The Seed Order ~ finally complete!

It's taken weeks of pouring over seed catalogues, looking through existing seed stocks and staring into space......that is what it must have looked like I was doing but really I was envisioning next years vegetable garden, borders and containers and all the wonderous colour combinations, tasty morsels and frothy florals that I will start creating in the new year.....and it is finally complete. My order is being processed and new seeds should be here before Christmas. 

Tiny packages; ticking timebombs of colours, scents and deliciousness. I cannot wait to hold them; imagine how the photograph on the front will morph into real life in the coming weeks and then obsessively sort them into piles of Veg, Herb or Flower, in chronological order, according to when the seeds will be sown. 

Some seeds will be tried and tested favourites but others will be brand new, exciting little strangers with the potential to become friends for life. But which? Oooh, the fun I will have. 

There will be failures; there always are. Some will fail to even germinate whilst some will succumb to unfavourable weather or (gulp, stiff upper lip, girl) slugs and snails but I should hope that most will make it to maturity; to be enjoyed on the plate, in a floral display or in the border amongst established perennials. 

Some may go on to form my favourite combinations of 2015 - like this little corner from late summer 2014, which looked magical right up until early December and was achieved solely from seed: 

Zinnia's, Calendula, cornflowers and Brompton Stocks. A winner. 

I said that the seed order is complete. This is not strictly true. I have yet to source a couple of sweet peas with whom I fell in love last year. 'Wiltshire Ripple' and Fragrant Skies', look out, I'm coming to get you! 

Beautiful 'Wiltshire Ripple' - my no.1 sweet pea from 2014. 

Podcast of the Week - maybe with a # preceding it...?

It is 10.30am and on a normal working day I would be thinking about my first podcast. 

There is no point today - I wouldn't be able to hear anything over the cacophonous leaf-sucker-upper (technical term) -  one of the least pleasant of the Autumn noises. 

It has stopped - fabulous! From my pocket I take out my smart(ish) phone and I lose myself in the careful selection of my first podcast of the day. 

My first toe-dip into the (then) mysterious world of digital audio downloads was in about 2007. I needed to relieve the monotony of my average work day in a private garden (where the plants were so over manipulated that it felt like I was tending a stage set of tortured vegetation - poor things - rather than gardening). 

Listening to music allowed my mind to wander; this led to too much thinking, which in my case is dangerous territory. Too much thinking = over-analysing and worrying. Podcasts allow me to get on with my work whilst expanding my little world for however many minutes they last. 

Gardeners of a purist persuasion might say that I am losing out on some of the sensations of gardening - birdsong etc. I have a rule that I don't listen to any podcasts before 10.30am. I soak up the sounds of the Cotswolds at the best time of day and then when my mind starts to worry about life's complexities I fire up "The Archers" and worry about fictional people instead. 

I have podcasts for different moods and different times of day. 

☀️ I never listen to 'The Weekly Mayo' podcast unless it's nearly lunchtime because the descriptions of Nigel Barden's food leave my stomach aching with hunger even if I've just polished off a doorstep of a cheese sandwich. 

☀️ If i am feeling glum then I call upon Sandi Togsvig and her News Quiz on the 'Friday Night Comedy' podcast or Graham Norton for some silliness. 

☀️Those inevitable moments of self-pity (come on, we all have them) require a bit of 'From Our Own Correspondent' to remind me that my life is pretty damn brilliant compared to most people on this spinny planet. 

☀️ If I need a bit of an energy boost I will reach for Chris Evans (what a perculiar thought). He gets paid to wake the nation up from Monday to Friday for a reason.

 

☀️ For inspiration I press the 'Desert Island Discs' icon. I particularly enjoy it when the guest is a successful woman. It is, and there is no other word I can find for it on a windy December afternoon, inspirational, plus I can do a little trowel-jig to some of the castaways' selections. 

☀️ There are two podcasts that I have to listen to weekly without question - my two gardening ones - 'Gardeners Question Time' and 'The RHS Gardening Podcast'. I am always learning (geek). 

☀️ None of my podcasts are terribly highbrow, except maybe the 'Books and Authors' one from Radio 4. The ones that were too intellectual fell by the wayside. I am afraid that most Melvin Bragg 'In Our Time' podcasts are a blur and as for the fun sciencey ones....well, my brain just isn't wired that way. As long as I learn a few new facts every day and listen to happy people enjoying what they do, then I am happy too. If a podcast happens to make me laugh out loud when I am up to my neck in a herbaceous border, it's a bonus. I must have looked very silly yesterday but I could help myself; Kermode and Mayo as Pinky and Perky creased me up. 

I honestly do not know if I would be gardening today if it wasn't for discovering podcasts. I like to think I would be gardening in some capacity but professionally? I'm not sure if I would have looked forward to the darker days quite so much. 

Favourites = 'The Archers' and 'Desert Island Discs' 

#podcastoftheweek .....I'm embracing the # .......'Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's Film Reviews'. I am easily pleased and the Pinky and Perky voices did it for me. Smiley face. 

 

Whatsinmywheelbarrow ~ 7/12/2014 ~ A barrow full of sunshine (and rose prunings)

"A bit ambitious", I thought as I set off with this load towards the pile of woody material that was my destination. Would you believe I made it? Neither would I, but I did. Slowly but surely over roughly (very rough-ly) 350m of turf. Nobody saw my victory dance.....probably for the best. 

This week I have been pruning climbing roses. Refer to the RHS publications on all matters pruning. They have been expertly explaining for decades what I could attempt to explain very confusingly here - so I will not......well, only to say that you should do it now, if you haven't done it already. The worst of the winter weather can badly damage stems that are not tied in. Oh, and do try to train long stems horizontally; it means more flowers. It's a little bit sciencey - stimulating more buds to break therefore increasing the chances of the plant producing more flowers - all you really need to know is......MORE FLOWERS! I am yet to meet anyone who grows roses for the delightfully prickly stems (actually I have but she is most definitely another story; no, a novel). It's all about the flowers. 

This picture is of my favourite climbing rose from 2014: 

She is 'Woolerton Old Hall'; she is the most stunning pale apricot and she smells like heaven. She will be odds-on favourite going into 2015 but she will, as always, have strong competition. 

#whatsinmywheelbarrow - 3/12/2014 - grapevine prunings

I chopped up the grapevine prunings nice and small so that they will compost down so much quicker than if I had left them long and whippy. They are perfect for the compost heap because they are woody but still have a bit of juicy sap in them. I'm getting excited about the end result just thinking about it........goodness, I've turned yet another blogpost into a compost promotion; how do I do it?

What I am trying to get across is that you really ought to crack on with with grapevine pruning now because leaving it until the new year may result in the vine 'bleeding' - and you really don't want to be that cruel do you?

I won't go into the process because there are hundreds of fab books and websites out there that describe it so much better than I ever could (RHS publications every time for me) - but, believe me, it's easy and most vines will be forgiving, so don't be scared.

I love a puzzle so this mess was right up my street: 

Somewhere in the middle it looked like this:

And by the end it looked like this:

A very satisfying couple hours spent in the winter sun. I established a framework with spurs at regular intervals, pruned back to two buds, along the longer, horizontal, lateral stems. Easy peasy. 

Now, when am I going to regain the sensation in my fingertips? It was freeeeeezing today! 

Whatever you do, do not get WD40 in your eye

It burns. It burns like nothing else except how a proper burn burns....... and then it burns some more. I tried all sorts of things to ease the burning but nothing worked. Nothing, that is, until I stuck my whole face in the chest freezer. Finally, amongst the frozen gooseberries and bits of pheasant, I found some relief. And then, a few days later, I did it again. Idiot. 

That was a decade ago and my eyes have been WD40 free ever since. I am extra careful, of course, but I do so love that smell.

I had the WD40 out today in preparation for my next big gardening task - pruning all the climbing roses and grapevines. 

My trusty old secateurs have taken a bit of a battering over the last few weeks of clearing and tidying the herbaceous borders and they were no way near their best. What they needed was a jolly good clean and sharpen. So out comes the kit - a small amount of wire wool, WD40 (mmmmmm.....), a fine-grade sharpening stone and a black permanent marker. 

Here you see my mucky old secateurs. They are Felco no.7's with the swivel handle, designed specifically to reduce the stress on the hand that comes after a long day (or week or year) of pruning. They are special - they were a present from my grandparents and they have been by my side (more specifically, strapped to my backside in a belted holster) since 2001. 

I use the wire wool to clean around all the little mechanisms. The WD40 helps with the cleaning and also helps free up the swivel mechanism, which had been less swivelly than I would like. The permanent marker trick is hijacked from Monty Don. He showed the 'Gardeners World' audience, including myself, the coolest trick and I have never looked back. You colour in the secateurs' one cutting edge with the marker pen and you proceed to gently sharpen with the stone. You know the blade is fully sharpened when all of the black has gone. Genius!

Once the blade is sharpened, turn the secateurs over and work the stone over the other side to get rid of any bevelled edge. Don't go in at an angle because a pair of secateurs only has one cutting edge. 

If you don't feel confident enough to sharpen your secateurs yourself, don't worry; Felco have a terrific service department and for a few pounds you can send them off and they will come back as good as new. Mine will need a service soon - the only thing is, I can't bear to be parted from them!

Here's how my constant companions looked after a few minutes of tlc. 

Worn, aged but clean, sharp and ready for some hardcore pruning action. Roses, prepare to be well and truly pruned. 

Sometimes you have to make your own sunshine

SAD? Not really at the moment, thank you, I'm fine! Oh, seasonal affective disorder. I have been getting it between late January and sometime in March without fail for the last few years, but I try to be armed and ready for it because I refuse to be beaten down. 

Here are the some things I do to try to combat the winter gloom:

⭐️ Be outside as much as possible - I try to catch as many of those weak sun rays as I can. Fresh air and excercise are proven to be good for mental wellbeing. 

⭐️ Plan your garden or surroundings for maximum winter cheerfulness. Plant winter and early spring bulbs like snowdrops, winter aconites and crocus. Hellebores and Clematis cirrhosa var purpurascens 'Freckles' are two of my favourite winter flowering plants.

 Some Roses will flower a fair way into winter - Rosa 'Madame Alfred Carriere' is a pretty safe bet and my Rosa 'New Dawn' often produces lovely fat pink buds in the darker months. They are especially pretty with frost on. Sometimes the very act of planting something with potential beauty is enought to combat the blues. 

⭐️ Incorporate permanent structure into your garden. Topiary is great for making me smile - the more characterful the shape the better. Geometric is smart, wonky is fabulous! (And I had to sneak Brian the snail in here somewhere). 

Other permanent garden structures are great but don't exactly give me midwinter joy.....so I paint woodwork funky colours. I love looking out over my winter garden, ignoring the mud and the bare tree branches, towards my compost heap (see previous composting blogpost - #slightlyobsessed!). I have painted it blue, pale pink and one shade of very. bright. PINK. And it cheers me up no end.

⭐️ Focus on house plants. I have a gradually increasing collection that I am trying my best not to kill.....hey, I'm learning new skills - green fingers will only get you so far. 

Other non-horticultural SAD fighting tips:

⭐️ Trips to the park including 3+ mandatory slide descents and a go on the swings - no matter what age you happen to be.

⭐️ Loud singing along to your favourite tunes (my all-time cure-all blues tunes = all of Appetite for Destruction - Guns N' Roses; my new favourite 'sing at the top of my voice' tunes = Let it go from Frozen and anything by Taylor Swift).

⭐️ Paint something.....anything! A wall, a painting, a chest of drawers.

⭐️ See your friends. Even if you don't feel much like it, drag yourself out of the door. 

In the meantime, we've got a few dark months to go.......we can do it.