Nothing To See Here!

Worked really hard at the weekend - after my trip out on Saturday (which exhausted me for the rest of the day) Sunday was really busy! We managed to get the Blueberry (2), Gooseberry (2 each red & green) & Currant (2 each black & red) bushes planted. Well, I say bushes but they are effectively sticks with maybe a couple shoots on them.
On Saturday night, I spent a good while on the Internet, finding out how far apart all our new goodies will need to be spaced (including the ones we don't have yet) & drew a bit of a plan. The bits of ground that haven't been in use had started to become overgrown with weeds again so there was a lot of prep work to do. I also read somewhere that a mulch of pine needles is good for blueberries, so as I don't have them I thought we'd try the fir-type tree that I killed when re-potting it in the back garden (it died). I'm aware that it isn't a pine tree but I guess it's the same kinda thing ... we'll see! Spent a good few hours collecting the dead leaves from it & have a good bag full ready to mulch with when I have a spare moment.
I have a couple bigger projects to get on to soon ... but they are for another day!
Today, I had to venture into town again - which predictably wore me out for the rest of the day. That did mean tho' that I spent rather more time than is healthy surfing the 'net this afternoon ... and the result is 2 or 3 rather good new links ... just watch them growing! LOL

Gotta Love 99p Stores!

Took a deep breath & braved the town today (with DH) to pick up tinned pulses & pickled chillies (for DS1) from the 99p stores. Happily, they had an abundance of fruit canes. I'm guessing they might not be the best quality ... but at 99p, worth a punt! We grabbed a total of 14: 2 each of red & green gooseberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, blackberries, raspberries & blueberries. Most were showing new green growth, a couple not - we'll see how they go.
This evening, we measured the garden (still working on the front garden for now) & planned out where the fruit will go. We will have a couple gaps where we have crops already (onions put in last week won't be coming out for months!) Yup! time to say we live & learn (again! LOL)
Also managed to pick up a bunch of seeds from Wilkinsons (next to the 99p store) for about half the price I've seen them elsewhere ... & they were on a 3 for the price of 2 offer - can't be bad! I also managed to find a li'l kiddie kit for Auryn ... dear li'l gardening gloves, rake & trowel, enamelled watering can & 3 li'l enamel flower pots - he loves it & spent some time planting herbs in his li'l pots & then watering absolutely everything! LOL.
Turned out to be a big spending day tho' as I ordered online the other fruit trees (compact & patio varieties) as well as some quick winter cropping/overwintering seeds ... so more planning to do - just to make sure I'm making the most of the space we have!

So that was it - a couple of shops & I was about ready to come home! LOL

Thursday Is Independence Day!

Another idea I robbed from Di's Blog, the original challenge comes from Casaubon's Book. The deal is that every day, week or whatever fits the schedule, you do something to contribute to your future. I might well do something every day - but Thursday will be my weekly round up.
Here goes:
1. Plant Something: this week I have planted poppies & onions - the first of next year's crops.

2. Harvest Something: Yup! this was easy too but I guess it will get harder as the current crops dwindle - no idea how I'll do it in the winter ... some lateral thinking might be required! Anyway:
2lb Pak Choi: supermarket saving of £5.60 ... can you believe that??
Salad leaves for the barbeque - around 1/2lb saving £1.50
& herbs for cooking.
Total: £7.10

3. Preserve something: nothing this week ... but I got to thinking I ought to dry some of those herbs ready for when the plants die off - on the list for next week!

4. Prep Something: I organised the freezer & made a start on the cupboards. Decluttering is ongoing. Donated some clothes to a charity collection, unwanted craft supplies to DS4's school & have another charity collection bag to fill for next week (we have a lot of charity collections here). I have also harvested seeds from a supermarket-bought chilli & tomato ready for spring. Started a collection of egg shells (a post coming on that!) & cleaned/stored some plastic food trays (from pre-packed meat & mushrooms) for use as seed trays.

5. Cook Something: I'm not overly experimental but made a fabulous meatballs & spaghetti (DH, DS1 & DS2 are meat-eaters) - mine was a vegetable sauce - used our fresh herbs (use them a lot actually). Auryn (DS4) helped me make dumplings (vegetable suet) & I made a very tasty veggie stew. Used the last of the courgettes on veggie kebabs for a barbeque this weekend. I guess this will get easier when there are more veggies to use??

6. Manage Reserves: This one I am finding hard - I had already gone thru the food stores a while back & got rid of everything that won't be used - as there is no harvest to check on I don't really see how to do this one. I guess that we are using up leftovers (often tomorrow's lunch) & I'm now menu planning might count?

7. Work on local food systems: (buy local, promote green, give away seeds or plants, start local initiatives): Hmmm, need to put some thought into this one. I did give some pak choi to a neighbour - not seeds tho' - just food. & I swap some of my veggies with my mum (she has rhubarb). My neighbours are starting to show an interest in what I am growing ... so maybe there's some hope there for the future?? I don't really buy local - right now we really have to consider the cost more than anything - maybe something to work toward?

8. Reduce Waste: This is a big issue for me. We recycle probably 90% of our waste thru the council fortnightly collections - our recycle bin is almost always full & the trash never more than half full ... so it's a start. Next stop is to have less to recycle in the first place! With the ongoing decluttering there is an awful lot to recycle right now, so this will gradually improve as the clutter decreases I guess. I shop online & have decided to change from Asda - although you can give the bags back to the driver to be recycled they are seriously wasteful in the amount they use (1 tin soup = 1 bag!!). Tesco give the option not to have bags - supplies come in crates & are unloaded on the doorstep. So that's my next challenge ... to eliminate the carrier bags brought in to my home. I don't use them but the rest of the family need training!!

9. Learn a new skill: No skills as such but I've spent some time this week learning about keeping a small holding, mostly concentrating on the veggie side of that. I've also been reading up on organic pest prevention & crop rotation. Knowledge is power!!

Gone to Seed!

Not a great week for us! We have let things slide a bit & the upshot is that the Pak Choi went to seed. It hadn't grown particularly well so the stems are a bit spindly - but it is edible & still tasty. I guess there's a lot of stir fry on the menu then!
The blueberry bush that I thought was just dying off because autumn is approaching turns out to have a rose aphid disease thingy - so I have had to strip & destroy most of the leaves. It still has some healthy new growth, so I guess we'll see how it survives! Fortunately I have a knowledgeable neighbour who told me about it.
We have had some very unseasonal weather, which seems to be affecting the normal plant life cycles - & my neighbour tells me she has fry (tiny baby fish things) in her pond, which have no business being there until the spring.
I have also not been too good at organising my menus to take account of the veggies that are ready to eat ... so more work needed on that too!
The onions, Senshyu Semi-Globe, can only be planted in a two week window so we got those planted just in time. I use a lot of onions so we'll be adding some more varieties in the spring - these ones are early harvest for July.
The beetroot are growing slowly but should harvest as baby beet before the frosts with any luck - the carrots & spring onions are doing fine too. I've also planted some flowers (free seeds) on a shallow strip in the back garden next to the patio. The poppies will provide some edible seeds next year & hopefully the other (Love in a Mist) will attract some friendly bugs.
I'm going to be looking at some seeds for quick crops to try and extend this year's season ... & overwinter some for the spring. Next year I'll be able to harvest more seeds - so we won't look to buy so many!

Early September Summary

Ok - this should be a shorter post & bring us almost up to date. Early in september, we started to struggle (yup! already!!) with the million other things happening in our lives. The weather, typically British, was wetter & cooler than one would have hoped over the summer & nothing grew particularly well. Although wet, we had much more of the nasty grey drizzle than actual rain & I suspect we also under-watered.
Anyway, you live & learn (I guess I'll be saying that a lot! LOL) & we did harvest the first of the baby turnips earlier in the month, young enough that we could eat the purple skins too! The last of the courgettes also came out, just a couple & the last of the blueberries. I have been cooking from scratch a lot more ... even tho I'm still buying pretty much all our produce. We made a really tasty stew from the turnips & assorted other veg - even the boys were happy to eat it (skins 'n all!) Auryn made dumplings ... not particularly healthy but tasty all the same. We are finding that he is more open to trying new things now ... so as we have more home grown I expect his diet will change a lot.

I'll post again this week - just to cover the happenings in the last week or so & after that I don't know whether it will be a daily/weekly or what sort of blogging schedule - whenever I have something to say I guess!

Let's Start At The Very Beginning ...

I guess I'm going to need a couple of summary posts to get up to date - that's the problem with starting this blog several months later than the work began.So it all began on a rain soaked week back in early June (I think) when my Father in Law & DS1 joined me for a couple of days rotavating the gardens (front & back), clearing the weeds & stones & generally getting a start on it all. Back-breaking work ... but strangely satisfying! After a couple of days, the front garden looked like this ...The ground was still seriously stony but the bigger ones had at least gone. It took several more weeks before the real work started! LOL. DS1 spent a couple of days digging some trenches ... 2 spits deep, which we now see was totally uneccessary ... but you live & learn I guess. In July, we started planting seeds & soft fruit, which my Mother in Law bought for us (we had a fabulous day out at Wisley Gardens).
The courgettes were already growing (from plants not seed) in a grow bag out on the back patio & our first planting was 3 humble potatoes that had started sprouting. Next came the first seeds ... Beetroot & carrots, which seemed to take sooooo long to start growing! And the fruit trees ... Blackberry, Blackcurrant & Blueberry.
In early August, DS1 dug some more trenches & we planted Pak Choi, Spring Greens, Turnips & Spring Onions. Later in the month DH joined in & we planted more carrots & mixed salad leaves (we needed a quick crop to maintain enthusiasm at this point! LOL)
August also saw our first harvest ... courgettes and a couple of small marrows - delicious! The blueberry bush had been in fruit when we got it ... the berries ripened in August so we had those too!
And that is about where we got to at the beginning of September ... & the next summary post should get us right up to date!!

From Little Acorns ...

... grow mighty oaks!
In July 2008, I decided that I was no longer prepared to live on the tasteless, not-so-fresh vegetables offered up by supermarkets & that it was time to go back to growing my own. My husband was in agreement & so we started: late in the year for many crops but better to start now than wait until spring ... by which time we might well have forgotten about it - I'm a person that needs to 'strike while the iron is hot'! LOL. Since then, we have talked about the real possibility of maybe one day taking it further: self sufficiency (or as close as possible) & a small holding of our own. We have a long way to go & a lot to learn!
I've been threatening to start this blog since I first spotted Di Hickman's 'green' blog a couple months back - and here it is. Although Di lives in completely different climatic conditions to me, I found her blog useful & inspiring. She is a newbie too & I guess we might well learn a little from each other.
My reasons for blogging my journey are numerous:

1. I need to have a record of what I'm doing ... it's the sort of person I am;
   
2. I am famous for recording info in notebooks, backs of envelopes etc ... & losing them (I guess Blogger is less likely to lose it! LOL);
   
3. Blogging allows me to add photos, file everything so I can find the info again & generally organise stuff over & over again;
   
4. I'll be able to instantly find the websites, blogs etc that I want (as soon as I set up a link list) &
   
5. I love blogging!!

It would be nice to have some company on this looooong path ahead, so I'll be more than happy if people decide to visit here & maybe leave some advice, encouragement or whatever in the comments. Love to chat, me *smiles*.

I guess I have a lot of posting to do to catch up with where I am so far, so there will be a lot of changes here in the next few weeks/months ... & maybe some photos too!