Spinach and things

This afternoon someone was coming to do a couple of hours' digging in my vegetable patch (I'm such a fair weather gardener), so after ignoring it for the last couple of months, I went out there to see what I wanted dug up.

To my utter amazement quite a lot was still growing. The spinach was really thick and tall, the parsley was doing great, the strawberries had full circles of leaves, the leeks I planted last spring are still growing, and the rhubarb was pushing up through the ground.

I was totally impressed that the spinach and parsley had survived the cold and snow that we'd experienced, and since we've been told there's more icy weather on the way, I picked as much spinach as I could.

I've made my favourite spinach curry, which is bubbling on the cooker right now, and I'm cooking some rice to go with it. I eat it with natural yoghurt on the side. I would take a picture of it to show here, but it actually tastes much better than it looks.

My vegetable patch now looks neat and tidy again. The forecast icy weather should break up the earth that's been dug and destroy any weeds.

While I was picking the spinach I came across quite a few ladybirds that appeared to be dead. I left them alone, but when I put the spinach in the kitchen, I found a ladybird wandering around. I realised that maybe it had been asleep, so I took it back outside and put it in the spinach patch so it could carry on sleeping till spring. I've since checked online, and apparently what I should have done is put it in a glass jar and leave it in my shed to hibernate safely through the winter.

Gorgeous Day

It's been a gorgeous day here with wall to wall sunshine. In between washing and hanging out laundry, I read for a bit in the garden, and then I started to do some gardening.

Last year was a bit of a disaster in my vegetable patch, because even though I'd covered my vegetables with fleece or netting, I woke up one morning to find that all my salad plants had been decimated overnight by marauding slugs and snails.

I read recently that coffee grounds left around the salad patch are a good barrier for slugs, so I've been saving them up, and today I planted some lettuce seeds in a square area and surrounded it with coffee grounds. Unfortunately I ran out before the square was closed, but I think I have enough time, before the seedlings come up, to drink enough coffee to complete the square.

I've outlined the shape of the square, you can just barely see the coffee grounds, and the green line shows where I started and the red arrow shows where I ran out.

I hope this works, because I got very annoyed last year when I lost my whole crop.

I'm looking after Hooli this weekend and I got quite cross with him because he was digging near the boundary fence. I told him to stop, he'd pause, then start digging again, and just when I was ready to really yell at him, he pulled out a squeeky rubber turkey dressed in a santa costume.


He was so pleased with himself, he kept making it squeek.

I once read that squirrels bury nuts all through the summer and autumn, for use in the winter, and then can't remember where they buried them. Well I reckon Hooli must have buried that turkey at Christmas time, and remembered it all these months later. Does that make him smarter than a squirrel?

Brrr... It's freezing

Yes folks, after days and days of sunny springlike weather, today has been quite cold, and tonight... well let me put it this way, the forecast is for -2C (that's 28F). Okay, maybe it isn't so cold if you're in one of the chillier regions of the globe, but compared to what we've become used to recently it's positively frigid here!

We do need the frost though, my vegetable garden needs it to kill off any weeds and bugs that might be lurking around, and to break down the compost that's been dug in. I almost did some sowing last week, but I'm glad I held off now.

I won a prize in the recent One World One Heart event. Pamela from Quilts n More sent me a message to say that I won one of her postcards. I'm thrilled to bits, and I can't wait to see it.

Betty of Betty's This And That has passed on this award to me:

Blogging With Purpose Award Rules:

Awarded parties must nominate five people who have not received the award.
The blogs that receive the award must serve some purpose.
In their post about the award they need to link back to this entry.
Awarded parties must post the award banner on their site. The banner must remain linked to the above linked site.

I would like to nominate Sally, Dawn, Lisa S Oceandreamer, Lanne, and Donna.