As I sit down to start this blog, it is pouring rain outside. We had a few days of warm temperatures and cloudless skies that felt utterly wrong to be getting in February, which I presume had much to do with the splitting of the polar vortex earlier in the year, and global warming more generally. The culmination of a week of warmth was being hit by a sudden cold frost the winter storm that is currently raging outside.
However, despite the harshness of being hit by the frost after the bout of warm sunshine, The crocuses are popping their brightly-coloured blooms above the ground, bringing joy and a sign of spring to come.
I enjoy my walks, and I am fairly close to the outskirts of town, and so it only takes 15 minutes of walkng, or a short bike ride to get out into fields and forest. I love to pick wild fruits, seeds and leaves, but also just smell the scents of the flowers and the mud and the general outdoors. I work indoors, in a room with no windows to the outside, so these walks make a big difference to my overall mood. I went out this weekend in the hopes I may come across some violets, as I have never yet seen them in the wild. Alas, I did not find any, whether that be because I am simply looking in the wrong places, or that they are perhaps rare in this part of Yorkshire, or because they are merely not currently blooming. It is a shame, as I adore the scent of violets. Perhaps I should plant some this year to enjoy the aroma in my own garden
I enjoy a little bit of gardening, though wish I could plant things in the ground, but neither the space, nor the neccessities of renting a home will allow for that, so pots it is. Most of my garden herbs have welcomed the muted temperatures and water that the storm provided. However, my wild strawberry plants do not seem to have coped well with the sudden change in temperature. I still have seeds stored away from some wild strawberries I found earlier last year that I kept, so perhaps I will start some seedlings from them if they are still viable.
I have plans to grow a few new plants for me this year. Most notably, spinach, but I'm hoping to perhaps grow some sweet peppers in my porch. I do not have the space for a greenhouse, though I would adore to have one. I hope to one day be able to buy my own home, and have the outdoor space for not just a greenhouse, but also to plant fruit trees in the ground, but unfortunately I still have a long way to go. For now, I make do with what I can fit in pots. I have not yet figured out how I am going to protect the spinach from slugs or caterpillars. Last year, cabbage butterfly caterpillars infiltrated our strawberries and our brussels sprouts.. However, though we managed to save the strawberries, the brussels sprouts sadly did not survive the summer. Likewise, there is a problem with slugs around the drain for the downpipe from the guttering of the house. In a night, they can make their way around the whole garden, and probably also reside in nearby homes. When we first moved into our current home, there was a problem with slugs in the actual house itself. We got rid of them by sealing up any gaps and cracks between the floors and walls due to the house moving over the years, and also by keeping the house warm and dry inside. However, the garden is harder to treat - there are no holes that can be sealed up, it is usually cool and damp in the nights when the slugs come out. We cannot use slug pellets, as we do not wish to harm our cats, any other cats which come into our garden, or other local wildlife which may be attracted to them. I just wish to find a way to keep the slugs out of my plant pots. Perhaps there is something I can put on the water trays that would deter them. We also had a greenfly issue that attacked the cultivated strawberries, mint, the lemon balm (aka. balm, melissa) and the miniature roses that my partner was hoping to grow into a bonsai. Though I saved the mint, the strawberries and the lemon balm with the good old soapy water trick, the miniature rose was very small, and quickly succumbed. Sadly I saw very few ladybirds last year, so I think the greenfly population went out of control seemingly for everybody in the local area.
One of my jobs this month will be to remove the ground ivy (aka. creeping charlie) from the cracks in the garden walls. Being a member of the mint family, it grows voraciously, even through winter, and especially into places it shouldn't be. It has been infiltrating our garden from our neighbours through the cracks in the wall that were caused by an ash tree falling on it a year or so ago. It has always been my rule to keep plants of the mint family pot-bound so as not to overtake everything in the vicinity of it.
The only exception to this rule, for me, would be rosemary - though I currently keep mine in a pot, I would adore to have a rosemary hedge around my garden in the future. I came across one a few years ago when visiting the south of Italy, and fell in love with the idea, as I have never been a fan of the Leylandii hedge so common here in England. Perhaps when I own my own home later in life, I can plant a rosemary hedge, with violets in the shade beneath.
That's my musings for today. Hopefully the weather becomes a bit more stable for the sake of our plants
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