Biodynamic Magic

The downside of biodynamics is planting on the appropriate day whatever the weather. Unless you are lucky enough to be a full-time biodynamic farmer or grower you need to plan your planting diary carefully, fitting appropriate biodynamic days or time slots around the rest of your life, sometimes squeezing an hour here and there between work commitments, family, social whirling or whatever else fills your world. Today being a ‘fruit’ day I had no choice but to plant my new Victoria plum tree despite the rain which started in earnest as I began the planting process, got heavier and heavier as I heaved and sweated, my feet slipping down the bank in muddier-by-the-second wellie boots, then decided to ease off and stop almost as soon as the job was done. Typical.

Luckily I had dug the hole on Sunday, as that would have been a horrid job today.

Allotment neighbour Russell had grown the tree in a large pot in his garden but it wasn’t a happy tree. Unable to plant it on his plot he wondered if I’d like to give it a new home. We spent a somewhat comical hour this morning heaving it around in its pot, trying out different ways to attach it to a heavy-duty trolley and wheel it up to the site. Uphill all the way, with the tree branches at eye level getting caught in my hair and threatening to poke our eyes out, and heavy as hell. Eventually, after Russell put his back out, we gave up and decanted it from the pot, removed a lot of the soil and managed to fit it into his car. With his back and my arms this was the best solution.

Once there the skies opened, I gave the tree a long drink of water in Lisa's red trug and then set to with my task.

It looks a bit sad right now but the soil is excellent and I am confident it will pick up in a year or two. It nestles nicely with the cherry and the ballerina apple trees.

Oh, I like it a lot! I’m enjoying my new fruit tree layout.

From left in this photo: cherry, sad-looking Victoria plum (but not for long!), and ballerina apple.


Love Biodynamic Magic
Love Life
XXX

Rejecting Hate

A couple of weeks ago I attended the vigil for victims of hate crime in Trafalgar Square. My friend David, who sings with the London Gay Men’s Chorus, had told me about this vigil in memory of Ian Baynham, beaten and kicked to death in a homophobic attack in Trafalgar Square on 25 September. Killed for being gay, in London, in 2009 – oh my word, whatever next?

The LGMC sang, along with several other choirs, their voices angelic and moving. Tears were shed as we all lit candles and held them high during a two-minute silence honouring all victims of hate crime, before placing them in a carpet of light on the square. Lovely photos are here.

Hate crime horrifies me, whether homophobic, racist, sexist or for any other pathetic excuse. What makes me so very sad about this particular crime is that Ian was attacked in a very public place by three people, two of them 17-year old girls. What do we teach our children that they grow into teenagers who think it’s OK to attack somebody else just for being different to them? Where are the parents and what kind of low intolerant standards are they showing their children?
It's a desperately sad state of affairs. How absolutely tragic to be so young and yet so hate-filled. What a terribly narrow-minded, sad and bitter life lies ahead for these feral kids.

According to reports, one person tried to intervene. Only one person in Trafalgar Square, which is always busy, day or night, had the courage to do something. It’s appalling.
I know that it’s difficult in these days when we know that some young people carry weapons, making us fearful of ‘getting involved’, but why did nobody else think to help, to call the police, to start screaming out loud, even if from a safe distance, to do SOMETHING to help a fellow human being? My own instinct would have been to scream and shout, drawing as much attention as possible that a person was being attacked. Have we lost our natural instincts?

Why am I concerned about such things? As a white British heterosexual person I have no personal experience of such intolerances. I'm concerned because I know that unless we are prepared to stand up for what is right, to stand together and to get involved, then surely we are lost.

I also find it rather odd that the attack was not caught on CCTV, in a city with allegedly 10,000 cameras.

On a final and somewhat conspiratorial note - Is it me, or has anybody else noticed that homophobic attacks across the UK have risen in recent weeks, interestingly since the odiously racist and hate-filled BNP started gaining plenty of publicity..........?


Reject Hate
Love Love
Love Life
XXX

Firework Heaven

Oh, I do love the firework season! I know it’s not nice for the animals, but I just can’t help myself.

Last week Jose and Tom invited Mariola and me for a chic little gathering in their lovely home,from where we took a little walk through their lovely garden,
until we reached the ‘secret’ entrancewhich took us into the large and beautiful private garden square, only accessible to the houses that back onto it, and where we were all treated to a fabulous firework display.

Juana and Yolanda said it was better than the Thames display at New Year!

There was an enormous roaring bonfireand we all had a very good evening.

Thanks Jose and Tom – please invite me again!


Love Fireworks
Love Life
XXX

Murder on the Flower Bank

I made a grisly discovery at my allotment yesterday. Sorry to say it looks as though there has been a recent murder up on my flower bank. The first sign was this...

...then I noticed this......and finally the true horror was revealed...

It looks as though Cheeky Fox has been enjoying a pigeon dinner, and I have a particular dislike for pigeons, or flying rats as I consider them, so despite my longstanding vegetarianism and life-loving pacifism, I really hope he enjoyed his feast!


However, it’s not all death-ridden gloom on the flower bank. Just inches behind the murder scene, the purple hollyhock is still making new growth and flowering prolifically, bringing some cheer to the grey-sky autumn day.




Life & Death
Love Life
XXX

A Tudor Trip

My sister and her family were visiting from Edinburgh last week. Sheena’s children are learning about the Tudors at school so we went to Hampton Court Palace, where she and I spent many a happy day out with our family when we were little kids.

It’s funny what you remember from childhood isn’t it? Then as now, we especially loved the maze, and found our way to the middle

and the wonderful architecture and brickwork, some of if lovingly restored to the original

and the beautiful clock

in its beautiful tower

and Henry’s gloriously egocentric stained glass windows

Hunting animals was a big hit in Tudor times. It must have seemed quite tame compared to the punishments and grisly deaths that were meted out to humans! Hunting is certainly not my thing, but this display of horns is nonetheless very impressive to look at.

We remembered the big Yew tree on the green outside the cafe by the old jousting turret, and we remembered the fabulous kitchens. We also remembered the grace and favour homes at the back where, in our childhood naivety, we dreamed of one day living, and we remembered walking up the gravel path with the flower borders on one side

and the trees, sculpturally clipped into domes, by the fountain on the other, where last week we saw plenty of geese hanging around.

When I was a child it was free to visit the grounds and some of the palace including the kitchens and the chapel, but these days of course you have to pay for everything. Tickets are not cheap, but worth it.


Love a Tudor palace
Love Life
XXX

When you can't say it with words

Increased pain in my arms has meant no typing recently, hence no posting here for a while. Since I’m still severely limited with the words I can offer you (there are plenty in my head but pain-racked arms prevent me from sharing!) I’m hoping that the pictures will tell the stories.......

Most of the butternuts have rotted off, as predicted. Except for this large one

which, as you see, was larger still one week later!


I sowed broad beans for overwintering, and started making a little frame, to remind me where they are (for I intersowed between already existing swiss chard) and to help support them when they grow next spring.


The weather here has been mixed. Last week provided some warm autumnal sunshine on a windy day. I love the trees at this time of year, and the ever-changing colours of their leaves.

I took this pic of the trees while sitting up on the bank at the allotment.
And from the same spot I took this one of my plot of plenty below


Bear with me and my knackered arms....More pics coming very soon!


Hate pain
Love posting
Love Life
XXX

AK at RA

Damian treated me to a ticket for the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Royal Academy. He knows I am a big fan of this genius artist.

Here is the glorious sight that greets you in the courtyard – wonderful!

And here we are, reflected in the enormous baubles.

Of course you can’t take photographs inside the exhibition. I do understand this in terms of security (on every level) but it’s nonetheless a huge pity because that’s the part I always want to share.

Damian did take a couple of covert images on his phone though......

Can you see my bizarre reflection in the mirrored work on the left?

Here I am enjoying ‘Slug’. Enjoying Slug? But I can’t stand slugs, for they eat my vegetables!


Check out the website where there’s a live webcam on his work ‘Shooting into the Corner’, and plenty more info. It’s a must-see show, especially if you’re a Kapoor fan. On until 11 December at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD.


Love Anish Kapoor
Love Life
XXX

Herbal Tea

After a bit of gardening we always enjoy our tea-break when volunteering at Culpeper, and on Monday were treated to this wonderful herbal mix concocted by Culpeper member John, a fellow Reiki healer.

Freshly picked leaves and flowers including lovage, hollyhock, geranium, mint, bay, mallow, rose and passion flower went into the pot, producing a mild but flavoursome afternoon beverage.

Nature gives us what we need.


Love Tea
Love Life
XXX

The great Freecycling strawberry plant giveaway

Last Sunday I held the great Freecycling strawberry plant giveaway, an impromptu allotment event arranged after I realised that, despite already having given away about 50 strawberry runners, the bed was still so choc-full with new plants that they would probably be too close to crop next year.

Before.....

I had to have a major clear so I posted an offer of free organic strawberry runners on a couple of my local Freecycle sites. Within 24 hours the response was so enormous I had to co-ordinate a plan so arranged the giveaway afternoon inviting those wanting plants to pitch up at my plot and help themselves.

....and After! A bit more space at least.

It was great. I met loads of interesting people, many of them local, and of course meeting other gardeners is always a joy. Some came alone, some with friends and some with family and children. Everybody went away with bagfuls of freshly lifted strawberry plants and I was able to clear 3 wheelbarrows full of my overabundant but very healthy strawberry plants without one of them going to waste. I totted up a mental total of about 300 plants passed on to new homes.

A win-win situation – my favourite kind.



Love Freecycling
Love Life
XXX

Better late than never

I’ve been ploughing through the same over-complicated job application form for the last two weeks, trying to stick to my regime of a little at a time so as not to hurt my arms overdoing the keyboard work, which has meant no extra keyboard time to keep up with the blog. Some of this will be fortnight-old news then. Forgive me my lateness please.

Where to begin? Perhaps with the bees, who are STILL busy at it!

Keeper of the backpackers hive, Farokh, tells me their honey won third prize from the North London Beekeepers recently. He brought us a jar to share at our working party barbeque a few weeks ago and it was exquisite, and very healing; I’d had a bad headcold following the lurgy and a few spoons of the honey worked wonders. Farokh is particularly delighted with the progress as it’s only his first full year of beekeeping. Next year he will install another hive at the far end of the site. Then we will have honey galore!



Autumn is a busy time at the plot as there’s lots of clearing and tidying up to do before winter sets in. I have been spreading our now fabulously well-rotted manure from Nat’s endless free supply. It’s full of worms and goodness

and the brassicas love it. Look at those lovely cabbages!

Lots of beetroot still in the ground, interplanted with cabbage seedlings in various stages of growth. Swiss Chard is all around the place.



The butternut squash have been a bit hit and miss, as seems to be their way.

My experience has been much the same as many allotment neighbours. They grow well and tantalise us with promises of delicious winter treats, then overnight they can rot off the plant, but I still have some good sized fruits ripening.



With the nights getting colder I picked plenty of these cayenne peppers which are now sitting on my windowsill at home. I’m hoping they might ripen and redden, a bit more at least.

Nice big clumps of land cress have appeared. Sometimes known as winter cress, it will crop right through the dark months if I’m lucky. It’s tasty, and with a stronger flavour and much tougher leaves than watercress, a good addition of flavour and vitamins in winter.

This week I planted Autumn Gold raspberries, given to me by a neighbour at the far end of the site.

My Red Pear tomatoes were plentiful but still green and were suffering in the colder weather, so they joined the peppers ripening at home. I cleared the frames and canes that supported them and spread more manure.

The mysterious ‘maybe Turks Turban, maybe not’ pumpkins have grown all they are going to grow, so they have also been harvested this week.

Courgettes have been dying back over the last couple of weeks. I’ve cleared them as and when. A couple of days ago I cleared one single yellow courgette plant whose growth was so huge its corpse filled this entire wheelbarrow. I kid you not, this is one plant.



This funghi is growing on an old tree stump at the top of the bank.

It grows fast – only 3 days passed between taking these photographs. I think it’s very beautiful.

Here’s some of my plot - still full of food.



Love Autumn
Love Life
XXX

Those Fabulous Binnie Sisters

As always, time is passing extremely quickly. It was a week ago that my friend Christine Binnie, together with her sister Jennifer, transformed her flat into an art installation with events planned throughout October. It is the first time that they have exhibited as sisters, and according to their statement, “draws on their upbringing of creativity, spirituality and resourcefulness, nurtured in a bungalow on the edge of the South Downs by their artists parents – Kenneth, a printer, painter and follower of Rudolph Steiner, and Beryl – a weaver, spinner, Guide Leader, church choir member and pillar of the community”.

As well as paintings and objects by Jennifer, there are also Christine’s ceramics, of which I am a big fan

and this rather wonderful portrait of Christine by her father Kenneth.

There were performances too, the first of the night a collaboration between Christine and her mother Beryl, who had chosen these particular tea towels from their enormous collection, which Christine laundered and hung in the bathroom.

Then an outdoor performance with audience participation where Jennifer played violin and Christine sang, in the lovely raised bed garden she has made in the forgotten corner of the forecourt outside her block of flats.

No blight in EC1, her tomatoes are enormous.

She won a prize for this garden – quite right too!

For more information and to see what’s on and when, contact 07727 817 934 or 07940 859 485.


Love Creativity
Love Life
XXX

Happy and Blessed

It was Olga’s birthday so we met on Hampstead Heath to join her for a celebratory picnic.

There was an absolute feast of delicious Peruvian food that she and Aravec had made, a real treat for all of us.

There were lots of lovely friends enjoying sharing in the sunshine.

There was a thoroughly luxurious chocolate mousse birthday cake,

followed by home-made chocolate treats – YUMMY!


There is nothing I like better than relaxing in nature on a hot, sunny day with plenty of good food, prepared with love, and sharing the afternoon with lovely friends. How lucky I am.


Love Days Like These
Love Life
XXX

Autumn Blessings

It’s early autumn, and although the last week has felt like late summer, there is joy in knowing that autumn brings its own rewards,

like Nerine lilies, which Gaynor tells me are known as Naked Ladies in her native New Zealand, due to their lack of foliage and therefore 'naked' stems,

which sit happily alongside the new growth of the hollyhocks

and the flower bank backdrop (or bankdrop, perhaps?) is changing again.

An increasingly rare and always joyful sight at my allotment is that of tomatoes ripening on the vine, NOT decimated by blight for the first time in years.

The camomile path is standing up well as the seasons change. The plants are getting larger and stronger and I am very excited about what might be a full path in a year or two.

Check out Kate Magic’s blog, A Good Look, for some gorgeous allotment photographs taken during her recent visit. They are lush!


Love Seasons
Love Life
XXX

Sunset Shades in September

What a week of golden weather! We’ve been very lucky here in London and are enjoying a nice spell of late summer sunshine.

September is a lovely month, full of changes in nature, the end for some plants and the beginning for others, and the sun is low and warm. There’s loads to do up at the plot as old foliage is cut away and cleared, vegetables and fruit continue to crop and of course there is always weeding to be done. I found myself alone on site in the afternoon sunshine yesterday, while sitting up on the deck enjoying a well-earned break I noticed this little spider, camouflaged in the purple foliage:

Can you see it? Look closer....

I cut back the old, dead stems and leaves from the hollyhocks that backdrop the fence right at the top of the bank. While doing it I noticed this tiny snail

nestling in one of the hollyhock’s new flowers

Then on to a good couple of hours hand weeding between plants, strong and delicious scents wafting around me in the leek bed, where I also removed one of the green courgette plants which was looking very sorry for itself and on its last legs. The other plant is still going strong though,

as are the golden courgettes

and the beautiful yellow chard, just one plant which self-seeded.

The (allegedly) Turks Turban pumpkins are growing very well. They are golden orange, some with green stripes. They definitely came out of a packet marked ‘Turks Turban’ but is that what they are? Any suggestions as to their true identity would be welcome.


Life is Golden
Love Life
XXX

How to deal with a creep on the London Underground

I’ve just got home from the first of Andrew Logan’s jewel sale evenings in London Bridge where I’ve been selling my Love Life tees. I travelled home on the tube, a straight journey on the Jubilee line taking about 20 minutes maximum, and a journey I make often. I got on the train with a friend and a couple of stops along I noticed a rather hideous man with a pot belly, bad teeth and hair, and a horribly lecherous look staring right at me. It made me feel uncomfortable so I mentioned it to my friend and we both stared back hoping to shame him into averting his gaze elsewhere. It didn’t work. My friend got off at Oxford Circus and the train filled up.

“Will you be OK?” my friend asked before alighting, “perhaps you should move into another carriage”. I considered it but the train was full so I would have to stand, and I was tired and already had a perfectly good seat, and anyway, I have every right to travel safely without feeling uncomfortable.

When the train pulled out of Oxford Circus station the vile man, who by now must have thought he could creep me out to his heart's delight since I was now alone, made a truly repulsive facial expression, one of lechery in the extreme, as his staring continued. I was cross that his behaviour was making me feel so uncomfortable and knew I had to make him stop so I announced in a very loud and even voice, while looking straight at him

“Why do you keep staring at me?”

Everybody looked, first at me and then at him, and as they did he blushed red and flustered around as he started to say that he wasn’t staring but I cut him off, again very loudly,

“Please stop staring at me now because you are making me feel very uncomfortable”.

With the whole section of the carriage looking at him he stopped his lecherous staring immediately. He spent the rest of the journey looking at his feet and didn’t bother me, or any other lone female, again.

If somebody is bothering you in public then oust them loudly. My silent attempt at shaming by staring back at this creep didn’t work, but the moment I made everybody around me aware of what he was doing he stopped.

Don’t be silent, be vocal. And be safe.


Loathe lechery
Love loudness
Love Life
XXX