Growing swiss chard

I haven't had much success with Swiss Chard in the past, in spite of it being an 'easy' vegetable. My fertilizer challenges (uh, I studied native plants, not nutrient-hungry vegetables) are evident in this regard, but I'm trying to mend my ways.

Compost, aged manure, mushroom compost, etc. as soil amendments aren't enough to maintain fertility, in continually cropped beds (eg. my main and satellite vegetable garden areas at home in the Piedmont- in the Southeastern US). So I've been mindful of the benefits of adding organic timed-release fertilizer (Espoma is one brand that provides a nice range of major and micro nutrients).

My new raised beds, in the mountains, though, have been (so far) quite supportive of leafy greens, being filled with compost and composted manure.

I've been delighted with the lush lettuce, radishes, arugula, and swiss chard that have been part of the early plantings, and have been in harvest mode recently.

This swiss chard is the nicest-looking that I've grown; it's not hugely lush, but hey, I'm quite pleased with it. And I'm sure it will taste good, too.

(But, stir-fried lettuce with sesame oil, onions, mushrooms, and garlic was on the dinner menu tonight!) And, I've warned my gardening companion that there's more lettuce to come....

Beer Festival.

4 pm , from the top of the drive. Warm but overcast for most of the day. It got very muggy in the afternoon, almost thought we were going to have rain but then it cleared up in the evening. I cleared some of the paved areas, moving planters and sweeping up leaves and stones ready to start with the pressure washer which I will be collecting tomorrow.
4 pm, looking north to the cliffs. Later in the afternoon I had to drive Peter into town. How good an offer is this? "Peter, can you serve behind the bar for a couple of hours at the Beer festival? No pay but as much free beer as you want." I can think of a lot of men who would jump at the chance. Not surprisingly Peter was only too happy to agree. Luckily/unluckily I'm one of those people for whom alcohol has no effect apart from a bad headache which could last for 2 weeks. That's why I don't drink and don't miss it. Eating is my downfall and I'm working hard on counteracting that.

When I drove down to the Pannier Market to collect Peter (one happy bunny), the festival was almost over. It had been on for 2 days and the market, being in the centre of town was a much better venue than the Leisure Centre which is where it had been held for the past 5 years. As well as beer there had been stalls offering local food and fresh coffee. As it was the end of the festival Peter had ended up with free pasties, burgers and sausage rolls and I had some free coffee from the posh tea and coffee stall. Peter was also given several beer festival t-shirts.

And another 2 lbs gone. It seems like this diet has gone on forever but the end is in sight, 5 more weeks should do it. Phew! I made another chestnut cake today, this time adding 4ozs of flour. It turned out much more cake like than the first version. I had some as this is a non-diet day but I shall put the rest in the freezer for when we have visitors. Apart from the rest of the soft nougat and some cake I've just been picking from the fridge and I wish I hadn't. I do think that I would have felt better with some fruit and a yoghurt. I think my body is becoming so used to healthy foods that it just doesn't enjoy the rubbish that I used to eat.

Heavy clay soil

I've been experiencing what is definitely heavy clay subsoil/building fill in the mountains.

Digging below the top layer of composted leaves and mulch, I hit almost solid clay, either red, or gray, or in between. It's not like the rocky clay subsoil of our garden in the Piedmont, which crumbles easily, making it simple to incorporate soil amendments like compost, ground pine soil conditioner, and leaves.

This stuff is ready for pot-making--slick, tough, and hard to break up. The best I can do in the new trellis beds (and elsewhere) is to liberally dig up the clods with soil conditioner and bagged organic 'garden soil' -- a mixture of peat moss, compost, and natural fertilizer. The clods of clay don't actually break up totally, even with repeated slicing with a shovel, but...there are earthworms in the mulch, so maybe they'll make some headway with more compost....

Stiles.

It has been dry today and reasonably warm. After a little weeding in the garden, and being visited by Active who daintily stole some grass from my weeding bucket, I decided to take myself for a long walk up the hill.

Walking along a farm track an inquisitive group of cows rushed up to their gate to see who was passing. I think cows are so funny, they are great lumbering creatures that run up to see what is happening then when you say 'Boo' they run away. See the touch of brown at the back of these Holstein heifers?

That's their lord and master, a ferocious Devon Red bull who spent the whole time hiding at the back of the crowd so I wouldn't see him. (I climbed up on the gate to get this picture.) However I would think twice before walking across a field with this group in. Farmers are supposed to not put dangerous animals in fields with rights of way across them but you never know.

I had walked diagonally across the field behind this stile to the gate because previously the 'stile' was a ramshackle affair with barbed wire and brambles across it. Obviously the parish council has been keeping a check on the local footpaths. Farmers do have an obligation to maintain any stiles on their land. Having read on someone's blog that stiles are not known in the USA here's some information as to why so many are found dotted around the countryside. Up to the 1750's there were few fences or hedges in the countryside. Arable farming was done by the 'strip' system where each peasant farmer grew crops on strips of land in large open common areas. This enabled a fair sharing of the better sections of land. Livestock were grazed on open common ground and were tended by herders. In the 1750's the wealthy landowners (for whom the peasant were tenants and paid a tithe of their crops as rent), decided that it would be more profitable to enclose the land into fields where they could keep more livestock. The tenant farmers were offered very small plots which were not sufficient to live on and many left the land at this time and became the urban poor. Because the land had been open up to that time there were many 'rights-of-way' and even when the land was enclosed farmers still had to allow access. As these paths may not have been where the farmers wanted to put gates and probably because people have always had a tendency to leave gates open, stiles appeared making it possible for walkers but not stock to cross the fence. On National Trust land you often find fancy stiles with little lift up gates to let dogs through. Where fields are fenced by stone walls there may be a set of stones jutting out of the wall to use as steps.

Here are a few of the country lanes I walked along this afternoon.

This is actually a dirt track that leads to a field.

Ashelford Corner. In this part of the country none of the roads have names (they do have an official B Road number but nobody knows them). Every minor junction does have a sign post showing what lies in each direction and the junctions have names which are shown on the sign post. It's OK giving directions to locals because you identify places by who lives where or farm names but it is much harder to give directions to outsiders. You have to remember how many little farm tracks the poor delivery driver has to ignore before making the correct turns. One driver had to make 3 calls for instructions to find us and once I had to drive out and find the lost person. It doesn't help that there is no sign at the top of our drive. It isn't our land and the stable owner next door was convinced that putting a sign up for the stables would encourage opportune thieves.

Trellises (inexpensive)

If I were the least bit handy, I could have built these trellises. But I'm not, and I don't have any woodworking equipment or fancy screwdrivers.

So these inexpensive, pre-made trellises, from a big-box store, seemed perfectly decent to try. They're made by a company that has redwood in its name, but these are probably stained redwood color!

I'll be improving the soil beneath the three new trellises tomorrow, and planting more pole beans, cucumbers, and maybe a twining squash.

Eventually, we'd like to have permanent trellises on the side of the apartment building, but that will require a bit more investment and work!

Bank Holiday Weather.

The hawthorn tree in the garden living up to its name of May Blossom.

It's a Bank Holiday weekend so no surprise that it has been raining all day. Not too heavy but persistent. This has forced me to do some housework, 2 grown men at home and neither of them can work a hoover! I've also been doing some sewing alterations. I'm not a careful seamstress but I am prepared to alter clothes to achieve my individual style. I've been working on 2 pretty tops both bought in the sales at the end of last summer. One was a mini dress which I had already converted by removing the frills at the bottom but also needed one of the frills at the shoulders to be removed as well. I've now started on the other top, it's a smock top which for some reason had several rows of elastic stitched at the bottom. Only a person who was the size and shape of a tooth pick could wear such a style and look good. The elastic was on a separate piece of fabric which I have now removed, and may turn into a hair band, and the voile fabric needs a hand stitched rolled hem. I can do that with the tv or radio chattering away for company.
Yesterday evening I was pottering about in the garden being serenaded as usual by the song thrush. Actually I think he was competing with a rival that I could just hear further up the valley. He has a wide repertoire but it was a surprise to hear his newest offering, the high pitched whinny that both of the foals make when they see something exciting. That really made me laugh. Another amusing wildlife incident happened on Thursday. I had just stepped out of the front door when a startled squirel dashed across the yard. It got into the long grass at the edge when something must have frightened it. It stopped and the next thing I saw was the squirrel doing a perfect loop the loop in the air above the grass. We don't often see squirrels in our valley though one did come to try and steal nuts from the bird feeder until I suspended the feeder from some fishing line over the stream. For a while we watched a slap stick routine from the window on the stairs as the squirrel attempted to tight rope walk over the rope crossing the stream or leap from a nearby branch. As every attempt resulted in the squirrel ending up in the stream it eventually gave up and left the nuts and fat ball for the birds. Recently the greater spotted woodpecker has been helping himself to the peanuts and scattering plenty of debris for other birds to pick up from the ground. The pair of sparrows that have taken up residence in the hole in the stonework by our bedroom window are very busy collecting flying insects for their young. They are quite noisy and remind me of the days when I lived in central London and the only bird sounds were sparrows & town pigeons.

Trellis gardening and pole beans

I'm using space between our house (in the mountains) and the next door apartment to set up trellises (and planting areas) for pole beans, yard-long beans, malabar spinach, etc.

The space gets full sun most of the day in the summer; we planted blueberries along the apartment side last year.

But challenged by space elsewhere (uh, I've filled up my raised stone beds already, probably overfilled them, to be sure). I'd be thrilled to have some vining vegetables in the corridor between our dwellings.

Cheap, probably fake, 'redwood' trellises are the supports; they're attractive, at least. And the apartment brick wall is not especially attractive, marked by cable and telephone lines, along with abandoned phone lines, etc.

Digging up the soil here isn't rewarding; beneath the decaying organic matter (leaves and bark mulch), there's more of the heavy gray to red clay, but at least this stuff is friable (unlike the compacted builder's fill in the front meadow). I've been 'fluffing' it up with soil conditioner (finely ground pine bark), and hoping for the best, as I've planted.

I've got a few more small 'beds' to dig up (I'll have a total of five trellis beds when I'm finished).

The End Of An Era.

After work I dropped into Brian Ford's to be met with the sight of half empty shelves as they sell off their stock prior to their closing in 3 weeks time. It looked so sad. BF's is/was the biggest independent supermarket in the UK. Here food sales are dominated by 4 chains that have enormous, gleaming stores. Each one with identical prices and identical layout no matter which town you are in. Every town or district will have 1 or 2 of these stores. There are 4 other food retailers, 2 cheaper and 2 more expensive with slightly smaller and less frequent stores. And that is the choice that most people have where ever they are in the country. Then there is a massive gap till you get to the tiny independent corner -shop type stores which are slowly being squeezed out of business by the big 4. BF's is unique in that it is very large, a whole warehouse with basic shelves or goods still stacked on wooden pallets. The normal branded food is the same price or more expensive than the big 4 but the fun part of shopping there was the random items they would have at cheap prices. Different every week, ends of lines destined for Europe or short coded items. We especially liked a range of frozen food, very basically packed by a company that sells to the catering trade. One week you could buy mini spring rolls or garlic mushrooms, another it would be vegetarian lasagna or battered prawns. By being selective we could eat very well at a reasonable price. I also like the fact that in the fresh food section were a lot of local vegetables as well as local meat. A year ago it was revealed that Tescos had secretly bought up BF's with its planning permission to expand and now the store will be closing soon. Some items are being highly reduced, shelves have been emptied, but other stock is still the same. I suppose they want to keep people coming in up to the end. I was cross to find my normal very cheap brand of clothes washing liquid gone. It's not only that it's cheap but I am very fussy about the smell and really can't stand some of the big name brands of washing liquid. So I had to stand there opening bottles and sniffing them to find one I didn't mind.Flowers on the rocky hillside. I have been teaching all day and had a really good day with my 7 year olds. They have been doing so much formal work with their SATs that once we had done some literacy I gave them a fun art session where I provided a variety of media and also paper in different sizes and shapes and let them do what they liked. My only instruction was that they spent the time doing art activities. Some children worked together, others made cards, others painted or got messy with pastels in shades of grey and they all had a creative and focused time. What more could I ask for?
At home the garden is blooming and the 'snow' continues to fall from the willow trees.

Kerala Style Home Elevation - 3500 Sq.feet

House Details
Total Area - 3500 Sq. Feet
Ground Floor - 2000 Sq. Feet(2 bed room)
First Floor---1500 Sq. Feet(3 bed room)

Architect: Praveen.M

Contact Address
Moyacheri (ho)
Kottakkal
Vatakara(via)
Kerala
India

Phone
04962275234(house)
+91 9645457494
+91 9388744505
praveenarchitect.m32@gmail.com

Growing plants

I find growing plants to be a wonderfully satisfying endeavor -- from vegetables to natives. It makes a difference for me, to feel like I'm restoring habitat and growing food.

I was reminded looking at some past photos, about the growth we've had in our raised beds here in the mountains.

I guess the raised beds are really 'mine', but we both built the beds, and both of us filled them with compost! Not an insignificant thing.

Everything is growing well, and I (ruthlessly) pruned the very robust tomatoes, and hopefully trained them up through the tomato cages or supports with ties, in some sort of proper manner this afternoon.

Hmm, I've not trained (or pruned) tomatoes before, but I know it's a good practice.

Check out some of the videos online (Fine Gardening and Johnny's Seeds) have nice ones.

Bye To Junk.

It has been a lovely sunny day but much colder in the wind and/or shade. My first job of the morning was to take another car load of junk down to the recycling centre. Something I always find satisfying.

Most of the rest of the day has been spent clearing up one of the sheds. I've put the bikes in there for the moment but I'm tempted to get rid of those as well as they are looking very old and dilapidated.

Looking across our valley towards Exmoor. Our neighbours' house is the white one in the foreground but our house is completely hidden by the trees.

The drive down to our valley runs on the other side of the long hedge bordering the field with the tiny dots that are sheep.

The country lanes are a joy to drive along. Who needs the Chelsea Flower Show when you have this to admire on your daily journey? I saw a bit of a programme covering the show and in the gold medal winning small urban garden they had included cow parsley though not in such abundance.

This was the road where once I started turning my walks into runs. Being a non-athlete and not too fit (I was actually very anaemic) I started by running from the corner to the second telegraph pole, not a very great distance. I ran 5 or 6 times a week and my only rule was that I had to at least run the same distance as the previous day and attempt to run 1 or 2 more poles if possible. I would then continue by walking to the main road before retracing my steps. Luckily this is a very quiet road and very few people saw me puffing and panting and turning bright red. From such tiny beginnings I was finally running the whole way from the top of our drive to the main road and back , a total of 1.7 miles (I measured it in the car). Unfortunately my knee which had never been too good became so painful that the doctor said I had to give up the running. That was such a disappointment. Now I have to confine myself to walking. It is so much easier to loose weight if you can do some serious exercise but now I'm stuck with eating less, bah!

Kids room decorations

These are some beautiful kids room decor came as email from my friend

Close to a full moon

The view up through the trees was stunning.

It's close to the full moon -- it'll be full tomorrow night, on May 27th. I follow the moon cycles because of full moon hikes; I didn't used to follow them, but it's fun to track the changes and notice what's happening.

My (very much younger) fellow gardeners at the Pearson Community Garden seem to adhere to the planting by the moon cycle; hmm, as someone who's been 'trained' as a scientist, I just nod politely, and keep weeding and mulching.

The Pearson Community Garden is a lovely spot, at the end of Pearson Rd., in the far reaches of Montford, and is land that has been owned by non-profits (most recently by Bountiful Cities Project) for awhile (apparently through a donation of land), although I'm not sure about the details.

I've had fun the last two Wednesdays (the community work days) digging and weeding. I enjoy the physical activity associated with vegetable gardening, and away from my main vegetable garden beds, it's satisfying to dig in!

Changing Weather.

It looks like the good weather is on its way out. It has been slightly cooler today but the big difference has been the almost complete cloud cover. It got rather muggy this afternoon and on my way home some of the clouds were an ominous dark grey, (and that was even after I removed my wrap around shades). It has just started raining , the lawns could certainly do with a good watering after I scalped them down to rabbit nibbled height with my new lawn mower.
Everyday now there are new flowers appearing in the garden. The flag iris were one of the few plants that I brought down with me from London. For 10 years, despite being planted in ideal conditions, every time a flower bud appeared it would be devoured by the snails and slugs. When I decided to move it to the new scree garden drastic measures were called for and I went out and bought slug pellets which did the job. Now I have a beautiful display of these lavender coloured iris. Last year one rhizome reverted back to pure white and this year there are several white flowers.

I think the big flag iris are so beautiful and to look at a specialist catalogue sends me into visual overload. I want to buy them all. They are quite expensive so I won't succumb until I move and only then if the conditions are right.

A Job For Linas ?

The sun still shone today but there was a noticable amount of cloud in the sky. As I drove home my view of the hills to the north was obscured by the sea mist that was already rolling in over the cliffs. It is still quite mild outside at 10.00, reminiscent of holidays abroad.
The wisteria is hiding its flowers at the top of the honeysuckle on the house wall. It was one of the few plants planted by the previous owners and we didn't realise it was there until it began to flower 10 years after we moved in. Unfortunately snails are very fond of wisteria blooms and and we loose them quickly. I do my best to remove any snails I see lurking around on the outside wall but they are a major pest here.
After teaching in the afternoon I went and treated myself to a few more plants for the garden, a couple of trailing geraniums, some osteospermum which I've planted in place of the ailing rosemary and a tray of sweet pea seedlings. I've always wanted to grow sweet peas so I thought I'd give them a go. I have put aside my principles and sprinkled some slug killer around them to give the sweet peas a chance to establish themselves.
Peter drove Linas down to Plymouth this afternoon for a job interview. It's not a proper job, just a 6 week internship as a web designer at a legal firm but even if it didn't progress to a job it would be good on his CV. He has got through to the next stage and has to produce a piece of work for them before they make their decision. Let's hope he is successful.
This morning before I could do any gardening I had to walk over to the stables to ask if they had seen my gardening glove. Yesterday Peter had seen Active (the hound puppy they are walking for the Hunt) take it from the patio table but she had run off with it before he could get downstairs. Luckily Paul had found the glove and it was in the back of his quad bike trailer.

3000 sq. feet Kerala style home design

Total area : 3129.54 Sq ft (278 sq meters)
Ground floor area : 2129.40 sq ft
First floor area : 1000.14 sq ft

Five bed room home
Large family living in GF and FF for big families,
Atractive Dining and drawing


Raj designs,
Architects and Engineers
North paravur,
Ernakulam,
Phone: 9446217543 Rajesh (architect)
sachinmadathingal@gmail.com

Stewartia

We don't have a native Stewartia at home, but we should. It's a lovely shrub, full of flowers when healthy and doing well.

Stewartia malacodendron (Silky Camellia) is one of our native species of Stewartia in the Southeast. The sister Asian species are also nice.

This specimen was in the NC Arboretum, along with several others, next to the Education Center. It was in full flower-- delightful!

Summer Days ........

Bluebells, buttercups,plantain and cow parsley.

We seem to be having a quick blast of summer time. Hot again today but temperatures are set to drop rapidly by the end of the week. I didn't get to spend the day at home where I'm sure I could have found something to do in the garden, but I spent the day teaching. I decided that my class could do with some fresh air (why be indoors when we have our lovely Secret Garden), so the children finished their day sitting in dappled shade or in the willow story- tunnel, reading their books to each other. We even ended up having our staff meeting sitting at the big round table under the trees. So much nicer than in the hot and stuffy staff-room.
Looking down the Lewis' Hill at 5.00 this afternoon.
At lunchtime I drove over to B&Q to take advantage of their 15% off week - end and bought myself an electric mower. The old hover mower is such hard work and not terribly efficient so I decided that to save my back I would splash out on a new model. I went for a fairly cheap and lightweight model and boy does it whizz through the grass. I have set it on the lowest cut and there were some terrible rattling sounds when it went over the flattened moles hills. That bit of ground is very stony and the dear little mole had brought quite a few stones up to the surface. As I didn't want to smash up the mower blade on its first outing I had to spend time carefully picking up all those surface stones. When I cut the lower lawn the amount of moss and longer grass being cut was unbelievable. I haven't put the grass box on the mower as I prefer to have the cuttings rot back into the ground but the bottom lawn does look as if I've been haymaking. I did have to keep stopping and clearing out all the cuttings that were clogging up the back of the mower. Now that these initial problems are sorted out I can see myself cutting the lawns in half the time and with much less strain on my back.

These last few days of sunshine have brought out all the wildflowers and the sides of the country roads are one gorgeous natural garden.

Hooray, another 2lbs gone. Today's treats were; chocolate and chestnut cake, boiled potatoes with dill pickled herrings and soft nougat. I think I may have overdone things a bit. Back on the straight and narrow tomorrow.

Moss sporophytes

I don't know much about individual moss species in the Southern Appalachians, but I do know that it's a center of moss biodiversity. On a walk this afternoon in the NC Arboretum, we enjoyed a lovely oak-hickory forest along the Natural Garden Trail, with regenerating saplings of all sorts of trees (maples, oaks, hickories, sassafras, etc.) in the understory.

I noticed these striking mosses in their reproductive stage; mosses produce sporangia (spore-producing structures) in their sporophyte stage. (Their alternate gametophyte stage is leafy-looking, and what we think of as moss, even though they don't have true leaves).

Summer Snow.

The Purple Beech starts the year with autumnal shades of orange.

It's days like today that make it so hard for us to even imagine leaving the peace and beauty of our little valley. I think even Peter is rethinking his plan to live closer to 'civilisation' when we are older but it is going to be hard to find somewhere that matches this place.

The atmosphere in the garden has been truly magical as all weekend long the air has been filled with a blizzard of fluffy white willow seeds blowing and dancing in the gentle breeze. (The white specks on the picture above.) The sound of birdsong resounded through the valley, apart from when Paul got on his industrial sized ride-on mower to cut the field or the contractors zoomed around at the top of the hill collecting the cut grass for silage. The song thrush sat in his perch almost at the top of the highest tree to sing his heart out both morning and evening as he does every day.

I'm not so sure that the spiders appreciated their webs being filled with fluff instead of nice juicy flies. As I walked through the garden I could occasionally catch the sunlight glinting on the on the singles strands of silk, sometimes 10ft+ long, spun by little spiders that launch themselves into the breeze. It has just been such a lovely warm day, 22C in the shade and at least 27C in the sun. I put on the final coat of gloss paint , pulled up lots of stinging nettles, did some school work and ended the day having a barbecue with Peter and Linas. They had the barbecue while I filled up on cooked cauliflower drizzled with some tadziki.

A male orange tipped butterfly feeding on the aubretia.

PS I do have the flower Snow-in-Summer which is just beginning to come into flower.