February Snow day 3 Mullion Cornwall

                                 More snow....this time it's proper snow !

                                    Proper snow to trudge through .

                                                   The veg garden .

The Leek and Celery seed trays with the windscreen foil thing to reflect the light....will put some newspaper over these tonight .
 The greenhouse looks fine and I lit some more 8 hour candles in the lantern ...and will repeat this later on this evening . The Cacti are all covered with fleece and sheets of  newspaper .

I am so grateful to my friend Jessica who gave me a roll of fleece , enabling me to wrap up a few more precious plants .
 A young Trachycarpus fortunei standing straight in the path of that bitterly cold East wind .

 I must plant more hedging along that side of the veg garden to give more protection from the wind ...and shelter for the wild birds to nest in too .

                                       Tetrapanax Papyrifera "Rex" .

                                                     The Labyrinth .

 Looking through the window ...skid marks in the snow  , where not one , but several cars have all got stuck this morning , and slid towards the Cornish hedge on one side of the lane coming down and then towards the ditch at the side of the lane coming up . Mercifully  no one came through our cottage wall !

The sun made a brief and beautiful appearance , but those clouds are now bringing more snow and the wind is much stronger than this morning .
 The weather reports have been quite hard to follow , but there is another storm coming up from the South which when it hits the cold air is going to bring blizzards tonight/tomorrow . Storm Emma  . We took the dog for a short walk up the lane and had a chat with our good neighbour Michael ...who is also a keen photographer and veg gardener ...especially onions....in fact his garden is packed full of wonderful things which never fail to delight as we walk past .
   Well it is snowing heavily again and I must go and put another log on the fire .
   Cheerio for now ! Debbie :) x

Glorious Sunshine ! Mullion Cornwall

 After so much icy rain it has been wonderful to have two full days of  glorious sunshine and blue sky again !

 I ventured up to the greenhouse ...I hadn't been up there for a couple of days ..although we'd had these torrential squally showers with hail , It hasn't been so cold that I,d need to light the lantern with the 8 hour night lights .
 So horror of horror !....one of the window panes had slipped (again ) and the floor of the greenhouse is flooded !
 Stress ! Husband came to the rescue and fixed the slipped glass .

At this time of the year the cacti are kept completely dry , fortunately the most precious ones are on the other side of the greenhouse .

Some of the segments have fallen off this Tephrocactus .. I,ll pot them up but I have never had much success with Tephrocactus cuttings . Any tips would be most welcome .

 Adromischus cuttings are doing well though . Spiders webs everywhere !
 While the sun is shining I have opened the windows to try and dry up the flooded floor . I have all my Epiphyllums on the slipped window side . I keep them dry through the winter too ..but they have all been drenched . They can usually take more water ..sigh ...hopefully I can pull them through .

 Then to work in the Veg garden ..tidying up really , pulling up this nasty plastic fencing . It was cheaper than chicken wire , but has disintegrated ...In fact it was splitting as we fixed it up . We are thinking about putting up a chicken wire fence that completely encloses the veg garden .

 Autumn  planted onions are ..well they are still there ..hopefully they will begin to fatten up anytime now . Under the cloche is the Perennial Kale  Experiment .

                                             Still eating Leeks and Kale .

 More work to do here . Lavender to be lightly trimmed and Sage hard cut back .

 

                          Off to walk the dog .....cheerio for now !

February Snow Day 2 Mullion Cornwall

We had some more snow during the night ....well , it's just a dusting , but how beautiful it makes everything !

               I wrapped up warm and set off across the sleeping meadow .

It's Snowing !

 It's snowing ! ....we so rarely get snow here ....Mullion Cornwall ..that when we do get a few flurries , it causes such great excitement !
   I wonder if we'll get enough snow to make a snowman  ?

Flowers in my February Garden

So here are all the things flowering in my garden today . Snowdrops ,Daffodils and the odd Primula here and there , but being a Cornish garden we also have Camellias and Osteospermums and the odd Rose and Marigold .
   However it is a bit early for Honeysuckle , which is so sweetly fragrant and also for my Pink flowering  Rosemary, which is in full flower .
   The most unusual thing to be flowering now in my garden is that pink Carnation , see bottom right...... which I picked to enjoy indoors .

So I continued walking round the garden , and spied catkins on the Hazel branches which always delight . The Snap Dragons have been flowering all through Autumn and Winter ...and then I noticed the Helebores !
  Doesn't it make you feel good !

Hello February - Let the Show begin !

A pleasant hour was spent rummaging through my seed box .....and now that it is all beautifully organised  it was an easy task to pull out the celery and leek seeds that I want to grow this year .

                                         Meet Nettlenog ...my gnome !

I settled on these and got straight to work ....knowing it wouldn't take long to do .

 The sun has been shining again today , lovely blue sky . Still I wrapped up warmly .

 We bought these bags of compost simply because they were good price at Trevena Cross Nursery Breage ....I think that leek seeds don't really mind what they are grown in and will germinate very easily in pretty much anything .

It is important though that the compost will retain moisture for the water loving celery seedlings .

Sown them as carefully and as thinly as I could manage ....( probably about about 3,000 in each cell ! )   Gave them a good drink . My lovely son in law adores Celery..I grow it especially for him .

Then plenty of Leeks ...because I use them in everything , a mixture of  varieties this year and they are all mixed up in this tray/flat .
 Oh !  It feels so good to be sowing my seeds and putting my hands into the good earth again .

I wind up the little radio and leave the sleeping seeds to wake up gently to nice Classical music .

 Back indoors ....and returning to my bed with a nice hot chocolate drink  and a pile of good books to read .

                                 I will always be a Bob Flowerdew girl  !