Seasons greetings

Winter Solstice - rebirth - feeling good!

I’m always happy to have managed to make it to the winter solstice. I’m not a huge fan of autumn, and while there’s plenty to distract in the run up to Christmas, this day marks the turn of the season, where the days will start to get longer.

And while it will be cold and damp for another few months, the plants really start to respond to the longer days. Especially the ones in my polytunnel - I’m just in from my final 2021 ranunculus planting, and come April, we will have this to look forward to:

Pink Ranunculus in full bloom, April 2021

And this:

Burgundy Ranunculus

I am very excited about making bouquets with these beauties.

I’m also going to be thinking about planting chillies for next year - I know it seems early, but they have a very long growing season, and I had some difficulties this year, so I’ll be planting a few seeds in early January to see if I can get ahead of things. Chillis need a lot of warmth to germinate and progress, but I can provide that. Here’s more information from the guys at Quickcrop if you’d like to know more. (not a paid ad, I just think that they are a great source of information, and quality products). Planting seeds and seeing the new plants push through and start to grow is a happy place.

Green and red chillies

With the Omicron variant making everything uncertain, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to go ahead with my courses. However, if I have to change the dates, I’ll make sure that the new date suits the people already booked on the course. Class sizes are small - max 6, and we’ll have a good sized room. For longer classes like the soapmaking, we’ll take frequent outdoor breaks, and air out the room, and anything else we can think of to keep the participants safe.

2022 courses:

• Soapmaking

• Sushi Making

• Making Marmalade

• Growing flowers from seed (online)

• No Knead Sourdough Breadmaking

I’ll be adding some more online courses soon, they will be in the next newsletter.

Just to say, thanks for subscribing, and for reading all the way to the end! I hope that you will come on my 2022 journey with me - more courses, building a new (mindful) garden in Coole with CooleCalm, and whatever else the universe sends me. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this this lovely song that lifts my spirits.

Happy planting!

Anna (and Brian and Rusty)

Rusty helping Brian in Coole