Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Hoping that you all have a great Christmas and wishing you all Health, Wealth, Success and most importantly Happiness for 2008 and beyond xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Snow...snow...snow

Well yesterday brought our first proper snowfall of the year.The temeratures have been zero and below.



















The dogs are loving it...snuffling around in the snow...Vladi here making the most of what drops off the bird table...greedy boy!

Nothing to be done in the garden now but sit and watch it out of the window.....

Oh it' s getting colder

November has brought our first frost and minus temperatures though only -1 or so in our area of the country.

The pumpkins have been picked and those not ripe have been passed onto those neighbours with a donkey, horse or pig.


The leaves have almost all fallen off the trees and I can't help feeling a little sad to see everything looking so bleak, the garden is really winding down.
Although the garlic and onions planted in October are already beginning to show through and the Strawberry patches are also looking healthy.



I have brought in our Bougainvillea , which has done well this
Summer in it's pot.The info about it says it will withstand - temp but I am not too sure so have brought it in for its first year.














The wine is ready after it's 40 days ...a lovely deep clear dry red should keep us warm this Winter.
The Sloe berries are also ready for picking and adding to the Rakia or Gin along with some sugar to make a great liquor in under 3 months ready for the New Year.

October comes......

October is here and off we go again in the garden....
The grapes are all picked and the wine fermenting nicely in barrels in the basement.We should have over 200 litres this year almost double that of last.

This week we have been planting out the garlic, onion sets and the lettuce.The garden is looking a bit bleak in areas already.
Although some things are still going strong like the Aubergines, Peppers,Courgettes and Pumpkins this week ahead is supposed to bring our first frost so all of those will go and have to be frozen or cooked up.

The Strawberries have been spit and new beds planted.Our kind neighbour who gave us our first dozen or so plants lost all of hers this Summer in the drought period so it's lovely now for us to be able to replenish her patch with new plants from ours......

Septembrrrr

Well it's September and hopefully the seasons have sorted themselves out here at last.

Over the past few days the weather has cooled considerably and along with it the rain has continued to fall.
The garden is really green and luscious and most of the fruit has finally swelled up and is ready for picking.







Today we had our one and only melon from our garden.....yum!

Before and After

About 2 months ago we dug over this area and spread it with grass seed.





The ants came and took lots of it away but after the last rain the grass has really started to come through.




It is still a bit patchy in areas but we cut it for the first time yesterday and I think by next spring we should have some decent coverage.

New lease of life...

Well the rain has done wonders for the garden!
Everything looks refreshed and revived.



The peppers, tomatoes and grapes are all pluming up nicely ...













....even the melons have started again hopefully with more luck this time.


Along with all this comes lots of work too.Everywhere is now covered with a crust of dried soil full of tiny weeds that needs breaking up...well it keeps us fit.


The wind also brought down most of the apples and guess what...we are experimenting with apple wine today.


We have picked and chopped almost 20lbs of apples added 10 litres of water and in 5 days time we will mash and strain and add the sugar.



Again I shall update on it's progress and success although I think this will be more difficult than the cherry wine...which by the way is sadly coming to an end.

Ah well there's always next year.........