🌿Butternuts planted out 🦋

 Up early ,  got the washing out on the line . Sat contemplating for a while .

I don't do "No Mow May" I have beautiful wilderness all around me . I plant flowers that the bees and butterflies love .

I love the sweet fragrance of the freshly mown grass . I love the clover , the daisies , buttercups ,plantain and selfheal . chickweed and violets , they all still come up and  flower .

When I do it with the lawn-mower , I rather like stripes too . Husband bombs around in circles on his ride on lawnmower and as you can see , he has cut it rather short on this occasion . 

We are not really obsessive about the lawn , the grandchildren and the big dog come and play on it . 

If we leave it to grow too long it will bugger up the lawnmower when we come to cut it .

I need to weed that gravel bed . It looks nice and give s a break to the eye as one looks around the garden .

It is sunshine and showers today . I hung out the washing and am keeping an eye out for spit spots of rain . 

I love wild flowers and I leave these little wild alliums  for the bees to enjoy under my washing line . 

     

      I sat in contemplation for a while longer , watching the bees .

I need to plant out my Butternut Squash  , the compost I used to grow them in is rubbish and the plants have used up the nutrients and the leaves are beginning to turn yellow . I have to get them in the ground fast .

 

I had wanted to wait until this  blustery weather with it's short but heavy rain showers had passed .

And then there is also this little problem ......

This is the keyhole bed  , where I grow my pumpkins and butternuts .

I did cover it with cardboard to try and suppress the weeds .

                               The Bindweed is laughing at me !

                             And the bed is riddled with the damned stuff !

And there were bindweed roots and ants under the paving slabs (which I had to swap out for some other ones as these good ones were needed somewhere else in the garden 🦋 )

To cut a long story short - 

                 ✨   Abracadabra ✨

I grew the courgette in the front in different compost , those at the back are butternuts , what a difference !   I just hope the butternuts will pull through now they can get their roots down into the good  earth .

I fixed up some pig-wire for the butternuts to scrabble over ....although they don't always want to ....sometimes they go crazy .

              And then I enjoyed a Zoom  !  

The First Runner-Bean Scarlet Emperor - has popped up ! 🌱

                                                          Hooray !

🌿Tomato plants in the Greenhouse 🌿

 Up early , to work in the garden while it is still nice and cool .

It was hot yesterday and looks to be another warm day today . Look how fast the grass is growing now up in the meadow !

I was admiring the Giant Echiums . Usually they are biannual but these have waited a third year to bloom . I leave the old flowered stems to go to seed and then pull up the seedlings to replant where I want them , except they usually pop up and grow best where they choose to be rather than where I'd like them to be .....anyway ,  I can't see any just yet .

There was a Woodpecker feasting on insects that it must be finding on these old dead Echium stems .

 He worked his way all the way up to the top .

                                        Then flew off . 

Back to work  , I  brought the Courgettes and Butternuts out to begin acclimatising them . I'll put them back in tonight and repeat this for a few more days before planting them out .

 I think I might actually wait a couple more weeks before planting them out . Let them get stronger .

I potted up another nine Tomato plants . These are Tomato "Roma"  a nice plum shaped one .

Tomato "Roma" under the greenhouse bench .

Tomato "Alicante" and Tomato" Supersweet 100 F1" are beginning to grow up through the greenhouse bench and I am fixing up string for the vines to twine around .

(🌿 TinkleWinkleMossWhistleNoggin the Good 🌿)

So that's that job done ...tomorrow I will sort out the string supports for the cucumbers .

And these are all my spares . hmmm ......will have a think about these over a nice cup of tea .

                                                        🌿🌱🌿🌱🌿🌱🌿

                   

Flora Day Helston - 9.50 am

                     The mist slowly lifted and the sun came out !

    The drum started up and our children were on their way , dancing all around the town !

                                                      

                                        💛🖤💛🖤💛🖤💛🖤

6am - Flora Day

 

                                                      Oh ! No ! Fog ! 

                           We need the sun to come out for Flora Day over in Helston !

Climbing French Beans -sown

 Not done much today .

I heard the Cuckoo very early this morning . It has arrived !

 Sowed a tray of climbing French Beans "Cobra".

  I want to sow some dwarf French beans , if I could only find the packet ..I know I have a packet somewhere .

The dwarf french beans were very productive last year . I want more and more of these !

 No sign of the Runnerbeans coming up yet .....but it's only been a couple of days since I sowed them . I can't stop peeking in to see how they're doing !  

                                               🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱

Also sown a packet of Geranium maderense that my brother sent me for my birthday .He also gave me a beautiful flower press , which I can't wait to try . I haven't done flower pressing in years ! So excited to do this !  Thankyou lovely brother ! x

A beautiful bunch of roses from my other lovely brother ...thankyou ever so much ! x

The gnome is a birthday gift from my daughter and lovely son in law .It lights up ! x

They also sent me a delicious bar of healthy chocolate !  Yay !  xxx

                      It's healthy ....see label  😀

Meanwhile in the greenhouse , the first tomato to not only grow up through the bench , but has a flower too !

Sat in the summerhouse , stitching , listening to Classic FM , eating healthy chocolate !  

                                                                 🌿 😀🌿

Meanwhile back in the garden

 

         🌿Musa Ensete ventricosum "maurelii" 🌿The Red Abyssinian Banana 🌿

                                             I finally got it planted out .

Unidentified Beak Shaped Fossil

 

               So here is the fossil that my husband found along Charmouth beach .

We have no idea what it is ? 

It is very heavy and at first I thought it might be metal and maybe some archaeological thing rather than fossil , but it has some pyrites on it .....so it must be fossil . 

   

 It is sort of beak shaped .

  It looks as if it has been broken from something much larger . Seems to be broken at one end .

Slightly curved on one side and slightly hollow on the other side .

Need to clear out the mud and stones .

A bit different from our usual finds  .

Any ideas ?   

                                                       🦖🦈🦕 

 

Dinosaur Hunting in Charmouth

 

I needed a break . We both did ! I needed to run away from it all !  Just for a couple of days to clear my chattering mind and rest my aching back .

                   There's my favourite place over there !

Flop down on the shingle .......cares and worries all melt away .

Watch the sky changing colour ...listening to the waves gently lapping on the shore ....

Day two - fossil hunting ....  wait for the tide to go out .

We walked a very long way up towards the Golden Cap . The cliffs are constantly moving , crumbling and slipping and especially  due to the heavy rain we've had over the last couple of months. 

Lots of people looking to pull fossils out of the mud of a recent cliff fall ,  as you can see in the above picture .   

We have been fossil hunting for many years here .  I  have never seen the cliffs looking so dangerous . We wait for the tide to go right out and keep well away from the bottom of the cliffs we find our fossils along the shore line . 

You can see how far across the beach this cliff fall extends . 

 We didn't find much this time .No dinosaurs this time ,but we are happy with our little treasures .  Little pyrites coated ammonites  . Glint like gold in the sand !

I must be sure to empty all pockets in our clothes before putting them in the washing machine !

Ichthyosaur vertebrae are quite easy to spot  and over the years I have found quite a lot of them .

           🎉💃🏻 One of my best finds was this Plesiosaur vertebra .  😃

I found it along the Black Ven side of Charmouth . I had it identified by the Natural History Museum in  London . Very happy me !  

This vertebra I found ...hmmm...closer towards Lyme Regis . 😃 Very pleased to find this nice and not too sea worn vertebra .   Ichthyosaur or Plesiosaur ..not sure ?   

            This bone also needs to be identified .  Anyone know ?  

Anyway , then we came home ..to find the slugs had eaten all my Spring Onions ! 😱

I didn't think they'd like onions....seems they do . 🐌

I think I'll sow some more and plant them up in the veg-trug  .

Home and back to work !  I planted out all my Cavolo Nero Kale . I want lots of it this year and filled a whole bed with it pretty much . 

 So back on my knees , to weed and plant and water and slug pellets and cover . 

A trip over to see the greenhouse builders about the leaking roof , date to be arranged .

They'd better come soon as the tomatoes and cucumbers are almost up to the bench and I need to fix up strings to the rafters next job .

Butternut Squash babies all potted up . Almost ready to plant out in a couple more weeks time .

Courgettes potted up . Also to plant out in a couple of weeks time .

                              Tomatoes almost reaching the bench top .

                      Cucumbers getting their roots down now .

                          Meanwhile in the shed .......

....... Celery and chives coming along nicely . I pricked out and potted on some of the celery .

It amazes me how such teeny tiny celery seeds and oh so difficult to prick out fiddly diddly  celery seedlings eventually make such big plants !

                                                A tray full of seeds  .

    I'm starting off a first lot of Runner-beans "Scarlet Emperor "   I'm mostly sticking with the good old reliable varieties .

I need to sort out my French bean seeds ....the dwarf beans did really well last year .

The Sweetcorn "Rising Sun" is not one I've ever tried before . 

Spinach , and another thing I want plenty of is beetroot .

I harvested our first lot of lettuce this morning . Absolutely delicious ! Must sow more lettuce to keep'em coming .

They had a lot of rain while we were away , but I managed to cut grass .

I cut the labyrinth pathways and sharpened up it's tail . There are Primroses along the path and Aquilegias in the middle .

 I'll post a picture of it when it blooms .

Another job to be done . When I bought this , it was to be a simple little pond with a water lily in it. It was to be beside the water-butt at the side of the woodshed , but then we had to move it away while the new woodshed was being built .....and then during the long time it took for the guy to build the new woodshed we had the drought .

And then while we had that fiercely hot drought , so the wooden slats of the barrel dried out and shrank and so then would not hold water  . In fact those slats shrank so much that it almost fell to pieces when I tried to move it . 

Then we decided that we would use it now as a planter . To cut a long story short ....husband has declared the barrel now to be HIS . 

 SongThrush Update -  

They have fledged and gone !  Apparently only takes about 12-15 days from hatching , both male and female feeding the youngsters .

I wonder if they will use this nest again ?

                                     Happy to be back home in Cornwall .

                                                🌿 🐌🐌🐌🌿