The Last of...

 This months three word gardening post highlights all the 'last of' summer plants and edibles that have finally finished their growing cycle. It has been a glorious Autumn to put the garden to bed properly without the thrash of sudden wild Autumn weather making it all a bit of a rush.

I am picking the last of the cerise Godetia and white Cosmos. There are about three cosmos plants left in the front and back garden which are next to some dahlias and I think if I pulled them up the wind would snap off the dahlias so they are left in for protection.

I am also picking the last of the late Asters which I grew from seed. When these go over I have bulbs ready for winter pot displays.

The veg patch has been cleared. The courgette plants were huge and quite frankly, it is no surprise to anyone who grows courgettes, we were sick of eating them. I harvested four huge ones which I had left on to use as halloween lanterns.

I spread manure on the whole area...

...and put it to bed.

On the fruit garden, I am picking the last of the autumn raspberries. 

Then I tied the canes to supports to ensure I could harvest the very last ones. 

My big girl challenged herself to grow continuous salad for 6 months as part of her skills section on the Bronze Duke of Edinburgh award. She did so well at inter cropping and being ahead of each plants' growing cycle. This is the last of her lettuce.

The herbs are going over so they all had a haircut (but not into the woody stems, that kills them) however we are enjoying the last of the parsley before the cold weather gets it.

In the greenhouse, I have cleared out the tomato plants except for the cherry ones. I used the old growbags as a mulch on my ranunculus corms. We are hanging on to the final plant to get the last few super sweet fruits.

The pepper plant came indoors for a few weeks where we ate them roasted. I sliced them in half length ways then stuffed each 'boat' with chilli cream cheese. Yum!

The chillies are perfect for us. Not too hot but just enough to add to meals without worrying about a disaster. I am not reporting the last of these but the start of our chilli harvest.

I have plans for the seasons ahead. There are bags of bulbs to go into pots and garlic to be planted. I am thinking ahead to next spring with the advantages that a big greenhouse brings. I have cornflowers, sweet william and sweet peas all popping up to be overwintered in the frost free greenhouse.

As I look out of the rainy window I can see the last of the dahlias getting a good bashing but all in all for my first year in a brand new garden I think we have done pretty well.

Thanks for dropping by. Jo xx 

Needles and Thread

 She is good, very, very good. I have realised of late that I am no longer as good at embroidery as I used to be because my eyes are not so sharp. My ten year old however is a demon stitcher. Look at this beauty.

Her first attempt was actually this unicorn on a rainbow but as my youngest goes against the grain of most fashion imagery, she shows a contempt for unicorns that would never ever be necessary in her future life. She was adamant - it was a horse on a rainbow because unicorns aren't real! You go for it girl.

She has persevered with french knots and now has that safely under her belt along with splitting off strands from the main thread which she found tricky at first. She also learnt the hard way about cutting the tail off too short when she got to the end of her thread.

She is off again with a new design featuring a hedgehog.

My eldest daughter, who is thirteen, has taken her stitching to a different place. I returned from work last week to find she had covered a snag on her jeans with some freestyle embroidery. How cool is that? She says it isn't finished yet but I was most impressed.

She returned to them another day to enhance the pockets. 

I have ANOTHER hole in my jeans. This week I decided to use a ready made patch I bought in Italy on holiday last year along with a little homemade applique. The lace covers the long rip repair and the owls strengthen the repair vertically.

Thanks for popping in, I am off to make an appointment at the opticians. Can I do that yet I wonder? These girls have made my eyes feel old and worn out!

Jo xxx

When your garden matches your underwear...

Hello all! This is my third lingerie set of lock down and it coincides with the wonderful display of roses in our garden.

The sewing table always gets into a complete crazy mess when I make lingerie: lots of sorting, choosing and measuring of notions and elastics. It is great to use a bit of this and that.

The fabric kit comes from website called the sewing chest. The kits are reasonably priced and there is always a bit left over from each kit to use for experiments for the next set. I have been a happy customer for a long time.

I made a couple of pairs of knickers too using the non-stretch fabric for the fronts and an unwanted white T-shirt for the backs. I used up some green fold over elastic from a previous kit for the legs. Then I found a nice piece of red waist elastic too for a mix and match style.

The pattern is Madalynne Simplicity 8229. Which I have used four times before therefore I can whizz up a bra in about 90 minutes once cut. I am all sorted for undies now although the urge to sew more sets is being gently quashed.

A new jumpsuit pattern has landed on my door mat today so luckily I have other distractions along with returning to teach tomorrow. Eeek!

Hope you are all well. Jo xxx

Nosing Around our Neighbourhood

We are lucky enough to have a day every June each year where families from our town open up their gardens for people to view. We LOVE it. It is social, inspirational and a good walk.

We started with a neighbour in our street who we know well. Her and her husband's garden is much bigger than you would expect with a beautiful bendy tree in the centre. The children ran straight down to her fruit and veg patch behind the fence to find some redcurrants and gooseberries.

They have a trickling water feature and lots of little secret places which we enjoyed looking at.

A neighbour to this large garden has a tiny courtyard garden in comparison. The sign said 'Stand on the step and peep over into Tracey's secret garden'. Tracey felt people would not want to look at her tiny garden but to see what can be achieved in a tiny north facing courtyard was inspirational.

We really wanted to see the next one. It is a house right in the high street which we pass daily but we have never seen the garden because is has a brick wall around it.

 It was amazing, very different to the others but right up our street as it were. They had three beehives, chickens, a huge vegetable plot and lots of fruit trees alongside a wildlife pond, bog garden and flower borders.

The next one is one of our favourites from past visits. The owners of this garden are more in the expert bracket but are so friendly when we visit. There is a pond, yoga studio, succulent house and a myriad of little pathways. There are some elements of structure which I would like to copy in our new house build garden from this space. The photos say it all for this one.

This rose is called Ferdinand Picard

The next one was a new one on the trail - a real surprise. This garden is on a newer estate of houses and we had to walk through the owners house to get to the rear garden but it was such a surprise to see such a huge amount of planting in such a small space.

The lady was lovely with the children and said they could go up to the back of the garden and sit on her reading bench in the little arbour. She said she read in there most nights. The garden was really considered a room within their house because two sides of the garden had french doors which opened out onto it. It was a perfect day to showcase this with warm sunny weather.

Finally, we made our way to a garden which was described in the program as terraced with water features. The girls really liked this garden. I did too because the views across the valley were great but it was a bit neat for me. Big Sis took over with the camera in this garden to capture the water lillies. 

You may have noticed the absence of our man in these photos. He was all set to come along and then the sheep shearer phoned and said he could do the sheep so he had to be seconded elsewhere. On his return we told him all about each garden with enthusiasm and great detail. We are brimming with new ideas.

Do you have an open garden day where you live?

Jo xxxxxx