What´s Cooking?

Here are a collection of the food I am growing in my garden, some in the plant room (purpose built to evade the winds) and out in the garden with some protection.

I am chuffed to bits when I see the little seedlings popping through the earth, then it is onto the planting stage and then bigger pot or grow bag then wham they take off.

This is an exposed bed of herbs; chives, basil, sage, lemon balm and borage, there is also my little beetroots at the back. The space was where a cabbage had been and will hope to pop something in there soon.






Below is the plant room with the various edibles growing; melons, tomatoes, sweet peppers, cucumbers and basil

Basil grown from seed and potted on, will have a constant supply for the whole of Summer

Sweet pepper flower with a promise of tasty fruits

I also have lettuce and swiss chard growing in the main garden bed with windbreaks around, this is what I have to do to protect them from the harsh winds we get (not all the time but a lot) the plus point is that the surfers love it and just a short way from my home you can watch loads of surfers doing their thing, an amazing sight.

Plantastic Colours

What do bored housewives get up to?

"Honey I have got a stain on my golf t shirt?"
"Have you tried to get it off?"
"Yes but it is worse."

Never fear the plants are here!!!

Today I decided to try and dye my hubby´s t shirt as it was beyond repair and much loved.
He entrusted it to me to fix and I did with some natural herb and plant dyes.

Look at the results! I was amazed, so was he ;-))

Here is how I done it and why there is a difference in colours between his on the left and mine on the right.

To fix the colours

Take for plants:-  4 parts cold water to 1 part vinegar

Take for berries/fruits:- 1/2 cup of salt to 8 cups of cold water (to be honest though the berries would have to be in a very bad way for me not to want to eat them)

Anyways I took herbs and plants from the garden, swiss chard old leaves, rosemary sprigs, lavender leaves, old lemon balm leaves and I chopped them roughly and added them to half of the vinegar and water liquid

and I brought it to the boil, then I tied twisted knots into the t shirt to create the tie dyed effect, I secured the twists with rubber bands and pieces of wool, cloth etc.

I then turned off the heat and steeped the t shirt with all the tied knots into the liquid and stirred it around and then left it for some time (depends on intensity of colour required) then I took it out of this pot and added it the other pot.

In another pot I put chopped carrot, calendula flowers, turmeric powder with the remaining vinegar and water liquid and turned up the heat to heat the liquid through.

Then from one pot to the other I put the tshirt and let it steep in the yellow liquid as before.

Once I was happy with colour I removed the t shirt and rinsed it thoroughly with cold water and hung it outside to dry, I will wash it tomorrow properly (by hand) and hang out again then it is ready to wear. Please wash separately by hand as colours will run again and again and again, it is a natural dye.

The other t shirt, the more lemony one was just put into the pot with the carrot, turmeric and calendula hence the difference in colour and I just tied this t shirt into a big knot to achieve this tie dyed effect.

Please note: I will not be responsible for any divorces, dying of other articles of clothing from your tie dyed articles, skin dyes or any other unforeseen events, if you have a go be it at your own risk. :-))

Curfew for Cats?

BBC Breakfast News says Curfew for Cats

It is not often I am compelled to write about something in the morning news but now and again I feel that the world is going slowly mad. This morning on BBC Breakfast show they had a segment on should cats be put on curfew for attacking wildlife.
I have often been told I am mad for my interests in alternative healing or my views on recycling or my taste in art or music. If I am mad I am glad because if sane people think that putting curfews on cats is something that people in prominent positions should be spending their time worrying about and trying to implement, then sane people have lost touch with reality.
I love nature and wildlife. I write about it, I am passionate about the way in which I garden to protect the eco balance of our planet as a whole but am I worried about what cats get up to at night, it is a definite no.
Wildlife is termed as such because it is "wild", we the humans, especially in the UK have an obsession with controlling (or policing) even wildlife. Purpose built nesting boxes, hedgehog homes, ladybird houses, need I go on - feeders with various types of seeds for birds but with guards on to keep out the squirrels.
Plant some bushes with berries, they feed the birds what they need at the time they need it.
My garden here in Tenerife is adjoined to a neighbouring garden with a large tree that is home to several bird families with no intervention from the various cats around as it is an old tall tree with plenty of cover so as to offer protection from all sorts of predators, including hawks. It also provides berries.
The cats here seem to prefer lizrds and the lizards prefer the plants and so on.

neighbours cat with lunch

We have various untidied areas in the garden for insects to home and we have added a pond, as fresh water is a treat for the wildlife here and the cats, all sharing the area happily. We too have trees that birds nest in and feed on, although not as large as next doors yet.

There are spiders webs across the pond at the moment so I ask myself, do I remove these incase they catch a dragonfly? Of course not. Where does this control end?

Farmers are creating wildlife areas within their farms and by creating biodiversity, less harmful spraying is required - they receive subsidies to do this but this is going to be fazed out, why?

Drivers kill hedgehogs, are we going to fine these drivers? Of course not.

We recycle here because we want to, we have to take our recycling to communal bins just like the big ones at supermarkets so why does the government in the UK spend money on these individual bins for every householder? They get stolen, vandalised, set on fire, are unsightly and people resent recycling in this way and fear putting the wrong things in the bins so don´t bother. Everyone with a garden or a plot of ground should be given a tree to plant, not all the same type and people should be educated on why recycling matters.

Share your views, I would love to hear what you think. This is not a question whether you like cats or not, whether you like wildlife or not it is more important than that and we all have to do our bit because we want to, not because we have to or because it is fashionable.

Dragonfly on Aloe plant and Wild Canary at pond

The Three R´s in Gardening

Re-using, Reclaiming & Re-cycling


In the garden I try to use recycled items wherever possible.
My most recent vegetable bed is made from an old wicker chest of drawers. I found it one day on the side of a street, for the bucket and thought it looked okay, and it was.
For many months I used it within my plant room, in a conventional sense as a chest of drawers, holding string, tags, pots etc.
I then used the drawers as plant pots having seen some "designer" square wicker plant pots in the upmarket plant pot section of the garden centre , each pot approximately 15euros each, mine Free.

Yesterday I decided to turn the whole carcass into a vegetable bed.


                                                                                                                                                                   
Once filled with compost will last a few seasons.

I have also reclaimed most of the seats in the garden, only ever having to
give them a rub down and a new coat of paint. These seats are extremely comfortable, makes you wonder why they were in the bucket??

 I re-use the large spring water bottles as cloches/mini propagators - I just cut off the bottoms and that way I can put the tops on or off depending on whether I want more heat or less.

I do re-use the plastic pots that shop bought plants come in - making sure I thoroughly wash them with hot soapy water and rinsing and drying them before use. This stops any possible disease being passed on, it
hasn`t happened yet.
I also compost all my vegetable/fruit scraps, it makes a rich compost. I mix it with used kitchen roll, newspaper and lightweight cardboard and non-diseased plant cuttings, a little water now and again and off it goes.

I would love to hear your ideas on re-using/recycling in your garden.

Creating a pond has created a haven for wildlife

We have created a small pond in an area of our garden, primarily to encourage wildlife into our space.
It has exceeded our expectations being a real distraction from the "work" of the garden. I find myself sitting for hours just watching the endless antics of dragonflies and lizards who use the space, not to mention the visiting cats.
I have detailed how we made it:-

• Mark out the area where the pond will go
• Dig a giant hole
• Flatten out the hole and use sand to make sure the liner doesn´t get pierced with sharp stones
• Lay in the liner, not securing it until the water is in it as the weight of the water can drag it down
• Fill with water slowly (takes a while)
• Leave for at least 24hours before putting plants in
• Dress around the pond with stones (we used what was available as I wanted it to look as natural as possible)

After 24 hours put some aquatic plants in, we made sure there were a few oxygenators and a few tall reed types for the insects to make webs on or for the dragonflies to land on.
For about three weeks all you will have is a dark, murky mess with lots of mosquito larvae but don´t panic, within one more week the dragonflies and other feeders will arrive and munch their way through the mosquitoes so no need for fish (which aren´t wildlife)
Clean out with a small net from time to time so as to keep it cleanish but basically just leave it and enjoy it.
Oh yes almost forgot!!! Get yourself a solar powered pond fountain or bubble maker, this keeps the O2 levels right and adds to the drama. Larvae do get in the pump but as it is a small one it is mainly mosquito larvae which let´s face it is not the end of the world.

Tenerife Life

Tenerife is an island in the Canaries. It lies off the coast of North Africa so enjoys all year round great temperatures. 
I live in the South of the island in a windy site, this has it's advantages in the stifling Summer months where temperatures can reach over thirty degrees, the wind keeping us that little bit cooler. 
Gardening has been a real passion of mine both here and in the UK but here it is a real learning experience. In the first few years there were a lot of disasters, sometimes costly. However I am happy to say that the garden is coming on a treat. 
Knowing your site is the most important information you can note down before you begin to plan your garden, this would have saved me a lot of heartache. 
To combat the wind and the drying heat we have incorporated various methods of working with these natural forces. Within this blog I will endeavour to share with you some of my ideas, and also show an ongoing record of just what is happening in our garden. 
I would be delighted to hear from you so please feel free to follow, comment or add to any of my blogs.