Category: garden stuff

crafts & knitting · garden stuff · general stuff · summer

First week

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)52 Comments

When you’ve written a blog for a few years or more a pattern tends to emerge and you find yourself writing annually about the same kind of things at the same times of year. It’s probably because a year has a rhythm, especially for those of us who live with four distinct seasons. Most of us are creatures of habit and whilst we enjoy change and variation many of the things we do are similar year in year out – or maybe that’s just my family! Anyway, the start of this years school summer break has been very much like the one we had last year…

Amy has dyed her hair blue again (with a little help from me) though this year her hair is substantially shorter than it was last year. She decided to say goodbye to long hair a few months back and loves it (I kept her 12 inch pony tail, as I couldn’t bear to see it thrown away).

Toby has been enjoying the garden and helping me tend our tiny patch – he’s become very good at watering the plants though I do have to remind him to point the hose in the right direction and I have been sprayed a few times when his concentration has wavered.

Sadly there will be very few beans and peas to harvest this year – I’ve resolved to start them off inside next year and invest in a beer trap or similar non-chemical slug eradicator, pesky things have ruined my bean and pea plants. The squash are doing well again though, as are the courgettes, kale and broccoli.

The new raspberries that I planted back in winter from bare root canes are yet to ripen but they’re coming on and the herbs have gone a bit wild and overgrown with some going to seed. Which is fine by me, as the bees really like the flowering thyme, hyssop, coriander and marjoram.

The hydrangeas are doing well too – I really love those big frothy white balls of flowers.

Well, that’s it from us for this week. It’s a cool day with heavy rain here today so we’re pottering inside and I’m hoping to get some time for knitting (I’m working on a shawl – Pebble Beach by Helen Stewart in beautiful delicate merino from Walk Collection.)

Hopefully summer will return next week!

chicken stuff · crafts & knitting · garden stuff · summer

Puffed out

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)72 Comments

Firstly, thanks so very, very much for all the wonderfully kind comments on the previous post about Tobys hair. I was so touched to read them and wish I could share them with Toby and have him understand all of the lovely compliments you gave him.

Secondly, sorry to not have been around much recently. I seem to have done something to my elbow and it’s needed some rest as even typing for more than a short while has been a bit painful. Scraping down the chicken run every few days probably hasn’t helped but I think making these puffs may be the main cause…

A couple of weeks back I decided to start a cushion to match the blanket that I’m slowly working on (see below) and I’ve always loved Alicia’s Sunshine day afghan, so that seemed the perfect choice of pattern. Once I got going on the puff making I became a bit hooked on them and made lots in one day. The following day I paid the price for my puff over-indulgence with a very sore elbow and it’s taking ages to feel better.

Needless to say this project is now having a snooze at the bottom of my knitting bag. I really like how it looks and hopefully I’ll be able to pick it up when my elbow doesn’t hurt so much. In the meantime small bursts of knitting seem to be OK, which is a relief as I’d get incredibly grumpy rather quickly if I wasn’t able to knit!

And here’s where the crochet blanket is up to so far, but with my sore elbow it will be a while before it gets much bigger.

In other news, the garden is blooming. My squash and courgette plants are now in their permanent home and growing fast. The kale and broccoli are all doing well under the netting but the poor bean and pea seedlings have been decimated by slugs who come out to munch on them each night. Still most things are faring better and the chives are exploding like little flowery fireworks.

The chickens are happy and laying an egg each most days – evidently I need to make more things that use eggs as we’ve built up quite a stock! You’ll see there’s a particularly large egg in the middle which I’m pretty sure is a double yolker as we’ve had a few already. I’ve not yet been able to work out which of the ladies is laying these but I don’t remember having any with our previous hens so these are special.

The weather this week has been all over the place, sunshine one minute and huge cloud-burst downpours of rain and hail the next – not fun if you get caught out in it but the rainbows after the storms have been especially bright and lovely.

Next week is school half term break but I hope to be back with some knitting news once we’re back into our term time routines again. Until then, thanks for visiting and best wishes for happy times x

chicken stuff · crafts & knitting · garden stuff · general stuff

snippets from our Easter hols

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)35 Comments

Hello again! I hope you had a lovely Easter. Over our two week school break we kept busy with wood walks and lots of garden days, especially in the middle of last week when we had a few days of distinctly summery weather – hopefully there will be a lot more of that to come!

The Easter egg that I was most eagerly anticipating did not arrive for Easter but appeared a week and a half later on April 15th…

That was when the first chicken egg was laid, with the second two eggs following the next day. The first two eggs are tiny and I’m not sure which of our girls to congratulate and give extra treats to as both eggs were laid in the early morning. The third egg was larger (though still on the small side compared to a shop bought egg) and was definitely laid by Hattie, as she went into the nest box during the day and after she came out there was a lovely warm speckled egg sat in the straw.

So our girls are ladies now 🙂  They have learnt to scratch in the dirt, to come when I rattle the little jar of corn they get each afternoon, to let me pick them up for inspection and a quick cuddle and they are old hands wings now at bed-time ladder climbing. They do make me smile and I’ve really been enjoying their antics…

The first egg may not have arrived in time for Easter day but I did get a lovely Easter present, The New Kitchen Garden by Mark Diacono. The fact that I bought it for myself (because around here it’s only the children who get visited by the Easter bunny) doesn’t diminish my enjoyment of it – it’s a great book, beautifully laid out and it has all the information I need to make the most of our little veg patch.

I’ve already made a start with nasturtiums, courgette seedlings (which are desperate for bigger pots) and my kuri squash seeds are just about breaking through the surface of their compost. In the garden I’ve planted out kale, broccoli, cabbage and some lettuces too and I’ve direct sown spring onions, beetroot, mangetout peas and dwarf french beans. Fingers crossed we’ve got no more frosts to come.

Around the rest of the garden everything is sprouting and it seems that overnight the plum tree has gone from frothy white with blossom to bright spring green as the first leaves open out.

I love this tiny shoot coming directly out of the gnarly bark – it perfectly illustrates the magic that is all around at Spring-time

Well, I’m off to relish my monday-me-time. Having Toby at home for the last 2 weeks has been quite tiring, so it’s very nice to have a bit of time to myself again with the children going back to school today. I’ll be playing around with the blanket that I started over the Easter break.

Originally I had planned using Solveigs lovely ‘flowers in the snow’ pattern exactly as written but when I started joining the squares I felt the need for a bit more space between the coloured circles.

So I’m adding a round in grey before starting the squaring-off round.

I’m using mostly Rooster Almerino yarn which is beautifully soft. All notes and yarn used etc. over on my ravelry project page if you want more details.

Thanks for stopping by. I’ll be back soon, hopefully with some knitting news of a new pattern 🙂

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PS: This is not a sponsored post – I don’t do those. I only write about things that I like and I buy with my own money.