ruminate vb. to chew (the cud)
A new year and the days are getting longer and we've had a dry week. Have I been out gardening? Well no, I think I'm turning into a fair weather gardener and it's been too cold for pottering. Were I still a digger, it would have been perfect weather for turning over the soil on…
I've very little to report at this stage of the year. Nothing much has changed since my post a month ago and in a sense that is a good thing. in this first picture you can see that my plot is largely occupied by growing plants of one sort or another. Most are cover crops,…
Last post of the year. Unsurprisingly the garden this week has not been the main focus of my attention and when I went round this morning to see what I could find, it wasn't much. We still haven't had significant frost so a lot of things that should be dead are not, which is far…
Following a talk to our garden club by a lady from Prickles and Paws, a hedgehog rescue centre in Cornwall, we signed up as a release site for rehabilitated hedgehogs. Our first arrival was in February 2024 and he didn't seem to hang around for long before disappearing.Earlier this year, on 19 August, we took…
One word sums up this week, wet. Today, meaning Friday, it didn't rain but I spent most of the day helping resheet a polytunnel for some friends who live nearby. Consequently I have spent almost no time in the garden all week. I did a quick sortie yesterday to see what I can find and…
Well, that was no ordinary week. Storm Bram gave us a good dousing on Monday, accompanied by strong winds, so there is less than ever to feature this week. Please join in if you can, we need all the help we can get for our Six on Saturday meme. All you need is half a…
Into the final month of 2025 and as one season winds down, I am beginning to see the very first stirrings of the next one. A few of next spring's bulbs are emerging, one or two spring flowering Camellias have the odd bloom on them, new shoots are coming up on at least one Crocosmia.…
I cannot pretend that there is much happening on my allotment so this will be a short post. As I have explained in earlier posts, I am trying to keep as much growing in my soil over winter as possible and have been filling every available space with cover crops for the last few months.…
It looks like we're going to get another dousing overnight and into Saturday morning. Hey, it's late November, what do you expect? I still have plants out in the garden that need to come in, but I'm not getting into the garden much at the moment and the jobs are backing up a bit. I…
Last night saw our first real frost, still only around zero, a long way short of the minus 12 my sister had up north of Aberdeen. Half the garden would be dead if we'd had that here. As it is, damage was slight. Even so, there is a lot less happening, i.e. flowering, this week…
garden ruminations 