I have a story in issue 3 of the Journal of Unlikely Entomology. It’s called Skitterings in Corners, and it has bugs in it.
A quick photo to illustrate why it’s worth keeping tomato seedlings inside (or in a greenhouse) for that little bit longer, rather than just dumping them outside once they’ve grown their first couple of leaves and been transplanted. These are the same type of tomato and were sown at the same time:
Transplanted and put straight outside
Transplanted and given another week on the windowsill
Not only does the indoor one have a healthier colour, it also has an extra pair of leaves. I’m hoping that the outdoor one will pick up in time but it’ll certainly take longer to reach fruiting stage.
I am considering a further experiment by picking one plant to put straight out from the windowsill without hardening off, and comparing that a week or so later with its hardened-off siblings.
We already solved the problem of taking the baby to the allotment (and to lots of other places). This weekend for the first time I managed to get something done while I was there, too, rather than just telling doop what to do.
After a false start when Leon insisted that this was NO GOOD and he wanted MILK instead, I got him snugly up on my back & started clearing dead asparagus. Shortly after that I had sleepy baby breathing in my ear.
All the potatoes are at last in, only a month late (although half of them did go in last month, and are already poking above the cardboard mulch). We have, from north to south (1.5kg of seed potatoes each set):
Not sure how well the Amorosa will do, given their late start, but if all goes well then we’ll have a nice spread of potatoes to harvest over the summer/autumn.
The final bed, in the south, will have butternut squash planted in it when the seedlings currently on the window-sill are a bit bigger. I should also think about a late summer catch-crop for the Orla bed.
@katyha (also to be found at Fausterella) linked to this post about managing parenthood and writing, which left me considering my own experiences. Two months into parenthood, I confess that I’m finding it challenging.
In theory, Leon takes regular naps and I could write a little then. In practice, currently he’s napping in 45 min stretches, which gives me about 5 windows in the day, two of which are used for dog walks & one for lunch. That remaining hour and a half would be of more use if I were more disciplined, for sure, but after 90 min of feeding / nappy change / entertain / feed, my inclination is to take a deep breath, make a cup of tea, maybe check my email and Twitter… and then the baby is awake again. Damn.
I have managed to do a little writing on my phone while feeding (the first draft of this was written on my phone), but thumb typing gets old fast. I can get a first draft of a short blog post done. But if writing fiction, I can only manage either some notes (feeding is quite good for thinking about things), or a couple of full sentences, before the mismatch between speed of thinking and speed of writing becomes too irritating. Not to mention the fact that if I write while I’m feeding, how will I ever get through the rest of the Game of Thrones series? (All hail the Kindle, my one-handed-reading saviour.)
Editing fiction while feeding is definitely a non-starter. For that, and to be honest for much of the rest of my fiction writing, I have to use the time when Leon’s dad is on duty. That too comes in 45-60min bursts. Editing blogs I can do while Leon sleeps (this post was finished on the iPad with Leon sleeping in the sling on my chest). I’ve made myself curious now about the difference in my brain between blog writing and fiction writing, and may contemplate this further in the future.
Having said all of that, since Leon was born 10.5 weeks ago I have managed to pitch and write a story for the anthology ‘Faction Paradox: Burning With Optimism’s Flames’ (out later this year), so obviously something is happening. I’ve also kept up, for the last week, a a one sentence daily goal inspired by this post from Léan on something else I’m working on. In fact it’s almost always more than a single sentence; but I think the main advantage is that it keeps the project stewing in my back-brain.
I’m told it gets worse when you have a toddler; although if Leon ha a phase where he has a nap on his own rather than in a sling, it may get a bit easier first (can but hope!). Hopefully by then I’ll have developed the increased discipline the writers at that first link talk about. If anyone reading has suggestions on how one can make the most of shortish slots of time when knackered and desperate for a break, do please share.
I have a story in the forthcoming Tales of the City anthology, edited by Philip Purser-Hallard. It’s due out in June, and can be pre-ordered at Obverse Books. There will also be an ebook version, but that can’t be pre-ordered.
I’ve seen the full draft version, and the stories are all fabulous. For a taster of them, check out Phil’s blog for Trailers of the City 1 (Blair Bidmead), 2 (Elizabeth Evershed), 3 (me!), and 4 (Helen Angove).
Permaculture isn’t only about the practical; or rather, “practical” covers more than you might think. Permaculture is all about sustainability, and that includes creating environments which are sustainable for humans in respect to all their needs.
A garden needn’t just be about food to be practical, sustaining, and sustainable; it can also be about beauty, or fun, or rest. Of course, food plants can also be beautiful (rainbow chard is one excellent example; or the little blue flowers that appeared on my rosemary bush in early spring). But the beauty in non-edible plants means that they’re also a worthwhile addition to the garden, simply for the joy of looking at them. And a garden you want to spend time in is invariably a more productive garden.
Which is to say that I have a bunch of flowers in our garden now, along the western fence by the rosemary and the raspberries. The first to go in, last autumn, were winter pansies. Pansies are my favourite flower, and their January blooms cheered me up no end. More recently I put in some forget-me-nots, which are very practical flowers in that they are self-seeding, but easy to pull out, so low maintenance in both directions. As mentioned in the peas and beans post, there are also now a few pots of sweet peas to make the patio smell lovely when they flower. And finally, a few evening primroses in with the pansies, because my Mum had some spares and it would have been a shame to waste them. (Actually, all the flowers were spares from my Mum. Thank you!).
Pansies and raspberries (and some purple wild flowers that I don’t know the name of) earlier in the spring
I planted most of my broad beans last November/December, in two of the raised beds. One lot were planted in the polyculture winter veg bed, and the second lot in the bed next to it as a block on their own. Both sets, particularly the larger block, are doing very well now, and the flowers are starting to turn into small beans. A few more beans, planted at the same time in a polystyrene box, are a bit less vigorous — perhaps because their roots are more shallow? I’ve also planted a second batch in early March in another polystyrene box and those have just begun to emerge. With luck I’ll get a second later crop from them.
The broad bean jungle
In further legume news, I planted some snow peas at the back of the broad bean block, thinking that they could use the beans as a support to grow up and around. However, the beans are so jungly that I can’t see much of the peas, so that may not have been such a smart move. On the other hand, I may find lots of happy peas when I finally get to them. I’ll venture into the bean jungle to investigate when I start harvesting beans.
Hopefully the spring pea plantings, in two more polystyrene boxes (one by the west fence, one south of the raised beds), will be more straightforwardly successful. So far they’re looking good, and I’ll soon need to find some sticks and/or string for them to grow up.
Finally, I have some sweet pea seedlings from my mum in pots on the patio, which may not be food-productive, but will hopefully make it even nicer to sit there once they get going (and if we ever see the sun again…).
Also on my March planting list were green salad leaves. All of my preferred green salad leaves are cut-and-come-again types; from a permaculture perspective, that’s a more productive use of the soil as you can keep harvesting throughout the season rather than only getting a once-off harvest then returning to bare earth and having to replant. So I planted sorrel, endive, and rocket, to replace the rocket that’s been growing in the winter veg bed all winter and which will bolt soon.
I was also very pleased to discover a couple of bronze arrowhead seedlings (presumably self-seeded? I’m not sure!) springing up in the pot of my satsuma tree. Bronze arrowhead is one of my favourite lettuces, but I discovered too late that I was out of seed this year. I’ve transplanted the seedlings into the salad veg bed, as they and the satsuma want rather different water conditions, and they’re doing well.
Nothing is growing terribly fast yet, but as of a couple of weeks ago, this was the March-planted corner of my salad veg bed:
You can just about see the seedlings — sorrel and endive in the centre, rocket around the edges — between the cherry blossom fallen from next door’s tree; and the bigger and healthy-looking bronze arrowhead lettuces.
Last week, I planted the April batch of greenery in the next corner of the bed: a different type of oak leaf lettuce, and a batch of Mystery Mixed Lettuces from the Real Seed Company. I’ll be interested to see what I get from those!
I decided to plan for a very low maintenance allotment this year, given that I also have a new garden and (rather more time-consumingly) a new baby to deal with. Over the winter, the main beds have almost all been mulched with a double layer of cardboard to reduce weeding. The next stage was to plant potatoes (low-maintenance but tasty!) through the mulch. So, only a couple of weeks late, we headed down to the allotment last weekend to get planting.
The mulch is doing its weed-reducing job where it’s been put down, but around the paths and edges the dandelions are in glorious but weedy profusion. I ignored them in favour of getting 50% of the potatoes in the ground before the baby got too grouchy. (I should note that I did not actually plant anything but was instead acting in more of a supervisory/baby-feeding capacity. Many thanks to my glamorous assistant doop.)
The trip also provided the opportunity for the first test of our baby-transporting device, chosen after researching seats and trailers/cargo bikes: a Christiania trike with a car seat strapped in. Glorious success! Leon slept peacefully all the way there, and observed thoughtfully most of the way back, until a cobbly patch near our front door upset his equilibrium.
The Christiania in action
Baby in a trike!
It’s spring, so I’ve been doing a lot of planting in the garden. For once I actually have a month by month list, entered into my diary on a weekly basis, as the only way I’ll get things done on time while also wrangling a newborn. I feel alarmingly organised.
Last month was tomato-planting time, so I now have 5 pots of seeds sprouting away on the kitchen windowsill.
Two pots were from packet seeds (Lettuce Leaf, a bush type from the Real Seed Company, though it looks like they no longer stock them, and Peacevine Cherry, from a heirloom packet I got free) which I’ve liked in the past. All the seeds planted of both have germinated and are doing fine. The other 3 were seeds saved from last year’s plants; but only one of them has germinated, which I found a little disappointing.
It turns out that the problem is probably down to a cackhanded effort on my part to increase germination rates. If you’re saving your own seed, you can put the seeds in a jamjar with some water for 3 days, you can improve their germination speed. It turns out, however, that that is a strict 3 days – no more, no less. Five months in the jar? Not so good. Ah well; I have 9 baby tomato plants which is plenty, and will have to try seedsaving again this year. In fact last year’s plants started out at my old house and finished off at this one, so they might not have been the best-adapted to the new location anyway.
In other signs of spring: the apple tree has started to produce green shoots, after a couple of months of looking a lot like a stick.
That was taken a couple of weeks ago; there are more shoots now, all looking pleasingly healthy.
