Fiddle the diddle.. that wet and windy weather came to town yesterday in the late morning, but it wasn't so much wet as drizzly.
Dressed in boots, socks, thick trousers, t.shirt, polo-neck sweater, jerkin, long sleeved fleece and a water-proof jacket and with two sets of keys, book, mobile, bus pass, a broken down cardboard box and a deep bucket in old Wicker Wheelie who was at her heel, off she went to garden.
Why so many layers? Well, the plots are on a huge piece of land called 'Dukes Meadows', they are very close to the River Thames and form part of the flood defence plains for Barnes and Kew.
Very flat and exposed they are too, the south westerly winds blow hard and fast across these huge playing fields and it can be as cold as a Witches ... out there! She has erected all manner of wind breaks (one foot in height giving six feet of ground protection) but of course, the gardener still gets wind blown! And, yesterday was very windy.
About three months ago she decided to enlarge a vegetable bed by three feet in width and eight feet in length.
A very thick layer of newspapers were laid on top of the grass, they were soaked with water, covered with a double layer of black plastic which was weighted down and left to turn the indifferent earth and weeds into soft black crumbly soil.
The plastic was removed yesterday.. oh, big thank you to mr.worm! For there was no sign of grass or newspaper, what was there is a strip of beautiful weed free black soil! She is always surprised at how this works so well but it does, every time!
There were a couple of white wiggly roots which she gently forked out making sure she got all them out, she turned the soil over with a fork, dumped buckets of water onto it, picked out any stones that had come to the surface, laid the cardboard box along the outer edge, with more newspaper at the top underneath the rose tree which is at the head of this bed.
Why more covering? She is going to split this now quite wide bed into two beds with a narrow path between them. As the big rose tree is one of her favourite roses, she is going to raise the level of these two beds so that any work that she does will not damage the tree's roots. It will then be much easier to pick the roses and prune this large tree.
She has the wood to make the raised beds but as the bed is full of red Spring Onions (scallions), she will wait until they are out of the bed before making the frames and putting on the compost and manure.
Hence the cardboard and newspaper. She does not want old mr.weed to think he can sidle back into this cosy soft bed!
Mr.wind decided to go and blow elsewhere, off came multiple layers of protection and it was very pleasant to be out in the sunlight.
Lots of roses coming through, it is going to be a brilliant crop of peonies but alas and alack.. oh dear! Nasty old mr.wind has dealt her wonderful artichoke a big blow! Half of him was flying flat on the ground.
Grrrr, he is a peculiar plant, she has had him for several years and all of the previous years, he used to disappear in the winter but last year, having outdone himself and produced some gloriously tasty artichokes, he stayed and did not 'die back'.
Now, he is enormous! Which is why he has suffered from the strong winds. All the older tall plants like the six and five year old peonies are staked but he has grown so much in the last few weeks and she didn't think to stake him as well.
Strong stakes need to be put into the earth and a cat's cradle of strong twine will have to be made.
Whoops. Time to go, a solid black line over Kew, this gives her twenty minutes to pick flowers and vegetables and get to the bus stop. The black line denotes rain coming in from the west.
Chard of all different colours, asparagus, rocket, sorrel, oregano, lemon balm aka melissa, chives.
And roses.. lots and lots of roses! These were a few of them
Savoy Hotel, Prince William, Just Joey, Ellen, Constance Spry, Jude the Obscure, Pristine, Margaret Merrill.. and last but not least.. there were several of one of her favourite roses.. Compassion. A beautiful rose.
She snipped and put each stem immediately into water in the very deep bucket that had trundled out in old wicker wheelie.
That is the best way for them to travel, the bucket with water means that the stems do not dry out when they are cut and the height of the bucket means they are protected on the journey home.
When you go picking flowers, on any variety, don't be mean, forget that so-called chic basket / trug which you see in photographs with flowers lying along the base, take a bucket, snip your flower and put it immediately into the water.
Time to go, tools away, one day she has to tidy the little shed, but not today, keys locked, fleece and jacket on and off up the track, cross the main road and lookie lookie.. there comes the bus!
Sarah Durrant writes excellent novels, she was reading 'The Birth of Venus', a story set in Florence in the late 1400's. The twists and turns of the story are very cleverly interwoven with the historical fact of life and history of this amazing Tuscan city.
This was her bus reading material last night. How very grateful she is to her parents who gave her this love of the written word.
Home, upstairs to give Tereza some roses as a "thank you" present for such a lovely lunch on Thursday.
When you are tired from hard work and windy wind blowing you about, an early night with steamed vegetables is 'just the ticket'. That was our supper and then lots and lots of sesame seeds when we were in bed.. crunchy-crunchy, very good to help you sleep are sesame seeds.
Today she is going to Streatham Hill, she has a bag of vegetables for Mala and Arun. They live in a flat and work all the hours that God gives us every day, so a bag of just picked green stuff will make Mala very happy.
So it is time to go, time to Flap-The-Flap.
GeeGee Parrot.
May 10th, 2014.
Postscript: Aka Debi Shook-Lloyd's birthday.
Dressed in boots, socks, thick trousers, t.shirt, polo-neck sweater, jerkin, long sleeved fleece and a water-proof jacket and with two sets of keys, book, mobile, bus pass, a broken down cardboard box and a deep bucket in old Wicker Wheelie who was at her heel, off she went to garden.
Why so many layers? Well, the plots are on a huge piece of land called 'Dukes Meadows', they are very close to the River Thames and form part of the flood defence plains for Barnes and Kew.
Very flat and exposed they are too, the south westerly winds blow hard and fast across these huge playing fields and it can be as cold as a Witches ... out there! She has erected all manner of wind breaks (one foot in height giving six feet of ground protection) but of course, the gardener still gets wind blown! And, yesterday was very windy.
About three months ago she decided to enlarge a vegetable bed by three feet in width and eight feet in length.
A very thick layer of newspapers were laid on top of the grass, they were soaked with water, covered with a double layer of black plastic which was weighted down and left to turn the indifferent earth and weeds into soft black crumbly soil.
The plastic was removed yesterday.. oh, big thank you to mr.worm! For there was no sign of grass or newspaper, what was there is a strip of beautiful weed free black soil! She is always surprised at how this works so well but it does, every time!
There were a couple of white wiggly roots which she gently forked out making sure she got all them out, she turned the soil over with a fork, dumped buckets of water onto it, picked out any stones that had come to the surface, laid the cardboard box along the outer edge, with more newspaper at the top underneath the rose tree which is at the head of this bed.
Why more covering? She is going to split this now quite wide bed into two beds with a narrow path between them. As the big rose tree is one of her favourite roses, she is going to raise the level of these two beds so that any work that she does will not damage the tree's roots. It will then be much easier to pick the roses and prune this large tree.
She has the wood to make the raised beds but as the bed is full of red Spring Onions (scallions), she will wait until they are out of the bed before making the frames and putting on the compost and manure.
Hence the cardboard and newspaper. She does not want old mr.weed to think he can sidle back into this cosy soft bed!
Mr.wind decided to go and blow elsewhere, off came multiple layers of protection and it was very pleasant to be out in the sunlight.
Lots of roses coming through, it is going to be a brilliant crop of peonies but alas and alack.. oh dear! Nasty old mr.wind has dealt her wonderful artichoke a big blow! Half of him was flying flat on the ground.
Grrrr, he is a peculiar plant, she has had him for several years and all of the previous years, he used to disappear in the winter but last year, having outdone himself and produced some gloriously tasty artichokes, he stayed and did not 'die back'.
Now, he is enormous! Which is why he has suffered from the strong winds. All the older tall plants like the six and five year old peonies are staked but he has grown so much in the last few weeks and she didn't think to stake him as well.
Strong stakes need to be put into the earth and a cat's cradle of strong twine will have to be made.
Whoops. Time to go, a solid black line over Kew, this gives her twenty minutes to pick flowers and vegetables and get to the bus stop. The black line denotes rain coming in from the west.
Chard of all different colours, asparagus, rocket, sorrel, oregano, lemon balm aka melissa, chives.
And roses.. lots and lots of roses! These were a few of them
Savoy Hotel, Prince William, Just Joey, Ellen, Constance Spry, Jude the Obscure, Pristine, Margaret Merrill.. and last but not least.. there were several of one of her favourite roses.. Compassion. A beautiful rose.
She snipped and put each stem immediately into water in the very deep bucket that had trundled out in old wicker wheelie.
That is the best way for them to travel, the bucket with water means that the stems do not dry out when they are cut and the height of the bucket means they are protected on the journey home.
When you go picking flowers, on any variety, don't be mean, forget that so-called chic basket / trug which you see in photographs with flowers lying along the base, take a bucket, snip your flower and put it immediately into the water.
Time to go, tools away, one day she has to tidy the little shed, but not today, keys locked, fleece and jacket on and off up the track, cross the main road and lookie lookie.. there comes the bus!
Sarah Durrant writes excellent novels, she was reading 'The Birth of Venus', a story set in Florence in the late 1400's. The twists and turns of the story are very cleverly interwoven with the historical fact of life and history of this amazing Tuscan city.
This was her bus reading material last night. How very grateful she is to her parents who gave her this love of the written word.
Home, upstairs to give Tereza some roses as a "thank you" present for such a lovely lunch on Thursday.
When you are tired from hard work and windy wind blowing you about, an early night with steamed vegetables is 'just the ticket'. That was our supper and then lots and lots of sesame seeds when we were in bed.. crunchy-crunchy, very good to help you sleep are sesame seeds.
Today she is going to Streatham Hill, she has a bag of vegetables for Mala and Arun. They live in a flat and work all the hours that God gives us every day, so a bag of just picked green stuff will make Mala very happy.
So it is time to go, time to Flap-The-Flap.
GeeGee Parrot.
May 10th, 2014.
Postscript: Aka Debi Shook-Lloyd's birthday.
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