Frosty Veg

I get a feeling that I might look back at my last post, with it's lovely pictures of all the things growing in my garden, and weep by the end of this week!

What IS it with this weather?! A few days ago we had snow in some parts of the country again, and widespread frosts at night.

I panicked. I don't have a greenhouse. My tender plants - courgettes and tomatoes - were already out in the garden as they had outgrown the pots that fitted on my window sill or in my ramshackle plastic thing, and I had no choice but to plant them out.

Without any proper poly tunnels or the luxury of cloches, I had to make-do-and-mend. I pulled apart an old wire hanging basket, gathered all the large stones and sticks I could find, and collected a miraculously-timed gift of bubble wrap courtsey of my local Freecycle.

This was the result:

tomatoes and herbs
Strawberries
Courgettes
Brassicas
French beans
Over the days I've refined the covers a bit, and found some plastic cover from a new mattress which I've cut into strips to make long polytunnels to cover two rows of carrots and my precious yellow beetroot.

Sadly, three out of four courgette plants are struggling. Ironically not from the night-time frosts - they have been perky every morning when I've taken their bubblewrap bedjackets off - but from the low temperatures and keen winds during the day which was something I hadn't counted on.

Still, at least I've tried. I have felt very much like Barbara in "The Good Life" and I'm sure it must have been a great source of amusement to my neighbours to see me out there every evening..

One evening the other week we helped some friends out by collecting their three children from school and looking after them until their Mum finished work.

We cooked our famous slow cooker chilli and served a just-made-up-that-evening pudding that was a real success.

I made a rhubarb and apple compote, covered it with what we've decided is the ultimate crumble, in individual little tarts.

We served it with our home made rhubarb ice cream and a lovely syrup made out of reducing the liquid from the compote.

I managed to impress myself!

Josh, in true autonomous fashion, has decided that he'd like to improve his math ability in order to feel more confident so he's set himself the task of doing an hours math study every Monday. Gobsmacked!

Roarke had a day's acting work, on a small budget film. By the way I realised this week that Perrier's Bounty is out - Roarke is in that! I don't know if it has/is going to show anywhere near me which is a shame. Apparently the Special Relationship is out shortly too, which he is in.

Josh has continued with his sailing, and Samuel is enjoying learning the multimedia and sound desk at church so that he can start doing the sound at Baseline. I'm so proud of my lads! They have all said that they want to start doing both services on a Sunday in order to get the most out of church, and get to spend time with their friends there.

I've been able to help out more at church, doing another two meetings/trainings with regards to funding, and also helping at their awareness seminar for the work of the Hope Foundation.

Talking of Hope, Roarke is doing well with his training for the Triathlon. PLEASE sponsor him!

I'm organising a trip for our home ed group to go to the View Tube on the Olympic site which is exciting! I haven't organised an outing for a while so it's a bit nerve wracking but it seems to be really popular and we've already booked two days, with some 70 people taking part!

How Does My Garden Grow?

Growing in my garden at the moment:

Yellow beetroot (I've also got ordinary beetroot growing but they aren't as big)Thyme - this plant is from my original bought some 10 years ago and split and taken with me in three house moves!

Sweet Cherry Tomatoes (I have two other varieties to come yet)Summer cabbages

Strawberries
Mixed salad leaves (sown by Josh)
Two rows of carrots that were sown second, but in trays (I know you aren't meant to do that, but we did in our gardening club - and they survived transplanting!). I have another two rows that are just poking through the surface - having been sown direct into the soil about 5 weeks agoRocket
Early potatoes

Sweet PeppersMint (in a pot, otherwise it takes over everything!)

Coriander
Brocolli (with chives planted between the rows in order to help keep away pests)
Window sill chilli peppers (background) and basil (foreground). The basil germinated in 2 days!

Wednesday afternoon a friend took me out for lunch, to lift my spirits, and also ended up talking me into letting them dye my hair! Actually the afternoon of having my hair coloured, washed, dried and styled was really nice. Surrounded by males, I'm not used to any sort of "pampering" so having a young girl friend offer to give me a "girly" afternoon was quite a novelty :-)

Thursday was spent in the garden, finishing the work Roarke had started on clearing the shed and setting up the replacement play equipment.

(hang on, just going to take a photo to upload...)

Ok, I took more than one!

This is the 9ft by 15ft space we've gained at the end of the garden, behind the trampoline.

We've put in the new climbing frame and slide that we got given by Argos. Roarke's triathlon bike is going to be fixed onto the fence behind, out of the way.

Mum gave us a tool tidy which I've put all my garden tools into. We're going to use the old wooden garden table to cut to make a roof to go over it as we found a green garden table behind the shed when we took it down, and it is in better condition than our poor old table!



In the other corner you can see the old table, which we are going to use :-)

There is also an old builder's wheelbarrow left over by the workmen who did the house.

Mum gave us her old tool shed, which I've put all my hand tools, pots, and bags of seed compost in to.

We intend to turn around the trampoline net so that the opening is on the side where this play area now is, as it is higher than the middle part of the garden and therefore they will be able to step onto the trampoline instead of having to climb up each time. It should make it safer for Jonathan to get on and off himself.
I realised when I went out to take these photos that I could now take one from the end of the garden looking towards the house.

The green handrail of the slide is just in shot, giving you an idea of where I was standing. Looking through the trampoline you can't see the middle part of the garden, with all my vegetables growing, but you can see how the back of the house is in full sun all day.

I keep thinking I need to grow a grapevine up that wall...

The window on the bottom left of the house is the kitchen (you can just make out the second window), and the door.

Above that, is Josh's room. To the right you can just see the window for William's room, looking out over the flat roof of the kitchen extension.

The window at the top, where the grey tiling is, is Samuel's room - he's in the loft conversion.

This is the lovely little playhouse that Jonathan now has.

During the day he takes his cooker out there, together with all his toy food.

We had another home ed family over yesterday, with three young children, and the older two of them enjoyed playing "McDonalds" (of course!) with Jonathan and William, with Samuel as "delivery man".

I love how home ed allows kids to play whatever they want - regardless of age. Let's be honest, as adults, we often envy the kids playing with their toys!

I've sown some more seeds, so that hopefully the seedlings will be ready to plan out by the time I've got some space in the veg patch once I have thinned things out.

I'm also really concerned that the cabbages will end up with one of the very many diseases or pest infestations that they are prone to... I've always avoided growing them before now for that reason.

I've grown other brassicas before, and so I'm hopeful...

Anyway, if the pigeons, or catapillars, or anything else gets them, then I'll just pull them up and put something else in its place!

Do you notice how, as the cover for this is torn, I've added bubble wrap (saved from various deliveries we've had) to add insulation?! Very frugal I thought :-)

On the bottom I've got some seedlings for another home educator in our gardening group, and the tomato plants I received in exchange for my cabbage seedlings via freecycle.

Above that there is a tray of beetroot, and a tray half with salad leaves and half with lambs lettuce (my favourite!). On the top is a tray half full of french beans with the other half sown with basil seeds. The other tray is Josh's salad leaves. The middle two little pots have peppers in them - which have finally come through! That took about 4 weeks. I grew them once before, when we lived in Chatham, rather unsuccesfully so I'm hoping this sunny patio will make a difference this time.

Of course there has still been baking :-)

Today I made some oatmeal and raisen gf cookies, and yesterday there was another delicious gluten free briocheWhat have the boys been up to, I hear you ask? Well Josh started another sailing course yesterday. It is aimed at those in the group who have completed up to Level 3 sailing and it should end with them gaining their level 4, and getting a go at competetive sailing.

It helped fill a void left by drama - his teacher unable to get back from Australia due to the volcano.

Samuel has mainly been on his computer. We need to find a way to get him outdoors more as he's looking quite sallow :-( He's had a massive growth spurt and is now taller than Josh by some 2cm, and is only a few centimetres behind me now!

William still has a mark left from where he skidded and fell against the side of the car 2 weeks ago when we were at a friend's farm. We're concerned that he actually did some real damage so I think a trip to the GP will be in order this week. It is SO hard with ASD kids as his sensory processing issues means, as I've mentioned before, that major injuries don't seem to bother him yet he'll scream and moan over a scratch... It is hard to believe he could have broken his cheek bone or somesuch and not have said more about being in pain but... I just hope the GP is understanding.

Jonathan is still super cute. He's sitting with his arm slipped through mine as I type this, playing with my peg bag and watching Winnie the Pooh :-)

Gardening

I feel like I've been paying for my two lovely days of self indulgence, because I got up this morning to the realisation of a very long list of things to do!

I managed to get done most of the things I needed to do in the garden. I planted out another 12 cabbages (and put the remaining 12 on freecyle), 6 more broccoli plants, and the pink fir apple potatoes, and sowed another row of carrot seeds.

My chilli peppers are through, so I potted them on. I also planted the french beans I received courtesy of the BBC Dig It offer, as well as the basil seeds that they sent.

I've just got enough room left for the courgettes - the tomatoes will all have to go into pots!

My thyme is picking up lovely now that I have put the pot into a sunnier position, and the mint and chives are coming up.

Roarke started to take the shed down today. It isn't watertight and is very old, and the landlord said we could do what we like with it so... When he was loading some of it into the car to take to the dump, he saw a tree felling truck pull up at the traffic lights by our house. On the spur of the moment he went over to ask them to quote on taking down the tree at the bottom of our garden (next to the shed, which are both behind the trampoline). The men turned the truck around and came straight in to have a look and offered us a half price cash deal if we could say yes there and then. It was very convenient to say yes, and so within barely 45 minutes the tree was out.

Not only has this added more sun to the garden (which is south facing and sunny anyway), but also it has shown us just how much wasted space was down there. The garden is about 15 foot wide, and the area behind the trampoline is easily 8 foot I'd say.

The question is what to do with it?

The area is raised, where the sloping garden was terraced, and edged with railway sleepers. It would be really hard work to dig it all out and therefore be able to move the trampline back towards the end. The other option is some new play equipment. Argos offered us children's garden play equipment up to the value of the climbing frame that they recalled (as it was faulty/useless), so we've got a new slide and climbing frame that would fit down there.

However, looking at the area, it would be lovely with a canopy, some trellis, fairy lights.... a lovely night time nook...

The slide and swing that Argos have sent are going in Mum's garden. The remaining item is a little outdoor playhouse that we've put up on the patio and Jonathan has moved in to ;-)

Life Stages

We're really packing it into the days this week!

On Friday Samuel and Josh went to a friend's house from 11am till 8pm. Whilst they were out, we took William and Jonathan over to meet with Vicki and the boys, and we went for a walk/pond dip and general hanging out in the sunshine.

Saturday, Samuel went out for the whole day with his friend Alex, for Alex's birthday. They went to the Comedy Club for Kids in London, then for a meal, then back to Alex's until after Dr Who in the evening. By all accounts Samuel had a great day.

Sunday was church, with Roarke taking part in the second drama of a series that they are running during April. It sees him in his soldier's uniform, playing the part of "Brad", an actor... as you can imagine he is getting a lot of laughs :-)

On Monday we had a family day out with our friends and their children. We went to Greenwich to the Royal Observatory, and then had a picnic in the park - despite the somewhat artic winds blowing across the hill! We then went back to their house (to warm up!) and relax. A really really lovely day.

The rest of this week so far has been a mixture of business, charity work, family stuff, and generally rushing around.

April is of course a really bad month for me, and as always I am mentally and emotionally spending most of my time thinking about this time back in 2006. This weekend will be my 40th birthday, and that added "life stage" kind of atmosphere is, I guess, making my grief sharper this year.

We had hoped to have a party at a hall, but for various reasons this has been downgraded to having friends over on Saturday for a buffet lunch. Just as the kids always get to chose their "party food" for their parties, I've decided what we're eating on Saturday - and it is all my favourites! This means everything is either meat or cheese based (savoury) or meringue, fudge or toffee based (if sweet).

I'm hoping peope are going to be able to bring food, but I'm doing the bulk of the catering myself. I'm making it all gluten free as not only is my coeliac brother coming, but also obviously two of my boys are gluten free, and two other guests are gluten free.

It also kind of feels fitting to me, in Dad's memory :-(

At the last count I had 14 adults and 22 children coming...

I've just started the preparation. A beef joint is marinading for 24hrs now in red wine, thyme and rosemary from the garden, garlic and shallots. I'll slow cook that tomorrow, then slice it for the table. I've also made my first batch of gf dough, making some olive oil bread.

This is the view from one of my kitchen windows:
I love this photo as it manages to encapsulate most of who I am and where I'm at right now.

Two measuring scales (a necessity with all this baking), a batch of gf dough provingin the sunlight, potatoes chitting, windowsill chilli seedlings, two pot plants each a gift from friends visiting for dinner.. then looking out into the garden the left hand walled flower bed has crocosmia bulbs coming up at the back, then strawberry plants, then a few primulas at the front for colour. The black seat is off Freecycle (of course!), and the table is 8 years old and on its last legs (literally!). Behind that is my new vegetable patch with garlic, cabbages, brocolli, carrots, beetroot and leeks all in the little patch that you can see, and edged with spring bulbs inherited with this house. And of course the trampoline :-)

Gardening

When we moved in here the landlord said that we could do whatever we wanted with the garden.

We've got a lovely sunny patio, and the middle section of the garden was just a lawn (an old leaky shed is on the very top bit). We put our trampoline at the end of the garden and just left the grass.

Four weeks ago we decided to dig up the lawn to make room for vegetable and flower beds. I've left a one metre grass pathway that leads from the steps of the patio to the trampoline. The rest is mine!I'm really happy with how it is looking. The soil has been turned over regularly, and raked to a reasonably fine tilth.


I found a number of bulbs when I dug up the lawn and turned everything over, and so I planted them around the edges of the new vegetable patch.

Happily, these have turned out to be white campanulata, miniature daffodils and the others are yet to show me what they are!

This has given a little colour to the garden, along with twelve mixed coloured primula that I got from the garden centre opposite us.

I've also salvaged some sedum and one hebe (as well as two rose bushes) from the ragedy stuff that was here when we moved in.

The strawberries we inherited have been successfully split and are now coming away lovely.




Also, as well as garlic and early potatoes, the garden now has cabbage, broccoli, leeks, two types of beetroot and LOTS of carrots growing.

I've also got rocket and coriander in tubs.

The two sets of potatoes planted by our gardening group as part of the Potatoes for Schools initiative are both through.