peace and quiet and open air

[pensnest]

It was our wedding anniversary last Friday - 38 years! It is surprising (I think) how often our wedding anniversary is a really beautiful day, weather-wise. We've had bright, clear blue skies for several days now—just like our wedding day, which was glorious. Perhaps we should do Camp mid-April, if we can ever do Camp again.

The weather having been so sunny has actually tempted me outdoors to work. I am very much a fair-weather gardener, but I have done a lot of weeding lately! The wildflowers, as I can't quite bring myself to call them weeds, have taken over half of one of my carefully dug flower beds, and I'm trying to brace myself to tackle that, but there are also some more veg beds to be attended to. I probably ought to try to get the raspberry canes under control, but it is such a jungle in the fruit cage I'm not sure I even know where to start.

I've also planted seeds. The verbenas are growing splendidly, and I've just separated out the handsomer shoots and put them into their own pots. Two or three aquilegias have deigned to send up rather feeble shoots, and one... something else which I have forgotten, but it looks a bit more businesslike. Echinacea, possibly. But I have stolen FIL's cheap propagator and it is full of sweetcorn, tomato and courgette seeds. We shall see. If I get reasonable results I will plant more tomatoes. Does anyone know if butternut squashes and pumpkins are happy to be trained as climbers whatever the variety, or does one need to buy specific types in order to climb them? What about courgettes?

Oh, and, manna, the early rhubarb is burgeoning nicely. FIL has some in a rhubarb bed, I was forced to put mine into one of the giant pots, but it seems happy enough so far this year, and at least it is positioned to get plenty of sun, in our tree-surrounded garden.

I also received bare roots delphiniums and geraniums today, and they are now planted. There were only three plausible delphiniums of the ordered four, but I got eleven bits which I hope will make geraniums, and only ordered eight of those. They were all poking up tiny shoots, and I have put them into the weeded bed and weeded bit of the taken-over bed. The clematis is roaring up the fence, and the Japanese anemones look happy. One of the fuchsias is beginning to leaf, but the others are currently buried beneath hypersteroidal snowdrops. Weeding that part is going to be... interesting. I hope I can get the giant snowdrops out and plant them again somewhere else, but we'll see—what baffles me is how they got to be there, as I thought I'd removed the in situ bulbs when I planted my new ones.

I have a feeling that working in the garden is going to be good for me in several ways. It's reducing my stress—not just in that 'working with hands, sunshine, fresh air, wholesomeness' way, but also because one of the reasons I've been feeling stressed over my FIL is that there is so much that cannot be done while he is here with us. The garden has been one of those things. But it is very clear that he will not be working in the garden again. He's too frail, and I don't think he can remember what needs to be done. We helped him walk around the garden a couple of days ago—first time he has been outside in weeks and weeks, despite the lovely weather—and he wasn't happy, I suppose because he realised there was so much to do and he couldn't do it.

It'll also be good for me to get the extra exercise and the diminished screen time. These new computer glasses are not right. I can't define why, but I'm sure they are giving me headaches. So tiresome.

Comments

[smallhobbit]

My mother used to reckon snowdrops walked, so if they didn't like where they'd been transplanted to they'd make their way back to where they'd come from.

[pensnest]

I think it must be true! The giant snowdrops-on-steroids are rather pretty, and I like them, but I did not expect them just there!

[altamira16]

Congratulations on the anniversary!

[pensnest]

Thank you.

[dine]

happy anniversary! I'm glad the weather treated you so well.

your garden sounds fantastic, even if a bit overrun - enjoy your time spent there, and continue to destress when you can

[pensnest]

It's a *huge* garden... and ought to be fantastic, but I don't know that I have the skills, determination or stamina to get it there. However, I'm pretty sure it can at least be productive.

[manna]

Happy anniversary! And good news about the rhubarb!

April showers do rather seem to have deserted us, don't they? (Although staging Vamp in April is probably the way to bring them back.)

I should think that you could train any squash vine. The problem is the weight of the fruits -- you'd need to support them with some kind of sling. While that would work fine for butternut squash, I'm not sure if it would be practical for a pumpkin, unless you had some extremely sturdy engineering!

Maybe FIL will also be happier to go out into the garden if it's already tidier, and it's less of a reminder of what he can't do?

[pensnest]

Yes, perhaps training squashes upwards is a bit over-ambitious. I lack Beast's level of engineering aptitude, and his job in the garden is to mow. Might be workable with the courgettes, though!

He might like going out and seeing vegetables in progress... it's hard to say. He has deteriorated such a lot.

[frausorge]

Happy anniversary! And I hope all your seeds and planting do well. It sounds that you'll have fuller access to the garden again, even if it's hard for your FIL not to have that himself.

[yarnofariadne]

Happy belated anniversary!

Your garden sounds wonderful, it must be so nice to work on.

[pensnest]

It is nice to be out there on a bright, warmish afternoon, I must admit. But there is a *lot* of it, and I have not been paying attention....

[antisoppist]

Why has it never occurred to me that I could plant rhubarb in pots? How big is your rhubarb container? I'm renting and the first space I found for rhubarb was under a twisted hazel tree and this was clearly too dark and the rhubarb withered and died.

[pensnest]

I have two large (hip height) and beautiful pots, and the rhubarb is in one of them. It is quite a deep pot, but I don't see why you couldn't use a more regular sized one as long as you put plenty of tasty fuds in there for the rhubarb. I bet it'll be happier in a pot than in the dark. Good luck!

[turps]

Happy belated anniversary!

I'm glad you're enjoying the gardening, there's something very relaxing getting your hands dirty as you plant etc. Hard work too, though.

[pensnest]

I find weeding quite satisfying, as you can *see* the result so clearly. Growing food is satisfying... eventually... Actually, I should probably find *everything* satisfying, because there is so much to do that anything I do should make a big difference!

[bettina]

Happy anniversary! :)

[pensnest]

Thank you!

[brandywine28]

Happy anniversary! And also happy gardening! I love delphiniums! And as far as I know (I've never had enough space to grow them myself, but I've Seen Things) pumpkins can totally be forced to trellis.

(Also! There's probably a better place to do this than on a post about your wedding anniversary, but I've been meaning to tell you, I hunted down the foreskin fic! It didn't make me giggle like I thought it might, but it did make me cheer, because -- voyeurism! Yep, that's the ticket. :)

[pensnest]

Even then I was having fun with form and trying to provide a clever twist. It was quite a challenge writing from a sneaky POV!

I have never grown delphiniums before, but my general philosophy of gardening is, It will grow, or it won't. If they do grow, I will surely post pictures!

[igenlode]

Our squashes happily climbed the hedge uninvited, using their built-in tendrils, and nestled their fruits in amongst the boughs eight feet up -- the ones at ground level had to be propped up on crates to keep them dry!

[pensnest]

Good heavens, that does sound splendid! I am toying with the idea of planting them under the beans, so they can choose. FIL had considerable acreage for his vegetables, but some of it is very brambly/weedy/grassy now and I have no flamethrower, so I'm trying to figure out where to plant all these things. I may even have to resort to using his disgusting greenhouse for the tomatoes.

[igenlode]

Squashes are very heavy (at least ours were) -- and I don't think the tendrils will climb smooth beanpoles, though I suppose they might. After all, sweet peas do.

The hedge was probably the ideal habitat, as it provided sturdy lateral supports, a.k.a. branches, on which the fruits could sit, with plenty of grip for the tendrils. I suspect squashes naturally scramble up and over the undergrowth, so maybe training/encouraging them over a bush might work?

Or, as someone else said, a trellis. But I think you'd have to provide slings in that case, or the swelling fruits would either rip themselves off the vine by their own weight or (more likely) rip down that entire length of vine. Maybe a trellis set diagonally, with spacing smaller than the final size of the squashes so they can't fall through?

[wenchpixie]

You got such glorious weather for your anniversary, congratulations!

[pensnest]

Thanks! It's funny, both my anniversary in April and my sister's in October have a strong tendency towards good weather.

[turlough]

Happy anniversary!

It sounds like you're having lots of fun working in the garden. I'll keep my fingers crossed that all your seeds will sprout and all your new plants will grow and flourish. (I just leafing through a garden magazine where they told you how easy it was to grow rhubarb in pots. Just give it lots of water and sunshine and fertiliser.)