Herb Garden

Can you spot Elsie, tucked away in the middle of the photo? She got into all the pictures I took yesterday, without me noticing until I looked through on the computer! There are more photos on the Hedgewitch blog, if you're interested - I'll not to replicate those here, but just do a little gallery of things miscellaneous at the end of May. Previous years I always wished I'd taken a decent set of photos late spring before everything starts bursting out all over (and exhausting itself in the process) so I made a point of it this year. In case you were wondering, the unattractive plastic bucket is my noxious nettle brew (hence the heavy rock on top, to keep inquisitive little ones out).

Rose

This rose is an old friend.. we go back a long way! I was only a child when I planted the seed. It was one of those little kits you can get, you know a cardboard box with a pretty picture on the outside and inside is a plant pot, a seed and a little plastic bag of compost. I remember doing it! I can picture it now, in the back garden of the house where I grew up. I guess I must have watered it and it must have germinated and started to grow - I don't remember more than that.

It was left to its own devices. It must have just steadily got on with it. Years passed. Its existence was entirely forgotten by me. I left home. I moved about. Unbeknown to me, it had a custodian - my Dad. He didn't water it, he didn't check to see if it needed anything. But he didn't throw it away. And when my parents moved house, leaving London for Norwich, he must have taken it with them. Because when I was in my 30s, he said to me one day something along the lines of 'I've still got that grotty old rose of yours' (or words to that effect!). 'What old rose - you can't possibly mean that little shrub rose I tried to grow as a child?'

And it turns out that Dad had just parked it down the side of his shed and it just kept quietly growing. He brought it for me when I moved into the flat in Tottenham with my partner (now my husband). And so it passed to a new custodian, for my partner made and cherished a beautiful garden-against-the-odds outside the flat down the side of an unpromising alley and carpark. And he asked if he could put it into the ground. I said, well I think it really deserves it - I can't believe that its survived all this time in a pot! So after several decades of hanging on, the rose finally got its feet into the earth. And it was loved and tended and watered .. and for the very first time ever, it flowered. It survived the Tottenham carpark and thrived.

When we moved to Essex two years back now, we brought it with us and now I have it in my garden. Its very happy here and it has such a special significance for me.

It links me with my childhood self, with my childhood home, with my Dad who kept it for my sake, with my husband who nurtured it and got it to flower for me.. and planting it in the garden here makes me feel loved and somehow 'rooted' in my new home. Like something has turned full circle .. we were both seedlings together and thanks to the support of important people along the way, we are now in full bloom (or something like that!).

Scent

Hello all! I've been blown away these last few days by scent.. and I've been thinking about it a lot. You know, essential oils are great and everything, but its not the same. So what triggered all this? Well several things simultaneously: the boys came back from Nanny's house with a bunch of lily of the valley for me - what a treat! It has been scenting the bedroom, so that when you open the door you get a great waft of aroma .. and if you lie down and relax and breath it in can transport you to paradise.

Then, yesterday, at the end of a tired and rather fraught day with the little'un, when he'd finally been beaten by bedtime, and mummy still had the chore of heading back out into the garden and righting the havoc he'd been wreaking all afternoon, an amazing gift - opening the shed door and so creating a slight breeze, the wisteria sang to me. It just kind of rustled its leaves in the breeze and a shower of lilac petals spiralled down onto the grass around me and it enveloped me in perfume. I knew it smelt good, as you can smell it during the daytime, but I don't usually venture outside in the evening and was totally unprepared for its heady power. It just took every ounce of tension and stress right out of my body and blew it away on the breeze. Wow. Embraced by a plant!

And today, a moment of unalloyed bliss. My absolute top favourite all-time obsessive plant love is a rose which my mum-in-law (the same lovely lady who sends back bunches of lily of the valley, aren't I lucky?) grows. The perfume is exotic and heavy and druglike (ie. addictive!) She used to always send me back a bloom or two when we lived in Tottenham, and once we landed in Essex she gave me the gift of a cutting for my new herb garden. It thrives there, and in its first year, last year, it had two phenomenal blooms. It has grown massively in the year since and is all set to do its thing now .. today the first of 7 or 8 burgeoning buds burst into full bloom. I knew it was there, I watched it start to unfurl yesterday evening and open up gradually all morning out the window, and when I got back from dropping little'un at nursery for the afternoon the first thing I did was to head over and i.n.h.a.l.e... exquisite, just a personal moment of bliss.

It will be gone tomorrow, as its so hot out there this afternoon that the show will be over and it will drop its petals (I will be standing by to catch them). But its moments like that which sustain you through all the ordinary, uncomfortable or just less-than-satisfactory parts of life, don't you think?

Now that's aromatherapy!

Growing

I last posted just as April was arriving, but here we are just about to bid her farewell .. what's been happening in between? A lot of rain, and some very high winds (but then you knew that, right, if you're in the UK?!!) and a lot of growing!

All the wet has really exacerbated my problems with the little munchers who have been wreaking havoc in my growhouse .. this week I finally decided to bring in the peas, beans, sunflowers and courgette plants that had been seriously gnawed and were more hole than leaf :-( They are all perking up considerably back behind glass on the sunny recovery windowsill.

To make room on said sunny windowsills for the beleagured ones, I've put out my unexpectedly enormous quantity of baby tomato plants, as the slugs and snails don't seem as interested in tomatoes. This was a little experiment of mine, because I'd (inadvertantly) left out the last of my Ildi tomatoes on their plants in the growbags on the flat roof outside bedroom window last season - and there they hung all winter come wind, snow, storm or whatever. And there they were still in March, and several people told me to squish the dried out fruits onto kitchen roll and see if I could grow them. So I did! I put differing amounts of compost beneath and above (not really knowing what I was doing) inside eggbox lids not really expecting much .. and you've never seen anything like it. Germinated all over the place and what's more, every single one I transplanted (into its own little loo roll holder of compost) has taken. I have about 60 babies in trays of 5 or 6, all over the house!

Here are some in the coldframe, which seems to have fared better in terms of the illicit munchers. Also baby dill and marigold plants. And the start of a box of salad (against all the odds!)

They are a wonderful tomato, pretty little yellow plum-shaped cherry size fruits and really heavily laden plants. You can put them in hanging baskets or grow them up canes. I hope I will be able to find them all good homes to go to. Meanwhile, my 'proper' tomatoes, which I sowed in February, are busy flowering, would you believe .. a bit of regular nettle infusion has done wonders!

Also flowering at the moment are the strawberry plants outside, and we'll soon have the lovely chive blossoms too.

I've done better with the sweetpeas this year, soaking them helped and getting them enough light quickly enough and pinching them out at the right time (thanks to my wonderful neighbour who is expert at these things and doesn't mind a bumbling novice's barrage of questions!) Previous years they've been really leggy, so I'm quite pleased that I'm starting to get the hang of it. Won't risk these outside till the weather sorts itself out condsiderably.

April showers are magical .. every year it amazes me just how much everything GROWS in just a few weeks! Usually in March I look at the herb garden and think there's lots of gaps and I'll need a few more plants to pop in here and there. Then by the end of April everything is burgeoning. And although I love to see the flowers, there is something super special in April about all that lush bright green growth, unsullied and full of promise and newness and freshness. Every day this month I've stood by the back door looking out at the garden in the rain and its kind of visibly grown in front of my eyes. Fantastic!

April Blooms

Everything's flowering! Really feels like Eastertime .. went for a little nature ramble today, just a little footpath near our house. Am slowly learning. Love the process of finding out! Interesting to see the difference in the plants growing in full sun and on the other side of the footpath in full shade.

Examined the blackthorn closely .. pure white buds opening directly onto dark twigs, no greenery or leaf in sight. And those really are big old thorns! See how it gets its name.

On the other side, in the sunshine, a full hedge with leaves unfurling too, much further ahead. (Those are the boys, hand-in-hand in the sunshine!)

No, darling, that's not buttercups, its ... aconite? no, celandine! Leaves look wrong, the dark heart-shaped leaves must have been buried low down with just the flowers peeping through.

Got this one right... love speedwell, its so tiny that I'd have missed it if I hadn't been walking with purpose and looking. Could really imagine fairies living in speedwell (and, as a rule, I'm not one for fairies!)

Also seen today white deadnettle, though not much, not enough to collect. And masses of nettles, of course, though all in the dog-pee zone either side of the path, so not gathered. Ladybirds everywhere.

Seeing the baby leaves bursting out on all the brambles helped show me that they are members of the rose family (which I have been reading about here) because they look a lot like new strawberry leaves. When everything is new and fresh things are somehow easier to see.

Lots and lots of vibrant highly scented something we hadn't come across before (no photo, sorry folks!).. very distinctive, looked it up when we got back and delighted to find that its Alexanders:

widespread and locally common near coasts.. yellowish flowers seen March to June

[Collins Complete Guide to British Wildlife]

Masses of it and its in its prime now, so shall look into uses.. please share your knowledge and recipes here, if you know Alexanders?

Update:

OK, great starting place here

Gardening

It was so lovely to be out in the fresh air and working in the garden last week, such fine warm days feel like a special gift that musn't be wasted this time of the year, its almost like its your duty to drop everything and get out there!

Had a quandry, the boys had waved goodbye off to see Nanny for the morning .. no-one about, all quiet! What to do, hmmmm ... really ought to cook something lovely and warm and healthy for us all to have for lunch when they get back. But the pull towards the garden is so strong and cannot be denied.

So I stuck the remains of the roast dinner in a big saucepan - heated some oil and tossed the remains of the tray of roasted veggies in it (butternut squash, potatoes, carrot, parsnip). When that smelt all appealing I popped in the leftover gravy, the remains of the chicken and the leftover green veg (greens and leeks and peas). Topped up with water, brought it slowly up to the boil (while putting jacket on and sorting out my seeds) .. bit of salt and pepper .. reduce to v. gentle simmer .. and GARDEN!!!!

Popped in to check from time to time and an hour later, beautiful soup. Gave it a quick squash with the potato masher so's to thicken it up (and so's the little'un doesn't pick the carrots out) and there it was .. hearty fare for all and happy mummy morning in the garden! Hurray!