Summer is coming.....

Nigella

Been up and down to the allotment a lot recently due to the very dry weather.  Its just coming out of that phase where the winter veg is over, there is lots to do and nothing to harvest.  Until this week.  The autumn sown broad beans are good, the rocket and lettuces are ready to be picked (and about to bolt...) and we harvested the the first strawberries and gooseberries this week too. Early, we think.  The nets are on the blackcurrants and blueberries so  that we might just keep ahead of the wood pigeons that nest in the old Oaks that line the paths there.   When we arrive they  fly up into the trees.  They are a bit like Brabazons -  they are so fat and full of our soft fruit that they flap away and we wonder whether they are ever going to get off the ground.  

The herbs are doing well, as are the patches of poppies and nigella which will be cut and dried to use on the summer wreaths I am working on for the events we are doing this summer.   We are going to be at the Clifton Garden Party at Emmaus House on Saturday 11th June, The Stoke Bishop Community Fair at Cedar Park on Saturday 18th and will be joining in the Bristol Zoo's 175 year celebration at their Big Village Fete on Saturday 16th July.

Canford E Allotments Bristol May 2011

 
We have the allotment equivalent of the water cooler at Canford - the communal trough.We stand around comparing blackfly and sooty mould, muttering darkly about the lack of rain whilst filling up the watering cans, talking of  the  hot summer of 1976 and how this coming one, this time, could be another one of those.  Anyone else would welcome  the prospect of a long hot summer (especially anyone organising any of the events we will be at), but for the Canford gardeners who are not allowed to use hoses, it is a bad, bad thing.  We do little rain dances and curse the inaccurate weather forecasts....However, summer is coming whether it rains or not. Bring it on

Summer Herb Wreath

Summer herb wreath

Been busy planting, sowing, weeding and generally fussing around at the allotment.  Add to that hardly any rain for about six weeks so irrigation is a major issue.  Never mind.  

Here is a fresh herb wreath made for a customer today who has a foodie co-worker retiring.  Totally edible with bay and rosemary as a base and all the lovely things that are currently good in the garden.  It has lots of verigated oregano, lemon balm, mint, purple and green sage leaves, chive flowers and a bit of purple sprouting broccoli, a few artichoke and bronze fennel leaves.  It has a wet oasis base so should last  for some time. I have one on my kitchen table with a candle in it.  

The first ones which were done for the Mothers Day Market at Whiteladies Road had bay and flowering rosemary, verigated lemon balm and  purple sage and broccoli and they have been changing every week as the new growth has been coming through.  Will be taking lots of cuttings and extending the herb garden this year as they are going well.. 

 I still need to update the website with the new summer products -  so here is a sneak preview of some others that are being commissioned...

Nigella pomander


These are really neat.  I am working with a bride to make some of these pomanders and heart decorations to go onto all the guests chairs at her wedding this summer.  There will be gift boxes under the chairs at the reception with a message from the bride and groom for them to take these little handmade treats home at the end of the celebrations to remember their lovely day.     

wedding chair decoration

I just have to make them all now....  

Spring at Bishops Knoll

I was at Bishops Knoll Nature Reserve yesterday (hurrah for light evenings...!) collecting pine cones in preparation for the swag making course I am running at the Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project on the 10th December this year.  Anyhow, took the camera and got this picture of the bottom of the steps.  Primroses and wild garlic.  Lovely.

I know it seems really early to be preparing for the courses but the cones there are nice, plus it is a good excuse to be ferreting around in the woods amongst the rabbit holes and badger diggings watching the spring do its thing....

Whose garden is it anyway ?

I spent the day in the garden today doing some sowing, planting and weeding.    Lily, our Tabby always livens things up by repeatedly attacking me when I am least expecting it.  She does this occasionally in the house but really goes for it in the back garden.  I can be digging away quite happily and suddenly she will pounce on me open jawed and claws out. I cant quite make it out - but I think it could be something along the same lines as dog-walkers' attitude to public parks.  As she is sinking her teeth into my arm (she draws blood..) she has this expression on her face like "well, some of us are committed to shitting in these flower beds 365 days a year, we are not just out here when the weather is good". Or maybe not.  Anyhow, its really annoying.  

The sweet peas are hardening off outside and the leeks are up and will need pricking out shortly.  I planted out about a dozen Verbascum Southern Charm which were sown last year and have been in the cold frame all winter.  They look quite good.  Also direct sowed some poppies and rocket so the slugs will no doubt have all those.  In pots inside are some courgettes, several types of sunflowers and something I found in an envelope marked "weird tall Kiftsgate thingy" which was a seed pod from when we visited Kiftsgate Court last year.  Lets see what comes up and then I can try to identify it.  Lots more to do.  The Pulmonaria and Primroses are out and the Forget-me-nots are just coming into flower.

The Camellia by the front door is is full flower. Invasive weed of the week - bindweed.  It's like the enemy below. Not up yet but every forkful FULL of bindweed root.  Pah.  

Limbering up for Mothers Day

I've been busy with the lovely willow I got last month making heart bases in different sizes (some really small that will fit in a 15cm box) and getting some dried flowers together to make some Mother's Day and Easter treats in preparation for the Whiteladies Road Farmers Markets on the 2nd and 16th April in Bristol.

I'm getting there.  Really pleased with them now.  Here is the small heart wreath (above) which will be boxed with gift cards, and below is the regular size heart wreath.  These have nigella but some will have dried roses - all of them slightly different.

I now need to update the website but want to get these finished before I do.

Also sowing nigella, poppies and shortly going to make some more lavender cuttings in order that I have lots of new materials to work with during the summer.

Have fed all the soft fruit (the tays, blackcurrants and raspberries are beginning to bud) and dug out this week's weed of the week... the buttercup - well, as much as I could.  There are a million gardening jobs also to be done and other things to sow.  Its the spring equinox today and it feels good. I am list making like mad and scurrying around... need to take some more photos but these will do for now....

Starlings at Shapwick Heath

This weekend we were down on the Somerset Levels visiting  Musgrove Willows in Westonzoyland to buy some cut Willow (Flanders Red for me - beautiful, waxy, straight 4' withies) and new basketmaking tools to start work on some decorated hearts for Mothers Day and Easter for the Farmers Market at Whiteladies in April.   Westonzoyland is where the Battle of Sedgemoor was fought in 1685, the last battle of the Monmouth Rebellion.  All quiet there tho' this weekend.  This is low marshland with drainage ditches around the place and pumping stations. It feels slightly surreal, not helped much by the farmer at MW loading a wicker coffin into the back of a vehicle as we arrived (empty, we think).

    

We then headed off to Shapwick Heath to watch the starling murmurations.  As dusk fell hundreds of thousands of starlings flew into the Heath from every direction and settled in the reed beds to roost for the evening a couple of fields away from where we were watching.  Brilliant.   This used to be a regular feature of city life in Bristol where they would come to roost under the bridges making the most amazing patterns in the evening sky over the City Centre where I worked. I would watch them out of my office window during the winter months during the late 1980 and 1990s thinking that this happened in every city.  Sadly, there are very few starlings in Bristol and no evening spectacle any more.  Maybe something to do with the declining starling population - but today, at least, I was happy to think that they had all got fed up with doing battle with the seagulls and pigeons and had decided to head for a better life here in the wild, wet Somerset countryside.

I am now weaving this lovely willow and snipping away with my new sharp, sharp little basketmaking snips.  Will post some pics once I am happy with the prototypes.  Not quite there yet.. :)     



  

Cornus cutting...

or - Down where the Dogwood grows.  This weekend, despite the foul forecast, was spent in the Cornus patch where we harvest to make the bases for our wreaths.  Here is Garlandgirl looking a bit chilly, cutting last year's growth in preparation.  Photo courtesy of Liz of green-baskets.co.uk who not only took the snap, but also got  the secateurs out, AND cooked lunch for us all after.

  The frost stopped any cutting in January so it was good to get out there now before the plants start to put on growth again.    We cut and made bases as we were going along,  all the time rumbling around the normal topics of life, love, family and the delights of errant teenage children.  It stayed dry too, which was a real bonus.  Once all the bases are finished over the course of the next week or so (hopefully), they will be stored away ready for the 2011 Christmas season.

Other weekend jobs off the list included getting the potatoes chitting in the (unheated) greenhouse.  We are going to try some new (to us) varieties this year including Pink Fir Apple, Kestrel, Picasso Arran Pilot and Anya which will go in on Good Friday - weather permitting,  and hopefully will see us right through the season from June until February.  The new potato bed has been dug and is just waiting, perhaps needs liming before we plant, but otherwise ready...  This is a bit of good cheer in what otherwise could be a gloomy, typical February.  The wormcasts are out in force on the lawn and the terracotta pots are all breaking up due to the severe cold in December and January.  Pish.