Sunday's strawberries

I must say that I’m rather pleased with the things I’ve planted in the garden. After the disappointment of losing so many seedlings while we were on holiday it was an uncommon pleasure seeing the mange tout peas and the dwarf beans popping out from their troughs.

And it surely won’t be long now until we’re harvesting rocket and baby spinach leaves from their respective hanging baskets. Three out of the four courgette seeds that I planted straight into a pot germinated and have healthy looking leaves (which leaves me with the dilemma of what to do with two of them as I’ve been informed that you can only have one courgette plant per pot – how do I choose which one to leave alone?). And my mini squashes are going from strength to strength. The tomato plants that my mum kindly brought (although they don’t replace my own deceased seedlings) are maturing a bit in the cold frame. I have been informed that I must resist transplanting them into hanging baskets until their pots are full of roots, so they get a daily inspection.

I had a scare with my chillies last weekend when I thought that in the brief spell of hot weather I had managed to scorch them to death in the mini greenhouse but they seem to have revived.

On a floral note I’ve managed to pick (well, cut with the kitchen scissors) a decent bunch of sweet peas to give to a friend and my Californian poppies are on the brink of flowering. 




None of my newly potted flower plants that I put in the front garden have died or been stolen and there are even some rose buds appearing. On the down side my sunflower hasn’t germinated (obviously not enough sun) and the wildflower seed that I sprinkled over the gravel out the front seems to have been defeated by weeds (unless the wildflower seed was actually weed seed). I’m not totally clear on what the definition of a weed is because some of what my mother disparagingly says are weeds actually look quite pretty.

As a bonus, the Christmas tree that we felt sure was dead seems to have found a new lease of life.

Despite all this relative success (I hope I haven’t spoken too soon) one regret persisted. I had no strawberries plants. My mum had told me a couple of weeks ago when they were visiting that I was too late to do strawberries so I did my best to move on. But their absence in my garden was hammered home yesterday when I saw a neighbour’s hanging basket full of them and the beginnings of some fruit. But fortuitously on the very same day my mum had some good news for me. During a phone call she randomly mentioned that she had read in the paper last week that it wasn’t too late to plant strawberries. I was on a mission now; if I didn’t get these plants today then I would definitely have missed my chance, the next few weekends being full of other things so the garden would not be a priority. My mum didn’t sound that optimistic though: she wasn’t sure that I would be able to source strawberries at the point in the season and even if I did she wasn’t sure they’d be economically viable.

So I planned my afternoon carefully. It would start with a trip to the dump as Matt, my husband, had prepared a car-full of junk from the roof (from previous inhabitants) for me to get rid of. Then I had in mind a route round various local garden centres based on a combination of convenience (it being a Sunday I had limited time before they would shut) and value.

The trip to the dump was, if anything, even more satisfactory than usual. I think the slightly drizzly weather reduced the number of visitors (this is based on anecdotal evidence only, when it’s sunny the dump seems to be rammed) so I had several men in fluorescent jackets assisting me with my disposal. Plus it was more straightforward than usual because everything was designated as “general household” so I didn’t even have to navigate around the various skips.

The first garden centre (or more technically a bit of everything centre) was both the most convenient and, I estimated, the best value. My luck was clearly on the up as available to me were 6 strawberry plants for £3.99. This did seem like good value, although I suppose I can’t really judge this until I’ve tasted the results. The purchase was not straightforward however. There were three different varieties: Honeoye, Elsanta and Pegasus – the description on the labels being remarkably similar. I had no idea which to choose and I knew that my mum was by now uncontactable (she hasn’t totally embraced the concept of the mobile phone). I tried to get some advice from the interweb but couldn’t find anything particularly useful. Lots of websites told me that strawberries are good in hanging baskets; but no websites told which strawberries are particularly good. I ruled out Elsanta as I know this is what you mainly get in shops and wanted to try something different. I wasn’t sure how to pronounce Honeoye, so this left Pegasus. I felt happy with this selection, Pegasus also being the name of a bridge in Normandy that Matt and I had enjoyed a visit to 3 years ago.

It was a good job that I hadn’t planted those tomatoes up after all as the hanging baskets that had been reserved for them would now be deployed for strawberries. I did a bit of hanging basket rearrangement in the garden to make sure that the strawberries would get the sunniest spot possible – hopefully this won’t be too much to the detriment of the rocket and baby spinach – and introduced the strawberry plants to their new home.

When I spoke to my mum this evening she seemed reasonably impressed – most likely at what seems to have been a bit of a strawberry plant bargain and also that I followed some instructions in terms of planting them shallowly. She advised that I give them some tomato feed. What ensued was my first ever plant science lesson:

• phosphorous makes roots
• potassium makes fruits
• nitrogen makes leaves

Apparently tomato feed is rich in potassium. Mum couldn’t explain to me the plant biochemistry that makes this so, but I feel inspired to find out. Watch this space…..

Saturday's shoe bag

Part 1

Wow, sunshine today. Proper sunshine. Or as Matt, my husband, said when I drew back the curtains this morning: we’re on an alien planet where the sky is blue rather than white.

Clearly the best thing to do on a sunny day is to go shopping. Today we needed specialist shopping: tyres + shoes. So Matt dropped me off for the shoe part the above equation while he headed off to the tyre centre.

It was not any ordinary shoes that I was after. No. I wanted dancing shoes. I have 2 pairs in black. One pair is rather the worse for wear - from a combination of Matt standing on my feet and me standing on my own feet (mostly the latter). The other pair are highly blister inducing (although they do have the benefit of sparkles).

We went out quite early. Well, early for a weekend anyway. Unfortunately the dance shoe shop didn’t open until 12noon. This scuppered the plan of Matt picking me up following the successful completion of both shopping tasks. But I wasn’t too disappointed: I was on the Barbican and the sun was out.

So I wandered around a bit, browsed one of the city’s best charity shops (narrowly resisting purchasing a bureau and several cake stands), bought 30 rather classy Christmas cards (all different designs which was immensely pleasing to me) and then met up with Matt for a bit more of a wander and then some tea and scones. By which time the shoe shop was open.

I have no pleasant memories of early shoe buying and things have not got much better as I have got older. The major advantage of today’s sortie was that I was buying dancing shoes so:
1. Colourful and / or sparkly was absolutely in order (I don’t think I ever had pretty shoes as a child)
2. Size 7 would be an option as well as my usual size 8 because my toes would come out of the end.

The shop was AMAZING. It’s like playing that game consequences (on the topic of games, I beat Matt at both a left- handed and right-handed thumb war this morning) with shoes: choose your style + choose your material (or materials) + choose your heel.  Unfortunately this made to order footwear take 3-6 weeks to come in and I want my shoes in 2 weeks’ time. Fortunately there were 5 possible pairs in stock. 80% of these fitted. 75% of these weren’t black. I chose some multi-coloured shiny ones with a medium heel. It’s the kind of fabric that changes colour depending on what angle you look at it from and I chose them for a combination of comfort and glitz. My only complaint would be that they didn’t come with a bag, but that would soon be dealt with.

My elation with my new shoes was tempered only slightly by the fact that during the time it took me to get them someone failed in their efforts to parallel park and scraped my car. I think it’s only cosmetic damage and it didn’t ruin my good mood.

Part 2

Due to our outing being longer than anticipated I had lost some of the time that I had planned to deal with the garden so upon our return I skipped lunch (I had had a scone and jam) and threw myself into it with gusto.

The first task was to clear the debris from my previous pruning. With a lot of brute force I got a large quantity of tree into some garden waste sacks. As the council seem to have omitted to reinstate green waste collection this year this would necessitate a trip to the dump later.

Then to assemble the mini-greenhouse. This was considerable simpler than the cold-frame assembly that I had done a month or so ago. The only challenge today was being in competition with Matt for space as he was putting the washing on the line. (Look at us with our gender role reversals.) Nonetheless mini-greenhouse erection and positioning was achieved and I was quick to populate it with my various young plants.

I had planned to plant out some courgette plants today, they are not thriving in the intermediate pots I put them in after they germinated. But Matt suggested to me that I could have a bit of a sort out of the front garden. I think he wanted me out of the way while he mounted the hose but this would also give me the opportunity to fill up the garden waste bag to make my trip to the dump worthwhile. So I dead headed the daffodils (I think I probably should have done this a while ago) and then set to work on the weeds. Apart from the dandelions I’m not really sure if they were weeds but I hadn’t planted them and didn’t like them (the second of these being my mum’s definition of a weed).

Weed free

The nice lady who lives up the road walked past with her dog and confirmed that mostly what I was pulling up was indeed weedage, told me that the little blue flowers are forget-me-nots and suggested that I might have pulled up a foxglove. Clearly my medicinal knowledge of the foxglove (it’s where cardiac glycosides such as digoxin come from) is greater than my botanical knowledge of it. But I suppose you’d worry if it was the other way around.

My bags for dumping were now complete but before I could make that journey I would need to tidy my car up a bit. This comprised putting all the stuff from my boot into my passenger footwell and putting all the stuff on the back seats into relevant carrier bags: woolly clothes, rubbish, maps etc.

My trip to the dump was the usual joy I find it to be: as an unaccompanied woman the men in fluorescent jackets helped me with everything. As a bonus today I managed to acquire some perfectly serviceable plant pots that someone else was about to condemn to landfill (or whatever happens to it these days).

Part 3

Matt was heading out for a boys night by the time I got back (couldn’t resist a very minor detour to a combined DIY + garden + craft + home etc. shop). There were many things that I planned to get done in my evening.

1. Eat something nutritious (lunch eventually consisted only of a glass of squash and a packet of my 2^nd favourite cheese flavoured snacks)

2. Do some laundry

3. Make a shoe bag

4. Make a cake

5. Pack for holiday

6. Catch up on some random programmes I’ve recorded from the TV

7. Knit another swan for my 12 days of Christmas knitting. And maybe a turtle dove too.

8. Clean the inside of the lounge windows

Of the above I achieved number 1 entirely with a beetroot, smoked mackerel and rocket salad. Failed entirely on numbers 2, 4, 7 and 8. I managed to put 4 books, a magazine and some pens into a rucksack as a start to number 5. I did about 20 minutes of number 6 (a very interesting programme about tea). And I did make a shoe bag.

I’ve had my mum’s old sewing machine since we moved in here over 2 years ago and it’s only been used once – by her to make curtains. During that time I have been collecting fabric; my intentions towards the sewing machine have always been honourable. Spurred on by my bagless shoes I thought it was high time I put the machine and the fabric to use.

It was not looking good when I couldn’t even manage to get the case off of the machine. Fortunately mum was at home and a quick phone call to her sorted that out; it would be the first of many this evening. It took me about an hour and 3 phone calls to thread the machine. The instruction book (complete with 1970s style pictures) was not bad but I was far from confident. There is a particularly entertainingly named part of the sewing machine called the feed dog.

I decided to make my shoe bag out of one of my granny’s old pillowcases. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. This had the bonus of having quite a few seams already. I would have to sew just one side and deal with the opening of the bag. Perhaps I should have followed a pattern but I was eager to get on with the sewing. I had a few problems with the machine not going properly but managed a temporary fix with a mini screwdriver. I was using a different colour thread to the pillowcase, mainly because I didn’t have any bright pink thread. This had the benefit that I was clearly able to see the thread. It had the drawback that I was clearly able to see my wonky sewing. I realised after I’d done one seam that the professional thing to do would have been to pin the fabric prior to sewing. But I am a novice.

I turned over the top to make a “channel” for the string bit to go. This ended up being very untidy but I had completed my evening’s sewing machining without breaking a needle (my mum seemed convinced that I would do this) or sewing my finger (the prospect of this has terrified me since someone did it at school, but the phone was reassuringly close by should I need to call for emergency assistance).

I think that it is conventional to put cord through shoe bags but I had none. I would have been quite possible to wait and buy some appropriate cord but I was keen to finish my project today. So I was thinking about using wool. Fortunately my box of wool is stored next to my box of random stuff. Some sort of intuition led me to the random box first and I extracted a suitable length of black ribbon.

I found it quite easy to thread the ribbon into the bag but was then left with the problem that I would also quite easily lose the ends. So I sewed up the exit holes a bit more. Which fixed that problem but I was left with an unsightly melee of threads. I had found some buttons earlier whilst getting the thread out of my sewing box (an empty Christmas chocolate tub) and positioned this to cover the worst of the mess.

For a first attempt I am rather pleased with the finished article. I can see why, when you’re at school, they make you plan things very extensively but it was kind of satisfying just sewing and seeing what happened. I’ve got loads of ideas for more shoe bags. But maybe tomorrow I ought to get on with the more urgent tasks of laundry and packing. And that might give my mum a bit of peace and quiet too.