Last Garden Club Talk Of The Season!

Last night was my last garden club talk of 2024. I think I've given over 20 this year! It's a fun thing to do and a good way for me to get my name out there and sell the products I make. Last nights was in a very old village hall, but with a great group of people. The one I gave on Tuesday was to a club I've spoken at a few times and it was a new talk about "The Self-Sufficient Fruit Grower" and it was really well received.

I had two talks this week and one last week. 

Last weeks was funny, it was a catalogue of errors and mishaps to get to do the speaking!

It was in Berkeley and supposed to be in a library. When I turn up I was greeted by a lovely lady, but also to complete darkness. The library had no power to it (a new library was being built behind this building and they weren't sure if the builders had killed the power to it. So for a while we tried to get the power on, looking at fuse boards and ringing people who might know. But alas to no avail.

So with all the members of the garden club there they took the decision to move it, I was happy to do this as I'd much prefer it to driving back another time and with everyone there it seemed silly not to try and make it happen.

They managed to get the common room in an retirement complex.

I was given some instructions to get there but saw a red pickup take off from the library and decided to follow that vehicle. Unbeknownst to me he had just dropped his mum to the garden club and she was getting a lift. So instead I just followed some guy back to his house!

I realised my error early (well as he parked up) and turned around and managed to find the house with a lot of worried people outside thinking I may have abandoned them!

I set up inside the very cosy room, not much bigger than my sitting room, using a set of blinds as my screen for a projector.

To be fair every looked very comfy in armchairs! Luckily I was entertaining enough to prevent anyone from falling asleep even with these new comfy surroundings.

The talk started much later due to these movements, and as it was south of the Severn I didn't get home until gone 11 last night!

I'm reminded of my favourite cartoonist who had a book entitled "Funny way to make a living..." and although his was in reference to agriculture, I'm fairly sure he'd agree that what I do is often an odd way to make a living, there isn't much glamour but it can be quite fun at times!

I'm looking froward to February when the talk "season" will start again. It really does break up the week and can be great fun.

Batches Before Christmas

It seems to happen this time every year (for the ones where I've been running this business anyway).

Whatever I'm running low on stock wise will be what I sell out of! Last week it was toolboxes!

So I made another batch and got them listed again on my Etsy shop. I'm hoping I won't run out of anything now up until Christmas, but I might have to make a few more batches of baskets to keep up. I hope I do in all honesty as it means more sales! 

It's quite a busy week this time, with two talks booked in (Tuesday and Thursday night), plus a magazine article that was in today and one in next Monday! So should be plenty to keep me moving! 

 

Making Bird Feeders At Scouts

Last week I ran a session at scouts where they all got to make a little bird feeder. I designed something very simple, a little triangle feeder with two little pieces of clear perspex at the front so the birds could see the feed.

I'm enjoying being able to tackle slightly trickier projects since moving up from beavers to scouts, this one fits the bill really as lots they can do themselves. 

I left it so each scout had to cut two pieces of wood and then they had to nail it all together. 

Her First Commission

 Middlest is always saying she wants to be a baker. Well this weekend she got her first taste of it. She had a commission to make a birthday cake for a friend of hers. 

they requested a chocolate cake with chocolate butter icing on top. Butter icing in the middle and homemade jam. 

Fair play to her as she baked it after spending the day with me at the craft fair and decorated it that evening. She was super pleased to be asked to make it though and you could tell she was proud as she dropped it off on Sunday morning (where they were having a D&D party with a professional dungeon master! 

Second Craft Fair

Yesterday I went to my second craft fair to sell my wares. 

My Middlest came with me to help all day, she was great, wrote me lots of great price labels, helped me set up and pack away, as well as being great company. 

She did had to listen to my sales patter all day though! I took two types of tomato seeds that I'd saved this year with me to give away, all my children helped me package them up on Friday night - over 120 packets in the end. Having something like seeds to give away is a great way of drawing people in, and starting a conversation with them. I also had a lot of my monthly newsletters printed out and I hope people will sign up to that as well as people seemed to be enjoying them. 

I sold enough to make it worth while, my only problem with giving my time to go to these fairs is just how much I could make hourly as a carpenter on site or as a jointer in my workshop and just sell online. It certainly boosts sales for this month a little bit, but it was time away from the workshop not making things. That said I do enjoy going out and talking to people, and it's lovely to receive face to face feedback about the products I make. 

I did love having my gooseberry scoops on display and had quite a lot of conversations about them, I think I sold three during the day. Something a bit different and a great present for a gardener that might be tricky to buy for. 

I need to do one of these a year to remind myself that although they're fun they're probably not the best use of my time. My daughter had a great day though and it was lovely to share it with her. 

 

A New Cat

For a long time now my middle daughter has been on about getting an inside cat. 

We've had an outdoor, feral cat, for about 4 years now. I feed it daily, but generally that's our only interaction with it. It was given to us by someone having to leave their farm, and seems to do the job of keeping on top of some of the mice and rats around the place. 

I've never had a cat as a proper pet before, but I wasn't against the idea, I mentioned it to a friend and she said she knew just the person. 

We got put in contact with the lady that helped us with the rescue hedgehog from earlier in the summer. they had a cat that had come in with a broken leg, it was still quite young, but very calm and friendly. Apparently it had come from a house that had 30 cats, but they couldn't afford to put it's leg right. The Vets did the job for free but decided that maybe it needed to be rehomed. 

So we visited this cat in the vets and all the children fell in love with it. He's very friendly, and the children enjoyed interacting with him. As his leg is pretty much better now we've got him back at home and he's settled in pretty much straight away. He won't be allowed outside for a good while yet and due to his leg we're trying to keep him in rooms he won't jump too high in. 

Show's how not used to cats that I am because I just can't get over how lazy he is! He does very little, considering I'm in and out the house all day. He does play with the children, and has his mad moments, but most of the time he's happy to lie around.  

 I love how much the children love him already and they've split up the jobs associated with him, so far I've only picked up one poo out the litter box, they've done all the rest! 

And his name? Varjak Paw. After the book about the Kung Fu cat with the same name (a favourite in this house), I'm sure he'll have lots of adventures on the smallholding. 

Cinder Toffee

 A couple of weeks ago we drove up to York to see some friends. With a long drive I do quite like something sweet to nibble on. 

So I decided to make some cinder toffee. The easiest, cheapest and sweetest snack you could ever make. 

Hen Gymro Wheat Planted On A Garden Scale

 I keep thinking about my challenge of a years self-sufficiency and how I need to start growing more staples. I'll need carbs and dried goods to see me through lean times and to provide enough fuel for what I do day to day. 

The main one is bread. I need lots of bread, and for that I'll need flour, and for that I need to grow wheat (and possibly rye, but I'm not there yet). A good wheat that will make a good loaf.

An Apology Tweet

 I am sometimes guilty of being an idiot, I may sometimes shout my opinion and this may have ripples that I don't foresee. I'm certainly guilty of that last week where I tweeted my life would have been easier if I had inherited a farm and just had to pay the inheritance tax. Understandably this upset some people in the agricultural industry, so looking more into the subject, and reforming my views, I have issued an apology. 

I would like there to be more routes into farming, I don't think it should become a closed shop that you have to be born to, but I also think the new tax limits being set currently are too low and will affect too many small farms, and chances are they will be bought up by the really big farms or by corporations, so any change of landownership wouldn't be in the direction I had initially thought. 

There does needs to be some change of law to make it less appealing to people buying it for tax avoidance purposes that keep the prices of land so high. 

Anyway, off to hide for a bit!

Garlic In!

 A bit later than some years, but I've got my garlic in. 

Last year I planted a huge selection of garlic cloves from a lot of varieties. this was partly for flavour and partly to see what did well here. 

This year I've decided to just plant the best blubs that I got from this years harvest, I'm not worried what type they are, although I will try to plant a selection of different ones to make sure that when we have a very different year then others might thrive instead. 

I had some good ones this year, two whole beds in, and I'm tempted to do more. The garden has quite a bit in it now - next post I'll tell you what I've put in 12 beds as a bit of an experiment. 

Got your garlic in?

Straw To Create A New Growing Space

The other day the farmer who's been having the hay dropped off his load of muck as payment and also a large straw bale.

This I wanted for the chicken bedding and a few wet patches where I walk daily. I find that even though I produce loads of shavings they work best when I put down a bed of straw first, otherwise it'll just sink away. 

This years Chillies

I love growing chillies, they truly are beautiful plants to grow. To me they're just as pretty as growing flowers. 

 This year I had a nice selection, left to right - Korean Gochugaru (for making kimchi in the future), Bulgarian carrot, Lemon drop, Chinese Chaotian, Cayenne purple, Alberto's Locoto.