Magnolia Heaven

A glorious day, I took a trip to Bute Park in Cardiff to visit the magnolia trees, in full bloom. The pictures say it all, but nothing beats seeing them for real, and they smell divine!

And here's our magnolia tree in our garden.

I planted a few more sweet peas today (only about 5 of the ones I planted last month have sprouted) and a few more tomatoes.

Hello Sweet pea

Here's the first of the sweet peas popping her head to say hello.

The first magnolia flower:

 

 And leeks. 

Yesterday I planted some jalapeno and cayenne red chilli seeds, and a few more broad beans (Sutton Dwarf) - seeds I bought from Seed Parade.

 

Seren guarding the greenhouse for predators.

My quilt

My quilt is coming along, thanks to sewing help from my sister, and my mum who just sent me 100 hexagons! Thanks Mum. I've only sewn together a few of the hexagons so far:

So only five ker-zillion more to sew together. This will be a project that may well take years! Here are some pictures of it all laid out. 

Maybe I'll get it made sooner with this little girl helping me out! 

I started making the quilt at the lovely St Fagan's Quilt Club. The next Quilt Club meet is on 7 July. 


Pictures of my quilt and others, and details of other St Fagan's Craft groups (including my knitting workshop this Saturday) are on this blog post.

Cacti, tomatoes and foraging

A gorgeous afternoon yesterday, I pulled up a chair in my greenhouse, and I repotted 2 cacti plants (the one of the right which I grew from seed as a student!) and a sad looking aloe vera plant:

I also planted 2 trays of tomato seeds, some Red Cherry, San Marzano and Moneymaker.

And a walk around Miskin, lots of wild primroses (apparently the flowers and leaves are edible, but it's illegal to pick them):

primroses

And the wild garlic season is soon to be upon us, lots of leaves showing already: 

wild garlic

Wakey wakey

The garden is waking up. Here are some photos I took today in the glorious sunshine.

pretty tiny bell flowers on an unidentified evergreen bush

the magnolia flowers getting ready to bloom

raspberry shoots

garlic

Sez sunning herself

Sez exploring

the rest of the garlic which I planted out today

Monty says I must plant my pepper seeds - will do that tomorrow!


Edit: I found out from the friend who gave me the raspberry plant, that's it a variety called Autumn Bliss, and will harvest from Autumn onwards.