Some things are looking up - a bit

An improvement in the weather meant that we could actually get out in the garden last week.

The week started, however with a much needed walk for us and for Ruby. Current restrictions mean that we have to stay local and so we booked a visit to Nostell Priory for Monday afternoon. We stuck to the drier paths in order to cut down on the risk of Ruby needing a bath as she still had her stitches in.

It was a lovely sunny day and I took a few photos which I will post on Wednesday but here are a couple. Some of you may be familiar with the Where's Wally? books. This is my version of Where's Ruby?

Tuesday, saw another trip to the veterinary hospital where, Ruby parted with her stitches. Once she recognised where she was heading, Ruby wasn't at all pleased but it was a different story when she quickly came back out again and headed home. Twenty-four hour surveillance is thankfully over but don't tell Ruby that another vet's visit is booked for early March. This time for her booster inoculation.

Things are starting to take off in the garden. I love to see the first snowdrops. We don't have any special varieties of snowdrop. Ours are unnamed and were just sold as either snowdrops or double snowdrops. Some clumps have bulked up well over the years but it's early days for some that we planted just over a year ago under a newly planted area under a crab apple tree.

It won't be long before the tub of crocuses above are fully opened. We just need a few sunny days - what are the chances? I ought to weed the tub but I don't want to disturb the bulbs. The ones in the open garden aren't as advanced.

Bulbs in the front garden are pushy through, including some dwarf tulips. This is always a sign that the perennials need cutting back to give the bulbs room to shine.

A small bed containing one of our bird baths is situated just outside one of our house windows. We like this to look interesting for as much of the year as possible. In early spring the interest is provided by bulbs. Later it will be planted up with summer bedding. 

Bulbs can often get in the way when planting the bedding plants so last year I plant miniature daffodils in pots which were sunk into the ground. These were removed once flowering was over and the pots were sunk into the ground elsewhere in the garden. On Saturday the pots were replanted in their flowering positions. There are crocuses planted in the same bed and in retrospect I should maybe have planted these in pots too so I could avoid the bulbs when replanting the daffodils.

Just outside of our kitchen door on the patio we have a sarcococca planted in a tub. It was planted there to give us the full benefit of the early scent. The plant is clothed in tiny petal-less flowers and the perfume is lovely but the leaves look very pale which I imagine is chlorosis caused by lack of nutrients so when the weather improves I'll give it a good feed.

On Sunday, we paid a visit to the allotment. As we knew that it would still be too soggy to do much work, the main reason for our visit was to harvest a few things. We gathered together some sprouts, parsnips and leeks. We stayed for a couple of hours and managed to pruned one of the bush roses and cut back a couple of buddleias.

Onto this weeks meals:

Monday, I made a fried rice recipe which used some broccoli, sweet corn and  green beans from the freezer, along with onion and carrot.

On Wednesday, I made a vegetable tagine served with apricot and almond quinoa. This made use of some Crown Prince squash, onion and tomatoes from the freezer. Although I cooked the amount in the recipe there was far too much quinoa. Instead of the individually mentioned spices I used ras el hanout.

On Friday, I made a chicken and vegetable pie based on this recipe. Into this went, carrot, onion, frozen peas and sweetcorn. I didn't used the method described in the recipe to make the filling but more of a casserole method. I also added some herbs de Provence to the filling. I didn't make a full pie but instead just added a puff pastry top. This was served with some braised red cabbage from the freezer.

Sunday, I made a vegetable cottage pie based on this recipe which calls it a shepherd's pie but to my mind a shepherd's pie has to contain lamb. I used carrot and some of the last of our onions and potatoes. We'll soon have to buy more!

By the way we are still waiting for our large seed order from Kings Seeds. They are saying that our order should arrive by the end of this month. Even considering Covid issues, I do think two months wait for an order especially when our money was taken straight away is a poor effort. 

The garden centres have been kept supplied and if we had ordered the same seeds from our local garden centre they would have delivered to us within 5 working days.  As it is we have had to buy some seeds from the garden centre that needed sowing. We can't contact Kings to cancel our order as no-one is manning the phones and emails are ignored. I think that they are prioritising customers who don't qualify for a discount. Orders from retail and those from individual customers were being delivered within 21 days even though our group order is made up of individual orders. It will be interesting to see whether we will in fact receive our full order or whether by now some seeds will have sold out. We are really considering not ordering from them in future and forgoing the discounts.

As always keep safe and well

This week I am linking to Harvest Monday hosted by Dave's Our Happy Acres blog

 

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett