My garden enjoying the sun after the rain

Make Your Own Tomato Fertiliser

I'm not a hater of nettles, they contain so many nutrients and they grow in good soil. I don't like the pain when you accidentally touch one, it lasts a long time. Dock, which would resolve the issue of the sting, does not grow in my garden which is a shame.

This year, in the Spring, I made a really tasty nettle soup, I've rinsed my locks with nettle leaf tonic after shampooing and I made a large bucket of garden fertiliser.

Comfrey too, makes a similar fertiliser  for the garden but it is potent in a different way.

trailing cherry tomatoes - seeds from 99p shop

Here's how you do it:

Nettle Fertiliser

1. Just cut down the nettles, do it in April/May when the nettles are still young and full of strength
2. Wearing rubber gloves, pick the nettles up and place them in a half bucket of water until fully submerged.
3. Fill the bucket with more water and place a lid over it.
4. Leave to stand for at least three weeks, or until the nettles turn to a smelly, slimy mush.
5. Take out the nettle mush put in on your compost heap.
6. This is your mother fertiliser.
7. Dilute this mixture 1 part fertiliser to 10 parts water and then water your tomatoes, or anything that needs a little feeding.

Comfrey Fertiliser
Use the same process but replace nettles with comfrey leaves

WARNING: You might want to wear a mask, this stuff smells like a sewer - I quite like the pure farmyardiness of the aroma, especially as I live in London it takes me out of the concrete and into the countryside.

Monday Market

So, most of us have the best intentions. We don't want to be down or low in spirit, we just drift into that state often because of stuff - within and without. It's sometimes hard to cut out the chatter; the bombardment of international news, traffic, poverty, unrest, anger, greed ... so much stuff.

Today I was working on the market stall in Brixton. I left the house at 5.45am, picked up a van and drove to New Covent Garden Market, rushed in - I only had the van for 1.5 hours - went to my usual plant suppliers, chose a few desirable plants and some I thought other people might like. That's a tough thing for me, I love my garden so much that I always want to buy what I would want in it, I then remember that many people in Brixton don't have a garden, that more just can't afford the luxury of buying something for themselves. I immediately consider options for as many people as I can think of.

As this new lease of life progresses, people interested in plants tell me what they need, where they want a plant to go and the conditions it might be exposed to. Already I attend the morning market scouring each avenue for a lemon tree for a man who likes to have the smell of lemons around him, then a showy plant for shade. The search continued on behalf of a fellow stall holder who wanted Rosemary and Thyme - not one supplier had them.

I was set up and ready for customers by 9am - I told myself that today was going to be a good day, even though the weather was a little strange, that people would love my plants as I do.  Things were slow (static) until the afternoon but so many people stop and look and smile - ask questions, tell me about their allotments, gardens, window boxes, pots on the window sill, that I feel like it's not 'work'.

Anyhow the vibration changed, I sold a few plants .... all the desirables.

My next task is finding more specialist suppliers in nurseries near London.

Oh and I really need a van!!!

Life after redundancy

I was made redundant in October last year, I decided to take the money and take my time to decide what my next move was. At the age of 62 getting a new job in a familiar industry is hard enough but I am done with office work, any work I do from now on will bring me joy - and an income. It's not too much to ask is it?

Initially I signed on to Jobseekers - not a great experience -you are required to spend over 30 hours week looking for a job applying and evidencing your efforts. I did what I was told to do applied for anything that looked feasible and got not one reply.

Soul destroying if you let it be, I decided that I would look at my skills/talents and try to come up with solutions outside the box.

So a few more months down the line I am starting a massage business - bodywork and natural facelift massage. I am working my daughter's stall two days a week selling plants (my passion) and I started writing. My first book will be about my experience of a son who became a Muslim.

It's early days but I am happy with my choices, thinking positively every minute of every day - I know this new chapter will work for me.

Nature, you can't stop it

So, I was walking back from the local shop and spotted this courageous lobelia growing between the kerb and the road, in-between two parked cars!
Creation is a splendid thing, how it gets the nutrients it needs is beyond me but it grows and gives pleasure and I give thanks.

How my garden looks today