first in the ark

I’ve introduced the chicks to their new home today. I thought they would enjoy being out on the grass but once they worked out that there was an ark to go into they all made their way up the ladder… Suzi (Sussex) first followed by Betty (Blue) then Silver (Silver Link) and finally, last but not least and surprisingly not first Cuckoo (Cuckoo Maran). When they first arrived Cuckoo was the boldest and definitely top chick, but she seems to have been usurped by Suzi today. Time will tell.

new perspectives

I’m back in my shed and with a different view, that of the 6 week old chicken. Yesterday we collected four pullets from a delightful organic farm in Devon and they are living in my shed for a couple of weeks whilst they grow a little stronger and become ready to live outside in their ark.

collaborative rhythm-making

A whole weekend of sunshine with rain overnight - ideal for watering in the gardening of the day before. Today I’ve finished planting my 5 new beds. Peas and French beans went in yesterday and today marrows, squashes, pumpkins and courgettes have joined them as companions. There’s a rhythm developing between my digging, sowing, manuring, watering and transplanting. It’s a collaboration between the weather, the seeds becoming plants, the creatures inhabiting the air and the ground and me.

I’m planning to have hens and am gradually making space for them. I decided a strip of grass by the side of the path will make an ideal hen run but this has required the re-transplanting of my ex-allotment fruit that I put in last autumn and the garlic that went in with it. I am now left with four long thin beds full of very good soil so I’ve been shifting to my new vegetable beds. I’m re-filling the holes with the turfs I’d removed and stacked inside my cold-frame. It’s physically demanding work but triply rewarding in providing ground for a hen run, well-filled beds and a soon to be usable cold-frame. Digging out the beds has been an oddly uncanny experience as they resemble a series of small graves… a solemn but reassuringly ordinary reminder of the grief I am still processing.

signs of hope

I stepped outside the back door this morning, breakfast toast and Grant Kester (Conversation Pieces) in hand and was greeted by this wondrous rainbow arching over my shed and greenhouse (I hope other people saw it do the same over theirs). Toast eaten and Kester has become a bookrest but I have conversation on my mind. I’ve invited an artist who’s work intrigues me to join me for a conversation here in my shed whilst he’s visiting Cornwall this week. I’m hoping his time allows for this.

Two military aircraft and the cloud have now passed over and the sun is attempting to break through again. I’m going to pot up some bulbs I brought with me from my last garden and position them with another pot of bulbs I’ve rescued under a leaking gutter.

returning from sadness

Written from a patch of sunshine at the top end of the garden. The day before our middle daughter’s 22nd birthday (she is in Finland) and 15 days since my father died aged 87.

I’ve been attempting for at least the third time to secure the end of the garden thus inhibiting my dog’s desire to wander. It always feels wrong if I’m in the garden and he’s shut in the house. He’s been a good companion to me during the period of my father dying. He waited patiently in the car for me every time I visited the hospital and adapted to staying in four different friends’ and families’ houses.

I woke up this morning with the urge to plan my crops for next year. This will be very different to my previous growing patterns because of a warmer climate, less space and use of a greenhouse.

It is now the end of the day and a conversation with my neighbour over the hedge that I was cutting resulted in my borrowing a roll of her husband’s chicken wire to secure the end of the garden, on condition that I return it in the spring when he will need it for planting his peas. It is, miraculously, exactly the right length.

back on track

Back in my shed, back on broadband and so all up and running. The lesson learned is that transition always takes longer than I anticipate and that trying to rush it is fruitless and frustrating.

In the meantime I’ve spent time deciding which bits of the grass to dig up for a kitchen garden. It’s very different working a garden as opposed to an allotment, there are other people’s needs to consider such as spaces to sit in the sun and the shade and the provision of flowers as well as food. Today I completed digging my first vegetable bed in which to plant some of the garlic I grew on my allotment this year.

I just had to retrieve my dog from the garden of the house behind ours. He has found a way to push through the barrier I’ve made out of the branches I’ve pruned from evergreen trees. I lured him back with some cheese (a delicacy he can never refuse even when it’s wrapped around a tablet he won’t eat any other way) and now he’s locked in the house again, silly dog. We are going to have to buy some more effective fencing, chicken wire probably, which will at least be one step towards keeping hens.

a sense of autumn

It’s autumn. I realised this yesterday when I came out to my shed early on, sun shining and blue sky; but the shed was cool. Until now the same conditions would have turned my shed into a little hot house by that time of day.

I am pretty much decided now on where I will have my vegetable beds. I have tried a series of straight rows and square beds by marking them out with string but what seems to be most satisfactory is a sunburst emanating from a quarter circle of grass (for family and dog to sit on.) I have mown the paths, leaving the bed areas un-mown, in order to get a sense of how it will be.

The biggest frustration is our lack of broadband internet connectivity which means that I have to negotiate use of other people’s wireless connections in order to check my emails and update my blog.