Happiness is…..wherever you make it!

Someone rang today to ask about this house, as a swap… as i/we might be leaving….to go to devon and make veggies there! ….And then i come on here and see all our lovely lovely happy time spent in the wilds of the nesh end garden, growing veggies, flowers, wild parts and all the other miraculous things that go on right under our noses…….and how can i/we leave it!!! Do i/we want to leave it……oh my…its such a wonder of delightfull happenings and growth and pleasure.

But, wherever we be, there will be yet another ‘nesh end’ to love, cherish and nurture…!!! ….as we have loved this one.!

We need you Bee

Where are the bees?

Those little love-sucking honey bees?

Lots of alarm is going on about how bees appear to be disappearing – fast.

Colony Collapse Disorder, or it’s more evocative name “Marie Celeste Syndrome”, has wiped out thousands of hives in the United States and in Europe. And now it seems the UK might have it too.

There was a feature run on BBC Devon spotlight a few weeks ago;local  beekeepers were imploring the Govt to put more money into research (at the moment its a pathetic £80,00 quid) to avert a possible crisis of catastrophic proportions.

Hives deserted, left empty. And all the bees gone.

One possible cause is mobile phones. Bees can’t navigate back to hives because their internal Sat Nav is scrambled by the radiation coming off mobiles.

If we lose all our bees the countryside will be devastated. Crops will fail, agriculture will collapse, bird populations will be wiped out.

Einstein said if the earth didn’t have any more bees mankind would only have 4 years left to live (i don’t quite know how he knew that – but he was a genius, so we’ll go along with him)

So basically, bees are precious little fuckers. We need them. We need to nurture them. We need to save them (every single one)

Which is why Georgi reports every time she sees a bee in the garden.

Its like a special news event: News Flash! – bee spotted in Lust Garden… it’s landed on a bush….now it’s in the long grass….now it’s veering over to a rose…..now it’s tickling a little purple poppy with it’s feet!….

We love bees.

And all of us have to love bees.

Cus then they’ll love us.

Pests are verboten!

Some sniggering was going on (from certain quarters) re the fencing around the patch protecting the veg.

But the cats haven’t got on. And the rabbits have decided not to bother either.

So the decision to wire mesh aand stake around our veg has been vindicated so far.

And George is doing a good job of keeping the snails and slugs off (with organic pellets)

So – so far – fingers crossed, its all coming up vegetables in our little patch.

They’re our babies!

And we’re gonna eat them all!

Veg Patch Update

Need to bring the veg plot up to date. This how it looks now

ROW 1 Calabrese (Bermuda Triangle is around here somewhere) …… Pots

ROW 2 Brussel Sprouts…… Pots

ROW 3 Beans………. Pots

ROW 4 Kale……. Peas…. (Nothing here at moment)

ROW 5 Broad Beans….Mange Tout…(Nothing here at mo)

ROW 6 Onions… (More Cauliflower♦)….. Cauliflower

ROW 7 Cucumber…. Cabbage…..Radish

ROW 8 Beetroot…… Cabbage

ROW 9 Squash…. Red Onions…. Courgettes♦…. Leeks

All the onions, peas, mange tout that got sowed into the ground directly haven’t grown. Georgi thinks that snails ate them cus everything else we planted and protected with slug pellets has survived.

So we’ve sown (♦) more cauliflower; courgettes, leeks.

We’re leaving the right side of rows 4 and 5 empty for planting out peas and mange tout George has just sown in the greenhouse.

All the pots are doing great.

The purple kale is the star of the show!

Butternut squash and cucumber were languishing a bit due to lack of water. But everything should now get sufficient watering cus George has bought one of these sprinklers

£4.49 from Tesco. The first one was naff, but she got it exchanged and the new one seems to be doing the business.

No need to worry anymore Cu and Squashie!

I took pics of every veg in their rows, but posting them all here would be retentive man (and bore the pants off all you rabbits that are reading this blog)

So thats the “latest” from veggie-land. Exciting ain’t it?!

Under the Apple Tree

This has – almost miraculously – transformed into a magical part of the garden.

Like an enchanted space

There’s a way to go in thro the wavy wild grass

and sit there in a quiet place

on the wooden bench Georgi has just painted

and think quiet thoughts

or read poetry

or paint pictures

or meditate

or have dreamy dreams

or simply feel gratitude

for being there and having such a lovely place to sit.

And maybe other lovely things can go on under that apple tree too.

Can’t they George!

The Bermuda Triangle

See this? This is a dangerous part of the veg patch. Be careful.

The calabrese wandered in, and look what happened to them – virtually disappeared!

All sorts of creatures, elemental beings, slimy slippery things (aka slugs and snails) have ventured in there, never to be seen again. Lost forever in a tangle of interlocking strings (inexplicably arranged – i believe its an ancient ley line configuration derived from the divination of druids)

Only Porge knows the way in, and way out.

Of the Bermuda Triangle.

I’m keeping well away.

Kale for our supper

So: we feel chuffed (well, i do)

First plate of the summer of homegrown veg.

Stand up you Purple Kale – and take a bow!

We only needed 6 or 7 leaves.

Doesn’t that do you good? – even to just look at it?!

And if you actually pop it on a plate

alongside a pork chop, baked potatoes, mushy peas, caramelised apples

- it does you even more good.

I enjoyed that meal loads (nice one Georgi)

Filling up

Lets see if i can give a sense of the overflowing “life” of the garden right now. Give you a sniff of how greenly growing it is.

Those are the good old reliable potatoes (as seen from the potato end)

All over everywhere is bursting out with summeryness. (I’ve just made that word up)

Poppies galorious (another word I’ve just made up)

as seen from the bottom end.

Actually we need to take some pics of how suddenly – and wonderfully – this bottom end of the garden has taken off into bright and beautiful life.

And also more overview shots to show all the diversity thats going on too.

We might be running out of energy resources everywhere else, but here the fuel of (green) life is full to overflowing.

Lets plug in!

Grrr! to slugs and snails

George is saying she’s running out of slug pellets.

Sound the alarm!.

All our lovely leafy veg is gonna be gobble gobbled up!

By those bleedin slugs and bleedin snails.

Millions of them slip sliding all over our beans and sprouts.

Shoot them George! Lay booby traps. Barb wire the trenches. Minefield in between the beds with the decomposed heads of, er… (whatever you like… something really disgusting tho)… have your 2 cats on watchtowers with rifles… spray the whole patch with the toxic gas of offal infected farts…. anything….Lol…….Go Grrrr!! at them….)

I is joking.

Don’t get friggin stressed….

Relax man…. this garden is a chill out zone….

(well yes, but not for you slugs and snails… and you wabbits… and you nibbly little furry fuckers … and you man eating aphids ….etc….)

Get that hammock out…. schmooze…..

Where’s all the birds?

More ecology and “green” stuff.

(Cus the garden is just doing its stuff at the moment. Greening like mad)

Garden birds are on the fall. Read this to find out how much.

Sparrows and starlings are falling sharply.

The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch say “Birds in gardens have fallen by a fifth since 2004″.

What doesn’t suprise me tho is the rise in wood pigeons. Up by – get this – 665%! The little bleeders. A 665% increase!

They’re ubiquitous. Everywhere, “Coo coo cu, cu coo” ing their dull plaintive way into the back end of your brain at the back end of your garden.

Anyway, I’m not gonna go off on one about them. Honest George!

I’m making them my friends. Giving them names (the one that wakes me up every morning on the dot of half 7 is called Freddy – bless his little cotton socks)

I wonder what birds we’ve got visiting Lust End?

Hopefully some sparrows and starlings and siskins.

We’ll keep a look out and have digi’s at the ready.

(But those jackdaws making a racket down the chimney can get lost!)

(says George)