Thursday 28 June 2018

Mullion Village Herb Garden



 I thought you might like to see our Mullion Village Herb Garden . Isn't it a lovely idea ? !
  We have Bay , Rosemary , Spearmint , Marjoram and  beautiful Fennel  .


                          Every village or community should have one !


          There's even a recipe for Salsa Verde ..to have with grilled fish  !

  I took a little spearmint to have with butter on our own new potatoes and a
couple of small cuttings to propagate and put into my own herb garden .
  Sometimes it is refreshing to rub the leaves of a few of these herbs and just enjoy the fragrance .
 I nearly forgot to say ..... it is by the entrance to our stunningly beautiful,tropical looking Tremenhee Car Park Mullion...where our temporary Post Office Van has been parking .


     Tremenhee Car Park...Tremenhee FREE Car Park ! in Mullion Village .

                         
                         It's worth a visit to see our amazing car park !!!

  I do love our beautiful village and the people here are so lovely , friendly and care very much for one other and the community .. and I think our Herb Garden is just so sweet !

Monday 25 June 2018

Early Morning Watering


I,m up very early most mornings now , to enjoy the best time of the day ,in my opinion ... to watch over and get as much of my vegetable garden watered before the sun comes up .
 In the picture above , you are looking across the Labyrinth towards the four main veg beds ....which I do try to rotate the crops in every year .
 Below the Labyrinth are three pictures showing the African Keyhole Bed with its watering hole/well in the middle . I water into that watering hole and the water goes deep down and the Pumpkins , Squashes and Butternuts send out their roots towards it. This way discourages slugs and snails , because the surface of the soil remains dry .
 Chicken wire surrounds this bed to deter the bunnies ( of which , there are even more coming in ,  now the gate to the meadow is broken ! )


 It was already hot at 6.30 am here in Mullion....we still haven't had any rain !


The Labyrinth is beautiful first thing in the morning , I walk barefoot along her path and listen to the Earth waking up ... the dawn chorus ..bees .. the sounds of new born lambs ..the song of the wind ...no cooling breezes though today .


It is going to be a very hot day today ..I must get the watering done early .
           I cant be out in the scorching sun ...got my hat on already !


  I have woven a basket of willow around the watering hole ... the idea of this is to support a woven "hat" to shade it and prevent the water evaporating in the heat .... but I haven't done this yet .


 I hate watering with tap water ....but my rain water butts are now empty .
What is that plant ? ! I hear you ask . Equisetum hyemale ..lovely Jurassic looking thing ..and may have indeed been around since then ! I know ! I know there may be one or two  of you who probably hate it , because it can become a bit of a thug and then hard to get rid of ...blah blah blah...but I love it......I am keeping it separate , in a pot of it's own..in fact I'm looking out for a nice old half whiskey barrel ..I,m thinking that could really show it off and look sensational !


 Yes , and I,m loving this Poppy too !  In amongst the Squash plants !


 It's all so beautiful ! As the song goes..lol !  In the early morning sunshine .
 

 The Parsley is beginning to flower , I pinch off all these flowering shoots and give it a bit of a tidy up .


                               Mmm .....My hands smell of Parsley !


    The Egyptian Onions are flowering and making rosie red bulbils ...which will fall to the ground and take root if not taken for the kitchen .
Perennial vegetables are definitely the way to go ! And I am searching out more !


 Not a very good picture of the Pumpkins and Squashes here , but they are really beginning  to grow away now ...especially compared to the other ones  that  I,ve planted in a more traditional veg bed beyond the Labyrinth ... I will feed and build this one up more over next Autumn/Winter .. using no dig method over there ...although I don't actually dig doing the Keyhole bed method come to think of it .

 Off to Penzance after breakers ..fried egg sandwich and ketchup and a nice cup of tea ;  going to collect my Japanese Hiroshima Milliners Needle's from the beautiful Sew and Quilt Shop Trinity Yard , Quay Street..and take the dog for her walk at Trevena Cross Nursery and maybe visit their lovely tea rooms for a cup of tea and a toasted tea cake..and then spend the rest of the day sitting in the shade , stitching and playing with my new needles and perfecting my Bullion stitch !
                                                
                                             Cheerio for now ! 

Tuesday 19 June 2018

Meanwhile up on the bathroom windowsill ....


 Our bathroom is the most perfect place for propagating plants such as these  . I often start off cuttings of Rain Forest plants and tropical seeds on this little windowsill .

 A few weeks ago , I acquired a generous handful of 10 bulbils of Amorphophallus bulbifer ( on ebay ! )


 I planted these , as you can see here , just partly submerged in compost ...I wasn,t really sure which way up to plant them ..but look...they are all putting out either roots or shoots..and some of them have both ! So I needn't have worried .
 I am not sure if I should cover them with compost now . These bulbils form at the base of the leaves and fall to the ground as the leaf withers away . ..so I thought to myself , that if this is what happens in their natural habitat , then this should be the best way to start them off .
 The pot has been standing in a plastic bag, just a little bit open , to keep the humidity which they like .
 I will probably put these into a much larger pot or even some of them,  into the ground eventually , with good drainage of course .
 Any advice would be most welcome !


 Then there is this ......Humata  (Davallia ) tyermannii   also known as the White Rabbit foot fern , and the Hare's paw fern  , but the name I like the best is the Tarantula or Bird Spider Fern !
 Oops...that pic is a bit dark ....hang on .....


  It has beautiful furry rhizomes that look just like the legs of a Tarantula hiding in amongst the fern leaves . It is an Epiphytic fern that would be happier growing up on the branch of a tree in the forest in somewhere like Fiji .
     I dont know why I like it so much given that I am terrified of spiders !


                                           Especially in the bathroom !


 From the curtain pole hangs Tillandsia usneoides or Spanish Moss. I have both the thin one and the thicker form...this one is the thicker form .
 This is also an Epiphytic plant , which is to be found growing on trees in tropical and sub-tropical zones . Central and South America  Mexico , Bahamas , Bermuda and my bathroom !

                                     Orchids and Epiphyllum cuttings.

 These two Orchids , also Epiphytic plants ,which my brother gave to me , have long lost their labels and are not flowering at the moment , but when they do , the blooms last for weeks ! My brother would have his growing on bark rafts in their own special greenhouse ..maybe I will have a go at that .
  Next to the Orchids is a big pot of Epiphyllum cuttings ...in the coming weeks I will be tidying up my Epies in the greenhouse , now that they have pretty much finished flowering and I will be taking lots more cuttings .
 Let me know ( local to me in Mullion only ) if you'd like to try and grow one .


 Not on the bathroom window-sill but I thought you'd like to see this anyway , is my Bowiea volubilis or the Climbing Sea Onion ..it has been dormant for months and months and has just decided to wake up . This comes from Eastern and Southern  Africa preferring hot dry areas .  It is quite happy on my landing North facing windowsill ...and is about to do it's crazy thing , I do love these interesting plants :)


 Lastly..on the North facing kitchen windowsill are a variegated Clivia miniata which I grew from seed about eight years ago and still only has four leaves ! Anyone got any ideas on how to get this thing growing faster and bigger ? I am growing it in an Orchid and compost mix and only give it rain water ..  is there some kind of a plant food that I could give it ?  Help ! Anyone know ?
 Then there are lots more Epie cuttings from a really lovely Epiphyllum called E. Clown ...which are all now rooted and coming along nicely .
 The very strange plant in the middle of the picture is my newly acquired Albulca spirillis . It is a very peculiar thing , a bulb ... like an onion ..which sends up thick grass like leaves which are so funny , as they are curly at the top ! It has a sweet yellow flower I,m told..mine has not flowered yet . It dies completely back and goes dormant over winter I believe..as I have not had mine very long ...I,m still learning about it .
  I bought some seeds from Ebay ...but nothing came up....very disappointed ..and then was delighted to find this plant ( down a very,very,very long , narrow country lane ...and thank God nothing was coming the other way !) at the Duchy Nursery in Lostwithial Cornwall .
 Actually everybody calls it the Duchy Nursery ,but it is actually properly called The Duchy of  Cornwall Nursery . Here's the link for you --- http://www.duchyofcornwallnursery.co.uk/
 There is a lot to see there , lovely healthy plants , helpful staff and a lovely cafe .






                                            ....is this it ? .....nope ......



It was worth it in the end though ! It is a truly fabulous nursery with lots of the more interesting and totally weird plants that I love ...and everything is labelled with the plants botanically correct name on the label ! Excellent !
Just a tad expensive , but if you find the plant you've been craving for then it,s worth it to feed your addiction .


                                       Albulca spirillis gorgeousness !

                                                Cheerio for now !

Wednesday 13 June 2018

Meadow Cut Done

                                       
                                          Hay Meadow has been cut .
                             I cant believe it is this time of the year already !


                                                 It smells so sweet !


                             We are hoping to get a second cut later on .

Tuesday 12 June 2018

African Coral Tree bean we have germination !

                 (This is not the African Coral Tree -- see further down ! lol !)

It is still fiercely hot here in Mullion ...and this is good news for farmers who are cutting hay meadows . Ted has cut our meadow and will be coming back  later today to bale it all up ....... then ..he says I can have the rain which I so badly need for my veg garden !


I was up and watering all my young veg plants at around 5am this morning and went up to the greenhouse to open up the windows and check on everything and see whats new .

 Hooray ! The Alocaisia  is waking up..Yes so I did plant it the correct way up !
   Then I spy something going on in one of my propagation baggies ....


I open the bag and peer inside ...to find one of the African Coral Tree beans has germinated !  Goodness me ! I only planted them the other day !


 I re-seal up the bags except for a little bit , a vent to just let a little of the steam out .
I will extract that seedling later on and pot it up in it's own little pot .


 Next to check on "my husband's Tomato plants . Between you and me I grew them from seed , pricked them out , potted them on and have been watering them for him ! Some of them need bigger pots now too ....I suppose I 'd better get on with it .

 The flowers are extraordinary I think and after a little gentle shaking to pollinate , soon begin to form some yummy fruits  .


                     As I said before...these are my husband's Tomatoes .


      He goes up to look at them ......he is very proud of his Tomatoes ! Lol !

Thursday 7 June 2018

Planting out my Dahlias


                Hi everyone..today Birdie Girl and I are planting out the Dahlias  .


I took out the lovely red Acer and have put it temporarily into a tub ....I know it's the wrong time of the year to move shrubs and trees , but it really was suffering in such a sunny spot .  I have put a large rock/boulder in it's place ..I,m still aching from doing this ! Groan !


                     Birdie is waiting to take any grubs and worms to her nest .


We had a little bit of rain last night..but you can see the earth is still so dry .


 I have sprinkled some chicken pellets around these lovely Dahlias..I think they'll benefit from watering in and a good mulch of fresh compost  .


 I also planted  here , three Ricinus communis "Carmencita " which have gorgeous red leaves .
  I have some Cosmos to plant amongst them all ,which I have grown from seed . I just need them to get a little bit bigger though..a few more days hopefully  .
 Yes , I,m glad the rock looks o.k..I wouldn't want to move that again in a hurry !
 Off shopping with my friend to get flowers for Church .
    The sun is trying to come out through the misty clouds..it is very humid .. still no sign of rain .