A Spring day at The Larches....

Mahoosive spawn this year

'Hello Grass, it's been a long muddy winter..'

Nigella seedlings

 

Broad Beans... delicious young

 

Perpetual Spinach

Lupin for colour this year

 

Figs are growing well

 

Chooks a'chookin'

Delightful Caramel

Shadow and her shadow

Bracken

Fudge and Darcy

Annabel (the Boss)

Hot-bed of yucky love stuff - hence the spawn!

My most sincere apologies if you can't see the pictures above ...(you're missing out!) Something to do with Apple / Explorer interface??? In order to rectify this, click here and you will be magically transported to my blog. Thanks for stopping by. Why not leave a comment, I'd love to chat with you. xx

Batteries low and being head-butted....

We've almost made it to spring....

I feel as if I'm crawling toward spring, I'm tired and feel sure my wellingtons have rubber fatigue too. It has been a funny week, warm temperatures, low wind, a definite promise of better, more consistent weather. However, last night we had more monsoon rain, yay! and this morning the fields that were beginning to dry out were sodden again.

Stuff is appearing in the greenhouse, on windowsills and, more gratifyingly, in the beds and borders planted over the past four years. Herbaceous perennials like astrantia, lupins and hydrangea are now able to compete with the grass thanks to hubby and I battling. We should have some wonderful flowers this year. I constantly check in with The Flower Farmer at Common Farm for hints and tips on growing British flowers, she is a goddess, check her out if you can.

Hope you're not eating while reading this: One of our alpaca mums has an enormous pus-filled spot on her face that I'm cleaning daily. [Did I mention I'm from St John's Wood!!] According to the vet who came out on Saturday, it's likely she was spiked by a blackthorn in the hedge which then turned nasty. The 11yo, who has expressed an interest in being a veterinarian, (I'm light-headed with the thought of the cost-savings,) was an excellent nurse and handed swabs, as the vet disgorged a tablespoon or more of goo from a held, but nonetheless compliant, alpaca. The 9yo meanwhile, was no-where near this carnage.

Yesterday I was head-butted by a giddy baby alpaca. All fun here at The Larches. I've been gently stroking the younger members of the pack in order to get them used to us. Next month I plan to start halter training..... should be hilarious... anyhoo, Fudge, Caramel and Shadow think the 'touching game' is great fun and delight in kicking their legs, tossing heads and running about each time I manage even the slightest caress. I was just reaching for Fudge yesterday when she anticipated my move and with one great giddy bounce, she managed to butt my nose with the top of her head. Lordy did my eyes stream. Hope I don't get black eyes, I'm supposed to be at a black tie do this weekend, though I guess the colour would be in keeping!

I've made pork cassoulet for tea with pinto beans and smoked bacon, plus home-made crusty bread. I very roughly followed this Hairy Biker's recipe. Fancy popping over?... xx

Salad Days

Pssst! Wanna know something great? Wanna save some money Mrs? Do you, do you?

Well, first you'll have to find yourself one of those supermarkets, Aldi or similar, where they sell cut-and-come-again lettuce in the little punnets. In the Aldi nearest me, a mere 15 miles away, they sell a windowsill version for 79p. I kid you not, there must be 50 baby lettuces in this plastic container. If you have little or no space in the garden you might want to pick up a bag of compost from the store too at a cost of approximately £1.99. So that's £2.78.

When you get home feel free to snip away and have a lovely salad for tea or you could leave these juvenile leaves intact and instead, gently prise the plants apart at the roots. Then either dot them around the garden, ideally in a moist, sunny spot, or cut a long rectangle in your compost bag and plant your lettuce seedlings in there.

Water well and within days you'll have healthy little lettuces, without the bother of raising seedlings yourself. You can pick these leaves by snipping with a scissors at their base and, quite wonderfully, the little stub that is left, (apologies if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs,) will regrow its leaves within a week or so. Lettuce for all summer if you're clever...... and how much is a full lettuce? Well in various supermarkets I found lettuce heads from 57p (for a round lettuce) and £1 (for an iceberg.) With my method a single lettuce head could cost as little as 5p, if you're using a growbag and a whopping 1p if you're not. Not bad eh?

Still got to buy the salad cream, obviously.

Yum.

[By the way, I'm not on a retainer for Aldi, this is me, a nerdy customer/gardener, shopping wisely.]

Tea Leaves....

Hmmmmm... Lou at Larches is a teensy-weensy bit cross...

The Larches barns are filled with accumulated clutter. Some items are required and some items really need a new home or depositing at the dump.... Oh, ‘scuse me, it's not called the dump anymore is it? It's the recycling centre or, worse still, the sustainability centre!!?? .....Anyhoo back to the point of this ramble...

I was rooting about in the barns, climbing over the sproglets’ bikes, the builders' stash and the leftover rabbit entrails kindly discarded by the cats, when I came upon a particularly nice example of twentieth century design; an MFI cabinet in that delicious wood effect veneer with sliding glass doors, c. 1970. Lov-erly.

Knowing full well what the local auction house would think of my latest piece of period furniture... [...our Ikea phase has recently been disposed of in this manner and I’m fairly sure that the auctioneer did a 'smell' face when he saw it. Subsequently it took several sales before a gullible discerning bidder was found.] I decided against this route this time.

Eureka! Thought I, bearing in mind that I am now top totty authority (numero 24 y’know) on Gardening matters, according to ebuzzing The Global Platform for Social Media Advertising. Oh yeah...

I thought, I know, I shall have a retail outlet for The Larches.....

It’s an honesty cabinet and so far Wyevale Nurseries or indeed any other garden centre need not fear for their livelihood... Situated at the bottom of the bridlepath, I started out by stocking it with some rather delightful strawberry plants, then I added some pots of herbs and then some rather delectable perennials.

In the beginning the children were thrilled to note that a pot of perennials had been removed only to be replaced by a shiny 50p and having made at least £2.50 in three weeks.... wit-ta-woo, I decided to expand production into jam.... [and yes, I have had an Environmental Health visit to pass my kitchen actually... and he was mightily impressed. Smug.]

Within a week, five jars of jam had been stolen! Out-bloody-rageous!

Last week someone took two huge pots filled with flowering strawberry plants. In return they left me some Spanish coins dating from before the Euro!

Yesterday two good sized lupins, raised from seed by me, were also nicked. Sheesh...

It’s a flipping honesty table, not a free for all!

Fortunately I know some lovely army chaps and their wives have very kindly volunteered them to lie in the ditch for the foreseeable future with their gorgeous foliage hats. They will then muller the tea leaves who feel my MFI cabinet is like Tesco but without the paying bit! Marvelous what your taxes will pay for.......

Silent Sunday at The Larches

Cold but stunning

Best place for dust baths for the girls..



Fat new Buff Orpington girl

Come on Spring!

Mrs Bradshaw Geum

Sweet Pea