Welcome To The Jungle... and the Fairies that be there.

New Year's day has come and gone, and here we are 3 days in. I have to say though, I'm really still not feeling the blogging spirit at the moment, but figured I should put in something. I took photos of the garden on New Year's day, to keep the 'photo record' of the ever changing face of the garden going.

The Jungle...

Row 1. All the tomatoes have gone completely insane, and are three times bigger than anything I have grown previously - even though some are the same varieties. They have long ago destroyed their stakes, spilled out onto the paths, and are invading the neighbouring plots. Actually pretty much everything in the garden has gone like that. I put that down to the 4 years of work conditioning the soil with only organic composts and manures, heavy mulching including the paths, and keeping it entirely chemical & spray free.

Row 2. All you can see now of row 2 is the corn, which is doing beautifully. Above the centre of the corn you can see the sunflower plants in the back plot, which are now - no kidding- almost 10ft high!

One of the Sunflowers.



Row 2 from the opposite end. Originally I planted sweet peppers and onions in this back plot, along with some purple potatoes on one edge (the left edge from this perspective). However the plot has since sprouted much self-sown dill (yum), a couple of self-sown pumpkins of unknown variety, and self-sow tomatillos - which seem to be coming up pretty much everywhere in the garden. The middle plot, between this one and the corn, has yet more triffid-like tomato plants.

In the middle plot of tomatoes I have several Indigo Rose. This is the first time I have grown this variety, and I am quite taken with it. With the many other varieties of black tomatoes I have grown over the years, the tomato starts off green, then eventually goes black(ish). Indigo Rose however, starts off black from the get go, and is REALLY black! It is also a very prolific variety. I grew 16 different heirloom varieties this year, to get an idea of what they have to offer, and I will be choosing 6 of my favourites for a permanent place in my annual repertoire. Indigo Rose will definitely be one of them.

Tyre garden 1. The zucchinis are coming to the end of their productiveness.

Tyre garden 2, On the trellises I had planted a dozen Lemon Cucumbers, from a brand new, unopened packet. Me thinks there was a mislabelling mishap somewhere, as I now have a dozen (very closely spaced) pumpkin plants, of a variety I have never grown in my garden before, which are producing a lot of pumpkins - and no cucumbers.

 

Tyre garden 3.

And, of course, there is Gertrude.

And the Fairies...

Also on New Year's day, I diligently pieced the first block of the CQJP2014 challenge. As I mentioned last year, I chose Cicely  Mary Barker's flower fairies as my theme.
Normally when I crazy quilt, I just 'close my eyes and grab a piece', ending up with all sorts of wonderful, clashing colour schemes. For this project however, I am taking the unprecedented path of colour coordinating, choosing colours of the flowers. Also, I don't normally plan the embroidery/embellishing, just fossick around in my stash and see what I come up with that takes my fancy. But once again, I am doing the novel, and planning - not micro-planning, just big-picture planning. On each block I will put stumpwork and/or ribbonwork flowers of the type represented by the fairy, and at least one stumpwork beetle, dragonfly, or butterfly. That's the plan anyway.

This first block is the Lavender Fairy

Well, that's pretty much me for the day. I'm off to procrastinate some more, before I get my a-into-g and go make my Kimchi.