The Rose

In June I started to secretly search for the rose my mum fell in love with - called rhapsody in blue! 

We first saw the rose while spending the morning down at Groves Nurseries in Bridport, back in January.  Mum fell in love there and then, which I don't blame her - as the scent is wonderful and the colour is beautiful! 

At first I couldn't find one, until I came across a rose company based in Cornwall!  Then the second week in August came and I thought to my self " what am I doing???" - I keep going on about supporting local business's even the family run business.  So I decided to email Groves at Bridport to see if they had any in stock.  A few days later I received a reply back, to say that they had one in stock.  So the next day after I had popped into town I phoned Groves to make my ordered.  I had a lovely guy who answered the phone and took my ordered, I also decided on having the rose gift wrapped! 

I really wanted it to be delivered on the 21st, which was a Tuesday, but they only deliver to my area on a Thursday.  So I opted for the Thursday before!

The 16th of August arrived and I waited hoped and prayed that they would deliver before I went to work.  I had just sat down at 11:30am to start drafting up a blog post, when the door was knocked.  I opened the door and there was a young lad from groves holding the plant that I had ordered. 

After I took the rose off him and said thank you to him. I knew I couldn't hide it from my mum, so I gave it to her... She was over the moon with it, She didn't even say "you shouldn't have"

Picture below of rhapsody in blue! 

Just after it had been deliver

The picture below is of one of the flowers! 

The Veggie patch!

Sorry this is a bit late, as you all may know by now my laptop died so I have had to re-write this out. I'm hoping I do not forget anythink, only time will tell :-) 

Tomato's

To be honest I have had fun with the Chocolate tomato plant's, at first they were happy growing.  Then I planted them up in those black pot's.  After that the cold and wet weather moved in (sorry I know I'm mourning about the weather again), growth stopped.  So I made sure I kept them in the lil green house and fed them extra food! The ones that grew faster I put outside, I only had one chocolate tomato plant left in the green house. 

Not long after the plant's decided to product flower's and stopped growing all together again.

So I decided to experience and remove the flowers from the tomato plants that was outside.  They started to grow again... Yeppie - I finally thought!!!  They grew that much they were way past me in height. 

Maskotka and sweet peas

In my new little greenhouse I had five 'Maskotka' tomato plants growing.  Which I got the seeds from a Gardener's World magazine. 


On the 6th of July I braved the rain to attack the slugs/snails to find one of the Chocolate tomato plants had been eat in half. So I took the top of the plant and pushed it into the soil.  Knowing that the plant will re-shoot roots. 

All the tomato plants re-flowered and product fruit. We didn't get much sun so the tom's did not ripe. 

So around the 23rd of September I decided to harvest the tomato's and put them into a box to storage them. 

Picture is of the ripe tom's

The three Vegetables

My Curly Kale did really well.  But I lost some of the cauliflowers and cabbages.  I think we can guess what had them - yep a slug/snail or maybe a cabbage white caterpillar. I've had one caterpillar this year a bright green thing. I think he escaped when I was busy removing the larva.. So I bagged him up and put him in the rubbish.

If you know me, you will know - I hate killing any think.  You will also know I love snail's, butterfly's, ladybird and bee's. Well most animals, apart from slugs and spider's. 

After the flood on that Saturday, the next day I spent clearing and mopping up. Once the house was sorted out I braved the out sided.  I decided to harvest the curly kale.

Mum was in the down stairs cloak room, so I pasted the kale through the window to her.  I also decided to leave the stokes of the Kale, to see what would happen.  Would I get any more or not? I only got a few more leave, not that much to write home about.

Charlotte Potato's

My Charlotte potato's did really well!  Well........ When I say 'really well', I mean to say only three tubes out of five did really well (which you can see in the picture below).  The planter with bare soil in the corner of the picture had the other two tubes in. That vanished into thin air, I ended up digging down to find out what happen to them and of course they had rotten - yuk - the smell!!!!

Back to the potato's that grew really well, (which you can see at the back of the picture above.)  I got up one morning to find flowers on the plant's. I went back indoors to get the camera - the picture below is what I took!!

You can really see that they are a relative to the Deadly Night Shade Family.

After taking the picture above, I went back indoors to look on-line to see how long until the spuds are ready to gdig up.  I learnt 13weeks from planting tuber to digging up.  So I worked out on my calendar when I was due to digup the spuds (as we call them) it was the 3rd of August.

The 3rd of August came and I went outdoors with my lil spade and started to dig.  I have to confess I was like a little child when I found my first potato :)  The picture above are just some of the spud's I got!

White Lady's - runner Beans

Only picture I got of them.. shamed to say!!!

There is one thing I have not told any of you about the 'White Lady - Runner Beans'.  A week after my plant marathon one of my uncle's popped around with six runner bean plants.  That he had grew - he wanted to give me some think to say thank you the birthday card I made him! 

I got those famous black pot's out and potted them up.  I lost one to a snail/slug, but the rest did really well. At on point I felt like it was 'Jack (Em) and the bean stalk' they grew and grew... Gosh I knew runner beans grew but not that mad!!!  I ended up trailling the stem's around the washing line... The harvest wasn't that big but I did get enough for six meals....