Borage and Bees

One of the first edible flowers we grew in the garden plot was borage, little did we know that it would self seed and come up blooming blue every year.  And without failure, here they are again growing amongst the potatoes.

The bees love it though, and I now and again get to pretty up a salad plate with the edible flowers and the baby leaves, which taste like cucumber.

Dormouse...Dormice in the garden

A few days ago, I think it was Wednesday we both took advantage of the sun shining. Good move, since then the rain here has been non-stop. To be fair its raining quite heavy in Wales where my parents are. I know this as I rang my mother earlier to see if anyone had been over to the allotment plot since I left. With no shelter at the allotment plot there, the rain has kept them all away all week.

Some creatures have literally taken this message 'Welcome to my garden' literally. As D was cutting the grass he noted some movement.  He slowly crept up to find: not one, not two, not three, not four - but 5 dormice.     Dormice are part of the rodent family and have characteristics similar to those of mice and squirrels.

We must have spent a good hour hovering over them, marvelling at their small cuteness.

Sadly a day or two later, whilst looking out of the flat window down at the freshly cut grass, cleared of weeds, buttercups and daisies, I did see a magpie sweep down and peck one of the dormice that was out of its comfort zone and exposed to the swift and sharp eyed.  I was completely overwhelmed as the magpie flew right past the window carrying the little defenceless dormouse in its beak.

Some progress photographs.  The potatoes are looking good.  I may dig a plant up later in the week.

The salad is doing well, so are the radishes that are ready for the picking.

You may remember this allium in full bloom.  Even though its lost its magenta colouring, I think it still looks rather attractive.

Blueberry progress

Some wild strawberries.

I also managed to get some laundry done.

This is another one of my Gardening and Growing themed tea towels.  This one shows the Gardening Calendar. I know its just a tea towel and its purpose is to dry dishes, but I actually think this particular tea towel would serve as a fantastic wall hanging. I got my tea towel from All Tea Towels. There are so many different themes and designs such as retro and nostalgia, seasons, flowers, and my favourite vegetables, garden and herbs.

sticky orange fingers, geckos and flight of the eagle

Its not often I get to eat an orange straight from the tree.
Fresh, juicy and sticky. I actually ate loads of oranges, peeled and chopped with Greek yogurt for breakfast or freshly squeezed as a juice.

One of the trees were adorned by these flowers. I was told these were called hibiscus. I wonder if its the same hibiscus you find in herbal teas?

The Ice Queens Magic

As I am getting older, my tolerance levels of being cold have dropped to pretty much zero. I no longer enjoy playing the snowballs or making snowmen as I did when I was small. Instead when it snows, this cheery disposition of mine is quickly replaced by a cautious person who has with age developed a greater awareness of the posing dangers that come with cold weather and snow such as: slips on pavements, dagger like icicles, scraping ice of the cars windscreen and slippery roads. However, I cannot deny its magical morphic abilities and marvel at its beauty. I am sure you will agree that ice, snow is so fascinating. So I hope you won’t mind me sharing some images that have kept me upbeat and made me smile at life over the past couple of months.

Ice rose

Sprouts on ice Nessie in ice

Ice berries

Icicles

Ice cobwebs

Ice fence

Ice clusters Ice slates

Swans in lake.
All photographs have been taken from here.

If all this ice has given you the shivers, below is something to warm you up.

Down on the allotment

After a long lie in, I managed to get out of the cosy warmth of my duvet to put in some labour on the plot. There is quite a bit to do, so no excuses of the rain falling. Actually the weather was kind to us today, other than the blowy wind, it stayed relatively dry.
Before we started to work on the plot beds: D on the potato bed and me on the Legumes bed, we were visited by a Painted Lady butterfly on her way to North Africa (we think), she was magnificent. We both felt blessed to have her on site and even more fortunate to capture on camera.

Some of the Autumn sunflowers are still standing their ground, others have well and truly been bashed by the wind and rain.

These were the two main beds that we put our physical energy into: digging, weeding and raking over. On the left the potato bed, and on the right the legumes bed.

Here is a progress shot of the fenugreek I planted about a fortnight ago. There plot is still productive. Still growing are lettuces, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, broccoli, turnips, raspberries, as well as

Rainbow and Bright Lights Swiss chard doing extremely well.

Canary and ruby chard.

Brussels sprouts getting bigger every time I look at them.

Red Marner cabbage have been a little disappointing, they are the size of an eating apple.

Unfortunately, I can' quite remember what type of cabbage this is. The slugs seem be liking it though.

My musselburgh leeks at slowly fattening.

These are Fuseau Jerusalem artichokes. Look how tall they have become! We did cut them down, and whilst digging the potatoes, D also managed to dig some Jerusalem artichokes, they were not at all nobbly, but smooth.

He also dug up the last of the Desiree potatoes.

and King Edward potatoes. All of which are now stored away in jute bags.

Last month I showed you a picture of these thistle heads in their full glory, now the cardoon flowers are starting to lose their royal colour. The marigolds are still doing very well and so are the nasturtium flowers.

I decided to cut down those sunflowers that had been treated harshly by the weather, saving the sunflower heads of course, to dry for bird food in the near future. The stalks of the sunflowers are quite hard and take a long time to compost down, so we will at some point be having a bonfire on the plot, so we can burn them with some of the weeds.

There is still quite a lot to do on the plot, but for now I think we've had a good day down on the allotment plot.

Bee all about it

It is miserable and wet outside, so we decided to give the allotment a miss today. We will put in the hours tomorrow: rain or shine. Instead showing you pictures of my growing vegetables, I have decided to share some 'bee' photographs that I took at the allotment about a fortnight ago. I hope you like.

This is my herb box at plot 45, here you can see the lavender, but I also have rosemary, lovage, mint and sage growing in it. At the moment, you don't even have to brush past the lavender, as it is automatically releasing its beautiful aroma. I must remember to pick some for drying: both for the scent and for home cooking for the coming wintery days.

Look at those legs and the delicate wings!

I like this one too. Just makes me smile.