The Spring and I

"And the more different colours and kind of plants with their varying arrangement you can enjoy, the happier you will be in pushing out your frontiers of experience.  Never stay still or you'll slip backwards.  Never stop experimenting.  It is important not to accept received ideas automatically."
       
     -- Christopher Lloyd in "Proud to Be Vulgar"
         24th September 1994
         In Notes from the Garden




Gardeners face all sorts of challenges. Mine include (but are not limited to) cat poop, slugs, lack of time, shade, heavy wind and rain, stony soil, and marauding pheasants. Some of these can be cast in a different light with the right attitude and solution; others are only annoying, like damage by slugs and snails.

Early this year I was roused and begin sowing seeds. I begin wandering with the aim of finding of rebirth out in the confines of our little patch of land. I was biting my lip and deciding where and what to plant, with the undying but often dashed hope for a fruitful summer. My gardening books refuse to stay shut.

The beginning of a rock garden, saxifrage in competition.

I reckon I am a sort of vampire, because I feed on others who are passionate. I am most inspired by people who encourage you to experiment with your planting, and to employ your own combination of expert advice and intuition. One of my favourite slivers of wisdom is to learn from the land, watch nature, use your senses and observe how and where things grow.

I too have an affinity for lists, and I like to browse those lists telling what to grow where: which plants like full shade, which ones fancy a little and those who need to bask in full sunlight. So many resources are available to the curious gardener, however I do find an opposing comfort in that fact that no rules are hard and fast. You are best learning lessons on your own, from your own experience.

This year I have planted multiple containers full of salad leaves underneath towering trees. I haven’t sought advice on whether this is a good idea, and in truth I assume lettuces do require more sun than I’m going to give them. However, in this instance I am going to find out for myself. I want to see how they cope with what I give them.

My more sunlit patches are going to be filled with onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots, peas, and chard, and perhaps a few other things that I throw in as and when.

My cold frame is currently housing dwarf sunflowers, spring onion "lilia", nasturtiums, borage, thyme and a sempervivum (houseleek) experiment.

In January I discovered that beets can survive the winter outside. Late last summer I planted a few and forgot about them, poor things. I found them slightly weary on top but firm on the bottom, and then earthy and sweet when boiled and eaten.

Up here on the Pennines there is no way to know what summer will bring. Four seasons can show up in one day. What better way to learn by doing, at the mercy of nature and accepting the unpredictable.

To be continued...

xxx Laura

A Few Frames From the Garden

"I wonder if a wild tree planted in the middle of an ordered landscape can make the reverse happen, can unstring this taut garden, I mean, and allow the cultivated plants all around it to sound the clear note of their own inborn wildness, now muffled. There can be no civilisation without wildness, such a tree would remind us, no sweetness absent its astringent opposite."

--Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

This week, instead of reading more about the phone hacking scandal, debt ceilings and the Greek bailout I fell into my garden. My tended area was beckoning -- a despatch at dusk.

I’ve been monitoring a poppy that I didn’t plant. It has grown nearly as tall as me and is now forming seed heads. This drifter found it’s way to me through the wind and now I’m going to collect what it has to offer. It has bloomed into deep pink and purple and next year I plan to help it put down roots and stay for a little longer. This one’s brother has come up about ten feet away but must not have inherited the height gene. (I can relate).

My feline housemates seem to think the garden has been planted for their pleasure. My beloved Foo is fascinated by many things – a full bath, bullying, cameras, toilets flushing and here the Green Fennel. He appears to have mistaken it for catnip!

I get strange looks at work when I describe my peas as beautiful. I am checking on them daily for signs of fattening.

Here are some marigolds that have grown from seeds self-scattered and sown after flowering last year. I was tempted to intervene in their life-cycle by pulling them up but resisted. I let the seeds put on their show for me.

All this gardening means the housekeeping is neglected. I always say that if I were to win the lottery I would hire a housekeeper. You can imagine my excitement when my friend gave me this one!

Although I can't even have five minutes of peace on Sunday while this cleaner is busy...

Laura

Germination and Spring Agitation

It’s happening again, and I can’t seem to stop laughing. (Warning – this post might be manic). Oh and in case you and wondering my new shade of nail polish will be called (trendy, I know) "Dirt".

First of all, my Rainbow Chili seeds have germinated. Each morning I come downstairs much too early for a progress report on germination (having only checked 6 hours before). I read on the seed packet that germination for this particular variety of chili can be erratic, so sow them all. Apparently they are a wild sort of chili, moody and choosy about when and where to show up, and I’ve been successful in convincing them to show their faces in Weardale, in the boiler room of a barn on an exposed hillside of all places. Oh the excitement!

Meanwhile, my cat Annie is highly annoyed that I’ve taken over her warm space on the boiler for seed planting.

Second, I should point out why I have the giggles. I recently watched an episode of An Idiot Abroad starring Karl Pilkington, the one where he travels in India and visits the yogis. If you are so guided to seek this out, do look for the part where one flexible fella wraps and manipulates his manly member in a most astounding manner. My mind’s eye would not expel this image during my yoga class as we were prompted to close our eyes and breathe deeply. The laughter was bubbling out and I felt called to explain this incredible feat to my classmates. What a man did with his “willy.” I'm sure some of them wished I had kept my mouth shut as they were imagining waterfalls and birds chirping.

So that being that, I just consumed the last of my 2010/11 harvest by chomping on an unexpected crop of flavour-packed parsnips. When I said above that it was happening again, of course I meant the second birth of my green fingered frenzy. The temperature is ever so milder here, the daffodils are aiming for the sun, and my fingernails just will not come clean due to my love affair with soil. Crumbling it, shifting it, conditioning it for the children it’s about to accept into its fold.

I should also add that RuthandLucille is about to celebrate birthday UNO! Shall we sing?

Thank you so much for stopping by!

My little tomatillos. Their overbearing mother has pushed them into the best spot for sunlight.



The new plot, which came with bigger biceps.



Pretty In Purple Rainbow Chili Seedlings - arms open!

P.S. If you're interested in where I purchased my seeds, see http://realseeds.co.uk/.

P.S.S. The title of this blog makes me think of Michael Jackson's song "Black or White". Am I alone here?

Laura xxooxxoo

Finding Breath in Winter

For several years I have wondered if I may suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, but then I relax and back away from the hypochondriacal tendencies and into the warmth of a cardigan and fleece blanket. Next I invite my cats onto my lap for communal warming. I want to think it is the ebb and flow, the seasonal turns our human bodies must obey, or as my yoga teacher would say, the yin and yang.

The summer makes us slow with its heat, while the winter calls for a brisk walk or turning over earth in the garden to churn our muscles and give our bodies the warmth that is so plentiful in summer. Winter is contemplative, to summer’s humour.

In the spring I felt like a newborn, plump with desires for the year, plans. After my defrosting I was aglow with the sentiment that blooming was ahead, progress, long hours of sunlight. Of course, the days again will shorten and the green things float back down to the ground. The leaves provide autumn its palette with their color change and eventually become food for the worms underfoot.

It is now the end of October, and I recently bought a new raincoat to bridge the gap between late summer and early winter. It hasn't yet seen many days because the cold arrived too soon and a heavier covering is required. Nearly everyone you meet mentions the return of “dark nights” (although they come around each year they are still a phenomenon which must be spoken of). My green-fingered endeavours have proved a modest success. I have potatoes, petite onions, a few bulbs of garlic among other things. The parsnips are still pushing underground waiting for the frost to bestow flavor. Some things have flowered early and others have flowered late, flowered for longer than expected, or not flowered at all. I have learned that next year I won’t be so calculating in my attempts. I will lean more towards experimentation without a fear of failure. Most of the time, things find a way to grow.

In these next cold months instead of giving in to moods of melancholy, I will empathize with the snow crocus bulbs. Having just been planted they rest beneath the surface, in waiting, and in spring I will monitor their (my) peep above ground, a harbinger of beauty to come.

Let me introduce you to Georgie (right) and Axle (left). Friends since infancy.

And a few of the many local sheep. I'm afraid I can't tell you their names.

Stay warm!

xx Laura

Intangible Heirlooms

Gardening has got a hold on me.

At the end of my day I now say hello to my plant children and ask them how their days have been. I have joined my local horticultural society and am looking into horticultural distance learning courses. My "to read" list is awash with books about plants not to mention the fact that the local library's stock of books on the subject is half checked out by moi! I am reading Laeticia Maklouf's The Virgin Gardener at present which gives any new green finger little projects that will really set you on your way.

Over the past few months the seed packets have quickly accumulated while the free space on my windowsills has notably diminished. Last week I had to rein in my bubbling excitement when I received a cutting of my father-in-law’s lavender to grow on, sending me down the path of propagation. And finally, Alys Fowler, the gardening heroine of many and her TV show on the BBC called “The Edible Garden”…what an inspiration. She shows you how to fit tasty produce in a small space together with beautiful foliage, and on a budget to boot! Here are their blogs.

http://laetitiamaklouf.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/gardenersworld/alysfowler/

It seems that through time, space and memory I have been handed an heirloom, which is defined on dictionary.com as “A valued possession passed down in a family through succeeding generations.”

As I wait for my seeds to germinate and cuttings to take root I am accompanied by my parents and grandparents and the lessons thus far learned from Alys and Co. I can feel them looking over my shoulder. They must have felt the same things. Like me they must have wondered if the wonder would melt away into the mundane and usual. Oh how I wish I could plop my current self back down into that desk in biology class.

***

Here are some photos of my progress.

My purple sprouting broccoli (x 2) is becoming acquainted with the outdoors and its first night under the moon was quite cold so currently I am concerned.

My thyme plants are showing personality in their movement towards light, being turned every which-a-way and developing at different rates.



My onions have shown bravery after a few late frosts.



Lemon balm is desperate to reach the heavens and proves that plants want to grow!


Salad leaves are having a bad hair day and impressing upon me discontent in their position on the windowsill. (Unless an expert can tell me otherwise!)



xx Laura

When The Seed Was Planted

I don't recall seeing many photographs of my grandparents' garden or rose bushes. When I was seven I didn't realize that the plunge of my hand into a metal tin filled with cool, grainy bird seed or my grandfather, a teacher, lifting the tarp on the compost heap with an explanation on decay would somehow become a memory that I would call upon as inspiration at the age of 27.

These days I am cultivating a nascent "green thumb" which I believe is rooted in these early experiences and is also an attempt to keep my dear grandparents alive in my memory. The mental images may be faded and blurred around the edges but I will make new ones which are vivid and distinct! I am lucky because presently in the UK there is a glut of media attention being paid to growing your own vegetables and making simple and beautiful food using your own home grown ingredients. I am a novice at best yet already there is so much joy to be found in watching my little plants grow!

I am starting small, being restricted in terms of climate (living in an exposed and hilly spot) and time (with commuting to a full-time job and renovating the stone barn we are living in) but with enthusiasm I am nursing some herbs along into what will hopefully become my own little aromatic herb garden!

Even this morning when I came down downstairs, before even turning on the kettle for a "cuppa" I felt it necessary to check the progress of my seedlings, wondering if they might be thirsty or if today they would lodge a request to move to a sunnier post.

Here are my little ones about a week ago, some thyme and lemon balm.



Onwards and Upwards may they go!

Laura