My Post's are like buses ..........

.....Nothing for a while and then two come along, just like London transport !!!

I am in the mood for blogging so here we go with what happened today. I got up late this morning, I wont say what time but I hate it when I do that as almost half the day is gone by the time I have had my breakfast and showered. I did go to bed extremely late though almost 2am. I really must sort out my sleeping habits. I am worse than a teenager !!! I must add here though that I don't get up this late very often, but do go to bed late far too often.

I sowed some cabbage seeds today for eating in the late winter/early spring, I have only just made it in time to sow them, as august was the last sowing month. I sowed some more of Sutton's Seeds 'wheelers imperial' as these have been so tasty with nice light green very firm heads. I also sowed Thompson & Morgan seeds 'April' (spring) cabbage I tried these last year but they all got munched by slugs or something, so I am trying again.

We then went off to the shops to buy a 25th Anniversary present as we are going to the party in London tomorrow. I know I had left it late to buy the present, but luck was on my side as we saw a beautiful photo frame which was perfect for the occasion. So there we are ! nothing too exciting but that's life. I did get a very nice harvest again though, and a nice bunch of flowers from the garden. So that kind of made up for the rainy day.

A little 'Pink' bouquet from the garden.

Vietnamese coriander, growing like crazy. I keep rooting new plants from it.

'Baby Rosanna' aubergine, lots of little fruits

Tomatoes on the patio, ripening AT LAST!

'Munchkin' squashes , and loads more growing on the plot.

Today's harvest

Yesterdays sweetcorn harvest.

Yesterdays beetroot, minus one. (cooked)

This fantastic orange Dahlia has a bit of a tale to it ! and an apology to my neighbouring plot-holder (Ronelle, if you read this it's for you). It was very windy yesterday (really it was!) and when I was leaving the allotment I have to pass Ronelle's plot (really I do, honest!) and the wind had broken this beautiful flower and bent it's stem, so what could I do ?? it would have withered and died. SO I picked it and bought it home to put into some water where it perked up and it is a real stunner. The photo does it no justice, as it's the blousiest loudest orange I have ever seen for a Dahlia. I love it, so I am going to beg Ronelle for a tuber.

I wish you all a lovely week-end.

Time for an update

I can't believe that I haven't written a post in over 2 weeks. I would love to say that it's because I have been somewhere really exciting, but that isn't the case unfortunately.

I have been busy though. We had friends stay with us for almost a week and then we have had birthday BBQs to go to and over the last few days we were babysitting the grand-children whilst my son & daughter-in-law had a well deserved day out in London on their own. So they had fun and so did we.

I made some chocolate cookies with Bertie who will be 2 years of age next month, that really was fun, especially making sure he didn't eat the dough before we shaped the cookies. I rolled the dough into balls and it was his job to squash them into flat cookie shapes.

Apart from harvesting and watering the greenhouse on the allotment I have to admit to not having done much up there at all. I am trying to be a bit more relaxed about it all and not let it tie me down like it did last year. I was spending far too much time there last year, I suppose it was because I had just taken it on and was planning out the beds and paths and I admit it did get a bit addictive and time consuming. This year has been a good balance of time spent on the lottie and days away, and I have managed to work more in the garden at home.

I have lots of pumpkins and squashes doing really well at the moment, the colours are really nice and I love the way they scramble around all over the place. Some have even escaped through the wire boundary fence and onto the pavement outside the allotment.

I have harvested some pretty amazing sweetcorn, this years crop has been very good. I had 6 cobs this evening, I also had 4 courgettes, 5 beetroots, raspberries, a couple of little 'munchkin' squashes.

A couple of the pumpkins.

Almost the last of my carrots, just a few left now.

A harvest from last week-end.

Myrtle shrub in flower in the garden.

'Toad Lily' in the garden, this has been flowering for a week or so.

The Echinacea's that I grew from seed this year.

Busy Bees

A few photo's of the new flowers in my garden.

Dahlias

Dahlia 'Karma Fuchiana'


A half price bargain , not sure of the name.


Leucanthemum, I'm hooked on these, I have the white and now the yellow one.


Thunbergia 'Mango'

What a splendid orange flower, I love it.

Fruits of my labour.

I was away for a couple of days, and got back late this evening, so I had to go up to the plot to water the plants in the greenhouse. I have cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers and all sorts of chillies growing in there. They are all thirsty plants that need lots of water, and were so dry it took me ages to give them a good soaking.

Whilst up there I picked french and runner beans and tomatoes and yellow courgettes. I swapped the beans with a friend who has masses of blackberries on her plot and her raspberries are always earlier than mine, so she said to pick what I needed, great swap !! my raspberries are just beginning to ripen very slowly.

As you can see by the photo's below I have lots of squashes around the plot. The only trouble is there are so many too close together and I don't know what some of them are.

The plot looks very full now and a bit untidy everything has grown so tall

Florence fennel just starting to to swell nicely.

One of the squashes

The sweetcorn has grown to well over 4 foot tall, you can see the squash I planted underneath it just rambling through.

Nice and ripe and this one is ready to pick.

The squash beneath the sweetcorn.

Munchkin squash

Pumpkin

I don't know if this will ripen as I grew it from a seed I saved from a squash I bought from the supermarket last year which was grown in Cyprus, so we may not have enough sunshine to ripen it.

Home Alone , and other things.

It's been a quite couple of days for me as Austin went off to Surrey to stay with his sister for the week-end, so I was 'home alone' I didn't have use of the car so the allotment was off limits as it's a good walk and I had twisted my knee stepping out of the shed last Wednesday. It's much better today thank goodness and on the mend. So I had a nice couple of days in the garden, pottering about albeit slowly due to the knee. I managed to get a few of the new plants recently bought planted in the beds. I took a few photo's whilst sitting in the garden, so here they are.

By the time Austin was back this evening I was a bit concerned about the lottie greenhouse as we have had a couple of hot days and I hadn't been up to water it. When he got back we went up and gave the plants a good soaking and harvested some tomatoes and a cucumber and a few small green peppers from the greenhouse and other bits from around the plot. It's been an amazing year for all that we have had from the plot, and there is still so much more to come.

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A few photo's from around the garden this week-end.

The wild corner with the Japanese anemones which stand almost 4 ft or more.

An old favourite bench that has seen better days and needs re-painting.

I've at last planted these in the cutting bed, I love their scruffy petals.

A little Viola growing in a crack (self seeded)

Some wild life in the garden ( I took these for Kella ) she has some amazing bugs and creepies in her garden it's like a mini zoo !

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Aubergine's

Aubergine on the patio 'Baby Rosanna', it has lot's of flowers and many small fruits growing, apparently they only grow to golf ball size so just nice to roast with other veg, Yum !

'Baby Rosanna's' first tiny fruits forming.

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Lemongrass update

The Lemongrass taken on 23rd June 2009

One of the Lemongrass plants taken today.
The lemongrass plants are coming on a treat and I can't wait to start using some, the stems are thickening, so it shouldn't be too long.

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Hydrangea

I have had this Hydrangea for many years. It's growing in a half barrel. I don't usually feed or pamper it and it's usually a deep purple. This year I decided to give it some feed for Ericacious plants, I wish I hadn't as it's now changing to pink, I hope it goes back to it's old colour when the feed has all gone from the soil.

My Lace cap Hydrangea taken 5th July

It's just starting to change to a lighter pink.

Taken yesterday, it's definitely changing colour.

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Pooh Bear

At last I have finished my grand-daughters Pooh Bear cushion, it's the same as her brother's but Florence's has a pink balloon (sorry Pooh !) and pink edging. It's the longest I have ever taken to do a sewing project, the garden and the allotment take up so much of my time.

A close up of the hand embroidered Pooh, balloon and bees. The clouds have been quilted to make them stand out.
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Today's harvest

I went up to the lottie to water the greenhouse this evening, and came back with this lovely harvest, plus a carrier bag of runner and french beans. The little squashes are 'Munchkin' and they are delicious roasted. The peppers are just as I like them which is small. The tomatoes are a mix of cherry, and others that I have forgotten the names off hand. My sweetcorn still isn't quite ready, I am waiting patiently. I have to get up there and weed and pull up spent flowers as it's looking a bit untidy.

Jan (Thanks for today) is no longer blogging, that's so sad !

I popped over to visit Jan's blog ' Thanks for today' and there was a message saying that she is no longer blogging. I was so sorry to read that message.

She was diagnosed with Lymes disease in June 2009 so I guess it's all to much for her.

I would like to wish her better health and tell her I will miss her blog, she did say she will visit our blogs from time to time, so I hope she does . Here is her blog link if you want to read her post about Lymes disease.

http://thanksfor2day.blogspot.com/

Also visit Joanne at http://joanne-orangecottages.blogspot.com/ for Lot's more info.


Jan if you read this GET BETTER SOON

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.