Exciting garlic

One of the best things about growing anything has to be that moment when you see the first sign of life poking through the earth. The little seed that seemed so lifeless in your hand a week or so earlier has woken up, giving birth to a seedling that's fought against the odds to get through the soil and into the light. The whole concept is a source of endless wonder to me and I never cease to be amazed when things I've planted actually grow.

So, you'll have to excuse me being a little excited as this last week has seen the first signs of life in our little garlic patch. We had room to plant about twenty five cloves of Solent Wight a couple of weeks ago and a good three quarters of them have suddenly appeared above the soil over the last few days. This means that, with any luck, come next summer we'll be cooking with our own home grown garlic while also saving a few bulbs to grow from next year.

Oh, and a fresh garlic shoot also provides the new header at the top of this page, I hope you like it.

Aside from that not much has been happening really, the soft fruit bushes I put in the ground last weekend (only £1 each, thank you Lidl) are looking no different a week on and the onion sets I've ordered from Dobies have still not arrived.

Autumn is well and truly here though, the appearance of an ever increasing quantity of leaves being dropped in our garden by all the surrounding trees doing a fine job of alerting us to its looming presence. Of course, while this means a load of regular raking on my part it does provide endless hours of fun for our two kittens who seem to think the falling leaves are part of the worlds continual quest to entertain them.

Daft beggers…