After the storm

I haven`t blogged for a couple of days as we had storms and heavy rain and had to switch router off. It also gave me a chance to sit and finish the down under blanket. It is huge, it took ages to go round and round the border but I am very pleased with it and hope Richard and Nikki love it when it eventually reaches them.


over the bench



 I am disappointed with pictures of it, sun too bright and too big to put on washing line. Anyway, here are the pics I took of finished blanket.


over the picnic table

The storm has been great for the garden and everything is growing so fast, I will be making the first of the apricot jam tomorrow and I think we should have enough for quite a few pots.

The cherry tomatoes are growing really well, the first one is starting to turn red.

Big greek tomatoes


The butternut squash are spreading out across the garden as are the greek pumpkins and you can see the baby squash forming. The first green peppers are growing well and the chilli peppers on the terrace are flowering and making baby peppers. It will be quite exciting trying them as they were mixed seed so we don`t know how hot they will be.


I seem to have got stuck on caption size writing and it doesn`t want to change back, will try to remedy this next time.





Everything is growing

Every morning when I look at the vegetable garden I can see a change. We are beginning to get a glut of courgettes and although they are lovely thinly sliced in a salad there is only so much you can eat in a day.


courgettes

 Mark made some lovely stuffed courgettes the other night and I made courgette fritters with tzadsiki. Today I am making a courgette cake, we will see.....


tomatoes, cucumbers,aubergines and peppers

The pots on the terrace are covered in tomatoes but we had to lift them down as we had a very strong easterly wind yesterday but they will go back up today. The tigerella tomatoes are getting very stripy and I can`t wait to see them when they are ripe.
The kittens are growing very fast and eat a ton of food, we bought them posh new bowls and then today Merkel has decided to move them back to the log pile. I am sure they will turn up when they get hungry although Merkel seems to think they should be eating rat judging by the number she has left out by the store. Doesn`t stop her showing up constantly looking for more food though.




kittens with one of the new bowls

The apricots are coming on nicely and I should be making more jam in a couple of weeks although there won`t be as many as last year because Filios pruned it quite hard. It is my favourite jam so I will have to hide it if the family make it over this year. 

The Down Under blanket

I haven`t had time this last week ,with the Music Festival and having Mick the Van here , to take pictures of the garden so today I am going to do a blog on a blanket.
I have to finish it in the next three weeks so that Mick can take it to the UK on his next run as it is so expensive to post it from Greece.
My son, Richard, has commissioned this kingsize blanket and I thought I would tell you how it is made up.
There are 30 balls of wool, 208 squares, 2566 threads to be sewn in. Then 8-10 rows of border and an edging.
It has taken quite a while to get this far and I have finished the squares and am putting it together.


Just a few of the bundles , 13 in each

I am about a third of the way through crocheting them together and then I can start the border.



Part of blanket

I really hope Richard likes it as it is a bit of a worry when someone can`t choose all the colours. I don`t like to work with less than 9 colours, sometimes 6 ,but it is very much a matter of personal taste.
Hopefully I can get in finished and back to the UK and send it on its way where I hope it will give years of pleasure.

Festival and first fruit

I haven`t had time to write anything for a few days as we have been very busy. Mark has had rehearsals for the music festival and the first concert was last night. The choir followed by a fourteen year old who plays bouzouki with a man on guitar, he was excellent and I am sure will make a career out of it. The choir were very good too and you really would have thought they had been together for much longer.
For those of you that are interested in Mimi and Daisy`s progress here are the latest pictures.


snoozing with mum



Daisy



Mimi



 Yesterday I made a big plate pasty using one of the swedes I was told you can`t grow here and we had a salad using my first cucumber and a gold courgette. They are lovely sliced very thinly in a salad.


gold courgette



big Greek tomatoes



The other veg are doing very well and I have both green and gold courgettes and very good cabbages growing in a shady corner.

It has been a very hot May and although I have irrigation on the vegetable garden there is a lot of watering to do.

The flower garden which was looking lovely is beginning to shrivel up and I will have to rethink the planting for next year.



 

Hot and hectic May

I haven`t written anything for a few days because our lives have been a bit busier than usual. Merkel took her kittens away to a pile of wood in Filios`s yard and I have been trying to keep an eye on them but Merkel wouldn`t let them come out to eat.
She has now moved them back into the store which should make things simpler.
Mark has rigged up plastic netting on the kitchen window and door to stop them coming in as Bonnie can`t stand them.
Yesterday was a family name day in the little church so there were a lot of people here for a service and then some ladies in the kitchen making coffee etc. Lots of lovely cakes and turkish delight and people told me they liked the flower garden which was nice.
Mick, the guy who brought our stuff out to Greece last year was supposed to be arriving today to take a Dutch lady, who has lived here for a long time, back to Holland. We got a call to say his back axle had broken near Larissa on the mainland and I really don`t know how long it will take to fix.
The vegetable garden is growing like crazy and I thought I would put up two pictures, one taken three days ago and one taken five minutes ago so you can see the difference.


Three days ago



Today

I think I will be picking our first cucumbers in about a week and I have green and gold courgettes which will ready by Saturday. Our first french ( squeaky beans) are also ready.
The tomatoes on the pillars on the terrace are doing really well and you can see tiny tomatoes on the tigerella, the big stripy tomato. The tumbler cherry tomatoes are starting to come over the edges of the pots and look good too.

Tomato pots

Visit to Robert and Stephen



Beautiful bougainvillea and lavender below the terrace

The garden group had their last visit for this season to Mourtero to see the gardens of Robert and Stephen. They have two gardens although they flow together by winding pathways and steps. It is a lot of garden to look after and has very distinct areas.
There is a lovely secret garden by one of the kalivis and they have some of the biggest lavenders I have ever seen.
There is a flatter area with fruit trees and  vegetable beds and a huge cherry tree which is a lovely shape and gives welcome shade.



Lemon trees and one of the terraces

They have fabulous lemon trees with the biggest lemons I have ever seen and a grape vine which is doing very well. There is some lovely planting around the terrace and it is a very peaceful place to be.
We had some refreshments and swapped some plants and I came home with a jalepeno pepper, a black cherry tomato and a lemon cucumber.
It was a great end to our first season and hopefully we can do it all again in the Autumn and get more cuttings and plants etc.



Getting back to some kind of normal

We have had an exhausting few days. Merkel went to be spayed which meant catching her as she finished her last meal of the day and shoving her into a cat box.
Then we had to grab the kittens and put them in another box which then sat in the bath all night. It was away from Bonnie and dark and quiet.
The vet asked us to get Merkel to her just after 9.00 so Mark took her down and we were expecting to collect her an hour or so later. The vet didn`t do the op until 1.30 and she came home about 3.00.
I was getting a little concerned about the kittens as they hadn`t had a feed since the previous evening but they were fine and did take a little food and water from my finger through the day.
Merkel was yowling like crazy in the box but I took the kittens back at about 6.00 and she was very pleased to see them although still very wobbly.
She had eaten and fed them by about 10.00 and they all went to sleep in their box.
Today Mimi ( mini Merkel ) and Daisy have had their own plates of food and Mimi is a pig like her Mum.
Daisy is slower and more dainty so you have to stay and fend off Mimi and Merkel.
They have been down on the terrace and to Bonnie`s horror, up to the kitchen door!



Daisy in front, Mimi behind

Any way, they are the most dreadful time wasters and there is huge amount of strimming to be done. I did some this afternoon and must make myself do some more after garden group tomorrow.
The vegetable garden seems to change every day and there are already small french beans and gold courgettes and it won`t be long until we have our first cucumber of the season.
The tomatoes in pots on the terrace have doubled in size and have loads of flowers on them.
Good job we like tomatoes.