Weeding the Veggy Plot (by sarah)

Last night I decided that the courgettes had to be planted out - unfortunatly this ment I had to weed the veg plot first - so of I went. I got a bit carried away and weeded more area than I needed and went all faint and stuff but the veg plot is starting to look more respectable now and i think it counts as my aerobic excersise for the day 🙂

Unfortunatly the deer have desimated the peas so I just cleared the area they were in 🙁 But I also found several more potatoe plants I didnt know about 🙂

I've just taken 3 barrow loads of weeds to the compost heap! Full barrows too 🙂 I'm proud of myself 🙂

Of course the plot should never have been allowed to get in that state in the first place but as my health returns hopefully I'll be able to maintain things better 🙂

On the down side I've just found the magpies eating the butternuts - the little fruits were intermediate between ping pong ball and tennis ball and now they've been munched 🙁 - oh well I've already made ratatooey with courgettes from the compost heap (these are Babaras plants that she told us we could harvest from whilst shes away).

Salsify (by sarah)

The salsify are beginning to seed! When in flower they are a lovely purple dandilion type flower that only seems to open in the morning. Their name is supposed to be the corruption of the latin for 'follows the sun' I dont know if that is true but it sounds fesible. Anyway we like the to eat the roots which are tasty - basically thanks to the constriction of British tastes with all the rationing and stuff.

Unfortunatly the roots are only tender enough to eat the first year and becuase they have tended to seed themselves its not obvious which ones are old roots and which are new. Some of the roots are huge and ancient and as tough as old nials - I run on the supersition that if I cant get the knife to cut the roots easily from the roots then they are old tough ones that need discarding.

Now this plant is also could purple goats beard and the oster plant (as the root is supposed to taste like oster I dont think so as I dont like osters but I like this plant!). The seed heads are giant brown fluffy dandilion clocks - this is what I have been haversting.

The reason? Why not let them seed themselves?

We are fed up with digging up the old nails! Therefore we pull all the plants this year after they finish seeding and sow the seed ourselves insuring that we have all new plants and therefore yummy tender roots for us to consume. I am also sure that we are going to have far to many seeds - so if anyone whats them they are 50p for hundred seeds whilst stocks last! (erm p&p extra but hopefully you'll be visiting us! or we'll be visiting you!).

Even if you dont want to eat it its a lovely plant - with pretty purple flowers 🙂 Bring on the purple!!!! Also these plants were rare in the 70's so probably still are - I havent checked mind! Now these are cultivated plants not wild ones we've dug up or anything so we are not depriving the wild but if people like this type of old English rareness then this is the way to go. (this isnt ment to be a sales pitch I just love my veggies!)

Thinning the Parsnips! (by sarah)

What was I thinking!

I went to water the veg patch about 2 hours ago, noticed how big the parsnips were, thought, I'll just do some wedding around them and some how ended up thinning them and transplanting the leftovers!

Now I have a nagging feeling that parsnips dont transplant very well so most of the effort may have been in vain 🙁

Still next year we know to a)ignore the packet on how many to sow in a row and b) not to plant the radishes and salsify so near to the carrots and parsnips!

Still the garlic are taking root and I found a random mint plant in the patch - now if I can harvest it apropriatly it shouldnt take over and its a really nice tasting one too! (I'm not to hot on types of mint sorry guys!) That makes three types of mint I can locate in the garden now 🙂

Also we have loads of wounderful wild strewberries!!! Yum yum yum 🙂

Doing the Veg Patch! (by sarah)

Today we did some more clearing of veg patch and planted out the garlic and the celeriack, unfortunatly in the process we found an ants nest - so I was face with the moral dilema yet again of commiting genacide with a boiling kettle so that our food may grow. I'm sad especially as they had all their eggs and stuff which they were moving - so we made show we disturbed the ground lots to give them warning of the impending doom and hoped they moved and got the egg with the new queen in/recued the old queen out of their 🙁

I also potted up some parsley (yes more of the stuff I want to make parsley honey at some stage 🙂 ), coriander, and some globe artichokes 🙂 Then put out some more of the cherry tomatoes out into grow bags and some into pots - I still have excess which need potting out but I was having compost issues!

We also have wild strewberries growing and ordinary strewberries 🙂

In future if we have lots of a plant then we will happily let people have them for 10p a plant/pot when they visit or you can put in requests for Al to bring into London when he goes 🙂

Unfortunatly I also decided to pick nettles today not realising the gloves I was wearing werent stinging nettle proof 🙁 then I got attacked by flying insects and I found the ants nest becuase they all started bitting me and then I decided I had to recue all the poor worms they were attacking!

Of Olives and Watering Cans (by sarah)

Well I found a mystery partially crushed olive on the window sill in the kitchen - now me and Al have puzzeled over this - surely it is the one from the 'sink disastor' but how did it get there? It was undernieth stuff from before mum and dad came to visit! - roll on music from Fortean TV.

There there was the watering can - Babara kept asking me if it was difficult for me to fill the watering can up - I kept saying I always refilled it after use - this carried on with her getting annoyed that she had even given me a hose and I still hadnt bothered to refill and me getting really annoyed that she had obviouslly forgotten to refill it and then kept blaming me! However, it turns out that the watering can happened to have a slow leak! So it was fine if used shortly after being filled but not if left for any amount of time!