Spring

Welcome spring!

Today is the Spring Equinox, the day when the day is the same length as the night and the beginning of spring.  From today until the summer solstice the days will get longer.

I decorated my dresser with spring flowers from the garden and a crocheted garland.

A few days ago I saw a post on Instagram inviting people to join in with making a flower crown and posting a photo wearing it today, so I thought, why not that sounds like fun, so I knocked this up

And popped it on!

Smelt nice too!

You can see the others on Instagram #primaveracrowns

Peas

Just realised that this will be our 5th summer at our allotment. We are just getting the hang of things, sometimes it is successful and others not quite so good!
One thing we love to grow are peas! Frozen ones are fine, but nothing like ones straight from the pod at the allotment.  we usually share the first pod one or two peas each! 
I would like to try and gave a regular supply of peas all summer, so need to sow a new row every few weeks.
I sowed some seeds in guttering in the greenhouse about a month ago by last weekend the plants were about 6 cm tall and time to plant them out. The gutter is great, just dig a shallow trench hold it up and gently shake! The plants sort of slide out and just need firming in! A quick water and hey presto all done. As it is still a bit chilly I covered them with a fleece cloche.
Next step will be to put a net up for the peas to grow up.
One year I saved 5 pounds of pea pods (freezing them as I got them) to make pea pod wine. This year the pods will go on the compost heap!

Frogs

We have a small wildlife pond in the garden. A few frogs live in it, once I saw a newt!
On Monday we noticed some frog spawn and then loads more on Tuesday. Spotted 4 frogs

This is the earliest they have spawned since records began (my own records!!!) last year when March was absolutely freezing and spring was very late it didn't happen until 18th April around 4 weeks later than normal.
Funny - our weather!

Blackthorn

As I was driving through Ardleigh this morning I noticed a long hedgerow covered in white blossom. It looked amazing especially with the cloudless sky and the sun shining.  On the way back I had to stop and take a photo!
Just looked it up, this is Blackthorn, the bush that produces sloes. The sort that make sloe gin!
An old wives tale says that it won't warm up while the blossom is still on the bush - will have to keep an eye on it!

FEBRUARY 2014 SCAVENGER HUNT

This month has flown by, unlike January which dragged on and on and on, and so it was a bit of a surprise to find it was the end of the month and I hadn't found all my photos for this months challenge.  So stuck my wellies on and went out in the wind and rain to finish them off and here they are...............

F is for ..............

Fingers!  or finger nails to be precise - had a gel manicure last week before we went away for the weekend.

3 p.m.

At 3 p.m. today I walked (in the freezing cold pouring rain) to the post office to post a swap parcel to New Zealand.


Grain

 My chickens have a handful of mixed grain every afternoon.  It is funny they eat the corn, but leave the sweetcorn which they eat the next morning.

Lamp

 This desk lamp used to be in one of the bedrooms and was red.  I wanted it over my desk, so we sprayed it grey!  Fits right in now

Click

Click, click, clickerty click - as I type and and a double click now and then!


 Honey

Alice bought this jar of honey back from Russia at Christmas, it had a paper label tied with string and a wax seal on it.  I also noticed that our favourite cereal bars are oats and HONEY.  Had a talk about bee keeping at horticultural society last year, it's a right faff, they need lots of work.  Not just a case of getting the honey out once a year, not sure that bee keeping is for me, but glad it is for some people!!

Fountain

 Fountains have been a bit thin on the ground in my part of the world. So here is the rain overflowing from the water but into a bucket causing a bit of a fountain!

Round

Pompoms!  round woolly balls of delight!

Shadow

Just me in the garden, we managed one sunny day this month!


Clouds

I was trying to get a photo of "The House in the Clouds" but got a good photo of the clouds but not of the house.  You can just about see it on the horizon.  Apparently this was a water tower, but they made it look like a house.  Taken in Thorpeness on the Suffolk coast.


Group

Spotted this big group of crocuses on the side of the road as I walked back from the post office.

Repupose

I save up all the loo roll and kitchen roll innards all year round and use them to plant my broadbeans and runner beans.  I planted some broadbeans a couple of weeks ago, but one of the old boys at the allotment told me they would rot, so I came home and planted the rest of the seeds in these tubes in the greenhouse -  I won't be beaten!

Well that's it for another month, will start looking for the March photos.  Thanks to Greenthumb once again!