Pea shoots and patchwork

While I'm waiting for the garden to warm up enough to plant salad leaves, I'm growing pea shoots on the kitchen windowsill.  They are so easy, and cheap and fresh compared to supermarket pea shoots.  Just sow thickly in an inch or so of soil and cover with another inch.  Water them in, but not too much if like me you're using a container with no drainage holes.  I use whatever's to hand - usually old supermarket packaging.  The best peas to use are sugar snaps or mange tout - these are sugar snaps Sugar Ann which I'll be growing the garden later.  Keep them moist until they look like the above and they're ready to snip off and enjoy.  I sow every few days; they don't last long!  Supposedly you can get another crop if you cut them off a couple of leaves up the stem, but I find it quicker to sow more.

I've also been doing a little sewing in these cold spring evenings.  These are patches for a quilt for my oldest boy.  I've already made a similar one for the middle boy, which I'll photograph when I can.  I do occasionally make a quilt on the machine, but I really like paper piecing the evenings, when I'm tired and I want an easy project to work on while I watch televison.  I'm looking forward to the Great British Sewing Bee tonight on BBC2, although the review I heard was mixed.  It will just be a pleasure to see a programme on sewing - we need more!

I'm leaving you with this beautiful camellia.  It always amazes me when these stunning flowers appear in the wild spring weather.  They have been around for hundreds of years and used to be grown in conservatories and orangeries by the Victorians.  They are hardy though and, depending on the variety, start flowering from the New Year onwards.  This is Camellia Nobilissima.  It's a small plant that I just bought on ebay and repotted into ericaceous soil.  The foliage is lovely - dark, glossy and evergreen.  And the flowers, well, they are lovely, especially in spring when they seem incredibly exotic.  Now I just have to wait patiently for a few years while it gets to a decent size...