Daisy's Diggings - Friday, 31st July 2015 In the garden with Daisy

I have beanlets on my runner beans just spotted this evening after I'd cleared my                       courgette patch of weeds and lingering greenery.

I began this work with my trusty hoe, managing to scrap away a good collection but eventually the fork and spade had to be brought into action. Thankfully the ground was a great deal more amenable to digging after recent rains than before, when I'd begun the work.  However, it still took a good hour to clear out the embedded plants and get my fork into the heavy soil but the benefit was great with a whole tub of weeds and soil to add to my two compost bins which, I noticed the other day, were rather dry and busy with insects.  I must add that Garotta mix to help speed up the decomposing process.

Well I planted my four fruit bushes, two blackberry and two gooseberry, watered therm well and became busy with the garden broom.  I have a flower bed at the far end and there's a small collection of sweet-smelling herbs in the old "cold-frame" and a second bed on the left of this for rhubarb, lady's mantle and my orange geum plant.   I grow geum because my step-grandmother always grew it and, after she  died, our elder sister gave a garden-home to the last remaining gum; it's become a family plant and I've now bought another geum, a large yellow-bloomed plant,

The strawberries have fruited well, I've enjoyed a mouthful of raspberries and now I'm gathering tiny delicious red tomatoes, slim courgettes and yesterday, my first green pepper.  The  chilli peppers are growing well and they will turn red eventually and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for aubergine from my plant simply covered with tiny violet coloured flowers; now wouldn't that be fine to pick these for myself!.......here's a few photos...

Runner beans, nasturtiums, chives, parsley and courgettes

spot the beanlets?

do you spot the flowers

my flower bed - spot the green feathery fennel

today's harvest

and my coriander plant or cilantro if you prefer!!!

In my flower garden, the marjoram is flowering very prettily and various other small plants are performing well.  I must split the two large herb plants this autumn and tidy everything up but for now, the garden looks very pleasing.  What did need attention was the untidy front edge and, thinking to myself this would not take too long to do now, I got started but, oh dear me, the job took a good hour in the heat of the day!  But it was well-worth the effort.  It's not quite perfect yet, my cutting-edge but the final sorting can be done next week hehehe....here's a photo or two..

In our WI Grow Wild Seed Kit garden at Katharine House Hospice I collected the few poppy seed heads, weeded out the groundsel plants and took photos of the hoverflies and such like flitting about and over our blooming seedlings.  Then I planted our garden identification seedlings into their new home from their individual flower pots where I'd thought to keep them safe from  unknowns, ah ha, like the groundsels which, frankly, I had failed to recognise as they took hold amongst the poppies, corn chamomile, dead nettle and stinging nettles!

A light watering of the seedlings and I'm done 'cos I don't want to encourage my old friend Moley Mole to recommence his digging again, and a few photos for the albums and I could go home - after I'd been to check on those veggies in a family garden on the way home!!!

To my great the dear SO was already there, watering away like a good'un so after a few minutes chat I was on my way home for a spot of lunch.

Well, that was a good morning's digging and more of Daisy's Diggings later.

Bye bye Daisy xxx

Saturday Morning Chatter - Saturday, 1st August 2015 - of this and that and, maybe more!!!

We've just done the Alice Walk to Daeda's Wood, a small wooded area just before one reaches Deddington, which we visited for their Farmers' Market last week.

Daeda's Wood is a small area of protected and conservation forest which, we took note of, will be celebrating its 20th anniversary next year, 2016, which is great.

Alice used to love walking Daeda's, at any time of the year, but particularly during the winter flooding season.  Today was my first return walk since we lost her and it was very good to connect with another Alice-memory site and doing so, notching-up for me a total of 1330 steps towards my goal of a possible 5000 steps a day, which is very good!  Himself came with me too - a much needed walk although he gets out quite a bit doing things, but not exactly walking; walking is definitely the thing to do to keep one fit and agile, but working exercise is definitely not the same as  exercise for its own sake.

I would have included a photo of Daeda's but I can't upload one pressently!

Nowadays we are encouraged to fit our small exercise sessions into our daily routine of activities and doings, making it seem far less of a chore, like having to fit in a class-taking-time-out activity, and more a time-friendly-accessible time allowance just for you.  I do indeed like to do a class for the user-friendly benefit of a helpful tutor, equipment and friends to greet and chat to plus the scales-weight-and-record taking habit.  "Have I lost enough , any or am I the same as last week "hiatus?

Making good use of my pre-walk time, while having my bowl of homemade muesli-mix plus sliced banana, Lacto-free milk with toasted quinoa seeds and deciding I should make up the next month 's batch, I was amused to learn from the labels how world-oriented my food choices were with Scottish porridge oats, United Kingdom poppy seeds, Pumpkin seeds from China, Sri Lankan organic Desiccated coconut plus a small quantity of dried mix fruit "Packed in Turkey" and "Produce of more than one country"..  It had to be mixed fruit 'cos I was without raisons, oh dear!

my muesli-mix with those lovely black berries 

I'm not complaining just thnking out-loud in print!

Before all this happened I was on Face Book and reading about the new postage stamps due to come out on 18th August celebrating wild bees with a link to the Sussex Wildlife Trust's photo and their concern re the use of neocotinoids - http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/neonics.  There is also a Face Book posting recently this week about the Environment Secretary's approval of the use of pesticides which is believed to be fatally harmful to our bees.  I believe the NFU were very keen to have the use of these chemicals for crops of Rape Seed Oil plants in Suffolk.

There has been a great deal of interest over the last few years about our bees and I'd noticed earlier problems, years ago, for winter sugar supplies, to keep them going over the long cold winter months.  I've personally signed up to various petitions, looked for bees for various concerns and generally seen bees during the many gardening sessions with vegetables, flowers and now wild flowers in a project I am heading up with my local Adderbury & District WI group.  We need our bees - please help save them if you can?

my flower  garden yesterday - I've just cut a new neat edge!

Our WI GWS @ KHH garden in Adderbury

My garden with blooming and fruiting runner beans...!

My point is, all viewpoints need to be ingested and questioned as we are all citizens of our beautiful world and people need to be fed, businesses need to make money and people need to live.  Of course, people are animals and all animals need to have their lives respected and honoured and balancing everything is tricky.

OK it's coffee time and time to do a few chores.  Happy weekend everybody - maybe more "chatter time" next weekend!!!

Daisy xxx

Daisy Does the Alice! - Thursday, 30th July 2015 - Walking Fit

I have just done the Alice walk but forgot to switch on my Apple Step Mode action button!
.
Since our darling dog Alice died last June I have actually stopped my daily walk routine and I'm now reaping the benefit of that inaction.

Of course, I exercise by gardening and doing housework and I walk down to the town centre once a week on a chores-mission but the regular and daily doggie walk has gone from my life and I'm really desperate to get back into a routine of daily walks.

My plan for the next two weeks is to make sure I walk before breakfast every day, the Alice walk, which will take about 20-25 minutes to complete and then to do a second walk before supper time.   Hopefully these two daily walks will get me into the swing again and encourage long-term walk action.

I have walked throughout my life, taking the kids to school, shopping and doggie walking and its certainly kept me trim and agile.  Friends have lamented the lack of walking exercise in their lives leading to loss of usage and general ill-health.  I'm sure its not that people don't wish to walk; rather its the fact of easier and quicker transport to the various places which must be accessed on a daily basis, which keeps people motor-moving, rather than self-propulsion leg-work.

So - on with the walking and I'll let you know how I get on, how the stride-action gets moving!!!

Do you walk - your response would be illuminating?

Daisy xxx

Gardening - The Beautiful Passion - Thursday, 23rd July 2015 - out in the garden again!!!

Do you get that delicious feeling waking up to the prospect of a gardening day stretching out before you?  An entire span of time simply spent out in the fresh air with your garden soil, its plants and seedlings with you watering, digging, hoeing and deadheading?  The enjoyment and satisfaction to be gained is immeasurable and complete and its therapeutic value undeniable.  Well such a feeling pervades my whole being every Thursday morning in serious contemplation of the day ahead as I sip my morning cup o’ tea with diary in hand.  Mostly there is a little paperwork to be done first of all which happens whilst eating breakfast and then I’m off.  

Presently my first port of call is to the gardens at Katharine House Hospice - 

where I’m organising our WI Grow Wild Seed flower garden; a community project I fell into last autumn when I applied to the Grow Wild Seed Kit team of Kew Royal Botanic Gardens to take part in their “Flowers to the People” campaign   Your name goes into the ballot, winter takes hold and spring’s arrival still finds you waiting for that letter telling you your wild seeds are on their way.  Our seeds arrived mid-April and shortly afterwards we were happily digging and preparing our garden area which KHH’s Garden Team had very kindly  made available. Our seeds were sown and watered in and

now, twelve weeks later our seedlings are flowering.

poppies in the garden......Thursday, 23rd July 2015.....just

 Imagine my delight this Thursday morning discovering poppy flowers amongst the green froth where last week we’d only had seed heads and a few small white flowers.  “We have poppies” weeks ahead of my anticipated mid-August date as I take a few photos for the album.  Already there’s seed heads to be collected and stored for next year’s flowering and our identification seedlings to be planted out.  Our new garden patch is still being prepped so I heel in the growing seedlings in their small flower pots into this new bed and water well, stand back and reach for my camera again. It’s a proud moment!!

Then I’m off to water my flower garden

 and discover a few empty spaces amongst the greenery where plants have withered and faded in the current dry spell.   I’m already contemplating the prospect of buying new plants on Saturday at Deddington Farmers’ Market!  The compost heap brings me down to earth again as I recall the bag of compostable material left in the kitchen…ah well, next visit will do.  Thankfully rain is forecast for the next few days, which is good, as the contents of my compost bin are rather too dry and with that thought I head off to my veggie garden.  Here my compost material is contained within two of those “Dalek-like” structures which I’m not totally certain I approve of, for you cannot easily tell if the plant life is breaking down for future use.  They’re both dry and in need of kitchen waste plus shredded newspaper or straw which I must remember to sort out before my next visit.

My veggies are doing fairly well but the whole garden is a work in progress......

as I contemplate the weeds cluttering up the courgette bed and around the purple dwarf beans.  I remove some of these and water but what we really need is a long slow day of rainfall which we’ve not had for simply ages.  I water the greenhouse where there’s a whole mass of green tomatoes, green pepper plants and a purple-flower bedecked aubergine plant awaiting my attention.  We need a good sunny spell to encourage my green plants to bud and fruit and I’m really excited by the prospect of home-grown veggies for the kitchen.  I even have a natty-looking veggie bag in which to carry them home!  Honestly, wouldn’t you think I’d go home with my bounty in an old carrier bag rather than an expensive shop-bought bag which, if I’d thought about it, could easily have been run-up from material scraps at home!

Well the thought is tantalising but crazy….there are only so many hours in the day, aren’t there, and only so many chores to be fitted into ones busy day.  Yes I know, my thought is father to the action, but there’s enough action already going on without getting out the sewing machine, sorting out the fabric and running up a draw-string bag!!!

I run the hose over the greenhouse plants and tidy up; my gloves are wet, there’s plastic bags to chuck, flower pots to stack and pesky weeds to remove.

I photograph the runner beans and pick my first courgette which comes home with me for lunch, but the new lettuces and green tomatoes must wait for another day’s picking.

Back in the kitchen I create a salad of sliced courgette, baby tomatoes and lettuce, from His garden, while sautéing bacon lardons with cold sliced potato and a handful of grated cheese, tossing the steaming mixture with a good dash of "Wheat gluten-free Organic Tamari Soy Sauce".  It’s been a long day since breakfast time, I’m cold and hungry and need something hot to eat and my hot bacon salad is just the thing to eat right now!

I dash off to the shops after lunch to do a few things and checking-up on my step-count when back home discover I’ve managed well over 4000 steps today which is brilliant.  Since losing our darling Alice last summer plus the consequent need for our daily “walkies” to keep us motivated and moving, the thickening waistline has made its presence felt which I’m now determined to deal with!  Of course, the new step-routine will have to be fitted in slowly for you just can’t suddenly launch yourself into a programme of extra exercise without some thought but…it needs be done and that’s that!

Over a much need cuppa I contemplate the glories of the garden, the herby smells and the delicious crisp texture of my first courgette blissfully ignoring the ironing basket before me.

Ah the garden - "the garden's a lovesome thing, eh wot" now who said that, d'you know?  I believe it was a certain Mr. Thomas Edward Brown - 1830 - 1897- who said in his work - "My Garden"

A GARDEN is a lovesome thing, God wot!

"how things do get changed about, but they're not my changes, just how things get passed from hand to   moiuth, so to speak, don't you know!"......

Daisy xxx


PS - thanks to online search for Thomas Edward Brown 1830-1897, and - My Garden - Bartleby.com
for the complete poem