First blooms of my old fashioned rose

Flower bud just opening

Fully opened a day later

I just thought I'd share these photos. This is a bloom off my rose 'De La Grifferaie" - checking out its history it's an old fashioned rambler rose from 1845. This rose is currently growing along a wall in the veg garden - well I guess it is a potager really since I also grow flowers and herbs in amongst all the veg. Anyway, I planted this rose about a year ago and it now has quite a few blooms on it, with more to come. It has quite a good perfume, and is a lovely shade of pink.

I'd love to have a rose garden sometime in the future. There sure are plenty to chose from! What's your favourite rose?

Orange juice surprise

The other day a work friend gave me some oranges from her garden. At the time she told me they were Clementines, but when I cut them in half I was surprised to find the flesh inside was a dark orange/red  colour. When juiced up the 'orange' juice was dark red! (I've got my little helper doing the juicing in this photo shot!).

So I guess the orange must be a type of 'Blood' orange. The juice was absolutely delicious. Shame there was only enough for a couple of glasses!

Hops - sleep pillow

Filling the pillow

Back in March I harvested the hops from my 2 plants (see this post). Well I dried some of the hops and froze them for later use. Turns out 'later use' is not until now.......! I haven't managed to venture in beer brewing as yet (still on the 'must do' list however!). But since I often suffer from insomnia (probably due to working night shift) I thought it was high time I got my act together to make a wee sleep pillow. It probably took me all of 10 minutes!!!

Finished hop pillow

Hopefully it will help me get a better night's sleep!

More posts on hops to come..