View Post

Planning for the spring garden

We have done pretty well this year all things considered but I’m determined that next year will be even better. This weekend I’ll be turning the compost heap and getting ready to fork over the beds and enrich them with the compost and some local rotted horse manure. Our deep beds will all have sweet peas growing on the sides …

View Post

Enjoying local produce

Over the weekend we had some wonderful local food. Friday night we had a T bone steak from our local butcher with potatoes and beans from the garden. Naturally as always a bottle of wine was enjoyed with it. On Saturday the lovely Vanda cooed a Mousaka using aubergines and tomatoes from the garden and minced lamb, again from our …

View Post

Autumn is here

We are now getting cold and foggy weather, but we are still getting beans, courgettes and sweet corn from the garden. Cauliflowers are nearly ready and the sprouts are doing well. Really looking forward to eating them   I now also have a new morning routine chopping kindling and splitting logs for the wood burner. 

View Post

RIP Nigel

Today I lost my oldest and dearest friend to cancer. Nigel Abell who ran the hugely succesful Gloucester company http://www.glosterflightsupplies.com/  had been ill for some time. He leaves behind his wife Tracey and 2 children. He will be missed I have written a short piece about Nigel here

View Post

Clearing out the planters

Summer is drawing to a close and some of the planters are looking a bit tatty, so We are clearing them out and of course adding them to the compost heap The tomato plants with blight have been burned. Don’t want to risk that spreading through the compost

View Post

The joys of the vegetable garden

Despite the late start there are many successes in our vegetable garden this year. Our beans are now producing a wonderful harvest, we have peppers and aubergines that are nearly ready ( was told impossible to grow them here in the Forest of Dean ) and the sprouts and cauliflowers are doing very well. Sadly we are today harvesting any …

View Post

Mixed results in the garden

Considering how late everything went in I suppose we haven’t done that badly. The French and Runner beans are at last producing, and we have had some tomatoes. Sadly I have had to uproot 2 plants as they had blight. That was a bitter blow, but it did allow me to have a bit of fun at the highly extreme …

View Post

Summer harvests from the garden

Despite the poor weather earlier on and the late start we had we are now starting to eat some of our produce. We have french beans and tomatoes ready for the table and the runners are all in full flower. If we get the promised good weather in September we will be eating aubergines and peppers, and our cauliflowers are …

View Post

First time at Cinderford Rugby

I enjoyed watching a game at Dockham Road Cinderford yesterday and this time did remember to put a card in the camera so here are a few pictures from the game. The result was Cinderford Stags 26 longlevens 1st’s 12 [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”1″ gal_title=”Cinderford Rugby”]