Ripple on

This is one of many current projects... a ripple blanket. The pattern is from Lucy at Attic24 and it's really rather fabulously easy to do. The stitches are basically repeats of 4 which makes it a good one for sitting in front of the telly, or when you're sitting at the computer waiting for the painfully slow internet to load.

Sadly I've had to put this blankie aside to work on other, mostly Christmas-related projects. I've also been tackling the weedy garden. Yates Woody Weedkiller is said to work on convulvulus, if you mix it up in a jar and paint it on the leaves. You can also get a little plastic bag, put some solution in the bag, put some cut stems (preferably root) into the bag, and it will hopefully suck all the weedkiller into its roots and kill the whole thing. That is what I'm hoping for, organics be damned if it gets rid of this pest!

I'm getting a reasonable harvest these days - like this rhubarb and these sugar snap peas. The sugar snaps are going mad - I get a good double handful like this every 2-3 days. The dwarf massey peas are going well too (at least the ones in the container are - the ones in the garden were planted next to leeks which they didn't seem to like, and were very stunted in growth). I have green tomatoes on 5 plants in the glasshouse. At least in there they are protected from the cold northeasterlies which have been a constant part of spring this year. Broad beans are still going strong too (shame I'm sick of eating them.)

As for harvest duds - all the apples fell off as flowerbuds. One tree had one tiny fruit remaining, but after a while I noticed that it was brown and cracked. I think they were probably hit by one of the many late frosts we had. My pumpkins were slow to germinate and I had a low strike rate - I haven't grown them from seed before so I'm not sure if that's normal. The plants aren't doing much outside, again probably due to the cold winds and low temperatures.

Stay tuned, I have some more creative projects coming up to share, plus Lui has been acting weird (mind you, weird is normal for him) so there will be another Weird Cat Behaviour post coming up.