A morning in the garden

I had a day off work today and as the weather forecast was favorable, so I decided to spend some time in the garden.  I used to have an allotment when B was little and grew a lot of our vegetables and fruit.  I gave it up some time ago as it became to  difficult to to tend when I began to work full time and we never managed to eat everything I produced either.  I thought that I would grow more at home but last years summer put paid to that.  This year I have decided to just grow a few tomato plants to make chutney with and use throughout the summer and concentrate more on the flowers.
I sowed several varieties today:
Outdoor Girl
Marmande
Harbinger
Tamina
Balcony Yellow.

I will let you know how it goes.

I also deadheaded some of the early daffs that had gone over and split up some Zinnia, and Phlox Tapestry that were becoming overcrowded in their seed pots.  The garden is really coming to life now, the Forsythia is putting out flowers.

the primroses look really colorful and the forget me nots are a patches of blue. All the shrubs are putting on strong growth and buds are beginning to show on some of the earlier ones.

When I originally began writing the blog, my intention was to incorporate some gardening into it, gardening being my other major hobby.  Unfortunately, British weather has been against me for what seems like ever.  Here are some photos of some of my borders before I started work on them.  You can see, I need to do quite a lot to make the garden look even presentable for 2013.

Then last weekend we finally had some real gardening weather.  A big
yellow sphere in the sky that has not been seen for a while, made me feel the garden was calling to me. I had already sown some seeds back at the beginning of April, between snow showers and they were beginning to show signs of needing new accommodation. The seeds I have sown are:
Lobelia upright and pendula
Phlox  HHA Tapestry (Johnsons)
Candytuft (Thompson & Morgan and Suttons)
Rudbekia HHA (Thompson & Morgan)
Nasturtium (Thompson & Morgan and Suttons)
Virginian Stock (Suttons)
Clarkia (Suttons)
Sweet Pea (Thompson & Morgan)
Godetia (Suttons)
Dwarf Cornflower
Ten Week Stock

Dwarf Aster
Tall Cornflower

I don't have a full sized greenhouse, just one of the little mini greenhouses.  This is it after potting up my babies.  Now I have to keep them alive and away from slugs until I can put them in their final resting places.

I also have to go through the rigmarole of taking out and bringing in the pelargoniums every
morning and evening for the next couple of weeks.


Anyway some photos now of the garden as it stands now before more work is done.

Silver and Grey

Hi to everyone out there.  Been a while since I last posted, I've had problems with the laptop, but it's been to the doctors and hopefully has received enough medical
treatment so that I can avoid the trauma of being computerless for  a while and carry on learning about the blogging world.

I've been busy reading blogs, sewing and knitting over the last month.  I have just completed a cardigan style jacket with some fabric that I bought in Walthamstow Market back in the depths of February, when I participated in my first meet up.  Bought from the man outside Sainsburys it is a grey woollen fabric with a slight stretch to it.  When I bought it the stallholder assured me it was 100% wool, I don't know if that is true but it is a lovely fabric, very warm and soft.

I wanted to make a jacket for work in a cardigan style, that was smart, easy to wear but at
the same time something a bit different. I decided on the jacket from this pattern and to make it
different I thought I would put the seams on the outside and zig zag them in silver metallic thread.  

The fabric handled and made up beautifully, although it did fray quite a bit.

Here is the finished jacket, it is warm, practical and  different enough from anything I could buy, to make it interesting.  I also put metal buttons on it to co - ordinate with the metallic thread.

 

 

Here is the hem, edged in silver metallic thread and me wearing the jacket but not in work clothes.  I generally look far more formal than this for work.

 

I am still learning about how to edit, take photos and publish on blogger so please

bear with me while I complete this steep learning curve.  I did not want the next photo to appear but could not work out how to delete it and eventually got fed up with trying.  It is a beautiful day out there and I want to go out and enjoy it before it before the sun disappears and we revert to winter again.