It was a busy day today, with people coming to see the lambs. We had about 30 people through, which isn’t bad when you consider the lack of advertising and the fact that we aren’t really a tourist destination.
I was a bit disheartened, on counting my surviving cuttings, to find that I don’t have many survivors. In the case of the periwinkle and cape gooseberry none have made it through the winter. In the case of the curry plant I have 100% survival. I only took them to see what would happen because, apart from smelling like curry, they are pretty useless. Even the mallow and buddleia have done badly, and they grow like weeds if you leave them alone. I’m beginning to suspect that I have the opposite of green fingers. I couldn’t have done worse if I’d replaced the rooting hormone with Agent Orange.
Things looked up a bit as we visited my dad in Peterborough with the first butterfly sighting of the year – a Small Tortoiseshell.
In the evening we took the longer way home and spotted a kite in a tree on top of the hill just before Elton, with it’s forked tail prominently displayed. There were two more wheeling over the edge of the village, and just before Corby, two more. One of the second pair obliged by formating on the car for a few moments – about ten feet away and a couple of feet above.
However, good as it was, it’s now time to start planning the 2015 cuttings campaign. An idiot, a knife and a pot of rooting compound…
…what could possibly go wrong?
That reminds me – I’m sure I took some cuttings off our flowering currant, but if I did I can’t remember where I put them. They ought to have taken, they’re very easy to propagate that way.
Yes, “easy”, that’s what I thought…
I’m not sure that anything in the garden is easy. Not for me anyway. My great satisfaction at the moment is making compost – don’t know quite what to do with it when it’s done, but love seeing the garden and kitchen waste transform in lovely, rich black compost. And finding lots of worms and minibeasts and voles making their homes in our bins.