The Terrace - April

I took those last week but never got around to post them. Such is the life with small children... one can blame one's laziness on them and no one will ever know!

Balcony view from the living room. That's the blackberry in the center, surrounded by strawberries and lettuce.

Lady Emma and the Dahlia (the title of a fun read, no?)

Balcony view from the terrace

Looking out into the terrace: look at those two lilies, so excited about them! And we got a camellia from my mother in law, it's sitting in the shady spot on the right.

The herb corner.

I'm so happy about those currants. They're really taking off. They look even fuller now.

Peas, snapshot peas and fava beans. Fava beans are so pretty!

The three blueberry bushes.

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View from the terrace back into the house

A (late) Happy Easter

Chasing the easter bunny to find out where he hid the eggs

I actually paid real money for these dead twigs :(

Over the Weekend

Martin's parents keep a lovely garden. We were lucky this past weekend to have one day of so-so warm weather and some sunshine, enough to be able to spend the day outside. Pictures taken with my cellphone.

A very old apple tree and a not so straight garden shed

A camellia plant. A gift from M's mom. Almost the perfect plant if it would produce something edible:
evergreen, loves the shade and produces very pretty flowers.

A fig bush? The main trunk died in the harsh winter last year but the tree kept going.
Now it looks like a bush instead of a tree.

Note to self: plan a visit around ripening  time. Figs in Germany are so expensive.
Back home they are dirt cheap in season.

I forgot what this berry is called. Something from Asia...

The First Flowers

Wild strawberry

Gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa)

White currants

Loganberry I

Loganberry II

Rhodohypoxis baurii

It's Getting too Crowded!

The begonias are doing a bit better than I anticipated. Now I'm getting all worked up whether I should split them up or risk it and keep them all these tiny pots until the weather outside is reliable?

Big problems, big decisions.

Lady Emma Hamilton

is in the house! She arrived all bare (wink wink). Now only the top is bare but down there is covered with a lot of dirt in a big nice pot. I hope she rewards me with big pretty flowers and a gorgeous scent.

Delaying Gratification

Do you know about the marshmallow study they did on young kids in the 70s? I have a feeling I would've gobbled up the marshmallow the moment they put it under my control. Or maybe not?

I faced a similar dilemma with the blueberries. They put on some flowers. Yay, right? Well, Martin correctly informed me that it would be best to remove the flowers so that the shrubs focus their energy on a strong root system and growth. Then they would a really good show next year.

I really really did not want to pluck the flowers. No pretty flowers, no blueberries and until next year sounds like a really loooooong wait.

I couldn't do it so he just did. Here are my poor berries stripped of their pretty flowers:

And the flowers were just dumped there unceremoniously. 

Last Week and This Week

Last Week

The trees on the way home looked like this:

The cherry in our neighbour's garden looked like this:

Whereas the cherry on our terrace looked like this:

Meh. I deemed the neighbour's cherry a major show off.

Anyhoo...

This Week

The trees on the way home looked like this (I did not know/notice before that they turn from white to pink. A pleasant surprise I must say):

The cherry tree in our neighbour's garden still showing off:

Our tiny cherry tree upped its game and is showing some white flowers. Success! We did not kill it with the root butchering pruning.

French Style..

... eating. I read this post the other day on Janet Lansbury's website about the "French" way of teaching kids to eat well.

Now I'm usually wary of when Americans talk about how Europeans do this & that (the opposite holds true too). But for all it's worth I liked this woman's approach to serving food for her toddler. A four course meal. It sounds too fancy at first but on a closer look, it's very doable.

The first course is a vegetable starter (I almost always have sort of vegetables prepare, so check). The second is the main meal (that's always there, so again check). The third is a serving of a lettuce salad and some cheese (we never did that but we always have good cheese around). The fourth is the dessert and that is mostly a piece of fruit.

So instead of serving the veggies with the main meal as I usually do, I marketed this as the "appetiser" and gave the whole thing a go. It worked so well that I've been doing dinner this way ever since.

Here is how she does the four course family meal: Anatomy of the French four-course meal.

The first day there was a cucumber, tomato, mozzarella and olives salad with balsamic dressing.

The main dish was a quick stir fry made with chicken, broccoli and cashews.
For sauce I mixed some mango chutney with yogurt.

Mache salad. You can't see them here but there are some pea shoots in there :)

And a humble cheese plate. Turkish white cheese, brie and a pepper cream cheese disk.

And melon for dessert. Yes a melon in March. I did not do the shopping that week so I'm not to blame!