Anybody building an ark out there?

This was last week but I thought id post it anyway!!

Thursday 12 July
Well it's been truly British weather this week.  I had planned a night out with my sister to go and see a fire art installation at Stonehenge.   I was really looking forward to getting close up and personal with those ancient monoliths. 

I'm so upset that I missed this

It didn't start well, not only was it raining, and had been torrential all week, Lottie was teething and Holly just wouldn't stay in bed. 

torrential downpour drowning my plants!

Just as we had got both children in their own beds and quiet.  Bridget checked her email only to find out it had been cancelled due to high winds and biblical weather. 

We did the only thing sensible in the situation and opened a bottle of wine. 

The next morning we ventured into my garden to check the condition of the gooseberries. Bridget loves them,  (can she really be my sister?) so Holly showed her where they were and warned they they were spiky and couldn't understand why she couldn't eat them straight from the bush.  We sent Aunts Boo on her way with a bag full of ripe  goosegogs with the hope of seeing her next Friday at RaRa's. 

watch out they're prickly!

Not much has been going on in my garden work wise as its been so wet. Apart from feeding my hot bin and lifting some pots. My Casablanca potatoes were a great disappointment with only four pots in the bag, that's one less than I put in!!  But my Anya's have been great and very delicious, fabulously nutty and with a lovely bite to them. 

Anya Potatoes waiting to be eaten

Since all that rain two weeks ago it's suddenly turned glorious, it almost makes it worth it!  On Friday we hightailed it to Wales to see my mom(RaRa to the girls) armed with rhubarb, goosegogs and some beautiful Mayan Gold pots, beautiful golden flesh, but watch out they boil very quickly so you want to be careful that they don't turn to mush.   There we spent two heady days on the beach splashing in rockpools, eating ice cream and I saw my first starfish! 

happy days

not just a red bucket, there is a starfish in there

Back in the garden I've taken advantage of the sunshine by purging the weeds and finally trimming the hedge, though I've only managed to give it the sides of the short back and sides as I can't reach the top without a ladder. 

clear space for planting the sunflowers

But most of all I'm very excited that tomorrow I get to go to Wisley to do a summer fruit shrub pruning course. I'll report back after the course when I've hacked, I mean pruned my currants. 

Black Gold!

Sunday
I have been digging, but not that deep.

No I haven't struck oil in the heart of Berkshire. I'm just very excited about my new toy.  Boys have their cars and power tools. Some girls have shoes, some have make up or even dresses. Me I have a hotbin composter!

not really appropriate for gardening

Silence, as the tumble weed passes........

all shiny and new

Okay so you may not see the wow factor of a black polystyrene bin but to me, this is exciting. As anyone who has a garden compost heap knows there are things you can and can't put in it.

• Bindweed and brambles? NO! A garden compost heap just doesn't get hot enough to kill the roots and you'll end up spreading bindweed all over your garden.   
• Meat and bones? NO! Do you really want to have to call the pied piper?  
• And it takes so long. Well the hot composter, well it gets hot and hot kills the nasty roots and hot composts quicker breaking down the meat and bones so no lilting pipe music and you get to keep the kids. 

 I finally persuaded Bjorn to mow the grass before we lost Lottie in the back jungle, then filled the composter with its base layer to get it started up. Once the heat has got going we can chuck pretty much anything that is biodegradable in there.

 I'm checking the temp tomorrow!

 (Fast forward) Monday
It's tomorrow and already the composter  is 40•C!! That's so cool, er ..... I mean hot! So I've brought it some more kitchen scraps. Mixing it in with some bark chippings and this composter is going to be so happy. It's promising to give me compost in 90 days so watch this space.

some blogs have beautiful pictures........
the base layer for the compost

Friday
Well the rain is back with a vengeance and I am in the house with two toddlers with cabin fever. The solution to this situation, get creative.
Holly has been asking for ages to make a scarecrow. I had thought to make a small scarecrow out of Lottie's old clothes. I then thought that might be too creepy. So I rooted around and found some old long johns, tights and some fabric. Luckily I still had some stuffing from making toy rabbits  and lots of shredded paper. We had great fun with the shredded paper, most of it went on the floor but then where's the fun in tidy play!  Then Holly spent a while creating a rather scary face, it's as if she'd seen me falling out of a club at 6am back in the 90's.
So now our garden is protected by the princess scarecrow with her shimmery skirt and long johns, like some bedragled raver, as she slumps in the strawberry patch with the two sparkly windmills care of grandma.

someone is watching the house......

I just don't want to catch a glimpse of her as I draw the curtains at night, think Jason from Friday 13th!