Vegetables

We're in full swing now:

• broad beans - in flower
• lettuces - some planted out, more seedlings in the greenhouse
• cucumbers - germinated
• tomatoes (for grow bag) - germinated
• tomatoes (from neighbour) - in trough outdoors (front garden!)
• runner beans - canes up and seeds planted
• garlic - ready soon
• cabbages - planted out, more seedlings in greenhouse
• squash (cobnut, courgette, spaghetti) - sown yesterday
• parsnips - germinated
• carrots - not so good as usual, still worth another try
• potatoes (pots and bed) - all sprouting now

I love this time of year!

Tulips

These have been just glorious for a couple of weeks, although they're going over now. I do hope I can keep them for next year, although I don't have a great deal of success with tulips from year to year. I wanted to take a picture of them as part of the larger colour scheme (such as it is!) in the garden - they go very well - but I can't seem to get a photo with the true colour of the surroundings It comes out so bland, while in real life it's all very vibrant. The irises are just breaking into colour in the back garden, and the gladioli in the front garden - I put them together in a vase indoors and they are spectacular

Easter Holidays #5 - back home

Back home, spring has sprung ...


And we have lots of visitors helping themselves to whatever they need for their nests ...

Easter Holidays #4 - Chiltern Open Air Museum

We would never have considered going, except that someone gave us a leaflet while she was collecting door to door for some charity or other ... it's a great place! The weather helped, it was fine and sunny, but it's a real haven. We took all day to look round, taking time to watch the sheep dogs working amongst other things.

The woodland walk was shady and cool and very welcome, ending as it does near the tea room!

Easter Holidays #3 - National Trust

We have a family membership of the NT and make good use of it around the country. This Easter we visited the Chilterns, a place we've never been before ... I didn't take so many pictures, especially at Waddesdon (too ornate to be able to capture any real sense of it), but it's not always the buildings that make a place special.


Besides Waddesdon, we visited West Wycombe and Hughenden Manor (the home of Disraeli) where the girls helped plant potatoes in the kitchen garden and we were all given seed potatoes to take home ... our garden path is now lined with pots of different varieties of potatoes!

Easter Holidays #2 - Paignton Zoo

I let the girls go off by themselves, so I was able to wander at my own pace and in my own direction! The elephants have to be my favourite animal, but these Colobus moneys were so much fun (although they look fairly miserable)


There were two baby baboons that kept the crowd amused most of the day, and I love the giraffes and the big cats ... and DD1 showed me the meerkats that I'd somehow missed along the way ...


There were other babies, too, including the rare black rhino - why is it we are so attracted to small creatures?

Easter Holidays #1 - The Eden Project

One of my favourite places, it's different each time we visit. This time there were the bulb displays, as well as the 'green motor show' and some new exhibits, including the spiral garden ...

April in the Garden

Speaking of garden - I love this time of year! The clematis montana has been in flower for a couple of weeks, and now the cherry blossom has joined in the cascade, too



We have tomato and cucumber seedlings in the greenhouse, and broccoli and lettuce seedlings hardening off before planting. The peas are showing, the carrots in the raised bed have germinated for once, and rocket and beetroot, too. The potatoes in the main bed are sprouting now, and we've planted six tubs of seed potatoes we were given at Hughenden (NT) walled garden I must get some more lettuce on the go, and am just biding my time before getting going with squash, chard, sunflowers and beans. Oh yes, the broad beans are well on their way, too ...

But there's plenty of weeding to be done (DH's job) - mostly in the flower beds, which are a fair way down the priority list but DH likes the distraction when he's busy - that's Friday's day off sorted then