Obadiah, is that you?!

My skin smells of the earth and my body aches a little in that enjoyable 'I've worked hard' way. A great days work was achieved on the allotment today and I am blissfully sleepy now as it is starting to get dark. Maybe I should have a shower and shed the sweat and pollen from my body and hair, but this sofa is so comfy and the blanket is hugging my tired self. I don't think I could make it up those stairs.

There is a soft smile across my face as I think of Andrew, still working there. He's building me a hide away with screening and climbers so I can feel more comfortable over there. It seems to give him endless joy, trying to make me happy and also woodworking outside.

His efforts are so greatly appreciated and the peaceful corner is coming on so well.

I cut away our musty old diseased honeysuckle today. It was a lot of work but yet so rewarding. That poor plant was only a tiny baby when we put it in the ground to grow up the fencing. But it never did well and was too restricted, prone to all diseases and took up much desired room. Yes it was vigorous and had many flower clusters but each one was infested with aphids and had begun to smell. The rose is going too - it's got the worst, most vicious thorns.  But, on to newer and better things!

May I just also point out the Felco secateurs are fantastic, if you don't have a pair you need to make hints for birthday or Christmas!

The weather has confused our little turnips and at home, our rocket, as they have bolted. However everything else seems happy and those things most recently planted have settled in well. Naturally the weeds are continuously happy and procreating like crazy but I have a better handle on it now. Well I keep telling myself that!

Fun facts ~

* I stopped and dropped everything, because I felt the strong urge to do yoga
* My jeans finally ripped, in doing said yoga, haha!

* We meet up with our frog friend Obadiah who had managed to get himself into a little bottle - he got out again. He seems to like the slate garden and compost area a lot.

Love and hugs
Carrie

In praise

I made it to the allotments (despite my nervousness and hayfever), for the first time I've in goodness knows how many weeks. And boy did it feel good! :) 

A lot has changed in my time away and if I simply focus in on our plots, the change has been impressive and productive. The less said about those plots around us, the better. 

That's a white sky that won't quit!

Andrew has gallantly raised all our seedlings and defended them best he could, alone. He has been steadfast in keeping things going even whilst the wind and rain and low temperatures and bloody foes (sawfly, slugs, birds and weeds etc) have done their best to destroy his work and his soul. But his sweat and toil has not been in vain.

Look (and maybe marvel, as I did) at the produce we have growing. Salivate at the homemade compost and cry with me at the demise of Alan the gnome. All emotion is found here, it's a roller coaster.

The roots bed is lovely good, black gold which is full of life, Alan who was attacked by the wind and lost his legs

So the main jobs this Saturday were getting the peas in, weeding like our lives depended on it and creating the path (and border edge) between the two flower beds. The weather was dry, muggy and cloudy, hence the mad variation in my photography saturation levels and well, there quality too. Being slightly damp (us ladies don't sweat), itchy and sneeze-y does not a happy or artistic Carrie make, but I have tried and that's what matters. 

Though I can't believe I didn't take a photo of the new border edge Andrew put in on the left bed - ggrrr.

The permanent flower bed needs to get new plants as most have been on the plots from the very beginning and moved to 14b when we took it over. I'm really rather annoyed I missed the plum Poppy in it's glory but the red ones are still going strong and the geum beside them has never been so prolific. The cutting flower bed isn't too bad, no diseases I could spot and I look forward to having some cosmos in the house, one day :)

I think this is enough for my first time back in a while. I hope to be a better blogger and memory capturer once my hayfever is sorted out! There is much to show you here at the house too :)

Love and best wishes
Carrie

P.S. We were in Prague for our 10th Wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. If any of the photos turn out okay, I'll share them. We had a lovely time, it's a super place to visit. 

Moment of clarity

The words come to me on the edge of sleep. They are eloquent and flowing; exactly describing how I feel, what has been happening; and they hold within them the precise emotions and maybe some of that quirkiness laying deep inside me.

But then, as it has been for weeks now, I come to this page and the cursor blinks on a white expanse that I am too daunted to make a mark on. I can't think straight, the words are so muddled and I feel intimated, plus there's the undeniable fact that I really don't have anything worth sharing. I haven't been to the allotment for a while now, the seedlings here at the house are growing on and disappearing as Andrew continues to tend the plots alone.

Okay, the weather has been a major problem and this is by far the worst year we've experienced in growing our own but honestly, I can't blame that alone. I have been terribly ill with a massive breakdown so severe I have had great trouble eating, talking, walking, following a train of thought and even caring about life at all. It has been hell and not just for me.

I take photos and they stay in the camera, I receive a stunning wooden planter from The Posh Shed Company and I simply can't write an easy review about how beautifully made it is. The act of blogging has become a rod for my back and boy do I thrash myself with it. I feel pathetic, incomprehensible and plain unworthy of being seen or heard.

Enough with the depression and anxiety already; I can't cope and I can't bare to lose any more friends and opportunities. We only get one life and damn it, the clock is ticking.

little snippets of today at home

Hugs,
Carrie

happiness on the plots

Forget any and all of the glumness I spilt forth in my previous post as this past weekend it was all change; sunshine, sustained hard work, planting out, a picnic and bed making :) It was all go and we really did feel better about the place. I mean look what we parked beside for a start off - a heap of steaming manure almost as tall as Andrew :) Again I wonder at my scatological self, once an allotmenteer - good quality manure is deeply treasured, gross but true!

So here's how things stand at the moment on 24a (minus a photo of the leeks which are still going strong). We have new lovely little parsnips, carrots and beetroots, the broccoli is in glorious flower now and attracting the first bees I've seen this year and the spuds are coming through nicely and look healthier than I could have hoped for.

At the top of the plot we have an abundance of blueberry flowers, gooseberries (not photographed) and apple blossom. Everything seems healthy so far and plans are in place, in Andrew's mind, for a fruit cage to cover the blessed blueberries - I rather like to have a few this year *shakes fist at birds*!

Also the first of the brassicas were planted out and covered in netting right away - so far so good, nothing has touched them.

Over on 14b there is further evidence of happy plants and I can not tell you how relieved I am that all the asparagus crowns sent up their first spears. Sweet little geums are bursting through with dots of bright red, the poppies this year look like they are going to be spectacular and our blackberry bush is already showing signs of a bumper harvest to come. It's all just so positive, I think I may explode.

I've been steadfast keeping on top of the grass cutting and thus making the plots safer for me to walk around. As we only have a little rotatory hand pushed mower it's been hard work, I even got a huge blister this time which is only healing up now (Thursday!). It's worth it though, keeping those bingo wings at bay, working the core muscles and not tripping quite so much :)

And WOW! look at the new bed for my cut flowers, all edged and the soil greatly improved. It's time to plant out and direct sow in there now, eek! My dreams of a patch that just screams colour looks like it's getting closer. There will be another path down the right hand side of this bed and the original (now perennials only) flower bed will get edged too. 

I have other exciting news but I think you've had to absorb enough in this one post already :) Instead I shall leave you with this lovely dandelion seed head photo (NOT from our plots, haha) and make a fervent wish that you are all having a better time now that June is around the corner. 

Love and hugs

Carrie

The disappoinment of May

May hasn't been going as well as I'd like. Weather wise it is colder and wetter than I can remember compared to the last few years on the plot and somehow it feels more like March over there, April at a push. And with the blasted, frustrating rain that is still forecast into the next weeks, (though now with the heady highs of 12 or 14 degrees) all we have to look forward to is more of the same:

*  Slugs having the most wondrous time and eating away at our newly planted broad beans (we've sown more);

*  Gooseberry sawfly larvae colonising the gooseberries (Andrew got there just in time, this time)

*  Prolific and never-ending weeds and grass that simply won't stop growing a few feet every week.

Oh how I weep….

Good news however is abundant, it's merely my depressed viewpoint that makes it all seem so dreary and helpless. Plus I have had writer's block for weeks and it's made me become a bitter blogger *sad face*, as in reality there are a great many little stories I would have liked to share but simply couldn't. On top of that, when I am in a low period I rarely care about spending time taking photos, I just want to work and try to get lost in my actions; take a break from my own thoughts. Thus we only have a few quick camera phone snaps with this post - sorry.

All the asparagus plants grew well and sent up their first spears, this has made us both very happy and dancing a quick jig may have been the result. ;) All 10 plants haven't failed us thus far, though once bitten we are tentative about this endeavour.

The rhubarb plants are glorious and filling out their bed nicely, the transplanting having done them no harm at all. There are many a fruit blossom all over the two half plots, hopefully well get some tasty treats.

We have many new baby carrots and parsnips germinated in situ and the purple sprouting broccoli is going to flower = happy bees (though I haven't seen many the year yet).

So this is just a catch up. We will be going this weekend and maybe, just maybe, on the Bank Holiday Monday too ;) I have my 'proper camera' battery charging up and my fingers crossed for breaks in the weather were a girl can happily click away.

At least I've broken the terrible block and got something down on paper, or rather, on screen. It'll be easier now to keep you posted.

love and hugs
Carrie

I've missed you so much

There is simply too much to catch up on and I don't know where to begin. See previous post! My latest write ups have been eaten by Blogger and are in some sort of terrible blog post purgatory *sad face*

So all my photos are way out of date and things have moved on. So I shall try to put my faith in the 'save' button and go take photos of the greenhouse exploding with seedlings and try to find some sort of recent pics of the plots. Thank you for your patience x

At 24a everything is going grand and we shall find that we are eating loads of Purple Sprouting Broccoli (not complaining!), the garlic is continuing to do fabulously, there are blossoms on the apple trees and blueberry bushes and carrots have just emerged their sweet little heads from the soil. Sadly our newly planted out broad beans suffered with a freak -3 degrees night battering but I have hope from the yet.

The rhubarb is still delicious, the asparagus crowns were all planted (you missed out on that story),
dogwoods have been planted, the plants in the edible forest are settling in and my 2 flower beds are coming on great. We just need more hours in the days ans more days in the week.

Plus I have been a bad ass grass cutting machine and have finally, painfully managed to push my little rotary mower through the tangled mass behind 14b and now all our access paths are workable. Hoorah, safety on the plots :)

At home we are coming down with seedlings as I mentioned and we even got one of those greenhouse automatic ventilation things.

Just a tiny amount of the many many seedlings there are around here!

The beech hedge is going great, as is the maple - hoorah for colour! Round the corner I am delighted to say that the wisteria is going to be covered in flowers this year for the first time, oh, we can't wait.

That, I think shall do for now, not least because it has taken ages to get the photos to work but because Blogger may well decide to eat this too, ggrrr!

Hugs and love to you all
C xx

Testing

Blogger has been a bloody trickster and bully recently, saying it has saved my posts as I go along and then flippin' well eating them!!! The publish button hasn't been working and I am at a loss, I love my wee blog and talking to you dear readers.

I built a storage bench

During the winter months some nasty little pilferers took our lovely kidney shaped wooden bench from right off our plot, gah! What with that and the fact that our storage box looked to be falling apart, I was utterly delighted when Keter asked me if I would like to review their Eden Storage Bench. That it was called Eden (like our Allotments and the village they are in) tickled me pink and you just know the answer I gave, with much gratitude.

*** A few weeks later ***

I was really glad Andrew happened to be home when the most massive of delivery lorries pulled up outside our home, blocking the light like a solar eclipse! And voilà - there it was, on a free pallet too :) (Andrew has since made some use of this free wood - there is no stopping him and his DIY ways)

It was expertly packaged up and oh what joy I had unwrapping it, so much bubble wrap to stomp on!

So we loaded all the parts up into the car and drove right down to the back of the lottie shed. Off loaded here, we were able to get the instruction booklet out and place everything neatly in order of assembly; the only tool needed was a star headed screwdriver = awesome.

Keter had designed this so well that once the basic framework was made (note: frame re-enforced by steel), there was a lot of simple assembly by clicking into place. In many cases it was great to have a helper, especially as I'm not that tall, only have 2 hands and the wind was making the whole experience that wee bit wobblier to begin with.

However sometimes my helper got a little carried away and the DIY King within him broke free. It was not a bad thing at all, with my double vision there were times when the assembly was painfully slow and I was driving myself bonkers with trying to put 10 small screws in to secure the base.

But I loved making it and as I did so it was easy to sense the strength of the piece and know that it was well designed and sturdy. These are feelings you may not get when you think it's plastic and not solid wood. This is going to be a fabulous asset on the plot, with lots of lockable storage space, long lasting plastic material, strength enough to comfortably hold 2 people, their dog, plus picnic and a nice finish without painting every season.

10 out of 10.

Now we just have to hope that no one steals it *rolls eyes*

Hugs
Carrie

Finally planting the potatoes

Okay friends, let's talk about the Easter week work we Gaults achieved at the allotments; if I don't get it documented I have a terrible fear I'll forget - I have been super forgetful the past few months, thank goodness for cameras and camera phones!

Remember I showed you the two spud varieties we had chitting beside one another? The ones on the right were hollow to the touch and had been in a too hot environment for too long; they were Sharp's Express. As Flighty rightly pointed out, we could have planted them and probably had a good crop, but as we were only planting two rows this year, Andrew wanted healthier looking specimens and thus we planted the Pentland Javelin lot instead.

So, first task on our Easter break was planting those spuds (a little later than we usually do due to the poor weather, but it won't make much difference to the end product). I stood by with  my camera and Andrew did the hard grafting :) Here he is preparing the soil...

* Using an adaza to make a nice deep V trench

* Flattening out the bottom with a spade 

* Adding a layer of good fertile wormy manure to the bottom

* Next the potatoes were placed about a foot apart (chitted eyes upwards) onto the yummy manure

* Lastly some organic blood, fish and bone was lightly scattered into what would be the back fill

And here are our spuds for the coming season. Two rows all planted and ridged up; looks a little like two burials but I promise no animals or indeed humans were buried in the making of this blog post! 

Plus here is a sweet little vignette of some other lovelies spotted on the plots that day. We cut the biggest of the Purple Sprouting Broccoli and ate it that night - gorgeous!!! Maggie was very vigilant in her supervision of our activities and these lovely blue anemones opened up in the sunshine.

Hugs and love - more soon

Plus a hearty thank you to those who commented on my last post xx

Carrie

Honestly...

My levels of anxiety are at fever pitch these days. It's pretty much continuous until I fall asleep, exhausted. I do take sedatives but they only make it slighter easier, in that I don't scream or punch things (myself included).


So the very fact that I was at the allotment at all this past week is somewhat a testament to my bloodymindedness, my grit, my moxie. I have worked every day and though my contributions may pale in the sight of Andrew's, in a way they are that much greater.

I am free and easy to write about having chronic depression and acute chronic anxiety. But did you know that if you were sitting here beside me I wouldn't be able to speak at all? If I even tried it would be so quiet, so mumbled you wouldn't hear me. On those rare days like today when I can write, I can express myself and feel like I am actually talking to someone, it feels a little less of a lonely life. But you don't see the fear in my eyes, you don't see me shaking as I type.... 

But enough, I am a fighter and you shall metaphorically 'hear' me roar this coming catch up week.....

Oh, I have stories from this Easter week, my friends! Stories of great progress made on both the two half plots (24a and 14b), that there are loads of seedlings in the greenhouse, that we have been eating produce we've grown, of Maggie's continued cuteness and the revelation that I built a bench! 

I shall write about them all with joy in my heart and I do hope you can spare a moment to share in the journey with us.

Love and hugs
Carrie

Just so you know...

I'm working so hard at the allotment plots I haven't the energy to write up what we have achieved over the last days. Watch this space :)

Photo taken by Andrew with our super cool old polaroid camera (Supercolour 670AF)

The Greenhouse and Ecotherapy

Well here she is - our beautiful little lean to greenhouse :) Oh how long my poor hubby has waited for a more permanent greenhouse than those little plastic covered ones you buy and have to throw away after one year. This is a true treat! I have a feeling that he may even have named it, but that's between him and the greenhouse ;)

As you can see it's not that big but it is marvellous (size isn't everything); just the way it fits so perfectly under the shed guttering and still there's room between it and our back garden fence so a cold frame and lots of pots could sit there and we'd have a full little nursery :) The plastic is sturdy and thick and though it was all flat pack, Andrew didn't have any problems at all; it was up in a jiffy.

The hubby also made the tiered shelving yesterday whilst I sat and watched - there was a lot of geometry going on which would have made my brain melt if I'd paid attention, but luckily I know maths and I are fierce enemies, I just don't go into it's territory. Anyway, I'm so proud of him, it fits so neatly and there's a feeling of lots of growing space now.

Above: Super happy little broad bean seedlings

Below : Our potato collection.
* On the right are our Sharp's Express which chitted perfectly but then the weather went a bit nuts on us and there was much rain, gales and even frost so they are dried out and useless :(
* On the left lies our hope of spuds this year now, they're Pentland Javelin and though they aren't fabulously chitted, they will have to do, hoe hum..

So, yep I did nothing to help yesterday at all, whilst Andrew worked and created and planted seeds and what not. No, a big part of Ecotherapy (at home or the allotments) for me is to allow myself to simply sit and breathe. The very act of being outside can be such a push that it is therapy enough to merely experience nature. Look past those weeds, ignore the work that needs done and instead listen. Listen to the trees rustle, the birds singing, the voices of others, your own heartbeat. And just be in the moment.

That's not what I did today, my friends! But it's what I needed yesterday and I feel all the better because of it :)

Love and Hugs
Carrie

'The One-Pot Gourmet Gardener' Book review

It's a fact; I instantly fell in love with 'The One-Pot Gourmet Gardener' as soon as I unwrapped it. The texture of the front cover, the feel of the pages - pure quality. It's a beautifully written, straight forward guide which will get everyone hopping from foot to foot ready to grow their own yummy meals in their own backyard.

(N.B. with these recipes, illustrations and photographs your mouth will water and you'll simply drool like a fool, read with caution and preferably whilst alone, haha)

With this genius book in your hands there are no excuses to not grow your own and fall deeply in love with the experience. All you need is a balcony or patio with room for a pot or two and you're set. No worries about digging up your garden or having to have an allotment.

No prior knowledge about vegetable gardening is needed; Cinead McTernan has it all laid out in easy step by step stages; the variety of vegetable best suited for pot gardening, best type and size of pot, tools needed, best compost, where to place your pot, how to sow or plant up seedlings and caring for your babies and harvesting/storing them.

Goodness if you'd recently been hit over the head by a galvanised watering can and woke up with no gardening experience at all, this book would have you sorted in no time.

Then we come to the best part...Unlike many cook books, this contains recipes you will actually want to grow the ingredients for and you can!! There are picnic foods, soups and salads, quick suppers, tasty accompaniments, plus drinks and puds. All achievable, easy and super impressive looking. More than that however, each recipe details the best variety of seed, size of pot and soil conditions, when and exactly how to plant up your pot, when to harvest and then a gorgeous recipe.

I recommend this book to everyone! No matter what, these pots look stunning and are edible - put one buy your front door or under the kitchen window, let's see a revolution in gardening where it isn't all bedding plants in pots.

Published by Frances Lincoln Limited
Written by Cinead McTernan
Photography by Jason Ingram
Out on the 2nd April

******************

To order One-Pot Gourmet Gardener at the discounted price of £12.99 including p&p;
p* (RRP: £16.99), 

telephone 01903 828503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk and quote the offer code APG311. 

*UK ONLY - Please add £2.50 if ordering from overseas.

Love Carrie

Brother Handheld Garden Label Printer

Since my last post it's all gone down hill in the Gault household; we have been hit by a plague of phlegm and my poor hubby has a chest infection. As he is the driving force on all things allotment, his sickness (and boy it's bad) has meant that nothing has gotten done, not a seed sown, not a bed weeded, not our new greenhouse loved and photographed. *sad face*

As you all know I do allotmenteering as a form of therapy and coupling that with a horrendous mental health bout since the start of the year, well, I haven't been much use. I need my hubby to get me out of the house, to encourage and support and he has simply been too ill.

*******

So it's been a good time to review the Brother GL-H105 Handheld Garden Label Printer 
I was sent. Nothing much like being crafty and trying to organise oneself and be of use. Okay, so none of the seeds are planted yet but there's no harm in being prepared :)

This fun and rather easy to use handheld label printer has many applications in the allotment world, from labelling seeds, to marking your tools and of course writing those jam jar labels. Plus it is resistant to drizzle, easy to grip and has a sharp cutting tool built in.

It is a little hard to get used to the keypad as it is alphabetical rather than laid out like a keyboard and working out the length of label you need took me a little practise, but what you get is a very sticky, robust label with perfectly clear lettering in un-smudge-able ink.

There are 3 type sizes and with the help of the really easy to use instruction leaflet and large screen display you can create simple borders and very fancy ones too (especially for those handmade jams and pickles you gift to friends). I'm afraid I fell for the sweet flower border as you can see but I did resist the many emoticons, plus I decided to stick to bold print when there were a lot of fancy print types tempting me.

The lightweight printer takes 6 AAA batteries and there are 4 widths of tape, 3.5, 6, 9 and 12mm available in a variety of colours. The tape lasts a surprisingly long time too and in my photographs I have the 12mm black on white. I really would recommend this largest size.

Fun though it is for the garden/allotment (or ideally in commercial nurseries where many trays/pots are being labelled in a batch). I do see this as unrestricted to horticultural purposes; as a crafters product, a practical tool in the office or any situation where you wish to label something neatly!

Dear friends, I warn you, if you are lucky enough to get one of these as a gift you will find it fun and dare I say it, slightly addictive. And it will nestle well with all your other necessities in seed sowing :)

Much love
Carrie

Many thanks to Brother and to Robyn from Citypress for sending me this model to review x

March at the Plots

Saturday saw a great change in my allotment activity; instead of merely writing about it as it seems I have been doing for a while now, I went and worked.  Maggie supervised as usual, she's a slave driver though you wouldn't know it from her cuteness :) (She has had her hair cut since this photo!)

The plot (24a) didn't know what had hit it, I can tell you.

Whilst Andrew was working is redesign magic over in 14b I ripped, tugged and destroyed every blasted weed on the other plot.  It may not sound like much but in almost 2 hours the place was a spotless dream and my big pink trug was almost full (that's about a zillion weeds right there). I didn't even wear gloves, that's how hardcore it was!

Here are some sexy photos of our purple sprouting broccoli which seems really healthy this year :) Plus there are wonderful fat buds on our apple trees, blueberries and the garlic is well on it's way - happy times.

Pity the place was practically empty and still, STILL, the plots beside us are over grown wildernesses. (Though kindly a volunteer group strimmed them back). I could squeak with anger and occasionally do, at the thought of these people who just purchase a plot and do nothing with them. Gggrrr. There is a waiting list for genuine people who really want a plot!

Anyway, on Andrew's part he laid out then drew an amazing picture on top of a photo to illustrate the progress and planning for 14b. You can just tell he's a senior archaeologist and well trained in the art of capturing the scientific detail of places ;) 

OK so this may need a little interpretation, haha. The pink square denotes my 2 flower beds and the brown is the edible forest garden. All the yellow lines are box plants making up a four part parterre; the two on the left will be asparagus beds, then there's the rhubarb bed you can see and finally the back right bed is for squashes. Hurrah!! 

Now it's down to the planting of seeds...

Hugs and love
Carrie