A very happy new year to you! I hope you had a great festive season and that 2022 will prove to be a magical year for you.

Ade and I have been hatching all sorts of plans for the year. We may be having some major work happening in the garden over the next few months. One of the… um… challenges, shall we say(?!).. of living in the sticks, is the issue of drainage and septic tanks. Hm. I shan’t repel you with the details, suffice to say that half of the garden may have to be dug up and new pipes installed which is going to mean a big, ugly mess. BUT, as they’re digging up half the garden anyway, we’re using the opportunity to re-jig a few things; we’ll be getting an uneven area levelled for what will, eventually, be a new patio behind the house, we’re re-configuring and extending the driveway, and we’ll also be creating a front garden as, at the moment, the area in front of the house is used solely for parking. So, all being well, there might be some major changes happening in the garden this year.

On a smaller scale, one of my new garden projects is mushroom growing. The lovely folk at Suttons sent me some oyster mushroom plugs last September, just at the time Ade injured himself, so I stuck the pack in the fridge and didn’t really have a moment to look at it until last month.

As you well know, mushrooms are fungi, so mushroom-growing is a whole different ballgame to plant-growing. We’re not talking seeds and soil here, we’re talking spores and logs!

A few days before Christmas, I grabbed my mushroom plugs from the fridge, borrowed Ade’s drill, and set to it. It’s probably one of the more peculiar activities I’ve done in the garden: drilling holes into a log and then hammering in plugs that are inoculated with mushroom spawn! But once that was all done, I wrapped the log in plastic and left it in a dark corner of Ade’s shed. And now I wait.

Every so often, I might take it out and check it’s okay. And maybe whisper to it, lovingly. (Don’t judge me.)

Anyway, while I slowly morph into a David Lynch character, hopefully, my lovely oyster mushrooms will start growing. I’ll keep you posted on that score!

In the meantime, have a great week, and let me know what your plans are for 2022!