A word about bolt ...

My cabbages and rocket have succumbed to bolt . I can only assume its down to the fluctuating weather situation we have been having but it's a nuisance nevertheless.. one of the downsides of gardening .. I will treat my ladies to them and start again .. frustrating but there you go .. On the subject of my ladies , we have had them for three weeks now and they have settled in lovely . I don't know I have them really .. we have a pack leader (Jenny J ) my light Sussex but she does no more than express vocally her wants and needs on a regular basis and often jumps onto my window ledges to look in to see what we are doing .. they continue to make me laugh on a daily basis !

The arrival of the ladies ..

Chickens have been part of the plan for a fair few years here but we haven't been at the point to get them so after a lot of research and planning and waiting for what seemed liked ages we finally went and picked some up .. Unfortunately all didn't go quite to plan as the birds had not arrived and my boy was very unsettled by this.. whilst I was sorting him out my mamm had a word and we agreed that coming home empty handed after all the preparation involved was not an option so in the end we came away with two pure breeds at a fraction of the price ,one Gold Laced Wyandotte .. info here and a cream crested legbar info here . We will go back in a week to pick up two hybrids to join them.
They have settled in quite nicely and are quite different in their little characters .. Spottie Dottie is a shy and quiet lady , content with gentle scratching and looking around , her cluck is more of a peep and we hardly know she is there..Mrs Norris on the other hand is a busty , bossy vocal madam who likes to be noticed .. No eggs yet .. but that's fine as the eggs are a bonus for myself as I really just enjoy their company and the enjoyment of watching them .. 

Mrs Norris on the left , Dottie on the right..

Out the front progress ...

I have been enjoying the sunshine the last few days , it's beautiful and all the plants are rocketing on , we have today , had a massive de weed out the front and given all the dandys to the rabbits , they were very grateful indeed . This year the front will be slightly different to last year in which we had an explosion of courgettes that took over in a trifid style fashion ! We currently have garlic in and a thyme chive border , but after reading so much about our poor bees this year I have decided to combine , bee friendly plants with cabbages and kales in between , as well as beans up the wigwam pole I want to include some sweet peas again for our bees .. , that's the plan anyway , I'm sure the slugs have a different one ! X

 

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Hurry up ... !

A friend popped over to see me yesterday with a tray of lettuce he had left over , and I was very thankful , but it made me think... I'm all behind ! Peeping out of windows , waiting for this awful weather to stop and Spring to come , the amount of times I have wanted to get started and haven't because it was just far too cold ! We go away for a week and suddenly , we are all behind .. quick get sowing xx 
Today we are going to get out there and clean up the garden ready for the growing year and I have sown Tomatoes , peas and radishes .. I feel like I'm catch up duty xx

Warmer weather...

I don't know about you , but I'm restless , really restless , I want to get on , let's face it we had a dire Winter ..wet ,and more wet and I'm desperate to get out in the garden , but every time the sun shines , I think it's time to go , but the lack of shoots and the chilly breeze brings me back in ... This week is promising to be warmer so the boy and I have chanced a little sowing . Salad into the propagator and Broad beans , straight into the ground .. What the heck , throw caution to the wind and let's try ... eeek .. hope it works x

The first mini forage..

This sudden snap of cold weather has reminded me not to get too over excited and impetuous in the garden , so we retreat back indoors under blankets and grab gardening books to read read and read some more ..we did however manage a quick run around the woods and grab a small handful of the first shoots of wild garlic to add to our soup ...come on Spring , we are waiting x

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Propagators..

We have purchased 4 propagator lids from Trago , dead cheap ,as my lovely little cheapy greenhouse has passed on to greenhouse heaven.. These sit on top of our trays in the new salad bar construction which in theory will start off some seeds for me in the next few weeks.. keep up the Spring type weather please ..  have only filled one at the moment with beetroot (boltardy) just to see if they germinate .. I hope so .. xx (oh and I have popped a brick on top in case of blowy weather )..

Wild Garlic time.. well nearly xx

We have a local woods that we go to , a lot, it's a calming kinda run free, cake yourself in mud type of place and just at the moment the wild garlic is starting to shoot up and there will be carpets of it .. I'm a keen , but not very knowledgeable Forager hence I have just signed up for a course in foraging once a month .. to learn about the free food around us .. On our walks to the woods I take a small basket with me and just grab a couple of handfuls .. It is so versatile (remember to wash it as doggies love to free wee) It can be used in salads , soups , stir fry , you name it .. More info here  and here.. Please remember to respect the Countryside and only take sufficient for you and never take off private land without permission x

Basil !!!!

I have planted some Basil in the kitchen in a wonderful pot that my step daughter made us .. Now , although I love Basil I have been put off it in the past because of it's smell , causing me to enter the kitchen and swear that a cat has peed somewhere !! but this year I'm going to ignore the smell as I love a pesto and it makes a wonderful addition to soups and salads.. It is a bit of a diva .. so may not be successful .. Find out more here ..

Three Sisters planting..

This is an idea that I came across on Pinterest (yes I'm addicted!) Its the Native American Indian Idea of companion planting . The beautiful beans climb up the tall canes of sweetcorn , using them as growing canes and the peas provide a living mulch around the bottom of the stems.. In the original three sisters , squash would also be planted in the tub but as I was over run by these last year I'm going to stick to the two and make the bean variety a bushier type .. I buy my seeds from here  and I'm looking at this sweetcorn variety and these beans , you will also need a large 50cm tub to grow these in and if you have any old pots laying around you can use them to line the bottom of your tub before the compost goes in ..Start the plants off under cover at the end of March or directly into the pot in May .. These plants when in the tub will need watering twice a day in hot weather  as they are thirsty blighters xx

Reflections on last year..

It was a terrible year weather wise so I'm hoping we will get a good year this year ..please? . We managed to grow lots of kale , before the butterflies came in .. and too many courgette/marrows/ huge footballs appeared in the garden , hiding under bushes and generally behaving in a triffid type manner, but we ate them and they were great . Thoughts now turn to this year and over the Christmas period I was inspired by this website .. What they achieved in a small garden was amazing .. and I started to make plans about maximising the use of space that we have even further .. My first plan was inspired by the chicken coop below .What if there was a way to incorporate storage areas with a growing space on top .. I drew rough plans and the Mr spent the next three weeks making the salad bar /bin store that now lives on one sunny wall of the house.

Inspiration..

The Front Garden

After such a successful first year , we then had a terrible following year , life got in the way , and with a small boy needing all my attention and more , seedlings died , plants got eaten and it just didn't happen , but with the following year brought plans to change our front garden , as I mention in the blog description , we live in a terraced house and , with the exception of a couple of like minded neighbours , most lawns are paved here , we had lawn and shrub , but the lawn was weedy and I felt it could work a little harder than that , also it gets full sun ( when we get some !) so off we went . ..

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more photos ..

So we had our circular lawn and our beds all done and then got planted and our first year was very abundant .. We had a beautiful summer and plenty to harvest ..(mother in law , was very impressed !)

Yes small.. very small..

When people say about gardening .. and utter the phrase .."Oh my garden is tiny , only to reveal that in fact it's mahoosive , I get a bit narked if I'm honest .. that's not small .. Our garden is small ..very small.

 We took the decision last year not to sell our house and move to the country .. Oh don't get me wrong ,we would love to but it isn't financially viable at the moment to do so .. So we decided we would turn our house into at least some way to producing veg to supply at the least a bit of food to our plates that we have grown ourselves and share our journey on the way xx

This was our courtyard and mid way .. 

Circular lawn space and raised bed going in .