It's lovely to make your own from home grown

Mmmm I just made three batches of Italian, tomato and Basil sauce, all made with homegrown tomatoes, onions, and Basil plus Italian herbs and a good red wine. All ready for the freezer for when I need a quick base to an Italian dish.  Just the jam to make now as I've frozen bags of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries.

Why growing your own flowers is amazing

 I have always tried to grow flowers in the garden that I can cut for the house ! But this year I also made a cutting bed especially for that purpose. Its been amazing having virtually free cut flowers all through the house.  I say virtually because of course there is the seeds, compost, feed then manure for the beds, so there is a cost involved, but nothing like the cost it would be to buy flowers in abundance from the florist or market.  I have been sent a lovely book to review written by Sarah Raven  called 'Cutting garden journal'  I will share it in a post soon as I have to read, digest, take photos for you and then give my personal review.  In the meantime  here is a couple of photos of bouquets I've picked for the house today.

Could this be carrot love ?

My carrots this year have been the oddest shapes ! Still delicious but so weird. I put it down to the fact that I had to move them from one overcrowded bed to another larger bed. I've never done that before and I don't think they liked being moved.  However when I dug these up I had such a laugh as they were hugging each other ! Could this be carrot love ?

As I said they came in all sorts of weird shapes and these two looked even funnier when parted. My grandchildren thought they were hilarious.

What is wrong with blogger ?? It's driving me crazy!!

I don't know if its because I'm working on my iPad but its driving me nuts trying to edit my last post.
I noticed I had two photos the same but I couldn't scroll down past the first two photos to get to the duplicate photo to delete it.  I also wanted to add more text but it just wouldn't let me.  Very frustrating so I'm off to bed in a sulk :(

M xx

This year has been a good year for Zinnias

Beautiful Zinnias grown from seed and cut for the house

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My sad news

I'm sorry I haven't been posting recently, but sadly my brother passed away recently and his funeral is tomorrow, so we have to travel to London to attend.  I have so much to post but obviously don't feel up to it at the moment, but will do so next week.

The cutting bed I planted on the allotment looks so amazing and all grown from seed so I'm looking forward to some lovely flowers this year.  I'm going to cut some for my brothers funeral and take a posy for him tomorrow.

I hope you readers are all well and enjoying your plots and gardens.

M xxxxx

Everything's growing well

So far this year most of my seeds that I sowed have come on really well, I say most as my Asters didn't come up at all.  They were old and out of date so that could have been the reason although I have grown out of date seeds before with good results.

Here's a few of the things doing well so far

Broad beans growing fast and need to be put in the ground very soon as they are getting leggy

My cut and come again mixed salad leaves, can't wait to start cutting these !

 Herbs mostly from last year and probably needing to be re-potted with fresh compost I only hope I don't find any vine weevils ! The bane of my gardening life !!

T

 My first successful growing of Ranunculus , I only hope they grow into healthy plants as I love them and they are expensive to buy.

 Courgette plants the variety is 'Zuccini' love courgettes so can't wait to harvest these

These are the many Zinnias I'm growing for my cutting patch at the allotment and some for the garden. 

That's about it and still plenty of things sown which haven't appeared yet, such as runner beans, early French beans and squashes .  The butternut squashes have grown are are coming on well as are the chillies, and tomatoes