A week of two halves ...

Monday - Beautiful sunshine, perfect for the luxury of a whole day at the allotment.
Tuesday - Beautiful blue skies, perfect for turning compost and mulching fruit for my customer.
Wednesday - Grey and miserable, cold again.
Thursday - Grey and soggy. Yuck.
Friday - More of the same.

Mind you, where are the March winds?
Where is the "In with a Lion, out like a Lamb"?
What I'm looking at today is a wet weekend, a very soggy cornflake.

Monday and Tuesday were just to tease us that Spring had sprung before snatching us back into Winter. Daffodils that opened in the warmth are now looking at the ground ashamed and forlorn.

And the forecast ... it will continue into the next week. Wet and grey.

Doesn't bode well for a nice summer this year. Or does it? Could anything be worse than the summer of 2012?

March 2012 was our Summer. A glorious month of gardening. Record sunshine and heatwave temperatures for that time of year. Threatened drought and hosepipe bans to be introduced 1st April. Upon which date the heavens opened, Mother Nature responded by turning on her sprinklers and forgetting to turn them off. Nature's irony, practical joke.

So, if March is wet this year does that mean come the 1st April 2013 we will be heading into a record breaking heatwave summer? Mind you that has it's problems. Watering for a start!

Hmmmm, ideally 4 hours of rain per night and sunshine throughout the day would be the perfect balance for the gardener. Mother Nature, are you listening?

Allotmenteering ....

6 hours later and the orchard on the allotment have been pruned.

4 apple, 2 cherry and 1 pear tree. That equates to my little orchard. Round their roots crocuses are cupped to the sunshine.

I know, I know. I'm late pruning them. I've had from November to February. Funny how the days that I was free the weather was not conducive to pruning, whilst when I was busy the weather was perfect!

'Tis done now.

In addition I have dug and fed manure into bean trenches ready for planting out in May. The canes have been assembled in readiness. Now am I too early or a bit late in this job? Some dig their bean trenches in the Autumn! Others dig them just before they plant. What does that say about me? That maybe I'm undecided and plumped for the middle. But on a practical level, working around the weather and other commitments, I know I will be so busy gardening soon that I need to do as much as I can now to be organised or it won't get done!!

Still to do ... weeding (ever constant weeding), the removal of the very old and cankerous currant bushes and the planting of two rows of raspberry canes.

Oh and to plant seeds and veg (",)

Shoulders and arms aching, debris sticking out of my hair, hands cracked and scratched from the cold and manual labour. "Like sandpaper" I'm told by my eldest as we cross the roads on the way home from school.

It's good to be back on the allotment.

A seed is planted ...

I'm Rachel, aka the Bog Imp!

So why the bog imp? I frequently return home from my allotment, my gardening round or stand at my own back door after attending to my garden, covered in mud (almost from head to toe) with debris sticking out of my hair (that looks like a good imitation of a birds nest) and dirt beneath the nails that are not broken. So Chris nicknamed me Bog Imp and it stuck.

I'm not just an avid gardener. Gardening is my therapy, my sanity, my zen. Fresh air, birds singing, busy bugs and Mother Nature's wonder to attend to. What more could a soul need? 

But I am a frustrated gardener. Currently I'm a part-time gardener who dreams of being a full-time gardener. 

I have a wonderful variety of gardens with equally varying needs to attend to for my customers. I have my allotment, a sanctity where I can disappear to or a hive of activity when the whole tribe lend a hand. And I have my own garden which has to accept attention as and when I can give it. But unfortunately I am also a Librarian who has to work 3 days a week in an office looking out, wishing I was in a garden. Ditching the 9-5 would be my heaven, working all the hours I could spare in the fresh air would be bliss. It wouldn't be like working, even though it would be hard physical work. It would be living!

Slowly, sometimes frustratingly slowly, I am creeping towards my dream.

Three years ago I attended the RHS Level 2 Horticulture course at Merrist Wood. I am now working towards completing all of the exams, child illness has prevented attendance at two sets of February exams so, lesson learnt, I will mostly be taking the exams in June. Before completing this course I had two regular customers which has now grown to 8 regular customers and as well as two gardens of friends that I'm helping to redesign. This is squeezed into my two days of freedom a week or free weekends.

Next steps:

complete a course in garden design, 

to continue to build up my customer base, and

to take the bold step and Quit the Library!

So, whilst I move towards my dream, at the times of greatest need due to poor weather, Winter or just being stuck in an office, I have decided that a blog can become my escape route. If only briefly whilst I type my imagination can transcend into paradise. If I can't be gardening then the second best thing is to be thinking, talking and writing about plants, gardens and allotments. 

If you want to find out about my journey so far check me out on Facebook. 

And here's to the future ....