Vietnamese Coriander and my Chilean Guavas

 Added a new plant to my collection this week - Vietnamese Coriander. 

On Wednesday I went to a garden show with mum organised by The Red Cross. It was a lovely little show set in the grounds of an old manor house with a walled Victorian garden to walk around as well (more on that another time). The stalls were made up of lots of local specialist nurseries so it was nice that there were no "big brands" there and the stall owners really knew their stuff.

I got talking to the owners of The Cottage Herbery about my dislike for growing coriander. Although I love the taste, it bolts so easily it's hardly worth growing, when ever I want it its run to seed. I was enquiring if they had a herb called Papalo or knew where I could get seeds in the UK from, this is meant to be a great alternative with a similar taste but the plant grows much bigger before if flowers (between three and five feet I think) so you get a much longer harvest, used a lot in Mexican cooking. 

She didn't have this but wrote down my details and of the herb to look for it and said that a good alternative they sell is Vietnamese coriander which gets bigger than normal coriander before going to flower. It's unusual for me to buy a herb instead of seeds but I did as I quite fancied trying this, apparently its easy to take cutting from so I'll be doing that later to propagate my own plants from it and hopefully I'll get some seed as well to plant if it's any good.

Last year when I got them in May

 I also had a comment on a post I'd written last may about when I bought my Chilean guavas, asking what they were like, how they grew and how they did over winter. 

What they look like now

We had quite a mild winter so it's not been the hardest test for them but they've all pulled through. I simply stored them in an unheated greenhouse and made sure I watered them as they needed it. As you can see the plants have grown like crazy in a year and measure about two foot high with a really good spread.

Read about the fruit amazing tasting fruit here.

 I took a couple of cutting last summer and they both rooted easily and have started to grow well. I'm planing to take lots more cuttings this year and I might experiment with growing them in the ground and not bringing them in. They seem to grow so fast that I think they'd make great hedging in a sheltered place (which we aren't in) and because of the fast growth it's not the end of the world if I loose a few plants, I'll make sure that I over winter a few in the greenhouse still. Maybe a small border in front of my new porch when I finish building it!  

Cuttings I took last summer doing well.

Who else is growing Chilean Guavas? Anyone grown one from seed?

Also how does everyone else stand on coriander? Any other suggestions for alternatives?

Porch Footings And Digger Work

Dad came over on the weekend so we could start on the porch and a little project in the back garden. He came in his usual style, with lots of equipped and machinery, there was even a different dumper for me to play with (I'm not aloud on the digger when he's here!). 

The front door before work started. 

The overgrown area of the back garden. The picture doesn't show it but there's an old dog pen in that mess that needed pulling out with the digger

Removing some horribly invasive shrub. Unfortunately it also showed us how unstable the garden wall is in the back garden.

Digging the footings for the porch. I did very little with a spade, most was done with the digger, luckily

The footings dug. even though it's just the porch we went to the same depth as the house footings. Building inspector was happy.

Concrete poured in. I went for quite a deep fill as it saves a lot of brick and block work. 

Dad's dog found it hard work as well!

I've got a bricklaying friend coming round on Monday to bring the brick and block work up to damp, plus some jobs in the garden and to see what he suggests with the wobbly wall. Hopefully the porch won't take too long and then we can crack on with the extension, although I'm sure it's my bits that will take the time!

A Year As A Stay-At-Home Dad

Well it's been a year since I've taken over the duties as being the stay at home parent. 

I really wasn't sure how I'd cope with it long term, and talking to my family neither were they! They were worried I'd struggle with the lack of male company and not have enough to keep my mind busy or be productive. 

In fact it's been the opposite, I've made lots of "mummy friends" at playgroup, many share the same type of mindset and enjoy talking and doing the same things as me, gardening, frugality, baking, etc. It's been great meeting up with them and having them to talk to for adult conversation, it's been a year since someone tried to talk about football to me! 

I've also kept myself really busy, I've been working on every Saturday and every school holiday with lots of little carpentry jobs for people and I've had plenty to do on the homestead here, growing a productive garden, baking, housework, decorating, DIY, fencing, planting trees, looking after the chickens, sourcing firewood, saving money... well you get the point! 

Don't be fooled - they're trouble.

Then there's been the best bit - my girls. I've got to spend more time with them than I ever thought I would and it's been amazing. I love every minute of it and even though it's been hard at times, through the tantrums, tummy bugs and pooey bums, I wouldn't change any of it. I feel like I know my girls so well and we have such a great time together, I know in years to come I'm going to look back on this time with fond memories. 

I feel like I'm a very lucky man to have this opportunity and to have a wife would is happy for me to stay at home while she goes to work, without all her hard work none of this would be possible. I married a truly amazing woman who puts up with a lot! 

I'd also like to thank all my blog readers and commenter's for keeping me on my toes this last year, for giving me new ideas and things to try and for constantly encouraging me.

I think everything combined has made this last year the best year of my life so far! 

Twenty Two Sheep

 Well I've had one hell of a busy weekend! 

Dad came over and helped me dig the footings for my porch, we've done some major digger work in the garden and got twenty two sheep with twenty two lambs! I think I've worked about 26 hours in two days and I'm feeling it this morning (I didn't eat dinner until quarter to ten last night!) .

I'll put some more info up later about the weekend but for now I'll just some pictures of the beginnings of our flock of sheep while I get my head around the paper work!

Renting Land

There was some excitement this week (from me anyway) as I managed to do a deal to rent out some fields next door to our homestead. 

The top patch. The oak trees in the middle mark where an old hedge used to be and I'll probably run an electric fence up there to divide it up again.

 It's about 8 acres split into two fields although they'd be easily split into three. We're renting it as grass keep so have to be off the land for two months a year and although it's only eight acres it should help in producing more food for us and more to sell. 

It literally couldn't be any nearer to us as they were once part of the same estate, the fields are much better drained than ours and slope south rather than north. . 

Looking up from the bottom of the top patch.

the bottom patch, really lush grass here.

Road access is poor to the bottom field but most tractors can fit through.

I also made a call to a shepherd that I used to help as a child/teenager and he's going to hopefully purchase us some ewes with lambs at foot to put on to the fields. It'll be quite an investment but hopefully it should pay off in the long run. It'll be nice to put my knowledge of sheep back into practice - so long as I haven't forgotten it all! 

If we don't get sheep soon then I might have to make hay on the bottom patch as it's so lush. 

I'll do more information on the fields in another post. 

I'm really excited about this - should be a lot of work but a lot of fun as well.