Sunday 28 February 2016

Hmmphf

raven feb 
Cheeky girl cat enjoys a spot of sunshine.

This is the internet so here is a cat. I've noticed something odd happening to my blogging habits. At the moment blogging seems like a self indulgence when there are more and better things to be doing elsewhere.

This isn't really true, this blog is where I hold onto a shred of personal awareness and autonomy. But I'm not doing it, or anything else much. So. What has been happening? Seeds came up.

  seedlings
Purple basil and the old favourite, sensitive plant. Just kids at heart.

There's been a bit of self indulgence in seed buying at least. I've obtained seeds for two sorts of Armenian cucumber. I'm not sure how they'll do in Normandy but I've wanted to try them for a long time and also some Queen Anne's pocket melon. This small melon which ripens to reddish brown with yellow stripes is not particularly nice to eat but allegedly has a lovely fragrance, the sort of thing to keep in your pocket for when the nosegay has wilted and the orange pomander seems too wintery. If I can get it to set fruit at all it will be interesting to see what it smells like.

Plans to get on with the new plantings at the farm are progressing. Something that has come out of my efforts for ocabreeders is that we may be getting a polytunnel at last. This is to make the nurture of over 700 new seedling varieties of oca just a little bit easier in the short term but of course it will quickly be turned into a useful area for our other crops as the season progresses. Also planned a new deer proofed area. It's all good stuff which helps to offset some of the other life impediments we're experiencing at the moment to do with jobs and family.

Next week I'm taking a trip to Devon to meet up with Incredible Vegetables. Mandy has been generously growing out some of ocabreeder's babies and will grow more for us this year. She's got skirret too and I'm hoping to buy some to bring back for a new bed in the vegetable garden as several attempts to start it from seed have been unsuccessful.









2 comments:

Unknown said...

What's an Armenian cucumber like?

Catofstripes said...

More of a melon than a cucumber but interesting taken small and pickled in salt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_cucumber