Winter gardening...

...when possible...

Visiting Starling, comes for the goodies on my bird feeding station.

It is some weeks since I last tapped a post from the Garden at Molokoloko.   No wonder, it is winter here so gardening is much less busy than at other times of the year.   Let me amend that, less busy on the surface of things though much is happening beneath that is not so visible to us.

This is the first winter I have had a functioning greenhouse.   It is an unheated greenhouse which offers some protection to more tender plants.   Protection from frost, wind and rain.   I am trialing some lettuce seeds, and some winter salad leaves.   So far, so good.   In fact, so far pretty darn good.

Looking fine and dandy - tasting lovely too.

This seed is a winter lettuce variety.   I am very impressed with it.

Lettuce leaves and a variety of winter salad leaves

These are keeping me with super-de luxe- fresh bases for salads, and then - today, I thought that disaster had struck.  Last night the temperatures dipped lower than we have had this winter.  I went to check on the greenhouse this morning and this is what I found.

Frozen Lettuce

Can you see the ice on the inside behind the lettuce?   Click on the photo, it will enlarge.   I really thought my luck had run out but I had reckoned without these being a winter variety of lettuce.   They did perk up and I had a great salad this evening with my supper.  The variety mix of salad leaves was even more tasty for the extra cooling they got last night.   I have taken the precaution of adding a blanket of bubble wrap to the lettuces - better not to risk a freezing twice!

All wrapped up.

There isn't too much I can be doing out in the garden right now.   I just walk around it making sure I can pick up anything that has been blown over by the wind, defrosting icy bird baths for the birds, that sort of housekeeping type of job.   Later I will dig the veg garden over, not yet.

I do see that many of the bulbs I planted in autumn are beginning to push up little shoots, in some case much more than that.

Maybe hyacinth among the winter pansies,
we'll see when they develop a bit more.

There is just a stirring of life, plant life, where I planted on JP's grave.   I planted snowdrops, among a multitude of other bulbs, on his grave.   I wonder if those will germinate.   It may be too dark.   Also, I believe they work better if planted in the green (planted when still in flower).   When the bulbs lie dormant they tend to dry out...well, another case of 'we will see'.   I say that a lot in this garden.

Frost, apart from being very cold and sometimes destructive, is pretty.   Quite often it is necessary for some of our plants to activate germination.   I particularly refer to the Yellow Rattle and to the Verbena Bonariensis seeds.

Frosty seed head (Rudbekia)

The frost in my south facing garden today didn't completely melt all day, in spite of the sunshine.

Red dog-rose hips behind the little silver birch.

Frosty Rosemary and Sage.

The one thing we can do at this time of year is indulge ourselves in seed and plant catalogues.   We can plan, dream and drink tea...or coffee.

Alpen Poppies from Switzerland

A dear friend gave me a packet of these Alpen Poppies (Papavero Alpino) for my birthday in September.   I'll definitely be trying some of those.

What a gardening year it has been.  So much has happened.   Looking forward....yesterday I was given a bottle of rather decent Port....DnA - I think I will HAVE to plant that Morello Cherry tree now so I too can make sour cherry pie to go with my bottle of Port!

D up their Sour Cherry tree in the summer.
Picking fruit for the divine cherry pie.

Divine Sour Cherry Pie with Port

So...now you understand?

If you have ever eaten that Sour Cherry Pie you would more than understand.

Looking backwards...

New willow weave fence to protect the greenhouse

I painted a wall white

And hung it with Med-Inspired baskets

I picked, and picked and picked sweet-peas....

Abundance of sweet-peas

And a commemorative picture of my best friend...forever in the garden now...the garden he helped to 'supervise'!

JP...My best friend ever (of the canine variety)

Next year...who knows what it will hold?   New plans, new plants...maybe  a new puppy...not to replace the fellow above.   That could never be but now I see the bulbs pushing through on his grave...now it is time to start thinking of new life.   A home is not a home without a dog...and a garden is not a garden without a dog either. Along with perusing the seed catalogues I will be searching for that very special canine companion....

Wishing you the very best for 2015...hoping it is a bumper 'gardening' year.

December is here.....

....in my garden....and it's cold.

Photo from Telegraph a couple of days ago.
Not my garden!

Fig tree in foreground, salads behind and above it.

Yes, here's December.   So far I have been too busy with unexpected inside chores to go out into the garden other than for essential forays to empty compost, cut salad leaves or feed the birds twice a day.   I don't remember when a year went by quite as fast as this one.   I seem to be sitting with a list of things I haven't yet done, it is not a good feeling.

As far as the garden jobs to-do list there are two or three pressing ones.

First of all it's time to make festive containers at my front door, maybe I will get something planted up on Sunday.  Then, G and I want to have a go at making our own front door wreaths too this year.   Maybe there will be time to do that too.

The second job I must do this month is dig over and tidy up the veg patch.   I would like it to be more or less ready for when I want to start again in spring.   Talking of vegetables...I am enjoying fresh salad leaves from the greenhouse.   I think I will plant up a few more pots with salad leaves and winter lettuce.

It has been fun seeing birds visit my bird feeders every day.   There is nothing too unusual in the types of bird that visit....starlings, probably a few more than usual maybe some migrants from Europe swelling their numbers, sparrows, they are here all year, a pair of robins adding a touch of festive cheer to the scene...tits, and I think I saw a little wren too the other day.   Collared doves are regulars. Blackbirds come too as do the magpies and jackdaws.   The garden is not sheltered or wooded enough to get many other varieties except fleetingly occasionally.

With the colder weather I have brought inside all my tender plants.   Many are in the greenhouse.   I bought a couple of metres of bubble wrap in case the temperatures really do drop severely.   If we have warning of that  I will add a

Mandevilla

Hibiscus giving an unusual out-of-season bloom

layer of the bubble wrap to the plants in the greenhouse.  Other plants I have brought right inside my home.   Here are a couple of them swanking in their new winter residence.

Then there are are the other houseplants, some of which are looking rather good at the moment.  When it is so grey and gloomy it is lovely to have some living colour inside the house.

African violet has been blooming since the summer.

The Christmas Cactus

There is still a bit of interest outside too.   The purple sage was looking lovely the other day when there was a bit of frost.

Purple sage.

But, the leaves have fallen off the silver birches and the hazel, winter is truly here.   Temperatures are in the single figures Celsius and a sprinkle of snow is forecast over the higher hills a little north of here.  Winter is really here.   There are things going on in the garden, lots of which are invisible to the eye right now.   Bulbs will be showing signs of growth...some of mine have poked their spear tipped leaves above ground already but others are still buried deep.  We are heading towards the shortest daylight day now, 21 December, and after that we will be looking forward to longer daylight hours again.

Pity the poor Swedes near Stockholm who had just 5 hours of sunlight last month!   No wonder D has had to get special daylight bulbs under which he grows his indoor plants.  I think I'd go and sit under those lights too if I lived there.

Keep busy, keep warm and chat to you again soon.