Thursday, January 01, 2009

Indoor gardening

Frost has stopped play. The pond hasn't defrosted for a week, and part of the lawn is permanently white. As for the allotment... we had to go and buy some parsnips the other day as the ones I've grown so lovingly are now concreted in to a rock-hard veg bed (yeah, I know, should have lifted them and heeled them in somewhere sandier, didn't get around to it).

The BBC's rather awe-inspiring monthly weather forecast says this will carry on for the rest of January, as it's caused by a wodge of high pressure that's apparently "notoriously difficult to budge". Oh help. I'll be reduced to making curtains soon.

Anyway, I'm trying to comfort myself with the thought of millions of tiny slugs freezing solid, and meanwhile doing some indoor gardening. This is long overdue: I'm very late in planning my seed order, which I must send off this week as otherwise the spuds won't be chitting in time. I've also, at last, come up with a coherent design for the front garden, and I'll be measuring up those bits of the back garden I'm not already digging up shortly - all part of the Great Garden Makeover of course. The only trouble with plans is, you then have to put them into some sort of action... which in my case almost always means half-finished projects all over the garden as the summer rush takes over yet again.

I've also been making some New Year's Resolutions to ring in 2009. A bit of a pointless exercise, of course, but I like to see how quickly I jettison them each year. This year, they are more informed at least thanks to all this blogging (mine but more frequently other people's).
  • I'm going to start a diary (I do this every year. Never got past March yet. At least I know what I was doing in early spring back to about 1975).
  • While I'm taking those photos for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day each month, I'm also going to photograph the whole of my garden, warts and all, as a record of all these improvements I'm making (this of course will be strictly not for publication: all photography found on this blog is a triumph of the macro lens over reality).
  • I'm going to start some of those projects I'm planning (see above)
  • I'm going to finish some of those projects I'm planning (see above)
  • I shall try not to get impatient when my eight-year-old wants to plant tulips in my potato beds, but shall let her with a beneficent smile in the interests of keeping her gardening (and will secretly replant the tulips back in the same spot after harvesting the potatoes).
  • My reading of other people's blogs shall not take over my working life
  • ... and nor will surreptitious trips to the allotment when I should be at my desk
  • I shall cram in as much knowledge as I can about gardening, plants and plantspeople, and hopefully end the year a better gardener.

Right, that'll do for now. I wish everyone who drops by this blog from time to time all the very best for 2009. Happy New Year!

6 comments:

Plant Mad Nige said...

Gosh! If you keep all those resolutions up, you'll have earned a sainthood! I've just read my resolutions made this time last year, written in my diary in red! And I'm proud to announce that I've scored 100%. Yup! Every one of them broken! (And the diary one doesn't count, 'cos I've kept one for years anyway.)

I think your last one is probably your best, so if I may, I'll adopt that one too, as a perfect master resolution. Have a super 2009!

VP said...

Happy New Year CG! Wow what a list you have there - I particularly need to adopt your blog one, but know it won't happen.

Good idea re taking lots of overall photos of the garden. I did it as a year long project last year (and blogged some of them, so you can see my garden warts and all as well as the triumphal macro scenes) and it's really made me have a good think about where my garden's going next.

And I'm sure you'll make your last resolution with absolutely no trouble at all :)

The Constant Gardener said...

sigh... have broken resolution 6 (the one about not spending all my working time reading other people's blogs) already...

and yes I agree, the last one's the only one I'll definitely manage to keep :D

James Golden said...

Frost! My soil (if I can call it that) is like concrete and won't change until March. So I bought a new begonia last weekend. Best of luck with your New Year's resolutions; I just don't make them any more.

Anna said...

Good luck with your New Year's Resolutions. I have a similar habit with diary keeping - start with good intentions but sometimes don't make it until the end of January let alone March.

This wodge of high pressure must be the one that went missing last summer - let's hope it returns later in 2009.

Jack said...

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