martha-anne
Martha Anne
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Garden happenings
Due to some March sowing overzealousness, I had dwarf bean seedlings ready to be planted out much too early. It really should be at least another month before beans go outside, but I decided to send them out into the world anyway on the off-chance some might survive.
Every slug deterrent I've tried so far has had little to no effect (wool pellets, copper tape, eggshells) but this past week I've been experimenting with coffee grounds and hoping.
I've relocated several volunteer nasturtiums and sunflowers, of which there are many. I'm hoping the pictured nasturtiums will want to trail over the edge of the stone wall.
In perennial plant news, I have acquired a tayberry. Having been inspired by berry arch photos I've seen online, I'm hoping I can get it to grow over my pathway supported by a metal archway. Space is at a premium in my little garden, so anything which I can grow upwards rather than outwards is highly desirable.
There has been loads of spinach and chard to harvest from plants which started growing last year, and I picked my first radish! It's a bit on the small side, but extremely tasty.
Tulips are still flowering, and it feels like every few days there is a new kind of weird bug living in the pond. What a genuine pleasure to watch these things play out.
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What it's like at life drawing
#illustration#art#artists on tumblr#sketch#drawing from life#life drawing#sketchbook#figure study#figure drawing
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Pond life! Could some of these tiny little things be baby water boatmen?
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Life drawing. Haven't been in a while. I love it!
#illustration#art#artists on tumblr#sketch#sketchbook#drawing from life#life drawing#figure study#figure drawing
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Some things in my garden which are making me happy
1. My first garden bee sighting of the year. This guy is very generously pollinating my blackcurrant bush. The bush didn't grow a single berry last year, but it's looking great for 2024.
2. Rhubarb: my first proper harvest. I stewed it with ginger and have been having it over vanilla ice cream.
3. The tulips! Every day a new one opens. Over half of them are still to go. I used to think I didn't much like tulips but I've done a complete u-turn on that.
4. My tiny baby apple tree is getting ready to blossom. I was not expecting this at all; it was planted 3 months ago and looks like a skinny little twig. I won't let it fruit this year, but I respect the fighting spirit.
5. Pond... in the rain.
#garden posting#gardening#urban gardening#small space garden#solarpunk#permaculture#lots of slug damage but i'm over it
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Sketchbook pages
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Things are starting to happen in the garden
Seedlings! Tulips! Buds bursting!
The fruit bushes I planted over winter are showing signs of life!
I planted these peas outside last week. It's too early, but they were desperate to LIVE and to CLIMB. I could not give them the life they wanted indoors. It snowed pretty much immediately, and was frosty for several days. And yet, the peas remain unbothered and flourishing.
I had a 100% germination rate with these guys too. The variety is Lord Leicester if anybody is interested.
I've stacked up a load of old twigs and prunings which were lying around to make a bit of a habitat wall area. I'm hoping this will one day give frogs a safe passage to the pond. In the shorter term, I'm wondering if any climbing plants might like to use it as a support. Does anybody have experience with this?
This is the inside of the compost bin. I just like to look at it :)
#permaculture#small space garden#urban gardening#solarpunk#peas my beloved#compost#shall i compare thee to a february pea?#no thou art nowhere near as lovely
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Finished this weekend.
Chaotic quilt top; eventually to be a playmat for a friend's new baby.
My sister, who also quilts but is much more precise about it, tells me that this approach is horrifying.
My mum sews a lot and I am lucky to have had access to her Lovely Linen Leftovers for this project.
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Some from life drawing this week
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Life drawing this week. Challenging session; this one was my favourite
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Photo
I have, finally and at last, finished this double-bed sized patchwork quilt I've been working on since 2020.
I think it is the best thing I've ever made :)
@nonasuch I'm tagging you again as one of your posts was my inspiration to give epp a go.
A work in progress.
I’ve been sewing this quilt by hand, very gradually, since 2020.
It started life as a labour of lockdown love and was inspired in part by a hexagon quilt made by @nonasuch.
All the fabric I’ve used is scraps gratefully received from friends and relatives who sew regularly, or old clothes cut up, or charity shop pillow cases. Individually I think some of these fabrics are horrid, but everything looks nice once it’s part of a patchwork quilt.
Now that I’m most of the way through the quilting step this is tantalisingly close to being a finished project - but I expect I’ll still be at it for another year.
Using this quilt pattern: https://www.talesofcloth.com/products/mandolin-quilt
#patchwork#quilting#handwork#english paper piecing#epp#textiles#patchwork quilt#solarpunk#fiber art#fiber crafts
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Once again, life drawing
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People I saw and people I imagined
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I have a small garden. This is a relatively recent development, and it has been occupying a lot of my thoughts.
Writing about those thoughts here seems like as good an outlet as any.
The garden is looking particularly bad at the moment. Rather than speculating about what I want it to be like, I’m going to write about some things that have already happened and which I am happy about.
These pruned plants - a blackcurrant bush and a rose! I had never pruned anything before (I had never had anything that needed pruning before) and I felt paralysed by my own incompetence at first. I’m very glad to have given it a go. Either I've done it right, or I will have learned something about how not to prune.
Speaking of being paralysed by incompetence, these fenceposts! I knew I wanted to put up some kind of plant support/trellis along the back of this bed, but the task felt utterly insurmountable a few months ago. I had no idea how to go about it, so I did what I always do in such situations and asked my mum for advice. Cue posts, post-spikes, a mallet, and an improvised drive-in tool… I still need to string wires between them, but soon I’ll have a structure to train plants up.
This heap of twigs! These are the prunings from the blackcurrant and rose plants mentioned in the first point. There was not enough space in the compost bin for them at the time, so I’ve left them in a pile over winter. I hope it is a nice home for some appreciative bugs.
The compost! How do I love my compost bin? Let me count the ways.This pile of decomposing matter brings me indescribable joy. Since we started composting cardboard and food scraps we have so little waste to go into the dustbin. The compost is full of worms and all sorts of other life. I like to check on it in the mornings before I go to work.
The pond! I dug this a few months ago, and at the time I remember feeling like it was the first honest day’s work of my life. I got some water plants for free from a local facebook plant swap group. The eventual aim of this pond is to attract frogs to help deal with the slug population - I’m playing the long game. Of course, it will take some time for the ecosystem to stabilise - but already there is life! I was delighted to discover water hog-lice a few weeks ago. It’s a Christmas miracle!
This no-dig lasagna gardening bed! Every online resource said that this kind of bed is better if left for several months before being planted up. I planted mine immediately and the results were not amazing - so I’ve learned something, and this coming year it should be better.
Tulips! I mentally calculated and purchased what I felt was an appropriate amount of tulips for the space. A week later, a visiting friend brought the same quantity of tulip bulbs again as a housewarming gift. Finding somewhere for them all to go was a challenge, but my friend and I managed it together. I’ve now mostly forgotten where we planted them, which will be a fun springtime surprise.
There is so much I want to do with this space and so much I’ve tried which has already failed. I don’t really know much about gardening yet, but in 10 years time maybe I will have figured it out ;)
Three cheers for my shabby January garden!
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Chaotic quilt top; eventually to be a playmat for a friend's new baby.
My sister, who also quilts but is much more precise about it, tells me that this approach is horrifying.
My mum sews a lot and I am lucky to have had access to her Lovely Linen Leftovers for this project.
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More on the theme of pondlife. A miniature bullrush in my mum's garden :)
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Pond bugs!
A few months ago I made a tiny pond in my garden. This week there are bugs in it!
If anybody knows what these are or what it means that they have moved in, I'd appreciate it!
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