Hic!

Well Christmas is gradually fading away for another year, Santa + friends gave me a wonderful selection of amazing books about carpentry, gardening (and most importantly) cooking! I have the river cottage cookbook , and the Sarah Raven cookbook as well as the ultimate woodworking guide which will be fantastic for my greenhouse. The ideas in my head need to start being planned on paper.

I also have a gardening diary and a super gardeners trug for carrying all my tools and seeds, in addition to a couple of very useful gardeners DVDs. 'He' spoiled me rotten and got me lots of fun things too, one of which is a special bike computer which will tell me the time, temperature, speed and distance cycled (all very encouraging things), I haven't been on my bike for a few weeks so I suspect it'll be like starting all over again.

We spent Christmas in Yorkshire this year, my first ever Christmas away from family, and although strange it was very relaxing. We had glorious weather on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day and so Boxing Day we walked round some of the Bolton Abbey estate. It wasn't a garden as such but there was so much wildlife and we decided that we would plant a tree as soon as we got home to encourage wildlife into our garden - we think we'll go for a crab apple local to the area. When we got back I went straight out to the garden and all is in order, the water butt is very full and I have lots of digging over to be done, I think i might get some good rich farm manure to dig in before i start planting - heres to a great veg patch in 2009!

Its Christmas already!

The garden has been somewhat neglected again recently, shopping and visiting family has taken up the majority of daylight over the past few weekends, although i had a fascinating conversation with the man in the Holt bird ventures shop (well worth a visit) http://www.birdventures.co.uk/index.php is the website.

Have seen a blackbird in the garden!

Heres to a very good garden year in 2009

Shiny Happy People

I have been awarded an MSc with Distinction.
Thats about as good as it gets.

Snow falling down around me

Todays snow was a bit more impresive. Here is a picture of a cold but serene buddha and the back garden. Most of the snow is still here and it will make my cycle ride to work much more interesting tomorrow morning - I ave to go shopping on the way home as well so if it freezes it will be very good fun. I have told myself that if I fall off more than three times before I get to end of the road then I'll come back and take the car!

Here we snow here we snow here we snow......

Woke up this morning to the noise of snow, if you think about it you'll know the noise i mean, its more the absence of noise and the muffled phut of snow on the window. I was so excited by the gradual dissapearence of the garden the only option was to leap out of bed and take photos. I then decided that snow-cycling would be fun so I dragged 'him' out into the city on our bikes. The roads were ok, and there were only a couple of slippery bits. In fact the cars were generally having more problems than us. My main issue centred around the jeans i was wearing (wet and cold = no fun) and the snow showers made my bike seat wet as i was in the shops.

Still it was a very productive outing and I got to go to the butchers (sausages were a million times better) and the grocers, got two decent sized well balanced meals for two people for under £10. Also made me realise how much we'll save when we start getting veg out of the ground again.

Which leads me to my idea of snow gardening, i had quite a bit to do today outside and before going out decided that when i go back from the city I'd get on with it regardless of the white stuff.

Hmmm. That idea lasted about as long as the warm cup of hot chocolate in front of the fire!

We are not alone.....

Just because I am so impressed with myself I am posting a picture of my evenings hard work. In honour of WOrld GIS day 2008 tomorrow I have made my team at work a small fairy cake iced to look like the earth, they are rather cute but icing constraints on a cake an inch and a half accross did require some imagination. And patiance, the finished result loks a bit surreal!

Butt installed

The sun shone yesterday, so having bought the ingredients for dinner (anglian potatas, carrots and cauliflower with Irish beef) and made the casserole I felt I had earned some garden time. It took me a couple of hours to get the gutter up, downpipe fixed and a level platform for the water butt to stand on. I then found that I had to drill a 25mm hole in the water butt which I didn't have a bit for so hacksawed out instead. Looks good though :)



Then of course I had to test it and it works! I don't know how long it will take to fill up the butt, but I left enough space next to it so that we can expand if we need to. I've also decided on a design for the greenhouse/cold frame and I'm asking for timber for christmas to make that and the new internal fence for the veg patch; not to mention the anti butterfly frame for the brocoli. I WILL have purple broccoli and cauliflower next year!

Happiness Happening

I have spent the last two weeks getting on and off trains and spending more time in hotels than at home. This has been totally due to work and led to me missing the CPRE Green Awards event held at the Norwich Assembly Theatre last week, and my partners nephews 5th birthday party. Both worthy events which i was sad to miss and sending me deep into the doldrums.

Yesterday my very clever mum took me up to Sheringham to brush away the cobwebs whereupon I had the best fish and chips ever, looked around a proper ironmongers and bought my first Christmas present. Which reminded me how close to Christmas we are getting! We went out today to look for a box for me to put on my bike when I cycle to work so that I can get shopping on the way home without cripping my back, and we got lots of daffodils, narcissus and snowdrops from the garden centre. When we got back I spent a happy few hours pottering around the garden tidying up and planting some of the bulbs for a spring dispay. I would have planted all of them but I lost the light.

Which takes me to the happiness factor, having spent the last few hours surfing the internet to look for useful/beautiful things for people for christmas (influenced by william morris) I discovered a post which was entitled "5 things that make me happy" and after the last few weeks i think i managed to do many of my favourite things this weekend (in no orer of favourites!).

1. See the sea while eating fish and chips (Sheringham)
2. Play in my garden & ride my bike (two things but noth outside and shed connected!)
3. Read my eco magazine and find useful leads to solve problems (ike what to do with the 2 tonnes of earth we dug out of the garden)
4. See/Speak to almost all my family
5. Spend time with my lovely boyfriend

Then theres the things i didn't get to do but really enjoy, like cook up a storm, watch the stars, see a movie, drink with friends, read a book, sew, plan travels, have a campfire (bonfire), make a cake, go for a long cycle ride.....

Try it - make a list of 5 things which make you happy & do some of them, after all if 37.5 hours a week are spent at work, 42.5 if counting lunch breaks and there are 168 hours in a week - 75% of our week isn't spent at work.

Soup

Inspired by my sisters amazing butternut squash soup I decided that (as an aspiring domestic goddess) it would be nothing for me to whip up a soup and fresh bread for our saturday lunch. Its 2 o'clock an no sign of the bread yet but the soup is almost ready.

Its not quite as good as my sisters soup was, I think simmering the squash in the stock and then using it is better that my option of roasting the squash and then adding it to the stock afterwards. It does also have white wine added and i so often find that this can make this too sweet. The bread was an unmitigated disaster - It had a lovely crust but teh doughwas still dough in the middle. I had my suspicions while it was supposedly proving that the room wasn't warm enough to acivate the dough and it seems that was the case.

Next time i think i'll make a smaller amount and get a better temperature in the kitchen first. 'He' seems to be talking about a breadmaker but i think we need to make it by hand first. Next door makes all their own bread, and it smells fabulous. Although that is four hours of my life i'll never get back i'll know to go with instinct next time - both for the soup and teh bread!

Compost is coming along nicely - I've taken to getting some more paper in there as the mixture seems to be a bit mushy so far. I'm going to wrap it up over the winter to ensure that the bugs keep bugging (so to speak). Output from the waste free week ws just three meat trays and a coupld of plastic wrappers; we could have done better but only if we hadn't eaten pasta, rice, meat or fish. Or used milk, and quite honestly, life without tea isn't an option!

Waste Free Week!

This does deserve a mention, as I've already said since our compost bin arrived the amount of rubbish we put out has been cut dramatically. Additionally since I finished my MSc and started planning meals and weighing portions there aren't even any leftovers! I'm being a bit braver with best before dates as well, I bought some delicious reduced sushi from Sainsburys on Wednesday, and it was fine yesterday as a starter with my tuna pasta. I also used an egg today which was a day out of date - i did check it with the water method first however.

All in all I have had a good practice week - the polystyrene from meat and fish does bother me however. I haven't used plastic bags for veg at the shops for donkeys years - if i need potatoes and they are really dirty i'll get a mushroom bag (those can be composted).

Heres the best solution I've found to plastic bags, this is my onya above, I got it at the Eden project in the summer. For veg I'm asking for one of these from Santa fotr Christmas - Onya Weigh Check the onyaside and onyaback bags too. Such a brilliant idea :) Still doesn't solve the issue of those plastic trays (other than go vegetarian again). I have also (it being waste free week) decided to make some morsbags http://www.morsbags.com/ as I want to get started with my sewing machine and this seems the perfect way to recycle some worn out sheets.

Ride, ride, ride your bike

gently up the hill - merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream. Especially when speeding past all the cars waiting in the queues, and when i ride home over the hill and watch the sun set over norwich. I only started last week and so far have been rained on once and almost frozen twice, however I am appreciating being outside and enjoying the freedom of cycling. Work and back is about 8 miles round trip every day and I'm hoping that it will lead to me getting rid of the car completely.

The only issue at the moment is getting food shopping so I'm investigating a cycle trailer or home delivery once a fortnight for all the heavy goods, and looking at a freezer for better meat and food surplus storage. Trying to weigh up the 'green' credentials of each option. I think that green living could be my next 'project'!

The veg patch has well and truly gone to ground for the summer, I'll spend this weekend on the last of the clearing up and digging in some good fertiliser. Our compost bin is doing really well and the amount that we are putting in the wastebin has dropped massively - the plastic seems to be the big issue - especially with meat. Not entirely certain how we are going to get around this - a friendly butcher putting things in containers for us mught be the answer but contamination week on week does worry me a little. Suggestions would be very welcome. At the moment I'm saving the plastic trays for planting next season.

Heres a reminder of the summer sun(flowers);

Jam Jam Jam

Well this was fun - oh so much fun!

Our mum has a glut of apples, they have done really well this year and my enterprising sister has exchanged lots with various farm shops in exchange for fruit and veg (most places in Norwich I've asked will do this). There is however many pounds worth left over. I was bought the amazing SelfSufficientish bible as a present and in it was a recipe for apple jam. Our father used to make themost amazing jam and every autumn when we were little our kitchen was converted into a jam factory, he used to make jams and jellies from greengages, plums, damsons, and some funny little round green things whose name i've forgotten. Mum used to make buckets of peach melba sauce which is in fact made only from raspberries.

So wondering if jam making is gnetic, yesterday my little sis and I got down to the very messy business of making apple and ginger jam, we did 8lbs of fruit and ended up with about 10/11lbs of jam. It took two of us 4 hours from start to finish and I think we'll be trying other fruit. Next weekend I'd like to make some beetroot chutney, and i think we might plan the veg patch around what we can and can't preserve. Our cousin gets hundreds of plums and next year we'll pounce on them and jam them. It does take time and effort, and the jam sugar is about £1.50 a Kg (about 2lbs). We got about 20 jam covers from Roys for about a pound, although these could be bought cheaper in bulk i'm sure. The really wacky thing is the variety of pots we found, ex tomato juice glass jars are superb, as are beetroot pots.

We're doing waste free week this week but not entirely certain how to avoid the packaging which meat (even the hapy organic chicken) come in. Ideas welcome. Our compost bin is no up and running, just in time to put all the cleared veg plants in. Tasty though the squash was, we only got one HUGE butternut, and one little one, I think next year we'll just stick to one plant and not four - they take up serious room! A colleague of mine grew his squash up a vine & it was a much better use of space.

Take a look at Rocket Gardens whose web site is great and they will happily answer questions quickly and clearly. Its a brilliant idea, we don't have the room to get plants started propoerly but Rocket Gardens get the plants started in their greenhouses and harden them off for ready planting. We were going to get the winter veg garden but in fact I'm going to put some fertilizer in the ground and get the soil better prepared for early planting next year. We're in two minds are to where to plant the onion - in seperate troughs or in eth soil with eth other veg. 'Him' is worried about mould.

Autumn Feast

Where to start.

Last Tuesday my sister asked if we had any veg to make soup with, our huge butternut fitted the bill completely and (as we were invited to dinner) we donated the squash and with it my sister made the most delicious soup. Not only did it feed 5 people that night, the leftovers were frozen and there was enough left to feed 3 people for lunch on Saturday when we went away this weekend to Suffolk. Completly changed my mind about soup - i always hated it!

The courgette plants are still going, but the other veg have almost finished. We got atrociously lazy about picking the green beans and so we are letting them go to seed. The sunflower heads are over and we are leaving half for the birds and will collect the other half for us. I did the same with the carrots as apparently the flowers can be useful to the garden wildlife.

Bye Bye Courgettes

The end is near for the courgette plants, they have grown so big that there isn't enough air flow around the leaves and they have mildew so they need to be taken out. The squash leaves are beginning to die off and we will harvest our butternut squash soon. The suash and courgettes have cross pollinated (i think) and we have some very odd looking veg growing!

The beans are still cropping well, enough for two more dinners this week although that will probably be all. My sister has had some more veg after the first lot went down very well. The carrots I cropped today are stumpy (what happens when thinning doesn't get done) but taste delicious. Last night I realised at about 8pm that we needed veg for kebabs, out I went with a torch and picked a fat courgette - a great feeling to have such fresh food available.

We've really enjoyed the past few weeks of crop gathering, and we know with better planning we could crop for much longer. Over the next few months while we have no crops in the ground we are going to try out the River Nene Vegetable Company which according to a friend of mine is very good. Check out their website, they do deliveries over a wide range of East Anglia, I'll post how we get on.

Ahhh

Have spent a few manic moments on the web I have come to teh decision that the peas are simply dying off - they were late in and i don't think that they got a fair chance at growing - note to self to get them in earlier next year. I've having lots of fun (in between finishing my MSc) drawing up a planting plan for next year, it does rest on us still being here next year of course!

If I can get the greenhouse built then I'm going to do some major tomato growing and try to grow an eggplant as well. I think I'd like some little cherry tomatoes and also some bigger plum toms, I have a rainwater harvesting system all figured out as well using 2 litre water bottles. all very cool - a little project for the winter me thinks.

Post Holiday Greens

Well we got back from a week in Cornwall to find that the veg garden has taken over the whole top of the garden - its really very impressive. I went out there yesterday and cut enough beans, courgettes (+ 2 marrows), tomatoes, carrots and beetroot for us for the week and a lovely fresh veg box as a moving present for my sister (so much more useful than a vase!). We have two very fat butternut squash but we aren't sure how to tell when they will be ready to eat.

The best thing about the garden now is that our giant eden project sunflowers are now in full flower - they wave gently in the breeze as they are so tall. It really brightens the garden. Sadly I am losing one of the mints, the thyme and the lovely vine - i'm not sure what to do but i'm sure its because of all the wet weather we've had this summer. The pea plants have turned brown and yukky, everything was ok before we went away, but i suspect a form of mildew so might have no option but to treat.

The Eden project has given us lots of ideas for gardening next year, we're going to do better at the companion planting, and try onions and potatoes. I might even try to grow a pumpkin for hallowean next year - i'm going to put down a little path down the centre of the patch and sow plants which don't want to be swamped - carrots, onions, leeks, beetroot & beans one side and then the courgettes (2 max!) the other side bounded by peas and potatoes. I've also decided to try and move the shed and build a greenhouse - news not recieved with much enthusiam by 'him'!

The veg patch surrenders

When I got home tonight from work I went out to the garden, picked two handfuls of runner beans, a fat courgette, three beetroot and some fat stubby carrots which should really have been thinned. Then I cooked them with some new potatoes and fat gloucester old spot sausages from Dewing farm shop on the coltishall road, it was SO good (and inexpensive), i'm probably not going to ever be able to keep and kill a pig to eat but i'm quite happy to grow the veg to go with someone elses pig.

Look! Veg patch delivers!!!

Candlelight

The garden at night - I have had these tealights for over a year knowing exactly where they would go, we sat outside under the stars and had a glass of wine. Very civilised!

One day there was no veg - and the next day

we were wondering where all the space went.

Here we have beans on eth trellsi, squash in front of the trellis, and courgettes nearer to the forground - there are beetroot to the right and the carrots to eth left, oh and the sunflower which i though wouldn't germinate are now about 8 feet high.

Lawn!

This is a retrospective post - i took this picture to show how the pergola looks now that we have (almost) finished the gravel, it takes oh so much gravel to fill this garden!

This garden seems to have taken so long to do but now that the plants are growing and its possible to see the softening of the harder edges then i realise that we have made real impact in only six or so months.