Jubilee Fancies

I have to admit that we didn't do much for the Jubilee this weekend unless you count watching the flotilla and gig on the telly. I did, however, attend a street party last weekend and had a little stall getting people to make paper pots and plant a seed to help advertise the Manor Park Community Garden, which was great fun in the sun.  I don't actually live in Manor Park but I work for a couple of people who do and so am involved with the garden in an advisory capacity.
I did one slightly patriotic thing this week though.  At B's request I made cakes with holes in! Well actually the holes weren't technically part of the original request and if I'm totally honest were completely unintentional, but anyone who knows my cooking style (a complete lack of respect when it comes to a recipe and having the right ingredients) will know that I kind of make it all up as I go along.  Sometimes it's good and other times you end up with holes.  The recipe required self-raising flour and half a teaspoon of baking powder but I decided (in my wisdom - please close your ears Mary Berry) to improvise with plain flour and three teaspoons of baking powder.  Et voila - holes - at the bottom of every cake caused presumably by an enormous air bubble from my hellish concoction and resulting in an empty fairy cake with a crunchy red, white and blue roof.
Oh well, you can't win them all. . .
LxXx

A Hard Days Night

I've just read an article in the RHS 'The Garden' mag discussing the relative merits of hardening off against putting seedlings straight out and dealing with the resulting pause in growth while the plants physiology adapts to the shock of a new and hostile environment. It would appear to be a matter of personal choice and I prefer not to harden off (unless there's a risk of frost) and sow outdoors. I've propagated seeds and nursed them vigilantly on my windowsill at home, hardened them off slowly and planted them out lovingly only to watch them sit and sulk for a while before settling down to growing, so I'm a little disillusioned with the whole process. I seem to have much more success with seeds sown direct - they're more robust from day one and take off much faster. This applies to seed I've collected from plants already in the garden as well as a multitude of re-packaged ones. I suppose it all depends how impatient you are and how pro-active you want want to be. Personally I'm a rather lazy gardener (unless you happen to be a weed or growing where I don't want you)and a great believer in following the natural order as in 'if it doesn't survive it wasn't supposed to'. Survival of the fittest. This year it's been particularly hard to wait it out for the good weather but my board beans haven't drowned in my claggy and waterlogged soil down at the allotment and the thousands of poppy seeds I merrily sprayed over one of my flower beds at home are fighting it out amongst themselves, so we're doing alright - maybe not as well as I could have if I'd propagated, but who knows?! LxXx

Pond You Like It

This week seems to be all about ponds.

Monday morning saw me working in a lovely garden where the plants are allowed to naturalise and seed themselves where they like it best and, considering it has a north facing aspect, has a rather lovely lawn which I've scarified and aerated over the last few weeks. The overall feel of the garden is a relaxed and slightly haphazard one - just the way I like them! The garden is the product of a perfect partnership - the plantswoman and her husband who "tidies up".

The unusual creation in the photo is the work of Mr Tidy Up following a morning spent digging up and dividing a mature formium (over 1.5m high and 2m wide). The unwanted pieces were potted up to donate to a local charitable concern but before they went to their new home they were arranged to simulate a pond. There was method to this particular piece of madness as the owners are thinking about installing an 'proper' pond and the gentleman of the house wanted to show his wife how it might look. I think it looks great and I'm particularly taken by the fish - although it does look as though it's trying to escape!

Right now I'm off to apply a liberal layer of sunblock before I trot off for a marathon of weeding, finishing the day with my second pond of the week. This time re-planting a pond at Wendel's the cat's house (no fish involved much to Wendel's disappointment I'm sure).

Enjoy the sun.

LxXx

Ooh, A Bit Of Summer Glamping - Lovely!

I am sooo excited as we've just booked our summer holiday - yay! We're fulfilling a little dream of mine and going glamping in the English countryside. Originally we were looking into another little ambition of mine, to visit the Scottish highlands but as we couldn't find anything that blew us away or that met both our criteria we really weren't making any headway.

However, when the Dandelion Hideaway came to my attention via the Dorset Cereals 'spin the bottle' competition I immediately fell in love with it. I love the vintage feel, the decor, the honesty shop, the concept and my especial favourite, the goats (I do love a nice goat). I also really like the fact that Obaston House Farm has been run by the Earp family for almost 100yrs. Luckily for me B 's also taken a shine to it so come June we'll be off to sunny Warwickshire to glamp our little hearts out.

Take a look for yourself - I dare you not to fall in love with it!

LxXx

From Snow To Sunblock

I feel a bit like the Karate Kid at the mo' - merino on, merino off, merino on. . . How naive I was to relax and get excited at the advent of an early spring! How foolish to think that all would be plain sailing from here on in! Ah well, such are the joys of gardening and of the British Weather having gone from surprisingly warm, to bugger me it's cold and back again. This week it's due to be a positively tropical 15 degrees. No wonder we Brits are obsessed with the weather as we literally never know what we'll get from one day to the next. Well at least the early spring bulbs haven't withered under the snow cover and the allotment did look lovely.

The snow came and went within days and this week I actually put factor 50 on my face for the first time - now this should have been purely wishful thinking on my part but

my Celtic skin refuses to be caught out and I was grateful for it for the 2hrs of sunshine on Monday, which felt almost like summer!

With the Met Office predicting sever drought in the south east this year (likening it to the summer of 1976 if you're old enough to remember that tarmac melting time) it looks as though we're in for a challenging year.

LxXx

Tip -Toe Time!

As you've probably all heard Daffodils are blooming all over the shop at the moment due to the ridiculously mild winter, but it's not only the Dafs that've woken up - all the other spring bulbs are following suit too. I've got Snowdrops (planted 2 years ago as bulbs and only just showing!?), Muscari and Crocus popping their heads out to see what's what, which makes it incredibly difficult knowing where to put my feet at the mo'.

Weeding has become a bit of a ballet in walking boots - my hand trowel is now my new best friend, although my back may beg to differ! For example, I spent the morning yesterday standing on tip-toe in a flower bed full of unwanted Wild Garlic (bulb and leaf pics above) trying to remove the garlic and not the spring bulbs - tricky!

The Wild Garlic was originally introduced into the garden as a companion plant to deal with the black fly but it's an invasive little bugger that's spread throughout the back garden and is now happily entrenched in the front too. The only way to keep it under control is to dig out the bulbs and hope for the best. The owner of said gardens is rather fond of it provided it's kept under control and I really enjoy working surrounded by the subtle smell of garlic. It's one of those fragrances like Rosemary or Mint that have a nostalgic quality to them - well for me at least.

On the home front the allotment's looking rather bare but is all prepped for the coming growing season. Our garden has an air of anticipation - everything is ready and waiting. It should be a good year as I've spent a lot of time trying to improve the soil structure with home-made leaf mulch and compost and I'm armed and ready with a humungous bag of organic chicken manure for feeding. The water butts are full to overflowing, the soil nicely moist and during any dry period we'll be saving our shower water. All good in theory. . .

LxXx

Where Did The Rest of The Year Go?

Wow, Christmas and New Year are done already? Not sure how that happened! Anyhoo, I was very kindly reminded by my mate Dave last week (great B-day bash by the way matey) that I'd been very remiss as far as the old blogging was concerned and after protesting that I'd posted recently I realised that Dave (who, bless his heart still reads the blog regularly) is correct and I haven't posted since October. Apologies, but in my defence I've been extremely busy with the old gardening lark due to the return of the mild weather - my daffodils are starting to sprout which is a little extreme in December to say the least! Snow stopped play in November 2010 so I've had an extended working year this year and will be starting early in 2012 too if the weather holds!

On the home front we potted up a 'Rubinette' apple tree into a half barrel (the tree is grafted onto M27 root stock so is ideal for a pot in our front garden) and spent Boxing Day down on the allotment spreading steaming muck onto our beds ready for next years' planting - very satisfying despite some bugger having broken into our shed on Christmas Day!

It's been a bit of a strange end to the year - the gardening's been fab, but my dad was poorly and in hospital the week before Christmas (nothing life-threatening thankfully) so the run-up to Christmas was a bit stressful. On the upside I got another essay posted off for marking and we saw the year out healthy and happy. Today's plan is to go out for a lovely long walk across Wanstead Flats to work off the excess of chocolate and cake - excellent!

Hope you all have a healthy, wealthy and happy New Year!

Speak soon (I promise).

LxXx