Tuesday 31 March 2009

Gardening

Every day we are on our allotments now. Potatoes planted, Broad Beans and Early peas planted out, Runner Beans sown, Tomato plants coming on well in the greenhouse.
April starts tomorrow then the sowing season really picks up speed!

Thursday 26 March 2009

Monday 23 March 2009

Spring?

The wind is chill today!

The bread has been reluctant to rise- I don't blame it!!

Now back to The Garden for some light digging to keep warm-or perhaps to Mountain Man's polytunnel out of the wind!!

Sunday 22 March 2009

Officially Spring!

This weekend it is now officially Spring-and tonight the weather is celebrating the fact and is due to turn cold andwet!!!

The greenhouse base is anchored and bolted to the anchors....now for the "Krypton Factor".....

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Really Spring

The primroses are out- it must be Spring!!

The potatoes are going in, only the maincrop left to plant.

The last of the new fruit trees have been planted, just in time, and a few gooseberry bushes transplanted.

Only one patch of ground, about ten foot square, needs sorting and that is half dug already!

Now about that greenhouse.......

Wednesday 11 March 2009

Gallivanting

Gallivanting is a necessary activity. All work and no play definitely makes Jill a dull girl!!
I went to meet friends in Dyffryn Tanat, stayed overnight near Aberystwyth, then came home stopping to see things where I wanted to, going the way I felt like instead of just the quickest route.
The countryside was breathtaking, from the snow locked Berwyn Mountains to the grey sea in Aberystwyth, the halftimbered houses in Sir Drefaldwyn,and back home to our own Mountain.
I wish that my eyes could record and play the sights they have seen to my Mountain Man. I try to describe this to him in words, but how can you describe something that you just sit in silence and wonder at?


Spring (nearly)

Spring is almost upon us, so I have started seed sowing indoors. Broad Beans and Early Peas to begin with.













The branches are still bare of leaves and the rain is cold.








Scarecat?







The sunset steadily moves along the mountain top. We are gardening later into the afternoon, but it is still cool the second the sun dips behind the mountain.

Sunday 8 March 2009

Weather

We have had it all today.
Wind, rain of all sorts, hail, snow, even sun as well.
I stand corrected- no fog today!!

Busy, busy..

Up at six a.m. today, bread and cake baking, house cleaning and seed sowing.
All done by Two p.m..
Then the Oily One and the Carpenter decided to go and help a friend change a car engine.
Which is good, doing things for friends

It seems they now have registered the fact that yes, we do have EVERYTHING needed to
1. get the greenhouse started
2. put up the kitchen shelves (which means also the cupboards)

So maybe I'll be waiting a little less?

Saturday 7 March 2009

A foggy day

Today I woke to an 'inversion fog'- visibility of less than 100 feet.
From the Mountain it looked like a river of fog, from the village, after a while you could see that the sun was 'up there' and not 'down here'!!

Today in the garden I prepared the bean and pea bed with some of last year's compost, and mulched the fruit bushes with some horse manure,nicely composted since the Autumn of last year.

In the kitchen I am sowing peas and beans.

"It's all grow" as one might say!

Now I am back to waiting for help to re-erect the greenhouse...now an urgent job.

Thursday 5 March 2009

A better day

More cleaning and baking and washing! Oh, the relief of clothes almost completely dry on the line!!

Last night there was two inches of snow on our mountain, and nothing below the tops. Twenty miles further North and it was down by the main roads. All gone by 11am here.

Today I planted a pear tree.
Then turned over the earth where it has been mulched for three years-no weeds and easy digging!
I can put the root crops, carrots and beetroot and parsnips in this bed. It has a good depth of soil and few stones.

Once the sun went behind the mountain, even at only four p.m., the air was chill.

Wednesday 4 March 2009

A frustrating day

Today I have cleaned and washed, dried and cooked.

Then there is Battling Clutter...now all my own clutter that I have left is at least organized!

I look at the rest, and mostly it belongs to the Oily One, the Carpenter and the Geek Wizzard...

It is very, very, annoying and frustrating! That they cannot be bothered to spend even a little time on this or on helping me do that which I am unable to around house and garden.

Tuesday 3 March 2009

What to do on a rainy day

Saturday's bread has been eaten already! Mountain Man likes his loaf too!
I am glad I am getting something right!!!!

Today we are back with the wind and the rain, so apart from one foray to pay bills, I have been baking more bread, knitting more of the socks (just reached heel#2) , dealing with post and keeping the place tidy.
This is the weather reminding us that it may be Spring, BUT...it is still too early to plant most things outside. The sun and gentle breezes of the past week or so have brought many gardeners out of hibernation-now this weather is giving their aching muscles a rest!! It only goes to show that you should find something to do in the garden all round the year :-)

Monday 2 March 2009

waiting

After a lovely weekend- light gardening done, a huge filing cabinet gone on freecycle, house cleaned and was given a fireplace matching the era of the house....
I return to waiting, this time for Officialdom who have lost my paperwork and left me sans cash for nearly a month.....at least now THEY are getting worried too!