Indoors and Outdoors

Hello everyone.

The day after we returned from our holiday, we had a special delivery. The very early morning arrival meant we had little time to remove the old sofa and chair before the new one arrived. 

We had spent a long time trying to decide on the best seating arrangement to suit our needs. This one has recliners on both ends, along with the single chair. Strangely, at the start of looking, we were sure we didn't want a corner sofa and absolutely no recliners. 

It just goes to show how we can change our minds. We are delighted with the furniture and the colour. It is now a fun game to see who drifts off to sleep first.

Meanwhile, in the garden, there has been a lot of hammering, nailing, and sawing long lengths of wood. We have lived in our current house for 23 years, and although the garden is quite large, the paved patio is small in comparison. 

We have just never got round to changing the area until a month or two ago. Hubby ordered all the necessary parts, and slowly the decking emerged. It covers a larger area than before, making it a more useful place to eat outside. The other job hubby did was to disguise the pipework on the house's walls behind some wire-mesh fencing. 

Since it's finished, we've been eating outside quite a lot! We only have a small table at the moment ( you can see it in the background of pictures 4 and 5, along with a bit of D). We are looking to get a larger table and benches there before the end of the summer. 

You can also see a couple of my pots and the raised beds, which have tomatoes, sunflowers, broad beans, and peas, all at various stages of growth. I have lots of planting plans for next year.

And after a lovely meal, somewhere to relax and chill out is required. Just to the left of the decking is our space to do that. Our garden is always very sunny, with very little shade. Hence, the latest shopping trip was to buy the parasol. I think there will be a lot more time spent outside from now on.

I'm picking Sweet Peas most days, and it is lovely to enjoy their scent in the house.

This will be the last crop of rhubarb for this year. I try not to pull any more stalks after Midsummer's Day to allow the plants time to recover for next year. The scales are not very clear, but it shows 1.4 kg of rhubarb.

That's all for now. I hope you have a lovely week ahead, wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

B x

All About the Fruit

Hello to you all.

I hope you have had a good week and the weather has been kind wherever you are. It has been warm enough at times this week for me to get outside in the garden, which is one of my favourite things to do. 

I found this lovely small clump of snowdrops just poking their heads above the ground early in the week. Unfortunately, when I looked a few days later, all the pretty white heads had gone - nibbled away. When I looked on Mr Google, I was surprised to learn that snowdrops are high in sugar, so maybe a night-time critter had a sweet tooth for them this year.

Or it could just be slugs, of course.

This week has been about the fruit in my garden, preparing the ground and pots for the season ahead. I pruned our apple tree to keep it manageable and planted some rooted gooseberry and black currant plants into pots. We also had two more large gooseberry and black currant bushes that had been taking up a great deal of space in raised beds, which we have replanted in pots with fresh compost.  

The last fruit that found a new home this week was the rhubarb: the wooden raised bed it was growing in had disintegrated over time, so a new place to grow had become essential. I split the plants and discarded the oldest parts before replanting them in a larger plot.

I have several other jobs I want to get done in the garden this month. Still, if the weather is unkind, I can continue to work in the greenhouse preparing for seed sowing time.

Meanwhile, indoors, I have started a new cross-stitch project. It was the final item currently in my craft box. I shall be working on this over the next few weeks, but I thought you would like to see the start and keep you guessing as to what it will be.

Have a great week ahead, both inside and outdoors.

See you next week 

B xx

Greenhouse, Rhubarb and a Pumpkin

Hello, and thank you for joining me again this week. 

Over the Summer, there was one significant change to our back garden. My old greenhouse was a lovely place to grow and nurture seedlings and other plants for over thirty years, but we decided to replace it with a new and more suitable model. Although I felt sad when we dismantled the old greenhouse, my sadness was short-lived. We put an advert on a local free-to-collect website, and within an hour, someone wanted to give the old greenhouse a new home, which made me very happy. 

My Old Greenhouse

And so, may I now present our new greenhouse.

My New Greenhouse

My new greenhouse is something that I can enjoy all year round. It is larger than the old one and has some fitted shelves that are just the right height for me to use comfortably. The sliding double doors make manoeuvring a wheelbarrow of compost easier, and the larger opening roof vents allow better air circulation.

The building is big enough to put in a chair and a table, so I can potter even when it is raining and cold outside and enjoy a nice warm cup of coffee and a biscuit. Wonderful!

My hubby and son put the structure together and made it all work, so a huge thank you to both of them! :-)

While there is not much growing in there yet, I have some lettuce and a few herbs that have germinated in the last week. It will be good to get plenty of use in the greenhouse over the Winter.

Now, I know that all the gardening books and many gardeners say we should stop picking rhubarb at the end of the summer, but I have been doing a little rule-breaking this week. I left this rhubarb bed for weeks, and the leaves and crop of stems have just grown. As the branches had not deteriorated, I picked a few of the largest to freeze and a few more to stew for a pudding. There are still lots of stems and leaves that will now die down and feed the plants for next year. It just seemed a shame to waste such a large and good crop.

The stems I used for that pudding were delicious, so I am glad I broke the traditional rules.

Continuing with an Autumn garden theme, I found a lovely free pattern on Ravelry for a knitted pumpkin. It only took a weekend to make, and it would be easy to make a smaller or larger version using different yarn weights and needle sizes. I loved the vine and leaves, which reminds me of a Cinderella pumpkin.

I intend to make more of these and some other Autumn-themed decorations to build up a display to enjoy each year.

As it looks like a warm and dry week ahead, I shall spend more time outside and wish you all a good week wherever you are.

B x