Newsletter
This endless winter is eating away at the days, leaving me less and less time to get ready for the coming season. Work on the garden is at a standstill for the third significant spell this winter. The sharp frosts are slowly playing havoc in the greenhouse too - it&
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According to my OH who's an early morning soul, on Farming Today this morning, a battery egg producer defended his practices by arguing that hens are from SE Asia and hate the cold, so they'd prefer living 4 hens to a 18" x 18"
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With near-perfect timing we lit the new woodburning stove for the first time as the snow fell outside. On any other frosty night we'd be lucky to get the house above 15C. But tonight we hit the dizzy heights of 19.5C in the new living room -
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It seems that keeping chickens, growing veg and having a woodburning stove are collectively the new black. Or the new scarlet or bling or whatever was previously in vogue. Well, what do you know? For once I am right on the button. The chickens are laying more eggs than we
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Our back patio looks like a builder's yard, but smells as sweet as an old fashioned boudoir. It's the sweet box, Sarcococca, an otherwise non-descript evergreen shrub, tucked into a dark corner by the back door. In January its small white flowers hang down meekly under
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Tonight the sun was still bright and high at 4 o'clock - a noticeable change from the darkest days of December. The chickens don't want to be locked up until after 5pm, which takes the pressure off if we're both out in the day.
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We had a much anticipated lesson on grafting at College on Friday. After half an hour of painstaking demonstration by Harry, I produced my first perfectly decent whip and tongue graft. Now, if only I'd taken the Diploma practical last summer, the outcome of the Gardner of the
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We often get temperatures 2C lower than forecast here, so this morning's -7C was no surprise. Outdoor work is at a standstill - the ground has been frozen for weeks. Peter hasn't been in - I hope he's OK and just waiting for better
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The 10 day mild spell has ended abruptly this week. We woke yesterday to a hard frost and a harder one this morning. A canal boat went by as I was tending to the chickens this morning (the canal runs along one side of the garden) and it only slowly
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In Jon McGregor's beautiful little book 'If no-one speaks of remarkable things', he describes a pause in the middle of the night between the end of one day and the beginning of the new. A moment after the last club closes and before the milkman steps
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I mentioned on an earlier post that I feel ready to make changes in the garden, and with the weather turning mild and wet I took the opportunity to move the finest plant in the garden - the Cornus controversa variegata. It was in a silly little circular bed on
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December is a struggle. The alarm goes off at about 7am, (I know, that's not early...) and my eyes immediately register that it is black outside and therefore surely still the middle of the night. If I really have to get up, I can. But it feels all