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.  :(

Sunny Saturday

Today has been a lovely day - sunshine all day.  Mr Milly came to the lottie with me today, due to the terrible weather he hasn't been to the plot for a while and I think he was quite pleased!  I have had a bit of doubting Thomas moment in the last couple of days - and felt that I had lost my way a little,  so Mr Millly's company, reassurance and a bit of guidance was really needed!

We did make the most of the sunshine and spent most of the day at the plot - tonight we both have beetroot red faces, it must have been hotter than we realised!

We made a start with the grass and with my new grass strimmer/brush cutter I cut all the borders and edges of the overgrown grass - immediately that made the plots looks much tidier.   Then we set about the brassica cage.  I had decided earlier in the week that I didn't like the one I had put up - too tall, too untidy, too unstable,  just too not right for me!  Yesterday I had deconstructed it giving us a clear run at it today.   Last year I had picked up some hosepipe from Freecycle,  at the time I didn't really know what what I was going to do with it, but convinced both of us that we would eventually find a use for it.   Today the use was found,  and we have made 3 brassica cages, 2 short ones for cabbages, kale, and lettuces and one taller one for sprouts and broccolli.   We used bamboo canes connected with short pieces of hosepipe,  debris netting to cover them and all neatly pegged down.   I was on a roll then and used the off cut pieces of cane and more hosepipe over the strawberry bed ready for their protection netting to be placed.

New brassica cages

Strawberry bed ready for netting

The next job was the potatoes - again they had appeared above the soil, Mr Milly made a start and was able to cover one line of the tatties,  and of course he covered them differently to me.   A bit of tuition and a lot of supervision followed and the rest of the tatties were covered in the same way.   I think one more earthing up only will be possible as the earthings are now quite tall and we are running out of soil.   Hopefully we won't be seeing any more frost now and one more earthing up should be Ok to protect the potatoes and give us a good crop.

Across the middle of the plots - all the potatoes nicely earthed up.

Talking about crops - we had a little harvest today;-

Spinach from the front of the plot,  a few rhubarb sticks,  four lovely leeks and a couple of spring greens.  The trug was quite full and considering it is not quite the middle of May a pretty good harvest we thought!

Tidy plots.  The Bunting seems to have multiplied!

A few more jobs are planned for tomorrow,  the weather forecast is good so hopefully all the planned jobs can be completed and we are nearly ready for mass planting!!

Spring is in the Air

Sometimes I feel that I send myself loopy with reading different ways to do things/plant things/sow things.   Try Googling 'Sewing leeks' and you will see what I mean.  To stop this loopy-iness I have now decided to read a few 'how-tos' and then do what feels right.  Fingers crossed my decisions are the right ones and then wait and see what happens.

Anyway spring is in the air - the days are becoming longer and mostly a little warmer,  daffodils are out and on the plot and few bits and pieces are coming to life.  The autumn planted raspberries are beginning to grow some new canes,   the rhubarb I thought I had lost is now poking its head about the soil and the newly planted garlics now have a couple of inches of green growth on them.

At home the list is;-

Potatoes chitting in the shed
Leeks sown in cat litter trays in the plastic greenhouse
Sweet peas in pots in the greenhouse with a few new ones on a windowsill indoors.
Sungold tomatoes seeds sown - indoors
Alpine strawberries sown and germinated  - indoors
Chillis sown - indoors
Peppers sown - indoors
Melon sown - Indoors
Aubergines Sown - indoors
Gardeners Delight Tomatoes sown - indoors

At the Lottie
Brussell Sprouts - Polytunnel
Cabbage - Polytunnel
Calabrese - Polytunnel
Carrots - Polytunnel and direct sowing
Radish - Polytunnel
Little Gem Lettace - Polytunnel
Red Onion sets - Planted
White Onion Sets - Planted
Garlic - Planted
Shallots - Planted

Well that is quite a list isn't it!  I still have loads of seeds to be sown, and although it is tempting to be starting things off,  I have already learnt the hard way that too early is just no good,  so I am going to wait as long as possible before starting things off.

Today it has been lovely bright, warm and sunny.  The Portuguese Housekeeper came with me to the Lottie,  we took a little feast as it is hungry work and energy food is definately needed!

We spent about and hour and a half doing the dreaded digging and for me today that was quite enough!  Then we decided to tackle the greenhouse frame - and what a saga that turned out to be!   We did manage to put the frame together and I have to say we were pretty pleased with ourselves that the 2 of us girlies managed to complete it on our own without any male assistance!

The Growing Season is beginning

 Do you remember these?

All of my seeds have been listed by the month to be sown and whether this is indoors or outdoors.   The February and January ones have been sown and now there are seedlings popping up all round the house!

Tomatoes and Cabbages in Hall window

Sweet potatoes waiting to root in the Kitchen

Chilli, peppers, squash and flowers on the windowsill in the spare bedroom

All sorts of different seedlings in the spare bedroom

Potatoes chitting in the shed.

Mr Milly is now looking forward to the greenhouse being in place to move the seedlings.  I am too - I'm running out of space for the March seeds inside the house!

My Boy is helping with the greenhouse and today he has been and collected all of the glass - and he didn't break any in the process which is truely amazing!

The glass is now residing in the garden waiting to be cleaned - I am hoping the Portuguese Housekeeper will help me with this tomorrow,  the rest of the greenhouse is going to be collected on Saturday - how exciting!!

Only a few panes of glass to be cleaned!  
That's going to take a month of Sundays........

A little helper

Firstly, thank you for the emails and comments I have had following the break in at the lottie - I have really appreciated your thoughts and humour too!

On a positive note - I am now feeling motivated to get to the lottie and start sorting it out ready for the spring,  both Mr Milly and the Portuguese Housekeeper have pledged time this week end to come with me and make a start - I expect the work will be down to me,  but the company will be extremely welcome.

I have had another offer of help today - from my oldest nephew,  he is 9 and often when he visits I will show him the recent photos I have taken and we talk about them.   He spotted the fox in the tree in a nano second!  Today we were discussing the lottie and  I duly showed him the pictures of the damaged door,  we discussed in detail what might of happened, he studied the broken door with great interest.  He has assured me he has some wood from his old bed that will help to fix the lottie door.  He asked his mum what he was doing at the weekend as he wanted to come and help me.   We talked about some of the other jobs that need doing,   planting the raspberries and building their frame,  pulling up the Brussel sprouts and clearing that bed,  a general little tidy up where the recent high winds have blown things around and whilst there is no new growth I would really like to cut down some more of the brambles at the back of the plot.   Now my nephew weigh all this up,  he established that he has some gardening gloves - and wanted to know how prickly the brambles were!

Anyway I have a lovely little list of jobs that he could do he was happy with that.    I'm not sure if he will make it to the lottie this weekend and as he was leaving I told that it would be great to see him this weekend,  but if he can't make it, then not to worry as there will be lots more weekends!  He did seem quite happy with this as he kissed me goodbye today.

Tonight I am sitting with some seed catalogues and trusty Google trying to decide what goodies I am going to attempt to grow this year.   Already there are things to be done - now is the time to be chitting seed potatoes ready for planting.   Which ones to choose - there are zillions of the things on offer and it is confusing and before even choosing  the type a decision to be made on which sort of crop - did you have any idea that the crop list was this long??????

Extra Earlies

Earlies

Second Earlies

Main crop

Late Crop

Pen and paper to the ready, trying to work out the whole thing out - how complicated for the humble little potato!

Breakthrough

Finally yesterday  I cleared one side of the Lottie,  right down to the front of the plot.  This was a biggie for me as I know it has to be done and the front 1/3 of the plot is still to be sorted.  This has really been getting me down for a while as it such a big job to doing on your own.   Yesterday I put my back into it and with my trusty Azada managed to clear a section of it.



Newly cleared section - to the right of the picture is the neighbouring plot

5 huge wheelbarrow loads of brambles, nettles, dock leaves, couch grass and other weeds were taken away.  I think my plot must have every type of unwanteds possible!   It is not all good though - it is still to be dug over.  The original plan was to make this into a raspberry bed with a long line of raspberry canes at one side of the plot.   I have been worrying about whether this is the right place to put them though.    This section is right next to the adjoining plot where the plot owner has not cleared this section and it has a lot of brambles growing.  In reality with the very best will in the world I do know that the brambles will spread and continue to grow on my plot along this side.

A monster bramble root - my flask in the picture to give an indication of how big this thing is!

So the dilemma - if permanent raspberry beds are put in here, the brambles would grow through and as this area won't be dug over twice annually I can just see a mess of brambles and raspberries within a very short space of time.   This area needs to have regular digging to at least try and tame the brambles.

As I was standing with my cup of tea looking at this patch contemplating what to do with it, one of the other plot holders wandered by - "You want to put potatoes in there" he said.  We then discussed this and my dilemma for a while.   Potatoes in newly dug ground for the first year helps to break the soil up apparently.  He also thought it would be a mistake to put the raspberry bed in this place.   So the decision was made.  I'm going to dig this bit over, cover with manure and compost and leave it until the spring - the new potato bed sorted!  (Well that sounded easy didn't it LOL!)

I have now decided that the raspberry bed will go in front of the water pump - no brambles have been seen in this area.  I don't think that this is  a particularly rich soil area as the turnips, suede and carrots in this bit currently haven't done to very well,  but this can all be enriched and it will be an easily managed area to cover to keep the birdies off my raspberries as they grow through.
 

The section with the sign will become the new raspberry bed.  
This is an old picture as swedes, carrots, spinach and turnips are currently growing here.


Just when I thought I was making progress - I have now given myself another job to do by the end of November  - sort out the new to be raspberry bed!   Oh well, I will just continue to plod along and tell myself it will all be done eventually!

Blight

I've been away for a couple of days this week,  it was only supposed to be one night away from home, but ended up being 2.  The hotel Wi-Fi was not working,  I have given my mobile dongle to My Girl when she left home, so no Internet or blogging for me for a couple of days.

Today I managed to visit the Lottie and it is starting to look a little neglected and definitely needs some TLC!  I think this is not helped as we are approaching the end of the season, the sweetcorn are nearly finished (mice have been at a couple of them AGAIN!) and that  bed is emptying,  the runner and french beans are beginning to look a little worse for wear and blight has set in!  

Mouse shredded sweetcorn!

 My tomatoes were really effected and I have been seeing the other plot holders taking out their tomatoes as they were blighted - I was hoping it wouldn't reach me,  but it has!  All of the tomatoe plants have now been taken out and will be burnt.  Blight spreads and my potatoes were beginning to show signs too.  Today I have lifted one of the lines of potatoes,  I was really hoping that they would be our Christmas Tatties,  but this is not to be.  I have a reasonable harvest from the lifted tatties - all shapes and sizes and definitely enough for me and Mr Milly for a couple of weeks.   I will lift the rest of the tatties over the weekend.

Apples, turnips (the first ones), courgette, beans and potatoes

2 bright yellow faces greeted me at the Lottie today - the sunflowers are flowering!   My Girl and I were in a competition for the tallest one and to be honest I can't now remember whose is whose!  I have no doubt that My Girl will know........   but I do think that mine is the tallest   LOL!!!