Santa visits our house

Christmas Day arrives and Dorothy has bought me the welcome present of three packets of seeds and a herb mix from the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester (all right, all right, Salford).

The seeds are tomatoes, onions and nasturtiums and I can't wait to get them in the ground next year around June time, tomatoes a bit earlier. 

The herb mix is very intriguing, being a mix of parsley, chives and basil in what resembles a tea bag. Indeed, you do have to soak it in a bowl of water for a day before planting.

Whatever will they think of next.

 

Bringing the crops home

I can't believe it. I've picked some of my spinach and had a raspberry from the garden. That's the raspberry.

Dorothy used the spinach in fishcakes she made us for tea, also some of the chives given to me by my friend Alex 'Pip' Paton. Jolly nice meal.

Break open the bubbly!

Finally! The day has dawned! Don't know if planting purists will say it's too early or too late, but I've got the potatoes in the ground - and onions too! The landmark day deserves an excess of exclamation marks.

Three rows of spuds are nestling in the soil, having been chitting away in the conservatory for approximately the past two months, and I await developments. Two small lines of onion sets are in another patch, shared with the garlic planted late last year. The sets were a present from my friend Kate, on condition I give her some chitting spuds in return. I have enough left over to do that for her.

We'll see what happens over the following couple of months. Susan says there are some people who are born with green fingers and that others never achieve anything, despite the effort they put in. Time will tell.

As I write this, it's a beautiful day which seems more like summer than spring. I've even given the lawn its first cut of the year today, but I would not be surprised if there are a few more frosts. Hope they don't damage my crops.

Currently, I am mulling over what to do with a another piece of ground I have dug out and which had green manure in the shape of phacelia tanacetifolia until I pulled it out a day or two ago. I was thinking of lettuces. And then there are some tomatoes for the greenhouse. And I've got some more seeds sprouting indoors and have started off the mushroom growing kit which daughter Dorothy gave me at Christmas.

Some of these plans, though, may have to go in abeyance because of the state of my hand/arm. It's been getting steadily worse in the last few days and I have finally given in and booked an appointment with the doctor for next Tuesday. Some people are reckoning I'll have to have it strapped up. Oh gawd!

Santa's been to town

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.

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?