Stuck in a Rut!

Inspired by Rooko and Garden 65 I eventually ventured out to the allotment yesterday.  I planned to stay a couple of hours. It was a lovely crisp day ... perfect for digging a bed or two. 

As we slowly drove through the gates I said, "I don't think this is a good idea.  It's very muddy and we might get stuck."
"You're right," he replied as the car moved side ways.  "Best reverse and leave it on the track."
Mud began to fly as the wheels started to spin.  We pushed and shoved, we put straw and carpet bits under the wheels, we cursed our stupidity but we were well and truly stuck.
At the nearby stable we met Trevor.  He didn't have a 4x4 but he did have a large rope (and a heart problem for which he'd had a by-pass and 9 stents fitted but he'd changed his diet and leant to take things a bit easier ....!).  Lovely man who went out of his way to help.  Then the pig farmer drove by ... Trevor's neighbour ... so he stopped to help which was useful because he was driving a 4x4!  As we were slowly being pulled out two more men stopped to make sure we were okay.  People can be so nice.  Wouldn't the world be a marvelous place if we all acted with thought and consideration like this all the time?

Well, Andy took the car to be washed and I stayed to do a bit of the digging.  I didn't want to leave when he came back for me.  This always happens ... the idea of going there doesn't really appeal but once I am there I love it! 



I picked some leeks and onions and went home to make Leek and Potato Soup.  I thought about consulting the Sarah Raven Cook Book but decided to just chuck everything in a pan then add some chicken stock and a few herbs. Delicious! 
Recipe here.

Last night I won first prize in a raffle - a bottle of wine - but I don't drink.  People always look amazed when I say that ... I must look like a drinker!  I tried one of those alcopop things a few years ago and fell out of the car when he got me home!  The last time I was properly drunk was February 1975 ... the night I met my husband!  Anyway, I digress.  I asked for the second prize instead - this lovely Spring basket. Much better.  It was the only reason I entered the raffle.

Sir Joseph Paxton

We went for a walk near Chatsworth House today.  They have cleaned the stone and painted parts of it gold ... it's looking great!

Chatsworth House

Joseph Paxton - 1803 - 1865

Chatsworth Head Gardener

 Joseph Paxton was a remarkable man.  He was born in 1803, the seventh son of a poor farmer.  He was not formally educated as he left home at 15 to work as a gardener at Battlesden Park near Woburn. By the age of 19 his talent for design showed through when he created his first lake.

A year later he applied for a job at the  Horticultural Society’s Chiswick Gardens.  He was only 20 years old so he added a couple of years to improve his chances.  He got the job but some historical records still state he was born in 1801 due to this falsehood. 

 He had a flair for his job and developed a reputation for hard work.  After only a year he was promoted to foreman. Over the course of the next two years Paxton became known to William Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, and owner of Chatsworth House.  Cavendish was a hugely important man at the time: he was Chamberlain to King William IV; owned vast tracks of land and was a personal friend of such people as  Charles Dickens and Czar Nicholas I of Russia.  One of his properties was next door to Chiswick and the Duke would frequently take a short cut through the garden.  He was so impressed by the young Paxton that he offered him the post of Head Gardener at Chatsworth.  Paxton was 23 years old.

Apparently Paxton accepted the position and immediately caught a train to Chatsworth.  He climbed over a wall to gain admittance because the Duke was abroad.  He spent his first day wandering round the grounds and meeting the housekeeper's daughter - she was destined to become Mrs Paxton.

The Duke developed a passion for gardening after meeting Paxton and the two men made radical changes to the grounds around Chatsworth.  Over the next six years Paxton designed an arboretum, fountains and a model village.

Between 1836 and 1842 he created this magnificent structure:

It cost £33,000 to build and at the time it was the largest glass building in the world.  Queen Victoria took a carriage ride through it.  It was heated by coal which had to be transported in small trains through underground tunnels.  It proved far too costly to heat during the First World War (and they didn't have the staff to keep it going anyway) so all the plants died.  It had to be demolished in 1923.  It had been so well built it took four attempts to blow it up.

Another one of Paxton's structures which has been lost to us was built to house a giant lily named after Queen Victoria, Victoria amazonica, Paxton had been given the specimen after it had failed to flower for the staff at Kew Gardens.  The Chatsworth gardeners succeeded.  The leaves of the plant are large enough to accommodate a child.

In 1844 Czar Nicholas I of Russia declared his intention to visit Chatsworth the following year.  The Duke wanted something to impress his guest and Paxton designed The Emperor's Fountain.  An eight-acre lake was dug on the moors 350 feet above the house to supply the water pressure needed.  It took six months to construct but the Czar died before he could make the journey.  The fountain has reached a height of 90ft but tends to operate at half that pressure.  Here's a YouTube video of it in operation.

After the Great Exhibition the Crystal Palace was moved to Penge

Paxton is most famous for designing Crystal Palace - the building that housed the Great Exhibition of 1851.  Over 200 designs were submitted.  Paxton drew his on a piece of blotting paper. The building  was erected in just six months, with 293,655 panes of glass, 330 huge iron columns and 24 miles of gutters.  It was destroyed by fire in 1936.

Sir Paxton was knighted in 1851.  He died in 1865.  He had packed a lot into his 62 years:

• During the 1830s Paxton was editor of a horticultural magazine and set up The Daily News ( appointing Charles Dickens as editor).
• Paxton's Flower Garden was published in three volumns between 1850 and 1853
• He was a leading figure in the railways and improved his wealth through investing in their development. 
• From 1854 to 1865 he was MP for Coventry.  
• We can still see his influence today in many of our public parks as he was responsible for landscaping in many parts of the country.

An illustration from Paxton's Flower Garden:

January

Andy has joined the 365 Project - you document your life by taking a photograph each day for a year.  This is going to be very useful for me as I 'borrow' his pictures for this blog.

Saturday was warm and sunny and he joined me in the garden to photograph the snowdrops.  A lot of ours are out already.  I've made a note of the Easton Walled Garden Snowdrop Week (16th - 24th February) and I went to the NGS website to check the dates for others ... that's when I found the App!  I now have the Yellow Book on my phone!  Isn't technology wonderful!  We have information at our fingertips: we can communicate with family and friends at the touch of a button.  I know it can intrude at times but we are in control so we can switch it off.  There's a lot of lonely old people out there from my mother's generation but I'm convinced my generation won't feel quite so isolated as we blog and tweet from our nursing homes!

Anyway, if you want to note down the dates of the Snowdrop Weeks in your area you can find the dates here.http://www.ngs.org.uk/news-features/features/snowdrop-garden-openings.aspx

In the mean time I have uploaded that snowdrop picture to the Jane Greenoff Cross Stitch Gold program and it came out looking like this:-




I've put the chart on the Craft page (see tab at top) ... sorry it's not very good, I will try to produce a better copy in the next few days!








Another date for your diary is coming up - 26th - 27th January is the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch.  If you register now they will send you a £5 voucher to spend on their on line shop. 

The BTO are also asking for information this month - they are conducting a January survey on Blackcaps:

"Blackcaps are an increasingly common sight at garden feeding stations during winter and are spotted most often early in the New Year. The foods that we provide seem to be having a profound effect on the ecology of these birds, changing their migratory patterns and subsequent nesting habits.
With your help, we want to find out more about the behaviour of Blackcaps in winter gardens. Choose one day this January to help us answer these three key questions:
1) Which foods are Blackcaps eating?
2) Are there equal numbers of male and female Blackcaps?
3) Are the Blackcaps aggressive with other, similar sized birds?"

While I'm mentioning birds I will just add a link to Cock of the Rock ... Andy has been out birding every day this year and is growing increasingly concerned about the lack of thrushes in our area.  Very few Redwings, Fieldfares, Mistle Thrushes or Song Thrushes.  Hopefully they are all happily feeding in other parts of the country!

Happy spotting!

Virtual Gardening

I was looking for free gardening apps for my phone.  I don't know why ... I hardly ever use apps!  Anyway, in the process I came across an app called My Garden.  The blurb described it as "a mobile version of the excellent My Garden social networking site."

I'd never heard of the My Garden social networking site.

Well, I had a look.  It's free to join and there are over 4000 members at the present time.  It began in 2011 with the intention of helping gardeners share advice.  From the site you can link to the other members; make your own To Do calender (list the plants you already grow and the calender shows you what's blooming each month in your garden and tells you when to prune it ... I quite liked that!); send messages; create a wishlist and ask for exchanges.  For a small fee you can get additional features including the ability to add a link to your blog so possibly increasing your readership. It is still being developed but I think it will be successful in the same way Ravelry has worked for the knitting online community.

  Of course the RHS online community, also called My Garden,  links you to other gardeners and offers advice too. I envisage a sort of class war in the offing ... rather like Facebook followers v Twitter!

XMAS CARD RECYCLING

Do you know about the Marks & Spencer Christmas card recycling scheme?  They have special bins in store all month and for every 1000 cards collected M&S will plant a tree with the Woodland Trust.

We have a good weather forecast for our area tomorrow so I plan to do some REAL gardening for a change!

2013

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I know this is a very late post but it's been a lovely, busy couple of weeks.  Our sons returned with their girlfriends so the house was full of people to feed.  Lots of laughter, hours of talking and far too many calories later they have packed up and driven away again so I have time to relax. 

2012 was a memorable year.  My mother celebrated her 90th birthday; one sister became a grandmother while the other survived a cancer scare; my eldest son qualified to fly fast jets and my younger one began working for Warwick University SU. And what did I do?  I got an allotment, enjoyed my garden, saw a bit more of the world and started this blog.  Does that sound dull?  I've had a wonderful year!  "May you live in interesting times" is an old Chinese curse ... I'm hoping to be just as content in 2013 as I am now!

The sun was shining this morning and the bird feeders were full.  I looked round for likely subjects to photograph and was pleasantly surprised to find the snowdrops are about to bloom ...

and the primulas are out...

.... while these hellebores have sprung up all over the place.  I'm not complaining as I quite like them when they are fully grown but I have an hour or two of transplanting to do.

I spent half an hour in the greenhouse this morning examining the geranium cuttings and checking the sweetpeas.  Won't be long now until the heater will be on and the seed trays filled. 

My seed wish list is complete.  I collected quite a few seeds last autumn so lupins, cornflowers, poppies etc should be okay. I have been looking for smelly flowers in the catalogues this year.  I want to walk passed that trellis and delight in a heady perfume!  I now have to compare the catalogues to get the best prices.  Someone needs to create a website like MySupermarket.co.uk based on major seed retailers.  The prices per packet and the number of seeds vary quite considerably.

Once I've finished my flower list I still have to make my veg list ... I can't believe there are so many different kinds of carrots!

Here's a few views from 2012:

Seed Dreams and Schemes

What's the difference between planning a garden and day dreaming?  I can spend hours browsing through pictures of beautiful borders then looking at my patch and imagining the potential!  I can decide that shrub has to go; that colour combination would work there and that climber would smell divine next to that gate!  So what's the difference?  Hard Work!

I have forgotten where I read it but apparently it takes 15 years to create a garden.  It needs planning and time to grow then time to dig up the bits you don't like and re organise then grow it again.  Well this year I made a start.  I organised the paths at the back of the garden so I can get to the greenhouse ,,, I now want to move the greenhouse!  I planted two cherry trees but one of them is now where I plan to develop a vegetable patch.  I think fifteen years is an understatement!

This year I intend to put some THOUGHT into the planning ... I need to decide what I want from the garden.  Do I see it as just a flowery place round the house; can I improve it for the wildlife; how do we actually use the space; is the shed in the right place....? Once I have got my head round why we have a garden then I might stand a chance of planning one that won't need to be reorganised every year!

In the mean time I will continue to dream about flowery borders and colour combinations by browsing the seed catalogues from the the comfort of my armchair ... it's much too cold and wet to go outside!

Here's a few links you might find helpful if you want to join my Seed Dream Team:

• Thompson and Morgan - sorry to start my list with the obvious link but they really are VERY reliable!  They have a large selection of seeds and a good reputation for reliability.  I also like their web site as it links to their blog (they are looking for Guest Bloggers by the way); they run photo competitions and have a wealth of information about plants. 
• The other obvious ones are Marshalls; Suttons, Mr Fothergills and Unwins all readily available from your local garden centres.
• D T Brown offers free P&P on seed orders and has a good range.
• I also like the selection at Dobies of Devon - their web site is easy to navigate and the prices are good.
• If you are looking for organic seeds then The Real Seed catalogue is worth a look; The Organic Gardening Catalogue; Laura's Organics; Tamar Organics or Naturescape also fit the bill.
• C N Seeds provide a service for professional growers.
• Kings Seeds or Suffolk Herbs is a new one for me but I have sent for the catalogue so I will let you know, and I have just found Tucker's Seeds too.

Now does anyone know a friendly bank manager ...?!

The Gambia



"If we go to Gambia a week later than planned we can save a fortune," he said.  "The return flight will only cost £24. What do you think?"

It was a good price.  A six hour flight for £24!  An amazingly good price! 

I wasn't tempted at all. 

The flight was on Tuesday 25th December!

I wanted to wake up on Christmas morning and open presents round the tree, eat too much at dinner and fall asleep in front of the telly with my family not sit on a plane.

We went on a birding trip: a few days at the coast then up river to Tendaba then cruise on to Janjanbureh (once known as Georgetown) before travelling back down to Lemon Creek.

Well, the Gambians were the friendliest people I had ever met, the chimps were cuddling each other in the trees and the hippos yawned at us from the water.

The men kept referring to me as 'Lady Boss' implying the women tell the men what to do.  In the rural communities the women worked the fields in the heat of the day; the women and children carried the water and washed the clothes and swept the dusty yards.  Men tended the animals and went fishing.  There seemed to be hundreds of children.  They pay for boys to be educated but girls can go to school for free - this is to encourage parents to educate the female population so perhaps in future years the idea of Lady Bosses will be a reality!



The tourist hotels and lodges had beautiful gardens but the local people are too busy growing crops to spend time on flower gardens.

We walked through huge rice fields and 'allotments' filled with sweet potatoes and tomato plants.  Here we complain about slugs damaging our crops.  There they have to chase the monkeys away!

Here we forage the hedgerows to make our wine.  There they stick bottles in the palm trees to collect the sap .... sixty feet up! The things some men will do for a drink!

The birds were colourful, wonderful and plentiful.  Andy recorded over 230 species - over 50 in the hotel garden at Lemon Creek.  

At Passport control on the way home the smiling official stamped the page and told us he expected to see us again next year .... we told him he had a date!

Visit Cock of the Rock for bird photographs from the trip.