Allotment Lady

O.K. so you might think its ’sad’ but I don’t.   Pat and I bought an Australian Bottle Brush little bush on a visit to Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire - A stately home which has since closed its doors to the public.

I planted in it in the garden where I lived before moving here - and it was never very happy - and just sulked.  I moved it to different spots - and it still didn’t thrive.

I potted it up and brought the sickly sad looking thing here - purely for sentimental reasons and on several occasions I have been so tempted to bin it.

But this week for the very first time - my patience has been rewarded.

Look at it - the red colours just glow and there are so many more bract type flowers due to come out.

So the little cutting which was taken from the original in a stately home just before it closed - is now alive and kicking here!

They were very common in Australia - and they looked a bit leggy and scraggy as mine does, but the main difference is - that those is Oz which I saw were of a yellow/orange variety - and my one is a gorgeous hot red.

So what do you reckon Jenny  ?  (Jenny is in Australia - and knows more jokes than anyone I have every known - so pop over there and have a read -you can’t help but smile.)

 Scarecrow are you there? Did I do well?  Have you visited Scarecrow lately? She is amazing and in her climate can grow veggies all year around - and keeps chickens too!

I am so glad I did not throw out the scraggy Bottle Brush - it reminds me of my holidays and travels in Australia - I hope this means that now it is going to give a repeat performance every year!

Every evening lately between 7pm and  7.30pm we have had two woodpeckers visit us - depending on what is going on in the garden.  Whether the chickens are out or other birds are visiting or if I happen to be pottering about they come later.

They are rather rare birds around here - and very shy and skittish so fly away at the least thing.  They can even see any movement indoors - so it has been very hard to get a photo of them.   The above photo I managed to get from sitting in my armchair whilst Pat was out - and zooming out across the lounge, coffee table, closed patio doors to the ’salad bar’.  About 15ft.

Without disturbance they have often stayed up to half an hour - picking through the side of the netting and helping themselves to the salads.

One is an adult bird who feeds the youngster each evening.

I was so thrilled to get this photo - the speckledy one on the right is the youngster!

I was thrilled to bits at the clarity of the photos - they far exceed anything I expected!

The girls loved the sunshine.

They spent quite a while having dust baths - I just love watching them.

Millie the Buff Orpington - looks stunning.

The honeysuckle looks and smells wonderful this year - it really loves the sunshine.

It got a bit hot for some of the girls who were glad of shadows and shade.

Rosie dust bathed for such a long time - that she was panting really fast.

By the time she had finished it was hard to see the stepping stones.

That’s my last job of the day - going round and sweeping up any dust or stones they might have scratched up. They have their favourite places - and hardly make a mess - it is usually just a few stones from the gravel paths scratched out onto paving slabs.

It just takes a few minutes to sweep up and is just part of my daily routine. My last job of each evening is to put the chickens away - by calling them, throwing in their pen some hands full of mixed corn and locking the gate.

Only today, Scrabble was missing.  I always do a ‘head count’ as it is easy to miss one when you have ten all running around.

! I called and called her, searched everywhere and still no sign of her.

I went out and had a look around the front garden - and there she was - the little madam!

I don’t know how long she had been out there - she probably followed Pat out when he mowed the front lawns - she was having a whale of a time on the gravel garden amongst the shrubs.

She reluctantly came in around 7pm for some corn - then she trotted happily into the pen.

These positively glow like torches don’t they!

A very simple red card - with a stamped image on white card - which I embossed in places and painted the ribbon red to tie it in (not meant to be a pun!) with the card.

I have made a couple of tags for a swap we do on a forum each month. This is July’s and the subject is E.

The above is Eyes - lots of textures using painted green card, with swirls of gold paint, bubbled up with a heat gun. A punched hole at the top - with colour coordinated wools.
This is completely different.

A stamped and embossed image, on a distressed with chalk background and further work on the edges with distressed black embossing powder over black ink. The letter E has been painted in gold - it looks lovely and glittery in real life.

I can’t decide whether to add a hole with ribbon at the top. I have plenty of time to decide.

One girl went to mow, went to mow a meadow…….

Well that was NOT my intention on my solo trip up the allotment today.

But when I saw the nettles in the shrub borders

And the flower border

And along the side beds - I just had to get it sorted.

It was worth the three hours work that it took me to do it.  The view is to the neighbouring plot - all my nettles are gone now!

The skies were incredibly blue - not a cloud in the sky - and I have since learned that it was the hottest day of the year!

I had to go over the meadow twice - and in some places three times to get it cut - Pat hasn’t been doing it apparently! Now that I have weeded out the nettles I think I will leave the meadow to grow and hopefully flower this year.

I will be giving this area up in October.

What I was supposed to be doing was picking these

plus blackcurrants, gooseberries, raspberries, and jostaberries-but I ran out of time.

My squashes and courgettes could do with a drink - and I have just seen on the television that we are due a downpour tonight - perfect!

BUT - I wish I had time to have picked some more fruit.

And to have collected some of the Sweet William seeds

But the plants and veggies will be glad of a drink - the ground is parched up there.

I did some work in the fruit cage, more weeding in veggies area - and finally - totally worn out after four hours - I lock up the shed and came home.

Only to realise, after clicking the padlocks - that I had left my house keys in the shed (they have the shed keys on them too).

It is the first time I have ever done that - but luckily Pat arrived home from golf just after I did - perfect timing!

Today has been hot and sunny - but I am spending most of the time indoors, in the shade, and being cooled by the ceiling fans.

I did venture out to see Hazel at the farm to collect my weekly quota of goats milk - and to catch up with her news of course (Pat now takes his newspaper and sits in the car). Soon I hope to be able to drive there and back on my own - its only a few miles -then hubby can sit and read the Sunday paper in peace as he used to do!
The chooks are still on strike in the egg laying department. Non of them are broody at the moment - but I think they have had their beaks put out of joint since the quail arrived - especially as they are laying prolifically. There were nine eggs late this morning when I gave them their lunch of chopped salad leaves, grated carrots, mixed seeds, redcurrants, grit and other veggies. I collected 13 eggs last night.

My eggs are now stocked by Harrods (the village shop. not the London store), and although I only have 16 pet quail, whatever eggs I do sell will help towards their food! It is a rather nice feeling too - to see my laminated poster with photos of the quail eating their fresh (home grown by me) cress from a pot, and their newly laid eggs in the corner - and seeing my eggs with my home made wraparound labels in the fridge - they look rather professional!

Its great to pick so much harvest - but then you still have to ‘process’ it all when you get it home. Last summer I would pick things daily, so that the work was spread out - but now we are only going once a week its been rather hard work today.

I ended up with 9lbs of prepared redcurrants - which took me ages to pull off the stalks, but now they are all washed and vacuum packed and in the freezer.

Above are some of them. At the top is a bag with over a pound of fresh raspberries - my ‘free gift’ picked from little ‘runners’ that would have normally been cut down or dug up earlier in the year.

Pat volunteered to top and tail the gooseberries, as I had so much to do.

He has a rather laid back approach to doing the chore than I do. He takes his mind off the task by watching the French Open Golf Tournament in the lounge. (I do most of my preparations in the kitchen or sometimes in the conservatory. I was just so glad of the help that I didn’t mind where or how he did them. I have just noticed in the photo - his remote controls next to him - as they always are - so he can flick from channel to channel!
He has just finished so I now have those to wash and pack and freeze. The broad beans and mange tout we will eat this week.

I get a real sense of satisfaction, when in the winter I can just pull out a bag/bags of fruit or veggies and remember lovely summer days growing and harvesting them.

For lunch we had chicken (freeranged and ‘grown’ by a friend of mine), steamed new potatoes which I dug up yesterday - they tasted so creamy and as though they had butter on them (but hadn’t). We had mange tout, broad beans, carrots and onions - you just can’t beat your own fresh vegetables.

For dessert we had a slow-cooked mix of raspberries, loganberries, red and black currants and jostaberries - all those lovely flavours and colours - the contrast of sharp and sweet was lovely. I left it until it was just warm, and served it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a drizzle of Manuka honey on top-perfect.

I am now going to sit down for an hour and relax and read my book, before vacuum packing six pounds of gooseberries, and popping them in the freezer.

I hope you all had a happy and productive weekend too.

Update 

Phew - just finished the six bags of gooseberries - took them to the freezer and got soaked by a cloudburst!

Mind you it was worth getting a soaking to collect an egg from Millie and Pumpkin - and 6 more eggs from the quail.

Phew what a day - four more hours up the allotment of non-stop work.

Pat dug up the weeds in the (now tatty) fruit cage.

It was thick with the dreaded dock weeks - and took Pat four hours to dig them out - well  most of them.  This is where I took hours to weed, manure and plant out strawberry plants in the autumn.

I seem to be totally unlucky with strawberries - each year something happens and they fail!  Unlike Haruko and Gary who ‘inherited’ loads on the allotment they got this year.  See here   They had loads and loads - and didn’t pick them all!  Well - ever the optimist - there is always next year.

I did however, spend my four hours picking some of my fruit crops.

Another big preserving pan of redcurrants - and there are still so many more to pick.

Half a carrier bag of gooseberries - and yet more to pick too.

A pound or more of raspberries - which was a totally unexpected surprise.  The raspberries I had dug up and moved down the bottom of the plot as I got fed up with them ‘running’ and taking over the cage.  The canes which these came from were ones which had escaped the cage and popped up outside - so I picked all the raspberries off them before cutting them done ready to be dug up.

The start of the jostaberries, and blackcurrants - grown from tiny cuttings and now starting to bear fruit - in a bed of their own.

Gooseberries trying to escape from the fruit cage.

The peas, although windblown, are looking really healthy.

I picked mange tout - and left a lot of the pods to fatten up.

A lovely punnet - so we can eat some and freeze some.

Off I went to the third section of the veggie plot - to see what I could pick there.

I dug up three potato plants - Rocket is the variety - and have enough potatoes to last us a week.  I was thrilled to bits - they are earlies - and I have a long row of those.

Each time I go up the plot there is always produce to pick - and today was a bumper crop.

The broad beans are excelling themselves.  They are such an easy crop to grow.  Put in a bean - and hey presto - you get a great crop!  These are just few of many more to come.

We worked non stop from 10.30am until after 2.30pm and we were exhausted - worked ourselves to a standstill.  But we still managed to rustle up steak (from a farm in the next village where I get my pork and goats milk from) lots of onions (still using those I grew last year) and potato wedges - our own of course.

Its amazing how better you feel once you have had a shower and then a lovely lunch!

You can guess what will be occupying me on Sunday can’t you?

But before I can ‘process’ all the harvest, I have to plant up my tomato plants - O.K. so its rather late - but I was ‘out of commission’ they will just be a late this year - fingers crossed.

The other evening I harvested lots of redcurrants (as I mentioned in the post on the day)

Well here they are

This is my huge preserving pan - and in it are over 8lbs of redcurrants. I was amazed at how much they all weighed. No wonder it took me so long to pick them.

With the help of my ‘under chef ‘ (in between his watching Wimbledon) they have been cooked and mashed to remove the juice. Strained once to get rid of most of the pips etc, and I have bottled it just for now - and will put it in the fridge - or else decant it into plastic bottles and freeze it until such times as I can turn it into jams or jellies, or add it to other fruits to make jams or even make a refreshing drink out of some of it.

I got just over 1 litres of currant juice - it spent the night in the fridge and this morning I transferred it into sterlised plastic (milk) bottles and popped them in the freezer
It is a wonderful colour - really red!

I had a bit of a setback with the driving thing. I had driven my car up to the village garage and they brought it back for me once it was done the other week. I was rather optimistic that I would soon be able to drive around locally. But I was soon put in my place when I drove up to the shops and back - and realised it was not to be. Pat keeps reminding me that the doctor said it would that ‘months’ for my hand to recover - I must have missed that bit of information LOL
Last night I spent a couple of hours gardening whilst Pat was bowling, it had cooled down and there was a lovely breeze. Its amazing how many ‘thugs’ plantwise you see when you look up close.

My garden is based on English Country Cottage plants mostly. Mostly perennials which are left to grow and create a lush foliage. It is quite a lot of work creating that though! I weeded, pruned, cut back, and pulled up. The early flowering geraniums got cut right back and they will grow again and give a lovely show late summer. Roses were dead headed. Weeds sought out and removed. Climbing plants over the pergola pruned back, some of the larger plants which had grown too big, were cut back to expose daylight to some hidden little treasures lurking beneath craning to get a bit of light.

And the last job of the evening was to collect more quail eggs - another dozen at 9pm last night - the last four having been laid whilst I was gardening. I am getting around 18-20 most days.

In the heat of the day I have taken refuge in my studio and ‘messing’ about doing some art crafty bits for swaps on forum. I am a bit out of practice - but at least I am making a start.

We are off into the local town today - and I want to wander around the charity shops to see what’s in .

Just to end with…………………….

Pat dropped me off at a friend’s house down the lane whom I hadn’t seen for about 8 weeks - she always has someone there keeping her company (she is on a farm and they sell eggs so there is a steady stream of visitors). I went to apologise for missing her 80th birthday in May (not like me at all but I was a bit distracted). It was breezy so I took an umbrella to shade me from the sun, as it was too windy for a hat.

When I turned up with the collapsible umbrella - they asked if I was expecting rain! I could really do with one of those parasols the ladies had in Victorian times.

Walking home I felt a bit conspicuous with a long skirt on, clogs, long sleeved top (albeit it a dainty one), white gloves, and a brolly up.  I felt a bit like Mary Poppins

Thankfully there were not many people walking along the lane - but one chap who was gardening called to say ‘hello’ and asked if it looked like rain - and I did a little dance, and sang ‘I’m Singing in the Sun’ to the famous singing in the rain music, and we both laughed.