tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72749250309720140732024-03-14T12:04:51.475+00:00BLISSYolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.comBlogger314125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-24728256384820979342012-02-24T09:10:00.000+00:002012-02-24T09:52:19.737+00:00The Hunting of the SaladGetting my salad together for February was quite an ordeal after that prolonged spell of heavy frost. Gone were most of the plants that so amply provided me and me chooks with greens over the Winter months. Even the veg in my unheated greenhouse croaked it. Not good.
This, for instance, used to be bright and glossy red Swiss chard that has now turned into an unappetizing bit of snot (sorry). I Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-58641282207260577332012-02-01T14:17:00.000+00:002012-02-01T14:17:06.164+00:00Garden GoalsI like setting myself goals to achieve in the garden. My first goal was to have something in flower in my garden all year long. That proved to be a very easy goal to reach as I garden in zone 8 and winters are mostly pretty mild. Even the odd very cold winter doesn't put a spanner in the wheel flowering wise. We are going through a cold spell at the mo but my Winter Yasmin, Hellebores, Viburnum Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-83818679383285617492012-01-05T14:11:00.001+00:002012-01-05T14:11:34.129+00:00January Bliss
Amaryllis Alfresco
Russian Blues Merlin (l) and his Mum Delia
Tasty & colourful salad from my potager today
My tree is still there to brighten up my day
Harvested last October and still going strong
Winter Jasmin
Colour your garden with vegetables
The potager today
. Hellebore Emma, named after my beloved Russian Blue kittycat
Cheap and cheerful!
Witch Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-25517632740259096162011-12-25T12:40:00.000+00:002011-12-25T12:40:14.435+00:00Christmas 2011Merry Christmas from all of us at Bliss: Vita, Pippa, Dolly, Willow, Delia, Merlin, Surprise, Kadootje, Macavity & Jeeves, doggy Tara and me. XX
copyright 2011; Y.E.W. HeuzenYolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-34793400648003376062011-09-29T13:54:00.001+01:002011-09-29T13:54:52.570+01:00Capering Capers, Batman!Comedy culinairy capers are very easy to make and you do not even have to have a Capparis spinosa aka a Caper bush growing in your garden. Just plain old Nasturtiums will do. You do grow them, don't you? Nasturtiums are dropdead gorgeous,
even more so when you add a beautiful Maine Coon kittycat like my Dolly Daisy into the mixture, and by doing so crank up the comedy capers content a notch or Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-18408806478514369542011-08-18T15:34:00.002+01:002011-08-18T15:35:26.783+01:00Splash!After waiting for 10 years, I finally have my pond. Huzzah! *does Snoopy Dance Of Joy* Next up will be fish, I cannot imagine a pond without them. I've missed the fish in my old pond very much as the little whatsits ate out of my hand. That's right, not only am I a cat whisperer and a dog whisperer but a fish whisperer as well. *takes bow* What can I say? I love animals and the feeling, as they Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-61838891481992032482011-07-28T13:18:00.002+01:002011-07-30T12:11:13.793+01:00An Utterly Delicious FenceWhat a difference the new fence makes. Where once there was an extremely ugly and very, very large Leylandii hedge there is now a fence. An edible one. Pretty too.
Before
After
All in all, the bit of the fence that borders the potager is about 20 meters long and in a strip of soil that's no more than 40 cm wide there grows an amazing amount of stuff. Most of it edible, some of it just becauseYolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-44395573687930288182011-07-14T13:32:00.002+01:002011-07-14T13:40:57.390+01:00Summer SandwichesA few years ago I wrote a blogpost and was very surprised by the response I got about 1 particular picture I had posted of a slice of bread with radishes. Eating radishes on bread is something that is par for the course in Dutchland so I hadn't realised that perhaps not everybody on this big blue beautiful planet of ours was aware of this culinary delight. Now there are radishes and radishes and Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-84614533940752267752011-06-30T13:15:00.001+01:002011-06-30T13:18:45.338+01:00A Wildlife PondGet a wildlife pond, they said.
I did
It will be easy to make, they said.
It was.
A wildlife pond will look ever so pretty, they said.
It does.
It will attract loads of wildlife to your garden, they said, such as frogs, newts, toads, hedgehogs, birds, dragonflies and much, much more.
Yeah, riiiiight!
If you'd like a wildlife pond too, and who knows maybe you will be lucky enough to Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-27397280432419249852011-06-23T14:28:00.003+01:002011-06-23T14:32:35.009+01:00Grow Your Own Food; The Unusual SuspectsWhen I tell people that I grow my own food most of them seem to think that I grow rows and rows of leeks, spuds and cabbages in my kitchen garden. I don't. What's the point? Firstly I don't need to grow food to feed an army or an orphanage stuffed to the gills with hungry kids, and secondly I don't even like leeks, spuds and cabbages all that much to grow them in vast quantities. For me the Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-52132864029642714452011-06-08T13:25:00.001+01:002011-06-08T13:26:06.227+01:00Potager Pickings
And thems are rich pickings, very much so. This extraordinary weather we've been having since late March has been a great help in making the pickings extra rich. It's not every year that Summer starts in April, it mostly starts end of June and also not unheard of, it sometimes never starts at all and from Spring we go straight to Autumn. This year we have managed to miss Spring altogether.
Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-18187959490755469532011-05-19T14:29:00.000+01:002011-05-19T14:30:34.887+01:00There Be A Bad Tempered Gardenerso consider yourself warned. Can't say that I've found much, if any evidence of bad-temperedness when I read the book but o well, the title is a gentle snook cocking at the book The Well Tempered Garden by Christopher Lloyd. I'm of course talking about Anne Wareham's book The Bad Tempered Gardener, of which I was sent a review copy.
And although James Alexander Sinclair waxes lyrically about Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-72152030723243325092011-04-14T13:50:00.003+01:002011-04-14T14:49:16.732+01:00Rats!There's a rat in me garden - what am I gonna do?
There's a rat in me garden - what am I gonna do?
Surprise admiring the Springflower meadow
I'm gonna fix that rat - that's what I am gonna do! I'm gonna fix that rat!!!!!!
For those unfamiliar with the catchy ratsong by UB40, click the vid.
And she did. Surprise lived up to her name and caught a young rat in me garden before I was even aware Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-49828049572448179762011-03-23T12:47:00.016+00:002011-03-23T12:59:54.592+00:00A Taste of SpringWe've been having the most delish weather lately so I'm making the most of it while it lasts. It's finally Spring and I'm loving it because it looks good, it smells good, it feels good and it tastes good too.
Last February I had sown a pot of mixed lettuce leaves and today I had my first taste of it and it was devine as nothing tastes as good as Spring does.
My Springflower meadow is a feast for Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-20626603286937152452011-03-16T13:50:00.001+00:002011-03-16T14:27:59.101+00:00We've Gone BananasAnd it's not what you think. It never is, because after all, this is Bliss, don't you know?
Before I show you the bananas thingy, first some gratuitous pics of the potager where yours truly has been working her widdle hot hiney off these past few weeks.
Looking good, wouldn't you say? I'm talking about the potager here, not Jeeves, handsome kittycat though he is.
Some irrefutable evidence thatYolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-50038747882133589902011-03-08T09:33:00.000+00:002011-03-08T09:33:58.579+00:00Rolling Out the Magic Spring CarpetThose of you who visit Bliss regularly, know that I'm very keen on wildflower meadows. And frankly who wouldn't, as they are so incredibly beautiful. You have to be a real sourpuss indeed not to love them. A while ago I wrote a post about wildflower meadows and how Blissfully wonderful they are.
In that post of July 2008 I also demonstrated that anyone can have a gorgeous, bee-magnet wildflower Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-25068156364596786212011-02-15T13:15:00.000+00:002011-02-15T13:18:35.804+00:00Bloom Day, But There's Nobody Here ButIt's Bloom Day, but there is nobody here but
us,
chickens!
That's right, 10 cats and one small dog were not enough so now I've added a few chooks to the mix as well. They are Australorp chickens and hail from the land of Oz originally. There's 3 of them; Kylie (the blue one) and Possum and Skippy, the black grrls. Pretty, aren't they and great egg producers or so I'm told. They arrived chez Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-5218313008160290202011-01-20T14:52:00.001+00:002011-01-20T14:53:07.683+00:00Grow Your Own MushroomsEvery year I'd like to try something new and this year is no exception. As you have gathered from the title I thought I'd try my hand at growing my very own mushrooms. I'd seen starter kits in a shop in my little village and as the price was very reasonable I'd thought I'd give it a go. I love to experiment, that is one of the bonuses of being a gardener, isn't it, you get to experiment every Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-66210740277888148012011-01-06T14:01:00.000+00:002011-01-06T14:02:36.377+00:00Indoor Winter HarvestWe are in the midst of winter and not much is going on in the Bliss garden. The Viburnum Bodnantense Dawn is in flower and fills the garden with a delightful scent, the Winter Jasmin is doing its best to cheer up a bleak winter's day with its golden trumpets.
And there is of course the stalwart Viburnum Tinus, bless its brave little heart, about to burst forth in flower but apart from that, it's Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-12678097256626472592010-12-23T13:50:00.002+00:002010-12-23T13:58:01.913+00:00Christmas TimeThe Mora clock is ticking the hours away. Not long now before it's Christmas. It's going to be another White Christmas this year, same as last year. Very unusual as we've had only 7 times a White Christmas in the last 100 years. Aren't we the lucky ones to have 2 in a row?
If there's one who's extatic about the snow it's the Ickle Pup Tara. Tara? Tara! Get your widdle face out of the snow!
Dogs!Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-75997089995855719372010-12-15T14:40:00.002+00:002010-12-15T14:44:28.992+00:00Hanging With Merlin Tara and Merlin (R)
This year I had to face two of my worst fears concerning my cats. You've read about one of them here but in March of this year another of my worst nightmares came true: Merlin was diagnosed with Diabetes. I have friends with diabetic cats and known for years that that's not a picnic.
My vet was making rather light of the whole thing but I've known for a long timeYolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-67501353817942913362010-12-07T10:10:00.015+00:002010-12-07T10:14:59.448+00:00Welcome to the Enchanted GardenIn a land far, far away, there is a garden where magical creatures live. Somtimes, if you are very lucky, doubting Thomas, you'll find a sign that those magical creatures truly do exist, like this:
And from time to time they even leave more tangible evidence of their existence in this enchanted garden.
Of course the garden is enchanted, where else do you suppose magical creatures live? The Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-87924590895427066222010-11-09T14:04:00.001+00:002010-11-09T14:13:33.014+00:00Autumnal BlissChestnuts roasting on an open fire ..... Don't worry Christmas isn't upon us. Yet! Just trying to capture that image that says Autumn like nothing else. Roasted chestnuts is one of those images and so is this
and this.
Autumn is such a cliché, isn't it? One hoary old err chestnut after another, but fun though and pretty spectacular colourwise.
And fun was had by all. Recently yours truly went on Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-66539292718018045842010-10-19T15:30:00.000+01:002010-10-19T15:34:03.840+01:00The StumperyI'm nuts about ferns as they are so frilly and have such a fab green colour. I love watching fern fronds unfurl in Spring. And because I love ferns so much I decided to make a stumpery in a shady part of the Bliss garden.
For a stumpery you need, no surprises there, stumps and quite a lot of them. But where to do you get your hot little hands on them? Fortunately, as we are now in the Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274925030972014073.post-72390141155092799102010-09-21T14:27:00.001+01:002010-09-21T14:27:29.598+01:00The Lighter Side of TopiaryGranted I do indulge in the odd topiary ball or two and even have a few cone shapes as well, but that is where I draw the line topiary-wise. Not everybody feels that this is where the topiary thing should stop as is evidenced by this
and this.
They have simply gone ape-doo-doo with topiary. Fun but totally OTT.
To make matters worse, not everybody is content to clip their box, yew and goodness Yolanda Elizabet Heuzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02506031220151023088noreply@blogger.com21