Jiggered

There is, it seems, a Scots word appropriate for every occasion, and today's is "jiggered"! Meaning: exhausted, tired out, in need of a wee sit down and a cuppa!

And the reason for this jiggeredness? The sun, which made an appearance today (hat on and everything, hip hip hip hooray!) prompted me to get a load of laundry hung out, AND to dig out the hen run, weeding at the allotment, and in amongst all that, the paid job.

Now, digging out the hen run is bloody hard work, as it's a case of digging out the contents of the run, bagging it, and then pouring in fresh woodchip. There's an estate (as in country with big house) who process wood, make stuff out of it, and sell mulch and fresh woodchips as a by-product. And they deliver for free to local homes, for wood stoves, gardens etc but we use the unmulched woodchip for the hen run.

But it needs replaced every so often to keep things fresh, so I bit the bullet today and dug out the old and poured in the new. And doesn't it look wonderful?! All fresh and clean and pale. The hens love it because it's new things to dig through, and because when I throw bird seed and mealworm it's difficult for them to find at first, so they have to do a lot of digging. They're very industrious and diligent diggers, and take it all very seriously. Dig dig dig, step back for a second to have a scan of what has been uncovered, then dig dig dig again. I always imagine they have the theme from Chariots Of Fire playing while they dig, and slow-motion to really emphasise each powerful back-kick of the leg, woodchip flying willy-nilly behind them. They dig enormous holes each day, and backfill them the next. They are gloriously self-important about it all. Goodness knows how that rowan tree has survived without being completely dug out, but it's about 12 feet tall now after just a couple of years, so it can't mind too much.

And the beauty of the woodchip is this wonderful cycle it's part of. Starts as a tree, goes into our hen run, and once it's used it goes, along with the plentiful amount of poop produced by the hens, into the compost bins, where it rots down beautifully, or direct onto vacant plant beds to rot down gradually, and then both compost or plant beds produce beautiful and healthy plants.

Once I'd done the hen run, I had the bit between my teeth and went to the allotment to weed for a couple of hours and to lament over the dry-as-dust earth and lack of growth. Hardly any seeds are germinating, a solitary carrot or fennel, and no yellow beetroot at all. I suspect I have mice there too: there are tiny little bites out all around the edge of the pea seedlings, very neat, and I don't really grudge the mice a meal, but I'm loathe to encourage them, so I plonked cut-off plastic bottles over the inch high pea seedlings to give them a chance.

But it's not all doom and gloom there: I planted out courgette plants (Take 2, if there's another frost I will really sulk), and the potatoes are doing well. Onions are bulging beautifully, raspberry bush is, erm, spreading, and the brassicas are doing so well I'm going to have to think about concocting a Heath Robinson-esque cover as the cloche tunnels they're in are just too small now. The kale I protected with plastic bottles have re-emerged and are hopefully now big enough and ugly enough to make it on their own.

But, as you can imagine, after all that, I'm a bit wiped.

Dinner tonight (D's in Wales with work for a few days so I'm on my own and making a concerted effort to eat (usually when he's not about I forget, and you can imagine why when you see what I get up to through the day)), was Nigel Slater's Red Peppers stuffed with Pork Mince, Rosemary and Garlic. Dear reader, I urge you to try it (it was in The Guardian too): it was so sublime I'm going to have it again tomorrow too.

For now, it's Lola's time to lie beside me on the sofa and watch Springwatch. I have a glass of wine and an early night planned.

It was a good day :-)

Spring is busting out all over...

(Me with a 5 week old osprey chick)


Very exciting news this morning with the news that the first chick had hatched on EJ and Odin's nest at Loch Garten. This morning I had a look at the webcam and EJ stood up very gingerly to reveal the teeniest, wobbliest wee chick which waggled its head and then collapsed again before EJ manoevred herself with great delicacy back over it to provide it and the other two eggs shelter. It always amazes me, having seen and held ospreys, the size of those talons, how they manage to manoevre their way over these tiny little chicks without stabbing them. It does happen, but it's very rare.

The oldest breeding female osprey, Lady, at Loch of the Lowes, is due to hatch out her 49th, 50th, and 51st chicks over the course of the next few days, and the birds at Aberfoyle aren't that far behind.

So it's all go, and, as as one Loch Garten blogger put it: the rollercoaster ride begins. It's a long 7 weeks until the chicks fledge and in that time, with the Scottish weather, anything can happen. Keep your fingers, toes, legs, eyes, and anything else you can, crossed for a half-decent summer and good fishing!
On Sunday I'm heading to Aberfoyle to do a stint. I'm looking forward to it, though I've found it really hard going this week with work, and am at work again on Monday, so I'm planning a few very, very, early nights next week to help me manage. I'm quite taken aback at how exhausted I'm finding being at work, but then, as well as being at work, I'm doing all the house-work too, so it shouldn't be that surprising. Just need to take it one week at a time I think...

From eyries to earth now - I visited the Allotment yesterday for the first time since the weekend, expecting to see a burst of weeds, but also a burst of growth after the heavy rain of the last few days. I wasn't disappointed on the weed front, the grass has been putting out runners and forming clumps and mats around established veg, and there are rogue potato plants popping up beside new seedlings. Wonderfully though, there are now pea and beetroot seedlings. I had bought some young beetroot plants at the weekend, but a glut of beetroot is never a bad thing in this house as D pickles them, so they have gone in beside the new seedlings.

What amazed me though was the state of the soil: I had expected the rain to have transformed the dry cracked earth into crumbly, workable loveliness, but it seems instead to have activated the clay in the soil which has now hardened. The top layer of the soil is just dust which swirled around in the wind. So trying to yank out weeds meant that the top of it snapped off but the root remained in situ. Maybe it's not rained enough - what a dreadful thought!!
My poor kale seedlings are under attack though, from *something*. Most likely caterpillars as the cabbage white butterflies have been rampant. So I've salvaged D's empty 2L fizzy drink bottles and cut the bottoms off, and have plonked these over the remaining kale seedlings to hopefully prevent further attack. And I gave the last rites to the courgette plants which didn't, after all, survive the frost, so have more seedlings on the go in the house. One of which has an Elastoplast on it after I cleverly managed to snap one of the stems, and I'm living in hope that it wasn't snapped right off and can mend itself!

The weather here has been awful though - we've had gales all week and temperatures barely into double figures, but in reality pegged back by the wind to much colder than that. I'm worried that my greenhouse isn't generating enough heat to keep the tomatoes going, and I resorted to putting a clear polythene bag over the butternut squash plant in the garden. Though I'm thinking that what would be really useful, is a huge clear plastic bottle I can butcher and turn into a cloche/greenhouse thing. Something like offices use on their water-coolers. If you know of anywhere I can get my hands on one, do let me know!
 

Sunshine

And yet another gloriously sunny day :-)

If you're reading this from a country that habitually gets good spells of sun, and has a proper "Summer" then I can only urge you to think about everything you've ever read about Scotland's weather - which is all true, by the way - and then imagine how wonderful this warm sunny weather is for us and why I feel the need to talk about it every blog entry!

So today is a Bank Holiday and that meant D was off work too. Since we'd used up nearly all the bird seed in a futile attempt to quieten the hens yesterday (they hooted and buKAWKed for nearly 5 hours as they all wanted in to lay at the same time), we headed up to Dobbies in Stirling to get some more. Interestingly, I've just thought that we could have gone to the one in Livingston but it never crossed our minds... Hmmmm...

So as usual when surrounded by so many plants I lose my head a bit and decided that their offer to buy four perennials for £10 would be very useful and we could pretty up the front garden. Now of course, back at the casa, I realise that there isn't really the room but I'm sure I can squeeze them in somehow!

I also had a brainwave that enabled me to buy some veg plug plants. The carrot seeds are taking *forever* to germinate (it's probably the dry weather) as is the kale. So I bought some plug plants to provide a crop while the seeds grow and mature, thereby providing a continual cropping. Clever, huh?

So this afternoon we adjourned to the Allotment and while D watered (no hosepipes allowed, only watering cans) I got on with planting out the chard and leek seedlings I'd grown. Also sown some fennel and since I've decided that the peas I sowed are duds, some different pea seeds.

Tomorrow marks the first day of my holidays - my sick leave has now officially ended but I had a few days booked for a trip to Belfast that never happened. So I'm on holiday and it feels... remarkably similar to the last few weeks... I feel I should be doing something "holiday-like" but to be honest I think it'll be like every other day. Maybe going back to work will be good to provide a contrast and let me appreciate holidays more!

Thursday I have decided to go to Aberfoyle and the ospreys. The weather's to change, and D's working from home, so I'm relieved of house and allotment duties. As well, it's the Scottish Parliamentary elections, and a day away from the media coverage seems like a very good plan!

It's been disappointing to see the UK Government's plan to remove the burden on local councils to provide allotments if there's a demand. It doesn't affect Scotland, but it does seem short-sighted when the benefits are so great and there is land which is waste land and is fulfilling no other purpose. Let's just hope that sanity prevails...

Beltane

Well, unless you've been on another planet you can't have failed to notice that there was a wedding yesterday. We had a house guest who gamely put up with the telly being on so I could see the nuptials take place. What can I say? I think the couple seem genuinely happy with each other, and I like weddings, and seeing people being happy, and of course, taking the opportunity to people-watch and point and laugh at some of the god-awful outfits and hats on display. Money, it seems, can't buy good taste. The bridal party though were unsurpassabe, I have to say, I just loved that dress. It was beautiful. White and elegant and slinky. The bride's frock was lovely too :-D.

This might not be traditional wedding season, but it's certainly a season of fertility and sap rising and all that. Today is Beltane. I *should* be not far from William and Kate's alma mater with a lot of Pagans, setting up my chair in a garden and catching up beside a bonfire, before retiring early to catch some zzzz's in advance of a dawn dance round a maypole and jump over the bonfire. Instead I'm at home wih a sore throat and feeling shattered. I didn't want to risk coming down with a lurgy since I have to go back to work in a week. Hey ho. Sense prevails but I'm not exactly thrilled at missing out on a celebration with people whose company I enjoy and whose friendship means so much.

Instead I celebrated Beltane at home, quietly. Myself and D tied red, yellow and golden ribbons onto our apple trees while making wishes with each one, and there's incense and libations poured and in that small way, I feel I've welcomed in Summer. :-)

And - wow - hasn't it just?! It's glorious here. The allotment and garden need daily watering. I spent an hour today cutting down potato foliage and spraying with Bordeaux Mixture as once more, blight seems to have affected them. The crop in the autumn was, well, blighted, which prompted our decision to plant the potatoes in another bed. So I was frustrated to see that the new crop has been affeced too. I'm hoping we caught it early enough to ensure a half decent crop. At least the potatoes in the garden are doing well.

In the field that adjoins the allotments, a farmer has a flock of Jacob sheep, and today I watched as the farmer and his two rough collie dogs rounded up and herded the sheep. It was just like "One Man And His Dog" - brilliant stuff :-)

Tomorrow is May Day - D is taking me out to dinner to celebrate Beltane/ commiserate the enforced change of plans. The Boathouse in South Queensferry - I'm looking forward to it :-)

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...

Easter weekend.

I feel slightly cheated this Easter weekend given that I'm still off sick and therefore can't really enjoy the feeling of having a few days off work! This is my last week off sick, officially I start back on May 2nd, but I've actually booked a few days off as leave so that I start back to work on a Monday and a full week, rather than on the truncated week after the May Day holiday.

As you'd expect, we don't celebrate Easter. There are some Pagans who celebrate Ostara, after a deity named Eostre, but the jury's well and truly out as to her existence. Though I suppose it does then segue into the argument about whether humans create deities out of their own needs/ requirements, or whether the gods exist without any input or need on the part of humans... So while I don't celebrate Ostara, I do acknowledge the Equinoxes, and in a few day's time will be celebrating, in rather spectacular fashion, Beltane.

The weather broke on Saturday with cold wind and pouring rain. Ah well, the Allotment and garden really did need it, and today it was sunny and dry, if not quite as warm as our English and Welsh neighbours have been enjoying.

So there was no gardening on Saturday, but we did make a trip to Edinburgh Farmer's Market. There were more stalls there than on our first trip and some terrific food selections. Given that our freezer is full to bursting, we didn't buy masses of stuff. Just some smoked mackerel, rabbit and apple chutney pie, buffalo stroganoff burgers, pork and marmalade sausages, and some pheasant breasts with basil and tomato dressing. Oh, and some tablet which is just EXACTLY like the stuff we remember when we were kids. And our dentists probably did too.

Allotment yesterday though, gotta keep those weeds under control. Or at least give them the opportunity to show me how well they're doing... And they're doing spectacularly well. The flower seeds I've been strewing around are starting to come up, but then I have to dig about to try and oust the grass roots and fear that I've buried the flower seeds that haven't come up forever...

The garden centre to which our allotment is attached was giving away freebie bags to the Allotment holders, plant labels, twine etc. And a notice that there will be an Allotment competition in August where an ex Beechgrove Garden presenter (Beechgrove Garden is a Scottish gardening TV show) will judge the best allotment based on various criteria. I spoke to a few other allotmenteers who say they aren't bothered... Aye right, I guarantee that there will be a rash of suddenly spruced up plots over the next few months...

This morning I decided to plant out some of the stuff in the greenhouse. So I put the butternut squash out in the garden, and took the courgettes, cabbages and some chard to the allotment. Tomorrow will be the turn of the broccoli. I'm all organised: have the glut of eggs baking as pasta frittatas, and I'll take a slice of it along with me for lunch so I can spend most of the day at the plot, planting and weeding.

Can't wait :-)

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?!!

Grass

I garden organically. It's because I believe in beneficial planting and in a fairly "live and let live" approach (or, as it's also known, the "oh, can I really be bothered doing that?" approach). It works quite well, but it does mean that when I do knuckle down and weed, it's fingertip weeding that gets done which is time consuming and difficult at times.

I don't mind weeding, it's one of those jobs that you can really see a difference when you do it and makes the place look neater and more organised. In the allotment there's a wide range of weeds to cope with, but the one that really, really does my head in, is the grass. It is just impossible to eradicate. The roots run so deep and so far that no matter how deeply you dig, and how "rooty" the clump you haul out, you're not even scratching the surface. I swear, if there was a nuclear explosion, in addition to the cockroaches, grass would still be thriving. The allotment holder on the other side of us sprayed his plot with weedkiller last year (yeah, thanks for that), and he had I think a blissful week of hiatus between the dead grass and the new stuff coming up. So hauling up grass is a full-time job at the allotment.

It's a job that needs done, but I admit to feeling guilty at un-housing the ladybirds who shelter in the clumps of grass. And there were a lot of them today. I've ended up leaving a patch of ground wild, just so they have somewhere to shelter. I really want to make sure they hang around - they were terrific last year at keeping the aphids etc down.

We "bracketed" the allotment work with a visit to Craigies Farm Shop at South Queensferry and a visit to the new Dobbies Garden World in Livingston.

We'd heard great things about Craigies from friends, and have an order in for mutton, so thought we'd go and see. It was great - very well laid out, with a field full of free-range hens, an orchard, couple of (frankly enormous) pigs (thankfully sound asleep) and some cows. The shop has a great butchery bit full of Puddledub pork and beef, and a terrific deli. So we bought some pork stir fry, stroganoff meatballs, venison salami, free-range chicken liver pate, and some boar, cheese and tomato sausages. Delish.

Dobbies in Livingston is brand new and was absolutely heaving. Much bigger than the one we usually go to in Stirling, it certainly has a much wider range, and is much more geared towards the whole home-furnishings thing with furniture and - strangely - wall-mounted fires.
I think though I prefer the one in Stirling. Call me parochial, and a bit of a bumpkin, but I love the location of it and the fact that you're closer to hills.

Back at the ranch, I found the bag with seeds-to-be-sown in April which I had lost. I've searched high and low for the last fortnight and, whaddya know, as soon as I asked out loud, I find them a minute later. Handily "tidied" in a bag I was going to take with me to the allotment and then didn't take...

I also bought some peppermint essential oil and soaked some cotton wool pads with it, and scattered them about the garden where the mice seem to be. I'll let you know how that goes,

Tommorrow I am therefore going to start sowing April stuff: chamomile, courgette, kale, beetroot, etc. Looking forward to it :-)





























In the garden it

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...

Battling the elements

Traditionally, the Vernal Equinox is a time of gales (something to do with the high tides at the equinoxes apparently, I don't know the science) and so today we had winds that were somewhere between a stiff breeze and a bit of a gale. Strong enough to haul the small polythene greenhouse away from its ties to the garden fence... It was tied down securely enough - well - we thought it was but obviously not quite. So it snapped its moorings and sailed down the garden, giving the hens the fright of their lives as it settled half on top of their coop...

Fortunately there was nothing growing in it, just a storage for dozens and dozens of pots and tubs. Last year it broke its moorings and I lost trays and trays of seedlings. The problem is that because its just one of these polythene ones, it's not that heavy/ sturdy so there's an annual fight between me (on behalf of the greenhouse) and the wind. The wind is a constant feature here: frustrating, but something you have to deal with.

On a more productive note, I planted potatoes in bags in the garden: more International Kidney, Anya and Kerrs Pinks. All in all we have a few different varieties, both here and at the allotment: Charlotte; Nicola; International Kidney; Desiree; Kerrs Pinks; and Anya. We love potatoes, ideally the waxy ones - the floury ones we find a bit dry. We watched a programme last night (on iPlayer) called Great British Food Revival, where different foodie TV people (Michelle Roux Jr, Clarissa Dickson Wright, James Martin, Hairy Bikers etc) promote British food. Last night it was the turn of Greg Wallace, extolling (at top volume as is his wont) the humble spud. To help him promote the variety of potatoes to suit every palate, he visited the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency (SASA) in Edinburgh where he chatted to someone I worked on a project with. The project was the provision of an integrated IT system for the Seed Potato Classification Scheme. Did you know that seed potatoes are the second biggest Scottish export after whisky? Apparently the Scottish climate is perfect for growing seed potatoes as we have almost no pests/ diseases to affect the tubers. We export to Holland, Israel, central Europe, South America, Hong Kong, China etc. So when you're next buying spuds, there's a very good chance that though they were grown in another country, they actually started life in Scotland. Your useless fact of the day!

Energy wise today was okay - up until the greenhouse went flying and that kind of sapped my energy so I'm a bit wiped now.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel restored and able to get to the allotment for an hour or so. I bought a blackberry plant on Sunday so I'd like to get that planted. Hopefully the wind will drop somewhat so it's less of a battle on the allotment site :-)

Progress

Some pics to let you see how things are going.  The first is of D - hard at work and looking happy with it (I think that was towards the end of the stint!)

This is how it's looking so far - these are going to have different kinds of potatoes in them.

And this is of the allotments area - gives you a little bit of an idea how exposed it all is.   The plots are half sized, only 10m x 10m, but it seems to be big enough for most folk. There are some families who have "doublers" but the single plot is fine for us.



Beginnings

With the promise of sun today, D took the day off work to go and dig at the Allotment.

By 9.30 we were there, wrapped against the biting wind that buffets from all directions on that site, and he dug out and weeded two of the 2m x 2m beds and planted up one of them with 2nd earlies: Nicola and Charlotte.

While he did the hard graft, I took my little trolley/seat/storage-on-wheels (I won it years ago from the BBC Gardner's World website) and trundles gently around one perimeter weeding and sowed peas to train against the chicken-wire fence between us and our allotment-neighbours: John and Cath's.

I nipped to the garden centre shoo to pick up some string, gloves, dibber etc, and was encouraged by the assistant to put some of my purchases back, as the garden centre owner plans on gifting some freebies to the allotment holders: plant labels, string, dibbers, and seeds! So I'll hang fire and wait for a free gift!

As D had dug through the long bed, it was lovely and crumbly, so I sowed some carrots (Nantes and Yellowstone (bright yellow), some onion sets, and some spinach. D also put out the fleece mini-tunnel to start warming up the soil in preparation for planting cabbage.

The Allotments are in a field that belongs to a farmer, and he sells rotted horse manure (at £1/ bag - bargain) so we're getting 10 to start with. It's a lovely informal arrangement: in fact, when I called to arrange to buy, it was the Farmer's Wife who answered and said her husband would call back. He's just done that, and is going to put the bags in our allotment, and we will just square up when we see him :-)

As we worked, three buzzards soared overhead, one of them came low enough for us to see the creamy markings under its wings and the feathers missing, jarring an otherwise perfect outline. The three of them soared, gliding on the thermals, and calling shrilly to each other. I don't know about you, but I love buzzards - I love all birds of prey - but the buzzard population here is so healthy, it's not *that* uncommon to see 6 of them soaring together in Spring and Summer around here. I find the sight of them in a blue sky, listening to their call, immeasurably grounding and uplifting at the same time.

At lunchtime my HR Dept called to discuss the results of the Occ Health report. They're happy with it: just want to check that I was too, and that I am able to work from home as per the report. They seem very supportive, stressing that the phased return will only be applicable when I'm well enough to return, so there's no pressure :-). Phew!

I have to say, I'm pretty tired today, but as a pick-me-up, my order of Tender II (Nigel Slater) arrived. I've already bookmarked tons of pages. I love the melding of fruit with meat, I don't know if it's all the Mediaeval stuff I've read where that was common, or just that I love fruit and would love to use it more in day to day stuff. Whatever, it's something I'm keen on, so am just *loving* the book.

Talking of fruit, the pear tree now has these big fat buds on it, and the apple trees are starting to bud up too. Did I mention that one of my (many) favourite things, is when the apple trees blossom? That appley, slightly soapy scent, the pale pink deepening to dark rose, and above all, the promise that comes with it - I love to sit out at dusk with the blossom arching over me - heaven.

So - tomorrow - back again to the allotment (to square up with the farmer!), to dig in the manure, to plant beetroot seeds, maybe some calendula, and a raspberry (Glen Ample) that someone lovely sent me for Yule. And a wee bit more weeding - the never-ending task of the organic veg grower!

Should be a good day :-)

Right, so where are we...?

So, the allotment we have is a half size one, and this is our first full year with it. We have had a seriously bad winter, and in early January when we were finally dug out of the snow, we went to see how it was all looking. White. It looked lovely though - mainly because everything was buried under a good two feet of snow so it was pristine. Underneath all that, it was unlikely that *anything* could survive...

Fast forward a couple of months and the snow has gone, and amazingly, there are survivors. The foresight (or laziness, if you're being picky) to leave the dead cornflower and calendula foliage in situ, has paid dividends as there is a thriving colony of ladybirds. The garlic and onions have over-wintered well, but the cabbage is a disaster. Slugs, of all things: pity, I was really hoping for at least one of them.

Anyway, the great thing about growing stuff is the opportunity to learn and start all over. New season, new slate.

Because of the lurgy I'm having to (learn to) delegate management of the allotment to D. So while I'd be at the Allotment most evenings to dig and riddle the soil in the beds, that's just not an option at the moment. So I've had to mark out on my sketching of the allotment where needs dug first.

So D has been and dug over the 7m x 2m bed where the potatoes were last year. There's going to be a hotchpotch of veg in there since we're giving over three of the 2m x 2m beds to potatoes. That bed will have carrots, cabbage, spinach, chard, broccoli and so on.

Astonishingly and wonderfully, D came home with a bag of potatoes which we'd planted for Yule but had resigned to no crop when blight struck. So that was a real bonus (and we had some that night and they were delicious :-) )

My contribution has been limited to potato chitting, and seed sowing. But that's still something, so we have a good supply of seedlings coming along and ready to be potted on and out in time.

Today has been a so-so day: out for an hour and then back to bed for three to recover... Mind you, it was a day that included being hit by a mobility scooter in the supermarket...!

On the hen front, two eggs today. Murdina's still recovering after a moult which really sapped her strength so she's only just started laying again (we've had two eggs so far this year from her), but she's such a chatty and sociable wee thing we don't mind.

Well, that's us up to date, the new game starts here :-)

                                                              (The bare bones)

"A garden is never so good as it will be next year" (Thomas Cooper)

Fresh start

Okay, this is a totally new thing for me. I moderate a (Pagan) web forum and use the blog there, but, inspired by the other people blogging about their smallholdings/ allotments/ veg plots etc, I thought I'd add my tuppenceworths. There'll be nothing terribly controversial here, this is intended to be a charting through my days, weeks, months and however long I use this.

This is a form of therapy for me at the moment as well. I'm recovering from a bad bout of Swine Flu and as a result of that and a series of chest infections I'm now (temporarily) signed off work with Post Viral Fatigue which has drastically limited what I can do both physically and mentally. Blogging will help me feel that even if I'm sitting doing nothing, I'm still doing something.

I am - I will admit, a workaholic. I (mostly) love my job (a project manager) but it can be manic most of the time. And combine that with running a house, looking after cats, hens, garden, and allotment, moderating a website - oh, and not forgetting my volunteer work at the David Marshall Lodge in Aberfoyle where I'm an information officer telling people about the Ospreys who breed annually in the area (I'll blog about that at some point too), I tend to operate at 110% as a matter of course.

Often it's hard to see that any progress is being made because I'm running around - I think that spending time writing will help me stop and smell the roses a little bit

Hubby, D, will appear in the blog, as will Lola and Poppy (cats), Murdina, Donalda and Grizel (hens) (I should explain the hens' names: D is from the Isle of Lewis (there will be blogs about that as we go there regularly) where tradition dictates the firstborn takes the name of the father. Even if it's a girl. So Murdo becomes Murdina, Donald becomes Donalda, Norman becomes Normanina,etc. Grizel is the name of one of my ancestors: - gotta get a bit of the Lowlands in the mix too :-) )

So, that's the background. Next blog will actually be about the allotment (mostly).

(2010)

"All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar" (Helen Hayes)