the green gal

My weekend

I got lots of non-work 'stuff' done this weekend. Like many self-employed, small business owners, I can get absorbed in my work so I find myself with no time to do chores and jobs around the house. But then they build up over time and nag at the back of my brain until I just need to get on and do them! So, this weekend, as well as the usual chores, I did some gardening including transplanting leeks, and sorted through the mess that is my wardrobe. After filling four carrier bags of shoes and clothes for recycling and another four bags of clothes and, er, bags, for the charity shop I have a much tidier wardrobe. It feels like I've created a bit more space in my head too. I wanted to get some jobs done before Christmas really starts to kick in and I feel like I can concentrate better now that I've got them out of the way. Perhaps the weather is making me want to do the autumn version of a spring clean!

Above is a snap of some personalised fabric bunting I made for a friend this weekend. I haven't sewn in quite a while so it felt good to flex my creative muscles in a different area. She's giving the bunting to a relative as a gift so I just hope they all like it! 

How many foods can you grow in one small garden?

That's what we shall discover this year! This year we have decided to try growing a wider variety of vegetables but all in tiny amounts. Because of the rubbish weather we've had in our patch of the UK we're really behind in our planting so, a couple of evenings ago, we took a trip to the garden centre, and then got busy! (That's my studio at the far end and our dog, Georgie, not posing for the picture.)

So, we have a courgette plant, a pumpkin plant and a few French beans in stack of tyres. Usually potatoes grow in these but we've decided to try something else this year. In the two beds we have salad leaves, spinach, carrots, parsnips, red onions, salad onions and leeks. There are a variety of tomatoes in three pots, plus spare carrot plants went into an old watering can. Two hanging baskets hold strawberry plants and lots of herbs are in various containers too! 

On the mostly shady side of the garden we have our wild flower patch (throw a few packets of wild flower seeds onto soil and this is the result). I'm not great at identifying flowers but I think we have poppies, buttercups, pink campion and nettles, among other pretties. We keep the nettles because they provide aphids for insects to chomp on, plus I might try making nettle tea this year. We also added lavender, chive, mint and borage plants a few years ago which are happily mixed in with the wild flowers. And I can tell you the bees and butterflies LOVE this patch! Which is one of the reasons we planted it, but my word, they can't get enough of the lavender and borage!

I dream of having a big enough garden for chickens but this will do for the moment. Are you growing any food this year? Perhaps you have some top tips you can share, would love to hear if you do!

Do you know your wildlife?

Before the weather went weird and snow started falling around the UK I was enjoying seeing various wildlife visit my little garden. I don't seem to be able to fill up the bird feeder fast enough and lots of bees have been methodically working their way through the plants that have started to flower. My first butterfly of the year fluttered by me on a dog walk last week, making me disproportionately happy!

So, it got me thinking about identifying the different creatures visiting my neighbourhood and I've found a few websites which can help me, and you, do this. 

Butterfly Conservation's website has heaps of info on moths and butterflies plus tips on how you can help the winged creatures, as well as their identifier.

Then there is the splendid RSPB website with their very nifty bird identifier, as well as lots of info about the bird you can also listen to their call.

I've been mistaking wasps for honey bees so I've already found Bumblee Conservation Trust's identifying section on their site v useful. Check out the gardening for bees advice too, lots of lovely plants that will look great in your windowbox or garden will help out the declining population at the same time. 

Who knew there are so many different types of ladybird? Not me! I came across this ladybird picture sheet from the UK Ladybird Survey, courtesy of a tweet by Brigit Strawbridge, a champion of taking care of the environment and everyone who shares it.  

I hope you found these links useful, wildlife watching might make a fun activity to do with (or without) the kids over the Easter weekend…

The joys of just doing stuff

It's been a little bit all work and no play around these parts recently so I decided today I would take a few hours out from making to do some nice stuff instead.

So, off I went and bought some pretty flowering bulbs and cut flowers. I've repotted the plants in various 'containers' I have around the house, I don't suppose tea pots and gravy boats are what Gardener's World would recommend but I think they look good!

(Have you spotted my fab new phone behind the primroses? I finally got my hands on a reproduction 1950s telephone with rotary dial and everything! So retro I love it.)

I've seen pics of fresh Spring flowers on several of my favourite blogs so decided I need to cheer up my home with bunches of tulips and narcissi too. And yes, that is a vintage thermos flask the narcissi are sitting in. 

Following my spot of gardening I had the urge to bake! So knocked up these cookies in just a jiffy. Think I need to watch my portion control, my dollops of cookie mixture were so big they merged into each other – I wouldn't have scored highly on the Great British Bake Off. 

So, along with the other not so interesting domestic activities, I've had a rather nice day. Back to the grind this evening though, at least I have pretty posies too look at while I work. Hope you've had a fab weekend too.

Five lovely things 4

Oops, I'm a bit late with this week's five lovely things post, I was distracted by a certain event which took place on my usual five lovely things posting day!

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And that event is at No1 – the gorgeously wonderful Royal Wedding. I don't think I need say much more, or show lots of photos, it exceeded everyone's expectations and I loved watching it with my friends at a Royal Wedding house party. The modern take on the traditional Royal Wedding with the vintage inspirations were just brilliant, sigh.

For No2 I want to say how touched I am that so many people entered my competition to win an extra-long length of paper bunting. I'm sorry I can't give you all a bit of free bunting love!

No3 is that my love of pinterest continues and inspired by the Royal Wedding I've been busy pinning pics of style icons from a bygone era. You can see the above board and more of my pins here.

At No4 is the fact I have a week off the day job so can spend days and days working on the green gables and hopefully soak up a little sunshine too. 

And at No5 is the joy of being in the garden planting veggies! As well as my first early potatoes I've also planted some mixed salad leaves, red onions, spring onions and leeks in our two veg beds. Our garden is v small so we don't have room for much more. On the shady side of the garden is our wildflower bed and that's sprung back into life in the last couple of weeks. We have lavender, forget-me-nots, marigolds, some other plants I've yet to identify, as well as some herbs – I've even got some chive flowers in bloom! And although it feels a bit weird I'm letting a small patch of nettles grow as I know they're really good for bees, butterflies and insects. I may even try making nettle tea…

In case you're interested, you can find out more about how to help butterflies and bring them into your garden here, and the same for bees here.

Five lovely things 3 + giveaway

It's Good Friday and Earth Day so I'm spreading the joy today – five lovely things and a little treat…

No1 goes to the plethora of bluebells. They seem to have all come into bloom at the same time and dog walks are even lovelier because of the purple carpets on show. I'd love to have bluebells in my garden…

This pic was snapped on our dog walk yesterday

No2 is for the gorgeous reaction I've had to my new star-shaped paper bunting! Especially love that mummies of little boys are extra pleased :)

For No3 I will be planting my seed potatoes in their old car tyre towers today. I know I've left it a bit late but we went from frosts to 20º heat so quickly I'm playing catch-up. Still need to decide what else I'm planting in the veg beds…

A previous year's potato stack, will be a while before this year's are as tall!

No4 goes to spending time with friends and family. Last weekend we had the hubbie's brother to stay and then had dinner with some friends, and this weekend we have more friends to stay. And seeing friends usually means consuming lots of extra tasty food which is always a good thing!

And No5 has to go to you – a length of the green gables bunting is up for grabs! The lucky winner can pick an extra long length of paper bunting from from my wildflower paper, coloured heart and coloured star ranges. That's 24 hearts or stars and five metres of bunting just for you!

Find the full range of paper bunting at the green gables

You can enter in several ways for more chances to win:
• sign up to the green gables newsletter
• leave a comment below
• follow me on twitter @thegreengal and retweet the giveaway
• become a fan on facebook and like the giveaway post

The giveaway closes on Thursday 28 April. Now, which bunting would you choose… Good luck! 

(If you can't wait to find out if you've won the giveaway and have to have your own piece of the green gables loveliness asap, you can take 20% of with the code FBWL20. And in case you missed it, I've added to my range of paper bunting with something for the romantics, find more here)

Potato-tastic

I'm so pleased with my crop of second early potatoes that I wanted to share them (or at least a pic of them) with you! It may not look much in the enormous bucket but I counted 38 usable potatoes, and a couple of teeny not so useful ones.

Last year's crop wasn't this good and as I didn't get to plant maincrop tubers due to the garden studio builders taking over the garden this is it for potato growing this year.

Rooting around in the soil-filled car tyres and finding the pale gems of potatoes waiting to be discovered is so rewarding! I can't tell you how much I love growing our own food and knowing exactly what went into the food on our plates. The money we save is a big help too.

And in case you fancied a giggle, without me knowing the hubbie took a picture of me picking a few red onions…

In case you're wondering why I'm in such an odd position, we had to put up a wire fence to keep the doggie out of the veg beds and so I have to straddle it, placing a foot in between rows every time I need to get in there! We'd just come back from walking said inquisitive dog in the fields, hence the heavy duty footwear.

In other areas, the strawberries are totally finished, tomatoes are growing but a few yellow and brown branches look ominous, a few of the red onions have lost their stalks, and we have more salad leaves and salad onions than can cope with!

How's your veg and fruit growing going?

A little garden party

At the weekend we had a few friends over for a little garden party. Our tiny garden scrubs up quite nicely with a few veggies and flowers growing, plus some bunting decoration, do you think?

Where I find gardening help

So, the sun is shining and the sound of garden centre tills is ringing in the air, it's time to get gardening! I've already made a start on some of my veggies – first and second early potatoes are in as well as red onions and a couple of rows of spring onions and leeks. This weekend I added the first row of salad leaves and also bought a couple of flowering plants to help attract bees and butterflies into the garden (and give them somewhere to feed). Following advice from the lovely chaps at Buckland Nurseries in Surrey, I went for Verbena and Veronica which will hopefully produce blue and pink flowers in a couple of months' time.

But enough about me, I want to take this opportunity to pass on some of the people, websites and books that I find hugely helpful in my growing attempts.

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Websites

growveg.com is a v clever website that lets you draw your plot, plan your crops (it automatically works out how much space you need for each), work out crop rotation and saves your plan so you can adjust and add to it over time. You can trial it for 30 days for free but then there is a fee of £15 for a year. Give it a go for the free period and see how useful you find it.

www.bbc.co.uk/gardening Whatever you need information on in life, the BBC can usually help and gardening is no exception. Whether it's veg growing or flowers or shrubs or anything soil related, this site is bound to provide you with some guidance.

Soil Association If you're interested in growing and eating organic food, then the Soil Association is the organisation for you. They are the sort of governing body of organic produce, not just food, and have a lot of info on eating healthily for yourself and the planet.

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People

The Alternative Kitchen Garden I found Emma as @akgpodcast on twitter and she's always been very patient giving me advice on my amateur gardening questions. Check out her podcasts on her site or look for a copy of her book.

Alys Flower is a newish presenter on Gardeners' World and, although she's not been a hit with some of the diehard fans, I think she's fab. She has a new show that started last week called The Edible Garden where she tries to grow as much of the food she eats as possible in her garden. Do take a look if you get a mo.

James Wong has also had a series on the BBC (I'm not on commission, honest, the Beeb just makes some really good programmes!), which I love, called Grow Your Own Drugs. It's not quite as debauched as it may sound, James tells viewers all about how to use plants to ease medical complaints. Even if you don't end up getting off the couch to make any of the potions, it's great telly and James' beaming enthusiasm is refreshingly cheering.

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People

Grow Organic is a Dorling Kindersley book, if you're familiar with this publishing house you'll know that every book they ever make is beautifully pictured and designed and has failsafe information. I find this book hugely useful as a relative novice and I'm sure the more experienced could make use of it too.

The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency is the bible of growing your own and going it alone. John Seymour was the founder of the self-sufficient lifestyle and from growing basic veg to having a smallholding, John is your man to help you.

Complete Guide to Gardening Season by Season This isn't a book for veg growers but for everything else growing in your outside space it's brilliant. By dividing up advice season by season it makes it easier to check what your garden needs to help bring out its beauty. 

So, those are just a few of the people and places that I find advice and inspiration in the gardening world. I hope they prove useful to you too. If you have any particular gardening gurus, I'd love to hear about them.

Breathe in the spring air

It's a beautiful day here, I hope the sun is shining where you are too. And, as is only fitting on a sunny spring day, I have been behaving in a most typically Sunday way.

1. Took the dog for a long walk in a nearby wood. Saw lots of little tufts of green leaves so hoping they'll turn into bluebells soon.

2. Went to the garden centre and bought lots of organic peat-free soil for our raised veggie beds. Last year we totally underestimated how much soil compresses down over time and our vegs didn't have enough soil to grow in. I've learnt my lesson, have thrown on lots more soil and will wait for it to settle down before sowing.

3. Planted my chitted first early seed potatoes in a low stack of tyres. This worked really well last year as you just keep adding soil and another tyre as the plants grow. Plus, it frees up the beds for other crops. I got my tyres from our local garage. The owner told me that all of their old tyres are recycled but growing potatoes in them sounded much more interesting! You can read here how I got on with my veggie endeavours last year.

4. Hung a load of washing outside on the line to dry, wind blown dry clothes are somehow lovelier than those which have air dried in the spare room.

5. Completely unrelated but I just spent a v enjoyable half hour photographing the reels of thread I bagged at my favourite antique/secondhand store yesterday. I already have wool that matches perfectly (no prizes for guessing my favourite colours) so snapped them too. I may not have photographed them outside in the spring air but the warm sunshine was flooding into the room making the light the best it's been for photo taking all year.

6. Will soon be off for another dog walk, then a read of the papers with a drink or two in the local pub, followed by a bowlful of homemade leek and potato soup at home. Pretty much a perfect Sunday! Hope your weekends have been equally or even more lovely.