2000 Visitors Giveaway Celebration!

Hey I have had 2000 vistors to my blog yeah!!! Thanks everyone for reading following and commenting. Hope you guys plan to stick around.

So I'm going to celebrate with all my readers by offering a giveaway.

Since this is my gardening blog and I share the recipes and dishes I create from my garden I thought I would give two lucky readers the oppportunity to taste my garden.

So I'm giving away two bottles of my homemade chutneys...

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Patty Pan & Tomato Chutney (I blogged about it here)

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Green Tomato & Apple Chutney (I blogged about here)

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To get a chance to win one of the bottles all you have to do is:

• Leave a comment.

For more chances:

• Twitter or blog about my giveaway and leave a comment with a link to your posting.
• Or follow my blog (anyone already following just jog my memory with another comment).

Entries will be taken till 1st of March 11.00am and the giveaway results will be announced on Monday 1st of March, 2010 at midday. Good luck everyone and have fun.

Catching Up

So I had a lovely week last week as both my girls were home as it was half term holidays, yeah I love having them around but see how it ended this morning here.

So yes last Monday I made it to the allotment and though I wanted to visit there again during the week on days the girls and I didn't go out, it was just too sticky so I potted around the garden on Wednesday the weather was lovely and the girls were busying themselves with friends out front so I had a few hours to myself.

I used the time to tidy the greenhouse of all the spent and rotten plants that were hanging around.

I also decided to see if there was anything to harvest from the oca, yukon and ulluco South American root vegetables, of which there was none really but enough tubers to grow fresh crops this year. I wasn't too disheartened as I knew I planted them out too late last year and was just hoping I would get tubers to replant and at least I did.

There were a few signs of the coming spring as well....

I had hoped to get a visit to the allotment yesterday but it wasn't to be as it was a watery day as is today so the ground is going to be worse off than it already was. So like lots of other gardeners out there I'm playing the waiting game.

On a different note I used the last of my bottled chunky tomato sauce last night. I have been so pleased with the way they turned out and so this year I will be planting a second bed of tomatoes which will be dedicated to only cooking tomatoes, I don't want to ever have to buy tinned tomatoes again. So I see I'll be needing to build a second rain shelter for outdoor tomato growing.

Oops! I Forgot

I had meant to end my last post with this blog award update but I plum forgot, sorry Clare.

I was given this lovely award by Clare of Little Bear Stories , she said that the blogs she passed it on to sparkled which was lovely to say.

There are few blogs that for want of a better word sparkle to me too, mainly because their writing style makes me eager for their next post and always leaves me with a smile on my face.

So I would like to pass this onto:

Mama syder of The Syders
Nancy of The Rabbit Muse
Maureen of Allotment Heaven
Jo of The Good Life
Ali of Ali's Allotment Plots
Tanya of Allotment 4 You

Remember guys there is no obligation to accept this award, I just wanted to pass on some sparkles :)

Keep warm everyone and catch you all laters.

I Finally Got There!

Well I made it to the allotment today. The first day of half term and the day greeted me with frosted surfaces and sunny blue skies so I bundled up the girls and while they roller skated, I walked with them to the allotment for the year's first visit.

I did some measurements to accurately plan out the beds and marked out on graph paper where last years planted crops were. I also laid down some old fence panels to create a temporary center foot path to my little plot.

I have decided the majority of beds will be 4ft x 8ft (I find beds are much easier to maintain rather than long rows, especially when it comes to weeding or digging over an area). The beds won't be raised just marked off with wood stakes and twine. I'll be in town tomorrow and so I'll pick up some nylon twine in a nice bright colour. Some of the beds might merge to form bigger beds for netting conveniently like the brassicus, or in the case of short rows of potatoes and in the case of the scrambling squashes.

I only really plan to grow on the allotment things like long standing brassicuss plants, potatoes, root veg such as carrots, parsnips and beetroots, garlic and winter squashes. A couple other types of crops might fine their way their but I haven't yet decided.

To the back of the plot I want to plant potatoes this year but I still have to clear about half of it of rubbish and dig it over.

So besides getting measurements, I pulled and discarded the spent crops that were still on the plot from last year. Then the clouds came so I took the girls back home before complaints of being cold started.

I hope to get back there later this week to mark out the beds and start digging them over to remove the light covering of weeds you can see in the pictures. I would also like to get those poor garlic bulbs into the ground, I do hope they give a nice crop, I'll just have to wait and see.

Its My 1st Blogoversary!!! & The Launch Of A New Blog Award

I can barely believe it, I've been blogging a whole year already. Its flown pass so quickly and I still feel so green to blogging but what a year it has been.

I started to blog to catalogue my life and to share it with a few friends and family members so they could keep up with what I have been up to. But on my sister's suggestion I went public and I am so glad that I did, thanks Sis.

So what has occurred because I have been blogging, well;

• I've met people who share a common interest and so completely get where I am coming from.


• I've made friends with people I may have never met in my daily life.


• I've rediscovered a joy in writing, something I haven't done since my late teens.


• I've expanded into three blogs to keep my topics more to point.


• One of my blogs is a blogshop which would not have occurred to me to start if I wasn't blogging.


• I've received awards for my efforts and because I didn't really read blogs before I started blogging, I didn't even know there were things called blog awards but it was lovely and surprising each time I was given one.

Some of the other fun and great things I have experienced because I'm blogging is winning a giveaway a few weeks ago and it so happens the prize arrived today, how cool was that like a little birthday prezzie :)

Recently I also took an opportunity to join a bead swap group which had it's big reveal today hence my late posting about my blogoversary. I have been Blog hopping the majority of the day drinking up all the creativity the group generated. You can read up about it and see my efforts on my other blog.

I wanted to share a cool shot of my garden and I got one today to trump all my other shots, it was a picture of a wren in one of my roosting pockets. I have known for some time it was in use because it was lined but never saw the inhabitant but I'm afraid in editing it while it was still on the camera card I deleted it by accident, AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll probably never get another shot like that.

So instead I have given you a picture of my gloved hands typing this post. My hands get frightfully cold when I'm on the PC and my fingerless gloves are my accessory to allow me to sit at the PC for ridiculously long hours.

Anyway I would like to end by thanking all my readers (including the silent ones who don't actively comment) and all my followers for sticking with me this past year. You guys have helped me to remain focused and committed in this task. For all my life I have attempted to keep Diaries and journals but without success, it seems that I needed an audience to keep me motivated in the recording of my day to day life experiences.

So thanks again for sticking around and I hope we can enjoy many more blogoversaries mine as well as yours (if you are a fellow blogger) in the future.

Toodles and catch you laters....

Kella.

12th of February: Edited Extras

I enjoy getting blog awards, if comments that are left by my readers is the cake then the odd award is the icing, that makes it even more tasty :)

Ever since my first award I have wanted to be able to create one and pass it on too, I had hoped to have one ready for my blogoversary date but with everything else I was doing, I simply wasn't able to get it ready in time.

Well its ready now hence the amendment to this blog posting, so here it is:

Its the 'You Take The Coolest Photos' Award

I enjoy taking photos and hope to one day do some classes to improve my skills. When I visit other blogs I have a tendency to follow the ones which have a lot of photos (yep I'm a visual stimuli junky) hence why my blogs are so photo heavy.

So I thought its only apt that the award I create honours my love of taking and looking at great photos.

So the rules of the award if you accept it are:

• Blog about receiving it and include the award's photo.
• Explain to your readers why you enjoy taking photos.
• Share about the type/s of photos you enjoy taking the most.
• What camera model and any accessories you use to take your photos.
• Link to the giver of the award.
• Choose some recipients to pass the award onto.
• Let your recipients know accepting the award is not compulsory in the least.

So there it is I have launched a new blog award and now I would like to start the ball rolling and pass it on to a few bloggers whose photography skills blow me away and leave me in awe. like I said there is no pressure to accept the award, I just want to give recognition where its due.

So without further ado, here are the recipients:

• Allotment 2 Kitchen
• Carrots and Kids
• figswithbri.com
• Little Bear Stories

Thanks for reading the update blog post and I hope you all will enjoy receiving the award.

Ta! Ta! Again

Kella.

Not Again!!

Busy family weekend kept me out of the garden and away from the allotment, I had high hopes to get outside this week.....

BUT!!! Its snowing again as I type, with freezing temps and more expected as the week progresses, aarrrgh!!!

humph!