For tea tonight were having roast chicken with a beautiful home grown salad. There's two types of fresh picked cucumber, three varieties of lettuce. Some spinach, mint, basil and parsley. An apple from my store (they're lasting beautifully and not a nasty preservative anywhere near them)
Pickled beetroot and cucumber and some pickled beetroot stalks.
And then a handful of shop bought tomatoes and two mini peppers. My peppers and tomatoes will be ready pretty soon.
I'm putting the vase that I bought yesterday to good use. The scent from these roses is filling the room. I've popped a bit of London Pride into the vase too and it looks so pretty
Unfortunately it's a cold wet miserable day so I won't be doing any gardening today. I did sow a load more courgette seeds this morning. Two seeds each of five different varieties and I'm hoping to get one plant of each variety. I'll share any extras with friends if they all germinate.
Following the ouch appointment Tony and I called into our local shopping centre. In the first charity shop Tony spotted a gorgeous Old Country Roses vase. Absolute bargain for £3. And then we walked into the next charity shop and spotted all this. Now you know I go weak at the knees over pretty china and have collected Old Country Roses china for a very long time. I love to use it when we entertain. Well the jug had a price tag of a very reasonable £20 and I dithered about buying it. Then I spotted three large serving bowls which I've wanted for a very long time. Imagine my astonishment when the young man said the the jug wasn't £20 but the whole lot was £20. Needless to say I bought it all. When I paid for it I gave them £25 and they were over the moon. And best of all the only thing I didn't really need was the saucers as I have plenty.
And when I got home the postman had delivered the Old Country Roses place mats and napkins that I ordered from ebay the other day. They cost more than my bargain of a lifetime. I like to think that whoever it had belonged to would be delighted that it's come to someone who will cherish it and use it. It's obviously been used as the teapot still had tea stains.
Ladies will know which one I'm referring to. I'm currently sitting in the waiting room to have them squished and squashed. Then we're off to the garden centre to buy a few seeds. Thunderstorms are forecast though we had them yesterday and they weren't forecast.
On Sunday Tony and I spent the day wandering around North Cowton open gardens event. The people were without exception absolutely lovely. Every garden owner took the time to talk about their gardens with love and great pride. It was amazing to see huge gardens behind tiny little bungalows. They were my idea of paradise. One lady has created a beautiful community garden along the back of local authority bungalows.
The lovely water feature was made by a gentleman who explained it was simply little buckets that his wife had bought and a solar powered water pump. I said that if he'd made some to sell I'd have bought one. He said that he'd certainly consider it if there's another open gardens.
Below is a photo of a front garden that had several ornamental hares dotted amongst the lavender. Certainly made me smile
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.
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
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.
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
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.
