Forest Gardening and Romance

Well last weekend was the weekend before Valentine's Day so we put the whole weekend by to be romantic. Yes we cleared out the garage!! Such a good catharsis - which is why "dump" is a much better name than "tip" for the place you take all the rubbish (though my BFF will disagree on that one)

We did also manage to start planting the edible forest garden I have been planning/designing along permaculture lines. DH did the digging while I did the planting - always felt I should be the Queen really. First priority is to grow a windbreak so we have gone for mostly hardy trees that should manage in the North East of England - Crab apples, medlar, rowans, hawthorn, some hardier plums, a mulberry and a couple of Siberian pea trees.

I am also planning a Lindsey lavender bed in memory of a very dear and special friend who died a fortnight ago. She had sent me a card last year with lavender seeds and these I am going to grow indoors first, to then transplant to a sunny spot in the forest garden - she was a sun lover too :) This way every time it is sunny and I can smell the lavender, I will smile and a little bit of her will live on.

Chicken update - the eggs in the incubator have less than a week to go, I have been candling them and am hopeful that three of them have viable chicks. We are down to one remaining cockerel now - the small but stroppy Lavender Aracauna was waking the neighbours at 4am. Hopefully the remaining one will learn the lesson of his fellow cockerels and stay a bit quieter.

Must take the time to put some pics on here at some point.