Comfortable planting

I got round to planting some seeds yesterday. I'd taken the example of a few other bloggers, and enjoyed the comfort of my living room in the process. I found it was a much more civilised approach, especially as I had to make the paper pots first. French beans, runner beans, two lots of peas, basil, rocket and some cayenne chillis are now in the mix and sat happily on our bedroom window sill. It will be nice and sunny for them there, and they'll thank me for it at some point.

Oranges

We've been getting a lot of these oranges in our veg box recently, and I can't help but be amazed by them every time I peel them open.

Good Hooking

And while I'm here, I ought to put a post about my lovely girlfriend Katie's new crochet blog. If you've ever fancied crocheting a mobile phone cover, with only a slight hint of irony, then Good Hooking's the place to go!

She'll love me forever now...

Milo wanting fame

And in the process of taking that photo, Milo wanted to get involved, so I thought he ought to get a post to himself. It's been a while hasn't it?

Life as a broad bean

Here's my broad beans geting used to life in the big outdoors. I'm holding off putting them in the ground just until this weekend's apparent cold spell hits. They seem quite happy though.

An unwitting fashionista

It seems like i've unwittingly caught the zeitgeist with my recent planting of Rhubarb. This morning in the Guardian was a short article about it rising from the lower ranks of obscurity and entering the public eye once more.

And Clare commented on it on my last post too. A sure sign that I'm lagging in the wake of the trendsetters and dawdling behind the times. I didn't realise gardening was as hard to keep up with as fashion.

Bread and rhubarb

The world of bread-making opened up before my eyes today, as i used my bread maker for the first time. Talk about easy. A wholemeal loaf popped out in three hours, perfectly formed and with a crispy crust. What more could you ever ask for? I can put as much salt as i like in, and rest easy with my arteries. Roll on summer, and bring on the tomato and onion bread.

And the rhubarb is in the ground, with a few sticks to remind me that it's there. I can't wait to look longingly at the sub-tropical leafage and wish that I liked the stuff.

My plot 2006

It's been a while since I put a picture up, so here's one of my new look, super-enhanced vegetable plot. Also noticeable is the squirrel-proof bird feeder. This really is impossible for them to get into, although the other day the string broke and I had to put it back up again. I have a strong feeling that they chewed it through, but they did it when it was empty, so they still failed to get any seeds. HA!



Compare it to last year, here:

Here comes the rain

Well it's now that time of year when it starts to be rainy and horrible. As opposed to that time of year when it's freezing and beautiful, which was yesterday. There's nothing quite like Britain's seasons for clear delineation.

I've been hardening off my Broad bean sproutings (they're growing so fast!) leaving them out on the doorstep during the day. I've even watered them in their paper pots with camomile tea, which I hope is more to their liking than mine. All this is to get them ready for hopeful outdoor planting in the next day or two.

I've got a couple of days off work, and the parents are coming over (mum has assured me her wellies are coming too) so there should finally be some gardening on the cards... if the rain abates, that is.

Finches in the know...

Now that I've fixed the squirrel-sabotaged bird feeder, the Greenfinches have returned to my garden. I don't know where they vanish to when there's no food,but they certainly have a good neighbourhood watch scheme and know immediately when it's back again. They're usually there in the mornings as i make a cup of tea before heading to work and are great to watch - they certainly cheer me up prior to the dreary commute into London (although they continually think it's a good idea to throw seeds into my plot - the cads).

But this morning, the finches could only offer me slight refrain from the detached boredom of 45mins travel. I was fidgety all the way to work, mainly because I had an inkling that I'd find out about the progress of my book. And peculiarly enough, I did. I've been offered a book deal with Faber & Faber. I still haven't floated down from the ceiling, and I still can't shake the horrible feeling that it's all going to be a dream when I wake up tomorrow.

The book's nothing to do with veg I'm afraid, not like Jane Perrone's, but it is about mice...