Strathardle Gathering

This weekend is the annual Strathardle Gathering over in Kirkmichael, we've gone for the last couple of years since moving up here and have always had a fantastic day. This year I am entering some of the competitions in the Indutrial Tent. Now, for those in the know this is very competitive, it's the ladies opportunity to fluff up their feathers and show who's Queen of the Kitchen, Garden and Crafts!!!

I am on the Ladies Committee for the Alyth Show, our local agricutural show, and was lucky enough to be able to accompany a judge this year, so picked up quite a few tips here and there.

So, for the next couple of evenings I shall be busy getting my list of entries together, a little bit of baking, some jam making, some flower arranging, picking my veggies and making some bits and pieces for the craft section. I'm not entering loads in each section as I simply don't have the time. It always amazes me how some folk have entries in nearly every section, I take my hat off to them. But then if you're serious about this (which clearly I'm not!) you have to enter loads in order to be in with a chance to win any of the cups as it's all based on points!

I'm really looking forward to entering my veggies, funnily enough, that's the section that I'm entering the most in! I know of a few people who are entering in this section so there's going to be lots of competition this year. One of our neighbours entered for the first time last year and won the cup so the pressure is really on for him this year, good luck Geordie!

In the flower aranging section I'm (hopefully) entering a jug of sweetpeas and a vase of garden flowers. Now, our garden isn't looking the greatest at the moment as I'm still battling with our very wet borders and the rain this year really hasn't helped. So, thanks to John (my gardening guru) I'm hopefully going to be able to get some flowers from his garden tomorrow. We do have some fabulous Dahlia and other bits and pieces so I'm thinking a nice warm coloured arrangement will look really good. One of our other neighbours is the champion of this section so Saturday is going to be an interesting day!

I'll post some pictures once it's all over and let you know how I get on, wish me luck!

L x

Hunter Gatherer

Gregg went off out at the crack of dawn this morning to shoot some bunnies. We're having some friends round for a BBQ this evening and the request was for some of Jamie Olivers E.F.R., Essex Fried Rabbit. We've had it before at friends and it is really very tasty. I know it's not everyones cup of tea, but personally I think rabbit is just like chicken, but a lot tastier, a bit more gamey. Unless of course it's your own home reared free range chicken which is just the best. So, at about 7am, just as I was starting to think about getting up, the hunter returned with 3 rabbits, gutted and skinned and ready for cooking, good lad!

For all the vegetarians out there, we're not just going to be feasting on meat, I'm doing lots of salads from the garden too and I'm going to give Sarah Ravens Barbequed New Carrots recipe a go along with some courgettes thrown in as we're growning with them.

Have a good weekend.

L x

Eating from the garden and our new arrival

Today I have had a good feed from the garden, strawberries for breakfast, and then other than the cream and peas (ours aren't quite ready yet!) tea was all from the veggie patch too. I made myself a courgette & mint frittata, very yummy indeed, even though I am not a big egg eater.

Here's the recipe, you'll need:

a couple of potatoes sliced thinly (ours were freshly dug up from the garden tonight)

1 small courgette thinly sliced with a veggie peeler

a handful of fresh or frozen peas

some mint leaves chopped up (I used basil mint, very yummy)

4 free range eggs (or a goose egg and a hen egg is a good combo)

a dollop of cream (or milk if you want to be healthier)

salt and pepper

grated parmesan

Pop the potatoes into pan of boiling water and cook, add the peas after about 5 minutes. Place a sieve on top of the pan and steam the courgette strips. Meanwhile, beat your eggs and add the cream, mint leaves and some seasoning. Once the potatoes and peas are cooked, drain them through the sieve with the courgettes.

Heat a large frying or omelette pan with a little olive oil in it. Add the egg mixture and then the veggies and evenly distribute them around the pan with a fork.

Cook this over a medium heat for a bout 10 minutes or until the bottom is golden. You should be able to shuggle it about in the pan.

Grate some parmesan over the top and then place under a hot grill to cook the top and brown it off.

I made a little pesto and creme fraiche dip to have with mine tonight, it was really tasty.

On Monday night, we had to do one of the hardest things ever, we had to chose our puppy from a litter of 6. Sorry, did I forget to mention we were getting a black lab pup.......?!!! Oh well, we must be mad but hey ho! So, we halved the problem as we decided to have a girl, the litter was 3 girls and 3 boys.

We went from 3........

to two..........

to one........

The lovely little lady above is coming home with us on 3rd August, we can't wait.

L xxx

The veggie garden in flower

Seeing as I've found my blogging mojo again (yeah!) here are some photos I took earlier this week of the veggie garden. After a few days of rain the weeds will no doubt be appearing pretty quickly again.......

Runner beans.....

Broad beans.....

Courgettes......

peas........

the first cornflower........

Californian poppies adding a splash of orange.......

It's been a funny week, lots of time spent glued to the computer putting together leaflets on our courses and doing a bit of P.R. At last I spend the whole day out in the workroom today and it was bliss. Some samples are off in the post, winging their way down to London, so fingers crossed they are magazine worthy.......

Right, off to walk the dog and pop in on some friends for a glass of wine. Have a great weekend.

L x

Loving this life

It's Friday, yet another week has flown in, and it's truely feeling like Autumn now.

I wasn't really prepared for the heart warming feeling you get when harvesting from the garden, it really is quite magical. We had our first carrots tonight, along with some peas (we've had a bumper crop of them this year) and some broccoli. It always amazes me how the simplest things in life can make you so happy.

I'm loving going for peaceful evening walks, enjoying the last of the sun low in the sky.

Lighting the fires, the smell of the wood.

It's our wedding anniversary this weekend, 7 years, where has that time gone? We're both happy and settled and enjoying the peace.

Have a good weekend.

L x

From the garden.....

All this great weather has brought the garden on in leaps and bounds, veg, flowers and most of all weeds! Except for the parsnips, all the veggies are now planted in the veggie boxes as the last of the frosts are now hopefully past. We've been eating salad nearly every night for the last week, it's fab!

We're having a big family get together next month as we have family over visiting from NZ, so I'm hoping we might have some new potatoes ready for eating and plenty of salads, fingers crossed we might even have some fresh peas..........

I just need to get those second sowings done now.........! What veggies are you all growing?

Busy, busy, busy............

Well, as you can probably tell from the lack of posts we've been a tad busy here at Primrose Hill. What with those cute little chicks to drool over daily, we've not been handling them much, but there has been the odd little cuddle! It's been a tad busy with the business and the garden has been keeping us both out of mischief in all of our spare minutes!

Do you remember this post? Well here's where we are with this little project, looking a lot smarter, wouldn't you agree? Still a bit of fencing to be done and the wild flower seeds to be sown, but I am rather loving my new gate!
Lots going on in the garden and the greenhouse, these arrived in the garden this weekend....

........what do you think? they'll make great sweetpea and cornflower supports. They were hay stooks in a previous life, nothing better than a bit of recycling in the garden.

In my last post I showed you some of our pruchases at the market, well one of the buckets is planted up at the front door with marguerites, very welcoming with all those friendly little daisy heads bobbing around! And yes, that is a little pot of violas hiding beside it from way back in March when I potted them up for the Country Living Fair, still flowering away, healthy as ever!

Well, I'm off to the post office with another order and I really must catch up on all those e-mails that I owe you all, especially this lady, your parcel will be in the post this week, I promise!

L x

Spring showers

At last some rain has arrived in our neck of the woods, in the form of spring showers, little bursts of really heavy rain, on and off all morning. It always amazes me the weather and peoples reaction to it. We have a spell of beautiful Spring sunshine, perfectly timed with the Easter holidays, but we still manage to complain, everyone talking about how dry the ground is, having to water spring plants and the like, and how they wished it would rain! Why is it that sometimes we are never a happy nation?

Anyway, amidst the glorious sunshine of last weekend we managed to have our first BBQ's, both Saturday and Sunday night, sitting outside enjoying the last of the days rays, how fab is that for mid April?

I also got stuck into the seed planting in a big way, probably a little bit late, but still early enough not to be too worried that I'll be harvesting my peas in September! I got the pasting table set up and had a little production line going, while dancing away to a digital radio station we've just discovered, Life, they play lots of oldies mixed in with some new stuff. Gregg and I spent the whole weekend saying to each other "ooh listen to this one, I haven't heard that in ages......." boogy, boogy, boogy!

It was actually mostly flower seeds that I was planting, 17 varieties in all, so no excuses for empty beds this year! The last of the veggie seeds will be planted tomorrow hopefully, if I get my finger out of my (slightly bruised) bottom and get all my work finished today, nothing like a deadline to get you going and the thought of a day off spent in the garden!

Photos are of the quickly filling up greenhouse and some Rocket that has germinated already.

On the chicken front, the duck came off the nest yesterday so no ducklings from her I'm afraid. Bit of a shame but I had my doubts after we'd disturbed her, I'd rather she was safe than foxy loxys supper though. Plenty of time yet for little ducklings though, we have to live and learn from our mistakes!

The Easter Weekend

Easter has come and gone in a bit of a whirl wind in our house this weekend, but a very enjoyable one! From the first visitors arriving on Friday morning until yesterday afternoon, the kettle was working overtime! It was lovely to see all our friends and family over the weekend, so thank you all for taking the time to come and visit.

Hasn't the weather just been superb, I can't remember the last Spring we had that has been this glorious, and by all means it's to last for the rest of the week, fingers crossed! We've even had to start watering the pots!

We managed to get a few things done outside, Gregg and Allan felled a tree on Friday morning, don't boys just love playing with chain saws and making lots of noise!

In between visitors I managed to get this made.....

........I have been looking forward to this moment for sooooooooooooooo long! This time last year we started off with 5 chickens, a cockerel and 2 geese. We now have a bit of a menagerie, producing loads of eggs and hopefully some little chicks soon. We have a couple of broody chooks so we're planning on setting them on some eggs this weekend, very exciting, as our attempts last year were a bit late in the day and didn't produce anything. We also have more interesting news on the poultry front but I'll keep that for tomorrow.

At last I have passed the "planning" stage of the veggie garden and have progressed to the "just get on with it" stage! I got my first lot of potatoes in yesterday, early Duke of Yorks, and planted sweetpea seeds, varieties "Matucana" and "Painted Lady". I also got a tub of basil seeds planted so that'll be interesting to see how they come along. Only about another 20 packets of seeds to go now..............

Hope you all enjoyed your Easter break too.

L x