Garden Helpers.

In spite of the rain which dampened the morning the day turned into a real scorcher and stayed that way until I got home again.

The Rambling Rector climbing rose has finally taken off and can be seen flowering amongst the trees.

Jack met me as soon as I got home so once I had changed out of my good clothes we met up in the garden for some companionable gardening. He told me all about his birthday plans for him and a friend to drive a 5 ton digger and make a mud camp while shifting a few trees at the same time. Pure fantasy but so real to a 7 year old. Sarah, his mum came round leading a pony for him to ride but while he enjoys riding in shows he's not so keen to practise at home and prefers his quad bike. How many children have those choices ? He reappeared a while later still in his school clothes to tell me about his dad assembling a new gas barbecue and how he was listening out for any explosions. I think the visit was more to escape a telling off for not riding Gift.

During my Jack free interlude I started my gardening in the best way possible, with a mug of tea, a biscuit, the sun on my back and a cool breeze across my face and with one cat settled on my lap. I did eventually stir myself to get on with the weeding in the last patch of evening sun.

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Green Garden House Walk in Greenhouse Hot 57"x29"x77"-1

Green Garden House Walk in Greenhouse Hot 57"x29"x77"-1 Latest Deals

Green Garden House Walk in Greenhouse Hot 57"x29"x77"-1 Overview

General Feature:
* High quality, heavy duty power coated, steel framework, Rust Resistant
* 145 gram Heavy duty transparent Polyethylene with Green Net
* Zippered front door for easy access
* 4 Shelves for the plants
* shelf size: 29" x 13"
* Distance between Shelves : 17"
* All necessary Hardware is included
* Instructions are easy to follow
Please read:
The roofs are are not designed to hold the

loads of standing water or snow. You must keep the roof material properly tight.
Note: ITEM NEEDS TO BE ANCHORED TO
GROUND TO HOLD AGAINST WIND.
SELLER NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WIND
OR STORM DAMAGE TO ITEM, REGARDLESS OF ANCHORING
METHODSTORM DAMAGE TO ITEM, REGARDLESS OF ANCHORING METHOD

Available at Amazon Check Great Offer Now!!! Before Time Out

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 06, 2011 03:38:44

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Quictent 12'x7'x7' Portable Backyard Large Greenhouse Green Garden Hot House New

Quictent 12'x7'x7' Portable Backyard Large Greenhouse Green Garden Hot House New Latest Deals

Quictent 12'x7'x7' Portable Backyard Large Greenhouse Green Garden Hot House New Feature

• Double zippered front door and 6 exhaust vent for cross ventilation and venting on hot days
• High quality, heavy-duty powder coated steel framework
• Heavy-duty transparent reinforced polyethylene roof and wall material for maximum solar performance
• Easy to set up, portable
• ISO 9001:2000 standard certified manufacturer

Quictent 12'x7'x7' Portable Backyard Large Greenhouse Green Garden Hot House New Overview

Let your garden grow year round with this compact, lightweight, walk-in greenhouse. This spacious walk-in house style green house sets up in less than 5 minutes-no tools required-on soil or hard surfaces such as concrete.

This high quality, large, walk-in greenhouse is crafted with a powder coated steel frame and middle rails for additional stability against the elements. The one-piece rip-stop cover is UV protected and features a zippered front door and 6 side vents for enhanced ventilation.
Great for starting or protecting plants and flowers, it's made of a 100% waterproof material. Transparent poly material allow maximum solar performance for plant, keep a warmer temperature. Reinforced PE leno make the cover stronger than normal poly material. Double zippered front door and 6 exhaust vents are designed for cross ventilation and venting on hot days. Full closed cover maintains high humidity levels for growing tropical plants, vegetables, fruiting plants and herbs.
This high quality greenhouse is made by a ISO9001 certified manufacturer.
Importance: In order to prolong the life span,we do not suggest customer to set it up in bad weathers.

Available at Amazon Check Great Offer Now!!! Before Time Out

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 04, 2011 05:50:04

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A Busy Bee.

The rain held off today so I have been able to spend plenty of time working outside. I did my usual thing of walking up in the night (I sleep badly these days), and because I had lots of school plans whizzing through my head I ended up getting up at 4.30 to work on the PC. Then I remembered that Peter had plans to give the Rayburn burner a clean which involves turning it off for the day so I put a large chicken (which I had bought reduced yesterday), into the oven at 5.45. After that I decided not to go back to bed and instead did more school work before making an early start outside.

When Peter eventually dismantled the Rayburn burner he was absolutely furious with the man we had called in last time when Peter's wrists were too bad for him to do the job himself. We used a local firm who are normally very good but an older chap came and apparently did a really bad job which caused damage to the burner. He cut the wicks too long and folded them instead of cutting the right shape. This allowed the flame to get down into the burner tray and the pipes clogging them up with carbon (solid soot). Luckily Peter got someone at his firm to make some tailored tools that can be fitted into a drill which made the job of grinding out the carbon a little easier. The chap also bent the oil feed pipe but Peter has sorted that. All these parts would cost hundreds to replace so it is vital to look after them properly.

I planted out more seedlings today, all that is left are the beetroot and the sweet peas which look a little too vulnerable at the moment. This orchid flowered for many weeks last autumn and is now delighting me with a new set of blooms as I sit and add the odd piece to my giant puzzle.

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Time To Cut The Grass.

A lot more sun today so when I got home I took the opportunity to mow all the grass. We have been promised a very wet weekend so it is good to get that job out of the way. The second half of my class did their reading SATs today and I have to say that I am very pleased with the standard of reading. There are a high proportion of children in both classes who are reading at about a year in advance of the average for their age. As many came into school with very low overall scores this is a good reflection of the way the school has encouraged reading and all literacy skills. The media keep on producing scare stories about how many children leave school unable to read  and this has simply not been my experience in this school, and we only go up to age 7.

My next major gardening job is to tackle the weeds that are springing up between the flowers. The steep hillside will be covered in flowers for the next few weeks and it would be a shame to see too many weeds poking through.

Every day there are new flowers coming into bloom. Today I noticed the first honeysuckle flowers.

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Keen Mowers.

The heavens have been watering the garden for most of the day. At school we were lucky enough that the sunny spells coincided with the children's playtimes and we were not forced to keep them indoors for the whole day. That is a trial for everyone. We have just started work on our new topic 'Greece'. The whole school topic is Europe and we decided that it would be better for each class to focus on one country. I chose Greece because we spent a happy summer there many years ago and there are so many subjects we could cover from Ancient Greece with its inventors, philosophers, the Olympics and myths & legends to modern Greece with its music & dancing, food and geography. I have stayed on Santorini so we will be learning about volcanoes as well. Today we did a little map work and then I had the children tasting halva. This was a new taste experience for all of them even though several have spent holidays in Greece. Some of the children absolutely loved the halva while for others the unusual texture and dryness put them off even though the smell had been tempting. Being school I made them draw a block graph of those who liked/disliked the halva and to write down words to describe the taste and the possible ingredients. A good cross-curricular activity. Later in the term they can taste the ingredients for a Greek salad and design their own salad pitta. Possibly we could have Greek picnic down in the Secret Garden.

Meanwhile back home as soon as I had parked the car I was accosted by 2 lads wanting to mow the grass. (Not for money but simply because Jack is mad about mowers.) I suggested that getting the big tractor mower down was too much for my intricate garden but I was quite happy for the boys to go and get Jack's push mower. They duly returned armed with mower, shears and other assorted tools. I left them to it as I had to do some more work on my reports. The odd bit of mowing ensued until Paul came to find the boys as Jack's friend needed to go home. Yet more of Paul's tools appeared from the boys' camp and Paul went off, shaking his head and muttering about losing all his tools.

The seedlings in the veg plot are looking a bit happier after all the rain and I spotted the first potato leaves appearing. These were fancy purple skinned potatoes, hence the purple foliage. Hope they taste good.

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Planting Out Time.

Cold, grey and for most of the day, wet. Typical Devon summer weather. Romas has just phoned from Jamaica where he is having a wonderful holiday with Vicky and her parents. He's going to have his first pool dive tomorrow and  the coolest it has been is 29C. Lucky lad.

The rain did dry up in the afternoon and I finally got the veg plot planted up with the seedlings I've been nurturing in the conservatory. Lack of space and my mad impulse to plant potatoes has meant that everything is planted a bit close so I suppose it's intensive veg growing. Plenty more projects to be getting on with in the summer holidays.

Each day more flowers appear to brighten up the garden. Certain of my 'garden' flowers might be considered wild flowers more likely to be seen in the hedgerows rather than in traditional gardens. Some like the foxgloves that pop up around the place or the buttercups that brighten up the woodland corner arrived by themselves and others like the red valerian and the primroses were originally dug up from the wild (naughty me). Actually the valerian was growing in the gravel of a run down car park, must look for some white and pink plants. They have a thick tap root that normally grows between stones and is difficult to dig out so only very small plants transplant successfully.

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Stars In Their Eyes.

I made the most of the good weather by getting up fairly early so that I could spend most of the day outside. As the weatherman predicted the clouds started to roll in and by the afternoon a few of the darker clouds let loose with some light rain. We still managed to fit in a barbecue down by the house on the new table (evening meals are usually up at the scree garden to catch the sun and we use an old small table that I made so that I could chase the sun around the garden). Peter got the chainsaw going and started to chop up the trees that still lie by my veg plot but when he refilled it,  it became temperamental and wouldn't start up again. We have bought some fresh fuel but the Husky is too big for our needs so we are thinking of trading it in for something smaller that perhaps even I could handle.

Our evening has been spent at the annual charity 'Stars In Their Eyes' evening at Pilton. This year the theme was songs from the musicals and the standard was pretty high. The winners were not the best vocally with a rendition of a song from Fame but the sight of 2 somewhat older gentlemen in shorts and lycra doing a dance class routine with 2 lasses made me laugh so much that all my mascara (which I don't usually wear) ran down my face! My vote went to my ex- boss and her brother singing Master of The House from Les Mis. The singing was excellent and it was an uproariouss performance though as I said to Ange it was a good thing that she had retired because I couldn't have looked her in the face at work without laughing at the memory of her portrayal of a bawdy landlady. The evening, as usual was full of laughter and I was glad that Peter had been able to get tickets which because of the limited size of the hall, are like gold dust.

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Summer ?

It has been one of those rare summer's days that we long for on this misty isle. The sun shone all day and the temperature of 28C was made comfortable by a cooling breeze. After the usual session of 'school work' I escaped outside to spend a happy day gardening ... and relaxing. Mostly weeding and I think I've got rid of all the brambles, for the moment at least. It was still nice and warm when Peter came home and as the weather is set to turn by the end of tomorrow he cooked up a barbecue for supper. Shop bought (reduced) lamb kebabs on skewers with extra seasoning , plain boiled new potatoes and a mixed salad. A lovely way to end the day.

Old English roses or....

.....  modern roses?

The old roses have a wonderful scent but have a brief season while this gaudy modern rose has little scent but has a long flowering season and the petals stay on through the windiest of weather.

Something I always used to admire when visiting gardens were stone walls covered with flowers and right now the wall by the scree garden is a mass of purple campanula, white saxifrage and pink London Pride. Soon to come will be the old fashioned clove scented white pinks. Most of these plants were given to me by a neighbour when I first moved in and was faced with an empty wilderness.

The hardy geraniums are starting to cover the hillside with their shades of pink, purple and white. They are such good plants for this area, ultra hardy and slug resistant. At the last count I have about 20 varieties and they will definitely be coming with me when we do eventually move as they are very easy to split

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SUN!

Today I'm feeling a bit calmer and simply being thankful that our boys are all healthy. Loosing a lot of money through being foolish is not nice but then again it isn't the end of the world.

Today's better mood was also helped by the fact that it was sunny and HOT. So hot that after a spell outside weeding the garden I was thankful to come in to the cool of the house. My little friend Jack, from next door, keeps popping over to 'help' me with my gardening. He is obsessed with lawnmowers as well as diggers and I think I disappointed him a little today by not getting out both extension leads so that I could finish off mowing the strip of grass by the vegetable patch. He did offer to call his Dad down to do it but I thought that a full-size tractor mower was a little too much for that tiny patch. Instead we cut more grass with the shears, he had brought his own pair over today, and then did some weeding in the scree garden.

The redcurrants and blackcurrants are beginning to show some colour but it will be a race between me and the birds to see who gets the juicy berries first.

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Another Holiday.

Much sunnier today. My morning was spent at school on an inset day. We had to split into groups and come up with phrases to define our outstanding learning/teaching environment. All the things we would expect to see, hear & feel. I think it was to make it clear to everybody what our agreed expectations are which will be written up as policy documents. I managed to squeeze in some time in my classroom making a start on a new display for next half term's topic which in our class will be Greece. Plenty of scope to motivate the boys with Ancient Greeck legends and volcanoes. For modern Greece we will be tasting food, learning a little Greek and of course dancing and planning our own Olympics.

I set our butterflies free, yesterday's wind would probably have pounded them against the nearest wall, and left the last few chrysalises in a sunny spot. Back home I spent some time out in the garden planting ..... canes, (they are nice long canes!) for the beans. At least it makes it look as if something is happening in my mini veg plot. The conservatory is looking quite bountiful at the moment but it's not yet time to plant things out.

This is the start of our summer half term holiday and , good weather permitting, I hope to spend most of the week out in the garden. There is also the small matter of starting to write comments for the end of year reports as well.

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Empty House :(

I felt sad this evening, knowing that I was driving home to an empty house as Romas and Vicky had to leave during the day to drive back up to Stoke. They have been such good company and helpful too. When I went indoors it was to find the kitchen all tidied up, dinner (fajitas) prepared and even the sitting room tidied and hoovered. Even before I went ondoors, Jack had come round to show me the new hound puppy which they are 'walking' for the hunt. She is only 12 weeks old and had arrived today. Of course being unable to resist puppies, kittens and most young animals I had to have a cuddle (funnily enough I don't feel the same way about human babies), and got licked in return. I can forgive her for belonging to the hunt, it's the humans I despise, not the animals following their instincts. A big fat tummy because she has just been fed.
School wasn't too bad though we did have a lot of rain in the afternoon. I let my children have a drama afternoon acting out stories from the Horrid Henry books which have been our literacy focus for the last few weeks. Linas turned up after school to collect the saucepan I had bought him and I drove him up to his doctor's appointment. This gave me the chance to drop in at the dentists' and book an appointment for next week to repair my broken tooth/filling. And as I was in the area I stopped at Homebase to see what they had in their garden section. I found some white trailing geraniums that I had been unable to find anywhere else, (expensive), an almost given away hydrangea bush which I think just needs a drink, an cheap value pack of beetroot seeds (lovely grated in salad), a small reduced pack of seed potatoes which were already sprouting so I've planted them this evening and a very reduced kit to grow courgettes of which I only want 2 plants anyway. This evening it has been windy but dry so I have been able to do some work in the garden.

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A Busy Sunday.

It was still stormy this morning which gave a perfect excuse for a lie-in. By the afternoon the showers had stopped and it was lovely to find the whole family working outside on various tasks. Peter was chain sawing and splitting some logs which are now filling the sitting room with a wonderful beech smell from the fire which is making the place very cosy. I got more weeding done as well. Romas and Vicky have done lots of outside work for me including trimming the big leylandii hedge and the beech hedge. Now we have a much better view of the woodland field across the stream. They also pulled up most of the stinging nettles in and around the chickens' run.
This evening we all wrapped up well and sat outside enjoying another of Peter's excellent barbecues. 3 kinds of home made sausage with marinaded chicken and pork strips . It sounds a lot but it was a little of each to enjoy the taste with a big green salad. Now we are going to sit by a log fire and watch the extended edition of Avatar (not 3-D).

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Done.

It has been drizzling for most of the day but finally cleared up late afternoon. There is a resident pair of Canadian geese on Paul's lake and this year they have successfully raised 6 fat goslings. This morning they were all in the ponies' field and decided to run across the road just as I was accelerating to get up the hill. Plenty of little stubby wings held high and flat feet flapping furiously and nobody got squashed. This evening they were spread out in a neat line working their way across the field guarded by their attentive parents.
I finally got the last of the digging done in the veg plot ready for all my little seedlings once they have been hardened off. It won't be self sufficiency but it will be satisfying to eat our own fresh produce.

I watched 'Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution' (or attempt) in LA, last night and it was horrifying to see the amount of sugar and processed food (like 100%) children there are being given in their school dinners. As one mother commented 'There is nothing fresh or even real.' I shall be interested to see if he gets anywhere in his campaign.

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Will It Be Nul Points ?

I could hardly believe my ears when Peter offered to cut some lawns today. He's never taken an interest in the garden before (but he does most of the cooking). Is he mellowing in his old age or is it a result of not being so stressed since changing jobs last year? For a short while now the azaleas come into their own with a blaze of colour along the drive.
I can never decide which is my favourite, the subtle peach, the fiery flame coloured one or the 2 yellow highly scented ones. They are all a delight to have in the garden and are doing well in our acid soil.

The veg plot is nearing completion after I moved the final plant out (secretly rehomed on my neighbour's land). My new batch of seeds are looking promising but I shall grow the plants on to a decent size before planting them out where the slugs can get to them. I am so reluctant to use slug pellets because of the harm they do to other wildlife. Some plants just don't survive the slugs and I try to manage without them rather than resorting to chemicals. One exception are the flag iris which I brought from our London home. For years I lost every single flower so now they do get a small sprinkle of pellets so that I can enjoy the magnificent flowers.

The hens spend a lot of time camped at the gate watching the world go by. They have a much better view since the arch was removed and their view from the bottom of the run is currently restricted by the lush growth of stinging nettles the removal of which which better be my next job.

Tonight we are keeping up our family tradition of watching the Eurovision song contest. It's always good for a laugh and the voting is so politically predictable it's not surprising that Britain does so badly. We never have a good song anyway.

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Back Once More.

No matter how much surge protection we have on our system if lightning strikes the phone lines and sends a blast down the wire our pcs get damaged. This was the case on Monday when we were subjected to a series of thunderstorms in the middle of the day. We were virtually trapped in our classroom by the torrential rain until lunchtime forced those children having school dinners to make a dash across the playground. All except my boggest boy who stood in the rain without a jumper or coat deliberately getting soaked. In contrast the tiniest child in my class was hovering in the doorway reluctant to go out. I was just insisting that she would have to make a dash for it when a simultaneous flash of lightning and rumble of thunder which shook the hut made me pull her back into the classroom to wait a little longer. Earlier I had been attempting to teach with the storm raging overhead but had given up and instead we had a calm(ish) discussion about what causes thunder. Even so a couple of the children were crying, they were the ones who cry whenever there is a loud noise, (sensitive souls). As the children started returning to the classroom I escaped wearing a wide brimmed rain hat and a plastic bin bag to keep me dry on my way to the staffroom. The resultant damage at home was to the network hub/switch something or other and both our network cards got fried. Luckily everything else was OK but it took till last night to get the system up and running. In between the occasional shower this week it has been sunny and very hot. The longer days have tempted me to stay working in the garden until 9.00 so the veg plot is nearly ready.
None of my (very old) seeds germinated so I went and bought seeds and a butternut squash plant. When I went to buy the seeds it was hard to decide what to get as the limited amount of space means that I won't be growing large quantities and seeds are quite expensive. I had to decide if I should buy a tray of 6 plants ready to plant or for just a little more buy seeds that will be enough for at least 3 or 4 years. I ended up buying seeds of sugar snap peas, french beans, sprouting broccoli and kailaan, mizuna, red mustard & pak choi which came in a multi-pack for some interesting salads. I've got a number of different tomato plants and 2 cucumber plants as well as the squash plant. I'm also hoping for some standard vegetables at the village plant sale.

Out in the fields the farmers have been cutting silage, ploughing some fields and of course muck spreading which makes the countryside look more patchwork like than ever.

Hopefully we should have a dry weekend and I can spend yet mote time grubbing about in the dirt.

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Carpets Of Flowers.

Another day of sun and showers. Peter went out early to row with the gig club while I got on with my school planning. When he returned we headed out between the showers for a walk at Mortehoe. We set off down the Kinevar coombe and were rewarded with carpets of flowers everywhere we went. Mainly bluebells mixed with white Ransoms (wild garlic) and stitchwort.

We walked down to Bennet's Mouth. Somebody had made a camp there with a couple of tents, campfire and a sensible arrangement of branches with cooking utensils hanging from them. You are not supposed to camp on National Trust land but they weren't doing any harm.

Down on the beach there were cushions of pink sea thrift growing everywhere. Not so many people around today as the holidays are over and the weather was a bit unpredictable. We got caught in one shower but it didn't last long. Back home I finally got through the slab of clay that was lying under the soil in the veg plot. It was satisfying to rake that section level. I still have a some plants to move from the other side but it doesn't look like a bomb site any more. I also rearranged the steps which looks a bit better, and filled them with the clay dug out from under he soil in the plot.

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Step Exercise.

After last night's thunderstorms I woke this morning to a typical British summer's day- grey, wet and chilly. A good enough reason to have a bit of a lie-in watching both pairs of birds that have taken up residence above the bedroom windows as they flew back and forth with food for their hungry broods. Eventually I made it out to the garden, via the PC and my jigsaw, and found that it had stopped raining and warmed up.

Today's task was to sort out the steps and path leading to the chickens' run. I am not so happy with my handiwork as it is a bit of a bodge job and I'm thinking about losing the bottom step and leaving it as grass. In spite of last night's storm the ground is very dry which made it easier to dig. As I was muttering to myself about the presence of that solid clay which needed attacking with a mattock I suddenly remembered the first serious gardening I did in London many years ago. As part of a local wildlife/environmental group we were involved in creating a community garden out of some derelict land just off Cable Street in East London. We used no mechanised tools at all but relied on pickaxes, mattocks and crowbars to dig our way through the foundations of houses that had been bombed back in the war. We would have given our eye teeth for soil such as I have got now. The local mounted police donated us a mountain of stable manure to compost and I remember one memorable occasion when the heap combusted and the fire -engines were called out, possibly by the nuns who lived in the convent across the street. The community garden became a successful venture and some years ago I saw a TV programme which showed local families growing vegetables there and enjoying the outdoor space. In that area just outside the City nobody has any sort of garden, only balconies or window boxes. This was where Peter grew up and now we live in the least populated county in England in a beautiful rural valley. We are so fortunate.
I've just checked and the gardens are still going strong, hooray for local projects. More info at http://www.opensquares.org/detail.php?square=CableSt

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