Blog Along with Effy - Post Eleven

Here I am adding a tree to my latest Wanderlust pages - inspired by Kate Crane - I hope to share more about this in my next post...

If you have been reading some of my posts you will know that when I saw Effy's Blog Along I thought I would share some 'diary' posts, along with some of the journal pages I have been pleased with.  I am enjoying taking a trip down Memory Lane!

On Facebook yesterday, up popped memories of a trip to Kew Gardens 4 years ago. And funnily enough, one of the books I picked up from the charity shop on Saturday was this:

One of my favourite places in Kew is the greenhouse where the huge lily pads are and this book shows some vintage postcards of this.

I was reminded of these on our recent visits to the Australian Garden at Cranbourne - not quite the same!

As a family we have always loved to visit gardens and 'grow our own'. Even Grandma and Grandad, in their builders yard, managed a flower bed and a little green house!

But my Dad always had an allotment. We always ate home grown vegetables. I remember, as a child when we were living in Keighley, eating peas straight from the pods - and rhubarb dipped in a saucer of sugar! Here he is with his glass cloches. These were still in use many years later, despite most of us thinking they were really dangerous!

He grew both flowers and vegetables, entering them in the local shows and winning many prizes. His prize money would buy the seeds for the next year. He was a champion sweet pea grower. 

All this was before we had a car - he used to take his produce to and from the allotment, and to the shows in the old pram.

There was one occasion when Mum found some beautiful potatoes in the house - they made excellent chips! Dad was not best pleased as they had been saved as an exhibit for the next show... 

In 1963 we moved back to Derbyshire and it was not long before Dad again had allotments in Long Eaton. Not happy with just one, he always had two - and a tunnel section where he had a couple of grapevines. By the time he was in his late 80s, however, he couldn't really manage all this, and as Kevin and I had returned to the UK after several years away, we took over. These are pictures from about 3 years ago:

Now that we have moved back to Australia and we are in a rented house, we don't have the same space but we do have a little veggie plot. Our best crop this year has been the tomatoes.  These were all grown from seedlings from a slice of a big tomato - tomato plants were hard to come by in the middle of lockdown! Just a few one day:

Any way that's all for now.. .more soon!

But I thought I would finish with a floral journal page.

 

Happy Crafting!