Just Sitting

Hello Friends!

How are you doing?  I mean this, I am not asking to be polite. How are you really doing?  I know the cold and hard reality of what this pandemic is going to mean in the long term, for many of us, is only now beginning to hit home. 

Come with me, and let's stroll, arm in arm, and take a peek at some of the beauties flowering in my cottage garden this afternoon, just as the sun begins to show itself.

After many days of playing Hide and Seek with the rain in a mostly grey, cloud strewn sky, the sun came out to play.  How could I not go and just sit for a few snatched moments and revel in this all too rare British summertime phenomenon?  The sky was so blue, not a cloud in the sky, and as I sat and snapped a quick photo of the wild, blue yonder, a Herring Gull lazily drifted into frame.

Photobombed!

The rambler rose, Frances E Lester, is now nearly spent for another year, and just a handful of blooms now remain on this once magnificent, giant pom pom of pink and white delicious fragrance.  It does so well, gives of it's all, but this year was so badly let down by the weather.  She's still very pretty, and bury your nose in a bloom, the sweet perfume still lingers.

A rambler of a very different ilk, and by many considered a weed, but I confess I am possessed of a certain fondness for it, is Bindweed or Convolvulus.  I know it is prolific, and gets a hold that can choke out other plants, but oh! the pristine white flower, so starkly contrasting against the dark green leaves and I am smitten.  I will always let some of this in my garden, for it also fills in some of those empty spots as other flowers fade.  My Great Grandfather, a time served gardener, called the roots the Devil's Guts, but I think his daughter, my Nanna, shared my fondness for it's beauty, as she called it Morning Glories.

Sometimes simple flowers are the best.  The sweet, daisy like yellow centred white Feverfew forms a perfect backdrop for a flowering head of purple Verbena Bonariensis.  A perfect match, delightful blend of colour.

Four years ago, instead of a bouquet of flowers on Mothering Sunday, I gave my darling Mum a potted rose.  After it's purpose was served, I potted it into a larger pot, and now it is full of the loveliest red blooms.  I feel Mum is smiling down on them as red roses were amongst her favourite flowers. I plan to put them in the borders this autumn.  Originally, there were five plants crammed in and forced, as they do, for gifting purposes, and two of the original plants have survived.

Let a sleeping dragon lie, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup

My buddleia is way behind everyone else's, but is suddenly starting to put out some of those fat and floofy, long and elegant spike so loved by butterflies.

Over 20 years ago I bought some oregano plants.  They went forth and multiplied, and rapidly spread throughout my garden {and quite possibly some of the neighbouring gardens too} and I have happily allowed them to do this, for not only do they provide a delicious herb for my favourite Mediterranean dishes, they look so pretty, make a useful cut addition to small posies, and bees love them.  Here's one that flourishes in a crack in the wall.

Doesn't it seem so sunny and Mediterranean looking?  A holiday escape on a Welsh summer's day.

And, when the sun finally does come out after the rain, what do we get?  Raindrops on Alchemilla Mollis, another favourite plant {is there actually any plant that isn't my favourite?}

Finally, for today, "Betty's Smile" is opening again.  My heart sings and this is my rose of the moment, as it brings with it happy memories of my darling Mum, who in this time of pandemic I seem to be missing more than ever. How has eighteen months flown since she left me?  These blooms bring me more joy than I can begin to put into words.  There is a delicate fragrance to this creamy pink delight.

I hope you have enjoyed our little wander around my cottage garden borders today.  I sure have enjoyed having you here!  Next time, we'll take a look at the Crocosmia again, and fragrant white lavender.

Until next time
Stay Safe, Stay Strong, Stay Well
Deborah xoxo

Berries and Fruit

Hello Friends!

The seasons slowly turn, whether or not the weather is keeping up, and high summer approaches, so does the season of berries and fruits that add variety to our harvest and table.

What is your favourite summer berry?  I can honestly say I always think that strawberries are my favourite berry, until I pop the first fresh raspberry in my mouth, and then my heart sings with my truth: that fresh picked, sun ripened, still warm from the vine raspberries are truly my favourite berry.

I had planted four varieties, but find I have two that I prefer so much more than the other two that I am going to focus on those and remove the others.  Usually over the summer months I pick more than enough to have a serving of fresh berries almost daily as a healthy snack, and plenty to freeze as well for making raspberry jam which brings warm memories of summer months to the kitchen during the long, dark winter.  This year, I am hoping preserving sugar will become available; at the moment I can get granulated but no sign of preserving sugar on the shelves.  Maybe I am looking too early?  However, I am making sure to pick the berries for jam while still slightly under ripe, for they have higher levels of pectin and are better for setting jam and jelly if you cannot get preserving sugar.  I think slightly under ripe berries also help offset the sweetness of the sugar.

I don't think I will pick many blackcurrants this year for the crop is tiny.  They were Dad's favourite but I have not the patience to pick, then top and tail hundreds upon hundreds of tiny, Vitamin C laden juicy jewels!  He picked them by the bowlful each evening.  My dear mother was constantly making him his favourite blackcurrant pie, of which he never tired and we always froze enough to make him a pie for his late Autumn birthday, instead of a cake {or more often as well as a birthday cake!}

The loganberry, which as we know in my garden may be a Tay berry, is yielding a small crop and I will definitely have enough to make a bottle of flavoured gin, with some to put in a Jumbleberry Jam, which is different every time I make it, and very delicious on toasted home made bread, or in a bowl of slow cooked porridge.

I love loganberry in my Jumbleberry Jam, it's acidic kick tempers the sweetness, and I like that sharpness it imparts to the mixed berries.

Something is wrong with the apples this year.  Despite copious watering during April, which was very dry indeed, as was May, all is not well and I doubt I will see much of a crop at all.  Usually, they seem to auto thin themselves in June, saving me the job, but this year everything stayed put, then I simply forgot, or shall we say due to inclement weather I didn't do it.  So, now, I have clusters of miniature fruit that will probably come to nothing, and a few that have thinned out to two apples per station {as they should be} but even those are of no size at all, still smaller than a tennis ball and already ripening so won't grow any more.  Sad, but true. No apple harvest this year.

The wild blackberry vines, however, are doing most splendidly, and I should see a bumper pick starting in a few weeks.  I love having real wild blackberries on my property, but the vines are thuggish and are taking over.  For several years now they have slowly encroached upon the land that once belonged to them before my late father cleared the ground to build the cottage.  Every year, they have reclaimed a little more, and every year three things happen.

First, I vow to clear them and reclaim the land for vegetables;
Second, I fall down on the job and curse my own ineptitude;
Third, I forget one and two, and joyfully rejoice in early to mid Autumn when I am harvesting the delicious little jewels of nature's fruitiness and bounty to make pies, crumbles and jellies.

Lots of vines; lots of flower buds; lots of flowers; and lots of fruits swelling ready to ripen!

The second flush of strawberries is now only days away I am sure.  Berries are forming, swelling and ripening, and once this rather wintry weather passes and summer returns, I know they will do their very best to catch up then.

Weather wise, we have sat under a blanket of grey, misty murk for what now seems an eternity.  I cannot comprehend that in July I still have the heating on.  It rains from time to time, sometimes heavy, so no need to water for now.  The wind have blown, heartlessly and without relent, and the rose petals now carpet the lawn, and many beautiful plants have suffered, such as the Lucifer crocosmia and Ladies Mantel.  Let us hope that by our next visit the weather will improve, maybe it is already starting to.  They will recover, I am sure, for Nature has a way of bouncing back.

Until next time
Stay safe, stay well
Deborah xoxo

What's Flowering in the Early Summer Garden

Hello Friends!

Well, so far so good, I seem to still have the old Blogger and not the new one that they keep telling me I will have sometime in June.  Did they not notice June was last month?  Shhhh!  I still don't seem to be able to correct the font issues, but that's how it is.

The weather has continued to be more wintry than summery, arguably not even spring like.  The only things that are looking a little like summer are things like the hot, fire red Crocosmia Lucifer, and the cool, innocent white Feverfew.

of course, the spiders have spun their silken magic and the fairies sprinkled them with pixie dust

The Feverfew is only one in the garden, and of all places it picked to flower is in the wall skirting the edge of the drive.  Still, it is pretty and full, looking really rather stunning in it's solitude and it is left in peace as I do not have a car now.

Several weeks ago, actually before lockdown began in March, I ordered some new lavender plugs, so long ago that I had forgotten all about them, so when  they arrived a couple of weeks ago I had a pleasant surprise, or maybe it was a shock as the weather was so poor I had to leave them be, just unpacked and soaking.  Finally, in the one glimmer of summer in weeks, I potted them up into some trays {which should make watering easier} to bring them on and with any luck they will be planted into the borders in a few weeks.

They look fine, so far, none the worse for their prolonged stay out of soil.

I am not even going to share a photo of my much hoped for watercress, for although it germinated it has hardly grown at all and looks like tiny seedlings still.  I am very, very disappointed.

The crocosmia continues to thrill me and will delight for weeks to come as all those tight buds open!  Each day there is something new to how it looks.

and later, those grand, curvy stems will produce super, rust coloured seed pods which will enhance all my Autumnal decorating.

At one time I had so much Evening Primrose it was everywhere and my garden was a profusion of yellow, but, like Galadriel, they have diminished.  I had two plants left, and one succumbed to the ravages of our recent high winds, so I now have only one.  I must be diligent and harvest seed carefully in a few weeks.

A few years ago, I bought two small ferns, this one continues to delight with it's sumptuously rich, rusty tipped fronds.  I just love it, and it's a garden favourite of mine.

Turn over a frond and you find the miniature, almost alien, world of spores.

My salad crops have slowed down, but the loganberries and raspberries are picking well, and although I haven't had many strawberries this week, I can see plenty coming along again.

Another flower that once proliferated, in both pink and white, is this mallow.  Now there are only two, I guess everything takes it's turn to shine, but again a careful seed harvesting will follow.  The garden looked bridal with many tens of these in the borders.

I hope you have enjoyed our little trip around what's flowering, and bringing me delight, in my garden today.  With more bad weather expected, a break between is happily accepted, no matter how short it be!

Until next time
Stay safe, stay well
Deborah xoxo

Badgers, Blackbirds and a Robin

Hello Friends!

Thank you to all who left such uplifting comments on my last blog entry, so encouraging and kind. Heartfelt thanks from me to you.  With my back gone into spasms again, they have carried me through some painful days.

One thing I miss with our current state is friends dropping by for a chat and a cup of tea.  I know it will be a long time before I can invite anyone safely over my threshold again.  This saddens me, for I am of the ilk that as soon as I open the door and see a friendly face, they are beckoned in and, before they have taken off their coat, the kettle is on. When they are able to visit, it seems it will be during fine weather only and we will sit out, two meters apart, in the garden.  I don't even know any more about the safety of offering a cup of refreshing tea and slice of home made cake.  Do you?  Thank goodness for the garden!

Here's a wee visitor, always welcome, no social distancing required.  A Robin goes about gathering bugs to feed the chicks waiting on a nearby nest.

Speaking of sitting in the garden, I have now got a new Public Enemy Number One.  A badger.  My lawn is not the most pristine, it is more pollinator friendly than well manicured, but even so, the last thing I want to see when I throw back the curtains of a morning is a big pile of earth alongside a big hole where a badger has dug in the night.  There's not a lot I can do, and frankly I consider it a privilege to have a visiting badger, but also know this will cause big problems for me down the road when the vegetable plot is back up and running.

And so, I wonder how the rest of the garden grows?  Since I last wrote, the growing list of foes now includes blackbirds who do battle with me over ownership of the soft fruit, especially the raspberries and rstrawberries.  The raspberries are not so easy to protect, but the strawberries are now covered with a horticultural fleece while I search for some old netting.  Horticultural fleece is good but not great. It's great at helping to keep things warm, especially in winter, but it doesn't let the same amount of light, or water, in and has to be removed and replaced after watering which starts to get faffy.

This is the noise outside, all day long, from sun rise to sunset, when the fledglings have left the nest.

Blackbirds Warning Call

I did not expect a lot of strawberries, as the plants are new, but since I started picking a few occasional fruits this seems to have encouraged a whole raft of new flowers!  I can now look forward to more fruit in a few weeks and right now I have the pretty sight of ripening berries and those oh so delightful pink and white flowers!

Fresh picked strawberries camouflaged on a strawberry patterned tray for fun.

I have also picked a few raspberries.  Slow to begin, but once you start picking they come in thick and fast! The more you pick, the quicker the next fruits ripen up!  The more I pick, the more the blackbirds bolden and attack me!

This one didn't even make it into the bowl!

Each evening, around 6:45, everything comes to a halt.  Downton Abbey is being shown, from the very first episode, and even though I have them all on dvd, I still stop to watch.  In these current days of uncertainty, when those first, familiar bars of music from the opening credits begin, it's like coming home to an old friend, and the biggest, warmest hug imaginable.  Just what we need.

After Downton, I go out and water my pots if it is needed, which at the moment is nearly every evening.  I love watering.  Standing, as the evening sun still warms the world and bathes all in a golden light of gloaming, gently pouring the life giving water on plants that will nourish my body and soul, it is a time to reflect on the day as it says "goodnight", and a time for gentle and calming meditation.  Few jobs in the garden bring me such joy as watering.

My favourite Rosa Mundi

I work hard to be water responsible, and only water where it is needed.  I do not water the lawn, if it turns yellow, it turns yellow.  Grass recovers quickly enough with a light sprinkling of rain. I do not water the main borders either.  Most plants have a way of finding what they need, but occasionally, if it has been a particularly prolonged dry spell, or if I have planted something new, or moved things around, I will water just enough. The plants in my raised borders are pretty tolerant of most conditions and hardly ever need watering.  For pots and borders I try to recycle grey water, but sometimes a five gallon watering can full of water is a heavy thing to lug.

A few weeks ago, on Gardener's World, Monty Don said it was not too late to sow some tomato seeds, so I followed his lead.  Mine are not as far along as his, and I think this may be down to not having a green house, and also that we took a serious hit when the temperatures dropped by 20°F overnight.  Still, I am continuing with them, ever hopeful they will pull through and yield some fruit.  Few things are tastier than a fresh picked, sun ripened, still warm tomato in a summer salad.

I also threw caution to the wind and sowed the last few seeds of two varieties, Marquee de Provence pumpkin and Uchiki Kuri squash.  I also sowed an old pack of assorted ornamental gourds.  They have two chances, and cost only a few handfuls of compost, so nothing to lose, and if they grow then I will have some, hard~to~come~by in my area, ornamental gourds for autumn decorating.  I have not had those in years, as no one grows them locally.  I am still waiting for them to germinate, and I fear the fickle weather has not helped any.

What happened to Summer? Just as things should be warming up, and they did for a few days, we saw the unexpected return of winter with very unseasonably cold and windy weather.  This set back all of our plants and seedlings again, not just mine.  It rained, light and steady, all day and into the night, so the ground has had a gentle soaking, thankfully, and that may save the water for a day or two!  This year, everything was coming along well, and I had started to put things outside when that drop in temperature came , and now my front porch, as well as my back porch, is full of things I am trying to save!  Gardening is nothing if not a constant challenge of wits!  Today and tomorrow we have 45mph winds, and when I went out to pick a salad selection of leaves I couldn't keep them in the bowl the wind was so keen and strong!

Repurposed old freezer baskets to help move things in and out for hardening off when the weather is fine.

I do not have a greenhouse, so all my indoor sowing and growing on of plants happens in my utility room.  It has a lovely big, sturdy shelf and a big window that should let in plenty of light, but neighbouring tall Sycamore trees in full leaf lessen the light by some considerable degree and my plants are often leggy until I can put them safely outside.  Still, it is all I have, so I work with it.  I am grateful to have it.  Now, though, it has to be cleared away every couple of weeks as it doubles up as my grocery sanitising area.  Who would ever have thought we would be talking like this?  All the more reason to focus on getting a small greenhouse, or garden shed with a suitable shelf for potting up, protection, and growing on!

I sent to Suttons for some more seeds, all things that can still be sown, and which will harvest this year.  I read here, Marks Veg Plot, that he grew carrots in pots.  I have a lot of these Long Tom style pots sitting around {it's the consummate Pack Rat in me}so I am giving it a go.  Nothing to lose.  I have some fresh carrot seeds, along with two more types of lettuce, Little Gem and All Year Round, which should provide lettuce into October; parsley; dill; garlic chives; and borage.  I am replenishing all my out~of~date seeds.  There is low availability right now, I guess lockdown has got people out in their gardens, which is no bad thing at all!

I will be looking like a lettuce, but then I do love, and enjoy, a delicious salad bowl every day.  I love to make a main meal salad, with a couple cups of leaves as the base, then add whatever I have: parsley, spinach, tomatoes, diced onion, spring onion, shredded carrot, shredded courgette, diced cucumber, beetroot, a handful of thawed frozen peas, kidney beans, cheese, home made croutons, some seeds, and a home made dressing.  Yum!  It's a favourite meal in the cottage.

Do you have a favourite vegetable or fruit you love to grow and could not do without?  It's hard to pick just one, isn't it?  The superlative flavour of home grown, plot to plate in minutes, how do you pick just one?

Until next time
Stay safe. Stay well.
Deborah xo

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