In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.

Margaret Atwood

Little packets of anticipation

Days are lengthening and I've come over far too optimistic and have just sown lots of seeds. So, to remind me of what I've done when, for next year's planning, here's the list:

• Tomato 'Orange Banana'


• Tomato 'Tigerella'


• Lettuce mix: Herb Salad


• Lettuce mix: Oriental Mixed - second sowing


• Red Pepper


• Broad Bean (crimson flowered) - second sowing


• Sweet Peas - mixed variety


• Celeriac 'Giant Prague'


• Cabbage 'Primo'

I've also potted on the Aubergine 'Calliope' sown over a month ago, but the tomatoes gor too leggy and so have been consigned to the compost bin.

Weather is mild and damp (around 10 Celsius).

I've put out the hyacinth pots that I planted up in October - the pink flowers are out, but the blue ones are lagging behind.

In flower in the garden:

• Narcissus 'Tete a Tete'


• Helleborus x hybridus - variety of colours, from dark pink, green, cream, cream with red speckles, and a double cream flowered variety.

• Anemone blanda blue


• Miniature iris - 'Katherine Hodgekin' in the window box and unknown dark blue variety in the rose tub by the front door.


• The Sarcococca is now going over


• Mixed Crocus

The final bed

We spent some time down at the allotment yesterday afternoon. Happily, the shed survived the gale force winds, although others weren't so lucky. Mr HM finished digging the final bed, which I'll use for cutting flowers such as dahlias, gladioli and sunflowers. I merely pottered, weeding and digging the runner bean trench. I remember my dad doing this, when I was a kid - digging out a trench, lining it with newspapers and then gradually filling it over the following couple of months with compostable veg waste and lawn clippings. This gives the beans a good moisture retentive material in which to grow - important on the sandy soil on the plot.

Another couple of weeks and I'll be putting the heating on in the greenhouse, when the next wave of seed sowing can start in earnest!

Chitting

A useful day spent in the garden on Sunday. I managed to put back up all of the bubble wrap which had fallen down from the previous week (note to self: masking tape doesn't work). Mr HM finished distributing soil around the garden from the turf pile.

Nights are getting slightly lighter and my fingers are itching to get sowing seeds, so I did. I sowed Tomato 'Gardener's Delight' and 'Tigerella' and Aubergine 'Calliope'. It's probably rather early and I would have been better off waiting until February, but never mind. Having checked them this afternoon, they have now germinated - I have started them off in a heated propagator in the conservatory, covered with a thin layer of vermiculite. From sowing to germination in less than a week! My problem now will be to stop them getting too leggy in the low light levels of Late Jan/early Feb. If the tomatoes get leggy, it is possible to plant them quite deeply, as they produce roots from the stem to help anchorage. I've started these off early as last year, my aubergines only got to flowering size by September, so I didn't get any fruits at all.

The next seeds to get started will be the peppers I have just bought, from 'Plants of Distinction'.

I've also started some potatoes chitting. I got 1kg of 'Bonnie' free from T&M. I also got the following from Kings Seeds: 'Pink Fir Apple' - salad/maincrop; 'Lady Christl '- first early; 'Catriona' - second early. 'Lady Christl' will be grown in containers to give nice early potatoes, but the other two will be going down the allotment. I've started the first and second earlies chitting, although the jury is out on its usefulness. I won't bother chitting the 'Pink Fir Apple' as chitting seems to have no benefit for maincrops.

A clean and tidy New Year

A busy day today. Two years ago, we produced a turf pile of the grass we took up when we were expanding the borders. Over the two years, the turf has broken down to give some nice soil. Somebeans spent a busy two days moving this soil around to various areas of the garden in need of topping up.

I have cleaned out the greenhouse, inside and out, and put up the bubble wrap insulation, ready for when we turn the gas heater on in the beginning of February. I also cleaned lots of pots and trays, and threw a load away. Much tidiness has therefore been produced, which pleases Somebeans immensely. Not too many scary spider incidents, which pleased me immensely.

The area where the turf pile was will be planted up over this year. It is beneath two flowering cherry trees, so is quite dry and also dark when the leaves are on the trees. There is currently a holly bush under there, and a pinkish rhodedendron (variety unknown). I'm thinking that some spring woodland bulbs will look good before the cherry leaves arrive.

Sadly we're both back to work tomorrow, so it's a return to seeing the garden only in the dark during the week. Roll on the lighter spring evenings...

There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling. ~Mirabel Osler

A grey Christmas

Well, it's Christmas Day and we've just eaten of the huge harvest from our garden. Parsnips.

They were very nice parsnips, though, and with a 'food miles' footprint of around 15 feet. Next year, with the allotment in full flow, we should also be eating home grown sprouts, carrots and I may try for some Christmas new potatoes grown in a container in the unheated greenhouse. Don't think I'll bother trying for a homegrown turkey, though.

We were down at the allotment last week, where I planted out some broad beans which I started off in the greenhouse. Typically, we then had a big frost (it having been pretty warm up until then). Still, I have some more broad beans still in the green house, and will sow some more in the spring. The strawberries are looking healthy down there.

In the garden, there is a purple hellebore in flower, with big fat buds on a white hellebore. The chard 'Bright Lights' is looking good, but I still haven't harvested any. The leeks are still looking rather spring onion-like (sowed them and planted them out far too late, and they're in a bit of the garden where there are bricks not far below the surface).

For those who have rather more homegrown veg than we do, the Womens Food & Farming Union have a nice web page with seasonal fruit and veg recipes:

http://www.wfu.org.uk/seasonalveg.htm

One pink rose flower in the front garden - we've often had roses flowering this late.

Nights are getting shorter now (but not discernably, sadly) and the birds seem to think spring has sprung. It won't be long before the heating is turned on in the greenhouse and the first few lots of seed sown (celeriac and tomotoes being amongst the first, in February). Can't wait! Until then, there's a little more digging to do on the allotment, and planning a rotation system.

We'll be off to Ness Gardens sometime over the Christmas holidays, no doubt, and will look forward to seeing the start of a new season there.

It's dark...

I've been busy in the garden for the last few weekends, rather than down the allotment. Lots of chopping up of perennial material which has gone over, and raking up leaves.

I finally got around to planting the tulips this weekend, with 'Wendy Love' in the back garden and a mix of 'Recreado' (dark purple) and 'Douglas Bader' (pink). I've planted them in the space vacated by the Lavatera bush, which I dug up in a fit of tidying last weekend. I'd planted it in the wrong place, and it was all over the path. It has produced a lovely space (hence the tulips) and have just got a nice Sarcococca shrub to plant there - much slower growing and with fantastically fragant flowers over winter, next to the front door.

The dark nights (and ongoing comments about my untidiness by Mr HM) have led me to tidy up the seed packets strewn about the place and have ordered them according to date of sowing. Roll on spring, and the seed sowing time...

Gardening in the dark

Lots of tidying up in the garden this week. I've pulled up the red cauliflowers, which gave a small harvest of 'cauliflowers' (more like purple sprouting broccoli). Also this week has seen me heeling in a climbing rose in the dark (why do plant companies send out plants so that they turn up on a Monday?) - nearly as much fun as trying to cover with compost 30 asparagus roots in the dark. More compost on me than on the roots. Hopefully these will both be put in their rightful places this weekend - the asparagus will need trenches dug out for them, so that the roots can be spread out, and the trench partially back-filled. The rose is Rosa 'Malvern Hills', as a reminder of my home town, and will be growing over the front door, eventually.

On the allotment front, more beds were dug, and lots of couch grass extracted. Also, I planted 15 strawberries of 3 different varieties ('Mae', 'Florence' and 'Alice') - these will spread out the harvest season, hopefully.


Thanks to Henry for directions on strawberry planting and some compost to feed the plants, as it will be a while until our pile of weeds is reduced to a useable compost.

Weather-wise, it has become a little milder, with a small amount of rain yesterday. I think we'll be off to see the last flowers of the year at Ness Gardens this weekend; I'm sure that the herbaceous borders will still have a few blooms.

First Frosts

A note to myself. The first frost of the year came on November 1st 2006, with temperatures down to -2degC. The heliotropes have now had it, which is a shame as they have been smelling fantastic for the past month or so. The Cosmos are stil surviving, surprisingly. The ricinus plants have survived two days of frosts but it can't be long until they disappear into black sludge.

We'll be having a busy weekend at the allotment, as we have only two or three new beds to dig to complete it, and I've had a couple of deliveries. One was of 'elephant garlic' which was bought on a whim as it was on special offer. Apparently it is a mild garlic flavour, more like leek. Also, I've got a delivery of bare-rooted strawberry plants, of three different varieties - to give a longer cropping season (again, a special offer!). I'll put these in a dedicated strawberry bed. The strawberries should crop for three years before needing to be replaced, and the bed rotated. I've only just started being able to eat strawberries - for many years they'd make me ill. However, after picking some at a PYO last summer (http://www.clivesfruitfarm.co.uk/), I now realise what I've been missing out on. Can't wait to harvest my own strawbs next summer.

In the mean time, it's an opportunity to enjoy some proper autumn weather, with spiders' webs sparking with dew, and the leaves starting to come down with a vengeance - an excellent resource which will be turned into leaf mould, to put on the Hellebores next autumn.