Month: March 2017

The grey water from the kitchen sink and the washing machine normally leaves the house via these pipes and a soak away to end up amongst the gooseberries and other soft fruits. This is an arrangement that has pleased them all (and me) up until recently, when the water started spreading over the basement floor instead of going ‘away….’

After convincing myself that roots from uninvited  shrubs – yes, I mean you Chaenomeles japonica! were interfering with the drains – I dug down to see. It wasn’t the roots.  And it wasn’t pretty and didn’t smell that great either….10 years of accumulated sink and washing machine gunk clogging the pipes.

All cleared out now and running clear again. Until the next time….

I am feeling that the season is ‘early’ this year. I mean that, for some reason, the soil seems warm enough to plant/sow into now.  Looking back at my sowing journals for the past four years I’ve done nothing until the end of March/beginning of April…  but this year feels different.

I am going to go with my intuition and will direct sow some peas and radish and rocket and maybe some spinach. And I’ll get some trays filled with seed compost and put in the tomatoes and tomatillos.

This could all be a huge mistake!

Narcissus ‘Jetfire’:

Narcissus ‘Tete a Tete’ and unknown Snowdrop variety:

Crocus ‘Pickwick’:

Daphne odora aureomarginata: The Breton drizzle and low cloud that has been dampening both my spirits and the garden, finally stopped. The storms and high winds of the other day are almost forgotten and Spring flowers take centre stage. And today has been a beautiful  day.  Lots done in the garden. All fine in my world!

 

Hellebores have never been a particular favourite of mine, but this one was -50% last year, so I bought it just because…and I rather like it.  So, this is the beginning of Balanou Gardener. I had to start somewhere!