The Gallery - An Apple Tree

This apple tree is 3 years old, we planted it after we moved in and started work on the garden.  It is small and only bore 6 fruits last year, but this year its branched are bowed under the weight of its fruit.

For me this feel like parenting, sometimes you feed the children, nurture and look after them and it feels like they are just ignoring your advice, but then it just happens.  It clicks and there is please and thank you without prompting.

Frugal Food - Utilise your Garden

One of the many comments I got on my feeding a family of 4 for £50 post was that we must be green fingered or have a lot of room for growing vegetables.

The truth is we don't and I am not, we have a small back garden, but in 2009 MadDad built me 3 raised beds, they are not large, they are 6 foot by approx 3 foot and we also have a couple of barrels that we fill with potatoes.

But those raised beds and what pots we have round the garden supply me with a steady supply of vegetables right through till the Autumn.

At the moment we have the following

Bed One - Draft Beans, Runner Beans and Pea's

Barrel - New Potatoes

Bed Two - Spinach, Rainbow Chard, Kale

Barrel - New Potatoes

Bed Three - Leeks and Onions

6 Hanging baskets + Home made fence baskets - Strawberries

2 troughs - Cucumber

2 troughs - Tomatoes

1 Container - Courgettes

4 Containers - Herbs

2 Containers - Salad leaves

Come Autumn, we will be planing garlic and Spring cabbage, we have already eaten the spring onions and all the radish that we grew.

We have grown everything from seed and have shared the initial cost of the seeds with our neighbours who also grow and friends that have an allotment.  We don't have a green house, but I germinated and grew all the seedlings on the window ledges!

We planted our apple tree 3 years ago and this year is the first year we will see many apples from it (we only got about 7 last year), but you need to bear in mind that our back garden was that of a new build - full of clay and bricks with very little soil at all.  

We also planted a pear tree and will get our first fruit from that this year, which is very exciting indeed.

Upkeep and Daily Maintenance

We bought a reduce water butt in the sales last year and we water the beds and containers every night which takes us about 15 mins , or longer if the boys help!  I also go out a couple of times a week and weed, but we don't get many weeds as we plant very close together.

Slugs and snails are our main enemy, but the boys are well trained.  If they see a slug or snail, they squash them.

I think this post shows that you don't have to have a lot of space or a huge initial outlay to start growing your own vegetables.

Fresh from the Garden

A Wonderful Bank Holiday Monday spent in the Kitchen and Garden

I think the sun forgot our little park of the North East today.

So we have spent the day baking.

Maxi did all the weighing and measuring

Mini did most of the stirring and tasting

We have had a lot of fun and made lots of cakes

Oat and raisin cooks and mince pies (mini's favorites)

Many Muffins, sweet mincemeat and St Stephens Day Muffins, in addition to some fairy cakes.

Whilst I was busy in the kitchen, MadDad tended the garden, including planting out the courgettes and cucumbers.

Everything is looking great and really coming along.

He also washed and cleaned the cars, ready for the trip we are taking today to Emma Bridgewater's Factory to celebrate their 25th Anniversary with them. We are very excited and I am sure will have loads to show and tell you.

A Weekend in Pictures

 

Yes, we have all had a blast!

A weekend spent in the Garden

I said that I had grand plans for the garden this weekend, well the weather was mostly kind and we did manage to get quite a lot done

Onions have been planted out, 2 varieties, Red Barron and Bedford Champion.  We have also sown some spring onions (Lisbon) direct in to the bed.

Rainbow Chard has been transplanted in to the bed too, alongside side Chinese Broccoli, which is a new vegetable for us.

We have also direct sown the runner beans, peas and dwarf beans in to another bed.

The potatoes have been planted in to our two barrels.

Our Sunflowers have been transplanted too, the boys are so excited about these and can not wait for them to start getting bigger.

We also managed to move the sandboat and the playhouse, well we swopped them round,as the sand needs to get more sun to dry out, we dug the wet sand in to the raised beds and will be getting new play sand at some point.

There is still lots to do, but I have put away the other seeds for safe keeping and for the life of me can not find them!  I have also got some strawberries and tomatoes coming, which I used Tesco club card point to pay for.  Our neighbour dropped in two raspberry canes, which we are soaking ready to plant later in the week.

We didn't plant the sweet peas out yet, as they could do with getting a little bigger. 

So my plans for this week are:

Sow some lettuce in trays

Find my other seeds (spinach, Kale, Leeks) and sow in the conservatory

Sow some radish in between the rows of beans

Sow some borlotti beans in the conservatory

Me and MadDad even contemplated putting our name down for an allotment, but part of the reason I love growing so much is that I can see it, the boys can see it and I can walk out the back door and pick something for dinner.  So even if I only have 3 small raised beds, they are wonderful.

When the Sun comes out to play, so do we

It is so much more fun when the sun is shining and we have been making the most of the last few days of MadDad being on Annual Leave, before I have the boys to myself for the last week of the holidays next week.

Vanilla Scones from The Pioneer Woman - Yum

Chocolate cakes - never fail to be eaten

I tried this, not very successfully, but had a great day out.

The boys went to Locomotion at Shildon, which is part of the National Railway Museum

They had a brill time and are already asking to go back.

We all enjoyed the sunshine in Saltburn yesterday (after football practice), mainly spent in the Valley Gardens

Ice creams all round.

There is a project taking shape in the garden

Boys and their toys!

I so don't want this week to end and MadDad to go back to work.

Sunflower Club

We are taking part in Nuturestores Sunflower Club and have been busy planting our seeds. We are using single giant sunflowers and have decided to start them off inside, as last year our sunflowers were pretty late and lame!

So we decided to plant our seeds in egg shells, as sunflowers don't like to be transplanted and this is a great and Eco friendly way of doing this.

Both the boys love gardening which makes my heart sing and we will be planting more seeds over the coming weeks

We put one seed in each egg shell and covered with more soil.

We are going to be doing a scrapbook like Nurturestore have and keep a record of growth etc over the coming months too.  When I asked Mini what did the sunflowers seeds need to grow, he told me that they need soil, water, sunshine and lots of love.