I'm Back

You know how you don't notice change when it happens slowly, but when you go away for a couple of weeks and get back you suddenly see everything. Now I am back from my little holiday I get to spot all the things that have happened in and around my house over the last two weeks. Fortunately it is not a lot. Not like previous trips to the USA, when the biggest tree I have ever had the displeasure of owning ended up in nextdoor's garden. (Well some of it did.)

The things that caught my eye were the moribund plants in the kitchen, the new stain on the carpet and the little bits of cat litter dragged all through the house. At least two of those are the responsibility of the evil cat. A more positive thing was that my crocuses are in full bloom now. They were just pushing through when I left. 

I actually took these photos last year, but the crocuses looks very similar right now.

We had Denby Dale pie for tea lastnight, fresh from the freezer. It is a lot like my favourite meal from childhood, my mum's meat and potato pie. The pasty is different though. And so is the filling. Then we watched a little TV. It was nice to see Paul Daniels on Harry Hill last night, doing a joke about a chainsaw. Quelle surprise!

Not a piece of a real Denby Dale pie, that would be at least 12 years old, and perhaps a little stale now. Instead from the supermarket freezer and having the name of, and perhaps a similar recipe to, the Denby Dale pie.

I have all sorts of things to blog about from my trip. Maybe I will do that when I have a little more time.

Rhubarb: Part 2

It seems customary these days to begin my post by explaining why it is so long since the last post. However I can't imagine anybody is eagerly waiting for an update on Coughing Fit. The explanation is simple; I have been putting more of my spare time into other things recently. Like watching all the cookery shows on TV at the moment.

Today I finally got to do some gardening. Which is a relief, because I was on the verge of missing my opportunity to get lots of tasks done before winter really prevents gardening. This morning was one of those rare occasions when the weather and my family responsibilities simultaneously allowed me to get in the garden. I seized the moment and made sure I got everything done I needed.

There are still lots of leaves left on the trees, but I got most of the ones on the ground. If I don't get a chance to collect leaves again this year I don't think it will be too bad. But more importantly I moved project rhubarb along a bit. Having cleared a suitable space last time, today I continued to prepare the ground. I mixed loads of home made compost into the clay and rocks. I also removed a few rocks. The soil gets a little better everytime I go out there. As instructed in my rhubarb book, I stuck a whole load of compost into some deep holes and marked the spots ready for spring.

Not only that, but today was one of those very rare occasions when I do some gardening that isn't just weeding and tidying - I planted some things. I had three peonies to plant - can't wait to find out what they look like when they grow. They were just weird bits of twigs when I opened the bag. I hope I put them in the right way up. After that I started the knee-destroying job of planting enough bulbs to keep the Dutch economy going a little longer.Well, perhaps not that many. There were 65. The idea is that you randomly toss them over the site and then plant them wherever they fall. The first part of that is much more fun than the second.

At first glance this may appear very similar to my previous photo of the site. However now it actually contains three peonies, which are virtually invisibly at this stage. And a stick indicating where to plant rhubarb.

After al that work I was tired and dirty and reckoned I deserved a little rest. So I treated myself to a luxury lunch of Heinz smoky BBQ beans on toast. Which was pretty good. Perhaps the second best BBQ type beans I have ever had. The best was at a BBQ earlier this year: some people who I didn't know did them properly, cooking bacon and onions and things. They were nice.

Beans on toast: A meal fit for a king

Rhubarb: Part 1

A friend of a friend has an allotment that he shares with this man...

Somehow, I ended up with some rhubarb in my house a few nights ago. And yesterday I made it into a crumble. This experience reminded me how much I like rhubarb, and how I haven't cooked with it for years and years. Like 10 years probably. My parents had some and I used to love eating it. I would pull it, and "top and tail it" and cook with it. I remember having great fun cutting the leaves off with my very sharp knife. I liked to cut the leaves off in one motion, if the knife got stuck and I had to have a second cut then I was very disappointed.

A Plan is Formed

All these thoughts made me really want to grow my own rhubarb. I seem to remember my dad giving me the impression that it was difficult to get it established, but when it was going it would last for ever. That sort of put me off, but no longer. I am going to grow some, and it is going to be fricking awesome. I selected the most suitable part of my garden and got to work straight away the very next day. There were a couple of problems which presented themselves immediately.

• It is completely the wrong time of year for planting rhubarb.
• There is a giant bush of some sort in the way.
• The soil in that area is rubbish. Full of clay and rocks.

However, these three problems sort of work together to give, what I hope will be, a good outcome. I need to improve the quality of the soil, and by the time I have done that it will be march and I can plant away. And the first thing I want to do to improve the soil is get rid of that bush what is sucking all the nutrients out of the clay and rocks.

I never remember to take the "before" photo. So, instead of a "before" and "after", I can present you with a "during" and a "during".

The stump gets the first round, but I'll be back.

This is an artist's impression of what my garden will look like when Project Rhubarb is complete.  As you can tell I am also planning to add a peony. The artist didn't know what a peony looks like, so he added a nebulous green bush with some colourful dots on it.

A Tale Spanning Three Centuries

I spent a fun afternoon at war with the bush. It's hard work replacing a moderately acceptable bush with empty soil soon to be filled with weeds. The task of excavating the giant rootball was made slightly more interesting by the discovery of a Victorian coin. When it was all cleaned up it turns out to be a penny from 1889.

Difficult to believe, I know, but my kitchen work surfaces aren't actually marble. Instead they are MDF with a clever marble-effect surface.

Something new to complain about

After weeks of complaining about the lack of rain, it has finally come. (Although not a lot). And now I have lots of things I want to do that involve being outside. So I have a great excuse not to do them. I can't cut the grass cos it is a little bit wet. And it is far too wet to think about painting the fences. I have some indoor projects that at first glance I could crack on with, but upon closer inspection they involve sawing outside. In fact I do my sawing on the ground, and I don't want to put my lovely Homebase value wood (from a well sustainably managed forest I am sure) on a slightly damp piece of concrete.

Alium

Not only that, but there is nothing like some rain to make all the weeds shoot up. There was hardly any weeds in my garden last week, but now, they are many and numerous. Please enjoy the above picture of a flower in my garden. It is purple.

Think Professor X. Only with a monocle and a dicky-bow. Oh, and he's an octopus.

April showers bring May flowers

Have used the nice weather this weekend to get some stuff done in the garden. I cut one of the two evil hedges and got chance to do some general tidying and weeding and things. It does feel quite manly getting covered in scratches while pruning a giant plant of some sort. Reminds me of man's eternal struggle against nature: I hack it back every year or so, and it keeps growing to be too big and unruly, so I hack it back again. But not before it has done a few points of damage to my flesh. The garden is mostly looking alright at the moment.

I do enjoy using some chemicals on my garden. (It's okay, they are organic.) I get to feed the plants I like and want to nurture, and I get to use my industrial grade poison to indiscriminately kill everything else.

Muscari (Grape Hyacinth)

It seems everybody has been enjoying this unseasonably nice weather with barbecues and sunbathing and stuff. And I hate to be the grumpy bastard (but it is my blog). People have been talking like this is summer. Fudge that! It is 10th April. Early - mid spring. "April showers bring May flowers"? When was the last time that was true, my garden is dry, dry, dry. My lawn should be lush and verdant at this time of year, but looks brown and barren. And my flower beds are turning to dust. I, for one, want it to rain.

Daffodils

As usual, the spring in the north is several weeks behind the south, and the spring in my garden is another couple of weeks behind the rest of the street. My daffodils are flowering now when everybody else's were out ages ago, and my neighbours tulips were out last week, while mine are still getting ready burst open into their brief display.

Dashi Dog (aka Sauci Dog)

In other news, I saw "The Last King of Scotland" last night. Thought I would try something a bit different and I enjoyed it. (Despite saying it isn't what I would usually watch, it still had violence, nudity and a car chase.)