As each year passes, it must be harder and harder to buy Christmas presents for me. This year has been slightly different with my newly acquired interest in the vegetable patch (scandalously neglected over the past few weeks with the coming of winter).
Dorothy had the brilliant idea of getting me a seed sprouter, complete with alfalfa, lentils and chick peas. She also presented me with the biggest size present of this Christmas - a mushroom growing kit. They're white cap mushrooms and I shall start them off them either today or tomorrow, together with the seed sprouter.
My friend Kate bought me a seed roll, which is just as it says - a roll with seeds, flowers in this case. Apparently, I just unroll it, put in the ground, cover it with a bit of soil and go away again. It'll be great to see it.
I walked in the woods with the dog on Christmas Day, stalking at a discrete distance another man with his dog. The bloke was on the mobile phone almost the whole time. What did he get out of the joys of nature?
Talking of Christmas Day gives me the opportunity to mention my beloved parsley. We had it in stuffing balls for our dinner. Made all the difference.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Parsley talk
We held a pre-Christmas dinner party the other night, managing to get 15 people around the table. It was no mean feat in our small house.
Susan and Dorothy put on a magnificent spread of curries and desserts, which everybody liked. As well as doing fetching, carrying and cleaning, my contribution was again the parsley I have been growing. I moaned last time it was supplied for a meal that nobody had mentioned it. That was so this time, with the addition that even I had forgotten about it by the time it came to eating.
Such is life, but where would we be without parsley?
Susan and Dorothy put on a magnificent spread of curries and desserts, which everybody liked. As well as doing fetching, carrying and cleaning, my contribution was again the parsley I have been growing. I moaned last time it was supplied for a meal that nobody had mentioned it. That was so this time, with the addition that even I had forgotten about it by the time it came to eating.
Such is life, but where would we be without parsley?
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
More frosty thoughts
I've had the monthly email newsletter from the splendid allotment advice website run by John Harrison and he has something to say about the cold snap.
He writes: "There's a really hard frost on the ground, which is good news. A good cold winter is just what we want to kill off those slugs and other beasties that think we grow our crops for their benefit."
A positive way of looking at the weather, I feel. Hard on the slugs, though.
He writes: "There's a really hard frost on the ground, which is good news. A good cold winter is just what we want to kill off those slugs and other beasties that think we grow our crops for their benefit."
A positive way of looking at the weather, I feel. Hard on the slugs, though.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Jack Frost visits
Woke up yesterday morning to a heavy frost all around, as it had been on the previous day. The vegetable plot, tucked away in a sheltered area, was still frosty when I inspected it at noon. Whiteness gleamed on the green manure, a pretty enough sight to my eyes.
Something had been walking across the plot, its small paw prints embedded in the hard ground. I suspect it may have been a cat, out on its rounds in our neighbourhood.
Later on I was to walk in the woods with our dog. I wore my woolly bobble hat for the first time this winter, something of a necessity in the cold for a man with thinning hair.
I was lucky enough to see three deer in the woods. They disappeared from sight when they saw me, although it was more of an amble than a run. Indeed, one of the animals stopped for a good look at me - a gaze which I returned. Do they go home, I wonder, and tell their mates they have seen a man down the woods?
Something had been walking across the plot, its small paw prints embedded in the hard ground. I suspect it may have been a cat, out on its rounds in our neighbourhood.
Later on I was to walk in the woods with our dog. I wore my woolly bobble hat for the first time this winter, something of a necessity in the cold for a man with thinning hair.
I was lucky enough to see three deer in the woods. They disappeared from sight when they saw me, although it was more of an amble than a run. Indeed, one of the animals stopped for a good look at me - a gaze which I returned. Do they go home, I wonder, and tell their mates they have seen a man down the woods?
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