Sunday 19 February 2017

Gardening with ME: some beans


It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a gardener without a garden, must be sad sight indeed.

Ok, I'm not completely without a garden. But between selling our house, moving, and my ME being bad, I've not been able to venture into the garden recently, so I've felt like I've had no garden. Today I cracked. I said no to boxes needing unpacking and dealing with the unending list of moving-related chores to be done. I decided to use most of my spoons in the garden, to sow some beans.

Because we are moving and I'm going to be gardening in containers for the next year, I couldn't sow a lot of beans. In fact, I sowed six broad beans seeds of The Sutton in total. That's all I could fit into the container above (the one with the compost, not the alpine planter!), and the limit of my spoons. But I sowed some beans! Here is a better photo.


Better, in that a container just showing compost and a label, is a bit boring. So this picture includes the round pot with some of my beloved snowdrops, Galanthus nivalis f. pleniflorus 'Bagpuize Virginia' that I've dug up to take with me. Also coming with me in that pot is Clematis x triternata 'Rubromarginata' and Lavandula 'Regal Splendour'. In the rectangle pots behind is some of my garlic. Trust me, there is garlic in there, not just more compost.

See, garlic shoots! Silver Rose is the first to send up some shoots.

I did manage to take short walk around the garden to see what is flowering now. To enjoy some blooms before we move.

Here is the rest of the Kingston Bagpuize snowdrops, which remain behind for the new owners. Looking pretty among the strawberries.

Hellebore... I've lost the label, but heck, it's pretty regardless of it's name.

A blurry photo of reticulata Iris 'J.S. Dijt'. I've lost my camera so all these photos are from my mobile phone. Blurry or not, the colour is fabulous.

Sarcococca confusa with, oh, what a fragrance.

A burst of sunshine, Eranthis hyemalis.

And Iris 'Katharine Hodgkin'.

So I have sown enough broad beans for say, two meals. Not a lot. But I'll take what I can get.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a gardener with ME who has spent even a small amount of time in the garden, must be a happy sight indeed.


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Recent Gardening with ME and Spoonie Veg posts...
 Gardening with ME: a floral review of 2016
 Spoonie Veg: Broad Beans
 Spoonie Veg: garlic

Saturday 11 February 2017

Ditty for a new home

Some Sheffield place-names are merely
Easy to pronounce, like Heeley.
Others, if not heard but seen, will
Lead to mistakes like "green hill".
If you've only seen Beauchief on a road sign
You won't know it's "bee", not the French word
for "fine".
And - unless you're feeling particularly silly -
Penistone isn't a gym for your willy.
Greenhill's like "fennel" but you're Aussies, so,
when, oh,
when will you rename it simply to Grenno?
Now you're on the not-really-main-road,
We wish you much happiness in your new abode.

This ditty comes from friends Kate and J-P (Next Square Metre), in the 'new home' card we found as we arrived to move in yesterday. So good I had to share it!