A sneak peak of my garden today

Since my last post I have been very busy working in the garden at home which is looking really lovely this year.  It's great to have got on top of things and having got everything under control again.

This time last year, Mr Lottie was very very seriously ill, and awaiting a life saving operation - so gardening and the allotment didn't feature too highly on my list of things 'to do'.   It was all that I could manage to do the basics.

The lawns are looking good (I did some weeding and feeding which has improved them) and of course the chooks work hard fertilising them eating the bugs!

I bought some wire edging fencing for around most of the beds, and much to the chooks disgust, it has so far foiled all their plans to use the beds as dust baths.

 Just a glimpse of some of the many flowering plants this week

 The Alstromeria are doing well this year

 I have different shades of yellows and other colours dotted around

 I have a couple of urns of succulents which are, at last, growing this year

 We went away to York for 5 days and whilst we were away the Phormium sprouted two flower stalks!

 Just on of several clematis flowering their hearts out

 One side of 'Kath's Garden' flowering alongside the garden room

lots more to flower yet too

 Pretty pink cranesbill geraniums

 

Just a glimpse of my blue border

I have been working hard up the allotment today so that's all for tonight.

More catching up to do tomorrow.

We escaped our nasty neighbour's howling dog for a few days in York - such bliss!

Back to the howling today though - such stress

(click on photos to enlarge)

Thank you so much for visiting

Allotment updates :Me:21 hrs He:20 hrs

Well I have been labouring long and hard in the garden and up the allotment, and feel that at last I am finally 'on top' of things in both places.

 We had to cover the spuds as frost was forecast a couple of weeks ago

 The covers came off to reveal rows of thistle and dock weeds amongst the spuds and inbetween rows - which I have now weeded - it took ages

 Another day I started the long job of digging up weeds

 And dividing up the plot into more manageable sections

At least when I did that, it gave us much more 'job satisfaction

It might not look like it but it was backbreaking work over a number of days

 But it is more or less done now

 I weeded this today

Mr Lottie dug out some well rotted horse manure so that I 

could start planting pumpkins and courgettes

This is what it looks like now - after another three hours each today.

I came home with 2lbs of rhubarb and 1lb of gooseberries.  I covered up the gooseberries as I don't have many this year - I gave the bushes a good prune last year - so I don't

want 'tea leaves' stealing the small amount I have - the 'curtains' act as a deterrent!

Off to put my feet up for the rest of the evening

Allotment hours Me:12 He:11

,Well we don't have much to show for the hours we have spent up the allotment - mainly because it was all digging out big dock weeds - but just for my records - here are some before and after photos.               (Click on photos to enlarge)

Some of the weeds were waist high amongst the fruit bushes, 

so Mr L got stuck in straight away.

 We ended up with seven wheel barrows full of weeds!

 Whilst Mr l tackled the left side  amongst the bushes,

I weeded amongst the strawberries

and picked the rhubarb crop.

Well not just picked it, I topped and tailed the stalks

ready to take home for freezing

This is back plot (where we have the bonfire)

it's too much for me to manage now, so it's  been

rotorvated and covered to keep the weeds down.

The Comfrey plants are doing well - I will be cropping 

those soon for my compost bin, and using some for mulch.

It's hard to see - but all under and around the fruit bushes has been weeded

 I have thoroughly weeded around the strawberry plants and thinned them out

Picked, and topped and tailed all the rhubarb

 The lawns have been mowed and we are

 packing up to make our weary way home

 Did I mention that I weeded all around the  gooseberry

bushes and gave them a spray

Whilst Mr L was out bowling that night, I washed and cut

a trug full of rhubarb stalks - more than 14lbs of them.

Now packed in bags and frozen ready for next winter

YUMMY!

Boy did I ache though!

A bit of time in the garden

 When Mr Lottie has been playing golf or bowls

 I have been spending time in the garden.

Doing lots of weeding, spreading the gorgeous composted Chicken bedding,

digging it into the beds and 'just' pottering about.

I like spring time - seeing the blossom on the trees and the early spring flowers

and of course I can enjoy being outdoors a bit longer as there is not so much sunshine

On the right hand side along the path - the chickens favourite place for dust bathing
I have added raised beds on top, filled them with some of my fabulous 'home made' rich compost and using them permanently now as veggie beds - cutting down on the time that I spend up the lottie!

More photos to come - but they are coming along nicely.

I have planted carrots and lettuce

Self supporting peas and mange tout.

Love this poppy just about to explode into bloom!

 I have been very very busy picking rhubarb so not had a chance to take many photos or post on here of my work up the allotment - but will be playing catch up after the weekend.

Thank you so very much for visiting - I really appreciate it.

I have removed the option for folks to leave comments - purely because it was such a nuisance for you all having to type in those wretched moderation numbers to leave your comment and it's so frustrating when you can't always see the numbers clearly - and time consuming.  I can still see that you visit in the stats - thank you so very much.

He:9hrs Me:9hrs

Another busy morning today up the allotment.  Shane had mowed the lawns for me so that was one less job to do.

 Our compost bins which were full of horse manure

 grew thick thatches of grass on the top of them

 Mr Lottie kindly took on the task of weeding them!

Well the first one took three hours!

This is a job for him to do next time!

Meanwhile, I was busy doing other things. Weeding the end, and planting second early potatoes, and another row of main crop.

And constructing two more paths.

If my old bones will allow me, tomorrow I want to put the last of the spuds in and take some perennial flowers up there to plant.  At the moment it is 50/50 whether my old back will recover enough to let me. I am also keen to spray some horrendous dock weeds.  It is a yearly battle to dig them out every year - but this time I am trying a different tactic.

If I ache too much to work up there, then I will be doing some seed sowing at home.

These posts are just for my benefit so that I can look back each year to see what I was doing when!

R.I.P. Gozzie

My dearest and oldest little bantam Gozzie, passed away in her sleep overnight.

It came as rather a shock - only last week she was tapping at the back door because I was a bit later than usual putting them to bed with their evening meal - only 30 minutes late - it was 6pm instead of 5.30pm

Yesterday she spent almost all day sunbathing in the brilliant spring sunshine, scratching around in the gravel paths and getting lots of insects - and she even pulled a really big worm out of the lawn at 7am!

I am not sure of her age - she was at least 12+years old as she was one of my original bantams, together with Daisy who is still alive.  I am not sure of their age when I  bought them.

She gave us lots of pleasure, captivated us with her antics, and was the tamest, funniest teeniest little bantam you could ever wish for!  She fitted in the palm of my hand!

I am sad that she has passed away, but I am absolutely joyous that she has lived to such a grand age, and packed every single day free-ranging and enjoying the very best life and living conditions, in the company of a contented flock.

We are NOT amused!

Friday I turned a weed infested flower bed at the front

Into something smarter - and it should be a riot of colour in the summer.

I will need to pressure wash the slabs again to spruce it up even more!

But today these limp looking plants are all standing proud after a weekend of rain.

The day I did this work, a dear friend of mine living in France called me and we had a lovely long chat early evening.  The time flew past!

But some ladies were not amused!

They staged a door step protest because  I had completely forgotten that it was

way past the time for their evening meal!

They went on egg laying strike the next day!

2014 Allotment update.

My goodness we have been having some bad weather !  The Sahara 'smog' was bad in our area of Norfolk which prevented me from doing any work up my allotment last week - but there  has been progress over the weekend!

 This end of the allotment is ready to continue planting.

Just a little bit of weeding along the right hand edge 

where weeds are growing through the wire!

What a difference it has made getting rid of the runner bean posts which split up the plot, and made it more difficult to work.  And I have also got rid of the grass paths which were a

pain, at it was hard mowing along them.  Now I will pull up some more of the black rubber 'tread' (from the other end of my plot which we 'inherited' many years ago on this site together with enough rubbish to fill skips!) - and recycle them as paths up this end. 

 Easier maintenance and less work for me!

 I just need the rain to stop and the soil to dry out a bit so that I can finish planting the spuds!

Thank you for visiting.

Hours - He:3 Me:3

Well at last we have kicked off a new year up the allotment.  Mr Lottie has been very ill for a couple of years so posts and activity has been minimal.  Now thanks to life-saving surgery last year, he has bounced back and is getting fitter all the time.  So today it was pure joy to have him with me, making a start on the allotment.

 This is what it looked like before I started digging it over

Three hours later it looks so much better

Mr Lottie dug out all the weeds along the fence and we moved the heavy rubber 'path' over right to the edge.  I did make sure that he didn't dig up the daffodils - they look so pretty.

Meanwhile I dug over the bed and made the troughs for the potatoes

Started weeding the rest of the patch
but my back gave up before I could finish

We covered up  the weeded area to keep it clean
over the summer as I am growing more stuff at home now.

But I still have a big area to dig over in readiness for the squash -
which is twice as big as the above!