What a day it has been today!! The sun has been shining and the weather was absolutely lovely. And I have ended up with a lovely sunburnt face! I suppose that could have been from sitting out in the sun in my mum's back garden whilst dad painted fences but also could have been from all the walking around I did as well!
Hubby went out and has almost finished his little raised bed and I checked on my various plants which are at points throughout the garden. No shows on anything that I planted over the weekend but it is very early days yet.
I did want to try planting garlic this weekend but have since found out that it needs planting in something like September and left for absolutely ages so will just have to wait till then and give it a try.
Even my poor babies ended up all sunkissed from playing out. I was very happy with the little one over the weekend as she really got into the planting with me. She is such a wee thing and a really fussy eater that we are hoping she will eat the fruit and veg that we grow and it will help her come on with her eating a bit. She has already been bragging to her pals that she has planted "sweet tomatoes" with mummy and she has been promising me that she will eat them when they grow. We found out sometime last year that she has a condition called Constitutional Short Stature. It has something to do with her being premature when she was born and the fact that her dad has it as well. It basically means that she is a lot smaller than the other children the same age as her, and she will be monitored for height and weight. Apparently if she has not caught up by the time she is 10 or 12, then the doctors will look at giving her some form of treatment but because they are happy with her current rate of development, they are just leaving her at the moment. And I am happy with that as I really don't want her pumped full of allsorts just to make her grow a little taller and heavier. She will grow when she grows, till then she is quite healthy and happy and that's the main thing for us.
Well, tomorrow I am full of big plans for the day!!! I have a mountain of laundry to do and a living room that looks like Afghanistan on a good day! So they are the first things that will be tackled in the morning. Hubby is taking the kids to school so I will be able to just get on with things. Then I have a letter to write in application for a part time job in town and get that emailed off with my CV and cross my fingers. Then it is off out into the garden and start clearing more weeds from a small patch.
And also I will be compiling a list of items that we compost, to try and clear it all up what we can and cannot put in the bin! The kids are getting really into composting so it will help me and help them.. I think I will post my list on here and it could help someone else who is new to composting. I know the thread on www.moneysavingexpert.com is really helpful. I think it's called "Homemade compost is so exciting!". It certainly has helped me immensely and is an invaluable source of information. As are many of the threads on the forums. Full of useful information and a great place to make friends.
So a good night to you all and I promise to post at least twice tomorrow! xx
Showing posts with label seeds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seeds. Show all posts
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Well a very good morning to you all! And what a day yesterday was. I never did get all my housework done, the call of the garden was too strong for me to resist, although I did try!
Hubby did rather well and has now built his raised bed, not too bad for his first attempt! He did quite well at tiling the living room floor when we moved in as well, and he had never done that before! He just needs to finish the top and then fill it with compost and whatever else takes his fancy! And here is the proof of his efforts!
Hubby did rather well and has now built his raised bed, not too bad for his first attempt! He did quite well at tiling the living room floor when we moved in as well, and he had never done that before! He just needs to finish the top and then fill it with compost and whatever else takes his fancy! And here is the proof of his efforts!
He did buy the blocks from a certain garden centre but the rest of the stones are the ones he blagged on his way home from work a couple of weeks ago. We did buy a bag of cement for the base and a bag of mortar for the walled parts. And he did also use the adhesive/grout that he used on the living room tiles when he ran out of mortar! How's that for recycling!!
I was also a rather busy bunny and got loads of pots planted out. I know I'm rather late at getting the seeds planted but I'm hoping to get some crops that will spur us on for next year. And the weather up here in the North of Scotland is starting to get nice and warm so the heat may just help my little plants grow big and strong. And not to mention the special feeds they are getting from me.
My own little recipe for lovely plant food is ..... tea. Yes good old fashioned black tea. Hubby drinks loads of tea. I can get through 100 tea bags in a week and I don't like to waste anything so I follow something my grandmother. I just use hot water from the tap and steep the tea bags to get some nice strong "tea". I then put it in the watering can and water it down so it is nice and weak and use it at night to water all my plants. And the houseplants seem to be thriving on it, especially my money plant. It is from a cutting of my grandmother's big huge one and my mum gave it to me and it really is thriving on my kitchen windowsill with all the sunlight and food.
I also have a vase with 3 bamboos in it and these get fed with a small amount of tea mixed with the water and they are really growing some lovely shoots as well.
Right, I must really get my behind off to bed as I am shattered and have loads to do tomorrow. So goodnight to you all and I hope your gardens are taking shape just in time for the nice weather to come in! Take care all xxx
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Can't Sleep
Well it is 5am in the morning and I can't sleep so I thought that I would come on the laptop and add a little update and another photo to my online diary as I have been rather lax at posting and I am feeling rather guilty!
My youngest daughter planted some tomato seeds the other week and I was concerned that they would not grow as it is a bit late for planting from seed and I have had these particular seeds for over a year! But on checking this morning, there are a couple of seedlings poking their little heads out of the soil! She is over the moon about this. She is only 4 and is such a fussy eater that we are hoping that she will eat the veggies that she has grown herself. If it works just watch me get her to plant all the veggies next year!!
My oldest is now not chuffed as her flowers have not grown at all yet! But try and explain to her that the seeds were free and they may not grow! But she is going to help me in the morning and do some more planting. The kids are off school on Monday for the bank holiday so should get some decent planting done if the weather keeps up!
Have also listed on Freecycle for some fence posts and fence panels so that hubby can get the garden fenced in and hopefully create a bit of a wind break as our garden is rather windy. I would rather get off Freecycle and know that I'm recycling something that someone else doesn't want anymore than pay a fortune at a garden centre when I might not have to. I was also a bit cheeky and advertised for slabs so that hubby can do a patio area and hopefully slab our driveway at the front. Then I topped it all off by asking for pots and stones/bricks for the raised beds. Hubby has also got into the recycling mode as he always stops and checks any skips that he sees now. So far he hasn't seen anything that he could use but you never know what's going to happen.
And I have finally opened and ISA to start saving for my dream ... a house with land!!! I have only so far paid the £1 to open it but will be adding to it as I get some spare cash. I think dream number one is to be debt free but the big dream is definitely a house where hubby needs a sit on mower! It's been a dream of ours since our youngest was born. Somewhere where we can keep chickens and ducks and geese and maybe a couple of piggies and possibly be a self-sufficient as possible but that's a dream for another day!
Right am now starting to get tired! Typical, just when its almost time for me to get up, that's when I get tired! Well I will heed my poor aching fingers and go off to bed and will post more later on! Take care all xxx
My youngest daughter planted some tomato seeds the other week and I was concerned that they would not grow as it is a bit late for planting from seed and I have had these particular seeds for over a year! But on checking this morning, there are a couple of seedlings poking their little heads out of the soil! She is over the moon about this. She is only 4 and is such a fussy eater that we are hoping that she will eat the veggies that she has grown herself. If it works just watch me get her to plant all the veggies next year!!
My oldest is now not chuffed as her flowers have not grown at all yet! But try and explain to her that the seeds were free and they may not grow! But she is going to help me in the morning and do some more planting. The kids are off school on Monday for the bank holiday so should get some decent planting done if the weather keeps up!
Have also listed on Freecycle for some fence posts and fence panels so that hubby can get the garden fenced in and hopefully create a bit of a wind break as our garden is rather windy. I would rather get off Freecycle and know that I'm recycling something that someone else doesn't want anymore than pay a fortune at a garden centre when I might not have to. I was also a bit cheeky and advertised for slabs so that hubby can do a patio area and hopefully slab our driveway at the front. Then I topped it all off by asking for pots and stones/bricks for the raised beds. Hubby has also got into the recycling mode as he always stops and checks any skips that he sees now. So far he hasn't seen anything that he could use but you never know what's going to happen.
And I have finally opened and ISA to start saving for my dream ... a house with land!!! I have only so far paid the £1 to open it but will be adding to it as I get some spare cash. I think dream number one is to be debt free but the big dream is definitely a house where hubby needs a sit on mower! It's been a dream of ours since our youngest was born. Somewhere where we can keep chickens and ducks and geese and maybe a couple of piggies and possibly be a self-sufficient as possible but that's a dream for another day!
Right am now starting to get tired! Typical, just when its almost time for me to get up, that's when I get tired! Well I will heed my poor aching fingers and go off to bed and will post more later on! Take care all xxx
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Day 2 and not much done yet!!
Well it's day 2 of my adventure and what a lot got done ... not! We were all late up as hubby stayed up last night watching Quantum of Solace on DVD. I popped off to bed as I had managed to watch the whole film the night he bought it! So today, got the kids sorted, fed the dalek and beggared off into town for some retail therapy!
We went to our local Poundland and got some rather good bargains. I bought 3 of those pop up green bins to use as planters. I'm advertising on Freecycle for a couple of barrels for potatoes but these bins will do for radishes and carrots hopefully.
Hubby bought himself some gardening gloves and I bought 4 packets of seeds. Not bad you may think but it gets better. Each packet of seeds had 6 different varieties of seeds! So 24 different seeds for £4!! Bargain!! Well happy and it looks like I will be growing my chillie peppers after all! Hubby was dubious about chillie peppers but I'm not going to use them in my cooking too much, I love to use the dried ones to flavour olive oil so will be able to have a stack of dried ones. We only spent £12 in the Poundland so well chuffed with my bargains. Oh I almost forgot ... I got a gnome!!! He is rather cute with a little plant pot attached to himself so once there is something in the plant pot then I will definitely post a photo of him. You should have seen hubby's face when he saw my gnome in the basket! I'm calling him Gordon after the kids cartoon series (Gordon the Garden Gnome!).
The only downside was that the kids were with us (only joking really!) and they insisted on buying easter bonnets as well. We then went outside and stopped off at the easter market on the street. Hubby bought some herbs from a Frenchman who had a stall. He had grown everything himself and his sun dried tomatoes were delicious!! So another £13 went there.
Then it was back to get the car after it had been washed in the local shopping centre car park, complain about the fact that the car was still filthy and there were scratches that were not there when we parked the car! So hubby got his money back and off we went to see the dolphins. Although when we got there the water was quite choppy and although I didn't see any dolphins hubby and the kids did. I was much more content to collect mussel shells on the shore. I came home with a good pocket full and they will be crushed tomorrow and sprinkled in my dalek just to keep him hungry (he is called Derek the Dalek now!).
On the way back we stopped off at Focus for some more retail therapy (!) and got some already potted herbs for hubby's herb garden. He already has a rosemary bush that accompanied us all the way from Germany and a bay tree that we got in B&Q last week. So this week he got thyme, oregano and sage. They will be re-potted along with the chives from Tesco's tomorrow and hopefully they will grow quite happily in our little garden.
And then the bombshell. I bought hubby a shed! Focus has a 6ft x 4ft overlap shed on sale for £109 but we had to pay £25 for delivery so in total it cost us £134 plus another £33 for the stuff we bought for the garden! So no more spending for us for a big while!!! Shouldn't have really spent that much but we desperately need somewhere safe to keep all hubby's garden tools and his bike but we now have to wait for the delivery so hopefully that won't take too long.
And that's about all of our day today. Not much really got done but we did buy supplies and hubby is determined to get out and de-turf some more of the garden tomorrow and hopefully get the herbs re-potted. He has also suggested that when we have a bit more cash to spare to buy a better shed, that the one we bought today can be used as a potting shed! At least he isn't planning on just getting rid of it!
We are also going to get a second shed in the summer. My dad is getting a new one and the one he currently has is the same size as the one we are getting but my dad is going to take his one apart and put it in our back garden as a kind of wendy house for the kids! So at least we don't have to spend out over £140 to buy them a wendy house when they can get a perfectly good one for free. All it will cost us is some manual work and a couple of tins of wood preserver and we are going to try and get the stuff that comes in funky colours so the kids know which one is theirs.
I'm ordering a second dalek next week as one just is not going to be enough, and I think I may just have to go back to focus next week and buy some of their compost accelerator to help get the bins working a bit quicker (or persuade hubby to have a wee in them lol).
Tomorrow am off down the shore with my kids for a nature walk with a twist. We are taking one of the little pop up bins and we are going to fill it full of seaweed. take it home and feed it to Derek! Between that and the mussel shells he should be a happy bin tomorrow.
Have just checked my household rubbish as well. My wheelie bin was emptied on Friday. Normally by today there is one full black bag and usually a couple of small carrier bags of rubbish. Well as of today we have only half filled a black bag in the bin! So we are really cutting down on our waste already by just having Derek!
Am also going to be pickling some eggs as hubby loves them and I absolutely hate the price of them in the shops. It is much cheaper to buy eggs and big jars of pickling vinegar and do it yerself! And I find that they taste much better. I have pickled eggs and onions before and they do taste much better than the ones you buy in the shops so may just have to go get some pickling onions as well!
Enough rambling for today, am off to take some photos and hopefully get them posted here, then its off to bed so I can get up really early tomorrow and make a good start!
We went to our local Poundland and got some rather good bargains. I bought 3 of those pop up green bins to use as planters. I'm advertising on Freecycle for a couple of barrels for potatoes but these bins will do for radishes and carrots hopefully.
Hubby bought himself some gardening gloves and I bought 4 packets of seeds. Not bad you may think but it gets better. Each packet of seeds had 6 different varieties of seeds! So 24 different seeds for £4!! Bargain!! Well happy and it looks like I will be growing my chillie peppers after all! Hubby was dubious about chillie peppers but I'm not going to use them in my cooking too much, I love to use the dried ones to flavour olive oil so will be able to have a stack of dried ones. We only spent £12 in the Poundland so well chuffed with my bargains. Oh I almost forgot ... I got a gnome!!! He is rather cute with a little plant pot attached to himself so once there is something in the plant pot then I will definitely post a photo of him. You should have seen hubby's face when he saw my gnome in the basket! I'm calling him Gordon after the kids cartoon series (Gordon the Garden Gnome!).
The only downside was that the kids were with us (only joking really!) and they insisted on buying easter bonnets as well. We then went outside and stopped off at the easter market on the street. Hubby bought some herbs from a Frenchman who had a stall. He had grown everything himself and his sun dried tomatoes were delicious!! So another £13 went there.
Then it was back to get the car after it had been washed in the local shopping centre car park, complain about the fact that the car was still filthy and there were scratches that were not there when we parked the car! So hubby got his money back and off we went to see the dolphins. Although when we got there the water was quite choppy and although I didn't see any dolphins hubby and the kids did. I was much more content to collect mussel shells on the shore. I came home with a good pocket full and they will be crushed tomorrow and sprinkled in my dalek just to keep him hungry (he is called Derek the Dalek now!).
On the way back we stopped off at Focus for some more retail therapy (!) and got some already potted herbs for hubby's herb garden. He already has a rosemary bush that accompanied us all the way from Germany and a bay tree that we got in B&Q last week. So this week he got thyme, oregano and sage. They will be re-potted along with the chives from Tesco's tomorrow and hopefully they will grow quite happily in our little garden.
And then the bombshell. I bought hubby a shed! Focus has a 6ft x 4ft overlap shed on sale for £109 but we had to pay £25 for delivery so in total it cost us £134 plus another £33 for the stuff we bought for the garden! So no more spending for us for a big while!!! Shouldn't have really spent that much but we desperately need somewhere safe to keep all hubby's garden tools and his bike but we now have to wait for the delivery so hopefully that won't take too long.
And that's about all of our day today. Not much really got done but we did buy supplies and hubby is determined to get out and de-turf some more of the garden tomorrow and hopefully get the herbs re-potted. He has also suggested that when we have a bit more cash to spare to buy a better shed, that the one we bought today can be used as a potting shed! At least he isn't planning on just getting rid of it!
We are also going to get a second shed in the summer. My dad is getting a new one and the one he currently has is the same size as the one we are getting but my dad is going to take his one apart and put it in our back garden as a kind of wendy house for the kids! So at least we don't have to spend out over £140 to buy them a wendy house when they can get a perfectly good one for free. All it will cost us is some manual work and a couple of tins of wood preserver and we are going to try and get the stuff that comes in funky colours so the kids know which one is theirs.
I'm ordering a second dalek next week as one just is not going to be enough, and I think I may just have to go back to focus next week and buy some of their compost accelerator to help get the bins working a bit quicker (or persuade hubby to have a wee in them lol).
Tomorrow am off down the shore with my kids for a nature walk with a twist. We are taking one of the little pop up bins and we are going to fill it full of seaweed. take it home and feed it to Derek! Between that and the mussel shells he should be a happy bin tomorrow.
Have just checked my household rubbish as well. My wheelie bin was emptied on Friday. Normally by today there is one full black bag and usually a couple of small carrier bags of rubbish. Well as of today we have only half filled a black bag in the bin! So we are really cutting down on our waste already by just having Derek!
Am also going to be pickling some eggs as hubby loves them and I absolutely hate the price of them in the shops. It is much cheaper to buy eggs and big jars of pickling vinegar and do it yerself! And I find that they taste much better. I have pickled eggs and onions before and they do taste much better than the ones you buy in the shops so may just have to go get some pickling onions as well!
Enough rambling for today, am off to take some photos and hopefully get them posted here, then its off to bed so I can get up really early tomorrow and make a good start!
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