Return of the prodigal blogger

5 years, 5 years, it can't be that long since I sat down to put thoughts to screen can it? So many seasons passed, crops sown, failed, grown and harvested without making it to screen. Ah well, we'll see if I'm more diligent this time won't we...

So much has changed in the last few years, the usual things that happen in families - much celebrated arrivals and sorely grieved departures, ventures begun and ventures ended and now a new normal for us following a diagnosis that everyone dreads but no-one ever expects which means that soon I will be officially retired about 20 years earlier than planned. The support we have received since learning of my cancer has been phenomenal, our local NHS team and all the peripheral support services have tended, supported and brought me to a place which means I have a future, just not necessarily as long or as clear as I may have thought it was. Our friends and family have loved, cared and supported us and the known-only-online folk have all raised our spirits and provided wonderful distractions when we have needed them.    All this continues and we are so very grateful for it.
  

And the garden, well what can I say? - even in the dark days when chemo meant I couldn't play with compost and I was so tired that just the thought of lifting a plant pot hurt - it provided solace, support and strength. Just knowing that J was working hard to make sure it was there waiting, ready for me to return, to be able to put my hands in the soil once more, to sow seeds, watch them grow, tend them, harvest them and watch the wildlife enjoy them helped beyond measure. And now, well who knows ? Then again when does anyone know what the future has in store for them. So I'll plan and plot, tend and harvest, watch and enjoy doing what I can, while I can and if I prove a better blogger than before I may even remember to write about it too...

Buzzy Bank Holiday

It's been a great weekend here in Warwickshire.

We managed to spend lots of time at the allotment sowing roots, spinach and chard and planting out the first of the peas as well as tackling the giant heap of soil-in-waiting that is Compost Mountain. This pile has been accumulating since we took on the plot over 5 years ago and now has come the time to use it to top up our beds and enrich our sandy soil. So Saturday saw him shovelling and me sieving and 7 or 8 barrows later we have tackled just about a third of the heap and both feel about twice our age :)

On the growing front, at last things are beginning to thrive - rhubarb, salad leaves and a multitude of herbs are all putting on enough growth to actually be able to harvest at last.

Lemon balm - great for teas and just sniffing!

Thyme - well you just have to..

Still it meant we'd earned our Sunday off. Ryton Gardens at Garden Organic came up trumps again - lots of interesting talks and beautiful gardens to stroll through.  We all know how vital bees and other pollinators are to our planet and to our food supply so it seems a nonsense that we don't do everything we can to help them through what seems to be a very rough patch for them. There are loads of resources out there explaining what can and should be done and the first talk we attended was by the wonderful, passionate bee campaigner Brigit Strawbridge explaining about the hundreds of varieties of bees that we share this country with and what we can do to try to reduce the impact of habitat decline (simple - plant flowers, lots of flowers of many shapes but that have single blooms and flourish throughout the year oh, and if in doubt, opt for the colour blue) and neonicotonoid pesticide use (simple- please don't use them, there are so many studies out there outlining their impact that even if our Government can't see the light we should be taking a stand).

Blue flowers, untidy corners and water all make for a wildlife friendly garden

The second talk we attended was from the folks of The Natural BeekeepingTrust about their philosophies around Bee Guardianship and their beautiful and intriguing Sunhive. Now some of the Trust's philosophies may be more about feelings and less about science and therefore not for everyone but this hive is designed around the natural shape of a honey-bees comb rather than the traditional square and is part of a whole concept of beekeeping that tries to reduce the amount of intervention in the process as well as severely restricting the amount of honey taken from the hives. After all honey is bee food and if one of the problems for bees is that they are starving over winter then it makes sense not to raid their larder too often for our benefit, doesn't it?  Oh and this isn't the only group of folk looking to change some of the practices around beekeeping - Phil Chandler at The Barefoot Beekeeper is another one worth looking at if you are thinking about taking on your own hives but aren't sure if it's for you.

Springing into action

Well folks that's what happens when the sun appears - suddenly it's all go in the garden and lotty and I forget to write about it!

The last couple of weeks have seen us planting out spuds, broad beans and strawberries up the lotty.

T'other half took this photo once the spuds went in :)

Pruning gooseberries - a bit late but well they have two choices and they're spiky little devils! Clearing and preparing beds for beans, roots and brassicas.

A bit Heath Robinson but this should support the broadies as they grow

We've been potting on tomatoes, lettuces, brussels and overwintered herbs plus sowing basil, rocket, courgettes, peas, winter squash and pumpkins. We've taken stock of the winter losses - several thymes in the garden and at least one of the lotty rosemaries have succumbed to the prolonged wet and cold so I'll be hunting down replacements and looking for ways to protect them next year.

And yesterday I watched as the blue tits twitted in and out of the bird box, a peacock butterfly warmed its wings and a bumblebee buzzed around the hellebores and the first cowslips. MMM Sunshine :)

Mea Culpa

I'm sorry - the fact that it's 4th April and we've got snowy hail in the Midlands, again, is all my fault. This week I'm on gardening leave - and no I didn't do anything dreadful at work - I thought I'd extend the Easter holiday and knock the lotty in to shape. After all, its April isn't it? You know mid-Spring, that wonderful month of yellow daffodils and fluffy white lambs and yes okay I'll accept showers, but of the lightly warm, gently watering the land sort not of the sharp, biting, cruel icy variety.  They belong to February or at a push early March.

So after a lovely long weekend catching up with family my plans for today have been adjusted slightly. March was a lot darker and colder than expected which means that despite a heated propagator most of our poor little tomato seedlings have keeled over and given up the ghost. Cue a morning of pot shuffling and re-sowing - Salt Spring Sunrise, Roma, Garden Pearl and Moneymaker popped in fresh pots with fresh compost and a lot of hope.

Whilst I had the compost - Vital Earth peat free of course - and pots to hand I also made a start on sowing my birthday flowers. Now we have trays full of Sweet Peas "Perfume Delight"; Sunflowers -"Earthwalker" & "Valentine"; Candytuft and Scabiosa " Tall Crown" all jockeying for space in the conservatory and on windowsills.  In a few months these are destined to be filling jugs and pots all round the house with sweet smelling home grown posies.

Dreaming of home-grown flowers

After a quick check on the wonderful Higgledygarden website I also popped my Cerinthe seeds in a little pot of tepid water to soak - evidently they have quite a hard shell and germinate better with a bit of softening so that's tomorrow's gardening sorted :)

I think the squashes better wait for a few more weeks, don't you?

And the wind doth blow!

Will it ever end? The Equinox has passed and next weekend sees the start of British Summer Time but Nature seems determined to keep us in Winter's icy grip for just that bit longer.

Frozen daffodils and buried violets

Not as bad round here as in other places across the country but it is frustratingly cold and dark. With snow and ice on the ground and hanging in icicles from the gutters working the soil, sieving the compost heaps, planting the spuds and anything else vaguely "seasonal" is just having to wait.

There are tulips and herbs under here somewhere

But gardeners need to do something and so we did what we could and embarked on some plant pot shuffling, potting on, tidying up oh, and plenty of label washing too.

One day these will be lunch!

Moving autumn sown sweet peas up a pot size, pricking out the lettuces and potting on the Sweet Banana peppers was just about as close to gardening as we managed, still it satisfied the need for dirt under the fingernails, if not for fresh air. And let's face it the air is very fresh out there!

Long pots for the sweet peas in case they have to stay in them for a while.

Next job was shunting propagators around the house chasing the light  - the poor little tomatoes we sowed a few weeks ago are looking decidedly leggy and not particularly healthy - just looking at them makes me feel guilty. Still there's time yet I suppose and worse comes to the worse we will re-sow but it's not what any gardener wants to see at this time of the year and makes me twitchy and fearful for the state of the Autumn store cupboard.

But for now we'll stay our hands and no more sowing for a few weeks in the hope that April will bring with it warmer days and longer evenings.

Fingers crossed eh?

Moving forward

With the move into March we have finally had chance to start preparing ground at the lottie.

We now have beds cleared of weeds, covered in cardboard and layered with composted bark mix ready to set the spuds into in a few weeks time. Last year we tried this no dig method for the first time and found the spuds easy to harvest and clean to pick. We garden on light sand at the lotty which means that when we used the trenches we both grew up with we'd end up losing spuds deep into the ground and find volunteers popping up in the same place years later which completely mucked up our rotation and held the door open for all kinds of bugs and diseases. So the future is beds mulched with compost and spuds sheltered by grass clippings.

sleeping beds waiting for seed potatoes

Weirdly snow and freezing hail returned today so after preparing the bed for these beauties yesterday our gardening endeavours were confined to indoors.

More patience required - too cold to put these out yet

So we set to sowing tomatoes - 4 different sorts - the ever-reliable Moneymaker; sweet little Garden Pearl; Heritage Seed Library variety Salt Spring Sunrise and the little plum shaped cooking tomato Roma - and after blight wrecked the crops again last year we'll just be growing in the conservatory and hoping for more success.

Broad Bean risotto in waiting

Other new starters this weekend - Pea Early Onward; Crimson-flowered Broad Bean; Leek King Richard; Oregano and the delicious orange scented thyme.

Orange Thyme - Bees love it and so do I.

All we need now is for a bit of sun and some warmth and then we can start potting things on and filling the rest of the windowsills. Can't wait :)

Pondering on Plastic

Friday was Transition Stratford's monthly Film Friday and this month we watched the wonderful Clean Bin Project about a Canadian couple who challenged each other to live for a year without producing any waste. This funny but thoughtful film provoked much discussion and gave me plenty to think about as I plan this month's shopping list. The stand out comment for me came when Grant was questioning the validity of what they were doing but Jen pointed out that so many of the current environmental problems - The Big Things - Global Warming; Peak Oil; Air Pollution; even I suspect Famine and World Hunger - would be sorted or at least reduced if only we could cut down on over consumption and by extension waste.

Plastic- What do you do with yours?

Underlining this was a feature mid-film about the plastic island in the middle of the Pacific and the alarming rate at which Albatrosses which nest on Midway Island are bringing it ashore - plastic floating in the water looks like food to an albatross and other sea life you see - and even more alarmingly they are feeding it to their young and killing them. If you want to know more about this and see some heart wrenching photos of plastic-choked skeletons then head over to the Chris Jordan website. To be honest even if you don't want to see the photos you really should try to look at them, but be warned they aren't pretty. Chris helped produce the Journey to Midway film which sought to highlight the problems being caused by human waste in an area about as far away from human habitation as you can get and still be on the planet.

For those of us in the UK wanting to know more about reducing the waste we generate by changing the way we shop the team over at The Rubbish Diet Blog have plenty of ideas. If you are up to it they have issued the Rubbish Diet Challenge and our own Transition group will be re-issuing the Plastic Challenge later in the year.

The overriding message for this weekend is that if we use it we need to take more responsibility for it and that brings me back to the old environmentalist mantra - Reduce, Reuse, Repair & Recycle - and whilst Recycle gets all the headlines the most important of these by far has to be Reduce.

So it looks like there is no hiding place for me - time to look at that bin and revisit the shopping list. Will you do the same?