Garden construction

 Made from goat willow, better than buying bamboo and string, and sourced 50 metres from the house!

 Coming along

 The first of many?

 Deserved rewards...Billy tea with toasted home made bread and jam

Another hot day!

 Last night's sunset. Every one a beauty at present.
One good thing about buying online...free packing for the next order out!

 Two orders posted today, a wee red jug to Glasgow and a drawing to London.
This is the latest addition to Etsy.

I must get my website ticking over properly.
Brother has sorted it to make it easier..word press made it far too complicated!!  If I can get sales through that and the dreaded fb as well as this blog, a little from everywhere it will be good.
Etsy make it easier, but like any shop they do take a chunk of the sale...fair enough, they do provide a service.

It is hot again today, so like yesterday indoors or in the shade now, and do things outside earlier and later.
We rethought the bed planting yesterday and decided that all the brassicas go in the new bed with a finer mesh over them to keep the cabbage white butterflies off...and also the leek moth as I think that that has reached this far north .

4 a.m.

Strawberries and cream anyone?

Our neighbour came across with more than just eggs today... strawberries! He grows his in a greenhouse.

This wee saltglaze cream jug is now on Etsy.

And I might just add this bowl...for strawberries...or soup?!

Potting on and planting

 Pirate has decided that we need fewer mowers. So these two will be sold. The petrol Suffolk Punch is from about 1965, and the electric Ransome Bowlic the late 40s to 50s. Both cylinder mowers, and the Bowlic was for bowling greens.

Potting on and planting out started...

 It starts to look like a real garden once bean sticks are in!

 Tomato bed in progress...five others have been potted on and may end up outside.

 Sweetcorn..at last!

 These went in on 31 March!!

 And one of this year's experiments..chick peas.

It was a beautiful afternoon's gardening, after posting the past couple of day's sales.
Now onward to transplant drawings and pots to the Etsy shop.

Posting

The cat has gone! It will be on its way to Arizona tomorrow.
Today's postcard...

And another tomorrow.

A bits and bobs day today.  The regular hot sheets and towels wash...and most ready for ironing..
Keeping an eye on the polytunnel...more needs to be moved on and out into beds and more seeds that I had almost given up on are germinating!
The netting is now over and across one end of the fruit cage. The wind got up just as I was about to do the last end! There seems to be some large gusts coming through every day after 5.30 pm until about 6.30...we are only ten miles from the sea as the crow flies, so possibly something to do with offshore and onshore winds.
Pirate is carrying on with the sorting and tidying, most successfully.
Now there is just yoghurt to start before bedtime..

New venture drawings and selling

Here is the first postcard drawing, on heavy cartridge paper...I am selling them unmounted and unframed, to keep the postage down. Also purchasers can choose their own frames and mounts.
Original, unique, no extra postage.
I will be putting more in the Etsy shop every day and hope to add ceramics as well.
I have just sold some small saltglaze pots and they will be off on their way to the USA soon.

Cotton reel just for size of course!!

Stormy

Helping others.

Power washing next door's patio.
One advantage of ghastly wet and windy weather...her grandkids will not be playing in the garden!

We are at present getting the tail end of a storm that has come over the Atlantic...I welcome the rain, but I am worried about the polytunnel. After all it is no more than a tent!!

An advantage of himself being out there? I get time to concentrate on ordering online from our usual health store company and wholefoods company.
I don't find it easy.  I have been putting it off. Silly really as they could take two weeks or more to be sent out...and who knows how long to get here.  However now I have started the process it should be easier to do it again.

Next to face putting more on Etsy.

An online artist acquaintance has started selling postcard size original paintings in her shop....perhaps I could do that with drawings? She charges £20 post paid, which is a bargain for her work.
How much would you pay for one of my drawings, postcard size?  Be honest!

Quietly busy

 Not a job for a rainy day! Which we have forecast tomorrow. Pirate has been discovering useful things that we have been hunting for!!

Lime Cordial...an easy job, and the cordial bottle rack is getting very low.  We are keeping an eye out for Elderflowers next.

Otherwise Pirate has been phoning friends and family, and I have been chatting by message...we don't do live talk! Sorting bits in the house, getting a wash through before the weather turns again...and half an hour gently on the turbo trainers to start with to wake up the body!

Filling up

 The onions and garlic are growing well

 Filling every corner

Planting and sowing in the new bed....it's filling up already. I could use a bigger garden!!  Intercropping is in progress, sowing beetroot carrots and radish in between broad beans and cabbages.

Freezing

Amy asked if I freeze what I have baked..yes!
I kept out one of the small banana and date cakes. The long gingerbread, a third went to a neighbour who gives us eggs and a third to the freezer.
I made two chestnut mushroom and leek savoury loaves, and these divided into ten portions...eight for the freezer, two for last night's supper.

Every time I make a curry or soup it is a large panfull...two portions to eat then and the rest frozen in portions. 
It sounds very organised, but it isn't really...just a backup for when inspiration and energy is low...and a more economical way of cooking.
I would prefer to bottle(can) food rather than freezing...no ongoing power bill and no food loss when a power cut happens.
But you go with what is possible with what you have.

Indoors for a change

Batch baking and pickling.
Then a little light relief, planning out the workshops verandah and checking over the polytunnel seedlings.
This is the view from the latter

Mousing

"What???? I'm busy!"

Yesterday's walk

 The May is out! Clouts will not b ecast off for a couple of days at least!!

 We walked up the hill to see the local Clydesdales...but they were in the far field

 Looking back towards the Clyde

Then back home, cutting back along the Riverside path...we were out for two hours!
No wonder we were tired!!

Rain!

Cold rain..but still, rain.
The garden will really benefit from rainwater.
 I have been filling the waterbutts from the tap, making sure that the water flow hits the inside as they fill, then leaving the lids open for a day or more, to try and evaporate the treatment chemicals. It is not ideal, but saves the plants even though growth is inhibited until they get rainwater.

The lawn, however is already sodden! Ground level earth changes quickly from brick to sponge, which is why we are making more and more deep beds of differing heights.  Plants can grow roots down to the water without being waterlogged.

The soil that is here is impoverished and will take many years of adding compost and manure. But seeing how Daughter's and The Carpenter's gardening is progressing means I must have shown them a good example at home and in my allotments to teach them by doing.  Now they have respectively a garden and allotment and are growing well.
Incentive for us to carry on here!

The best laid plans..

 As ever, plans get changed! This is the only repotting done yesterday...the first one took well over a month to germinate..now there are three!!

 The second bed surround in the polytunnel got built, all bar tidying up two corners.

 It was a fiddle, having to work in situ from the first length which was holding the path in place...but fortunate as at the end the bed we had assumed was a regular rectangle was a little wider at the door end.

Almost ready to use...we just need some rainfall . The cold northerly winds are holding growth back as well, but despite everything the onions and garlic are growing steadily outside and the broad beans are flowering.
Not many beans set though, the cold winds are not helping the insects.
We must have had enough at the right time for the currants and gooseberries as the fruit has set on them.  Netting has started and I will finish today.... hopefully!!