Yes, I realise it's nearly October, but technically we're still in September, so let's look back at August before we tick over into the next month, shall we? August has brought builders, and visitors, and an awful lot of garden-related neglect. The veg patch (and the great potato fiasco) Let's start with the veg patch. We have had some successes. I finally harvested some rhubarb, and made a couple of very tasty cakes, including one with custard baked inside the cake which I was very pleased with. It's so long ago now I can't tell you the recipe I used - I just did a search for 'rhubarb and custard cake' and used the most straightforward one. I had to make the custard first, let it go cold, then layer it in (carefully) with the cake mix. It was great. I also harvested most of the basil, and made a very excellent pesto that didn't make it anywhere near the freezer. I harvested a couple of potatoes, and a little bit of kale, and then... disaster (the kale disaster is a story for September though - something to look forward to). The potatoes got blight, and I didn't act quickly enough. I checked under the hay, and they looked ok, so I left them for a week, maybe even two, until a friend came and helped me harvest them (not a difficult job as they were just in old hay, not the ground). Some were damaged, but we salvaged plenty. We cooked some... and left the rest outside, where many of them very quickly went soft and rotten. I picked out the remaining good ones, boiled them ready to mash... and then forgot, so they had to go in the bin. Not my finest gardening moment. What a waste, both of potatoes and time. Also wasted were the loofahs and cucumbers, which didn't get enough water or attention over the summer, and overall came to nothing. I'll try again with loofahs though, this is the furthest I've got them yet so I'm hopeful for next year (assuming no global pandemics or ridiculous building work, that is). Anyway, moving on... Hay making August finally saw the start of the hay making. Every year I mean to start in July, and every year I don't. The first row this year was awful - I didn't cut the top third of the field at all last year, and it's lumpy and tussocky and difficult. For some reason I cannot scythe in a straight row at all. Things did get easier once I got a bit more into the swing of it, but this top bit is hard going (and I confess I still haven't finished even this top bit, and it's now nearly the end of September). No actual hay was made in August, mind you, but some of the grass did dry out a little bit. Visitors We had a few visitors in August, including a couple of people who stayed in tents, which was nice. I cleared a scenic spot for the first lot, an old friend and her young son, but the wind was so wild they ended up camping in a more sheltered bit of the garden instead. Still, they had lots of adventures while they were here, and we cooked our food over a fire one night which was very exciting, and in fact so cheerful that we've ended up doing it several times ourselves, even when we've been here on our own. The second visitor came on his own, and I warned him in advance he'd be expected to work. I met him on a conservation holiday sixteen years ago, and he showed the same enthusiasm for manual labour as he showed then - far more than me. We completely cleared all the grass and weeds from the edible windbreak, ready for the hay mulch, and then I let him loose in the field with the scythe. He made good progress, and while he was cutting, I was turning, so the first lot of cut grass dried out nicely (but then got wet again, so is very definitely being used as mulch, rather than stored as hay). Grand opening of the chicken run extension I painted the outside of the chicken run extension, and at the end of the first week of August, we held a Grand Opening, consisting of a quick cup of tea inside the extension itself with friends who'd helped us build it. It was as ridiculous as it sounds, but there's definitely a nice view from in there, and I did consider setting up my desk to work from there once the builders arrived... The arrival of the builders Yes, the builders did actually arrive in the last week of August, just like they said. We had a fair bit of preparation to do before they arrived - clearing both upstairs and downstairs, and sorting out the kitchen floor. Upstairs, we stripped the cladding from the ceiling so we can potentially use it in the bathroom, and so the builders can replace with plasterboard, and fix the hole in the ceiling where we removed the chimney over two years ago. Downstairs, we cleared everything out, and I re-grouted and polished the floor, as I re-lived in far too much painful detail in my last post. The builders themselves are lovely - we couldn't have hoped for better. They have been an absolute delight - although we're not used to having people in the house all the time and we're very ready for the whole thing to be finished. The first thing they did was order a skip, and a load of materials, some of which had to be pulled in through upstairs windows. They built a stud wall down one side of the bedroom, at which point we realised how much space it was going to take up if they did that on every wall (as they planned to), and how straight it would make all the walls... We had to have a re-think, which resulted in them stripping the old render off all of the other walls so they can put plasterboard directly onto the stonework. I wasn't sure about having the stonework exposed, it felt rather too much like we were living in just a pile of rubble, although I'm assured it's perfectly sturdy. Peter liked it, and I think would have happily left it like this (or at least just with a layer of plaster directly over the stone). So that's where we were up to at the end of August. Things have moved on now, of course, but I'll share that in September's update. What else? Overall August felt sociable, and quite busy. I had another two weeks off work, but in a fit of bad timing, the builders started the same day I had to go back to work (and the same day we had to take the two elder chickens to the vets for a check up - all well at the minute, thank goodness). Unhelpfully, the council started doing some major work down our little lane, so we are beset by power tools in the house and large machinery outside. Still, our trees are finally starting to show out of the tops of their tubes, which is pretty exciting considering they were only planted 10 months ago. We have had some lovely sunshiney days, and I have been making good use of our new bench at the end of the garden. I'll do a September update next week. I'll warn you, it contains much building work, and also yet more neglect of the garden. And not too much scything (although I suppose there are still a few days left to rectify that)...
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Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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