Celebrating Ostara

Going Batty in Wales16 Comments

Yesterday was Eid (the Muslim festival at the end of Ramadan so important to my son), The Spring Equinox which is called Ostara in pagan / celtic circles, and it happened to be my daughter-in-law’s Birthday too. And after a mild but endlessly soggy Winter the sun has put in an appearance with chilly nights but warm sunny days. What better excuse to celebrate.

A while back I had picked up a leaflet in one of the shops about some walking trails round the town. The Civic Society puts Blue Plaques up on buildings where important people lived or significant events happened in the town’s history. The leaflet has them all numbered and marked on a map with a legend describing the person or event and their significance in the town’s story. I was surprised how many there were! I walk along with my shopping list but rarely stop to look beyond the shop windows or admire the architecture. Lindy and I decided that following the trails would be a fun way to learn more.

We started with Trail A (yellow dots on the map) and plaque No 1 which was at The Carmarthen School of Art near the Parish Church and took in 2 streets which run, more or less parallel, to the Guildhall Square. Some of the places were not easy to spot! No7 was almost hidden behind a tangle of power cables and No 4 was on a hotel which is set well back from the street with only a narrow drive through to it. The description told us that this was the place where the Gorsedd of Bards became part of the National Eisteddfod and that there was a circle of stones to commemorate the event – we found them eventually round the back of the carpark! No 5 nearly defeated us, not because it was hidden away but because we hadn’t remembered that a pedestrianised area was still part of King Street so thought we had missed it – hence the triumphant picture!

Lindy decided to take a photo of me at each one which sometimes meant standing on the other side of the road and waiting for a gap in the traffic, sometimes standing in the road and persuading drivers to pause so she could take her photo and meanwhile I was standing under the plaque pointing or whatever and trying to keep a smile but not a grimace on my face! We gave quite a few passers by a giggle!

Some of the plaques marked men who were ‘the usual suspects’ – men who were well educated and designed lovely building like this English Baptist Chapel, ran businesses (there were a lot of printers and publishers), politicians or were pillars of society.

The two I liked best were No 2 and No 8 – the two women recorded. I will quote from the leaflet

No8. Hannah White

Hannah White established a printing and book selling business with her husband in the early 19th century. Following her husband’s death in 1818 Hannah traded at 50 King Street for over 40 years. The business was known as H White & Sons and, as well as the printing works and booksellers, they were also home to a stationery department, reading room and library. Hannah was one of the pioneering women in the Welsh print trade and a leading businesswoman of the early nineteenth century whose family became leaders of civic and commercial life in the town.

No 2 Dorothea Bate.

Dorothea Bate was born in 1878. She had no formal education but seems to have been fascinated by nature and wildlife. In 1898 she went to the Natural History Museum in London and asked for work. Although she was so young and unqualified she was the first woman to be employed as a scientist by the Museum. She became a world-renowned expert in the field of archaeozoology. The focus of her research was the reasons for change and adaptation among different species. She did this by studying fossils all over the world. She had a keen interest in climate change. Dorothea was one of the most prominent scientists of her generation and continued her work until her death in 1948.

Now there are two role models to follow!

By the time we had finished trail A we were at the Guildhall Square and it was lunchtime so we went to Tea Traders, an independent cafe, for a delicious lunch and pots of tea. We sat outside in the sun and enjoyed choosing from the tea menu which fills a side of A4 helped by the very knowledgable owner. The place deserves a post of its own but for now this is where I will stop. We plan to do Trails B and C another time and have added some more places we passed to our list of future ‘explores’.

Scrap Happy March 2026

Going Batty in Wales30 Comments

Two rather odd uses of scrap again.

When we designed the plot here and had it terraced we planted the top area with fruit trees as an orchard. One of the Permaculture ideas is that you try to keep things that need a lot of attention near the house and those you visit only at certain times of year further away. The path up tom the top is very steep which doesn’t normally matter but this winter has been very wet so when Laura and I started clearing around the trees ready for giving them manure to feed them, and a cardboard mulch to make picking easier in the Autumn, we found ourselves slipping and sliding on the mud. It got so dangerous that we had to stop – especially as carrying trugs of muck and armfuls of cardboard made everything harder. So I decided we needed to make the steepest parts of the slope into steps.

The fence pins are being used for at least the third time. John originally bought them to hold up stock fencing to grow peas over. I then used them to fence round some young trees to stop them being accidentally mown down. And now they are holding back the risers. The wood is a mix of offcuts and some lengths Danny used to make a former to steam bend handles round – hence the holes for pegs.

The second is complete serendipity. In one of the winter storms a piece of an ornamental tree in the lower garden broke off. I tidied it all up and put the twigs on a slow rot pile by the stream which will eventually raise the bank there a bit. To my amazement the twigs flowered! So I cut some and brought them into the kitchen.

Apologies for the poor quality of the photos – it is grey and raining (again!) so the light is very poor.

Scrap Happy is curated by Kate to showcase any project that keeps scrap from being thrown away. My fellow scrapsters are

Kate, Eva, Sue, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Tracy, Jan,
Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,
Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera,
Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Viv, Karrin,  Alissa,
Tierney, Hannah and Maggie

Scrap Happy February 2026

Going Batty in Wales19 Comments

I have been watching Youtube videos from Snapdragon Life and in one of the old ones Jane explained that her auto-immune condition, and the medication which helps her manage it, mean that she needs to start the day slowly so she lies in bed doing some simple knitting until she feels ready to get up. Ever since I was pregnant with my first child (now aged 50!) I have taken a mug of tea back to bed in the mornings before getting dressed and starting the day and since John died I have read whilst sipping. But the idea of knitting appealed to me. Not a jumper or anything else large and complicated which would need too much concentration and be difficult to handle in bed but a small simple project.

As a child my favourite Aunt and her husband had one of the early Dormobiles and travelled around Europe every Summer in it. On the beds were blankets made of knitted squares in lots of different colours made by Aunty Nan and she always took some yarn and needles with her on those trips and made more squares which she stitched together over winter and gave to charity. I loved the tales of adventure and discovery she told of their trips.

My Dad was a keen beekeeper and over each Summer we went with him on visits organised by the Beekeepers Association to members’ apiaries. One was in a field where a couple kept their bees and spent their summers living in a re-purposed railway guards van. I have no idea if they went ‘home’ when the weather was bad or where they spent their winters! They, too, had blankets of knitted squares on their beds. I loved their spirit of adventure and the idea of living in a small cosy space.

So two couples who, to my young eyes, lived lives of adventure and unconventionality connected by their choice of bedcovering – no wonder I also love blankets made of knitted squares or granny squares! Periodically I have made a few squares when I have wanted to knit but inspiration has been slow to arrive. I have a large collection of small balls of leftover yarn. So for the last few weeks I have been knitting simple 6 inch squares in the morning and have found it a lovely way to start the day. This is my collection, old and new, so far.

Check out the blogs of the other members of the group for more inspiration.

Kate, Eva, Sue, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Tracy, Jan, 
Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,
Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera, 
Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Viv, Karrin,  Alissa, Tierney,
Hannah and Maggie

Imbolc

Going Batty in Wales20 Comments

Today is February 1st and in the UK that is Imbolc, the first festival of the year, half way between the Winter Solstice (Yule), and the Spring Equinox, Ostara. Now I am no expert on all of this but from my reading so far and my previous knowledge and experience I can see that it is the very beginning of Spring.

At a Solstice the day length is changing very slowly. With careful measurement, probably originally by marking each day where the sun rose and set, the date could be determined. But for most of us there is quite a long period when it feels as if the days stay the same length. The endless long ones of high Summer and the endless dreary short ones of Winter.

Graph from Google

Given that the weather in Winter here in SW Wales is cold or wet (or both!) most of the time it makes sense to stay indoors and in fact the ground is often too wet and muddy to do much outside. Even if I put on waterproofs and go and do some tree work or make something in the workshop the days are short so time by the fire is relatively long. Until artificial light became commonplace not much could be done indoors after dark either! So this was a time to think, dream and plan.

But now the days are getting noticeably longer and work can start on those projects planned in the dark; dreams can begin to be manifest into reality. It is all very slow. The days are still short, the weather not great but energy is rising. I can feel myself wanting to start things.

Outside I can see nature stirring. The first snowdrops are blooming by the entrance to my drive, the hazel catkins are lengthening and opening and the daffodils have come up; some even have flower buds. Impatient, I bought a bunch of daffodils in the supermarket for the kitchen.

The days don’t only start to get noticeably longer at this time of year, the strength of the light increases and traditionally that showed up all the cobwebs and grime which had accumulated indoors. So Spring cleaning was in order which was also a good use of time when there was little to do on the land. Of course now we have electric lights we can see the cobwebs any day. But I was interested to see how many adverts there are around at the moment for cleaning products and equipment – it seems we still get the urge to clean our homes and ‘clear the decks’! I am not a fan of housework and I reckon that adult spiders bring their youngsters to this house to practice their web-building skills! I would quite like to be unable to see them for a few more weeks each year!

For me it feels too early to Spring Clean anyway because whilst I could wash curtains and such like getting them dry would be difficult. I need to wait for ‘March winds’! But I have started re-decorating the kitchen. The hand made solid wood worktops have worn in places and need re-oiling. And there were a number of mouldy patches from condensation damp which refused to come clean any more. I have taken the chance to change the colour from a rather insipid pale green to dark. I am doing one section at a time to minimise disruption.

And I have started to paint the outside walls whilst the scaffolding is up. There has been only one day so far when it was dry but not too cold but I spent all day on the job and got quite a bit done. To avoid hauling paint cans and tools up the ladders I opened the bedroom window wide (it is one of those tilt and turn ones) and got out onto the scaffolding that way! The front and the gable ends are staying reddish brown but the back was magnolia because it is very gloomy out there. I thought I had bought another can of the same but when I opened it it was a pale grey. My mistake not checking that the label on the can matched that on the shelf. I couldn’t be bothered driving 20 miles to change it and losing an afternoon of fine weather so grey it is.

Tomorrow looks like another decent day and Laura should be with me in the afternoon so we should be able to finish all the bits that we need the scaffolding for. The areas which we can reach from the ground can be done later if needs be.

So 2 projects beginning. First shoots of the new plans.

Looking Forward

Going Batty in Wales23 Comments

In November I was debating what goals to set myself for 2026. Those for 2025 which I reviewed in my previous post had been helpful and I want to go on exploring local places (But hopefully not Hospitals!), trying new ways of growing and new plants, making different meals and sitting down to enjoy them and marking the 8 pagan / Celtic Festivals. But I didn’t want to add more of that type of aim. When I was learning Welsh the tutor spoke of asking an elderly neighbour how she was and her reply was Cadw Mynd, Cadw Mynd – Keeping Going, Keeping Going. I concluded that that would be my goal for this coming year.

After all I am in the middle of the redesign of the veg patch and when I finish that, including building a fruit cage, there will be only another acre or so of garden to do! And as I get more tree saplings the new Woodland which I started in memory of John will continue to need planting and the paths will keep on needing clearing. Then there is the knitting for Gaza – both my own knitting for the refugees and the encouraging of others to do the same. And I am still a Trustee of Dyfed Permaculture Farm which means attending meetings and workdays if I can, plus sometimes work in between researching or setting out ideas for discussion. And I am a director of the company my daughter set up with the money from her divorce which owns a student flat in Falmouth. At the moment that requires very little from me but it may demand more in the future. The kitchen needs redecorating too if I can manage it. Surely that is enough. No need to add any more.

Then Danny and Helene left and I started to reclaim the workshop which I had invited him to use and he had taken over more and more. In doing that I realised it needed another major declutter. I did it a few years ago but was still unsure what I would feel I wanted to take on in the way of repairs and maintenance and so which tools and materials I would use. Well now I am pretty sure I know what I want to keep but also what I want to add – like a big sturdy bench all along the South wall. And guess what? I have another big project! But at least it is a rainy day one.

Then the gutters fell off. I have paid a very nice handyman to cut away all the rot and redo the timber and plastic and put up new gutters re-routing some of them. I will be paying someone else to pressure wash the walls so that I can repaint the concrete render, at least all the high up stuff, while the scaffolding is up. Which means that has to be done by March or I will be charged extra by the scaffolders but it can only be done in dry weather with no risk of frost. Hmmm.

My eldest Grandchild, my son’s daughter, now lives in China and has got engaged to a Chinese airline pilot so it is unlikely she will be returning to the UK to live. As she is in her late 20’s she plans to start a family soon and has asked me to use a website called Remento to record, on video, answers to various prompts she has chosen. When she asked if I would be willing I thought how much I wish I knew more about my grandparents. Both my Dad’s parents died before I was born and my Mother’s mother died when I was 2 months old. I have a photo of my maternal grandmother holding me at my Christening but of course never knew her or spoke to her. My Mum’s father was bedridden until he died when I was 8 so I hardly knew him either. So I agreed to do the recording and my son paid for a camera to go on my computer and Laura helped me set it up. Remento will send me one prompt each week but I can do them in batches if I prefer. Each recording is at most 30 minutes but I want to do it properly so there is time thinking about the prompt and what I want to say. Not a huge project but another one to add to the list.

Way back before Covid I contacted the local Council’s footpath Officer because I wanted to see if I could find an off-road circular walk I could do with the dogs without having to drive somewhere first. He was very helpful and printed off for me copies of bits of the ‘Definitive Map’ which is the legal record of Public Rights of Way. There are quite a few near here but most are overgrown and crossed by barbed wire fences because they are rarely used and where there were wooden bridges over the river those had gone. Between one thing and another I didn’t do much about most of them. I am not a good map reader and it was hard to work where the path should be if it had become invisible. But I did use one section which ran through 3 fields until the farmer put a chain on the gate. There was no real reason for the chain – there was a working bolt to keep the gate closed and he didn’t ever put cattle in those fields. When he realised I was undoing it and putting it back as we left (but not necessarily quite the same way) he started making it tighter and tighter until I had to climb the gate and lean all my weight on it from the inside to be able to undo it. So I contacted the Officer again and he had a letter sent to the farmer explaining that he had to allow access. But my query and the ensuing conversation prompted him to send one of his team to survey the paths around here and quite by chance I met her when I was walking the dogs. She was lovely and reckons it would be fairly easy to re-open most of them but the footpaths team rely on local volunteers to do the work – did I know anyone else who might be interested in using them and putting in some effort? Well, I had been asked by one chap who has recently moved in if there were any good dog walks and Laura is up for it. As it was me who started all this I think I have to get involved and do some of the work. Whoops! Another project! I have downloaded the Ordnance Survey App which the surveyor was using so that is a start.

I started to feel overwhelmed! But I have decided I just need to go back to Cadw Mynd, Cadw Mynd, and keep nibbling away at them all. There is a Permaculture Principle which I find very useful and reassuring – Start where you are, Use what you have, Do what you can. The first 2 are fine, the third may turn out to be ‘ not much’!

I will try to update you all from time to time.

Looking Back

Going Batty in Wales30 Comments

Like many of you I have been using time spent sitting by the fire, stuffed with food and with a glass in hand, reflecting on the year finishing and the new one beginning. Not having visitors over Christmas means I have plenty of time like that!

This time last year I set myself 6 goals to be completed by now. And to encourage myself to do them I wrote a post about them and wrote them on the kitchen blackboard. So how did I do?

Well the one to make 12 greetings cards was a complete fail! I could give you plenty of reasons / excuses but I won’t. It was intended to make me sometimes pick up a creative project that was small and quick and I didn’t need to put too much planning into. I know that some of you engage with challenges to spend a short time every day doing some activity and I enjoy following your progress but I think this goal just proves to me that this isn’t how I function. I’m not going to beat myself up about it or agonise ‘why?’.

The other, less total, fail was celebrating the 8 pagan festivals. I had done the Winter Solstice and I did Imbolc (Feb 1st) but then nothing until the Solstice this December. This goal is, I think, worth persisting with. One of the reasons it went wrong was my putting it into my online calendar but not putting in a nudge a few days before so it always crept upon me and it was too late to plan something. So today I have found all the dates for 2026 and will put them in the diary with an email alert a week before. I have also written a list of things to do and /or think about for each one. Fingers crossed this makes me mark them all.

Grow 3 new types or varieties of veg or fruit should have been an easy one. I may even have succeeded unwittingly – I can never find last year’s seed order so may well have chosen new varieties without realising it! I am pretty certain I tried more types of squash than usual (and got just one usable sized squash from all of them but that is another story!) and the courgette I had grown previously was not in stock so I used another which wasn’t exactly new to me but I hadn’t grown for years. However I did sow Good King Henry and Korean mint which were ones I hadn’t tried before. I wanted some mashua tubers but everywhere had sold out and I fancied growing a Sweet Chestnut tree but it was the wrong time of year for bare root trees. I picked up some seeds fallen from a neighbours tree and will see if they will germinate. The goal certainly made me keener to try to expand my growing and I intend to go on hunting for new plants and new varieties.

The other 3 goals I succeeded with!

I have laid the table properly for every meal this year except a very few times when I have had a sandwich in front of the fire. Even then I have tried to make it look nice and have added a garnish or whatever. And I have taken more trouble about presenting my food generally.

I aimed to try 12 new ingredients or recipes. My friend Victoria was a huge help sending me recipes she thought I would like. I borrowed cookery books from the library and while I didn’t try many recipes ‘as written’ they inspired me to have a go with new combinations. Liz Zorab’s Youtube videos resulted in me having a go at making wine (3 types but it is far too soon to know if any of it will be drinkable) and Apple cider vinegar. I picked hawthorn berries and made hedgerow jelly. I made sauerkraut and am not a fan. And from the supermarket I tried anchovies, aubergines, capers, chestnuts, pesto and olives (I like the black ones but not the green ones)

apple cider vinegar infused with citrus and spice for cleaning
hedgrow jelly with blackberries, sloes and haws

And lastly I have been to more than the planned 12 new places. Some of them were, bizarrely, thanks to the NHS. The Hospital in Carmarthen has outgrown its buildings so outpatient Physiotherapy has been moved to the old Mental Hospital on the edge of town and Occupational Therapy which provided the splint for my finger was in a new building tucked alongside the old one. Trips to Haverforwest Hospital meant time to explore that town too. I went to the One Planet Development open day and saw plots that I hadn’t visited before. For fun outings Lindy has been a huge help sharing what we have come to call ‘Explores’ – some familiar to her on the South Pembrokeshire coast but new to me and some new to both of us. My Birthday included walking through parts of London I had never been to before and, of course, the unforgettable Afternoon Tea at the Ritz.

It has been an interesting year!

Scrap Happy December 2025

Going Batty in Wales18 Comments

This post owes a lot to friends – John and Victoria who give me apples from their Bramley tree every year, Liz Zorab who posted a Youtube video of making Cider apple vinegar and Stephanie Hafferty for her post this time last year about scenting vinegar for cleaning.

Whilst the apples John and Victoria keep well if stored correctly I usually turn most of them into a huge pan of stewed apple and bottle them. Which leaves me with a bucketful of peel and cores which I have always put on the compost heap. But this year Liz reposted her Youtube video explaining how to turn them into Apple cider vinegar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJpgLuLb7o4) so I had a go.

When I mentioned to her that I was making some she pointed out that as the strength of the vinegar is unknown she prefers not to use it in things like chutney where it might not preserve the ingredients properly. That was fine because I use vinegar to clean the house in place of disinfectant or anti-bacterial whatever. Partly the decision is based on not liking having heavy duty chemicals in the house or on me but also because I have a septic tank and those commercial cleaners can kill the bugs in it just as easily as the nasty ones on my kitchen worktops and if that happens the result is a stinking tank. Eco-friendly cleaners tend to be expensive but vinegar (usually white distilled vinegar) is traditional, safe and cheap.

This time last year Stephanie Hafferty (https://nodighome.com/) who is a garden writer, homesteader, Youtuber and one of my facebook friends and, like me, uses only ‘nice’ cleaning stuff, wrote about steeping citrus peel and spices in vinegar to make a nice smelling cleaner for her pre-Christmas tidy up. So into an empty coffee jar went the peel off some satsumas I had eaten, a few cloves and some of my home made vinegar. It will sit on a windowsill (it should be a sunny one but the weather may not cooperate!) for a week or two before I use it. The cloudiness is a ‘vinegar mother’ which I will add to the bucket of peel next year to speed up the process. I thought I had got it all out of this year’s batch but either I missed a bit or it is still working and forming another one!

Scrap Happy is hosted by Kate (link below) for us all to show what we have been making from rubbish. You can find the others using the links. Not everyone posts every month but they are all interesting blogs.

.

Kate, Eva, Sue,Lynda,
Birthe,Turid,Tracy,Jan,
Moira,Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,
Sunny,Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera,
Ann,Dawn 2,Carol,Preeti,
Viv, Karrin,  Alissa,
Tierney, Hannah and Maggie

Saving Seeds

Going Batty in Wales16 Comments

Yesterday I watched a Youtube video by Huw Richards (gardener) and Sam Black (chef and now gardener too) about the Wales Seed Hub which is a co-operative seed business. ( You can watch it here https://huwrichards.substack.com/p/the-little-seed-company-reimagining?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=2794089&post_id=181266541&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_content=watch_now_button&r=1k4xrw&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email )Since a number of people I know are involved in the Hub I watched with interest and it had me reflecting on my own journey to seed saving.

It all began in 1972 quite accidentally when John and I were newly married and living in a small ground floor flat, part of a 3 storey Victorian terraced house in the potteries, with the landlord, Jim, living upstairs with his wife and adult son. We had the use of the courtyard side return which got very little sun. But across a back alley was a small garden where Jim grew astonishing amounts of food and flowers. In summer we often got up to find a lettuce and a few tomatoes or a cucumber on our back doorstep. I was working as a teacher but John was at home most of the time revising for his finals and very bored. Jim had been injured in an industrial accident and worked at Remploy but his hours there were short so he was often home and bored too. The two of them regularly sat drinking tea and putting the world to rights.

One day John was eating a tomato with his lunch and on a whim scraped some of the seeds onto some wet paper on a saucer just as he had grown mustard and cress in Primary school, and left them on the mantelpiece. To his delight they grew. He potted them up into yoghurt pots using some of the ‘soil’ from a corner of the backyard. They grew more. One day when Jim came down for a cup of tea he explained that his tomato seedlings had died (I have no recollection why but it was very unusual for any plant to fail with him!) Could he have John’s seedlings to replace them and he would give us some of the tomatoes from them? As John had no idea how he could keep the little plants going it was a win-win situation and Jim carried them off happily. John had got the gardening bug!

A few years later we had a tiny cottage with a small garden and he started to grow veg. In those early years we moved around quite a lot. Sometimes we had a garden but not always and even if there was a garden not all of them had anywhere for a veg patch and life was too busy to do much gardening. But whenever he could he grew something we could eat.

When we were moving here one of the non-negotiables was a large garden. This would be our forever home and he wanted to have a go at being as self sufficient as possible. He started by buying seeds from the usual sources (the glossy catalogues everyone knows about) but then discovered Real Seeds, run by Ben and Kate, then living as part of the Brithdir Mawr community, selling Open Pollinated seeds. *For those of you not versed in seed matters I have explained this (as best I can!) below.

Back in those days (late 90’s) the catalogue was produced on a Roneo machine (anyone under 40 see the second footnote ** for an explanation) I am feeling my age typing this! Ben also gave notes explaining how to save your own seed. How daft is that? Helping people to avoid buying from you next year!

John saved the easy seeds – peas, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and so on but also bought new varieties to try.

Regular readers will know that as his health deteriorated the garden was largely abandoned and when he died and I took it over I had to start again and learn for myself how to do these things.

Like him I began saving with tomatoes. I was given 3 seedlings of a Hungarian variety not available in the UK. I was given the name on a scrap of paper but never managed to learn it and the paper was eventually lost. I really liked the flavour of the tomatoes and they grew well in my greenhouse so I saved some of the seeds. I just smeared them onto kitchen paper, let them dry and put them in an envelope still on the paper! Then in Spring I tore the paper up and planted seed, wisp of paper and all. They grew. After a while I realised that each year the first tomato was later than the previous year. I had been so pleased to see the first few fruits that I had only saved seed when there were enough to preserve some. Inadvertently I had been selecting for late fruiting! I started to save seed from the first ones I picked and now normal service has been resumed! It was a good lesson; now I know I can choose the plants I like best and gradually change the genome of my plants, adapting them to my specific site and my ways of gardening. The upside of my mistake is that some plants still produce late so I am still picking the last few tomatoes from the greenhouse.

Now if a plant goes to seed I save some! Except Kale. Kale is promiscuous in the extreme. I have tried numerous varieties over the years and they have interbred happily. I leave the plants in the ground all winter as ‘greens’ and in Spring let the flower buds form to use as ‘tenderstem broccoli’ and of course am not diligent enough to stop some opening and going to seed. I have discovered that this works to my advantage. So many little Kale seedlings pop up that they crowd out the weeds. They are willingly helped by feverfew, nasturtium and forget-me-not which also self-seed everywhere but all are easy to pull up to make room for my carefully cultivated seedlings of other veg. These three were picked this morning Dec 12th.

I do still put in seed orders to Real Seeds (https://realseeds.co.uk/) or the Wales Seed Hub (https://www.seedhub.wales/) because sometimes crops fail or I want to try a new vegetable or a new variety. And very occasionally I have to buy something from a garden center – last year I wanted to grow bronze fennel – but never an F1 variety because the idea is that those new seeds will be just to get me started.

I am no expert and I don’t sell my seed but saving my own is fun, simple, saves me money and I get plants ideally suited to my place. What’s not to like?

*Many of the seeds sold by the big companies were beginning to be F1 meaning they were a first generation cross. A grower would contrive to get the pollen of one variety onto the flower of another variety so that all the seeds produced were identical but a mixture of the 2 parents. It is a way of getting a characteristic from the ‘father’ (like hardiness or shortness) combined with those of the ‘mother’ (like early or blue flowered) to get plants which are hardy, short, early and blue flowered PLUS mongrels tend to be tough – it’s called hybrid vigour in the trade. But if you save the seed from those children plants their offspring (the grandchildren or F2) generation will be a complete mix of the characteristics. Just look at how hair colour or eye colour pass through your family to see how it works. In the old days those F2 grandchidren would be evaluated and the undesirables eaten while the ones with the best mix would be bred again. It took many years to get seed that grew the same every time. Big companies love F1 seeds because they shortcircuit the breeding process and you have to buy from the company every year – the seed equivalent of planned obsolescence.

** A roneo was an early way of producing many copies of a typed document. First you loaded a special master sheet into your manual typewriter. This sheet was a piece of paper (punched at the top so it could later be attached to the Roneo machine) overlaid with a this sheet of something like plastic. As you typed the keys cut through the flimsy layer. Mistakes were corrected with a pink fluid so the finished sheet often looked as if it had a rash! The rest of the process was a type of screen printing. The stencil was put onto a drum and as the handle turned ink was squeezed through the holes onto a sheet of plain paper. Every printed sheet involved turning th handle once so long runs were quite tiring. And eventually the stencil wore out. Photocopiers were very welcome!