Nether Wallop Trading Paper Potter Review

Morning, happy Easter!  I have been Missing In Action on this blog, it took me a good long while to get around to doing anything much in the garden, you think it will be easy when the baby arrives, once you've got over the initial shock and 'gear change', but there is always so much to do, growing my own food took the back seat.  Hopefully though, and little V is now on her feet the summer will be full of wonderful days that the two of us can spend time together outdoors, and I can become reacquainted with my veggie plot.  I have planted my tomato seeds already.  Nothing is up yet though.

I made a review of the paper pot making tool I use for my seeds. Deeeeply unflattering angle, but you get the idea!

 Maybe you will remember the pots from earlier posts made to this blog, here you can see then with some pumpkin seedlings in them;

They perform much better than you would imagine, holding up nicely when waterlogged.  I write the name of the plant on the side in permanent marker.  Saves that 'ummmm...what was this?!' moment (we all have them).

If you want to try one of these yourself please have a look at my new venture!  I have become a Wikaniko distributor, not heard of them?  My shop sells all things 'green' and better for the planet (plus some specifically vegan stuff).  Amongst them are quite a few innovations for the garden, including the Nether Wallop Trading Company Paper Potter, and also matching oak dibbers and pot brushes.  I even bought my tomato seeds from there this year!  There is loads of other great stuff too, if you fancy a look http://Greenviolets.wikaniko.com.  Please go and have a look around, tell me what you think, highly recommended :)

Other seeds this year will be from Simply Seeds (I love that place) and the fabulous The Real Seed Catalogue.  Can't recommend them enough :)

I love Spring

Spring is such an exciting time, warm breezes full of promise, the smell of damp compost in pots on the windowsills, palm-fulls of little seeds. It's a real time of expectation. This year it's especially important to me since I've found out I'm having a baby in the early Autumn! Enough about me though, on to the gardening!

This year I've bought some v exciting sounding seeds from The Real Seed Catalogue and here are my Russian tomatoes (above)! Named Urbikany they are an early tall bush variety. Last year due to the damp we suffered badly with blight, and these toms are apparently faster to mature in our 'glorious' English climate, so they may avoid blight which often strikes later in the growing season.

Other plants sown at the moment are an Italian green knobbly pumpkin, a spherical courgette, a weirdly shaped squash, a cooler climate melon and some butter bean type runner beans. Also I have seeds for sweet violet and a lovely bush sunflower.  This weeks job is get those potatoes in!

More excitement came this week from the first egg from our Crested chicken, Rosie. The Crested are (I think) the same as a Columbine, they are part Cotswold Legbar which is an old free ranging breed with cool pompom head feathers which lays blue/green eggs.  The hybrids are being developed to produce a smaller hen that will lay plentiful blue/green eggs.  I think the ratio is 80% blue/green to pastel. Look it's blue/green, This pleases me greatly as I really really wanted a blue egg layer!

Another brill thing that's happened lately is that Nath's dad gave us some money to buy a space for more chickens, so we purchased an Eglu Cube in pink.  It's very spacious and the hens seem to love it although the oldest ex battery chciken is having a problem getting back up the ladder in the evenings, bless her.

Spring! Better luck this year

So, this blog really had bit a bit sad and lonely for the last year.  After last year's perils of torrential rain and flooding over much of the UK for most of the summer the ground was saturated, the slugs were everywhere. Literally no man standing after planting out your seedlings and leaving them overnight, and as for direct planting, pah!  They even ate all the developing pumpkins off a bought pumpkins plant.  I had even gone to the trouble of applying the trusty Nemaslug! I was not impressed.  But all is not lost, with every new Spring comes fresh opportunity and a new wave of hopefulness that this year there will be a bit of sun....even in England.

Turn the page and we find ourselves in March.  I have high hopes for March, even though a cold snap is promised near the middle of the month.  Undeterred I have made the majority of my seed purchases and made a hefty start to the weeding.  So what am I planning to grow this year?  So far the list is something like Leeks, Tomatoes, Jerusalem Artichokes, Courgette, Runner Beans, Peas, Potatoes, Kale and Chard.  I might end up putting a few patches of extras in though, my seed box overfloweth!  Again I am hoping to combine vegetables with pretty herbs and flowers in my perpetual thirst for an Alice Fowler style vegetable garden (seems I have made it harder for myself with long wide beds).  There are still some plants in from last year; strawberries and chives.  I've also planted this years Garlic (late!) as well as 3 of the biggest cloves of last years Elephant Garlic.

I must also mention that a very sad thing happened at the end of November 2012, Lenny, my oldest Greyhound died.  I am still pretty gutted about not seeing his furry, loving face any more, but consoling myself with the thought that he had lots of love from us, and a good long life full of seaside trips and castles and gardens since he was 8 (when I adopted him from kennels).  I have had him cremated and am keeping his ashes for now, when the others go I will mix their ashes and find a place to scatter them together.
A Greyhound should be free to run with the wind, as they did in life.  R.I P. my lovely little Lenny ♥

Auguest/September Update

The chicken above is Nessa, who is turning out to be a large but shy sister of chickenhood. Usually found lurking at the back.

This is Clara, very plucky...and very plucked! This is her surprised face as the camera whirred and flashed. She's not very shy really, bottom of the pecking order but very cheeky.

This is Ruby, she is exceptionally bossy and cheeky and has a thing for jewelery, if I hand feed her it's 10% eating food and 90% eyeing up and pecking my silver rings and bracelet. She let me pick her up this week, and she grudgingly lets me stroke her. She's usually found up to her ears in the food bowl.

A nice group shot, I think they are looking a bit better already. Note my lawn...or what used to be my lawn. Every time I open the run door (the one opened to take the pictures) 2 little heads poke though to eat the fresh grass on the other side. This week they will be moved to a fresh bit, we are just waiting for the run extension to arrive. Egg laying has settled now, we are down to one or two a day.

Swiftly to the garden...September is here, it seems to have come around quickly. Thinks are still ripening in the garden, but it's sunny today, you never know, I might be lucky and get them all to ripen before the cold weather sets in.


Kale...kale is hard to grow, it germinates fine but the slugs looooove it so it gets ravaged! Hence my home made beer traps to the right of the picture. The kohlrabi is suffering a similar fate, I have replanted it all twice!

Cucumbers are growing at last!

The fennel's in the large tub are growing really well, the one in the border was a slug casualty, I think there was so much lettuce in there and damp places that I was doomed really. All the lettuce has been pulled (save for a few bolted ones that will become chicken treats) and the peas were 90% finished so most of those have come up now, that bed is now dedicated to onions (I found ones you can grow this time of year) and kohlrabi and kale. It's nice to know you can still start things growing this late.

Seed pods on the radishes. As well as providing seeds with which to grow more radishes next year (cunning) I left some radishes to flower because the pods are good to have as a snack with beer. Nath seems to agree, personally I hate radishes in pretty much any form!


You can see how much everything has grown over the summer, there are 2 large pumpkins for Halloween and we've eaten lots of the flowers fried in spiced batter, delish! Yesterdays pruning of rhubarb which was really getting in the way (to the front right of the picture) resulted in rhubarb crumble for pudding, nomnom! The little row of stones at the front marked the place where I have planted the Mizuna (Japanese greens which can be eaten raw in salads or cooked).

One thing that is in absolute abundance in the garden in ladybirds, and I'm happy to say all native species. They are all over the grass and the veg garden. Mostly 7 spots ones like the above but I also saw a 2 spot on the compost bin. The garden is also covered in their larvae, munching though the black fly on the potato tops.

Last picture today. We grew 2 sunflowers and competed to see who's would grow the tallest. Mine lost, but the bees love it anyway, one's it has seeds I might see if I can rescue some from the birds and squirrels!

Finally, a word of warning, do not bend over in low cut trousers at this time of year, you may find a daddy-long-legs decides to try to fly down your bum crack, causing much squealing and hysterical flapping! You have been warned!