I'm Back at Home!

Hi folks! Had the op friday! It seemed to go well. The surgeon decided to keep me in overnight because he said 'your one of those patients!!!!' I think he was just being careful! Anyway hope to be back up to blog speed by next week!!

Not a Short one!

I have been trying to keep myself busy today! So went out and filled the cupboards with food, visited a few friends, should have done the ironing but haven't (yet!) and then this afternoon I measured up the vegetable area of my garden and drew it to scale!! Now I haven't done anything like this for ages and it kept my mind busy! But I was quite shocked when its on paper how it looks like I've wasted alot of space!!!
I only wish I could work out how to get it on here mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
What I keep saying to myself is 'Yes I could very well have made the veg beds bigger etc etc but this is first and foremost a garden and not an allotment'!!!






What a clever girl am I!!!! I know its abit wonky but it gives you an idea of what I have... Looking at the plan it seems obvious to me that I should ditch the flower bed on the left and make that more vegetables, but when we created it I wanted a 'Potager' look. Click the link and I can assure you mine looks nothing like this but you can dream!! Part garden part veg patch!!
The chickens have definately got to move from where they are onto this plan. They are to exposed and should we need to, we would be unable to put a roof on where they are!!!

So on to the planting plan?
Anything that climbs I grow on arches across the footpaths, so this year, it will be French beans, peas, runner beans, mangetout probably some butternut and gem squash, sweetpeas and nasturtiums. One bed is completely onions! With carrots in between. Garlic somewhere! Sweetcorn, not sure it grew well last year but tasted awful! I don't grow any brocolli, cabbage, cauliflower kale or anything like that! 2 courgette plants.1 Pumpkin!
Tomatos, and cucmbers well I am going to grow some in the greenhouse and some outside and see how different the crops are. Peppers and chilli's in the Greenhouse.Beetroot, spring onion and a variety of lettuce in another of the beds. Parsnip Potatoes and Chard in another bed! I think that is all I have room for!!

All you knowledgable veggie growers I would appreciate your feedback on anything in the above.

I'm off for my op! tomorrow, supposedly a day but after last time you never know. I hope to be posting again soon, so please don't forget me and pop back soon!

Under the rainy weather!!!

Boy did it chuck it down again this morning! The weather forecasters got it wrong (again)much to hubbys annoyance, they said that the rain would have cleared our area by about 03.00 this morning, Tori and I left for school at 08.00, hubby had decided to go in on his bike. The heavens opened about 08.15 and didn't stop for ages!
When he eventually got to work, he was relatively dry but he had to empty his biker gear pockets of water and get them all dry before the drive home tonight!!!

I decided to go to IKEA in Bristol there were loads of floods, but the saddest one I saw............. going down the M32 towards Bristol, just as you get to the turnoff to Ikea on the left are allotments, all totally under water, sheds included, and I know from going in the summer these are used allotments!

I wasn't able to get what I wanted because the boxes where damaged and I wasn't having those. So I bought a plant (I always do)



The label says succulent (well I knew that!!) I'm sure my Nana used to have one, but I can't find it in my book! Mind you I didn't look too hard as I'm not feeling wonderfully well!!!!

So as the sun, has at long last come out, I went with my camera for a troll down the garden to give the chickens some corn which believe it or not is in here!!!!!!!!!!!


then I checked the greenhouse, the brugmansia is in leaf........still....


and if you look at here you will see how much more it has grown since 6th December!!

my tree fern is fine too..


the banana on the patio is looking good, but I think the one by the pond will have to be unwrapped and checked, the straw seems very soggy!!!!

No sign of any frogspawn yet, but if this mild weather continues it will only be a matter of time!!



I have just checked and our first frogspawn last year was the 10th March, although our neighbour usually has it earlier than that as her pond is right up on her south facing patio!!! I don't normally have bricks all around the pond its just holding the net to keep the leaves and the heron out!!!!!

More rain and my bargain!

Rain, rain, rain, rain!!!!!



this is the water running from the roof onto my flat roof, and the next one is the huge puddle at the end of the flat roof being battered by rain...



so as you gathered I have not done alot, except boring housework and ironing. But I thought you might like to see the bargain I got yesterday...



3 packets where Free and should have cost £5.37
the other 11 packets should have cost me £17.26 so the grand total would have been £22.63!!!
I paid £8.63!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not often I'm in the right place at the right time!!! But when you are doesn't it make you smile!!!
Now you will notice that there are alot of flower seeds in this lot, well once upon a time before I had chickens my flower garden used to be gorgeous. When I had a look at Ruths garden photo album and saw the beautiful flowers and mix of colours, cannas etc. etc I thought I want some of that as well! So little does she know I'm moving in next door to her................. no not really, but it would be so nice to have a like minded person living abit closer!! So watch out Ruth you could very well be bonbarded by e-mails!!!!!!

Out & About!

Last day of the holidays, and I always take the girls or should I say Tori out for lunch. Usually at Whitehall Garden Centre, which is the other side of Lacock and has grown from a tiny place to a massive place now. The quality of plants is excellent and they have a 5 year guarentee on hardy plants, no quibble either as my neighbour found out when her plum tree died! They can be found here.

I hadn't appreciated just how much rain we had, had until I saw this......





to the right of the above photo is......



a field with 2 swans and a cygnet swimming in it!!!

As you cross the bridge..


after all this when we got there the kitchen is shut for major refurbishment this week so off we toddled, back the way we came up to 'Blooms of Bressingham' Swindon which after we had, had a very enjoyable lunch I was able to buy alot of seeds at half price. This offer is available until the 31st January. In case your interested!!

Quickie post!

This lasted about a minute this morning!



I apologise in advance for the amount of 'sky' pictures you get on here! I am a morning person and I have found no two sky pictures are the same. To prove a point this was taken just after the first one.....



My new friend Ruth has posted a beautiful album of her flower garden during 2006 take a look here then click on her album on the right!

Back later!

See Mrs N I worked out how to do links!!!

Hopeless Composter!!!

We seem to have been stuck in doors for ages now, so much so, I decided that no matter what the weather was doing I was going to turn the compost heaps and generally tidy up round the greenhouse!!



So here are two of my bins, the corner one was empty (its actually very difficult to open)and I have moved it away to another part of the garden! But look at the inside of the square one.....



Initially it looks good, that is until you dig to the middle!!! This always happens to us, we are hopeless composters.... the middle is totally dry and unrotted!!! I'm careful to mix layers, it gets the occasional watering! One year we had a nest of mice in there!! I have all the books on how to compost etc etc but still I fail miserably and it really really p****s me off!
Anyway they are all mixed up and re-packed (so to speak). I suppose I just have to keep trying!!!

Other peoples blogs!!

Just a short post for now! Will post more later!

I woke early so decided to upload my photo for the photo a day!! Then went off trolling round other peoples blogs............. whilst there I always have a look at their favourite blogs! It usually gives you an idea of the type of person they are! My goodness there are some odd people out there..... I'm glad I'm not alone!!!!!!