A Hedgerow with Principles

Venus was very bright in the SE sky this morning first thing. And when the sun came up it was a beautiful bright morning as I walked up to the University, all the puddles on the pavements frozen in the first sub-zero temperatures of the year. Good to be alive and breathing the cool air, glad I didn't wait for the bus. Inevitably thinking about the allotment rather than my studies. I need to be realistic about how much I can get done this winter. Maybe 2 or 3 hours at the weekend, and maybe the same during the week. Weather forecasts after the BBC Scotland news are one of the few things on telly that I take a serious interest in.

The Pond and the drainage are going to take months at this rate. So that got me thinking about the hedgerow: I can't really plant it until I get the levels right. Which might be well into the spring, too late for hedge planting. And that led me on to thinking about the rightness buying stuff. I could get 400 hawthorn bare roots for a £200 or thereabouts. Almost instant hedgerow... But it's not really the allotmenteer way... I've got hundreds of gorse seeds. I can get hundreds of hawthorn seeds. I've stratified and grown both plants in the past. Never mind those bare root people, I'm going to grow a hedgerow from seed. Free. It's the principle of the thing.

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