Pruning, selling Xmas Trees and reindeers

December and Christmas just around the corner - I haven't been outside too much lately - the rain and the wind are part of the reason but I've been busy trying to grow my various businesses. I still have to make an income and it's proving much harder than I expected.

Never mind, it will happen, I just have to have faith, which I do, in spades.

So, the only job I have completed successfully over the past couple of weeks has been to prune one of the fig trees, the one near the house. I know the more you prune the stronger the growth and these figs are aggressive in their habits but the one nearer the house is so dense now that it shades everything else, including my beautiful bay standard - so I cut it back to almost a third! Felt drastic but the tree will appreciate it - and so will everything underneath. I also pruned a hibiscus, white, in the front garden. It's a beautiful shrub and a prolific flower producing kind white petals, white stamen, so cool - at its height every branch has blossom, breathtaking.

Years ago I bought three cordylines in East Street market for £1.00, yes £1 for the three!!! I put two in the ground close together and one in a pot by the front door. The two I planted are now 10' tall and triffid like, they flower every year now. Luckily they have grown past the windows, for a few years it was a bit dark and dingy in the lounge!  I haven't the heart to cut them down and they make the best landmark for anyone visiting the house.

I trimmed down the grape vine that grows from next door, right over my back door and kitchen window, it will produce grapes every year, maybe next year they will be edible and not the sour offerings we have now. I pray every year that next door won't dig it out, I love it.

I've been selling all things Christmas at South Lambeth Road Library, the Tate. We are trying to get a new community street market up and running to help support the library and bring a bit more vibrancy to the surrounding area. The people who live up there are happy to hear there may be a bit of shopping available next year. If anyone is interested in having a stall or hearing more about it I can send on the details. No doubt as I am more and more drawn into 'helping; I'll post the information here. We are working on a launch day for early next year, possibly February.

Xmas trees are hard work!!!! Hope I sell them on Saturday - visit if you can - it's in Wilcox Close, right alongside the Tate Library.

Last Saturday I went to Covent Garden to buy stock and five little reindeers caught my eye, they were planted with apple sized berries, normally I avoid the twee but they looked in need of a friend. A lovely young woman bought them and wanted more........I'll see if I can get them next week.

Not my reindeer, this beautiful heart shaped climber is actually passion flower, a house near me made it happen, I like seeing it, especially in the summer.

The fig tree on the left, the grapevine in the foreground, before I pruned it. The garden looks very autumn.

Lost and found

autumn and now cold

crab apple

So, today I got outside but the weather has now turned and my hands were freezing! A wonderful shade of mottled red, orange and purple.

They soon warmed up after I planted a few bulbs, I just have a feeling the squirrels will find them before the day is out.

I put out some fat balls for the birds only a couple of days ago, one set of three has already been devoured by those squirrels......so greedy.

This morning I tackled the cupboard under the stairs - its one of those jobs that takes an hour but fester for a year, or in my case, longer. So I threw out stuff that had absolutely no use to me at all, it didn't have any use ten years ago but I would hang on to it. One bag had two old mobile phones that were in pieces and an old walkman, about a hundred mobile phone instruction books - what on earth????

I did come across my first pair of Birkenstocks, sitting unloved and forlorn on top of a paint tray, nursing ten years of dust. They scrubbed up rather well, despite the little hole over my little toe. I loved these birkies, friend of mine in Amsterdam bought them for me when the children were young and I spent so many wonderful holidays with her and her children, either there or here.

I have returned to Friday yoga at Yoga Point, Terry Morin gives a beautiful class, the class is for older bodies and really feels beneficial. I still attend the Ferndale Leisure Centre class on Wednesday and appreciate that both are helping me with my old bones - sometimes I feel so stiff.

Looking forward to giving two facial rejuvenation treatments next week - I am determined to gain confidence and keep pushing on until I make a business for myself, this and the plants are what I love, what makes me happy and I know that if I put in the effort and the positive vibration I will eventually earn a living out of them both. I read this the other day on a yoga instagram that I subscribe to, I believe it.

'the things that excite you are not random. They are connected to your purpose. Follow them.'

Where did those weeks go?

The moment when you realise you haven't written your blog for so long!
Sorry to any avid readers....not sure there are any yet but sorry just the same.
As I shared in my last blog I gave up smoking after having a chest infection and fever, the greatest news is that I have remained smoke free since - so now I'm in my 11th week.
It has not been easy and continues to be a struggle sometimes but I have managed this far and I am so proud of myself.
It is a filthy habit and one that I realise was a MAJOR part of my life, my habit is still niggling away at me and the after effects are only just beginning.
I have put on weight but I can lose it, I can't get new lungs, or a healthy respiratory system but I can lose weight.
While I have been trying desperately to keep busy and keep smoke-free I have been doing the garden, mostly raking leaves and putting them in bags for leaf mould next year.

 

I have been selling plants but sadly have given up my two days in Brixton market - I may be starting somewhere else - there's a new street market opening in South Lambeth Road, next to the Tate Library. I fancy I might help that get of the ground.
I've been selling from my garden too, small but steady business so if you are one of my neighbours and have just joined me I'll be doing the newsletter very soon.
I have also done a course in myofascial release - an addition my growing massage repertoire.
I've been busy.............

 

making Kokedama moss balls, which I will be selling at Christmas and next year, I have a company called Kokedama London. Making these is such a meditation, I will become obsessed - they are so beautiful - here are some hanging ones.

 

Caught a cold - running stall in the rain!

It was bound to happen - last Monday I set up the plant stall in the market as usual, as soon as I started the heavens opened and the rain pouring down became torrential. It pretty much lasted all day on and off, so business was so slow - I'm starting to think that the gardeners in and around Brixton have forsaken me - so I soldiered on. I started packing up around 4pm through the rain and by the time I got home I was drenched. Now I've got the worst cold and cough - feel bunged up and sorry for myself.

If anyone tells you it's easy running a stall don't believe them!
I am so proud of my daughter who owns and runs Flower Love London in Brixton Market, she has been doing this since November 2014 - through the cold, rain, sun, hailstones, wind - going to market at 5am in the morning, getting home at 7-7.30 at night. You've got to have a dream to keep that up.

Anyway, I am such a herbalist so when the cold came on it started with a sore throat - I picked some Thyme from the garden, boiled it up and drank the tea. Then I went out and picked some ripe elderberries and made a cough syrup with it - which tastes delicious and will stave off a bad cough. I am also drinking a lung tea mix, courtesy of Brixton Wholefoods recipe without the peppermint - so it contains hyssop, mallow, mullein, coltsfoot, yarrow - plus other herbs I can't remember now but it works to support the lungs and generally for respiratory problems.

Monday raining all day in Brixton Market

Drenched when I got home1

Making Elderberry cough syrup

Black Elder in the garden

Blackbird in trouble

Over the past few days the female blackbird that has been nesting in the grape vine since early spring has been sitting still for hours on various branches near the house.

I first noticed her a week or more ago, in fact I commented to my daughter that this bird is behaving strangely.

Yesterday I had a garden day - tidying up, mowing the lawn, watering and there she was, sitting in the beech tree, still, huddled, puffed out. She was chirping but it was a mournful, quiet kind of chirp, weak and plaintive. Her mate kept flying in, landing next to her with morsels of food in his mouth. He tried, unsuccessfully, to feed her only for her to turn her head each time in refusal. He spent a good deal of time sitting on the larger cherry tree just watching her from afar.

At twilight I checked to see if she was still there, she was not. I walked up the garden for my final look of the day, admiring the runner beans that cascade down from the supports, I heard a rustling near my feet and there she was - she'd been in amongst the swiss chard. She hopped away and slid under the tomatoes and courgettes. I left her to it.

When I had observed her and her mate yesterday I spent time near her sending her some healing energy - I couldn't help her any other way.

This morning I went out at 7am to check the place she usually sits - she wasn't there - I turned to come back inside the house and as I turned I saw her, sitting in the Indian bean tree right at eye level. She looked at me, blinked, looked around but didn't move other than that, she was so close I could have touched her. She does look ill and must be so, or she would have flown off when I talked to her.
I pray she manages to get through whatever is troubling her.

Today the garden is hosting a family lunch - so I'll be cooking all day - Italian fish stew, roast beetroot, butternut squash and artichoke pasta, lamb potatoes and salad - and I have two massages to give before then - both full body. My good friend from Amsterdam is staying for a week so we will have a fantastic day - the weather promises to behave, we will have sun. My garden looks ready to host the day.

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.