The days are lengthening, everywhere flowers are appearing, it is that delightful and energising time of the year again. Still under strict lockdown here in Ireland, many of us are giving full attention to our gardens, it is also the right time of the year for it, and the pleasure that being busy with plans and engaging in the actual garden work must not be underestimated. And so that is what I am doing too. We can still only go out 5km from our front door and although I have plans to go further afield and I have things in mind to photograph and write about, this will have to wait. Latest news is that maybe lockdown won’t be lifted until the end of April. Meanwhile everyone’s hair gets longer and longer! 🙂
A few delicate tulips are flowering inside, they are wonderful and have opened a week or two ago. Their colours are pastel pink and yellow. I bought the bulbs last year. They are called Tulipa Foxtrot. I really love them and was glad that they could withstand growing inside which probably made them last longer.Here is my mood board for this summer’s flowers in our garden. As you can see I am planning to grow a lot more flowers, some of which I have just sowed yesterday. But central to my plan are a few perennials, to start off with I plan to buy a Daphne shrub and a dwarf lilac tree . I love their scent. I have this vision of a bench surrounded by flowers and I’m hoping for a lovely warm summer, so that Ian can enjoy sitting in the garden and soak up the beauty of it. To me it means creating, in cooperation with nature of course, and creating is good for the soul.
Some baby hyacinth bulbs rescued
These mini daffodils are very fragrant
Last year I started to grow more flowers from bulbs and many are coming up again this spring, they have given us immense pleasure by their beauty and seeing them come up and waiting for them to bloom is also exciting. Even the lilies are doing well and I have those in the kitchen. Beginning of the season my kitchen is more of a greenhouse in actual fact, seedlings, plants, bulbs, soil testing, it all goes on in my kitchen, and I like to be surrounded by it all. Until the weather improves and it can all go happily outside.Seed packets ready for sowing.
And during late winter I had another go at clearing our shed. I did get a bit side-tracked though, first by this most beautiful peacock butterfly, it was hibernating but I accidently disturbed it. After taking the photo it settled down again and I have not seen it since, I do hope it survives.
I also hope that nobody minds my photos of the spiders, these are Steatoda grossa, although I think the light coloured one is a Steadoda nobilis. They also live in our shed and I have become quite fascinated by them. There are at least a few of them.
Steatoda noblis ?
Steatoda grossa
My solution for not having a greenhouse to protect tender shoots from constant harsh rain and wind.
And because we are experiencing such a lot of rain and stormy weather this spring, lets just say it is cosy inside and there is such a variety of activities or just sharing some time with Ian in the evening in front of a warm fire. At the same time I say…roll on dry and warmer weather so that I can spend days creating our garden. If you have noticed that my English is not flowing, the reason for this is that I am absorbed in writing in my mother tongue everyday for the past month, I am presently in a Flemish mode. It is nice!
I hope that everyone is keeping well. I think that I am very behind again with reading all your blogs, so from tonight onward I will make a start with that again, looking forward to connect.
Hard to believe that we are already getting close to the middle of February. Winter is giving way slowly to early spring, though today you would not think so. We are experiencing a bitterly cold wind from the East and lower temperatures than is normal for this part of the country, which usually has mild winters.
This beautiful landscape, colours natural and not edited. Taken on a very recent walk close by.
But while the cold spell lasts there is plenty of planning and creativity going on inside. I made a true to scale plan of the garden so as to have a good oversight of it (and for the fun of it too). And I tested the soil on all of the 12 raised beds and found that they are poor, some beds depleted even in Phosphorus, and Nitrogen, but did a little better on Potash. So now I know what to add and where. I’m also cutting out snippets from gardening magazines that apply to our garden in particular. I do have some good gardening books but I find this somehow more personalised as I only keep what applies to my experience here.
Scaled plan our garden
Cut outs for my map
I use standardised tests bought in shop
Test information
Primroses are all the go here in the shops and we are all buying them as they herald spring and hope.And so this year I am getting on well with clearing our garden sheds and I am finding quite a bit of wildlife while doing so. This most perfect example of Peacock butterfly I accidently disturbed but I am happy to say that it went to sleep again a bit further into the shed, I guess that it realised it was too early to go flying about. ~ Be warned about the next photo as there is a spider in it!
So these are some other friends in the garden shed, a small tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) also overwintering and being paid a visit by our residental Steatoda Grosso (cuboard spider). This is a slow enough moving spider and quite beautiful really. I don’t mind him and I know that I will come across him again and a few more of his family as I’ve seen them. I would not like to be bitten though, they are know not to be aggressive and I have noticed that. I obviously wear a good pair of gardening gloves while clearing the shed! I’ve also come across large house spiders (Parasteatoda tepidariorum) but they are harmless.
Here in the small market town of Skibbereen a spice and exotic vegetable shop has opened and it did not take me long to go and check out the vegetables with which I learnt to cook in both S.India and in Mauritius. The delicious meals made thereof and the pleasure of the memories got me to buy quite a selection and for a whole week those dishes were on the menu. Among them okra and bitter gourd would have been most know to me, also the chayote squash. Some of the vegetables did not make it into the cooking pan as I want to root them and I was lucky enough to see a shoot coming out of both the taro root and the chayote squash, this is an experiment. Once before I grew a large plant from a taro root but it died when I went travelling.
A selection of my first purchase
Taro shoot – hoping it will send out roots too
Chayote squash sprouting
Some of the dinners I enjoyed I improvised and did not stick to traditional Indian or Mauritian cooking, but did I use spices!
And then there is the garden! Well we have had so much rain now for many weeks that the garden is saturated and I am hoping that this present wind will dry the things out a bit. The garden looks forlorn at the moment and I am not doing much in it until the weather turns. I have lots of spring bulbs coming on though and they are a pleasure to see. (in my home-made small greenhouses to protect from heavy rains). There are still quite some vegetables ready for use, the cut and come back Kale and the leeks among them.
A very light dusting of snow last week
Leeks and young Mullein plants
More leeks and wild three-cornered-leeks
Kale
Our daffodils stay in the soil all year round, they are doubles.
Wild strawberry plants
One of my grandchildren showing me the strawberry flower
And to finish off a picture of how cosy it is inside while out there the icy wind rages, throwing lashes of hail and sleet against the window panes. The wood burner keeps us nice and warm.
I’m finding that although we are quite isolated here and especially so with the current lockdown, I am making very many interesting contacts online, being invited to interesting social media groups on culture and art and on growing in calmness, quietness and reflection. Some of these groups are in my mother tongue (Flemish) and I enjoy that very much. Making new friends and maintaining existing connections with old friends. I was also invited to become part of a meditation group. It all goes to make this lockdown time quite interesting and a place of growth for me.
I hope that all your activities and experiences are keeping you inspired too.
agoyvaerts 