Seed trays

If you are like me and it is late winter where you are, you will be thinking about sowing your seed, whether flowers or veggies. Therefore how about re-using the meat or veg trays that sometimes are unavoidable when you are shopping.

I’ve got some here, and some seed trays I made a while ago with wood from a broken fence panel. I also re-use trays that I occasionally get from the garden centre or nursery when buying plants.

It does show that gardening doesn’t have to be unnecessarily expensive, especially when you can get free seeds like I showed you in my last blog post! 🙂

Although, if anyone has any solutions on what can be turned into cloches I’d be greatful!

 

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This weekend

I know I’m a bit late in telling you what I did this weekend but, you know, you have to do things to create your simple life! 🙂

Anyway, I made a Battenberg Cake

and a Garden and home journal.

And today I made this plan of our garden with the help of the plans for the garden work!

I now think I deserve a cup of tea (and a piece of Battenberg) 🙂

New Garden

Well, not new garden really!

We decided that the garden needed to have some sort of design to help me manage it better. So we have had some garden work done to break it up a little. This is partly why I wasn’t blogging last year because there wasn’t much happening other than ground work.

The main thing was to put paths in to facilitate different garden areas.

This also has provided me with some more garden beds.

One of the things I’m most pleased with is my new rose arch!

Starting as I meant to go on, I planted some spring bulbs in the autumn when the work was finished and I am now starting to watch them peep through the soil 🙂

Last Nights Dinner

Wild venison bourgignon was on the menu yesterday, dinner with some lovely friends. I’m sorry if you are vegetarian 🙂 but we try our best to use responsibly sourced meat as a principle and believe it is very healthy and good for you. The recipe was from a magazine I buy called ‘Simple Things’

Wild venison (from responsible countryside management)

Marinated in red wine with rosemary.

Cooked with carrots, red onion, bulb fennel, mushrooms and garlic.

A beautiful Supper for a cold evening, served with mashed potato and peas!

Here’s the recipie, very easy, you just need to give yourself preparation time. 

Happy Cooking 🙂

 

Uplifted

What a beautiful day! 🙂

Seeds

Oh yes, it’s that time of year when I review my seeds and start planning what I’m going to sow. I just get itchy fingers, only put off by the cold weather!

I had some packets left from last year and bought a couple of magazines which had free seeds with them so I have a good amount of seed to go on with. All I need is some winter sunshine to get me out to prepare for sowing! 🙂

Happy New Year

Well after having a long break from my Simple Life Blog, I’m hopefully back with vengeance! 🙂

Even though it’s only the beginning of January, the sun is calling me into the garden! I bought these ‘Helleborus Niger’ plants a couple of days ago and couldn’t wait to plant them out. I’ve paired this up with cleaning and tidying my little laundry because the spot where I’ve planted them is the view from my laundry window and so adding a little motivation for both jobs 🙂

New Chicken House

To start off the new year of my Simple Life Blog, I’m excited to show you our new chicken house. Considering a chicken house the size we needed would have cost around £900 without nesting boxes etc, we decided to be creative and find an alternative solution.

This second hand polytunnel we found was the right size and only cost us £80!!!!
All that was needed was to secure the sides with chicken wire so they can’t dig their way out.

We have a shut down for chickens here in the UK at the moment because of bird flu, but as soon as that is past we are going to cut out a large window along the the front and fill with chicken wire.

So here they are, all secure and safe with lots of room. The nesting boxes you can see in the front corners are made from insulated dog beds which are easy to clean and only cost £35 each!

The result, happy chickens and happy Debbie! 🙂

Enjoying my Cactus

This is the second year this cactus has flowered, isn’t it beautiful? I don’t know what it is called, I think it’s too early to be a Christmas cactus.

It is obviously very happy there on the window sill and I thought I would share it so as you could feel the pleasure too! 🙂

The Garden – New Year, New Start!

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 🙂