So, summer has been very busy and seems to have flown by (hence the lack of posting) I’d say overall summer has felt rainy but there have been a few hot and dry weeks, requiring me to water things in the garden. This is the first summer I’ve been tenant on a local allotment plot …
May has come and gone in a whirlwind of flowers and shoots. I normally say that April is my favourite time of year, but May would be close in the running. We typically have our last frost date here in early May so I can transition into those warmer season crops that will fill up …
April has now been and gone. It’s my favourite month, with spring really underway and lots of new life and growth. There’s lots of seeds to sow, plants to grow and warm sunny days to enjoy (sometimes). The garden has basically ‘gone to seed’ but it’s a riot of colour loved by bees and other …
Anyone growing woad plants probably knows that they are also prolific seeders. The flowers are really lovely and I have no problem with them seeding everywhere but it did seem a waste not to harvest the bountiful dangling seeds. I’d heard that the seeds contained dye and so though I’d experiment as a good way …
March has been wet. Very wet. A couple of light frosts but really it feels as though the winter is done and spring has well and truly arrived. The garden has really kicked off and it’s noticeable how many invertebrates have appeared, and so far I’ve noticed butterflies (comma, brimstone and peacock) as well as …
As you might expect, February 2024 was pretty grey, pretty windy, pretty wet and a little cold. We had a couple of frosts here in Gloucestershire but nothing particularly severe or prolonged. However we have a couple of those spring-like days that make you dash out and face up towards the sun. The blossom has …
After almost a year’s wait, I finally unleashed a solar dye pot that had been brewing in the greenhouse. Using ivy weeded from a friend’s garden, I decided to save the stems for basketry and use the leaves in a dye pot. I’d heard somewhere on the internet that ivy can be used to get …
January is usually a variable month in my part of the world. Sometimes it can feel like the true winter it really is, with continuous frosts and snowy spells. Other times it feels more like a dreary November: wet and windy and grey. Well this year it’s mostly been the latter, but there have been …
Japanese wineberries Rubus phoenicolasius are a species of berry, native to Asia, in the same family as blackberries and raspberries. I introduced one to my garden in the winter of 2022 for several reasons. The main reason was that it bears (reputedly delicious) fruit. The second reason was that it would be a good climbing cover …
My woad plants were somewhat neglected this year. They mostly went to flower and then to seed, growing about 4ft tall and attracting all manner of insects to their yellow flowers. I collected the seeds as I have read that you can get a dye from them. There are dozens of little woad seedlings popping …
