This summer is moving along nicely, after a rather cold spring with lots of icy eastern winds.  Today I’m sitting under our hawthorn tree thinking of writing another blog post which I feel is long overdue.  I want to write about where I am at this moment, what is inspiring me and how I’m filling my days.

Right at the beginning of spring I felt the desire to work with a greenhouse in order to grow more and better plants in this unpredictable climate, and soon after longing for it I started looking at different designs, and ordered our present tunnel, Ian treated me to it.  It is a small tunnel but then we have a small garden.  I’ve never looked back.

I’m growing more vegetables this year, I’m not leaving things up to my intuition like I usually do or did, this year I’m actually reading up in gardening books and on the web what are the best ways to grow certain crops, and most important, how can I improve my soil, or at least help it to keep fertile.  Up to now I’ve always collected my garden waste and thrown it into a corner at the end of the garden, but not anymore.  I realise that I need to put nutrients back into the soil.  Ok if there are some wild plants among them that I don’t want to regrow necessarily, if they are in seed, then they go into the compost barrel, but all other green waste stays on the soil where it grew, it’s a good mulch and it kept the soil moist during the driest weeks earlier in the summer.  I’m also keeping a good garden journal this year, noting everything I sow and grow and how it is doing and other notes on how I can improve their growth in future years.  It’s useful! 

My interest in gardening lies not alone in beautifying my surroundings, or in growing vegetables, I also like to experiment, not only with growth but also with the soil, with the sort of pollinators that are visiting, and with the changes to our trees and other long standing growth, such as what type of wild plants keep germinating and growing to maturity, as that changes over time.  For a few years I had Evening Primrose and Mullein growing and self-seeding, now they are gone.  But the pale Hedge Woundwort has been a loyal wild flower all over the garden for decades, as has the Herb Robin.  I practise polyculture.

Now and then I take test of the soil to see if there is anything lacking and usually there is.  I have tried to rectify this over the years with seaweed fertilizer.  I garden totally organic!  I find this testing immensely interesting and am learning more every day. Listening to podcasts or webinars that discuss the important of soil building and organic growing and so on keeps me fired up.

At this time there is also the produce collecting, the use or storing of same.  Delicious dishes are being produced in my kitchen, I enjoy all the cooking of the fresh produce.  There is the herb collecting and drying, I grow a huge collection of different herbs, many of which I dry for winter use.  Teas also, like Hawthorn, Lemon Balm and Lemon Vervain, Mint etc…  Collecting seeds for future use or for swapping and sharing will be the next step as the summer moves along.

The big experiment this season is growing my own potatoes.  Early in the year I bought Mirabella seed potato in one of our local garden centres.  These seeds are blight resistant and organic.  So I dug up all the grasses from a patch at the back of the garden and after chitting the seed potatoes, planted them out.  They grew fantastically well.  I had 22 plants!  Only to discover that they were early potatoes that do not store well, my idea was to have potatoes over the winter as we are not big potato eaters.  I’ve dug up some to date and they are nice, but they will probably be gone by the winter time.  Note so self:  Next year… check that out better.  To lift up a crop of potatoes from the soil is like witnessing a miracle over and over again, I find it both fascinating and exciting and I love it.

I’m aware of the decline in biodiversity and as much as possible I attend and take part in local groups that are concerned about this and try to enlighten the public about all the various aspects of avoiding and helping to minimize this current worldwide problem.  The environment and biodiversity is high priority on my agenda, and while I can only attend a certain amount of activity or meetings, I like to give priority to this important current problem.  I take photos of pollinators and share them, we need them more than we know.  Knowing which plants attract pollinators and cultivating those also is of importance. 

All in all nature in general, in all its beauty and interest is enhancing and making my life fascinating.  Every day I learn and discover more, it lights up my days and keeps my brain sharp with doing more and more research.  What a blessing.  There is today a huge amount of information online and in up to date books both about the beauty, the interest, and the problems currently present in the environment, with biodiversity, with the ecology, in farming practises, and in nature connectedness.   It is a never ending nature study! 

Fortunately many people are very well aware of all this and much is being done, but much more needs doing worldwide.