(Don't) Make Room For The Mushrooms

Mushrooms sprang up in the raised bed with the tomatoes growing in it, next to the last few remaining beetroot. They were also lurking nearby and trying to attach themselves to the largest kohl rabi. I think they were possibly poisonous, or 'magic', mushrooms.

I dug them all up - a couple had a blue-ish tinge to them and I made sure to remove the soil around and directly under them as well. It looked full of whitish mould. I am not sure if I needed to do this but better safe than sorry!


The dwarf beans are growing and the first of the 'tumbling tom' tomatoes have appeared.

I staked the sunflowers and the delphinium and have been weeding, weeding, weeding.

I aim to plant up my pots of spinach and salad leaves on the patio later.

And find a space for some broccoli!

Jobs this week

1. Plant pots of spinach and mixed salad leaves.
2. Stake the delphinium.
3. Continue clearing the patio of weeds and old pots/debris.
4. Weed the veg patch.
5. Cut down the burgeoning bindweed and brambles on the path to the compost bin in the corner.
6. Repot the thai basil.
7. Deadhead.
8. Harvest the kohl rabi and the first dwarf beans.
9. Continue eating the swiss chard, peas, lettuce and rocket.
10. Work out whether there is space to plant some broccoli.

Swiss Chard, Lollo Rossa and Posies

So much for more regular updates - I have been so busy keeping up with the garden and various other projects that I haven't had time to blog! I will remedy that by keeping future posts short and sweet, like the pea pods that I can't stop munching on!
The marrow is taking over, the cucumber plants are creeping towards the swiss chard. The pumpkin is heading for the path. The tomato plants are all flowering and the self-seeded ones in the cold frame are doing well, alongside the coriander and nigella.

The beans, all blighted by black fly, are now covered in ladybirds and have made something of a recovery. There are dwarf beans almost ready to be eaten. I've eaten all the radishes I planted and most of the beetroot. The mixed salad leaves and spinach bolted whilst we were on holiday so I pulled it all up and have planted a whole raised bed of beetroot instead. Can't get enough of the stuff!
The swiss chard has been plentiful and delicous and is stil going strong. I've been delivering carrier bagsful of chard and lollo rossa lettuce, and the odd posy of flowers, to various friends and family. This has been a very satisfying side effect of growing veg and flowers. The kohl rabi is ready to be harvested. I need to work out how best to cook it. Ideas and advice are welcome! There is quite a crop of poisonous-looking mushrooms growing alongside the kohl rabi and in the raised bed with the tomatoes and last of the beetroot. I will have to try and work out what they are but I will certainly not be eating them!

The sunflowers are starting to flower but I think it will be another week or so before they are really ready. The cornflowers are blooming next to the chard and the marigolds, cosmos, nasturtiums and dahlias are all doing well. There is nigella self-seeding everywhere, one of mum's favourites. The poached egg flowers and alyssum that Sam planted are all flowering and the arch is still full of honeysuckle and velvety violet clematis.

The apples are growing and I spotted the first blackberries yesterday.

The main problem is still keeping the bindweed and brambles at bay, and a cat has started messing near my squash, so I will have to do something to put it off.

I am wondering if I can squeeze some broccoli in but have a feeling the answer may be no...

Roses

Love Hearts and Lemon Tea



















Blousey with Lemon Sherbet



















Coral Sisters Climbing Cerulean



















Heavenly scent of Turkish Delight

Stick a Fork In - I'm Done!

Where did the time go? It's now seven months since I last posted...

Here is a refresher of what I started doing and what it looked like back on August 19th last year.

I have not had time to blog here. I have been blogging elsewhere at the original LucyFurLeaps site and the new LucyFurLeaps strictly all about poetry site.
No blogging here though...but I have been working in the garden.

I steadily cleared, cut, weeded and dug away over the winter. Of course it helped that everything started to die back and from my last post I continued to work in any spare half hour or break from studying I got. At the weekends one of my nieces would come over sometimes on a saturday and help with a bit of digging and child-minding. Thanks Emily!

By March I had almost cleared one side and was slowly digging out as many of the bramble roots as possible.
After Easter my good friends Kat and Paul, and their wonderful daughter Maya, came to help me and Sam set up our vegetable patch. A hard day's digging, organising, clearing and assembling of a couple of raised beds and the overgrown wilderness is transformed!















It was a relief and a joy to finally have some help. I had achieved a lot by myself but with three people and a full day the aim of setting up a vegetable patch was finally realised. Thanks guys - I couldn't have got it done without you!

A proper write up of the setting up of the veg patch will follow...
There is so much to write about- and now that I have finished my second year at university I have some time. I will now be updating this site regularly.

Anything is possible!

Love, Love, Love xxx

Garden Observation from Autumn Equinox 2009

Today I am caught by the wind and blown across my garden to the foot of the old pear tree, with its ivy-covered trunk and leaves covered in rust. At its roots euphorbia is starting to sprout again. An old wheelbarrow full of brambles and bindweed sits under its canopy. The wind moves deosil around me from the magnolia, through the holly tree which is just bearing berries, and into the large ornamental grass in front of it. Sounds shift and change, reflecting back the textures it encounters. A lone bird tweets with a sound like a clockwork toy being wound. And then the wind drops for a moment.

Another sound; the one I try to ignore. Roaring, relentless traffic only two gardens and one house back. The A3 main arterial road into London: lorries rumble, motorbikes zoom, sirens wail. Non-stop white noise energy. But unlike the wind it only travels in two directions...scurry and hurtle. The breeze fluffs my hair briefly, and then moves on. I follow it now, past the hawthorn, whose berries sit next to the wind-fallen apples gently rotting on the recently re-discovered path. I watch it rattle the seed pods of the lupins, and the dried up petals of the aquilegia dance in its wake. Hover flies explore, flies buzz and bees bumble, still searching for nectar amidst last-blooming coral pink roses and yellow morning glory. Wafts of compost and the sweet-candyfloss scent of blackberries on the air. Butterflies dance a twist together, up into the sky, round and round, before breaking free and going on their way. Joy! The wind shows me that everything has its own dance, its own time and its own journey in the cycle of becoming. The world is not linear, unlike the busy road nearby.

This is a piece of writing that came from an online writing course I did with Starhawk in September and October.

Raw Earth

I had about three hours today while my niece babysat Sam, so I raked and cut and cleared and clipped and finally I can see a big patch of ground.

I haven’t posted for a while but I’ve been busy in the garden, here and there when I’ve had a couple of hours to spare, and sometimes when I’ve had no time to spare I’ve still been digging and sweeping and looking and thinking.

I’ve given up on keeping my focus on the end of the garden, although that is still my main priority. I’ve spent a lot of time out there this year. I’m getting to know her quite well now, and am seeing her as a whole environment. So to clear and nurture one part seems rather allopathic when I am a holistic kinda gal at heart.

And, if I’m being honest, which I am, no holds barred for a moment, this project was never going to be just about clearing some space to make a veg patch, although that is what started it all, and is still the main physical objective.

This is about transformation and challenge: My transformation, my challenge; My spirit, Sam’s spirit; the locus genii and the spirit of my mother.

Today I re-housed a tiny lizard; disturbed an enormous toad and then tried to put the roof back on his house until I have somewhere else he might like to live. I raked over two red-ant hills and another colony was destroyed when I pulled up a plank of wood.

That is one of the tensions of gardening. The wildlife in the garden has settled and proliferated and now I am uprooting and unsettling in the name of cultivation and care. Do all gardeners make a contract with the wildlife that shares their space? I will re-organise and re-shape but then I hope to offer as much opportunity for the wildlife in the garden to stay as was. I hope I can manage this.
I remember listening to Gardener’s Question Time on Radio 4 years ago, and one of the listeners’ questions was how to get rid of worm casts on a lawn, and whether it would be possible to get rid of the worms! This was obviously met with reserved BBC-style hilarity and an explanation of why this would not be a good idea.

So, as in life there are all kinds of gardeners, gardening for all kinds of reasons. But the above story does raise a question about how connected we are with our environment. And if we do have a connection, what kind of connection is it and what does it mean?

Last week I planted a Japanese anemone and a perennial geranium, ‘hocus pocus’, by the apple tree. Today I soaked some Winter Aconite corms in water for a few hours and then planted those in the same place. I am trying to add a mix of plant species that will provide colour and variety throughout the year.

The michaelmas daisies were still buzzing with bees today and I managed to get a couple of good bee photos. I have been filling up the large border by the patio with bee-friendly perennials and will continue to make sure the bees are well catered-for in this garden.

The importance of this must not be under-estimated with the critical situation our bee population is in. If you don’t know about this now is the time to get educated. The implications of the devastation of our bee population cannot be overstated. I will write about this again here but see the excellent Help Save Bees web site here for a feature I wrote which gives some idea of the issues.
Everything I do takes longer than I thought it would- such is life- but I am still amazed at what I achieved in three hours.

I have done every single bit of it myself so far. My dad has taken a few loads of bramble cuttings and general garden rubbish to the local recycling centre but I have done the rest. For the time being it looks like it will continue to be my own solitary project.

I’ve had a couple of offers of help but so far it’s just been me. I look forward to the help when it comes – I am sure I will be ready for it! But at the moment this is time to connect with the earth, build a relationship with this place, think and make new connections in my brain and have some precious time out from everything else.
I am doing this as well as being a full time lone mum to Sam and a full time student, so I’m on a slow-but-steady pace. Wins the race.