Work has been balanced well this week with pottering about doing the home things I love: Crafting, cooking, gardening and the weekly house work tasks that keep our home comfortable but which I also find anchor me in a familiar routine.
The veg bed is looking good, mainly with bushy potato plants and Autumn fruiting raspberries. Two pf the three batches of mange tout I planted at the back have come up, but the ones where the canes (well, big twigs) on the left are haven't, I think they've got too overshadowed by the potatoes. The raspberries are the tall plants on the right and most of them are covered in young green raspberries, so this being their second year I think we'll get a fair few.
I've got scatters of old seeds where I didn't know if they'd grow or not, so there's a random assortment of radishes, spinach and spring onion seedlings. However...the spikey cat deterrent mats haven't completely protected the veg beds and there's been some, er, soiling, so I'll be abandoning most of the radishes and spring onions are they're too close to some of the 'presents' left by the cats, as my Nana used to call them. Fortunately one batch of spring onions is in a heavily fortified safe zone that's been untouched by catkind.
I've grown mint from cuttings in two large pots with their bottoms cut off, planted in the ground. This has stopped the mint spreading so far and being in the ground is giving them more nutrients and moisture than when I've grown mint in pots. It's giving us a steady supply for mint tea and mojitos. If we get more than we need now I'll try drying some.
I fancied working on my patchwork quilt so got my hexagons out this week. I've been working on the quilt for 3 or 4 years on and off, and it will probably take 1 or 2 more. I love how slow and incremental it is, very steady and peaceful. I enjoy working on it for a week or two then putting it away for months at a time, in no rush to finish it. I'll give it a proper post soon, with photos of the quilt top so far.
