Mara's Cottage Rentals and other stuff

Although the house is sold life here will carry on untill almost Christmas, so we are still open for cottage rentals, as much as possible as we still have to live untill the sale goes through!
We still have a huge crop of potatoes to harvest in a few weeks time, we have cabbages to eat now, and I may well plant a few more too, the beans rick planted while I was away are going great guns and we will eat a few green but leave a lot to dry as we plan on squeezing in the maximum food possible to take with us in the motorhome so we can eat well on our own veggies during the winter in Spain, it will keep our costs down too.
We have now around 45 tomato plants ... I had grown some rick planted during the rainy season we had, which we thought were not doing well due to the colder wet spring, so I quickly germinated a lot more... now the new ones are great and the first batch are even bigger... I will sundry as many as I can, plus make as much tomato puree as I think we can carry... and just eat pasta all winter...
We've eaten our fresh peas and had them every day to avoid freezing them, plus we are still having broad beans most days in some way too...
I have three good rows of baby parsnips coming up too, which we will hopefully get to eat some at least, but the rest will stay in the ground for our new owners to finish.
The peppers just didnt make it... and obviously now we wont replant, the aubergines are picking up slowly so we will get some, but as I cant take my freezer there is no point in producing tons anyway.
The corn is pretty meagre too... So I am slowly building up my stocks of dry goods, flour, oats,  dried beans, lentils, pasta rice, sugar, herbal tea, coffee etc stuff we can take with us for winter.

We wont be taking much with us, as when we came here we just brought basic cooking utensils /bedding/ and tools and our precious things, we will be traveling until we find the right area for us so some will be stored with a friend but most of our stuff will be sold off or given away...
Luckily Im not materialistic...
We will have our girls (the dogs) each other and a new life to look forward to.

The house is sold...

So... there we have it, our house is sold as of last night, luckily we got a full price offer, which we of course accepted and our buyer has signed and paid his deposit...
They are a nice couple who plan to come and grow using Permaculture methods...
We are very happy that the people who are buying are in a lot of ways continuing on the dream that we had for the place.
Of course in many ways we are sad to leave, is a wonderful country, with lovely people. But its time for us to move on , new places and different challenges in life...
We will be here untill december, then we will go to Spain for the winter in our motorhome, then tootle on to the Czech Republic & Germany in early spring.

Oooh Lovely new season crops

Yes today we dug the first couple of plant of our new season potatoes, its a tad early, but they looked okay and we just couldn't wait... although we are not huge potato eaters, we love new spuds...
we only dug a couple of plants, just enough for two or three meals for us as a treat..it equates to the half a washing up bowl you see hereabouts... you just cant beat the taste...
We are still picking broad beans, so far I've frozen almost 20kilos, and still another large picking of maybe another ten kilos or so before we finish, we've been eating them fresh almost everyday, luckily we love them...
The baby lettuce is just coming on ready too... we'll start on them this week, mixed with a few dandilion leaves and some borage leaves, makes a delish salad...I may well make some borage leaf fritters too or even some ravioli... yum...
The garden is very behind this year, a combination of me not being here, and the terrible weather we had during the whole of April and early May, so much rain, some plants drowned and some just didn't flourish, the corn is pretty poor, as are the peppers... I'm going to give the peppers a nice feed of comfrey liquid and hope for the best, the corn I will weed, and then go round and pop in more seed in the very large gaps...
Meanwhile the aubergines are starting to pick up a bit, still very behind but signs of life there now...
The few squash are going well but I've more germinating in the greenhouse, again they will be a late crop this year.
The cabbage is looking great, as always! Both red and green are hearting up nicely, the beans Rick planted have come on great guns, and I plan to plant another block of French beans next week..
The toms are doing very well and I will pick a few meals worth of peas next week ...
I still haven't managed to plant the damn Basil yet...

Ive been managing to get two or three hours in most days, then have to have a sleep in the afternoon.... but at least Im gradually getting stuff done, Im almost caught up with the weeding around the cottage and guest area and around the house , as we have had a few house viewings this last week or so, nothing has come of them but there were some very positive people and comments which was nice..

I'm just about to cut up and freeze the last of last years huge pumpkins, and a few butternut squashes.. nice to get ahead for soup for next winter...

I'm busy planning and adding to my store cupboard for winter too.
While I was in the UK I managed to stock up on Pearl Barley, stew mix(a nice mix of grains and lentils etc) Suet for dumplings, dried fruit which I find expensive here, plus some shampoos and stuff...
I've been buying extra Pasta the last few weeks and now am moving onto Rice ... Im determined to have a huge store cupboard this winter so we don't have to worry about anything...

Next week  we visit the house of a friend who is away in England for a few weeks and will harvest some of his Cherries... I plan a few jars of jam... Mmmmm my fave jam!
Our Peach trees are looking good too... hopefully plenty of them for bottling and jam this year too..

Another couple of weeks will see the wild Fennel ready for picking, I plan to make around 20 litres of Liquer this year... It just vanishes...

So much to get organised... my herbs are sprouting and we've already been enjoying herb butters, plenty of chive butter for the new spuds... Ive picked catnip, yarrow,  Mullien and lemon balm for drying and later there will be tons of lavender...the sage wont be long either...
Oh well I rambled on for long enough ...