Monday 22nd August 2022: A fairly nondescript kind of day as far as the weather went, not too hot, not too cold, not too sunny, not too rainy. We did have a tiny smattering of rain but nothing worth writing home about, could have done with a bit more to be honest. Once the morning jobs were done and John had gone to work I started cutting flowers for an order today. Where I have been occupied elsewhere for a few days the flowers have been blooming all over the place and so I cut extras. I made up a couple of jam jars and some small bunches to go out for sale in the flower shed. I then spent the morning processing the apples I picked a while back, the tomatoes that have been piling up in the kitchen and some figs that my sister gave me. The apples were stewed and some were frozen, one lot I put in a jar and will keep in the fridge to use up fairly soon. The tomatoes were softened then sieved and I have a nice jar of passata and a pour and store bag of tomato juice that will be frozen for soups. With the figs I made an apple and fig jam, it made about 2 and a half pounds of jam but as I am slightly worried about the setting point not being hot enough I think I will keep those in the fridge too. Once that was all done and washed up I made up the bouquet being collected later and then Sam arrived with the children as the farrier was coming to do the horses and he wanted to come earlier than originally arranged. They all left, the flowers were collected and then John arrived home, he discovered that George and his tap turning on antics had struck again. This time is was the tap by the hard standing, the hose goes into the duck pen and so it would have gone unnoticed if it wasn’t for John going out to todo the feed round earlier than he usually does. I think I will have to do a tap round after he has been every time 😝 just to make sure he hasn’t turned any on. got the dinner made, washed up and then john went out to rake up the grass he cut the other day, me, well I was too tired to do much else.
From this………to this.
Thursday: Ooops sorry lost a few days 😂 Not even sure I can remember what exactly I have been doing this be honest. Mostly the usual day to day stuff. Yesterday evening I cut a lot of flowers for a big order of bouquets and posies 🥰 and this morning I spent a couple of hours making them up for collection mid morning. After that as I was already in flower mode I did the final bits to the table flowers and the bridesmaid posies for the wedding next week. I am also still drying flower petals for the confetti, hopefully there will be enough, I do like the idea of fresh petals though, they look really pretty when first harvested. I had the twins while Mia went swimming late afternoon and oh yes it rained 😁 Just as I was about to put the washing out this morning I could hear it on the roof so I didn’t bother and then about an hour later we had proper rain, not a downpour but enough to freshen up the garden.
One of two cutting buckets ready for making up into posies.
I can finally let you know where my time and thoughts have been spent this last week, we have a new grandson 🥰 Oscar was born last Friday but it wasn’t straightforward and he was in the HDU until today when he was discharged to come home. Charlotte had a long and difficult labour too and was also a little unwell after. It has been a rollercoaster of a week with emotions up one minute and down the next but luckily we have world class hospitals and staff in Oxford and today they have all come home to begin life as a family together x x
Friday: It’s been really quiet here today so I took the opportunity to pootle about just doing this and that. A bit of flower cutting for drying, sorting out the freezer (discovering forgotten delights) some reading up on various subjects, looking at ideas for flowers both fresh and dried. One thing I came across were corn dollies. Of course I have seen them before and we used to make them when I was in primary school but that was a very long time ago and I was sad to read that the craft is on the endangered list of heritage crafts here in the UK. At one time every rural school probably would have a corn dolly making session for harvest time but not any more it seems. I find it really sad that we are losing our traditions, I know there are groups out there that keep them alive but what about day to day folk, they don’t even know about half of them. Compared to other European countries, which seem to be rich in traditions that they still practice, we have either been diluted or diluted our rich heritage ourselves 😢 If anyone out there still makes them I would love to know and love to see your creations x
Sunday: I have been terribly bad at the blog this week 🙃 Yesterday was a very busy day starting with plenty of gardening, filling up the last couple of raised beds we repositioned. They are now all planted with perennials such as different types of hydrangeas, hibiscus, roses, agastache, aster, should look amazing next year 😀 George and Lucie came for an hour mid morning and so they ‘helped’ Grampy get a few wheelbarrows full of woodchip to put on the new pathway between the beds. Once Sam and Mia came back from riding I went with them round to Charlie and Maccas so they could all meet their new cousin Oscar. Back home for a bit before going round to my nieces at 4pm for her 21st birthday celebrations which went on into the evening, a great time was had by all at the ABBA themed party 🎉
Today we went out after getting the morning jobs sorted, I was determined to find the two plants that I have on my ‘want’ list. Success today at a nursery rather than a garden centre 😀 we did stop in at another garden centre on the way home and had some breakfast. I did some more planting up, John did some garden tidying and the rest of the day was more relaxed, a film, the Grand Prix, nothing too taxing. I completely forgot it is a Bank Holiday tomorrow, an extra day with my labourer at home, bonus 😂
Tuesday 9th August 2022: No idea what I did on Monday apart from cut a whole load of flowers for an order that was cancelled 😏 and went to my brothers in the evening for his birthday. The rest is a blur 😝
Tuesday: After making up a couple of jam jars, sorting flowers for drying and making up a bouquet I went to Shelley’s with Charlie, Sam and the twins also went and we spent most of the day there. Shelley made lunch and the children played indoors some of the time and with the splash mat outside some of the time. It was hot 🥵
When I came home I had half an hour sit down and then spent 4 hours watering, yes 4 bloody hours of my life watering. Watering everything that was necessary, about two thirds of everything, the other third I have had to let take it’s chance 😔 Normally, in a normal year I would only be concentrating on the tunnels, greenhouse and anything in pots but this year it has to include all the beds both ornamental and vegetable. We have had no significant rain since we came back from our holiday in early June and coupled with that we have had ridiculously high temperature consistently and it’s not over yet. This means in order to keep everything alive I have to constantly water, the fact that I didn’t do any last night has a big knock on effect the next day. It’s tiring but I have invested a lot of time and effort into the veg, flowers and ornamental beds and so I can’t just give up, not to mention the money that plants cost. To give up now would cost me dearly, mentally, emotionally and financially, this year has taken gardeners by surprise but I will make sure it doesn’t happen again next year 🙄
Wednesday: It’s sooo bloody hot that evening standing around makes you sweat 😅 uuurgh give me back the traditional English weather if I wanted relentless heat I would go on holiday to a hot country and that is something we don’t do 😂
Busy morning of getting jobs done, cutting flowers for delivery today and then on to pick tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, peppers and plums. I also decided that damage limitation was called for and pulled the cabbage and kohl Rabi plus carrots, it’s too hard trying to keep them watered so time to get them in the freezer. The courgettes I am picking when they are small (baby) so that I don’t need to water as much as I would to get them to normal size. From here on in fruit and outside veg will have to take their chances, I will only be watering the necessary plants.
I then spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon prepping it all for the freezer. Slicing, chopping, peeling, blanching, bagging, cooling and finally freezing. I also made up three batches of crumble mix, stewed some apples with sugar and some maple syrup and made up four small apple crumbles which went into the freezer along with a bag of crumble mix. I did intend to make some plum jam but in all honestly I was tired by then and still had flowers to make up so I cleared away, washed up and I will do the jam in the next couple of days.
John came home early and went off to deliver the flowers for me, I had a phone call from the neighbouring farm to say they had lost some piglets and could I keep an eye out for them, I haven’t seen them yet but hopefully they will find them soon.
Tonight I will not be able to get any watering done as we are off on a short train journey for an evening trip. It’s going to be a round of watering for me again tomorrow that will take hours 🙄
With the complete lack of rain we have decided to increase the amount of rain we can hold, the amount that comes off our roof is an awful lot so makes sense to hold as much of it as possible and so we have ordered another 12,000 litres of tanks, that will take us up to around 30,000litres of water storage. Sod’s law we won’t even need it next year but ‘be prepared’ is a sensible mantra I reckon and so prepared is what I will be, for that at least.
If you are reading this and living in a hot, dry climate then all tips appreciated 😁 Approx 9th June was the last time we had any significant rain and temps have been at least 25c and mostly in the 30s pushing up just beyond 40c 🥵 According to farmers there is no significant rain in the forecast for at least another 30 days 🙄 crops are suffering as well as wildlife. Last night while watering I noticed around 30 sparrows making a racket in a puddle of water I had made on the driveway, I went into the garden and collected up all the shallow dishes I could find and filled them with water for them. A Robin was also sat in the tree watching me and so I filled up the bird bath (which I do daily) and watched him enjoying a much needed bath lol. I know I am going to hate the winter weather when it comes but seriously this is another level of ridiculousness 😬 If it is climate change, it’s coming a lot faster than predicted, it’s not good news for the planet or anything that lives on it 😔
Thursday: No idea what I did and it’s too hot to care 😝 I did plant up some alstroemeria at around 9pm, it wasn’t much cooler but the light was fading and I wanted to get them into the ground. The moon was beautiful, almost a full moon but not quite, that comes tomorrow evening.
Friday: What can I say except, it’s hot and dry, I am basically just trying to get from day to day until hopefully one of the days the temperature falls or we have rain 🙄 I spent most of the day making up button holes and hair combs with dried flowers plus a small arrangement to fix to a headband. I can’t show you the pictures yet as it is for a wedding that hasn’t happened but when it does I will.
Saturday: I was up early as was John, he went off to get feed for the poultry, I did the usual household bits then outside to get some watering done, We then had to pop out for an hour and get back to hand over some flowers to a customer 🥰 I can’t remember what other jobs we did but there were a fair few before coming indoors for the middle part of the day and watch some films. Back out in the evening once it was cool enough and more watering, I watched the meteor shower for a while, saw three, before going to bed.
Sunday: Still bloody hot 🥵 seriously it’s scorching weather, relentless too. We were up early again and it was nice and cool at that time of the morning so I got some watering done, John said ‘shall we have more tea’ at 7am, ‘nope’ I replied ‘we need to get the small paddock cut before it gets too hot’ so that’s what we spent the next hour doing. It had got long (long but mostly dead) and needed tidying up. John carried on outside for a couple of hours while I came inside and made plum jam. The thing is that the fruit will not wait no matter how hot the temps are the jam still needs making 🙄 We then spent the hottest part of the day inside again and went back out until dark once it had cooled down a touch, though that is not much at the minute.
I am sure you are all feeling it too, hot and bothered, the paddocks are as dead as I have ever seen them, there are huge fissures opening up in the ground, the massive trees that are around 50 years old are beginning to wilt, the berries that the birds would be feeding on to fatten up for winter are shrivelling up and there is not a drop of water to be found anywhere for the wildlife such as bees, butterflies, birds, beetles etc. Each day I am trying to keep plants alive and each evening when I go out they are parched again. I deadheaded some roses earlier and the petals were crispy 😳 I don’t think I have ever sweated so much before even when sitting still, when I was outside I kept thinking something was crawling on my leg but no it’s just beads of sweat running 😂 I am not one for praying but spending most of my time just trying to keep things alive is seriously taking its toll on my sanity so I am praying the rain comes tomorrow. It will fill up the water butts and hopefully give me the day off from running around like an idiot, I may even be able to get something different done for a change. Anyone know any good rain dances 😝
Wednesday 27th July: Oooo it’s Wednesday before I even get anything written down 🙄 now I have to try and remember what I have been doing this week 🤔 On Monday I did a mornings work cleaning the house, boring but necessary for my own sense of peace and wellbeing. Just before lunchtime Sam came over with the children and we went for a walk up the lane, a couple of hours later and approx two + miles of walking we arrived back, the twins did very well but did start sitting down in protest on the last leg, they certainly earned their lunch that day. We took a bag with us in the hopes we would find something to forage but nothing was quite ready. Once they had left to go home I carried on with the rest of the housework and cleaning. In the evening I tried to get a bit done in the garden but I had developed a pain that was almost stopping me from walking. It’s funny but not funny, earlier in the day one of my feet slipped and went in a different direction to the rest of me. I didn’t fall and recovered quickly and thought no more of it until about an hour later when I had a dull ache at the front of my pelvis, I must have pulled a muscle or stretched a tendon/ligament or something and by mid evening I had to sit and rest. After a nights rest it was better when I first got up and then gravity kicked in 😂 it has gradually got better since then.
On Tuesday I did outside work, potting plants on, digging up self setting seedlings and potting those up, giving them all a good feed at the same time. I have also been collecting seeds from various plants, so far I have poppy seeds, calendula, cerinthe, nigella and sweet william, I am constantly watching to see what is ready to collect or transplant. I also cut a couple of big buckets of flowers ready for bouquets tomorrow. Then Shelley arrived with Flo and Josh and we went out for lunch at the garden centre where some plants fell into my basket 🤷♀️😂🤪 I spent some time in the evening weeding the pathways of the veg garden. One good thing about no significant rain is that the weeds elsewhere (front driveway)have mostly died off but where we heavily mulched the pathways in the garden with woodchip the moisture is retained (proves mulching works well) and so weeds (healthy ones at that) are popping up all over.
Wednesday: I was up early this morning and straight outside to get some watering done, still no rain and the rumblings of a hosepipe ban are getting louder, it’s a dry year. The last time it was this dry was in the 1970’s according to the statistics. In between watering I wired some dried flowers and had a go at making a hair comb with them, I have some tweaking to do but it was not bad for a first effort. Charlie arrived and stopped for a coffee before going off for a walk and a picnic with Sam, Shelley and all the children. I thought I had better not go out again today 😂 need to get some work done.
Thursday: A busy morning getting a few bits and bins done indoors and then outside to pick produce, quite a haul today which means one thing, inside to process it all in various ways. Prep for the freezer or for dinner this evening, put out for sale and put by anything that the girls want. That took me to 1pm and I think I earned a sit down which is exactly what I am doing now, although after writing up this and I shall be looking for recipe inspiration online 😁
Friday: I think I am officially done trying to bust a gut to keep everything alive, some things are dead already because I just can’t get round to water them as other things are more important and come first. It’s a pretty serious situation when you look at the bigger trees which are now starting to drop their leaves to save moisture 😔 the elderflower bushes are looking very sorry for themselves too, top fruit is going to be less than great when it was looking like a bumper crop year but now the fruitlets are dropping on the floor. I swear every year it gets more and more difficult when it should get easier 🤷♀️ Each year I start off with a great deal of enthusiasm which slowly gets eroded by one thing or another and they usually come in succession, I feel like I try really hard and the result is always not quite good enough. If we don’t get some rain soon it is going to be a hosepipe ban for sure and that is only the tip of the problems and failures ahead, not just for me but on a bigger food producing scale nationally. I know there is nothing I can do about it but still it is very irksome.
Saturday: It’s my birthday 🥳 still have jobs that have got to be done mind you so I was up to get on with it. Sam messaged to see if I wanted to go and watch Mia on her riding lesson and as it was overcast I said yes. Lovely watching her learning to ride and I was very impressed with her sitting trot, no reins 🥰 she has a good seat and great balance, last time I tried that I fell off and broke my collar bone and I have only ridden once or twice since then which was about 10 years ago. I did make me think I wouldn’t actually mind riding again but not sure I would manage to get my leg over the saddle without getting terrible cramp these days 😂 We came back to ours and then Shelley arrived with Josh and Flo and Charlie and Macca arrived. They bought a delicious spread of cheese, meats, fruits with them and Charlie made a lovely cake, very spoilt 🥰 At various times of the day other family members arrived to wish me happy birthday, have tea and cake and some chit chat and then in the evening it rained, oh happy day 😁 We need a bit more rain but anything is better than nothing at this point.
Sunday: It rained a bit more overnight, a gentle constant drizzle which is great, much better than a downpour, downpours though good to fill water tanks, run off very quickly whereas gentle drizzle has time to soak into the ground. Because we had rain I didn’t have to be outside checking to see what was flagging and watering so we went out for breakfast. We met my brother and his wife and afterwards went to the local garden centre, I know I have a bad plant buying habit 😂 and so do they 😝 He had told me of the great plant sale they had on there and he wasn’t wrong, I picked up some bargains for a couple of quid a plant and jammed them into every area of the car that was available 🤪 Once home I gave them all a good watering, they will also have a feed before going into their planting positions. We had more short showers this afternoon and hopefully we will have more overnight, we just need enough to keep them going for a few weeks with minimum watering from the refilled tanks.
Just having a sit down now in time to watch England Ladies play Germany in the Euro 22 final, Sweet Caroline I hope we win this but even if we don’t the team are incredible and are changing the future of womens football here in the UK, it’s history in the making from this team 🏴 COME ON ENGLAND 🏴
Have a fabulous week and enjoy the little things as well as the bigger events x
Monday 20th June 2022: New week, new energy and hopefully better internet connection 😂 It is sunny this morning but not as hot as it was at the end of last week, a comfortable summers day. That means I can get on and I have a lot to do as always, last night I was trying to get to sleep but the list of things I wanted to get done were running through my head for ages. This morning I thought I had better get on and get some of them ticked off the list so first up was getting the eggs sorted and out for sale, then onto getting the washing done and hung out to dry. Once they were sorted I went out and cut flowers for a bouquet I have to do for tonight plus a couple of extra cuttings for putting out for sale. Sometimes you pick a combination and think ‘wow’ that is stunning, well I think so any way, they are calendula (a rusty orange, can’t remember the name but need to look it up) and ami Majus in flower, just beautiful and I added some mint for contrast. Next it was on to pick mangetout, strawberries, raspberries and redcurrants plus some tea leaves for drying. I hadn’t finished there because after that I harvested a good lot of lavender which was bundled up and put out for sale and then I cut two big bundles of flower heads for drying, the first was love is a mist and the second poppy. I am aiming to dry as many flowers as I can this year to extend the range of material I have available. With that in mind I have been reading up and researching the different ways of drying and preserving flowers, there are a few different techniques and I am going to give them all a go to find out which are the most successful.
If the internet connection is playing ball you might even get photos this week 🤪
Freshly harvested lavender and some of the redcurrants 🥰
I still have plenty of jobs to do, it’s continuous at the minute but I want to get some more seeds sown before it’s too late both flowers and veg and I have plants that still need to go into the ground 🙄
Just one of the flower combos I cut this morning and arranged this afternoon.
I got the dinner prepped and ready to go later, I have someone coming to collect some plants, someone coming to get a chicken dispatched, someone coming to pick up a bouquet, watering in the tunnels to do and more picking of flowers for drying later if I have time.
The last for the plants found me eventually, the chicken sadly died during the day and the flowers were collected. Just about time to cut some more flowers for drying while the dinner is cooking, quick sit down after eating and then I will go out and water.
Tuesday: Summer Solstice. Another fine and sunny day 😏 that means only half a day outside for me before I came in from the sunshine but I did get a good bit done. First up was cutting for a bouquet tomorrow then some picking, mostly fruit today including a good haul of redcurrants. Sam and the twins came in the afternoon and I sat in the shade while they played with water and had ice lollies. After dinner I went with some friends to a local wood to celebrate the summer solstice with some singing and dancing, making the most of the longest day and connecting with Mother Nature 🥰
Wednesday: Up early to make up a bouquet for collection first thing this morning and then cut some flowers for a bouquet delivery tonight. I harvested some more lavender for drying and I intend to make some lavender bags. I bought muslin bags and I used the flower pounding method to decorate them, entirely environmentally friendly and when they no longer have any scent they can be composted without any problem. I also gathered some rose petals and put those in the drying bag and hung it out on the oak tree, it takes a lot of petals to make a small amount but they would only end up in the compost so might as well make good use of them. I have made a video of the flower pounding technique but I am not sure if it uploaded to the page or got lost in the web so,where because as yet it has not appeared 😂
I sat down for lunch and had just finished when the doorbell rang, I went out and a lovely couple were enquiring about the name Friesland, they were Dutch of course and we had a laugh about the fact that they were not the first ones to stop in and ask and I doubt they will be the last. I really must try to find out what the connection is but I have a feeling it goes a very long way back. We are not in ‘danelaw’ territory as such but I know that around the late 800’s the Danes pushed further during various attacks and some then settled in Dorset so my best guess is that maybe it is named after a settler or settlers from that period 🤷♀️ I have had various contact from people over the years but if anyone can throw extra light on my theory or indeed blow it out of the water then please do get in touch I would be very interested to hear anything.
I spent an hour or so in the evening weeding and then doing a corsage workshop which produced some lovely work and in different styles. The sunset was amazing so it’s worth coming just to see that 😁
Thursday: I was up early because I wanted to get some serious weeding and cutting back done and I wasn’t sure if the sun would come out today or not. As it was it was mainly overcast all morning which meant I could get a lot done, it also meant I completely knackered myself out by 11.30am 😂 that was a fair stint though with a 5.30am start. I weeded the front three beds plus cut back anything that was going over or getting too thuggish. Then out to the veg garden to get the tulip bed cleared, I slowly went from bed to bed weeding, clearing and cutting anything that was no longer looking good or had finished producing a crop. I harvested new potatoes for dinner this evening as well as mangetout and broad beans, then strawberries, raspberries and red currants, plenty for eating later. By this point even though it was still overcast I really had to come in and take a proper break otherwise I will not be much good for anything later on 🙄 So many jobs both outside and indoors, I guess some will just have to wait. There are heavy downpours forecast today, I hope we get a bit of it but not too much, it certainly feels very close sometimes and then it seems to clear.
I was sitting on the bench having a coffee looking at the garden when it suddenly dawned on me that I have reached the point when I can safely say ‘I have a food forest’ 😁 after working towards it for a few years now it is beginning to come of age, it looks fabulous.
Had a sleep at lunchtime so that I had enough energy to carry on in the afternoon and evening, it’s pretty relentless right at this moment and I hardly have time to do anything else.
Friday: Oh my days I am exhausted today lol, another early start to cut loads of flowers for orders today and tomorrow. I had an enquiry come in for 3 x bouquets the first week of July, quite pleased because she had asked a local florist for British flowers and they said they couldn’t do it so she told them she would look elsewhere then and got in touch with me 😁 I had an extremely busy morning bombing around trying to get everything done including hoovering and polishing the house, picking veg and fruit, watering the tunnels, still no sign of this rain that we had been warned about 🤷♀️ A hundred and one jobs later and Sam arrived with the twins, we went into town, I took Lucie to the park while George went to the barbers and then we all went to the cafe for lunch. Back home and Charlie came to meet Sam and they went off to look at wedding dresses for Sam. By the time they came back I was frazzled 😂 the twins wore me out but my day hadn’t finished yet. Time to get dinner sorted and while it was cooking water the front beds because still no sign of any rain and things are looking pretty dry, I need flowers 😆 Then once dinner was eaten, out to do a good bit of weeding while John cut some more of the front paddock with the limp along lawn mower 😝 Indoors, wash up, write a shopping list for the morning which John will have to do because I have flowers to arrange and the spare room to clean as Josh, Flo and Mia are coming to stay. Finally sit down at 9.30pm and try not to fall asleep 😴
A charming hand held posy for a customer today 🥰
Saturday: Up early to get as much done as possible, still no rain as yet 🙄 One of the main things I wanted to get done was to plant some plants that had been sat a while waiting to go in. Dahlias that I grew from cuttings and some twizzled penstemon, can’t wait to see what they look like, also some knautia. I still have chrysanthemums to plant up but I want to get those inside, they are a late variety which will flower right up to Christmas and hopefully beyond if grown under cover. Meanwhile John went off early to get feed before yet another price rise of 90p a bag, corn has also gone up massively. When he came back he cut some more of the paddock while waiting for a customer to come and collect new hens. By this time I was inside making up two bouquets going out to orders today and some jam jars with the stems I didn’t use in the bouquets. Then John went off to get some shopping while I changed the beds and got ready for the grandchildren to come and stay, just about managed a cup of coffee and a pastry before they arrived. The rest of the day was given over to entertaining and feeding them 🥰 It is actually our 39th wedding anniversary today 😲 whaaat, where did all those years go 😂 I told John I am expecting rubies next year 😝
Back to the feed costs and it is becoming unsustainable to keep poultry for selling the eggs. We did some calculations and we make about £34 a week and that doesn’t include our time, if we factored that in we are definitely running at a loss. The other side of that is that hens are becoming harder to get hold of, October is the earliest our supplier can get some more, normally he is turning over 3,000 birds every 6/8 weeks. Not sure what the outcome of all this is going to be over the whole country 🤷♀️
A busy and tiring day, fish and chip supper, bathtime for the kiddies and I have no idea what time they will eventually go to sleep 🛌
Sunday: Kids finally went to sleep around 10pm and were up at 6am 😂 we had pancakes then they went with Grampy to do the feed rounds, played outside for a while, indoors for a snack and a drink, back outside to play in the paddock and see the horses, back in for a drink and a snack, I think they enjoyed themselves. Certainly tired themselves out judging by the photos of them sleeping in the afternoon once they had gone home 🥰 John and I then shot off to get some bits from the DIY shop and had a timely return, couldn’t have timed it any better if we tried because just as we turned into the driveway the fox was creeping across it and heading towards the front hens 🤬 that was about 4pm. It was definitely the youngster again, luckily John has trained the hens to go back in when he takes the corn feed to them. We are going out for Sunday lunch at 5pm so he rounded them up and got them in, can’t afford to lose any more 😳
I didn’t get anything done other than the above today and that was tiring enough but it was lovely and the children behaved themselves so well. I know they are my grandchildren but I was impressed with their manners, thanking my sister for bringing the fish and chips and asking to get down from the table each time they had finished eating, no prompting required, well done parents 😁
In the week ahead I have flowers to do every day except Friday 😲 amazing and very grateful for the support of customers especially as it’s only my first year. I can already see what mistakes I have made, what has gone well, what I would grow again and what I won’t be or what I will grow differently. I am loving it and wish I had done it years ago, next year will be bigger, more organised and I will have a better understanding of what I will have available and when. The combinations of flowers is unlimited it’s only my time and my purse that prevents me planting up the whole five acres 😂 but who knows 😝
Thanks for reading, have a great week, hopefully we will get a tad more rain 🤞
Well hello everyone 😁 we are back from our holibobs which was a mixed bag of weather and destinations, the one consistent thing was the excellent food and service. The holiday started well enough two days at sea and then an announcement about very windy weather meaning we were unable to dock at two of our stops 🙄 Another two days at sea 😬 We finally arrived at Stockholm and it was raining, cold hard rain 😏 After that the weather settled to mild and sunny for the other stops until we reached Oslo when it was ridiculously hot 🥵 We have seen some great places and learnt a lot of history, my favourite place had to be Sweden 🥰 In Lithuania we had a fabulous opportunity to go to a Smallholding with the tour guide that lives there, self sufficient, living the good life and sharing it with us. Fab trip with nettle tea, homemade cheese and honey on offer, it was right up my street but all the others really enjoyed themselves as well. One thing that was evident throughout the Baltic countries was the negative impact Russia has had on each country over time and you can clearly see why they don’t want them back. Historic architecture destroyed and replaced with grey, drab, concrete slab buildings, seems like nothing has changed with their mindset for centuries 😢
Once back home it was a marathon of washing and weeding, I literally did not stop except to sleep for the first two days! Shelley did an excellent job of keeping everything going while we were gone but I knew it would be the weeds that got the better of her, they are insane and with rain and sun alternating it’s not surprising 😂 Two more days of constant weeding and we are now at Sunday evening with plenty more to do over the next few weeks, never ending.
One thing Shelley wasn’t sure about were the mangetout (or were they sweet peas) so she didn’t touch them. They were mangetout and there were loads so I set about picking them, some had gone from being nice flat pods to developing tiny peas but in order to keep them coming they need to be picked regularly. What do you do with lots and lots of gone passed their best mangetout, you make soup of course. So today I have made a batch of pea pod and potato soup, modifying it with mangetout pods and some other extras as I always do. I have told John he will have to eat it as I am not wasting food, this year of all years when the prices are rising constantly. My inspiration for self sufficiency was reinvigorated by the trip in Lithuania, they basically live on what they grow, they had five healthy children and were all full of energy. The whole trip made me realise, as if I didn’t already know, that we don’t eat healthily here in the UK, even when we think we do, we fall a very long way short of good simple, nutritious food and yet again the supermarkets are a fraction of the size of ours with far less convenience food on sale.
Monday 13th June 2022: John went to work today that’s the first time we have not spent a day together for four weeks and I think we are both relieved 😂 Since we got back we have mostly been playing catch up with things, we let the hens out to free range again and promptly lost 3 to a fox 🙄 so today they are in until later in the day, these attacks appeared to have been around mid afternoon. I don’t really know what we are going to do because to keep on fighting against it is becoming hard work, it’s constant and I think there is definitely more than one including a family which must be living close by. I am thinking the time will soon come when we give up the ghost and call it a day on having lots of hens keeping just a small flock that can be safely kept 🤷♀️ The main thing I have been doing today is picking which is a whole nicer topic 😁 Mangetout, broad beans, carrot thinnings and self set potatoes are on the menu with chicken tonight as well as strawberries, raspberries and red currants. Red currants are the jewel of mid summer, delightful shiny red globes of goodness 🥰 I think I will make a compote to have with Greek yoghurt and keep some for breakfast maybe with mini pancakes and yoghurt. I picked quite a lot of red currants so I will freeze some and use them for jams or jellies when I have enough or just add them to pies and crumbles. Red currant jelly is a great thing to have to hand as it can be used in gravies and stews for flavour or basted on meat for a sweet sticky coating, I am sure there are a hundred and one other things you can use them for as well. I know the obvious one is summer pudding but although I like almost everything, summer pudding is one of the few things I really do not like, the fact that it is cold is one thing and the texture is the other, not for me thank you very much lol. The weather is perfect for me today, warm but overcast which means I can move around easily and not worry about dashing for shade in the middle of the day.
Popped over to take Mum some rhubarb late afternoon when we got back I got the dinner on and then spent the evening watering pots and anything in the tunnels and greenhouse plus a freshen up for the veg and plant beds. Out into the paddocks to clean out the horse water buckets and let biscuit into the bigger area before finally coming inside at 9.30pm 💤
Tuesday: Sunshine right from the beginning this morning so a hot day ahead and you know what that means for me 🤪 I don’t have flowers to cut this morning and I did the watering last night so it is less of a ‘rush around’ morning and more of a gentle amble about. I had put the washing on last night so hung that out early, got the eggs sorted and put out for sale, messaged the lawn mower man to get that fixed and serviced, invoiced one of Johns customers, had two cups of tea, a banana and then made a yoghurt smoothie all before 8am. The yoghurt smoothie was supposed to be yoghurt with fruit compote. I made the compote yesterday from the fruit I picked and then last night I made some yoghurt. A few years ago I bought one of those easy yoghurt makers and use the sachets for Greek yoghurt because making it yourself involves something like three strainings for Greek yoghurt texture and flavour, this method is much quicker. Or it would be if it had set 😂 I think (well I know now) that the water was too warm and so the yoghurt did not set to the thick consistency I would expect, it was still runny. I had been looking forward to that combination for breakfast but not to be deterred I put some of each in the blender and had a yoghurt smoothie for breakfast instead 🥰
Next job on the list was working out what to make with some pork I got out of the freezer last night. I really need to start using up as much as possible from the freezers before I start loading it with this years pickings 🙄
Out for the afternoon to Shelley’s which was lovely as we picked Flo up from school went back got my nail varnish taken off had a general chat looked at the garden they are just redoing (a mammoth job) and then picked up Josh from school before being dropped off at home 😁
Had a rest before starting the dinner, John had pork casserole and I had pork and peas fried rice so that used up the pork nicely. I had to wait until around 8pm for it to cool down enough to get some watering done 😏 but I need to keep on top of it for the next couple of days as the temps climb. I dug around in the freezer for tomorrows dinner and also found some cherries and strawberries so I will use those to make a couple of crumbles I think and maybe some more compote 😁 They were labelled up for jam but John has gone off jam on toast for breakfast lately preferring scrambled egg which is much better for him 😝 I shall be up very early tomorrow morning to get some flowers cut for a bouquet, get as much done as possible before it gets too hot out there 🥵
Friday: I missed a couple of days days writing but as it was hot I spent most of the time inside 😝 Early yesterday morning as I took the eggs out to the shed and just as John was going up the back to let out the hens I spotted the fox running down the side of the hedge in next doors paddocks 😏 I shouted fox and luckily John heard me and so they didn’t get let out. Yesterday evening Charlie came over with Macca (he played pool) and she went for a wander up the back, when she came in she said she had seen the fox in our little paddock (as well as a large hedgehog 🥰) at the back and so had called the dogs up to see if off. This morning I had just finished cutting flowers and picking broad beans and mangetout when I heard the fox bark up in the little paddock at the back so I took the dogs up there and there was definitely something the other side of the wall judging by the way the dogs were bouncing up and down the boundary and the way a magpie was screeching away. It is a serious problem at the minute and I don’t expect it to get any better, the only thing we can do is be more vigilant and pro active in scaring it or them off. With that in mind I dug out a small solar powered radio and sat that on the fence at the back where it will be on all day hopefully making the fox think there is someone around 🤞 If it doesn’t work I can see our hen numbers going down and down and this time we will be throwing in the towel I reckon 😢
On a happier note I have been busy cutting flowers for orders 🥰 There is a great range available at the minute and I am beginning to see what is worth growing and what is not, I am also working out what other flowers would be great to grow and in what quantities. My mistakes are also becoming apparent now, mostly not staking properly to get maximum stem length or growing too close together which means plants are fighting to space, it’s all a learning curve. I had more plants arrive while I was away which Shelley potted on and then some more arrived yesterday which I need to get in the ground. The problem at the minute for me is the sun, I quickly run out of shade at this time of the year when it’s hot and although I would love to be out there working it is better for my overall health if I avoid it. The flowers love the sun though so I cant grow in the shade which would be the ideal option 😂 It will soon be time for the ‘big guns’ to start blooming, dahlias mainly and who can resist those 😍 I have, I think, made good plans for a continual flower supply right through to November, December, January but only time will tell, I have also been drying some flowers, not many but I will keep doing them and hopefully will have some great material to use if and when I need it. Flower petals have also been drying nicely though you do need a massive amount of those to do any thing on a sellable scale.
We have been eating broad beans and mangetout with all our meals as they are in plentiful supply right now as well as red currants which reminds me I need to pick more of those tonight when it’s cooler (maybe in the dark 😆)
I was up early today to beat the heat and get flowers cut, a couple of ordered bouquets and some wedding jam jars which I am really excited to do. Initially I was asked for green and white and I explained that I couldn’t guarantee a colour so if they definitely wanted that then they might like to try elsewhere. The customer then came back and asked how it all worked and I explained that it would be flowers that were available at the time of cutting to which she replied ‘oh that’s fine, whatever is available then’ great to have customers that understand. As it is I am happy to say that I did indeed have plenty of white and green and so am able to fulfil the original brief. I really had no idea of what would be ready this year, next year I will have a better idea of what is likely to be ready and when 😁
With it being so hot at the minute I have the windows and the curtains closed all day to keep the house cool which it does I am pleased to say. Then overnight I open the windows to let the cooler midnight air in but leave the curtains/blinds shut to keep the bugs out 😝
The rest of today I will be doing mostly not a lot especially outside at any rate and there is only so much I can be doing indoors. Better to use the time reading up, researching, catching up with all subjects that are remotely interesting, to me at any rate, such as gardening, flower arranging, recipes, the walking dead 🤣 yep I am a mixed bag of a personality but it keeps things interesting 🧐
It was an all or nothing day today as predicted, nothing for most of the day as it was too hot for me to get outside and I really couldn’t be bothered to do much except read etc indoors. Then mid evening it was full on getting the flowers and jam jars ready for tomorrow morning plus the two other bouquets ordered. It’s now 10pm and I am sat outside where it is soooo much cooler than it has been and much cooler than indoors. John has gone to bed already because if he has told me once that he is shattered he has told me at least a hundred times 😂 Hopefully we will get the predicted rain showers tomorrow 😁
Saturday: What a drop in temperature 😂 the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction it’s unbelievable, the hottest day of the year so far yesterday and today it’s very much colder and wet, wet, wet. I for one am glad of the rain it replenishes the water tanks and means I don’t spend hours watering the garden. With the amount we have had today I won’t have to water it for a good couple of weeks I would say.
I was up early and outside getting some weeding done before the rain came, also a bit of cutting back and seed collecting. The cerinthe needed some attention and some of it is already producing seeds so it was time to collect. Part of the sustainability angle is to collect the seed from the plants to use in autumn sowings or next spring, it will save you a good deal of money, I will also sell some of them on if I can collect enough. Once I had done that and watered the poly tunnels it was time to deliver flowers, some were collected yesterday evening which left two lots to deliver. One lot of jam jar posies for a wedding and one bouquet to a different customer. I was really chuffed with the jam jars they looked amazing and the smell was divine from the lemon verbena which I included.
In the afternoon Sam came over for a few hours with Mia, George & Lucie, but apart from their visit we didn’t do much else except the usual jobs. Popped out in the evening for our Saturday night fish and chip supper with my sister and brother in law.
We have been having a proper fox problem though and this afternoon John caught the fox chasing my geese. It seems like the same one I saw the other morning, a youngster I think which means it’s no match for full grown adult geese but still it’s a problem as it is stealing hens on a daily basis, we have lost around six since we came home 😏
Just sat typing this up at 10pm when I heard the cat bowl by the back door rattle, thinking it might be the fox I opened the top half of the stable door quickly to surprise it, the cat was sat meowing while a hedgehog was helping itself to cat biscuits 😂
Sunday: Fathers Day, we were up and about fairly early, John went to do the morning rounds and I cut some flowers then Charlie came round to cook her dad some breakfast 🥰 After that we went over to Dads grave where we met the others and I put the flowers I had cut in a jam jar. My brother from Australia and his family came, this is the first time he has been able to visit the grave and see where Dad is laid to rest. I gave them all a family history tour around the graveyard as lots of family members are buried there including Nan and Gramp and Great Grampy Charlie. On to the garden centre, not to but plants but for tea and cake with Shelley, Martin and the kiddies as well as my brother and his family. Back home and Sam and the kiddies arrived with a card and chocolate for John, all about the Daddies today 😁
One annoying thing that has happened twice today is that a bird keeps getting in the egg shed and pecking at the eggs in the egg boxes 😠 twice I have had to clear up in there. One of the problems is that the door doesn’t get closed properly when customers have finished, also though the catch does work it’s not really strong enough and bounces back open. I imagine it’s a magpie as we have a few of them around at the minute and they are pretty resourceful and good at repetitive behaviour.
I am having real trouble with the internet today, well since Friday actually, this happens quite a lot at the weekend and I have a theory that it is to do with that massive cock up of our telephone lines a couple of years ago. Every time it happens I check to see if there is a fault but it always comes back clear from BT but there is definitely a problem somewhere I just can’t figure out where, either that or our router is on its way out 🤷♀️ answers on a postcard please. I have tried and failed multiple times (+10) to upload photos for this blog, it’s just not happening so I am sorry about the lack of them 😏
Have a great week and thank you for reading, take time to enjoy everything, even the little things 😁
Monday 16th May 2022: Unlike a usual Sunday evening, I didn’t sit down, instead I made cakes 🙄 simple 2lb loaf cakes, four lemon and two chocolate. The chocolate ones were made with oil instead of butter because I ran out of that. I definitely managed to use up a few eggs though and as it stands I will have 9 cakes in the freezer for future use 😂 Always handy when we don’t have any eggs in the winter, if we still have loads of eggs when I get back from holiday I shall start among other things, not sure what yet but I will find some recipes I am sure, and I will also start freezing them, might as well. John was also busy out strimming until it started to rain, hopefully we will continue to get some showers over the next couple of days, we really need to replenish the water table.
Actual Monday 😁 I spent nearly all of the morning sorting out clothes ready for packing, all of mine anyway, still have Johns to do yet. He was supposed to be just popping out to replace a set of taps, by 1pm he had not returned, I phoned him and he had had multiple phone calls from customers for various small jobs so had decided to get them done. That’s all well and good but I was waiting to go into town and pick up a few last things for our holiday. Eventually he returned and off we went. Went we got back we had a quick rest before cracking on with some jobs in the evening, mine mostly involved cleaning the washing machine and hoovering the boot room😝 nothing very interesting today.
Tuesday: Started off well with getting some things done in the garden areas, putting up some trellis for a couple of climbers that will ramble over the dog kennels. They have dual purpose, cover the shape you looking kennel structure and provide some lovely foliage for flowers next year 😁 Meanwhile John was fixing wood to the bottom of the gates to stop the bloody geese getting through, they have been ducking under and coming into the front area and then round to the lawn if the gate is open. I then went on to do a bit of weeding and planting the squash plants that had been growing, I also planted up a couple of cucumbers outside and some tomato plants, might as well get them in if I have got them. The reason being that the Bank of England is predicting apocalyptic food prices by the end of the year and inflation at 10%, grow everything you can and make sure you use everything you grow. With doom and gloom on the horizon I thought I would try and experiment, freezing eggs in a muffin tin. You crack them open into the tin, pop the yolk with a cocktail stick, cover and freeze, then once frozen take them out of the tin and freeze in freezer bags. I think this will work fine for any eggs you want to use in baking once they are defrosted they should be like any other egg you have just cracked. Not sure about poached and fried but I can’t see why they would be much different and certainly will be fine for scrambled. Come autumn when the hens are all moulting the egg number reduced drastically and this way I should always have plenty.
Freezing eggs for the inevitable shortage in autumn
Sam came over with the twins late morning and then Shelley and Florence, we spent a pleasant enough hour in the garden although first George got stung by stinging nettles and then Lucie 🙄 They had both finished crying and we were chatting again when Sam looked across to the house with a look of concern and said ‘what’s that’ I stood up to look and immediately shouted to everyone to get in the house. I then shouted to John to get the dogs in now, every one did exactly as they were told which was great. The reason was a swarm, thousands of bees had decided that somewhere nearby they were going to settle, they were not high up either but low down at face level which is why I thought it was better to get in out of the way. They settled in the cider apple tree next to the house and I phoned around to get someone to come and collect them. Dave, one of the bee keepers who we sold honey for last year came over, he got his bee suit on and collected them up, much to the delight of the children, it was exciting for them. He waited a fair time to gather them all up but there were a lot he couldn’t get to go in the box and so he left with the ones he had which must have been thousands, it was a big swarm apparently. The rest were still flying around and clustered on the tree for a while but we went out to get some shopping and when we came back they had dispersed. Early evening I went out to water the poly tunnel and as I got near to the small one I could hear exactly where they had gone 😂 hundreds of them in my tunnel. Hopefully Dave is coming back late evening with some pheromone to gather them up.
The swarm settled pretty quickly fairly low down in a tree right next to the house.
Dave came back with a box that previously had a swarm in and some syrup in the hopes they would go in but they were quite docile but this point and reluctant to move, he gently brushed some of them in and is leaving the box overnight to see if more can be encouraged to go in. I need to water the tunnel 😂 so I am waiting until almost dark before going out to do it, don’t want to make them angry 🐝
Wednesday: I was up early this morning 5am, I needed to get quite a lot of flowers cut for orders today and I didn’t want to be disturbing those bees in the tunnel 😂 They were still mostly all sleeping 💤 I went about my business in relative safety 🙄 actually they are apparently not hostile when they are swarming as they have nothing to protect, no hive, no honey and no eggs, that’s reassuring but still when there are thousands of them it’s a bit scary. The ones that have been left behind number around 200 which is a tiny fraction of the amount of bees in a hive, still it’s a lot of bees in my poly tunnel 😂 I got all the cutting done ended up with wet feet and arms as the dew was pretty heavy after the rain yesterday. Then I went on to getting some weeding done in one of the front beds, I wanted to get them out before we go away or they would be triffids by the time I get back. I got stung on the arms and feet by long stinging nettles, I had changed my shoes for flip flops, what the heck was I even thinking 🧐 numpty. After doing that job it was round to the veg garden, which is rapidly becoming a flower garden 😝 to plant up, you guessed it, flowers. Grasses this time actually, specific types that are great for flower bouquets, they add movement and sparkle. Then I planted up some scented pelargoniums, not my usual thing but the foliage smells amazing and again good for flower posies.
Back indoors and I got the eggs from the freezer, they took a little bit of persuading to leave the tin, bang, bang, bang, but eventually I got them out and popped them into a bag and returned them to the freezer for use later in the year. Back outside to potter a little bit more and to observe the bees, I am quite fascinated by them to be honest, their behaviour patterns under the circumstances are interesting, they clump together quite a bit and appear dozy. Here is what I have learnt, if they don’t go to the box Dave bought, they will die, they need to feed and they are not getting any instruction from the rest of the hive so they don’t really know what to do without all the others 😢 As I said before they are a tiny fraction of the hive, a couple of hundred out of a swarm of 40/50,000 so are dispensable as far as the hive health goes. But they are bees and we need bees so trying to gather up stragglers is a good idea. Those that don’t go to the box will definitely die, this is ok though because they then become part of the food chain for other insects and small mammals such as beetles and mice, it’s just sad. Some of the younger ones could gather pollen and go to a different hive and because they are young and have the pollen they would probably be accepted, old bees or bees with no pollen will not 😏 Nature is both amazing and cruel at the same time isn’t it.
Indoors early afternoon to make up the flower orders and then a sit down before going out late afternoon to deliver flowers and eggs today 😁 Then I have a flower bouquet collection late afternoon.
It’s definitely swarm weather, the chap that collected our bees has collected another three swarms today! He came back to get any of the bees that had gone into the box by dusk, sadly the rest that are clustering in the polytunnel in various places will now die off and be part of the food chain. A queen bee can lay up to a thousand eggs a day apparently so they will soon replenish and he also said ‘our swarm’ is now in a hive and working really hard, yay go bees 🐝
More rain this evening, I for one am not complaining, we really needed the ground water levels to get back up to decent levels 🌧
Massive thunder storms with lightning and heavy bursts of rain.
Thursday: I spent the morning getting my hair done while John was busy at home sorting and tidying his van.
When we returned home we watched the lunchtime news and I can’t help but comment on a couple of things. First is the fact that potentially there will be food shortages due to goods not being able to be shipped from Ukraine. It is a fertile and abundant country but don’t you think it is a bit ridiculous to rely so heavily on one country to provide vast quantities for the rest of the world. Obviously Ukraine needs all the support we can give it in anyway we can but if it teaches us one thing it should be to look at worse case scenarios and see how resilient we are going forward.
Second is the rate of inflation and the rising cost of living, well I just can’t shut up sorry 😝 Back in the 80’s (yes I know I am going to sound like an old fossil) inflation went above 10% and mortgage interest rates climbed up and beyond 15%, 15%! Just let that sink in if you are in your 20/30’s and have a mortgage, I am not age bashing but seriously it was a tough period for our finances and guess what, there wasn’t any talk of help in any way from any direction at all. You got on with it by working more hours or taking a second job and dispensing with any little luxuries, you rode the storm basically and yes some people sank under the cost of it all, some people lost everything and had to start again. I can tell you countless stories of the types of jobs people took that wasn’t their usual line of work because it was a necessity to do so. But also back in the day hardly anyone was in debt up to the hilt, mostly we had a mortgage and that was it, we had a second hand car that was bought and paid for not on tick and our lifestyle was not as extravagant as they are today, that extravagance has become the norm 🙄 it seems to have become an entitlement. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, I know things have changed a lot and I know that there is genuine hardship out there but from observations there are also a lot out there who do not know how to cut their cloth either that or they couldn’t possibly give up what I would consider luxuries at a time like this 🤔
We had a busy few hours this evening, I wrote a list of jobs that need doing just in case John was not aware of all of them 😂 He started off by cutting the grass in the driveway then the paddock and finally the lawn. I potted up some chrysanthemums that arrived today, these will extend the flowers available right through to Christmas 😁 I did the watering in the tunnels, cleaned the horses water buckets out and filled them all up, did a bit of weeding, sorted all the eggs after John fed the birds and collected the eggs. In-between all that we had the twins and then I had a live online workshop to attend, my eyes are very tired 🥱 Up early tomorrow to cut flowers for a 100th birthday bouquet 🥰
Friday: Still rainy lol after all those dry months it hasn’t stopped raining on and off for a week now. Up early and I cracked on with cutting flowers for todays birthday bouquet 🥰 Then it was on to cleaning and then just before lunch ironing johns shirts. The only time I do ironing is for occasions and though I don’t mind doing it I was glad when it was finished 😂 Meanwhile John had to pop out to get a small job done and then once he was back there were jobs on the list for him to get his teeth into. Shelley said make sure I leave her some jobs to do, so I definitely will 😝
I made up the flowers at lunchtime and then delivered them and when I got back I thought I would have a go at a corsage. I quite liked doing one, it’s a different skill to try out.
Popped out early evening to pick up some plants that I had seen for sale, good sized plants that were too good to pass up lol. When I got back I put the dinner on then out to the paddock to get Biscuit in and confine her to a small pen. She hasn’t been bad it’s just that she will get bad if I leave her out on all that grass after the rain we have had so this is preventative.
A live meeting then gardeners world, lovely Friday night, almost, my jeans unexpectedly ripped across the front of the thigh area so I now have to quickly order new jeans for going away 😂
Saturday: A busy day today rammed with every type of job you could possibly think off both inside and out. John has been busy as well cleaning out the birds and mowing the grass in the front paddock by hand because the belt broke on the ride on mower 😝 Shelley came over in the afternoon and we walked through two lots of flower selection, conditioning and arranging, she did a great job and all will be well with that side of things I am certain. In the evening I printed of yet more paperwork for the holiday 😂 one more bit to do.
Sunday: Another busy, crammed day of things to do, mainly packing, I think I have packed way too much and then not enough at the same time 🤪 It’s all the little things to remember but hopefully I have remembered everything and what I haven’t, tough. John has been cutting everything g with the hand mower again, flipping typical that the ride on breaks just as you need to get everything up together. Then he had the front hens to clean out and power wash, that’s the last of the big clean outs, Shelley will then be able to just skip out and all should be fine. I have cleaned the spare room ready for the kids to sleep in, I still need to go and alter biscuits electric fencing to give her a bigger area for a week, then Sam is back from her holiday and will re jig the grazing again.
There is such a massive amount to organise on a Smallholding when you want to go on holiday, there are endless lists of daily, weekly routines for each and every animal, lists for the top priority jobs, lists for what, where, when, how and why, general lists for the household stuff, deliveries, customers and then there is all the work needed to get it all up together to make life easier for the person who is coming to take over. We are incredibly lucky to have the girls who always know how much we need a holiday and are willing to step in and help out massively, without them we simply couldn’t go away 🥰🥰🥰
Downloaded a few books to read and the Miriam Margolyes book in Audio form, that should be a bit of a hoot 😁
This afternoon I am having my nails, eyelashes and eyebrows, preened, tinted and polished and then a roast a Shelley’s 😁 Back home to get some watering done and water in some nematodes for the vine weevil, fill up the horses water, let a biscuit out for a day and a half before she gets confined for a week, and finally get a sit down. We will have plenty of last minute jobs and things to get sorted tomorrow but for the blog that’s it for almost three weeks. That just leaves me to say have a wonderful Jubilee celebration weekend, it’s not often a Platinum Jubilee is held, what an amazing lady our Queen is in every way, and providing we get a fit to travel result I will be back in a few weeks time. 🚢😁🥂🥳 🇬🇧
Monday 9th May 2022: Woah what a full on morning I have had this morning. First though, after I published the blog yesterday afternoon we had a situation. John shouted, you better come out here the goose is not well, it’s backside is hanging out 🙄 I go out and sure enough the goose had prolapsed, yesterday I spotted her going into the stable block so I said to John you’d better check for goose eggs in there, turns out she was going in for other reasons 😏 We managed to separate her from the others and catch her, with some shouting from John 😂 I got m rubber gloves on and had a good look, hoping that she was just egg bound which I might have been able to do something about. She wasn’t and the prolapse was all fluid filled making the decision a quick one, sadly she would have to be dispatched 😢 Trying to reinsert a prolapse like that would likely end in rupture which would cause her death anyway so we had to do the deed. Very sad, no particular reason for it, sometimes it just happens.
Back to this mornings workload, it started around 7.30am with two hours of weeding, then onto panting up one of the cutting beds. John has now made the supports and so I decided to plant it up with some of the annuals I have coming on. I also have some of these direct sown as seeds so I should get a good succession providing we don’t have a hard frost and if one is forecast as long as I remember to cover them up. Then I had a message from a local flower shop asking if I would be willing to be a contact to supply locally grown flowers. I explained I was starting off small and that was ok they are looking for all sizes, so I said yes that is something I could do. With that in mind I thought I better get on and plant up more of the plants I have been nurturing, all annuals now so they need to go in but also be protected from the cold. That lot took me up to 1pm, in for a quick rest before a live online workshop this afternoon. Oh I also planted up the courgette plants so I did get a bit of vegetable stuff done too but I can see at this rate it is going to be mostly about flowers lol.
The online workshop was brilliant, it was an hour and a half of learning all about the value of the flowers we grow and sell, about how when we start out we nearly all undervalue ourselves, our work, our skills and our results. Without exception we were all nodding and laughing knowing we had done all the things we shouldn’t have and now need to rectify that in order to make a living from what we are doing. Very interesting, and very revealing but also empowering 🥰
Shelley called in so we did a walk round the garden discussing what will need doing while I away, I think the added cut flower bit is daunting but I know she will cope 😁
Tuesday: Bit of drizzle this morning 😁 not much but hopefully at some point we will get a splash more 🙄 we definitely need it the rain tanks are dry 😏 I have a regional meet up with the Flowers from the Farm South East group today which is being held locally so I am going to that. I am looking forward to meeting up with others, a couple of them are only a few miles away from me so it will be nice to make some connections. Just the usual morning jobs to get sorted before I go.
Well actually I got the wrong day 🤪 but luckily I double checked before going 😂 so with a spare day ahead of me I got on with the usual things out in the garden. John came home at lunchtime so we went out to get something to eat and pick up a plant I have been looking for.
Wednesday: Today I actually went to the meeting I thought was yesterday 😬 First in the morning though I spent about an hour printing off paperwork for our forthcoming holiday, in the age of technology and ‘E-tickets’ it confounds me that we are advised to print everything off in case the internet isn’t working on check in 🤷♀️🤪😂 So after I printed off a novels worth of pages it was time to go out for the day. What a day it was, the place that we met and had the meeting is a member also and her set up is truly amazing, inspiring and we all took photos with the intention of getting husbands and partners to build us something similar 😝 We talked about all kinds of flowers and growing them, types of compost, good and bad, had a good look round the whole flower farm (immaculate) and then went to the pub for lunch. All in all that was one of the best days I have had of late lol and it was lovely to meet up with other local area members from Flowers from the Farm 😁 Back home mid afternoon and on with some planting up, make up a bouquet, deliver it, dinner, etc etc, day done. We had a good lot of rain today which is fabulous as we really need it.
Thursday: I spent quite a bit of time sorting out eggs, plants for sale, cutting flowers ready for conditioning, a few household chores and then out to check on everything and water the tunnels and greenhouse. I am getting good enquiries about the flowers which is exciting and I am glad people are loving them 🥰 With the enquiries coming in I thought I had better crack on and get everything I can in the ground, I think I am going to need it all. John was home at lunchtime again and we popped out to get a few things. Shelley came with Josh and Flo after school so that I could show Shelley what conditioning the flowers is all about, plus a wander round the garden just showing her what and when to cut the flowers and foliage. As she will be living here while we are away and looking after everything that will include the flowers this time. It is a bit daunting but I have total faith in her ability to cope with whatever comes her way 😁 Sam arrived with Lucie and George, Mia went off for her swimming lesson, once everyone had gone home I sat down with a cuppa and thought about all the things I need to get done tomorrow, there is always a long, long list 🤪
Friday: Which all morning I actually thought was Saturday 🤪 That’s because John has been at home probably. He has been busy clearing and topping the paddocks while I have been Uber busy in the garden. Yesterday I had an enquiry for quite a large flower order eeek, at first I was ‘oh I don’t think I am ready for this’ and then I thought ‘absolutely I can do this’ and so that is what I replied. So I was up early to get cutting flowers which took me longer than I thought it would lol, then it was on to planting up everything I have that is ready to go in and and in every available space I could find. I also sowed plenty of annual seeds direct into the ground, these are over and above the ones I have already sown. Not ideal as flowers will be all over the place but the garden is going to look amazing 🤩 I had another small order to cut for which I also did first thing and then another order for four posies that came in for tomorrow, I am loving this and wish I had done it years ago 🥰 By early afternoon I was pooped and so inside for a bite to eat, a cuppa and a good long sit down, maybe even a nap.
These two pictures are for the big order, they are loose to be arranged by the customer, hopefully I can get some pictures from her when they are done.
And this is what my flower storage area looks like right at this minute 😂
In the afternoon I put in flower support jute netting in the small poly tunnel, I did want to get some wind break up but it was windy 🤪 so there was no chance of that. I did a fair bit of watering in the evening and had all the flowers that were ordered collected finally getting inside as it was getting dark.
Saturday: Up early to cut more flowers this morning for the hand held posies that were ordered for today. I wanted to do it early because I suspected it was going to get hot pretty quickly and I was right. Once they were cut and in the back conditioning we went to get some dog food and some peat free compost from the farm next door. I need more flower growing space 😝 I have two raised beds in the veg garden unplanted and so have now allocated those to flowers 😂 John barrowed the home made compost over and filled the beds 2/3 full with that, then as it is likely to be weedy we put a layer of cardboard on top, wetted it down and put the peat free compost on top of that. By the time the plants have established roots long enough to go down the cardboard will have rotted (that’s the plan anyway) I now have two more beds to fill up, I will have grasses in one, different types of grass, sparkling fountain, millet grass and bunny tails, all good for flower bouquets. The other bed will probably have chrysanthemums which will be arriving soon. If you think chrysanthemums are boring then watch this space, the new varieties are zingy and bright and as a bonus they can keep flowering right into the winter months making them an excellent addition to a flower farm.
Hand held posies for a customer this morning, there are three in this pot but they make an amazing bunch 🥰
I have already (asked 😬) told John what I want for my birthday in July 😂 I want a hydropod for cuttings lol. I fail miserably at cuttings no matter how I try, I just don’t think the conditions are right and so a hydropod will eliminate all of that and I might actually have more successes than failures 🤞
I have a quiet few days at the minute for flowers which is great because I have used everything that is blooming already, need to wait for the next flush of flowers.
Sunday: We have been non stop busy over the past three days really, this morning we were still busy getting things tired and sorted. John has been busy in the paddock taking down the rest of the fence, he is doing it slowly, changing to other jobs now and again so that he is not overworking his elbow and that seems to be working as the pain is much less now. He has also been giving the stable block a tidy up and we will probably have a bonfire next week sometime. Meanwhile I have been in the greenhouse potting on the last few things and sorting out the cold frame area. Getting rid of anything that did t grown over winter or is struggling to grow now and putting plants out for sale so that there is less work for Shelley to do while we are away. Not that she minds it’s just that keeping things on an even keel in the greenhouse is difficult enough as it is with the temps up and down like they are at the minute, if she can just concentrate on keeping the stuff outside watered if it doesn’t rain much and the stuff in tunnels watered anyway then we should be on a winner. Then it was out for the afternoon to visit Ken who is 80 years young today, plenty of cake and chat before returning home to get the afternoon jobs done. I was delighted to see that we had actually had a few eggs customers, I was starting to get concerned at the lack of egg sales 🙄 I was wondering what the heck we were going to do with all these eggs, not sure where everyone has gone but normally Saturday is busy and yesterday we only had one customer. Only one customer today up until we went out as well but thankfully quite a few while we were out which makes me feel better. I know it’s not just us that are struggling to sell them and I can’t work out why that would be 🤷♀️ Maybe everyone has gone away the same week or maybe they are just not eating eggs this week 😂 That’s the problem with egg sales they are all or nothing it seems lately but trying to get a balance is really difficult. If the egg shortages that are predicted come then we will be inundated with customers but then I will be thinking that it’s not fair on our loyal regulars, maybe time to introduce a loyalty scheme of some sort 🤔
It has rained today again, fabulous, there are thunderstorms and heavy rain predicted for sometime this evening as well, might get those tanks filled back up again yet 😁
The elderflowers are about to come out and I really wanted get some elderflower cordial made this year but what’s the betting they will appear when I am away. It is a very distinct smell and I am already getting a waft of it now and again 🥰 The asparagus, which has been slow due to the dry weather has now started shooting up after the first bit of rain, hopefully we will get a decent crop now it has rained again. I really need to look at way of preserving it so that we can have it later on in the summer as well.
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 18th April, Bank Holiday Monday: Taking it fairly easy today , every day is a work day but some are more work than others 😂 John spent a couple of hours burning all the rubbish, that is cardboard rubbish and tree clipping rubbish from a few weeks ago then he spent the rest of the time on and off finishing the coating on the fences in the paddock. I spent most of my time pottering in the garden doing things like weeding, sowing seeds and taking cuttings. My sister and brother in law came over and I went with them over to Dads grave to put some flowers on (he died two years ago today) but that was mostly all we have done. It has been a lovely sunny day again although slightly cooler and a bit more cloud today.
I picked some flowers this morning for the purpose of trying out some photography, I find it difficult to get good shots so I asked online and got a few tips.
Tuesday: The sun has disappeared today and it’s a tad colder but not too bad, no sign of rain yet though and everything is getting a bit dry 🙄 After a week of working outside, a holiday weekend of socialising (and some more work) I thought it was time to get some housework done 😏 I spent the morning hoovering, polishing, washing and wiping down, I have scratched that itch for a while 🤪 I have also spent some time recording a podcast ‘extra’ which is all about my journey into the flower side of things and how that is going, I was contacted by a listener and they asked for it specifically so I was happy to oblige 😁
It is our granddaughter’s birthday today, Mia is the grand old age of six, which feels pretty grown up to a five year old. It never ceases to make me chuckle how children can’t wait to be the next year older and adults are always yearning to be younger 😂
We had a conversation yesterday with my Sister and Brother in law, the topic was, if you could travel back in time, what time would you go to? I found this interesting because both the fellas decided that it would be good to go to the sixties, and the reason, because you could buy up lots of old run down properties come back to now and be rich 🙄 My sister and I on the other hand thought the post war years would be interesting, nothing to do with getting rich though 😂 more to do with observing how people lived and managed after the war, not only do different generations have a different take on things but it would seem different sexes as well 🤔
It’s raining which is great as the garden is dry, not so great is that I hung the washing out about half an hour ago 😬
Wednesday: I spent the morning cleaning out the Guinea pigs, quail, light Sussex and turkeys before going on to plant up mange tout. Ted the Turkey is a bit bothersome for his lady friend at this time of year and so we have had to separate them so she gets a break 🙄 The problem is he then started attacking the light Sussex cockerel through the fence 🙄 so had to beef up the fencing so he couldn’t get near and hope that works, turkeys, nope never again lol. It has been disastrous to be honest, the females get too much attention and can’t handle it, the males (Ted in the case) spends his whole time trying to find something or someone to mate with 😬 Everything else is doing fine and the quail have started laying in abundance which is good.
I thought I would tackle one thing at a time and so peas were on the agenda, I had some more sweet peas to plant up, some in the ground and some in pots with hazel sticks to climb up. Then the mangetout into one of the vegetable beds, they had to be covered with mesh straight away or the cats will get in and dig them up, anyone would think I lay on toilet areas especially for them. It’s not like they don’t have plenty of space to go and do their business elsewhere.
I did a bit of weeding in the front and then looked after the twins while Mia went for her birthday treat at a riding school. After they had gone it was hum drum things like get the dinner and do some shopping.
Thursday: Another lovely day and a tad warmer than the previous couple. After the usual morning jobs I got my bucket and snips and went out to cut some flowers and foliage. I made up three little jam jar posies to go out and also cut a couple of buckets to make some flower bunches up to put out tomorrow. Had a message to see if I could do a bunch of flowers today and luckily as I had just cut everything I can do that no problem.
I spent a couple of hours in the greenhouse pricking out seedlings before it got a bit hot in there and then checking on all the plants I have already planted up giving them some water if it looked like they needed it. We have had no April showers so far this year 😏 we really could do with one or two as everything is very dry. I think it has been like this a couple of years in a row now, very dry spring, John thinks we may have a drought this year 🤷♀️
Friday: I spent the morning in the greenhouse, no sun today so it wasn’t too hot to work in there. Plenty of pricking out and potting on plus moving some plants over to the poly tunnel as I am fast running out of space in the greenhouse. Just a couple more weeks and everything will be able to go outside and harden off or get planted up.
Then I spent the afternoon with Sam, Shelley and the kiddies at a local Bluebell Wood called Bradbury Clump, the carpet of Bluebells was amazing and the smell was delicious 😋 It was quite cold mind you but as long as you keep walking and it was ok, the children had a fab time running, climbing and playing.
Bluebell woods 🥰
When I got home I had two deliveries, one was florist buckets, I quickly worked out I needed more than one bucket 😂 so I ordered another five. The other was a plant delivery 🤪 a wholesale order of 84, yes 84 penstemon plug plants!
Saturday: More of the same as every other day lol, plenty to do in the greenhouse and in the garden, I wanted to get the dwarf beans planted up and they are now in situ. I had to get Biscuit in from the paddock and section her a small area off as she is lying down a lot which is a sign she is having too much grass. That means getting the electric fencing out and the tape, John put the tape away at the end of last year 🙄 and if you have ever tried to untangle that stuff you will know why I was 😡 if I get it in I do it properly so that it’s easy to use next time, not John he just gathered it up and dumped it 🙄 Once I had done that I wanted to get the front paddock cut before any rain (chance would be a fine thing) Last year we didn’t cut it and then struggled at the end of the year and had to put the horses on it. This year I want to cut a good inner circle of it and leave the outsides long for the orchids which will mean that we should be able to cut the long grass more easily at the end of the year. The problem is out mower does not like long grass 😂 but if it’s half on short grass then it copes more easily, that’s the plan any way.
Sunday: Busy day today, for me anyway, not so much for John. He has had a painful elbow for a few weeks but though I keep telling him to get it looked at he did nothing about it. This morning he could barely move his arm so he tried to call 111, long waiting time, called the minor injuries they don’t want to know because it’s been so long since it first happened, back on the phone to 111, long phone call and finally get an answer to call the surgery in the morning 😏 I fully support the NHS but talking to other people they say the same and that is, not sure what has happened to the service since covid, people are struggling to get phone appointments let alone face to face ones and don’t even get me started on the chemist in our area 😬 I am sure it will all sort itself out in time 🤷♀️
Anyhow, while John was laying on the sofa 🤪 I spent most of the day outside working on all aspects of the garden. Some watering as it’s bone dry 🙄 some planting up of tomatoes in the big tunnel and some flowers in the veg garden area. I also planted up 6 small shrubs which will eventually be used for cut foliage, they are now where the bed between the tunnels used to be, hopefully they will do well there. They will never get too big for the area because I will constantly be trimming them lol. Did I tell you I had decided to use the small tunnel for flowers 😊 well I have and I planted up some flower plants yesterday, more of the same will go outside it is just so that I can get some earlier blooms of a few things. Planted up a grapevine that I got from the sale area at a garden centre back in late winter, bargain as it has now come into leaf. I picked the first lot of asparagus for dinner tonight along with some spring greens, not sure what else I did but it was plenty up to mid afternoon when we decided to visit my Mum. I took her some flowers because I can 😁 and I made her pose for photos 😂 she tried to hide behind them. Beautiful aren’t they, the flowers and my Mum 🥰 Back home, cook the dinner then out to the greenhouse to water that after a day of sunshine. Another week done, I hope you have a great week and get to do at least one thing you love x
Wednesday 13th April 2022: Ooo it’s Wednesday and so far I haven’t written a thing 🤪 That’s because I was pretty busy Monday doing all the usual jobs, some bits in the greenhouse, watering everything that was looking dry, housework and some paperwork bits. I had to get that all sorted because late afternoon I went to Shelley’s to look after Josh and Florence overnight while Shelley and Martin went away. We had a fun time with pizza and movies plus board games and lots of talking. I had an early start on Tuesday morning with Florence stood by the bed at 6am saying ‘Nana I need a poo’ 😂 it’s been a lot of years since that has happened to me! I came home mid afternoon Tuesday to find John had not even bothered to wash up while I was away nor do the eggs from the night before so I got those jobs done quickly. After that I needed to get a few things sorted as quite a few of my lot were coming round to see Sue’s daughter before she flew back to America. We shared memories and thoughts, pizza and cider and my youngest sister lit a candle which we blew out before we all left which seemed quite symbolic. Sue opted not to have a funeral but I think sometimes the people that are still here need to have some closure and that was a lovely informal way to do that.
We finally arrive at Wednesday 😁 my first thought the morning was for the flower bouquet I needed to get ready for later this afternoon. So after getting the essential jobs done I got my bucket ready with clean sterile water in it and went round with my snips cutting the flowers and foliage I wanted to make the bouquet. All of the material needs to be conditioned beforehand, that is basically stood in clean water for a few hours in the dark so that it can take on board as much as it needs to survive as long as possible in the vase. There will be some extra conditioning to do on the woody stems prior to making up the bouquet but then it will be ready to go 😁 That will be my first paying customer and I have a second tomorrow, I have six Jam Jar posies to do for a wedding in June which has been arranged, paid for and is now in the diary 🥰
The rest of the morning I have spent in the greenhouse potting on seedlings and small plants. I have discovered that mice can indeed climb and it has eaten the sunflower seeds 😡 so I had to redo those and put them under something secure so they can’t get eaten again. I also had to rescue some blue lace flower seedlings that have been munched on, again putting them under cover so the rest don’t get eaten. I think a mouse is getting in under a tiny sliver at the bottom of the door, it’s the only place it can get in so I need to see what can be done about that because it’s tiresome to say the least 🙄 The mousetrap does not seem to go off, just feed the little fecker 🤪 That brought me up to lunchtime, a quick sit down and regroup before starting again this afternoon.
Busy couple of hours early afternoon, I worked till I got hungry 😋 I planted the remaining broad beans plants and all the kohlrabi plants. I made sure I covered them before finishing, I haven’t grown the kohlrabi before but as it looks like it’s from the brassica family I don’t want the cabbage white ravaging it plus I don’t want the cats digging newly planted veg up. I still have plenty to get planted and sown, some, like the runner beans are not ready yet but I do need to get on with the beetroot and carrots 🙄 In for some lunch then out again to sow a bed of carrots, these are all autumn king so once they are in they will basically stay there until autumn and what isn’t used fresh will be used for freezing or drying. Again I have done a decent job of covering, cats and carrot root fly this time, always something trying to get your goods 🤪
Back inside to get the bouquet done, this didn’t quite go as planned and I wasn’t 100% happy, I have a few things that need more practice. One of the hardest things I am finding is that I have very small hands and so holding the bouquet while I put it together is difficult and I don’t really know if there is a cheat way to do it but if there is I will find it.
So I thought to myself if you are not happy are you going to leave it or do something about it, so I did something about it 😊 I wasn’t happy with the way it looked once it was wrapped and so I unwrapped it added a couple more bits and voila, happy me. It’s fairly free form and didn’t look so good trussed up in paper so I let it be free and it works much better. Still got to figure out some good photography angles but I will get there eventually.
In the evening I had an online event which was really interesting, it was all about the psychological aspect of gardening for all different groups of people. I was also fascinated to learn that in WW1 they made gardens behind the lines, on both sides, they would get seeds sent over from home and sow a garden 😯
Thursday: Once all the routine stuff was done I went out with my bucket to cut flowers and foliage for todays bouquet which was being picked up later in the afternoon. I also gathered some flowers to make some jam jar posies to put out tomorrow and did a bit of farm social media stuff. Sam and the kiddies arrived just before lunch and left later in the afternoon, once they had gone I put the kettle on, made a cuppa and did the bouquet which was then collected. John arrived home and went to do the birds while I cut some areas of grass on the ride on mower. Once that was done we went in and as I hadn’t got anything ready for dinner we were wondering what to have when the phone rang. It was my sister ‘do you want some dinner, I have cooked for four but now the other two can’t make it’ yep we will be there in two shakes of a tail 😂 perfect. Back home in time to put the birds to bed, John will be playing pool with Martin while I watch an online spring floristry workshop with one of my groups 🥰 great day 😁
Saturday: You can tell it’s been a busy week as I have missed out Friday as well 😂 Good Friday, a lovely sunny bank holiday and I mostly spent the day doing stuff, I can’t actually remember what stuff but it would have been to do with plants, flowers, shrubs, veg 🤪 That’s the trouble if I don’t type it up at night, I completely forget what I have done. One thing I do know is that it was Charlottes birthday and so mid afternoon we went round to a BBQ at hers along with Shelley and family and Sam and family 🥰 then we went down to my sisters as it was her birthday as well where we stayed until it was time to come and put the birds to bed around 8.30pm. Also food available at hers and so no cooking today 😃
A little Tussie Mussie I made to give to Charlotte.
Actual Saturday 🤪 A busy day again today and another hot, sunny one. First thing I went out and cut flowers and foliage for an ordered bouquet today. I then got another of the cut garden raised beds filled with soil before moving on to plant up a bed of delphiniums. John has made some good support frames for these and I have used jute netting secured to the top for them to grow through. I also planted up some ami Majus (bishops flower) and some lupin in the bed next to it which already had some liatris, astrantia and gladioli in it, I put another support frame over that and put the jute netting on top. By this time it was getting pretty hot and I had to keep going back to the shade to cool off as I could feel my skin beginning to prickle 🙄 I am not exactly disabled with Lupus but it is disabling at times 😏 Meanwhile John was hanging the field gates which are now finished and it’s looking good, just need to take down the old fencing. There is always so much fencing to do and we really wouldn’t bother but you have to keep the horses in somehow 😝 I carried on planting up spare plants wherever I have space for them, the garden will be full to the brim this year I think, that’s good though, not too much room for weeds 🤞 I have bought quite a few shrubs lately and am contemplating making a shrubbery in the front paddock, it’s a strange thing when you have a lot of space but only certain places that you can plant things due to animals either eating them or scratching them up before they get established. Mid afternoon I came indoors to get the eggs sorted as I did it do them this morning, better to get the outside jobs done first when it’s going to be hot. Then it was time to get the ordered bouquet made, I was very pleased with this one, it was beautiful but my photography skills are letting me down as I can’t seem to get a decent shot that shows them off well 🤷♀️ Time for a sit down before the animals need doing and then we are off round to my other sisters whose birthday it is today and another BBQ, happy days.
Easter Sunday: Oh gosh I am so out of sync this week that I forgot this goes out today lol. We spent the morning working, I got the last couple of raised beds ready and then John filled them all up with the top soil. I planted a few crazy daisy plants and then pricked out some seedlings, grasses and plumes for the cutting garden. Sowed more tomato and pepper seeds as well as some more courgettes. I made sure everything that needed water got some both in the greenhouse and around the garden. Just after lunch we went over to see Sam and the Kiddies and take them some Easter eggs, we stayed for a cuppa and then came back home. I did a bit of weeding in the front beds, sorted the eggs and then had a sit down for a hour or so. We had a lovely roast dinner at Shelley and Martins, and took the kiddies Easter their eggs. On the way home we called in to Charlie and Maccas and dropped an egg off for them and a tiny one for the bump lol. By the time we got home it was getting dark, time to put the birds to bed and that’s another day and week done. Though we have Bank Holiday Monday tomorrow which always feels like a luxury even if we will be working for some of it 😂
frieslandfarm (flowers) 