Long Mizzle Garden

 Hello m' chucky chives,     With allotment duties in full swing, you may be wondering if the garden is receiving the same wanton neglect as my eyebrows?... The answer, in short...is yes... but it doesn't seem to mind.   When we moved in over eleven years ago, the garden was wildly overgrown, 'lost' and magical. A lot had to be cleared for practicality - mainly the monstrous leylandi hedging, but also the wild brambles, nettles and creeping buttercup.  Self seeded Foxgloves and Sweet Williams Now the new hedging has grown up and matured, the once veggie beds and cut flower beds are again partially shaded. This had led to a garden re-think. For now, nature can do what it does best. Please ignore the non-colour coordinated towels, drying from this morning's sea swim with the kiddies. My new battery powered strimmer (intended for the grass paths at the allotment) saves the day in the garden, by clearing a safe path through the wilderness of ferns, thistles and...

Eh up ducks, A super quick bloggy post today. Gritty life and endless rain seem to have been getting in the way of gardening. Monsieur got me a new tent for my birthday. It's a great improvement on my old festival tent that only qualifies as 'three man capacity' if packed like sardines. The new one has a living room area with windows and a porch canopy at the front. We even put some bunting up. Posh tent heaven!  Moodiness over Long Mizzle Fed up with the constant foreboding weather forecast and restricted time off from work, I decided to brave it and take the kids on an outing on the Lizard, Cornwall's rugged southern peninsula. Little did we know Storm Betty was ominously approaching. On the advise of an old camping mad school friend,  I had pre-ordered some serious pegs and extra guy ropes (cross storm peg revelation - thanks Shauno!). Some old tights were joined together and and used to strap our tent either side to the base of nearby low growing trees.  Rainy day d...

 Hello m' cocks, Well, there's been a proper gale blowing here today at Long Mizzle. Gusts from the sea have been chasing up the tidal river, howling round the creek and whipping my poor plants in the face. Last week we had three Tree Echium spikes (Echium Pininana), now we are down to just one. This is a shame as I have been waiting three years for it to flower! Amusingly I  have been left with the more unusually shaped spire ;) Poor stem! Will the remaining spire survive the weekend? In the safety of the greenhouse, our of-of-date seed experiments have surprising results. The parsnip seeds, known for only having a two year viability, were sown haphazardly by our littlest and amazingly have sprouted.   The Globe Artichoke seeds were seven years old. The little plants are bound for my brother's allotment, but need to get a bit bigger and tougher. The red carnations are for my flower cutting patch. Unlike the stale, imported tosh you can buy in the supermarket - these ones...