I think it's Spring at last !!

It's been the lovliest day today. The sun was shining, birds singing and it was warm enough to be in the garden without a jacket . I had a great day sowing some tomatoes seeds, Red Orach seeds, and I also potted the 11 Cerinthe seedlings on into individual pots (now where am I going to put them !!) and I managed to put most of the Dahlia tubers that I dug up and saved from last year into pots of compost, to get them growing. I can't wait to see the 'Pink Giraffe' growing again, it's my favourite dahlia and from one plant bought about 5 years ago I now have dozens.

Dahlia 'Pink Giraffe'

I have been looking through last years photo's from the allotment, and I was amazed at how productive the plot had been, just look at this haul that I had and it was dated 31st August. It made me feel excited and I can't wait to get growing again YEAH !

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Crochet update

I crocheted together the rest of the squares I had completed for Florence's throw (see my other blog here) it's growing slowly and I still have many more sqaures to make yet.

Have a lovely weekend and I hope you all have good weather and get lot's of sowing done. xx

A long overdue update

It's over a week since I last did a post and seeing as I spent part of today working on the allotment, I thought I would share some photo's of the plot. Austin helped me dig over my two largest beds, one where the pumpkin and squashes were growing and in the other bed the french and runner beans were. As we cleared the beds and weeded, we covered the ground with black plastic to smother any weeds that had any thoughts of sneaking up on me over the winter.

I have to say I lose interest at this time of year, it happened last year around this time as well, but come the spring my enthusiasm will return. I still have the following growing : curly Kale, perpetual spinach, parsnips, beetroots, Florence fennel (which are swelling nicely) and a couple of cabbages. Oh and purple sprouting broccoli and brussel sprouts, but they have to grow through the winter and hopefully we will have some sprouts for Christmas.

The best thing I ever did was grow so many flowers up there because it's so colourful and many flowers still have lots of buds to open for a while yet. I have stored all the squashes and the pumpkin in the greenhouse, where I also have more little chillies growing, in fact lot's of little chillies !

I must get that Pumpkin weighed ! it was very heavy.

The 'Pink Giraffe' Dahlia is still a lovely sight, I have three up on the plot.

Dahlias and Echinacea, grown from seed this year and still looking lovely

Covering the beds for winter.

Clearing the beds, and planning for next year.

Not so tidy, but still lots of colour.

Florence Fennel, almost ready to harvest.

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My hydrangea from the garden. faded and looking delicate and so pretty

The colour from the front, such delicate colours as they age and fade.

Colours from behind, a nice minty green, I like this better.

I have actually been spending more time working on the garden than the allotment just recently. I have widened a couple of my borders so I can plant more annual flowers such as Cosmos, I bought a packet of seeds recently that are double flowering and they look stunning, so can't wait to sow them next year. The borders already have lot's of perennials, so I thought it would be nice to add some annuals as well, especially cornflowers which looked really nice with the colours of the Cosmos this year. We also cut down a couple of large shrubs which were old and very woody, we now have to try and get the roots out.

That's about all for this update. I hope you are all enjoying your gardens and allotments and getting on with the preparations for the winter months. The best thing is the planning for next year, and looking through the seed catalogues deciding what to grow next.

A surprise gift and other bits of chit chat

Special delivery

The postman delivered a small brown package for me today, I wasn't expecting anything,

so I couldn't wait to see what it was. Inside was this beautifully gift wrapped pressie. I knew at once who it was from because this person always wraps her gifts no matter how small, exquisitely.

I t was a surprise gift from my blogger friend Pam she makes the loveliest things. Inside the blue tissue paper was this little pin cushion with it's lovely beaded edges and complete with some bright coloured pins pushed in around a circle on the fabric.

On the other side is another coffee cup.

This was made from some fabric I had sent to Pam as a bit of a challenge, I had bought half a metre of the fabric to make something out of it, but I was stumped for ideas of what to use it for, so I thought I would share some with Pam. The fabric design is lots of squares of different brightly coloured coffee cups & saucers, and mugs. So when I sent some off to Pam, I never expected I would enjoy one of the results of her many talents.

Thank you so very much to Pam, and I look forward to her posting some other things she makes with the other pieces of the fabric.

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Baking

If you like baking, and especially like cup cakes for special events I can recommend this book. My son's girlfriend made him some delicious ones for his birthday recently using the recipe's from here. I was so impressed I had to buy my own copy to have a go at making something from it.

The best price seems to be from 'Amazon.co.uk' where I got it for £8.49 and no postage costs. It varies from £12.99 to £16.99 elsewhere. There are lots of lovely goodies to bake in here. bye the way 'The Hummingbird Bakery' is a famous bakery in London where they sell the cakes made from the recipes in this book.

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The Cutting Bed

Just to say that if you like dahlias, and want to add to your cutting bed then you can't get better than these 'Pink Giraffe' Dahlias, I cut them last Friday and they were already in flower for days before that on the allotment, and this photo was taken this morning and they still look fresh, I'll maybe get another day or two out of them.

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Harvests

A few photo's of the latest pickings from the allotment: some very large beetroots and two tiny ones pulled up accidentally.

Five very large tasty onions. I have pulled up around 70 ( drying off in the lottie shed) and still have more to pull, so shouldn't need to buy any for many months.



And last of all bags of French beans 'Fasold' I am picking these most days as I hate them to get too large, the runner beans are starting to come fast and furious now.


We all seem to have powdery mildew on our courgette plants which is slowing down the fruits developing, I look at other plots as I pass and everyone seems to have the same problem, I hope it doesn't spread to other squashes and pumpkins.

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Well thats about all my news over the last couple of days. The weather is foul, raining all day today so couldn't get to the lottie and I need to bring the onions home to dry out as they are overpowering the shed with the smell and the space they take up.