I've gone down a size in jeans. I'm telling you this only because I've just had to go and change into my M&S 15£ black exercise trackies as sitting here catching up with my favourite blogs was edging over into the pervy side of painful. I rather like wearing a snug pair of jeans as Christmas approaches; keeps my hands off the snacky, nibbly loveliness that's starting to appear when eating out. "I just thought I'd try a few recipes before the big day, you don't mind do you?" is starting to become a regular feature of midweek suppers and weekend lunches with friends. And mostly it is a gastronomic trial run. A couple of wretches will try to pull off their usual one-up-manship nonsense, but we'll give them short shrift... will they never learn?
Some time in late winter 2009 (January or February 2009) I scrubbed the mistletoe into the branches of a couple of my least favourite apple trees. There is a tremendous lot of nonsense written about propagating mistletoe, none of which your garden birds have bothered to read and if a bird-sized brain can do this, so can we.
Essentially you must try and buy English mistletoe, but don't worry if your provider can't tell you where it was grown; in all likelihood it will be French and just as good. It's just always lovely to try and have a go propagating British natives.
Take your mistletoe berries (which will be a bit withered and dead-looking by February) and push the black seeds inside the white berries into the bark of apple trees in your garden. Hawthorns are also good host trees. Try and pick a youngish tree, as the bark tends to be a bit thinner and thus easier for the seeds to penetrate. Then just leave them alone and forget about them. With any luck, a year later you'll have a few tiny leaves just like the ones below.
These pictures were taken in January 2011. I'll take some more this weekend and add them to this post.
Some time in late winter 2009 (January or February 2009) I scrubbed the mistletoe into the branches of a couple of my least favourite apple trees. There is a tremendous lot of nonsense written about propagating mistletoe, none of which your garden birds have bothered to read and if a bird-sized brain can do this, so can we.
Essentially you must try and buy English mistletoe, but don't worry if your provider can't tell you where it was grown; in all likelihood it will be French and just as good. It's just always lovely to try and have a go propagating British natives.
Take your mistletoe berries (which will be a bit withered and dead-looking by February) and push the black seeds inside the white berries into the bark of apple trees in your garden. Hawthorns are also good host trees. Try and pick a youngish tree, as the bark tends to be a bit thinner and thus easier for the seeds to penetrate. Then just leave them alone and forget about them. With any luck, a year later you'll have a few tiny leaves just like the ones below.
These pictures were taken in January 2011. I'll take some more this weekend and add them to this post.
I loathe that Hebe. I don't know why I keep it.
