Terra cotta floor: about time......

After renovating the mill room 18 months ago, we did the majority of the flooring with reclaimed terra cotta tiles but had stopped short of finishing the room and had been living with some wooden boards temporarily covering the soil and sand underneath. The hall, cloakroom, bathroom and kitchen were also waiting to be tiled.

Bee took the kids back to see Great Granny for a week so Al stayed back to try to progress with the task.  

The first section was laying the tiles on a bed of damp sand and lime.  The tiles are soaked for 24 hours before laying on the mix and then tapped in with a mallet. This is the traditional method used in this area for centuries. 

Then the hallway was done by gluing the tiles with modern high performance tile glue and a space was left for a built in door mat.

The glueing method is a little quicker but still very slow as each tile is irregular and needs to be measured, cleaned and laid in batches by width.  

The bathroom is nearing completion and once the kitchen is finished, we will grout the while lot with a fine sand and lime mortar and then apply several layers of warm linseed oil and terebenthine.  Big job but it already transforms the place.

Coriander and chick peas

Some self-seeded coriander in the polytunnel inconveniently sprung up in the walkway over the winter but has now gone to seed, dried and is ready for picking.

Our coriander supply for curries for the year is now safely harvested!

We tried growing chick peas for the first time this year. After sowing them late due to the wet soil the plants did really well so we are about to pick some to eat as fresh peas and dry the rest to store for the winter.

The plants are attractive but we have read a warning about the leaves giving off malic acid and the pods concealing a small but nasty barb so harvesting them should be interesting - especially since each pod only contains 1-3 peas. We could be here a while.......

Sunflowers

This year our main veg patch was planted with only 3 crops  - sunflowers and maize and fodder beet for the pigs. Since it was underwater three times last year we couldn't risk our veg getting another dunking. The sunflowers are destined for the chickens once the heads have dried.If you look carefully you can see Scarlett hiding before she selected a bouquet for the kitchen table.....

Our new veg patch (the "airstrip" as it's now called) is alongside the main veg patch but on a ridge so we are hoping less prone to flooding.

The beans are on support canes on the left, a swathe of butternuts and pumpkins down the middle (keeping the weeds down as they sprawl across the whole airstrip!), tomatoes, carrots, French beans, chickpeas then potatoes down the right. Looks like a jungle but we know where everything is.....

"I'll just go a weed a row in the airstrip" is now a half-day task as the rows are so long!

The polytunnel is rammed this time of year - tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, chilis, gherkins and cucumbers. 

When it hits 50 degrees it's time to evacuate and leave the horrible spiders that weave webs between the plants in peace!