A pretty busy week workwise so not much time for outdoors. People often say to me that I’m lucky being self-employed as it means I can control my own time. I wish! The truth is that you work until the jobs are done and when work is there you don’t turn it down because next month you could be starving.
What time I did get outside was spent carting logs from the orchard down to the wood store in the cow shed. That’s now full and we’ve still got loads so it looks like building a log store is on the job’s list.
Visiting
Thursday we went over to see a pal who lives in the Conwy Valley not too far from Llandudno. I’ve known him for 6 years and finally we got to see his holding. He’s somewhat higher than us at 273M (we’re at 200M) but slightly more sheltered.
We got quite near to him but then the Google map let us down so a fruitless hour driving around – maybe this is the road? – until I managed to get a phone signal and call him. 5 minutes later we were there.
Being experienced smallholders, they have everything under control and organised. It’s a relief to see that it is possible to get there as sometimes I look around me and wonder if we’ve taken on more than we’ll ever cope with.
After lunch we headed into Llandudno which is a major shopping centre as well as a holiday resort. Despite all those red sales banners hanging in the shop windows, I was appalled by the prices.
Maybe it’s a sign of age, but some things just strike me as insane. For example, Levi jeans for nearly £100 in Debenhams. I get perfectly good jeans for gardening from Asda for £5. OK, no designer label but when they’re covered in mud and have a few rips, who cares? I did splash £14 on some smart trainers which won’t be worn to garden in for a while at least.
We managed to hit the Asda at just the right time, outside the rain poured down bouncing noisily off the roof and inside the man with the yellow labels was marking down some steak to half price. Rump steak for two of us for under a pound each isn’t bad.
New Loppers Arrive
Growing Runner Beans
I’m happy to announce another set of articles from John Trim, our growing for show author. This set on runner beans is just as interesting to table growers. ‘Table growers’ is just shorthand for those growing vegetables to eat rather than for show.
There are 3 in this series:
- Growing Runner Beans for Show where he covers the requirements for growing show quality beans, the best varieties and preparing the ground and runner bean trench.
- Cultivating Exhibition Runner Beans In the second part he covers planting, support and care of the runner beans.
- Picking and Staging Exhibition Runner Beans Finally, how to choose, pick and stage the runner beans to win the show.
Are you picking or pickling the beans for show 😉
@Chris:
Thanks Chris – the typo is fixed!
hi, one of the links at the botton of the last article does not direct you to the first article as discribed
@LEIGH: Thanks for letting me know – I really do need new glasses urgently!
what to plant now,just going into my poly now,need to get beds ready for the start of planting soon
@marybakers: Follow the link at the bottom of the page to Month by Month