Long time no see :)

It's been a very long time since I visited this part of my world !

I have posted a few pictures on Facebook, but I have trouble loading them onto here, so I tend to put it off!  I shouldn't as I do like to look back and see what I've been up to!

This was the metre square garden that I was using throughout summer. I harvested a good lot of veggies from it, and I still have leeks to plant out from it, and dill and coriander seeds to harvest.

My gorgeous Jake having a little sniff in the summer breeze...

He loves the sun..

He also loves to curl up cutely on my lap for a cuddle :)

This was a quilt i made for someone for their 60th Birthday. I also appliqued the name of their business under the Penny Farthing in Black.  I was really happy with this quilt.

I grew melon marrows, butternut squashes and yellow cougettes int he tyres this year. this photo is at the beginning of summer....
alas i wont have this garden to use next summer. But as yet I dont know where we'll be living either, so i suppose its for the best that I wont have it....

Unfortunately our beautiful kitty was run over aand killed a couple of weeks ago.

Poor Jake is missing him terribly and has really gone off his food.

he really was a beatiful cat, and a very sad time in the Retro household when it happened.
RIP Titch. bless you. xx

Homegrown melon marrow, tomatoes and lemon cucumber. they were all delicious,

This is one of the first fabric crocheted baskets Ive put in my Etsy shop for sale. Like my blogging, listing items in my etsy store has taken rather a long time to get around to doing....
Life always seems to get in the way somehow...

But i must up the anti on listing and selling my items at fairs as well as Etsy and Ebay if I can.
I'm going to be doing this as part of my Frugal Forums Challenge as well. learning to sell my items and try and make a business form scratch.

This last picture is of homegrown tomatoes, chillies and garlic all weighed out and ready to make 'Welsh Poppys' Chilli Jam. I forgot to photograph the finished product, but I will for my next blog post. It is absolutely delicious.  if youd like the recipe, and other recipes for frugal living and making your money stretch, just click on the link above to take you to all the information and help you'll need to get you started on a more homemade life ;)

Sorry this is a picture heavy post and the pictures arent really in any order, but I'm still getting to grips with loading my pictures on my ipad, then writing the text on my laptop.

But hopefully once I start blogging a bit more regularly I'll get used to it :)
Anyway, hope you like my first blog post in ages -especially Joanie -
Take care folks. Big hugs, Donna xx

How's my garden growing?

Well, goodness me, my blog posts are slightly sporadic! I must keep up with them.

I've actually managed to upload some photos to picasa so that I can post them on here!
So here goes :)

The photos aren't in any particular order as I haven't learnt how to do that yet!

Here goes ...

Above is the apple core die cuts that I made for the apple core quilt.

This is Titch! He is our latest addition to the house and belongs to Miss 18. He is such a sweetie pie. A really beautiful, cheeky boy.

The lettuce cutting bit in the greenhouse, along with self seeded Brussels (I think..) 

This is my metre square garden bed. 16 types of veg (oh, there are sunflowers in one section..) 

The broad beans are romping away. This is my third sowing of broad beans. I have quite big pods on my other two sowings..

These are some of my chilli plants and celeriac plus a couple of fennel seedlings..

Aaaaw, Jake and Titch finally sleeping together..

This is the beginning of another quilt. I was testing out background fabrics. I think I've made up my mind now, and will show you the results in the next couple of weeks..

Sowing Time

 

Spring is here at last! (I hope :) )

I've had a good winter walking Jake and making plans for this year.

The sun has been out this past week, so I've been making the most of it and sowing seeds like mad!

I'm hoping that it's not too early! 

 

These beautiful crocus were out at the college last week when I went to pick Miss 18 up.

Jake loves going there because all the students always make a fuss of him.....especially the girls!

 

These are my second lot of seed that I've sown so far this year. They're sheltering in the greenhouse at the moment, but its still missing a few panes of glass after this years storms. Luckily only one broken pane though :( 

The spring onions are left overs from being planted last summer. They're a bit tough, but still perfectly edible!

 

And these are the broad beans that were sown last October. To be honest, they're not that far ahead of the ones I sowed a few weeks ago, so I'm not really sure if it was worth sowing them early, but we'll see.

 

I've started a RHS Horticulture college course! Yes I know, back to college! But I'm hoping it will lead onto further and better things!

 

Anyways, gotta scoot now as its Miss 14's 15th Birthday tomorrow, so I have things to do.

 

Have a great week folk.

Take care. x