Easter cactus and lots of yellow

Katie's Easter Cactus flowered a week after Easter; it looks fabulous opening up during the day and closing at night.



The scent from the Wallflowers is fabulous. They are planted under the conservatory windows so the perfume wafts in when the windows are open.


Katie bought these mini tulips last year as an "end of range" so we didn't really know what they'd look like. When they came out a week or so ago they were a real surprise with their feathery edges and beautiful sunny colour.


A simple Dandelion nestled in a pot of other goodies. We have loads of them all over the garden and although they are looked on as weeds they are actually very pretty and also handy for my rabbit who adores the leaves (in small quantities).


Our Primulas have been wonderful this year. We got quite a few from a friend who gave Katie some unwanted hanging baskets with rather sad looking Primulas already planted in them. I took them all out and just left them with all their soil around them and then planted them up about a month or so ago. I'm really pleased I didn't just bin them, they have brightened up the garden big time.


Cheating abit here as the Violas are not quite all yellow. They look lovely under the trees and have self-seeded since last year so we have double the amount.

Potatoes

The potatoes which we received from the Potato Council are growing well. The photo was taken a week ago and the plants have all grown quite a lot since then. I needed to add more compost to the bags today.

A surprise find - cabbage

Whenever we have a barbeque (and we've had three or four already this year) I buy a white cabbage to make my own coleslaw. Having left the half used cabbage in the cupboard I found, after a few days, it had started to sprout! Carefully sectioned off five mini cabbages and have planted them in small pots to see what'll happen. A week on, they are still looking good - none have shrivelled yet!

Chilli

The propagating chilli seeds had sprouted several tiny shoots, with three strong ones which I planted on into larger pots. I'm always nervous about planting on, hit and miss as to whether the tender seedlings are strong enough for all that handling. Luckily all three perked up within minutes and are doing fine.

Have put the others back under the plastic bag propagator, although I really won't have the space for any more chilli plants, especially as I shall keep them on the conservatory windowsill like last year.

Garlic and peas update

The garlic is doing extremely well and is look very healthy.

The peas grew exceptionally fast in their first seed pots and quickly needed planting out. The hens immediately focussed on the new seedlings and starting pecking at them! Had to construct a very makeshift fence to keep them off!

I know I'll need this, I certainly did last year

when the chilli plants became infected with aphids.

It's just a reminder for me and perhaps it may help someone else too:

aphid buster using nettles or very diluted washing up suds.

Perfectly pink

Yoghurt and nettle soup

Couldn't resist putting this photo up showing Georgie and Gina enjoying some left over yoghurt. They just love the stuff. Must add though that I didn't let them have the whole bowl, otherwise the poo would have been just a little too runny!

Thanks to Lucy for blogging her lovely Nettle Soup recipe. We have so many nettles in our garden at the mo, I decided to put a few to good use. Delicious.

Bean poles and pumpkin patch

The children do some preparations with the veggie plot on Sunday. The weather was glorious - lovely to be outside for so long with the extra light too in the evening. Wasn't so good losing the hour on Sunday morning though I must say!

I used a pile of old bricks to build a quick veg bed for our pumpkins. I didn't quite have enough to make a minimum 12 inches in depth (as suggested by a magazine I have recently read), so I rummaged around in the log pile and found some suitable chunky logs to make up the few extra inches needed. Having read that pumpkins love to grow in compost heaps I decided, with Ben's help, to fill the new bed with the majority of last year's home made compost. Really pleased with it - it's composted down beautifully (with the odd tea bag still lurking!). Now I have space on the compost heap for this year's lot of kitchen and garden waste, including a fresh bag of horse manure to kick start it.

So, have dug over and raked the main plot, Katie helped put in some tall poles for the peas (which are doing really well indoors) and later the beans. They also both helped plant up the four free potatoes, plus a couple of others which we found sprouting in the garden!