Planting in the Moonlight

Good Evening to the celestial cultivators amongst you,

What is she going on about now?

Well, I have it on good authority that today, May 15^th is D Day as far as planting out your seedlings, in these parts.

You see, all frosts have finished, fingers crossed…

There’s also a traditional custom of gardening in tune with the phases of the moon.

“The old-time gardeners say, “With the waxing of the moon, the earth exhales.” When the sap in the plants rise, the force first goes into the growth above ground. Thus, you should do all activities with plants that bear fruit above ground during a waxing moon. With the waning of the moon, the earth inhales. Then, the sap primarily goes down toward the roots. Thus, the waning moon is a good time for pruning, multiplying, fertilising, watering, harvesting, and controlling parasites and weeds”

Ute York “Living by the Moon”

Sounds cranky eh? Well if you don’t believe me, take a look at this website.

http://app.jardinages.com/calendrier-lunaire

It’s pretty interesting, and so, in the interests of harmony and integration, and the fact that I would like to actually have some success in the veggie department, I set about planting out the seedlings that have been flourishing in the cold frame.

First though, as is my usual daily grind, hoeing. 

I wish I had spoken to my Dad about rotovating the veg patch before we actually did rotovate it. Because, it was clearly, as he pointed out afterwards, the absolutely worst possible thing we could have done to it. All that’s happened is the dandelions, couch grass (twitch, as it’s affectionately called by my father), chickweed and bits of plastic, glass, bottle tops and utter crap have been dug in, spread about and given a new lease of life.

I’m having the biggest pile of cow poop delivered in the Autumn and those weeds are getting suffocated into oblivion!!

Anyway, back to hoeing.  Again.

I had already planted out onion plants and sets about 3 weeks ago and they’re coming on fine. As are the potatoes, well I presume they are, they’re still underground but I am reliably informed they will rear their little green heads shortly.

There’s also some celery, although I’ve planted that at the bottom of the garden and I don’t know if it’s sulking, being away from the other veg, but it’s looking a bit peaky.

The pea and bean tepees were still standing their ground, despite having had some chilly, windy weather and so I set about planting the seedlings into place.

 

A magnifying glass may be a useful addition here.

 Believe me when I say we now have, sweetcorn, tomatoes, runner and French beans, peas, potatoes, onions, cauliflower and broccoli (although I’ve muddled these up so it’ll be a surprise crop) and cantaloupe and watermelon.

There are more seedlings getting their growing done in the cold frame, sweet and hot chillies, lettuce, chives, parsley and coriander.

As my dad would say ‘they’ve got two chances’.  He also suggested I hoe the weeds before they appear! I think I’d better put some extra shifts in…

 

We are also the proud owners of a completed and fabulous looking boiler room. The interior is completely clad in tongue and groove pine. It does slightly have a Swedish sauna look about it, but hey, people pay a fortune for a sauna in the garden.

 

The cheapest way of insulating the room was polystyrene tiles. These are not to be confused with the absolutely amazing decoration that is currently gracing our and the spare room’s walls and ceilings…..more about those in a future blog.

Then, some meticulous maths work with a protractor, to ascertain the angle of the wood cuts. (This is a completely warranted mathematical mention on my part, if any of the Maths Department of Oak Bank school are reading this, they’ll see that their hard work finally paid off, I know what one’s for now!).

A work in progress shot, I actually fitted these bits!

The ceiling proved to be a lactic acid inducing pain in the…. upper arms.

Obviously, anything he can do…

Well nearly anyway. Not the heavy lifting...

We’re leaving the rear stone wall until we know exactly where the water tank and pellet boiler, which will run the central heating, need to be positioned.

Once we know where they need to be Simon will probably box part of it in.

Looking good!

Simon’s face when he realises it’s beer o’clock.

 

What a great feeling when you realise that you’ve completed a project. 

And can see the difference from start to finish.

We’ll be back, next week, with en suite shenanigans …