Summer, brambles & nightmare roots

Sun up, birds singing, street empty of activity. The above video is of the tree out front, I talk about it so much I thought you might like to see, this ever so incredible tree.

I went out early onto the main road, home only to seagulls and crows and last nights fallings of takeaway food, at this time of day. Empty roads and bird lined rooftops. The park with a solitary dog-walker, disappearing out of the other gate and then, just the grass and trees and mud beneath my feet, as daylight painted itself into existence.

I walked home, peaceful, spacious, full of sky and green things, soil smells and birdsong.

Today, was another day.

These early mornings are full of silence that feeds the very bones of being.

Silenter than silent. Time and space seep into consciousness before the made world begins. A brief window of possibility. The possibility of being yourself before the strings of life, start to pull. When visiting this space, silent as a rainy day; sometimes it stays with you. And that, right there, is the reason I get up before the sun, on days when this is possible.

I wrote a post last week, one of the Ayurveda ‘shorts’, that talked about the Ayurveda practice of getting up one and a half hours before the sun, the healing of that. Or, if that feels too early where the sun is rising for you then, before 6am for vata types, 5:30 for pitta types and 4:30 for kapha types.

Allotment update

I have been continuing to dig out raspberry crowns, and am discovering the soil is riddled with bindweed and creeping buttercup; so that’s coming out too. Of course, all you gardeners out there will know I’ll never get it all out in one go, but once the no-dig fixed beds are created I will keep on top of what’s left with a weekly pull out of any lingering root that crops.

I’ve started to shape the beds that will run horizontally up the left hand side (where the raspberry crowns have been dug out), and popped some purple sprouting and leeks in. I have to be honest, I’m not sure the leeks will make it. Usually I make a seed bed of leeks, wait until they are the size of a pencil, ish, then plant out with proper spacing. This allotment didn’t come up in time, so I purchased a pot of cotton looking like leeks, took them home to thicken up, but they just became leggy, so I have popped them in the ground as very long pieces of fine cotton. And, the slugs are rampant so, we’ll see.

Meanwhile, with sunshine followed by showers, the brambles are growing back fast, already over a foot of growth. Unfortunately the guys trimming them down didn’t do the second strim to take them to the ground, so that I could get my black plastic to cover the ground. This would have allowed me to dig out the crowns without a forest growing back up around me. Here’s some pics.

What I’ve achieved

The forest growing back

Yesterday I reached a clump of brambles that had central roots from the crown 2-3 inches wide. I spent an hour digging and digging, with fork and spade; fork now has prongs shooting out in all directions. No loppers borrowed and after an hour had to admit it was an impossible job without these. I definitely met a wall of despondency but, on Monday I will return. With borrowed loppers. I’ve taken three days off work, so will see what I can achieve.

Those are the easy roots to cut away, but you have to dig out under the crown, and it’s the central root from that which grows like a trunk into the ground, that’s what you need to cut through, a few inches below the crown. And so, it is very slow going at the moment. Once I’ve made it past that little pond, I will spend my time cutting everything down to the ground and cover with black plastic, so that I can dig out the crowns without the forest growing back.

And so to bed…

The night is here now. Another day melting into sleep time. The road out front; still, silent, like someone has just painted it asleep. Not a sound. Darkness everywhere. And that tree, swaying, gently, as I put myself to bed, to dream of other things. Mountains and deep blue starry skies, with adventures to be had in far away places.

Warmest wishes,

Lucy x