spring, sunshine and seeds

The past couple of weeks have been glorious here in the UK. Sunshine nearly everyday, above average temperatures and loads of time to get out & about in the garden. Spring has to be one of the most magical times, everything is bursting back into life. I adore seeing the blossom arrive on the trees and planning the seeds I'm going to plant.

I've been planting out calendula, nasturtium and some other 'purple flower' I grew last year. The calendula came out of packet of mixed seeds last year & I fell in love with them. With regular dead-heading, they flowered all Summer long. I saved a heap of seeds from last year's plants & they've been drying in a cup all through the Winter.

Our apple tree was really unhappy last year. It didn't fruit at all & the leaves turned brown. I gave the tree a prune for the first time & so far, it looks much happier this year. It's starting to bud with blossom and the leaves look much better.

I also love nasturtium. I'm a big fan of easy plants that look after themselves and churn out heaps of flowers. I've planted a couple of seeds per fibre pot. The good thing about fibre pots is you can put them into the ground & not disturb the seedlings roots. I bought mine from Wilko, they are only 80 pence for 12 so definitely worth buying a few for your seedlings. I also go around pushing nasturtium seeds in here & there around the garden & wait to see what pops up later in the Summer.


The unidentified 'purple flower' has already started to sprout & I will need to pot them on soon. They also came out of the packet of mixed seeds last year & once again I saved lots of seedpods from the plants & dried them over the Winter.

I think possibly one of the best Spring-time treats is seeing the cherry blossom appear. It's so fleeting, gone after a few days, but it is utterly beautiful whilst it is around. We have two cherry trees, so I get to see plenty of my favourite blossom.


This week I'm linking up with 'How Does Your Garden Grow' #HDYGG over on www.mammasaurus.co.uk

Making recycled paper pots

My daughter and I spent a happy half hour making some paper pots for our seedlings. Now she is three years old she is able to help me with planting out seeds. It's been lovely to watch her planting out beetroot, beans and basil seeds and then seeing them pop up from the soil. It's all very magical to her. Although she keeps asking when we can start eating them...

I first blogged about my paper potter back in 2011. It is a fantastic little tool, really handy for making inexpensive pots to put small plants in. By using newspaper you can plant them out, the paper will biodegrade and the roots wont be disturbed.

My paper potter came from the Nether Wallop Trading Company and was a Christmas gift from my brother and his family. I can't recommend them highly enough.

It also helps if you have some offspring you can recruit to help you make them...their little fingers are very good and winding the paper round!

I'm linking up with Trash 2 Treasure over on the www.coombemill.com blog.