just been 'tagged'

I have just been 'tagged' by Lowa so here are my answers

five items in my fridge
1/ half used jar of pasta sauce, I just had some on a baked potato for tea, the child is out and probably poisoning herself at MacDonalds or the like
2/ tomatoes, shop bought but I am wishing for homegrown soon
3/ strawberry youghurt, onken bio-yogurt with grains, yummy , I think it must be addictive and I intend to finish it before the child gets home
4/ milk, for the endless cups of tea and coffee, if you would like one? if you would like to be asked twice?
5/ cheese, also on the potato for tea. I have no culinary imagination.

five items in my closet( well my version of that would be wardrobe)
1/ dolls house, awaiting restoration
2/ tent, waiting for camping trip
3/ shoes with heels, waiting for a job interview or a funeral, or to be given away
4/ very nice black suit, slightly too tight now, also awaiting job interview or funeral, probably going to get given away fairly soon
5/ no, you can never have too many fleece jumpers.

five items in my car
1/ luminous pink gardening trug, what, you don't have one?
2/ waterproof trousers, in case I need them
3/ waterproof jacket, in case I need it
4/ fleece jumper, ditto
5/ emergency clean knickers and a toothbrush, ditto but they've been in the car a long time!!

five items in my 'purse', actually I have a small rucksack
1/ digital camera,
2/ batteries for the digital camera
3/ memory for the digital camera
4/ mini tripod, ditto but as yet unused
5/ folded up cloth shopping bag

oh my, well, my unexciting life!! but this may get me onto that wardrobe clear out.
I think I am meant to tag five people too so here's my list
Wildside
Madcapmum
Grannyfiddler
Sigrun
The Ramblin Irishman , we might let you off the purse one Ramblin!

if you are insulted being left off them join in please, if you have been tagged but don't want to play I will not take insult.

some progress

potatoes growing in posts and bags
new bed on the right, still to get wooden edges
nearly everthing still covered in fleece

tomatoes and herbs in the greenhouse

in the vegetable garden

Well, I think the garden looks a such a mess I can't post a photograph! I hoped the fleece would come off most of the vegetables(beans and peas, I need to get them staked!) by the end of May but is is so windy I am leaving it on. I have run out of space , mostly due to loosing the potato patch, but also from not finishing more beds.
Working mostly with a 'square foot' pattern this is what is growing so far(so 6x means six 1ft squares, not 6 square feet)- 6x beetroot, 8x turnip, 2x chard, 2x dwarf french bean, 7x sugar snap peas, 9x broad bean, 4xgreen manure, 4x spinach, 8x parsnip, 2x shallots, 7x raspberries, 3x red onions, 2x broccolli, 2x cabbage, 2x cauliflower, 2x calabrese, 1x welsh onions, 1x big chives, 1x small chives, 1x white onions, 1x asparagus kale, 8x early peas, 6x carrots, 3x herbs.
I have 6 squares left to plant up, succesional lettuce then winter kale for these hopefully. There are also the potatoes all over in pots and bags, a sink with potaoes, a sink with carrots, climbing beans still to plant out but these will be squeezed into the flower beds. Also courgettes, sweet corn and beans to be planted together into one bed which is half finished; lots of manure and hope for the best! with that I think! And in the green house there are six tomatoe plants and two cucumbers. Some herbs and still three pots of carrots. There is one pumpkin plant which I bought, its still to go somewhere too, at this precise moment I can only think of digging a hole in the grass, filling it with manure and allowing it to sprawl itself where it pleases?

My difficulty in finishing beds is that I want it to be totally perfect. As an indication of the ground state these are the stones that came out of one small hole today, where I planted this squashed looking rhubarb 'cut off'.

Loch Lomond

I had a great paddle today as a guest of the Garnock KC, what a nice group of people. The weather was windy with gusts, rain and glimpses of sunshine. The wind got a bit much for me just at the end and I came of the water a ten minute walk from the launch point. We saw swallows, swifts, canada geese, swans, oyster catchers, seaguls and ducks. You could smell the bluebells from across the water, they were flowering on hillsides and islands, I saw a wild violet at the lunch stop but the rain prevented me from getting the camera out.
bluebells on Inchcailloch Island, there are old oak trees and holly all round the island.
view from the top of the island showing Ben Lomond hiding its head in the clouds. I think you can see the 'texture' on the water and it blew up more than this on the way back, I am a big scardy!!

foliage

Acer platanoides 'Princeton Gold'
Pieris 'Forest Flame'

Railway line flowers

I have done a quick update of names, will be back later to try to fill a few more in, any names you know?

Ajuga reptans - bugle
Eschscholzia californica, californian poppy(possibly not native!!)

Tulbaghia violacea, edible wild garlic, makes great soup!!

Silene dioica, red campion
Geranium , crane's-bill, I am unable to identify which type from a book.

wild garlic again with a red campion


possibly Vicia cracca, tufted vetch (the lilac coloured middle left)
possibly Geum rivale?
Primula veris, cowslip. I was lucky to see this one in flower as they have mostly gone to seed now.
Hyacinthoides non-scripta - bluebell


Symphytum tuberosum - tuberous comfrey
Cytisus scoparius - broom

sundays flowers

unable to resist I have cut my neighbors grass with my 'new' lawnmower, these are pictures I took this morning.
geraniums unamed but very healthy. living behind the shed so it can take over there if it keeps growing proper bluebell, non scripta
aquliega
aquilegia
a pink geranium, which was a cutting, its label blew away so no name and I thought it was geum but have re-identified it as Sigrun said not!!
geranium phaeum
close up of bergenia
primula pulverulenta

new-to-me

this is my new-to-me lawnmower, recieved from a very kind couple contacted through Free-cycle. (it was through Freecycle I found the people who took the extra seed potatoes I had).
it was slightly damp this morning which is why all the grass has stuck to the mower, quite a lot of it obligingly landed in the little grass-box. I have to say it is much harder work than pushing the petrol one about so I'm not sure if my neighbors are going to find their free grass cutting service suspended? I just don't want to keep buying petrol to cut the grass(although if the grass has been left for a while then I will probably use the petrol one-which I don't own but have been borrowing for five years! and electric mowers scare me silly, I always imagine I am going to run over the cable.

more green

the old railway line is greening up, this photograph was taken in the morning with the sun streaming in.
dodecatheon

the compost pile

I have two of these green bins for compost, this is the pile after lifting it off. sometimes I just use it as is, bits and all, they decompose eventually.
but today it was shoogled through this garden sieve to take out the large bits which were put back in the bin
second barrow full
marvellous stuff. one thing the camera hasn't caught, even in close up, is the movement of all the beasties, ants, beetles, earwigs, centipedes, millipedes, worms, unidentified 'things' and creepy crawlies. it truly was 'alive' and some of those have come back into the house with me and are now running about the bath, having failed to drown!!
underneath the protective fleece, Tansy!
and this is marvellous stuff to find, hedgehog poo!

The Crooked Road

last night I was priveleged to see a tour of musicians from this site
http://www.thecrookedroad.org/
and they were great!!

in the greenhouse

tomatoes Ailsa Craig and Olivade(an F1, very poor germination) potted into their final posts with some african marigolds for company.
carrots in their pots
various herbs and 'things', after everything was potted on from seed trays,
Daisy, being cute.

Saturday

water with 'texture'

I am going to contemplate the garden in my minds eye, but not necessarily do any gardening. I had to work this morning and I hate working a Saturday! I did post a while back about how I thought I had pulled a muscle in my belly button, well you may laugh! I have indeed pulled some obscure muscle/fascia connecting my hip/thigh/abdomen , sort of that area, and it is sore!! A kinesiology initiall reading(I have to get a full consultation still) indicates taking vitamin E, so I am. The chiropractors have manipulated me and advised using ice packs, so I am. On Tuesday I am going for this, honestly I am such a crock. . . but the chiropractor did say a day of gardening after an evening of kayaking and something about it being my own fault?

totally different subject, this is interesting.
Through choices private and public, our children’s future is in our hands

and Patty's My life and Times has this site too.

garden salad

wee carrotts, lollo rosso, rocket, asparagus kale, chives.

the good old days

I thought I'd try to scan some pictures in, I used to work with horses and this is taken at a farm called 'Shawhill', where many a grand adventure was had. I worked there for a lady called Catherine McDowall, she died a couple of years ago having reached her early 70's, she is missed.
This is Paddy, in his Sunday harness and on his best behaviour, getting ready to do the church run for Catherine and her friend, and no, he didn't mind getting to go to sleep for an hour tied up outside. He liked to have a doze now and again.
I am not sure if the scanner has picked up the finer points in this photograph, for instance you can't tell he kicks and bites, and runs away occasionally; Catherine used to call this having 'character'. ha.

just a minute in the garden

what a difference a couple of days have made, this chesnut sapling is just bursting with growing energy!
I am pleased this asparagus kale is now flowering after the winter, I'd like to save seed from it to plant again, its a nice mild kale. today I planted out broccolli, cabbage, calabrese and cauliflower. there were spares of these so I have potted them on, either to use as emergency replacements or to give away. I was intending to pot on the tomatoes but the day seems to have run out!
a difficult to photograph purchase from Saturdays show, a dodecatheon 'shooting star'. I like the way the petals recurve. it was sitting on the bench in the greenhouse and has now been planted out, which may make it easier to photograph and I do like to amuse the neighbors by lying flat out on the grass to be artisitc. . . another Saturday purchase Primula Auricula 'Matilda Baker', she'll probably live in the greenhouse.

just before it rained

sitting outside at Betty's house, her cat free garden allowing birds to come close for crumbs.

plant envy

some prize winners at the SRGC show today. . .
Trillium Sessile cream form
Trillium pussilumsorry name forgotten!
Viola columnaris
and again to show how it looks
Calochortis 'Cupido'
Calochortis tolmei
Iris sprengeri
Iris Iberica Lycotis

potatoes in pots

not sure how many potatoes I'll get, some of these pots are a bit small, they are in a mix of my compost, potting compost and soil. chicken pellet manure applied!

pause

a lovely touch on hot chocolate served at a cafe.
the erythroniums before they start to curl back their petals
this is a chestnut sapling, nearly a foot high now, I found it one day when I was weeding, now its safely in a pot until a home is found(I might keep it in a pot till its quite large, but wouldn't plant it here, too big a tree for too small a garden).
the garden seems to enter a pause, as things are hardened off and I wait for seedlings to germinate, there's no shortage of things to do, but I may just have a hot chocolate and look at it in 'my minds eye' today.
my gardening friend, Billy, said the other day 'real gardeners, like you and me' which is so much a compliment as I never do anything how 'his dad' did so always feel he dissaproves slightly. bless him!