85 days ago
We use chillies quite a lot here at the Welsh Hovel. The Mrs adds them into her Indian cooking, I add them into various jams and ice creams and also to my healthy vegetable and fish meals. Notwithstanding that, we are still working our way through the dried chillies from the 2024 harvest. And now I ave harvested the 2025 crop of various varieties as you can see below.
449 days ago
My hero, Charles Ingalls, would have been proud of me as I defied almost non stop rain to start harvesting. I also brought in stacks of wood for the stove in the living room as it really is getting cold and the gas heating seems to be on the blink, yet again.
480 days ago
Not literally but I am stunned how, in a Greek absence of less than three weeks everything has grown so fast. Naturally it is the weeds that have grown most rapidly and I sense some hard days ahead for myself and Joshua on that front.
498 days ago
A number of kind readers as well as an Oxford contemporary, L, have either expressed surprise that I am such a keen gardener or have asked for a progress report. Well here goes. I start with the small field behind the barn which was six foot high in weeds when we arrived and contained a number of abandoned metal structures hidden by those weeds. As you can see in the first photo, it is now anew orchard of about 30 trees, mainly plums, apples, crab apples and pears but with the odd fig, a dog’s arse tree and a tayberry. At the end of the orchard is the top field where one day I hope to keep goats. I have planted five edible olive trees from Greece, three mulberry trees and a sweet chestnut around the edge. That is all WIP.
591 days ago
Though health issues leave me behind schedule in the garden I saw last night that my peas, garlic, shallots, onions and radishes are all poking through and are on track. There is no sign yet of the early spuds or beetroot and this week the kids and I plant leeks, carrots and a second helping of peas. The strawberries and fruit bushes look set for another bumper crop and we already have a glut of rhubarb. However, the annual humiliation has hit me again.
792 days ago
Amid the glut of marrows there is also one acorn squash. There will be more on that as it has now been harvested while I try to figure out what on earth to do with the marrow glut. Meanwhile there was also one gherkin plant which produced more than half a dozen gherkins, now also all harvested.
862 days ago
Yes size does matter as the photos below show.
863 days ago
I am waiting for the village facebook page to have another two minute hate against me for taking down the 1950s iron shed known as the snake barn. “It was part of my childhood, it’s Welsh cultural history, bloody newcomers, it was so much better with the previous owners, blah, blah, blah.” bleats some in-bred sheep shagger. It is callled the snake barn becuase in it I stored some of the vast amounts of asbestos the previous owners had squirrelled away in the sheds and fields here and I want to keep my kids away from that. But now the barn has gone and that means that you can actually see our gorgeous 1600s listed farmhouse as you walk down the lane to our home.
1114 days ago
Ok, there were also some sausages not home produced but elsewhere you see beetroot (still being harvested) which we eat boiled, roast spuds (still being harvbested) and roast butternut squash which I harvested a few weeks ago and which are stored in the larder. I’d happily eat this lot without a meat dish but the Mrs and the kids are very much carnivores.
1565 days ago
The first of the two smaller beds at the bottom end of the vegetable patch dubbed “Joshua’s gardens” contains squash, marrows, herbs, lettuces, two chilli plants and a pepper plant. The second is for sweetcorn and gherkins and is now starting to look pretty amazing.
1570 days ago
Tended by P and watered by God, the garden at the Welsh Hovel has come on by leaps and bounds in my absence. There is so much to photo, eat, preserve, freeze and pickle so where to start? Let’s kick off with one of the two patches known as Joshua’s garden so these are really his vegetables.
