Lifes Pumpkintastic

Cemeterys and Gardens

2008-07-15T13:59:00.002+01:00

I just made up a new blog called Cemeterys and Gardens And I am after people to link up with me I have got a few at the moment but Im after a few more to go with it. If you would like to link up with me from your blog just place a comment on this post with your blog address and I will add it aslong as you have my link on your blog. Thank You :)

New Blog: http://cemeterys-parks.blogspot.com

Title: Cemeterys and Parks

The Allotment Fox

2007-11-08T19:49:00.000Z

Foxes are shy creatures and I know that I have a local fox around our allotment sight. The sight is biult next to a suburban area on one side and on the other there is just pure countryside. Sadly we cant see much of the countryside on sight because of a copsey that was made to block our view and may be to give the sight some privacey. For the fox though its great its got the best of both worlds its got the natural scenerey and food of the country side and rich pickings from our allotments like worms from out our composters and berries from our fruit bushes. Plus not to mension the variety of food it can find in peoples back gardens and out of what evers in there bins. Foxes are onmivores and are very opportunistic so they will find it very simple to addapt to different surroundings. I cant say for sure because ive only glimpsed them from time to time but our allotment foxes seem to be living quite well where they are.

Strimmers and Brushcutters.

2007-09-27T19:56:00.000+01:00

If you have recently leased a allotment or have just moved into a council house and you find the land at the back is over grown with grass or course weeds the best thing to use is a strimmer or brushcutter. If your land is just overgrown with grass then I would quite simply suggest to use a petrol strimmer or if you are a bit enviromentaly concerened use a scythe or grass hook. Once you have strimmed down the grass fetch a rake of some sort and start collecting the grass. To dispose of it you can either burn it, compost it or bag it and take it down to your local skip.

If your land is over grown with thick weeds and grass the best thing to use is a petrol brushcutter. Brushcutters are alot bigger than strimmers and instead of having a cable to cut weeds and grass it has a metal disk which cuts through thick stemmed weeds. Again once all of the weeds and grass have been cut down collect together with a rake and dispose of them. Now you dispose of this in a different way, you can either burn it or bag it to take down to your local skip. Do not compost the rubbish due to seeds or roots that may start to germinate or grow weeds in your composter. So its best to burn or bin it.

If you have any comments or suggestions about this blog please email me at: trekkie@boxbe.com

Planting Idea For Rough Ground

2007-04-29T03:00:00.000+01:00

If you have a ruff area on your allotment which looks like some waste ground and you dont want to spend a long time digging and weeding the area at the same time, the best way to get around it is to ruff dig it.
First is to prepare and dig the ground and you start by cutting down any over grown weeds by using a scythe, grass hook or strimmer. Once this is done then start to ruff dig it by turning the soil and not taking out all the weeds, you can take some out if you wish to but that is your choice. Then if you can come across one just run over the dug area with a rotivator this will break up any large clumps of earth and help to improve the structure of the soil.
Now the ground has been prepared it is now time to put a thick layer of manure on top of the ground. Order a large amount of manure which im sure you could get from any farm who wishes to remove it and then proceed to spread a thick layer of the manure over the prepared ground so it completely covers it. Once the ground has been completely covered then get either some large old carpets or a large sheet of plastic to cover the manure completely so no light can get down to the ground. Once this has been done weight the sheeting or carpets down with bricks or even using pegs just to hold down what ever you use.
When these things have been completed you are now ready to start to plant the area by cutting cross slits in the carpet or plastic sheeting. Once the holes have been made before planting your plants into them, just place a small amont of clean soil or compost in so the roots are not in pure manure. The reason why you do this is to stop the acidity of the manure from burning the roots. For your first time plants I would use Large Squashes or Tomatoe Plants. These type of plants need alot of moistore and the manure is just the job to hold alot of it, even so it is best to water regularly. Happy Planting.

5 Vegetable Garden Ideas

2007-02-04T04:41:00.000Z

5 Vegetable Garden Ideas
By Dave Truman

Everyone knows there are many benefits from having your own garden. Feeling a sense of pride as you watch the fruits (or vegetables, as the case may be) of your labor begin to flourish is just one of them. And your garden doesn't ever have to be boring or the same year after year. Discover five vegetable garden ideas that will give you something creative to try for your next planting.

Plant a pizza garden
Vegetable gardening with a theme can be great fun for all ages. A theme garden is the perfect way to get the kids outside enjoying nature. Involving them will provide a sense of responsibility as well as accomplishment as harvest time draws near. Plus, it's a great way to get them to eat more veggies! For a pizza garden, plant foods such as tomatoes, green peppers, jalapenos, onions and a host of herbs and seasonings like basil, oregano and thyme. Other theme ideas to try are stir-fry or salsa gardens.

Ornamental vegetable gardening
Many people use vibrant flowers and shrubs to brighten and beautify their outdoor spaces. By using vegetables for this same purpose, you'll not only have the curb appeal, you'll reap the rewards of having your own supply of produce! Using a variety of delicious veggies, you can achieve colorful patterns and designs, line walkways and driveways and plant them just as you would flowers.

Rainbow garden
Vegetable gardening is also ideal for artistically expressing yourself in a unique way. If you have a favorite, signature color or perhaps even three or four, consider planting based on these colors. This is an easy way to try new things while creating an appealing garden retreat. Mix hues that you might never use when decorating indoors and experiment with an array of color combinations. Why grow ordinary green peppers when you can choose from crimsons, oranges, yellows or even violet? You may be surprised at the assortment of colors produced by some of the most common vegetables. Eggplant, tomatoes, beans, even beets all can be wonderful additions to your rainbow garden since they all can be grown in several shades and hues. Planting purple beans and white carrots surrounded by pink tomatoes create a lovely display that's as pleasing to the eye as it is the palate.

Organic gardening can be healthier as well as cheaper
Avoiding the use of chemicals and commercially produced fertilizers and pesticides are a way to achieve better tasting vegetables. Without these unsavory additions, you'll notice the freshness and enjoy food the way nature intended. Organic gardening isn't as difficult as some may think. In fact, it's relatively simple to grow a healthy, bountiful crop. There are several reasonably priced products available today as well as a plethora of homemade concoctions to try without spending a fortune.

A garden of green
Perhaps colors and themes are of no interest to you, maybe it's profiting from your garden that's more important. In that case, decide on what would thrive best based on the amount of space, soil, lighting and drainage conditions of your garden. You could offer the usual fare of vegetables or you could specialize in certain types, ones that may be harder to find in the grocery stores.

The size or type of your crop doesn't matter quite as much as the care and dedication it needs to make it plentiful. So, decide on a plan and use one of these ideas to liven up your outdoor space and make it truly your own.

Dave Truman offers advice for choosing the best seed companies and other gardening related topics on the Vegetable Gardeners website. For more helpful tips and information about growing vegetables and to receive our special reports about getting your garden started, visit http://www.vegetablegardeners.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dave_Truman
http://EzineArticles.com/?5-Vegetable-Garden-Ideas&id=440418

Onion Recipe

2006-10-28T16:04:00.000+01:00

Onion Rings
Once my winter onions have grown next summer I might have ago at making some onion rings with them, I love onion rings. They tend to have a very morish taste to them and you can't stop eating them. Once they have been deep fried in hot oil the crispy batter around them and the sweet and soft center of the onion is just great. So here is a quick recipe for them.

1 Cup of flower.
2Eggs.
Half cup of milk.
Half cup of water.
A bit of salt.
2 tbsp of melted butter.

After making the batter dip in your onion rings and deep fry them until golden brown and crisp. Then place on to paper towel to allow most of the oil to drain off.

Fried Onions
Of course the other nice thing you can do with onions is basicly just to pan fry them in oil until they are sweet and caramelized. Its nice also just to add a teaspoon of sugar to the onions as you are frying them to aid in there carmelisation process. I know its unhealthy but every now and then it does no harm just to treat yourself with something scrummy.

Gardening and my Allotment.

2006-09-15T10:26:00.000+01:00

GARDENING

Since I left school I always was interested in growing plants and I went to college for about a year and gained a good qualification which was a BTEC First Diploma. I managed some how to pass all my coursework, in parts I found it difficult but got through it. My brother at the time also studied horticulture and was rewarded a BTEC First Diploma and His RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) Certificate. After our time at college we took some time off from studying and then started maintaining peoples private gardens for money which we needed. We did this for a couple of years and after a while we found business was getting low and after a while it stopped. So we turned to doing some work on the internet and have been doing so since.

ALLOTMENT

Now we spend more time on our allotments growing different types of vegetables, my allotment is quite ruff its what I call my lazey allotment. A lot of people turn there allotments into pristine clean gardens which is fine of course, but for myself aslong as my allotment isn't to over grown with weeds and produces what I want thats fine for me. In recent years me and my brother have started to grow winter onions and found we got a descent crop off them. Sometimes we would have our own competition to see who grows the best onions, sadly my winning streak hasn't been going to well. Never the less competition is healthy and fun and we both have been improving on our crops which im pleased of. One time I grew some winter red onions which didn't do anything at all appart from rot away, I wasn't to pleased. So from now on in its just winter whites we are growing. Im looking forward ro seeing my onions in the ground grewing this winter and I'll try and get a picture of them and place it on my blog :)

This here is a picture of my allotment I know it is some what over grown but since then I have been clearing and digging some of the beds for winter onions. So the next pic of my allotment should have onion beds in it. :)

Landfill and Sea Gulls

2006-08-16T23:45:00.000+01:00

Before we start about gulls the blog is about Pumpkins you will find it underneath this small paragraph about gulls.

The other subject I am interested in appart from Pumpkins are different species of gulls and the type you find commonly inland. In the past two decades the gull population has grown to a large amount, so much so that some spieces of gulls are now seeking permanent refuge in city's around the uk. I must admit thats fine by me because I happen to love watching flocks of gulls flying around and calling out to each other. But im afraid not everyone shares the same love for them as I do, they tend to see them as a pest. Anyway I hope there are some other people out there that also like them like me. Anyway at the bottom theres a link try having a look, it's a small webpage I made about gulls.

http://landfill-site.blogspot.com/

This is just a simple site to give you an idea.

The Pumpkin disaster

2006-07-25T06:11:00.000+01:00

Hello

Welcome to my blog about Pumpkins. This year im hoping to grow a good size pumpkin, this is my second atempt to grow them. My last atempt was a complete disaster, Im afraid my last pumpkin only grew to the size of a walnut, still never mind like I said it was my first attempt. The stupid thing is the name of the variety of pumpkin was mamoth pumpkin, it was more like peanut pumpkin in my case. What I did wrong was I planted a perfectly healthy plant in bad soil conditions, the soil was to dry there was no humus in it. In order to get good pumpkins the soil has to be rich in organic matter like manure, compost or home made compost off the compost heap. All this holds valueble nutrients and above all alot of water which the plant needs to form a large pumpkin, thats where I went wrong. In my first atempt I planted my perfectly healthy pumpkin in bone dry soil well a desert basicly. This year however is differrent the soil my pumpkin is growing in this time is packed full of organic matter and im pleased report its forming some good pumpkins. So always remember when you are planting pumpkins make sure there is plenty of organic matter in the soil before you plant your pumpkin plant. Hopefully then you wont have pumpkins the size of a peanut, Happy growing :) .

By the way does anyone remember the monster out of the film called Pumpkin Head, I just hope my Pumpkin doesn't turn into him.

The latest news on the progress of my pumpkins is that they are increasing in size and hopefully will carry on increasing so we can have a nice big pumpkin in time for Halloween. Hopefully we will be able to have some pumpkin pie and may be a hollowed out pumpkin with a face cut into it so we can fill it with candles.

The second latest news on my pumpkins is that they have grown more since I last seen them and that they are now turning that distinctive orange colour that pumpkins go. I am well and truly pleased with my pumpkins this year and hopefully I will carry on improving on growing them. I will soon have a pic of them on my blog so if you wish to see them you can do with pleasure. :)

This picture here is an earlier pic of one of my pumpkins just starting to ripen up.

This pic here gives you a good idea at the size of the pumpkins, Some of these were my brothers and I'm very pleased with them this year. Our first proper grown crop of pumpkins YIPEEEEEE!