Robert is still in hospital. Tomorrow he will have been in for three weeks. Unfortunately I have not seen him in person for a week as my heavily pregnant sister has just had a very bad cold and as Robert has no immune system to speak of it was best not to take any chances.

Robert’s white blood cell count has risen from 0.0 to 0.1

When it reaches 0.5 he can come home.

It’s been 0.1 for days and there’s talk of taking another bone marrow sample. Our fear is that the chemo has wiped his bone marrow out and a transplant will be needed. But that hasn’t happened yet so we’re certainly not going to act or think like it’s a foregone conclusion. Doing that would make us feel worse in an already hard situation.

SKYPE has been our lifeline. Robert sits on the iPad and joins us at the table for breakfast and dinner. He is also propped on the back of the sofa and he watches them play. At nighttime I put him in the cots and he watches from inside as I change the nappies and put the children in to their pj’s before bed. Then I stand at the door with the iPad held high in one hand and we both say “goodnight” before I close the door and go downstairs.

It’s a wonderful way of keeping sane but I want him home.

I’ve found that I have been doing what I do best and enjoy most – cooking, feeding my children, pottering and a bit of decorating in the evenings when I’m alone. An event such as your young husband being treated for Leukemia does make you think about other areas of your life and I believe that both Robert and I are on that journey. It makes you want to slow down and enjoy the ride a bit more because you never know when it will be your turn to get off.

The pictures that I’ll be posting while Robert is still in the hospital are for him. So he can see how it’s all going and what’s happening outside in the garden and inside the house. It’s a lovely way for him to feel involved and it means that I get to bash out my thoughts on to this keyboard, which is most cathartic, so it’s win win.

It’s broad bean season. I made a dish with broad beans in it the other evening and gave them to the children to eat. I’m pleased to say they ate every one put in front of them. I think I’d be a touch worried if they threw them on the floor in disgust because we live on them at this time of year.

I boil them until the outer skin crinkles and then peel them back, revealing the bright green bean inside. With it’s nutty taste and lovely texture it makes the best side dish when sauteed with garlic or chopped up with mint.

Sorry, Robert, I know you’re dealing with hospital food right now. I’ll make you whatever food you like when you’re home. I give you my word.

The garden is looking a lot more colourful too. Which means I get to have cut flowers in every room for free. All of those pots on the windowsills during the early days of Spring suddenly become very worthwhile indeed.

Dahlias, Sweet Peas, Verbena, Hydrangea, Roses, Stocks.

Colour, colour, colour.

So it’s broad beans, with basil and garlic, new potatoes and some chicken for tea. I’ll sit at the table with the babies in their highchairs and the iPad, with Robert on SKYPE, at one end.

It has to be as normal as it can be for the children and we have to stick to our little routine as much as possible at the moment. They’re not stupid. If I was walking around looking and acting like the world was coming to an end they’d pick that up.

Our garden is producing some wonderful food right now and I want to cook for my kids in the knowledge that it will nourish their tiny bodies.

And that is what I’ll do because it gets the focus and the thoughts off of me and Robert and on to them.

Boy, do I need the distraction.

When we’ve eaten our tea I’ll potter again until late in the evening, planning for when Robert comes home. I’ve moved bedrooms around, started painting walls and generally getting it ready for him to be welcomed in to to heal. I don’t care that his blood count hasn’t gone up for days, we’re not giving up, he will come home. I have a goal that I’m working towards and that is my husband’s homecoming.

And that’s enough for me.

Thank you so much for reading. I love you terribly.

Cherry x

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On Sunday night, as the rain lashed against the windows, I asked myself if it really was the end of Summer. I’m not so sure it is. I often get caught out like this. I assume the long hot days are behind us so I dig out my jeans and sweaters and then September brings some deliciously warm days with it and I end up sweating out in the garden in dark clothing. So this year I’m not entering the chilly time too early.

One thing that will be coming to an end no matter how much I wail and scream is the garden. The Paddock, which we started to plant so many months ago, has been a real success, seeing as it was a bit of an experiment. All I knew was that I had a vision for a space. That was the easy bit. All I had to do was to plan how to bring it to life.

You’ll remember that this was the plan, drawn out roughly, and not quite knowing how it would all turn out.

Here we were in May. Lots of green and blue but not much colour.

That all changed.

I decided to plant all of my Cosmos in one bed. I did that a lot with flowers this year. Partly to see how they grew and partly to create a really easy to manage cutting garden.

Here they were a couple of months later. An explosion of colour, so bright and cheery. I will definitely grow these again but I’ll spread them out along the borders. They need deadheading regularly but they produce in abundance and I love their cheery faces.

I also put Salvia in the same bed. Salvia is of course a magnet for bees and is now one of my favourite things to grow. Beautiful shades of Silver and Purple make this a real show-stopper but once again I think it is lost, in this quantity, in a raised bed. I’ll certainly grow it again as a border as it’s too magnificent not to.

If I have one tip for you when growing Salvia of this variety its to grow it in large quantities. That’s when it starts to look majestic.

Stocks are another flower that we had great success with this Summer. I got it right with these and they were planted in the border along the entrance to the Paddock. The syrupy smell hits you as you wandered in and the colours were delicious. I’ll most certainly be growing them again next year and I would heartily suggest that you do the same. They are fantastic!

They also look lovely when they are cut and placed in jam jars. Any impromptu supper would welcome Stocks as a guest and I miss them already. See you next year, guys!

Aha! Sweet Peas. Now these DID do well in the raised bed. They tend to get so very tangled that giving them support is an imperative. Otherwise they’ll grow in to a tangled bush and I don’t think they flower as well.

In just a few short weeks we went from a brown bed to this mass of hysterical colour. Way to go Sweet Peas!

And here’s my corn. I grew some corn last Summer but it didn’t do so well. This year I bought more plants and planted them in rows. There were enough of them to pollinate each other and before long they were looking……..

…er, really quite tall.

And I can say with my hand on my heart that they were really quite tasty too. Robert the Husband bought me one for supper the other evening as I lay on my backside and surfed the Internet – there are some wonderful websites out there that I am only just discovering, I can’t wait to tell you all about them – and it was unlike any corn I have ever eaten. Apart from the fact that it was so fresh it almost made a pass at me it also tasted so much sweeter than shop bought corn. Definitely worth the space it takes up in your garden.

Just thought I’d throw this in the mix. Look at this baby……..and check out the Bumble Bee.

Here is the Dahlia bed. They have featured in my garden posts a lot throughout the Summer as I’m so proud of them. You can tell when I’m proud of something as I’ll feature it a lot but I really am chuffed with these flowers as I’d never grown them until this year.

Here they were just getting started……..

…And this is how they are right now.

We had a horrid touch of Black Fly at the start of the Summer which also got my Broad Beans and Sweat Peas but we dealt with that with an organic spray. We also deadheaded when we had to and they just kept coming! I’m going to miss these guys also. This colour explosion has been on my garden landscape for weeks and weeks and I really do not want them to go.

DON’T SEND ME IN TO AUTUMN YET, I’M NOT READY!!!!!!

*hic*

*breathe*

*compose*

The past weekend can be summed up in this one picture.

Food, shopping and wine.

• Robert and I both ate food, you’ll be glad to know. In fact if you follow me on Twitter or are a member of my Facebook fan page (all the links are at the bottom of this post) you’ll know that we took the babies out to eat and had a lovely lunch on Saturday. “Have babies, will dine out” seems to be our current motto.
• I shopped. Nuff said. I felt like a different person having raided Top Shop and even though I am older than most of the other shoppers I don’t care. I will regain some semblance of my youth and if that’s the only way to do it then so be it!!!!! *breathe….again*
• And Robert drank wine.

There was some cooking done and by the end of Sunday evening the pans were worn out and slept haphazardly in the cupboard.

And there was also a whole pile of washing drying in front of the AGA…….

…and a whole pile more waiting to go in the machine. In fact this basket is still right there. Waiting to go in the machine. Oh, and there is another pile on the sofa in the kitchen waiting to go in. And another in my bathroom waiting to go in. And another on the floor on Robert’s side of the bed, waiting to go in. And I think there is some more on the floor in the dining room, you guessed it, waiting to go in. And let us not forget the HUGE pile waiting to be put away in the nursery.

Who would have thought that two babies this small could produce this much washing??? Perhaps one day they’ll stop puking and pooping on EV..ERRRRR…REEEE…THING

and we can go back to our neat and tidy one or two loads of washing a week.

But until that day arrives, on a Sunday evening in the month of August I shall be found flaked out, basking in the blue glow of the television with my favourite magazine by my side. I shall read it for about five and a half seconds and then I shall be asleep.

Gotta get some rest, I’ll be up to do another feed in a couple of hours!

I love you wherever you are and thank you so much for reading this.

Cherry xoxox

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It’s a lovely thing to pick vegetables with a baby, one of your own babies, strapped to your front. I walked around the paddock the other day and harvested some of our fabulous veggies for supper that night. It was the first proper meal I’d made since bringing the babies home. Due to my C-Section and having our body clocks thrown completely out of sync dinner time has suffered a wee bit but is finally reclaiming itself as a lovely part of the day when Robert and I get to look at each other and exhale.

I picked the Broad Beans first.

And then the peas. Sweet peas that I nibbled on raw as the baby I was carrying and I chatted our way through the grass and raised beds.

My little blue basket gradually began to fill up……..

….and I got a gentle workout done while carrying my precious bundle around. I’m not allowed to exercise properly for at least another week but I can feel myself getting stronger.

Small, tender Courgettes, picked before turning into Marrows and it would appear that Mummy needs to get herself a pedicure and pretty damn quickly! Dude!!!!

As it happened we also harvested the three varieties of potatoes that we have grown in bags this summer. I decided to use some of the Charlotte’s for our supper that night.

A whole meal made from produce I grew in my own backyard and with only a few other additions.

Cooking in this way has always been a dream of mine and I feel that this year I have only just scratched the surface. Seeing how well everything has done has boosted my confidence and I look forward to expanding our range even further next year.

To my basket of veggies I added pancetta and chicken.

As well as garlic and olive oil. I sautéed them all gently on the AGA….

….and added the softened peas and beans a few moments later.

The final taste hit came in the form of freshly chopped mint……..

….and then the whole lot was placed on top of the newly harvested and softly boiled potatoes and carried to the table.

We ate heartily and I was pleased that this marked my first real foray back into the kitchen after what seemed like an age.

I hadn’t forgotten how to cook, as had been my fear.

In fact the only change to the set up was that we now had two new guests for dinner.

And delightful they were too!

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When creating a container garden in the space outside my back door I was definitely working on creating an idea.

I’m actually a fan of small outdoor spaces. I love the challenge of having an area that is totally contained and creating different corners within it. Essentially crowding it with items but making it seem larger by the time the project has been completed.

The first thing I did was to paint the side of this building white. Thus throwing light in to the space and making it seem larger when the the sun was shining on it and reflecting off of it.

From then on it was simply a case of working out what I wanted the space to be filled with……….

Colour was something that I wanted to feature a great deal in this space. Bright colour.

I filled the cartwheel flower bed with bee friendly Salvia and lined the edges with an ivy leafed pink geranium.

I opted for pink once again but this time a paler version when potting up this Fuchsia. It stretches up to the sky beautifully and is very easy to keep, flowering all Summer as long as it’s deadheaded regularly.

In the Summer months we love to eat as many meals as we can outside and having a table inches away from your back door is wonderful when it comes to al fresco dining.

This table was actually a makeover project, much like this area of the garden, and started off life as a horrid piece of pine. I’ll be sure to feature this project in the Before & After section of my site very soon.

Brightly coloured windmills sitting in butler sinks full of Strawberry plants. Lovely!

As this space is so close to the kitchen it seems totally obvious to have most of my herbs in pots within arms reach.

All the usual suspects are here.

Rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, marjoram and two big pots of basil.

I’m also growing gooseberries, blackberries, blueberries, apples, plums, cherries and pears. All in containers and all in this space.

Told you I liked to colonize!

Putting various pots onto wooden fruit and veg crates is a great way of creating levels and lifting the pots off the ground and enabling drainage at the same time. It’s nice to work with levels. Levels create interest and go a long way to creating different corners in the same space without huge amounts of effort.

I also created a pathway of sorts at the entrance to the container garden by lining up terracotta pots of geraniums. Try it. It works by way of suggestion instead of something altogether more obvious.

Another way of creating levels is by making this super simple pot holder from wooden boards and upturned pots. I decided to have mine painted white as I knew that it would set the rusticity of the terracotta pots off brilliantly.

I opted to fill it with two pots of Salvia that I bought last year, some purple basil and more thyme. Flanked by Borage and one of the aforementioned Strawberry sinks.

Everywhere you look the spaces has bee filled, decorated or planted.

Alongside the table I have also installed the daybed for chilling on when the heat gets a wee bit too much…….

….and over the other side are wicker chairs that are perfect for enjoying a long cool drink on.

This wee space has, without doubt, been one of my most favourite projects to date. It is small enough to never feel overwhelmed by and is so cosy. It is also a sun trap and the pots that I have planted up are growing so well and producing brilliantly.

I’ve been out there with the babies and they certainly love it.

They sleep and I hang with them and smell their little heads.

Then Daddy gets home in the evening and while I’m holding Anaïs (and the camera) he takes Ned for a little catch up with his son.

It’s beautiful to watch.

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Very new babies sleep an awful lot, don’t they? They sleep a lot more than I thought they would. When they are asleep there always seem to be things to do before they wake up for the next feed. Tidying up (not getting a whole lot of that done, I’ll be honest). Cooking and eating (anything that’s fast and easy). Laundry (Good Lord there’s a lot). You get the picture.

So last Saturday evening when the babies had fallen asleep after their 7 p.m. feed Robert and I were left with a choice; do something useful or do something that was good for the soul. We chose the latter and that was a simple walk around the Paddock in the sun before it went down for the night.

This is my favourite time of the day in the garden and has been since I was a child. I would stay out way past my bedtime and dance around with long lengths of fabric tied to a bamboo cane pretending I was Kate Bush in her Wuthering Heights video! My Mum would catch me sometimes and think I was an oddball. Great, but an oddball. She was right in the oddball department. I was. I had an overactive imagination which, as an adult, I believe has transformed itself into something that simply gives me the ability to know what I want from life and reach to get it. Nothing is impossible if it is right for you. The trick is knowing the difference.

Last Saturday I was in that sunlight with my husband safe in the knowledge that the babies were safely asleep, warm and fed. It was a lovely few minutes.

The Marguerite bushes are coming along so nicely. The secret is being very strict with the deadheading. They’ll be with us all Summer long.

Boo joined us on our walk. She is still there if a little more distant at the moment. We knew that she would take some time to get used to the new arrivals once she realised that they were staying forever and not just visiting. She hangs out with us a lot in the evenings and sits beside me where she used to sit when I was pregnant. We make a fuss of her and she brings us small furry animals from the garden in her mouth. We wish she wouldn’t do this as it can actually make me cry to see them but I have to remember that she is a cat and this is what she does. She is bringing us a gift, albeit one that I would gladly return if only she’d keep the receipts.

I got the chance to deadhead the Dahlias during our walk on Saturday night. They are doing so well and I’m so pleased that I can now safely say I know how to grow them from tubers. A real achievement for me as it was something I’d wanted to do for ages!

Our beautiful Courgettes. I can see deep fried Courgette flowers in my future.

Where there are flowers there are fruit….or in this case Broad Beans. I can see lots of tasty new recipes in my future also. It’s so good to grow your own food I would highly recommend it. Your patches of fruit and veg become like little children in themselves. You check on them, tend to them, feed and water them and feel so proud of them when they do well.

Our walk came to an end eventually. Robert and I had chatted (about the babies), we had had a giggle (about the babies) and we had discussed what we were going to be doing the next day (with the babies).

I think it’s safe to say that we’ve fallen in love in a way that I’m not even going to attempt to describe.

Even when the babies are not with us, they are with us.

Robert the Husband and I went back inside to make some supper and began to count down the minutes until they would wake up and we could hang with them again. Until then we had to be content to watch them while they slept.

Lots of love,

Cherry xoxox
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There’s nothing quite like that feeling of satisfaction when you grow your own fruit and veg and the crop you produce is actually pretty decent. This year we are growing quite a lot in our raised beds down in the paddock, and we are very pleased to say that our Romaine (Pinokkio) Lettuce has done beautifully.

We planted our lettuce seeds all the way back in March from just one packet and this was what they looked like on 18 April. Tiny little green shoots doing their best to poke their heads out to say hello.

This was them on 30 April – growing bigger by the day.

And this is them now.

Looking amazingly green.

And wonderfully crisp.

So we did what anyone would do with their freshly grown crop….

We ate it.

Have a great day.

x
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This is what the space looked like last July. We’ve been working on it, on and off, for the past year and now it is starting to take shape…….

This is what the space is currently looking like. If you’d like to read all of the posts relating to the development then you can click right here!

My vision was for a square garden that would allow us to grow fruit, vegetables & flowers in as well as allow us to eat, sleep, hang-out and create long lasting memories in.

I wanted a New England / Hampton’s Chic feel to the garden that was bright and clean and was lent its colour purely by the flowers planted within it and the items and furnishings that I place in there at any given time. A blank canvas to create in right throughout the Summer and into the Autumn.

One of my favourite things – a white wooden picket gate.

Iconic and welcoming. Flanked by two Marguerite bushes in terracotta pots painted white.

I don’t have a path leading down to the eating and sitting area so I created one by placing these two metal benches, facing each other, down the middle of the space. These can easily be dragged up to the table if we need more seating but they are also really nice to have breakfast on if you just want five mins to grab a coffee and some fruit.

Here is my makeshift pathway from another angle. It’s all about breaking the square up in to areas and creating places to spend time in.

In the middle of the garden is a gazebo that we have already used a couple of times to eat under. Right now the daybed is in use as it’s nice to have a comfy spot to feed the babies on.

To the left of the table is a swing seat that we can also add to the table should we need more seating. It’s important not to have everything too spread out from the central area as it all becomes unusable. I’ve put the giant cushions that we made last Summer – see how we made them here –  on to the seat as swinging and sleeping is rapidly becoming one of my favourite pastimes on a lazy Saturday or Sunday.

I’ve also decorated with vases of Sweet Williams as they make me happy and can easily be grabbed to put on to a table should we decide to dine outside.

I keep going on about a table being used in this garden!! This is because we are building a huge ten seater table this weekend. Using reclaimed wood and the skills of my Dad. I will of course document the whole thing and pop it up here when it’s done.

Rugs have been placed on the grass as lots of us far prefer to feel the grass beneath us and reading our favourite novel on a rug can be ‘The Stuff of Life’ at this time of year……

….as is a newborn smiling in the sun.

Anaïs approves of the space it would seem. God I love that girl.

I haven’t shown or written about any of the flowers, fruit or veg that we have planted and grown in The Paddock garden today as I think it deserves a post on its own. I just wanted to show you how I am creating spaces to live in out of doors this Summer. I come to life in the sun and the environment around me does the same.

Beautiful, beautiful Summertime.

Lots of love,
Cherry xoxo

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Lots of love, Cherry xoxoxo

So much is happening in the garden at the moment, so much of it it finally coming to life. This was the rose on the front of the house about two weeks ago. It had about three roses blooming on it.

And now it’s full and basking in the early summer’s sun first thing in the morning. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

Totally untouched.

Here they come….

The strawberry’s are poking their little green heads out.

The honeysuckle is fragrant .

The poppy’s are opening…

…up.

And finally a sneaky peek at our brand new container garden…….

I have to go now as Cherry has just nipped outside seemingly unseen and  is trying to meddle and work in this area and she’s not actually allowed to. I’ll remind her of the ankle swelling that’s sure to follow, that should do the trick.

Have a great weekend folks and enjoy the sunshine wherever you are.

Jodie x

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You can read Part 1 of my ‘Growing Dahlias’ saga by clicking on this link.

I’ve never grown Dahlias before now and when I pulled the tuber from the box upon delivery I wasn’t sure that any of them would ever amount to anything more than a few shoots. How wrong I was.

We’ve ‘lucked out’ so far on the Dahlias and are thoroughly enjoying seeing them grow and grow and grow and also begin to flower.

At the end of last week, as I felt that all chances of frost had finally passed, we took the potted Dahlias out of the greenhouse and placed them on the raised bed where they were to be planted. We left them there for a few days to do a bit of hardening off. I’m not sure if this was strictly necessary but I couldn’t risk losing any of them or I may have cried.

After a few days we planted them in to the bed and watered them well.

I had begun to notice that there was definitely some flowering afoot!

Some opening up and unfurling that progressed on different plants as the days went by.

I can’t wait to see this one.

Here is our first open Dahlia.

Cerise in colour and glorious sitting there in that bed. And you can tell by this picture that no less than three more flowers will soon be following its example and showing their faces too!

As I’m a huge fan of flowers in my home Dahlias are perfect as the more I cut them/deadhead them as they begin to fade the more flowers they will produce. In fact I have read that they will continue to flower until the appearance of the first frosts.

Ahhhh, my Darling Buds of Dahlias!

See you tomorrow for another installment of my pregnancy diary. It’s our final scan today, there can be no more, what will the next week bring????

Babies, I hope!

Lots of love & stuff,
Cherry xoxox

**UP-DATE** – This is how our Dahlias looked in August 2010

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We’ve been out in the paddock for most of this week. I say “we” Jodie and Cathy have been out there for the duration, I have popped out occasionally to make it seem like I still have something to offer in my ‘beached’ state but mostly I’ve been on the sofa, writing posts for the girls when they have completed them.

Which is how I came to be able to draw this diagram of all the plants, veggies and flowers that we are currently planting out. It’s simple but it’ll give you some idea of how this space is coming along. There is also a lot more that is going to be done out there but I’m keeping that under my hat for a bit until I know how it’ll all work out.

See how busy it all looks.

We’ve been blessed with some great weather lately which makes my stay on the sofa with the occasional waddle outside even more galling. If you know me you’ll know I like the sun and don’t like any other types of weather, I’m nothing if not definite. This is great for my new plants as Spring was super late this year.

Ahhh, all the Sunflowers, grown from seed, lined up and ready to go in the ground. I’m having a ‘wall’ of Sunflowers of all varieties along the back of the Paddock. It will act as a nice frame.

Down the sides we are adding colour galore with some classic bedding plants.

And hopefully they will be pretty enough to cover up a little of the rabbit proofing that we have installed on the white wooden fence. Did I tell you that a rabbit tried its very best to break in underneath the other week? We spotted the tunnel it had burrowed. Alas, it wasn’t to be for poor rabbit……..

….which means the salad,  grown from seed,  get to live another day.

My mantra at the moment, apart from “you won’t be pregnant forever, you won’t be pregnant forever, you won’t be pregnant forever,” is “it’s only a plant, it’s only a plant, it’s only a plant, it’s only a plant,”

If you’re putting hours in to your garden at the moment I think it’s important to deal with the fact that you’ll lose the odd flower or veggie to insects or the elements. Nothing this rewarding can be gained without a wee price to pay in the form of the odd sacrificial lettuce or flower.

But we’ll soon be enjoying the fruits of our labour, pun intended, as I can feel a quickening in the garden and it all just may begin to go slightly mad!

I’m back tomorrow with another pregnancy diary entry……hopefully!

Cherry xoxox

P.S.
We will be updating my homepage with a ‘Baby Watch’ update as and when things occur so you can keep up with events. I expect things to happen fairly quickly when they do decide to kick off.

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The promise of a new ranunculus. Waiting to unfurl and show off. This is the first time I have grown these flowers and I will be growing them each and every year from now on, until the end of my time!
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One of my favourite things to do is to walk in the garden early in the morning. This morning I found the Lamb’s Ears getting ready for their day and I fell in love with them all over again.

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On another one of my early morning garden walks I found a field of Pink Pokers. They were steeling themselves before being invaded by bees. The bees love them and if the bees love them then I love them. Because I love bees!
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Corners of My Garden – The Tractor

I love tractors.

Tractors are my type of transportation and if I could I would meet my husband for supper in St James’s by driving a tractor up to town and parking it out front.

They are chunky.

Funky.

And I’m sure a little like a monkey when they break down and leave you in the middle of nowhere.

OR, you’re stuck behind one for two thousand and three miles when rushing to get somewhere.

Yes, I love tractors.

This tractor lives next door and sat in the paddock next to my paddock over the weekend.

I did a great deal of coveting.

If I were to have a tractor I would have a red or a blue one.

And then buy a dog called John and sit him on the back.

I’ll be taking that thought in to my evening as I continue to work on a sampler pattern that I recently designed.

As you can see, there’s a lot going on in the country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cx

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I still have a glut, a glut I tell you, of sweet peas. This comes from picking them almost daily and not letting the seed pods develop for too long. They have kept my vases filled for weeks, grown very tall and created a wall of sweet peas along one side of the fence. This is something I was aiming for but had never tried. And although they are starting to look a little tired now I’m so proud of them and intend on doing it all over again next year in the paddock. The whole world will become a tangle of Sweet Peas if I have my way.

This coming weekend is a three day weekend in England.
BLISS!
I get to see my husband for more than twenty minutes in the evening before I skulk off to bed (not good at late nights) and it also means that we get to have a wee gathering of family and friends before we all head in to the months of autumn. This is the last three day weekend until BOXING DAY, so we’re making the most of it.

With this in mind I decided to use some of my glut of sweet peas (glut I tell you) to make a wreath to hang on the gate for our gathering this weekend.

Take some florists wire and fashion it in to a wreath-like shape.
Securing the ends well and making sure that no sharp bits are sticking out by twisting the ends around the wreath.

Cover the ugly looking wire by tying strips of fabric around it. This is an awesome way to use some of your scraps up.
The scraps I used were about 2 cm’s wide and approx 12 cm’s in length.

When you have finished covering the wire wreath it should look someyhing like this.

Cut some more strips of fabric, same length as before, as you’ll be using these to tie the flowers to the wreath.

Fold a strip in half lengthways.

Tie it loosely around the wire, leaving a gap.
Poke the flower stem through the gap and tighten the tie around the stem, securing the flower in place.

When you have covered the wire wreath in flowers it should look something like this.

Cut off any long flower stems or loose bits of fabric as this neatens it up a little.

I fastened my wreath to the garden gate with some more florists wire.

It’s not a heavy wreath so this wire worked out well.

I’m pleased with it. It’s a celebratory decoration and one that reminds me of an awesome summer in the garden.

Of course you don’t have to put the wreath on to the gate……. you could wear it on your head.

And look as ridiculous as I for the WHOLE day!

See you later on with another corner from my home.

Lots of love,
Cherry xo
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I only planted two of these tomato plants. In a grow bag in a part of the garden where the grill resides. I put them there as I figured that I would invariably set the table for a lunch outside and enjoy picking them off the plant only to be taken straight to the table.

And you know what???

I do just that!

See you tomorrow morning.

Cherry, xo

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I cleaned the downstairs loo yesterday!
Donned my rubber gloves and gave it a scrub. This is the loo that folk tend to use if they come for lunch or supper. The ‘guest’s loo’ if you like.

I also spent some time out in the garden harvesting the lavender. It’s that time of year. The lavender has flowered and if yours is anything like mine it will be looking a lot drier now. Still just as fragrant and that’s the thing that’s most perfect about this particular plant. It flowers and attracts the bees all summer long and even though it’s now a little tired it’s still prepared to be just as smelly for when you gather it in your arms and bring it indoors for the onset of the colder months.

The downstairs loo is a small room. Which means that having picked two chunky bunches of lavender yesterday the room now smells absolutely delicious. Which is how you WANT the guest loo to smell. No?

I packed the lavender in to an enamel jug and a utility china teapot – no water needed. Soft muted colours in a bathroom that I’m keen to keep rather ‘French Country-ish’ in its style.

Long gone are the days of associating the smell of lavender with old ladies knicker drawers. Nature has given us lavender to bring in to our homes as a reminder of the long summer months as the days get shorter.

And just as the smell starts to fade?…..well, by that time the new crop will just be awakening.

Perfick!

Just a little note on harvesting lavender -

You’ll probably notice new, tender shoots appearing towards the bottom of the lavender stems. Try not to cut these when picking your bunches. Also, don’t cut right into the woody stems at the bottom as no new growth can be produced from here. New lavender will not grow from the woody part of the stem.

I’ll see you a little later on with some more pictures from my summertime garden here in West Sussex.

Cherry , xo
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Hello all!

As you may recall last year I tried to grow sunflowers and the slugs ate them before they grew past a couple of inches. This year I’ve been more successful. A combination of keeping a very good eye on them and having a garden that has less slugs in it.

Before I went away for a break they looked like this. Getting bigger but not quite flowering.

You could kinda tell that they were itching to start showing off though!

They looked like this JUST before I went away and I thought I may miss them.

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But oh no!

Just check these big boys out!!!!

They are definitely using up a lot of energy right now and won’t last too much longer but I am so glad I got to see them looking so shiny!

The bees LOVE THESE flowers and you know how I feel about the bees.

Now that I have had some success with sunflowers I will certainly grow them again next year. I’m thinking about having a long wall of them within the paddock. I’ll keep an eye on them at the start and make sure that the slugs and snails are not allowed to have any kind of midnight banquet on them.

One note of caution I will add pertains to tying them to bamboo canes in order to give support. I lost two of my sunflowers due to tying them too tightly to the cane and not allowing the stalk room to grow. As the stalk expanded the tie cut in to the stalk and basically cut them both in half. Not funny!

I’ve still got one waiting to flower and I think that’s the tallest one in my current collection. Already it’s taller than the arch I made with my Dad.

But the thing I love most about growing sunflowers from seed?

The first time you get a glimpse of them they look something like this.

Growth.

LOVE IT!

I’ll be back later on today with a door wreath featuring sunflowers. See you then!

Cherry x

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Join my Facebook page!

Cherry Menlove

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Join my Facebook page!

Cherry Menlove

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Feel free to add me to your links list. Here it is ! - http://www.cherrymenlove.com/

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