Monday 13 June 2011

wettish monday

It started wet today, so I'd beaten the housework into submission by 9am!!

I still wake up at farmer o'clock!!! At least the BBC World Service tends to be interesting at 4am.....

The rain was easing and it was trying to dry, so on went the washing!

Meanwhile I sieved and mixed and sieved a couple of new batches of stock glazes and one iron red glaze test ( from the blog of Edouarde Bastarache, a French canadian potter and inveterate materials and glaze tester!).
This has no lithium carbonate, so cheaper and less nasties. It also has Cornish Stone and Bone Ash...so I'm surmising a nice buttery surface and a bright colour!
I'll post photos and recipe if it works for me.

A quick salad sandwich lunch, and the breeze was up and drying- then so was the washing!!

The Carpenter was filling in an online application....why can't they make the required answers a little more obvious?

That done we went to the garden. He trimmed the grass on his patch with a sickle and tried to work out where to plant the next young oak tree. There are two ash and one birch in pots too, waiting for a new home. We worked on the ideas for the building of the New Shed. Ideas are coming together, looks like I could have a new shed before too long...at long last!!

I picked fruit, blackcurrants and whitecurrants. The birds have only just found the latter, despite them now being all ripe. I think we'll be taking more cuttings of those. Then another mushroom tray's worth of strawberries, some a little early yet again, but they have rain damage. At least they are well usable, and if I'd left them they would have rotted. There are yet more to ripen and pick, all being well, plus the plants are putting out yet more flowers, as well as runners.

I must mark those plants that I want in the new strawberry bed. I'll move the healthiest of the older plants(those that are about a year or two old) as well as youngsters. I've worked out which bed it will be, I think, and only short term crops are going in there, so that it can have plenty of compost dug in, plus some well rotted pony manure, before it becomes a strawberry bed.

Planted out the sweetcorn and some spring onions and potted on all the surviving cucurbits.

The garden is rapidly filling, and I'm interplanting too!

Harvested a small lettuce and some peas and swiss chard before going back to the house.

I would dearly love a house a little apart from the village, where we could garden as we wished, with no car fumes and pesky motorbikes going past! Somewhere where I could have a workshop to myself and a saltglaze kiln, and....and.....and....!!

12 comments:

CATHY DANIEL said...

I share that last sentiment! Oh, to have a proper workshop, etc. You seem to get more done in a day than I do in a week. Will be back to see how those glazes turned out.

Zhoen said...

(o)

Kath said...

What a wonderful picture I have in my mind of your garden.

gz said...

Must take some photos today...while we have sun!

Anonymous said...

I think you and I are dreaming of the same house! x

yeractual said...

Sounds like you had a singularly productive day! You seem to be doing really well with the veg, too. We've had a couple of courgettes and a few chillis so far. the peas are there but still very small, the beans are coming soon. Our peppers are small but doing well: ditto the tomatoes.

Michèle Hastings said...

you are one busy lady! busy can be a good thing.

Andrea Ingram said...

I'm tired just reading that!

gz said...

I'm tired now...gardening all day-hopefully pictures tomorrow!

Relatively Retiring said...

Your garden sounds wonderful. I wish you were near enough to have one of my sheds - my husband built them and they are still full of material to build more sheds.

The Cranky Crone, she lives alone! said...

Goodness, you got the wirlwind mode on ON!
Do you sell some of your produce?
I hope the glaze works out, sounds very exciting.
gentle hugs from a new blogger friend

WOL said...

When I've had a troubling day and sleep is elusive, I settle down in bed, close my eyes and imagine my dream house. I try to visualize it in minute detail as I walk through its rooms. Why is it you can never find a genie in a bottle when you want one?