I am trying to explain compost

my Chinese guest  is looking puzzled

any vegetable waste,  peelings, tea, coffee grounds ... put them in here  

I point at the kitchen waste bucket, she shrinks back in horror. Maybe I need to show more of the process, I pick up the bucket and beckon her to follow me up the garden, open the compost bin and tip the bucket  into it. She looks stricken 

Why would you do that?

It feeds the garden, the worms and insects break it down to make a rich soil - don't you feed your garden?

I feed my garden with yellow beans 

!!!

Dominant Spinach

spinach 'dominant'
healthy dark green erect leaves
quick to mature and slow to bolt

that's the kinda spinach I like in my bed

The cardiganengineeringproject is done spring is here and it's all about the garden now.

I have a brand new career as a doctor's receptionist where I will be sitting knitting little squares with mimsy needles so I don't take up too much behind the desk space but right here right now on this sunny day in my garden I will be digging for victory.



Yesterday I attended a seed swap, I didn't have seeds to swap but I had smallbeans money which I left in return for handfuls of DEREK'S RUNNER BEANS - NICE AND EARLY and SHIRLEY'S SUNFLOWERS and a packet of that dominant spinach which I shared with the freckley girl in shorts.

A man in the seedy tent showed me how to make an origami seed envelope out of a quarter sheet of newspaper and once I had my confidence up I was folding and tucking and the only thing I was in too much of a hurry to do was write proper notes on them so now the kitchen table is littered with things that I'm not quite sure what they are.

Gorilla Gardening

rain gave way to sun which gave way to icy gales - a double-scarf-plus-gloves day

Poster from United Nations Environment Programme

Community gardening, guerilla gardening, vertical gardening, edible cites and suchlike are currently very fashionable. Today I joined a neighbourhood  tour looking at areas that might be ripe for a bit of community diggery. To guide us and explain things were a community organiser and someone who had experience working for the council.

We walked from one patch of grass to the next talking dog poo, drug-taking, public sex, fencing, festivals, foxes, why we build housing that overlooks the sexy areas and the fact that planting fruit trees is not allowed because fruit represents a ‘missile hazard’

Catnapping

28th November
I went back to the Gardeners yesterday. The whole cat thing has got me a bit anxious. As a child I went on and on about wanting animals and my parents drummed it in to me that pets are a Big Responsibility, and have a habit of either living for unfeasibly long amounts of time or, conversely, dying just when you’ve got very fond of them.

As an adult I’ve been far too unsettled for pets although years ago I did keep animals that I planned to eat. I loved scratching the pig’s bellies and spent hours watching them make straw nests. My first pig was a very sociable gingery Tamworth called Urquhart. When the time came, I got him in the back of my Morris Minor (my first car) for a trip to the butcher, he scoffed the nuts that I'd put in the car for him then worked out how to push the front seat down and get into the passenger seat next to me so he could look out of the window for the rest of the journey.

I’d asked the butcher to simply halve the dead Urquhart longways, but when I went to collect him his legs were sticking out all stiff, I had to manoeuvre the pig halves into the car diagonally, poking the extremities out of the front window and drive home with my head cocked to one side and Urquhart’s head rolling around in a plastic bag on the back seat.

Now, temporarily here in a French farmhouse, I'm still not settled enough for actual pets but wood pile cats seem an ideal arrangement for all concerned. Being old enough to fend for themselves I’m simply offering them an alternative place to live that won’t involve too much emotional investment on either side (will it?). My neighbours advised me to keep the cats shut in a shed for 3 days when I get them here. There is a pigeonnier and some odd little outhouses next to the Lovely House which seemed a good place to keep the cats initially. The pigeonnier is linked to the house with a tiled roof and a back wall making an open-faced barn where we keep our piles of firewood. There are various openings through the walls and lots of perches and hiding places. I think it must be cat paradise.

This time the Gardeners had managed to stuff a pair of yowling cats into two baskets, which I quickly put on the back seat of my car and drove carefully home, they growled like that girl with the revolving head in The Exorcist all the way. My heart was pounding as I placed the baskets on the new straw in the pigeonnier and left them to calm down for a while.

To release the cats into the shed without having to open the door and risk them escaping, I’d devised a cunning plan of attaching strings to the basket lids which I pulled from the outside through a little hole in the wall, this worked great, the lids flapped open, the cats shot out of the baskets like bullets, there was a very high up window - they bounded up the walls, through the window and escaped like rockets.

I thought that was the end of it and figured the cats would be well on their way home but a few hours later I went to clear away the food and water that I'd put out for them and caught a glimpse of a tail disappearing, I saw some eyes watching me from a high perch this morning - I think they are considering staying - I put out a dish of chopped ducks hearts.

My internets are being taken away tomorrow - who knows when I'll be back online…

Cat Fail

21st November
I went to collect some cats from a market gardening couple who moved in to their property recently and discovered an extremely fecund feral cat living in their woodshed. They doped some food and managed to get a batch of sleepy kittens to the vet to be sterilised but the wiley mother slipped away and hid (and then got pregnant again). The cats are now eating all the dog's food and I have agreed to take a pair to see if they'd like to live in my wood pile. When I got there the Gardeners had failed to catch any. We've hatched a plan and I'll come back next week.

Meanwhile I'm waiting for The Director, some friends and a projector to get back from the airport. Then we're all set to do the film show in the village hall on Sunday. I'm having a lesson in making rum punch from Mme Bontette tomorrow, she called this morning in high excitement - she has just secured a job as a reporter for the local newspaper. Our film show will be her first assignment.