Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens

Hiya!

I've been promising to show these piccies of our visit to Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens for a while so I thought it was about time I got around to it!

We had a lovely time. There are lots of pretty flowers....

And I love the secret garden style little doors you can find.....

But I was mostly interested in the edibles they are growing... Gooseberries:

HUUUUGE bean wigwams:

All sorts of cabbages, lettuces and beans:

And they've got a beautiful orchard. This is one of their pear trees:

And some more pretty flowers :-)

We had a lovely time. Well worth a visit if you can make it over :-) Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of when we saw Animals in Hands - mainly because my hands were full with frogs, cockroaches, snails and other creatures! Loved it! If you ever get a chance to see them, make sure you do!

My thanks to Yvonne and Graham for letting us know about the event and getting some tickets for us before the rush! :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

Some produce, a question and an update.....

Hiya!

Got to make this a quick post cos I'm taking the littl'un swimming this morning :-)

So here is my first produce of the year - the strawberry finally ripened! Of course then it had to be divided into quarters so that we all got a chance to taste it :-) Verdict: yummy!

And that one was followed a couple of days later by these two - also cut into quarters and compared because one is Elsanta and one is Pegasus. Verdict: both yummy but Elsanta definitely wins! :-)

So while I was in the greenhouse, I was inspecting my tomato plants and found this:

Any ideas, gardening pals??? It's happened to a few leaves but doesn't seem to be spreading so I'm hoping it's not any sort of disease.... It happened to co-incide with a hot day when I left the greenhouse door open for a bit to allow some air flow but don't know if that has anything to do with it???? Any advice would be gratefully received!

I have got some lovely tomatoes coming along though. What do you think? :-)

Back on the allotment we decided to give George's patch a bit of an overhaul. His carrots never materialised and I think a mixture of animal invasion and not enough rain (or watering....) put an end to the beetroot and spring onions. We've cleared all the weeds, sown some more carrots and covered them with netting and planted the onions and beetroot I'd been growing in the greenhouse:

A better piccie of the beetroot and onions:

My beans are doing ok but they still seem to be a way behind my neighbours. Perhaps a little weeding would help....

The first couple of pods are visible on my peas but the plants are still quite small. These need weeding too!

I read a tip on someone's blog (I'll try to find the link.... Let me know if it's yours!) about using upturned ends of pop bottles to allow the water to get straight to the roots of your pumpkins so I thought I'd give it a go:

I had a sneaky peek at how my potatoes were doing aswell. There's loads there but they're still a bit small so I tucked them back in again. I'm hoping to dig up a few for when my Dad comes for dinner at the weekend :-)

And just another reminder of where I've come from. The next plot over is now truly a jungle! Lots of sun and rain certainly works on those weeds!!!!

Right, gotta go.... Catch up again soon!

Love 'n' hugs,