Gardening to Nourish and Feed Both Body and Soul

Hello Friends!

I don't know if anyone else found this, and it's probably just because we had such lovely, summery weather following on from such a summery merry month of May but yesterday morning, when I was watering my pots, there was that old, familiar smell in the air, quite unexpected, hinting that autumn is slowly creeping around the corner.  Like I say, probably all to do with how fickle the weather has been, very hot then plummeting by ten degrees Celsius overnight to feeling very cold, and nothing more than that, but when you find yourself putting your vest back on and turning the heating on in June, you begin to wonder whether or not you imagined it.

A garden is a source of nourishment.  The very act of gardening nourishes the soul as you care for, tend, and nurture seeds and plants to maturity and their intended purpose.  Then, if you grow an edible garden of any kind, even just a few simple salad vegetables on a windowsill, you are not only nourishing your soul but also your body with produce you know you can trust to be the best it possibly can be.  What can be better?

If you garden, you do not need a gym, or a therapist, and you get flowers, fruit and vegetables.

One of the things I used to do several years ago, working alongside my father, was to grow most of the household food for about eight months of the year, I did my best to continue after he passed away, but in recent times I have been overwhelmed and I had to stop.  As a full time care giver, it was as much as I could do to keep up with the mowing, never mind weeding, digging, sowing, growing on and maintaining a vegetable garden.  Something had to give, and we all know it takes no time at all for nature to regain a foothold and turn even the most well tended garden into a wilderness.

This year, I had planned to get on top of things, beginning by hiring someone to come in and help with the heavy digging and moving of trees and shrubs, and to generally help get things sorted to a point where I can manage, but we all know what happened next, and it put a whole tool box full of spanners in the works for everyone.  Now that the only gardening company in my village is able to work within very strict guidelines, he's up to his eyes with seasonal mowing and won't be available for many months for the kind of work I need doing.  So, I am puttering along, doing what I can until he is available at the end of mowing season.

There is a long, narrow section along side the south facing pine end of the cottage.  It gets full sun in the summer for about eight to ten hours a day, so gets very warm and seems to me an ideal spot to grow things in pots and containers.  There was an old shed tucked away in the corner, it had to be dismantled last year for safety's sake, especially with the windy west Wales winters, but the chap who took it away didn't come back to finish the job, so it's quite untidy right now, and even as I work to tidy it up, a lot of the rubbish is of the ilk that can only be taken to the tip {Civic Amenity and Recycling Centre} and right now it's not open to trailers, which is what I need.  I may end up hiring a skip in a few months, when we are able to do such things again.

I digress.  The space is paved, no earth; it isn't big enough for anything other than storage out of sight; it's also a sun trap, so too hot to sit in; it's not visible unless you are standing in it, so I can't see the point in filling it with flowers.  So, I have filled a few recycled containers and pots with compost, sown seeds, tended, watered and weeded, and have had a few small harvests already, turning it into a food producing corner.

I have very basic things, such as mixed leaves, lettuce, beetroot, watercress, salad onions, courgettes, strawberries and hopefully tomatoes.  It's not a lot, I would starve if I was relying on this, but it's something positive and nurturing to do during lockdown, and getting my hand back in to growing food again.

I am keeping these trays as baby leaves, not planning to let them get large.  Successive sowings will be key to keeping them tasty.  I love salads, and a fresh picked bowl of leaves is my idea of heaven.

Radicchio, Chicory, Mixed Leaves

It's made me realise, once I have reclaimed my two former fruit and vegetable areas that I now have a whole new area!  It's so warm I think I may be able to grow peppers, chillies and even aubergines along side the cottage, especially if we continue to get good, warm days.  It will be an excellent spot to put one of those small wooden upright cold frames as a place to bring on seedlings.

Salad Onions

It's also made me think of how to use a similar area, but much bigger, along the north facing side, which although shadier still has good light for five months of the year, plenty enough to grow salad crops in raised beds which then frees up the other areas for all sorts of things, and who knows, maybe I can grow enough to keep me in vegetables for most of the year?  However, if they all germinate as poorly and slowly as the spinach and salad onions I will not have much to show.  I sowed two lots of salad onions, and only one lot germinated.  Only one, single spinach seedling to show so far too.

One thing I have had a problem with is cats.  They seem to think I have kindly put out some nice, new litter trays for them, and I lost my beetroots twice.  I used tent pegs and twine to make a net that I hoped would deter them, but no, it didn't, so what to do?  I went into the garage to search out some chicken wire or old netting, that should do nicely, but I found three old, rather rusty, wire shelves left over from one of those little plastic greenhouses.  Absolutely perfect!  They fit over the two target boxes as if they were made for this purpose alone.  No more cats, and beetroot and watercress now growing nicely.  Sometimes, it pays to be a pack rat hoarder!

I hope those miniscule green specks are the Watercress

Beetroot and repurposed wire shelf to protect from marauding cats

I have three courgette plants that will be ready to put out under cloche cover in a couple of weeks, so I must prepare three large containers.

The fruits are looking as if I will have something to harvest too, naturally I would like a bit more, but anything is better than nothing as I get my hand back in, and I am establishing strong, healthy plants for next year too.

First of the raspberries

Blackcurrants

Before I go, I have to share with you the small helper.  Treasure loves to help, especially if it means he gets to dig around in the wet earth, the muddier the better; after all, he is a small bear, and if small bears do anything better than anyone else, it's playing in the mud.  We do need to get him some more appropriately sized tools!

Until next time
Stay Safe, Stay Well
Deborah xo

The Joys of Spring

Hello Friends

It has been a week or two, maybe even three since I last stopped by for a chat. Time marches, ever on, and the flowers in my garden once more come into their own. Those that took a battering from Storm Hannah have done their very best to recover, and those that kept their precious heads below the parapet now flourish and flower, giving their most beautiful all.

Here's a little of what is blooming in my corner of The Shire this week.

Of course, it wouldn't be Spring in Wales without the rain, and the rain brings out the snails, so look who I caught, red handed on my lovely French tarragon. Shortly after this, it became a tasty snack for a nearby beady eyed bird!

My peony, an offspring of the one salvaged thirty years ago by my late father from a fate of going to landfill ~ he rescued it, brought it home, planted and nurtured it well, and it rewards me still.

The delicate clematis, the Lazarus plant, for it returned from the dead years after we thought it was lost, is slowly opening, bud by bud by precious bud

Each day I eagerly await and monitor it's progress

and beneath the towering clematis sits two of the many self sown columbine or aquilegia in many shades of purple and pink

 A few days on, the clematis is doing very well indeed

and opens out in all its glory

a little arty play with some filters

These two patio roses were bought by my dearly loved mother over ten years ago, and I had given up on them! They were pushed into a corner, neglected for nearly three years while my attentions have been elsewhere. I wish I had taken before photos, for they were in a truly sorry state, dry dead twigs with no sign of life and I held no hope, but still I decided to try again.  The best "before" I have is this, where you can see how poor a condition they were in after resuscitation commenced.

I cleared away the thick and choking weeds, refreshed the compost, added some Richard Jackson's Container Magic to the compost, and put them in a warm and sunny spot. For over a month I have tended with water and regular feedings of Richard Jackson's Flower Power, and just look at them now!  You would not recognise them. {I am not receiving any remuneration from Richard Jackson' I think the product speak for themselves}

The exceptionally fragrant Rosa Rugosa is in bloom, and soon the air will be filled with exotic scents of Summer

A Golden Wedding, the yellow rose of friendship

I do hope to come across the adult Red Tiger moth that will emerge from this beautiful, big caterpillar.  It will be a stunner, for sure.

and finally on our little tour around the garden, the Arum lilies are opening out in all their simple elegant beauty.

Soon, we shall step out into the countryside once more,

Until next time,
Deborah xo

White Picket Fences, Garlic and Onions, and Future Thoughts

Gentle Reader ~~~ if there is one thing my heart yearns to see in my garden it is a white picket fence ~~~ and soon I hope to have one!  Plans are afoot but I am a classic Libran so it often takes me a long time to make up my mind, in this case to find the answer to the question "Where shall I put my white picket fence?" but I think, at last, the answer has arrived! Hurrah!

My love of white picket fences came long before I had even seen one when, as a child, I read books that transported me to faraway places where each house in the neighbourhood had these wonderful white picket fences.  No home was complete without a white picket fence. Even though no one had a white picket fence in my neighbourhood, I felt my childhood was incomplete without one of these magical things. I was obviously deprived and living in the wrong world. Of course, I never told anyone about this deprivation, this void in my formative years, for I would appear ungrateful as there was a wonderful, large garden in which I could play and ramble, with a swing, and an apple tree to climb, hens to pester, flowers to pick, and vast space in which to have as many adventures as I wanted to invent. Just no white picket fence to make my childhood complete.  Later, I saw them in films, or in television adaptations of the books I read as a child; then, when living in America, I'd sometimes see them in villages and towns as I travelled, and then I came across Susan Branch's vegetable garden, and if you click here you will see Susan and Joe building their very own white picket fenced vegetable garden.

You can read a little potted History of White Picket Fences.

You can also see a really pretty, thoughtfully considered, and useful white picket fenced garden over at Petals Paper Simple Thymes, where my friend Dawn has a sweet and heart warming tale to tell how her fragrant Tea Garden came in to being.  You just might notice a Susan Branch theme developing ~~~ Do stop by and take a peek ~ not only is it a such a dear story, she has added some truly special touches of her own.  Dawn will make you really welcome there ~~~

So, my hankering to own a white picket fence grows; long have I pondered and long have I wondered ~ for my garden is surrounded by stone walls, and there is not much I can do about that, nor is there a space to cordon off a special area as Susan and Dawn have done. Thoughts passed through my brain. Ideas are batted around and fall by the wayside. Then, it came to me ~ in a rare light bulb moment ~ that if I can't knock down the stone walls, if I can't have a whole fenced off area, I can have a white picket fence as the fourth side to my vegetable plot! It is too open and needs something to make it an enclosed area.  Perfect! Finally, an idea to run with that has real promise!

This is the main vegetable plot taken a few years back but it is pretty much the same today, bounded by three stone walls. The fence will go along the edge closest, or I shall make a rectangle across the foreground and enclosing the area up to the edge of the yellow weed suppressing sheet and over to the small bin ~~~ oh! and I want a row of lavender plants edging and falling over on to the paved area {where I am standing to take the photograph} ~~~
{don't look at how untidy it is, I've been using it as a holding bay for flowering plants for the borders}

They will be white and purple long stemmed lavender plants to contrast against the fence and to provide stems for lavender wands, which I love to make in the lazy summer evenings, sitting in my deck chair ~~~

If I make an enclosed space there must be just enough space over on the left where there is a small path {hidden under the ever~expanding osteospermum and sage plants} to push Wilbur Wheelbarrow on to the plot. As soon as the weather is a little warmer, I will go out and measure things up!  

Goodness, I am quite excited about this.

~~~ Let's Talk Onions!~~~

Onions are probably my most favourite and most used vegetable. A day does not go by where I do not use onions in some way in at least one meal, whether it be as part of the trinity that forms the base of most home made soups, in a vegetarian chilli or a rich tomato pasta sauce, caramelised as a pizza topping, in a lentil stew, raw with a salad, or in a cheese sandwich.  I could go on, and I know you are mentally adding your own personal favourites to this list as you read ~~~ unless you don't like them ~~~ 

Do you know that onions are one of the most widely grown and widely used crops on the entire planet? Every culture grows and uses onions in cooking, and they have numerous health benefits as well as being versatile and tasty. If I have onions in the fridge I have the foundation of a meal. Just think about how many times in the week you use onions ~ but did you know that they aren't just the spherical brown, white, or red ones in the shops ~ their cousins include shallots, banana shallots, leeks, garlic, spring onions {salad onions or scallions} and the tinier pickling onions too?

I recently read an interesting article, which will help you get to know your onions too. It tells you a little about the history of onions, and even how they are found in the first known recipe book that is four thousand years old ~ yes, you read that correctly!  I find that so amazing ~~~

Despite being a favourite, I don't actually grow onions {or potatoes} for the simple reason that they are inexpensive, readily available, and I do not have a huge vegetable plot that I can turn over a lot of space to growing when they are so readily available.

However, this winter, rather than leave the garden to rest, I sought advice and planted a small area with an assortment of onions, and a couple of tubs of garlic; if you click here and scroll all the way down you will see what they looked like about four weeks after I planted them in November, and below is what they look like now.  I am thrilled at their progress, and am probably quite unreasonably excited over them, but then as a novice gardener I always get excited when things do well ~ and the reward of nurturing anything from a tiny bulb or seed to a full grown plant that gives so much pleasure when it ends up on the plate, when you know the complete provenance of what you are eating, is something you cannot describe, or buy!

First, the two bins of garlic ~~~ the first one had rather a nasty accident three weeks ago, but from the looks of things was caught and rectified in time!  We'd had a lot of rain, and one day I noticed the bin was full to the brim with water! Panic strikes! The holes in the bottom somehow clogged up, so I pierced around the base of the bin to let the water drain out, which it did very slowly. I was afraid the crop was waterlogged and spoiled, but new, green shoots are growing from the middle of each plant so I'm hoping all is well below the soil ~~~

If growing in these bins is a success, I can move them on to the paved areas where there is nothing at the moment, so I will increase my growing space!

This bin was planted about a month after the first one and has nearly caught up! ~~~

and here are the onions, with weeds still growing so I shall have to clear them in a week or two ~~~

They are still quite small, but looking sturdy and strong, so I hope they will start to increase in bulb size as the weather warms up ~~~

{I had to zig zag the frames with string to keep off the birds and cats that might do a lot of damage if they are able to get on to the planted area}

If you want to know more about planting onion sets, garlic, or anything else garden~related for that matter, then the RHS has good information and guidelines.

While looking around the garden earlier, I also noticed my clematis is putting on a lot of shoots already.  Do you remember the dead clematis that suddenly came back to life after many years?  It now seems to be doing all right for itself, so it is time to look for a permanent structure and maybe take some cuttings when the time is right!

Thinking and planning forward into Spring and planting vegetables, I have bought some raised beds with suitable liners to retain the soil, on a spare piece of land adjacent to the cottage. These will hold my simple salad crops of lettuce, leaves, Spring onions, baby beetroot etc., thus freeing up space on my small plot for other things. Photographs and ideas will follow!

For now, though, I am still browsing the seed catalogues ~ for remember, I am a typical Libran and cannot make up my mind what to plant in my precious small spaces!  Top of my list this year will be seeds for growing outdoor tomatoes ~~~ I've already selected two varieties, and must think carefully as to what else will be grown this Summer ~~~ in the meantime, while I peruse the seed catalogues in front of a warm fire, with a mug of hot tea, remember that ~~~

~~~A Gardener's Work is Never Done~~~