The Impulsive Gardener

...or, at least it was 24 hours ago. Today was a balmy eight degrees outside thanks to some billowing cloudcover which constantly leaked rain all day but I'm not going to relinquish my multiple pairs of woollen socks (which may or may not be OH's missing pair from last week) nor put aside the thoughts of hot whisky-based evening tipples.

Corn cockle giving up the ghost.

Oregano- or it is marjoram?

Regardless of the weather, I'm plotting my upcoming veg patch and eyeing up my stocks of seeds, looking for gaps in the ranks and conjuring excuses to clickety click one or three extra little seed packets into my virtual basket.

It's even colder than it looks.

Chillies, I must have chillies. I will sow those in the new year, with the other heat lovers, the tomatoes, both in every colour, size and shape they could possibly come in. I could also plonk some aubergine seeds in, but eh.
Melons, summer cabbages, spring onions, peas, radish, cucumber, broad beans, leeks and parsnips, all of these will go in come January/February so clickity click, into the basket they go.
By March and April the windowsill space is at a premium and the cat is banned from coming indoors as summer squash, sweetcorn, pole bean and cucumber seedlings jostle cheek and jowl in precariously balanced trays. There will be losses, that Houdini-mouse which is able to execute what must be great feats of aerobatics over the maze of snappy traps laid at every crack and crevice will mow down a trays worth or two. The cat will get in an lay in great comfort on a bed on fragile bean tendrils and be seriously pissed when I shoo her off. I will forget to bring something in and find it the next morning, frosted and slimy from it's night of rough sleeping. OH is the only blameless party, weaving his way around pots and trays without knocking into or stepping on and obeying without question -and more than a reasonable amount of good grace- the essential rule of 'Don't move it. I probably put it there for a reason.'

While previously, I struggled to believe what I saw and heard about sticking bits of twig in the dirt and expecting them to grow, I know better now. Rows of neat currant, gooseberry and fig sticks jostle for space in my seasonally empty beds, slowly shooting roots out and becoming a new army of bushes and cordons to plant myself and give away to those nearest and dearest (or unsuspecting enough to not realise I'll be back in the summer with courgettes).


It's easy. As a general rule, cut a nice pencil length, unbranched shoot of this years growth right about now or when the plant is pretty much dormant. Trim away any leaves and poke three-quarters into the ground. Ignore. Next summer furtle around and see if any roots are happening. You would ideally leave it to get on with itself, though in some cases having a carpet of rampantly growing super-spiny gooseberries is not ideal so you can also carefully dig up and re- pot or plant elsewhere.