Winter evenings

This blog is in danger of ending up like many of my diaries from my teens - completed regularly for the first few weeks, then getting forgotten for a couple of days and filled in with the prosaic "not much happened today", then blank pages for days on end, finally running out of steam in mid March never to be picked up again.

It's not a great time for gardening, November, even when it's been milder and drier than usual, and unsurprisingly I have not been run off my feet with demand for the gardening service.  In fact, apart from a request to help an elderly lady renovate her orchard (a project on hold for the trees to properly shut down for the winter), it's been all quiet.

The farm shop collaboration isn't looking promising.  I was paid for the pears which sold at, I suspect, about 50% of their retail price - but that's a gain over regretfully composting the over-ripe surplus, like last year.  Depressingly, they had sold just one of the herb plants and killed four of the remainder through neglect then over-watering, so that settles it as far as further deals for live plants are concerned - no chance!  But interest was shown in surplus Jerusalem artichokes, and as again any return for these is an advance on putting them in the recycling, a deal may be done.

So while the plants and gardening business fails to grow, I've been putting my efforts into my winter project - painted canal ware, with a craft fair in just over a week's time.  If I can find some suitable small plant pots to decorate, I may even smuggle a few herb plants onto the stall!