Twitter tweets

Well, I've decided to give twitter another go. Not sure if I will keep it up but I'll see how it goes. So, to keep up with one-liner descriptions of my day to day life, follow me here:

https://twitter.com/timefortweets

Bloody weather!

Grr. When is this nasty wintery weather going to stop? Not had chance to go to the allotment because of all the snow we've had lately. Everything had just thawed but today, snow again!

I know with the ground frozen it would be pointless trying to dig my new beds but there is still burning & pruning I am behind on. The fruit bushes are too big to harvest the crop so I wanted to cut them into more manageable shapes. Hey ho, maybe soon I will be able to get on with my lottie jobs.

Stay warm :)

Hope you had a lovely Xmas

Here are a couple of festive photos from my flat. I had a lovely time as host with my family. We played games, over-ate and made merry. All great fun :) This is my first day alone and the place seems really quite empty. I hope all of you had a lovely time whatever you got up to.

Sending you Happy New Year wishes :) Here's to an exciting and eventful 2010!

Winter wilderness

Aww, it looks so sad at the moment at the allotment. I am currently juggling a zillion things I need to do before Xmas but I had a day of holiday from work today so I took the chance to get up to the allotment. I did some clearing - piling up dead vegetation to make the site look a bit more presentable. I just wish I had more time to devote to the allotment as the light faded before I could get everything done I wanted to. I really get into it when I am down there. That is, once all the chatting with other plotholders is over, which is lovely, but takes up precious time! I don't think they realise what little free time I have. It is easy when you're retired! :P

I did get the bulbs in that I'd bought, which was an important job to do. Below is a little plan of what went where. I'm pleased my verbena and lady's mantle is still going strong :)

I really hope I can get down there again soon but there is so much 'life' to get on with it is always hard to find the time. I need to prune the fruit some more, and all that grass HAS to go!

If I don't blog again before - HAPPY CHRISTMAS! x

I'm touched!

Lovely Jo of The Good Life has given me an award for my blog. It is a 'Best Blog Award' and I am so pleased she fancied passing it on to me. Many, many thanks. I hope others, as well as Jo, enjoy my ramblings. I need to pass it on so here are the rules.

"Post the award on your blog along with the name of the person who passed it on to you and link to their blog. Choose 15 blogs which you have recently discovered and you think are great and pass it on to them. Don't forget to leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have been chosen for this award."

In no particular order, here are some of my fave blogs...

Beads By Laura
The Glass Slipper
Cake Wrecks
Inside the lines
Chloe's Designs
Applique
The Linen Cupboard
Jane Foster
Wooden Donkey
Decor8
Print & Pattern
Kella's Musings
Rebecca Frere Flowers
That Crafty Fish
The Cotton Monster

Shock horror!

Yes, I actually went to the allotment yesterday! It's been about 3 weeks. Finding the time to go is getting difficult now, what with evenings being too dark to go up there. I don't get home from work until 6.30pm so can't see a thing! Well, I got quite a bit sorted out. Attacking things with secateurs and putting raspberry nets and bean canes away. I need to go back up there to continue cutting back/burning. I am going to trim the soft fruit back hard as it hasn't been done for a while, I think. During the summer it was almost impossible to walk through the bushes to harvest so I am trying to make things easier for next year. I also still need to dig over the ground and get some bulbs in. I'm mulling over just keeping the 'shed end' for next year and letting someone else take on the 'road end'. 50x7m is a lot of land to tend for one person!! I picked up some pumpkins from the plot and my chilli plants is still covered in chillis, the aubergine still has lots on too. There are potatoes still in the ground which I am wondering if they will still be there or will have been eaten away. Only one way to find out! I did cull the kiwi plant yesterday - it didn't fruit and I hear without another plant it probably won't. I'll find something else I'd like to grow up the shed next year. It was nice to see the Lady's Mantle I thought had died after I moved it perking up again. It has produced some new growth so that is good to see. I find them very pretty plants. Especially when water droplets get trapped in the fan-like leaves :)

Harvest

Hello! More or less everything has finished on the allotment now. All I need to do next is dig and put in bulbs I have bought - flowers (narcissi, irises and tulips), and some onions and garlic. I also need to cut back the soft fruit. I'll post about that when I do it!

I did harvest some veggies though - peppers and sweetcorn...

The larger pepper was the only one on the plant. It was really sweet and tasty though. The little ones are in my freezer.

The sweetcorn I grew was SO delicious with some butter and simply steamed in the microwave. It wasn't much of a harvest from 12 plants though. Most of the cobs weren't fully formed so I only really got to eat a few. One cob per plant, most failures. However, I think I will still try it again next year, just a little earlier.


On a random note I got this book recently from a charity shop. Loving the cover! "We've got this book on biscuits. Hmm, what should we put on the cover...?" "I know, a MASSIVE biscuit" hehe!