Reasons to be Cheerful - Part One

Sepervivums - where there's life, there's hope!

I fear that under the glowering skies of an unspeakably wet summer, this blog is becoming too much a tale of woe and cynicism. 

Where is the optimism with which we set out on this journey from the troubled life of a welfare rights adviser, beleaguered by impossible targets and merciless regulations, into happy horticultural Arcadian simplicity?  What happened to that enthusiasm for learning new skills and acquiring greater knowledge of all things green and growing?  That keenness for new projects bringing the colour of flowers and the fragrance of herbs to overgrown or empty gardens?  That joy in germination, that passion for propagation?

In short, call yourself a gardener, Honeysett, if a bit of rain and a handful of slugs get you down?  You'd be no good faced with a tower full of orcs and a giant spider, would you?

For the benefit of current and potential customers, please note that dealing with towers full of orcs, giant spiders and any other tasks incidental to the disposal of unwanted items of jewellery may incur a higher charge than my usual rate, whether it makes for a tale worth telling generations later on or not. 

Actually, as far as the Tolkien analogy goes, I came to the conclusion some while ago that I'm no Samwise Gamgee. I'm far too tall for that role.  If anything, I think I'm probably an Entwife!

Well, since the weather gods briefly relented yesterday and allowed us a few hours of brilliant sunshine, it seemed only fair to take stock of some of the brighter happenings in the garden right now.

Bringing in the harvest

Firstly, it has been a good year for autumn-sown onion sets and garlic.  We brought home a wheelbarrow full yesterday.  Although they aren't intended for storing, they will certainly see us through the summer/autumn for salad and cooking purposes; in fact, with exactly one hundred, we probably have more than we actually need so should put some out for sale at the front of the house.

Jon getting to know his onions

Against the odds, there are some very decent-looking red cabbages growing in one of the plots where early carrots failed miserably.  That they have survived despite the slug plague is probably down to their defence being the beer trap rather than the eco-friendly pellet, the latter having been dissolved by the rain.  If they can hold on, they'll be great either for coleslaw or cooked with autumn casseroles.

Flowers on Sempervivum arachnoideum

The delightful surprise in the ornamental part of the garden has been the success of the sempervivums I bought in Holland and immediately split from the original five plants to give me two trays of off-sets for propagation for sale, and a cluster for terracotta pots for display.  The S. arachnoideum is already flowering profusely and gives a cheerful splash of colour as you look out of the kitchen window, even on the dullest day.

My major project from last year (Kev's garden) has turned out much as hoped and although the foul weather has made maintaining it trickier than hoped, the flower area was doing well last week.  The Digitalis purpurea have reached that awkward stage where the section of stalk and seed pods is slightly too long to look elegant, and I will probably cut half down next time I go round in the hope of keeping the plants perennial for some flowers next year, while I'll let the rest set seed for flowering plants the year after.  Kev can almost certainly expect to end up with some of the sempervivum offsets in his empty planters at my next visit.

Kev's triffids

So it's not all doom and gloom after all - in fact, the sun is shining again and if I do Andy Murray a favour and don't jinx his game this afternoon by watching him, I might go over to Ford Green Hall and do some more pottering about in their herb garden and even clip the box hedges. 

And there will be no eavesdropping!