Hopping into action

I say ' hopping' so as to conjure up images of bunnies and the associated Easter/spring paraphernalia, but it's leading me astray already and now I'd like an Easter egg - concentration is lost....ummm, where's the chocolate.

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We awoke on Saturday to a nice-ish day which whispered 'allotment' on the mild air. Not wanting to be rude, we heeded it, went out for much needed coffee and then seed shopping, yippee! But oh my, we bought quite a lot for this first phrase of sowing. To be fair though, we didn't get that Japanese pine or the acer and managed to stick to the essentials, just about; nurseries look so good this time of year.

Once home we then, like amateurs, checked through our seed boxes and yes, threw a good deal of old stuff out but also came across a few 'in use' doubles to the ones we'd just purchased. Oh, well the new ones will keep until next year.

Andrew's seed box for veg (left), mine for flowers (right) and the rubbish trug

Naturally the seed planting came next and compost was sieved, the plug trays lifted down from a high shelf and brushed and...action. I am putting up a plant list in a different page to keep track of the names of varieties etc so you can see what we've planted as it happens. I didn't do any sowing myself, my confidence has nose dived and though it's so super easy and the seeds actually want to grow, I just came over all nervous and was sure I'd kill them by my mere touch.

preparation of a lovely bed for seeds (plus radio which has been outside for 2 years and still runs on the original battery)

super tiny seeds that will become tasty large beetroot
wire wool to re-use old labels - great tip from Monty!

Anyhow....radio on and Maggie standing by the gate and getting chased my me every now and then, we had a nice time and got lots done.

fish, blood and Maggie :) 

Phew! *I wiped Andrew's brow for him* he did a lot of sowing; I watched and used my lovely camera for the first time in ages. This year (we say this every year) we are concentrating only on that which we will eat; we're more serious this time. One early potato ('Sharp's express') will be grown in a pot and no garden peas - they are just so cheap to buy frozen and taste as good without the effort!

Sharp's Express are ready to go, just need the soil to dry a little more

So much more to come :)
Love and hugs
Carrie

New seeds - new hope

Hurrah for new seeds!

I love the way gardening makes you turn into a positive, forward looking person. Here we are standing on the verge of that huge void (also known as Winter) looking into the darkness that lies ahead, the chill, the lack of sunshine and colour all round. But, as gardeners we are also planning the new crop rotation, planting those blubs that hearld spring and getting ourselves all ready for another year :)

Here is a fabulous package from Vegetable Seeds (there is a linky button on the right side) - it contains, prepare yourself...

Parsnip Tender and True	Gourd Turks Turban
Calabrese Green Sprouting	Sweet Corn Sweet Nugget
Leek Musselburgh	Squash Sweet Dumpling
Dwarf French Bean Annabel	Squash Uchiki Kuri
Climbing French Bean Blue Lake	Beet Rainbow Chard

Plus we have broad beans (always Aquadulce) already planted and very impatiently we wait for that first hint of green... :)

* What are you going to try this coming year; any new adventurous plants going into your plot?

* What are your faves, that ones you just can't do without?

Seeds and seed swapping :)

Oh dearie me we through out a heck of a lot of out of date seeds last week. Here is the carnage...oh goodness blogger won't let me post the photo - even it's ashamed!

Some were from 2009 - oh for shame! But compared to the number of seed we do have and the variety this was okay, through next year I reckon we'll be buying a lot more as the use by date on many of the ones for this year won't be viable for another season.

But this is where a cool new UK based seed swap website comes into play. Set up only very recently Seed Swappers is a cool new site where you can do exactly what it says in the title - swap seeds! Such a cool idea when you want to try as many different varities as you can without spending a load of money - just buy a few packets and share the seed with others and they can give you those seeds you have wanted to try and it's all just the cost of a stamp AND you aren't wasting lots of perfectly good seeds (like we did - see photo again *blush*).

Give it a wee looking at and there is a blog to go with it too, where the lady who set it up 'Splodger' will be talking about what to plant when. Plus, there is a Facebook page (where I am an admin) were you can keep up to date as well. I personally think it's a great idea and encourage you to take a look xxx

* The Magic Hen *

No longer can I gripe, oh no! First off those rice krispie buns were the best ever and looking at the photos again reminds me how much fun we had - more simple baking will follow from this :) But also, my original gripe was all about a lack of seeds in my life and that is the case no longer - yipppeeee!!

Look what I received with a thud on the floor - a glorious packet containing more packages within, which each contained pure joy......seeds have arrived in the Gault household! This is all thanks to the most lovely, the beautiful, the terribly talented and gripe-removing Celia of Purple Podded Peas. God I think I love her, hahaha. I know I have been a fan of her blog for a long time and her artwork - wow! She is the Magic Hen and has provided us with a golden egg. (Very tenuous and clumsy link there to her shop: - Magic Cochin Emporium).

So what do we have here? well let's go clockwise from the top..

• Climbing Bean 'Lazy Housewife'
• Runner Bean 'Salford Black'
• Achocha
• Broad Bean 'Crimson Flowered'
• Coriander
• (and in the middle) Purple Podded Peas

The beautiful card is one of Celia's own designs and within it is a list of what to do with these seeds and when and how big they get :) It's a fab collection as we adore our beans and peas in this house (even Maggie has a thing for them) and we didn't save a single seed from our Coriander plants last season - eejits that we are. Then we come to Achocha, which I really do think has got to go in the 'my favorite words pot'; I have never heard of this before in all my puff so it should be interesting - hope you come along for the ride.

These were my favourites - Salford Black, I let them run through my fingers over and over, they felt so lovely.

You will also be proud to know that we planted up some tulip bulbs we found from last summer - spurred on by our gift. These are one of my all time favourites 'Queen of the Night ', I know they should have been planted in November but at least we did something with them, fingers crossed, haha. They ought to look like this and have done so for us before on the lottie and in our last garden....

Plus I bought myself these beauties and they are given such joy, right opposite me on the bookcase. Nothing quite like a fresh bunch of flowers to cheer you up (eh VP??)

A seedless gripe

Boo hiss! Damn it all to heck! And other such stronger rants - you get the idea, I'm sure ;) Andy and I are STILL sitting here with this blasted flu, I was even delirious earlier singing songs - what was all that about?

Not a seed packet to be seen, the catalogues aren't even in the house, no broad beans sown as is usual, we haven't even thought about it all. Oh this isn't good. What do we want to grow this year? I don't know! What new varieties are we thinking of trying? You tell me. Is our plot a haven of freshly prepared soil, manure and the usual seaweed all ridged up and tidy? Blushing I must quietly say 'no'.

The old is still to be removed, the soil loved and fed, the gardening implements oiled, sharpened and the shed tidied. Dare I even confess....I don't know where the lottie stuff is and though Andrew DID work out the new rotation, I haven't a clue. These few photos were taken as 'before snaps' of parts of the plots a few weeks ago. I think we are both blessed that the camera battery died (of shame??) and I only got these.

A 24a

 A 14b

Blasted Pigeons have eaten our Purple Sprouting Broccoli - I'm too upset to talk about it

 We do have purple Kale

Well, it's still like that, umm, it's probably worse. *hangs head*

But Andy has started in the back garden of this, our brand new house. Lucky we have a plan - it has been there for about a year now, slowly evolving and then going back to the original :) But it has been started - hoorah! As it is a brand new house, the garden area is mainly stones, hardcore, a very light frosting of muck (I wouldn't even call it soil) and quite a lot of wood, plastic and weeds. Lovely. But as we are going for raised beds we have seen this as somewhat of a silver lining - Andrew didn't have to dig much before he was at a good solid floor for some concrete and here are the photos to prove it.

I shan't tell you too much about the plans as I really would love you to share in the journey with us but I will say this - I have a super clever hubby who is building me a retreat, a veritable extra bit of Eden to call my own.

Leaving you with love in the form of this..our freckled ally

And this....allotmenteers' porn :)

But still....not a seed in sight - oh dear!

Developments!

I don't like appointments, especially when the subject matter is me and my mental health, so today has been terribly tainted by a visit from my social worker. This was made all the worse because after an hour waiting for her and getting more and more uptight, I rang her office and she'd written down the wrong time in her diary. Luckily she was able to come straight over and luckily Mamma G had been in the house with me. I just hate lateness and the panicky feeling hasn't died down all day. So I'm grumpy and need Andy cuddles, but he's at an allotment committee meeting and so it's just me and you (Maggie is comfty with her Nana downstairs).

******

Prepare yourself for some devilishly clever play on words......
After months of going through a particularly awful and serious depression low I finally have some good news. My photography (developments - eh, get it?!)  has been accepted by a lovely gallery here in Co. Antrim and I am to hand in my first batch next week. The owners are absolutely lovely and both creative and artistic people. David is a stained glass specialist who has done churches, homes and our very own Stormont Castle - a large piece to commemorate the setting up of the offices of First and Deputy First Ministers. Stunning - see their studio here.

On top of that news, all our seedlings are just so excited to be growing (I imagine them having parties at night and being very rowdy - but I'm just mental). I must point out however that I have planted only some broad beans and sweet peas, Andrew has done EVERYTHING else and boy has there been a lot of it. Below are a few photos of the seedlings in the cold frames at the lottie but there are the same amount again on Mamma G's window sills and really goodness knows how many he had planted directly.

I haven't been down at the lottie except for about half an hour last week - my passion for life in general has dwindled and I am finding it more and more difficult to socialise or get things done.

Not quite back on my feet again and writing this is like pulling teeth, so I'm off to have another nap and then tomorrow I shall return with avengance. Hear me roar!!!! My heartiest wish is that you had a lovely Easter; I shall catch up on all the Easter-y posts later on tonight, thank you for you're Eastery wishes to me by the way x. Andrew and I went to Rowallane gardens and I'll hoke out some snaps from that day - it was lovely and Maggie had a whale of a time with all the the other dogs and sweet kids that wanted to play with her.

I WILL be cheerer tomorrow, promise x

Hello, my name is Andrew and, well,...

"...erm, I'm addicted to seeds..."

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We have pretty much a 100% seed germination going on here, it is truly fabulous. In fact I worry, Andy has become a self confessed seed-aholic though I think acceptance is the first step towards recovery :) Look at his collection - and that's not all of it!!

You can't see the full depth of the 'problem' here but this is a pretty big box, deep too and it has been further bulked out since this photo was taken.There are 2 packets sitting beside me as I write and I dared to touch them last night -"I have a system!", eek. You see, Andy likes the odd gardening magazine (evil*) and they speak to him of such wonderful things to grow, they give free seeds often too and maybe the odd recipe - which looks fab. Then there is the gauntlet he must run from his office in Belfast to the sandwhich place - Pound shops and second hand books jump out at him showing off their wares (and at such good prices, oh my). How is a boy to resist???

On top of that, he is just plain in love with growing stuff, especially stuff you can eat. He loves to cook (and is darn good at it too, unlike me...), so these seeds = lovely, interesting dinners. I love him for loving gardening so much. Yes it can be annoying when we have 3 types of beetroot sprouting at the same time, but they are all different.

Well I decided at the start of this post that it was an intervention - saving himself from himself but really, now I think about it; it makes him happy and I do like baking and we did get lovely new books at christmas about perserving and pickling so.... :)

Here he is in his element, outdoors and in. Honey, you are a seed-aholic and I love you xx

*(the evilness of gardening magazines is still to be confirmed)

All's well that ends well..

Maggie is home! The vets rang us this morning and said the little angel was ready to go home, so we rushed off to get her and gave her cuddles galore. On the way back to the house we quickly stopped off at the lottie and let her have a wee run round. She is so full of beans and had a bath to clean up the boke-y beard, so she looks great. This afternoon she slept like a log, but I loved watching her and just felt that everything was alright again. I loves my Maggie!!

Speaking of which I have a cute photo of her 'helping' Andy last weekend when he was planting seeds - hahaha. I thought it was too sweet to be annoyed at her for being up on the bed.

What did he plant there anyway? I know the second row was Scorzonera; cool seeds eh? We haven't grown this before but according to the River Cottage Handbook No. 4 Veg Patch it  is ' hugely popular in France and Italy....look[s] like a size-zero parsnip', and '...according to fable, is reminiscient of oysters [or] simply nutty and sweet'. Mark Diacono confesses here that he is 'shamelessly evanglical about them' so I hope they're bloody good!!

Not to be out done I too did some 'proper' gardening for a change. I pruned back the dogwood [afer a little lesson] all by myself; look at the difference. Seems very brutal but obviously necessary. I'll just use the decarded branches for arty-farty stuff. Plus at the far end of this plot the rhuburb is really starting to go for it!

Lastly I thought I'd share some photos of a few of the window sill seedlings in the sun room /nursery. We're doing really well with germination rates so far in the tomatoes, chillies, flowers for the cut flower border and celeriac and marigolds.

 

Time to rip it all out and start again.

I am cheeky ~ here are a couple of photos I took on another (unnamed) plot. They need to clear out and compost away, I tell you!! A spring clean if you will.

Well we're going to be back in a day or two and then it's straight to work. Andrew ordered 'special' seeds from the internet which hopefully will have arrived whilst we are hiding away in our cottage. Plus we have viable ones from last year and of course the Pound shops have got their claws into the hubby too and a few packets here and there are popping up (''they were a really good price and we needed them'') every now and then.

Also have you noticed that the nurseries are actually acting like proper plant suppliers again after the mess and embarassment that is Christmas in a garden center??So many rows of seeds, oh seeds after seeds after seeds..... here's Andrew drooling over 1 aisle (there were 3 like this!) and not a stuffed, animated, singing toy or smelly 'holly berry' candle in sight - bliss.

It's time to get planting those little jewels into seed trays, the ground or toilet roll inners. I saw (darn it, can't remember where) recently a beautiful photo of a little girl planting seeds in egg shells - amazing, I would never of thought of that!! I've also been looking back over the photos of the past summer - wow what a vibrant place the allotments were then.

Freebies!!!!

Maggie and I are both sick :( We both have dickey tums and are feeling very sorry for ourselves. My head (mentally) is also playing up and I feel like running away and becoming a hermit or a 'crazy-woman-with-lots-of-cats' but I don't like cats....so I guess I'll be a hermit, possibly with Maggie, if she wants to come.

Anyway, I small glimmer of joy was wedged through my letter box by my usual grumpy Postman today. Really if he sighs anymore or indeed takes his frustrations out on my post for much longer I think I'll crack and set Maggie on to him. The Fiercest Licking of his Life!!!!!

Yeah, my head is fried, were was I? .... 'glimmer of joy'... Yes. Look! ~ a whole bunch of seeds from the council as a wee thanks for renewing our Lottie tenancy. Lovely!! Now where the heck are we going to grow these? Goodness, does every silver lining have to have a cloud?

I do have lots to tell you about the weekend but I feel too sick so it will have to wait, right now I need my blanket and a good old period of self-pitying. Then I'll feel better.

St Paddy Power ~ 3 (the closing chapter)

It's not only hard landscaping and soil prep going on at the Lottie. Oh, no. I planted 3 trays of lovely flower seeds. The first is definitely a favourite - the yellow California Poppy 'Golden Values'. So pretty and delicate, I want some for home too! Even better, they were free with a gardening magazine Andrew bought. My big red Oriental Poppies that we got earlier don't seem to be doing too good, only 1 is showing signs of life :( So the more yellow ones the better.

I also planted out Calendula 'Art Shades' (a lovely mix of slighlty muted yellows and oranges), a marigold- type plant. You know you can eat their petals; though I've grown them before. Their seeds are the strangest I think I've ever seen. I took a photo of them yesterday - they really look like fossils to me. I love them and have loads more for a continued supply of new plants throughout the summer.

Lastly, I planted my Marigolds - excellent friends in the constant battle of keeping nasty beasties away from my veggies and better than Nasturtiums in my opinion as they don't take over! The variety I chose was 'Naughty Marietta', a great name and they are the ones that have marron centres to the yellow flower. They, again were free, don't you love it!! Quite liked their seeds too, so , here's a photo of them.

Andrew did some direct sowings into the bed with the garlic already in it. Ummm, A3 on our plan. We had the 2 sun tunnels over that area of soil for a couple of weeks after giving it a good lot of prep. and it had dried out beautifully. After a quick riddle (check out our fridge basket & chiken wire recycling) it was perfect ground.

We now have hidden rows of Turnip 'Purple Top Milan', Onion (Scallions) 'White Lisbon', Carrots 'Early Nantes 5' and finally Beetroot 'Boltardy' (which will all be continuously re-sown crops). They're all things we grew last year and loved. I highly recommend each of them. In fact I demand you go out, buy a packet of 'Boltardy': grow, harvest, eat and enjoy!! ~with Brown Sauce, trust me :)

So St Paddy's Day was pretty darn good, no?

Grass cutting and Garlic potting

Ah, someday I shall do an 'Ode to Bill' as he truly is the can do man on the Lotties. A real tour de force he quit the committee because politics and red tape was getting in way of actually doing stuff - which is what he excels at. Bill lent us his petrol mower on Sunday. I say us, but really Andrew got to have all the fun of using it (I think it would be a bit of a struggle for me to turn round anyway) and cutting the long grass paths around our plot and a couple of neighbouring ones. It makes a big difference and Bill's side of the Lotties which gets it done regularly is much better walking ground than our has been. He also gave us 3 lovely little Lupin plants he'd grown too. Oh, he needs a bloggette of his own!

In the photo Bill can be seen marching along to the next task; there in his wooly jumper.

But I have Garlic to talk about today and new seedlings that I'm bursting to welcome to the world. We were reading about companion planting a couple of nights ago - nothing too detailed - and learnt that 'Onions, particularly garlic, have a strong sulphur smell that deters and confuse pests'. [Caroline Foley ~ 'How to Plant your Allotment, p 95] So I decided, as we have half a bed already growing away that I'd plant up the other spare ones in the cold frame into pots, so they can be moved around and confuse all the nasty wee bugs, haha. Makes me think of bugs going to the psychologist to try and deal with their feelings but hey, I don't really care!

I don't need to tell you how to plant up a pot but do be careful of 'the enemy' as I found out - the pots were already home to quite a few that had obviously been laid there as babies in the winter months. Darn things - the bane of all Allotmenteers lives.

And yes, we have lots of babies here at home. Kale, Brussel Sprouts, Lettuces.... it's ever so gratifying to see them germinate. Thank goodness all our seedlings aren't at home - it really is addictive counting how many there are morning, noon and night. (Sound familiar Mo???)

Migraines and seedlings

I must of been a terrible person in a past life - bad back at the start of the week, a tummy bug in the middle and today a bloomin' nasty migraine. It's starting to get dark now - that dusk time I hate the most, but it's helping me today, I can open my eyes and not be in total agony.

Had to come here and write a bloggette, the day has been boring, as anyone with migraine trouble knows - you can barely move without pain. Fighting through it now and actually washed my face, yes I know it's 5.15pm!

So to cheer myself up I took photos of the greenhouse and the dining room window sill - otherwise known as the Lottie nursery. Does everyone's house have a room like this at the moment!? and this is it tidied up, hahaha.

Our little greenhouse is all we have room for but it did us proud last year and suits our needs, though it does need weighed down or it blows away (too upsetting to talk about). In it we have about a million Leeks germinating (fingers crossed) in these 2 trays. I did take a close up but really, there's nothing to see yet! Up above are some more Echinaceas that Andrew got at a fab price that couldn't be walked away from - or so he tells me.

In the dining room I have some Lettuce in a tray which I'm going to grow in the garden for easy access. It's 'Salad Bowl' the mixed leaves. I can grow successionally and always have tasty leaves - though, and I've just thought of this - Maggie will have to be looked at more closely when she goes out for her tinkles!! The other tray, on the other side of the spuds, houses Perpetual Spinach, Brussel Sprouts, Pak Choi and Kale - forgive me for not walking into the dining room to find out the varieties - the head aches remember.

So that's that, just a wee catch up. Oh, and I did want to talk about the wonders of Vermiculite but that will have to wait I guess.

Growing

I recently read that 'with each step we take, we arrive' [Paulo Coelho]. I thought it was a very beautiful way of looking at life's journey, however, I'm one of those people who likes to have a general knowledge of the direction they are going, with some reassuring road signs along the way.

On Saturday I think I received a little 'road sign' as it were, not pointing anywhere but just saying 'you are here'. It felt good at the time, that feeling is just confused now, lost in the very dense fog of depression. But here's how it happened...

I planted seeds on Saturday, my Sweet Pea seeds and then a tray of extra Garlic cloves 'Cristo' (BIG fellas) that Andrew had left over from planting out in the Lottie. We are not going to be short of Garlic my friends, not this year! Look at the amount already shooting up 'Solent Wight' and the load Andrew planted too! Anyway, apart from later finding out my Sweet Peas weren't pushed down far enough in the pots and will have to be re-done - I have successfully, on my own sown 2 crops, add the gorgeous broad beans to that and I have, this season planted 3 crops, myself, without help. That may sound odd to be boasting about, it sort of is odd, I'm an Allotmenteer, but until now I have stayed away from the practical stuff letting Andrew get on with it. I would only ruin it all. I've done weeding, cutting grass, harvesting, checking for aphids and the like and taking photos. Now I'm actually contributing to the whole reason we're there ~ to Grow Our Own.

Okay, so you can see that my journey has an extremely long way to go (and in my current state of mind this story sounds really stupid). Planting seeds in a tray, a healthy person does not make (especially when a load need done over again!) but I think and so does the Hubby that it's a little sign; I'm Growing too.

Focus on ...Looking to the future

With great thanks to Mo, Irene and my darling Hubby (who I love more than words can say) I feel well enough now to write a quick blogette.

I am trying (with not a little difficulty) to look to the future and with that in mind I think it's apt to 'Focus on'... seeds. We were at a nursery both on Sunday and for a moment, yesterday. Everywhere you look there are seed stands and potatoes for the chittin', daffs and primroses. And quite frankly - Thank Goodness!

We have of course been looking at seed catalogues, seeds on the websites and in the magazines over the horrid winter period. Now, we are ready for a new growing year; Andrew even looked through the seed box to see what was viable for this year and we have a good lot that we're going to stick in a seed tray and see what happens.

(By the way that is Maggie's hotdog in amongst that pile - she was 'helping')

My only thought really for you today is... check what you have already, take time to look for the best offers on seeds (try Pound shops and big evil*DIY stores, honestly) and see if you can share seeds with friends/family. Let's face it, we're Allotmenteers ~quality and 'good value' (i.e. cheapness) is the key. Oh and I urge you to get flower seeds too, make those friendly insects welcome in your plot.

Speed is of the essence my friends ~ plan, go... and think of the long, fruitful days to come. (Hark at me, being all positive).

*tbc