Lots of planting

... as I have the pleasant and very enjoyable task of designing our new garden. I love this stage in the process when a garden is just beginning to get "a face".

My new plants are special for two reasons:

a) my dear parents went to a lot of trouble digging them up from their garden, writing instructions, labelling and packing them in wet newspaper and plastic bags so that they would be able to survive a three day car journey. One of them, a 1.5 m high Lilac, even travelled on the roofrack - until the car broke down 350 miles from home!

Which leads me to the second reason why these plants are dear to me: You can probably imagine the adventure we had, travelling with them in Taxis and on the train. The bags were more than we could carry, and of course we had to change trains (at a station which had been closed until 5 minutes before we arrived, due to an abandoned suitcase). Unfortunately quite a few train stations have recently abandoned the idea of luggage trolleys, so I had to enlist the help of fellow passengers.

But everyone and everything survived the trip, so finally, here is the list of the far travelled species:

The aforementioned Lilac (Flieder)
Irises (Schwertlilien)
Aquilegia (or Columbine?; Akelei)
Aster
Astilbe
Lilies of the Valley (Maigloeckchen)
Lysimachia clethroides (Gooseneck Loosestrife; Entenschnabel-Felberich)
Sage (Salbei)
Streifengras (I would like to know the English or even the botanical name...)
Physostegia Virginiana (Gelenkblume)
Achillea Millefolium (Schafgarbe)
Saxifraga Arendsii (Moosteinbrech)
A mysterious shrub (Bodendecker)
Phlox
Campanula (Glockenblume)
Archimenes (Schiefteller)

I might post a picture when all is planted...

Vegetable garden painting

Due to a house move, my vegetable plot now consists of a few strawberry plants, 5 miniature onions, and NO potatoes at all - sniff... Not to mention 5 tiny tomato plants. Not sure why I took those with me in the first place - purely for sentimental reasons, obviously, as they are not going to bear fruit this late in the year. A bit sad for a vegetable plot, but there's always next year...

I thought it would be nice to be around some normal sized plants for a change, so I spent a few pleasant hours on this sunny and warm autumn day sitting in someone else's allotment and painting their vegetable plants - the ones that had survived the harvest.

Cable flower ATC

... for Sian's hole themed swap on the DoCrafts website. Actually I made this ATC already yesterday, but it's either that or talking about the lovely stew I made today - it was tasty but just doesn't make a good headline ... so this is my excuse for changing the subject.

Unfortunately I didn't get much chance to show this ATC around as it had to be posted to arrive on time, so I just HAVE to sneak it into this blog to share it with you. It was so new I barely got a chance to say good bye before it went...

Do you know this effect when you take part in a hosted swap: You decide to make let's say two ATCs, start in good time and then end up almost being late by making another and yet another one - all because you are too chuffed with them to let them go just yet. This happens to me every time. I do find it quite hard to part from them for the first few weeks at least. Then I gradually notice their shortcomings, which makes it a bit easier... Should I feel guilty about that?

I know for some people it's just the other way round: they hate to send off anything that isn't perfect at least in their own eyes.

I bet you are as surprised as I am to find that there can be a moral side to our crafting hobby - if that's how you decide to look at it. I wonder what type of crafter you might be? If I ever find out how to include one of those mini surveys in my blog, I shall ask you about that...

A vegetable flower bed

...for a dozen potatoes. Gardening in the rain - not quite my kind of thing normally, as it compresses the soil AND lets the mud stick to my shoes - yes, it's the clay type of soil we have here.

Glad I did it though as it got me one step nearer to my gardening goal for the back of the house. This year I want to create a vegetable bed going all around the lawn. I'm not too proud to say that today I achieved another 40 cm towards that goal. At that speed, I'm not sure I'll be finished by Christmas ...

My excuse is that I do this job REALLY WELL which includes digging out stones in all sizes, BIG chunks of clay, crumbling the soil, AND getting rid of a week's worth of kitchen scraps at once - a treat for those busy earthworms who will transform this ancient sea bed into nice dark rich crumbly fertile garden soil...

This method is called trench composting and I have to say it's just right for me. Why? Because I certainly DON'T have the patience to wait for half a year in order for those few stray earthworms that happen to find their way into my compost bin to do this sisyphos work...