TWO WEEKS of five minute gardening (and a bit of Dothraki) 🤓
Hello Friends!
A massive welcome to those who have found this newsletter recently - It's where I faithfully recount all my five minute endeavours throughout the week (and go on a bit about life and motherhood too). This week is a bonus one - I didn't manage to send anything out last week so you're getting a double dose (because I still did gardening...I just didn't have time to write about it). So if you're new here, this is DOUBLE the length of a normal letter...please don't be put off by that... I just didn't want to miss out a week, because some of you are following along and doing the same things I do (eeek!). Anyway, on with the diary:
Monday 15th
My poor au pair has been struck down with food poisoning. Mixed emotions here that I won't expand on but MOTHERS WILL UNDERSTAND.
These are the kind of days when my five minutes of gardening hops off my to-do list and edges into the territory of being essential for my head.
I sow some lettuce in a wide shallow container, as per my salad plan. This will be my cut and come again leaves, and I'll be sowing a new pot every couple of weeks, hopefully completely obliterating the need to buy salad. I also feed my houseplants (because my phone reminded me to). Phone reminders FTW.
Tuesday 16
It is warm. I put all the chillies, lettuce and parsley into a plastic storage container and move them outside for some hardening off. The tomatoes have already been in my (much cooler) shed for a few days and I fill up a hanging basket to plant them into. I have never grown tumbling tomatoes before and have no idea whether I'm supposed to rub off the growth in the axils, and chop of their tops when they reach a certain size, which is what i'm used to with cordons. Two of the plants break as I plant them (lots of swearing ensues) but I see this as an experiment so I'm not desolate about it. I use a mix of multi-purpose compost and horse manure, water the whole thing and leave it outside to catch some rays before putting it back inside for the night. I'll continue this in/out dance for a while, until I'm sure there are no frosts forecast. I manage also to fill the other pot that I bought for sweet peas with compost, and I'm just about to tackle the sweet pea planting when I realise I have to drive up the M3 to take daughter no. 1's friend home. When I get home it's dark and I almost forget to bring in all the plants. Nightie, wellies etc.
Wednesday 17th
Sweetpeas are going in today! I ordered these sweet peas last year, rather than go to the bother of sowing them myself and if I'm perfectly honest, I won't be doing that again. I was somehow hoping they'd arrive in separate containers (I use rootrainers, or loo rolls) but instead they have been sown in brilliant deep pots, but lots together. This is annoying because they don't like root disturbance, and, being my anal self, I want to plant one plant at the base of each pea stick. So I use it as an opportunity to experiment and do my best to divide one pot up into individual plants without ripping the roots (almost impossible,) and plant the rest at three different spots in my containers. I'll see if the ripped ones really do hate me, of if this, too, is just a myth that we continue to believe blindly.
Thursday 18th
Today I am basically a chauffeur/children's entertainer. People have to be taken to netball, and to the circus (yes). I water everything, and enjoy playing about with garden furniture. No gardening
Good Friday
I sweep and faff about making the garden 'presentable' but here's the thing; nobody cares - as long as the weather is good and there's somewhere comfy to sit and there are drinks, then everything works just fine. We are hosting an egg hunt on Sunday. I am desperately trying to think of a way to hide eggs without a million children squashing my tulips, and then my amazing neighbour offers to do a big treasure hunt in the street. I literally want to kiss him (it's okay, I don't).
The tulips are totally amazing right now. Princes Irene (my favourite (the orange one) is in danger of being usurped by Pretty Princess (the pink one) ... I KNOW...the DRAMA! I sow some runner beans and some cavolo nero, along with three more hearted 'Webbs wonderful' lettuces.
Monday 22nd
I douse all the containers with water first thing in the morning, and marvel at the ferns which are doing that fiddlehead thing. Inspired, I write a thing about my three favourite ferns. I see that one of my box balls has been entirely eaten by box caterpillar. I have become almost phsychopathically nonchalant about this horrible pest - putting the whole sorry thing in a small compartment in my brain and heart and locking it up tight ... I got so upset last year and I won't let that happen again. I should have been more on it, with this hot weather, which means they have emerged early and started munching. Cydalima perspectalis (if you don't already know) are an invasive Asian species of moth who feed exclusively on box. They have no natural predators over here, so they are merrily munching their way through box topiary all over Europe, decimating the plants. I squish a few underfoot, but realise I need to bring out the big guns. Luckily I have some Xentari (a biological control, not harmful to other insects or anything else) left over from last year and I spray all my box balls with it. Hopefully this will stop them for a while until I can re-stock. Everything I know is here in this post, along with all the non-harmful controls you can use.
Tuesday 23rd
They go back to school tomorrow (small, but frantic HURRAH! escapes my mouth) and today is filled with back-to-school admin. Have they done any homework? (I have no idea). Do their shoes fit? (again, no idea). What clubs did we sign up for? (F*** knows). Anyway, I sew up ripped school uniform and order new trousers. I forgot to water and feed the houseplants yesterday so it gets done today. All of my houseplants get watered once a week with a very weak liquid feed solution. One of the scented pelargoniums has started flowering though, so I douse it with tomato food instead. I am in two minds as to whether I should move these pelargoniums outside - I'm rather enjoying the jungle around my sofa right now.
The hedge trimmer has been sitting by the front door for a week now. This is the sort of thing I do when I know I need to accomplish something but can't be bothered... I put the tool or 'reminder' object under my own feet so that it will annoy me until I actually do the task. Everyone gets irate but it usually works eventually. I carefully check the privet hedge outside the front door for birds, even though I know that they never nest in there - too much traffic - and give it a haircut. I'll do my neighbour's side next week - it's nice to give the hedge a bit of time to recover by doing one half at a time. I am on fire today. I mow the lawn, leaving the clippings to fall into the lawn and fertilise it. This really has been a proper Tuesday chop.
Wednesday 24th
It is so quiet.
I listen to a brilliant podcast about the Dothraki language (do you watch game of thrones?...if not then just ignore me) and pull out the kneeler to deal with the mass of bindweed that has been sneakily making its way up my trellis for the last few weeks. I've been watching it, but it doesn't know that. It thinks it's going to get away with strangling all my climbing hydrangea. I have news. THE PARTY IS OVER!
I pull at it really carefully, using a widger, chasing the brittle roots as far as I can before something snaps. Some of it is barely rooted and I simply pull it out whole (very satisfying). Bindweed removal is the sort of thing that Five Minute Gardening is very good at dealing with. It never gets a foot hold if you keep at it. I end up after five minutes with an enormous pile of it.
Thursday 25th
It rains... not enough but I'm still grateful for it. I spend the day locked in an airless recording booth in central London, doing seventeen interviews, one after the other, to different radio stations, to promote National Gardening Week. Some of the interviews are live and these ones are the best, because you simply have a chat about gardening (something I enjoy). The pre-recorded ones though are a tad dry...the presenters simply ask you a list of questions that they read from a sheet. BORING! I get home to find that there has been a tomato-related accident; the children's wigwam/tipi play thing has fallen over on the tumbling tomatoes and broken three of them. It's a disaster and I'm very cross. I consider chopping the wigwam up with one of my chainsaws,...yes people, I have TWO... but decide instead to do some dandelion removal which is rather gentler and VERY better-making. The dandelions in question have all seeded themselves into my containers, where the compost is very friable and this makes removal a DREAM - It's hard to express to anyone who HASN'T had the pleasure of removing a dandelion complete with it's entire tap root, just how good it feels. Find a dandelion and try it. Go on.
Friday 26th
My runner beans have burst forth and are reaching for the sky. I remove the ones that have emerged from the propagator and leave the rest to germinate. My note-taking for all this seed-sowing has been less than exemplary, so I get myself together, look back at my photos and write down sowing and germination dates for all my seeds AND put reminders in the diary so I'll know when to re-sow my lettuce, as per my salad plan.
Other than this, I ferry children to and from things and end the day hoping I've been a good enough parent. No gardening.
x Laetitia
ps you might have missed:
Enjoyable ways to get your garden ship-shape, fast
How to make a simple alpine trough
Thinning out seedlings - the how and the why