And the garden slowly wakes

Regardless of the number of years that I’ve been gardening, I still thrill to the sight of the garden starting to emerge from its winter inertia. Psychotherapist Sue Stuart-Smith (wife of garden designer Tom) has written (*see below) of how pathways in the human brain respond to green nature by releasing feel good hormones such as endorphins (pain and stress relief), serotonins (happiness) and the love hormone, oxytocin. It’s not too strong a claim to say that the sight of a clump of newly opened snowdrops will literally lift my heart. 

The cycle of the seasons, nature waking and seeds sprouting gives us hope for the future; we feel grounded, safe and calmed. Our connectivity to nature is fundamental for our health and wellbeing which is why gardens provide such effective therapy for mental and physical trauma. 

I find walking across the untamed nearby heath stimulating but it’s the smaller signs, pictured below, of nature waking in my garden last week (before the snow came!) that I find so reassuring.

It's tulip time!

Hallelujah! Winter is almost over, she shouted.  Okay, that may be stretching it a bit but there are definite sightings of tulip buds rising above the leaves in the veg patch and mini tulips in flower in the car park garden.  This is most unusual, even if we are only days away from March, the meterological start of the spring season.  It all seems a bit too soon, to have tulips in February; I mean, the snowdrops are barely bowing out and daffodils have just hit their stride. So these tulips are most unexpected - but after a long wet winter, I'll take whatever signs of imminent spring I can get.

One of the tall tulips in the Fruit Tree border of the Veg Patch.
Hmmm, thought I’d dug all the yellow ones up ... 

A fact I discovered just recently was that short tulips flower earlier than their taller relatives. Please tell me I'm not the last to know! This I find eminently sensible (even if they do normally wait until late March/April to bloom). Wintry weather, and certainly the wild weather we've had this year, would ravage the taller tulips (the ones the foxes don't trample first!) but I was still surprised to see several of these red/yellow mini tulips ready to open at the weekend.  Especially as I planted only tall tulips in this bed last year and most of those were transferred to pots when I needed the space for my gooseberry bushes. Maybe, like me, they've just got shorter with age.

It's that winter/spring thing

So far this winter I’ve remained cozily optimistic about avoiding frost and freezing temperatures, given the relatively mild weather in North London.  Early yesterday morning though, following a beautifully clear night sky, I could just make out a layer of ice etched into the cars parked below from my second floor windows. It’s the first time temperatures have fallen below 45°F (8°C) and I felt the tug to be outside, looking to see if my nasturtium leaves had caved in to the cold. (They hadn’t.)

Before you ask, no I haven’t discovered a super hardy variety of nasturtium; these are left overs from last summer and usually don’t survive beyond November. I ripped out most of the sprawling trip-hazard plants at the end of autumn but a few fallen seeds had germinated so I left the baby plants for salad leaves until winter got them.  They carried on (rather heroically I thought) and, unrealistically, I was hoping that a mild winter would let these plants live to produce early summer flowers. I think my expectations might be misplaced. Although ....

Newly opened and appreciating this weekend's warm January sunshine

This past week the weather has been rather horrid and a sharp reminder that we’re still not at peak Winter in the UK - dark grey skies, constant drizzle, heavy rain, and buffeting cold winds. (Which makes this weekends sunshine all the more appreciated.)  It was the sort of weather that makes you want to curl up under a cosy blanket with your seed box and dreams rather than be outdoors but, undeterred, I have been checking in on the garden.  There’s not a lot happening in the veg patch, understandably, but what there is seems to be ticking over nicely, waiting for spring.

In autumn last year I sowed a dozen Aquadulce broad bean plants in modules. I wanted to see if overwintering (rather than spring sown) gives an earlier harvest; the small plants were transplanted into the garden in early December and now need tying in to their support stakes. My favourite beans are still Karmazyn (slightly sweeter with pink coats inside green pods) but they won’t be sown until March/April.

Onion sets planted in December have started to sprout, kale (pink veined Red Devil), chamomile and chervil are all looking very healthy, having been planted out as I cleared the veg patch in early winter.  The strawberry runners, not so much; I noticed yesterday that they were looking very sorry for themselves but perhaps they'll perk up with some better weather. 

January nights are punctuated by the mating cries of urban foxes; the flats here are next to a railway line, a lushly overgrown 'green corridor',  making it a perfect spot for fox burrows. Most nights several of them like to check out the home turf, looking for food and fun. I can see that foxes have been in both gardens; yep, the usual calling cards are much in evidence!  So all my precious veg has been protected under rescued wire baskets (often see thrown out on the streets).

Safe to say, the garden is not at its most glamorous but all is not lost.  After pinning my hopes of winter flowers on a solitary snowdrop for the past few weeks, I was thrilled to find the violets in bloom yesterday.  These are self seeded having managed to work their way a good 8 metres up the garden path. Recognising the leaf shape when the seedlings were tiny, I left the plants to develop but will move them, probably into the other garden which is, to its detriment, currently a violet-free zone.

But I can't leave without mentioning my Cavolo Nero plant. I love how nature is a constant cycle of surprises! In 2018 I let the original plant run to seed, mainly because the flowers provide late summer food for bees. By spring of last year, one of those seeds had grown into a tiny plant which I carefully  moved to the other end of the veg patch where it thrived to produce good leaves for eating all year. That plant was huge and healthy so I let that one run to seed as well. After harvesting the seeds, I cut the stalk down to about a metre high, leaving it as there were still a few leaves growing from the base. Those leaves have been providing me with food all winter and the plant is still growing. Now that's what I call excellent value.

My hero Nero