The Alhambra, Generalife and a Thermo Compost Bin

It is late 1990 in a nightclub in London. She takes one look at the stranger at the bar and is absolutely certain that he is the man she will marry. He smiles and asks her to tell him a joke. Without a second thought she launches into a tale of dubious cleanliness involving a famous snooker player of the time. 

The moral of this story? Learn one joke very well as you never know where it will lead you. For us, it led to the Alhambra in Spain, where we celebrated twenty years of marriage (yes, she was right about the stranger at the bar).

Chaenomeles speciosa and citrus fruits
at the Generalife

Call me a quitter, but no words or photos I can publish here will ever do justice to the Alhambra and Generalife. Information about this fascinating UNESCO World Heritage Site abounds, so instead I thought I would show you something rather clever I saw there which we might be able to adapt to our own gardens. Imagine you are taking this photo (yes I know it’s not as good as one you would take, but in my defence, it was a dull day and I was in a heightened state of emotion). You are at the Alhambra and looking across to the Generalife (you can just spot the clipped hedges of the Lower Generalife Gardens towards the centre of the photo). There is quite a distance between where you are standing and those hedges.  

Now imagine you are standing just above the clipped hedges of the Lower Generalife Gardens which we saw in the previous photo and you are looking back across the valley towards the Alhambra. Look at the way those hedges are used architecturally and how they mimic and support the view beyond. 

The hedge hugging the tower in the next photo is on your side of the valley, not on the side where the tower stands. The distance between the Alhambra and the Generalife appears reduced and the buildings and the hedges on either side of the valley blend beautifully. Now the question is, how am I going to apply this to my garden? In truth, it could be quite a challenge as Norfolk isn't famed for its hills and there is a woeful lack of towers and palaces on our little farm, but it has to be worth playing with a few ideas.

Our wedding anniversary shares a date with the first anniversary of the start of our barn conversion and to mark the occasion I decided to indulge in a minor construction project of my own: a new compost bin. Historically, I have been a bit of a traditionalist on the compost front - all New Zealand bins with a brief, ill-judged foray into tumblers, but I have decided to let my hair down this year and branch out into the world of thermo bins. I am now watching the speed of decomposition with great interest - if this had been my opening line in the nightclub, we certainly wouldn't be celebrating twenty years of marriage, although one of us might have celebrated winning a prize for the hastiest exit from a nightclub in 1990... and where would that have left me? Probably staring at an abandoned drink on the bar and toying with the idea of taking it home for use in slug traps. 

Happy first anniversary to our barn conversion

Information about the Alhambra and the Generalife can be found at www.alhambradegranada.org  We booked our tickets early by following a link from this website. It was worth doing - even though it was February, I saw people missing out on a visit because they were too late to purchase tickets. 

Rabbiting on

As a fully paid-up member of the ‘do as I say and not as I do’ brigade*, heeding my own advice is about as natural as the sweet heady scent of freshly mown astro turf. However, miracles can happen - even in twenty-first century Norfolk.

In all honesty, I would rather spend my garden budget on something exquisite which pleases as many of my senses as is physically possible, so anything humdrum and sensible, like rabbit fencing, is way down my list of desirable purchases. Or it was. I have been preaching to clients about correctly installed rabbit protection for years and I have finally heard my own message.

Of course, lists of rabbit-resistant plants are readily available, but Br'er, Peter, Roger and Buggs haven’t read any of them and will invariably munch their way through specimens which are, according to the experts, off the menu.

I love to grow my own food and if I eat the food, the chances are that the rabbits will too and I know who is more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning and will get to the crops first. So a considerable proportion of my garden budget will be blown on rabbit fencing which will, hopefully, keep the bunnies out. I like to think it will be a fine long-term investment for my plants and my sanity. After all, little is more disheartening than discovering that your garden is now the eatery of choice for the entire cast of Watership Down.

The photos above are of my auntie's travelling Geum. I took some from her Cambridgeshire garden, planted it in Essex, then moved a little of it with me to Norfolk. It's a spreader, so it travels within the garden too, although not in a pesky way - just enough to enable us to share it with others. It is Geum rivale. I think it is beautiful and even better, bees love it.

Our barn conversion continues apace. Tonnes of soil have been removed and the barn is still standing despite howling gales and hailstorms.

We have had many heaps of soil bigger than the one below (although this one is unusual in that it is basking in the sunlight). We have managed to reuse them all, so nothing has been disposed of off-site.

The dog enjoying his morning constitutional is Sprout. I can't believe how clean he looks in that photo!

This week it is Chelsea Flower Show, so my camera battery is recharging and I am getting all excited about catching up with old friends and meeting new plants. I can't wait!

* Please see the 'Chocolate and Cherries' post March 2012
 

Golden Marjoram, Silver Thyme and a Buff Sussex

Introducing the girls.... 

Hippy Chick (the Light Sussex) and Herby Chicken (the Buff Sussex)

Like a lovesick teenager checking an inbox for messages, I have been obsessively checking the nest box for eggs and I am hugely relieved to announce that the seemingly interminable wait (all one day of it) is over as far as Hippy is concerned - we are looking forward to some egg-laying action from Herby in the very near future.


There are only two girls because everything I have ever read on the subject suggests that chicken-keeping is highly addictive. So by starting small, I have a way to go before things get out of hand. They have certainly provided a welcome diversion in all this bad weather as have these beauties.

One of the great things about this miserable weather is that our tulips have flowered for longer than usual. I didn't think they would perform so well in all the wind and rain, but they have done us proud. These ones are 'Jimmy', 

'Sjakamaro' and 'Ronaldo'.

Another silver lining to all these storm clouds is that anything recently planted appears to be establishing with a minimum amount of effort from me. The culinary herb border which went in last week is already showing signs of growth. I chose the driest, sunniest part of the garden which, as luck would have it, is close to the kitchen door. I added grit when planting to help with drainage and it seems to be doing the trick. 

Golden Marjoram 

Pink-purple stems of Silver Thyme

I love planting culinary herbs. Their different forms, colours, leaves and flowers offer so many creative opportunities. They are not just inspiring to design with, they can attract beneficial insects; provide fabulous flavours which help to mask my culinary inadequacies; and just crushing those leaves releases the scent of summer.... even on a rainy day in May.  

Dill in the rain

Despite the appalling weather, our indomitable builders have continued in their quest to turn a 17th century threshing barn into our new home. Beams are documented and preserved wherever possible and we continue to see a steady stream of visitors who won't let the rain dampen their ardour for historical buildings.


We appear to have rills where there should be walls, which is an interesting interior design feature.

The next photo shows where we plan to sit and watch the sun setting, although we fervently hope we will not be viewing it across a muddy puddle.

The good news is that no television presenters have been spotted sloshing around in the mud, doing sympathetic shots to camera about our conversion being over-time and over-budget, so we’re bound to be in by Christmas... ahem.