Pine Marten Post #22
Hello lovely person!
April antics for you include; sowing splendid sweet peas, sappy scent, speckled starlings, delectable dark chocolate, and remembering to breathe.
Gardening tips for April
How to grow sweet peas in loo roll tubes
Growing sweet peas is one of the easiest jobs to succeed at if you’re a beginner gardener. They’re very undemanding and will reward you with glorious, billowing scented blooms for months. Cutting sweet pea flowers frequently will encourage more to develop, so you can fill your house with them and still have loads to give away to your friends and family.
Sweet pea seeds grow deep roots very quickly, which like to touch the edge of the pots they’re growing in, then spiral downwards.
If you sow them in an ordinary pot or improvise with old yoghurt pots or similar, they’ll run out of depth very quickly. And they’ll sulk. Loo roll inners give them more length to develop those roots.
1️⃣ So, once you’ve collected a few cardboard inners, prop them upright in a watertight seed tray and start filling them with compost.
The watertight seed tray bit is important if you’re sowing seeds indoors. Don’t be a complete numpty like me and mistakenly buy seed trays with holes in the bottom. If you really want, I’ll show you how I used my remarkable improvisation skills to stop water leaking out of the ones I bought 🙄
2️⃣ Now you’ve filled them to the top with compost, using a pencil or your finger, poke a dip in each tube of compost about 1cm deep and pop one seed in each dip.
Gardeners can get very heated about whether you should soak your sweet pea seeds before sowing. I’ve never bothered before. But this year’s seed packets suggest I do, so I might.
Or maybe I’ll forget—thanks, ADHD.
3️⃣ Cover each seed with compost, then water them all lightly.
4️⃣ Put them in a warm place—ideally 20C ish. Keep them damp but not wet. You don't want the seeds to rot.
And wait. For roughly 10-28 days, depending on the temperature. Ideally make a note of the date you sowed them.
5️⃣ Once you can see the chunky shoots peeking above the soil, move them to a sunny spot in your house as they’ll need as much light as possible now.
6️⃣ Then plant them out, into a large pot or in the ground, once the last frosts are over. Bamboo canes help to support taller varieties, or you could lean them against a fence. Low growing patio varieties are great if you can't be bothered staking them.
Soon you’ll be cutting armfuls of the fabulously frothy and fragrant flowers.
🌱
Have you ever grown sweet peas before?
🌱
Fragrant musings from the library of scent: Des Cendres by Les Abstraits
I’ve just discovered - a bit late to the party - the trio of marvellousness that is Les Abstraits by perfumer Antoine Lie.
And this week, it being very sunny, warm and spring-like in Scotland, I’ve been wearing Des Cendres.
Well, what can I say? As a long time lover of Bandit by Robert Piguet and Knize Ten, this has a similar feel. Crushed, sappy green stems, a luxuriously generous white floral heart and a smoooothly soft leather drydown.
Utterly bewitching 💚
Nature notes for April
First swallow scything through gusty air
Glossy magpies shrug their dinner jacketed shoulders in the depleted bird bath, droplets glittering on milk white shirt fronts
New season grass cuttings waft sweet and bright, so speckled starlings scoop up soft beaksful for their nests.
Tangy orange berberis flowers sway and hum with delighted bees.
Featured chocolate: Willie’s Cacao Sambirano Gold 55%
⭐ Rich, reddish brown
⭐ Bright and juicy with hints of fresh berries and tangy currants
⭐ A mellow and lingering finish with a twist of burnt toffee
Simple wellbeing tips
Have you taken time to breathe today? 🌬
However your week is shaping up, remember to take time to breathe.
Slowly breathe in.
Hold for a couple of seconds.
Then gently breathe out.
Just like the waves at the beach.
And repeat a few times.
How about giving it a try?
On the blog and LinkedIn:
Triumphant perfumes for spring
What’s the big deal with gratitude journalling?
Fancy having a go at windowsill gardening?
I'd love to hear about what sensory experiences bring you joy.
Feel free to reply to this email, or you can message me on Instagram or LinkedIn.