Tuesday 19 January 2021

New moon, new broom

At 4.44pm on Wednesday the 13th, the moon was new. I know this because of our moon calendar.



I get one every year by post from Mystery Arts in Brighton. It’s lovely to look at and, as well as keeping us up to date with what the moon is doing and telling us about eclipses and astrological signs, it helps me with my veg garden. I sew and plant out when the moon is new and waxing. This does make a difference. They’ve proved it on ‘Gardeners’ World’! (For more on this fascinating subject, you could do worse than investigate ‘biodynamic agriculture’.)
 
And if the moon affects plants, it might also affect us, which might account for my recent flurry of cleaning and gardening. Other factors of course are the new year, the lockdown, a few fine days and the fact that I don’t have a big writing project on at the moment (for various reasons which I might go into another time) and so am twiddling my thumbs looking for things to do.
 
First up (as they say) was my workroom. I can’t remember when I last cleaned it and the floor was beginning to scrunch underfoot with a mixture of shredded paper, sewing debris and dead flies.

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021


Dust covered the surfaces.

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021


Ropes of cobwebs decorated the ceiling.

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021


The filing tray overflowed and the storage system under my desk had descended into chaos.

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021


The only neat area was my collection of reference books.

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021


Two bin bags of paper for recycling, several buckets of dirty water, a rattling vacuum cleaner, one visit to the tip and three days later and my room shone with order and cleanliness.

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021

 
Next on the list was the garden. I tore Frog away from the Mini kit car he’s rebuilding (also another story) . . .

Hustler kit car. Exeter University Rag 1985
Frog's 'Hustler' in 1985 decorated with records for Exeter University Rag Week
 
. . . and we tackled what we call ‘the big bed’, a shrubbery which had become infested with brambles  and grown so tall it obscured our view. (There were no blackberries left so it was a good time to make some changes: we wouldn't be depriving the birds.) Frog wielded chain-saw and bill-hook and I pulled with my new bramble-proof gloves. Two days' work later and we had three large piles on the lawn.

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021


What we do with them now we haven’t yet decided. The birds are loving them, using them as a waiting area for the bird table and investigating them as sources of nest material.

We can now see what we actually have left in the bed and through to slices of our lovely view. . . 

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021


Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021

 
We left this leggy mahonia . . .

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021


. . . because the flowers were turning into berries and apparently (I checked) the birds love them. (Humans can eat mahonia berries too, but I’m not sure I’ll try.)
 
Likewise this ivy on a dead apple tree (left).

Elm saplings


The spindly trees you can see in the centre of the picture above and in this one below . . .

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021


. . . are elms, which have grown as suckers from a tree which used to live here until it got too tall, contracted Dutch elm disease and died (the beetle which spreads the disease only flying above a certain height). We've since cut their tops off, both so that they survive and in the hope that they will bush out and help fill our now rather sparse shrubbery. I'm all for native species.*

 
I wanted to do this post last weekend for Kate’s blog link-up party on the theme of ‘new’ but it wasn’t ready. Instead I’m doing it in advance for this weekend's (22nd to 24th) on the theme ‘moon’, and sneaking in the ‘newness’ that should have been there last week. Do take a look the party and maybe even upload something of your own - it's very easy.


*I had a feeling elm wasn't native so I checked and here's what I discovered (from various sources). There are two sorts of elm - Wych elm and English elm. Wych elm is the only true native, but grows naturally only in the northern half of the UK. The English elm is thought to have been introduced by Bronze Age people from southern Europe, and this is the version in our garden. I find these elms easy to distinguish from other trees by their ultra-knobbly bark and the strange thickness at the bottom of small branches. (Wych elms on the other hand have smooth bark.)

Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021
The ultra-knobbly bark of English elm


Photograph copyright © Belinda Whitworth 2021
The strange branches of English elm

17 comments:

  1. Oh I fully agree with planting in time with moon phases, but I also harvest (or try to) using that as well. It makes so much sense when you look in to the 'science' of the folklore!

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    1. Ooh, that's interesting (harvesting by the moon). Perhaps you could blog about that some time??
      Thanks so much for reading and commenting.

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  2. MESSAGE TO LINK 2 'A FROSTY MOON' - I can only link back to Kate's blog. You might like to check this in case other people are having the same problem. Best, B

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    1. It is coz it is me :) I always add mine too - not everyone follows my own post just looks at the link up party so I sneak mine in too :D

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    2. Oh, silly me! I should have realised.

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  3. You have certainly had a 'spring clean' of your workroom and garden. Good start to the new year. Love your moon calendar. Not seen one like that before. Enjoy your gardening.

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    1. Many thanks. The moon calendar is fascinating - definitely recommended. With frost and rain now, we're back to indoor jobs, sadly!

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  4. Never seen a picture moon calendar before; it makes more sense that a list of dates. You certainly had a big tidy-up job both inside and outside.

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    1. I'm afraid we did - and still have - have lots of tidy-up jobs. I hope I didn't shock everyone! The moon calendar is definitely a talking point. All our visitors (when we were allowed to have them) comment on it.

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  5. Well done on thinking "outside the box" and on the cleaning/clearing frenzy. I need a push too in the garden, but too hot today. Take care and stay safe.

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  6. I like the moon calendar, I've never seen one of those before.

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    1. Hello Tigermouse. Sorry not to have replied before - your comment popped up in an unusual place (or perhaps I just haven't seen it before). Have I seen your blog? Were you part of the link-up party?

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  7. Well done on your spring cleaning, it always takes us an age to get motivated to do anything at the beginning of the year 😃

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  8. Thank you :-) Yes, it's amazing how busy one suddenly gets doing other more interesting things when spring-cleaning calls . . .

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  9. Hi B - I'm SO impressed with all your spring cleaning and garden pruning - such hard work but so rewarding when it's over! I love the Moon Calendar - I keep Lia Leendertz's "The Almanac - a seasonal guide to 2021" by my bed and check on the daily moon and sunrises - it's a wonderful book which I think you would like - full of folklore and recipes and garden tips and songs...you may already know it! And thanks for the photos of the elms - now I can identify the odd looking branches I saw recently and took a photo of as I thought it might be some kind of disease! Xx

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  10. I do feel a lot better for spring-cleaning my room. I'll look out for the book. Yes, elms are very distinctive - how strange that you noticed them recently. xx

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