What is this 'Tidy Up'?

Procrastination often wants to be my friend, so in order to 'get things done' I need to tell myself the previous day what I am DEFINITELY going to do tomorrow, then I find when I wake up I am ready to go and get on with it.

Yesterday, I said to Me, 'Tomorrow, you are going to clean out the greenhouse.'
'Oh I am?' Me said.
'You are,' I said. 'It looks a complete tip and you need to make space for the sweet peas and strawberry runners.'
'Can't I just kick everything to one side and balance the sweet peas and strawberry runners precariously on whatever ensuing surface looks like it might be able take the strain?' said Me.
'No,' I said. 'And you also need to clean out the chickens, and I mean with hot soap and water, and cut back the buddleia, and take down the runner beans.'

Me tutted a bit, but I felt I had the upper hand in this discussion, so went to sleep.

This morning, I was up and at 'em as soon as the decorators arrived just before 8.30. The weather promised rain in the afternoon so I was on a mission. But I did it; despite the humungous spiders in the greenhouse, I cleaned it all out and planted some sweetpeas, and the strawberry runners I brought back from the allotment yesterday. I also put in some chives, for good measure.

Then, I gave Cluckinghen Palace a jolly good clean although I did make the mistake of performing a full dismantle and then found I couldn't push the bottom bar back in place without disappearing head down between the fence and whatever shrub it is that has gained new life and new growth since the removal of the eucalyptus tree. So the top of the pod is currently in a state of 'balance' on the base and the bottom bar will be replaced firmly as soon as someone taller than me comes along i.e Andy.

I've trimmed back the buddleia. I've swept the patio. I have weeded and cleared various corners. I tried to mow the law but the mower wouldn't work so had to give up on that. I took down the runner beans and can now see out of the kitchen window again. The best bit was when I stood in the greenhouse with a cuppa for a while and watched the bees doing a sterling job of fending off a couple of persistent wasps. I thought fondly of all the baby bees waiting to be born in 12 days' time.

In between times I popped in and out of the house to make tea for the decorators (who say they will hopefully be done on Wednesday), reduce the pile of papers waiting to be shredded, do a spot of ironing and now, because the promised rain has arrived, I am going to make a cake and then do some writing.

Procrastination has not been my friend today. Me has done as she was told!

A spring in my step

Or rather, THE spring in my step. Spring as in the long awaited season which is well on its way. It's been a busy day today, so here is the news...

First of all, what's this? A modern art installation maybe?

Or an elaborate bee-hive for enormous bees?

No, of course not! It's loo rolls stuck together with masking tape. Otherwise known as 'Denise's Home-crafted Root Trainers for Beans, Peas and Sweetcorn.' It's recycling in its purest form - cheap, useful AND biodegradable. However, if someone from the Tate Modern is reading this and wants to make me an offer, well, then my 'art' can be whatever you want it to be. And if a giant bee is reading this and thinking, 'Hmmm, nice penthouse,' then I've clearly inhaled some hallucinogenic spores in the greenhouse today...

I washed out many pots this morning. And when I say 'many', then 'many' I mean. There was a minor contretemps with one of those big, fat, hairy-legged, 'I-can-bench-push-the-weight-of-a-hippo' spiders where I screamed a bit and he/she/it made a run for it TOWARDS me, and then AWAY from me when I did a bit more screaming but other than that the pot cleaning went well.

And then, I spent a very pleasant afternoon in a sunny greenhouse, singing along to my pink radio, sowing the first seeds of 2009. I had to do a considerable amount of planning first to decide what to put in today because this year I'm determined to get to grips with successional sowing in order to avoid the problems of the last couple of years when we've flung everything in in one fell swoop and found ourselves with a glut come harvest time.

'Another parsnip with your parsnip, dear?'
'Why yes, that would be delightful. Maybe I could have a parsnip or two on the side?'
'Of course. And for pudding?'
'Why, parsnip of course. Unless we've any courgette left?'
'No. Only parsnip, I fear.'
'So did I.'

So today I have planted pointy cabbage, red cabbage, cauliflower, leek, pepper, jalapeno pepper (so Andy can re-create his Pizza Express Mount Etna moment in the privacy of our own home), cherry tomatoes, stripey tomatoes, aubergine, mixed salad leaves, peas, runner beans and a big tray of basil so I can have a go at making pesto. And on the flower front I planted some sweet peas but only because I went a bit overboard with my home-crafted root trainers.

The hens, meanwhile, continued to dig over our new raised bed. Not that it needed digging over.
'Quick! Get down! She's seen us!' hissed Mrs Miggins.
'She won't see me,' said the cunning Mrs Poo. 'Not with my head buried in the ground.'
'Ah,' said Mrs Pumphrey, 'the old emu trick.'

Once the seeds were watered and the ones that needed putting in the propagator were propagated, I went indoors to cook dinner and make some scones.
We had parsnip for dinner. We had other stuff as well, like chicken and roast potatoes (the remaining few of our crop from last year) broccoli and peas, but I thought you'd like to see how big our parsnips got last season.

What's that song? 'Long ones, short ones, some as big as your head...'
'That's a coconut,' said Mrs Slocombe.
'No. It's definitely a parsnip,' I said. And that was my day. And it was FAB!!

Red-bee, stead-bee....GO!

It's a sunny day in England, a warmth is in the sky,
The garden's looking raddled, then so again am I.
It's time to plant some flowers, for bees to make their honey,
So this corner of our homestead will be forever sunny.

And so I don my wellies, and head to the back door
I come back in coz I forgot my gloves, and leave mud on the kitchen floor...

Oh stop! For heaven's sake, Denise, give your poor reader a rest will you? You're not a poet and you really should know it.

So anyway, I drag Andy to the garden centre so I can forge ahead with the plans for the bee garden. Yesterday, after attempting to write a tiger story and failing abysmally as I suddenly realised the story I was writing had actually been written before (remember 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea?' I thought it sounded familiar), I immersed myself in gardening books and magazines and planned out the plants for Bee Garden Project 2009. I am thrilled to find that most of the bee-friendly flowers are ones that have been favourites all my life. Good, old-fashioned cottage garden plants like my grandparents grew in their gardens.

We return with ten bags of multi-purpose compost, half a dozen foxgloves, half a dozen lavenders and a five foot high pussy-willow tree which is currently standing in the hall like an ostentatious coat-stand. After looking at other ready-made plants I decided to grow my other choices from seed so I got a packet each of antirrhinum,verbena, penstemon, scabious, poppy, browallia, forget-me-not, aquilegia, aster, cornflower, hollyhock and lupin. I especially like the antirrhinums because they are called 'Chuckles.' I refused to buy the candytuft because I think the garden centre had got their labelling wrong. What they were trying to sell as candytuft wasn't the plant I remembered from my childhood. But I suppose I may have been wrong, I was only six at the time...

All I need to do now is sow the seeds in the green-house and dig up the front garden whilst I'm waiting for them to grow big enough to plant out. Oh yes, and clean out the greenhouse after the chickens have been using it all winter as a shelter/ hen spa.

And then there's the question of the bees themselves. I've read a couple of books and seen a bee-keeping demonstration at our county fair. And I've tracked down an experienced bee-keeper who does individual bee-keeping lessons using his own set of organic hives. But where can I locate a hive without upsetting the neighbours? I spent some time this morning staring out of our landing window at the flat roof of the extension. 'Hmmm,' I thought, 'we could keep a hive out there.' It's sheltered and catches a good dose of sun in the mornings to encourage the little buzzers to get out of bed. I would have to access it via a ladder from the outside as the landing window is too tiny for me to squeeze through. Well, I might be able to squeeze through but I'm not prepared to try and end up getting stuck like Pooh Bear in Rabbit's burrow. (Although the honey analogy would be approriate). And the roof edge has built-up ridges of about 18 inches that I would need to negotiate (and bear in mind this would have to be performed whilst wearing full martian bee outfit and carrying a smoker and several sharp tools). I'm guessing the roof would be strong enough to bear the combined weight of a hive and me. Or a hive and me stamping around in a panic if the bees have a funny moment whilst I'm tending them.

The back garden isn't an option, being hen domain. Having established that Mrs Slocombe has mental health issues I wouldn't put it past her to have a go at eating bees or at least try knocking on the hive door in order to try and sell them Avon products (her latest money-making venture - she's decided she wants to save up for a caravan and she's seen a funky new model from Germany called a Tab that she's taken a shine to).

Maybe I could screen off an area of the front garden? What do you think?The neighbours would never know if I employed low animal cunning and discretion i.e building the hive and screen at two in the morning and saying 'Bees? What bees?'. They wouldn't notice the comings and goings of 10,000 buzzy insects, would they?

Nah...I bet I could get away with it. I'm very tempted to have a try.