And another thing

A person's needs, tastes and wants change over the years and it's the same with us, one example being that we seem to have an uncomfortable night if we eat much after 8pm. 

Susan is trying hard to be gluten-free, staying off bread, cakes and biscuits, as it doesn't seem to be much good for her. Just lately chili also seems to give her a bad time. Now she has announced, and she is quite right in telling me, that she is laying off the garlic.

Garlic happens to have been one of the few things I have grown successfully in the garden and I have a small stock of bulbs in the larder. Bugger.

Fighting talk

Spring forward, fall back. It's the phrase everyone quotes to remember whether to put the clocks on one hour or back. Tonight's the night when we put the clocks back, the nights get dark earlier and we inevitably start to have thoughts of Christmas.

It's been a washout of a day today with the weather, but I intend to give the garden a good going over next week after a period of letting it go. Sadly, the spinach beet which Kate  persuaded me to plant out in the space vacated by the French beans is dying back rapidly.

Susan says (again) that I just don't seem to have the growing touch. I intend to prove her wrong.

I've read that some critics say by changing the clocks we adversely affect our body's natural rhythms. It ain't going to happen to me. Up and at 'em.

Presents galore

I went to a car boot sale today determined to come back with a spade to replace the one I broke with my own brute strength the other day.

Mission accomplished. Or rather it was Susan who was successful in buying one as a present for my birthday tomorrow. Not gift wrapped, because it was suspected I would guess, but presented to me on the spot. And a very fine Brades Skelton spade it is. The man who sold it to her said it was a good one - he could hardly say anything else, but I can certainly appreciate its qualities. Let's hope it survives the masculine strength that is me.

There was more from Susan at the car boot sale in the shape of rhubarb, tomato, pepper and runner bean seedlings. I was especially pleased to get the rhubarb as I think I have given up on the rhubarb I planted last year. Still hasn't appeared above the soil. Let's hope the new one does better when I eventually transplant it.

My friend Jan, who also visited the boot sale, presented me with a herb cutter. I had been very jealous of the one she had in her kitchen last time I visited. I notice now the one she has given me is called a mincing knife. I'm grateful, all the same.

Green shoots of recovery

My friend Kate, who has recently moved from the south coast to Yorkshire and is establishing a garden at her new home, phoned the other day to say her potatoes are beginning to come through. Trouble is, I had given them to her - and mine were stubbornly not showing.

I was a bit jealous to say the least, and miffed. One day later, however, I was delighted to see my potato plants popping their heads above soil. Perhaps it's being a little closer to Pennine fastness that has caused the day. Susan has pointed out though, and I am well aware, that the next thing could be slugs eating the lot. I'm hoping that vigilance on my part will avoid the need for chemical warfare.

Turning my attention to the kitchen the other day, I made my very first lemon curd, just one jar in case it went wrong. Thanks to a recipe on the internet, however, I think it turned out rather well. Found myself making it while listening to Gardeners' Question Time on the radio.

Many a slip

Digging rather vigorously today, I managed to snap the spade. The wood cracked and it was goodbye to that tool.

We shall have to look for one at a car boot sale. Perhaps I ought to go for something that is titanium reinforced steel. Or we might even go up to £4 if there's anything suitable.

I blame that pesky rose bush that I had carefully preserved, thinking Susan had asked for it to be kept, only to find out later that she didn't want it. I was digging around to get it out when the spade snapped.

Spade or no spade, the rose is gone now.

Oh dear!

I believed that Susan had told me to dig up everything on the new bit of ground I am preparing for the raspberry canes, except for a rose bush. Turns out it was a clematis she wanted to keep. The rose bush could go.

I have failed a test of both my memory and my gardening expertise. I am a bad man.

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!

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?

The potato planter turns out to be...a potato planter

In a previous posting, I speculated on whether the potato planter tool had another name or not. I did a quick search on Google and failed to find an alternative.

My mate Steve, who sent me his photograph of one, says he's never heard it called anything other than a potato planter. I think he should know as he is an expert in his field (not to mention his allotment).

Yet my wife Susan still insists there is another name. She used to work in the Museum of Lincolnshire Life, where they had thousands of agricultural implements in stock, and believes she came across it there. Perhaps the name they used was peculiar to Lincolnshire. 

Eh! It's getting a bit like the hunt for the yeti or bigfoot. The truth is out there somewhere...

In the meantime, I have discovered the herb cutter, a handy device for the kitchen. I tried one in my friend Jan's kitchen the other day to chop her herbs as she was preparing a meal and it was brilliant. My problem as a left-hander is that I find a lot of implements and such like, including scissors, are set up for right-handed people and I can't handle them properly. (That's my excuse anyway, and I'm sticking to it). The herb cutter wasn't like that - even I got it to work.

Susan says I have had a very sheltered life never to have heard of a herb cutter.