I popped this up for you dearest :) Photos are deceptive. The little glass house is a cold frame, about knee high, much loved by snails in winter. The stones in the rill are meant to look like a riverbed and when I turn on the non solar ungreen water feature the water bubbles up one end and rushes down over the stones and then down the curvey bit. I’ll post a better pic so you can see it properly tomorrow. xx
I need an answer to a simple ‘pea shoot’ question, but to date, no one has been able to answer it – hopefully, with your deep reservoir of knowledge, you can do so. The question is this, ‘If I pick off a decent batch of pea shoots for a salad, will that act damage the vines as they produce beans or peas?’ I even asked a prominent Asian food blogger who had just done a post on how to use pea shoots – when I asked, she responded, ‘I don’t know, I don’t grow these things, I buy them at the market.’
I think if I don’t get an answer soon, I’ll just find out the hard way – I’ll pick the shoots and see if the beans come anyway – my only fear is that picking the shoots will kill the bean production!
Maybe doing that will just result in the same thing as “pinching out” does, giving a denser subsequent re-growth? It’s worth just giving it a go, I think.
Well, if the peas form from the flowers, then if you eat the flowers then there won’t be any peas… but maybe if you take the top ones, then they will make side shoots… the question is ‘Do you feel lucky?’. What you need is ‘Gardener’s Question Time’ they would know the answer. I suspect you can’t have your peashoots and eat them. I’ve had a google – this sounds as if it will upset your vines somewhat…. Gardening about article
nice recipe here for duck breast and pea shoot salad… yum!
chocveg
lovely garden pics, very zen! I’ve stopped using my cold frame because it is a snail hotel all year round!!
Heavenly! Look at your tomatoes in the cold frame just bursting with life. How lucky you are to be basking in the warmth of your beautiful garden while we shiver and squelch in ours. :)
My tomatoes were sown very late, and I’m growing only a few plants as I am not convinced we won’t get blight again. I’m doing a few Gardeners Delight and a little tumbling sort and putting them all in tubs. Cross fingers for me Christine. As to warm, well we haven’t had a really warm day since Easter would you believe. It’s still sock weather here and it’s mid-summer.
I grew tomatoes on my balcony when I lived in a flat, I would tie the stems into the railings, but it did have a sunny aspect. I used to perch my rosemary on the top and on windy days it would turn into a jumper. They’re a lot of work these gardens, not that I give it the attention it needs, sometimes I hanker after a balcony again….
I’m very impressed with your collage-photo-effect. You’ve inspired me, once I mow my way through the laundry, ironing, cleaning, weeding, etc that I ignored while family visited. Three weeks of chores is a lot. And Peder’s leaving town on business for a week tomorrow. His timing is suspect.
Iphoto, irritating programme that it is, does some nifty things when you email photos that you can adapt and use, that’s how the collage happened and the pinboard thingy on the Cold Water post. I’m thinking about changing my blog theme to have a more compact view, this one is so spread out, a little text goes a long way and I think everyone must get tired of endlessly scrolling down.
Chores? We have a saying here. “It can wait till tomorrow” unless it’s alive and needs attention, so relatives, the dogs. garden and meals always get priority and ironing comes very low down the list.
We got to the end of the Danish TV thriller series finally! It was very good, many twists and turns :)
I like your theme. Lots of ‘white space’ makes it easy to read. I’m playing with a new theme for my photos, although I haven’t settled on one yet.
Bought “Killing” for Peder for Father’s Day. Molly gave it to him. He hasn’t started watching it yet, but he’s intrigued.
Oh, and beyond the distractions of family, I now have the builders here constructing my new deck along the side of the house. I’ll be brewing a constant stream of coffee for approximately 10-days. And oddly, I just noticed that my own coffee cup is not only icy cold but also empty.
The builders jumped ship at noon because of heavy rain, fearing for the safety of their electrical equipment….so I decided to make Azélia’s easy bread recipe. My fingers are strumming the desk, waiting for the loaves to cool so I can try a slice.
We have lovely dog walking weather here, sun, a little breeze, about 19 C. Blue skies and puffy clouds. I don’t know Az’s easy bread recipe, but she makes great looking bread, so I’m sure it will be good :)
Your garden is lovely- your pictures wonderful, except I can’t get a closeup on anything because of the format!
Gardens are so very much work- weeds and blight and insects and weather are all out to get me and my garden looks like a neglected war zone half of the time!
And I’m off for another week- my husband muddles about but his heart hankers after straight rows and mulched areas, whereas I’m more into the glorious abandon look. No wonder the beds look so confused!
I’ve got some more pictures to share but that was just a quick one to have something other than my crazed consumer post about the velux blind on the front page ;) I am a dreadful gardener, I moan continuously while I am digging, and then have to go and lie down with a cup of tea and a packet of chocolate digestives. I take after my mother, I like to deadhead and inspect the vegetables. I ran away this morning as the ants were swarming up through the stones on the patio. I dripped a little scented oil on their nest and they started coming up in their thousands with wings! Time to evacuate!
tom aron
I remeber that balcony well,lots of watering but worth it for the long season of fruit
Ah now I remember – the one with all the step by step photos – I have a terrible memory these days ;)
jan trounce
Love the photo effect and the soft, lush greenery of an English summer. I do love your non-Zen water feature, that’s fun – one does have to break out occasionally!
The whole garden was designed and then we more or less destroyed the design as we went along. It was far too tidy and there were lots of plants and trees that died or just didn’t work. The next garden (if there is such a thing) will be an orchard of fruit trees with grass underneath and chickens and geese. No herbacaeous borders, no lawn, maybe a veg bed…. dreaming on….
Mitchdafish
I particularly admire your stoney feature, however really I have visited to see how you are and tell you how much I miss you #sobswildly
I will be returning to check in, glad you found one of my blogs, I have experimented with many but none have really taken off, Tumblr is the most used though I have just dicovered instagram… Anyway keep well and keep blogging, love Mitch
#missyoutomitchdafish but am only beginning to surface from l’infer c’est les macs nouveaux – I think I might tweet again in the autumn, long nights, rubbish tv and so on. Never say never. And always hum the theme from Bond when looking for somewhere to park a car in Bristol, (Bond never has to look for a parking space) Just had a lovely swim in Henleaze lake, 18 C, positively warm, especially with a wet suit xx
Zeb Bakes 
Beautiful! And you have a little glasshouse as well! Are the stones in the trough just decorative?
I popped this up for you dearest :) Photos are deceptive. The little glass house is a cold frame, about knee high, much loved by snails in winter. The stones in the rill are meant to look like a riverbed and when I turn on the non solar ungreen water feature the water bubbles up one end and rushes down over the stones and then down the curvey bit. I’ll post a better pic so you can see it properly tomorrow. xx
Beautiful!
It’s a wild place the suburban back garden, here be dragons.. well pigeons and foxes and many things that leave mysterious poo overnight….. ;)
I need an answer to a simple ‘pea shoot’ question, but to date, no one has been able to answer it – hopefully, with your deep reservoir of knowledge, you can do so. The question is this, ‘If I pick off a decent batch of pea shoots for a salad, will that act damage the vines as they produce beans or peas?’ I even asked a prominent Asian food blogger who had just done a post on how to use pea shoots – when I asked, she responded, ‘I don’t know, I don’t grow these things, I buy them at the market.’
I think if I don’t get an answer soon, I’ll just find out the hard way – I’ll pick the shoots and see if the beans come anyway – my only fear is that picking the shoots will kill the bean production!
Maybe doing that will just result in the same thing as “pinching out” does, giving a denser subsequent re-growth? It’s worth just giving it a go, I think.
Well, if the peas form from the flowers, then if you eat the flowers then there won’t be any peas… but maybe if you take the top ones, then they will make side shoots… the question is ‘Do you feel lucky?’. What you need is ‘Gardener’s Question Time’ they would know the answer. I suspect you can’t have your peashoots and eat them. I’ve had a google – this sounds as if it will upset your vines somewhat…. Gardening about article
nice recipe here for duck breast and pea shoot salad… yum!
lovely garden pics, very zen! I’ve stopped using my cold frame because it is a snail hotel all year round!!
Thanks Choc! It’s the cumulative effect of green that I like, all this rain suddenly the garden has gone mad!
Heavenly! Look at your tomatoes in the cold frame just bursting with life. How lucky you are to be basking in the warmth of your beautiful garden while we shiver and squelch in ours. :)
My tomatoes were sown very late, and I’m growing only a few plants as I am not convinced we won’t get blight again. I’m doing a few Gardeners Delight and a little tumbling sort and putting them all in tubs. Cross fingers for me Christine. As to warm, well we haven’t had a really warm day since Easter would you believe. It’s still sock weather here and it’s mid-summer.
As someone that has a small balcony your and Celia’s gardens are such dreams of mine! :D
I grew tomatoes on my balcony when I lived in a flat, I would tie the stems into the railings, but it did have a sunny aspect. I used to perch my rosemary on the top and on windy days it would turn into a jumper. They’re a lot of work these gardens, not that I give it the attention it needs, sometimes I hanker after a balcony again….
Haven’t your tomato plants set blossoms yet?
I’m very impressed with your collage-photo-effect. You’ve inspired me, once I mow my way through the laundry, ironing, cleaning, weeding, etc that I ignored while family visited. Three weeks of chores is a lot. And Peder’s leaving town on business for a week tomorrow. His timing is suspect.
Iphoto, irritating programme that it is, does some nifty things when you email photos that you can adapt and use, that’s how the collage happened and the pinboard thingy on the Cold Water post. I’m thinking about changing my blog theme to have a more compact view, this one is so spread out, a little text goes a long way and I think everyone must get tired of endlessly scrolling down.
Chores? We have a saying here. “It can wait till tomorrow” unless it’s alive and needs attention, so relatives, the dogs. garden and meals always get priority and ironing comes very low down the list.
We got to the end of the Danish TV thriller series finally! It was very good, many twists and turns :)
I like your theme. Lots of ‘white space’ makes it easy to read. I’m playing with a new theme for my photos, although I haven’t settled on one yet.
Bought “Killing” for Peder for Father’s Day. Molly gave it to him. He hasn’t started watching it yet, but he’s intrigued.
Oh, and beyond the distractions of family, I now have the builders here constructing my new deck along the side of the house. I’ll be brewing a constant stream of coffee for approximately 10-days. And oddly, I just noticed that my own coffee cup is not only icy cold but also empty.
And it’s started to rain …
Again …
That’s good to hear Miskmask, I don’t promise not to change it, but I am still thinking about it.
New deck? It’s all go in that garden of yours ;)
The builders jumped ship at noon because of heavy rain, fearing for the safety of their electrical equipment….so I decided to make Azélia’s easy bread recipe. My fingers are strumming the desk, waiting for the loaves to cool so I can try a slice.
We have lovely dog walking weather here, sun, a little breeze, about 19 C. Blue skies and puffy clouds. I don’t know Az’s easy bread recipe, but she makes great looking bread, so I’m sure it will be good :)
Your garden is lovely- your pictures wonderful, except I can’t get a closeup on anything because of the format!
Gardens are so very much work- weeds and blight and insects and weather are all out to get me and my garden looks like a neglected war zone half of the time!
And I’m off for another week- my husband muddles about but his heart hankers after straight rows and mulched areas, whereas I’m more into the glorious abandon look. No wonder the beds look so confused!
I’ve got some more pictures to share but that was just a quick one to have something other than my crazed consumer post about the velux blind on the front page ;) I am a dreadful gardener, I moan continuously while I am digging, and then have to go and lie down with a cup of tea and a packet of chocolate digestives. I take after my mother, I like to deadhead and inspect the vegetables. I ran away this morning as the ants were swarming up through the stones on the patio. I dripped a little scented oil on their nest and they started coming up in their thousands with wings! Time to evacuate!
I remeber that balcony well,lots of watering but worth it for the long season of fruit
It was a magic balcony Tom, and it made the neighbours jealous too, didn’t it? he he.
Here’s Azélia’s Easy Bread Recipe
Ah now I remember – the one with all the step by step photos – I have a terrible memory these days ;)
Love the photo effect and the soft, lush greenery of an English summer. I do love your non-Zen water feature, that’s fun – one does have to break out occasionally!
The whole garden was designed and then we more or less destroyed the design as we went along. It was far too tidy and there were lots of plants and trees that died or just didn’t work. The next garden (if there is such a thing) will be an orchard of fruit trees with grass underneath and chickens and geese. No herbacaeous borders, no lawn, maybe a veg bed…. dreaming on….
I particularly admire your stoney feature, however really I have visited to see how you are and tell you how much I miss you #sobswildly
I will be returning to check in, glad you found one of my blogs, I have experimented with many but none have really taken off, Tumblr is the most used though I have just dicovered instagram… Anyway keep well and keep blogging, love Mitch
#missyoutomitchdafish but am only beginning to surface from l’infer c’est les macs nouveaux – I think I might tweet again in the autumn, long nights, rubbish tv and so on. Never say never. And always hum the theme from Bond when looking for somewhere to park a car in Bristol, (Bond never has to look for a parking space) Just had a lovely swim in Henleaze lake, 18 C, positively warm, especially with a wet suit xx