Saturday, April 25, 2020

Cool Calm Spring

From a boiling hot and dry end of winter to a cool damp spring, strange times indeed. I am glad for the rain we have had, and the cool days, but the seedlings in the green house feel a bit shocked! Slugs and snails are happy. I try to keep the numbers down by slinging them far over the fence...
Mammoth cauliflowers which I thought were cabbages until I peered inside one.


We are eating the onions straight from the ground. It's not worth letting them dry. They will not store. They are fine and tasty but not the onion crop I was hoping for. Still, I have put some more seeds in a pot. Always the optimist!
The lentils and chickpeas are doing fine. Small seed pods are forming. I am wondering how and when to harvest the lentils as I remember growing one plant years ago and found that all the little lentils has just fallen to the ground! No doubt I will find a way.
The favas are nearly done. We had lots of them.
Peas are flowering, strawberries are ripening, beans everywhere are coming up, climbing and low ones. I've got some called red noodle beans which grow up to half a meter long (the beans!) which are coming up on some canes. Maybe the canes aren't long enough...
Courgettes are beginning to flower. I have put gala melon seeds in an old compost heap and they are sprouting and leafing...
I am eating mostly all my food from the garden.
I have poured the earthen floor in the wine house. It looks lush. Now I have to wait for it to set,then I will go over it to smooth it out.

I had a go at making some clay from the soil near my house. I soaked the earth then strained out all the stones, etc. I made a few things which I haven't fired yet as I am just learning. It's not as easy as it looks to make a pot!

I finished a tapestry weaving of rocks and sea. It felt good to do. It reminded me of the lovely time I had in the Western Isles last year.