I will get some pictures once it’s cleared properly and ready to go.
In between all this I was repainting and re writing the advertising chalkboard for the eggs, the boards are all having an overhaul and a refresh, I didn’t get before and after pics of the first board but I have of this second one.
I have also been trying to make hearts from the weeping birch branches, every year in winter it sheds lots of branches, they are very long and wispy, ideal for making things with.
Much better 😁
We popped out to get a bit of shopping once we had eaten dinner, figured it would be quiet in the evening. We got back just in time for a zoom meeting I almost forgot about 🙄 it was a cut flower meeting, very interesting and nice to see others who are doing the same thing.
Thursday: Making the most of John being at home because today is the last day for a while. So after the morning rounds John got straight on outside finishing the sweet pea box and I got on with chalking up the egg board for the roadside, looks pretty good and should just give a nudge reminder to anyone passing that we still sell eggs. Once I had finished I went out to help John, I lined the box, moved a few barrowfulls of dead and decaying leaves (I need to burn these as they are from the pear tree that has scab) Then once John had finished I laid weed membrane down over the rest of the plot to stall the weeds until I can get on it. We measured the plot and overall size is 12ft wide by 30ft long with some small areas already planted with the lilacs and lavender but the rest is ready to plan. It then started to rain 🌧 oh rain stops play says John, nope rain just means play outside stops but plenty to be done inside 🤪 So for the second time in as many weeks John got the hoover out 😝 that is worthy of writing as it doesn’t happen very often, not at home anyway, I am reliably informed by customers that he hoovers in their houses! Hoovering, tidying, wipe round done and time for a sit down, we have the twins later so need a rest in between. I have had to order a new vacuum cleaner, we have two, one is for the boot room and used to do the Rayburn, it’s gets that stale smell so it is the ‘outside hoover’ it has given up the ghost so the ‘indoor’ one moves to outdoor and the new one will be for inside.
I am feeling like my head is fit to burst with everything at the minute especially social media lol. But it’s an extremely useful platform both for getting information out and for receiving information. I just think that at the moment I have too many social media plates in the air 😂 online courses, zoom meetings, online workshops, relevant groups for flowers, Smallholding, self sufficiency, veg growing, gardening in general, personal, then there are the farm pages to run on Facebook, and Instagram and the blog and podcast, I think I need a PA 🤪 Still it keeps me busy right 😝. That and preparing the garden for spring, all of it not just the flower patch, growing seeds, potting up plants and planting bulbs not too mention keeping up with the weeds once they start in earnest.
In the past I have tried to find and trial other more environmentally friendly weed suppressants but I have resorted to the landscape membrane. I tried jute which was ok but only lasted the year which would make it pretty expensive, the cardboard method works really well and is cheap but to cover the area that I need to cover takes a LOT of cardboard so I can only use what I have. The biodegradable membrane is great (expensive) but not permeable and very flimsy so at the moment for large areas it is the landscape membrane I am afraid. Two reasons why this is the best option for me, one, the area is pretty extensive and there is a lot to do. I need to be able to be in control of what gets done and when, which leads me to the second reason and that is the Lupus. I have no idea how the year ahead will go regards the illness, if I am lucky and can keep on an even keel without flares, it will be smooth sailing. If it doesn’t go well I can be incapacitated for weeks sometimes months and then things will get very out of hand, it will stress me out massively and stress is something I need to avoid at all costs because it is a trigger. Sometimes you just have to do what is best for you and your health even if it goes against your ethics which in this case it does but I do need to balance one against the other and until they come up with something amazingly good that’s what I will be using. The good thing is that I use it over and over again but it does shred at the edges if the wind gets at it which is not great, if anyone has any tips on how to stop that I would be interested.
Friday: A frosty morning again but hopefully the sun will thaw everything quite quickly. John has gone off to work today but he did the animals before leaving so I got on with a few household chores. I am hoping to get outside once it warms up a little bit.
Last night I drew out the cutting patch to scale and am giving the layout lots of thought, I think that is the right approach because if I rush in with deciding where things will go chances are I will have forgotten something and have got change it all. The annual flowers are easy enough but the perennial flowers all have different needs and once they are in I don’t want to find I have got it wrong.
Update on the soil blocks and the grow lights: The soil blocks are definitely a winner, I need to get the level of moisture right next time when I use the block because if you have the soil too loose they can crumble a little when the edges dry out but I think that is more user error than design fault. So far I still think they are a brilliant concept, pricking out is a thing of the past with these as exact seedling has its own little bit of soil which you just transplant into the next size block, it’s genius really 🥰 As for the grow lights they have pros and cons, I bought a set with a clip that clip to a table or bench and four arms that have the lights in, the lights are red or blue or a mix of both. The pros are that they do work well, when I change the light colour, the leaf colour of the seedlings change as well. The seedlings also respond to the lights but you do need the lights directly over the seedlings, no point trying to squeeze an extra tray at the end of the light range because the seedlings just lean in that direction. I bought them because the lisianthus are difficult to germinate and grow and I wanted to give them all the help I could. I have seen set ups with trays and trays of seedlings on shelving each with lights attached to the under side of the shelf above. My thoughts are that although we are impatient to get growing, and so use these false environments, nature really does know best and waiting for the light levels to increase is probably better, you will end up with stronger seedlings. I wonder with big set ups, where are they moving all theses seedlings onto once they get big enough to transplant, another set up? You certainly couldn’t move them to outside, not in the UK at any rate, considering we are still weeks away from the last frost date that would be too risky. I imagine people must have a second stage set up that is perhaps under heated cover 🤷♀️ I am not sure, maybe I will research it to find out. Overall both the seed blocks and the grow lights are good but for the lights I personally wouldn’t go to a bigger scale not unless I had a good second stage set up to move them too.
John came home mid morning which I wasn’t expecting. I had decided to give the office/craft room a bit of a tidy up but as soon as I finished that I went outside with John to get some work done on the garden. The compost heap needed turning and the compost that was ready needed distributing. I decided that the beds in the big tunnel could do with topping up so that’s where the compost went. I moved two smaller beds that were temporary and put in some pallet collars to make two bigger beds which John also filled. I gave the tunnel a tidy up, put some membrane over the beds. That is the tunnel ready for the season apart from a good wash which needs to wait until the damp weather is finished otherwise the green algae will just come back. I don’t think I have ever had the tunnel ready for action this early in the year. John then carried on with turning this years heap, the more you turn it the quicker it breaks down but it’s hefty work. I tidied up some broken pots and bits ready to go into the skip and then I too sorted the compost bins at the other side of the garden. In the beginning we only had one compost area but I wasted a lot of time talking it all to the other end of the garden each time that I decided to have extra bins within the garden area. I have two big square ones and two darlek type, I emptied out the darleks and put all of that on top of the material in the square ones. Again the more weight on top the quicker it will break down, I quite expected to see some wildlife in there but nope not today. By 1pm it was getting colder and we had both worked pretty hard so it was inside for some soup and a sit down. The soup is from the soup bags I made up at the end of last year, very handy to pop them in the slow cooker with a stock cube in the morning, turn onto high and its ready to blitz and eat at lunchtime. It’s also great because there are veg in there that John wouldn’t normally eat but once blitzed he has no idea 😁
It occurred to me while I was in the poly tunnel that I could offer advice to anyone who is torn between a poly tunnel and a greenhouse. If you can only have one I would say go for a tunnel, they have different uses but a tunnel can be used similar to the greenhouse plus so much more and always go for the biggest one you can afford or site, whichever that is. If it is a greenhouse you really want above all else then by all means get the best you can afford but unless you want it for aesthetics don’t spend the extra on a posh one. It doesn’t work any different and doesn’t make you a better grower, there are better ways to spend the extra money on a greenhouse, such as ventilation, shading, decent staging, irrigation systems, electrics and decent propagators. Also a green house that is well put up will stand the test of time, doesn’t matter how good it looks if the wind rocks it will soon start to leak or worse the glass will crack. Our first poly tunnel has been up for around 10 years and the covering is still fully intact and functional, a lot of that is down to where it is sited, it doesn’t get battered by the wind, which improves the life span. In the tunnels I opted for an overhead irrigation system, which I don’t use, the reason being that too much water is wasted when it is watered from the top. You water areas that don’t need it such as the pathways, watering at soil level is far more cost effective and it is directed straight to the roots of the plants which is where it is needed most.
Another online flower workshop tonight, I am learning lots and loving it 😊
Saturday: Windy lol, that’s today, but mild enough and the sun peeks out now and again. After the usual jobs John asked what needed doing and so I gave him a verbal list, he chose the duck pen 😝 great because that was the dirtiest, muckiest job and I didn’t really want to do it 😂 We had to let the ducks out for a while in order to get it done, John shovelled out dirty, wet, smelly mud and shoved up plenty of duck poop, he then power washed the whole pen. Meanwhile I did the horses water and let them into the front side paddock, they now have three paddocks to roam over. Onto topping up straw in the hens laying areas and then to top up straw in the goose hut, I also found some site fencing (that plastic green stuff) and put that up all along the side of the little paddock that the geese are in. About four years ago Mum, Ken and I planted 950 daffodil bulbs, the first and second year they came up lovely, the third year we had to keep the geese in there due to bird flu and although the daffs came up they were short because the geese trampled all along there hampering growth. The same was likely to happen this year except that I have now fenced it off and hopefully I will get nice tall flowers 🤞 Once I finished that I made the decision to move the ducks back to their original housing, we were going to wait and get the hut moved and a new floor down but the hens in the stable could really do with some fresh air and so they will now move into the pen John has just cleaned out and the ducks will go back to their own home. One of the ducks is not looking very strong so I have ,over her to a stable on her own with food and water to see if she gets any better, she was quite light in weight and muddy I am not sure what has happened to her but if I can try and get her better then I will. I then went on to do some bits in the garden, I cut back all the autumn raspberry canes, potted a few up that I pulled up I also repaired and secured the posts that the canes get tied to as some of them were broken and wobbly. By that time it was lunchtime so I came in for some soup and a cuppa, John also came in for something eat. We had planned on a quick sit down and then carry on but Sam arrived with the children for a couple of hours.
I did another online masterclass about peonies in the afternoon, these type of classes are very good because they are specific and include information about using them as cut flowers rather than just in the garden borders. I have another three classes I think over the next week or so, I am really enjoying them and although I am not a novice gardener I am learning new things all the time 😁
This is the cut flower area it is approx 30 x 12ft 😮 the lilacs I cut back are at the far end and there are some lavenders in there already. The box on the right hand side are for the sweet peas and I need to decide how best to use the rest of the area, not that I am short of plants and seeds to go in there lol.
The weed membrane is to slow down and weed growth until I can get it sorted. This bed has always been a bit of a problem bed, rouge raspberry runners, comfrey and bindweed all have their roots in here, I may have to look at a few raised beds for some of it until they have all died off which could be a year or two 😏 The list of plants and seeds I have is pretty extensive from the favourites like roses, dahlias and peonies to cornflowers, poppies and snapdragons. The beauty of the mix I have is that the bouquets will not be like the ones from the shops, they need to use flowers that will transport well, I can use whatever I want and whatever is looking good at the time of picking.
Sunday: John did a bit outside in the morning and I was indoors making hearts from twigs. Just before lunch I decided I needed a trip to the garden centre to see what is actually out now, of course that result in some spenditure 😂 I said to John, I am investing for this time next year and to my surprise he said ‘good idea’ well then there was no holding me back 😝 I bought some beautiful hellebores, nerine and anemones, I am determined to have naturally blooming flowers this time next year! We were speaking to someone we know who works at the centre and he said that I was onto a good thing, growing and selling flowers and plants, because importing them is about to get a lot harder than it was due to brexit, I hadn’t realised that when I decided to do it but it’s an added bonus I guess. We stopped at the garage on the way back because I wanted to get a cheap bunch of flowers 😮 to give something a try. I was pretty pleased with the result proving that you can even make these look like they are bespoke 😁
Garage flowers and some twigs can still make an artistic display 😁
Have a great week, we are one more week nearer to spring 😁
Monday 17th January 2022: Old twelvey, 12th night (pre Georgian calender) Wassail day 😁
Another cold and frosty morning and I was on the morning duties as John went off to work. After doing that (a little late as I spent an hour on FaceTime with my brother in Aus) I got on with making an apple cake for the Wassail tonight. I had a few paperwork things to sort out and then goodness knows what else I did but it must have been something 🤷♀️ John came home mid afternoon, the dentist had called and had a cancellation and so he was off to have his tooth out 🙄 I will be honest the timing was not the best, I had plans for him to help me with a couple of things for the wassail but he was incapacitated. So I got everything sorted and changed anything I couldn’t do on my own and it was all fine in the end. We had a fire pit, we made a lot of noise, we chanted, we poured cider on the apple tree roots and we put cider soaked toast on the tree, all under the Wolf Moon and we had a lovely time 🥰
I had a notification today that the blog had reached 10,000 all time views, whoop that’s amazing 🤩
I remembered what it was I did in the afternoon, I cut back (pollarded) the willows at the front of the drive. I now have a large bundle of willow whips and I want to use them for something, I would like a willow sculpture of some kind and I watched a few videos to see what I thought I might be able to tackle, maybe a small wigwam on the grass verge in the driveway 🤷♀️ I would quite like to do a big one but not sure where I would do that without the risk of it being eaten by the horses or the geese.
Tuesday: It was a very cold, clear night again last night and everywhere is white and frosty this morning. I don’t feel the best today and have been struggling a little bit more each day, my joints on my fingers have swollen and hurt, so much so that I have had to take my rings off 🙄 I can feel twinges in my teeth at times and I feel generally ‘meh‘. Hopefully it will be a passing thing, I feel quite emotional with it today as well which is not ideal, doing the animals is going to be a struggle and then I think I will do nothing for the day except rest, sometimes you just have to recognise your limitations and today is one of those days. When I mentioned to John about how I think I will struggle with the water buckets, his answer was to use another bucket with a little bit in and go back and forth, thanks for that, I define will not be making you any dinner today 🤪I have taken a covid test to rule that out and it’s negative.
Well the morning rounds, as I suspected, were difficult, not least because it is frozen solid out there and even the stable tap is frozen. I will have to go back out and try again later as I don’t have the energy to haul water from inside the house. Most of them have buckets I can just break the ice on, some are tiny water holder so hopefully the sun will thaw those quickly but in the stable although the water buckets are not frozen, they are half empty and I can’t fill them from the frozen tap so again I will wait until later and hope the tap thaws quickly. It feels depressing at the minute, mostly because I don’t feel fit and able but also because the egg customers have dropped massively 🤷♀️ We have the usual core of customers that always come but that’s it and we are hardly selling any eggs. I definitely wonder if it is really worth any of it to be honest, it is a fair amount of work for next to no return 😏
Yesterday (Sat) I thought I hadn’t written a single thing all week and so I started a new page only to find this one on the draft section 😂 I think I am losing the plot.
It is now Saturday afternoon, this is the point when I realised I haven’t written anything all week long 😝 (Or at least hadn’t remembered writing anything 😂) Today has not been that productive either, not outside at any rate. I had a hair appointment first thing and then went called round to see Mum and Ken for a cuppa. Mum sorted through her lace and ribbon stash and I came away with a good deal of lace and ribbon in lots of colours, they will be for the tied bouquets and posies. The aim is to use paper and trimmings that are either up-cycled, recycled or at the very least recyclable, as with the veg and fruit garden, there will be no pesticides, herbicides or artificial fertilisers used, so when you sink your nose into a bunch of my blooms you can be sure that it is perfectly safe to inhale that aroma 😁 I have been thinking about flower bunches that have meaning, purpose or just say what you want to convey, to be honest I have done a lot of thinking and none of it can be tried until I have flowers growing 😂 so I just have to keep thinking at the minute.
Sunday: Milder today but we were up later than usual as well, once up and about John did the animals while I sorted out a few things indoors and then outside to get on. I spent a couple of hours potting some things up, a couple of shrubs that, as we about to have a fairly dry period, will be ok to pot on and leave. I sorted out a few plants that I have growing ready to go out the front but it’s all still a little early and a little bit slow. I spent a while taking some photos of various pots I have for sale and I also picked a few bits for the vase. There is not much about at the minute, not bright and pretty colours anyway but there are some lovely structural and architectural bits to be found and some winter honeysuckle which smells delightful.
I have got a new logo for the flower side of business, I am rather pleased with it, simple but effective I think.
New logo
Some more seeds are starting to grow 😁 zinnias and some lupin are all beginning to sprout, it’s all very exciting. I have spent a good few hours this week learning new things, soaking up all sorts of information and ideas and watching a couple of seminars. I feel really excited about the months ahead with this project, I can let my creative side loose for a change.
Zinnia seedlings appearing. Pots of English Bluebells going out for sale 🥰No flowers to be had yet but plenty of lovely foliage around.
Monday: Grey, dull but mild enough for Winter. John still has his tooth problem and it has got worse not better but he went to the dentist this afternoon and they have given him stronger antibiotics. Because he is not sleeping well he was late up this morning and late going to work, he had a little job to do and went off to do that which meant I was doing the morning rounds. Once those were done I was determined to get these sweet peas sown and so once I had put some washing on I went out to the greenhouse. I sowed 100 sweet pea seeds, some Ammi majus (bishops flower) some cleome seeds and I took a chance with some indigo rose tomato seeds. The last three of these are now in a windowsill propagator on the kitchen sill and the sweet peas are in the greenhouse, fingers crossed for some germination. I had planned to carry on and get some more done outside on the garden itself but by the time I had done those my feet were freezing so I came inside to thaw them out. It started raining so that put paid to that and then John came home and spent the rest of the day on the sofa, I figured I might as well get some indoor work done and so I cleaned the bedroom, bathroom and living room. Hopefully this next lot of antibiotics will start to work fairly quickly and life can resume to normal and I don’t have to work round John at home.
Tuesday: John still has toothache this morning 🙄 but he has gone to work and hoping that the new antibiotics start to kick in at some point today. I did the morning rounds which at this time of year and we the birds in lockdown takes about 50 mins to an hour and then I can get on with other jobs. I went into the greenhouse and used my new gadget, a soil block, how have I managed without this for so long 🤷♀️ I can make soil blocks for seedlings in next to no time and can fit 80 blocks for seeds in the size of my hand 😮 it’s a game changer, save on compost and space 😁 I sowed antirrhinum (snap dragon) seeds and another Hardy annual though the name escapes me at the moment. After that I pruned my wisteria and climbing rose out the front and then onto a bed at the back where I cut down the Himalayan honeysuckle, winter pruned an apple and pear tree, lifted the canopy on the mulberry tree and then winter pruned another apple and pear tree further up in the veg garden. A winter prune is just taking a third off each branch, the younger trees I have left the middle stem unpruned as I want them to get a bit taller even though they are dwarf varieties. There is a lot of work to do but it is still quite wet and so I am choosing jobs that don’t require walking on the soil, I don’t want to crush the structure of the soil at this time of year.
At lunchtime Shelley picked me up and we collected Flo from school and went for lunch 🥰 a nice couple of hours out and although I didn’t purchase any plants I did by some reduced christmas baubles for next year 😂
Soil blockers by Ladbrooke a great gadget that saves on compost and space. The small one makes 20 blocks and fits in my hand, the bigger one makes four but has the small square that clips into it and perfectly leaves a space the size of the smaller soil block to pop the seedling straight into, no pricking out 😁
Wednesday: There is such a difference between the temperature yesterday and then today 🙄 Yesterday I went to put the eggs out in just a long sleeved T-shirt and my gillet, today it is very much colder and frosty even though the sun is out it is not burning the frost away as yet. I did the morning rounds and was hoping that by mid morning it would have warmed up a bit but that didn’t happen and so I did some more research and learning for the cut flowers. There is always much to learn even when you think you know a lot already 😂 this morning I was watching videos on plant support and how to make your own. Bought ones are expensive and when you need a lot of them it can be very costly so I am looking for different ways to achieve different types of support. Last year I used hazel whips, they work pretty well when they are bent over but they need to be quite long and very flexible, they work ok for things like delphinium and lupin but I want something a little more robust for the dahlias and rudbeckia. Then I need different support for sunflowers and different again for things like cosmos, John is going to be making a lot though he does not know it yet 🤪 He has different antibiotics now as the first lot were not doing much and the pain has subsided though not gone entirely just yet but at least it’s a step in the right direction.
As the sun was shining I went out in the front area and did a bit of weeding and cutting back for an hour or so. John came home just after lunch and later in the afternoon we went out and did a few jobs, burn some rubbish, hang a gate, alter a gate that had dropped and covered up one of the beds in the veg garden with weed membrane. We had a look and a discussion about the duck area which needs modifying and by that time it was getting dark so John did the afternoon rounds while I came in and got the dinner sorted.
I am trying to decide what to do with the bed I covered, I plan to put the cut flowers there but there but it has always been a problem area. It has bindweed in it, raspberries canes that I can’t get rid of and comfrey that has sprouted everywhere plus a row of lilacs that are creeping further and further into the bed. For the time being I have covered it to stop anything growing, it is about 10ft wide by 25ft long so it’s a good size area. In order to get something growing there this year I think I will have to leave the membrane down and put some raised beds on top, the decision is what to use without it costing a fortune 🤷♀️
Thursday: I did the morning rounds and then Sam picked me up to look after the twins all day at theirs while she went to work with Luke, once they were all home I went with Sam and Mia to watch Mia in her swimming lesson which was lovely to be able to do. Consequently I didn’t do anything at the farm and John went home in time to do the evening rounds.
Friday: I had high hopes for today but they went south 🤪 We started off early, John went to get feed and I did the morning rounds, it was freezing this morning 🥶 Once I had finished and John was back we went to town as I had to have my routine blood tests first thing. A quick coffee and a bite to eat for breakfast and then back home. There was not a lot of heat in the sun today and so the frost and frozen ground never really thawed, bang goes my plans of working on any open ground. I also had a little wobble today, I felt really tired and a little unwell mid morning so I had to have a lie down 🙄 I recovered after a short while and went out to collect some seeds from the snap dragons and put in some plant supports for the plants like delphinium, lupin and achillea. Then I had to have another lie down 🤷♀️ I was just completely zapped of any energy. By mid afternoon I felt a lot better but carried on resting, Mum called in and we had a cup of tea and chatted about what we had been doing in the week and gardening of course 😁 Hopefully it won’t be so cold all day tomorrow.
I ordered a grow light which arrived today, I thought I would give them a go and see how well they work. Because we have low light levels at this time of year, seedlings benefit from extra light but it needs to be the right kind of light, a light bulb won’t do the job you need a full spectrum light with red and blue light as well. Early seedlings can get leggy without good light and they tend to lean in the direction of the light meaning you constantly have to turn them to promote strength in the stem, a grow light should eliminate that, that’s the hope anyway.
Saturday: Really cold and frosty again with no sun appearing for the best part of the day in fact heavy fog came down. No point planning any outside work today just as well really as I spent more than three hours trying to sort out an app that just kept crashing. In the end, after exhausting all possibilities and communicating with the tech team, I abandoned the app, their loss (well mine as well because I really liked it 😏)
Sunday: A different day altogether 😁 much milder, sunshine and no rain. That meant that we could get some work done outside, John did the morning rounds while I sorted the eggs and indoor stuff and then it was outside to get on. John spent the morning cleaning and hoovering the car and van 🙄 not really the jobs I had in mind but they needed doing so I guess it’s all relevant. Meanwhile I spent the morning right at the front of the driveway where I have a beautiful contorted hazel tree. This will throw up straight stems and a try to revert so in order to keep it contorted the straight stems need cutting off right down at the bottom. This is the best time of year to get that done, before things get manic and I completely forget to do it. I shovelled up leaves from the driveway and cut back encroaching ivy which was trying to grow across the drive and generally had a good tidy up at the entrance, not too tidy just yet but tidy enough. I now have a bundle of hazel whips to decided what to do with and I was going to do the willow but the secateurs are not up to doing the thicker stems so that can wait for another day.
I also sorted out some seeds that I collected the day before, snapdragon and love in a mist, I have put them into little envelopes and put some out for sale. There are probably thousands of snap dragon seeds, I am not sure what I will do with the rest of them yet, I might sow some to bring on as plants for sale 🤷♀️
This afternoon we are off out for dinner, it is a surprise 30th birthday lunch for Macca and just for once I actually had enough time to put something nice on rather than slinging on clean jeans and a top which is what normally happens, so it is a rare occasion, if you see me out wearing a dress you will know why 😂 Of course as soon as we are back it will be work clothes back on to do the afternoon rounds 🤪
Monday 3rd January 2022 (Bank holiday): We have done quite a bit of work over the holidays and there is always plenty more to do but I decided not to do outside work today, I just feel I needed to get some things done inside. John however has been working outside sorting out the duck pen, the duck hut needs a new floor apparently so that will be added to the list 🙄 Meanwhile I am trying to get ahead with the food challenge I set myself and I have a pan of soup ready for lunch, butternut squash, leeks, carrot and a potato as well as chicken stock and black pepper, plenty of veg in that 😁 I also whizzed up a dressing/sauce for my salmon later tonight using flat leaved parsley which I have growing in abundance, parsley, olive oil, salt, dry mustard powder, garlic clove, lemon juice (and because I happen to have a jar) preserved lemon, it looks amazing, tastes delicious and will zing up my salmon fillet no end 🥰 In my quest not to waste anything I have roasted the chestnuts I bought got at Christmas and they will be a great snack over the next couple of days, sprinkled with a little salt normally but I might try some other flavours just to see what it tastes like, I am thinking cinnamon might be nice 🤷♀️
I am still doing lots of research and reading on cut flowers and flower farming or floriculture and consequently I am still ordering seeds and bulbs for that 😂 I keep seeing things and thinking ‘oooo they would be nice’ we might end up with that font paddock covered in flowers this year after all. There are so many great social media pages full of ideas and information it is mind blowing and difficult to reign in the over enthusiasm 🤪 I need to remember I will still be growing veg as well as doing all the other jobs I normally do, I did tell John he might have to get his own dinner a lot of the time 😂
Late evening we went to lend a helping hand dispatching some cockerels for someone, I did get to see their very lovely donkeys and goats, it got me thinking about goats again but then I thought that escaped goats and flower farming may not be a match made in heaven 😜
Tuesday: We spent the whole morning sorting out the hens in the stable and the ducks in the pol run. Clean them out put in fresh sawdust, give them cabbages hung up to keep them entertained and put in extra nesting areas as they have started laying more and there is always a fight over the best nesting areas 😂 The roof on the pol run had a hole in it caused by a wayward log that had been thrown for the dog at some point 🙄 John got a new piece and that has now been fixed so that the rain does not get in and cause any more mess than necessary. We have discussed moving the front hen back to their hut, it has an outdoor enclosed run and it has now been cleaned out thoroughly, that would then mean we could divide the other lot up into two stables and they would have more room and more importantly would stay cleaner for longer. The fact that we have to house them for nearly four months pushes up the cost of keeping them, during winter when the egg sales are not that good this is a conflict we are trying to find a resolution to. Do we give up entirely? it’s not cost effective over the winter months at all with the added housing costs, we are unable to advertise spare eggs on social media pages now, in years gone by we would just put a post up and deliver trays of eggs but that is no longer possible so we have to try and get the footfall here, that is difficult when we don’t have anything else to offer, decisions, decisions 😏
Wednesday: It’s early afternoon and I am just sitting down while waiting for the bread to finish baking. John did the animals this morning before going off to do some ‘real’ work, I did all the usual jobs, putting the eggs out as well as the rubbish and recycling etc and then I spent the rest of the morning in the kitchen. I have these oranges to use up and another box arriving today 🤪 I don’t know why I didn’t space them out a bit more but I didn’t and now I have lots of oranges. I scoured the internet for recipes and decided on making an orange drizzle cake and some orange jam, I also prepared an orange and beetroot salad to go with my dinner later. The orange jam I have never tried before and I added some fresh ginger but on tasting I think I could have easily added more, I think cardamom would be a good choice maybe I will try that next time. The jam is all jarred up and I have left it to cool, I made it quite chunky and it will taste different to marmalade as there is no rind in there to create that bitter taste. I am hoping it will be a winner, even with John, at the very least it would make a lovely filling for a Victoria sponge along with some fresh cream in the spring/summer. The orange drizzle cake I probably won’t drizzle, I taste tested it and it is a lovely lightly flavoured sponge, no need for extra calories with that one. I had some beetroot that I pulled up last week and wanted to start using them up, orange and beetroot salad seemed like a great option, I have added some crushed mixed nuts and I will pick some pak Choi from the polytunnel later to go with it, nice and bright, making good use of fruit and veg I have here, something different and nutritious as well, what’s not to like. I am not a fan of salad dressings so I won’t bother but you could make a nice orange salad dressing to go with it if you wanted to.
The weather is much colder today, we had a good frost this morning and the breeze is from the North again so it’s very fresh, it does mean we have some sunshine though which is always a bonus at this time of year. It was tempting to get a bit carried away with the garden with all the mild weather but from experience I know it’s best to wait, do lots of reading and research, do all the other jobs that need doing so you are free to get cracking when the time is right 😁 With that in mind I cleaned out a couple of the kitchen cupboards this morning as well as cooking. To be honest there wasn’t much that needed throwing out only a jar of opened mustard and two almost empty bottles of tomato sauce, I still have a third one in there, we don’t eat it but I do have it for the grandchildren. It was more about knowing what was in the cupboard and giving it a wipe round than anything else. I did find a tin of Jack fruit and need to find out what I do with that 🤔 🤷♀️
Thursday, Friday, Saturday: Not much to report from any of those days 😂 wet and cold so apart from the usual I didn’t do anything else outside. I did go out and pot up some dwarf iris (reticulata) bulbs and intended to do the sweet peas but by the time I had done the bulbs my fingers were blue and freezing, it was 1c in the greenhouse so I came back indoors. I have been doing a fair bit of reading up and video watching about flower farming though so I haven’t wasted time at all. Oh yes and John has been suffering with toothache since Wednesday, he went to the dentist Thursday who charged him well for an X-ray, said they couldn’t see anything but sent him home with antibiotics just in case 🤷♀️ he started taking them, the pain did no subside, a swelling formed and to date it hasn’t got any better but it also hasn’t got any worse.
Sunday: Despite having toothache and being on two hourly painkillers as well as the antibiotics, John agreed to take me to a local nursery to get some foliage plants. It was frosty this morning but the sun soon thawed everything and it turned out to be quite a nice winters day. I got three plants from there but it is a nursery rather than a garden centre and so we called in at another centre on the way home and had coffee and cake plus a couple of sale bargains 😁 We then called in to my brothers which was also on the way back, intended to stop for a quick coffee and ended up being there a few hours. Mum and Ken were also there when we got there and as it was sunny we decided to don our wellies/boots and search for Roman pottery in the ploughed field in front of his house (it belongs to the farm that their house belongs to so permission is granted) It didn’t take long to find a good bowlful of pottery, the site is being monitored by experts, geophysics have been over it, archaeologists have looked at findings there and a local chap has permission to metal detect there. They have found plenty of Roman coins and pottery and even had a full report written up on the findings so it is exciting to find pieces that haven’t been touched by anyone else for thousands of years 🥰 We would have stayed longer but we had to return and let the dogs out that had been in since mid morning. I had intended to get some garden work done as it was not a bad day but that will wait for another day. Seems like it was a day of intentions that never quite got fulfilled, sometimes a change is as good as a rest.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 