mrsgarnettsgardendotcom

I decided to take my own little chutney making enterprise, which I sell on the front wall in fine weather, up a notch or two.  I took the online course for food preparation, (Takes about an hour online and £12.00) and now have a smart certificate! David says I should hang it in the kitchen in a frame!  Then I sent off for a bulk order of little pots and sauce bottles, having researched to find the cheapest sources, so there isn’t a hotchpotch of jars and loads of scrubbing off other people’s sticky labels. I have also organised labelling on the computer, having fathomed the mysteries of Avery labels at last.  Every jar will now have ingredients, date of production and the websites for this blog and village aid, which will receive the profits.

Anyway, I have made use of all the rhubarb, something which has done well in this miserable Spring, to make chutney,  sauces and ketchups, mint jelly with the mint which razzles everywhere, and some fresh curds using our free-range fresh eggs.  I am also trying to keep an accurate costings books and record the sales etc.   Half goes towards paying off my costs and half to Village Aid. I’ve raised £20.00 for them already from the doorstep sales this week, and that was with only three days of fair weather. 

The new branding of “mrsgarnettsgarden” will have an official launch after Church today when I am hosting a Village Aid support meeting and lunch.   It’s also Christian Aid Sunday, so I shall plug that as well.

We’ve just emerged from the wettest April- early May on record, into  bright blue, but frosty Spring mornings.  Chatsworth Horse Trials which were to have been this weekend have had to be cancelled as much of the grounds are almost marshy with surface water still.  I have been rather submerged as well lately so haven’t been on the blog, – stupid things like changing my password and then forgetting it, and not having the energy to reset. It is so often the minutiae of life that defeat the”genius”, or our subconscious blocks off certain rooms at times, and we don’t go in, even though we know we love doing what is waiting for us inside.  

But, somethings I have done well, like remembering to fleece up and cover my potatoes on frosty nights of which we’ve had too many recently. A wonderful tip told to us  which really works. – Light a candle in your greenhouse last thing in the evening if frost is predicted, and it will burn through the night, lifting the temperature just enough to protect all the tender plants. I have been using old bits of church candle and it really works a treat. Warm as toast next morning in there.

We came back from Madeira with some “everyday cabbage” seeds, the plants which are in every garden there and provide greens throughout the year. The plantlings have done well so I will plant out soon on my patch.  

The spell of really mild weather we’ve been having here in England has encouraged me to sew my peas and broad beans, and to plant out the broad beans I had brought on in the greenhouse. The central plot of my allotment which is about twenty-five feet square is beginning to fill up as a result from the wall end. I generally stick to Bunyard Exhibition for the Broadbeans and Hurst Longshaft for peas,  though I sowed an extra row of Rondo peas which someone gave me.   Stopping the mice from munching the seeds is the first challenge, but I have scattered tansy leaves over the row to distract them from the scent of the pea seeds. At least it is something to do with Tansy, which I grow in abundance and then never know how to use!  It is a medieval medicinal herb, but too astringent for  today I think.  I have also planted a long row of parsnip seeds, with  radishes, which act as a useful marker and quick cash crop before the parsnips emerge. I should have planted parsnips in February, but I don’t expect it will matters much if they are delayed a few weeks. 

Today’s lunch will be one of my “Cornish Connection” concoctions, as David calls them,  of green soup, – nettles, baby kale leaves, cabbage leaves , and sprouting greens, flavoured with chives and shallots and some frozen borotti beans left over from last year.  It tastes pretty bland without cheese added, but I am sure it does one good!

I have planted all the onions which had grown roots in the seed trays as well, so we are on the way to a new growing season!.  Bunty the little cat, who was so good at discouraging the mice last year, has abandoned us for the Duchess’s garden where there is a heated greenhouse, but I hope to lure her back again with my cat mint.  

I am pleased to report that the dove family is reunited with the female turning up from somewhere. The male has held their territory in the garden all winter, but there are now two of them sitting on the branch in the bottom garden. She has her little head on his shoulder.  It is all very romantic!

We had standing room only in Church yesterday, ran out of service books and hymn books, more than a hundred people took communion and a further sixty went up for a blessing,  and the reason for this? Well apart from Mothering Sunday and natural enthusiasm for our little country parish, there was a popular Christening. The little baby son of one of the school’s teachers came, and for a while David has been discussing baptism with the children in assemblies. Mums, Dads, aunties, everyone rushed along to share in this happy event.  I had a special role in all of this, as I helped his mum change his nappy during the final hymn, hiding behind the  font.  He was a very quiet little chap with b ig blue eyes, and all of 14 weeks old.  I looked at him and thought hard about the life which faces him, wondering where he will go and how it will be for him. Babies do that to you, bringing on a bit of philosophical musing.

Yesterday was the first Mother’s Day without my mother, so it was bound to be rather emotional.  I was with her for 59 of her 89 turbulent years, and the last two years in particular have been very intense.    It takes a while. I still find when I go into the Co-op that I gravitate towards the deli counter to buy one slice of turkey, or scan the pet food aisle for special offers on Whiskas.  But I was so happy she could go without too much pain and incapacity, and stayed at home until almost the end.

The generations hand on the relay baton, one to another. Our DNA somehow runs through the various generations. I feel my ancestors more these days than ever before, especially the unknown ones, as there are many mysteries in our past.

We build on the past for the future, and yet all have this unique life and character which no-one else will mirror.  That is perhaps the most exciting part of motherhood, producing  new life which can shoot off in any direction.

Ho hum.

 March 14th

On the subject of livestock, I was thinking of keeping rabbits. Apparently a rabbit produces a cubic metre of droppings a year, which would activate a huge compost heap.  But our last rabbit, Lucy, was eaten by a horrible fox  back in 1994, and I wouldn’t want to go through that again.  Hens, of which we have a couple of dozen, produce more than enough compost activator.   Our son Tim just told us the following sad story.  He was taking a shower the other morning when he heard the most awful screaming sound coming from his neighbour’s garden. Looking out the window he thought he could see a large cat grappling with their giant pet rabbit on the back lawn. Dressing as quickly as he could, he ran round and banged on the neighbour’s door to tell her.  When they went out into the back garden the rabbit, a huge breed,  was dead,  and the predator had been crippled by a vigorous kick from the bunny as it had fought back, and was hiding in the border.     It turned out not to be a cat, but a mink,  which had obviously come in from the railway embankment next to the neighbour’s far wall.  The RSPCA subsequently came to capture the animal, not too difficult as it could no longer walk, and presumably put it out of its misery. But this is proof that generations of mink, released from mink farms by animal activists twenty years ago or more, are still breeding and predating our pets and wildlife.  They have obviously grown even bigger in the process.   And all this drama happened in urban Liverpool last week!

You may notice that blog entries like buses are coming in batches! I have saved them in draft and have now popped them on the website. Feedback from my loyal readers is always welcome!