Spring equinox gardening

Earlier this week, the spring equinox flew past us all. With the ridiculousness surrounding Brexit, and the dread that comes with knowing that we are a week away with no decisions made and little that we as members of the public can do about it, I feel as though I need to keep my mind busy. I'd done much of my spring cleaning last week prior to my parents coming to visit. I made some honey cakes from a recipe I found online, but have decided that I am not a tremendous fan of this recipe (though my partner likes them). I think it could be improved on by removing some of the baking powder, and instead whisking the honey/sugar/butter mixture to make it lighter, and whisking the egg whites before folding that in. However, I figured I wasn't up for fighting with an unreliable gas oven to try to test my theory out at the moment. So I put that thought on the back-burner and decided it was time to do a little relaxing gardening instead. Before even getting as far as the garden, I noticed the plum tomato seedlings I'd planted a couple of weeks ago have come up out of the soil in the seedling tray in the porch

Unfortunately, the aphids had already completely infested the young shoots of my parsley plant already, and had some small cabbage butterfly caterpillars wandering around, and it is barely even spring yet. Parsley is probably my least used of all my herbs, so in a vain effort to try and prevent compete infestation of all my plants for a second year in a row, the parsley has been dug up and removed. I see no aphids on my other plants for now, and have given them a little spray with soapy water, but I may need to look into buying some ladybirds to keep them under control. I doubt there is much I can do about the caterpillars other than keep a close eye and remove as I go - they were probably the least of the issues last year anyway.

I ended up planting up two pots with bamboo stakes with some early-crop peas. I also planted a longer rectangle planter with some spinach seeds, as spinach is probably my single most often used leafy vegetable in both my hot cooking and cold salads, and put some copper anti-slug tape around the top portion of the outside of the pot in an attempt to deter them. I re-potted my rosemary into a larger pot, as it is one of my favourite herbs, and planted some seeds from some wild strawberries I collected in Poland last year, just to see if they will grow here, since my old wild strawberries died over winter.

Unfortunately, I did not get all the gardening done that I hoped I would, as I both ran out of compost, and need some more pots and trays to re-pot some things like my lavender or the aforementioned tomato seedlings into larger pots. My partner also wants to plant some radishes again, but in order to plant them in the other long pot I have, I need to re-pot some cherry seedlings that sprouted from some cherry seeds my partner put out last spring and subsequently thought were dead, which I need more compost/soil for. My partner hopes to make a bonsai out of one of them, and I think hopes to be able to plant some of the others in the ground should we be able to afford our own home in the future. Eventually, the butternut squash will also need a new pot presuming that the seeds ever germinate, as there is currently very little sign, along with the sweet pepper seeds I planted, though it has only been a couple of weeks, so there is time yet. I have been debating planting some chilli seeds, but I do not regularly cook with chilli, and there is not a lot of space in the porch that will already hopefully have plum tomatoes and sweet peppers in it.

On the upside, presuming my plants do all grow and do not get devoured by aphids, caterpillars, or slugs,  I will hopefully have quite a nice crop of vegetables this year. I am especially looking forward to snacking on fresh podded peas.

Musings of a wet March day

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