The Daisy Chain Approach to Getting Things Done

I'm not greatly given to compiling To-Do lists, even though I know that ticking off the achieved tasks can be so gratifying. What happens to all those little things that need to be done but hardly warrant a place on a list? If I zealously write all of them down, the list becomes quite daunting, if not completely overwhelming. I find a less regimented approach works better for me - well, most of the time it does.
Each day has its priorities due to habit, occasion or the acceptance that procrastination has gone on for way too long. I suppose those priorities would be the backbone of a To-Do list if I was making one and then there are other things that I hope to fit in as opportunities arise. How does the list-free daisy chain work?

Imagine this:

Having established that the rest of the house is in order, you head into the kitchen. It is rather early to be making lunch but you know that there are lots of things that would make it all run much more smoothly later on, so you empty the dishwasher and clear all the work surfaces.
You notice that a banana peel has been set aside from breakfast. You know that snipping it to shreds and scattering under a rose bush is such a good idea because in the few years since you have been doing this, the roses have never flowered so abundantly. It is such a little job that won't take long.

 As you are scattering the shreds, you remember seeing some rather pernicious weeds around another rose and if you were to whip those out right now they could be put in the garden waste which is being collected today.
On your way back from the waste sack by  front gate you notice that there is enough rhubarb to harvest. The leaves can go in the compost bin so you track up the back garden to do that.
You notice on the way that the box bushes are overdue their annual 'haircut'. It has been  left until later this year waiting for the chance of an overnight frost to be past. Just then you notice a blackbird with a beakful of potential baby chick food. You have suspected they are nesting in the garden and you settle down to watch where the bird is heading as it may mean that an occupied box bush will have to wait until the baby birds have fledged before being trimmed. It takes a few food runs to establish which bush it is as the parent doesn't fly straight to the nest but cunningly diverts through other shrubs.

You then notice that some tulips in a tub should be dead-headed and that the tub is rather dry - in fact all the outdoor pots and tubs need water on what is set to be a warm sunny day. Several watering can runs later you then think that the cuttings that have been sheltering on the conservatory window sill could be outdoors now so you go to bring them out.

You look up and notice the clock on the conservatory wall seems to be very fast. Now that really will need adjusting as you rely on that when you are pottering about outside. Just then a voice at your elbow says "Ahem. You haven't forgotten that we have someone coming to lunch, have you? You know he will be right on time." (Oh, so that really is the time!)
"Of course not." Your voice trails over your shoulder as you try to make a hasty sprint to the kitchen look like a nonchalant stroll.

So what is really going on here? A butterfly brain at play, displacement behaviour or serial distraction? In this instance it was probably nothing more complicated than finding excuses reasons for staying in the garden on the warmest day of the year so far. Drawn as a diagram would it be a mind map or a flow chart? I like to think of it as a daisy chain.
And yes, lunch worked out just fine with everything on the table on time.

Pottering in the garden

Now it's not as if I haven't got enough flower pots lying about to use for this season's planting plans but a bout of kitchen de-cluttering had left a little stack of kitchen pots and pans to be got rid of and I started seeing another use for them. This is far from the first time I have seen odd items  in terms of garden uses. (Remember this and this?)

Can't you just see them as planters? The old wok and the base of the steamer set (sadly the victim of a boil dry incident which totally wrecked the enamel on the inside) would need drainage holes. HeWhoOwnsTheTools said I should use a special metal drill bit and the electric drill.

Please tell me you will wear safety goggles if you are going to do this. The thought of all those little metal filings being flung about, possibly in the direction of  something as precious and vulnerable as your eyes just doesn't bear thinking about.
With the holes in, I then filled the wok with seed compost, gave it a good drenching with water and let it drain before scattering on the seeds.

A light covering of vermiculite, misted over with a spray bottle to stop it blowing around and I was ready to sit back and wait for my salad leaves to grow.

I find this way of planting a scattering of small seeds works well and stops the seeds from getting washed around.

The top two tiers of the steamer already had a lot of holes.

So many, in fact, that I put in three circles of newspaper to stop the compost being washed out.

I quite like these seed mats, in this case, for basil. A lazy way of ensuring the seeds are well-spaced.

I love basil as a herb. Like parsley and chives, it is something that I never seem to have too much of. However I can never plant up a pot or even buy a pot of basil from the supermarket without being reminded of William Holman Hunt's picture of  Isabella and the Pot of Basil and the rather grisly story behind it in Keats's poem.
The salad leaves are doing well and haven't let the low temperatures over night put them off germinating.

The copper band is that stuff which slugs and snails are supposed not to be able to cross. So far so good - ours are not the only mouths expecting to feed from our garden.
And what has gone into the steamer pot? Why, calendula - otherwise know as pot marigolds, of course.

The last of the turning colour

It was late today by the time the forecast clear skies appeared. The sun was low and the colours seemed to have been leached by days of leaden clouds, wind and rain. Well, beggars can't be choosers, I told myself  as I tugged on wellies and picked up the camera.

The oak that frames our view of the field behind the house has turned dull brown, as usual the last and least vibrant of autumn colours but against the sky and the shadows across the recently turned earth of the field there is the pleasing subtlety of a Ravilious print.

Subtle too, the darker tones seemingly airbrushed onto the fading wiegela leaves.

Some brighter colour from the wild rose hips and beech leaves still clinging to the branches.
And finally a promise. What is that saying about gardening being an expression of faith in the future? At last I was able to plant out some Pheasant's Eye narcissus.

With a name like Poeticus Recurvus and the promise of fragrance they have to be something to look forward to don't they?

Splashes of gold

We seem to be in the  days of the year when the colour for unfurling petals to be is yellow. The colour seems to dominate every where from the ground up.

The lacquered gold of celandines, creeping in to any corner they haven't been chased out of. I know there are gardeners who deem them to be weeds but they pop up, have their cheery say for a few weeks of otherwise fairly quiet time and  then disappear. I can live with that.

The primroses appear in the garden with more intention on my part. I love this variety Emily, with the pastel yellow of the wild primroses and a splash of deeper gold in the centre. The wild ones are beautiful and quite a common sight on the roadsides and under the hedgerows around here. As yet though, they haven't tried to call our garden home. They would be very welcome.

At the moment, you can't drive very far along the roads without encountering roadside daffodils either in solitary ones or in mass plantings.

 

And of course, no spring roll call of yellow flowers would be complete without  forsythia.  In some circles it is considered a vulgar shrub and there are gardeners who wouldn't give it ground space.  I can see that clipped into hedges the flowers are dense and intense, brash and brazen. Left to its own natural tendencies it is a much prettier thing; delicate sprinkles of yellow set off well against either a  blue or a grey sky.

The Love of Lavender

Lavender is in bloom and on several farms around here, there are fields covered with mounded rows of purple and mauve. It's a wonderful sight and if we only had the sunshine and warmth that July should bring, the air would be redolent with the  soothing perfume of lavender.

As a child, I loved helping to make lavender sachets to store amongst the linen. I doubt I was a great deal of help as my main aim was to handle the dried flowers as much as possible so that the scent would linger on my hands. Back then I had no idea that such places as lavender farms existed or I am sure that I would have harboured the ambition to have one when I grew up. Since that clearly didn't happen hasn't happened yet, I 'll just make do with visiting the ones around here. With that in mind, last week I arranged to catch up with a friend at Long Barn during their Lavender Week. We sat and had coffee on the terrace over looking the nursery field.

 

We had also ordered lavender shortbread. The heart shaped biscuits came elegantly garnished with sprigs of fresh lavender and looked so tempting and  tasted so delicious that I have to confess that we had eaten them before I thought to take a picture. ( Yes, I know that's the second time that has happened recently; note to self "Photos first, feed later") Even with the threatening skies and the all too inevitable downpour it was a fascinating place to spend a morning.

A perfect reminder of the recipe on  the wonderful Millefeuilles blog and a good excuse to try it. Ever since I had seen a recipe for shortbread buttons in the May issue of Country Living magazine I had promised myself that the next time  I made shortbread biscuits, they would be button shaped. So here, I present 2 ideas brought together.

Lavender Shortbread Buttons

Such a success! You can find Stephanie's recipe here in the post Pomona and the Poet's Rose. I used about half a teaspoonful of lavender flowers and for me, that was just the right amount. Not enough to overwhelm but it is still discernible. I used a 5cm cutter and then used a small glass to press halfway through to create the rims of the buttons. I used a skewer to create the holes and in some cases had to re-open these after cooking. Easy enough to do while they are still hot and fairly soft before transferring them to a rack to cool and crisp up. Should the thought of eating flowers trigger a shudder response instead of salivating, then substitute grated lemon zest for the lavender. 

You may well notice no sign of the apricot coulis  Stephanie made and I just know it would work so well as  an accompaniment for  these biscuits. Last December I had the  sublime good fortune to eat apricots fresh from the tree in my brother and sister-in-law's garden. Since then I have sworn never to have anything to do with fresh apricots unless I am within 2 km of the tree on which they were sun-ripened. The supermarket ones here have very little in common with what apricots should be. Hence no apricot coulis but the shortbread are also extremely good just as they are. 

Although I don't have a plot extending to acres and I suspect our heavy clay here isn't just what lavender thrives in, it's obvious that the half a dozen or so lavender bushes we have are simply not enough. Just as well that on Gardeners' World last night, Monty Don pointed out that now is a good time to be taking cuttings. May be I should be out taking some just in case I need a lot more plants sometime soon.

Eyes on the competition

"There's some as big as marbles,  there's some as big as peas and then there's quite a lot of little ones."

Pop.

This quote is from a newspaper cartoon showing a pair of old men hanging over the garden fence and comparing their potato crops. According to my mother, the cartoon greatly amused my grandfather and so the quote has been handed down two generations now. It always springs to mind this time of year when our annual charity Potato Growing Competition comes around.

The rules are simple enough. You buy a seed potato for £1 back in early spring. You can only submit the crop of the special seed potatoes; no cheating with a heavier cropping variety. This year it was a variety called Casablanca. (Yes, that is very expensive for one seed potato but it is a charity fund-raiser.) 

You then have to grow the potato in a re-cycled container of your choosing - I usually use an old compost bag as it will exclude enough light to keep the potatoes from turning green. What soil compost or other growing medium and fertiliser you choose is up to you. Then on the day of the charity garden party you dig up all the potatoes from the plant and submit them for judging. There are various categories but of course the overall winner is the grower who has produced the heaviest crop. 

Now the most of  competitors are well acquainted. We arrange various other fund-raising events throughout the year and several of us have been involved with planning the garden party at which this competition is just one of a range of stalls and events.  Ever since the sale of the seed potatoes back in the spring there have been several committee meetings and over coffee afterwards there will be cautious probing and airy throw-away remarks about the amount of leaf growth and the emergence or not of flowers and whether these should be left on or nipped off. On the surface of it, the rivalry is all very cheerful and any claims to potato-growing prowess are all very modest, unless you closely observe the spouses of the competitors. There may be the merest flinch of an eyebrow or a barely perceptible shaking of the head.  Behind garden gates it is a different matter apparently. Eyes narrow in steely determination as the sights are set way beyond simply taking part and padding out the numbers, oh no. Nothing less than winning is intended. There are those of Irish stock  who feel that  the honour of their national heritage is at stake and those who have grown spuds for years who feel their experience and hard work should clearly count for something.  Happily I am not constrained by either of these.

Having spent the day before baking cakes for the afternoon tea and the morning helping set up the stalls, pricing preserves and plants, it was only when the  potato competition stall was set up next to mine that I remembered that I had an entry to present.  After dashing home for a quick bite of lunch, some scissors and more sticky labels, I went out and opened the recycled compost bag. I find harvesting potatoes is always something of a treasure hunt or a bran tub where you are allowed to find all the prizes. Unlike other fruit and veg, it is not the part you want that you get to see growing before your eyes. The real booty of the process is all growing  hidden from view, deep in the dark compost - or not, as the case may be. 

I was delighted and quite relieved therefore, to find several largish fist sized new potatoes as well as the inevitable tiny pearl sized ones. I suspected I already had my hands on the only prize I was going to get but that was more than good enough. Having seen the amount of slug munching the foliage had suffered I was glad to see all the tubers were smooth and free of any blemishes.

Creditable entry though mine was, I was right about the crop itself being my only prize. It was wonderful to see that one of the runners up was a girl aged about eight years old. When the judge, a local allotment holder, called her name she strode forward in true school assembly fashion, shook him by the hand, exchanged a few details on spud cultivation then received her certificate. She turned holding the certificate under her chin, print side facing outward and beamed at the audience, before  delightedly accepting her prize of a bright red tub trug. No feigned surprise, no diffidently waiting to be coaxed forward.  Now there, I thought, is someone who knows how to receive an award.
In spite of dismal weather the party had been well attended so having packed up, we finished the afternoon united in the euphoria of a job well done, appreciative of all the teamwork that raised an impressive sum for the clinic in Ethiopia. All headed home (possibly to spud suppers) the best of friends, at least until the announcement that the seed potatoes are on sale for next year's competition.

Easy Peasy - Pea shoots

 I wonder just what will be the food of the moment this year. It's not about food fads, it's about vogue, I think. Remember when Delia Smith put cranberries on every one's shopping lists here in the UK several Christmases ago? Then along came rocket, blue berries and  the renaissance of water cress. Last year it was pea shoots. Supermarkets were stocking little packs of these, all the TV chefs were talking about ways of using these and food magazines had recipes for salads using them. If your only experience of green peas entails taking a pack out of the freezer then you will not know the pleasure of munching fresh peas as you pod them and will have missed the flavour that pea shoots deliver. It is just so easy and cheap to grow them there really is no need to miss out on this.

 It was Alys Fowler on her series The Edible Garden who showed me how easy this would be to do and got me started on this.  As the series is no longer on the BBC's i-Player, and I am not sure if it is in the book, this is how easy it is.

Days of Daffodils

There's no ignoring them! The sunny days we have had lately could have been made for them. They are everywhere; in clumps, drifts and even modest singles, all reminding us how well Wordsworth captured the impression they give. 'Jocund company' undoubtedly.

We found these in the garden under an old apple tree, one of the pleasures of our first spring living here. With their fresh  colour combination of palest yellow and clear gold and an elegant twist to each petal and even the leaves, I have been delighted to see them each year since. I have planted other daffodils in the garden, but I think the only others I like almost as well as these are the Tete-a-Tete which are almost over now, having picked up the baton from the snowdrops.

The choice now is to decide  whether to enjoy them in the garden or to bring their cheer inside and have vases of them throughout the house. With some special care when bringing them indoors,  the toxic effect that the sap from their stems has on other flowers and leaves can be minimised.

Meanwhile it seems just the right time to let the daffodil effect creep into my knitting.

A Seasonal Oddity

Here we are in late November with the temperature outside sulking at around freezing. In the garden, the annuals have long since shown that their year is up, the evergreens are quietly living up to their title and the perennials have withdrawn their life force into the ground to hibernate. It would be all to easy to think that we have to wait for the snowdrops to herald in the new and show that the seasons are turning. But in my garden there is an oddity, a plant that comes up in the autumn and dies down in early summer.

 

 It is alexanders and was amongst a collection of herbs I put in several years ago. I have since learned that in some parts of the country it is considered a roadside weed and I can see why that might be but having never seen it on roadsides around here I was totally unaware of that at the time.I remember when it disappeared early in its first summer I thought it was yet another plant that had declined my invitation to flourish in my patch. I was delighted to see it re-emerge in October and by the next autumn I had learned not to let it set seed, attractive though the shiny black seeds on ochre coloured stalks are. It is clearly very happy to thrive here. I value it for its fresh green when many other leaves are dull and grey and the  early honey scented flowers loved by the lacewings. And now I have realised that it was an early precursor of celery I will be using it much as I use lovage in the summer.

 When I went out to pick some two days ago, I noticed all the stems had bowed  to honour the presence  of Jack Frost.  I noticed that the water in the rain barrel was almost completely frozen. The elemental force and artistry that could sculpt a glassy plaque of swirling abstract patterns and sign it with the delicate etching of a beech leaf all in the course of a few hours is certainly worthy of such homage.

Little Boxes - Part 2

I knew I wasn't finished with making those little crochet boxes I saw on Kirstie's Homemade Home. Far from it. I was planning to build on the basic design, adding handles and some kind of embellishment. And so I did. But as they are so good to make being such a portable project, quick, easy and use up left over bits and pieces, their numbers are steadily increasing and they seem to be appearing all over the house.

 The red one - now with handles - is the ideal size for holding a ball of yarn, a crochet hook, scissors and a needle case thereby contributing to the proliferation of its own kind. The blue one with its built in slit handles shows that the basic box is evolving.

Even when I was working in the garden clearing up leaves, an idea for another change to the basic design came to me. As someone who finds fascination in so many of Mother Nature's designs, you might imagine my inspiration may have come from the exquisite structure of an acorn cup or a larch cone. It was something much less decorative and entirely functional.

The green bag provided by the council for the collection of garden waste! Suddenly I noticed that is is basicly constructed in the same way having four rectangular sides stitched onto a square base. It even has the seams on the outside to help it to stand up.  Maybe I could use braid to add handles in the same way.

So this fascination with little crochet boxes looks like being far from over - at least for the time being. Oh Kirstie Allsopp, what have you started?

Heart's Ease

Do I like pansies? No. Not the large strident yellow ones with a shapeless black splodge in the middle and not the floppy big white ones with a large purple bruise and petals too broad and flimsy to withstand being folded in half in the slightest breeze. No I don't like those at all. But the smallest violas, now that is a different matter entirely. Pretty colours, intricate markings; faces of miniature serenity and the most delicate scent.
Several weeks ago,  I was having tea in the garden behind a teashop. On each table was a shallow terracotta pot with just white violas all flowering fit to burst. Such a simple and delightful combination and on that warm day the scent was noticeable without being overpowering. No surprise then that I couldn't resist a tray of  tiny violas on the next visit to a plant centre.
Now just what containers did I have that would suit them? I first planted up a glazed bowl to place on a garden table as a living arrangement. Then I discovered, hidden away amongst all the plant pots that can't be stacked, a collection of chipped cups. Too damaged to be sipped from, too nice to throw away or smash up to use for drainage. I  drilled holes in the bottom using a tile bit and marking the inside of the base with masking tape to stop the drill bit from slipping. By pressing them into a tray of damp sand to support them it was easy enough to make a drainage hole without any further cracking. I knew there would come a time when these  would be just what I was looking for.

That leaves me with two questions. 

What other plants would suit tea cup planting?  Perhaps little primroses or cyclamen coum.

And do I like pansies? Well clearly that depends.