A good day for planting potatoes

Yep, John and Cro, it's been great here too. Had my trays of new potato seeds chitting (waiting for the green shoots to spurt) on a back windowsill since the beginning of February. According to legend, setting them out in trays like that for about 3 or 4 weeks will (hopefully) bring a crop of freshly dug new potatoes on about a month earlier. We'll see.

Chitted Rocket Potatoes

Forked over a patch of ground where last years leeks had grown. Made a line of green string between two forks and dug a trench a spade  deep all along. A handful of GroMore fert along the row. Hoed it in and then scattered a tub of chicken manure pellets over the soil, hoeing that in as well.

Spaced each potato about a foot apart from each other and planted them, green eye up.

Marked the rows with bamboo canes, raked over and job done. Peter Rabbit polished off nearly all my cauliflowers early on. I covered up the cabbages with  garden fleece. He didn't like that and left them alone, so hopefully, still might get a few spring greens yet.

Blue sky and sunshine all day. The cherry blossom's really come out today. it's lovely.

My hellebore's out.

And the miniature daffies are out in the front border.

A few weeks ago I bought quite a few packets of end of season bargain bulbs from Coedy. They were only 20p each, far too cheap to leave there. Anyway, they seem to be growing OK. I covered them with wire baskets to stop the pesky cats digging them up which they did without fail practically every morning. They've not yet figured how to get around that one. Molly 1 - Cats 0.

'Would we ever?'

Have a good week.

Colours

You can see this painting on the west wall of the Lingen Davies Centre in Shrewsbury.  My darling O/H is not too well at the moment and like so may other people,  we're having to make a few more trips there.  Don't know who the artist is, but the picture's been donated.  The position of the fishing boats, vibrancy of the colours of each one, the myriad of shades and splashes on the beach and in the water. I don't even pretend to know anything about art but I really love looking at this one. My skew whiff camera doesn't do it justice - sorry.

Camellias are out in bloom all around the hospital grounds. The colours are gorgeous. Mine at home, are just starting to come into bud.

Some wool samples in a glass display case in Hereford Cathedral

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do in the long Winter nights. I bought a heap of wool, myself, from 'Coedy' and have started knitting a multi coloured throw. Got it all wrapped round me while I'm typing this.

It's freezing outside. Imagine a world without colour. Wouldn't it be horrible.

Adiós Gonzalo

It's been a strange sort of day today - one minute blazing sunshine, howling gales,  an ominous black sky and stampeding rain the next. I was so glad that I'd invested a tenner's worth into Rhino tape from Coed-y and hunkered the poly tunnels down as much as I could the other day. Amazingly enough they are still holding together (only just) and my plants have survived (so far). But we've been lucky - not so good  in West Sussex and all along the west coast, right across up to Cumbria,

Brompton Stocks and Antirrhinums.

At the end of August, I collected up quite a few  seeds from around the garden. I sowed them in margarine tubs, pricked them out into seed trays and they  are coming on quite well. Will over winter them and plant them out in the spring, (she says). Our son and his partner are planning to get married in July/August next year so I've offered  to grow  flowers  for the pending 'do'.  J said that she would like to do her own flowers, so I told her that she can have the pick of as many as she wants. (If she wants them). I love weddings.

This was one little patch, earlier on in the year - a bit of a mish mash of all sorts.

My friend brought me two baby holly hock plants last spring. They were gorgeous and have produced loads of seeds. I've planted a sea of little seedlings from them. Hope they survive the winter. Looking quite good up to now.

Aquilegia and Pinks

Another scrambly border. This pic was taken in early summer. I spent yesterday cutting everything back and rooting out all the weeds, I've taken some cuttings of the one in the front so I hope they 'take'.

Canterbury Bells, lupins and a little oak sapling I found growing in the middle of them.

Holly hocks,  lupins, primulas  and  stocks

Still got a few runner beans hanging on. Hope there's enough to make a meal tomorrow.

Musselburg Leeks

Carrots

Beetroot

Marrows

The wind seems to have died down at last so here's to tomorrow. Have a good week
Molly

'Do You Read Me .........Over'

We had our 'Parish News' magazine the other day. Right in the middle of it was a two page  questionnaire with questions like ' Do you subscribe to 'Parish News', then you had to tick the appropriate box of either 'Always,' 'Sometimes' or 'Never.'  There was a two page list of bits of news, letters, articles, puzzles etc. which you had to tick accordingly. I used to submit the odd article a long time ago. Thankfully there was no mention of that. Wouldn't I have been gutted if they'd all ticked the 'never' box. I got to thinking about blogging and why we do it. Have you ever clicked on 'Next Blog' on the address bar at the top to see who's 'living next door'. There's a load who never have a comment between them and I feel quite sad about that. It's a lot of effort with no feedback. I never quite worked out how our blogging community came about, but I love reading your blog posts and what you've been up to, so thanks for that and for your company as well.
The other thing in my quiet little life is digging the weeds so here's my week -

We've had a couple of meals off our runner beans

Pulled some of the beetroot today too. We had bacon, beans and beetroot for dinner. Yum.

Cucumbers are ready. They taste good (no bitterness). The leaves are starting to show a bit of grey mould which is a pain, but nice while they last.

Tomatoes are fruiting. The early 'Shirleys' are starting to ripen so should be ready soon.

 I dug up one of the parsnips to see what they're like - quite pleased with that one. Love them roasted.

This is a self setter marrow. The seeds just popped through where the old marrow plants had died last year. I transferred them to another part of the seed bed and 'Voila!' or something like that.

The cobs on the sweetcorn are starting to fill out. Should be ready next month. I love sweetcorn with lashings of butter. I've got one of those little microwave dishes where you can cook two in about eight minutes.

That rose is called 'Red Windsor'. I bought it from 'Woolies' when they were in business so it's been growing quite a long time.

 Lilies are out. A bit disappointed because they don't seem to have the fragrance I was hoping. But love them anyway.

This is my mish-mash of a flower garden. It rained heavy today and the delphiniums have toppled over. They grew again from last year. A real bonus - the slugs usually polish them off.

Crocosmia, 'Lucifer' out in the side border. It's flowered early this year. The whole seasons seem to be moving on fast forward. It feels like early Autumn already.
Hope you're having a good life too.

The Lambs Are Growing

We try to go for a walk most days if the weather is anything like. Mostly it's up the single track road to Bridge 41. This one, built of solid red brick, canopies the main Cambrian Coast Railway line. Sometimes you see the train heading  towards Aberystwyth and feel the bridge shake as it hurtles underneath your feet. On the right hand side, almost adjoining the track, there's a field of sheep and lambs. I love to see them and they seem to grow a little bit more as the time goes on.  They've got used to us now and come rushing to meet us at the gate, living in hopes of something tasty to eat, I guess, but they're mostly unlucky.

Back home along the track,  wild daffodils are all out on the bank at the edge of the stream.

Little bits are starting to come into bloom in the garden

Brunnera. Almost like a forget-me-not. The colour blue a bit more vivid and crinkled bright green leaves.

 Anemone Blanda, the little wind flowers are starting to come out in the front border. Talking about wind ...... we replaced the torn half of the polythene sheet with some spare polythene we had by us. Two days and one night later, the gales blew  and all but ripped it off again. So back to work with spades and Rhino tape. It's holding at the moment. (only just.)

My Camelia bush has made it through the frost. Most years the buds turn brown before they have a chance to open. This year's a bonus.

Masses of lady birds on the Euonymus bush.

I divided a clump of Hemerocallis (day lilies), blue iris, poppies  and planted little bits under the apple trees. The ground was flooded in the winter, but some of last year's plants have survived. Last year's ring of delphiniums are starting to push through. Be interesting to see what grows.

Got a few plants of purple sprouting in the tunnel. The spring cabbages I planted, didn't like the change in temperature and all went to seed so they ended up on the compost heap.

My sister gave me a tub of lettuce seedlings last Autumn - they're looking quite good now.

The broad bean seeds sown in individual cardboard pots have germinated. They'll get planted out in a week or so once the roots have established. One year I had a really good crop of plants, planted them all out only to find that mice had been along the row in the night, scuttled and chewed the bean seeds still attached and left a line of chewed bean tops strewn about as dead as dodos.
Think I might have the gardening bug again, every year at this time it's the same.
Have a good week.