On the windowsill it is all happening.
Sowed our first seeds on 22nd February and more to sow this week.
I love seeing them coming up full of promise and full of life.
It is one of the best things in the world.
The sun has got his hat on and we are going out to play! Hip Hip Hooray!
Zeb Bakes 
Lovely! I bought artichoke seeds, too…haven’t started them yet. Nice to see what the babies look like!
This is a variety called Violetta di Romagna, smaller I think than globe artichokes. Good luck with yours Emily!
I had to look up the Corylus Contorta because it is so interesting and attractive – the item I read said its other name is Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick! I love the brave little flower (primrose?). The promise of spring and the garden is energising isn’t it.
The Corylus has the most beautiful catkins this year and the sun hits them just so in the mornings! It sends up straight stems from the roots which we have to cut off, but has this one slow growing curly bit which is good fun. We have too many things stuffed in our garden really.Some of the primroses have been flowering since December this year; this cheeky one has seeded in the paving and I have let it stay as it makes me smile ! Just been digging out an old container and moving the soil into piles and Brian has planted a new blueberry this afternoon.
Doesn’t Spring make you feel good, a lovely season!
I am glad to hear you are enjoying the Spring too, it is a lovely season when we get a little sunshine and dry weather !
Great to see everything coming to life again…especially the seeds.
I hope your garden is opening up in the light too – lovely to be out and about !
You’ve filled me with the promise of spring, even though I’m in the midst of autumn! xx
Do you have autumn flowering plants in Alice Ardys? I have lots of Southern origin shrubs in the garden which are flowering now, maybe you should have some European plants that will flower into your autumn? One in particular by the back door here is much visited by the big white bottomed bumble bees, the Grevillea Clearview David. It has been flowering for a couple of months already!
How lovely. Spring has sprung!
We are hosts of nodding daffodils and waiting for the tulips here, magnolias everywhere, the early cherries are out but not the big ones yet. Lots of tweetage and bright robins too. Trying to persuade the dogs to wake up as it is grooming day and they were very busy on the sands at Burnham yesterday…
Love, love LOVE the Spring…. I slowly start to get back to life, although I definitely hope for less green and more tan on my face ;-)
I have a Corylus ‘contorta’. Ostensibly its to pollinate my hazelnuts but I just love its twisty turny shape :). We are more than ready to hand that hat right on over to you and would like to have a bit more of that drippy stuff that occasionally comes from the sky to make us dance :)
Hope your rain turns up, we have hail and wind and sunshine and showers :)
You are hogging the weather again! We had a humid overcast day yesterday and we have the promise of rain today. The best bit about a bit more rain is that I no longer have to look out at the garden and think “Might have to concrete the lot!” Imagine that carpark!!! ;)
No definitely not . Had stern words with weather and today we have WARM air 15 C after yesterday’s 6 C – might have to lie down and fan myself gently.
LOL! I could send Bezial over as he likes to fan you with his tail ;)
… and the will garlic is out! I like to make pesto with it and it makes a great addition to dals and saag paneer dishes. I suspect it might make an interesting our dough bread…. Hmmmm… Will let you know! ;)
Wild, wild… Damn that pesky predictive text :)
Tarkadhal blog spot, new blog? going to have a look right away!
Hee hee I still have wild garlic from last year in my freezer and threw some in to a oily dal dish I made last week. I used it one time in a ciabatta type bread and I think I have rolled it up as a layer before now in a roll up dough. I haven’t been to the wood to see it yet, though I have a couple of leaves up in the garden :)
May be… We will see.i love dals with a hunk of sourdough bread. My indian flat breads are rather tragic looking. I visited a Sikh temple once and saw this amazing production line of women producing amazingly uniform rotis!
My course has been going well. Over the worse of the academic stuff so have a bit of time to have a play blogging. Still bake once a week, usually a 60:40 white to whole meal with a little rye, or a granary. Though I made the chili, cheese and coriander leaf at the weekend and that is delicious with dals!
apparently, just looked, I have to be invited to see your blog :) hint hint…. I am not very good at indian flat breads, I once made those little Trinididaian style dal stuffed ones, they were probably the best, maybe I should make them again. They were fiddly but good. https://zebbakes.com/2012/02/06/try-a-little-tenderness/ Keep meaning to buy atta flour and get into it all properly. So many things still to bake. I have been making crackers lately. Boxes of them everywhere :) I am glad to hear your course is going well, take care my friend x
Oops. Was still set for “private” :) Made it public. Flat breads are an art form. I was recommended “flat breads & flavours” by Alford & Duguid by an internet friend and having purchased a copy it remains unread on the bookshelf.
Baking wise, I have been reading James Morton’s ” Brilliant bread” – his marmite bread is divine!
I have that book, never baked from it, I am enthralled by Tartine 3. Not sure about marmite bread but why not? x
Flour, water, salt, yeast by Ken Forkish is my favourite most recent bread book. I love baking bread in a cast iron casserole pot. The crusts are great.
A little bit of spring to enjoy – at least visually! We are still in the grip of winter, and I bought some very expensive tulips to have something springlike to look at. (Maybe that keeps me from baking more chocolate-y treats.)
We have more spring now, camelia out and little blue flowers and helebores. And I have a bunch of English grown tulips on the kitchen table and some fresias, but not grown by me. I think you should bake more choclate treats anyway :) :)