Wining and pruning

3rd quarter to new moon: 25th-31st
A dormant period; low sap

Winemaking, like so many things, sounds like it should be terribly complicated and difficult but actually is not. All right, a country wine might not suit the taste of a connoisseur interested in vintages and grape regions, but for cotters like us there's nothing wrong with a bottle of homemade wine (or several) to help you through the long dark winter.

The hardest part about making your own wine is actually the waiting, because as with conventional wines they do improve with age. Just this week I bottled up a batch of elderberry wine and, after a sneaky glass from the bottom of the demijohn, we were sorry to have to put it away to mature for at least the next six months.

We're also waiting on a batch of bramble wine to finish fermenting at the moment. My recipe book suggested that this one would be ready to drink by Christmas of the year it was made, but that has not been the case for us. This week it occurred to me that the recipe book was likely based on winemaking in southern England rather than central Scotland and blackberries could ripen up to a full month later here than they do down south, which would account for the delay. Anyway, it's almost ready now and I'm looking forward to enjoying some before we get started on this year's wines. The next batches I'm planning are some may blossom wine and birch sap wine which are very exciting prospects.

In other news, this week I have pruned our blackcurrant bush as per the Almanac's moon gardening guidance. I doubt we'll have enough currants for a batch of wine (although that would be great) but some jam or cordial is certainly on the cards.

Pruning is one of those areas that I'm not particularly knowledgable about and I'm never quite sure if I'm doing it right. I feel more confident pruning our roses since I've done it for a couple of years now, and because they're ultimately decorative so the stakes are lower. This is my first year pruning a fruit bush and I went quite cautiously, just taking off enough branches to leave the middle of the bush open and uncrowded. We shall see how it gets on. I was very conscious of the fact that blackcurrants fruit on second year growth, but I struggled to tell which branches had already fruited and which hadn't. Oh well. We learn through doing in this game more than anything, and I am still a beginner in so many ways.

Rhubarb and the herb spiral

Full moon to 3rd quarter: 18th-25th
Drawing down energy

I found myself suddenly driven to get a rhubarb in the garden, and it turned out that according to the almanac we were in the ideal phase for planting things that develop below ground. Perhaps I'm already tuning in to the moon gardening cycle.

I associate rhubarb with my childhood because my grandparents always had a big rhubarb patch in their garden and rhubarb crumble was a regular feature. Also, with little ones to manage, the appeal of unfussy perennial crops is significant. So, I spent two days clearing a huge unruly dog rose, weeding and mulching the flower bed, then went over to the garden centre and got a rhubarb crown. It looks like nothing much at all right now, just a little nose poking out of the soil, but I'm aware that the flower bed may become the rhubarb bed before we know it. 

When the weather is nice at this time of year I grab the opportunity to work in the garden, knowing that the cold will return with a vengeance several times over before spring arrives. So as well as tidying the flower bed I also got on with finishing the beautiful herb spiral my husband built at the end of last year. It has been a little ambition of his to make a herb spiral for a few years and the result is so lovely. I dug it over, topped it up with compost, and put in some little wooden steps before we planted in the few herbs that have been sitting out in pots: rosemary, lavender, chives, and golden marjoram. Those poor little pot-bound herbs, it was so good to see them go into the ground where they can spread their roots out! I'm so looking forward to planting it up even more as the year goes on.

Seed gazing

1st quarter to full moon: 10th-17th

Sowing above-ground crops

Sowing seeds is an exercise in patience, faith, and a raft of other very virtuous qualities I'm sure. It also makes me feel like a small child in the back of a car asking "Are we there yet?" every three minutes for the entirety of a four hour drive.

It's that marvellous anticipation that makes me go back again and again to just look at my newly sown seeds, to watch the flat fresh compost and visualise the first tiny hooks of green nosing up. I call it seed gazing. It's a compulsion, a childish impatience, but at the same time I think I sort of believe it helps. Perhaps those winter-sown seeds need that extra energy and attention to coax them out in the depths of the cold dark winter. By the time spring comes and I'm sowing seeds every day, along with all the other work to be done, there is simply no time or inclination to peer at egg trays of soil for long stretches. But by that time the sun is warmer and does the coaxing for me.

At this time of year I feel a touch of what I felt as the mother of newborn babies: deep and focused attention on the nurturing of new life. I even put my propagator 'to bed' each night in the babies' room: the warmest place in the house overnight.

Now, away to see if any of the seeds I started yesterday have sprouted yet.

Garlic

My grandad has always told me that the time to plant garlic is Hallowe'en. This appeals to the witchy part of me, but this year I found that putting my garlic in the ground on Hallowe'en resulted in no garlic shoots at all until the new year. Although I like the idea, I think I need to accept that I, planting my garlic quite a bit further north than my grandad, need to get it in sooner. Next year I will aim for early October and see if that helps.

Another thing that happened to my garlic this year is that some of it was snaffled by mice. We have been battling mice and rats ever since we moved to this house, which is only to be expected since we live in an old cottage surrounded by farmland. To be honest, I am just grateful we no longer have them in the house. I can live with all manner of creatures roaming the garden, the walls, the loft, the solum, but having them skittering around the house where my babies play would upset me. So, I suppose you could say we've reached a compromise. Having said that, I do need to think about better protecting my crops from all these hungry mouths.

Despite the setbacks, in early January the first shoots appeared much to my relief and delight. Garlic is a wonderful crop to grow, not only for its usefulness and health benefits, but for the way it emerges over the coldest months giving you something to watch and look forward to when everything else is dormant.

I was reading recently about garlic 'seed', i.e. the miniature cloves that form along the stem. I am going to try planting a few of these from my homegrown garlic last year and see what happens. Bonus garlic hopefully!

An empty windowsill

I love taking the Christmas decorations down as much, if not more than, putting them up. Even though January often feels like the beginning of winter here rather than the middle, when temperatures drop to levels that make it difficult to do anything that isn't cowering under the sofa duvet next to the fire some days, it's an exciting time for me. Firstly, the prospect of not having any more visitors or large family events for a while is a blessed relief. Secondly, after a couple of months of respite from gardening I feel keen to start again, to start bringing all the plans I've made to fruition.

There is plenty to do outside in the garden at this time of year - fertilising the veg beds with seaweed, clearing last year's dead growth from the flower bed, pruning and tidying and putting in place the cat deterrents to stop them using the beds as litter boxes (a new threat this year I wasn't anticipating). My January garden really starts, however, not in the frozen solid soil beyond the back door but on the living room windowsill, now cleared of all decorations and last year's brown and woody basil.

This south-west facing window is where I start most of my seeds, giving them the benefit of both the bright light and the warmth of the fire in this room. Right now, in early January, is the only time in the whole year it sits clear of propagators, seedlings, indoor herbs, and I enjoy seeing it that way and anticipating what is soon to begin.

It's almost time to start my chilli and pepper seeds, but I am waiting for the 1st quarter of the moon cycle which starts on the 10th. My mother-in-law has bought me an Almanac for 2022 and I am hoping to use its information about 'gardening by the moon' this year to see if it has any beneficial effect on my crops. Even if I don't notice anything, I like the idea of working with the rhythms of the earth and sky.

A new year. The garlic I was worried hadn't taken is coming up (what hasn't been eaten by mice anyway!) and my bulbs are starting to poke their heads above ground. There is still frost and snow and wind and rain to come, but the work has started again.