101 days ago
Not literally but I am stunned how, in a Greek absence of less than three weeks everything has grown so fast. Naturally it is the weeds that have grown most rapidly and I sense some hard days ahead for myself and Joshua on that front.
120 days ago
A number of kind readers as well as an Oxford contemporary, L, have either expressed surprise that I am such a keen gardener or have asked for a progress report. Well here goes. I start with the small field behind the barn which was six foot high in weeds when we arrived and contained a number of abandoned metal structures hidden by those weeds. As you can see in the first photo, it is now anew orchard of about 30 trees, mainly plums, apples, crab apples and pears but with the odd fig, a dog’s arse tree and a tayberry. At the end of the orchard is the top field where one day I hope to keep goats. I have planted five edible olive trees from Greece, three mulberry trees and a sweet chestnut around the edge. That is all WIP.
148 days ago
Okay the bread and sugar was bought in but the raspberries, blackcurrants and strawberries were all home grown. With my weight now down three stone this year at just 14 stones, I broke my rigid diet and had a small portion with a bit of cream. It was delicious and the family demands that I make another pudding this weekend. We might be a tad short of raspberries so for pudding two I have bought some blackberries from Tesco to add to the mix
150 days ago
The strawberries keep on coming but as you can see below we now have blackcurrants aplenty and the first raspberries, golden and red. It is almost time for summer pudding. Meanwhile I have been active in the top field where one day I hope to keep goats.
155 days ago
The freezer is starting to bulge. The strawberry patches have now been bearing fruit for almost two weeks and there seems no end. Each evening a new basket arrives in the house: a snack box for Joshua, strawberries for my porridge at breakfast, snacking strawberries to help give the Mrs 5 a day. Then some will go into ice cream, the freezer now holds six litres ofthe stuff. The rest go on trays to freeze and then into bags which are also piling up in the freezer. the good news is that raspberries (golden and red), dessert gooseberries and blackcurrants are also now ripe so this weekend I shall be serving up, but not eating myself, the first summer pudding of the year.
164 days ago
I rather wish I had not bothered watering my vegetables today as God has just watered them with a vengeance. Wales really has been wet this summer which, like the drought of a couple of years ago, will be cited by the GroupThink as definitive proof of global warming.
166 days ago
This is the first basket of strawberries from the garden. Both Joshua and Jaya are happy to assist in picking although the former eats almost as many as he picks and the latter is more into supervising. The first two baskets have generated gifts for three neighbours, two trays of frozen berries for the autumn, two school snack boxes for Joshua, two litres of ice cream and 2 kg of strawberry jam.
172 days ago
I have built four strawberry patches here at the Welsh Hovel. Joshua and I have weeded hard and this year we are set for a bumper crop. Last week the first red appeared on the strawberries this weekend we have red strawberries. Joshua wanders into the main patch for a snack several times a day. Soon there will be jam and ice cream made, although the first ice cream of the year will be elderflower and will be made later today. But for pudding at lunchtime today it was strawberries and cream. And there is plenty more where that all came from.
212 days ago
Though health issues leave me behind schedule in the garden I saw last night that my peas, garlic, shallots, onions and radishes are all poking through and are on track. There is no sign yet of the early spuds or beetroot and this week the kids and I plant leeks, carrots and a second helping of peas. The strawberries and fruit bushes look set for another bumper crop and we already have a glut of rhubarb. However, the annual humiliation has hit me again.
504 days ago
I start on the subject of strawberries. Then it is onto: Hotel Chocolat (HOTC), SRT Marine (SRT), Bidstack (BIDS), Non Standard Finance (NSF), Versarien (VRS) and Audioboom (BOOM), today’s big ouzo moment.
514 days ago
The only cheat is the blackberries which Joshua and I picked last September and froze. Everything else I just picked in the garden this lunchtime: strawberries, three of four very early raspberries (red and golden), dessert gooseberries, red currants and black currants. I shall cook this evening and serve tomorrow night with lashings of cream. Photos will follow. Summer is well and truly here.
520 days ago
You can, of course ,just eat them and this attraction has prompted that rare spectacle, the Mrs and Joshua heading into the garden of their own volition. But faced with a glut, even that is not enough. I pushed a few through the blender to make the first strawberry ice cream of the year on Sunday and it is generally agreed that it was utterly amazing. If I sound conceited, anyone who has tasted my home made ice cream knows that I have every reason to be conceited. What you see below was picked in just 20 minutes by myself with Joshua and Jaya supervising ( i.e. picking to eat).
851 days ago
I hear that there was a near biblical deluge yesterday and it looks like there is plenty of rain ahead back at the Welsh hovel. And I have a couple of assistants going in to water both the garden and the big lawn so I hope I shall return to something in good shape. As long promised, here is what I have turned the jungle into. The project is far from finished but its no longer a jungle.
883 days ago
There are a few firsts in last night’s produce, all of which came from what was once the jungle, but is now a football pitch-sized vegetable garden.
922 days ago
The garden I created in the area once known as the jungle sits about 4-6 foot, depending on where you are, above the lane that leads to the Welsh Hovel. You may remember that last year I lined it with lavender bushes. Then came the weeds.
1136 days ago
The main strawberry bed is still on badger hill. But the plants have all shot runners and so I am opening up a new area of strawberry production in the main vegetable garden, what was known as the jungle. So far this expansion is half complete and I could go further but i am minded that with plans afoot for expanding production of fruit and other vegetables next year there is only so much space, even in an area the size of a small football pitch. A problem to ponder.
1268 days ago
When we arrived here two years ago, the grass, ferns and nettles were more than six foot high in bits of the small field above the barns. You could not see the gate fence and chicken shed at the end of the field which separated it from our upper meadow which goes all the way to the churchyard. The glass-filled ruins of an ancient shed just before the chicken shed were hidden from view. I had no idea it existed. What a difference two years makes. This is the field onto which five of our neighbours must look at from their houses and it was one of them who made my week by saying thank you a couple of days ago. So what does it look like now?
1362 days ago
The workers arrived at 7 and the skip shortly afterwards with the first project the removal of the asbestos shed at the bottom of the vegetable garden, the area formerly known as the jungle. Notwithstanding my work into the early hours on family papers, I’d set an alarm and was there at the outset to make coffee for all.
1385 days ago
There has been great progress on all fronts and, this year, I hope for an abundance of apples, pears, plums, damsons, cooking apples, crab apples, raspberries, blueberries, rhubarb and more and there are photo updates on all to come. But I start with the strawberries.
1392 days ago
This part of the lands here is at the edge of the new orchard on the inner upper field. When we arrived just under two years ago, this field was under six foot high in grass, nettles and ferns. You could not see the gate and fence at the end of it, nor a chicken shed and small asbestos shed all of which have now been removed.
1405 days ago
I am not sure if you can see but the strawberry patch I created last year in the near top field at the Welsh Hovel has been tidied up. The patch already has 108 plants but is still only half full and Joshua can eat only so many strawberries. Thus, work has continued on the rest of the area, although my role is, again, largely managerial.
1603 days ago
My father has a very large strawberry bed and that, plus the extreme likelihood that my father’s carer E will have lots of chocolate to hand out, is enough to encourage my son to join me on a road trip to Shipston. Do not tell the lockdown jihadis in the Welsh Government but we broke through the border two days ago.
1628 days ago
When we arrived at the Welsh Hovel, what you see below, the area at the edge of the nearest upper field was a sea of ferns and nettles, almost six foot high in places. You could not see the small shed at one end of my strawberry patch, which I am now knocking down, and the larger chicken hut at the other end, whose days are also numbered, was barely visible. In fact I did not know of the existence of the smaller shed which is, I fear, largely made of asbestos so not that easy to eradicate. The area between the two sheds had once also been a building and you can see the base of its wall still exists.
1647 days ago
As it happens, strawberry cultivation used to be big business here in the last village in Wales. And myself, Joshua and the Mrs have been working hard to create a patch here at the Welsh Hovel.
1753 days ago
This is a rarity, getting the Mrs to assist in the garden, but the lure of a strawberry patch got her on board and also Joshua who was given a new gardening kit for Christmas by “aunty” K.
