2026/42 - Slow Living (and Gardening!)

 When you watch a lot of gardening programmes, and I do, it might occur to you there are roughly three kinds: the quick-fix 'rip it all out and put a load of decking/pebbles/posts with a few plants in', the 'taking-it-very-seriously organic veg growing', and the 'take your time, for crying out loud, plants need time to grow' variety.

After the gale

Needless to say I am of the third variety. First of all, I think wooden decking is very overrated, and furthermore I am utterly convinced that we all need to slow down. A lot!

Slow living

When I took on my allotment just after Covid, I started gardening with the long view in mind. Lack of funds, lack of time, a very high-maintenance, reactive, traumatised rescued dog, they combined to make me realise I would not be able to create the garden I was dreaming of in a hurry. Was that a problem? Absolutely not!

Right from the start I knew it would take years. And that was the whole point, as it were. This garden was supposed to remind me of the importance of keeping going in my older years. There is no rush, the seasons will change whether I have painted that sorry excuse for a shed (nope) or not. Every winter I make a plan, but if I cannot do it all, because I break my arm, or because my pond springs a leak, or simply because my old car needs new brakes (gulp!), then that is fine. I will simply do it the year after.

Sometimes it is frustrating, that pond was an eyesore, but mostly I can live with it. And the thing that always lifts my heart and keeps me going, are those plants, that slowly change according to season and their age. To me, those 10 Heleniums I have in bloom right now, after planting just one 4 years ago, are worth more than 40 of them if I had planted them in bulk. 

The same goes for my Roses. I buy them in the Sale, I give them my love, I watch them grow, and add slowly to my collection. A Rose a year.

My Schneewitchen has had a gale blowing across the balcony from left to right this week, and just look at her! Heroic!

So, no quick-fixes for me, thanks. "You are simply getting old!", said someone to me. True, I am. But it goes deeper than that, much deeper. An example: when I see the youths in my town whizzing past on their fat bikes, with their eyes fixated on their mobile phones, I remember the time when youths communicated with their mouths. I see people walking their dogs, with their eyes stuck to their phones. And I worry about their sanity, honestly, I do. Those poor dogs...

Slow gardening

Research shows that plants, especially the less regimentally planted ones, help lessen people's stress levels. It shows that children, as soon as they are shown that strawberries grow on plants and not come covered in plastic from a factory, are fascinated, and want to try to grow them. It shows that people from all backgrounds and ages, working an allotment together, suddenly find a common ground to talk about, when in the street they would probably not engage.

Yes, my hair is blue due to a band gig.

Gardening is good for your health!

This morning I drove my railing planters to Hunky Dory. Since I decided I would change my balcony garden to a (hopefully more practical and less water consuming) Mediterranean garden, it needed some heavy lifting and a lot of digging. Those planters simply needed watering twice a day...too much, too wasteful.

But, as happens regularly, my knee gave out yet again, so I had to stop halfway through the planting.

Still, I got the Ponytail Grasses and Verbena Bonariensis into the ground.

One of the ten. Isn't it lovely?

It was a gorgeous morning, sunny, not a cloud to be seen, so the insects were out in force. And that smell! Almost nothing beats the smell of a dewy Autumn morning. The birds enjoyed it too, they sang their little hearts out, in between eating the last ripe Figs. Well, I say eating, but I should say pecking into a fig thrice and then leaving it...

At mornings like today those Pampas Grasses really shine.

Okay, this is it for this week. Visit my website at Renée Grashoff Schrijft when you want the latest news about my publications (translation button provided) and do take care, won't you?

Oh, Puck says 'hi'. Well, she would, if she was not snoring the house down. She lets it be known she's very happy she gets walked with full attention of me, and that we have great interaction. Me: "Look, Puck, that beaver has been here last night, there is a freshly gnawed tree!" Puck: "Yeah, whatever, gosh, this bush smells interesting!"

Renée Grashoff 

2026/41 - And Garden Life Goes On...with Hornets

 When I was dividing some plants, an ambulance drove up and stopped behind my car. Someone on the allotments had had a...mishap? I hope it wasn't more serious than that! But as I watched him being wheeled to the ambulance (I am next to the road), it occurred to me* that life is precious, and that it gets to be more of a lottery the older you get.

Desdemona

* now don't think I am a moron, I have know life is precious from when I was 16 and my beloved Gran died, and it suddenly hit me on that day that life is not perpetual. Just so you know.

See this Hedera? It is a bee magnet, that is why I planted it (okay, and to mask the ugly waterbutt behind it). But now it is also a hornet magnet...

There were at least 10 Asian hornets on there. Shock, horror!

Wasps, okay, I can deal with wasps. But hornets frighten me! Obviously I did not manage to get one properly on camera. Top left, that orangy thing, that's one. As soon as I tried to get a better photo, they scedadled. Which is sort of good to know. But still...

My comfy chair is right next to that Hedera. Damn.

My insect guide doesn't even mention the Asian hornet, only the European one (bottom left), as it did not occur in the Netherlands until this freaky hot  year. Well: the Asian is larger than it appears in this pic and has the orange back of that wasp top right. It can grow to 2,5 cm and the queens are 3 to 3,5 cm.

They fly to forage up to 500 - 800m from their nest. Fingers crossed the ones in my plot flew their maximum lenght! Said amongst eachother "hey, dudes, let's see how far we can get from the nest".

French Hornet Kamikaze

The reason hornets frighten me, stems from a holiday 36 years ago. My then husband and me cycled, with our large Drentsche Patrijs dog in a dog carrier, down a hill in Dordogne. Great fun, until my ex gave an almighty shout, and fell off his bike. Luckily he landed in the grassy verge, but when I got to him, he was as white as a sheet, sweaty, and on the verge of passing out. He mumbled something that sounded like "wasp!".

Sure enough there was a stunned European hornet next to him, the speed of the collision had been huge. In a reflex I stamped on it, and only later realised it was a hornet, not a wasp. It had stung him on his bare upper arm, which immediately swol up. He was in great pain. I tried to suck out the poison (should you do that with hornets? I still don't know, but I thought better to try than not to try) and then washed his arm with water, and bathed his neck, and did everything I could think of to help him.

Fortunately he recovered after a bit, much helped by our dog Freya who washed his face thoroughly. She was a very motherly dog. His bike was okay too, so we were able to cycle on to the nearest village, where the arm was looked to by the pharmacist. Hubby got a tube of cream, felt very sorry for himself for the rest of the day, but that was the end of that adventure.

Mind you, it left me with a mix of respect of and utter fear for hornets!

And now they have arrived on our allotments!

It occurred to me that perhaps that poor man being stretchered off our allotments had been stung, and had an allergic reaction. But that is the way my mind works.

Okay, please visit my website Renée Grashoff Schrijft for more stories and the latest news about my books. And do spread the word about them on Goodreads, BookTok or whatever platform you use, please, if you enjoy my writing. I need funds to publish book number 3 of the trilogy. Thanks! 😘

Renée Grashoff 

2026/40 - Winding Down towards Winter

Puck and I walk in the dark...every morning, every night. It is just in the afternoon that we can admire the turning leaves and many different toadstools and fungi. And in the garden almost everything is turning in for Winter as well.

My neighbour gifted me some of his Italian tomatoes. I chopped them up for salsa. With the prices in the shops being what they are (ridiculously high), I do not turn up my nose at some free sauce!

Whilst he was picking his last tomatoes and beans, I did my last mow...or did I? The grass is making up for those months it did not grow at all!

I mowed my path last week, and mowed it again this week.

And the council mowers were out in force as well. What always amazes me, is that they can mow on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday those toadstools are back! Oh...in case you are wondering...Puck is watching them drilling for yet more cables. Our entire town is resting on cables.

The Plane tree on the ravelin is not turning...yet.

 

I had planned to cloud-prune my Elaeagnus, but did not, as it is filled with flowers and smells divine! I am sure the last bees are grateful.

Making heatwave related changes

 So I took some bedding plants from the balcony to the garden instead. I have decided to go with the flow, you see, and that means downsizing on planters and choosing more heat resistant plants for the balcony. This summer was not only hard on Puck and me, but also terribly hard on my balcony plants. Even daily watering was not enough for a lot of them! I am on the 3rd floor, in full sun all day, so temperatures on the concrete of the balcony were up to 45 degrees C. 

That means taking out the plants that sort of survived, and putting them in full soil, hoping that they'll use the coming months to establish in the garden. And it also means I will switch to Mediterranean plants for 2027.

This Gaura is fine! It has passed the heatwave test with flying colours.

My beloved roses, both on the balcony and in the allotment garden, are fine too. They can stay!

But the wild flowers I have sown in the tin planter were a total disaster!  The only plants that survived were the white Aster, just about to flower, and the Rudbeckia in front.

The Caryopteris that is playing peek-a-boo from beneath the Lathyrus is fine too. But I suspect only because it was in shade from the Lathyrus all Summer.

Just to remind you what that planter looked like initially...all gone now! Not one of those plants survived the last three scorching summers.

And yet again it is 27°C ! Absolutely ridiculous! Mind you, the early mornings and evenings are fabulous. I took Puck to her favourite spot by the Maas last night, and the full moon was gorgeous. She enjoyed, I think...

My old doggie is walking very slowly...with very frequent stops to recover her strength. I bought her a dog cart years ago, but the silly old girl refuses to sit in it. Utter panic! Despite her stamina she is very stubborn! Right now (7 a.m.) she is still asleep, where normally she was raring to go at 6. Yesterday I had to wake her up at 8.30.

So... It is not just my garden that is winding down, I fear. Old dogs...You get a pup (or in my case a 'whatever age in between 2 and 4'), you love it for years and you know you'll have to say goodbye to it eventually. But it is very hard when you both actually get to that stage.

Right. Have a good week, wherever you are!

Renée Grashoff 

2026 /40 Extra- Demonstration against theft of our work

For all of you who do not read Dutch (which is almost all of you lovely people, I know) the translation is as follows:

Rise up!

Writers, journalists, translators vs the theft of the century.

OUR WORK.

HANDS OFF!

On Tuesday 29th September, there will be a demonstration in Amsterdam. We, the people who do not want to be put out of our jobs by AI, tell Meta to stop stealing our original work to use for education of their AI bots.

I am such a writer. Not only do I have over 40.000 regular readers on this free blogger platform, but I publish novels in Dutch, and I paint. All is my original work. 

That banner above my weekly blog is there for a reason! It is ORIGINAL work. Not AI spewed out, rehashed, bland, middle of the road, political/government controlled work, but my own.

I know I do not have a big name, I am just a tiny person in the world of authors, but I take my writing very seriously. I work hard at it, with a lot of pleasure, it is a craft I love. And so it pisses me off when it is stolen.

I hope you'll give it some thought. There is more information on the blog page of my website Renée Grashoff Schrijft

2026/39 - Allotment Maintenance - necessary work

 After months of schlepping water, water and more water, it is finally cool enough to trust the occasional rainshower to provide water for my allotment. I still water the plants in the greenhouse, obviously.

Kruisspin/ Cross spider

   And yes, it is Autumn. This   morning, whilst planning to   mow my grass, I almost   walked straight into this   cobweb. The spider was busy   repairing it, but fled to the   safety of the Buddleia it had   attached its web to.

   

   As long as spiders sit still, I   admire their beauty. As soon   as they start moving, it is   another story entirely... I was   once bitten by a big one and it really hurt, but only for a moment.

   But this one was well behaved.

In between the showers, I did some maintenance. High time too, the grass on my paths was so high that I was afraid my old fashioned hand mower would not be able to get through. But it did, just...

Here you are; it looks much better! That pink Gaura is still doing her best, very sweet. The Hedera on the right is full of flowers too, a real bee magnet.

My tiny orchard is to the right, and most of the apples are on the ground now...I noticed there were no wasps there...quite surprising, as last year there were plenty.

Koolwitje / Cabbage Butterfly Caterpillars

Plenty of these, though! Here they are on the leaves of my summer bulbs (duds! Only leaves and no flowers!). I don't mind them munching my leaves; it is better that they eat my duds, than that they devastate the cabbages of my neighbour.

My garden is filled with Asters/Michealmas Daisies, so cheerful. There are white ones as well, but they are still in bud.

And my Cotoneaster pyramid is suddenly orange. It usually stays that way until the birds get really hungry, and then they pick it clean. It used to be up against an old broad bean fence, which blew over in a gale. So now I have given it a pyramid of three apple branches, which it seems to like.

I cut off the lower branches of my silver Pine a few weeks ago, and it looks much better now that I was able to mow around my tiny Lavender and Erigeron island. I have not finished mowing though...the area next to the fence still has to be done. 

And then the next project is to prune the Elaeagnus again. I do this in Autumn, to keep up the raised canopy. The endeavour is to cloudprune it...so far the bare trunks are nice, but the cloudpruning still looks very amateur. Especially now the branches have grown out so much. Never mind, I'll keep at it.

Those daily rainshowers have had another effect: my plants in the trellis planter on the balcony have suddenly decided to give it one last effort! I have watered them daily during those five (5!!!) heatwaves, and thus kept them alive, but flower? They stopped completely. Just look at them now though.

It reminds me of how nature is very resilient. And that is hopeful. We people make such a mess of things! At least the earth will survive us, I think.

Beneath the Oaks in my street, there is an abundance of toadstools, huge ones, I have never seen them get this large. My son says they are edible, but due to the also huge number of dogs in my neighbourhood, I will not try.

Right. From Puck and me both, I wish you a great week, wherever you are!

Spread the word about me, about both this blog and my writer's website  Renée Grashoff Schrijft

Thanks!

2026/38 - Boats, boats and more boats

 And now for something completely different. I have told you before that Brielle, the historic town I call my home, is very active in Summer, right? Pageants, markets, concerts, cultural events, and on Sat. 12th an Old Working Boats Meet. We are situated on an island, the island of Voorne, and along an old river, the Brielse Maas. Which, by an unlucky decision in the last century, has been dammed off and is now a lake, Brielse Meer.

My favourite time to walk my senior dog Puck is in the early morning, when the sun comes up over the other side of the lake.

I say 'walk', but due to her age (around 12) it is more of a shuffle. I have a dodgy knee, so we shuffle and limp along...

Still, we both love this time of day!

This is the spot where the foot and bycicle ferry crosses the lake to the next island along.

Now, normally there are some old tugs moored to the left of this ferry, but they have sailed into the inner harbour for the day. Where they are joined by many more old tug boats and other working vessels. We Dutch are a seafaring nation at heart, it is in our DNA (even Napoleon acknowledged that; did you know he said 'every Dutch man is a sailor' ? I am currently writing a book about the period when the French occupied my country) 

The entrance to the two inner harbours via the canal from the lake.

Brielle used to be a herring fishing port, and for some time during the 13th century it made it a very rich and important port. Unfortunately the river silted up, making it harder to reach the harbour, and for some reason the herring stayed away as well. In 1572 the Geuzen were still able to reach the town, making it the first liberated town during the 80 year war against the Spanish oppressor. But by then the town was in decline; the huge cathedral was never finished, two arms of the ship are missing.

The merchants still built their posh brick houses though, most of them date from the mid 17th century.

Then, during the 18th century, the French invaded the country under rule by Napoleon Bonaparte, and Brielle (called Den Briel of old) again played an important part, housing the naval ships that were used to keep the English from our shores. Mind you, we preferred the English to the French by then! 

In 1813 Brielle citizens threw out the French occupancy, no doubt inspired by 1572 when they did the same with the Spanish.

There used to be guilds; this building houses two: Zakkendragers (porters) and Kaailopers (dockworkers), both guilds to do with unloading merchant ships.

The canal looking from the inner harbour towards the lake, taken from the Waterpoort (water gate).

The reality along the quays...cars and more cars. The council is trying to get them out of the inner town, but so far no plan has worked.

I hope you have liked my diversion from plants. If so, spread the word. If not, no worries, next week it'll be back to plants.

Have a great week, wherever you are!

Renée Grashoff