The Late Shows with Moorbank

I love The Late Shows.

I work full time so having stuff open in the evening is spot on for me. Plus, as a hard-of-hearing non-drinker, I've gotta to say pubs are losing their appeal... But how about a visit to a gallery or the botanic gardens of a Saturday night instead? Now yer talking!

The Late Shows are in their 6th year & put on a defiant front in the face of the Civic Centre's vicious Arts funding cuts. The range of events & activities over last Friday & Saturday night was just amazing.

All aboard the culture bus

The venues where scattered throughout Newcastle & Gateshead, so the open-topped sight-seeing buses were drafted to ferry people from Moorbank Botanic Garden at the top of Claremont Road, to Ouseburn & over the river to The Baltic & The Shipley Gallery in Gateshead.

Attacked by a cherry tree on the open-topped bus back into town

 

Many of the events were free & visitors got glow stick - a really nice idea: as the night draws in & you walk from venue to venue, you can spy fellow culture vultures. You realise quite how many people aren't just out for the usual night on the lash.

Got me a glow stick!

1st stop for me was Moorbank. The Garden has had a stay of execution since I wrote about it last, & the Friends are working their socks off trying to secure the funding & the permissions to keep it open. All power to 'em!

It was a bit too dark for visiting the outdoor areas but the glasshouses were just magical in the evening light.

Totally Tropical

How orchids should look, rather than dead like mine

In the Tropical House the orchids were putting on a spectacular show. On my last visit the volunteers mentioned that most of the orchids are donations - folk buy them from M&S, but once the flowers die they've no idea what to do with them. Moorbank clearly do! I really should've donated mine rather than consigning it to the compost heap...

Gotta love pitcher plants

Moorbank also has quite a collection of carnivorous plants, & I do love them for their weirder shapes. I know they're quite difficult to keep but the ones here, like everything else, just look amazing.

Desert sessions

If you visit Moorbank during the day, the key atmospheric difference you notice between the 2 main glasshouses is the humidity: moist in the Tropical House; dry in the Desert House. But visiting in the evening you also get: hot in the Tropical House; cold in the Desert House. Ah yes, desert can get cold at night. I always forget this, even though we saw frost on Saharan dunes (& I froze my ass off) on our Tunisian daybreak camel ride (on holiday, a thousand years ago).

A number of cacti were flowering

After admiring Moorbank's cactus & succulent collection, you could mosey round to the Cactus & Succulent Society's stand & take a little bit of the desert home with you - on the walk up Claremont Road, it was so cool to pass happy customers proudly clutching their new pets.

Not so starry night

Folks from Kielder Observatory were also a Moorbank for The Late Shows. The Gardens back onto part of the Town Moor & so are in one of the darkest areas of the City, so the plan had been to do a little stargazing... No great surprise then that we had the foggiest night so far this Spring. I have this kind of track record with astronomical observations: I made the trip to our nearest event for Stargazing Live a couple of years ago & of course it was cloudy. We got luckier in 1999 after hauling ass down to Cornwall for the eclipse - it was cloudy but we were at Mullion Cove on The Lizard, one of the few places in the UK where the cloud lifted right on cue. Pretty damn cool.

So instead of looking at Saturn & Jupiter, the lads from Kielder took us though some beautiful photos from the Cassini probe (& others). Check this film of the Huygens lander floating down to Titan:

It's liquid methane down there & the surface was described as like "crème brulee" - crispy on the top & squidgy underneath.

Is there anybody out there?

The Kielder chaps also spoke about the potential for life on other planets, & about waterbears. These microscopic chaps are a tough as they are tiny - this from Wiki:

Tardigrades can withstand temperatures from just above absolute zero to well above the boiling point of water, as well as pressures greater than any found in the deepest ocean trenches, ionizing radiation — at doses hundreds of times higher than would kill a person and have lived through the vacuum of outer space. They can go without food or water for nearly 120 years, drying out to the point where they are 3% or less water, only to rehydrate, forage, and reproduce.

Why did they need to evolve this battery of superpowers to survive life on earth?
Well, maybe they didn't.
Maybe they.... CAME FROM OUTER SPACE!!!

Summer breeze

With my mind well & truly blown, I hopped onto the culture bus to hit the Laing Gallery & their current Sunlit Pleasures show. Ahhh... virtual Vitamin D... mmm...

The Late Shows - here's to more of them.

Rhubarb!

Our rhubarb has plans for world domination. Like most plants in our garden, it is ignored most of the time. Maybe this is why it's so big - it's craving attention. We took 2 chunks out of the crown last year for friends - you'd never know.

I love the look of the rhubarb - big leaves, interesting stems, a good bit of green structure. It's like a Gunnera for small gardens. But I don't like the taste of it. Hubby does, but bless him he's only 1 man with a mountain of rhubarb to climb... eat... whatever.

Psst... want any rhubarb?

We were in the Farmshop the other week, idly mentioning that the rhubarb's 2013 campaign was well underway (none of this "don't harvest when there's an R in the month" stuff for us) & the fruit & veg lady said:

"If you have any spare, we'll take it."

"Really?!"

"Absolutely! We're always looking for local suppliers."

"What? But we grow it in our garden!?!"

"Fine with us!"

How odd, we thought. Schurely sche can't be scherious.

A couple of weeks later we checked again, partly cos the rhubarb was now trying to push down the new fence (it shall not be contained!). And the shop staff were still keen.

So this Friday morning, I harvested just under a quarter of the stems from the plant & shipped them to the shop on my way to work.

One quarter gone - tis but a scratch
(the sorrel bottom right is picking up too)

2 kilos once the leaves are off

Knock, knock

The guy stocking up outside the shop was a little surprised to see me rock up with an armful of rhubarb, but once I'd explained the deal, he looked it over & was really keen:

"Ooh it's really good quality!"

"Really?"

"Oh yeah, really nice."

"Cool! Glad you like it."

He then found a snail on the underside of one of the leaves...

"Yeah, there might be a few of them..."

"No problem"

& so ensued a short conversation on snail species identification & edibility...

We're (sort of) famous!

On the weekend we were back at the Farmshop & there by the door was a sign saying "Homegrown Rhubarb". That's us!

Mind, not all the rhubarb in the box is ours - some of it was a bit green in the stem, & I definitely didn't pick any green stems. To be fair, as soon as they saw me they 'fessed - they'd put some additional rhubarb into the same box, sourced from the nurseries in the next village. Still local, but a bit cheeky, given the 'homegrown' label.

Fruit & veg lady was very enthusiastic about ours tho':

"It was lovely. Most of it sold really quickly.
If you have any more, we'll happily take it."

How cool is that! & when we got to the till, we got some cash off our bill to the tune of the trade-in price of 2kg of rhubarb. Yay!

So, bartering is back! It all went so well we'll doubtless do it again. Our compost bin won't see much rhubarb mulch this year, which seems much less of a waste. Plus, we now also have an alternative outlet for our annual gooseberry glut - bonus! Jury's still out on the snails tho' - I'm not sure the region is quite ready for fresh Northumbrian Wallfish.

p.s. If you know me in real life & want any free rhubarb or gooseberries, shout up before we ship it all off to the Farmshop.

End of April catch up

Crikey, nearly a month since my last post. Is it because I've been too busy doing actual gardening? Of course not.

But that doesn't matter as it's been a fairly sunny round here this April. Admittedly some of the showers have been a tad, erm, white & lumpy, & the temperature has been up & down like the Assyrian Empire. But the garden has clearly decided Spring is here & is just getting on with it. That's the spirit!

So how's everything getting along while I've been maximising my quality sofa time?

Bay cuttings

When I pruned the bay last year, I had a go at taking cuttings from the trimmings.

2 pots, 3 stems per pot, over-Wintered in the greenhouse & they seemed to be going well. But I've been as slow to get started as Spring has & the other week Hubby spotted the cuttings were wilting. With the weather heating up (a bit) they weren't getting enough water. So I've moved them outside & given them saucers, to help them keep some of the rain they catch.

Some green left on the Autumn's Bay cuttings

As you might be able to spot in the pic, at least 2 of the 6 cuttings still have green in their leaves, so hopefully they'll strengthen as Spring progresses.

Magnolia flowers

The week before I put the stairs into Stinky Dog Corner, I bought a couple of trees: a Himalayan Birch, for the top of those steps; & a Magnolia for The White Corner, bottom right of the garden. To be honest I didn't think the Magnolia's flower buds would survive a March planting, but 3 or 4 look like they might just hang on in there. Yay!

New tree: Magnolia Manchu Fan

Old bulbs

In The White Corner, the Magnolia joins some other white plants put in previously. A few years ago I started thinking about playing with some colour theory to make the garden feel a bit longer: strong colours nearer the house; paler ones further away.

So a few years ago, I declared (in my mind) the bottom right end of the garden The White Corner, & I put in some white tulips & pale daffs.

Tulips & daffs in The White Corner

I love the pale green on these tulips, & the flowers are huge.

So, normal sized daffs, fairly large tulips, large tulip-shaped magnolia flowers... yep I've just realised that my colour/distance illusion is going to be shattered cos it's not accompanied by an illusion of scale: large flowers in strong colours nearer the house; small flowers in paler colours further away. Doh!

Hellebore

Also new to The White Corner this Spring, planted underneath the Magnolia, is a white Hellebore... Well it was white when the flowers were new. I didn't realise the flowers would change colour as they aged & set seed.

White (& pink & gold) Hellebore flowers

Bonus!

Dwarf narcissus

Dwarf Narcissus in the Eye bed

The bulbs I planted late last year are going great guns & have brought much joy between the snow showers. The daffs were 1st up & have put on a beautiful show regardless of what the weather has thrown at them. Fair play.

New tulips

2 sorts of tulips went in at the same time as the dwarf daffs. The orange Shakespeares have come & gone & to be honest I was a little disappointed - their colour wasn't as punchy as I'd hoped. Hopefully the Synaedas will be more zesty when they make an appearance... & that should be an "if" cos none of the tulips currently maturing are orange... they're all purple:

The Queen Of Night tulips are starting to colour up

Wow! Looks like these Queens are going to be suitably regal. The purple edges look very much like the dupion silk of my wedding dress.

New Alliums

Last of the new bulbs are the Alliums. I've had them before but they don't seem to stick around in the beds, so this time they're all in pots so I can keep a good eye on them.

The first Allium flower head makes an appearance

The leaves are suitably & noticeably oniony, which I really like. Hopefully when the flowers explode, this tall slender pot won't get toppled.

Onions

I planted them! I found a little time a couple of weeks ago to get them in the ground:

They're alive! The shallots are sprouting! Yay!!!

I've got 2 of these module trays, plus I planted 10 out in the central Twisty Hazel bed. Most of them have started to sprout, one so vigorously it was pushing itself out of the ground... I maybe shouldn't firm down the soil in the seed tray so enthusiastically...

Salads

Hubby's done a great job of keeping an eye on the Greenhouse Gutterbeds:

Lower pipe: over-Wintered coriander & parsley.
Upper pipe: this Spring's mixed salad.

The parsley & coriander in the lowest row have struggled through the Winter - not really vigorous enough to harvest, but hanging on in there. I guess if we plant them out into the main greenhouse bed they might make for a good early crop.

I'm really good at buying seeds I never plant, so this time Hubby's stepped in & put some Spring salads in the middle gutter. A mixed leaf selection closest to us, some little gem lettuce in the middle & some flat leaf parsley at the far end. Hopefully we won't have to wait so many months to harvest these.

Weeds

& of course the early weeds are making a Spring dash too, but I did manage to get in some mid-week weeding recently. My compost bin's never hot enough to properly deal with serious weeds like dandelion & burdock, so I usually put them into my Council garden waste bin. But this time I thought I'd give Alys Fowler's soggy rotten bucket suggestion a go.

Bad-asses in the bucket

But Hubby came in this afternoon & cheerily announced:

"Whatever's in the bucket is sprouting nicely..."

The leggy buttercupy things are loving it in there. I've given them another mushing but if by next week the bucket looks more like a pond, into the Garden waste they go.

Hopefully, at some point soon, I'll get out there & sow some more seeds, & fill the gaps the weeds have left.

Can I keep on top of the weeds this year? Only time will tell.
Let battle commence!

Treasure! Free onion sets!

It's been a gloriously sunny week. & despite last night's rain sounding decidedly lumpy, most folk round here are more than ready to declare Spring officially sprung. The daffs are blooming - that's good enough for me.

& if the prospect of Spring wasn't exciting enough, I scored some free onion sets from a friend at work. Result!

Don't they look jewel-like?

They're a mix of white, gold, long red & round red. No idea what specific varieties - the colour/shape descriptions are good enough for me.

I'm very excited about having a go with these. I blagged some free sets last year too but blew that opportunity by never quite getting around to planting them out. I shall endeavour not to waste this gift in the same frivolous manner.

& reading that paragraph back, I see that I need to simmer down - some alarm bells are clanging...

Shoulda woulda coulda

In the past I've given myself a real hard time for things I feel I should do. I had a really rough time a few years ago, so got some counselling. One of the best bits of advice my counsellor gave me was:

"Beware 'should' statements."

You know, those niggles of I should do this, I ought to do that. Those guilty little thoughts that have us skulking off to do something begrudgingly... but for folk like me they can open the door to the downward slide, & frankly who needs that? I'd much rather do stuff with spring in my step & a song in my heart; do things cos I want to do them, not just cos I should.

My counsellor suggested examining the shoulds when they popped into mind because, she said, they frequently come from things folk have said in the past. Not always nice things. Rarely for the recipient's benefit. Often for the other person's own ends. Not all of those shoulds were meant maliciously, far from it, but they've become poisonous over the years. So shed that baggage - Spring is the perfect time.

So, there are no promises that I will plant these onions. & no getting depressed if this lot rot in the bag just like last year. I may plant these onions, I may not. & if I don't, it's probably cos I was off doing something that was more important to my mental health at the time, like yomping up hills with hubby, or getting in some quality, guilt free, relaxing, sofa-time....
mmm... sofa....

Loving the jolly dwarf narcissus

I'm fine

Shop assistant: Those shouldn't be stacked on the trolley like that.

 

I'm making my way to the till with 4 sleepers from the gardening section of our small local B&Q. I stacked them upright in the boards bit of the trolley. I spose they should've been lying flat. They haven't moved though. I'm being slow & careful.

 

Do you want me to stack them for you?

 

It's not far to the till. The shop's really quiet...

 

I'm fine.

They shouldn't be like that.

It's OK, they haven't moved.

I head for the till & take my place in the queue. After a couple of minutes, he's back.
 

I can stack them for you...

I'm here now; it's fine.

But they shouldn't be like that. Shall I stack them?
It won't take long.

I really don't mind.

 

& so he starts to rearrange the trolley. After he's moved 1 sleeper & is just starting on the 2nd, it's my turn at the till. I need to move the trolley, but he's got an armful of sleeper...

 

We're on.

 

I start to pull the trolley toward the till. He staggers forward with the sleeper & dumps it back on the trolley. I have to brace against it to stop it rolling into my shins.

There's another problem - the sleepers don't have a barcode. A member of staff is required to go get it. Our man volunteers, but not until he's finished stacking the remaining 2 sleepers.

So I wait. The tillfolk serve the other customers. & I wait. & I wait.

Eventually, he's back.

 

Can you believe it?! The manager told me off! For helping you!?! He said "She said she was fine". But it's health & safety!

 

His feelings are hurt. He's confused. He's looking to me & the till lady for sympathy...

Even more eventually he hands over the code. I finally pay for the sleepers.

 

Do you want a hand with those to the car.

No, I'm fine.

But it's a bit bumpy out there.

I'm fine.

But it can be quite dangerous & the trolley can run away....

No thank you, I'm fine.

 

He goes away. Finally.



 

Back at the trolley, I check my receipt. They've only charged me for 3 sleepers. I've got 4. I toss the moral coin in my mind, but I already know I'll go back & pay for it. I approach the lady at the till & explain. She thanks me for my honesty. While we wait for the card machine to do its thing, I feel the need to say:

I'm a big girl. I can lift stuff. I will be OK.

 

She said: I used to lift stuff all the time in here, but since I've been back from maternity leave, they keep me on the till.

 

It depresses me that some folk still think that women can't lift anything heavier than a shopping bag. Maybe it's a generational thing - my 'assistant' was 60 if he was a day. Maybe he thought he was being gallant. But, if he wants to take the health & safety line, I'd wager his back was more at risk than mine.

 

Besides, who the hell does he think is going to be lugging these sleepers around the garden all afternoon...?

 



One step at a time

The snow was back Sunday morning.
But I still have a tree to plant in stinky dog corner.
But I've got more structural work to do before it goes in, & that's going to take all day.
But it is quite literally baltic out there...

I bought the tree last weekend & it has already fallen over in its pot once, when the wind got up midweek. Fortunately it isn't damaged, but I do this all the time: buy something expensive & leaving it lying around neglected/rotting/dying.

But today is not that day.

Grasping at a very short straw (that it was very sunny for about 30 mins between the very brief snow showers), I decided to Carpe the damn Diem & get out there.

A quick jaunt to B&Q, filling up the passenger seat of little car with "rustic sleepers", then back to the ranch to use them as steps of the grand dog corner terracing plan.

An editorial aside: As (for me) this blog is about playing with blogging tech as well as gardening, I'm now going to try something new. Those waiting since the New Year for Japan posts will know that I'm struggling with a content backlog, so I'm wondering if a format change might help. For this post I'm going to try intro - piccies - outro, with all the explanation in the picture captions. I'd love to know what you think.

1st things 1st: Finish clearing the rest of the weeds from stinky dog corner.
All systemic weeds though so they're not going into my compost heap;
they'll go into the Council compost bin instead.

That's not vermiculite & meteors. That's snow.
I think my face has frozen.

Straight down the centre line:
I've still got the centre point pegged out from last year's path laying,
& the steps will respect that arc.

So, how far apart should they be?
A bit of shuffling the sleepers, measuring, & marking with bamboo pegs.

Cutting the steps out of the top soil.
A bit of level checking at this point too, so I'm at least in the ball park.

Weed barrier fabric laid in overlapping sections, with bamboo rails to
help keep the corners tight. Hopefully, by not using just a single run of
fabric from top to bottom, I'll reduce the risk of movement across the
whole run.

The sleepers placed on a bed of sand, levelled left to right, but with a slight tilt
backwards. The sleepers are not pegged down in anyway as this won't be a high
traffic area... I might revisit this decision if things start shifting though.

The rest of the fabric is covered with sand.
There'll be more gravel once I've nipped back to B&Q.

As you can see, there's more work to do: the rest of the terracing needs to go in. Then planting to soften the edges, maybe some low-lying things in gravel &, oh yes, plant the feckin' tree... still didn't manage that. But I was chuffed with my afternoon's work, and my ability not to trip up or stab myself while trying to think with an ice cube brain. & I learnt that it is waaaaaay easier to keep going than it is to get started.

So that's the end of the post - please add a comment to let me know what you think of this format. Thanks! :)

Honoured guests & unwanted pests

The plan on Sunday was to plant a tree. That was the plan. But that's the thing with plans - they change.

While grubbing around in the bottom left corner of the garden where I want to plant the tree, I spotted this in the top of the boundary wall:

Signs of burrowing

Look closely between the stones & you'll spot 2 holes. Too big for mouse holes. This is rats again, & alive this time, not dead in a bag.

I imagine the wall is a dandy ratty abode. Stone on the outside, soil on the inside, plenty of room, shelter, & rarely disturbed... a veritable des rodent res.

I can't let this stand, I have to do something to deter the rats from remaining in residence. So this revelation scuppers another plan - not only am I not planting the tree, but I am now removing my attempted honeysuckle screen.

Best laid plans

Down that end of the garden, over the other side of the wall, the neighbours have their dog cage. And it stinks. It's not hosed down much, so the smell is rank most of the time, proper gopping on a sunny day. It's a shame cos that corner of our garden would be an ideal location for a water feature, or a bench on which to sit & catch the last of the evening sun. But such whimsy is just not an option because of the overriding stench.

I had hoped to create a sweet smelling, long flowering screen, by training the vigorous honeysuckle we already have over a trellis. A trial trellis went up last year & the honeysuckle has romped away. So this year I had intended to replace the trellis with something more sturdy & keep weaving the tendrils in.

But now... it's got to come down. I need to keep an eye on the wall to see how much rat action there is. Time for a Plan B (or is that C...?).

Everybody out

The soil in the wall supports many plants: a nice blue trailing thing; the occasional mountaineering foxglove; a whole host of nettles; 2 tree saplings.... yeah, these guys should've been out well before now...

I quite like nettles. If you can tolerate them in the garden, they're great for the wildlife (caterpillars & pollinators), good in the kitchen & you can even make textile dyes from them: green from the tops & yellow from the roots. And the yellow roots I think are my favourite bit of the plant, cos it means that when I'm yanking them out I know exactly what they are :)

Yellow nettle roots

Deter & observe

With the top of the wall cleared, I want to keep it that way so I can see what level of ratty activity we're dealing with. So I took the soil level down a bit & lined the top of the wall with polythene. The garden waste recycling bin is already full from the purge the other week, so I'm having to bag up offcuts at the mo. I'd just nipped up the shop for a new roll of garden sacks & figured they'd make a great (& cheap, & to hand, & just the right width straight off the roll) alternative to some of that barrier membrane stuff we've got under the gravel.

Plastic down, & covered with 2 bags of gravel, it now looks a lot tidier:

Gravel dressing over a double layer of polythene

Given how eager things like thyme, rocket, foxgloves, poppies are to seed themselves into gravel in other areas, I'm sure this won't be bare for long. And any incomers will be more manageable than the previous thick mat of nettles & grass.

Finish on a song

All the hacked honeysuckle took a little time to clear, & while tidying up I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye:

My clean-up companion

This little laddie/lassie was hopping in & out of the gooseberry's bare branches, picking up bits I'd disturbed. It was remarkably bold, not more than a meter away - I've never been this close to a Robin in our garden before. I thought it would scarper as soon as I moved, but no. It kept hopping in & out of the bushes to have a peck around. It appeared so tame I wondered if someone had been feeding it by hand.

Then, as I sat stuffing garden sacks, it sat & sang. It was just lovely.

I reckon there's a nest in them there shrubs.