March 1...This day is Springtime!

Dear Family and Friends


You know I've just been waiting for March 1..for me, this date means Spring time! Yes...it was sunny but still nippy...yet, no cold air can hold us back from gardening...

Got my seeds, potting tray/pots and soil... and I started sowing some flower seeds indoor.

One frugal way of doing things is to recycle. It can save us some money. Money saved is money earned! I reused yogurt pots for seed sowing....just cut some holes on bottom for drainage purpose.

There's lots of flower plantlets sold in garden centres...but it all cost money! It's just as easy to buy some seeds to self sow. I get a lot more plants for a fraction of price this way too. You know by now, I'm actually an accountant:) turned gardener! 

For today, I sowed some silver leaf sinecio...

As well as the cheerful Busy Lissy...

Some lobelias too... I need a lot more than these, but the others can wait for another day.....

Some plants grown from last year survive the winter months...like this Lavender. I pruned all the dead old leaves and stem to give them... not only a nice clean look, but also to encourage it to shoot more new branches which will equal to more flowers later on!  From this lavender bush, I managed to dig up some free new shoots with roots... and replanted them elsewhere.

I'm creating a new flower garden in this area. It would be nice in a few months with the lined up lavender plants ...

This is our polytunnel....just a simple metal hoops into the ground with plastic over it. In there is a place where I've sown some spinach, pak choi, ruby chard and some lettuce seeds ...it's warm enough for them to get a head start. Yes, they are all popping up even though we have below zero freezing night temperature.

Flower bulbs are good to have in the garden because they just keep coming back every year. Here's a group of tulips...The leaves pop up first, and their flower stems will follow next.

There's all sorts of flower bulbs I've planted the past years like the daffodil (the lighter colour leaves in the background) and many hayacinth bulbs (the one with darker leaves)...In a few weeks, they will start colouring the garden, and those hayacinths will over power our garden with its fragrance as there's many of them around!

Besides the snow drops, crocuses are now in bloom. It would be nice if I have lots and lots of them because they can cover the ground with lovely colours at this time of the year.... perhaps in time, they will multiply without us having to buy some more bulbs.

This used to be my very narrow flower bed. As I'm pickle headed, sometimes I don't know what I want right away...After a year, I decided to enlarge this patch and made it my kitchen garden....Thus, I have a straight row of daffodils in this bed. I should dig them out but never did. Today, we showered this plot with compost...in other words, decayed stuff...like kitchen veggie scraps plus animal poops....oh they are so good for the garden... and NO, they don't smell at all because they are by now composted!

It's been a long day spent in the garden...doing the necessary chores.... it's pure pleasure to do this at this time! At the end of the day, our grumbling tummies called us all back to the kitchen for some nourishment. This huge pumpkin is one of the many we had from last year's harvest...and there's still a few more to keep up with. 

A quick and nourishing meal to end up a busy day like today would just have to be: a simple pumpkin soup with fresh bread. Yum....After watching our routine one or two TV series episode of Charlie's Angels (already finished Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series = good winter family treat activity)...we should all have a goodnight sleep tonight!!

Hope you have a good day too, if not, a good Spring start day!


Yours truly


Annie