"Spring is here, spring is here, life is skittles and life is beer..."
Well, it's technically summer but it's been so cold this year that it may as well still be spring haha. The above is a line from an awful song about poisoning pigeons in the park. Which to my shame @queenoftheworld, @thecryptidcrone and I sang at the bandstand yesterday. It was all a bit tongue in cheek and we wanted to use irony to raise awareness about going Vegan. So just to clarify there are no poisoned pigeons in my local park nor near my home and whilst this may be a line of defense to stop Evil Pooping Kitty from his antics, I won't be poisoning cats either.
Now that I've cleared that up, along with the cat poop from my pots, I can safely say that EPK has got the hint and seems to have moved on to pastures new where fresh soil or shingle awaits him.
Yep that's right folks, I have been poop-free for about 2 weeks now.
But I did find a solution.
I've had a bit of a shift around in the garden. I've moved the little storage cupboard and placed the salad leaves on top of it, close to my back door. They are now starting to grow, they are still a little small but at least now they can grow in peace. I've also plopped in some kale, spinach, parsley and sprinkled a few more salad leaf seeds down. The only inconvenience is the odd snail or slug,but it is easy to move them to the alley. Who knows, maybe they'll make friends with EPK? Mind you, that could be a bad thing as they could form an army of garden invaders and in one night eat and poop on my plants. EEK! Probably best not to manifest that.
Just look at those lovely nasturtiums in the image below! I am super happy with how the rat cage planter is doing. The tomatoes are happy, the extra mizuna loves it there and I've stuck in some basil and other odd little bits as an experiment to see how they go.
Check out this monster potato plant. These spuds were some lovely King Edwards from my local market. I forgot about these in my pantry and they chitted really well so I chucked them in there. I hope as above so below and the crop will be as good as this fantastic plant!
The carrots are starting to get their proper leaves and seem pretty happy in this old laundry basket. The Peas and sunflowers (which was a mistake that I planted these together) seem to be living their best lives hanging out together too.
Herbs
The sage, chamomile and lemonbalm are coming along nicely now. Sage and lemonbalm don't do well grown near each other as I lost so many lemon balms in my garden back in Sark. I did some reading and it turns out that they don't like each other so they are as far apart as I can put them. I think they will both need dividing and repotting soon though.
I've stuck the other herbs into a planter. There's Cilantro, thyme, chives and oregano. Extras are all dotted around the garden in smaller pots until I figure out where to put them.
A few posts back I mentioned I was going to guerilla garden a nature spot not too far from my house but I was advised against it as the local school uses it as an outdoor classroom for Forest Schools classes and they may not take too kindly to some strange hippie lady hanging out there.
I am going to leave you with this lovely view of my next door neighbor's beautiful garden. It is really cute and most of the bits in there have been upcycled and repurposed. Our fence blew down during the high winds again and we are waiting to find out if it's my landlords dudty to fix it or hers but we actually are growing quite fond of the gap and it's always nice to have a chat with her when she is out there.
And just in case you were a little bit curious about the song here it is below...
This post is in response to the Garden Journal Challenge currently running in the #naturalmedicine community and hosted by @riverflows. If you would like to get involved you can read more here;
Garden Journal Challenge Early June
***
CommunityIIDiscord ***
***
Garden Journal Challenge Early June
CommunityIIDiscord