Tweet-Up

I’m not very good at marketing and networking and all that. Every year, I tell myself to do more of it, but somehow the seed sowing and the planting out and the weeding and the picking and the floristry etc etc  take up all my time and  ”getting out there” ends up being pushed down the list.

But this year, I am determined to get better at it. As a start I went to a Tweet-Up, arranged by the good folk at Marry Me In Somerset the other night at The Manor, a beautiful venue just outside Wellington. It’s just a gathering of people on Twitter in the wedding industry – a chance to mingle and network and chat to people you wouldn’t otherwise get to meet.

One of the lovely people I met was Sarah Godsill, an artist who stands discreetly in the corner and sketches your wedding. I just thought it was a lovely idea and, as it’s something most people would never have thought of, wanted to spread the word a bit.

That’s me on the left. Check Sarah out.

And if you’re on Twitter and are interested, I’m @jwblooms.

Buttocks Of Steel

Warning! Those of you who visit the blog for pictures of pretty flowers, prepare to be disappointed – this post will mostly comprise pictures of soil. Yep, that’s it,  just soil. You may also be disappointed if you are after pictures of buttocks.

Loyal followers who have been reading since the beginning will know that I grow my flowers according to the no-dig school of gardening. As I understand it (not necessarily accurately),  fungi in the soil, mycorrhizae, latch on to the root system of a plant, expanding the network of roots, so allowing more nutrients to be taken up by the plant. You can buy mycorrhizae in little pots now to sprinkle around your plants. It costs a fortune. But mycorrhizae are naturally occuring – and free. It’s just that when you dig, you destroy the network.

But, you cry, how can you garden without digging? Well, the other main idea underpinning the no-dig philosophy is that you don’t actually need to dig because, left to their own devices, the worms will do all the tilling and aeration for you. In practice, what this means is, instead of ploughing or rotovating, you choose your spot, dump a load of compost on top and leave the worms to mix it all up for you. Then, having planted into it, you allow the plant to build up its network of altruistic fungi and never dig again.

Which is what I did. I helped the process along by putting cardboard down to smother the grass before putting the compost on, but you don’t have to. Gosh, this seems a long time ago…

Nearly four years later, the plot has expanded to about an acre. I prepare new bits as I go – this is a bed I did last year, which I was weeding today. You can see the original clay soil (which has been under the black plastic) and the soil in the bed, now a mixture of the original soil and imported compost. Never dug, fertile and pleasingly friable – my own brand of alchemy.

And the buttocks of steel? They come from shovelling 15 tonnes of compost into a wheelbarrow. Keep your back straight, point your knees out to the side and squeeze those buns as you bend.

No-dig – the gardening method that just keeps giving.