Shed's dead, baby, shed's dead

We've killed the monster shed. 

When I say "we", obviously I mean The Boy. And when I say "killed", I mean smashed to smithereens with a massive sledgehammer. And when I say "monster", I mean 15ft by 9ft. I exaggerate not.

Feels so good. I can see the back fence now. Can't wait to get planting, but that's a way off still. Next spring.

The Smell of Summer

Sweet peas are one of my favourite smells - like freesias, they smell like all flowers ever concentrated into a single bud. They smell heady, ethereal, angelic - like early summer mornings when the sun is just risen, the city noise is quiet, the birds are singing, and the dew is on the grass. Heavenly.

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Macro

Playing around with the Sahib's camera in mamma's garden ...

Aren't they lovely?

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Closer and closer to harvest time

We've been already enjoying the sugarsnaps, spinach and the rocket - and the strawberries and raspberries didn't last long en route from plant to mouth. 

We're just waiting for the tomatoes and the runnerbeans.

The Boy does a daily tally and breaking news flash for me - today there were 39 incipient tomatoes on the vine: we're trying Costoluto Fiorentino this year, strange beasts, ridged and squat like a squash, as you can see.

Also, we have an abudance of plums, which in previous years have dropped off long before now, so fingers crossed.

The runners are looking gorgeous, but no beans in sight yet. Closer and closer to harvest time, very exciting! 

A green thought in a green shade

Droplet
Originally uploaded by mindofbutterfly

Lots of summer induced activity in the garden.

The plants are gorging on current sunshine and recent rains.

The mangetout are in bloom, promising a luxuriant harvest - daily, we tally up and revel in the abundance. The strawberries are heavy, bowed to the earth, with hard green fruit tinged, slowy but ever so promisingly, with red blush. The raspberry bush, planted in a fit of optimism three years ago, is finally coming into its own and I imagine juicy red fruit come the autumn - not enough for jam, but enough to eat greedily straight from the branch. The tomatoes grow and grow and grow, sucking up water diligently applied to the roots and reaching for the sky. The runner beans have escaped from their 6ft wigwams, and as I write, are making for the roof.

All in all, "a green thought in a green shade" as Marvell says, and plenty of promise.

Urban garden

Stepping out into the garden in the early morning is sheer joy these days. The combination of sunshine, warm and heavy rain has left the greens lush and the seedlings flourishing.

It makes me happy, in a simple way.

This year, the raised beds so far play host to:

• Strawberries - these tend to go straight in my mouth and never make it to anything more sophisticated like fruit salad or jam
• Sugar snap peas - just think of the lovely crisp bite of a straight-from-the-vine bright green bean...
• Spinach - seems to grow like a weed, we are double sowing for a longer harvest
• Rocket, lambs lettuce, corn lettuce - to save on supermarket bagged salad, yuck
• Beetroot - recipes welcome, please, as I am not a fan but The Boy is
• Chives, parsely and mint - the mint is taking over, quick, better make some Pimms or some fresh mint tea

And, germinating nicely in the shed, are:

• Coriander and basil - it's great to have a proper shed for the more tender herbs
• San Marzano and Costoluto Fiorentino tomatoes - looking very promising, they are onto their first real leavs and are almost ready to upgrade to bigger pots
• Gardener's Delight tomatoes - worryingly, nothing showing yet...
• Runner beans
• Butternut squash - again, not a whisper of life, so fingers crossed.

This morning, I also listened really hard to the early everything-waking-up noises. I experimented wth sound recording on the iPhone, so you can listen too. (Audio file is MP4 on GoogleDocs and can be listened to in iTunes - if anyone knows a better way, please say, as this method is very roundabout!)

You can hear:

• The A12
• The Stansted flightpath
• Birds singing - I wish I could recognise what they are from their song, I only know I have seen blackbirds, wood pigeons, starlings, a robin and yellowtits
• Birds taking flight
• A neighbour's baby

Not bad for urban London at 9am on a Saturday!

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Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

Pinch, punch, first of the month…

Well, as the poet says, this month is all about sap rising and Spring springing:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour

But today's theme seems to be tend more to biting gale force winds, so perhaps a little T.S.Eliot would be more apposite instead?

April is the cruellest month, breeding      

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing             

Memory and desire, stirring         

Dull roots with spring rain.          

Even so, talking of stirring dull roots, the plum tree in the garden is covered in dainty pale pink blossom. Ephemeral, perfect only in the moment of falling, as the Japanese see it, but beautiful and spring-like nonetheless. And therefore worthy of celebration!

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In lieu of spring

Some photos from a recent visit, with Aged Parents, to a National Trust winter garden at Dunham Massey in Cheshire.

I find myself increasingly fascinated by mossy organic textures - perhaps the cold dank (seemingly endless) winter that means my eye is drawn to these colours and shapes? In lieu of spring, I look to glossy evergreens ...

 

Not organic but fast becoming it, as the wind and weather erodes the mellow old brick? I find these colours strangely statisfying and nourishing. I think it is the quality of the red-orange against the warm grey stone ...

Down at the bottom of the garden, among the birds and the bees

Developments in the veggie patch:

• The salad leaves are rampant, thanks to the warm, wet weather, and growing faster than we can eat our way through the bounty
• The squash and courgette plants grow higher and higher, succulent Triffid-like monsters - embryo blossoms are starting to form, fingers crossed for some sunshine to coax them out
• The runner beans are a bit weedy but making concerted efforts to twirl themselves up the canes
• The strawberries are looking promising, more buds showing everyday - the cage was carefully constructed after an eye-witness saw a pesky squirrel making himself right at home in amongst the babies
• Peas (out of shot) are looking luscious, with six or seven fat little pods already
• And there's a veritable forest of broad beans

Here's hoping for a goodly harvest!

All construction efforts courtesy of The Boy: he has the necessary survival skills for a post-oil Apocalyptic world, for which today's transport strike has shown I am pitifully equipped.

He's coming with me - when the time comes, we'll head for the hills, and he can build us a raft ... and maybe a fort ... and maybe a wind-turbine.