Quack Quack, and some cool progress

So this morning as we left for work (the thing that forces this to be a part time occupation) we noticed a couple of ducks in our pond!! It was REALLY windy last night so I can only presume that they had been blown off course in the night and taken a rest stop (they aren't here now after work which has gutted me no end!) but anyway, I jumped out the car and took a few quick snaps, the best of which is below...

Just think, if they'd stopped here I could have had my own crispy fried duck in pancakes later in the year ;)

Anyway, enough of that, I have my progress pics of growth in the last week, and there is some good stuff to be seen here :)

So, following (labels below the pictures)

Stuttgarter Giant Onions - these are going great guns... amazing progress :)

Karmen Onions - not such great progress, but considering they took a good few weeks longer to show any green at all, I'm happy they are now coming on strong.

Red Sun Shallots - they have really come on well, though it looks like two of the bulbs(?) have not germinated at all. Oh well.

Casablanca Garlic - the first to green, and now pretty static. I'm interested to see what spurt they put on as the weather warms up.

My Coxes Apple Tree - really showing some signs of blossoming :) so so exciting to watch this every day!

And last but not least, the herb garden. Again, doing very well for having VERY little attention.


I have been watering these every other day during the sunny period we had over the last couple of weeks, though the storms last night deposited enough water that I shouldn't need to water them for a bit.

My potatoes are not showing any green at all (hence no photographs - if you want to see what they look like then please review an earlier post ;)...)

I've also planted some chillis given by a friend, but they have not shown anything yet and I think the fact I don't have a warm place to germinate them (or a greenhouse for them) is maybe going to make that a failure. My greenhouses are on their way though so hopefully I'll have another look at them when I receive a house for them.

I've been very lazy last week or so, since the last blast of digging! I did feel very guilty while out just now though, I really should finish the digging of my beds and plant some more stuff.

But that is the reality of being a part time homesteader, sometimes the garden takes a back seat.

Hopefully next entry I'll be telling you about a pleasant time spent weeding and digging again.

Peace.

A weekend of digging...

So I spent all Saturday digging, and started doing so on Sunday (until the weather tempted me too much to lay on the grass reading and relaxing....

But before my laziness took over, I managed to extend the vegetable patch half way across the back of the garden, and also started a couple of feet of patch on the right hand side to extend it back towards the house.

So a few pics coming up, starting with my new pride and joy, the light of my life:

My new All Steel Spade (buy one yourself here)

The All Steel Spade as I'm about to use it :)

This is how the bed looked after Friday evening's effort

And this is at the end of Saturday... that was HARD work!

The view of the garden on Sunday early morning (note the light frost.... oooh don't kill my veg nasty mr frost!)

And the view just now showing the extended bed to the left of the picture, and the tiny little start to the right hand bed. I will be planting potatoes and carrots in the left hand bed tomorrow after work.


So, this weekend I have really gone for it, proving the even for a Part Time Homesteader sometimes you DO need to put a lot of effort in for prep.

Growing Progress

My onions, shallots and garlic are growing really well :)

So, while I am dig dig digging for the rest of the vegetable patch this'll have to keep your avid interest in my garden at bay for another day or so.....

The Stuttgarter Giant Onions

The Karmen Onions

The Red Sun Shallots

The Casablanca Garlic

The Apple Tree budding... oooooh YEAHHH!!

Right, I'm going to go outside for another whole day of digging.  The new All Steel Spade is epic, but this is really hard work as I'm having to dig through turf and pull out a large amount of roots and glass and metal and plastic and whatever crap has been buried when the garden was laid.

Remembering the purpose of this blog, I think this is something to add to the lexicon of knowledge about Part Time Homesteading - if you have prepared ground then it's very easy to do this part time however, as soon as you need to do what I'm doing now you need to be able to dedicate hours and hours to digging and breaking ground in prep. The good news is that next year it won't be as hard to prepare for growing.

Dig Dig SNAP!

The best laid plans and all that...

Today I decided to try and dig out a bit more of the garden to make space for more potatoes, maybe some carrots and parsnips and certainly some horse radish for my house mate... 

this is what I was digging out.

And this is what happened! You know when you don't know your own strength :D

Of course I got the plant out and have a little more of a vegetable garden to go at, once I've gone and bought myself another (better made) spade.

Digging, and planting, potatoes

So another nice weekend day, and another load more digging. I managed to turn over this entire plot to a depth of about 2 foot, and removed a load of glass, weeds, roots and stones. This plot contains Maris Peer potatoes, which I've never heard of but hopefully will provide a good crop of tastiness.

I have another load of potatoes yet to plant, but I need to dig roughly the same again somewhere else in the garden and, bizarre as it may sound, I'm running out of space where I can do that.

Watch this space...

Digging for potatoes

While appreciating the progress made in the onion/garlic bed I decided to target the next bed, for carrots and potatoes. I have a lot more space around this area but I've dug a small-ish bed at first.I also have three old tyres so I can test which works best, a dug out bed, or fake deep bed in the tyres. Watch this space

Pre-any-dig.

First-earth-break.

The first bed dug.

Now to find some carrots and potatoes to plant

Green Shoots

It was a lovely fresh day today, so I went to check on my existing growing things and, JOY OH JOY!! we have some green shoots :) so some pictures have been taken.

The herb garden, fruitful as ever

Garlic starting to sprout through!

Garlic making itself known

Some crocuses(?) that have just start appearing around the garden

Lovely sun on the grass, new veg plot being done on the right near the orange wheel barrow

Gorgeous day, gorgeous garden.