As our wet winter drags on, slightly lighter evening, snowdrops, crocuses and the green shoots of bulbs, all give us hope that eventually spring will be in the air.
Continue readingPatatas Bravas, and the portents of spring
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Spring Equinox: enjoying three seasons in one day!
Last week saw the arrival of the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. The UK enjoyed an unseasonably warm day, including Wales’ warmest spring equinox on record, as the early impacts of the coming climate chaos continue to make themselves felt.
Naturally, here at The Secret Acre, we took the opportunity for a summer BBQ. Our earliest on record, after none at all in last year’s continuously unseasonable cold and wet.
We ended up enjoying three seasons in one day! A summer BBQ on the warmest spring equinox, having dug up the last of the winter leaks, to char on the BBQ coals, and eat with an excellent romesco sauce.
Continue readingWake up now, this is the time you’ve waited for
The start of February marks the traditional Druid festival of Imbolc, celebrating the beginning of spring, being about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.
Of course these days, Imbolc is some six weeks ahead of what we now tend to think of as the official start of spring in March, but nonetheless, this is the time when the first earliest signs of the garden waking up start to appear.
Continue readingJanuary Gardening Begins with the Dream
January tends to get a bad rap as a month.
We blame Pilot for letting the rot set in when they sang in their 1975 No1 hit single “January, sick and tired, you’ve been hanging on me”.
But as Josephine Nuese, author of The Country Garden pointed out, gardening really begins in January, with the dream. So come last year’s cold snap, or this year’s unseasonably mild weather, we kind of quite like January here at The Secret Acre.
Continue readingHello Imbolc
The start of this month was Imbolc, the traditional Gaelic festival marking the beginning of spring.
It is about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, as the very first hopeful signs that life will start to return from winters grip start to emerge.
Happy Spring!
Today is officially the first day of spring, if you’re a northern hemisphere type of person that is.
Of course the early signs of spring have been popping up everywhere already, but today the sun has done its stuff, at 10.28am to be precise if you were in the UK. Continue reading
The Secret Acre 