It's Half Past June Tomorrow, Things I didn't Know and Thank You

Thanks to everyone for comments all week. I often don't look at the laptop at all in the evenings so don't always catch comments from places behind us timewise until next day, by which time it seems a bit late to reply. But I do read and appreciate every comment - I'd be talking to myself without comments, and I do plenty of that anyway!

Thank you also to people who have clicked the follower button to get past the 850 which it was stuck on for months, except when it went down to 848 one day. Not sure it's accurate with ups and downs so frequently.

Racing through the month as usual, I've watched some of the Queens Club tennis women's matches but I'm looking forward more to the men's matches next week. The weather has been lovely, we've had the best of it in the East.

 BiL popped over with the huge plastic tub that I'd asked him to drill drainage holes in and helped me lift the bay tree from it's old pot into the new bigger one. I need to give it a feed of something then it should be OK for a few more years. 

In the greenhouse the cucumbers are looking the best, tomatoes are a bit lanky without many trusses as yet but I spotted the first tomato has set. Peppers showing signs of greenfly, I'm keeping a close eye on the leaves. I've netted the long raspberry bed, they are going to be early this year which is good as there'll be no strawberries from BiL, his strawberry patch is poor this year after many good years.

And the things I didn't know?

 I didn't know #1.............. that 'they' had altered the goalposts and from April the amount payable for car road tax had changed.  We bought our Fiesta, not new but nearly, in 2017 when we needed something more reliable than our very old Fiesta for getting to Addenbrooks hospital every week. It had a big advantage as it just fell into a category when cars with less than a certain amount of CO2 emissions didn't have to pay any road tax. A government thing to get people to buy smaller cars.  It's not needed any payment for re-taxing since, until this year when the reminder came and I found I had to pay £20. I don't mind paying £20 as it's much less than many cars owners have to pay but no one told me it had changed. 

I didn't know #2.......... that the new umbrella that I won in a raffle last year and hadn't seen for months was under the front passenger seat of the  car - I found it wedged into a small space against the seat runner fixings thingy. I assumed I'd left it somewhere and it was lost forever.

I didn't know #3................that my annoying knee problem is probably the start of osteoarthritis until I saw a physio during the week. Here in Suffolk we can refer ourselves to a physio without seeing a doctor. Fill in a form online and then they email helpful exercises - which I'd been doing like a 'good girl'! Then after a while they contact to see how you are and to book an actual appointment. 

 Osteoarthritis  used to be called "wear and tear" and is due to loss of cartilage around the knee joint.  He suggested joining a physio led exercise/arthritis management group. I started two days later, it's six weeks initially,  all free. Some exercises are similar to what we do at our Keep Moving Group but done for 2 minutes and then move onto the next - Oh, so That's what circuits are! 

I also don't know what the weather is going to be like this weekend but hope Sunday is fine as there are yard/garage sales in Son's village and they want to get rid of some unwanted bits.

Hope everyone has a good weekend, I'll be back next week.

Saturday 26th

 Yet another good book! (lucky me!) Although how to describe it is a problem..................

In C.S. Lewis's  Narnia the children disappear into the wardrobe for years at a time yet when they come back almost no time has passed. 

In 'The Glass Maker' the years pass by in the rest of the world by jumps of 100+ years at a time -except for the Rosso family and their friends and glassmaking neighbours on the island of Murano and in Venice, where time passes so slowly that the same family members live for 500 years.

This sounds really odd yet the writing is so good (Tracy Chevalier always writes well) that it's easy to follow it and seems to make perfect sense.  T.C.  describes it as a stone that is thrown and skimming the surface of the Venetian lagoon,  touching down at various times in history - but the stone stays the same.

Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives perfecting.

In secret, Orsola Rosso learns to craft glass. As a woman, she must flout convention to save her family from ruin. We follow her through hundreds of years of war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.

It's been 5 years since Tracy Chevalier's last book but was worth the wait.

I'm having trouble with my gardening mojo after last year when there was a mass invasion of giant slugs and what they didn't eat, the neighbour's cat dug up. This year the veg beds are covered by wire netting frames that turn into fences later and I keep taking the cat poo off the small bit left uncovered although dear Crumble cat has managed to almost dig up the rhubarb, which had shrunk to  nothing much anyway.

I've never lived anywhere where rhubarb has failed so often. 5 crowns planted over the four years here and all but one just gone with nothing to show for them except 3 straggly stems this year. 

In the greenhouse the tomatoes and peppers are OK but I delayed sowing cucumber and courgette seeds until after family had gone so a bit late. I've bought some growbags this year as it's difficult now to haul the big 40litre(?) bags of multi-purpose around to the back garden and into the greenhouse. Plus my wheelbarrow has a puncture so I'm waiting on BiL to kindly fix it for me.

Two gardeners who had been lined up to help sort out the front border both backed out so it's a bit of a muddle with ground elder and dandelions among the plants but with 'the knee' playing up so much I'm not looking forward to tackling it . I referred myself to physio and they emailed a list of 3 exercises - two of which I'd forgotten from five years ago when my knee was first injured so I'm religiously trying to do them whenever I can. If there is no improvement I can get a proper appointment - we shall see.

Dentist Next Week- 6 monthly check up  - Oh Great Joy! Fine weather forecast - more joy - real this time.

Back when I have something to say...............

News From the Week and the April Library Book Photo

A good week of sunshine. The magnolias are now in full flower and green shoots appearing  on hedges and trees around although I noticed when I was over by the coast last week that the Hawthorn hedges are a week or more ahead to those here in Mid Suffolk.

In the garden something else was also enjoying the sun -  the first proper butterfly sighting of the year - a Peacock on the roof tiles, unfolded it's wings to sunbathe. Not many things around for it to feed on so I hope it survives.

I've moved the 11 tomato seedlings from modules to pots, although I only need 5, and they are now out in the greenhouse with fleece right ready. My pepper and aubergine seedlings are now pricked out into modules. Plenty of peppers but just 2 aubergines but I'll make that enough for this year. They are still on the spare bedroom window cill/sill (which is right?!)  for now.

 Brought these 10 books below home from the mobile library van this week. 9 were reserved and I spotted that the van had another M.W.Craven on the shelves- it's a small novella from the 'Quick Reads' collection from 2022. It's been read already and  took less than an hour.

Several favourite authors this month - Alys Clare, Elly Griffiths with her new series of time travelling detective, Tracy Chevalier, Kate Webb and Jim Eldridge. A couple of new-to-me authors - Jim Kelly and Elif Shafak and Robert Peston (although he's a bit odd when on TV news etc!) Decided to re-read 'A Croft in the Hills' while the library still have a copy. I had a copy once, and her other books,  but they  went in one of the moves.

In March I collected these 9 below and read five of them, took lots of photos of the pages from "The Year Unfolding" to use on the blog and returned the others unread. I decided not to read 'Murder on the Marlow Belle' as it's on TV catch up channel and I rather watch it.

The books that I've read have been added to the Books Read 2025 page

Have a good weekend, I'm off to watch the EGD in her ballet school show. Enjoy the early April sunshine if you have it.

Back sometime next week

Seeds for this year

 Eventually I got around to opening my seed packet storage tin to see what I needed for this year. I can never get up much enthusiasm for gardening when the weather is gloomy.

I have a few seeds left from last year, some might be OK - they sometimes keep well and sometimes not, even when they should. I've bought 5 new packets of seeds  and I'm growing much the same as last year. 

I'll grow two types of tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines and peppers in the greenhouse. Outside will be Runner and French Green climbing beans, courgette, butternut squash and sweetcorn for definite. I do have a packet of Kale seeds - might try them but with the problems from, pigeons, cabbage white caterpillars and next doors neighbours cat it might not be worth it. 

The leeks I grew last year all got Allium Leaf Miner ruining them, this is a pest that was unknown in this country until relatively recently. They affect late grown leeks so I might try and find some early seedlings at a carboot/nursery and then make sure to harvest early and freeze.

I'll buy  pots of growing Parsley and Basil from Aldi or Asda and propagate them, cheaper than a packet of seeds.

The five packets of seed from DT Brown came with a free packet of Carrot seeds which will be passed onto BiL. He has more room and grows a few each year. They are not worth my while growing.

So plans made for 2025 and hopefully with the big Sycamore gone it will make for better growing conditions in my small patch, more air movement and more sunlight.

Back Soon

Sue

What a Poor Year in the Greenhouse

 Thank goodness the raspberries have been so good

Making up a little for the greenhouse veg where the flowers aren't setting on the aubergines, the tomatoes are spindly with few trusses of flowers and not many of those are setting either. The cucumbers that usually grow like crazy have stopped. Only two out of the four pepper plants have peppers. 

Things don't look too bad from the doorway, but not so good close up.

It's typical that the year I decide not to squeeze too many plants in, I shall have a shortage.

Oh well, there's always next year

Back Soon

Sue

Saturday Just After the Middle of May

After a week of lovely fine and warm weather here it went back to a bit of  rain on Tuesday, Wednesday and poured all day Thursday - will the Sunday Boot sale be cancelled again? Met with my friend from Grammar School Days in a new coffee shop in Stowmarket. I think we now have more coffee shops than normal shops...........thank goodness they had cheese scones!

 I'm still battling the birds in the veg beds. Something got underneath one of the wire netting frames - which I'd balanced on flower pots over my two courgette plants - and managed to dig one plant out of the ground. It can't have been pigeons as they are too big - or the cat next door, so it must have been a blackbird or something similar. Luckily I'd sown six seeds and hung onto the other plants so had a replacement. Now they are covered by a netting tunnel and I also had replacement leek seedlings because of the same problem. The netting frames were only a couple of inches of the ground - thought that would put off birds/cats etc but seems not.

In the greenhouse, things are now in their big pots......less of everything than previous years when I've tended to squash too many plants in.  I gave two tomato and one pepper plant to BiL and put 2 more tomato plants and 2 aubergine plants out the front in a box saying 'Help Yourself' and they went- so that's good. As usual I bought half a dozen French marigold plants which are supposed to be good for helping  the tomato pollination. Other things in here are two more courgette plants into large pots that I'll probably abandon when the outside ones go mad, runner bean seeds just sown, yet another spare courgette, a cutting from the gooseberry bush where a branch had touched the ground and rooted, a small tray of calendula seeds and  the sweetcorn growing well in their peat pots- to go out at the end of the month.

A while back I looked at the long range weather forecast........difficult to make any sense of it ........ very variable I think!.

Signals during this period are extremely weak, and for the most part indistinguishable from climatology. Similar weather conditions to those of the preceding few days are most likely to characterise this period to the end of May; a mixture of unsettled periods with rain and showers and settled interludes in-between. By early June, the chances of above and below average rainfall are evenly balanced. There is a slightly higher likelihood of above average temperatures compared with below average temperatures, such that the chance of hot spells, although still very small, is slightly higher than normal too.

Swifts are back in the village, spotted them on Wednesday - very good to see, no Swallows yet - so no signs of summer  and we'll shall have to wait and see what the weather does.

Also back is the Great British Sewing Bee on TV for it's 10th series next week, it's one of the programmes that I watch to keep me company of an evening.

Back Soon 

Sue

The Early May Bank Holiday Weekend

For Star Wars fans........................ May the 4th be with you! - and if you aren't a fan then you'll wonder what the idiot woman is talking about!

I can't remember what Easter Bank Holiday was like weather wise without looking back on the blog, but it was probably cold and wet.

Hopefully  this Early May Bank Holiday weekend is good as there are several things happening in villages around that need dry weather to be successful. A bluebell wood open, a flower festival, a Tudor reconstruction day, car-boot sales (of course) and village yard sale. Not sure I shall get to all of them and after it poured with rain all day yesterday some might be a bit soggy underfoot.

Other than yesterdays wash out, this week has been a good week, much better than the week before when I felt a bit under the weather on a couple of days and missed the Over 60's meeting and wasn't able to look after the Grandchildren after school one day - very annoying.

The World Snooker Championship on TV has been interesting as so many of the top seeded players were knocked out, and only one - the 12th seed-  got to the semis. More importantly in the World of Sport is the chance this weekend for Ipswich Town Football Club to get automatic promotion to the Premier League - that means a lot for the Town in many ways. If they end up in the play-offs for the the chance to go up then I fear a match against our Norfolk rivals - Norwich City FC - in which Norwich will win, get promoted and be able to gloat for another year!

Thursday evening was eventful as a fire engine raced by the bungalow and then 30 minutes later two more with blue lights went through the village, then an ambulance went by one way and another a few minutes later going the other way. I wondered what on earth was happening. Heard later that the fire engines were for a fire in a commercial building  a few miles away but no idea what the ambulances were doing - don't think they were connected to the fire.

I've been grateful this week for.............

• Some good fine, sunny and warm days at last
• Being able to get the pots for the greenhouse plants filled and ready
• Planting out the two squash plants and getting them cat and bird proofed
• More leek plants found in the pet/garden shop in Diss, planted out and protected as above
• Getting the sweetcorn seeds sown in their peat pots in the greenhouse. 
• Lots of good reading
• Finding a church open to visit after finding one locked
• Getting a 'foot lady' to sort out a problem - no more info on that one - Ugh!
• Sorting more photos from their old albums into the new storage boxes.

Here's a favourite - me on my big trike aged about 4. I didn't have a two wheeled bike (and no such thing as stabilisers)  until quite late as there was nowhere to learn to ride it. Our house was right beside a busy A road and the back yard was a rough builders yard - as you can see in the photo.

I'm  shall return on Monday with some more old photos - you have been warned!

Have a good Bank Holiday Weekend for everyone here and a good ordinary weekend for those elsewhere.

Sue 

Looking in the Seed Tin

 Investigating what seeds are  needed for growing this year is not as much fun as it once was. My tin used to be full of packets as we grew almost everything, now I don't need so much.

I'll be growing much the same as last year........ tomatoes, cucumber, sweet peppers and aubergines in the greenhouse. French climbing and runner beans plus beetroot, courgettes, leeks, sweetcorn and butternut squash in the garden. 

There's no point growing onions here and as the purple sprouting broccoli has been completely decimated by pigeons it seems little point in trying to grow any over wintering 'greens'. I spent ages protecting the plants all summer and they still looked sad and fell over and unless I have a tall walk in netting cage for winter, I'm never going to have any success here. It's going to be much cheaper to buy rather than grow and I can have more variety that way too.

So all I need to buy are  more beetroot, pepper, tomato, sweetcorn and squash seeds and that's about it. Although if I see early leek seedlings at the pet and garden shop in Diss like I found last year I'll get them and just grow later ones from seed.

I'll buy  parsley and basil plants from the supermarket later. Splitting the parsley seedlings and growing them outside and in the greenhouse and propagating basil cuttings in water to make several plants for the greenhouse.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

Pots are Washed

 My big pots had been standing outside and the rain had cleaned some but  I got them done properly on Monday morning after I'd done a bit of housework. It was nice and bright and sunny in the greenhouse and the water butt water wasn't too cold for the job of getting them all clean. 

Still so much to do outside - The water butt now needs emptying, the horrible yew hedge out the front to be cut and the three Buddleias all need cutting back. I've still got a wheelbarrow three-quarters full of my home made compost to empty and the three new patio fruit trees to get into bigger pots. The problem is I need the wheelbarrow empty for cutting the hedge and can't empty it all at once because it's going to go on the veg bed that is a bit low on soil and that's where the purple sprouting broccoli is.

I've always had more than one wheelbarrow everywhere else, now I know why.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Pizza Topping

 The tomato plants in the greenhouse were looking sad and almost dead but still with several tomatoes on them and I picked a colander full of the big plum tomatoes before getting all the dead stems and leaves out to the garden waste bin.

 I skinned them and added to a large chopped onion which I'd softened in a pan and cooked for a while to get rid of some of the liquid. Then I added tomato puree, garlic puree, a little dried oregano and lots of black pepper and cooked for a bit longer until it looked nice and thick.

It's made all these tubs of pizza topping for next to no cost. Pizza bases made partly  in the bread maker are in the freezer and with grated cheese makes an easy meal.

 

Not many left  of the big toms to go red, so they are on the windowsill.

On the other side of the greenhouse the mini plum tomatoes were dripping with redness and that's despite me eating them and giving some to son and family. So I took off most and popped them into bags and put out the front in my 'help yourself' box. Although the plants look virtually dead there are several mini plum tomatoes  that are still green so I'll keep an eye on them and bring in either as they turn red or if the weather gets really cold.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Halfway Through July Already

 "That would make a good pond for my garden" I said to youngest granddaughter as we were looking round the Domestic and Rural Bygones sale. I've had butler sink ponds before and they always do surprisingly well for such a small area. " I'd like a pond in your garden" she said............

so I left a bid of £6 - the lowest possible bid, fully expecting for someone to outbid me but they didn't so I had to trek back during the week to fetch it. One of the porters put it in the car but how to get it out again?

Nearly doing myself an injury I hauled it out and rolled it down into the wheelbarrow which I'd lined with an old blanket to make a bit of a cushion and took it round the back. Next I need BiL with his grinder machine thing to take off the waste fitting underneath and I'll nip up the road where they are building the new bungalows and ask the bricklayers for a small dollop of cement to block the plug-hole. Then I'll need to dig a hole so it can be set into the ground a little. Photos to follow........eventually. It will need oxygenating weed and water snails and then we shall see what happens.

First tomatoes from the greenhouse  this week - deliciously firm. Will there be 5 like this for the show in August? - Hopefully yes.

The greenhouse is full of green-ness. Peppers, aubergines, tomatoes, cucumber, parsley and one extra courgette plant that doesn't like being there. There's basil too but it missed the photo.

What else have I done this week? Ah yes, met up with Rachel-in-Norfolk for a catch up- she's already written on her blog about my soggy crumpets in Morrisons café - and no, that isn't a euphemism! 

I've exercised body with the Keep Moving Group and swimming and exercised mind with the daily NYT Wordle and Sudoku . Also read "At Mrs Lippincotes" by Elizabeth Taylor which is a Virago Modern Classic so should have been good for the brain although it wasn't exactly riveting - not a keeper. (Good news for the brain is that Only Connect and University Challenge are both back on Monday evening.)

 

Some tennis has been watched of course and a while spent pulling up all the dead giant Papaver poppies out the front. There is more weeding to be done in the back flower border but my compost bin is full as is the council garden waste bin until it is emptied on Monday.

And I've eaten my own raspberries everyday for the another week which has been a real treat.

Have a good weekend.

Back Monday

Sue

The Week Just Gone

 I started the week by cutting my own hair again for the first time for ages. The price keeps going up at the hairdressers  in the village so I decided to DIY. ....I do a 6 all over with the clippers. Very glad that I kept the trimmers because I'd thought about getting rid.

Middle Grandson- the 3 year old dinosaur expert - helped me sow the sweetcorn seeds when I looked after him a couple of weeks ago - he was ever so excited to see how they'd grown. Hope I can generate a bit of interest in him for gardening as it's completely by-passed all 3 children.

In the Greenhouse first week of June. The things I have too many of are still here!

 

 Flowers on the Table this week are a few bits from the garden - Lady's Mantle and Valerian with some Spirea to fill in

WI was interesting and will be a post on Monday. Keep Moving Group had a new person plus two people who first came weeks ago and were then not seen again so even though a few were on holiday we still had a good number.

Then it was really good to meet up with a friend in the Osier Cafe in Stowmarket Church who I've only seen a handful of times since we both left school in 1971. How to catch up on 50 years news?? Think we'll need to meet up again! 

(The bells have been re-hung so should be ringing out soon)

Friday was swimming and another week has zoomed by again. 

I know what I'm doing this weekend as I'm finally getting round  to touching up the paint in the hall way. The removal men knocked an over-radiator shelf off the wall when moving stuff in and I filled the holes but got no further with it until it dawned on me the other day that the left over paint from the en-suite would do the job. And that idea spurred me on to go and get a small can of paint mixed to cover some holes I'd filled in the living room (I'd been carrying a paint match card around with me for weeks). I'd like to paint the whole living room really but it's a difficult job with a carpet and nowhere to move the furniture. While I was there I also bought some Gorilla glue to fix down two loose ceramic tiles on the front doorstep. 

Should keep me busy! And of course there are car-boot sales, gardens open days in Eye or Old Newton and Yard/Garage Sales all round son's village too.

And that NE wind will be gone and we are due sunshine and warmth - WONDERFUL! 

🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞

Hope your weekend is full of interesting things too.

I'll be back Monday

Sue

Growing Well

 I had a fright one morning in the week before last - looked in the greenhouse and all my babies were looking a bit limp - of course it was a night when they'd not been covered with fleece and the temperature must have dropped lower than the forecast. Thank goodness a while later they were all standing up straight again....phew!

These photos were taken on Saturday - Before the Coronation I worked in the greenhouse for an hour filling up some of the big pots ready for all these to go into later.

There are too many peppers and  too many aubergines here...........

and too many tomatoes too!

and just one cucumber............so far. There are two more babies on the living room windowsill although I only need one because the plan is to sow another cucumber seed in June for a later crop.

Also on the living-room window sill are some teeny squash seedlings - a second sowing after the first three didn't germinate - thought I was going to have to buy new seeds but they seem to be OK.

The raspberry bed is looking more hopeful, considering how sad they looked through the heat of last summer when there was no sign of any new canes appearing. Brother in Law hammered in two metal posts - from his neighbour's old gazebo- early last year and now I've put string along the top and two rows of wires below and fixed a new piece of netting right over the top. The netting cost me over £20 and I wondered aloud if I would get the value back in raspberries but as Lesley (who sold me it ) said -"well without it you won't get any!" - Very True

One more thing looking good is the plant stand. The pots have been standing on the patio all winter after the trellis collapsed but now they are back and the whole thing is tied to the post. There is someone at the car-boot sale who sells succulents so I may be tempted to buy two small ones for the top two shelves and I lost a lovely pink flowered Saxifrage over winter so could replace that.

 You can see the difference in temperatures this spring compared to last if you look at THIS PHOTO of the Plant Stand taken at much the same time last year.

And my 3 Minarette Apple trees are in flower. I know it looks weedy around them but the plants there are mainly Phacelia which are a green manure - self seeded from last year - and after they've flowered for the bees I'll hoe them up and leave them on the soil as a mulch.

Fingers crossed for an edible harvest later.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Seeds to Sow in 2023

 Looked in my seed tin and found left from last year...........

Plenty of Chard

Very few Tomato -Super Mama

Enough Butternut Squash  -Hunter

A dozen or so Sweetcorn  - Moonshine

Plenty of Leek - Neptune

Very few Red Sweet "Pointy" Peppers

2 or 3 Sweet orange block pepper - Kubista

Very Few Aubergine - Genie

2 or 3 Cucumber- Louisa 

3 or 4 Courgette - Tuscany

Climbing French bean seeds saved from 2019 and 2020} Decided it was time to start afresh

Few Runner bean seed saved from who knows when     } with both sorts of beans in 2023

I perused the seed catalogues......... I love reading all the different descriptions and finding out about new varieties each year.

Seed prices have gone up a lot since covid and vary from one company to another as do the number of seed in a packet. I straight away abandoned Thompson & Morgan as they didn't have much choice (perhaps this wasn't their full catalogue) .The D.T Brown catalogue had everything I wanted but many of their packets were 50p+ more than those in the Marshalls catalogue. Kings didn't have any of the tomatoes I wanted but their prices were significantly less than both the others.

I decided that even if I had to pay postage on two different orders it would still be cheaper to get most things from Kings and just the tomatoes from Browns.

To add to what I have left I'm going to be buying .............

Super Mama and Sun Grape tomatoes.

Incredible Sweetcorn

Thor and Kubista Peppers

Aubergine Genie

Cucumber Pepinex

Courgette Defender

Cobra Climbing French Beans

Benchmaster Runner Beans

Beetroot Moneta - they will come from Browns too as they are  a Monogerm variety so I should be easier to spread out when sowing. Kings don't have any Monogerm.

I'm not bothering with things that are easy and cheap to buy - carrots and onions. Or lettuces which need regular sowing and I don't eat enough for when they all grow at once.

That's probably all I'll have room for in the greenhouse and 3 vegetable beds although I might find some Kale plants later in the year and attempt to keep them free of critters - which was a total fail this year.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Basil

 I've not bought Basil seeds since someone in blogland shared this tip

Pot of Basil from Aldi 67p. I cut off 4 pieces just below a leaf node, took off the lower leaves and popped in water. The pegs around the top of the jar just prop up the shoots so they don't fall right in.

Roots appear within  a week and then pot up. The rest of the bought pot of Basil shoots I divided in 3 and planted into bigger pots of fresh compost. So now I have 7 pots of Basil in the greenhouse growing nicely.

Plenty of Basil to make some home made pesto for a Courgette Crumble to go with the "few" courgettes I have already (four plants is 3 too many as I knew they would be but planted them all just-in-case!).

Back Tomorrow

Sue

2nd Week of May and Busy in the Garden

The Swifts are back in the village, I saw it on the local Facebook page and then saw them myself when I went round to the Health Centre to pick up my prescription. It's lovely to see them circling around the church. I ended up going back to the health centre twice more - the dispensary are in chaos - like so many others with a shortage of staff and supplies. It used to be so straightforward but now reminds me of the year in Ipswich when it was quite normal for them to take half an hour or more to find either the tablets or the form or neither! 

On Thursday I went up to Morrisons in Diss and met up with Rachel-in-Norfolk. The coffee machine decided not to work the minute I stood in front of it as usual - but I ended up with one and a half cups of coffee for the price of one so that was OK.

  It was a really good gardening week last week as I got all the small greenhouse plants into their big pots...I seem to have rather a lot of tomato plants so should be able to give away tomatoes, make tomato chutney and eat tomatoes all summer! I've got 4 Aubergines and 4 to pass on and 6 pepper plants and gave away 2.

 I bought some wire and threaded it round the greenhouse through the little metal attachments so that's ready for tying the canes to for holding up the cucumber and tomato plants as they grow, also bought some short canes for the pepper and aubergine pots.

 With perfect timing Brother-in-Law Andrew came over on Wednesday morning to finish the connection on the biggest water-butt and to connect the small one at the front and two hours later it started raining - the first proper rain we've had for weeks. It rained on and off for a few hours and was much needed and should have done the shrubs and trees a bit of good, but it didn't put much into the water butts.

Andrew said was I going to let that weed outside the shed get any bigger or I wouldn't be able to open the door! It's not a weed it's a Foxglove and I'm leaving it there until it's flowered.

 

I said big expenses for the garden had all finished but I didn't mention plants did I? 

Just can't resist, so I found myself bringing home a Red Hazel from the plant stall at the Water Mill and 4 pots of Alstromeria plants from last Sunday's car boot.......these were a big bargain at £2 a pot. Stonham Barns car-boot organisers don't allow stalls with only plants because there is an on-site nursery but they don't mind people bringing a few so that means plants for sale are from private sellers and not trade and are cheaper.....like my sage for 50p a couple of weeks ago.

I left a big Red Hazel tree at the smallholding and a huge bed of Alstromeria that I grew for cutting and selling and I tried 2 or 3 times to get Alstromeria going at Clay Cottage with no luck. Hopefully they will do better here. To make room for the Hazel I've taken out a half dead Hydrangea and that's made room for it to get quite big before I have to start cutting it back and from much the same area I cut a climbing rose right back as it was covered in greenfly.

The patio is looking good after weeding.............not with weedkiller, or pressure washing or by sitting on a stool and pulling them out one by one but with the brilliant tool in the photo below. It's got metal bristles that get right in the gaps and clean out all the dirt, moss and weeds.

Job done with just a bit of work.

Hope you all have a good weekend. 

I'll be back Monday after  I've been to 'Weird and Wonderful Wood' and boot sales of course.

Sue

March Miscellany

The little group of  tulips among the crocuses at one spot in the garden turned out to be miniature tulips. I've found 3 daffodils so far although they've not opened yet, need to remember to get a few more bulbs in the autumn.

 

 

 

 

 My week began with going to the WI that I've not been to for 2 years. It was in the morning just for this month and will be back to evenings in April.

The speaker had a slide show and told us all about an area around Perth in Australia. He and his wife visit quite often as his wife's sister lives there.

Before retiring his back ground was as a botanist so he was particularly interested in the flora and fauna and how things have changed  with forest clearance, crop failure due to weather changing and huge fires.

Some really good photos of flowers and I had no idea about the number of Marsupials there are in Australia - of all sizes, although sadly some are now extinct on the mainland, just hanging on on a few small islands.

 It was nice to see some people  I'd not seen for ages and a good morning out.

 

 The first few seeds have been sown in my windowsill electric propagator. Just Aubergines and Peppers at the moment  as they need the longest growing season. I'll do tomatoes and cucumbers later. Everything sown now will need carrying in from the greenhouse at night and out in the morning once they get big enough for individual pots so I don't want too many things too soon.

I'm glad I topped up with 500 litres of heating oil in February - even then it had shot up to £338 which was £50 pounds up on last November. Next door neighbour said that he has just ordered 1000lt of heating oil and it was over £1,000!

 

Made a note of a TV programme to watch starting on the 22nd on Channel 4. It's called Living Like the Amish. I just hope the people they've picked to do it are not the moaning, argumentative and whinging sort they sometimes find for this time of "reality" TV! (Writing this I had a happy memory of Col moaning at me wanting to watch things like this - just as I moaned at him watching the awful Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear - luckily neither of us were serious!) 

The temperature went up a few degrees as the week went on and on Thursday the crocuses and tulips had the sun shining on them and looked like this........ completely different.

 

 

I got grass cut and edges strimmed yesterday before the wind got really cold again and rain moved in. Need to get the onion sets in soon, looks like much better weather next week which should get my gardening mojo going again.

 

Nothing in the diary for this weekend.

Think it will be car-boot sale on Saturday and then into town to get some photocopies done at the library and a quick tour of the charity shops and any shopping I need. Rugby on TV Saturday afternoon and my new books to get stuck into. Definitely no driving the extra distance to the Sunday boot sale at Woolpit this week, not with diesel prices likely to shoot up again before the end of the month.

Hope you all have a good weekend

Back Monday

Sue

The Greenhouse

My neighbours at the cottage struggled for a week when they got their greenhouse and it nearly ended in divorce  but on Tuesday a man came and, all by himself, put up my greenhouse in just under 5 hours.

He said he'd been doing the job for 25 years so knew all the possible problems.

I've moved in the small bit of metal staging I brought with me, the 2 Pepper plants that aren't looking too bad, the 1 Aubergine which hasn't grown much, the straggly tomato and the Very Small cucumber plant that obviously didn't like being outside.

Next year I'll be all ready for getting started much earlier and the concrete base won't look quite so stark.

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue 

 

 

Growing V Buying

Thanks for comments on yesterday's post. As I said it was theoretical - just a look at what was available for £9 and how close I could get to a weeks worth of food for one person.

One thing raised on yesterday's post was - How much do I spend on growing my own and is it worth it?

My first thought was that growing your own fruit and vegetables is not so much about the money but more about mental health, freshness, lack of chemicals and self reliance. Of course that's because I can afford to do it - but disregarding all the other benefits - is it worth the money spent?

Because I keep accounts it's easy to see what was spent this year on............

Multi purpose compost
Seeds
Onion setts
Pheromone Moth Traps for both Apple and Plum Trees
Seed Potatoes
A huge planting tub
Ant powder
Pepper Plants
16 Various Brassica Plants

The total spent on this was around £87. Of course the big pot will be around for years. The ant powder will last more than one year and the moth traps have sticky bits and pheromone things for next year and then I'll only need refills, and some seeds are still in the tin for next year too.

Now the difficult bit .......will my harvest be worth that spend? This is so hard to work out because some of the seeds I've used were bought last year, some were my own saved seed. Plus I'm harvesting things that were planted years ago - like rhubarb and  raspberries that would cost several pounds to buy but have cost me nothing.
I've harvest 14 cucumbers so far and given 8 away, do I count those? do I value them as equivalent to the cheapest at 50p, the large at 85p or the organic at £1 each.


My brain seized up............I gave up thinking.

Instead I  ate my first home grown aubergine in a delicious aubergine and tomato sauce. They are just 50p in the shop, but I don't know where they've come from, how many days they've taken to get here, what the people who grew them were paid and what they've been sprayed with.
 My aubergine took me 10 seconds from greenhouse plant to pan....................and THAT'S one good reason to grow my own.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

The Greenhouse - Last Year Compared to This Year

May 21st  LAST YEAR
Left hand side
 5 'pointy' Pepper plants plus five Aubergines in big pots. French Climbing beans to go out as are the Sweetcorn - baby ones for stir-fries. One more big pot ready for another yellow tomato. 2 trays sown with mangetout peas. 2 pots sown with nasturtiums - no sign of them yet. Some small tomato plants to go in the hanging baskets and at the end  are 2 cucumbers. Also some squash seedlings just emerging

Below on 21st May THIS YEAR
Left hand side 
It looks much emptier than last year because the climbing French beans and all the other plants are already outside either in the ground or in pots. Plus I'm not growing baby corn this year. This years 4 Aubergine and 3 Pepper plants in big pots are not so well grown as this time last year because they didn't get going so well and the failure of all but one of my own pepper sowing meant I sent for some which held things up. The 2 cucumber plants look bigger than this time last year and of course there is the sacrificial cucumber plant I wrote about last week.

There are a couple of empty pots out of shot on the left of the door waiting to see if I did or didn't add pepper plants to the order when I sent for the brassica collection and melon plant.(Hope the melon plant arrives soon - time is marching on) There is also a small very slow growing aubergine on the left out of shot, to be potted up soon.

21st May LAST YEAR
Right hand side
9 various tomato plants with French Marigolds also in the pots to encourage insects in for pollination and another cucumber in the big pot at the end.

21st May Right hand side
THIS YEAR Below
 The 4 Ildi yellow plum tomato plants are much forwarder than this time last year, as I sowed them first .4 Big Mama Tomato plants slightly later. The tomato with masses of flowers on the right of the door is one of the cascade trailing mini tomatoes. Last year I squeezed all 4 plants into the baskets on the garage wall. This year I still grew 4 plants but put just 1 in each basket, one in the greenhouse and one in a pot outside the greenhouse door.  No French Marigold  plants this year as I usually pick up a cheap small tray from a car boot sale. There's a pot of parsley there too. One pot full has gone outside already. The third big cucumber at the far end with a small pepper plant. One empty pot on the right waiting for the final Aubergine plant to get a bit bigger to pot on.

 The blog is so handy to be able to see the differences from one year to another.

Back Tomorrow
Sue


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