Entertaining

 We're having friends over this evening and I am well prepared.  On the menu we'll have spatchcock roast chicken, steamed veggies in garlic butter (all fresh from the garden). I've prepared a huge bowl of beautiful fresh salad with my home grown lettuce, cucumber apples and chives. I've had to use shop bought tomatoes and mini peppers as mine won't be ready for a while. I have just tossed freshly boiled beetroot into some balsamic vinegar as a little side dish because not everyone likes beetroot. I've also cooked a gorgeous vegetable lasagne using up my last bag of mixed tomatoes, courgettes,  onion, and peppers from last year's harvest.  I'll soon be picking a freezing this years crop. And of course I'm using my pretty china. I'm saving up to buy matching place mats if such a thing exists.

This morning I've sown Cobra beans and taken a load of side shoots off the cucumber plants.  They've gone into a glass of water to root before being oitted on. It's a great way to keep growing cucumber right through to November without buying more seeds.

Baby ladybirds

 I've just been inspecting my tomatoes on the indoors GreenStalk and spotted two baby ladybirds. They've got a huge supply of aphids to keep them well fed. As soon as they turn into adults I'll release them outdoors 

First garlic harvest

 It's been a real mixed bag of weather today. Although we were forecast rain all day I've got tons of laundry washed and line dried. It's just started to rain now so I'll finish the last load on the clothes horse.  

This afternoon I dug up all the garlic at the front of the house. 

 Isn't it a lovely crop. I've cut the scapes off to cook like asparagus.  I will have to avoid breathing on anyone tomorrow. This garlic was simply the shop bought stuff from Aldi last October. I chose the biggest bulbs of garlic I could find and then planted 12 individual cloves. Each of them has given me a really good size bulb of garlic. At the back of the house I planted Eden Rose garlic but it's  not quite ready to harvest.  I reckon it should be ready in a couple more weeks. I've had to pull all the beetroot as it's got Beet Leaf miner all over the leaves. Thankfully it hasn't affected the beetroot so I've boiled that and it'll be lovely in a salad tomorrow.

It rained today

 And when I say it rained I mean it absolutely hammered down.  We ended up with a flooded floor in the conservatory and didn't go to our carving club. It was a bit hairy for a while.

The thunder and lightning was pretty impressive too

Great Ouseburn open gardens today

 We're heading over to York soon for a day of wandering around people's gardens.  We love the open gardens events and can't wait to peep into gardens big and small. We'll be supporting the local economy by eating lunch in their village hall. Next wweek we plan to visit North Cowton open gardens and the weekend after we'll find an open gardens event that's on over two days and make a weekend of it. 

Dressing up

My whist group and I were saying  today that nobody makes the effort to dress up through the day any more. We've agreed to all wear a nice dress next week (only the ladies of course).  I've got some really lovely dresses and it'll be nice to start wearing them again. I'm looking forward to trying things on that I haven't worn in ages. 

We're looking at open gardens to visit and have our eyes on quite a few dotted around the country.  We'll be staying two or three days in the areas that we pick and exploring places we've never been before. We're also looking at booking a couple of caravan holidays so that we can explore new areas. If you've been anywhere worth visiting please let me know 

My new GreenStalk have arrived

 I spent a couple of hours filling  them then decided I'd move the middle one. I was going to leave it till tomorrow but Tony helped me to move it. This is how it looked before we moved it. And can anyone identify this bulb. It smells strongly of garlic but clearly isn't garlic

It's too darn hot

 I'm going to do exactly what we Brits are renowned for. I'll moan about the weather.  It's sooooo hot.  We've had 31 degrees here and it's practically unheard of  here in the north east.  This morning I was due to walk with some friends but I declined when I looked at the forecast yesterday.  At 8am this morning I sat in the garden with a cup of coffee and it was already too hot for me.  This afternoon I retreated indoors where it was 25 degrees. Bear in mind that my ideal temperature is about 17.5 degrees.  At least when it's cold I can put an extra layer on. There's no escape from excessive heat.

This is beautiful

 https://youtu.be/qqLk0YdA7_8?si=sHxmat0kx2t8Tvir

We have newts

 Yesterday we spent all day working in the garden and I was delighted when Tony spotted a newt in the little wildlife pond. I sat for a while and spotted two newts and a frog. I'm pleased that they've found the pond and keeping my fingers crossed for some newt tadpoles. It's a bit too late for frogspawn but there's always next year. 

We thoroughly enjoyed my friend's birthday party last night and were able to use our bus passes to get to the venue. It's only a half hour walk and was a lovely evening so we walked home.  Tony decided that we'd dance the Gay Gordon's and the St Bernard's waltz under the moonlight on the way  home... so we did... twice.  Goodness knows what anyone thought if they happened to spot us but who cares. It was fun. Unfortunately the buffet was an absolute carb fest and I didn't sleep very well at all as carbs affect me badly. I eventually got up at 6.30 and sat in the garden with a coffee. I think a nice lazy day us on the menu today thank goodness. 

My little garden tour shows the changes that I made yesterday