Seed Swap On Saturday!

It's almost that time of year again - The seed swap in one of our local cities (Hereford) is on this weekend. 

I always look forward to it. I've even put off ordering my seeds until afterwards so I know what I need. 

Today was a wet and miserable day so I took the time to bag up some parsnip seed I saved from earlier in the year, I had a little help as well. 

I've got some more things to bag up yet as well as plenty more parsnip seed! If anyone wants any parsnip seed then please let me know, this stuff is last years seed and grown in the UK so I'm hoping it should be good stuff!

Anyone else going to a seed swap this year? 

Two Milestones On The Extension

Just a short video showing the progress I made on the extension over the weekend. 

I just need to keep this pace up now! 

Extension Progress - Roof Tiled

This roof has been my nemesis lately. 

I've not managed to get out there and finish for a number of reasons, either the weather has been against me (to cold for the mortar to go off or too wet to not wash it down the roof), my wife and children have had different bouts of poorlyness or we've had things like birthdays to contend with.

So it's just sat there, in it's unfinished glory, taunting me every time I go to get in the car.

Yesterday I managed to get out there and even though it had forecast rain for the afternoon I'd thought I'd risk it. Luckily the rain never came and I managed to have a good run at it, I did think I was going to run out of tiles at one point but luckily I'd got just enough (about 30 or 40 left over I think).

Stepping back last night and look at it I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. All four of the hips I've had to do up there look really tidy and the lead work around the chimney does as well. A good, solid, waterproof roof, One that should last for many years. 

There's still lots for me to do up there (not today though as it's meant to rain all day). I've got to fit the gutters and line and insulate the chimney. The chimney is cause me a particular problem as I can't insulate it properly until I block the bottom off, and I can't do that until I know it through into the extension and we're a long way from doing that. I have got a plan though so we'll see how I get on! 

Also I've taken the my last two posts down. I've enjoyed your all your comments and they've been both popular posts, but I've decided that I'd rather talk to this woman face to face next time something like this happens. Rather than her reading it in a few months time if someone at school mentioned my blog (the dangers of using my real name). I've saved both posts and all the comments though so please don't think they were wasted. Thanks again for all your input.

Forest Schools Party!

Well we had the forest school party at the weekend and I can happily report that no children broke any limbs or spontaneously combusted!  

The party worked really well, My eldest shared it with one of her friends from school, so we as parents could share the burden a bit! 

We're lucky here as there is a village hall type building about 75 yards away, so for any parties we tend to use that. We got all the children and parents to meet us there(I live in fear of a children party where the parents leave their children for me to look after!), before I lead them over to the far field where the girls and I had set up the log circle. I'd roped my brother into manning/guarding the bonfire which worked really well (and his wife helped looking after our little boy who wasn't as happy as he could have been...)

Leaf crown on the birthday girl!

We'd set up a few activities for the kids, so they split into groups. 

The one activity was a treasure hunt I'd made up in the bottom field. Around the field I'd left different cards with pictures with animal tracks on, each track had a letter which they had to match up to a sheet they'd been given. Five different animal tracks with five letter to make up the word "Field". It was great and as I'd spaced it right round the field (with one well hidden one) they were all running all over the place, burning off lots of energy. When they got them all they got a packet of sweets as a reward.

Around the fire the children could roast some marshmallows and my brother had cut some fresh willow sticks to roast them with, we had set a limit for each child but I think there were a fair few that had more than their quota of marshmallows! 

There was also crown making with some cardboard crowns with sticky backed tape around the outside, the kids then collected leaves and grasses to stick on them. They all seemed to enjoy all of it, being outside and running about in the open space. 

We then headed back to the hall for party food (I'm going to have a major rant and moan/vent about something to do with this later in the week), all the kids were all great and really well behaved, whilst all the parents had a good chat and warmed up a bit by the heaters. 

Both the birthday boy and girl had their cakes (I had to make a second strawberry cake for this!) and blew out their candles. 

It all went really well, kids went home happy, but I was really happy when it was all over! A lot of preparation, planning and baking went into it! 

We ended up with three very tired children and two very tired parents by the end as well! I was cream crackered! 

Apple Trees For Sale

Anyone that read this blog will know that each year I graft a few apple trees, this keeps the skills fresh in my mind as well as creating some great old and interesting varieties of apples. 

This year I've finally got round to selling some and I've listed them on my Etsy shop, although I have many more types that I've not put up yet. 

Anyone who is interested please leave a comment or send me an email or Facebook message and I'll put some great deals together for multiple trees. I'm not out to make a huge profit, I just want to fun this hobby and create some nice trees in the process!

The bit from my listing about how I grow my trees: - 

All the apple trees I grow are grown on MM106 root stocks which I find grow well in most conditions but are easily controlled by pruning. I even use this type of root stock to grow my 30 cordons down my garden planted 2ft apart. 

I grow and graft all the trees myself, here on my small holding in Herefordshire. Everything is grown using organic methods. Scion wood used to graft on to the trees is collected from old local orchards. 
The trees are grown slowly on a north facing slope, which means that when they are shown some love and care they will romp away! The only pest control I use is to let the chickens into the nursery each winter to eat the bugs, no sprays of any sort have been used on these trees.

Trees will be packaged for sale as bare root trees. Trees should be pruned before they are planted by at least a third to make up for the roots they have lost when they are dug up. I may prune some of the trees before hand to make packaging possible! They will soon put this growth back on and benefit from it. 

Trees should be planted with the scar (where I grafted the tree) above ground. 

When you receive delivery please either plant straight away or heel them into the ground to prevent the root from drying out or the frost affecting them.

These trees are all two or three years old and tend to range from 3 - 6ft, although most will be trimmed down for shipping unless you message otherwise. 


The list - 

Eating apples
Cox Orange Pipping	Classic eating apple
Winter banana	Supposed to taste of banana but I never found that. Good tasting apple though that holds well on the tree late in the season
American Mother	Good frost tolerant blossom, good in a cool summer, heavy cropper and apples have a hint of vanilla to them
Orleans Rennit	18th century french apple that some say is the best tasting apple ever.
Tydemaster Late Orange	Cox style apple with later season and sharper flavour
claygate Permain	Victorian apple with soft juicy flesh
Elestons Orange	Cox flavour with an anniseed note to it. Lovely juicy apple
Phillimore	Good eating apple
Winston	Used to be called Winters King, Makes qutie a compact tree with good crisp apples
Fiesta	Cox style apple - really tasty! Best for juicing
Discovery	One of the earliest apples, great eaten from the tree
Ribston Pippin	Yorkshire apple, parent to the cox,
Bakers Delisious	Good early apple from south wales
May Queen	Hard and crisp apple, rpen in Novemeber and will keep until May
Liberty	Modern vareity bred for disease resistance
Pitmarsons pineapple	Great little apples - like crab apples in size - but one of the best tasting apples out there
Brownlees russet	Good tasting russet apple
Ashmeads Kernal	old vareitity that keeps well. Russeted apple
Red winsor	Really lovely red apple that still has great taste
Sunset	Similar to cox but not so sharp in flavour but better at resisting scab and canker
Pixie	Small but really sweet flaoured fruit
Spartan	Really good looking apples
George Cave	Really early eating apple, some say better than discovery - frost hardy blossom
Duel purpose apples
Sotch bridgett	Great cooking apple that keeps until may and mellows enough after christmas to be an eater
Blenham Orange	Great off the tree to eat or to cook, really good flavour
Hugsons Golden Reinette	Good for apple charlotte, but great for eating off the tree in early october
Coooking apples
Howgate wonder	Huge cooking apples
Warners king	Really early cooker, tasty
Annie Elizabeth	Good cooker - keeps it shape when cooked
Bramley	Classic cooking apple
Cider apples
Le Bret
Harry Masters Jersey
Foxwhelp
Dabinette
Yarlington Mill