Lazing in the sun today

Well not me exactly.....guess who?

Although I did sit down to relax a few times...! So nice to enjoy the sun and lack of wind in the middle of winter.

Spent the day tidying up a lot of gardening 'stuff' (seedlings and planters mainly) and moving it from where it was to where the potting shed will go.

We are also getting some earthworks done which is great, widening the drive, putting in drainage and repairing the surface. It's been sometime since we had the driveway formed (from grazing land) and there's been a certain amount of wear and tear since then. Here are some then and now shots.

2007

2015

Still a bit more work to go before it's done.

Homemade doggie biscuits

Sharing a couple of easy recipes for homemade doggie biscuits. Cute and healthy treats for the wee pooch.
She loves them. I want to get a bone shaped cookie cutter! Still tiny hearts and paw print rounds are cute enough eh!

The yellow ones are made with pumpkin puree (or you can use babyfood for ease) organic brown rice flour and egg. The darker ones are made from organic buckwheat flour, peanut butter, mashed banana, ground flax seed and rice milk. Loads of recipes on Pinterest. Basically mix all ingredients to make a dough, roll out and cut out shapes, then bake in the oven.

Little Roxy sure enjoys them..

I've been somewhat distracted..........

by a new arrival - meet Roxy the labrador cross.

Isn't she a cutie? Of course being a puppy she is requiring a lot of attention right now, just like having a new baby really! Consequently getting time to spend on to most of the gardening jobs is a little difficult. But I'm not complaining, we're having a lot of fun!

I have however planted my garlic and am finalising plans for planting out the new walled garden.

I'm steadily making more and more compost, and preparing new beds for planting by digging in lots of kitchen scraps (since we no longer have pigs - yes they are now bacon, ham and pork in the freezer). I then lay wet cardboard on top and put mulch on top of that to keep the moisture in and the weeds under control.

I'm also applying mulch as and when to the fruit trees, and onto the existing beds in our original vegetable garden. This is going to be more of a herb and flower garden this coming season. It is on a slope and quite exposed to the wind, and gets quite dry in the summer, so it's never been really suited to growing vegetables. The herbs and flowers on the other hand are doing well there, and I've got lots of plants self-seeding all over the garden. Looking forward to seeing the flowers in bloom come spring-time.