I absolutely love elderflower and when I drank the last of my shop brought and highly expensive cordial I decided that it would be far more satisfying to make my own. Now I have never foraged for elderflower before but after getting some advice and looking at lots of photograhs of the plant I decided to hop on my bicycle to fill my trailer up with elderflower. When travelling in my car down a country lane I passed lots of elderflower bushes, it was a 10 minute bicycle ride from my house so I headed that way to forage what I could. It looks like someone had beat me to it this year but I managed to use my height as an advantage and came home with a basket full of atleast 40 elderflower heads.
I decided to try and make some elderflower champagne aswell so as soon as I got home I got started by boiling 8 litres of water (which took forever!) I then put the sugar, boiling water, lemons, elderflower and the white wine vinegar into a large fermenting bin and its currently sitting in the kitchen waiting for the next stage.
I am going to tackle the cordial tonight, I was far too tired to start it last night as I only managed to sit down and relax at 11 o’clock at night! It was a super busy day but I managed to make some cages for my two strawberry beds with a lot of help from my amazing Dad. I’ll be taking them up to the allotment later today and hopefully that will protect my strawberries from both the birds and the mice that keep nibbling all my fat red strawberries.
It is that time of year when there is just so much to do, everything is growing including the weeds so it will be nice to relax in the Summer with a glass of elderflower champagne or cordial!
Its the bank holiday weekend so we decided to go and spend the day at Mottisfont Abbey again, the sun was shining and we set off early to enjoy the day. We just so happened to be passing an aquatic/pond shop called ‘World of Water’ just down the road in Romsey so I thought I would pop in and swap my pond liner on the way (my pond has grown since I brought my small 2m by 1.5m pond liner!) I absolutely love this shop and it’s full of so many inspirational ideas and displays, it even has a large lake at the back and some of most cutest sheds!
I managed to part swap my liner for a larger 4m by 3m one and a very kind shop worker gave me some great advice whilst I was looking confused by the plants, there were so many to choose from! I managed to buy a water forget-me-not (Myosotis scorpioides), an oxygenating common water crowfoot (Ranunculus aquatilis) and two bunches of oxygenating Elodea crispa. The plan is to place the crowfoot and the water forget-me-not onto some shelves in the pond so that their foliage is above the water, and the elodea crispa is simply just placed into the water to do its buisiness. The water forget-me-not is also supposed to be great for egg laying but I also brought it because I just love forget-me-nots and thought that it would look pretty in the pond aswell as bring some colour to the area. Now I have all the plants all I need to do is finish digging my pond, fill it with a layer of sand and lay down the liner, then I will simply let all this rain we are forecast do it’s job!
Oh and I will quickly just mention how beautiful Mottisfont Abbey was today, the roses were starting to bloom and there were iris’s, fox gloves and many more pretty flowers in the walled gardens. It looked so different then when we last visited back in April and we are planning another visit in July (the joys of being a National Trust member!) We had a picnic and tea on the lawn before going on a 3 mile walk around the estate where we encountered wild meadows, lots of elderflower, prancing deer and some little streams. It was a perfect day
Oh my, what a busy little bee I have been these past couple of days! I seem to have neglected my poor blog terribly and I do apologize. We are near the end of setting up our campervan hire buisiness (www.sundaecampers.co.uk) and the van is going out on hire this coming weekend so it’s full steam ahead to get everything finished in time. Along with that, a job and the allotment, life is a little hectic! I’ve also been busy filming and I’ve recently put my hazel archway up (a blog post and youtube video will follow shortly!)
My camera is still sitting on the shelf broken as I have not been able to take it to a repair shop yet. I am unbelievably lost without it and I am unable to take any nice photographs of my plot, I don’t own a mobile phone you see and my compact just doesn’t quite cut it (once you use a DSLR you can never go back!) Summer is just round the corner and it’s a little frustating not being able to capture all the flowers starting to bloom, all the veg starting to flower and the allotment looking lovely and green! I think a trip into the dreaded town centre is much needed, fingers crossed it will be a quick fix and a cheap repair otherwise I will have to look at buying another camera body.
On another note there are plans afoot to change my blog into a fully working website with recipes and tutorials galore. Don’t get me wrong, WordPress is great but I find it hard to find the plugins that I need and my brother is a website wizard so I thought a change was in order. It may be a couple of months yet until it’s fully up and running, theres lots of planning to do and it’s taking a while to find an illustrator to draw my website header. Exciting times ahead!
It is unbelievably windy down on our allotment site and my poor broad beans which are growing taller everyday are taking a battering. Fortunately they still have all their flowers on them but they are starting to lean slightly despite my attempts to help them (I had to tie on another level of twine around the bamboo structure!) However I did notice another, slightly larger, bundle of broad bean pods when examining the plants which makes me so happy! It seems today was a good day to check everything because my peas have started to flower and the flowers on the strawberry plants have formed into strawberries, some of them are rather big! I can almost taste all this food!
My fruit bushes are also doing great with flowers on the two larger blackcurrant bushes and perfectly shaped gooseberries have appeared on both my bushes too! My raspberry canes are producing some nice leaves but I am not expecting much from them in their first year, two out of six of the canes have produced no foliage so I will have to replace them later on.
On other news (and this is bad news!) my trusty DSLR Canon 400D has died I am absolutely gutted and slightly annoyed, the shutter has jammed and when I researched the problem apparently it’s a known Canon fault. My job this week is to take it to a repair specialist and pray that they can fix it cheaply, otherwise I will have to look into getting a new camera and you can bet that it won’t be a Canon!
So I apologise now for the rubbish photographs that will appear here for the next couple of weeks, I am completely lost without my camera!
I finally made a decision… I’m going to create a little (and by little I mean tiny!) wildlife pond in my flower patch, which has now officially changed its name to my very own ‘Wildlife Corner!’. Yet again I have lost hours on Pinterest looking at all the beautiful and inspirational photographs on there, but these three photographs in particular have inspired me the most. I just love their simplicity and the rustic look to them and I especially love the use of the old butlers sink (I actually have one sitting in my garden!)
You are probably wondering why I had to think so hard about having a pond when really it’s a no brainer, but because my allotment is so small I was simply trying to squish as much as possible into a tiny space and I didn’t want any ground to go to waste. I was also very adament on having flowers, I generally think that every plot should have some flowers somewhere just to spread some colour and to bring in the all important bees!
My original plan was to create a flower patch at the side of my shed and simply jam pack it full of pretty flowers, not forgetting the grape vine! There was going to be sunflowers along the back, verbena, ox-eye daisies, sweet peas, a climbing rose, poppies, cosmos, scabious and even some dill all mixed in together to create a wild and rustic patch. This little area was going to be a place for me to escape, I was going to create a very short path which leads into the centre of the flowers with a little mushroom seat so I could sit down and get lost in the aroma. I am a little bit sad that I am going to loose the space for my little mushroom seat (that I don’t even own but it would have looked nice!) but plans change and although there won’t be room to sit in the patch, it will still hopefully look idyllic.
My new plan doesn’t change much but it will just mean that I won’t beable to walk into the new wildlife patch to sit and relax as the space will be very limited. I am still going to plant a grape vine on one side and I have already planted a rose bush and a climbing rose against my shed, I am also still going to grow 4 sunflowers along the back of the patch. The pond will measure roughly around 80cm by 50cm and will be placed in the centre of the patch with the shorter variety of flowers surrounding it and possibly some log piles or a little house for the frog.
I am hoping to visit a local ‘water world’ this weekend to get some advice aswell as purchasing a pond liner and some oxygenating plants. Ideally I would like to get the pond in as soon as possible, it won’t take long and then I can start planting my flowers around the pond rather then guessing where to plant them. I know, I know! Another thing added to my long list of things to do but I really don’t want to miss the frog season, if there is such a thing? I can’t wait to invite Mr toad and Mrs Frog into their new home
I planted my first double row of peas back on the 26th of February and since then they have been happily growing away without a care in the world. The variety that I am growing is called Douce Provence and they grow to about 3 ft in height, they are meant to beable to support each other without the need of canes etc. However, they looked extremely messy sprawled over the floor so I decided to make them some supports, that way it would look tidier and the crop would be so much more easier to harvest when the time comes. Now in my last post I had the dilemma of choosing some plant supports but in the end I decided to make my own. My Dad came up with a genius way of using wooden stakes and bamboo to create a frame for the peas to climb up, it would also look great, do the job and also be cheap! So off we went to B&Q and what did we happen to find in the bargain bin? Only 3 bundles each containing 8 x 5ft wooden treated timber, just what we needed! It didn’t take long for my Dad to saw a point on one end of the stakes and drill holes down them, then it was a quick trip up the allotment to put them up.
Doesn’t it look great? I am so happy with the final result, it looks wild and rustic and very handmade but I love it! And the best thing about it is that I can use the bamboos for other supports later on and it can all be stored away in my shed without taking up too much room.
We used three stakes per double row of peas, the 2 end stakes have 3 holes drilled in them and the middle row has 6 holes to allow for the bamboo cross over (we couldnt find 3 metre lengths of bamboo!) It was a simple matter of hammering the stakes into the ground, slotting the bamboo through the holes and then using twine to zig-zag up and down the support. I was originally going to use net but came to the conclusion that twine would be a lot easier and look nicer, and also because its bio-degradable once the pea season is at an end I can simply gather all the twine and plant up and put it on the compost heap!
Feel free to watch my latest video where I am putting up the pea support in more detail!
It’s May and the time has come to start thinking about protecting crops. My strawberries are currently covered in lovely little flowers and soon they will be producing delicious strawberries which will need protecting from birds and even rats! I have big plans for my strawberries and would like to make cordials and jams late in the year so I’m afraid I won’t be sharing them with the wildlife (sorry in advance!) Another crop which I would like to protect is my brassica bed. My Dad had some trouble with white butterflies last year so we are both going to be making sure our cabbages, sprouts and brocolli are well protected with good plant supports and netting.
Now as you well know by my previous posts I do like my allotment to look pretty aswell as being pratical, I know this shouldn’t be the case but I just think why not? Therefore I am in a bit of a quandary about which supports to use, now I came by two companies that produce beautiful kitchen garden plant supports and tunnels, http://www.plantsupportsuk.co.uk and http://www.plantbelles.co.uk. I also realise I could make my own unique supports out of hazel, that way it would match my archway (I do like things to match!) and it would also look rustic. So here are my choices in more detail:
Plant Belles: I mean just look at their tunnels, they are beautiful! I love the vintage and rustic look to them and the use of slotting bamboo canes through the metal hoops to join them all together is just genius! You can simply drape net, polythene, micromesh or fleece over the tunnels so they can provide all types of protection, you could even leave them as they are for plant supports or just because they look so pretty! They would also be easy to store in the winter months and are practical.
Plant Supports UK: Now this company have a huge range of plant supports aswell as a section called kitchen garden. My favourite pieces have to be the net cane supports, you get 6 supports in a set and they each have two rings at the top, you slot bamboo canes through these to create a rectangular cage and then yet again you can use net, polythene or fleece to drape over the entire frame. Simple, pratical, cheap and easy!
Handmade: Now I was going to use 3 lengths of hazel to bend into hoops to create a cloche over my strawberry beds, another length of hazel would run along the top to make the frame more stable. These would look rustic, be easy to assemble and store and also be cheap to make. Another idea is to buy some wooden square stakes, drill large holes through them and then slot bamboo through the holes to create a cage frame.
Ideally I would like my plant supports and cages to last a very long time, be easy and small enough to store away over winter and overall… be as cheap as possible. It seems I have a lot to think about but I know for one thing it’s going to be hard trying to choose when all the options are so beautiful!
Time is moving so fast, it’s nearly May already and my Basil was getting a tad crowded. I decided to pot them on into some paper pots which also gave me an excuse to use one of my birthday presents. My amazingly clever Dad made me a set of my very own wooden potting tools consisting of two circular tampers, two square tampers, a level tool and a special 4 squared block tamper for those small modular seed trays. I popped out into the back garden to test them out and they did not fail to impress me!
I am so happy with my little tamper set and they are beautifully made, he even finished them off with an antique brown wax which I just love. He made one circular tamper to specifically fit into the paper pots that I make and the other square tampers fit the standard module trays. The 4 squared block tamper and the level also have lovely little indented handles!
Handmade gifts after all, are simply the best and I will cherish them forever
Spring has officially arrived with the presence of my first ever allotment tulip (the rest became victims to the deers hungry bellies!) The sun has been shining a lot over the past week but it seems those April showers have finally caught up with us and now they are simply just getting in the way. Why is it always sunny during the working week and then when the weekend comes it decides to pour down with rain? It’s like the weather knows that I am planning a weekend of gardening!However, my allotment is coming along nicely and I must say that it looks particularly beautiful in the morning sunshine. It has been freshly weeded and things are starting to grow, even the gooseberry bushes and strawberry plants have some little flowers appearing. There are, however, lots more jobs to be completed down on Plot 15C. I need to build two cages for my strawberry raised beds and the fruit cage needs to be completed. I also want to build a cold frame, make an archway and plant supports out of hazel, put the corrugated tin roofing on my shed, buy some guttering, make a bug hotel, put bunting around the fence and sow some more seeds (…and breath!)
Then theres the matter of planting out all my little seedlings that have been busy growing inside the house. Theres sunflowers, cosmos, scabious, dill, sweet peas, pumpkins, gherkins, brussel sprouts, red cabbages, broccolli, basil, chives, tomatoes, french beans and borlotto beans… To be honest I’m looking foreward to getting all the windowsills back!
This is my first Springtime on my allotment and I love being kept busy (which is lucky!) The weather however is simply becoming a nuisance, as well as stopping me from gardening it is also delaying my Youtube videos. If it keeps up like this then I will have to grab the waterproofs and head out, there is simply just too much to do and it’s nearly May already!
On the plus side I turned 25 years old today and was spoilt with some lovely gifts including a rose bush called ‘Katies Rose’ a new sieve and a beautiful tamper set handmade by my amazingly talented Dad (which I will write a post about soon!)
