Monthly Archives: October 2010

Happy Halloween

Time to light the candles and draw the curtains now the clocks have gone back this week.  To celebrate Halloween I’ve hollowed out pumpkins for a display at Harewood’s Autumn Glory and at the Mustard Pot in Leeds.   These roses are just perfect as well, brilliantly coloured yellow with orange edging to the petals they look good with the orange dyed grevillea leaping like flames around the black candle.

Here on the table you can see I’ve surrounded the pumpkin with dried pomegranates, little squash and maize.

At home all I need to do is dig out some sweeties for the hoardes and prepare for the onslaught!

In the garden there’s still work to do.   Yesterday and very much in keeping with the Halloween weekend I planted some garlic – it’s an ideal time to plant between now and mid November.  And I still have my broad beans to get in, but when I looked in the packet thinking there were plenty I only had 8 left from this spring, so not much use, another thing on the to do list.

Enjoy the fun and games!

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It’s all about the weather

I’ve looked back over my entries and I am clearly obsessed with the weather.  I certainly have a very weather dependent occupation  but I hadn’t realised how much of my blog was connected to it.

The seasons are a big part of day to day life as well, and as it comes up to Halloween I’ve been thinking about flowers in pumpkins and about fiery orange colours.   I’m not generally a big fan of gerberas (they’re a bit too perfect looking) but these are a great colour for this time of year and actually once I’d done it I really quite liked this neat little table arrangement.

Chilli jam is on the agenda this afternoon.   I’ve never had such a bumper crop ever.  I know you can dry then, freeze them and of course cook with them but at this rate I shall be eating chillis till the cows come home.   So in my bid to preserve everything surplus from the garden this year I’m experimenting with chilli jam.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Ive finished digging the lawn!

At last I’ve dug over the patch that will be a lawn – honest!  Here we were half way through, but it took 3 solid digging sessions to finish it.  Now all I have to do is rake and rake and rake until I get all the stones out, and believe me there are lots.

The weather sounds as though it may be colder next week which is a shame though because I’d really like to seed it and I need a bit of warmth to germinate the seed….let’s see though.

Pictures have arrived of the wedding party flowers I did 3 or 4 weeks ago.   It was in a giant tipi, well 2 tipis joined together which was big enough to seat 110 people.  It had a really nice feel about it, informal but special.   And each of the tables had a ring of beautiful flowers with a hedgerow feel to them, so I added crab apples, rose hips and berries in   rich red and autumn colours with a great big candle in the centre of each with 3 wicks so they added a lovely light as darkness fell.

There was room for a great swag to hang from the central beam made up of red and cream roses, astilbe, ivy and more berries and greenery, but that was a real nightmare to photograph.  I guess it was a couple of metres long so it kind of loses it as a picture.

 

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Orange…..

I’ve just put this together from left overs and I’m quite pleased with it – I had some orange roses and a bit of amaranthus and so hey presto an orange rosebowl it is….. meanwhile in the oven we have oranges drying so I can start on the Christmas wreaths and things.  The great Christmas craft fair season is getting underway.

Tomorrow I’m popping into one in Ossett where you can see and order our signs at Mrs Madden’s house, her speciality is pinnies, customised and vintage ones (see http://www.mrsmaddenmakes.co.uk).

Next week we go to Harewood House for Autumn Glory on Tuesday 26th.  Looking forward to it, there’s children’s storytelling, broomstick making and leaf printing and a farmers market and craft market, and more (just can’t remember what else at the mo….) so I need to get busy!

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Filed under Craft Fairs