Love this #80: Mini seed tins

I shared a snippet of these on Monday, and told you how they played to my organisation obsession and my love of tins, which rivals that of notebooks.  And they're full of seeds too and while they're available from Suttons individually, it's better value if you're buying a few tins to opt for one of the two sets.  

Individual tins are £4.95 each, but the salad or root vegetable collection of six tins cost £24.  That sounds a lot, and you're right it is a lot for seeds, but each tin has three packets of seeds in, so that doesn't make it quite so bad.

And of course there's six tins which look like seed packets, that could be used for things other than seeds.

RARING TO GROW

I chose the salad collection and now have plenty of seeds for pak choi, spring onion, chard, lettuce, leaf salad and rocket.  Lucky that they're all things we eat plenty of, and the type of crop that I expect to grow more of once my new pots arrive (that's another story!)

The root vegetable collection contains two varieties of beetroot, two of carrot and two of radish, which might work better for you.  I suspect my tins will be around for a long time, and not necessarily always for seeds.

What would you use them for?

This isn't a collaborative post, I saw them, bought them and love them.  And that's without eating the evidence - yet!

Interiors inspiration Yorkshire style

You might remember this photo from Instagram? It was from our first trip into the nearest town, Ripon, on our recent week in Yorkshire, where we stumbled upon a fantastic interiors shop The Castle.

A chance find in #ripon earlier @thecastlehome and escaped with just three purchases (I did well there!) #love #wallart #interiors #homeetc #interiorsinspo #interiorsinspiration #yorkshire

A post shared by Stephanie Robinson (@lifeat139a) on Jul 1, 2018 at 12:35pm PDT

And there was much more loveliness besides.  So much that I did well to leave with just a cushion and two coasters.  Even MOH could have picked up more, but you can bet he was pleased we didn't!

I don't need any lamps, but I was rather taken with this chartreuse chinoiserie-style lamp bases.  Deep breath, and move on quickly...

But then there was the fun and funky fish coasters - thankfully blue's not my colour, so it was easier to carry on walking after stopping to admire them.

But then there were more lamps.  These brought back memories of walking in the South West, where we often pass by similar piles of stones.

It was the type of place that had the knack of organising things, just so.  The pewter dish was much harder to walk past, but shuffled along quickly by MOH we didn't even get to the "where would you put it" stage.

The other reason for not resisting the shuffling along, was what was in front of me.  I mean, who wouldn't be drawn to a display like this.

Or even a drawer unit like this. 

MOH knew he needed to act when we got to this unit, and so he predictably pulled out the "it needs a good rub down" line.  Remember this is the person that tried to dust a purposefully dusty bottle of wine, so he has form.  And to be fair so do I, I was already daydreaming where this could go, there isn't anywhere in our house that would work, so I'd quickly moved onto storage solution options.  

It is that gorgeous, and if we had a proper hall or space that it would work in, then there would most likely have needed to be a Serious Conversation.  Yes capitalised, so you know it's serious.

But thankfully for our bank balance, we didn't, although I wish we did!

So if you're in Ripon, or close by, do pop along to The Castle, it really is a shop of simple pleasures.  Just don't buy my unit...

Delightful dahlias at RHS Hyde Hall

It was a couple of weeks ago now on another of those balmy days that I spent some time wandering around the RHS' garden Hyde Hall in Essex.  In the new vegetable garden I discovered a small patch of vibrantly colourful dahlias, which I may just have walked around (and around) to make sure I'd seen them all.  But when they looked like this, who could blame me?

Dahlias are one of those flowers that have had a bit of a bad press, but looking at them closely they are exquisite.  They have an almost 'mandala-like' quality to them, don't you think?

Having a patch of them about twice the size of a standard sized rug definitely maximised their impact, and goes to show you don't need a lot of space at all.

These ones with the 'curled' petals reminded me that my dad used to grow these in our first house (well the first house I lived in) and I remember we used to get into trouble if our balls got in with the dahlias. I've still no idea how that happened...

I imagine though the ones that dad grew would be pinker, like the one above, rather than any other colour.  I don't know for sure, but it's likely to be an educated guess.

I've no idea why dahlias have been out of favour, but I'm glad they seem to be enjoying a reprieve.  I used to have some of the burgundy Bishop of Llandaff, but somewhere along the way the tubers most likely rotted.

I'm thinking perhaps I should try again, but with something more colourful.