Sowings

I am going to miss my potager. If I want to grow any veg this year it is going to have to be produce that will grow in pots. But I am determined that we will have some home-produced veg as I find the whole growing process so satisfying. I have also been reading up on bio-dynamic gardening and happened to be flicking through one of my recent 'Rustica' magazines yesterday when I spotted that the 27 and 28 February are 'moon ascending' days and therefore recommended for sowing seeds. So in went the capsicum, chilli, tomato and kuri squash seeds and I also planted some rose garlic, shallot and red onion sets in pots. Now, I know that the influence of the moon on gardening is treated with some disdain by many people, but others swear by it - what have I got to lose?

On other matters, I don't think I blogged about it, but we started having real problems with Taff after Christmas. He seemed to be developing a worrying noise sensitivity, reacting to bangs and whistles on DVDs that we were watching and to clapping & whistling on live music tracks that we were listening to. He was turning into a nervous wreck, although we had no idea what had triggered this sudden change. Various solutions were proposed by various people on websites and on Twitter, but I thought we should try the simplest one first - a couple of drops of lavender essential oil on his collar. Lavender is renowned for its calmative properties so I shouldn't have been surprised when it took its effect. But the change in Taff was amazing. After a couple of days of using the oil, he would acknowledge noises like gunshot and whistling by raising his head from his bed, but would quickly settle back down again, unperturbed. His general demeanour is also much calmer, so lavender oil is now very firmly on our list of household pre-requisites!