Stripes, Faded Florals and a Special Birthday

My week in pictures............gardening, sowing seeds, sewing cushions........... but most importantly, the celebrating of my daughter Bella's 21st Birthday!!!!!!

Hope you all have a good week, and thanks for visiting me here and for your comments.

In the Garden

Hello everybody, I can't believe we're into April already!

The weeks are flying past as they always do once the gardening year gets under way, and there never seems to be enough hours in the day to get everything done.

I've managed a few days in the garden, mostly last weekend, when I managed to finally get some seeds sown both under glass and direct into the raised beds.

A bit late I know, but should be OK for growing outside, I've finally sown my tomato seeds - Gardeners Delight and Sweet 100 F1. I shall have to cheat and buy a few ready grown plants for growing in the greenhouse for earlier tomatoes, but I usually have successful crops from plants grown outside. I've also sown pots of Basil, Coriander and Rosemary in the greenhouse. Last year a pot of basil I started in the Spring lasted most of the summer on the kitchen window sill.

I've also sown two types of courgettes under glass, an ordinary green courgette and some fancy coloured round ones! You can tell I haven't got the seed packets to hand and I'm blowed if I can remember the variety!

Outside I've sown half rows of lettuce (Tom Thumb and Little Gem), salad leaves, swiss chard, spinach and beetroot. I can then sow more in a few weeks time.

This weekend, weather permitting, I am hoping to get my potatoes in and some leeks sown into a seed bed, and some peas and kale too.

I've just finished an order for two coastal themed cushion covers which I loved making once I'd sourced the fabrics. Two different pale ticking stripes matched with a soft natural linen.

I've also been plodding on with The Sampler....sorry ladies, you're probably fed up seeing progress reports on this so please bear with me or fast forward!

I've started on the border....little pink flowers with pale blue centres and a blue design in between. This will go all the way round the sampler.

And I've started an alphabet row...working out from the centre point, and will in fill with little hearts.

And a new row of birds and hearts is underway above the still unfinished house....its the most tedious bit!

The garden is showing more signs of life now we are in April, with the first azalea well out now, although no signs of flowers from any of the other azaleas in the garden.

a few individual snakeshead fritillaries are up

the pretty pinky white wood anemones are out along the front, although in these photos it had just finished raining so their flowers are closed against the rain

the tulips have also shut up shop until the sun comes back out

bright and fresh new foliage is appearing on the crab apple tree and the variegated weigela

and the peonies are starting to show signs of life with thick fleshy rhubarb pink growth pushing up.

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I still haven't got around to the Hastings blog post but hope to share that soon. 

Hope all is well with everyone out there. What have you been up to in the vegetable garden? What have you planned to grow or have already got growing?  

A friend I met for coffee this morning mentioned cucamelon plants which are supposed to be coming to Waitrose soon....I think I'll have to give those a whirl! Has anyone tried growing these yet? Any tips or comments???

Thank you for visiting me here, and thanks for all your comments on my last post.

Have a good rest of the week and a great weekend!

Spring Bits and Bobs

Well we're truly into Spring weather now with March winds and April showers, and in between dodging the showers I have managed to get a bit of time in the garden this last week to continue with the tidying, weeding and mowing.

The camellia continues to be the highlight of the back garden with its beautiful, rich rosy pink blooms and glossy dark green leaves.

Some of the flowers are turning brown now but there are lots of buds still to open. 

My constant companion in the garden has been enjoying a few rays by the pond with his friend Frog, the battered stone frog.

Some of the tulips in pots are flowering now

and I still have a few spring plants to put in....a couple of pretty wind flowers and a sweet smelling dianthus

We are still eating kale from the garden......after years of growing our own veg I still get a kick and a feeling of satisfaction when I need go no further than the garden for some vegetables for dinner. I think it's because we had a long spell of 10 years or so when we didn't have the space or time to grow any veg other than a few pots of tomatoes and buckets of new potatoes on the patio.

The little blue scillas are up in the gravel...they seem to naturally prefer the gravel to the border.

and the first of the azaleas has started to flower...this is a small one with pink flowers.

The primulas I planted back in February are still going strong and providing some cheerful colour on the porch.

The wind has been battering the daffodils and other spring flowers, so I always seem to be rescuing a poor flattened bloom to bring indoors...this strongly scented hyacinth is in our bathroom at the moment in a battered vintage marmalade jar.

On the creative front, I've been stitching away whenever I have a few moments on the cross stitch sampler I'm making for my daughter.

I've made a start on the roof now, and embroidered most of the wording, although I need to re-do the 21st Birthday bit as the spacing ended up wrong! That's what comes of ad-libbing without having amended the chart first!

I've also added a row of birds and hearts.

With family over for tea on Easter Sunday, I spent most of Saturday baking with my daughter and amongst other goodies we made a Passion Cake with marscapone and lemon curd icing ( icing recipe from Annie Bell's Gorgeous Cakes book) and homemade scones to eat with jam and clotted cream! Yum!

Still a bit leftover to have with my morning coffee today!

Last week my daughter and I had a brilliant trip to Hastings, with fish and chips on the beach and lots of pottering around the little streets and steep, stepped passages of the old town, admiring the beautiful old houses and cottages and views of the sea. 

I shall share a separate post in the next day or so as we took lots of photos of the quaint houses.

We also poked around the old junk and antique shops although as I'd bought these two little vintage leather suitcases only a few weeks ago I was very good and only bought a couple of vintage blankets.

I need to give them a bit of tlc but they are full of nostalgia - they might have been children's cases or the larger one may have been a weekend case, but they conjure up all sorts of visions of days gone past.

I hope you all had a good Easter weekend, and are enjoying the Easter holidays if you have children. Fingers crosses for some warmer days as even though the sun is out intermittently, there's still a chill wind in our part of the world.

Edited to add we have just got back from a long country walk where we saw our first bluebells of the year!

Thankyou for visiting me here!