Spring Blossom and Joy

I am sure I am not the only one whose spirit is raised by the greenery, new flowers and better weather of spring.  I am loving the blossoms everywhere on trees, the flower bulbs pushing through including the ones I planted with my youngest two with our gardening group in various spots across the park and public green spaces.

I love gardening and watching things grow and I love to go out first thing every morning to check how the plants are growing in my garden and enjoy the new flowers coming through. I make a point of getting up early, going outside and taking a few minutes before waking the kids or logging onto my laptop for work.

I can’t wait to plant more flowers in my garden and enjoy watching them grow. I look forward to the longer, warmer days of summer, and the warm, bright evenings alhamdulillah.

In My Mum's Garden

I can’t go and see my mum at the moment or go and sit on her swing chair in her garden and watch her flowers, so I am having to enjoy them vicariously through my dad and sisters pictures. Insh’Allah lockdown seems to be easing, so soon I’ll be going over and sitting with her and having a good long chat. 

Digging Holes and Adopting Roses

I haven’t been able to give the garden as much time as I like during Ramadan, barely managing to water it and stop everything from dying. Now that I am off work for a few days, I wanted to clean up and tend to some of the plants that weren’t doing as well.

A few of the plants that were withering in the pots, so I planted them into the bed. My shoulder has been very sore the last few days and the ground was hard, so I asked my other half to dig me some holes. He’s so cheesy, he told me if Farhad could dig a tunnel for Shirin through the mountain (Persian love story) he could dig me a hole in the garden :) 

I found some new roses on clearance at Tesco and adopted them. This cream one had big generous blooms, and a light scent, something I find rare these days in roses.

I couldn’t walk past this stunning colour without stopping to enjoy and getting told off by my oldest for wasting time and getting in people’s way. Now it’s in my garden and I can stare at it some more. Hopefully the colour won’t fade or change too much, which is what seems to happen to roses in my garden.

I bought this jasmine last year and was worried it would die over winter, but it has survived and in he last few weeks started to thrive mash’Allah. I’m hoping to train it up the fence. It’s also finally starting to flower. Last night I went into the garden for a bit and could smell it’s faint scent on the air.

These strawberry plants are from last year too, there are two or three small plants and one of them has a few blossoms.

I think this clematis is from about two years ago and I think we may have had a flower last year. It seemed to have taken only tenuously last year and I was worried it might die, it looked so fragile. This year it has grown leaps and bounds and started to grow up the wall. I am hoping to train it up the back fence. I’m really excited to see quit a lot of flower buds, so can’t wait to see what the flower looks like.

From this week, I’ll be keeping a closer eye on my seedlings insh’Allah. My first attempt to re-pot the bigger sunflower seedlings to give them more space seems to have killed them, so I'm leaving alone mostly for now.  The seeds we threw into the flower bed also seem to have taken hold and I am just waiting to see what they grow into.

I have found that there are a couple of apps that help you to identify seedlings. I downloaded PlantSnap, PictureThis and Plantyx for free and so far, have tried PlantSnap to successfully identify that one of the group of seedlings that have done really well are nasturtium plants.  So will be trying to identify the rest and label some of them insh’Allah.

Have you been growing anything at the moment? What is doing well in your garden or growing space?

Ramadan 2020/1441: Ramadan Gratitude Journal Day 16

What places you are grateful for?

I am most grateful for the Haramain, or our sacred places – my trip to Makkah and Madinah 15 years ago was life affirming and life changing in many ways.

I am grateful for anywhere in nature that’s soothes, heal or inspires: beaches, forests, glades, green valleys or moors.

I am grateful for anywhere I find books libraries, bookshops and book stalls, especially secondhand bookshops with random finds.

I am grateful for my little garden, somewhere I can experiment and try and grow thing and learn as I go. A place to sit outside and enjoy the sun, early morning birdsong, the sound of lazy fat bumble bees and the sight of an occasional butterfly.

I am grateful for the quiet places in my home: my bedroom, most of all my snuggly bed.

Dreary Days

We have had some beautiful sunny days recently and watching the world blossom and turn green has been an absolute pleasure. Today was the first day in a while when we had a full day of grey skies and rain.

Usually I love rain and it doesn’t stop me going out or I enjoy watching it from my window.  If nothing else I was glad to see my plants being watered. When it started this morning, I went out to rescue my seed trays from being drowned and then shivered in the garden for a few minutes enjoying the rain.

As the day wore on a mixture of being busy with work and children, being stuck indoors and the grey weather started to drive me slightly mad, by about 4pm when I logged off and went to take a  nap it had me feeling down.

It helped to remember that dua (prayers) made during rain are accepted. Mostly it helped to get some much needed sleep and wake up prep leftovers for iftar instead of cooking.

Anas Bin Malik (RA) reported “Whilst we were with the Messenger of Allah ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) rain fell upon us. The Messenger then exposed part of his garment so that rain fell on his body. When we asked him why he did so, he replied “Because it has just come from the Exalted Lord” (Sahih Muslim)

The Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said “Two will not be rejected. The Duaa after the Adhan and the Duaa under the rain”. (Al-Hakim, Sahih)

My Little Sanctuary

It came around to that time of year again, the annual garden tidy up. Every year around spring as the weather warms up, I venture out to my little garden and survey the state of it: the mess and toys that the kids have left and the random junk my better half has decided to store out there a bit at a time. This time I decided enough was enough and I wasn’t cleaning it, he was (it wasn't actually this bad, he was half way through dismantling the trampoline at this point).

After some gentle guilt tripping and the decision to get rid of our big old trampoline, my husband got to work and cleared the garden out in an afternoon. It would have taken me a week or two to get everything out and into bags for the dump or the bin men to take away.  You can imagine I was very happy, and he has been in my good books ever since.

It took a bit more work, cleaning, weeding, organising pots, pulling up plants that looked dead beyond any chance of revival cleaning and storing empty plant pots before it looked reasonably clean and pleasant. The big clear up means that there is now space for the Babies to play, for me to grow things and to sit outside when the sun is out.

A few weeks before the clear out, my husband had done a house move where the previous tenants had been growing marijuana and fled one day leaving everything behind.  He bought home a couple of bags of compost that were no longer wanted, which was a great help (we split them three for me and four for my mum).  I planted a few new plants I managed to pick up with my grocery shopping (red mini roses, pink begonia and an azalea plant), but with the shops closed and everyone under quarantine, I ended up growing seeds and hoping for the best. On the plus side, it's a really nice activity to do with children and they really enjoyed planting the seeds.

I found these vines in Poundland for £1 each (what? They sell stuff for £2 and £3 too). I got one of each: raspberry, blueberry, black currant and gooseberry). 

I got these grape plants on offer from Wowcher. At the moment they are very small, but I have an image of one wall covered in grape vines, maybe even with grapes growing. I’ll try not to kill them.

Once we had cleared the garden, the older kids suggested a barbecue to celebrate. We’ve had about three now and my husband has managed to cremate everything every time. I’m setting him a goal to watch YouTube video’s and sort his act out and stop burning everything. 

When the weather is good, the girls have been out playing, we’ve been doing badminton, football ball skills and of all people my oldest son has turned out to be a good badminton partner for me.

I’ve been enjoying the odd sunny afternoon reading in the garden. Catching up with neighbours over the fence and generally walking about in small circles feeling happy with my little space.

We might have gotten carried away with the solar lights…

I’m really grateful for my little space, for being able to plant things and watch them grow and for space for the little ones to play outside. I look forward to spending warm mornings having breakfast outside before the rest of the house wakes up and to go and sit outside on balmy evenings when the house gets too noisy.

For the latest updates and more gardening stories (including whether I manage to grow or kill everlasting) please do follow me on my Instagram account where I am a little more active these days, especially on my Insta-stories. 

Fairy Garden for the Girls

The arrival of both spring and my in-laws has inspired me to clean up the garden and get planting.  This is annual affair, where I’m too cold to go in the garden from about October onward, so hubby uses it to store random things and the kids either make a big mess everywhere, or use the trampoline in the rain or snow.  Every spring I wait for a few dry days so I am not picking up mushy leaves and weeds full of slugs and then the big clear up begins: weeding, picking up litter, pestering hubby to clear his tools, bike parts and other things I fail to recognise.

Then I get to do the fun part of trying to bring last years plants back to life, choose lovely new plants and try and squeeze in a few veg.  I look for fun decorations and try and make it as pleasant a space as I can for an early morning breath of fresh air before the household wakes up, or for my mum-in-law to sit outside on warmer evenings.

A fairy garden has been on my bucket list for some time and I only finally just got around to it.  I had kept aside a large flower planter and asked my husband to get me a bag of soil to top it up.

I bought a few small plants that I hope will spread and cover the soil without getting so big that they drown out the fairy garden. The little fuchsia that I think might grow biggest, I have planted at the back. I got the girls to help dig holes and position the plants.

Then the fun part, allowing the girls to place the garden furniture, little house and toad stools.

They love their little garden and I have asked them to look after it, water it without drowning it and keep an eye out for special things like shells or pine cones we can add to it.