Although I have always understood the concept of January blues I can’t remember ever being particularly affected. I know about that miserable feeling which drags you down in the post Christmas period when the jolly festive season is over, winter is at its harshest and spring seems a very long time away. But I have always had projects to start the new year. It’s only a couple of years since I sold my business and when you have a business there are always major things to plan for the year ahead. As a gardener, January is the time to get out the catalogues and make the shopping lists of seeds, plants and bulbs for the garden. So January rushes by with planning and buying and planting.
A huge amount of seeds are on offer
This year seems different. Well, of course it is. Christmas was such a muted affair and on New Year’s Eve it didn’t seem right to do more than have a quiet sip of champagne and toast the fact that we are still alive. As to the New Year - the prospect of the time ahead is so full of questions that celebrations must be deferred for another time.
So, it is with a bit of a shock that I feel a bit blue! Just a teensy bit. A patch of very cold weather and Trump’s antics have not helped.
Time to pull myself together. I pick up my camera and head into a cold but sunny afternoon to patrol the property and see what nature could provide me to make me smile. It doesn’t take much searching.
The raised bed in the courtyard - lots of activity already
The raised bed in the garden is already bristling with the first green shoots of the various bulbs planted for the spring: dutch iris, two kinds of day lily, bright blue anemonies and yellow daffodils.
The long bed had all plants removed, the soil was improved and new plants were added.
The 500 red and yellow Apeldoorn tulips planted in the ‘long’ bed below the big wall are actually starting to poke up their heads and in the cutting bed the iris reticulata are starting to come up - these little gems should be in flower in a month.
First tulips shoots. I’m going to cover them up because they’re too early.
I found a lot of flowers around the garden.
Bright blue periwinkles on the bank
Rose Banksia is trying to come out a couple of months early.
Our first narcissus are out. How cheerful is that.
A hot pink snapdragon just goes on flowering.
The grass garden is at its winter best and confirms my plans to plant more grasses as they look so good all year around. A trendy prairie garden area will give a planting place for some of the rudbekias which have spread like mad in the cutting garden.
The grass garden.
It’s impossible to be glum with so many clear indications of garden activity already happening.
Today is super chilly - started at -8C in some places. Here just -4C when I let the cats in. I always feel sorry for them when it’s been cold overnight (but they have lots of swarm places to curl up in) but they just ate a quick and quite large breakfast and headed out again!
So rather than wander round the very chilly garden I decided to stay indoors and catch up on theory. There’s a great garden video series called Get Gardening with writer and broadcaster Alan Gray - who seems to know everyone in the gardening world. During the lockdown he has been doing a podcast called Talking Dirty with Thordis Fridrikksen - and they chat to well know people in the gardening world. It’s very informal and informative. I really enjoy it - they are natural presenters and have a good laugh and certainly cheer me up while I’m learning about new plants and ways of gardening. They had Derry Watkins on the show not long ago who has a company called Special Plants - she offers unusual plants as seeds and small plants and this year I’ve ordered some of her seeds. Some are already sitting out in the cold ready to burst forth in the spring and others I’m planning on planting a little later.
However, I found another little video about starting seeds early in large plastic bottles. You make holes in the bottom, cut the bottle in half, add seed compost and seed, tape up the bottle again, throw away the stopper and leave them outside. As I have a selection of large plastic bottles from the mineral water I put in the iron, I’m going to have a go. Not today though - I shall wait for tomorrow when the temperature is going to hurtle from -4 to +5 and stay up there for a week or so. Does that mean winter is over? Probably not.
So the garden has, as always, cheered me. And in the kitchen I’ve been making some new soups for lunch - some of them quite delicious. Sorrel and lentil - a great combination. Cauliflower and walnut cream - yum. Broccoli and roquefort - naughty but lovely. Beetroot with blue cheese toasts - super nice. Finally, the classic french soups - leek and potato and most recently French onion soup, although I suppose strictly speaking it should just be onion soup here.
Golden beetroot soup with roquefort toasts and Brel walnuts
Peter found some seville oranges in the market so decided that marmalade making would cheer me too. So I got lots of sticky fingers and made 12 pots.
I think the very action of writing a blog has chased those blues away. The weather has warmed up and I can go into the garden - there’s always weeding and cutting back to be done. I my be able to apply for a vaccination by the end of the week. There’s so much to look forward to …… just some difficult moths to get through but thankfully lots to do.
We can’t have a blog without a fluffy cat!