I know its not a gardening related post but just wanted to announce the arrival of my beautiful baby boy Harrison Phillip.

Born 3rd December 2011 at 4:48am weighing 3 lb 10 oz (Born at 31 weeks!)

Came home 6th January 2012.

He spent a scary few weeks in the neonatal unit being looked after the fantastic staff at Birmingham Women’s hospital but thankfully, is now very healthy.

Mommy and Baby now very happy at home!

My little angel fast asleep

In totally unrelated baby news, my 20 week scan went fine. We’re having a little boy!

Loving the unseasonable weather. We had a lovely bbq last night, a first for October! I made chilli burgers and simple spicy tomato dip to use up a glut of cherry tomatoes – see my recipes page if you fancy trying either out.

I’m overwintering broccoli, cauliflower and leeks under fleece. They’ve all grown steadily during the summer after a couple of problems with caterpillars and slugs. I would love an effective organic way to keep off the bugs and slugs but slug pellets and insect spray work much better than fleece and beer traps.

I’m also going to try sowing early broad beans indoors for an early spring crop, hopefully they’ll do better than the last few sowings which have produced next to no beans.

I’m also going to keep my porch ‘tomato-ry’ until it shows signs of dying back, currently the peppers, chilli, cucumbers and tomatoes are still flowering with no sign of slowing down. Last time I grew tomatoes in the porch I was still picking them in November so hopefully this year will be no different. My peppers and chilli plants have been slow to get going so I don’t know if I’ll get any red peppers but for a first time grow they’ve done well.

I’ve picked the last of my courgettes and my beautiful freak of a pumpkin. Feeding the courgettes frequently has extended the crop, they’ve lasted another month on top of last year. The pumpkin isn’t as big as I was hoping but the last couple of days have deepened the beautiful orange skin and I couldn’t resist picking it. I’m trying it out tonight with the last courgettes. I haven’t eaten pumpkin since I was a kid – and it was horrible – so I’m interested to see if I can make it more palatable.

Now I’m finally over morning sickness, my appetite has come back with a vengeance!

In the words of Frank Sinatra  “The Best is Yet to Come. I’ve been listening to this while baking, check it out Out of the tree of life, I just picked me a plum…!

I’ve been grazing at cherry tomatoes in the garden, nothing beats the taste of a just-picked tomato.

This year I’ve grown several different varieties to see which are my favourites and Tumbler definitely makes the final cut. A very prolific plant and an earlier fruiter than other varieties, it grows very well in hanging baskets and seems to quite like the company of geraniums and strawberries.

I've had a small punnet of tomatoes from just this one plant!

I’ve also been pigging out on courgettes and runner beans and pink fur apple new potatoes. Pink fur apple is nice enough to be perfect cooked with a sprig of mint and served with butter and a grind of black pepper. Yum!

I’ve still got my broccoli and cauliflower covered with fleece, the cabbage whites have got round it anyway but it probably keeps the worst of them off. I’ve had to get OH to spray them as I’m not sure how safe bug spray is for me now.

My Discovery Apples (see last post)  go excellently with the early blackberries.

Check out my blackberry and apple orchard pie and crumble recipes here. I’ve used some plums as well because they’ve just come in season.

It’s quite weird thinking that this time next year I’ll be feeding a little one with pureed fresh home grown veg and fruits from the garden. I can’t imagine myself as a mommy just yet but its exciting!

It’s nice to think that all the fresh fruit and veg I’ve grown and now am munching through are giving my little Fidget the best start.

I know I haven’t posted for a little while. I just haven’t had any energy for the garden recently and here’s why. I’m pregnant!!

Fidget at 12 weeks!

We went for our first scan this week and saw Fidget (so called due to the cartwheels he/she was doing all through the scan) for the first time which was amazing!

I’m due in February and OH and I are both really excited! OH has been wonderful in looking after the garden while I’ve been enjoying the throes of morning sickness. Thankfully it’s calmed down now so I’m back in the garden catching up with weeding and feeding.

Home grown veg and fruit have been wonderful when I don’t want anything else to eat – I’ve had home grown blueberries, beans, courgettes, raspberries and strawberries and my Discovery apples are just about ready. I bought the tree bare root last year. It flowered but didn’t fruit so I’ve really looked forward to my first apples this year.

Will be posting a proper garden update tomorrow once I’ve spruced up the place!

Thanks to the rain I think. I’d quite like some sunshine again now though!

My strawberries are either flowering or fruiting, I think I might have enough (provided I can keep the birds off them better than I can my raspberries, they’ve barely left me one! Grrr!) to make some jam if I’m lucky.

My blueberries are nearly ripe, I’m tempted to pick one to try but managing to hold off for the moment.

My porch Tomato-ry has gone quite wild! My recycled logistics box is overflowing with tomato, cucumber, chilli and pepper plants.

And because I went mad with different strains of tomato …

… Believe it or not, there’s another dozen tomato plants out of shot and more hardy varieties in the garden!

Doubt I’ll be short of toms this year! Think I’ll probably have salsa coming out my ears!

The blue pot contains a small lemon plant, which has been huddling like a refugee in the porch while the sun’s been in hiding. It’s not been too happy recently but has just perked up and put out some new growth in the last week.

I’ve planted out my second lot of cauliflower, so far my Rabbit Entertainment Centre seems to have kept them safe from marauding bunnies.

The only thing now is protecting the broccoli and cauli from cabbage whites so I’ve pegged out fleece over them, my lettuce and spinach.

The pink fur apple, courgettes and pumpkins have gone a bit mad after the rain we’ve had. Should have some courgettes pretty soon

I’ve planted peas with strawberries, geranium and borage and they’re all doing well too.

I planted out some French Breakfast radish seeds as a catch crop between courgettes, I’ve only had one or two as the slugs have beaten me to most of them unfortunately. I had to bite the bullet and get some slug pellets, pet friendly obviously. I don’t like using them but if I didn’t I’d have nothing left!

If anyone’s got some slug tips I’d love to hear them.

I say tomar-to, etc.. couldn’t find a good enough version to play for this post. And who actually says ‘Po-tar-to’ anyway?

This song (explicit) is pretty cool, something I’ve been humming a lot, probably due to an arthritis flare up. – See Arthritis tips page for more

I planted up my porch ‘Tomato-ry’ a couple of weeks ago and they’re doing great so far. Should be starting to flower very soon. My outside Tumbling Tom is already.

I managed to plant out my cauliflower but then the local bunnies moved in and just left me with nibbled stems. I was quite upset for a bit but should have known better really.

I’ve since constructed a ‘Rabbit Entertainment Centre’ which I’m quite pleased with. It’s complete with cds, a wind-chime and now a whirly-bird, which should hopefully keep them at a safer distance.

I’ve been amazed at the regeneration ability of cauliflower, most of my seedlings have grown back – if you lose yours to wildlife, try leaving them where they are rather than weeding them out as you never know what might recover!

The rabbit scarer adds a nice bit of colour to the plot

My other plot is doing well too – broad beans and peas are about to flower, I’ve been picking salad leaves and spinach for a couple of weeks now too. Lovely stuff.

The rain we had last night was awesome, worth the long wait. It was so heavy that it uncovered my peas and brought down some huge branches!

The peas were uncovered by the heavy rain last night

We had some lovely person decide to smash down our two back garden gates at some point in the evening.

I hope the little bastard(s) drowned in the vertical waterfall or at least cushioned the fall of a branch.

In fact, I only went out and surveyed the damage this morning in the hope of discovering his/her waterlogged body with the padlocks they nicked still in their pockets.

Anyway, it could be worse, no one was hurt and it seems the weather did more damage than the knuckle draggers.

I was anxious about my newly crafted bean supports but the new design has worked well and they’ve stayed standing.

Runner beans supports made from elder saplings which is a weed we have coming up everywhere around here and shoots up very quickly. Also makes great pea supports as its very flexible.

Before the rain took hold properly yesterday I took advantage of a short gap between showers to plant out courgettes and pumpkins in my new raised bed.

I put down large handfuls of chicken manure enriched compost, courgettes and pumpkins do well with plenty of fertiliser.

I planted them slightly ‘mounded up’ to allow for better drainage and the surrounding walls should help keep them sheltered, as they’re not keen on the cold.

Courgettes and Pumpkins planted with extra compost and chicken manure in the raised bed

I’m planning to grow the pumpkins up supports like the beans, as otherwise they’ll swamp their neighbours. If the supports hold (as the pumpkins should grow massive and so will be very heavy), it’ll also keep the slugs off and remove the need to put a bit of carpet or slate under the growing pumpkins.

I’ve been selecting some of the bigger branches that fell last night to make into strong supports, so the rain has saved me a job really.

Actually a couple of jobs; as the water-butt is completely full again and nothing will need watering today. Bonus.

Hey, just a extra short post (promise!) just to explain the name change.

Warwickshire Amateur Gardener is no more, long live Elmdon Hippy.

A friend informed me that Warwickshire Amateur gardener was not only a mouthful, it didn’t really match my posts and made me sound older than I am.

So I’ve changed it to something a little more suitable. Elmdon Hippy is really much more me!

Murphy and me in the front garden enjoying the sunshine

I’m thinking the tune has to be that obvious that I don’t even need to post a link really. If not, shame on you! Here.

I’ll be humming it for ages now.

And it is relevant… in a way… I guess…

As advised by some gardening magazines and Gardener’s World and the world’s leading garden authority (my mother), I almost always plant out more seeds than I need.

What do you do with extra seedlings?

I may be over-doing the whole ‘hippy bleeding heart’ thing here, but I genuinely feel bad (almost as bad as I’d feel kicking a blind puppy) trying to select the seedlings that will make it to the plot and discarding the weakest.

I don’t like dividing them into successful long living plants or chicken food.

I suppose it’s Survival of the Fittest in action, with a bit of help from my selection process but I still feel cruel.

Unless the extra seedlings are really yellow and much smaller or withered, I try to give them all a chance.

Eeny, meeny, miny, mo... which ones are gonna have to go?

Last year I planted out every broad bean plant I had, even a couple of really runty ones and they never even flowered. Ungrateful of them really.

This year I’ve planted out all the best ones but the runty ones are in limbo on the wall in their pots, as I hate to waste the plants but I can’t bring myself to compost them.

I’m giving some other extra (non weakling) plants to family but I will still have loads.

I have thought about selling some, putting a sign up by the gate for chilli plants (The offspring of Rocky is up to 12 sequels now and still climbing!) tomatoes and herbs.

I’m hoping to sell produce in this way later in the year and I’ve been looking  for information about what you can and can’t do from home – trade wise. I haven’t been able to find anything, even on the Direct.gov site.

Does anyone have any experience in this, or advice? Would be much appreciated.