My little piece of heaven...

Like a lot of people the nicer weather has meant the garden demanding a lot more of my time and no matter how long I spend in it there still seems a million things to do at this time of year! I've spent the last eight and a half years trying to turn my quarter of an acre into something resembling a cottage garden and it's still very much a work in progress ~ but you never really finish a garden...



May is one of my favourite months in the garden, with everything just SO green and plants bursting into life almost before your eyes. It never looks like this at any other time of year. We haven't had rain here for nearly a fortnight and with heavy clay soil that means you don't need a trowel so much as a lump hammer and chisel. This makes planting anything impossible of course so I've thrown some lettuce and carrot seeds into containers for now until the veg patch is usable. Having said that, the courgettes are going bananas in pots ~ it's like the day of the triffids in the cold frame.

I'm very proud of my Silver Birch! It was a weedy sapling (freebie from a magazine) when I planted it and now it must be around 15 feet tall and it's only been in 4 years.

Who says peonies don't like being moved? I had two in the front garden and had to remove one. Nothing to lose I thought by planting it up in a container and it's doing really well. And on top of that it is growing again where it used to be and that's after hacking at it to make sure we got it all out!

Note to self. "Don't EVER mix chickens and gravel again...."

I didn't exactly hit the car boot jackpot this weekend (so disappointing!) but came home with this pretty cottage picture for the ridiculous price of 50p and some more Enid Blyton's for the collection. I'll be able to open a lending library soon. Always seems to be harder to find Secret Sevens so I was really pleased to find three from the 1950's (10p each!!) even if two have no dustjackets and the third is a bit the worse for wear. I AM a stickler when it comes to dustjackets!



The picture has a very sweet verse at the bottom.

This lovely little book (another 5op steal!) is from the 40's and has a lovely dustjacket. There I go again. It's the sort with a fold-out map inside but I don't think it spent much time in anyones rucksack banging against a thermos judging by the condition.

To come back round to gardening again - I don't know about you but our car boot sales can be very good for things other than vintage. Yes - really! We recently bought our palisade fence from there. It was £8 a panel. And was delivered free! You can't buy the wood for that. I also get all my basket plants from there and this weekend came home with an aquilegia and two verbascums for 50p each. I love to grow things myself from seed but can't resist cheap plants. It's as if they're saying 'take me home'! Happy gardening...