Soil envy

In the spirit of 'making the best of what we've got' I decided to do a little research about our soil to nip a developing soil-envy in the bud!

Visiting family in the south I was so impressed by the beautiful soil they have (and take for granted). It is crumbly, brown, soft and everything seems to grow so well (including the weeds - ha ha!). It seems to be everything that soil should be.

By comparison our soil is rubbish. It is clay, rock hard when dry, soggy when wet - growing bulbs is impossible, root veg a dream, it takes forever to warm up in the spring and you can apparently even walk on it too much - making all the problems even worse.

So what is good about it? Well, as water doesn't drain out of it quickly, it holds moisture and nutrients well. Mix in a little organic material (compost, manure) and you have yourself a rich, healthy soil which will give good results.

I don't know how many times I have searched for 'clay' and 'shade' options in the BBC Plant Finder but there are a number of plants which really love our garden. And I love the rewards that a day of backbreaking digging brings. Who needs the easy option?

Go Go Goji

We already use a couple of window boxes to grow salad and tomatoes. In our effort to use all the available space in the garden we went out and bought a load of window boxes. Lined up they look quite good and have been seeded with many different types of salad, spinach and spring onion.

We have also bought and planted out three Wolfberry plants. These are commercially known as Goji berries and are meant to be a "superfood". We were given last Christmas some vouchers for a plant supplier and could not make a decision on what to buy. We chose these plants because they are something a little different and can survive down to -15ºC. It will be interesting to see what kind of crop we get.

Pondlife

When I am out in the garden I can get distracted by many different things. It is one of the joys of being outside after all. Our garden is only small, but by lifting a stone or turning a leaf you can encounter another animal's whole world. You can either be in the moment just enjoying whatever is going on around you or you can be in it for the long haul, planning what to grow and how it might turn out. One thing I love is watching Tomas calm down almost as soon as he is outdoors.

I found the perfect excuse to get distracted yesterday. And it was all about this little creature!

Yep! Our pond has newts! I love to think of them breezing down the back road looking for new opportunities - and they chose us! I used to have a pet newt (long story) when I was little. That was in the days before they were protected. As suitable habitats for amphibians are reduced newts find themselves at risk, so it is now illegal to move, sell or kill them. Like most amphibians they live in the water to breed and the rest of the year they hide out in the area around a pond which is usually a good place for stones, long grasses and therefore the small animals which they eat. I love the way they look primeval - like ancient creatures who got left behind.

It seems that out wildlife pond is starting to mature now for real, and we are both excited about it. James wrote earlier about watching damselflies, we have plenty of frogs, snails and now a newt. There is loads of advice out there about making your pond a good place for wildlife. The best thing to do is to leave nature to take its course - so, not too much gardening or management required. That kind of suits us! So our plan for the area has to be to leave well alone. The most we might do is add a wood pile.

I think the pond might become my new favourite place for watching the world go by.

Onion Patch

On Saturday we decided to put some more effort into the design of the garden. Remember, our idea is to make the most of what we have rather than dwell on what we don't. And one thing I do have a lot of is brick. When digging up the 13m length privet last Easter I found loads of bricks buried in the ground. A few of these have been used to boarder a patch we are going to use the grow some onions. I had to move a couple of compost bins to a new home and I still have some serious digging to do, but I think it looks good. We also headed to the DIY shop to buy some concrete slabs. One of these has been put down along with a brick path to the bins. I used some nice bricks that I got from freecycle that all have "Wombwell", a town only 10 miles away, stamped into them. I have another 5 slabs to put down and we are going to take up lots of our turf to extend the growing area.

Behind the onion patch we have got lots of window boxes to grow many salad vegetables which will use the tarmac area more efficiently. These were filled today, it started to pour with rain before I could get a photo.

Next to the pond, at the back of the garden, the last root of privet was too much of a challenge to remove. It still took a serious battering and a chainsaw through the top, but guess what, it is now growing back. What the heck am I going to do with this thing? I think an axe and some copper sulphate drilled into what is left is in order.

The most expensive seeds I ever planted...

Now, I love my tomatoes. I covet exotic sorts in the shops and moan that so many are flown in from Europe. Tomaotes go with every meal imaginable and as a snack straight from the vine. Growing odd varieties myself is the perfect solution. While I was pregnant last year I had a strange aversion to them - and many of the ones I grew went to waste as James doesn't like them at all. This year will be different...

Normally the seeds I buy come in at around £3 a pack for anywhere between 50-500 seeds. But the 100's and 1000's tomato seeds only have 8 in the pack - which made me treat them with a certain reverence. Reports suggest that you can crop over 2000 tomatoes from a single plant! They are tiny tomatoes, but numerous! By the way, I don't think I'll track their harvest fruit by fruit - but I might count how many bowlfulls we get.

I sowed and grew 2 plants. Today will be their first full day outdoors (I think it'll be a scorcher!). Last night I put them each in a hanging basket with plenty of homemade compost and some shop stuff. I'm not really very good at hanging baskets as they tend to dry out quickly and I get bored of watering them. So I lined the baskets with plastic to keep any mosture in. Once tomatoes are in fruit they don't appreciate getting dry. Trimming off the excess plastic liner was remeniscent of trimming pastry to make a flan case. Which makes me wonder what tasty food they will end up in.

A quick photo of strawberries, spinach and lettuce (haven't they done well!) and my cordon tomatoes (black cherry).

Seedlings moving into the garden remind me that summer is pretty much here. And blossom on autumn fruiting plants is just coming out. This blackberry is a crazy F1 that produces huge fruit. And it is the first in the row of fruit canes/bushes to even think about flowering. Isn't it pretty?

Tomorrow it is forecast for lots of thundery rain. Bring it on! Our water butt is almost empty. Bad weather tommorrow means that we should be out there right now making the most of today!

Large Red Damselfly

The pond is looking really healthy at the moment. Plenty of little frogs poking their heads out between the plants. And plenty of pond snails that seem to have bred so well. I was just outside topping the pond up with rain water when I spotted a damselfly.

By the time I went indoors to get my camera it had met up with a second and began to mate.

I am no dragonfly expert so I looked up the British Dragonfly Society to get my identification. This is the "Pyrrhosoma nymphula - Large Red Damselfly". There are only two red varieties in the UK. This is the common variety found over most of the country. The Small Red Damselfly, the other, is rare and not found up north but is easily differentiated by its reddish legs. I managed to get a photo of the pair in the wheel formation. What a nice find.

Hawthorn Booze

Now what did I do with the hawthorn blossom? Well it has been used to infuse some vodka and brandy and the results are quite nice.

On Sunday evening I put the blossom into some muslin cloth to make a teabag. I then looked at our drinks cupboard and found the dregs of some vodka and some brandy. I simply poured them into some kilner jars and shoved in the tea bag. A good shake, and a sniff, every day for four days and now I have something quite interesting.

The vodka (on the left) has really taken on a brown colour. The brandy started off much darker so no change there. Both smell strongly of a beautiful almond, almost marzipan, aroma. I then poured them back into their bottles. I had to give the teabag a good squeeze as a good percentage of the drink was absorbed into the cloth and blossom. The initial drink was clear but squeezing the teabag move some musty liquid into the mix.

Opening the teabag I can see that not all the blossom parted with its flavours. It must have been packed too tight. Next time I do this I will not use a teabag, I'll just pop the blossom in straight and filter it afterwards.

The real question is what does it taste like?! As I said before the smell is amazing which for any drink is important. I am not a vodka fan but the result was quite nice. There is a dry earthy taste on top of the almond taste. Just the same taste as if you eat the blossom straight from the tree, maybe not a surprise. The brandy however worked slightly differently. The brandy and almond combination was perfect. It took on a creamy taste that then disappeared to leave a more subtle earthy taste. I think I need to go and pick a lot more blossom and buy a new bottle of brandy...