Despite the major neglect of the garden it is still producing wonderful things for me!
I think it’s the best year for beetroot in a long time and my carrots haven’t had carrot fly this year 🙂
…and the first proper fruiting of a young apple tree. The apples are still quite sour so have to stay a bit longer, but I must keep an eye out for scavengers!
We’ll soon be building a new chicken house, so watch out for that 🙂 I’m very excited!
It’s time to start getting the garden ready for this years growing, so I bought myself a magazine for a bit of encouragement. Free seeds are always good, if you get what you like, especially if your spare seeds got nibbled up by vermin last year! I was very lucky with my free seeds, they were the sort of varieties I might have bought myself and there are plenty of hints and tips as well.
I’m hoping it will help me have a spring in my step for going out to prepare for spring in the February garden 🙂
A nice sunny day at last, so we decided to harvest our onions. They are a good size this year, just one advantage of all the rain!
Here they are, all 66 onions laying out to dry before bringing them in doors.
I’m really pleased with this years harvest! 🙂
I might be frustrated about how untidy our garden is, but I’m not disappointed with the produce. I have so enjoyed the gradual progression of each fruit or vegetable being ready to eat. This time it’s corn. There is nothing like picking the corn, pulling off the greenery and popping it in the pan. I always think of how much goodness there is in food that is so fresh 🙂
For all those who are wondering, it is so easy to grow. The only thing is , you must plant it in a grid shape to aid pollination. 🙂
We’ve been enjoying our fruit harvest over the last few weeks 
and yes, the wonderful thing about it is all these luxurious fruits are free!
The small initial cost of buying the plants is minimal compared to the amount of fruit you get each year. So if you have to, or are choosing to live a frugal life these lovely plants are a must for your garden 🙂
A couple of days ago we were given the opportunity to adopt three more chickens, how could we resist!
Meet – Alaska
Ginny
and Martha.
We have 16 Chickens now (+ one cockerel) most of them are laying, so pay for themselves through the sale of eggs. I’m very happy about the additions to our family 🙂
I spent some time yesterday tidying up some fruiting plants to let the air and sun get to them. It was a very satisfying afternoon and the plants look great too.
These chillies have been grown using my own home made compost and so need weeding, but making your own compost saves lots of money!
I’m looking forward to this crop of chillies as this is all I’ve got left from a bumper crop which I dried two years ago!
These tomatoes are grown in my compost as well and as you can see are doing fine.
I gave them and the chillies a feed of organic seaweed fetilizer yesterday.
I don’t have any flowers in my garden really, at the moment I rely on my flowering herbs, so I picked myself a bunch as a treat after my good work! 🙂
Anyone who grows salad will know the feeling, when your are waiting for your salad to be big enough to cut and eat, when all of a sudden there’s loads! Well for the first time I’ve made rocket pesto. I grabbed a couple of hand fulls of rocket and gave the extra large leaves to the chickens. I whizzed the rest up in the food processor (taking out any thick stalks) with olive oil, sunflower seeds, goats cheese and a little cider vinegar.
I had no recipe, quantities were to taste.
I served it with roasted new potatoes, peppers and tomatoes. It was lovely! 🙂
I used the second half of the pesto with some pasta and salmon but I think the rocket pesto is a little strong to go with fish!
Everything is peachy in the garden:-)
I just love being outside this time of year and seeing how hard work and busy Sundays in the garden really begins to show.
I always like the little creative touch….
….and of course my roses!
All this means one happy Debbie! 🙂
Yesterday was such a lovely day that I managed to get a few things done in the garden, despite being overwhelmed by all the jobs there are.
My polytunnel is now finished, thanks to Keith Osborn putting the door on yesterday.
The main thing I did yesterday was some weeding in the fruit cage. This is half of the fruit cage, weeded and mulched with a thick layer of bark. Hopefully this will suppress weeds for the summer and retain the moisture.
This is the half I’ve still to do!!!
Still, I’m getting there and it is very satisfying once you’ve done it 🙂
An Artist's House 