And the pumpkins are planted!

Our focus this week has been to make a dent in the gardening job list. It was always going to be a small dent, given how much we have to do, but it’s still rewarding nonetheless. We’ve continued with the never-ending weeding – it does feel like an area needs to reach a pretty bad stage to get to the top of the to-do list, and this week was no exception. John weeded both our rhubarb patch and our asparagus bed this week – I’m sure you’ll agree they needed doing!! They both look much better now though – you can actually see what’s growing there and hopefully will give the plants more light and space to grow. And keeping with the vegetable gardening theme – we also planted out our pumpkin and squash bed, and our courgettes and kalettes. We ended up with a lot more plants than expected – our seed germination rate was much better than usual so it’s been a bit of a squeeze fitting everything in. I ended up hiding a few plants around the garden rather than overcrowd the bed too much – they’ll add a bit more interest if they do grow! We’ve put a lot more plants to trail over our squash arch this year – last year our crop wasn’t great and we didn’t get the lovely sight of squashes hanging off the arch with the hills in the background. Hopefully this year!

We also took the opportunity while our guests were out to weed a bit more of the Farmhouse gardens. It would be too intrusive to do it while they were in, and with a week-long booking we haven’t had a gap while it’s been empty. The flower seedlings have been waiting for ages to be planted out so I hope they’re enjoying all the compost and water!! We found time one weekday evening to pot up another 9 pots with flowers – perhaps a few went in too late but most of them are looking good and should add some colour to the courtyard.

Having added the first coat of render on our garden wall, our renderers came back on Monday to finish the job. The wall is now very smart and so much better than the breeze blocks we’ve lived with for the last ten months. It makes us wonder why we’ve waited so long! Next step: priming and painting… John was also inspired to start clearing the bank out the front of our house, which was full of weeds, dead wood and a dilapidated wire fence. Our intention is to lay a patio that wraps around the back and side of the house, which would have been difficult had we left all the rubbish there.

The Farmhouse bookings are going well – we had a same day changeover on Saturday, waving goodbye to one multi-generational family and welcoming another one. It’s been interesting to see a pattern emerging with our bookings – a good majority are from three generations of families coming together for a holiday and to spend time together. We’ve tried to set the Farmhouse up to cater to all ages so it’s lovely to see everything being used!

John had less of a fun week when the aga broke during our guests’ visit. Our usual aga engineer is off work at the moment so he spent an evening and morning ringing round everyone he could to get someone out to repair it. We do have a combination oven/microwave in the Farmhouse for emergencies but it’s not really ideal when you’re cooking for a large group. After trying 9 people (a wide net given where we live!) we managed to get the aga fixed the next afternoon which was a relief – although too late for it to warm up sufficiently for cooking. So John paid for and picked up a takeaway for our guests instead, rather than leaving them with a cold dinner.

And finally – excitingly – the Yarcombe inn opened this weekend! It’s a difficult time for country pubs with one of our local pubs closing down and another one on the market and only operating limited hours (if you’re staying with us then check out our Local Pubs web page for latest information). So to see a pub reopening is great to see. We went down on Saturday to try it out before recommending it, and now have high hopes for it! The new tenants have refurbished the downstairs to create a fresh and light country pub feel, and seem really lovely. Now we have a pub open at each end of our lane – we’ll need to get a move on with our job list so we have more free time!