Wonder cloches

Do you remember my putting cloches over my parsley plants in February?
I didn't have enough cloches for all the plants so I covered every second one in the row.

Here are the photographs of the difference in the plants.



The one under the cloche is lush, bright green, soft leaved and ready for picking.

The one without cover is tiny, its leaves went mushy in the frost, and it is yellow and poorly looking.


It will recover, both will be thriving by May. But for the moment the cloches are giving me enough fresh parsley for my cooking.

Those C18th dutchmen knew a thing or two about gardening.

Cloche questions answered.

I originally got these glass cloches - reproductions of C17th Dutch ones - because I wanted them for the garden but they got so many interested comments that I bought in enough to resell.

While I grow, make or commission most of our stock, we do sell commercially made vases, planters and the like so these fit into that category - no-one is going to think that I havea glassworks round the back of the tunnel.

As it is the first year that I have had them I couldn't answer any questions about how they stand up to the weather - well now I can. we have been down to -6 now and they are absolutely fine.

I assume that it is the shape that prevents frost damage - I imagine that it just slides off the sides. They don't keep the plants frost free but do make a couple of degrees of difference and keep the rain, snow and deer away. The parsley under the cloches is fine and green, the plants in the open are frosted to pulp.


The other question I got a lot of is - what can you do with them inside? I use them to keep the children's nature finds dust free and to elevate the pebbles, cones and nests into Victorian Naturalist territory.

But look at this page from Elle Decoration - British artist Polly Morgan is putting dead robins and mini chandeliers into bell jars and charging from £4000 for the results. this one is called A Thousand Years in Your Presence. Perhaps I should take Minou onto the staff and turn his kills into profit.

The varmints . . .

I took this morning off to hear Zoe read a poem out at the school's Scottish Assembly and then took Jasmine for a long walk as it was such a fantastic day.

This was the welcoming committee when I got home - 3 beautiful does in the field next door. It is the first time this year that I have seen them in the daylight.


Though I knew they were about. . . . They have actually been doing a fair amount of damage in the cutting garden - this photo is of some tulips shoots nibbled level with the ground.

Still, I couldn't possibly get someone in to shoot them - much as I like venison. They are beautiful creatures, in much better condition after the mild winter than they were this time last year.

They stop eating our plants once the grass and wild flowers begin to grow again in the fields.

I have stretched netting over the tulips- they will have raggy looking leaves but the flowers will be fine.

The homeworker and playing hooky

Since I began working from home I have found the most difficult thing is organising my time.

Unless I am actively working all hours I feel as though I am playing hooky. I think that this may be a relic from my office working past where there was a terrible culture of presenteeism. Latterly I worked part-time 8.00 - 12.00 but I still got raised eyebrows and tutting when I packed up my bag at 1.00! Or perhaps it is the natural Calvinism of the Scot.

Yesterday appealed to my skiving tendencies. It doesn't take much snow to make me declare that we are snowed in. The children may have been picked up by the school bus but for me it was a special kind of day - Jasmine got 2 walks (one in the snow, one in the thaw) and when a friend popped round for coffee because she couldn't get into her work in Glasgow I nattered my way through a couple of refills. Work was fitted in between these distractions in small pockets of time.

Yet when I look at the amount actually sewn - there doesn't seem to be much of a difference from a normal day- I managed a box of linen doorstops and a prototype fabric lined litter bin. Perhaps I should play hooky every day.

Mud

This is the bed where I am meant to be planting my tulip bulbs.

Obviously that is not going to happen and I am trying not to get histrionic about it.

The tulips are always a problem - 3 years ago we got tulip fire - a fungal disease which attacks the gardens of people who are too greedy when they read through bulb catalogues. It causes twisty leaves and ugly mouldy spots on the petals - not really something you can live with.

This means 2 things - firstly that we plant the tulips into a new piece of ground each year so that there will not be tulip fire spores about - secondly that I pull all bulbs and do not keep them year to year.

When we began laying out the raised beds we began with the level part of the field which has quite light soil and have gradually moved north towards the heavier slopey part. Six weeks of almost constant rain has put these beds under water and if I am to get any of the bulbs into the ground I shall have to plant them elsewhere.

That means that I shall have to plant them where there were tulips last year. This warm wet weather is just the kind that tulip fire loves.

As I say - I am TRYING not to get histrionic about it.