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

An allotment visit update

I made a brief visit to the lottie yesterday, mainly to take more kitchen scraps and bits to add to my compost bin up there. It was lovely to see millions (OK a little white lie, but honest a lot) of big fat worms doing their thing and making me some lovely compost.

There was nothing much going on up there, but I noticed the rhubarb peeping out of the ground, very exciting ! I love rhubarb and we have about 4 different varieties, but I can't remember which ones as I didn't write them down and the tags are long gone.

Then there was this gorgeous Hellebore that a neighbouring plot holder (who was giving up their plot to move away) gave me last year. She also gave me a white one which is just in bud. I am so lucky as these are very large plants, so lots of flowers.

The garlic is doing very well, we are still using last years which is plaited and hanging in the garage.

I have potatoes chitting on the windowsills. I'm not growing as many as last year as I am making room for the asparagus which is more expensive than potatoes in the shops, so I would rather grow things that will save on my shopping bill.

Also on the windowsill I have my broad beans and some sweet peas that I sowed yesterday, so nothing to show of those yet. But the seeds I saved from the beautiful Cerinthe plants that I grew last year, were planted about a week ago and they are doing well and are up, each day another one peeps out I have ten so far and another just coming through. I can't wait for them to look as lovely as last year, they are so beautiful.

'Cerinthe' seeds above and the plants from last year below.

The onions that I grew from seeds indoors are now growing well and in the mini-greenhouse outside. I cover them in fleece every night as I don't want to lose them after all the attention they got as they were growing. I also put the poppy plants out there as well, they are sturdy little plants now. I just hope I am lucky enough to get the elusive plum colour one.

That's about it really! I'm being nursemaid for the next 6 weeks to the hubby who has had an operation on his foot and wont be fully mobile for at least 6 weeks. For the first 2 weeks he has to keep the foot elevated as much as possible, so I'm at his beck and call (that saying looks odd written down !!)

Have a good week-end everyone and It's almost MARCH Yipeeeeeee !!!

The Dahlias are in at last.

Do you remember my Dahlias that I grew from seed ? well today I planted some of them out in the cutting bed on the allotment. Now I can't wait to see them flower. I grew 70 plants, and lost about 5 to the frosts in the cold greenhouse. I gave lots away to family and lottie neighbours and still have many more for myself.

I grew 2 varieties: Disco Dancer -mixed, and Fireworks -mixed

Dahlias starting out.

Three views of the bed the Dahlias are in.

In this bed are Cosmos,'Sonata Dwarf mixed' , Echinacea, 'Pink Parasol' , Cornflower, 'Polka Dot mixed', Dahlias (as above), Cerinthe major, and Atriplex hortensis var. Rubra which is really a herb, but a very beautiful plant, the colour is fabulous. I bought one at the Hampton Court flower show last year and it self seeded dozens of little new plants for free !! (see photo below)

Flowers for free, who needs a florist ?

I have been feeling very weary over the last few days. I am half expecting to come down with something, I am so used to having bags of energy, so I hate not feeling 100%,, anyway ! I only told you that because I haven't really done much at the lottie these last few days. I probably overdid it on Saturday up there (6 hours) and keeping up a large garden as well doesn't help energy levels.
So I am just going to post some photo's of the first decent bunch of flowers picked from the garden this morning. They cheered me up, especially as they were free.

In the 'tete a tete' vase there is three different violas. In the glass vase there are Cerinthe, Cornflowers, Aqualigia, Spirea, and another bit of shrubbery.

Two close up shots of the flowers.

Close up shot of the Cerinthe.

A perfect bouquet for the mantelpiece

Cock a doodle doo

No I haven't got myself some hens and a rooster! that's me crowing as I am rather pleased with myself. Yes I know pride comes before a fall and don't count your chickens etc, BUT -- and this is the first time I have tried this - OK! I'm going to tell you ! I bought some very tasty tomatoes from M & S a couple of weeks ago, so tasty that I decided to scoop out the seeds from the one I was eating. I dried them on some kitchen paper for a few days.

And now look at them, I am so pleased with myself, I know it doesn't take much to amuse me.

Well that was a little experiment for me in what people have been doing for centuries, which is just as well or where would we be today without men and woman saving precious seeds for us to grow ?

Here's an update on other things growing.

Do you remember my post about chitting sweetcorn seeds ?

Here they are now (below) I potted them on when they looked like little tadpoles. It has been successful so far they need to grow a bit more then they can get planted out in a few weeks. I sowed 2 types : Lark F1 and Ovation F1

The Munchkin squashes and the courgette plants are growing well and if the weather stays this good I will be planting them all out soon.

The Cabbages have been planted, 2 types : Wheelers Imperial & Greyhound and the green curly kale. They have been netted against the pigeons using blue water piping for the tunnel and the pond netting was from "Wilko's" (best price)Two last photo's. The first is of the beautiful Cerinthe that I have been growing since planting the seeds way back in the autumn they are just beginning to flower. The other photo is of a tree Peony that I took a photo of in my local nursery and now i am lusting after it, I have to buy it ! if they still have it.

Cerinthe

Tree Peony

That's the end of this post, until the next one Happy sowing and growing to all.

Time Flies

I haven't posted for a week ! where does the time go? We had a fabulous time in London with my son. We visited Regent's Park, Primrose Hill, Tower Bridge, Borough Market ( a real Londoners area) that was during the day and in the evening we went to a Jazz club in Soho (fantastic band!) and the Wednesday evening we went to an Iranian restaurant, so a very busy few days. I LOVE London !

I have been busy since I got back from London. I have been sowing my courgettes ( 3 different kinds) and "munchkin" squash, and "Coquina" squash. I'm not sure if the latter will germinate as I saved the seeds from one that I bought in Asda last year, it was delicious, but I have never seen the seeds on sale anywhere, so maybe they wont grow here, I'll keep you posted. I also sowed my "Burpless" cucumber seeds.

The Dahlias have all been re-potted into much larger pots as they have really grown this last couple of weeks. I have planted out more Sweet-peas, the "Cupani" have been planted out a couple of weeks now as they were sown in the Autumn. Also planted out some Cosmos, and a few Cerinthe's, so fingers crossed we don't get any surprise frosts.

AND ! I have found a second hand shed for sale. My present one is far to small it's 6ft x 4ft, so my daughter will have that one on her plot. The new one is 8ft x 6ft, almost new condition and I hope to collect it during the week. We have to take it apart (That should be fun !!) and I have someone to collect it for me and take it to the lottie, I was so excited as 2nd hand good condition sheds are very rare.

Below are some photo's from London that I hope you will like. I took so many, I would love to show them all, I will post them on flikr at some point.

Magnolia, just inside the gate of Regent's Park, London

A floating Chinese Restaurant on the river Thames, London

A very pretty front garden in "Primrose Hill" London

A Window box with a difference in Primrose Hill.

A perfect place for us gardeners to eat !! spotted in London.

Flower shop in Borough, London. I loved this area.

Aren't these gorgeous ? they were outside another florist shop.

This last photo was taken from my son's apartment window. I took it to show all the folk in the USA and Canada just what we call a "Yard" it's a tiny space of concreted area where there is just enough room for a few pots and some climbers (if your lucky). The yard in the photo belongs to the ground floor apartment, and that is two yards, Next doors as well, you can just see the fence in between !

A little bit of everything

I only went to the lottie for a short while today, to check on the dahlias and plant out some more sweet-peas. I have taken some photo's of various things today, so I thought I would blog them. see below.

Tomorrow I will be in London, so I am going to do a post with some photo's of other plots on our allotment, there really are some very beautiful ones. I am going to try the post-dated thingy to see if it works, I will check when I get back to see if it posted automatically.

Photo's from the top are,

1st-My bargain pansies ( I can't resist a bargain),

2nd- is the CERINTHE all grown up and almost ready to plant.

3rd - my garden table taken over as a nursery.

4th- My recycled wheelbarrow, taken from a skip (with permission!) and planted up.

5th- The Dahlias in the lottie greenhouse, growing at last.

6th- The Wallflowers outside the lottie greenhouse, just beginning to flower

7th - The summer house in my garden (click for a closer look) it's very cosy on a cold day.

Rosie is back on the plot and looking pretty in pink

Successful Sowing

I Spent a few hours at the allotment on Saturday afternoon harvesting the remaining brussel sprouts. We took the sprouts off and chopped the stems up to rot down for the compost bin . The stems are so thick it would take ages to rot in the bin, so we will break them down and add them later on, it would be lovely to have a shredder. The brussel bed has now been dug over roughly ready to weed and rake, and prepare for the next crop in, which I haven't decided on yet.

My latest seed sowings have been very successful as you can see below. The top picture is of the German cabbages "Filderkraut" which I mentioned in a previous post ( Withdrawal symptoms). The next picture down is two types of Kale, on the left of the seed tray is Dwarf Curly Kale, and on the right of the tray is Nero Di Toscana (Italian). Next is the Italian Red Onions which have at last started to grow sturdier. I have been putting them outside each day if it's not raining, but they go out if it's windy as I have learnt that the wind helps strengthen them, and it's really worked. At the bottom is the Cerinthe plants which I sowed in the Autumn, they have been hardening off during the day and hopefully going out into the beds in April.

Filderkraut cabbage

Kale

Italian red onions

Cerinthe

I'm back in action on the plot !

After a couple of hectic weeks going back and forth helping out with babysitting, I am now raring to go. I missed out on working at the lottie in the lovely weather at the week-end as I was in London visiting my sister, so I was very pleased that today was good.

I managed to dig and prepare two raised beds, and took off the black plastic on other parts of the plot and got it dug, ready to divide into smaller beds. I don't have a plan, I just know where everything was last year and will rotate it all this year. I am going to do a boot sale to help towards the price of a bigger shed, and then my daughter will take the small one over to her plot when I get the bigger one.

My broad beans are getting very tall so I think they will have to go out as soon as possible as the roots are getting very long even though they are in the toilet roll tubes. The Cerinthe plants are also doing well, I have been hardening them and the beans off outside each day.

I have lots of seeds to plant this month. I love to see the seedlings appear and grow it's so amazing, but I do find looking after them a chore, especially as we like going away for a couple of days at a time. I look forward to the time when all the vegetables are in their beds, and need less looking after. The photo above is of the area that I dug over today, covering it over winter with black plastic was really good at keeping down the weeds and warming up the soil, it was much easier to dig.