There are two kinds of distaff that I carry in my shop: the one made from straight, smooth, modern round dowels, and the kind made from natural wood. Said wood is either hazel or willow, both grown in our own garden.

Which means that I cut wood for distaffs occasionally, and the biggest cutting action is in late winter, when our willow fence gets set back to its basic structure.

In spring, said fence is working hard to make new branches from the latent buds, and of course sprouting from the buds left on last year's growth:


though these get less and less as the fence is getting nearer to completion of the basic structure.

Now, willows are hardy plants and quite resilient, and if you stick the cut willow shoots into the soil, they will usually take root and grow and prosper.

This year, it seems, I will have unusually vital distaffs to sell, trying to grow and prosper too, even though they've been cut weeks ago:


I'm always amazed at the vitality in plain bits of willow wood - and the enormous power that spring has!

We're obviously into spring now, and softly nearing Easter - the flowers in the garden tell me this:

[caption id="attachment_3006" align="alignnone" width="640"] Snowdrops are through - now coming up for their turn: two-leaf squill...


[caption id="attachment_3008" align="alignnone" width="640"] ...viola (and I'm especially happy that there are more of them in the lawn this year)...


[caption id="attachment_3009" align="alignnone" width="640"] ... and you can see the tulips preparing for their part of the show already, too - just beside the white ones whose name I don't remember just now.


I hope the weather during the weekend will be nice enough to enjoy some gardening - there's quite a bit of garden that is in dire need of some attention, and there's seeds waiting to be tossed out!

I've had a slow day today, time to take a few nice photos of things blooming in the garden:

[caption id="attachment_2980" align="alignnone" width="640"] Crocuses...


[caption id="attachment_2979" align="alignnone" width="640"] ... the hellebore...


[caption id="attachment_2978" align="alignnone" width="640"] ... iris...


[caption id="attachment_2977" align="alignnone" width="600"] ...and, of course, the first heralds of spring - Snowdrops!

Some years ago, when we moved into our current home, I planted a little madder plant in the garden. That little madder plant has since grown... and taught me that madder grows like, well, mad.

It's not a really beautiful plant with its long stalks that are prone to fall and lie flat. It doesn't have spectacular blooms (they are small and yellow, and the madder berries are round and black, so nothing eye-catching either). It has no lovely smell, and it's not nice to touch - quite the opposite, in fact.

What it does, though, is grow. Grow and take over as much of the garden bed as it can, sending out its roots below ground and suddenly sprouting up. This year, it ate at least two of my tomato plants that I, foolishly, set too close to the madder patch. Thus I decided it's time for the madder to be harvested... and the beautiful sunny weather yesterday was just the right invitation to dig some red roots.


I got about one bucket full of roots, and there is still some left to harvest. The roots are brittle, and have colours ranging from bright orange to a deep red inside, the older the darker. They also have a very interesting, kind of sweet-ish smell to them.

[caption id="attachment_2693" align="alignnone" width="368"] Madder root with an orange core...


[caption id="attachment_2694" align="alignnone" width="363"] ...and with a dark red one.


Now they will need to dry, and then they'll be cleaned and shredded into pieces, and then... they will hopefully dye a nice deep red. And my tomatoes will be safe for a few years. Probably.

Garden pics!

First of all, one that didn't really catch what I wanted to catch, but looks really pretty nonetheless:


The peach is still hanging on the tree, and it's getting peachier and peachier each day - but is still really hard and not yet really ripe. I'm patient, though.


There's the first autumn flowers blooming...


... the bumble bees make use of the flowering mint species...


... and this wasp robbed a spider of its prey to munch on it:


I hope you have as nice and sunny a day as I have!

 

There's been a nice surprise in the garden - suddenly, a red-blooming flower appeared:


We didn't plant this, and we certainly didn't expect it - but it is very welcome in its beauty. It's also blooming at a time when there is not so much else colourfully flowering around, so it is doubly welcome. Looking at the leaves, it might also have brought some friends in the same bed, though they are still a little shy and not showing any signs of a flower stem... yet. Maybe next year.

It's not looking quite as lovely and happiness-inducing on the peach tree: Of all the flowers and subsequent tiny little peaches, there is only one single peach left.


So I'm hoping that this one will continue going strong - that would mean a harvest of one peach, at last, some time later this year. Which would delight me no end!

Today is not as nicely warm and sunny as yesterday - the ideal weather to gear up with a cup of coffee or three and take stock.

I have a current count of things in stock, obviously, due to the webshop - but there's sometimes a little safety margin between the number of things listed in the shop and the things actually in stock - in case I need an extra because something gets lost in the post, or because something sold in real life versus via the online shop, for instance. Plus, from time to time, something gets lost or breaks while on an event... which means it's good to have a spare or two.

This, however, also means that occasionally I need to go through the actual, real, current stock and make sure that the numbers still match (or match as far as I intend them to). And since more fairs are coming up... now seems to be a good time. Especially since taking a look at all the things and counting them up means I can check their packaging, too - and in some cases re-pack into a smaller, or more sensible, or sturdier, or otherwise better way. Which is also a good thing to do before an event, as every big box takes up space, and space to store the stock is always, always less than it could be.

So you can picture my workspace cluttered with boxes and things in various states of packedness and unpackedness; with me and my list and my trusty cup of coffee in the middle of it. I'll spare you the picture of that clutter - instead, take this gratuitous picture of the sole sunflower that came up in the garden this year (even though I scattered seeds really generously):


It has grown into a very tall and very lovely plant - I'm just a little sad that it's the only one...