Friday, February 9, 2018

LAVENDER AND LEEKS!

Have you noticed how much earlier the sun is up in the morning, and how much later it sets in the evening?

Where I live the glow of the sun can still be seen past 6pm now, and the morning is bright before 8am.

Chip is my little sunlight meter.  He has been getting up much earlier this week than he has all winter, and that is because the sun is up earlier.

It's days like these that lift my spirits.  I know it is cold outside ( we have a -39 windchill this morning) but the change in the amount of light around us is the best indicator that spring is on it's way.

The time change in March will mess with our minds, but it will be short-lived, because by then daylight wont take a backseat to winter any longer!

I am placing my final seed order today.. mostly flowers and herbs this year, as I still have lots of vegetable seeds from last year.

I have also researched building a wildlife pond for my yard.  I already have toads galore - now I want some frogs, dragonflies, damselflies and all those good insect predators that can help control pests in my gardens.

While I was researching wildlife ponds I came across a series of videos on YouTube, done by a 25 yr old woman from the UK called "Katie's allotment. "  I don't know much about the allotment system in the UK, but this young woman got this tiny pot of land, built a garden shed on it ( with the tiniest  stove and kitchen cupboards in it that I have ever seen ) - she cooks herself meals right from her garden out there.  Then she built raised beds, planned her garden patch, planted fruit trees, made a wildlife pond, built a fence from pallets, built an arbour from twigs, and now she is talking about putting chickens on there as well... well I think she is just amazing - to say nothing of entertaining... and I have only gotten to the end of the 2014 season of video's.

I love the way the Brit's garden.  Their gardens are so organized, and they pack so much into them.  But what I really like is the visual appeal of them, a vegetable garden does not look like a boring vegetable garden, but a English country garden, full of colour and structures like arches and trellis, and such.  Their gardens allow for everything - plant growth and also bird and wildlife growth - just the way true gardening should be.

If you have an interest, and some time you want to kill - check out Katie's 62 videos.  I started at the beginning videos, and have been working my way through them.. She gardens 12 months of the year, and gets 2-3 crops off her little allotment, each year.

Her YouTube channel is  Lavender and Leeks... and her videos series are called Katie's Allotments.

To get you started here is the video tour of her garden shed...prior to the stove addition... that comes later.  This video is only a few minutes long, and most of her videos are under 30 minutes, so a great thing to watch with your cup of coffee.

https://youtu.be/IMlpIXhCfkg

Katie also writes a blog where she shares her love of gardening in her allotment, and she shares really good recipes of things she cooks right from her garden...

You can find her blog here...

http://www.lavenderandleeks.co.uk/

Have a great weekend everyone!

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