Frantasia!

This is the newest addition to my little rose collection, Rhapsody in Blue, also known as Frantasia. I first saw it last year when we were staying at a campsite called Bridge Villa where it stood majestically outside the toilet block, a mass of proper purple flowers that smelled heavenly. Whenever i visit a garden centre i look for it and yesterday i got lucky at Coolings. I don't think it will be very happy in this tub for long but it should be okay as a temporary measure :)

Cloud!

This floated past while we were relaxing in the garden, our very own Cloud Dragon!



Luckily he was friendly and didn't rain on us :oD

Strawbellies!

I've already had two lots for pudding off them and they are bloody gorgeous!

I must sort the runners out, they are going mad! :oD

Summer is here!

Heralded by the arrival of my first strawberry!

It's huge... or at least it was until i ate it :oD

Deeeeeeeeelishus!

No snow here!

Let's hope it stays that way ;-)

Ooh i say!

That wasn't there yesterday! lol
The flat leafed parsley has made an appearance. In fact the whole of the herb "garden" is looking good and healthy with lots of new growth. The walk flowers are now in flower but the daffodils have gone over so I'm just waiting to see what else comes up in those pots cos i can't remember! lol

It worked!

The strawberry plants have flowers on! I'm really pleased as i wasn't sure the ones i dug up would survive but they seen to be doing ok. They aren't as big as the shop bought plants but they all look healthy :-)
Is it Pimm's o'clock yet?

I has mouse!

I saw it dashing along the side of the garage and in through the side door and then it came out under the main garage door and under the trellis that the strawberry planters are sitting on to keep the drainage holes free. I think it's from the same family that live in the compost bin. It's so tiny bless it! I hope i didn't give it a heart attack when i peeked under the planter!

Anyone for tennis

Well, that was easy enough. I used all the plants that i salvaged from the garden plus an extra 6 which have gone in the top of bags. I don't know what variety mine are but the new plants are Sonata which is a mid season fruit. I am looking forward to June immensely!

Herb garden

I've been watching too much telly! Grow your own drugs is particularly inspiring at the moment so i've decided to give it a go :-)

Rescued!

Managed to salvage more of the poor neglected strawberry plants than i thought i would. They'll be finding a new home in a proper strawberry planter very shortly :-)

We has Snow!

Yeah baby!
It looks really lovely outside, and luckily i get to stay inside and admire it from the warmth ;o)

Ribbit!

During the recent bouts of torrential rain i discovered a little green visitor to the garden, he sat there for ages enjoying the rain bless'im!

Therapy!

I was talking with someone the other day about Rosemary beetles and Lavender beetles and when i found one i thought i would make the most of the opportunity to:
a) show you what a Rosemary/Lavender beetle looks like
and
b) have some beetlephobia therapy


They are so pretty, i don't think these photos capture the richness of the colour in its shell.
It is striped along the length of its body with coppery red and turquoise blue and the occasional hint of gleaming gold.

I don't think i did too bad for someone who would have run screaming a few years ago,
although i have yet to let one crawl on my hand!

I think i might be quite lucky, although i have beetles they haven't devoured my Rosemary or my Lavender yet. I remove the "cuckoo spit" that has the larvae in but i can't bring myself to kill the adults and as long as they live alongside my garden i shall continue to do just that ;o)

Mum's back garden

Is a good place to be a fox ;-)

I has flowers

As well as bindweed! There are some flowers on the strawberries too! That's enough gardening for now, my back is starting to get too hurty! Don't want to spoil my knitting meet up this afternoon ;-)

I'll do something

With this one day!

I bloody hate bindweed!

I bought some new plants at tesco today so have decided to do a spot of gardening, it desperately needs it! Any tips for getting rid of the terrible weed are very welcome ;-)

one potato, two potato...

Today i spent some time in the garden and dug up the second earlies that should have been dug up at the beginning of September! Luckily there is no rot and only two tiny ones were green, although they are slightly larger than traditional new potatoes generally are! Hopefully it will stay dry this weekend and i can dig up the maincrops too and get the veg patch tidied up a bit, it's gone a bit tatty i'm afraid. It's not easy mustering the energy to go and garden when all you want to do is curl up and nap however much you know that gardening is significantly better for you than napping is!
I also pulled the carrots up and put them in a box of sand to store them, it's the first time i've done it so i hope it works. They look lovely, little round balls of crunchy orange goodness. Even the loooooong carrots i grew came out straight, so at least i know what to do for next year, they need a nice soft, sandy soil so that they roots don't get twisted and bent. Hopefully next year though i will get more than six!
In knitting news... Last night saw the last stitch of "backyard leaves" from Scarf Style, all i have to do now is block it and stitch the two halves together, it's very exciting! I also started on the leaf and trellis (is that the name? i'll have to go check now) socks from socks soar by cat bordhi and they are coming along slowly but surely.
I need to find some mindless knitting or crocheting to do for when i just have to pick something up without needing a pattern to follow. I tried the ripple scarf pattern from Artesano Alpaca but i didn't like how it came out, either the pattern is written wrong or i am following it wrong because it was lop-sided! I'm sure i'll give it another go one day, after all it cost over two quid so i'm not letting it go to waste! I need to get another scarf started for my Christmas gifts, i'm thinking the "vintage velvet" from Scarf Style, i like a bit of cabling :o)
I'm doing well with finishing things, i've got the dawg's blankie done, and very gorgeous it is too *sniggering* I've at least five more blankies to finish, two human size, one child sized, one dog sized and one cat sized! I also had a good rummage through my bags of UFO's and found two shawls that need finishing. One is a lovely soft cotton with a bright pink motif round the edge and the other is a rather vile peach coloured mohair blend that i really don't want to do but i must! I'll take piccies soon, need to update Flickr! with recent finished things.

alive!

still here, just forgetful as usual!
Been busy knitting several panta, halfway through the sleeves of freckle and finding cool patterns for gift scarves. Bought a knitting machine for a fiver at the local bootsale but as it is only a single bed it can't do rib which is what i reeeeeeeeeally want it to do so it looks like i will be bootsaling it or ebaying it whichever happens soonest :(
In garden news... it's wet wet wet! Plenty of flowers on the runner beans but no beans as yet but the french beans have cropped ok. The yellow french are better croppers however than the purple teepee unless of course they are a later cropper in which case time will tell! My swede have mildew which comes from sowing too early so i will remember that for next year and the cabbage patch has plenty of caterpillars *EEK* i really must steel myself and get to picking them off but i hate the thought of killing the poor things :(
I've dug up four of the first early potatoes and got six meals from the crop and there's another three plants left so that should keep us going until the second earlies are ready. My tomatoes are a little on the late side but plenty of fruit, hopefully they will ripen up in the greehouse with a little bit of sun and the pepper plant has now gone int he greenhouse as well in an attempt to warm it up and get it flowering/fruiting. The runaway success in the veg patch so far this season though are the courgettes. I am picking two fruit every other day and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight yet, unfortunately i can't keep up with eating them so quite a few are being donated to new homes!
In VW news... had a cracking weekend at BugJam despite the huge storm on Saturday afternoon and the subsequent non-working of my mobile. I've since bought a replacement battery and it last longer than 2 days so that's a great improvement! The camper is surviving well despite being treated with a little less respect than she deserves and we had a nice sedate weekend camping in Rye to celebrate Bloke's and Alex's birthdays, which was nice :)
We've decided not to go to Blandford this year and while i am very upset at not going we will be going to VW Action instead and everyone says that it's the best show of the year so hopefully that will make up for it.
Hope anyone who may be reading this is keeping well, please do leave a comment and say "hi" :)
Franney x