Spoils of toil

The 'in bloom' group (soon to be renamed) had designated yesterday morning to finish clearing the beds at the entrance to the village. This is part of a project which I am in charge of to regenerate the area. The major task yesterday was to remove a very large dogwood, we removed one a few weeks ago so I new what we were in for. Anyway it took me 2 hours with a mattock to get it out. Rather than dump it we relocated it at the back of the site behind some silver birches, I thought the winter contrast of the white trunks against the red stems of the dogwood would look good. Whilst I dealt with the dogwood Andy my colleague was clearing one of the herbaceous beds. As you can see from the photograph he removed a lot of plants. This is the barrow load that I rescued. It contains a hebe, several clumps of flag iris and a lot of euphorbia all of which are destined for a new home in my garden. All gardeners enjoy aquiring free plants so you can imagine how I felt taking this load home.

After all the high winds and rain of the last few days the house and garden appear remarkably unscathed. In fact the only damage I know of in the village was a friends flagpole snaped off within the tabernacle (the base of a wooden flagpole), I am please to say plans are already afoot to replace it as it is a bit of a village landmark.

A wet Friday

Greetings from a wet and miserable Cambridgeshire, as you can see the leaves on the Walnut are turning a lovely autumnal hue. The more observant will also see that the blue plastic bag that was stuck in the tree in spring is STILL there, although it is gradually breaking up.

Last evening I went down to London, Sharron was having a leaving drink as she is changing job's so I thought it would be nice to go and meet the members of her old team I hadn't met before. To get to London took about an hour on the train into Kings Cross and then I walked down to The Globe theatre on Bankside next to Tate Modern on the South of the Thames where they were meeting which took about 40 mins. I don't go down to London very often. Since we moved here 3 years ago I had always lived and worked there. Now when I go there I feel depressed, the noise , congestion, and just the taste of air makes me feel so lucky that we live where we do. It is strange how quickly you change, my pace of life has definitely slowed down and I just can't handle all that frenetic rushing about anymore, I just can't see the point.

Anyway when I got to the bar it was really nice to meet her old team and even nicer to find that several of them read this blog. I actually spent most of evening discussing gardening which was great. I was asked for suggestions on veg you can grow in flower borders when your not allowed to expand the veg plot, Swiss Chard for instance. I also suggested Cardoons to someone as an alternative to globe artichokes in a small town garden as they take up a bit less space. It was a lot more fun than the usual " and what do you do ?" conversations you normal get at these events.

Before I went down yesterday I ordered some plants for next year. My shopping list was:

6 x Allium giganteum
75 x Allium aflatuense (purple sensation)
12 x Kniphofia

and free with these come with

30 double daffodils
and
30 Pinocchio tulips

Which will sort out my spring window boxes

This forward planning is because we are planning a garden party next summer and I want to make sure the garden is going to look fantastic. I have lots of plans for plants I want to get and changes I want to make so watch this space.

I'm back. hen's and pots.

Firstly sorry about my absence from the blogosphere for the last couple of weeks, we both had some time off and have been working hard decorating our stairway. Not the easiest of jobs at the best of times as what seems to be a straight forward job never is in an old house. When you remove the wall paper huge lumps of plaster come with it and none of the door lock fittings are standard so you need to file them out to get the new knobs to fit (even the guy in the shop thought they were all standard!) The other interesting problem is how to paint the stairs with paint that takes 18hours to dry when you live with 2 cats and a dog? We did end up with a cat with a cream stripe up her side, quite fetching actually.

This photo shows you one of the problems with keeping hens, She is sitting in one of the planters I use for Blueberries. She has excavated down from the rim, removing the Blueberry in the process to make her own dust jaccuzi. So I have replanted the Blueberry elsewhere and left her with her new spot.


The late warm spell has been good for some of the local farmers allowing the rape to get a good start.


A lot of people object to fields of rape, but one advantage to fields like this one is that it attracts the woodpigeons away from my cabbages. This view is looking back towards the house across the grass fields at the bottom of the garden.

Halfway there and a bit of a moan.

I spent much of my long weekend tidying up the garden, I think I am about halfway there. I Managed to do most of the things I needed to do in the veg patch. I cleared the debris off the rhubarb, dug over the empty beds and planted out spring cabbage and broad beans. This part of the year is a real time of change, it is sad to look at the forlorn leaves of the courgette plants knowing all that is left for them is the short trip to the compost heap. I felt the same as I cut down the remnants of the runner beans. However looking around the patch I still have Parsnips, Celeriac, and Jerusalem Artichokes to harvest and my leeks are coming on nicely.



One of the other jobs that I wanted to do was a bit of bulb planting. I had decided to plant bulbs under the lawn in hope over time they will naturalise. I planted a couple of hundred crocus and about 120 Tete a tete daffodils, I love these miniature daffs and I feel when I am planting them that is like placing unexploded fireworks in the soil, waiting for spring to ignite the fuse.
I have also planted loads of hyacinths along the edge of the path and in the verge outside the house, I am looking forward the scent from them.

We had a very disappointing turnout for our In Bloom' workday on the village flowerbeds, only three of us turned up. I spent 2 hours getting one of the old dogwoods out and broke my favourite spade in the process, I was not happy. But as one of the team said if people don't turn up they loose their right to complain about what we are doing.

A long weekend of gardening

This is the view from the window of my home office this morning, it's a beautiful autumnal day out there, it's just sad I am stuck in front of my work PC. I have therefore decided to take tomorrow and Monday off to garden. I have a lot of leave that needs using up and I can't think a better use for it than a bit of digging. The garden hasn't been getting the attention it deserved over the last few weeks, what with weekends away, visitors, and the mini drought in the East of England making our clay soil like concrete.
I need to get some winter veg in soon as well as some winter salad crops. I also need to replant our blueberries as the hens have dug them out of the planters ( big flowerpot = luxury chicken dust bath). The lawn needs cutting, the flower beds need tidying as does the greenhouse, our boundary hedge also needs a good haircut but at the moment it is still supplying a great crop of blackberries, so I might leave that a few more weeks. I also have a load of bulbs that need planting and will probably go down to the Monday market in St Ives to get some more. I must also start taking pelagonium cuttings before we get a frost and loose them all.

On Saturday I am leading a working party to sort out some communal flowerbeds and begin work on a wild flower meadow on a strip of land at the entrance to the village. This will involve amongst other tasks digging out 3 mature dogwoods, which ought to be fun! This is the first of our projects for the new look 'In Bloom' group, we are planning to relaunch it in the near future to something with a more enviromental based name to get away from the corporate planter/hanging basket image.

The Walnut harvest and Monty Don's new book

The Walnut harvest is in full flow. every time I go into the garden I fill my pockets with the latest windfalls. Many them crack when they hit the concrete under the tree. The header picture for the blog was taken from under the tree so you get an idea of its location in he garden. These broken one are either eaten by me as I pick them up, fed to the chickens or to Boris who takes delight in crunching them open. The squirrels have also found them but unlike last year they have left it late. the result is that they are making more ripe nuts fall out of the tree than they are eating.


The rest of them I bring indoors to dry. I am going to have to start giving them away as we have far to many for even me to eat.

A nice surprise yesterday, a copy of Monty Don's new book The Ivington Diaries arrived in the post, I had pre-ordered it from Amazon and it was only published on Monday. I have already read all the way up to March. The book is a collection of extracts from his diary from when the move to Ivington. I enjoy Monty's writing, I recently read 'The Jewel Garden' in which he deals with the periods of depression that he suffers from, this struck a note with me as it is something that afflicts me. I am of course extremely jealous of Monty's garden, I wish I had a plot that required 20 tons of Mushroom compost a year as a mulch! His writing style makes you feel you not only know his garden but also feel as if you are a friend he is talking too.

Did you see the sky last night?

The sky last night was fantastic, when I took Boris out to the garden at about 11.30 the moon was backlighting the clouds. I tried to grab a photo but I couldn't really capture it very well.