Author Archives: sophieharriett

Carrots or Posion!

Well you live and learn. I was writing a post about how much I love the huge wild carrots in our garden, and that even tho Chris doesn’t doesn’t like them and wants them out, I love all sorts of things about them, and have even come to like their slightly strange smell! I looked up their slightly strange smell and then went down a bit of a wormhole it turns out that they are POSION HEMLOCK, not ridiculously healthy Queen Anne’s Lace after all! I should have worked it out because they are about 8 feet tall.

Apparently they must be immediately destroyed. I wonder how they got there. It is a shame because even though Chris says they look like triffids, I thought they looked pretty and are clearly attractive to lots of insects. I am quite robust about what we have in the garden, I’m not sure about something that induces slow muscle paralysis and eventual death. I’m not taking a socratic view of it….As soon as it stops raining, I will have to dig them up!

2025: Week 21:the week I love my garden so much I have to post about it

I think after Week 28 it just rained a lot and the glory of my spring garden was over. So I fizzled out. And I didn’t want to start up again this year because it’s almost exactly the same as it was last year! It’s a bit neater! I’ve got some wild carrots! But more or less, it’s the same. Interestingly even though it’s been hot lately, we are a couple of weeks behind last year – or maybe my flag irises are just late.

This week, it’s all about the roses (Sophie rose back in the bed I moved it out of last year with the Paul’s scarlet climber behind) and a king fox glove! This pic cannot begin to capture how nice it is.

Week 27: leaf-cutter bees

I love these. Some nest in a chalet-style bee-box I found in the street. Every year, they hatch out, empty the rubbish out of the holes and then fill them up again. You can see some of the rubbish coming out of the holes at the bottom. And you can tell they’re about because of the cuts on the leaves…

When the fence fell over in the winter, I put the box in the greenhouse and stuck it back in the garden when it was all done. They seem to be up to their usuals again. Can it be good for generations of bees to grow up and breed and die and grow up in such a small area? Or maybe there are lots more than I realise. Here’s action the early July 2022…

Week 26: Sweet peas

Obviously. They look amazing and they smell lovely.

I missed the cherries, ripe for about 2 days and now turning to liquor in the tree. But this week belongs to sweet peas.

Week 25: the frogs have it

The pond and the frogs are a constant source of delight. But this is a super special week because it’s the week some of the tadpoles turn into tiny frogs and start to leave the pond.It awesome because…

The little frogs are amazing. They turn from looking like wet droplets to tiny frogs. What can it be like to change so fundamentally?

This is the best time for looking in the pond. There are frogs at all phases: tadpoles, some with legs but swim with the tails, some have legs and do tiny breast stroke. I love this picture because it’s like one of them is ready to leave and the others are like, “we are too we can come with you, we’re all grown up”, but they’re not..

There are bigger-but-small frogs like little golden jewels in the rest of the garden. And medium sized and big fellas under most of the ferns/ behind the bricks. I realise that all the frogs in the garden are MINE. I dug the pond about 16 years ago – maybe more. And the frogs in my garden must have been born here (or maybe 2 doors up in Patrick’s pond) but certainly all live here because of the way I have made the garden the way it is (it’s why all the mice and slugs live here too) but that makes me proud.

Week 24: the ox eye daisies have it

I’m not sure about ox-eye daises. I looked for other things to own this week but then I realised, it’s really their’s. They ARE weeds. Lovely weeds but ones that take over my garden, and that seed all over the front of the beds so you can’t see anything behind them, and then aren’t that lovely when not in flower. But this week, what’s not to love…

And whenever I think about ruthlessly chopping them all down (and I did chop down a lot), I see how many insects love them too.

Week 22: the week the hoarding came down

Hopefully this week isn’t going to happen every year. This is the week the plywood hoarding that took over the back passage for next door’s kitchen extension came down! Space is all ours again, with a wall not a silk tassel bush but have already started working out where the plants will go…

Week 21: honeywort week

Week of the Cerinthe. I thought it might be the week before but as the sun has shone a bit they’ve not just been blue but the whole of the plant has been a lovely blue too.

The week before, they were lovely but not so strange and alien. Also been a bit weird this year as I bought seed (from Sarah Raven) and they are tall and fleshy whereas normally from my seed, a bit spindly. Anyway, splendid.

Week 20: yellow flag irises

This IS their week! It belongs to them. I don’t know how they got into our garden and they’re not plants I feel I own. They’re strange aliens. I had them for years before I knew they even could flower (they never did). And my pond is tiny and they threaten to take it over every year. Also they grow in water, they grow on land – what’s that about?

I’ve just looked them up and I’m going to divide the bejasus out of them once they’ve finished flowering, but this a week to look at them and love them.

(I’m see on the RHS website they’re listed as thugs and in fact large numbers of the plants that I’m pleased with myself for managing to cultivate (Japanese wood anemones for example) are on this list.

I tried to draw them! I think I’m going to try this more often because it made me really look at them. I thought…

  • They look even more alien when you study them! Like little dragons.
  • The pattern that draws bees in is incredibly beautiful (and effective! I like the way bees disappear inside them).
  • The leaves are really beautiful and vigorous and strong.

Week 19: the week of…

I read this article about how the Japanese have 72 micro seasons – based round things like when the swallows arrive or the bamboo shoots or the peonies bloom. It’s a brilliant way of noticing what it’s going on and I thought I would really like to do that.

I don’t want to do 72 ko (that’s what they’re called) because that’s one every 5 days and I can’t get my head round that but I do like the idea of one a week. I’m going to base it round what’s happening on Saturday as that’s when I can most regularly spend time in the garden but it will be linked to the calendar week so I can see where I am next year.

What week is this?

I’ve missed loads of weeks already. When the crab apple blossoms! When the lily of the valley come through! When the black bees come to the pulmonaria, when the frogs start gathering in the pond. Last week was OBVIOUSLY when the swifts come back which is one of my favourite weeks of the year and they have been screeching overhead ever since.

I went out into the garden and I tried to work out what week it was. A few roses are out but not many, the foxglove’s are swelling but they’re not open, the honeywort is still green just going purple. It’s the week all the big things (not the brave early Spring flowers who’ve been and nearly gone) but the big stars get ready. It’s the week of everything getting ready to happen…

Of potential and bud and about to be a big performance but not quite…(apart from angelica – though I think there’s lots more to come).

This is the first full weekend of sunshine this year (it feels like) and it feels like everything is just waiting to go. In the evening, Luke and I were sitting in the hammock and the iris that was in bud in the morning, unfurled in front out our eyes. Which kind of makes it “the week the irises unfurl” (which is an actual Ko in Japan) but I’m sticking with the week everything’s about to happen because that’s what it is.

Do NOTHING for Nature

I have loads of lady birds earlier than usual this year. And lots and lots of flying insects, bees; wasps; flies the works.

I think this is because I didn’t clear up in the Autumn/ Winter. It took a huge effort not to, especially in Feb etc, when it looked skanky and dead and almost ready to grow. But I didn’t and it just goes to show that the best thing you can do is nothing!

Gooseberry Dilemma

Luke gave me these for my birthday. I love them. I haven’t managed to get a crop off them. They had tiny gooseberries on them, and then… lots of caterpillars. I’ve never had this dilemma before – caterpillars always eat the things I don’t mind about. You can’t kill baby butterflies but how am I ever going to get gooseberries? It seems particularly galling that the plant is covered in caterpillar poo…

I moved some of them (on a leaf) to the rose they usually eat but I think it was too little too late.

Good Wood?

My Nicotania seedlings have been fab this year. I have had about 50. I’ve planted and given away loads. The biggest and most successful ones – by many inches – are the ones I’ve grown in an old wooden drawer. Why?

They have benefitted from being in the greenhouse but they are about twice as big as the ones I”ve grown in pots. They also started small – I planted the best ones in pots and the smallest ones in here. My theory … FWIW which isn’t much – is that it’s the wood! Beneficial fungi in the wood were ready to start with all their special mycelium business and that’s what’s made them so strong…

I love chilli (seedlings).

Last year’s chilli was a disaster – one stumpy chilli half an inch long. I blame the lack of sun. The seedlings look great. As they do this year…. I germinated them all in the growlight. Then I moved 3 of them upstairs and left 2 in the growlight – you can tell which…

I had to move the all upstairs because the mice in the kitchen were eating them. I love how green and bright their leaves are and I guess the mice do too!