Spring in the garden

I know spring is well on its way when I hear the frogs croaking in our tiny little pond. A couple of days after first hearing them I noticed the frogspawn. There are often more than a dozen frogs in and around the pond and the amount of frogspawn seems a bit optimistic for the size of the pond. The frogs vary in size, I don't know how long it takes for a frog to become fully grown. This is one of the larger ones.

As I have now decided that it is spring I've already planted my potatoes in pots. I hope it is not too early but the pots are right up against the house wall which should give some frost protection. I tried this last year and got two or three meals worth of potatoes from each pot. However since last year the chickens have arrived and they like to sit in pots and generally destroy the contents!

I have surrounded the potato pots with chicken wire to keep them safe.

The potato tubers (two per pot) are planted two or three inches from the bottom of the pot and covered with a couple of inches of compost. Once the leaves are visible another layer of compost is added until the top of the pot is reached. To get good yields the pot needs to be much bigger but these were all I had. I have heard that potatoes can be grown in a similar way in black bin liners (with drainage holes) unrolling the bag and adding more compost as the plants grow but I've yet to try that, I'm not sure that bin liners would be chicken-proof.

I am now hoping for some more fine weather so I can get the allotment ready for some spring planting.

Keeping heating costs down

Since starting to reduce our fuel use for heating and hot water, this little Galileo thermometer has stood on our mantelpiece giving us a visual indication of the room temperature.

We have gas central heating and up until a few years ago I used to set the timer clock at the start of the winter and leave it on the same setting until spring. The heating would switch on for a couple of hours in the morning as we were getting up and then switch on again mid afternoon until bedtime. I think back then the thermostat was set for around 18-20C (64 -68F). Not any more!

When I started thinking about how much heating we actually need, I realised that the temperature of the house varies from day to day depending on the amount of sunlight, the number of people at home, the amount of cooking etc. The temperature we require also varies depending on what we are doing, the temperature needs to be higher if we are sitting reading or watching television than if we are cleaning, cooking or moving around.

So now we have reduced the thermostat setting to 15 C (59 F) and the heating comes on automatically for 45 minutes in the morning just before we get up and for three hours in the evening from 6-9pm. If the house cools too much outside of these times we push the "extra hour" button for some additional heating.

We use the Galileo thermometer as a quick guide to the temperature of the living room. Ours has four glass bulbs, calibrated at 16, 20, 24 and 28 C. If all the bulbs are at the top of the tube then the temperature is below 16 C (61 F) and if we are cold we add an hours heating. If the red bulb has dropped to the bottom of the tube (as in the first photo) then the room temperature is above 16 C and the rule is that if you are cold at this temperature then you should be wearing more clothes!

After several years of keeping to these temperatures we now all have a good supply of warm clothes (lots of layers) and find we are quite comfortable running the heating a lot less than we used to.

I have recently completed one of those carbon footprint calculators. I put in the figures for our 2007 gas usage and was pleased to find that per person we came out at well under a third of the average UK carbon dioxide emissions for heating and for electricity. Using this little thermometer to gauge whether the house really is cold or whether we should wear an extra sweater must have saved us a considerable amount of money and fuel - its certainly paid for itself.

Catching up

Its half term with us at the moment and as usual all is busy. I am in awe of bloggers who lead busy lives, are very creative making things, look after children, animals and gardens and still find time to blog frequently. Sometimes it seems to take all my time and energy just simply living leaving very little time to blog about living simply! - not that I'm complaining, I do like being busy.



We have just returned from a couple of days in Wales and as always it was really beautiful. It is our favourite place for a short break and with the wonderful weather we have had lately, it was just perfect.











Although we were not away for long it takes a while to get back into the routine. We had turned the heating off when we went away and with night time temperatures below zero the house felt very cold when we got back. My solution was to make a large quantity of warming soup. I used a recipe I spotted in the Times last Saturday for Spicy Carrot and Butternut Squash soup and can definitely recommend this as a very good soup for a cold day.

I also need to catch up with a couple of awards that I've been meaning to mention.

The first one was given to be by Learning to Step Lightly and the second by Barefoot in the Garden. Thank you to both. The rules for both state that the award should be passed on to 10 more blogs. Since that is an awful lot of links and I am feeling just a bit overwhelmed by everything I have to do at the moment I am going to cheat on this one and choose the blogs on my blogroll all of which I rate as excellent and in different ways all make my day!

Valentines Day

"when the gorse is out of bloom, then kissing's out of fashion"

Luckily more than one species of gorse grows in the UK. The Common Gorse or Furze flowers in the spring and is flowering now. It will continue until early summer when the Dwarf or Summer Gorse comes into bloom continuing until the start of winter. This covers most of the year but there are always a few flowers on gorse bushes all through the winter so I don't think kissing will be losing its popularity anytime soon!

Happy Valentines Day.

Allotment planning and planting

Its that time of year again. The recent warm days have started me thinking about what I will be growing this year at my allotment. The photo shows my choices for this year. Its actually very similar most years but this year I have decided not to grow potatoes. Last summer nearly all potatoes on the site suffered from blight and as it can linger in the soil I have decided to give them a miss for a year. The tomatoes will be grown at home away from other tomatoes and potatoes and I have chosen a blight resistant variety, Ferline ( thanks to moonroot for the recomendation) so I am hoping for a better crop than last summer.

I wanted to grow something new instead of the potatoes and I have chosen sweetcorn. I've never grown this before but other plot holders have. It was another crop that didn't do too well last year so perhaps this year will be a good year.

I have taken advantage of the recent warm weather and have already planted the onion sets and the broad beans together with some parsnips from saved seeds. This week I shall sow the leek seeds and possibly a row of early carrots. I like this time of year at the allotment, all the fun of planning and planting without all the mid-summer weeding and watering!