RHS Harlow Carr

The day began with an invasion of monsters to our peaceful bed.





And since the peace was shattered here we thought we would go and shatter it somewhere else. We decided to go to RHS Harlow Carr, a famous garden about 45 mins drive away from us, near Harrogate. The weather when we set out was a bit grey and rain was threatening, but we thought we would chance it. We were glad we did because the weather brightened as we drove, and by the time we got there it was lovely - not hot, but very sunny.

The gardens were beautiful, full of lovely flowers including the tallest tulips I have ever seen, the size of Biggest's hand and the colour of fire. There were also hundreds of purple allium flowers.



Of greatest interest to the children was of course the play area and the log-maze:







They also enjoyed running through the wild-flower meadows and hunting mini-beasts.






My favourite bit was the kitchen garden, but of course I was so busy studying the plants and the construction of the raised beds that I failed to take any pictures of anything. I am now planning the layout of my vegetable beds for future years. I can see raised beds in my future.

Back at home I planted out the chervil in the rose bed (allegedly cilantro/coriander, chervil and chives are good for detering aphids, and so I have planted these three in my rose bed. Doesn't seem to have affected the aphids. But who knows, maybe they would have been worse without, and maybe chervil is a vital element of the trio and it only went in yesterday. So we will wait and see.

I also planted the borage seedlings, which I hope will get large and luscious and beautiful:



And I got two purple-varigated sage plants, which will go into a pot and get big and I will have a pretty sage bush for ever and ever. I hope. But first I need to get some dirt to put in my big pot. And to get the dirt from the council's compost mountain I need to get containers - you got it, more trugs! One thing at a time...

Long live the trug

Today I bought a 'trug'. Or a basket. Or a rubber bucket-type thing. Or a cross between all these things. I needed something to carry laundry around in. Laundry is a never ending fact of my life, and I have been through quite a few laundry baskets in my time. My latest one (before my trug) was a big rectangular plastic thingy which I was rather pleased with, until it broke. Several times, in several places.

I had seen these rubbery trug things on tv. Granted it was on gardening programs where they are used to lug things around the garden, but I thought to myself 'hey, that would work'! Being rubbery it wouldn't break if someone decided to sit in it (or on it) and turn it into a boat or car. And it wouldn't complain if I crashed it into the wall as I tried to go through the door with it on my hip. In fact, since it has handles and is super-flexible I could even carry it in one hand, like a bag!

So I went out and bought me one.

And guess what? It works just fine as a laundry basket. It got it's first use this afternoon bringing in a load of clean sheets off the line.

But even better, it makes a great car/boat/tub to sit in and read a book.













And it didn't get broken, or even slightly cracked!

Long live the Trug!

Biggest didn't get in the trug to read. He was too busy reading on the beanbag to play such babyish games.





And Middley decided that as great as it was for reading it was easier to do colouring on the floor.

Brighter days

The weather was better yesterday, and the kids were able to play outside, which makes everyone happier.

And it's even better today, so while the big kids are at school and littlest is having his nap we have been digging weeds and hacking back overgrown bushes. So the garden is full of piles of branches waiting to be bagged up and left out for the council to take away and turn into compost for us. Yay council!

And the laundry is flapping in the breeze.

It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood.

First one ever

So here we go.

It's a drizzly day here in North East England...

It's mid May.

I should be doing something more productive than this, but you know how it is when you have things you should be doing. There's always a million other things more interesting to do.

And when you have nothing to do you can't think of anything interesting to do. Why is that?

Anyway.

I went out and took some pictures of my garden, which is looking nice and lush and damp right now.

Here are the tulips looking pretty in pink in front of the pea teepee. The PTP.

These are the sugar snap peas twining up the poles.

And one of my rows of potatoes. I have three rows of Charlotte potatoes. I love watching them grow and I can't wait to eat them with lots of butter. Yum.



Here are my Lady's Mantle looking pretty, covered in quicksilver raindrops.



And GardenBoy's fern. He's quite proud of it. Given a chance he would fill the garden with them.





Or with dahlias. Here is the first dahlia to emerge. Impressive, huh?