Earlier in the year I outlined our plans for year two of venturing further into the world of gardening. As the harvest wanes and dark evenings have snuck up on us, I’ve been reflecting on what this growing season has taught me:
garden
September 2016 // Spurred on by permission giving and Beyoncé (the five-foot metal chicken)
This reflection on September is rather delayed as illness once again visited our house. We’re emerging out of it now, though to my slight dismay this seems to involve more opening of email inboxes rather than actually venturing outside. Something has perhaps gone a little awry there.
The Bees
When I saw on Twitter that Kew Gardens (a Royal Botanical Gardens and botanical research institute, for non-UK readers) were giving away free packets of wild flower seeds, my first thought (after ‘FREE STUFF!’ – love a bargain) was, ‘I know people who will get on board with this’. The couple of months between ordering the seeds and receiving them had, to be honest, rather put the initiative out of my mind. I’d also failed to tell my husband, so he was welcomed home one day with: “I forgot to to tell you I ordered 100 packets of seeds! Where shall we plant them?” Plant some we did, the rest we distributed to eager hands – friends and colleagues glad to be easily enabled to be part of the ‘Grow Wild’ initiative.
All that potential
Last year we moved house, gaining stewardship of a garden for the first time. Our bodies and minds were nourished by the time spent there, digging in the dirt, relaxing in the open air, as well as the seven strawberries and handful of basil we managed to grow. One of our aspirations for 2016 was to grow more of our own food – a move towards greater self-sufficiency as well as reconnecting us with nature and where our food comes from.
Grow your own…strawberries
We bought a strawberry plant. We watered it. We repotted it once. Pollinators came and went. Strawberries flourished, taunting us with their green state until they gradually blushed red. I am absurdly proud of this achievement. Continue reading
Grow
An unintended consequence of our house move is that, after all that moving and sorting, it’s actually the small rectangle of space found beyond the back door that draws me most. From our first days in the house, in dry weather (wooly jumpers overcoming the challenges of temperature) I could be found out there, usually sat with the laptop or a good book, a coffee or glass of wine. The impact this small space has had on my well-being has been pleasantly unexpected. Continue reading
Papier-mâché thoughts 