Garden thoughts

life in the cold frame

he sun has been out the past couple of days and the forecast is good for the weekend. Walking out the back door into the warmth and bees and flies and birds is about the only thing stopping me harrumphing around the house about thesis writing. Almost over, have to keep telling myself that. Have to keep stopping myself from playing in the garden too. I could spend all day out there and not run out of entertainment right now.

e watched Alys Fowler's "The Edible Garden" last night on iPlayer and now all I want to do is sow more pea seeds... It was a very inspiring show really, apart from having a bit of a girl crush on Alys. Basically she mixes in her veg with her flowers and everything lives together. I've been heading towards this way a little, which is why I've got garlic in my flower beds right now, swiss chard in the cold frame for colour in the borders, and artichoke plants waiting to be delivered.

riginally I was inspired by reading Dennis Cotter's description of a friends garden he visited in "Wild garlic, gooseberries... and me", hence the chard - which I've not grown before. The artichokes were bought to replace the cardoons I had originally. I love cardoons and their ridiculously exuberant silver grey foliage, but the ones I grew from seed were subject to the worst blackfly attacks I've ever seen on anything for two summers running and havn't returned this spring. I reasoned that trying again with artichokes - given that they look near identical - was probably better on the feeding us stakes.

ow all I have to decide is where to put the runner beans... I shall not fail for a crop two summers running!!

New hat and awesome knitwear

his fell off my needles a little while ago and has been on my head since. Couldn't effectively take pictures of my own head though, so I had to get Dan involved. A combination of nice light and time was achieved on an Easter Sunday ramble up the Heath. His instruction from me was "take a picture of my hat, but don't get my head in." - I think he performed admirably!

am pretty darn chuffed with the hat, the temporary difficulty of separating the two strands to float a band of colour over the top was really worth it for me - you get to admire all the colours in the Alchemy Haiku without being overwhelmed. Such a great pattern too, the Waffel hat (rav link). It's nice and big and slouchy, fits over my hair and still covers my ears AND has some seriously elegant decreases in the top. So simple, but brilliantly effective. The girls at Pickles are doing very cool things indeed. My project is ravved here.

y endpaper mits got some new nice shots too, and Dan was wearing his favourite socks. It's now almost impossible to go out without wearing a hand knit of some description, a happy place to be.

Spring terrarium

ncluded in the spring time decorations over the fire place is this wee feller. A spring themed terrarium, happily egg shaped. Dan thinks it's a bit odd, but I've been after the perfect vessel for a terrarium for a while - finally managed to find this blown glass egg shape in one of KTs fine charity shop establishments. Terrariums are all the rage on the design type blogs, and the gardening ones too. You can still open up etsy with a good chance of seeing funny little mushrooms and other more eccentric miniatures for decorating your moss. Dan ain't seen nothin' when it comes to the weirdness of terrariums out there...

t's not a particularly complicated offering of terrarium design. A convenient place to put some of Dan's rock haul from our day trip to Aldebrugh for his birthday. A lump of moss from the garden (not short of that either). Placed a few of Dan's smaller stones on top and nestled in my Wade lamb for a touch of spring time fun. I doubt it will live in this form long past the end of April. There might be some retro-inspired air plants in it's future.

Egg-tacular

Worlds collide

hat happens when a Dan and an Ali come together. Hardly a collision, we've been living together for three and a half years, but a chaotic coexistence. Planting schedules and seed packets up front, Bob (the bike) magically suspended in mid-air by Dan's new bike stand. The bike frame collection and sewing machine in the background.

End of the month garden view: March 2010

n line with the number of gradening blogs I've been trawling through recently I've decided to join in with The Patient Gardener's end of the month garden view - mostly because it's a really brilliant idea! So here we are, these pictures are actually from today, the first of April, because I forgot that I wanted to join in until the post popped up in my Bloglines feed. Besides, the sun is shining today.

bove - The current stars of the show are the daffodils, and they're really putting it out there today. The last few have opened up in the sun and there's almost a carpet of gold. Below - the veg patch is coming into it's own, new paths are looking good, radishes are germinating and the peas are climbing....

bove - fruit corner is coming on apace. Buds are broken on the currents, apple tree and the gooseberry bush. Rhubarb is rising rapidly and the alpine strawberries of putting on fresh growth. Below - from the back door to the end of the garden. At least with a slender long city garden you can fit it all in one shot!

inal picture. Really looking forward to the things to come from this corner this year. The iris have passed but the grape hyacinths are just warming up and there are lots of new things waiting to be enjoyed for the first time, as well as the golden oldies that survived in the garden. The cold frame is packed with yummy things to eat later in the year...

Present to self

his oh so fabulous and aesthetically pleasing creature is the new water butt. We don't have an outside tap, so regardless of the environmental disaster that is watering with tap water, this baby will save us traipsing through the house with the watering can, and thus general muck spreading involved therein. Dan's key disappointment on it's arrival though was that it was too small for him to get inside of it and pretend to be a Dalek. Water butt was necessarily a slim line model so we can still sit out on the patio with it. Better luck next time love x. Dan did get to buy a new drill bit to install it though, and there are few things that make him grin more than a new drill bit...

he butt is actually fuller than it looks in this picture and working rather well. Dan was dubious we'd get much water from the small bit of roof it was attached to, but you should never underestimate the British climate... There was an even more auspicious event over the weekend. The first harvest - so here's to fresh salad leaves from now until October.

April Showers in March

The crocus and iris have disappeared, but the daffodils are here, bravely attempting to face off the rain.

Birthday treats

t was my birthday this week. Another birthday and still no thesis! Nevermind, I'm working on it. It also means this blog of mine is two years old. Well done blog. We had a slow start, but I feel we've come to know each other rather well in recent months. I wanted to post up a picture of my birthday cake in the same way as it all started, but I was forbidden from taking a picture of my cake this year as it didn't turn out as Dan planned it.... (not that he made as much mess as me when I made his last September) never mind blog, here's some other birthday treats for you:

chocolates from Cocoa Mountain

a silly owl for your hair

and a book about you!

Happy Birthday Blog! x

Emergency Jammin'

o, the Sloe Gin mentioned in passing recently was, obviously, somewhat out of season. Dan and I picked 3kg of sloes when we went to visit my Dad last Autumn. Enough for 6 liters of gin if we wanted it! We dumped them in the freezer to try and get the best out of them with the plan of getting gin in the duty free. Sadly, at the point I passed through O'Hare International on the way home I was broke - I bought a bottle of gin, but it had more immediate requirements in the house and a slow maturing sloe gin was out of the question...

ell, we got the sloe gin on finally, after a bit of recovery in the monetary department. We only used 1.5kg of sloes though. Then, when the freezer broke we had 1.5kg of sloes thawing as well as another 1kg of miscellaneous summer fruit. When life hands you lemons/broken freezers, the only option is to make jam. And lots of it.

estimated reduced pectin because of the extended freeze, so made a pectin stock with the peels and cores of cooking apples and put the chopped up flesh in in the jam. So the recipe as it is...

800g cooking apples
150g blackcurrants
300g redcurrants
200g blackberries
1.5kg sloes
1.5 pts of water
2.5kg of sugar

  eel and core apples, and boil the peels and cores in 1 pint of water for 45 minutes. Save the water. Chop the flesh up finely. Cook the fruit and apple flesh with the peel/core water and an extra half pint, add the sugar. Skim the sloe stones off the top as they float to the surface after the sugars added. Bring to setting point and jar.

looks quite a lot like special effects from Shaun of the Dead...

ood news: I estimated the amount of pectin required pretty well and got a really nice set. Bad news: sloes are tart and I was prevented from adding more sugar (it needs at least another 0.5kg if not a kg). My friend Laura was like this when we made the damson jam too, fortunately I won that battle at the time. Sloes also have stones, lots of 'em, and the're small. Dan and I succeeded in fishing out about 90% at which point we decided we could live with spotting them as we spread. A hedgerow jam with faults then, but still edible - might be quite nice in brie sandwiches.