Four Day Weekend

One day's work.

That's right, out of a potential four days of gardening, I managed to dodge the raindrops to get in a day's work.  That includes a visit to the garden centre to pick out some plants on Sunday (generally an awful day) and the luxury of little rain in the afternoon on Monday.  Even a tiny bit of sun peeked out.

Sigh.


So, off to Phoebe's Garden Centre on Sunday to purchase three tomato plants, two courgettes, and a cucumber.  Two lovely little Nemesias because I couldn't resist.  Sadly none of the easy-carry just-add-water compost I'm so fond of.  A 10-litre bag of compost which was all we could carry, not nearly enough to do anything with.

Monday was promised to be at least fair.  But first I needed to get more compost because the plan is to plant the tomatoes in these.

I discovered that the local Homebase had something like my easy-carry compost.  Sadly, it filled one of these.  It is made by Miracle Gro, so I'm sure it's good, but obviously not nearly enough (more is on order from the internet).  So at the moment, all three tomato plants are in a temporary home, in the one.

That's not all I managed to do.  The herb border was being overrun - by weeds only, so that is now cleared (note the Jasmine is still alive - shhhhhhhhhhhh)




Job number 2:  clear the recently "Ready" vegetable border of cat poop.  It seems the cats have decided that, apart from any other part of the garden, this particular border is now their litter box.  That was the second purchase from Homebase:  Growing Success Cat Repellent.

This is not of course to repel the cats entirely from the garden, but from this plot.  I could get all sorts of cat repellents; sonic repellents and such, which would eject the cats from the garden completely.  But since I have a cat, no, all I wanted to do was keep them off the border.

So I cleared the patch - again - of poop, hoed, raked, ready once more.

This is when the disturbing thing happened.  There is no photographic evidence of this, it all happened so fast.  I'm not sure if the sequence of events is related, but here goes.  Ginger squats in the newly once again prepared patch (but not yet sprinkled with cat repellent).  I shout "no", and pick him up mid-squat and place him in an acceptable place.  He does his thing.  Fine.  He vacates the garden through the hole in the trellis, and minutes later returns with something squeaking in his mouth.  I heard the (loud) squeak before he appeared.  "Oh crap, is it a bird?".  No, it was a mouse.  In his mouth.  He sat and looked for approval.  "I've brought you a present".  "Oh crap".  Poor mousie.

Must remember to remove mouse body before I cut the grass.  I'm ... honoured.  Horrified.  That's never happened before.  "Good kitty" I say.  After all, it's what cats do and who am I to interfere in the nature of things.

Yuck.  (For the record I have no problem with mice.  Only spiders).

Border, by the way, is now sprinkled with Cat Repellent, and I'm happy to report when I looked today there was no poop.  It smells strongly of garlic - key ingredient, it seems - and seems to have done the trick.  Hurrah.

Even with all the rain today.

I leave with you a picture of the lovely Nemesias, in situ.  Berries and Cream, and Raspberries and Cream.



Am trying not to be too fed up with this gardening lark.

So I said

yes absolutely, I agree, the jasmine is getting out of control and must be cut back. I mean, it's growing over and through the neighbour's fence. That plant needs some serious trimming.

Beautiful of course though it is, with that delicious scent that is just heaven in the summertime. No, it needed a trim.

Um ....

I guess there was some misunderstanding between my "cut it back" and his "cut it down and completely decimate it".

Oh, and why not trample over the entire herb bed and kill those too, at the same time.

Still, I can now clearly see that the rosemary is in bad shape, and I might as well rip that out too.

In fact, I might as well just completely start over.

Did I mention how the scent was delect ............

Oh, nevermind.

The 11 Days of Christmas

That is what I have, between Christmas Day and back-to-work at my lovely job on 5th January 2009. Eleven days of me, my husband, my house and my garden. To do what I want! Mostly, so far, that has involved cooking, but then it would, wouldn't it?


And by the way, a Happy Christmas to one and all. I hope yours was lovely.


There is so much to do back there. Yes, it's the fallow season but in the few weekends before Christmas, when it was dry, I managed to turn this









into this. A start.

I did some weeding and cutting in the left border

but the herb border needs some serious TLC.


I have also discovered that Rocket (or Arugula, I think it is called Stateside) is very much a winter green. We have had frosts and rain, but still this plucky leaf, that I planted in the autumn, is thriving.




So I have picked a large bunch, currently refreshing in my sink. I shall pack it up and indeed use it over the next week or so. And I shall leave that pretty bunch for further picking! Yum.

The weather, for the time of year, is fair and fine. Cold, yes, but I think I spoke of "cold" being a relative term - for those of you in the Midwest of the States, my family included, I send you warm hugs, because it really is cold. 0 degrees Farenheit is cold. I don't think I can even translate that to Celsius, knowing only that it might, just might get to 1 or 2 below 0 Celsius here. To me it feels very cold, but there is a sharp easterly wind at the moment. I had to wear gloves today (shock!). Over in Chicago, it is much, much colder.

Still, I think it means, if you garden there, you don't suffer from snails and slugs the way we do (witness that gorgeous Hosta in my parents garden).

Here's to some good gardening over the next week of work-less-ness!

In one short season

This

became this


And this

became this!

So I guess I shouldn't be too downhearted.

Remember this little beauty? I've discovered what it's called, a Honey Lily, or Nectaroscordum Siculum. I found another batch of bulbs at my local garden centre and being a huge fan, I will plant some more!


But I also finally found what I was looking for in the first place, last year, the Snake's Head Fritillary (Fritallaira Meleagris).

This is from my first garden, many years ago now.

I can't wait to have some of these little beauties next Spring.

Ah, Autumn rears it's head, and we start thinking about Spring again ...