Waiting for spring, it's photos like this of yellow rhododendrons you bring out to remember it's not so long now. We're already over half way through winter. And we haven't had the snow of the mainland, though you can see it icing the tops of the mountains on the Morvern peninsular visible through my rain-streaked sitting room window.
This is this year's winter view, over Tobermory's painted houses to the mainland opposite. Not so bad, eh? Note the clear skies. We have had a good winter so far. Just as the Isle of Mull had some of the best summer in the British Isles. There was so little rain my water butt ran dry before my vegetables had taken proper hold. I feed myself quite well from my vegetable patch - plenty of salads and herbs in the summer, and reliable chard during the winter. Makes a delicious soup with borlotti beans, thick and sustaining.
My winter vegetable plot is covered with seaweed, bagged on a beach on the way to the ferry. By the time the bed is ready for replanting, it will all have mulched down into the soil and disappeared.
That crimson is some small heads of radicchio braving the chill, giving the garden some colour and me some bitterness to add to winter salads. Push back the seaweed and parsley is growing happily underneath. In the summer, it will be joined by clumps of chives, tarragon (French, not Russian!), borage (which I like better than basil on raw tomato salad), sorrel and dill. The mint is buried in a bucket to prevent its roots from taking over.
That crimson is some small heads of radicchio braving the chill, giving the garden some colour and me some bitterness to add to winter salads. Push back the seaweed and parsley is growing happily underneath. In the summer, it will be joined by clumps of chives, tarragon (French, not Russian!), borage (which I like better than basil on raw tomato salad), sorrel and dill. The mint is buried in a bucket to prevent its roots from taking over.
RSS Feed