Books, Books, Books and more Books
I read a lot. I don’t buy books, or I’d be penniless, I get them from the library. If I love the book I often buy it so I can read it again and again. This is the stack I’m reading currently, with a few others scattered about the house in my various reading points.
This time of year I’m pretty busy, so I don’t get as many books read as I would like. I find myself reading during any spare bit of time I can find; over breakfast, lunch and dinner, at night before going to sleep, for an afternoon break, in the evening. I still won’t get all the books read that I want to read, but that’s OK.
I generally have a notebook handy while reading so I can jot down quotes, ideas, plant recommendations, etc. Right now the book I’m thoroughly enjoying is The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses. More about it specifically tomorrow.
Do you like to read? Do you use your local library?
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Starting Hollyhock Seeds
Being a lover on cottage garden, I really like hollyhocks. I have double ones in the garden in pink and in yellow and I have some mini ones as well. When I saw seeds for ‘The Watchman’ I thought they would be lovely. Last year I tried to start the seeds without any luck, I seeded a whole flat and not a one germinated. Hollyhock seeds need light to germinate, which makes it tough sometimes because they can get blown or washed away if you have the flats outside (which is probably what happened to mine).
I thought that if I tried to start them like other flat seeds that need light, like amaryllis and tulips, I might have better luck. I floated them in warm water in a small ramekin in my kitchen window a few days ago. I noticed yesterday that a few of them were germinating already! When most of them germinate I’ll transfer them to flats with some soil. Looks like next year I’ll have some dark hollyhocks blooming in my cottage garden!
Do you have any interesting seed starting techniques you’ve had luck with?
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A Little TLC
This sewing machine belonged to my great grandmother. It was passed down to my mom and she gave it to me. It’s been a little mistreated over the years beginning with my great grandma. As it seems so many people did, she used it as a plant stand, so it has the telltale signs with ringed water stains on the top. I’ve been wanting to clean it up and give it a coat of protective oil for a while, I just haven’t had the time.
On Sunday evening I took it outside, cleaned it up, and gave it a protective coat of linseed oil. The nice thing about linseed oil is that you can use it on everything, even the metal parts. It shines now, not quite as it did in it’s heyday but as I always say, “It’s not perfect but it has character!”.
I do love this piece of furniture, not just because it’s a sewing machine and I love to sew, but because it’s a piece of family history. It still has bits and pieces in the drawers that were my great grandma’s; needles, scrap fabric, wooden thread spools, and used zippers. All those things we don’t really save to reuse now, but they did then.
Now that it’s all cleaned up it will go in my living room. I won’t put plants on it unless they have a protective dish or cork under them.
Do you have a treasured piece of furniture with family history?
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Spotted in the Garden
One morning last week, Mr Chiots yelled through the office window, "hey you’ve got to see this HUGE slug". I looked out and saw it and decided I must take a photo, but I needed something for scale, otherwise it would look just like a regular slug. Since I happened to be working at my computer I grabbed the first portable thing I saw, my magic mouse. Mr Chiots said, "The highest life form and the lowest life form side by side."
This guy was the biggest slug I’ve seen in the garden so far. We mostly have small black slugs, I see them often around the gardens. They live under leaves and munch on plants. When I saw this big guy I thought, “Some toad is going to be so lucky to find him!”
Slugs are big garden pests for many people. People go through all kinds of trouble trying to get rid of them. I simply let them be and allow the toads that live in the garden to take care of them. This means I have slugs munching on my plants at times and I lose some foliage and a few seedlings. When we first moved in we had tons of slugs, they were eating everything. Then the toads came and now they keep the population at a decent level. So I’ve made peace with the slugs and let them be just like every other garden pest. Every year I spot big toads and little baby toads at different time of the year. I know that because I don’t kill slugs they will stick around and multiply!
I have a few boards in shady spots around the garden because toads love to live under them. Toads also love it if you leave a few piles of leaves around for them to hide under. place a few plant saucers in the garden filled with water and rocks (make sure to change water regularly to keep mosquitoes from breeding), this is beneficial for toads, salamanders and insects.
What do you do when you spot slugs in the garden?
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Quote of the Day: Elizabeth David
“Every day holds the possibility of a miracle.”
~ Elizabeth David
This time of year the garden changes daily, new things are blooming and the world is coming alive. Every time I got outside I see something new and exciting. The world of brown is being transformed into a world of color each and every day. Here are a few shots from my garden this past week.
I’m certainly enjoying this lovely time. Spring is the best time for gardening, the weather is perfect, it’s exciting, there are few weeds and all the chores are fun. I’m making sure to enjoy the most of these early days in the garden. Soon enough the drudgery of weeding and the hot sticky weather will be upon us.
What miracles are happening in your garden this week?
