Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

And it has, ever so briefly. A few white hours early on Friday and then by midmorning it had gone, vanished, but a memory. I rushed up the hill this morning to see if there were any remnants left in which to run amok. It was disappointing because there was nothing but brown, soggy moorland as far as the eye could see. I started off towards the mast on the summit then I saw, cowering under a tussock of soft rush, a couple of tablespoons of snow. I knelt down and picked up a small handful letting it melt through my fingers wondering if this may be the only snowfall of the year.

I can only remember snow staying on the ground once last year. It stays in my mind as I had a minor bumpette in the car when I was driving between work placements.

I was going to walk up to the television mast this morning. It stands on a ridge of the Pennines and can be seen like a beacon for miles around. It’s strange how homely such a technical landmark can look after you’ve driven on the motorway for hours and then see it coming into site, low on the horizon at first then gradually rising up the nearer you get to that chain of hills that divides the country north to south.

Along the way I saw a bunch of apricot roses tied to a fence post, their delicate petals buffeted by the stripping, winter wind. They were somebody’s memory there, cable-tied to that post. They seemed a poignant reminder of frail mortality in a wide, unrelenting world.

The garden – in a word, muddy. Too wet to work on at the moment except for a little pruning. I expect to see the new green blades of daffodils soon along with a flourish of buds on the primroses. Last year the primroses took it upon themselves to flower whenever they saw fit, it was a sparse spring-showing with a follow up display in the autumn. I think the unseasonal temperatures are throwing them out of sync and they are exhausting their supplies out of season and then are unable to perform the following spring.

 

Rotten stuff

Another grey, drizzly morning. The wind has dropped so I am able to put my hanging-basket back up. Last week it was swinging like a pendulum with the little pansy heads jiggling about over the sides. This mild weather has been a boon for the likes of the Viola family. The cold weather normally brings their blooming to an abrupt end but this year as the mild weather continues they have gone on and on.

The basket I have here, is planted with a variety called Arabian Nights, a mixture of pinks and purples. When I bought it, back in October, the colours looked insipid against a radiant sunny backdrop but now under this heavy grey sky the colours glow delicately .

The storms have kept me out of the garden over the last couple of weeks. There has been little damage, the hedges serve as a good windbreak. The plastic covered greenhouse travelled over the garden a short distance and I have now got it weighted down with a few stones and a tub of compost in case it feels adventurous again.

About the only task I have completed recently is sorting out the compost bins. Instead of the usual two bins, where you fill one whilst emptying the other, I have three bins on the go.

A year ago I decided to compost all the paper household waste as well as the usual kitchen and garden offerings.Two of the bins are large, square monsters that must hold at least a ton of compost, the third bin is of the more normal garden variety. The two large bins were filled more rapidly than I thought they would be, so now I fill the smaller bin and transfer its contents to the other two bins as the compost in them rots down.

The main difference I can see, due to the inclusion of paper waste, is the compost is much drier. I am wondering if the paper wicks the water out of the heap. Consequently, the compost is taking longer to decompose.

Well, it’s an experiment and as with all experiments, some problems you anticipate – will the presence of all this paper lead to nitrogen deficiency when it is applied to the soil? – and some problems are unforeseen.

So, watch this space and see how the great compost experiment turns out.