Sharing

A few weeks ago I posted a message on the village app to say that I would put surplus seeds and seedlings in the redundant phone box outside our house for anyone to collect. Now other people are doing the same and every day or so something different is on offer. Red hot chilli seedlings today! (Yes, we are careful when opening the phone box door with it's metal handle, I always wear plastic gloves when I leave the confines of our garden.)

I gave away small lemon trees that I'd grown from cuttings and was very pleased to receive a thank you gift of eggs, two of them with beautiful pale blue shells. I used them in an almond cake made with a home-grown lemon and orange.

Tarta de Santiago

6 eggs separated   whisk whites until stiff.

250 g castor sugar   beat together with the egg yolks to a cream in separate bowl

250g  ground almonds    add to the sugar and egg yolk mixture

add grated zest of a lemon and an orange and slacken mixture with the juice.

Fold in the egg whites.

gas mark 4 for 30 - 40 minutes.

Dust with icing sugar before serving.

The recipe is from an article by Claudia Roden in the Guardian newspaper some years ago. (She grinds whole almonds and adds almond extract but doesn't use any lemon or orange juice.) The cake is sold in the shops and cafés in the cathedral city of Santiago da Compostela in Galicia. Pilgrims and tourists visit because it is believed that the relics of the apostle St James are buried here. The cake is often decorated with the shape of a Santiago cross. 

Something else for the village to share are these oyster mushrooms. They look and taste lovely!

Feeling caged in?

The seed swap in early March was the last time that I was out in public, and today, because the weather is cold and rather miserable, I'm feeling a little caged in. Not so the plants in the garden, the rain has catapulted them into growth. Every year I intend to stake the perennials in my borders before their heads flop forward or their stems break in the wind. Oh, I'm full of good intentions! But once again I got round to thinking about it only when the growth was already lush and threatening to be out of control. The wind broke off two delphinium stalks and I went online to see what supports I could buy.

The new supports came this week and now the delphiniums have been crammed into tall peony cages - if I have to be on lock down I'm not going to do it alone!

I've contained poppies and peonies within metal cloches 

hopefully when they flower they will now face upwards.

Seeds from the seed swap are pushing through the soil. This is the Bullroyd Bean Pea, a heritage seed. One of the pleasures of swapping, apart from thriftiness (Yorkshire/Scottish blood speaking!) is that you can find varieties not available in the shops. I looked online to find out how tall these peas might grow and was delighted with the information that the peas came originally from the Bullroyd Allotment Garden Association, Barnsley. 

By eck!

Spuds are peeping and the shallots looking good.

It's a promising time of year.

Fleeting pleasures.

I walk round the garden first thing in the morning. Everything is still and quiet and it's cooler than the previous few days.

The crab apple tree is laden with blossom.

My topiary pheasant is starting to look quite respectable.

The tree peonies have responded well to the warm weather. I found a label on this one that was still legible. "Hu Hong" 

The names of others are quite forgotten.

I should be grubbing out the forget-me-nots now so that I can plant out some cosmos and other annuals, but I'm always loathe to be rid of them, I love the mist of blue that they spread all about the garden, looking equally good underneath both flowers and sprouts!

The pleasures of many of the spring flowers are fleeting.  Is that why I like them so much? Favourites are the tree peonies and camellias.

But as the peonies fade the iris buds start to open.

Goodbye to camellias

and tulips.

Hello to some eye-popping colour

and the first pickings of asparagus!

Busy day

We have more light coming into the garden now that the birch tree has been felled.

The wood is green and easy to split. Himself has been busy cutting and stacking.

I've barrowed some of the chippings into an empty compost bay. Because the tree was in leaf the chippings are moist and are heating up well, meaning that they will decompose fairly quickly and make good compost for next year. There is still a good load of chippings left and I'll spread them out on  pathways and mulch under the trees - but that's for tomorrow, I've done enough today!

We've stacked the wood in various corners of the garden where it will stay until it is dry enough to use. We don't want to get it mixed with the seasoned wood already stored in the wood shed.

It's busy work, but very satisfying.

Felled

The silver birch tree in the centre of the picture has been a troublesome beast for quite some time. It tangles with the overhead wires and twice we have had professionals come to thin out the branches in an effort to avoid problems during wet and windy weather. It is looking it's best at this time of year but is a miserable sight in the winter months when stripped of leaves, exposing the cut back limbs. The tree  borders the road, which is much quieter than usual because of the pandemic shut down, therefore a good time to arrange for the tree to be cut down.

Today was the day. The men came bright and early.

"There's a firm in California with the same name," they told us.

"That's who I was expecting," said Himself. (Not everyone understands his sense of humour.)

It was fascinating to see them work.

They almost made it look easy!

It took the whole day to winch each piece safely down. 

They did a great job.

Rain today

Rain today, the water butts are full

and there was no lounging about on the steamer chair.

Every member of the family, spread about the country, has been working on their garden space during this period of isolation. The First Born has been scrubbing the boards on her little London patch. Easy peasy you might think. But not when you've got to lug soil up and rubbish down three flights of stairs!

Wee One and family are working on quite a different scale to solve the problem of a steeply sloping back garden.

It involves moving a great amount of earth.

Oh, the boys are happy - there's machinery to play with!

Wheelbarrows at the ready.

Welly boots on.

There's 50 tons of topsoil to move this weekend.

But today was all about the pleasure of playing in puddles.

It's quite exhausting!

I hope that, like us, you are keeping safe, 

keeping busy and keeping well.