That has been a very long blogging break... I'm trying to get back on track now. Life in the last three weeks has been hectic some good, some not so good, but all in all I am exhausted!
I have travelled all over the country in the last 10 days, in fact 1500 miles of driving in those few days. To the east to Colchester, to the west to Wales and to the north to Manchester, I haven't venture south but then I suppose travelling home each time would count as the south of the country!
With all of this travelling around and having visitors the poor lottie is looking a mess - the grass is long, the beds are very weedy and everything needs a good sorting out. Fortunately I have been able to harvest with peas, potatoes and courgettes coming home in abundance. I now have just over a week off work and the lottie will get back on track, as will the garden, the housework and somewhere in there I am determined there will be some rest and relaxation!
No pics today as I have a new camera and haven't yet been able to work out how to upload the photos to my laptop, to be honest I haven't had enough time to sit and work it out! Anyway over the next couple of days I will update you with all of the tooing and frowing and I have some very very exciting news to share!!!!!!!
Alison x
Friday, 27 July 2012
Friday, 6 July 2012
A little birthday gift
This year is just flying past in an absolute flash.. I do wonder if that is a sign of getting older?
Already it seems to be birthday season in our family and in the last 2 weeks the birthdays have been;-
My brother
My Brother in Law's 50th birthday
My Nephew's 7th birthday
My Aunties birthday and 50th Wedding Anniversary
My Cousins 50th Birthday
Quite a few memorable and big events. Some home made goodies have come in handy for little gifts along the way and my most favourite one of all was the lovely bag for my Auntie.
Mr Milly spotted the fabric in our local haberdashery shop and after some debate about me really not needing another bag (I think I do need more bags - but Mr Milly had other ideas) I decided that it would be lovely for a gift.
 |
| The completed bag |
 |
| Isn't that lovely girlie vintagey fabric |
I think my Auntie was pleased with her gift and as she was off on holiday to celebrate her Golden wedding Anniversary I am hoping she would find it useful too. I don't think I am going to be able to resist making one of these for me though............
Alison x
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Stinky
The kitchen is pongy at the moment and the reason for this? I harvested the garlic and some of the overwintering onions. Quite a reasonable harvest and will definately last us a while. I was hoping to leave the garlic a little longer, however the tops were telling me they were ready and I have since learnt that if left in the ground too long the cloves will start to split ready to loosen the bulbs for growing again.
I didn't know that about garlic and having harvested one last week and saw exactly this I decided they really did have to come up. As with everything that comes from the Lottie they are a mixed bag of big and little ones, but all are perfectly usable and having cleaned them up ready for storing I can confirm they are very very strong smelling!
A couple more potato plants were dug to keep up topped up for the next week or so, some more lovely peas are now ready for podding, blanching and freezing and just to cheer me up - a lovely very sweet smelling bunch of sweet peas came home with me today too.
And lastly my lovely hubby is on his way home - he has been to the Isle of Wight for a couple of days to spend time with his Dad and I have missed him ...... A LOT! I am very much looking forward to seeing him and I now really appreciate how rotten it is for Mr Milly when I am away for a couple of days EVERY week, unfortunately in the short term that is something which is not going to change. :(
I didn't know that about garlic and having harvested one last week and saw exactly this I decided they really did have to come up. As with everything that comes from the Lottie they are a mixed bag of big and little ones, but all are perfectly usable and having cleaned them up ready for storing I can confirm they are very very strong smelling!
A couple more potato plants were dug to keep up topped up for the next week or so, some more lovely peas are now ready for podding, blanching and freezing and just to cheer me up - a lovely very sweet smelling bunch of sweet peas came home with me today too.
And lastly my lovely hubby is on his way home - he has been to the Isle of Wight for a couple of days to spend time with his Dad and I have missed him ...... A LOT! I am very much looking forward to seeing him and I now really appreciate how rotten it is for Mr Milly when I am away for a couple of days EVERY week, unfortunately in the short term that is something which is not going to change. :(
Thursday, 28 June 2012
He just can't be trusted.....
..... Mr Milly that is! I left home on Wednesday morning with strict instructions about the jam from this post, I've come home tonight and very quickly could see that something was amiss, 3 yes you did read that right - 3 more jars of jam have been re homed! It's a good job I had managed to make a few more earlier in the week, but now I have decided I am going to hide it as it would appear Mr Milly is unstoppable! LOL!
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
Tired and Cranky
That is me right now, I've gone from being crunchy to being cranky - I think Mr Milly prefers crunchy!
I think it is the thought of having to go away again tomorrow for another 2 days, sometimes like this time I just don't want to go and would much rather be at home. It is affecting me all round at the moment and even going to the Lottie right now is a bit of an effort.
Yesterday I picked these;-
Yummy yummy fresh peas - quite a few of the pods didn't make it home I have to confess!
Tonight I have picked more strawberries - the weight of these was 2.5 pounds. A few more jars of jam will be made tonight. As quick as I am making it Mr Milly is giving it away... I have made 8 jars of jam so far, one has been opened and 2 more are sitting in the kitchen, the rest have all been re homed. He is now on a strict warning that I like strawberry jam and would really like to have enough to last until next summer. I'm not too worried though as the strawberry plants are still growing little green berries, so the promise of plenty more is there.
The potatoes are looking huge and healthy at the Lottie all nicely topped with little white or purple flowers. A couple of times I have had a furtle to see if anything is happening, today I decided to dig one up and see if there were any potatoes.........
Woohoo!!! - some really very good sized one and these are from just one potato plant, I'm really pleased and a little relieved that I hadn't wasted a perfectly good potato plant by digging it up too early.
Alison
I think it is the thought of having to go away again tomorrow for another 2 days, sometimes like this time I just don't want to go and would much rather be at home. It is affecting me all round at the moment and even going to the Lottie right now is a bit of an effort.
Yesterday I picked these;-
Yummy yummy fresh peas - quite a few of the pods didn't make it home I have to confess!
Tonight I have picked more strawberries - the weight of these was 2.5 pounds. A few more jars of jam will be made tonight. As quick as I am making it Mr Milly is giving it away... I have made 8 jars of jam so far, one has been opened and 2 more are sitting in the kitchen, the rest have all been re homed. He is now on a strict warning that I like strawberry jam and would really like to have enough to last until next summer. I'm not too worried though as the strawberry plants are still growing little green berries, so the promise of plenty more is there.
The potatoes are looking huge and healthy at the Lottie all nicely topped with little white or purple flowers. A couple of times I have had a furtle to see if anything is happening, today I decided to dig one up and see if there were any potatoes.........
Woohoo!!! - some really very good sized one and these are from just one potato plant, I'm really pleased and a little relieved that I hadn't wasted a perfectly good potato plant by digging it up too early.
Alison
Sunday, 24 June 2012
This made me laugh today
From this Blog that I regularly follow Our New life in the Country,
Thank you Sue for making me laugh today!
Alison x
I for one am definately crunchy!!
Thank you Sue for making me laugh today!
Alison x
Friday, 22 June 2012
Jam Anyone?
I've been away for 3 very long days this week - so no blog update as there really isn't anything interesting about working and staying away from home.
Tonight I couldn't wait to get to the Lottie and check on my newly planted greenhouse, I didn't know how it would have coped with me being away and not here to water it for 3 whole days! I needn't have worried as everything was perfectly Ok and not dried to a crisp.
Then it was onto a bit of harvesting, Mr Milly had put in an order for some onions as we have none at home, then I pulled out a few weeds from the salad bed and noticed that some of the radishes were getting big, too big infact as they were like ping pong balls.... I can confirm they were very tasty, but extremely HOT!!
I turned by attention to the strawberry bed next.... as soon as I walked up the plot I could see lots and lots of red berries. I found a reasonable size plant pot and started picking, very quickly I filled that pot, found another - filled that one and then had to search high a low for a 3rd pot. I was delighted, I was beginning to think that the strawberries were going to ripen in dribs and drabs and I would never had enough to make any jam. I couldn't wait to get home and weigh them, put into a bowl there seem masses of them and the scales confirmed it 3.5 pounds of strawberries!! How brilliant is that!?
Right now the strawberries are sitting in a pan, jam jars and in the oven and very shortly I will be making my first batch of jam for this year - fingers crossed it works out OK!
Alison x
Tonight I couldn't wait to get to the Lottie and check on my newly planted greenhouse, I didn't know how it would have coped with me being away and not here to water it for 3 whole days! I needn't have worried as everything was perfectly Ok and not dried to a crisp.
Then it was onto a bit of harvesting, Mr Milly had put in an order for some onions as we have none at home, then I pulled out a few weeds from the salad bed and noticed that some of the radishes were getting big, too big infact as they were like ping pong balls.... I can confirm they were very tasty, but extremely HOT!!
I turned by attention to the strawberry bed next.... as soon as I walked up the plot I could see lots and lots of red berries. I found a reasonable size plant pot and started picking, very quickly I filled that pot, found another - filled that one and then had to search high a low for a 3rd pot. I was delighted, I was beginning to think that the strawberries were going to ripen in dribs and drabs and I would never had enough to make any jam. I couldn't wait to get home and weigh them, put into a bowl there seem masses of them and the scales confirmed it 3.5 pounds of strawberries!! How brilliant is that!?
Right now the strawberries are sitting in a pan, jam jars and in the oven and very shortly I will be making my first batch of jam for this year - fingers crossed it works out OK!
Alison x
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)