Abundance ...

I'm enjoying what I think is known as a glut! A glut of sweet peas. I'm not complaining.  The colours are divine. The scent heavenly.

I have two cane wigwams of them on my allotment and at the moment, I am stripping them every other day and what I haven't room for, I am giving away to friends.

I don't really need any more words, I can let the photos do the talking, but suffice to say I am A Very Happy Girl.

Beyond the fence ...

Things have been pretty quiet around here in this space but I can prove that I have been far from idle. Last year I made the decision to take back my allotment space that is nestled beyond my back fence. I wrote a post here and talked about my first tentative steps in reclaiming this bit of land again.

It's funny how your memory plays tricks on you, and I can hardly believe that it once looked like the photo above. With a bit of help, I soon had my blank canvas to start playing with again.

Having been generously spread with rather pongy manure and then covered up in tarpaulins overwinter, this spring I started to make my 2-D plans that had been scribbled and sketched in my notebook come to life.

My Dad and I made some triangular beds out of some old used decking that we scavenged from our local nursery and I began to divide the area up in to workable areas.  The triangle beds are for my vegetables and in the photo above from a couple of months ago, there are garlic and broad beans that I had planted in pots in January.

The middle section is for my cutting patch and the section at the bottom, beyond the sweetpea wigwams, is for fruit.

The raspberries that I planted in November have started to show some green and the thought of harvesting some later in the year is about the only thing that is exciting No2 about my latest venture.

The strawberry patch is looking much healthier and promising since this photo too, with flowers abound which can only mean one thing: fruit. I'll be watching like a hawk to see that they don't get eaten before I get to pick them and I have netting at the ready.

Meanwhile in the greenhouse, it has been very full over the last three months and I have just about planted everything out now. I adore growing things from seed. The anticipation and nurturing are all good for the soul. Followed by the sight of germination and the forming of the first true leaves, it is the most satisfying thing I can think of.

There has been much carting about of compost and grit in an effort to try and improve the heavy soil and my wheelbarrow and I are firm friends and almost inseparable!

I even wore out my wellies!

And now it is starting to actually produce things. Radishes are the easiest and quickest of seeds to grow and it's a good thing, because I love them! At the weekend I sowed another half row of beautifully coloured Milano ones.

I'm pretty certain most things are dreadfully late this year, as is the case in my garden (I've never had tulips still flowering in June), but I'm looking forward to broad beans as promised by the gorgeous flowers on my plants.

It has been the perfect project to take me through what feels like an eternal winter and the most miserable of springs. The hours I have spent over there have kept me fit and happy and I can see that it is just going to keep on giving.

Plotting...

Back in the summer when I was in the throes of the daily delights of bringing flowers into the house that I had successfully grown myself, I got to thinking about bigger and better things. It seemed that the three raised beds that I had reutilised to feed this new-found passion were simply not enough. I found myself looking over the back fence at the allotment plot that I once worked until the sheer scale of it became too daunting for me to fit into what was, back then, a busier time in life.

One afternoon a few months ago, I could hear the solitary allotmenteer busy trying to cut the grass that surrounds the five plots and decided to bite the bullet and ask about taking on a plot again. The view that confronted me over the fence was pretty scary but then I knew that the four remaining plots hadn't been worked since I gave up back in 2008. I'm not sure how that little patch of bare earth in the photo below has survived the onslaught of weeds but it gave me a taste of how things could be.

After giving it a little bit more thought, I took action. I knew that I wouldn't be able to even contemplate clearing the plot on my own and so with the help of the lovely Sara, who I met on Twitter, I employed some muscle and now look!

My masterplan is to keep the majority of it covered overwinter so that I have a glorious blank canvas to work with next year. Who knew that I'd get so excited to order tarpaulins? Or manure?! But excited I am and my head is buzzing with plans about what to grow.

First up and in the ground are raspberries.  I did a bit of research (again, on Twitter) and got loads of responses back about the best and most reliable varieties. I've also got some golden ones on order.

I'm hoping that this weekend I can get a couple of other things in the ground just to get the ball rolling and then I can dream and list and plan and pin to my heart's content over the coming months.

I'm really hoping that I can have some fun with this space and that it reflects the things that are important to me. I'm thinking of a patchwork of growing space: one that is practical and pleasing to look at.

What are you plotting?

Looking...

...backwards...

Thoughts from the christening:

• I found this picture on Pinterest the night before the christening so I got up at 5am on the morning of it to replicate it for my Godchildren.  (They love me calling them that!)  I decided to find some photos of them when they were much younger rather than how they are now.  I think they were pleased. 

• The food was just the right amount and hugely appreciated by everybody.  Phew.  Fancy trying a new quiche/flan?  This one was delicious.

• It wasn't so appreciated when three people shrieked in unison "eek, there's a rat".  Ooops.  The downside of having the chicken coop near the deck.

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• On the subject of chickens, I lost my two lovely new girls to a fox last week.  I'm trying not to feel guilty as I loved the fact that they free-ranged around my garden.  Flossie is lonely and has been following Pip or me around like a lost sheep.  I will get a couple more once I am back from my summer holiday.  I'm not enjoying buying eggs for the first time in nearly four years.

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• I took my youngest nephew and niece to Kew last week.  It was far from the sedate stroll around that I am used to.  I hardly took any photographs either as someone commandeered my camera.

• I took them up on the Rhizotron and Xstrata Treetop Walkway.  They ran round several times while I clung to the rail, not enjoying the height and the wobbliness.  It was good to get a different perspective though.

• Looking back up was fun too.

• As was playing on logs.

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Looking forward...

• to making a quilt each for the boys for their christening presents.  I had to give them an IOU as it was all a bit last minute.  I'm loving the joys of chain-piecing.

• To tasting the first ripe tomatoes from the garden.  Warm from the sun, together with perhaps some mozzarella and avocado.

• And a holiday in the sun sometime soon and hopefully balmy days of August for the rest of the summer holidays.

What are you looking forward to?

I wish...

... you could smell this: Sweet pea Hunters Moon





Bought at Kew last year and sown in the spring.





Flowering abundantly now and filling my senses.






Hopefully the pictures will suffice.

Splash of Colour…

 

Three fabulously pink hyacinths in my kitchen, filling the whole house with their sweet scent.

 

 

A rainbow of new perle threads purchased at the weekend.  No2 thinks I’m quite mad, keep rearranging them into satisfying rows of colour.  He has no appreciation of these things!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no idea what I will use them for.  Yet.  But I am confident inspiration will strike.  Possibly in the form of French Knots…

Check out more Splashes of Colour here.

Paperwhites…

In one week they have enjoyed the warmth of the kitchen and grown up, up, up and flowered.

 

 

I’ve been playing with my camera and I like them in black and white.  I love that you can see that frostiness that appears on their petals.

I also think they look much better when I’m using my flash. 

 

My kitchen always makes everything look yellow when I don’t use it.

 

Their scent is sometimes quite overpowering.  If you catch a bit of it in passing, it is delicate and fresh, but when you are sat at the table it becomes almost sickly.  Today I also brought my hyacinths out of the fridge, where I have been forcing them for the last eight weeks.  So much for a continual display… they all to compete with each other at the same time!

Today…

…some of my Paperwhites are on the kitchen table and growing nicely, snug in their mossy basket.  I’m looking forward to opening the door in the mornings to their heady scent…

 

…I have the bluest of blue hyacinths on the kitchen windowsill…

 

…and the first of this year’s shop-bought tulips…

 

…elsewhere in the house, I have been making a little something to protect my Christmas present…

 

…the clue is in the fabric…

 

…just a simple envelope with the now obligatory buttonhole!