i never promised you a rose garden

This weekend has been a complete emotional roller coaster on the gardening front- who'd have thought this gentle hobby, usually associated with pensioners could be full of such high-drama?!

Steve went down to the allotment this morning only to find that those blinking rabbits (or maybe roe deer?) have indeed chomped their way through our plug plants, just as I had predicted. All the broccoli and nearly all the caulis are gone. We nipped back up to the garden centre to buy some more, only to find they had sold out. I am completely gutted, as I was dreaming of home grown cauliflower cheese. I have bought some cauli seeds and lots of nylon netting to cover the kale and cabbages that are left, but I still feel like a little piece of my heart is broken.

After sulking for most of the afternoon about losing our veg, I was suddenly filled with excitement again, when I managed to secure three cold frames on Freecycle. These little beauties will keep the frost off and hopefully keep us in veg all winter. What a stroke of luck!


Further cheer was to be found in discovering the tomato plants have a covering of tiny fruits, and with all the sunshine we've been having I'm hopeful that they will ripen nicely. I'm just praying that the dreaded tomato blight doesn't come our way.


What flower could lift one's mood more than the humble sunflower- just look at how they're coming along. Such a contrast from when they were planted out just five weeks ago.


And most joyous of all, after all the disappointment with the flat elderflower champagne earlier in the week, I am thrilled to report the bubbles are back!

"So smile for a while and let's be jolly,
Love shouldn't be so melancholy..."

bargain brassica

“Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.” Mark Twain

Flora and I have been hard at work up at the allotment this evening, planting out some bargain plug-plants I picked up in the garden centre, which had been reduced to £1 per tray of 12.

We have green broccoli

White cabbage

Red kale

and cauliflower.

We now need to rig up some bunny-proofing before they all get munched, as we have seen lots of cute fluffy critters hopping about up there!

un-bubbly

I'm in a sulk.

My elderflower champagne hasn't turned out at all as I had hoped.


After turning my lovely clean bathroom into a brewery for the evening- spending several hours scrubbing labels off wine bottles and then bobbing them about in Milton fluid in the bath, I couldn't get the stupid swing-tops to work and ended up cutting my finger in the process.


I had to make do with the few screw-top bottles I had and was then forced to tip the rest of the champagne away, which was heart-breaking after having lovingly gazed at it brewing away all week.


The seven bottles of fizz that I am left with, don't seem very fizzy at all. The brew was fizzing earlier on in the week, and fizzed a bit when I poured it through the muslin, but now is as flat as a pancake. Is that normal, or should it be brimming with bubbles already?


Oh well, on a more cheerful note, my sister in law designed me these wonderful labels for the bottles, so at least it will look pretty if nothing else.

Proof that one can't be a domestic goddess all the time...

papa's got a brand new...

pair of socks!

I have been furiously knitting away trying to get my dad's Fathers Day present finished in time and managed to complete the second one at gone midnight last night. It's a pattern I've not used before called Harris Tweed, and whilst I like the quite masculine pattern along the leg, I'm not sure about the rather odd wedge-shaped toe. If I make any more in the future I'll use one of my other patterns to get the more rounded toe shape that I'm used to knitting.

He was pleased though, I've been promising him a pair of knitted socks for months.

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The other very super Daddy in my life has been working flat out on our little patch of allotment, playing at being a 'real man' by getting all sweaty and grubby. He has even taken to drinking ale.

I'm trying to decide what to plant, as it feels like a funny time of year. I think I'm going to sow some more spinach, as we get through masses of the stuff, and I fancy growing some pretty rainbow swiss chard.

I think the rest of the patch will then have to wait until August, as I've seen a fantastic bargain pack of Winter brassica plug plants. It's a bit of a cheat, seeing as all my Summer veg has been grown from seed, but unfortunately I've missed the sowing window for most winter veg.

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Back at Purl Cottage, we have been harvesting our first crop of peas- my goodness they taste so sweet and wonderful straight out of the pod. I doubt any will make it as far as the steamer, let alone onto a plate!

We have gazillions of ripe strawberries too, which are going down well with the small people....

I never want this Summer to end!

alloto luck

I am so happy to finally have an excuse to hang out up at the allotments! It's such a beautiful, peaceful and remarkable place to be with stunning views for miles and miles. Everyone I have bumped into up there so far has been so friendly and helpful- there's such a strong sense of community and generosity that appeals to my socialist ideals!

We have been hard at work digging over our little patch, clearing it of the relentless horsetail plant that has taken over with it's incredibly long roots. The soil is a heavy clay and has baked into solid lumps, so it has been a challenge breaking up the chunks and preparing it for planting.

It's not just me who's been enjoying it up there- Steve has been getting into it as well, staying behind late this evening to finish it off and coming home feeling exhilarated with the physical graft and the fresh air. I can just see him turning into one of those henpecked old men who escape to their shed, like Arthur Fowler.

The girls love it up there too- Flora's been helping out with the digging and there's even some chickens on a neighbouring plot to keep them entertained.

The only things that are not loving all this hard work are my poor fingernails!

oo-arr

We had a brilliant time visiting Pennyhooks today as part of Open Farm Sunday. We visit little children's farms with the girls fairly regularly, but looking round a real working farm was a totally different experience.

We were taken on a tour of the whole farm, including the meadows dotted with rare orchids and a brook, which is home to the endangered water vole (we saw poo to prove it!)


There were plenty of friendly animals for the children to see too and Pearl's latest new word is tractor!


If I had my time again I would have loved to have studied agriculture of some sort and entered the farming industry- I always feel so at home traipsing about in mud and breathing in the country air!

Well, another weekend draws to a close. Time for Countryfile!

champagne superthrifty

It's been a hectic week work-wise, so have had little time to keep up to date with blogging. The garden produce is really starting to come in thick and fast and we have harvested something for our evening meal every day this week. We've enjoyed side salads made up of our various green leaves, our spinach has been used in porcini mushroom risotto, baked gnocchi and chicken curry, we've snacked on the first strawberries and later I will be using our first courgettes to make some delicious pakoras.

Today marks the start of our community Ecoweek and this afternoon we went along to the allotment open day to have a nose at what people were growing and pick up some tips. We have been on the waiting list for an allotment since we moved here last July, and are not too hopeful of getting one any time soon, which is disappointing as the allotments are about a minute's walk from our cottage.


Cue much excitement when I got chatting to two lovely ladies up at the allotments who ended up offering to share their enormous allotment with us, until we are allotted one of our own! They've only just been given it themselves, and it's heavily overgrown, but they've marked us off a sizable space down the end to use as we so wish! Once we've dug up the weeds and grass I'm not really sure what to do with it, as it's too late for sowing seeds really- I'm going to look into ordering a job-lot of vegetable plug plants from somewhere and I fancy using a decent strip as a cutting garden too.


This afternoon, Flora and I gathered a big bag of elderflowers and set about making our first batch of elderflower champagne. It's now upstairs in our bedroom, hopefully fermenting nicely, ready for us to bottle it in a few days' time.


I've been collecting wine bottles from friends and neighbours to contain our home brew and I've bought some swing-top stoppers to cork it.


My father used to make elderflower champagne when I was a child and I'm told that his own version was used to toast my Christening, so I do hope ours turns out as well as his!

If you're at a loose end tomorrow, don't forget it's Open Farm Sunday where working farms all over the UK are opening their doors for fresh air and fun, as well as a chance to see where our food comes from. We're off to Pennyhooks Farm which is promising loads of country pursuits with the added bonus of a craft fair.

I must go because I'm running out of time to finish off some more gift socks!

but don't worry, you can sun-tan

Considering this blog was originally intended as a tool to document my gardening year, I am long overdue a proper garden update, so have taken an 'aerial' picture to contrast with this picture that I took on the 1st May. It's quite amazing how much can change in just a few weeks.

We have a few strawberries ready to be picked...

some courgettes getting going...

sweet peas starting to blossom...

petits pois climbing like crazy...

and the veg box is crammed with rapidly growing carrots, lots of lovely spinach, little Brussels sprout plants and more lettuce than is humanly possible to eat...

even the sweet williams that I swore were duds have some tiny little flowers on them!

and, because I was feeling so 'home-sick' last week, we brought some shells and pebbles back from our trip to go in the little grass and gravel patch at the front of the garden, making it feel like our own little bit of beach...

all that's missing is the sea!