Putting up the Christmas tree

 

The  second weekend in December we always start the process of putting up the Christmas tree. It always takes longer than intended that's why I say 'we start the process'. It can actually take several days. The tree was bought the weekend before and was left standing in a bucket of water outside until we were ready to bring it indoors.

Getting a 6ft Christmas tree into the house is not an easy job. We have the first job of moving the furniture to accommodate it. As we move the sofas around ( and they are heavy) the carpet gets a thorough vacuuming and we usually find numerous bits of Lego and small toys which the grandchildren have lost throughout the year. This time I all I found was a ball belonging to the cat and a dead spider. The cat views all this activity with wide eyed interest and as the tree is put into place she takes up residence under its lower branches. Perhaps she is remembering the fun she had last year. We are wondering if we will find her sitting on the top branch in the morning. No she will be banned from the room overnight!

When the tree is finally in place and decorated we rest our weary backs and agree it's the best tree ever (it always is). The cat meanwhile is plotting what mischief she can get up to under those branches.

Christmas shopping event

We've been really tired this week following last weekend down at our daughter's helping with her fund raising event. Packing up the car with all the stuff was quite a challenge especially as we were travelling a fair distance. Making sure nothing got squashed was important as well as finding room for everything in our little car. Our suitcase was somewhere underneath all the boxes as was the spare wheel. My husband was hoping we didn't get a puncture on the journey down!

But we had a great time and the whole event raised  a good amount for cubs funds. I enjoyed running my Christmas decorations stall and meeting so many people. It was good to chat to people even if they didn't want to buy.  We didn't sell up, I didn't expect to so we brought  some things back with us which we can either make use of ourselves or pass on to some local charity events and I managed to sell another fresh foliage door decoration once we got home. Now I need to find the time to make my own door wreaths.

Being so tired we haven't felt up to doing any allotment work, but as the work is slowing down now I'm not too worried. It's all about clearing and manuring beds at the moment and we can do that a bit at a time.

We've had frost this week so I'm glad that I remembered to close the lids on the cold frame where I have put some tender plants.

One of the wreaths I made

Glitter time

It's that time of year. The glitter is out and all over the place and it will probably be around for the next six months or so. On carpets, clothes, the cat, even the garden. For the last few weeks I have been making Christmas crafts for a fund raising event my daughter is organising--Christmas tree decorations, pomanders, rose hip hearts, pot pourri. It all involved plenty of glitter and smelly spices. The grandchildren complained about the smell but I like it.  This week I have been making fresh foliage arrangements--wreaths and table decorations.  I have raided the garden and the allotment for conifer, ivy, holly and anything else which looks good at this time of year and will keep for a few weeks.

It started off as just a small idea but grew as I got carried away with it all and did lots more than I intended.  I'm exhausted now, but it's all done and soon we will be attempting to pack all the stuff in the back of our little car and drive down to Bedfordshire. So if you are in the Stotfold area on Saturday 29th November, 12noon--4pm, call in at the Scout Hut on Baldock Road and enjoy a Christmas shopping day. You get a mince pie and a glass of mulled wine with your ticket. It should be a great day. If you see me say hello.

Tidying up

This time of year is quite an untidy time in the garden. Leaves are all over the place and as fast as you sweep them up there are more to take their place.  The borders are full of the the heads of dead flowers and wilting foliage. It can be really damp and murky too. Clearing the vegetable plots results in boots caked in mud.

Fortunately my obsessive tidiness in the house does not extend to the garden. Here I am happy to see summer flowers fighting for space, tumbling over paths and lawn edges. In the autumn the dead flowers take on another beauty with golden tints to their leaves and interesting shapes with their seed heads.

Untidiness in the garden is also good for the wildlife. Seed heads and hollow stems provide homes for insects which then provide food for the birds. Much as we love to compost our leaves we find it impossible to keep up with the constant sweeping . Around the garden most of the leaves are left, they tend to get blown under hedge bottoms and into corners where they become homes for more wildlife like hedgehogs, frogs and toads. I find that the leaves on the lawn blow away onto the borders. I clear them up gradually through the winter or early spring. But where the paths and drives are covered in leaves we sweep up as they can get slippy.

This week I have been sorting out the cold frame which gets full of all my plant cuttings.  I have a number of echiveria plants in pots around the garden. They grow well outside in the summer but need protection in winter.  I've tried different places to store them over winter like the front porch and the allotment growhouse.  Last year I put them in the cold frame under cover and they survived, so I decided to do that again this year. I have also put some pot geraniums in there to see if they survive. I bought an aeonium this year at a plant sale. This is too tall for the cold frame so I have wrapped it in sacking and bubble wrap and put it in a sheltered corner.

One area I do clean up in the autumn is the shed. As the lawn and hedges get their last cut the mower and hedge trimmer are packed into a corner of the shed. Shelves are sorted and tidied, the jumble of canes put into some sort of order, the plant pots are cleaned and packed into boxes under the bench. The floor and bench  are swept and given a quick mop with Jeyes Fluid. All is neat and tidy, but not for long, a gardener's work is never done!

Enjoying autumn

I often think that autumn can get a bit overlooked as a season.  By the end of September many shops now are  displaying Christmas goods and gradually the preparations for Christmas start to take over. But autumn beauty lasts well into November and Autumn can so easily get lost in the run up to Christmas.

A couple of weeks ago we visited RHS Harlow Carr. It was a birthday treat for me--a walk around the gardens and lunch in Betty's Tea Room. We often have the grandchildren with us when we visit Harlow Carr, but not this time, so instead of visiting the Tree House, the Log Maze and the Log Ness Monster we were able to go anywhere we wanted.

The arboretum was a good place to go since we wanted to take in the season's colours.  We wandered along the path going further than we had before on our visits. We hadn't realised the arboretum extended as far as it did. Back in the main part of the garden the main borders were still looking good even though the summer flowers were over with. There was plenty of colour and structure from the grasses and seed heads of the dead flowers. Around the main gardens there was some spectacular colour from specimen trees.

We paid the customary visit to the kitchen garden which was looking much like our allotment with some brassicas and salad still remaining and empty beds prepared for the winter. We noticed that the big pumpkin and squash beds were now empty. Where were the missing pumpkins and squash? We found them in the greenhouse looking very colourful.  Having visited Harlow Carr in December a few times I'm sure that they  will form part of the Christmas displays. We'll be back next month to check them out.

Tree cutting on the allotments

There was a lot of tree cutting work going on at the allotments last week, organised by the council. A row of 4 sycamore trees at the back of 4 plots including our plots 8 and 10b were cut back to provide more light to the vacant plot behind. Two of the trees were  cut down and the others had the canopy raised. We were pleased because although they don't cast much shade on our plots they were a nuisance because of the leaves and seed pods.

It has made quite a difference to plot 8 by opening up the top end and giving us more light. We are now able to see over the fence to the vacant plot which is quite big. The council hope to divide it up into 4 smaller plots so we might be having new neighbours soon. Unfortunately the grandchildrens secret woodland den is not secret anymore. If you click on the link you will see how it used to be.

Although the area has been opened up more it is still not possible to use the space for growing.  We can keep it as a wildlife area and having acquired several thick pieces of tree trunk I'm sure we can make something of this space. I think the grandchildren will be able to use their imagination to create another play area or little woodland garden. I feel a project coming on!

Clearing up the plots

As the days get shorter, we are now spending less time at the allotments. There are still plenty of jobs to be done though, but we tend to go down just for a couple of hours with a specific job to do without having our usual lunch or cups of tea.  Beds are gradually being cleared and then weeded and manured. It's a busy time trying to get them ready for winter.

The peas and courgettes have all been cleared and the climbing french beans will soon be finished with. The cabbage beds are quite full of produce still.  Kale, Brussels sprouts, sprouting broccoli, red cabbage and Calabrese will keep us going through the winter.

The summer cabbage and cauliflowers are now all done with and we have planted some garlic where they were in one of the beds on plot 8. In the roots beds there are still plenty of beetroot and some tiny celeriac. They will probably be left there for a while.

As they start to look messy, we pull up the flowers in the cut flower beds. From a distance they look good but close to we can see that most of them are not good enough to cut now. The dahlias however are still going strong and we are cutting as many as we can before the frosts finish them off and that may not be long off now.

At the weekend we cleared all the tomatoes out of the polytunnel. I was glad to get them out and the place cleaned up because I think there are mice in there. We have found holes in the soil and teeth marks in the tomatoes which had dropped off the plants onto the soil.  It looks very empty now and we are thinking about what we can grow over the winter.  At home I now have tomatoes all over the place, so I need to make something with them.