21st February

Coincidentally, today it is two years since our father died and here's the Rowan Tree to remind me. The flowers on his coffin were lovely but the branches of Rowan berries seemed particularly appropriate and beautiful. Rowans thrive under difficult circumstances, do well in drought conditions and are fairly frost resistant. The flowers smell a bit like rotten meat, reminiscent of Dad's fridge, and in the Autumn the berries are stripped by the birds.

Now it is lazy gardening I am particularly enjoying at the moment so here's some of my favourite garden events. Starting with the rocket top left, I planted the seed and never got around to pricking it out or potting them up, let alone planting out. A row of seedlings has turned out to be ample supply for current demand and without any stress of moving it took awhile to go to seed. Top right the seeding spring onion finally fell over and a wealth of little seedlings have sprouted around it. Like wise the parsely plants below are volunteers.

I have been potting up any small self sown seedlings that I find to overwinter and get a jump start on Spring. Planting from seed in Spring doesn't produce parsely for eating until very late in the year. Bottom right is dill which suffered the same fate as the rocket. A row of seeds went in and that was the end of it. The dill hasn't reached it's full potential at all due to overcrowding and fairly quickly went to seed but there has still been enough for me to pick.

On the zuchinni front, gold zuchinnni, the comment might be 'live and don't learn'.  The itty bitty squitty photo bottom right could easily have been taken last year. I had some small insect infestation then and thought that they were the reason the leaves had browned to a crisp. In hindsight, the same thing happening again, I think the glasshouse is just too hot for them. The older leaves are brittle and dry so although the younger leaves are in pretty good heart, the plant as a whole is losing productivity and slowing down.
'How many zuchinni do you want?' Yes, you might well ask. Three jars of Fay's Zuchinni Relish (recipe lifted straight off the internet) is possibly a year's supply given all the other relish and condiments stowed away down here.

We snatched this photo on our last trip through the Pigroot just to show Annarosie that we may live in the middle of nowhere but there are still social occasions and signposted at that. The partygoers are geology students who start the year with a field trip up this ways every year.

To recap on the zuchinni. Next year I will stagger the planting a little more. I will probably only grow the gold zuchinni because they are less inclined to run to marrows and don't get waterlogged. They also look great in a stirfry and make the best relish. Beyond the first two of the season, the rest can go outside and make what they can of the summer. They don't seem to need the heat that corn, beans and pumpkins need to produce well.
 I can't resist one poem for the occasion.  Another by Richard Langston called:
 
He is There

When I wake.
He interrupts my nights.

In his empty armchair.
His folded glasses.

In the humor in us,
our appetites,
the heavy tread of our feet.

He is the bird lifting slowly
out of the dewy paddock,
the impenetrable spaces
above the sea.