gardening

Leading You Up The Garden Path

Each day For the month of May Becky is hosting a square format photo featuring one or more of the following themes: move forward, burgeoning, reconstruct, renew. And so here, on all those fronts, is the kitchen-window-to-be with a view on another ‘work in progress’ – the garden. The hawthorn tree over the hedge is doing the burgeoning.

The house extension has been forging ahead too, and while super-builder Alan has been putting up the inner timber frame, I have been digging up the lawn. I started doing this last summer, soon after we’d moved into The Gables, but got no further than two beds along the garden path. Even so, they are already looking promising, bursting with spinach, Swiss chard, coriander, various kales and cauliflowers. (Everything has to be netted against pigeon plunder).

But then came the wet and frigid winter, and so the digging mostly had to stop until March.

Our garden ends at the fence behind the greenhouse, and I’m now expanding an existing narrow bed along the entire fence-line. First on my list has been rooting out the ground elder and phygelius seedlings, followed by making a well composted trench for runner and butter beans. The trench is done and the bean row will run parallel to the greenhouse, but with space enough for some outdoor tomatoes beside the greenhouse.

Against the back fence are a few field bean plants (mini broad beans), now busy flowering, and next to them is a small plot of sprouting broccoli and green Romanesco cauliflowers for late summer cropping.

It’s a pity everything has to be netted, but the pigeons are remorseless foragers, including testing things they don’t really like and leaving lots of shredded leaves – the rotters.

Meanwhile the kitchen is looking like this:

A brick-skin with parapet is next on the agenda. There will then be double doors filling the open space, and a roof lantern illuminating the cooking department. The further half of the back house wall will then be knocked through to the main sitting room to create an open L-shaped living space on a roughly east-west axis.

But for now it’s all blue-sky thinking, and not least some serious musings on how the new roof lantern will affect the interior light. Hmmm:

#SquaresRenew

Bishops Castle Days

At last. Three days of fine weather, days that feel like spring. Days for sowing seeds – Tuscan kale, Swiss chard, spinach, carrots, cauliflowers, leeks…

…for digging up the lawn and mowing what’s left of it…

…for tackling the ‘hedge of iniquity’ that runs the length of the back garden, extracting the tangle of ivy, holly, privet, hawthorn, sycamore and ash from the chicken wire that some erstwhile inhabitant has laid along the entire inner perimeter so creating an interweaving thicket of manic vegetable intensity that is impossible to cut properly. Meanwhile, inside the hedge the ivy has grown stems as thick as mooring ropes, looping and leaning, causing the holly to loop and lean too and think it is a creeper…

But I’m dealing with it calmly – one snip at a time. The only problem is my presence hedge-side keeps the sparrows away from their feeding station, and at the moment they are ravenous. I’m giving them a break while I write this post.

For the last few weeks, through chilling winds, frost, rain and rare bursts of sunshine, we’ve been blessed with cherry blossom. Not our tree, but one growing just over the hedge near the back door. Now, the flowers are fading and falling and when we go outside, we’re sifted with tiny petals. The terrace flagstones too. It looks like confetti.

But our own small cherry tree has begun to flower. It’s a Japanese variety, Kojo-no-mai, more of a shrub than a tree, and in time growing to around seven feet high and wide. It will be fine in a pot until the garden is finally ready for it. (Which won’t be soon). And while it’s so small, it can best show itself off on the terrace wall, where the honey bees have already found it. In fact as I was busy transplanting a Dame’s Violet (brought from the Wenlock garden) in the bed behind it, I suddenly realised my head was filled with bee-hum. Happy bees.

As I work in the garden I lose track of time. This is a special Bishops Castle feature, the locals tell us. I hear the Town Hall clock strike the quarters between the hours: one chime for a quarter past, two for half past, three for quarter to. You can see the dilemma.

Sometimes a red kite drifts up and up over the garden. I feel myself lift and drift a little too.

We’ve become avid sparrow watchers since we set up the bird feeding station. This was created from an existing tall post (of no obvious purpose) that rises from the hedge of iniquity, and seems to belong to the era of the dreaded chicken wire application. Anyway, it’s good for suspending feeders, and we can covertly watch the birds from the kitchen window. I like the way they pop in and out of the hedge.

Mostly, they’re good at taking turns.

Lately, with the drier weather, dust bathing is the thing. The sunny front garden is a favourite spot. We’ve lifted all the ugly paving slabs that covered the two borders, leaving a skim of loose mortar on the soil. Ideal for synchronous avine plunging and dousing. On Monday, over lunch, we watched four go at once: essence of sparrow-joy as they worked the dirt through all their feathers. Later, as I go out to the shop, I spot the four neat little hollows left behind. There’s an inclination to cup my hands and gather one up. Yes. Sparrow-joy. There’s much to be said for it.

Happy Spring , North-dwellers

P.S. As I write this, scaffolding is going up around the house, a two-day job apparently. Next week the roof is coming off. Heavens!

The Weather In The Garden

So far this week at The Gables we’ve had frost, biting wind, and yesterday an all-day deluge with wall to wall gloom. But today, St. Valentine’s, the rain has held off. In fact it’s been almost warm, with a glimmering of sunshine, and up in the top garden this clump of seedling crocus was in full fanfare.

And not only that, Mr. Whippy, the ice-cream man, was back in town. Jangling rendition of O Sole Mio up and down streets. And then while I was snapping the crocus, along buzzed a honey bee, the first I’ve seen and heard this year.

Anyone would think it was spring.

But then February can be a tricksy month in England, ambushing us with a day of sudden warmth, only to whip up more icy blasts just when we’ve been daft enough to cast off our thickest winter woolly.

So: best not to count one’s spring chickens too soon.

This bee, though, is definitely seizing the moment, making the most of fine weather, and a rich pollen harvest. (Note the gathering sac on the rear leg; full pollen facial thrown in). What’s not to love.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Lens-Artists: Weather This week Anne at Slow Shutter Speed has us weather watching. Plenty to inspire us in her lively photo essay.

How Did My Garden Glow…

There’s more than a hint of nostalgia in my choice of photos here. With the turn of the year and the first hints of spring, I am thinking about gardening; and more especially, of gardens left behind and the things I used to grow there.

The new home garden, though small, has potential as they say, but much like the house, every part of it needs attention. We’ve had the hedges cut into shape and the apple trees pruned. The greenhouse is all but mended, and the slab for Graham’s shed is laid and ready for his latest creation. But the biggest challenge is reining in the overall infestations of ground elder, ivy, Spanish bluebells and a devilish creeping shrub with red tubular flowers that seems intent on taking over the place.

Basically, when it comes to fresh planting, we’re pretty much at ground zero, with an awful lot of ground to shift. And while it is feasible, with serial determination, to clear areas of the invaders, it will likely take a few seasons to do so. All of which means holding back on plans for any permanent planting, at least on the herbaceous and shrub front. I am resisting using weed killer.

The invaders’ persistence is not such an issue when it comes to making vegetable plots. They can be cleared and weeded every year at the end of the growing season, and again in spring. In fact it has crossed my mind to grow this year’s potatoes in the front garden where we’ve lifted a load of unsightly paving. I’ve also thought of using that space for a mixture of annual flowers, beans and greens, i.e. cottage garden style. I probably will do that. After all, you can grow climbing beans up sunflowers. They like to cohabit. And it seemed to work at the Broseley rental house where I made a quick-fix garden last year.

In the meantime, I’m thinking of starting some perennials off in pots. I know we will miss the allotment raspberries, so I’m trying a small bush variety called Yummy . It will apparently grow well in containers, at least in the short term. I’ve also rescued a few of the previous occupants’ plants from the infested beds, and ‘quarantined’ them in pots too, thus capturing any remnant ground elder which can be carefully unpicked during re-potting or planting out.

But then I’m truly missing our Evereste crab apple tree from the Sheinton Street garden. It’s a very slow grower, so if I do give in to buying a replacement, it might well manage in a big pot for a while.

So: onwards and upwards. I’ve come to the conclusion it is my lot in life, much like generations of my Hampshire gardener ancestors, to wield a spade, endlessly making new gardens wherever I end up living. You may expect some of the results to crop up here. For now, some very pleasing ‘borrowed landscape’ from back in the autumn – the rowan tree over the hedge by the greenhouse. A wonderful birds’ pantry.

Lens-Artists: warm colours This week Egidio wants to see warm colours in our photos. Please see his blog post for some wonderful warmth and inspiration.

September Harvest

Warm winds this afternoon, and a flurry of Red Admiral butterflies about the garden. Also out on the lawn, the alcoholic waft of gently fermenting apples – windfalls from our gnarly trees. The trees are in need of serious remedial work – if reclaiming them is even possible. Most of the fruit is spoiled before it falls – lots of pests and diseases, and some very spotty articles. But that said, there’s been enough good fruit to make a few pots of cinnamon and honey poached apple. And more to come.

As for this Red Admiral, it was spending a lot of time supping from a very rotten apple. I wonder if butterflies get squiffy. It might account for all the whirling about that was going on as I hacked away on project-liberation-greenhouse. It’s almost free from the overbearing hedge, but a lot of broken panes where hawthorn and ivy branches have leaned too heavily. For now, though, it’s good enough to shelter two bucket-planted tomato plants brought from Broseley. They’re still fruiting, if sporadically.

Our other tomatoes are an outdoor container variety, Tumbling Tom. They ripened very nicely on the terrace wall during our week of hot September weather. Here they are doing just what it says on the packet: cascading from their pots in profusion – out of summer and into fall.

Still Life After The Allotment

I’m still pondering on how I feel about giving up my allotment. Hmm.

But then given the long, wet and laboured lead up to spring, I know the soil on my plots will be cold and claggy and in no way suitable for any kind of cultivation. Probably for weeks yet. I also know the wind will be whistling up there, and I can do without the added chill factor. Yet there’s no denying it (as I look at these photos), we’re going to miss the produce, freshly gathered as needed and all grown without the taint of pesticide.

We do have a small garden at our rented house, and I’ve already sown lettuce, rocket and spinach in big buckets. I have them covered in a large plastic covered cloche affair, and they’ve all germinated despite unpromising temperatures. I’m also going to get carrots going in large pots (they anyway often work better in containers) and peas in seed trays for sprouts. Yesterday I sowed cherry tomato seeds (in heated trays on the kitchen cupboard) and hope to plant them out along the sheltered walled border, though at this rate probably not till June! And then there might be room for some French climbing beans.

On the other hand, we might suddenly find we’ve bought a house. In which case, my (mostly) portable garden will be moving with us.

Lens-Artists #246: Still Life This week Patti sets the theme, a favourite with me when it comes to photographing garden produce. I’m sure I’m not the only one to see beauty in freshly dug new potatoes.

A Quick Trip To The Plot

Yesterday morning we woke to glorious sunshine, this after days of gloom and deluge and nights of rain battering the rooflights. With all the wetness, the lean-to greenhouse against the back door had been leaking and turned itself into a paddling pool, the garden water butts were overflowing and everywhere turned to mud. I had not been up to the allotment for days.

But then came the sunshine, and I needed leeks and herbs for the risotto I’d planned, and also salad stuff to go with it. And then there was the vegetable waste to take up to the compost bins. So I set off, though not before I’d grabbed a stick to avoid an undignified up-ending along the field path. (Done that: got the muddy bum to prove it).

It truly was all slip and slide, though in passing I noticed the winter wheat in Townsend Meadow had grown an inch or two, though there was also an unscheduled stream of water along the field boundary. Climbing through the hedge gap into the allotment also proved problematical. No foothold on the mud bank. I was glad I’d brought the stick.

Allotment plots have a tendency to dreariness in the winter months, but the paths had been mowed and some diligent allotmenteers had worked hard to tidy away the listing bean poles and decaying vegetation. I’m afraid I’m not one of them, nor did I feel inclined to make a start yesterday. Instead, I inspected the winter greens, pulled up leeks, prised some container-grown parsnips out of their bucket and gathered rocket, lettuce, parsley, fennel and baby spinach from the polytunnel. There were even a few Sungold tomatoes to pick. Now that was a treat. Then I had natter with stalwart gardener Phoebe, who was on her way home for lunch, and then, guess what…

…it started to rain. A blanket of wet mist descended and I headed home, though not before taking the header photo, snapped because somehow the drizzle made everywhere look gauzy. But by the time I reached the garden gate the light had gone and the rain set in. I turned back to scan the field: dusk at lunchtime? I really do not remember a November with so much day-time darkness. Nor a month that has gone so fast: not so much walking as galloping.

Walking Squares #26 Becky thinks we should not let bad weather stop us from walking; in fact confronting wild weather elements may well do us good.

The Changing Seasons: This Was June

A Horse Chestnut sun-catcher, as spotted on the old railway line below the Linden Walk. Such a cool and bosky spot on warm summer days, not that we have had very many of those. And we’ve certainly not had ‘flaming June’ except for a couple of windless days when it was warm enough to eat out in the upstairs garden.

All the same, those few warm days did seem excessively hot to those of us still clinging to our winter underwear and especially to the MacMoo lads in their shaggy coats. They were driven to the shadow-margins of the Cutlins meadow to try and keep cool.

While out on the Linden Field, human lads stripped off for a spot of football practice.

In Townsend Meadow behind the house, this year’s crop of field beans is thriving. Early in the spring the plants struggled mightily due to lack of rain, but June’s cycle of showers and intermittent sun and cool temperatures has seen them shoot up and burst into flower. They are a variety of broad bean that produce masses of pea pod sized pods, each packed with several haricot sized beans. In Britain we mostly use them for animal feed and the bulk of the crops are exported to countries like Egypt where they are in great demand for human consumption.

Maybe as a nation, we should be rethinking this. The plants grow well in lacklustre weather, though wind can be problematic. And although the beans are fiddly to pod (I’ve grown my own good crop at the allotment), they are delicious, nutrient rich and only take a minute to steam or boil. The only problem was, this year they were ready all at once, and while I was hoping they would precede the main broad bean crop, the broad beans started cropping early. Upshot: eat the broad beans, freeze the field beans for making refried beans later in the year. But just look at the flowers. Aren’t they extraordinary?

In the Farrell garden all is getting above itself – especially the cat mint. I don’t know what’s got into it this year. It’s the sort of plant I tend to ignore, nice enough as a wafty foil for more showy plants in summer borders, and that’s about it. But now it seems intent on taking over the upstairs garden, and what with the blue geranium joining in, Graham is having to fight his way through the encroaching undergrowth to reach the shed.

Meanwhile Rose Teasing Georgia has been and gone. Lovely while she was with us looking in at the kitchen door. She should flower again later in the summer:

Over the garden fence in the guerrilla garden where all the late summer bloomers are busy putting on stems metres tall, Geranium Anne Thomson is fighting her corner. She’s such a worthwhile garden plant – flowering her socks off all summer:

And on the downstairs terrace the ruby red Centranthus has been the main June attraction, along with Penelope rose who this year has been growing us huge single stemmed bouquets, now sadly past their best. She’s a lovely sweet smelling rose – a shrub variety that can be trained to be a climber on shortish walls.

At the allotment, beans and peas and spuds and beetroot are growing well, tomatoes and salad stuff in the polytunnel, but I’ve not taken many photos apart from ones of the flat-pack cat and the wildflower plots of moon daisies:

Oh yes, and this evening view of the town as I’m heading home to make supper:

The Changing Seasons Ju-Lyn and Brian are the hosts. Please pay them a visit.

Laid Out At The Allotment: Flat-Pack Cat

There are two long-abandoned plots next to mine at the Wenlock allotments. On recent late-day visits to my polytunnel, the sun still hot, I’ve found this allotment cat (one of several feral felines who haunt the place) stretched out between two dismantled shed panels. The pose says it all: absolute bliss.

Here’s its sibling. Both cats seem to make a living on the allotment. In fact I think they were born here and don’t seem to belong to anyone. I dare say there are plenty of rodents to hunt. And now I think about it, there are certainly fewer birds foraging on the plots. In the winter, one or other sleeps in my polytunnel.

And here’s another regular prowler, doing a good little leopard imitation:

The Changing Seasons: May 2022

Poppy time on my allotment plot, the oriental perennials I grew from seed last year. I’d been hoping for a range of colours, but it looks as though they are all turning out to be tomato soup red. I should not complain. This bunch are brightening the spot in front of my shed.

Otherwise at the allotment, the globe artichokes are going bonkers, arriving far earlier than expected. We’ve already polished off several. By contrast, the early potatoes are making a slow start, their green tops only beginning to sprout last week. Parsnips, on the other hand, have germinated well, this time sown in a large builders’ tub, and the onion sets are making their first green shoots. Beetroot, cauli and cabbage seedlings have been successfully planted out and the broad bean plants are flowering magnificently.

In the home garden all is alliums and aquilegias, valerian and catmint. The apple blossom is long gone, quickly dispersed by May’s repeated rounds of wind and rain, but a few days ago I noticed there were lots of tiny apples forming – on the Coxes and the crab apple trees.

Meanwhile around the town, all is lush in the fields beside the Cutlins path – shaggy sheep on one side, young MacMoos on the other, up to their knees and noses in buttercups. And oh yes, don’t forget to watch the sky. Looks like there’s another downpour coming:

Nearby, on the Linden Field all is bursting green. The cricket season is upon us, the pitch well fettled, and lads in the nets honing batting skills. As ever, the Linden Walk is the favoured resort of walkers and runners and lately been proving a welcome resort out of the persistent chilling wind.

But as you can see, the spring growth hasn’t in the least minded the ongoing coolness, and it’s certainly made the most of May’s sudden spate of unseasonal downpours. He who has given up binding books for the making of small and interesting occasional tables tells me it’s supposed to be getting warmer now June’s arrived. And yes, I think at last I can believe him. Today the sun is out, and best of all, the wind has dropped. In the greenhouse the French beans are surging out of their pots and the sweet corn seeds have germinated, and up in the upstairs garden, rose Teasing Georgia is strutting her stuff. Happy days.

The Changing Seasons: May 2022 Brian at Bushboy and Ju-Lyn at Touring My Backyard are the kind hosts of this monthly challenge. Please go and see what they have been doing during May.

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge