Thrawn

We had "scunnered" last entry, now let me introduce you to another fine Scots word: "thrawn".

Stubborn and willful.

Something I think can be applied to all gardeners. After setbacks you have to sulk and ruminate for a wee bit and then, set the jaw, pick up your trowel and start again. Apparently I have a real jaw-set which my nearest and dearest know means "don't argue, she's made her mind up and you'd be better keeping out of her way!"

I think Nature is the same though. She just does what she has to do, and despite the weather and the storms, it's heartening to see the apple trees forming tiny apples. I think these are lovely, little tangible symbols of hope, these hop-sized fruits.

D spent this morning putting together a new growhouse for me, wood and polycarbonate and hopefully more sturdy than the polythene one.

(I took the remains of the other one to the recycling centre where there were two other scunnered individuals dumping the mangled remains of their greenhouses - we exchanged rueful eye-rolling as we tipped the metal into the scrap metal skip). The rectangular planter I had the tomato plants in was just too small, so I transplanted them into individual large pots and put them in the new growhouse - with temperatures just 10 degrees I figure they'll appreciate the protection. There wasn't much root that came with them though - that's a bit worrying... I tell you, these tomatoes, if they appear, will be the most expensive ones ever - remind me why I don't just simply say "sod-it" and head to the supermarket??

Or, indeed, to our local farm shop? Our lovely garden centre, Hopetoun, has today opened a farm shop. And it is lovely. Unusual condiments (lots of variations on balsamic dressings - and samples to try); seafood and smoked fish from St Monans in Fife; a fantastic bakery and deli, with things like venison chorizo, air-dried venison ham, pheasant balmoral (haggis wrapped in pheasant), artisan breads, free-range chicken and ham pies, locally made cheeses; a selection of not-normally available to buy cookbooks, locally made sweets, artisan dairy products and a butchery where the produce is farmed in the fields around the shop, and everything is labelled "Estate". There are jointed chickens and whole ones, all free range, all from just a mile away from the shop.

We bought a load of stuff, amongst which was some smoked salmon trimmings, and when we got home, I rustled up a couple of quiches with the glut of eggs we currently have, with smoked salmon, the last of the garden's purple sprouting broccoli and asparagus. And they are heavenly. I've put them in the freezer and they'll do lunches for a week or a trip to see friends in Fife where it's a communal buffet.

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