Unbought Delicacies: The garden re-vamp continues.............

Saturday 18 May 2013

The garden re-vamp continues.............

However the future pans out for me and my home, the garden willneed to be done and looking good, and I intend to enjoy it as long as I am here. Illness resulted in nothing being done,so quite a lot of it,front and back, needs looking at. Hence all the plant buying to replenish and replace.
I found a lovely new nursery not that far away this morning;only been open a year, but she had some beautiful plants. So, in the interests of helping out new local buinesses I managed to relieve her of some,plus a very beautiful pot. This was the result:

There are a couple of decent sized auriculas in there - great price at £3.99 - unnamed, but very pretty and well grown;also several black plants, and the prettiest clear lemon aquilegia for only £1.50. I also found a vinca I'd been hankering after for a long time -a very pretty white one, Gertrude Jekyll. I also plundered a couple of roadside stalls too - another blue Jacob's Ladder (a favourite of mine), foxgloves, primroses, ragged robin, a couple more yellow flowered currants and some others that I can't remember right now! lol
Now they all need to be planted, which will be a slow process at the moment, but an enjoyable one.In the coming week I will have to get going onthe edibles too. Just as well I like gardening, eh?
How is your garden doing so far? Would love to hear about it :)

2 comments:

Quilting Cat said...: You have a good haul there. We had a plant sale in the village yesterday, usually raised about £1000 for village use, prices were 30p up to about a fiver, I found a lemon scented pelagonium, my new passion. Love buying from unofficial sources.; 19 May 2013 at 12:04
Paula said...: Hope that you stay and enjoy your garden for many years to come!; 5 June 2013 at 08:28

I have found such joy

I have found such joy in simple things;
A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,
A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof above my head,
And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,
Where yellow sunlight glimmers through the door.
I have found such joy in things that fill
My quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,
A potted plant upon my window sill,
A rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;
A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,
And books I long have loved beside me there.
Oh, I have found such joys I wish I might
Tell every woman who goes seeking far
For some elusive, feverish delight,
That very close to home the great joys are:
The elemental things- old as the race,
Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.

~ Grace Noll Crowell

Ideas for handmade gifts

Small knitteds - gloves, scarves, hot water bottle covers, hats, tea cosies, phone covers, little toys,,cushion covers, bags. Some of these can be felted/fulled for extra interest.
Edibles - chutneys and jams, pickles, nice teas in a vintage/retro tin, sweeties, toffees, mustard, home made wine and liqueurs, home dried fruits, ketchups.
For the home - trimmed tea towels, handknitted dishcloths, quilted wallhangings, small samplers, restored picture frames, pot pourri, lavender bags, covered coathangers, little scented bags for hanging on handles, framed photos of family,etc you've taken yourself, pincushion,needle book, scissor keeper, book of promises (eg babysitting, 1 hour's housework, the ironing, etc)
Bathtime - homemade soap, bath oils, bath salts, knitted washcloths, herbal bags for the bath, hand sewn toilet bags, trimmed hand towels, homemade lotions and potions packed in pretty jars and bottles.
For the garden - home saved seed in handmade decorated packets; homemade handcream, exfoliating soap, wheat bag for those digger's aches and pains!

Handmade books, personalised printed notepaper and envelopes.
Hamper of bits and bobs from the above lists, packed in a pretty lined basket.

I'll add some more as and when I think of them; These can be used all year round and easily tailored to the recipient - everyone loves a homemade gift. :)

Inspiring thoughts.............

I saw a man, an old Cilician, who occupied an acre or two of land that no one wanted.
A patch not worth the ploughing, unrewarding for flocks, unfit for vineyards;
he, however, by planting here and there among the scrub cabbages or white lilies and verbena and flimsy poppies, fancied himself a king in wealth, and coming home late in the evening, loaded his board with unbought delicacies.
Virgil

I had no theories to prove. I merely wanted to try living by my own hands, independently as far as possible from a system of division of labour in which the participant loses most of the pleasure of making and growing things for himself. I wanted to bring in my own fuel and smell its sweet smell as it burned in the hearth I had made. I wanted to grow my own food, or forage after it. In short I wanted to do as much as I could for myself, because I had already realised from partial experience the inexpressible joy of doing so.

Harlan Hubbard, Shantyboat: A River Way of Life

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Saturday 18 May 2013

The garden re-vamp continues.............

2 comments: