Gardening and Yoga in Moelfre

 From Llanidloes I travelled about 50 miles further north to Moelfre, near Oswestry. Again, this is a place I return to quite often but, unlike the recent Llanidloes experience, it is always somewhere that I feel welcomed and valued.

It was less than two months ago that I was here, but the difference in the garden is astonishing. At the beginning of May most of the herbaceous borders were virtually bare with large patches of earth visible, but now there are huge clumps of astrantia, geraniums (I counted at least ten different varieties), bistort, periwinkle and ligularia, plus several different sorts of variegated grass. The shrubs were in full leaf and many were flowering – there were two beautiful lace-cap hydrangeas in one area of the garden that used to be the 'white bed', and several rambling roses that were about to flower. I don't know half of the plants in the garden – I wish I could conjure up a plant expert to accompany me there as I am sure there are lots of really interesting and rare plants, shrubs and trees. A lot of the damage caused by the heavy snow falls in the winter is less obvious now and several conifers have been removed which has opened up the garden more and allowed light into areas that were always a little too shady before.

Unfortunately, the vegetable garden had not fared as well. The peas that I had planted out when I was here in May had been eaten down to stalks by the wood pigeons and the new seed I'd planted had failed to germinate. The runner beans had also failed to germinate in April and Tony suspects that the seed had got frosted, so one of my first jobs was to plant more beans in pots in the greenhouse. Most things that had made it out into the raised beds had been severely nibbled by 'something', including the celery and beetroot. Later in the week I planted out some more leeks to fill the bed that I had started back in May, only to discover the following morning that they, too, had been nibbled. It was then that I managed to find where the rabbit was getting in through a small hole in the wire netting, and blocked it temporarily with some stones and a rabbit trap that was lying nearby! After that, the vegetables remained uneaten and even began to recover.

When I was here in May a pair of nuthatches had nested in a blue tit box just outside the back door, and it was lovely to see that two of the babies had fledged successfully and were still visiting the peanut feeders - you could tell that they were the youngsters because they were slightly smaller and less colourful. I also saw a young Greater Spotted Woodpecker being fed by its mum/dad in the silver birch tree outside my window. Have you ever had a pheasant on your peanut feeder? Dawn had seen a female pheasant hanging on the peanut feeder a few weeks before I got there and she had obviously been perfecting her technique because I managed to take a quick photo through the dining room window of her balancing on one part of the bird feeder and reaching across to get the peanuts!

After a couple of days of being the sole WWOOFer, I was joined by Alana, from Australia, who had been here first of all back in April. She, too, was amazed at the difference in the garden since she'd been there and spent the first afternoon looking round to see what had grown that she had planted. On our second morning together, Dawn showed us a sequence of Yoga moves called 'Salute the Sun' that help to stretch most of the muscles in the body. We went out onto the decking to do them and it was wonderful to salute the actual sun and feel the warmth on your face as you went through the routine. As it is a sequence that flows in some sort of order I think I am more likely to remember to do them. I was amazed later to discover how much good they'd done me as I was wielding a mattock for about two hours, digging over an area of deep rooted scrubby plants in preparation for seeding a new lawn area, and I never had a twinge in my back, and didn't have to retire for a lie down at the end of the day, just to ease the pain!

When I arrived in Moelfre the weather was atrocious with fine curtains of rain pulsing down the valley and I had been confined to 'indoor' jobs, putting up some shelving in the garage and fixing batons on which to hang the garden tools, but during the few days that Alana was staying the weather was hot and sunny for a lot of the time and we tried to plan jobs that were not in direct sunshine for too long so, after digging up some grass to extend the shed base in preparation for moving the old summerhouse on to it, I went off to a shady area of the garden and clipped the conifer hedge that bounds the vegetable garden on one side. It hadn't been done for a while as the hedge trimmer had broken, so I took the shears to it! Its quite a compulsive job once you get going and while I was there I managed to clip all of one side of it and make a start on the other – it is about 50 yards long and 6-7 feet high – perhaps I'll be able to finish it when I go back in September!

Alana left on the Friday morning and I was a lone WWOOFer again until a French couple arrived the following Wednesday afternoon. I quite like being alone sometimes as I can work on things at my own pace and don't have to make the effort to hold a conversation, which can be quite tiring if the other party's first language is not English! Very lazy of me, I know! The French couple turned out to be French engineering students – most WWOOF hosts avoid them like the plague because, in general, they are only in Britain to fulfil a compulsory 6-8 week module to' improve their English' and have very little interest in farming, organic gardening or any of the other things that WWOOF hosts aspire to. Quite often their English is minimal and that, coupled with little knowledge of farming/gardening, can make the whole stay a complete waste of time for the host, but Clement and Diane seemed lovely and set to work willingly, even though they probably couldn't appreciate fully what we were trying to achieve. They are staying with Dawn and Tony for three weeks and the main job that they will be doing will be preparing for the delivery of the new log cabin which will arrive in the middle of July. It is coming in flat-packed sections and will then have to be carried up two flights of steps and erected on the (modified) base of the old summerhouse. This means that the remains of the old summerhouse will have to be removed and re-erected, once repaired, on the other site that Alana and I worked on in another area of the garden. I just hope that they are both stronger than they looked!

The weather was quite unpredictable while I was there but I did manage to plant out leeks and parsnip plants, plant out some rather sad-looking seed potatoes that Tony had not managed to plant out earlier, and erect a long runner bean construction capable of supporting 40 plants, if we can just get the pest control sorted! Tony and I also repaired one of his rather clever mesh cloches and made a new one that we covered in very fine mesh to go over the carrots. He had bought enough battening to make another one, too so that will make a total of 4 that can be deployed anywhere in the garden. They are the width of the raised beds (about 4 foot) and just under half the length (about 8 foot) but, because they are constructed using tanalised batten and alkathene water pipe, they are very light weight so can be moved from plot to plot by one person. I am very glad that I now know how to make them as that will be very handy in the future.

While staying with Dawn and Tony, I finally made up my mind to put in a silly offer on the semi-derelict cottages in Llanidloes. Dawn was very interested so I went to the property page stored on my laptop to show her the photo and details only to find that they were sold subject to contract! I was gutted! I was also annoyed as I had asked the agents last year to let me know if there was any interest in the property and they failed to do so, so I'm afraid they got an email from me pointing out the error of their ways! I received an apology the next day but, unfortunately, the sale seems to be proceeding so I've missed the boat on that one! I should have decided sooner - far too cautious, that's my trouble. 

I left on the Friday morning (5th July) and headed back south to Cheltenham to spend the weekend with my Mum before continuing down to Somerset. The weather had turned hot and sunny and I enjoyed the drive through Shropshire – it really is a beautiful county. Dawn tells me that this good spell of weather is set to continue for a while, so that will be a relief after the wet spell we've just had.