Confetti

One of those near perfect days today. It's sunny and warm, and the garden is a real sun trap and is blocking out the worst of the breeze which is cool on the exposed fields of the allotment.

I was along at the allotment this morning and planed out the broccoli seedlings, and covered them with the cloche tunnel. I also riddled over the soil in between the broccoli and red cabbage, since the Cavolo Nero and spinach seeds seemed to be doing precious little. The bed was planted with potatoes last year and there seemed little point - or indeed time - in riddling out that enormous bed, so the soil is pretty rough: stony and lumpy. But now part of it at least is soft and crumbly and just begs for you to plunge your hands in it. Or maybe that's just me! Anyway, I've re-sown some spinach and Cavolo Nero, making a note for myself here that I really must cover the kale plants when they grow this year, as last year they were absolutely decimated by caterpillars.

Speaking of caterpillars, we've been seeing a lot of the woolly bear caterpillars around the house. They seem to be migrating just now - we stood and watched one very determined one make fairly swift progress across the street and up onto the grassy verge. They're funny looking things, like their hairy bodies should be poisonous, but they're innocent enough. Apart from wanting to eat my plants of course.

Gardening work is over for today, and probably for a few days in fact as I'm pretty much on top of things for the moment. I've grown impatient at the lack of progress with the peas I planted at the allotment and have sown some in pots in the greenhouse to see if I can start some of there. It could be that it's just a bad lot of seeds - it happens. It happened sigh the sunflowers (Velvet Queen) - only two of them have germinated :-(

A surprise to me in the garden was the emergence of a plant which I'm pretty certain is Bergamot. It certainly has the same kind of foliage and the leaves smell faintly of orange. But I didn't label it, and chances are that it was a seed I sowed last hear and forgot all about it! If it is, it should have the most gorgeous raggedy pinky red flowers and be a real bee magnet.

My laissez-faire approach has spread to some self-seeders in the garden: acqueligias, or "granny's bonnet" as we call them here. I've tended to just let them settle where they may, and they're springing up in between paving slabs and at border edges, and since they're so lovely, and varied, I'm content to just leave them be. Sometimes a haphazard approach to gardening is one that can bring real joy and delight in my eyes. If gardening is humans shaping and controlling Nature, then it's only right that Nature be allowed free reign to some extent :-)

So just now I'm sitting out in the garden, with Classic FM playing out through the open patio doors. The hens are industriously digging through their run - except the one who's in lahiniv and chatting away to herself. The cats have chased off the mouse for the time being. Swallows are nesting in the eves and swooping up and down and chirruping noisily, and blossom petals from the pear tree and one of the apple trees, is floating off in the breeze and covering the patio and beds in a soft sprinkling of confetti...

My Favourite Things

I'm a woman of simple pleasures.

Lots of things come under the heading of "favourite things".

Digging for spuds, buried treasure of precious golden (mis)shapes. Apple blossom on my trees. Watering the garden late in a warm summer day, revelling in the fact that it doesn't really get dark at Mid-Summer and I can be out there at 11pm in near daylight, in near silence.

And listening to my iPod at the Allotment. I put in my earphones, and put on a playlist I have as my workout music when I'm at the gym. It's an eclectic, up-tempo, utterly personal mix of music tracks that I mentally - and sometimes physically - bop around to when I'm weeding and I hope nobody else is around to either notice or bother me. So I listen to things like Texas "I don't need a lover"; All About Eve "Every Angel"; Treacherous Orchestra; Muse; Dr and the Medics "Spirit in the Sky"; T-Rex "20th Century Boy"; REM "The One I Love"; Peatbog Fairies; etc etc. Very much a mish-mash of stuff I like and don't care if anyone else does. I love it and will potter for hours, lost in music (if you pardon the pun).

So this morning I spent a very happy hour or so at the allotment, listening to music, and sowing the first of the "April" seeds: beetroot and Cavalo Nero. I liked last year having flowers round the borders of the plot as they attracted bees and looked gorgeous, so this year I have more calendula (which I really must use to make into cream), red poppies and cornflowers. I ended up opening all the flower seed packets and emptying them into a bag, shaking it and then scattering the mix in the ground so that there's a really lovely mix of flowers. The neighbour across the path from us was there and, glory of glories, building a shed! The last owner of the plot had said she didn't want to put up a shed, she wanted, in time, to put up a greenhouse, much to our dismay because we were hoping that her shed would break the full blast of the wind and give ours some protection. For whatever reason she no longer tends the plot and the people who now do, have decided to put up a shed. We'll wait until it's built then see about repairing ours and re-setting it on the plinth it was blown from.

Back at the garden I've sown chamomile seeds - I love the scent of chamomile and I love chamomile tea. I suffer from periodic migraines and drinking the tea when I have one is immensely soothing. Again though, I really should do something with the flower heads beside tea, and make cream. It's a very healing and soothing herb, great for burns and soreness.

Also sown courgette seeds - I admit that neither of us really care for courgette. But a friend last year gave us a plant and it would have been rude to not have planted it, and if was a roaring success. We were harvesting courgettes on an almost daily basis from July to November. A food magazine contained a recipe for a courgette and garlic tart, and since it required courgettes and lots of eggs, it seemed like an ideal recipe for using up gluts of both. And it was delicious, really lovely. Moreover, it froze beautifully, so I was able to make up plenty lunches for work. This year, based on the success of the courgette, we're going to plant a couple of plants - to be honest I think they're a better crop for us than fennel which we grew very successfully, then decided we really didn't like the aniseed taste and had about 30 fennel plants to get through...

Not sure whether there will be much planting tomorrow: we have to go to Stirling Farmers Market and pick up pigs' cheeks from Puddledub, and, since today has been gloriously sunny and warm, tomorrow is forecast to be misty and cool along the Forth.

If nothing else, it's nice to feel that I'm on top of things... How long do I leave if before I regret saying that?!!

NOW it's Spring

Woke up to clear blue skies and a totally different "feel" to the air. Like a corner had been turned out into the sunlight and the shadow and chill had been left behind.

Spring, now, is here.

To celebrate, D took me to the Allotment and left me there to weed contentedly for a couple of hours, before coming to get me (in case you're wondering, yes, I drive and yes, I'm capable of driving short distances (concentration is a bit of an issue for longer drives though), but he's keen to make sure I don't overdo it, so by dropping me off and picking me up, he can ensure that I don't work for too long and tire myself out).

So I spent a very happy couple of hours weeding and now the allotment is looking pretty darned good and ready for planting. For some reason though, known only to the allotment owner, the water supply is still off, which had been becoming a bit of an issue, given that I and some o the other allotmenteers had been putting in some plants and the ground was cracking with dryness. Jack, one of our allotment friends, asked the garden centre staff when the water would be coming back on. Next week! Which seems a bit bizarre given that, even up here, gardening does start in March in a good year. The garden centre staff, being obliging souls, switched the water on for us today, so I was able to give the new raspberry and blackberry, and relocated cranberry, a much desired drink.

We also paid our fees for the plot for the year: £140. I know it's probably a LOT more expensive than council allotments, but since the latter are like hens' teeth round here and our plot is only 2 miles from our house, not to mention the fact that the owner is very accommodating (and gives out freebies from time to time) we really don't grudge it. So that's us paid up for another year.

Back at the house, I have taken a chair and set it up on the patio. Our garden faces south and is an absolute sun trap. It's one of the reasons we chose this house (a new build when we got it), purely for the direction the garden faces. It's not a huge garden, it's really tiny in fact, but we have a patio with lots of tubs; a bed down the length of the garden in which sit our (espaliered-but-not-really (laziness)) apple trees and flowers; 4 of those 1m x 1m veg bed kits set up on a square of gravel; and at the end of the garden, and up the side opposite the apple trees, is the hen coop and run. Bijou and compact I think you could call it.

But it's pretty productive too, what with the apples (we have a pear tree in our front garden), and the veg beds. This year I've decided that we should use them to grow stuff that enjoys a bit of heat and space on its own, and so I've put bare root asparagus in one bed, strawberries in another, salads in the third, and the 4th I'm going to see if butternut squash will fare well with a bit of cossetting.

So I'm sitting, enjoying the warmth of the sun, the crooning and gentle clucking of the hens as they dust-bathe, and the faint scent of freshly watered soil. I can almost *hear* the plants growing. Or I could if it weren't for the incessant lawnmower symphony that starts now and ends in October...