Busy Bee Cafe

It’s a long weekend as today is a bank holiday… but instead of horrible weather, this weekend has been lovely indeed! We spent yesterday and today tidying up the garden. Trust me, the garden was horrible… we didn’t do anything in the garden last year because it was just horrible last year… I just hope we do get a summer this year.

Anyway, after a whole day tidying up the garden yesterday, this morning was a bit more relaxed with Little Bee having her breakfast in her tent.

I noticed that the strawberry plant I bought last year… the year before?… has spread everywhere.

As I dug the strawberry plants up, Little Bee collected snails… as you do.

Most of them are nicely in pots…

… and a boot.

Then it was watering…

And sticking her windmill amongst the forgotten garlic plants.

I think I bought this orchid plant before Little Bee was born. It was blooming when I bought it but then, it has been flowerless. I haven’t been very good to it and only gave it my attention on and off, mostly off. The poor little thing… so I was very impressed when I saw a stalk growing and now this…

Today I helped Little Bee plant her sunflower seeds. Fingers crossed some will grow in a few weeks

More than three years ago, Little Bee came to this world. More than three years ago, Alice and Adam came to visit and Adam gave Little Bee an orange flowered plant. I’m never good at plant names, so it is orange flowered plant.

It went through tough times, it went through loving times, it went through neglect… but it survived.

On the weekend, Little Bee and I cut up the tips of the plant that looked alive, and repotted them in egg shells. Hopefully the roots will grow and they will now thrive.

A couple of weeks ago, Little Bee put a tomato in the shopping basket, even though it was not on my list, I just let it through when we got to the cashier. I kept it on the kitchen worktop as to remind me that I need to use it but every time I cook anything that required tomato, I just grab a tin of chopped tomatoes and forget about the lone tomato on the kitchen worktop.

Then I started to put some jars of jam and spices in front of it and I guess, it was out of sight, out of mind.

Until this weekend, when I was doing my fortnightly kitchen worktop deep clean. There was the tomato. It wasn’t yucky. It wasn’t mouldy. it wasn’t squishy.

It was growing! A little plant has shot through the skin and I can see another trying to push through. Little Bee is very excited about it. I guess in a few weeks, I will repot the plants that are growing out and get Little Bee to look after them

Happy Halloween everyone. Just carved one pumpkin this year for Little Bee to take to her party today where she will be a witch

I was busy getting rid of those pesky weed growing around my garlic plants when Little Bee called out to me saying there’s a white flower!!

I couldn’t remember buying any white flowered plant so I head over to her and saw that it was a flower on one of our strawberry plants

Nice.

Told Little Bee not to pick the flower as it will then turn into a berry.

She said OK and started collecting snails

We were busy in the garden Sunday afternoon. Well, I was planning to clear up the garden and repot my plants but I spent most of the time observing Little Bee and her little friend H, drowning my garlic plants!

But I did manage to repot some of the tomatoes.

In previous years, I was so taken by commercials and was buying lots of pots and propargators, etc. Anything that the garden catalogue says is a wonderful buy, I’d fall for it as, yes, I can be that shallow.

But this year, I’ve learnt from my mistakes. Yes, I still go crazy when I visit garden centres but more for the plants than accessories.

I know that things that I’m doing now is so obvious, but I was blinded by material things. Thanks to Pinterest, I’ve rediscovered recycling and frugalism… things I was brought up with but forgot.

This year, instead of buying seed trays, I collected egg shells.Instead of buying pots, when I need to repot the plants, I collected Little Bee juice carton and also tins.Instead of buying cloches to protect my plants from the cold (made a mistake of putting the courgettes out without protection ) I asked hubby to cut the top of the big bottle of fizzy drinks and use them instead.

So, let’s see how the garden pans out this year without me buying all the wonderful gadgets that the garden centre offers

Little Bee and I have been busy in the garden these past few days, planting, sowing, weeding and, for Little Bee, mostly watering (flooding).

Little Bee’s been ill too, as I think her MMR jab is now kicking in, but, maybe it’s old wives tale, maybe it’s just something that my mom kept telling me, I took her out in the garden after her afternoon nap so she could get some fresh air.

While she yet again flooded all my plants and sowed seeds, I was clearing the vegetable patio bags and found these!

OK they are not lovely and straight and perfect like the carrots you find in the supermarket, but I was amazed that there were in the bags at all as I haven’t been watering them or clearing the weed from the bags. They’ve been there for months without me caring for them and they had withstood the mini cold snap we had.

I shall clean them properly and see if I could use them for my lamb dish tomorrow… as I could see some bug holes in them… even if I can’t use all of them, I’m sure I could use a bit.

It is wonderful, the treasures that you can find in your garden.

We were blessed with a really mild winter so I didn’t bring my pot of lemon plant in until late December when it started to get a bit chilly outside… OK then it went very cold early February when we had that brief cold snap.

Now… it’s warming up again.

I guess with the mild winter and being warm indoors, my plant must think that spring is already here! There was a flower in December and now there are more flowers. I’m hoping that this is an indication that spring will come early this year.

And that I will have lemons!

Yes, I live in hope.