Stepchange

Things are happening in the garden.It's light now when Lucy and I leave for school. Birds are obviously claiming territories and checking out nesting sites. There has been sunshine today, and I have the washing out for the first time this year. We've had the smallest possible helping of the very first broccoli.

In the greenhouse the endives are beginning to put on leaf, and the herb cuttings that have overwintered are perking up nicely.

The rhubarb looks encouraging, and buds are swelling on the fruit bushes.

There are new shoots in the flower garden, on the valerian

and the peonies.

The blog has been quite slow of late,because things have changed a lot round here. We finalised the content of the latest Stravaig, and I finished a set of Huldra poems. And then my younger daughter moved back home to start a new job, and we've been to reconfiguring the house to accommodate her, and in readiness for the visits of number 2 grandchild - due in the summer. It's meant a lot of clearing, cleaning and repurposing, several trips to charity shops and to the tip, and a lot of rethinking how I use my time and space.Gardening is about to start in earnest, too. One project that I have planned is a 'fairy garden' which Lucy and I are going to plant, with soi-disant roses and candytuft, zinnia 'thumbelina'and 'ballerina' poppies, and snapdragons, so I'm gearing up for sowing those seeds, as well as peppers, tomatoes and rosemary.Poetry seems to be taking a back seat, but I'm eagerly waiting for the entries to the Red Squirrel Competition - due any day now! The snowdrops are just hitting their stride, and so, I hope, am I.

The Week of the First Snow

These are old photos, taken about this time of year, but two years ago. That's because the last couple of weeks have been taken up with family things - our son's graduation (in nursing - with distinction - which is an enormous pleasure) my mother's move into residential care, and absorbing the outside school responsibilities of looking after our grand-daughter into a busy life - and cooking up a poetry night at our local coffee house. But I think you can take it that the territory of rain still looks pretty much like this!

We got the roof fixed just in time before the rain, and the central heating pump replaced just before the frost. And the upgrade to the broadband went without a hitch, so I can now listen to the radio on my laptop without it having to pause for breath every five minutes. Now we are having the sittingroom and the hall decorated. We have had to move four bookcases to accommodate this, and it's not a big house, there are books everywhere! There is dust everywhere too. I knew I was a B- housewife but really, there are places behind bookcases where finding the original carpet is like archaeology. But it will be done by Christmas, and there are new bookcases (larger!) coming, so everywhere will be not only cleaner and fresher, but tidier.

Outside the only vegetables flourishing are the brassicas - kale and cabbage and early broccoli seem unfazed by all the wet. And the birds are back, drawn in mostly by the frost. I've seen redwings and fieldfares, there are swans on the river, and the Scandinavian starlings are here in force. And I've just seen a greater spotted woodpecker on the top of the birch outside my window. I thought it was a starling at irst, but it's too big, and piebald. Other people have told me we have woodpeckers, but this is the first year I've seen them regularly for myself. Also blackbirds. I know blackbirds are supposed to be territorial, but in winter they seem to move about mob-handed, and there are about eight of them bobbing about the garden, knocking each other off the patch below the feeders where the small birds scatter the seed.

We are coasting towards the end of the calendar year, and we are already in Advent, which is the start of the liturgical year, so it's a good time to be quiet, review and assess things before we make a new start. So I'll be doing just that in the next few posts

The Week When No Birds Sang

After going on for ages about how the birds have been all over the garden, eating us out of house and home and hawthorn berries, last week was eerily quiet. I topped up the feeders, and they stayed full for days, much to the chagrin of the woodpigeons, who depend on small birds to knock the seed down for them. I watched my neighbour's garden enviously - she is more efficient and more generous than I am, and her feeders are always busy, but no, her garden was empty too.

I did see the sparrowhawk a couple of times, and there's a grey squirrel and a couple of visiting cats, but they don't visit often enough, I'd have thought, to put all the birds off so completely. The fields are ploughed and the winter wheat is already sprouting, so they can't be in the stubble, and almost all the berries along the river have gone, so they can't have found alternative food sources. So where are they? and why have they gone?

I wondered if the birds I had seen were migratory, and they've just pushed on further south, ahead of the bad weather. I've never noticed this before, but maybe I should have. I was getting anxious, wondering about diseases or pollution that hadn't registered on the human scale. A silent spring didn't seem out of the question.

However, in the last day or two activity seems to have picked up. There are small flocks of starlings about now, and I can hear the cross 'ticking' sounds of blue tits in the hedges as I go out in the mornings. Either the sparrowhawk has moved on, and resident birds are more confident, or new arrivals from northern parts have arrived to fill the gaps. There are crows and magpies calling, and a robin territory-marking the garden from his post on the gate. Even trade on the feeders has picked up. Good.

The Week on the Threshold of Winter

This pottery witch was made a long time ago by my youngest daughter, so it's just right to start a post on Hallowe'en!

My grand-daughter and I made this lantern yesterday. I know it was a small cultivar - wee be little - but this is ridiculous. It's a testament to how poor the summer has been. On the other hand, said grand-daughter took it into school today and everyone thought it was 'so cute'. One of the mothers said she was going to go to Tesco to see if she could buy a small one like that, and I didn't have the heart to tell her!

Other things like the wet. There's nothing wrong with the kale:

or the cabbages and the chillis don't seem to mind it either.

But this is the reality of this week. In the wind last Thursday there was a sudden rattling on the roof as leaves in their thousands left the trees. I can see the railway line through the trees, and even as far as the windfarm on Sherriffmuir from my window. The world is opening out as if the orchard had drawn back a curtain. For all the shorter days, winter here is the time of vision.

The Week of the Indian Summer

For the last few days, the nights have been cold and frosty, and the days bright, clear and warm. The work on the roof has gone without a hitch, and it should be finished today. It's been lovely. The flowers are doing their final fling.

The leaves are turning. We haven't had too many blueberries, and what there was, the blackbirds will surely steal, but what we get is this fantastic colour.

I'm really thrilled with this, however. The wet summer has provided me with the ideal conditions for this cranberry - well, bog, to be honest!

And this is what I got this morning! Not much, I admit, but maybe next year---

The Week of the Harvest

The barley and wheat were harvested last week, and the garden went quiet as all the seed-eaters disappeared into the fields for spilt grain. Now the straw has been baled and the calves are browsing in the stubble. The first greylag and pink-footed geese have begun to fly in, the winter starlings are mustering in the orchard, the cormorant has taken up residence in the river, and yesterday nine goldeneye came up with the tide. The swallows were still here yesterday, but gone this morning, and I'm looking for my gloves.

This is cheery, though. A stray violet, growing just beneath the frame of the greenhouse has come into flower. Apparently this happens often, and they set seed more readily now than in spring too, but I don't remember ever seeing one here before.

I spent Saturday tidying up. I ripped out the spent beans - a very disappointing harvest this year - and weeded and mulched with the contents of the growbags for tomatoes - also disappointing. I'll never try to grow Marmande again, though the few fruits I got cook really beautifully. so now, all I have to do is to keep the slugs and the pigeons off the cabbages!

I did a bit more clearing, too, to make storage space for all the canes and posts I won't be using for a few months, and came across this fungus growing on the log-pile. I'm hoping that this will be a good overwintering place for invertebrates and small mammals, so I haven't tidied here too much.

Looking forward to next year, I have created a small patch for my grand-daughter to have a garden of her own. It is going to be filled with 'fairy' flowers - candytuft (fairy series) lupin 'the fairy' and 'thumbelina' zinnias - plus the fairy rose in a pot. It's going to be very pink and frilly, but as the Flower Fairy books were my original inspiration to garden I don't reckon it will do her any harm. And, finally, I found that the honeysuckles I raised from cuttings last year have borne their first flower.

The week We Cleared the Pond

This year, the pond mostly looked like this -

a bit flowery, but mostly overgrown, and frankly out of control. So last week we spent a whole morning clearing, dividing and repotting. And now it looks like this -

The inhabitants were very surprised.

There was a bit of an autumn clean-up going on in other places. It's one of my principles not to be too tidy - yes, folks, the nettles, tansy, alkanet and teasels are there FOR A REASON, dammit - but if I wanted to put in some crocuses under the witch hazel or to see the wild daffodils I planted last year come spring, or even to get to the bird feeder over the winter, something had to be done.

And I weeded the fruit patch. I think this bed will be quite productive this year.

On the poetry front, if anyone is thinking of going to the Reading for Rights event organised by FREA in Irvine next month, there is a poster up on the Burnedthumb website. I'll be reading just before the interval.

The garden in June

Everything grew tall and lush while we were away, and the flowery places have filled up with colour.



The first roses are coming through, and the yard beside the house is full of scent from these albas, and the white sweet rocket that is in behind them.



In the greenhouse, it doesn't seem to have been so cold.



Even the pond has brightened up!



Of course there is the weeding to do, herb cuttings to take, and broccoli, leeks and kale to plant out, but we had the first gooseberry fool on Sunday from our own bush. It was fabulous!

The Week of the Baby Birds

Last week's starlings have found their wings, and now they are all over the garden like joy-riders, scaring the wits out of the magpies, who are behaving more like grumpy old men than the ruthless predators they are reputed to be. Their own babies, however, hatched last week and they'll go after anything. I saw one trying to crawl into a roofspace after a sparrow's nest.

Bluetits, blackbirds, sparrows and dunnocks seem to have hatched too. There are fluffy exuberant birds everywhere, trying to eat anything that will sit still long enough, knocking each other over, squawking and jeering at each other from the telephone line or the hedge. It's like being on playground duty again.

Here is my Vincent border. For about a fortnight it looks fabulous.

This is sweet rocket. When I first planted it, it was this lovely violet colour. The next year, it came up white, which looks and smells fantastic in the evenings. And for the last two years, we have had one recurrence of the violet.

Grey June
Grey June twilight now.
Rocket scents the still garden -
cinnamon and dew.

Now it is raining, and cooler again. The garden came on a lot in the sunny weather, but the courgettes and pumpkins I planted and the french beans I sowed will be glad of the wet weather - if it doesn't go on too long.

Summer Rain
When the long drought ends,
rain kisses dusty windows,
whispers on the roof.

All the aquilegias came out - they are a weird and wonderful mix. Every year I think I will save seed of the prettiest, but they just do what they like anyway.

The Week of Appleblossom

This isn't our appletree. It belongs to our next-door neighbour. We don't have fruit trees, which I think is a pity, but it's great for everyone else, because we are the ones you can give your surplus to, and we are very grateful. It's cherry blossom time too, and there's a whole avenue of pink frilly trees just across the river. They are right on time - thirty years ago tomorrow they were just like this the day we moved here from Edinburgh.

Yesterday we went to Inchmahome to look at the bluebells. It was just a bit too early for them,

but not for the violets.

There was an osprey too, circling over the Lake of Menteith, and the first swallows of the summer. I haven't seen any here yet - it's late for them and I expect the bad weather further south is holding them up.

Back here in the garden I've been catching up with the weeding and adding to the herb patch. There are some new plants of bergamot and sorrel, and the mint has has a makeover. In the greenhouse I've sowed marjoram, fennel, basil and coriander, as well as courgettes and pumpkins. It gets very warm in there, although outside the wind is cold and there was frost on the roof this morning.

In the fruit bush area, the gooseberries are setting and the strawberry plants are beginning to bulk up. I don't suppose there will be too much fruit this year, but they'll be gathering their strength for next summer.

the Week of New Leaves in the Territory of Rain

I didn't get out and about much last week, what with the showers and with not being very well.

While I was in the house, out in the territory, spring was getting busy. Almost all the trees are in leaf, that burning intense green (with undernotes of copper and yellow) that is almost a cure for all ills by itself. Only the ash and the beech are still lagging, and there are flower buds on the rowan and hawthorn and elder. This flower

makes its presence felt more and more along the river banks as well as in our pond, and the tulips are at their elegant best.

There's less success among the vegetables. There are shoots of early peas and potatoes, but there's no sign of carrts or beetroot, and the salads were no sooner up than they were eaten. There are birds nesting in all the hedges and shrubs, and while the blackbirds are sitting on eggs, the sparrows are feeding their first broods.

This last photo is one I took in our local Waterstones. Loads of people I know have gone in to see it really sitting there - between Rimbaud and Scott - so I hope someone buys it to make it worth the shop's while!

The Week of the Butterflies in the Territory of Rain

This was a bad week for somewhere called the territory of rain. There hasn't been any for days, and in fact the sun has shone solidly. To be short, the spring has been wonderful! There are celandines

and cuckoo-flowers

We are having the first rhubarb in a crumble for dinner tonight, and there is blossom on the gooseberry bush.

The pear and plum blossom in the orchard is much more spectacular, but as it isn't my orchard, and in fact there are two other gardens between my desk and the view, so there won't be any pictures. It's what the more pretentious gardening books call borrowed landscape, but it is the only remaining remnant of the orchards for which our Abbey was famous, so I treasure it - and write about it rather a lot.

There are bees everywhere so the harvest should be wonderful, and the tadoles in the pond are hatching. I'm learning to identify individual bird songs in the racket in the garden - so far I can do blackbird, starling, thrush, robin, chaffinch, dunnock, wren, sparrow, blue tit and great tit - plus the obvious divas like oyster-catcher, curlew and skylark. And now I've listed them, I'm kind of impressed - it looks like a lot more than I thought!

But this week belongs to the butterflies. On Monday there was a peacock battering against my window, then two more feeding on the dandelions, and cabbage whites on the alkanet, and a tortoiseshell sunning itself on a neighbour's roof. This seems awfully early in the year. There's a ghost of a poem in the back of my pay saying "We'll pay for it, we'll pay for it, we'll pay for it!".

This Week in the Territory of Rain - Equinox

Winter is over and summer is come
and the sound of the lawn-mower is heard in the land.

I caught a glimpse of a blackbird hen trying to get about three feet of grass stem into the hedge this week. I am fairly certain there is a dunnock nesting there, as well as a colony of sparrows, and a robin is using the birch and the rowan as song-posts, so the nesting season is under way.

Plants in the woodland garden are bulking up nicely, and the first honesty is in bloom. Flowers are a big deal just now, as the bumblebees have been emerging from hibernation. The crucuses were all early, but the daffodils are late, or coming up blind, so I will have to think of some more early flowers to increase the pollen supplies.

The garden has been quite noisy, as, along with the birds and the bees, the frogs have been at it too. There's quite a lot of frogspawn this year, so I hope there will be no sharp frosts.

The last two days have been grey, fairly cool, and misty. As we came home from our daughter last night the mist was condensing on the tree branches and dripping like rain. Shrubs like honeysuckle, tutsan and fruit bushes are in their first leaf, and the early trees are just at bud burst.