So much for a fresh start!

OK, A new job and stuff has rather sapped my time a bit but we are still gardening and allotmenting :)

Things are going pretty well. We have parsnips and a few carrots, squashes, loads and loads of fruit bushes, a flower bed, more gooseberries than we can eat, asparagus, black currants, red currents, white currents, blueberries, josta berries, goji berries (eventually!) onions, sweet potatoes, normal potatoes, swede, herbs, roses, sweetpeas, courgettes (we have millions of these) peas, broad beans, runner beans and weeds.

anyway, here are a few pictures:

A picture of a lovely red sunflower and simon's arse.

You can see our improvised tomato house - they are doing really quite well in there. We also have about 1200000000 marigolds, they are very pretty though so we don't mind.








Red flax, never grown it before, its flowered for weeks and its so vibrant I will be growing it again fosho!











Close up of our heritage tomatoes. These are supposed to have some blight resistance and are still dashed tasty. The variety is Legend and if they are successful, I will seed save them to grow next year.











You might think, well, she's gone mad. Why is she showing us a photo of fat hen. Well, I am not. This, excitingly is a grain called Quinoa. It appears you can grow it in this country with some success. I really wanted to grow a grain that I could actually eat (I am a coeliac and can't eat, well anything wheaty or gluteny) so to be able to grow this well would be a real boon. Its going to be ready in a few weeks so I will keep you posted.











lovely sweet peas. there are a few different named varieites here, chosen for fragrance and colour. I wish I could share the scent because they are beautiful. The best I have is called Allbut Blue. Its white with a tiny blue edge, its beautiful and the scent is phenomenal. If I can find seed, I will grow it every single year!















Sweetcorn going well, its just up to my chin. this is a heritage variety called Bi-colour. You can't seed save sweetcorn yourself without a tremendous amount of fuss as sweetcorn is very slutty and spreads itself around.

We have had lots of success with this variety so are looking forward to many juicy cobs by the end of the summer.




Onions, nearly ready to scoff! Simon has planted millions of these beauties as we eat loads and loads of them so it makes sense to grow what you eat.












These are autumn raspberries, lots and lots of them. They have done far better than the summer fruiting ones which are crap. I can't remember the variety (polka springs to mind) but I am pleased they are doing so well.

We are mulching the bed with lots of home made compost and stuff we can't be bothered to compost. Things like apple cores just get lobbed straight on.










Lovely thornless blackberry. We put a few of these in to act as windbreaks as the westerly wind blows right across the plot. Its going to take a few years but hopefully it might help. And we get a heap of lovely lovely blackberries.











OK, last picture. I promised you sweet potatoes and here they are. We are growing them in a covered house thing to help them keep warm as they are tropical and need a good blast of heat.

They are vines so we have given them something to climb up and hopefully that will make them happy. Its all a bit of an experiment to be honest so its all very exciting.

2010 - New Year, New start

Hello.

I am determined to properly update this thing this year so hang on to your hats, it will be a roller coaster ride. The first visit to the lottie this year, for me anyway happened in lovely winter sunshine today. We spent the afternoon tidying up the fruit bushes and trying to protect the brassicas from the bloody rabbits. They have managed to get into the site and blimey are they hungry. They have scoffed all the leek tops clean off and had a go at the PSB (purple sprouting broccoli) normal broccoli and our single sprout plant, without any sprouts. The PSB i think will be fine, its as tough as old boots and i am sure will bounce back ready for us to scoff within no time.
We put the old tomato house over them to try and protect them a bit. Simon and I can't stand to hurt the bunnies so a physical barrier is the way forward.

Plans for produce this year are formulating. I am going to try and do a proper cut flower bed this year with lots of pretty flowers ready for the house. The trick is to get a succession of flowers from early summer to autumn. I have an ever-growing list of flowers and when its finished, I will post here.

Veggie plans are also coming on. We have been over-run with pumpkins this year so will concentrate more on butternut squashes and just grow a couple of pumpkins for fun. We will grow many pumpkins, sweetcorn and a few salad leaves together with about a million onions as we eat loads of them.

I am going to try and get a few chillies going nice and early this year so I have "peter" chillies, that look like tiny willies apparently and also "rainbow" chillies which are purple. They will be sowed and popped into the airing cupboard to get them warm enough.