FLIPPING PANCAKES AGAIN

Shrove Tuesday coincides with our hens cranking up to maximum lay, as the light comes back and they feel the urges of the season.  There are many things I could give up for Lent, but eggs are definitely not one of them, in fact we have to have pancakes every day - today on Shrove Tuesday - and for the foreseeable future.  At some point the pure-breeds will decide to go broody, but broodiness has been bred out of the hybrids, so they just keep on laying heroically, day in day out.

Alpines are among my favourite plants - they’re so tiny and so perfect -  just imagine them in flowering on the mountainsides as the snow melts (the hills are alive with a carpet of alpines ...)  They come in such lovely colours too - all the shades of Easter, although these might be over by the time it comes this year.

LOVE IS A HEART SHAPED POTATO

Chitting potatoes is an odd habit and has been proven (by Gardener’s World a few years ago) not to be necessary for most varieties.  Earlies benefit from it, but they found no significant increase in yield for later crops.  Chitting, for the uninitiated, is the practice of placing seed potatoes in a light, frost free environment to encourage shoots to form on the tubers.  This is supposed to give them a head start, encourage early growth and higher yields .... or not.  Anyway, I do it, partly because there’s nothing better to do with potatoes until at least the middle of March, and because the good varieties sell out quickly, I buy them early, so they’d only be hanging around in a bag somewhere.

I’m rifling through my seed packets a lot now and have been outside a bit, mainly to stare forlornly at my wreck of a garden, but that’s a start.  I might sort out some seed trays and face the mess in the potting shed in a day or two.  It’s a bit like when you’ve invited guests to come and stay; you know you’ll have to clear the decks  and make up the beds, but somehow it always gets left until just before they arrive.

A LEEK BY ANY OTHER NAME

Leeks are so trustworthy.  They take a long time to grow to any significant size and you do have to do peculiar things to them if you want them to have a long white stem (transplant them when they’re pencil thick into a deeper hole and leave them lolling in it without backfilling around them), but apart from that, nothing.  They’ll sit there happily through the winter, come hell and other things like snow and frost and gales and possibly high water; ready to harvest whenever you like, and cooked however you like (try leek and goat’s cheese tart for starters).  I grew a lovely heritage variety last year called ‘Blue Solaise’ that had deep blue/green leaves.  I grew it next to some lovely red cabbages and had the wretched caterpillars not eaten the cabbages, they would have looked so beautiful together ...

Tentative and precious, the first flowers are emerging now.  Snowdrops, crocuses, early narcissi and hellebores are dotted about the garden, like brave pioneers in a new land.  They’ll soon be overshadowed by the mad spring rush. but at the moment they have the place to themselves.  Plant them where you can see them, or by the front door, they’ll be a cheery sight on a bleak February day.

WINDOW GARDENING

We participated in the Big Garden Bird Watch this weekend (see www.RSPB.org).   Our efforts were nearly spoiled by Carmelita the hen who came marauding over to the bird table - “She is a big bird and she’s in our garden.” said Alice.  “I’m sure it counts, I’ll put her down in the box marked moorhen.”
Perhaps I’ll go back to doing the watch on my own next year.


If, like me you have lots of garden jobs to do, but you’re finding it hard to get out there, don’t despair; I have a plan.  Wait for a nice sunny day, bake a cake and hide it, then force yourself to go outside for at least 2 hours before coming in to put the kettle on and unearth the cake.  Shame on you if you just eat the cake without working outside for it, and double shame if you don’t even bother to bake the cake.  Motivation is a tricky subject.