Tomatoes

So many tomatoes, that I'm thinking about a chutney.  Never made chutney before so should be interesting!

September is upon us today and the summer is becoming a distant memory, albeit a good one!   I have butternut squashes and pumpkins taking over the garden and I'm already planning for next year!  Looking for good blogs to follow for ideas and tips.

Havest Time!

A selection of produce from our garden, to take to Gma Castle!

This has got to have been the very best year I have ever had in the garden.  Especially the greenhouse! Peppers, chilis, aubergines, cucumbers, tomatoes, and basil are in abundance, and in the veg plot the potatoes, carrots, runner beans, spring onions, broad beans and lettuce have been surplus to requirements, lucky for my neighbour who has had generous presents this summer! what with the duck and chicken eggs, there have been many days when complete meals on our plates have been home produced.  The children have had great delight with their baskets every day running around and collecting food to eat, the very perfect environment for a child.

Some photos from July of the Garden

this was taken by my five year old daughter Ffion. The aliums have all but finished now, and they were a spectacular sight to see.  Hope to plant lots more bulbs for next summer.

here is Caitlin and her pet lamb Bella.  We are hoping to take her to a show soon in the "young handler" class, but I'm already picturing mayhem with runaway lambs.  The local farmer has assured me that someone will catch her if she does do a runner (Bella not Caitlin of course!)

Here are my two little flowers!  We were on the way to my mother's 60th Birthday party and they looked so beautiful we had a lovely day.

I asked them to take a photo of me in my dress and this is all they managed!

The Wild Horse of Valkyrie

Here is a bit of mythological culture for you:  This is a very emotive statue of a rider who is one of 12 war maidens who chose warriors to be slain and then conducted them to Valhalla, where they were feasted upon with Odin the chief deity of Norse Mytholog.  Here is a link for more info:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ValkyrieOnHorse.jpg

Bella and Rosa our pet lambs

Back at the end of April we were lucky enough to have been given two pet lambs from a local farmer.  When they arrived they were still being bottle fed twice a day, and it soon became quite tiring work listening to them bleating like crazy for their bottles, and even more so when my two little girls very quickly lost interest in being "mummies" to them!! Anyway we persevered and now they have been weaned off the bottle and are happily muching their way through ten acres of pasture.  They are still incredibly friendly and will skip and jump when you call them for a fuss.  Awww sweet.

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant

Going back in time, I thought I'd add this lovely picture of my girls, Caitlin and Ffion in their Welsh costumes.  We celebrate St. David's Day on March 1st and I have put a link to provide more information about this.  We normally pin a daffodil to their outfits, but unfortunately none had come into bloom in time, so we opted for a crocus and a primrose instead!!  See more about Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant here:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_David%27s_Day

Cait and Juno at Llyn Llech Owain

We had a lovely day out, Juno was full of energy and so Lydia cantered and galloped on him until he was worn out so that Caitlin could have a relaxing ride.

Weeding and Pruning

Today was amazing! The weather was so fine and we spent literally the whole day outside in the garden. We emptied and cleaned out all our large pots ready to plant in some new summer flowers and we weeded, I say we but it was me that worked and the children had fun on the trampoline and they made some bird scarers with sticks and pots and stuck them in the ground, photos to come soon! Overall I am shattered, but my one word of advice ladies (and gents if you care enough) is to put at least a factor 25 on your face when you are outside, the wind and the sunshine can cause quite a bit of aging if you are not careful! I always keep a tube of Clinique City Block Sheer in our porch to remind me whenever I go outside.

Until next time, adieu x

A question about seeds?

I started off some seeds yesterday when I got home from work.  I mixed up some potting compost and vermiculite in a big trug and used this to start my tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, peppers and chives!  I have tried a heated propagator to start of the tomatoes and peppers so I will be interested to see how quick germination takes place this year.  Lucky me tomorrow I have a day off to wait in for a new washing machine, and the children are home so we are planning a whole day of weeding and pruning to start the way forward for the rest of the growing season, so excited!

My question today for all you garden aficionados is this.  I dried some runner bean pods last year and the seeds inside look great, if I plant these will I get good quality runner beans this summer?  Same goes for peas?

Looking forward to your responses!

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The Weather is Bloody Awful!

So I was in the Garden last on Thursday evening, the day I started this blog!  That evening the weather was not too bad, a bit damp where it had been raining during the week but bearable.  However, Friday was awful, rained hard all day so it was a bit on the glum side to say the least.  Yesterday, (Saturday) we went to see Swansea City Football team play Leeds United at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea and I have to say the weather improved so it was a bit of reluctance which forced me to travel to Swansea when I'd rather have been at home with the horses and the garden.  But the match was outstanding! Swansea hammered Leeds 3-0 so it was well worth the effort to go and see them.  This followed by a late lunch at Nandos in Wind Street finished off a perfect child free day.  Today we had promised some young horse mad girls that we would take Melody (my thoroughbred mare) and Juno (my daughter's Sec A pony) to Llyn Llech Owain but the weather took a slight turn for the worse around 12pm so we made a decision not to go.  It is about 10 miles from where we live and taking them both in the horse box is quite a job, and we were worried if the weather was very bad it would be a wasted journey.  But now, sitting here eating a late lunch (again) I am a bit sorry as it cleared up and apart from being a bit windy, the sun has managed to stay out.  Ah well, perhaps next weekend.  

My First Day in the Garden

Well it is not exactly my first day in my garden!  I have lived here for over five years and every year has been a learning curve as any gardener knows.  Funny thing though it has taken over 30 years for me and my mother to discover a mutual passion and that is "gardening"!  Prior to me moving here to Penygroes Farm we did not really share any common interests.  Having said that though, my mother's garden is far superior to mine despite the fact that mine is about a 1/3 acre bigger.  Maybe she has got it right, a small area is an area to be maintained whereas my 1/3 acre of garden has me in tears at times!  This year though I have decided to create this blog, which I hope is going to give me the motivation to get it right this year, well at least partway right!  It is true that gardeners never grow old apparently because they are always planning and scheming their next years garden which keeps them young and fit!  We will see about that here!  So what did I do today?  I started clearing paths, digging up some stubborn docks (yes I know that there will be millions of these in the coming months!).  The chickens got excited, with me on my knees digging up nettles and unearthing some meaty delights for their supper!  I am quite looking forward to tomorrow, the last day of half term whereby I will be visiting garden centre in the morning.  I have cleared an area and I will be planting out some chives if I can get some plants that are well established enough.  So here is my first question, is it ok to plant out some chives plants, or would I be better starting some off as seeds instead?  HELP!