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 .