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!

dry spell

We haven't had a single drop of rain for a month now and despite daily watering, our allotment is looking rather sorry for itself. We have scorched strawberry plants, wilting rhubarb and flaccid purple sprouting broccoli.

The only things that seem to be thriving are the broad beans, sprouts and potatoes, which we earthed up again today.

There were also a few carrot and parsnip seedlings poking through the dusty soil.

Despite it's parched predicament, I'm delighted with how the plot is coming together- it will be so beautiful in a year or two when the fruit trees have filled out. I'm planning to move that enormous  concrete compost bin by the shed (behind the water butt) and weave a living willow playhouse for the girls in the winter.

This morning we made a scarecrow to guard our crops- the girls have named him Sidney. Let's hope the birds are fooled!



It also seems important to mention the government's plans to end the right to have an allotment, thus placing plots up and down the county under threat. For more information and what you can do to speak out against the plans visit here. All the more reason to vote wisely on thursday...

behold the holy grail

Still no laptop (booooo!) as it's still off being repaired. All is not lost, however, as my wonderfully kind friend has leaped to my rescue by lending me her little netbook (hurrah!), which means I'm back online at last.

How has everybody's year been going so far? Mine has already had it's ups and downs- just as I was heading off to bed in the early hours of New Year's Day morning I heard a worrying scratching noise coming from the kitchen ceiling, which to my horror turned out to be a family of mice that had taken up residence in there (thankfully our landlord got them sorted out swiftly). So much for the theory that having a cat keeps the mice away- our rather relaxed feline could not have given a hoot!

More suffering then ensued when my eagerly awaited new camera never turned up- I am never going to buy anything expensive online ever again, no matter how much of a bargain it seems. Thank goodness I paid by Paypal and I've just received a refund, so will be trying to buy the same model in the real shops this weekend.

It's not all doom and gloom though, as we had a call from the Allotment Society yesterday, telling us we are top of the waiting list and they are hopeful that they will have a plot available for us in February. I am so excited because, much as I love Pear Tree Cottage Garden, it does feel very strange digging up someone else's land and I'm always panicking that the children are making too much noise and upsetting the neighbours when we are there, and other little things like that. I would be so much happier up at the proper allotments, picking up tips from fellow allotmenteers and swapping produce. If we are lucky enough to get our own plot this Spring, we will still use Pear Tree Cottage this year as we've worked so hard to get it ready and it will allow us time to really get the allotment set up perfectly.

But the highlight of 2011 so far has to be getting my hands on the most beautiful piece of Pyrex ever beheld- a stunning JAJ snowflake gravy boat, which fills me with joy every time a see it...

 Who would have thought the sight of a gravy boat would be enough to shake off the January blues?

our backyard

Whilst I love our allotment, I've been missing having a nice relaxing outside space at home, where I can potter about with the watering can in the evening after the girls had gone to bed. When we moved here in the winter, I had grand ideas for our rather shabby little backyard, but zero budget meant that these did not come to fruition. So this weekend I headed down to the garden centre to see if I could pick up some bits to cheer up our sad little space. 

I switched my thrifty radar to high alert and was able to pick up eighteen flowery bedding plants for £7 and found some slightly droopy packs of Jamie Oliver herbs on the reduction trolley, reduced to £1.50 from £7.99 for six little pots (I bought two packs).

 

Once the plants were potted up in terracotta pots alongside the olive trees my mum bought me for my birthday and the herbs planted in the lovely wooden planter my dad built for me last year, the yard was looking a far chirpier place to sit.

A few jam jars with tea lights inside made do as the garden lighting and the bunting I won in the Me Old China giveaway a few weeks ago looked just right along the outhouse (which still houses a toilet!).

I saved a few of the marigolds I'd been growing from seed for the allotment and popped them in tin cans, for a bit of colour while we wait for the potted flowers to bloom.

All I have left to do now is sew up some little cream blinds for the windows in the shed, to hide all the junk inside. I'm also on the look-out for an old metal watering can, to stand by the garden tap, but unfortunately I was not in luck at the carboot sale on Sunday. 

I'm really pleased with the transformation and can't wait for some warm evenings to make the most of it.

Happy days!

the plot thickens..

Today Flora and I popped down to our tiny little square of borrowed allotment to collect some tools. I knew it would be scarily weedy as it must be a couple of months since we gave up on it, after all my brassicas were attacked by rabbits/deer and we got offered Pear Tree Cottage garden. However, we were stunned and delighted to see some cabbages and cauliflowers had survived after all- here they are poking through the forest of weeds...

 

Last time I saw them there was just a tiny little nibbled stalk left- I never expected them to bounce back, especially after totally neglecting them! So I grabbed a fork and lifted them up (note my trusty dm boots that I have had since I was 15!)...

and re-planted them at Pear Tree Cottage...

I do hope they like their new home- my mouth is already watering for cauliflower cheese!

I'm really pleased with the progress we have made at Pear Tree Cottage- after so much hard work clearing and digging, it finally feels like we've got somewhere! As well as the brassicas, I've also planted a rhubarb crown this week and my dad manged to rescue the apple tree that had fallen over and was growing along the ground! We're now going to put the finishing touches to the beds, divide them with some more recycled paving slabs and then cover them up for the winter.

It looks very different from when we took it on a few months back, this picture was taken at about the same place as the one above. I just cannot wait until the Spring when we can sow some seeds. I hope those pumpkin seeds I bought at the food festival grow as big as these beauties I spotted on a neighbouring allotment...

Today I also got started on Flora's Princess Leia costume- can you guess what I made the buns out of?

a pair of Totes slipper socks that I picked up in a charity shop for £1!

 

Happy weekend everyone- hope this heatwave we were promised appears tomorrow!

sun and seeds

It's glorious days like today that make having our new allotment even more exciting.

Now that Spring has officially arrived, we are well on our way with planting up the more frost-hardy crops and our plot is really taking shape. So far we have planted out sprouts, broad beans, leeks and strawberries plants. We've sowed parsnips and carrots (in between the rows of leeks in an attempt at permaculture) and we've got the raspberry canes in, one apple tree, two pear trees, four gooseberry bushes and a mighty rhubarb plant. We also have a bed each of spring-sown garlic and onions which are coming on nicely and we planted our chitted seed potatoes this afternoon.

Last week we picked up a sandpit on Freecycle- perfect for keeping the girls amused when they lose interest in the gardening.



It would have been the perfect allotmenteering day, had it not been spoiled towards the end by an impertinent octogenarian stopping by to over-zealously tick us off for about 10 minutes about something ridiculously petty. I don't know why it upset me so much, but it did- mainly because we try so hard to teach the girls good manners and to respect other people's property and to play quietly so they don't disturb the peace etc etc, but it would seem that forgetting to padlock the flimsy gate behind us (when it wasn't even locked in the first place) is pensioner lottie crime of the century. I hope his tomatoes get blight. So there.

rain

Yesterday I could almost hear the vegetation sighing with relief when the rainclouds finally arrived. They poured down on and off for most of the day, leaving the most incredible smell of freshness in the air that is impossible to describe.

Up at the allotment, I couldn't believe the difference the rain had made- all the plants were the most perfect bright green and many of them seemed to have doubled in size. The broadbeans are now completely covered in flowers and the purple sprouting broccoli has bounced back with a vengeance. Even the strawberries I thought I'd lost have come through unscathed. Sadly the rhubarb hasn't recovered, but I don't think that was because of the dry weather, I just think it didn't like being moved from my parents in law's garden and had developed some unfortunate crown rot. Fortunately, several of our neighbouring allotmenteers have offered us free-pick of their booming plants so we won't go without rhubarb crumble this year.

The soil, which had become rock-hard and almost impossible to dig is now perfectly soft and crumbley. Today we got on and planted out our peas and beans, as well as our maincrop spuds (late, but I was stalling because I wasn't sure if we had the room for them) and I even risked planting out the courgettes and squashes under covers. I've popped lots of little french marigold seedlings in amongst the beds, in the hope that they will keep the bugs off the crops as we've had a few nibbled leaves already.

I hope everyone else had good weekends- what a horrible thought that we actually have a five day week for the first time in ages!



rescued

I've been meaning to say that I did manage to rescue my pretty little bulbs after my accident the other day. The crocuses must like their new pot as they've really shot up in just a week and the flowers are almost open- hurrah!

Meanwhile, I've been up at the allotment tipping the floral karma back the other way by digging up the three rows of Sweet William plants that with we inherited with the plot. There must have been about sixty plants that I've uprooted and dumped in a heap.

It's really a terrible shame as I love Sweet Williams, but with only a half-size plot we really don't have the space for the luxury of cut flowers. I need the room for my newly purchased pear trees, gooseberry bushes and raspberry canes.

I may save a few and pop them into pots for the yard to stop myself feeling so guilty!

Back to work and school tomorrow- booooooo :-(

ps I am officially recording here that I dug over that patch single-handedly in the rain, before a certain husband of mine starts claiming that he's done all the hard work on the plot!

looking back over the year

I think I may be in the minority in thinking that 2010 was a pretty good year.

This was the year where we really settled into life in the countryside- making new friends, perfecting the art of living life on a shoestring and rediscovering beauty in the most unexpected places. Book-ended by heavy snow, this year saw us both starting new jobs, I entered my 30s and then finally we moved house (hopefully for the last time in a while!) We sledged, gardened, ate cake, crafted, picnicked, and walked our hand-knitted socks off. I started this blog, amazed myself by keeping it up and made some wonderful ‘friends’ in the process.

Here are just some of the highlights….

Pearl walked, I celebrated turning 30 with afternoon tea at the Ritz, Flora made and ace Princess Leia and Steve discovered the peaceful joy of man's work up at the allotment.



We fermented, jammed, pickled, preserved and baked.





We grew masses of our own delicious fruit and veg.





I got my first sewing machine, became even more addicted to knitting and discovered embroidery.





We spent virtually all our spare time outdoors playing, walking and picnicing.



We  had a wonderful camping break in Sussex, where we visited our beloved former hometown Brighton



and spent a week camping on the stunning south Devon coast.





So as 2011 dawns, I have been thinking about what I would like to achieve in the coming year. This is the list so far…



I am going to be disappearing for a few weeks as my laptop is on the blink and is being sent off for repairs. Fingers crossed it will be back with me and good as new soon, as I have a lovely new camera and will be wanting to show off my shiny new snaps!



Wishing you all a happy, peaceful and creative 2011 xx