Eight-by-Six

About a week ago I was given two  (yes two) blog awards from Jo at The Goodlife . The awards are  Beautiful Blogger Award and the One Lovely Blog Award. I've never recieved an award before so I want to say a very big thank you and I love reading your blog too. The rules of the awards are to link to the blog which gave you the award and to list seven random things about yourself and pass the awards on to other blogs which you feel deserve them. Here are my random 7 things (it was difficult to think what to write at first then it just poured out!) 1. I've just started to bake muffins and after three failed attempts I think I have it right! So I would like to recommend the book Muffins Fast and Fantastic by Susan Reimer. I borrowed this book from a friend and even I can follow it! 2. I'm not a morning person so I normally write my blogs late at night when I also do my newspaper articles for two local papers. 3. My middle name is Susan and I ...

It has been a hectic week. We decided on Tuesday that we wanted to buy Moss II and drove all the way to Cheshire on Tuesday night to collect him. We only had a picture and our gut feeling to go on. It was the most amazing crazy journey and I loved every minute of it, just like I now love him! He is now the newest member of the Hurrell family and we all love him to bits, including Moss 1. Only problem is his name was already Moss and we didn't want to change it because he is 11 months into field training. He loves gardening as much as me and when I am work he's been looking after my veg patch. Hence his new training cage arrived by express courier this am! So from now on my blog updates will also include my new little man :)

After a late night entertaining my sister's family I didn't get much done today. I really do need lots of sleep to keep me going - and coffee! I used some fresh spinach out of the garden in one of my dishes and it was lovely. So today I just pottered about after taking some rubbish to the tip - had to queue for over 1/2 hour to get in there! After watering/checking all the seedlings and take the tender ones back outside today, it's a mamous task isn't it? I finally re-planted some herbs from a hanging basket I did last year. It wasn't such a good idea but the herbs survived the winter and are now planted in front of the veg patch. I got a couple of buckets full of compost out of my composter. I love being able to do that in the Spring. I still find it amazing that I put all those tea bags, veg peelings and newspapers and it turns into lovely fresh compost. So I mixed this with a veg grow bag from Homebase and filled up three troughs - I put salad in one, dwarf beans...

There is just not enough time to do everything and be at work full time! This week I have been watering seedlings everywhere including the kitchen, dining room and cold frames and when not watering baking muffins! I've made three batches in a week and the last batch have just come out of the oven (banana, dark choc chunks and walnut) The last batch are for my in-laws who are popping over tomorrow when I am at work. And trying to fit in knitting my jumper, yes I've now gone onto knitting a jumper. And just in case you think I must have finished the cardigan, it's not so appealing so I started another project! My husband gets annoyed that I keep starting one and then getting bored with it. Anyway enjoy the rest of your week. Amanda x

I made the most of the spring sunshine today and spent most of the day in the garden. I planted two new climbers, cleared away last weekends cuttings and Ian added some small slate pavers to the front of the veg patch to tidy it up. The plan is to keep one side for herbs and the other side my rhubarb and add some flowers I am growing from seed. One thing the garden lacked last year was lots of flowers for the bees. So this year I am growing dwarf sunflowers (these did well last year), morning glory, cosmos, antirrhinum (chuckles from Anne) cornflower and sweet peas. I have lots of packs of seeds but thought this was enough! My seeds arrived in the post this morning from Mr Fothergills - I received asparagus pea, courgette black forest and two free packs (Livingstone Daisy & Rocket runway (which I've grown before). I ran out of time to start the courgettes so plan to do this tomorrow. I will grown these up a wall. Germinated this week - courgette cocozelle v tripol...

Happy Easter to all my blog friends. Today my plan is to eat chocolate, start off my courgettes and morning glory and plant out my peas. I've had a couple of busy days in the garden planting a new hedge, putting down fresh bark and a general clean up. Enjoy your day whatever you do. Amanda x

Thank you for taking the time to send me photos and comments about your gardens. The winner is Jo at The Goodlife  for adding a very small pond in her border to attract wildlife and beneficial insects into the garden. Well done Jo, please send me your address via email and I'll send your packet of goodies to you. I will be posting a new competition in April so watch this space. I had a busy afternoon in the garden today and took some of my own advice and planted a new hedge and moved a small Acer tree down the side of my pond (well Ian's pond!). I chose Ilex because it looks a bit like a Bay but it's a holly and also Cornus Alba because the stems are a lovely colour in the winter. I moved the tree last year to extend my veg patch and it had to be moved to its permanent place today. Lots of rain and very muddy pair of wellies later all planted. I just need to add some new bark chippings and tidy up a bit, probably do that on Sunday. Enjoy your Easter week...