Golden Retriever Alarm Clock.

Are you tired after losing an hour sleep last night?

We have a Golden Retriever alarm ⏰️ clock in our bedroom.  Someone decided that Bronte can sleep in their bedroom.  Not me.

Often around four in the morning.  I find something sleeping on my feet.

I tell her to get down and try to go back to bo bos.

Then around seven or 6.30 yesterday morning.  We got the 🐕 s bark chorus instead of the birds Prog Rock Dawn chorus that lasts at least twenty minutes when you're camping.

Here is our four legged alarm ⏰️ clock Bronte:

Golden Retriever Alarm Clock.  Not the name of a Prog Rock band but a four legged get you upper!  When a girl needs to do her ablutions everybody needs to be called to get dressed and take her outside.

Heating Oil Tank Allotment Planters Progress.

 

I have filled eight of the half old heating oil tanks this week.  Two of them have onions planted in them and I have planted cabbage plants in another one. You can see my plant pots store in the builders bags beside them.

The new plastic raised beds  were filled with Buddleia branches, old tree rings, strawy fym, well rotted last years fym and top soil.

There's another two or three raised beds that need drilling drainage holes and dragged through the Haggard and through to the veg plot and they will filled with the same ingredients by yours truly.

I am going to look out for any more containers that I can repurpose to grow vegetables in.

Like I keep saying on here you don't need to have a garden to grow your own chemical free and fresh vegetables.

It really saddens me when I read online of allotment waiting lists in England.  It's the councils duty by law  to provide allotments and leisure gardens to people who request them and not to be Tory councils who flog them off to some private housing company.

I once lived in a council flat and I grew potatoes 🥔 in the upstairs window.  

Perhaps there should be an Allotment and Social Housing party or maybe it's time Labour created a Minister for the Allotments and Social Housing?    They should aim for the rural vote and for people in urban areas who wish to grow things locally.  I am available on a part-time basis?  

I am pleased with my raised bed planters.  They may be made of plastic but they're maintenance free.  "It's beginning to look a lot like Steptoe's". Remember their address? Oil drum Lane.  What was the carthorse called? Hercules.  I don't think plastic is ever going to go away, do you?

Daffodils In A Old Tractor Tyre In The Polytunnel.

 Repurposing my Ford 3000 tyre for a planter in the polytunnel.

I told you I wouldn't post a veggie post today.  

Do you think the Tate Modern will commission my floral repurposed art work?  A few waggon loads of Newcastle Brown or a few tickets to see Kansas  or Saga or Styx in the states or Canada will do?

Have a great Easter everybody.  

Here's a great rock song 🎵 by the one and only late Gary Moore.  I was lucky enough to see him play once back in 1986.

I will show you my plastic allotment raised bed project progress in my next post on here.

Onion Set Planting.

I still managed to plant up two of the new planters/raised beds with onion sets in the rain yesterday.

Notice the white root sock in the compost plug that I started off in compost filled plastic modules? 

I find they grow far better in module trays in the polytunnel than just pushing them into wet and very cold soil.  

The rest of the veg plot is wet and muddy but the new raised beds are fine and their  drainage means so much.  

I think raised beds are the way to go especially if you have clay soil and live where it is always raining like we do.   

It's been raining on and off here since last June.  I heard yesterday one  local farmer who housed his cattle in September and they have not been outside since.  Farmers are running out of fodder and they can't put slurry and fym out on their land or even put the cattle out on pasture.

We have lived here over twenty years and the last two years have been the wettest I have ever known in my life .  Then you get people saying climate change is not happening.  I am fed up with the rain I bet you are?  

The down side of having raised beds is that you bang your head on the lightshade!😀  

I promise I will do a none veggie growing post tomorrow.  

The Hugelkultur Old Heating Oil Tank Raised Beds Experiment.

I often write on here that you need not have a garden to grow your own vegetables and flowers.  Today hopefully this post will inspire people to grow vegetables where ever they are?   You can grow a lot in containers, plant pots and even repurposed plastic tanks be it in a garden, allotment or even a paved yard.

We came across some old plastic heating oil tanks and number one son's girlfriend had a brainwave and suggested making me some raised beds.  

Number one cut ✂️ them in half with his Makita saw and drilled one inch hole sized drainage holes.  Altogether there are nine of them.  They were all cut in half and there was no waste left over. Here's one I dragged and filled yesterday:

Upturned plastic containers soon to be permanent raised bed.

I have been reading 📚 and watching YouTube videos about Hugelkultur raised beds.  It's an ancient German method of stacking logs and branches and covering them with earth and fym and the wood 🪵 decays and feeds the vegetables and works like a sponge to absorb water.  Do I really need Hugelkultur in Hibernia🤔?  Hugelkultur sounds like the name of a German Prog or Post Rock band don't they?😄

I even shovelled in old weeds, fym, tree rings and topsoil.  The strawy dung and other wooden materials soon half filled my new raised beds. Then I topped them up with well rotted fym and some topsoil.

The first one I finished yesterday.  They could easily be used in a concrete yard and they are maintenance free and I will not need to replace them like timber raised beds will.  I never spent a penny carrying out the raised bed tasks.

I dragged and dug and filled four more yesterday .  That's five done and four to go. My Azada looks knackered lying prostrate on the soil.  You can also see my garden gloves which I had to take off to take a photo 📸 with my mobile phone 📴.

Plastic is not going to go away.  But at least we can repurpose it to grow our vegetables.  Raised beds are good because you need to bend down to the ground and there is a good depth of soil.  Ideal for gardens with poor drainage and lots of clay.

I am really pleased with our efforts and I was physically tired and aching last night.  

Raised beds can be made from whatever you have lying round and repurpose be it timber, stones, conrete blocks or plastic..  I have traditional raised beds with no timber sides and now I have my  recycled plastic ones.  The weather is horrendously wet and the water table is full.  Perhaps raised beds are the way to go?

I planted it up with cabbage plants 🪴 this afternoon.  They may not be aesthetically pleasing on the eye.  But they are functional and we have been resourceful repurposing discarded plastic products and they will last me out.

If only it would stop raining.

Home Laid And Homemade Japanese Onions Omelette.

We have freshly laid duck and hen eggs 🥚 every morning at present.

There are Japanese onions 🌰 growing in the polytunnel

The beauty of growing your own chemical free vegetables is you can pick them before they are mature.  You can not buy that freshness in a supermarket.  Or can you?  How long does it take for vegetables sugars turn to starches after being picked?

The Japanese winter onions were chopped up with the green stalks included and cooked for a few minutes and then mixed with the eggs and a omelette was cooked 🍳 for another few minutes.

It was delicious with a splash of Hot Wings sauce.  It was on offer in Lidl for 1.49 a bottle last week.

Any one else like onion omelettes?  Some times we make onion pizza.  I first sampled onion pizza at the Night Of The Prog Rock music festival in Loreley in Germany in 2017.  The bands were excellent and so was the onion pizza.  

Our breakfast ingredients all came from where we live.  We'll except for the spicy sauce that is.  Any one got any omelettes recipes? The hot and spicier the better please?
 

Another Trees Post.

 Second trees post of today. 

 I must be doing something right because I have had over 3000 views again today.  One day I will do a Yorkshire Pudding or Debby and get lots and lots of comments.

The old mental jukebox began playing more tree themed songs in my head and here's one of my favourite bands from Canada 🇨🇦  I have seen live twice.  Yes Rush of course. 

There may be no footity ball on telly today but at least we can watch some Prog Rock.

Another vegetable/foody post tomorrow folks.  Thanks again!

Seileach.

 That's the Irish name for Willow.  You say it like the female name: "Sally" or  "Salix" it's  latin name.  Last winter I planted twenty willow slip prunings in a area of the veg plot.

Yesterday I dug them up and was pleased to see they are budding and have struck roots.  

A bag full of tweny willow hedging for free and I planted them Saturday morning to make a better windbreak for 'Portugal' 🇵🇹 my polytunnel. 

Willow has many uses both practical and for medicines like Aspirin.  It tolerates the wettest of ground and is good for a windbreak and natural habitat for Birds.

I am going to use my free hedging for a windbreak to protect the polytunnel and fill in any hedge gaps.  willow is deciduous in winter but its fan like branches still filter the wind by sixty percent.

I will cut some more willow slips with my loppers and plant them in a vacant area of the veg plot to make more free hedging.  Do you make ("grow") your own hedging or trees?  I grow Buddleia,  Cornus or Dogwood,  Griselinia and willow and Hypericum and Hebes...

Here is a song to go with today's post by Jethro Tull.  Not the inventor of the seed drill but the Blackpool Prog band from Lancashire who I have seen five times.  I have also seen the Martin Barre Band.  Enjoy:

What A Difference A Dry Day Makes In The Veg Plot.

 Today Friday was a very productive day outside in the veg plot.

I planted my seed potatoes in the trenches I had prepared and dug nearly a fortnight ago.

The four rhubarb plants I made from one the other day are planted.

I planted out the peas we had sown in plastic modules trays a couple of weeks ago.  They are planted where the leeks lived in my timberless raised bed.  This got a wheelbarrow of fym before I planted the leeks.

Peas are legumes and take nitrogen from the air and exude it through their root nodules thus feeding the soil.  It's one vegetable that actually feeds and replenishes the soil when it is growing.

Peas originate from Asia and Turkey and Syria in particular they are another vegetable that I have looked at their etymology and discovered they came along the silk road into Europe with so many other vegetables and spices.

I have replanted the plastic modules with Kelvedon Wonder garden peas in the polytunnel.

It's good to see things growing in the veg plot.  All we need now is a few weeks of sunshine because we have had enough rain.

Is it Actions Stations in your veg plot or allotment?

Thanks for over 3000 views today folks and of course the kind people who commented.  

Digging.

 I dug my outside potatoes 🥔 trenches the other week but rain stopped play and we are waiting for things to dry up a bit.

My Irish grandfather would always plant his British  Queens and Kerr Pinks seed potatoes 🥔 around Saint Patrick's Day but this year rain has stopped play and potatoes  planting is on hold for the  time being.

I did however manage to plant my Jerusalem Artichokes in muddy conditions.  Let's hope they don't rot and we have an endless supply of sun chokes or "farty" chokes?

I could do with one of those posh country estate boot scrapers like the metal Scottish terrier we saw on Antiques Road trip the other evening.  

I wish we could go on that programme.  We would find a lot more treasure for far less money.  What is that programme called where they go round antique and flea markets in France and bring it back to Blighty and attempt to flog it to antique shops and make a profit?

Anyway or any road. The digging is done and potatoes are chitting nicely in our "Chitting Room" and soon I will plant them outside.  At least we have potatoes growing in the polytunnel.

Here is a poem about digging:

A Parting Glass Find In The Charity Shop.

 The missus found this very old hand blown drinking glass in a charity shop the other day:

We watched Antiques Roadshow a week a two ago and a 200 years old drinking glass was valued at 1000 Pounds.  She said:  "What do you reckon?"  I nodded in agreement and we bought it! 

I am not saying ours is worth that but it was certainly worth the one Euro we paid for it!

It looks like a parting glass.  When people would have a glass of whiskey or whisky with their departing guests and you would probably say:

"One for the road!"

Here's an apt song to go with this post.  It's more of my dad's favourite music.  Today it's " The Parting Glass" by The Clancy Brothers.  The Arran jumper folk group that inspired Bob Dylan:

I should have worn my Arran jumper to write this post.  Hope you like it Tasker?

On writing this post I have just found a version of the song by Loreena Mckennit today.  She is a Canadian singer who I only discovered in the last couple of years.  If she ever does a world tour of West Cork I would buy a ticket or two.  She can be on the same bill with Saga, Styx and Kansas.  

The Yorkshire Triangle And Garden Centre Shopping And Dividing Rhubarb.

We went in a garden centre on Sunday for a perusal of the price of perennials plants and I even invested in a rhubarb plant.  Like you do.  I paid 6 Euros for it.  

Yesterday I got out my trusty old bread knife and divided it into four new plants.  Tight wad plant making is the way to do it.

Timperley Early.  Isn't that a village in Cheshire?

Here's my new plants all potted up and none the worse for wear after their operation.

Here's the one's I made earlier.  I will sell you a couple if you wish?

Rhubarb originates in Siberia, China and thrives in the wet and cold county of Yorkshire.  

In the 1930s there was a nine square mile area of deepest Yorkshire where avid rhubarb growers forced rhubarb.  This was called: The Yorkshire Triangle.    

I suppose there must of been a big demand for rhubarb  and  custard back in the day?

 Remember Birds custard powder and tinned custard?  How do you like your custard?  I like it runny.

Interestingly rhubarb is not a fruit, it's a vegetable.  You can eat it with your meat and vegetables.  

Don't eat the  leaves though or feed it to livestock.  It's poisonous.  You can make it into a natural insecticide and spray it on the "flickers" on your fruit and vegetables.

Here's a song for JayCee because she's on her jollies in Bermuda.  Let's substitute Bermuda for Yorkshire and YP can join in:

"Yorkshire Triangle.."

"We like our rhubarb and Tetleys beer.  Yorkshire Triangle..."

  🔺️ 

Bank Holiday Carboot Antiques Hunt.

 It's a Bank Holiday here in Ireland giving everyone a day off after Saint Patrick's Day.

The weather forecast was not good but we still got up earlier and drove for over an hour to a carboot sale on a dairy farm.  

Here's some photos for your perusal dear readers:

It wasn't very busy and began to rain and it's still quite bitter for the middle of March.

Here are some of our finds.  I am sure my American blog  friend (Life's  Funny Like That) Debby will like our boot finds?

More 1940s cottage ware consisting of a teapot and a biscuit barrel. A big Beswick Toby Jug for my brother who collects them.  Five pieces of blue Wedgewood pottery.  Look them up on Ebay to see their antique shop value.  What do you think they are worth?  Shall I tell you what we paid for them?

It was a good run out and we satisfied our hoarding addiction.  Have you been to any good carboot sales lately?  

Would any tv companies like to film an Irish Hoarders programme?

A vegetable post tomorrow again.  I bet you can't wait?

Artichokes Barter.

 "I'm going to see that Prog band Artichokes Barter this weekend".  

" Oh I saw them on their first tour supporting Steve Hillage at Stonehenge free festival".

No not really.  We got in contact with someone who had some Jerusalem Artichokes and they said they would give me some tubers in exchange for a big bag of well rotten fym.  I also gave them a small bag of seed potatoes and a Buddleia and a geranium.  

Every one was happy with our barter.  

They lived in a nice  housing estate and told me they had got tired of mowing their lawns and had replaced the grass with raised vegetable beds full of vegetables.

It was like Tom and Barbara Good had moved from Surbiton to Ireland 🇮🇪. 

Have you done any vegetable  barters recently?

 

A Great Gift For A Soil Slave.

 Number one son and his girlfriend went to the biggest carboot sale in Ireland in Kilkenny last weekend. 

They returned  and presented me with this wheelbarrow.  They paid 15 Euros for the beauty.  I got out the Brasso metal polish and gave it a good polish and it's taken pride of place with our eclectic and myriad of collectibles. It about a foot long from wheel to handles or shafts .  I have seen similar ones for sale for fifty Euros and more.

The wheelbarrow was invented by the ancient Chinese who also invented gunpowder and paper and fireworks to name just a few things.  It never ceases to amaze me how so much weight can be carried  by one wheel.

There are wheelbarrows mentioned in  England in the 13th century. Apparently it is derived from the word barrow  Mine is a beauty.  

Wet, Wet, Wet Outside And Green Shoots Inside.

Half a wheelbarrow full of rain water.  It's been horrendously wet here this week.  You would not put a milk bottle outside in that weather.  If it was not for my polytunnel  I would be very fed up with the weather.  I have not even been for a long walk because it is always raining. 

Thankfully things are different  in the polytunnel:

The first potato shoots emerging from the ground.

Peas sprouting.

Onions🌰and Globe Artichokes.  I have never grown them (artichokes) before.  Have you? Apparently they are perennials and members of the thistle family.  I think I have planted far too many. Anyone want so globe artichokes plants for free?

It's traditional to plant potatoes around St Patrick's Day but things are very  very wet at present.   At least there are some growing in the polytunnel.

"I'll Never Find Another You".

 Sang the ram to the ewe.🐑🎤

My dad would have been eighty nine this week. 

The Bachelors song "I Believe" the other day  really jogged my mental jukebox.   I will post a few bands in blog posts of some music that my dad and my mum use to listen to.  

He did not have a lot of records but now and again we would go to our local Woolworths store and come home with an LP of his choice.

Then he would place it on his radio gram and we would often sing along.  Perhaps you will post the songs your parents played when you were young?  It will be interesting to hear them on your blogs.

Here's one of my dad's old favourites:

What a voice.

The Best Seat In The House.

 Heidi is still knackered after raising her ten beautiful 🐶 puppies.

She is looking forward to going to the beach and rescuing pebbles from the sea.  

 

"I Believe".

 This was the sight when I went to feed and water the livestock on Sunday morning:

The Oxford sow had given birth to seven beautiful piglets.

I remember seeing The Bachelors with my mum and dad at the Floral Hall in Scarborough in the nineteen seventies.   My mum and dad were not singing with them I might add.🙂

 

We sat on seats in the theatre and watched The Bachelors sing.  

One of their songs began playing on my mental jukebox when I saw the piglets:

They really could sing.

Wild Ramsoms Growing In The Polytunnel.

 I noticed some Ramsons or wild garlic growing in the polytunnel and in flower yesterday.  I don't know how it got there but it seems happy enough growing amongst the Japanese winter onions.

Apparently there is archeological evidence that we have been collecting it and eating it for the last thousand years or so.

You can eat it and the European brown bear is very fond of Ramsons. So are cows and it's also called cow leek.

I have read that in Switzerland they use to make butter with the milk that the cows had ate wild garlic.

Ramsons usually lives in woodlands and damp meadows.  

Usually it is in flower in April outside.  Ours in flower now in March.

Repurposing My Old Garden Hoe.

I found this old hoe lying on the ground at the back of Portugal 🇵🇹 my polytunnel the other day.

So I picked it up to attack some weeds and grass and the metal handle snapped and dropped off.  The rust had successfully made the hoe give up the ghost.

However me being a tightwad smallholders and gardener.  I decided to use the hoe blade for a onion hoe.  

Not really a repurpose more than an adaptation more like necessity is the mother of invention.  Or "tell the bus driver I want wee wee" kind of moment.

I tried it out on my raise bed which is full of Japanese onions and Kale at the moment.  It cuts through weeds like a knife 🔪 through butter 🧈 .  Have you reused a garden tool when it broke on you?

I think I am turning into a person like Eric Olthwaite except I keep coal in the bath next to the pigeons and not in the sideboard.

Tightwad Plant Dividing.

Last Summer I was presented with 50 Euros of plant bulbs and tubers like Dahlias and Red Hot Pokers and Kaffir Lilies.  They were selling them off at the end of a flower show so number one son and his girlfriend brought home many carrier bags of flower bulbs and tubers.

We spent at least a day planting them in soil filled plant pots.  Regular readers know I have enough plastic plant pots to last me many years.

Any way yesterday I noticed the pots are sprouting and I remembered the gardeners mathematical equation: " The only way to multiply is to divide"🤔?

Any road or anyway.  I started dividing the plants:

Here's some I made earlier or prised apart even.  I think they are Kaffir Lilies? Wifey zoomed in on her Picture This  on her mobile phone App.  It costs 20 Euros a year to subscribe.  Usually it's brilliant but this time it said wild garlic which it is not.  Answers on a postcard or a comment please below if you have any idea what it is?

I think I have got the green fingers habit?  I am a plantaholic and here's my many new 🪴 plants.  

So much for me half emptying the polytunnel of plants the other day.  I really need to sell some plants.  

2000 views  plus yesterday.  Thanks for reading.

The Eighties.

 Tasker and Yorkshire Pudding posted two excellent posts about the nineteen eighties and Thatcher's awful Britain under her control. Mass unemployment and a divided country and haves and have nots.  

The two blog posts jogged my mental juke box.  Here is three songs that say it all for me about those awful years.  At least music was good back then:

The track said it all.

The end of free music festivals in England.

God bless the miners.  I collected money for them.  The salt of the earth.

A plant post  again tomorrow.

More Polytunnel Potatoes Planting.

six wheelbarrows of last years fym dug and piked and spread on a new planting area in Portugal 🇵🇹 my polytunnel.  I found lots of juicy red worms 🪱 in the muck heap.  So it is obviously cooler and rotten enough to use for growing  vegetables?

Three six inch trenches hang dug and potatoes planted at a foot a part.  I cut Buddleia branches for row markers like I did on the other potato growing sites. These should strike roots and I will have even more shrubs.  

All covered up and my four prong pike takes a rest.

Hopefully next week the weather will improve and the ground will dry out and I can plant my early potatoes outside around the 17th of March.  I have dug 3 trenches and manured the potato area ready on one side of the tunnel.m

The Bim and Purple Rain are chitting along with the British Queens.  These will go on the other side of the tunnel.

We like new potatoes at our house.  Have you planted any potatoes yet?  Or will you wait until it's Scorchio and you hear yourself say ths following: 

" It's too hot for potatoes" and: "Is it hot or it me?"

 

Emptying Part Of The Polytunnel And Preparing The Ground For New Crops.

 I had been a busy bee yesterday.  I emptied lots of my shrubs and perennials in pots from the right hand bottom side of the polytunnel and placed them outside on a sheet of black plastic.  This took me all morning and some of the afternoon.  I really am something of a plantaholic. 

Then I moved(dragged) my dining room table / potting bench to the centre of the tunnel and away from any draughts.

Monday was a dreadful day with lots of rain and wind and damaging more of one gable of Portugal 🇵🇹 my polytunnel pal.  Yesterday was so much better.

Then we lifted and rolled up the sheet of black plastic and dragged it outside on to a vacant area of the veg plot.

All empty and cleared away.

All forked over and I soon had a real sweat workout.  I was sweating cobs!

I collected bamboo roots and stones while forking over the ground.  

The pigs 🐖 had cleared the area over a year ago so I was well dug and I found lots of well rotted dung.  

I will add more fym another day.  I will just empty barrow loads of the stuff and let the worms take it down.

I will dig some more potatoes 🥔 trenches before the week is out and fork some fym in the trench and place some chitted seed potatoes in the bottom and cover it up again.

I noticed my peas are sprouting so it's obviously warm enough to so more stuff.  So we sowed Pak Choi and some tomatoes which are going to germinate in the Chitting Room.

Quite a productive day.

Piglets Progress.

 I thought I would show the latest picture of some of the piglets since you saw them last:

That's five of the Berkshires and one Gloucester Old Spot away from their mums.

The piglets are growing like mad and they are eating pig ration and they often eat some of their straw bed.

It won't be long before they are being sold and going to new homes.

Anyone else keep pigs for fattening and to sell? Or perhaps you are thinking of getting some?

Bim And Purple Rain.

 More seed potatoes 🥔  for the veg plot and polytunnel yesterday.  

One variety is called Bim and the other is called Purple Rain.  Anyone heard of them?

They are supposed to be blight resistant and full of Anthocyanin.  I thought that was the name of a Prog Rock band?

Anthocyanins are said to be very good for you and are present in blue berries and red cabbage.

Purple Rain potatoes have purple flesh.

I wonder if Prince was singing about his allotment potatoes when he penned this 🎵 song?

Up to nowI have planted Homeguard seed potatoes in the polytunnel and we have British Queens, Bim and Purple Rain chitting in the Chitting  Room.  Have you planted any potatoes or started chitting them yet?

Roughing It Tips When You Go Camping.

 I will be all being well going to Blighty again this summer to visit some literary places and of course take in a rock festival, Prog preferably.

We try to keep our accommodation costs down by taking tents and staying on camp sites and a couple of nights in a Travelodge.  

 Last year my towel was saturated and I did not fancy carrying it around for days so I threw it in a litter bin and bought a dry one for one pound from a charity shop.

Then I had my light bulb moment when I got back to my tent.  I cut the towel in half with a pair of scissors.  I now had two towels and I could discard one when it got wet.

It's a good way not to take home wet washing with you.

This tip may be useful for JayCee and P?

 

A Talcum Powder Sprinkling Of Snow.

 This is a scene I could see from outside my polytunnel and from our kitchen window yesterday (Friday) morning:

Sugarloaf in the Caha mountain range over on Beara peninsula.  I was going to take a photo of Hungry Hill but that was shrouded in Irish mist or mizzle.

There are 450 mountains and mountain ranges in the world called Sugarloaf.  There are at least four in Ireland.

One day this Summer I'm going to get dropped off over on Beara  at Adrigole or Glengarriff and walk up to the summit and look at the panoramic view and see parts of Kerry and West Cork and even where we live hopefully?

A Neil Young song began playing in my mental jukebox when I composed this post.  Enjoy:

Making Dogwood Cuttings In My Polytunnel Potting Shed.

Dogwood cuttings on my dining table/potting bench.

 I took some Cornus or Dogwood cuttings yesterday.

I like it for it's red bark in winter. It's very hard wood and Jesus's cross is claimed to have been made from Dogwood.

It's also been used in medicine instead of quinine.

Butcher skewers use to be called  'Dags' or 'Dogs' or even skewer wood.

Dogwood are native to North America,  China and Europe.

I make new Dogwood cuttings every year.  I take my secateurs or loppers and take pencil ✏️ sized cuttings and place five or six of them in a black plastic plant pot full of sand or my homemade potting compost.

Black plastic plant pots reflect heat and soon warm up the soil.

You can also plant them straight into a slit trench in the veg plot and leave them until next Autumn.

I like to keep mine in my ow portable plant pots.

It's a good way of getting shrubs for free. 

Dogwood Cuttings sounds like an old branch line station in the Home Counties doesn't it?