Sunday, February 19, 2017

Spring has sprung.

Lots of signs that winter has ended and spring is here,
in the countryside hazel catkins adorn the trees, it looks lovely. Early flowers are in bloom, and birds are gathering nesting materials.
Snowdrops
and winter aconites are in flowers
as are the dwarf daffodils,
  there's even some of the large daffodils flowering
single white.

double white
double purple.
and we have masses of hellebores flowering,
crocus

and anemones.
 The apricot tree that I had worried might not take having moved it at the wrong time of year has suffered no set back and has a mass of flowers, all that we can do now is hope for lots of fruits, these flowers will have to be hand pollinated, it's too early for bees and other pollinating insects to do the job for us.
The first seeds have been planted,
I invested in a new set of deep root trainers, these modules are great for seeds and allows transplanting without any root disturbance. We have had some hard frosts over the last month and the broad beans in the tunnel looked sorry for themselves for a while but they have picked up again and are looking fine. The first of the rhubarb has been picked, we will have the first of the feast this evening.
This evening a large frog was spotted, heading for the pond, so we should have frog spawn in the next few days. Yes, spring is just about here.
I had a sudden urge last week to make a Bakewell tart using some of our own frozen raspberries, we had some lovely freshly  ground almonds, I had forgotten how delicious a proper Bakewell tart is. Something to make again soon.
could almost be an Irish summers day, grey and drizzly.
We took a trip to the coast, just to have a change of scenery, not to collect seaweed,
we stopped off at a well known pub right on the edge of the beach, hoping to have a nice sandwich and a coffee, unfortunately the kitchen is under modernisation, so no food, but we still managed to get a decent cup of coffee.
I loved the various bar notices ,
three of them made me laugh,
I'm not sure how their tourist customers would take them though, a couple are a little insulting .
Traveling over the Ox mountains I spotted a great house sign, I am guessing that the people who live there have cats.

10 comments:

  1. It's lovely to see all the signs of the new season, though I'm not convinced that winter's over quite yet, I'm sure there'll be plenty more bad weather to come before it ends. There's lots of spring flowers blooming away though now and I too saw a very fat frog plop in to my pond at the weekend.

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  2. It's lovely to see the first signs of spring, I'm hopeful that we have left the cold weather behind us now.

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  3. I love that spring has sprung! So lovely to see the snaps of all the early bloomers! And excellent news about your apricot tree and fingers crossed for lots of fruit! That pie looks delicious xxx

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    1. Everything always looks so bright and clean in the spring, colours are more colourful or maybe that's just an illusion after the dark winter months.

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  4. lovely to see the spring flowers, Rhubarb already! I must check mine! I had noticed the growth but hadn't thought of picking yet. Your bakewell looks wonderful!

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    1. Your garden must be looking good by now, looking forward to seeing pictures.

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  5. Thats the company I bought my seeds from this year, they have really helpful info for a newbie grower like me :) I think I got a bit carried away though!

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  6. We had a good sort out of all our old seeds this year, even so we still needed to order a few packets. To prolong the life of seeds we put them in a ziplock bag and then in a tin with a lid or plastic container with a lid and store in the bottom of the fridge, we find we can extend the life of seeds by several years doing this.

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