Blinded by the light - on being woken up earlier than I would like, and how to stop it.

At the moment we are sleeping in a bedroom which has one large window, facing East.  I recently noticed that I am being woken up, earlier than I want, by the early morning sun streaming in and hitting me in the face. We have lined curtains, but obviously not lined with thick enough material to block out sunlight.
 

Thinking about "covers for windows" and how well they work has become a higher priority for me because the Pink Bedroom, which Compostman is currently refurbishing, has not one but two large windows, one facing North and the other facing, yes you guessed it, East. So when we move into this room (soon!) we will have the same issue with early morning sunlight in our faces and an additional window letting in light. We can't turn our bed around, so we don't look at a window, as the shape of the room precludes that.
 
We always planned to move into this room when it was completed (only waited 16 years!) As we are now fast approaching the "choosing paint and fabric" stage of the works I need to find a solution to the problem now.

What I have done in other upstairs rooms is use blinds; to me they seem to block light without shutting it out altogether. Thinking about it, we actually have blinds in all the upstairs bedrooms except ours and the Pink Bedroom. Compostgirl has blinds and curtains in her (South facing) room and all the South and West facing windows downstairs have blinds. It is only the sitting room and dining room which have curtains.

So, problem solved - I will be getting some blinds for our new bedroom  - so the question is, what sort and what size? We want to measure and fit them ourselves rather than have someone do it for us, so after a quick Google search for bedroom blinds, I had a look at  Web-Blinds and found lots of helpful advice.  I had no idea there were so many different sorts of blind!

The Web-Blinds site also has lots of useful information on how to measure for a blind and a wide selection of different patterns and colourways. I also found easy to understand fitting instructions for all the different types of blind :-) And if you would rather someone measured and fitted them for you there is a link to their sister company, Hillarys.

In the other rooms I have simple roller blinds but I think for our bedroom I would like Roman blinds - although I am very tempted to get some roller blinds made using one of my own images (they call it a Digital blind on the Web-Blinds website)

Maybe something like this, from when I went to Garden Organic last year?

The bee garden at Ryton.

or this?

Marigold Hen

I think Compostman would prefer this, though!

The JCB

Hmm. Maybe just a nice, lightly floral pattern, instead?






Disclaimer - I am looking around for ideas to decorate the newly refurbished Pink Bedroom (may need a new name as it may not be pink much longer)  This post features a paid link to a company I would be happy to order from, in the future. As always, the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

Blossomtime - Master Composter stall as part of Compost Awareness Week

On Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday I spent a considerable amount of time basking in the sunshine, in order to offer composting and gardening advice and seed planting at the Blossomtime event in my area:-)

 Both the days were both very hot and sunny and I got sunburn! 

I had a prime pitch for my composting stall,  at the front of the Hall by the entrance,

on Sunday next to a lovely lady called Gilly, from the ONE network of Cider and Perry growers.

and on Monday next to a lovely lady called  Sophie, (this is her, above)  from Pixley Berries who grow huge quantities of Blackcurrants near us, and make delicious cordials from them.

I talked to lots of people about composting and gardening, sold lots of my plants , to raise funds for Garden Organic, did some seed planting with children and had a generally wonderful time at this local celebration of cider and perry making. Compostgirl was there with me on both days and she had a lovely time as well - mainly going around the event with a friend or tending to the animals Paul Hand had brought along :-)

We both enjoyed watching the Leominster Morris Men dance to greet the May

 Some photos, in case the video doesn't work ;-)

I was too hot to join in, though !

 Was a very tiring, but oh so worthwhile, two days of volunteering :-) Especially as I was part of the Compost Awareness Week activities across the UK and World.

Compost Awareness Week 2013

Compost Awareness Week  (CAW) is a week of activities, events and publicity to improve awareness about using organic waste as a resource to produce compost.  Garden Organic’s Master Composters around the country will be out and about answering composting questions and encouraging those who don’t already compost at home to start.

I will be at Sainsbury's in Hereford on Thursday, helping the Council Waste Officers answer questions about composting -  various collegues will be doing the same in other parts of Herefordshire and Worcestershire this week as well!

Herefordshire

       Tuesday 7th May – Morrisons, Leominster 11:00 – 2:00

-          Wednesday 8th May – Sainsburys, Hereford 12:00 – 4:00

-          Friday 10th May - Asda, Hereford 12:00 – 4:00

Worcestershire 

Mon 6th May	Discover Bewdley Spring Fair	10:00 – 4:00
Tue 7th May	Evesham library WR11 4PJ	10:00 – 4.00
Wed am 8th May	Malvern library WR14 2HU	10:00 – 1:00
Wed pm 8th May	Upton library WR8 OLE	1:30 – 4:00
Thurs 9th May	Kidderminster Town Hall  DY10 1DB	10:00 – 1:00
Fri 10th May	Avelchurch Library B48 7TA	10:00 – 1:00

For the 2013 Compost Awareness Week Garden Organic will be running a ‘Decorate Your Compost Bin Competition’; be creative and as imaginative as possible.  Entry to the competition is open to all ages and abilities.

 If you need reminding how to make compost, my "How to..." guides is a good place to start!

How I make compost

Top tips to maximise how much compost you make.

Making Leaf Mould



Happy Composting :-)

Watering cans and easy watering in the polytunnel

With the warmer weather this week I have been lugging a lot of these around.

It can get really hot inside a polytunnel during the day and all my precious plants need lots of watering.

As you all know, I love my polytunnel. But one of the things I don't love, is that the previous owners of our house erected the polytunnel on top of subsoil, dumped from when they had the garage built. This means I can't grow directly into the soil in beds but have to use large pots ( I use builders buckets with holes in) to grow my plants in. My system works well and I get great crops, but I do have to water everything, by hand, a lot more than if the plants grew in the ground.




In the height of summer that means at least 20 mins, morning and evening, spent watering the polytunnel. I don't begrudge the time spent as I enjoy tending my plants, but it also means I can't go away for more than a day unless I arrange for someone to come in and water the polytunnel, in my place.

I use a hose and a watering lance for larger plants, but at the moment the tomato plants are still small and seedlings need watering with something a bit more delicate and directable, hence all the watering cans!

I have often wondered about setting up an automatic watering system inside the polytunnel for use in the height of summer, which I could connect to the tap and set with a timer. We use Hozelock type fittings on all the taps and I have been looking at various online sites for suppliers and found Easy Watering to have some good ideas. I just need to work out how much it might cost, which system would work best for us and who to buy it from.

Inside the polytunnel I need to apply the water either on the top of the pots directly or into the gravel trays they stand in, so I think some sort of  drip irrigation system  (also available from Easy Watering)  might work best in there. I could lay the main hose up the middle of the floor with the side branch hoses leading to the trays or pots - each tray holds three big pots so I wouldn't need too many side hoses (there are typically 16- 20 gravel trays on the floor at the height of the growing season.)
 
Outside in the veg garden I use soaker hoses laid on the soil in the beds, as well as assorted spray fountains placed on the soil. I only use the soaker hose when needed and always when we are around to monitor it so I don't need an automated system there. I also use the water we collect in the water butts where ever I can.

By the way, this is the experimental potato bed, finally fully planted up with the straw/compost top mulch layer in place.  I will let you know how the experiment goes and how it compares to the harvest from the adjacent bed, which I planted up using my normal method.

So, it is time for me to have a think about our future irrigation needs, both automatic watering systems  and any different/additional  manual equipment we need to source.  I tell you though, if we ever get the new polytunnel up and running in the newly cleared and levelled area it will have raised beds I can plant into!

Meet the new girls!

This is Pearl, she is a White Star.

meet Pepper, the Speckledy

Amber, the Amber ( you can see a trend, here, can't you?)

This is Treacle, she is a Partridge Star.

Meet Marigold, a Marigold. She has already started laying and she is only 18 weeks old. She is very sweet and gentle.

We moved the hen run and house again today, the third time in 6 days.

- see how much damage five hens can do to grass in just 2 days!