Salad or soup?

It might be November but on bright days the garden maintains a distinctly summery tempo. The dahlias continue to throw out dazzling blooms and there will be salad for lunch with pickled beetroot.  

 

  

More fitting for November alas, we have bleak days when mist hangs in the air and virtually obliterates the vegetable patch. Out of sight out of mind, I have to make a positive mental note to gather dinner before darkness.

This weekend I pulled up the old beanpoles and prepared the ground for planting garlic. Nothing complicated... just the painstaking removal of a barrow load of buttercups. The ground was well composted in the spring and if my garlic cloves are lucky I’ll remember to add some lime and wood ash.

As a bonus for my efforts, there were a few wizened pods clinging to the beanpoles, from which I rescued perfectly nourishing beans. They’re now squirreled away in the larder for the increasingly frequent days when a hearty soup is really more appropriate than a summer salad.

And what’s more the larder shelf is comfortingly shielded from the elements!

To Do or not To Do

It’s a real tonic to put aside the ‘to do’ list once in a while, and take the time to enjoy what someone else has ‘done’. 

With this in mind we visited Somerleyton Hall a couple of weeks ago. Beautiful brick boundary walls, tree lined driveway, fat herbaceous borders, drifts of meadow flowers, clipped yew and picture perfect courtyards. 

The air of tranquility belied the phenomenal amount of effort required to sustain such an inspiring garden.
Until I poked my nose into the cordoned-off greenhouse.
Charmingly dilapidated, I had found the heartbeat of the garden in the unravelled hose, the upturned seed trays and bags of compost... 

...it was the palpable birthplace of those magnificent borders.

So what's on my 'to do' list this weekend? 

Get into the greenhouse and sow some biennials.

Early morning Yoga

Best hour of the day? 

Early morning, the sun just rising and I slip into the greenhouse to see how my seedlings are doing. 

Only today I mistimed it and caught them in the middle of a Yoga class!

Sun salutation

Bridge pose

Half moon pose

Forward fold

Tree pose

Hero pose

Scorpion pose

Riotous naked Yogis drawn by my daughter, Saskia Martindale…. 

art student at large, currently studying in Japan… always up for commissions! saskiamartindale.tumblr.com

I challenge you not to have a chuckle next time you water your own seedlings!

'Travels With My Aunt'

"I have never planned anything illegal in my life," Aunt Augusta said.

Graham Greene 1904-1991

Neither of my parents had siblings so as a small child I sometimes used to wonder what it must be like to have ‘real’ aunts and uncles. Having said that, we did manage to accrue an engaging array of substitutes.

We visited ageless Jewish spinsters in lofty north London bedsits, that had the magical allure of squeaky polished floors, colourful cushions lined up on the divan, and carved wooden camels marching across the mantlepiece.

There were soft cheeked Aunties that moved gently in a haze of talcum powder, wore slippers and silky stockings, and gave us embroidered cotton handkerchiefs on our birthday. 

And then there was Aunty Ethel. 

She was a country-woman at heart but lived in the local town. When calling on her unannounced, we knew to circumnavigate the house, wander straight into the back garden and listen for her melodic voice rising from the bushes. Spotting us she would straighten up from her reverie and smile. I remember a spider gently letting itself down from the rim of her straw hat as she excused herself for soliloquising in the rose-bed.

I mention Ethel because whenever we took her out on garden visits she came with a commodious handbag, complete with secateurs. We would invariably lose her as she strayed from the path to scrutinise an unusual plant. With her back covering her actions she would be busy taking cuttings and stuffing them into her handbag. 
If she were ever apprehended we had prepared our retort... she was not related to us!

It was with her in mind, that on a trip to the magnificent Cambridge Botanic Garden last autumn, shhhhh, I snapped off a seed head from a Lychnis coronaria ‘Alba’ and popped it into my pocket.
So immaculately tended were the beds, I felt sure that if the gardener had got there before me he would have simply tossed the unsightly straggling stem straight into his wheelbarrow; I was simply doing him a favour. 

Back home I sowed my booty straight away, a couple of weeks later tiny green leaves appeared and now I have nice sturdy little plants ready for the white garden. 

Just think, if I’d slung my jeans in the washing machine without checking the pockets first it could all have been in vain!

P.S. I’ve taken to writing on my pots rather than using labels... too oft’ did one get separated from t’other.

monday, washday

It’s a beautiful day and if I can’t sit outside under the magnificent Indian bean tree to write my blog what is the sense of working from home? I don’t even need the excuse of a tube strike! 
Ever alert, the chickens have rushed over as close as their fence will allow, hoping in vain that my cup of tea might instead be tasty scraps for them. 

The bean tree is laden with white blossoms, each little bonnet trimmed with a perfectly ruched edge. 

I’ve just put my gardening shorts in the wash, domestic detail but by the time I’d laid out the contents of the pockets I sensed a quick sketch was in the air.... all those irresistible textures!

exhibit a. a net bag

We have a couple of young walnut trees from which I have never yet enjoyed the crunch of a single walnut. Oh yes, the trees produce plenty of nuts but the squirrels know that too and pinch the lot before they’re even ripe. 
Our lovely neighbour who has been growing trees all his life has the same problem. He already has a pair of step ladders parked by the trunk of his walnut tree and is contemplating his strategy. I sense we are locked in friendly combat and will be comparing our harvests come the autumn. Meanwhile I am salvaging every net bag that would otherwise be heading for the dustbin and plan to tie one around every walnut. 

exhibit b. bee identification chart 

Moderately useful, frustrating how most bees seem to be a cross between two or more of the illustrations tho’. So I’m not really much the wiser.

exhibit c. pencil stub for writing on seed markers

No matter how sure I am that I’ll remember where I have tucked an extra sowing of lettuce seed, I’ve finally learnt that a seed tag avoids the inevitable confusion.

exhibit d. strips of my daughter’s ripped school tights 

Some women might carry a spare pair of tights in their handbag, in case of a snag. Well, frankly, I cherish the laddered ones! Cut horizontally into strips they make fantastic stretchy ties, indestructible and perfect for keeping my tomatoes erect. 

exhibit e. feather from a Greater Spotted Woodpecker

Simply beautiful.

exhibit f. a parsnip seed head

Waiting to be popped into an envelope ready for sowing next year. 
Now that wouldn’t have fared well in the washing machine!

Is it a tomato?

Is it a peach? 

No it's a walnut but is that enough to fool the squirrels?

waste not… want not

Don't forget, when you've eaten the last pork pie, the final mushroom and three sad grapes, those little plastic trays could be very useful in the greenhouse at this time of year.

Ugly… but useful.

Keeping pace...

'All good work is done the way ants do things: Little by little' Lafcadio Hearn

potted on tomato Red Cherry and Gardener's Delight

planted onion sets and shallots in individual cells in the greenhouse

sowed Butternut Squash, courgette Napoli and summer squash Tromboncino

aubergines have almost germinated… couldn't resist poking the soil for evidence

planted out Little Gem lettuce seedlings under cloche

picked salad leaves from the greenhouse for lunch…

…and enjoyed a cup of tea in the sun under the flowering Cherry Plum

Pottering at the weekend

'Most operations may be performed with common gloves. 

Thus, no gardener need have hands like bear's paws.'

J.C.Loudon Encyclopaedia of Gardening 1871

Saturday. Spent a few hours digging over the vegetable garden, stopping just in time to prevent blisters swelling on my reddened palms. Time for something more sedate. 

The greenhouse became my solace, it was still warm, while outside the temperature began to fall. Sitting on an up-turned flower pot I pressed tiny seeds onto damp compost.

In March the list is endless... celery, peas, cucumber, leeks, lettuce, pak choy, sweet pea, rudbeckia, sunflower... but germination is satisfyingly quick.

Tomatoes and cabbage already need potting on. Minute verbena seedlings, no bigger than a pinhead, are just visible. Rooted perennial cuttings are waiting to be planted out, as are my seed potatoes which have all got strong little shoots. 

I’m immersed in a world of promise.

'P' is for potatoes

"Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips."

Charles Dickens

Living in Victorian Britain, Dickens would have eaten a very well balanced diet consisting largely of local and seasonal organic fruit and vegetables. 

Funny, how despite the progress of the intervening years we’re now busy striving for those same ideals.

I am imagining Dickens mulling over the onomatopoeia of ‘potatoes’ while I toss up which seed potatoes to buy this year. 

Sarah Raven’s potato trial results are a great starting point as I ponder early, mid and late, and boil, mash and bake.

And then there are some varieties.. like Belle de Fontenay, that simply sound so mellifluent that I'm sure Dickens would have been seduced too!

"A Gard'ner's work is never at an end; it begins with the Year and continues to the next." John Evelyn 1664 The Gard'ner's Almanac

I woke to the most delicate of snow flurries this weekend. Having suspected that my two rows of garlic had rotted in the squelch that calls itself a vegetable garden, the relief at spotting tiny green spears piercing the frozen soil inspired a frenzied clearing out of the greenhouse.

Thankfully, temperatures inside the inhospitable accommodation were slightly above freezing and the combination of a beret and a bucket of scalding soapy water safeguarded my circulation. 

I was not alone in my happy pursuit. A hibernating frog opened a grumpy eye when I unwittingly pulled back his mossy bedclothes. I just hope he’s ravenous when he wakes up properly, then he can dine like a prince on any bugs that I’ve missed.

Bad light eventually stopped play. That was my cue to warm up in front of the fire with a pile of seed catalogues and all the ambitious intent an empty green house provokes!

ready.. steady.. sow

Oh, how the gentle warmth of the sun on our backs coaxes us all out of our shells. After a snail’s pace start to the year, at last it’s time to savour the child-like thrill of tucking tiny seeds into the soil with all the hope, anticipation and crossed fingers in the world. 

I have just sown lettuce, spinach, pak choy and mustard under cloches while self sown purple orach is already popping up all over the garden.

Every year I aspire to plant my veg with the phases of the moon. The excellent Gardening by the Moon website explains clearly and briefly the logic behind the theory. 

In reality, I am never organised enough and have to confess that it was a happy accident that I had time to sow some leafy veg this weekend, while the moon was in its first quarter. I also sowed some cucumbers in the greenhouse, which contrary to other seedy fruits also benefit from a waxing moon. Fantastic, I can already visualise the resulting bumper crops!

Parsnips, carrots and celeriac have been pencilled in for sowing on 11th March as the moon begins to wane after full moon. Hold me to it!

Once I've rigorously sorted through this lot....

...I guess I'll be whittling down my seed wish-list. On the other hand, it’s always fun to grow something new, especially as we’re planning to double the size of the veg patch this year.

Our “funnest” crop last season was strawberry popcorn, inspired by some tiny bags of gourmet popcorn that Father Christmas found in our local deli. They tucked neatly into the toe of my son's christmas stocking, providing a healthy surprise that no amount of midnight prodding could fathom. The real surprise, however, came when we popped it... soft, creamy, melt in the mouth, utterly delicious, absolutely gourmet.

And beautiful. The tiny strawberry shaped cobs dry to a deep shiny red, each kernel glinting like a droplet of Murano glass. If only I’d grown more we could have used them to decorate the christmas tree too!

                             

                                            From The Painted Garden: A Year in Words and Watercolours (Courage Inspirations)