FOOL and Flowers

We had our local SCA event FOOL - Fruits Of Our Labours, a weekend of hands on classes and activities.   I brought my camera, because people do lots of uber cool things, but neglected to take the darned thing out!   I'm home again and still exhausted.  What is it about running an event like this that you have a great time, nothing goes drastically wrong and you're still tired?   The only glitch, was that the site is having it's 30th Anniversary Open House next weekend and the low spot to the camping area turned out to be mushy and leaving tracks, so we ended up closing it to vehicular traffic.  There were carts and wagons to haul gear in.   People grumbled a bit, but I don't think anyone wanted to leave the site with big tire tracks just before an open house.   We want to go back

I came home to find our chickens had doubled in size.  I swear they had and a few of the meatie boys are starting to act a bit roosterish.  Nothing that an apron skirt or feed scoop won't stop though.

Chitted Potato - fancy name for sprouted

Today I got a good start on the garden.  I planted the rest of the potatoes.  They were all pretty  much chitted, which I don't normally bother with.  However, it's been cold and damp, so they sat around sprouting, regardless.  I planted the tomatoes but due to the blight we had last year, I not only moved them to the secondary garden, but spread them out a lot.  That used up a bit more space than I'd planned on, but I think we'll be more likely to get a good tomato harvest.   I've got 3 zucchini seedlings planted as well.   I'll put the peppers in tomorrow when I can get some help to make a plastic hoop cover to protect them as I've found that peppers and cucumbers seem to do a lot better started under mini greenhouse conditions.

Then, after all that digging and planting, I took a wander around the garden to see what else was happening... 

Soon to be Red Currants

Pink Geraniums

 I'll have to admit that I love Pink Geraniums - no other colour though, just the pink ones.  They seem to glow in the sunlight.

Chinese Woad - Isatis Indigotica

Last year I planted the first Isatis Indigotica seeds and only had 3 germinate.  This year I tried again and only got a couple to germinate again.  However, these flowers will give me a huge amount of fresh seed to try next year, so hopefully I'll have a good amount of leaves to try out then.

Pear blossoms against the blue sky.  I thought I might miss them this year as they just started to bloom before I left for the weekend.   The Bartlett Pear tree has only a few blooms left, but the other one of some miscellaneous variety, is still blooming.

A poppy to be.   These are all standard orange /red poppies.  They are overgrowing the flower beds.   I'll have to dig them up shortly.  I have some new ones to plant with them,  pink of course :)