It is half-term. I cast my mind back over half a century and remember collecting horse chestnuts for 'conkers', fallen acorns, autumn leaves and bringing them for the nature table that stood at the back of our classroom.
We had an old-fashioned state primary school and an old fashioned fourth year juniors teacher. Calculating his age I would guess that he could have been born any time between the end of the Nineteenth Century and the First World War. Strict discipline was enforced. Forty two of us sat pair by pair in a room divided into the girls' area and the boys' area (our playgrounds were similarly segregated) behind desks with hinged lids and inkwells into which we dipped our nibbed pens. We did not move. We wrote in sloping Victorian copperplate script. I have the recollection that he came from one of the Pottery towns of Staffordshire, Burslem, I think.
Did he communicate enthusiasm for nature study? To my mind, no. His passions were for British History, English Composition, Geometry and Perspective Drawing and I failed badly in the latter two. My inspiration came from home. We were fortunate.
Monday 30 October 2017
Saturday 28 October 2017
Summer Jasmine in Winter
Today as I opened the greenhouse door ready to step in and cull some salad leaves a scent filled my nostrils. The fragrance was compounded of geranium and jasmine with a note of oriental mustard, once I had cut it. The jasmine, a well-established rescue plant from my family, is normally by our front porch and is sheltering in the greenhouse over winter. A few bright periods last week, under glass, persuaded it to twine into flower. What a beautiful exotic surprise this was. Many memories mingled - hot foreign holidays, the associated intense scent of lilies brought to me in hospital after my diagnosis of diabetes, or more sombrely, the funeral bouquets laid on the low shelves of crematoria.
At home it was too cold to grow jasmine, or perhaps the fashion for giving it as an indoor houseplant had not reached British supermarkets. So we had the outdoor scentless winter jasmine with little bright yellow flowers. Much later, when engaged in gardening work we tended these. Like the polyanthus starting to flower up here, the pink cyclamen and the tips of emerging bulbs, winter jasmine has always been a promise of sunnier days to come.
At home it was too cold to grow jasmine, or perhaps the fashion for giving it as an indoor houseplant had not reached British supermarkets. So we had the outdoor scentless winter jasmine with little bright yellow flowers. Much later, when engaged in gardening work we tended these. Like the polyanthus starting to flower up here, the pink cyclamen and the tips of emerging bulbs, winter jasmine has always been a promise of sunnier days to come.
Monday 2 October 2017
Salad under glass
About a week ago my husband heaved our 'salad crib' over the lintel of the greenhouse to its winter home. I had previously sown it with a salad leaf mixture: kale (not a success - I should have known this), rocket (always a success) and oriental mustard which is doing well, though quite small at present. This latter crop brought back memories of the weekends we used to volunteer at the Copped Hall Trust, near Epping Upland, which as I may have written before, is well worth a visit. Early on Sunday mornings we would pack a picnic and motor up the drive towards the Hall's Walled Garden which is still in the process of restoration. It has a southerly aspect and we would sit outside for lunch in our shirtsleeves, even on autumnal days. We were offered the chance to cultivate some mustard in a ruined greenhouse which was awaiting its rebuild. Those strongly flavoured greens grew to a good height and lasted well into the winter.
Up here, our mustard has more the nature of a 'garnish' which I add to pep up supermarket lettuce - locally grown by preference. I hope it lasts through the winter under glass. I have sown more rocket too. Lancashire's coastal glass houses, like those of our former home, the Lea Valley, once supplied our region and beyond. I wonder if those times will ever come again.
Up here, our mustard has more the nature of a 'garnish' which I add to pep up supermarket lettuce - locally grown by preference. I hope it lasts through the winter under glass. I have sown more rocket too. Lancashire's coastal glass houses, like those of our former home, the Lea Valley, once supplied our region and beyond. I wonder if those times will ever come again.
Wednesday 27 September 2017
Cyclamen
I noticed last week that the first cyclamen had started to flower in my husband's 'white bed' amid the variegated mint and vinca; the white sweet-smelling dianthus and an alpine whose name I have forgotten that spreads in a mat of silvery leaves. The cyclamen grew through the naturalised wild strawberry that, still flowering and fruiting, he uses as a filler. They were variegated also, petals held upward in tones of white and pink making me think of angels' wings on a medieval triptych.
Once we tried cyclamen by our front porch. We had a big display of them with winter pansies for my sixtieth birthday, sourced from the garden centre of my very distant cousins at Tarleton. Sadly as is the way with cyclamen, not just theirs I hasten to add, they shrank in following years. I planted one in a side border without success. The next batch of 'rescued' cyclamen from a superstore behaved in just the same way. So, after one year overwintering these at the back of the garden in tubs, my husband moved them to his white bed, where he has also lodged the penstemons he has propagated. The soil is enriched with our own leaf mould and raised above the water table. The cyclamen are improving. I even have hopes of the last translocated survivor from my cousins. Some plants do better in cultivated ground.
Once we tried cyclamen by our front porch. We had a big display of them with winter pansies for my sixtieth birthday, sourced from the garden centre of my very distant cousins at Tarleton. Sadly as is the way with cyclamen, not just theirs I hasten to add, they shrank in following years. I planted one in a side border without success. The next batch of 'rescued' cyclamen from a superstore behaved in just the same way. So, after one year overwintering these at the back of the garden in tubs, my husband moved them to his white bed, where he has also lodged the penstemons he has propagated. The soil is enriched with our own leaf mould and raised above the water table. The cyclamen are improving. I even have hopes of the last translocated survivor from my cousins. Some plants do better in cultivated ground.
Wednesday 20 September 2017
Spring Bulbs: autumn season
As we emptied the greenhouse of tomato plants and transferred the geraniums there for overwintering I wondered if I would become an older person from the south. Last week my husband filled up all our terracotta containers and others with a mixture of sand from my family, compost and well rotted manure and I proceeded to bury a mixture of tulips - a gift from a friend in Rawtenstall, and the daffodils we had dried out over the summer. These latter failed to flower in the first season, but we dug them up and are giving them a second chance to flower by the front porch. Then my husband netted everything against the curiosity of squirrels.
And I saw myself, four years ago, back in Redbridge, planting out saved daffodils and new bulbs purchased for our customer from the superstore, and my husband ingeniously netting containers with whatever came to hand. As he mowed our small lawn avoiding our two apple trees I remembered the great expanse he used to tackle for this widowed lady, the disused vegetable plot and the fallen apples towards the back in the grass. I tidied up our neat square after him and and uttered a prayer that I might never get too infirm to attend to my borders or leave them, bereft of flowers, invaded by grass.
And I saw myself, four years ago, back in Redbridge, planting out saved daffodils and new bulbs purchased for our customer from the superstore, and my husband ingeniously netting containers with whatever came to hand. As he mowed our small lawn avoiding our two apple trees I remembered the great expanse he used to tackle for this widowed lady, the disused vegetable plot and the fallen apples towards the back in the grass. I tidied up our neat square after him and and uttered a prayer that I might never get too infirm to attend to my borders or leave them, bereft of flowers, invaded by grass.
Monday 14 August 2017
Seasonal Stopping
Last week we visited my family in search of sand and sun. The winter squash in a pot we had given was sprawling over the back step. It was time to stop any future growth and encourage the plant to put its remaining energy into fruit rather than shoots. My husband also attended in similar fashion to the tumbling tomatoes.
Our squashes by the front window have not been so prolific - it is probably because we do not face south at sea level. We do have some bigger squash to store. One plant is on its last chance before uprooting. The other is still producing courgette sized fruit. The time will come for our tomatoes too with the standard advice being to stop further growth after a certain number of trusses. I have also trimmed our prolific runner beans.
I become reflective at this time of the year when I consider the number of growing weeks left to us in the cool north and that even in the shelter of the greenhouse tomatoes will not continue for ever. The sweet cherry tomatoes were the first to ripen and are still producing. The others are slowly turning from pale yellow to red. Time to review what has been successful and begin to plan for the coming seasons.
Our squashes by the front window have not been so prolific - it is probably because we do not face south at sea level. We do have some bigger squash to store. One plant is on its last chance before uprooting. The other is still producing courgette sized fruit. The time will come for our tomatoes too with the standard advice being to stop further growth after a certain number of trusses. I have also trimmed our prolific runner beans.
I become reflective at this time of the year when I consider the number of growing weeks left to us in the cool north and that even in the shelter of the greenhouse tomatoes will not continue for ever. The sweet cherry tomatoes were the first to ripen and are still producing. The others are slowly turning from pale yellow to red. Time to review what has been successful and begin to plan for the coming seasons.
Thursday 3 August 2017
Blackberrying Holiday
For several days in late July we walked around likely blackberrying spots in search of ripening fruit. Others were there before us - the trampled grass and broken stems showing the impatience of other pickers. But we put on our wellies and went a little further along the bridleway into the narrow wasteland that lies between us and the ring road where the builders busy themselves; to tracts damp and boggy where rabbits hide themselves, green rushes grow and meadow butterflies alight on willow herb and ragwort.
Here were blackberries tangled among the sloes that were slowly turning purple. So we picked enough for our needs and relished the cache. It set me thinking about annual holidays in August and September where we ended up doing the very same thing. Our honeymoon in Brittany, self-catering in Wales and Suffolk, with friends in Eire, on visits to Cumbria; in each location we set out to forage and were not disappointed.
So this year as we wander through the little wilderness that lies ten minutes walk from home, I recall the happiness that holidays brought me as those memories superimpose themselves amid the sunshine of the present.
Here were blackberries tangled among the sloes that were slowly turning purple. So we picked enough for our needs and relished the cache. It set me thinking about annual holidays in August and September where we ended up doing the very same thing. Our honeymoon in Brittany, self-catering in Wales and Suffolk, with friends in Eire, on visits to Cumbria; in each location we set out to forage and were not disappointed.
So this year as we wander through the little wilderness that lies ten minutes walk from home, I recall the happiness that holidays brought me as those memories superimpose themselves amid the sunshine of the present.
Wednesday 26 July 2017
Good weather for runner beans
As we drew the curtains this morning and heard the rain bounce on the flat roof of our kitchen extension we knew that it was 'the other northern day'. The best kind of northern day is bright and breezy with the sun shining through clouds, or even, unusually, when there are no clouds at all, but an unbroken expanse of blue sky.
However, I must not grumble, because mixed weather patterns give us the best possible conditions for runner beans.
We grew these beans for some years on our allotment in the south and during really dry periods they suffered. My husband, along with many others, would pour cans and cans of water over them, from the top down, while the water tanks on our allotment emptied and the tiny water snails, larvae and other insect life sunk to their sludgy bottoms.
Now that up here rain falls from the sky on a regular basis we need not go down the hill and up again to secure our harvest, we merely step outside the back door and in these damp conditions patrol the back lawn for snails of the land variety and cast them into the park.
Our beans grow and swell, putting on a spectacular display of orange flowers, and our ever diligent bumble bees continue their pollinating task.
However, I must not grumble, because mixed weather patterns give us the best possible conditions for runner beans.
We grew these beans for some years on our allotment in the south and during really dry periods they suffered. My husband, along with many others, would pour cans and cans of water over them, from the top down, while the water tanks on our allotment emptied and the tiny water snails, larvae and other insect life sunk to their sludgy bottoms.
Now that up here rain falls from the sky on a regular basis we need not go down the hill and up again to secure our harvest, we merely step outside the back door and in these damp conditions patrol the back lawn for snails of the land variety and cast them into the park.
Our beans grow and swell, putting on a spectacular display of orange flowers, and our ever diligent bumble bees continue their pollinating task.
Friday 7 July 2017
Uprooted
We have been exchanging plants with my family again. Yesterday we took over four hollyhocks grown from seed and took home two holly bushes to fill a gap in our back hedge. It set me thinking about the occasions we have planted and uprooted since we have been living here.
We arrived in late autumn 2014. This was a good season to make alterations (unlike July) as the garden was dormant. To my recollection we (i.e. my husband) removed a small ornamental tree, a rose bush and two forsythia bushes along the side of the wall which is now the home to our raised beds and kitchen garden patch. We put in strawberries, new raspberry canes and three blackcurrants. There was also a good deal of ivy growing over an old shed which we took out. We bought a new one at a discount (ex-display) and celebrated my husband's birthday with a scented jasmine to fill a gap in the bottom trellis.
On the opposite side of the garden my husband recently uprooted a camellia which had some form of black blight and put in three clumps of penstemons and some homegrown sunflowers. I also planted out some of our home grown Sweet Williams.
My latest acquisition was also free and I hope it survives. Growing in the gutter next to the electricity substation was an Evening Primrose. These easily escape into the wild, and seed in cracks and other unpromising places. (My husband has warned me that it could do so again). The weather was cloudy and it had been raining so I just tugged it up on the way home from shopping. This was not as impulsive as it sounds as I had been looking at this plant for over a year. The main tap root broke off but a smaller root came up almost entire. My husband planted it for me in a shady place at the back where we deposit dubious plants (such as our second blueberry bush which has not thrived). I keep watering it. So far it is still flowering, and although it wilts a little on hot days it seems to be fine.
As I draw this post to a close I am struck by the largest item on the 'uprooted' list, so obvious that I almost missed it. Our neighbour cut down a Leyland Cypress which once formed part of his back hedge but had grown into a tree. This left a stump of great girth, hidden by our privet bush which has grown markedly better since. The whole of our garden, crops and ornamentals, benefits from the light that has come in.
We arrived in late autumn 2014. This was a good season to make alterations (unlike July) as the garden was dormant. To my recollection we (i.e. my husband) removed a small ornamental tree, a rose bush and two forsythia bushes along the side of the wall which is now the home to our raised beds and kitchen garden patch. We put in strawberries, new raspberry canes and three blackcurrants. There was also a good deal of ivy growing over an old shed which we took out. We bought a new one at a discount (ex-display) and celebrated my husband's birthday with a scented jasmine to fill a gap in the bottom trellis.
On the opposite side of the garden my husband recently uprooted a camellia which had some form of black blight and put in three clumps of penstemons and some homegrown sunflowers. I also planted out some of our home grown Sweet Williams.
My latest acquisition was also free and I hope it survives. Growing in the gutter next to the electricity substation was an Evening Primrose. These easily escape into the wild, and seed in cracks and other unpromising places. (My husband has warned me that it could do so again). The weather was cloudy and it had been raining so I just tugged it up on the way home from shopping. This was not as impulsive as it sounds as I had been looking at this plant for over a year. The main tap root broke off but a smaller root came up almost entire. My husband planted it for me in a shady place at the back where we deposit dubious plants (such as our second blueberry bush which has not thrived). I keep watering it. So far it is still flowering, and although it wilts a little on hot days it seems to be fine.
As I draw this post to a close I am struck by the largest item on the 'uprooted' list, so obvious that I almost missed it. Our neighbour cut down a Leyland Cypress which once formed part of his back hedge but had grown into a tree. This left a stump of great girth, hidden by our privet bush which has grown markedly better since. The whole of our garden, crops and ornamentals, benefits from the light that has come in.
Thursday 29 June 2017
Raspberry Thieves
Strawberry Thief was the name given by William Morris, the eminent Victorian designer, to a pattern for fabrics and wallpaper. It is still popular and I have just checked an image on the internet to see if my memory was correct. I recommend a visit to Morris's historic home in Walthamstow, East London.
This time I was immediately struck by the stylized way in which Morris depicts his pairs of thrushes. Delicately poised and mirrored amid the fruit, the pairs pluck a strawberry by the stem or pause to sing. it is a lovely design, but at some remove from reality.
A blackbird does not pluck raspberries by the stem. He lands on a branch and begins to peck at the droplets (a gardeners' rather than technical term) working his way through a ripe fruit. At this point, my husband usually catches sight of him and bangs on the kitchen window. He flies away. At a later stage he may decide to sing. He does not sing from amidst the fruit he is consuming, but selects a wall, a fence, a shed roof, a tree or a television aerial: whatever gives him a good vantage point, alerts others to his territory and on summer days enables him to catch the rays of the sun.
But then, who would buy a wallpaper depicting a blackbird on a television aerial?
This time I was immediately struck by the stylized way in which Morris depicts his pairs of thrushes. Delicately poised and mirrored amid the fruit, the pairs pluck a strawberry by the stem or pause to sing. it is a lovely design, but at some remove from reality.
A blackbird does not pluck raspberries by the stem. He lands on a branch and begins to peck at the droplets (a gardeners' rather than technical term) working his way through a ripe fruit. At this point, my husband usually catches sight of him and bangs on the kitchen window. He flies away. At a later stage he may decide to sing. He does not sing from amidst the fruit he is consuming, but selects a wall, a fence, a shed roof, a tree or a television aerial: whatever gives him a good vantage point, alerts others to his territory and on summer days enables him to catch the rays of the sun.
But then, who would buy a wallpaper depicting a blackbird on a television aerial?
Tuesday 27 June 2017
In Search of a Rhubarb Recipe
I have used my mother's 1982 omnibus edition of Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course so many times that the book almost falls open automatically at fruit crumbles. Our rhubarb is plentiful at present so I thought it could be time for an alternative rhubarb cake or dessert. So I turned to my maternal grandmother's original hand-written recipe book which has been added to and passed down in my family from before the First World War. I am certain of this because I discovered my grandmother listed in the 1911 UK Census (about a decade before she married) at the same address she has written in the front of her book.
My search for rhubarb puddings turned up a collection of recipes from the writer Ambrose Heath cut and pasted from the Manchester Guardian by my mother who inherited the book some time after her marriage - I would guess the mid 1950s. (Another recipe for bread puddings has the dateline Friday April 6th 1956). The instructions in these newspaper cuttings were those of an early age with details of how to make a 'canary pudding mixture' for rhubarb sponge, unfamiliar dry measures: 'the weight of an unshelled egg' and liquid measures: 'stew with a gill of water'.
Many recipes need adaptation, and these 1950s ones would have required both a journey back to the pre-metric years of my youth and a significant reduction in the proportion of sugar or syrup used, to take account of my diabetes. I have found even with the good and reliable Delia that the amount of sugar in a fruit crumble can be cut by at least a third to no noticeable effect. So I looked up a recipe promoted by Diabetes UK which I found in the magazine The People's Friend some time before we moved up here in 2014. Easy, freezable, clear, with metric and imperial measurements, and importantly for me, reduced sugar and information on how many calories per serving (approx 95g). I've now made it three times and it works.
My search for rhubarb puddings turned up a collection of recipes from the writer Ambrose Heath cut and pasted from the Manchester Guardian by my mother who inherited the book some time after her marriage - I would guess the mid 1950s. (Another recipe for bread puddings has the dateline Friday April 6th 1956). The instructions in these newspaper cuttings were those of an early age with details of how to make a 'canary pudding mixture' for rhubarb sponge, unfamiliar dry measures: 'the weight of an unshelled egg' and liquid measures: 'stew with a gill of water'.
Many recipes need adaptation, and these 1950s ones would have required both a journey back to the pre-metric years of my youth and a significant reduction in the proportion of sugar or syrup used, to take account of my diabetes. I have found even with the good and reliable Delia that the amount of sugar in a fruit crumble can be cut by at least a third to no noticeable effect. So I looked up a recipe promoted by Diabetes UK which I found in the magazine The People's Friend some time before we moved up here in 2014. Easy, freezable, clear, with metric and imperial measurements, and importantly for me, reduced sugar and information on how many calories per serving (approx 95g). I've now made it three times and it works.
Thursday 22 June 2017
In clover
My husband has not cut our back lawn for several weeks. This is not because he dislikes mowing. He did this for customers many times, quickly and efficiently and now with our pocket handkerchief sized lawn and an electric mower handed on to us by my family it is done in a matter of minutes. And I record our gratitude also for the outside socket installed by the helpful guys who did our complete electrical rewire last August.
The lawn care regime is now regulated by current ecology advice (for which consult the RHS website) and a fondness for wild flowers. In our lawn we have white clover, visited by bumblebees, an unidentified variety of small yellow flowered plant eaten by the woodpigeons, daisies and buttercups. The latter are his favourites. He will however take a sharp tool and remove dandelions and plantains.
I have mixed feelings about this. I recall the Fifties when lawns were cut as short as carpet. When the lawn grasses grow straggly I want to nag him to get out there and do something. But I like daisies too and I recall the sweet scent of clover on hot days in the south. Do I really care if our lawn with its apple trees in the midst looks more like an allotment patch than a bowling green or the football pitches in the park behind us? Each to its own purpose. Our lawn continues to be shared with the birds and the bees.
The lawn care regime is now regulated by current ecology advice (for which consult the RHS website) and a fondness for wild flowers. In our lawn we have white clover, visited by bumblebees, an unidentified variety of small yellow flowered plant eaten by the woodpigeons, daisies and buttercups. The latter are his favourites. He will however take a sharp tool and remove dandelions and plantains.
I have mixed feelings about this. I recall the Fifties when lawns were cut as short as carpet. When the lawn grasses grow straggly I want to nag him to get out there and do something. But I like daisies too and I recall the sweet scent of clover on hot days in the south. Do I really care if our lawn with its apple trees in the midst looks more like an allotment patch than a bowling green or the football pitches in the park behind us? Each to its own purpose. Our lawn continues to be shared with the birds and the bees.
Wednesday 7 June 2017
Penstemons and Pinks
Taking penstemon cuttings is a job for my spouse. In my opinion he does it well. The current situation with these and other plants is as as follows:
- About six 'struck' first time and now are out in the back looking healthy. We (husband) have just moved the original plants to a hole made available by the removal (husband again) of a rather sick shrub. More cuttings were taking prior to this and are in the potting shed under cover. Husband is hopeful these too will strike. The garden centre originals looked good for a season and then failed to thrive as anticipated. So from now on we will be propagating our own penstemons and accustoming them to the realities of life. (I am also hopeful that the ones moved to the border will recover.)
- Pinks: a bargain buy from the superstore. Lovely scent. Recovering after a hard winter in soil which husband has devotedly enriched. He has taken about a dozen slips and is hopeful.
- Hollyhocks from seed: collected originally from a gardening customer in Chingford, sown last year and collected again. Being nursed in the potting shed.
- Sweet Williams: a great plant. Why buy a bunch in the local emporium when you can grow your own? Sown by me from saved seed. Original plants a gift from our neighbours. Pricked out carefully by my husband (another rescue job) and now also recovering in the potting shed.
- Hellebores: my next project. I have just collected seed and am drying it out in the shed.
Monday 22 May 2017
Rogation Days
Today was Rogation Monday. The sun shone and it was warm enough to plant out our winter squash in the 'crib' planter and an overflow tub by our front window. Then it was on to the back garden to plant out the runner beans in two raised beds.
The Rogation Days of this week which occur before Ascension Day on Thursday have a long history. I did a little research on the Web: they have not been much celebrated recently. Rogation Days were traditionally a time for the minister and congregation to 'beat the bounds' of the parish and pray for God's blessing on crops and livestock. These are the minor ones. The name derives from the Latin verb rogo to ask.
The origins of this festival may be antique but are their principles still relevant? We would say so. We do not delineate the boundary by beating it with willow wands, but we shout at grey squirrels attempting short-cuts. We maintain charitable relations with our neighbours - particularly over the topic of shared hedges, and are reasonably open to negotiation as to the height these should grow. We shoo away predatory birds and errant dogs, and monitor our ever-tamer blackbirds. We pray because we experience no contradiction between conservation, good husbandry (an intentional pun) and invoking a blessing on what we grow.
Today as we planted out the runner beans I noticed how nice and crumbly the soil had become in one of our raised beds. It was almost deserving of the old phrase 'a fine tilth'. I do not ever remember achieving such a high grade before. Perhaps here in a smaller space, in a harsher environment and with blessing we can enjoy fruitfulness.
A Postscript
I wrote this post after a happy morning in the garden and an afternoon with friends playing music. Only later did I discover the tragic news concerning Manchester. My thoughts and prayers are with all Mancunians.
Wednesday 17 May 2017
Temporary Staging Shuffle
I am grateful for a house after years of married life in flats. Now I have more rooms and furniture than I ever imagined but less space outdoors. So just as in our maisonette I learnt to move stuff around, pull out sofa beds for guests etc, so now in a small garden we have become adept at temporary staging.
On our allotments we had a shed, two greenhouses - one large, one small - and any amount of staging; scrounged freestanding metal racks or wooden shelves constructed and tacked to the side of the shed by my husband. I could sow cabbages or leeks in large plant pots, pretty sure that rain would fall, the sun would shine and they would germinate in the open air usually unmolested by pests. And my husband could grow almost as many tomatoes as he wished under glass.
Here we have one small greenhouse and one potting shed. So begins the 'staging shuffle' whereby we start in the shed (to avoid the pesky mice that ate our first batch of broad beans) and then move young plants to the back pavers in front of the greenhouse. This being the north-west, where temperatures fall overnight, the plants are then put to bed in the shed until the next sunny period, by no means the following day of the week. This process of hardening off, as gardeners term it, continues until the plants are strong enough to survive in the raised beds. Our broad beans are now planted out; our runner beans are still shuffling backwards and forwards. Our overwintered geraniums are on display at the front, risky but necessary as we have been promised some additional tomatoes for the greenhouse, and we also have sunflowers, sweet williams and hollyhocks plus fennel and dill in the potting shed, not to mention the squashes and coriander on our bay windowsill. Once up, most these will go from the shed to the greenhouse and only take the sun on the pavers if appropriate. Our planter at the front is ready for the winter squash and summer weather.
We sow according to our capacity. It's smaller-scale and painstaking. Plants need more care here and more protection from animals and the elements. We have the time to give it.
On our allotments we had a shed, two greenhouses - one large, one small - and any amount of staging; scrounged freestanding metal racks or wooden shelves constructed and tacked to the side of the shed by my husband. I could sow cabbages or leeks in large plant pots, pretty sure that rain would fall, the sun would shine and they would germinate in the open air usually unmolested by pests. And my husband could grow almost as many tomatoes as he wished under glass.
Here we have one small greenhouse and one potting shed. So begins the 'staging shuffle' whereby we start in the shed (to avoid the pesky mice that ate our first batch of broad beans) and then move young plants to the back pavers in front of the greenhouse. This being the north-west, where temperatures fall overnight, the plants are then put to bed in the shed until the next sunny period, by no means the following day of the week. This process of hardening off, as gardeners term it, continues until the plants are strong enough to survive in the raised beds. Our broad beans are now planted out; our runner beans are still shuffling backwards and forwards. Our overwintered geraniums are on display at the front, risky but necessary as we have been promised some additional tomatoes for the greenhouse, and we also have sunflowers, sweet williams and hollyhocks plus fennel and dill in the potting shed, not to mention the squashes and coriander on our bay windowsill. Once up, most these will go from the shed to the greenhouse and only take the sun on the pavers if appropriate. Our planter at the front is ready for the winter squash and summer weather.
We sow according to our capacity. It's smaller-scale and painstaking. Plants need more care here and more protection from animals and the elements. We have the time to give it.
Thursday 27 April 2017
New (Yellow) Broom
One of the good things about living closer to my family is the 'swopping' between us. We propagate veg, they have a variety of shrubs. Broom flourishes in their light sandy soil and, when offered, we took some home. We positioned it in the warmest and most sheltered spot on our damp clay close to the hedge next to the sage and the oregano and now, two years later it is flowering. (Incidentally the lily of the valley from our friends in the same resort, that plant that I formerly confused with a snowdrop, has also come up.)
The short-lived broom has long been rooted in England, as readers will know - lending its Latin name to the Plantagenet dynasty - and it has personal memories for me. I associate yellow broom with the tea-rooms of that name on the sunny borders of Cheshire and Shropshire where our parents would take a weekend drive and stop for refreshments. A little reminder of my Cheshire lineage is now growing on heavy Lancashire soil and as I prepare to investigate further the family history of the Lancashire side I am equally an heir of the maternal branch, which seems, from up here, so far south and sometimes so distant.
The short-lived broom has long been rooted in England, as readers will know - lending its Latin name to the Plantagenet dynasty - and it has personal memories for me. I associate yellow broom with the tea-rooms of that name on the sunny borders of Cheshire and Shropshire where our parents would take a weekend drive and stop for refreshments. A little reminder of my Cheshire lineage is now growing on heavy Lancashire soil and as I prepare to investigate further the family history of the Lancashire side I am equally an heir of the maternal branch, which seems, from up here, so far south and sometimes so distant.
Thursday 6 April 2017
Rhubarb by Moonlight
Off to the store we call 'the emporium' this morning in search of veg. on yellow sticker (i.e. reduced to clear) I discovered one of their specials - forced Yorkshire rhubarb gathered by candlelight. A twenty five percent reduction was not enough to tempt me, particularly as I had already pulled some of our own rhubarb by daylight. Our rhubarb grows organically under the eaves of the shed, where slugs snack on it and thus requires a good wash and some removal of chewed bits.
I noticed sadly that the store had also reduced to clear some rhubarb plants that were close to expiring, never mind the expiry date. Promoted along with the early bedding plants these rhubarb crowns are also a seasonal feature. If you care for rhubarb properly it lasts for years. These had completely died back and were on offer for 60p each. I had already bought a couple in a slightly healthier state last year. One survived. We have no room to rescue any more.
I also saw that kind customers have started to put provisions into the food bank collection point by the entrance. (Not all products from the emporium, other stores do exist and have their own economy lines - I recognised the packaging).
As the bin lorry proceeds up our street as an audible reminder of how much rubbish we generate it is my hope that in the coming seasons my county learns to better value food - how to consume it, recycle it and reward those who have produced it.
I noticed sadly that the store had also reduced to clear some rhubarb plants that were close to expiring, never mind the expiry date. Promoted along with the early bedding plants these rhubarb crowns are also a seasonal feature. If you care for rhubarb properly it lasts for years. These had completely died back and were on offer for 60p each. I had already bought a couple in a slightly healthier state last year. One survived. We have no room to rescue any more.
I also saw that kind customers have started to put provisions into the food bank collection point by the entrance. (Not all products from the emporium, other stores do exist and have their own economy lines - I recognised the packaging).
As the bin lorry proceeds up our street as an audible reminder of how much rubbish we generate it is my hope that in the coming seasons my county learns to better value food - how to consume it, recycle it and reward those who have produced it.
Wednesday 5 April 2017
The Hungry Gap
About a month ago, a friend from Longridge announced that his overwintered broad beans were up and thriving. So I persuaded my husband to take a trip out to the agricultural college where we purchased some beans at 'pensioners discount'. At the time I remember thinking that this was not our usual variety, but it was the only one available. So I went ahead. The packet promised that it was a fast-maturing bean. It would need to be 'up here' as spring is so often cold and wet.
This week my husband discovered that something was eating our newly germinated beans. We think that the culprit is the grey squirrel who has previously tried to charm us into providing food. The beans seemed to have been broken off at the tips and shoots were lying on the soil. Other beans seem to have disappeared completely. I would estimate that we have lost about a quarter of what we sowed.
Our raised beans are now netted and our surplus in pots have been rescued and put in the shed.
The lessons are obvious. Firstly, I should not have rushed to emulate M's success, after all, he is a Yorkshireman (local joke). I should have stuck to the variety I know and germinated them in the shed.
The predatory squirrel is obviously in the middle of the 'hungry gap', that time of year when allotment gardeners wait for new crops and live on what they sowed in the previous season. In our case this was curly kale and Jerusalem artichokes which provided soups and simple curries. Now we are on a fixed income and live close to a branch of the county's famed independent store. Our hungry gap years have gone but thriftiness they engendered persists.
PS After posting this, I would like to assure readers that I did not intend to trivialise the sufferings of this hungry world. You can see one of the African charities we support on my page. I remain very grateful indeed for all the blessings of this life.
This week my husband discovered that something was eating our newly germinated beans. We think that the culprit is the grey squirrel who has previously tried to charm us into providing food. The beans seemed to have been broken off at the tips and shoots were lying on the soil. Other beans seem to have disappeared completely. I would estimate that we have lost about a quarter of what we sowed.
Our raised beans are now netted and our surplus in pots have been rescued and put in the shed.
The lessons are obvious. Firstly, I should not have rushed to emulate M's success, after all, he is a Yorkshireman (local joke). I should have stuck to the variety I know and germinated them in the shed.
The predatory squirrel is obviously in the middle of the 'hungry gap', that time of year when allotment gardeners wait for new crops and live on what they sowed in the previous season. In our case this was curly kale and Jerusalem artichokes which provided soups and simple curries. Now we are on a fixed income and live close to a branch of the county's famed independent store. Our hungry gap years have gone but thriftiness they engendered persists.
PS After posting this, I would like to assure readers that I did not intend to trivialise the sufferings of this hungry world. You can see one of the African charities we support on my page. I remain very grateful indeed for all the blessings of this life.
Monday 6 February 2017
Surprised by Snowdrops
When my family visited us for my birthday last month they brought several useful presents including an unexpected gift from a friend who is now living in their vicinity. The attached note said that the two pots contained lily of the valley. I remembered that she had told us her new garden was overrun with it and she promised to send some when she was tidying up.
Following a gardening tip in one of the weekend broadsheets my husband potted them up again, ready for them to bloom early in the spring and fill the house with fragrance. They began in our potting shed and then sat in the relatively cool environment of our kitchen windowsill next to the miniature daffodils and blue Scylla as we waited.
Sure enough, leaves were followed by white buds. I noted that strangely there was a single hanging bud on each stem instead of the bells that I associate with lily of the valley.
My husband decided that the kitchen window was no longer suitable for the daffodils and replanted all the bulbs outside in a container outside the patio window. I paused to admire his handiwork and saw them for the first time.
It is remarkable that however long you look at a snowdrop; it will never metamorphose into a lily of the valley.
Following a gardening tip in one of the weekend broadsheets my husband potted them up again, ready for them to bloom early in the spring and fill the house with fragrance. They began in our potting shed and then sat in the relatively cool environment of our kitchen windowsill next to the miniature daffodils and blue Scylla as we waited.
Sure enough, leaves were followed by white buds. I noted that strangely there was a single hanging bud on each stem instead of the bells that I associate with lily of the valley.
My husband decided that the kitchen window was no longer suitable for the daffodils and replanted all the bulbs outside in a container outside the patio window. I paused to admire his handiwork and saw them for the first time.
It is remarkable that however long you look at a snowdrop; it will never metamorphose into a lily of the valley.
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