Snow!

This winter has been early and cold for the British Isles. We've already had snow several times since mid-November, but today's 5 inches deserved an emergency extreme weather warning for London and the Home Counties. Still, it looks so beautiful!

Third harvest

A bit earlier than the traditional Samhain (or Halloween) third harvest, I gathered the last produce from the garden for this season.


Jerusalem artichokes (one tub's worth - 2 tubers planted) and the last butternut squash. I had one fruit each on the 2 butternut squash vines, so I'm not sure growing them is really worth the garden space - especially compared to the long-seasoned courgettes which are from the same family. Having said that, at least the butternuts can make a full meal... The single patty-pan squash plant produced a few fruits, but as they're so tiny I could only add them to stews with other vegetables.

Here's a recipe for a yummy butternut squash and apple soup. Don't be afraid, the apple tartness adds to the flavour and lifts this soup from the realm of ordinary autumn fare to the sublime!

Fry a few slices of streaky bacon or pancetta in a pot. When crispy, remove the bacon and add about a pint of boiling water to the grease in the pot, chunks of butternut squash (peeled, seeds removed), a peeled and cored cooking apple (acidic, rather than sweet, but any old apple will do, really), and salt and pepper. When the squash has softened, remove from heat and blend smooth. Check for seasoning, and serve with crumbled crispy bacon on top. Yum!

Oh, on the subject of (f)artichokes (very tasty parboiled then roasted with a pork loin) - my lips are sealed. ;)

Winter basket

The petunias in the summer basket died even before the first frost, which appeared quite early this year. Here is the winter basket, containing pansies "Purple and White" (yes, that is the name of this variety. Profound.), ivy and a small photinia cutting.

The past, the future and good friends

Where I grew up, there was no garden. We had a couple of balconies, and my mum filled them with pots and troughs of colourful flowers. There was a playground between the blocks of flats, with a bit of grass around the concrete paving and a few evergreen shrubs dotted here and there. The year after the building work finished and we moved in, the council finished the landscaping and planted a young silver birch sapling. That tree grew with us kids, and as we matured so did the birch; the tips of its upright branches now almost reach the top of the 4-storey buildings surrounding it. It is known that silver birches attain maturity around 40 years of age, and can live for 90, sometimes even up to 150 years. Seeing that I am now "around" 40, I sometimes wonder which of us is going to outlive the other...

Although we have dispersed throughout the world, I still keep in touch with some of the friends I grew up with, around that silver birch. But sometimes they still surprise me! For my recent birthday I received a package from the States, containing (in addition to a marvellous cookbook) a collection of seed packets from the Jefferson Monticello plantation near Charlotesville. Apparently, the plantation has some of the most beautiful and special flowers and plants that Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers of the US, collected on his travels or from friends. It certainly sounds like a place I would love to visit one day! Thank you so much, I., P. and little A.! :))

Here is a little picture with the germs of the future:


In the middle are the Monticello seed packets from the US (allowing me not to buy any more ornamental plant seeds for a couple of years); the tulip bulbs I bought on a recent Amsterdam trip; the clay pots are filled with crocus bulbs and winter flowering white cyclamen; the black pot contains an olive tree sapling that was growing in a friend's garden in Nice, France, and which he generously gifted us; there's a little envelope in the bottom right corner with my mum-in-law's nasturtium seeds. The future is likely to be bountiful, indeed.

Or, in words of my favourite Zen teacher - master Oogway from Kung Fu Panda:
Yesterday's history
Tomorrow's a mystery;
Today is a gift. That's why we call it present!

Autumn, shed

That is shed as in a garden storage structure, not as in the verb. Actually, we don't even have a shed, it's a garage. But it doesn't house the car. It's a 45% DIY workshop and a 20% garden shed. The remaining space is filled with rubbish we still haven't managed to take to the skip. But that is steadily reducing...

Some time ago, we spent half an hour clearing one side of the garage, and my wonderful SO built me a storage shelf in that space. He neatly sorted all the gardening tools and equipment that used to live in an old laundry basket and piled up on top of other things. Now, this is what my organised gardening storage looks like:


In the red box are all the hand trowels, shears and pruners (those really add up!), and in the white drawer is my collection of seed packets (and gathered/gifted seeds too). You may notice some herbage in the top right corner - that is where I've hung up bunches of herbs to dry, having recently harvested them before the cold weather kills them.

Regarding herbs, I was picking them all summer to use in cooking as and when required. As long as you don't remove more than 30% of the plant at any one time, you can harvest regularly. It's great to use the freshest herbs in your food! Some of my favourites were:
- parsley and mint in cucumber salad (with Greek yogurt)
- pot marjoram leaves in tomato salad
- rosemary, thyme and bay leaf* in any stew-type dish
- sage and thyme in meatballs, burgers and stuffing
- mints and lemon balm added to green/white tea

* Bay leaf actually has a stronger aroma after drying, so I was really using week-to-month old leaves in cooking

However, once the cold weather sets in, annual and soft (non-shrubby) perennial herbs will be destroyed. The perennials, like mint and lemon balm, will return in spring; but to enjoy them over winter we need to dry them. And that is what I've done with those herbs (including pineapple sage, which is really more like a type of mint). I've also trimmed the thyme and sage plants, and those trimmings are now in spice jars. Same with the fennel seedheads, though I have left some (together with lavender) to feed the birds in winter. I've finally let the parsley flower, just because I wanted to see if there are any bees still around; otherwise, I would have harvested the leaves, chopped them up finely and frozen them in an ice cube tray.

Courgettes may be useful...

... for things other than eating! ;)

Woman fights bear with courgette


Still, two things worth mentioning:

1. There are no bears in the UK

2. My courgettes are round, not 14-inchers. Maybe I should grow some of those next year, anyway... ;)

And this is what we came back to:

Beautiful cherry tomatoes! I'd say we harvested about 50 from 3 plants of Gardener's Delight, and there's still maybe a dozen that I've left on, in hope of more clement weather. There is definitely a real sweet-acidic tomato taste (and scent), especially in those fruits that have at least started to go orange on the vine. I've picked a couple of green ones yesterday and left them to ripen on the window sill, as an experiment - I have a strong suspicion that all supermarket tomatoes are harvested when green and ripened indoors, maybe already in plastic packaging. No wonder there's hardly any taste to them!


The buddleja still has some wonderful honey-scented flowers. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to deadhead the spent blooms, but I have a feeling there is no need for that. It's really a tough hedgerow shrub, not needing much mollycodling.


Also, more clematis flowers. This one, Ville de Lyon, has now had 3 flowering flushes (the first one being rather minimalistic, very soon after planting). I'm afraid that the other clematis, Multi Blue, has not survived being placed in front of a north-facing garage wall. Although, spring can bring surprises, so I won't be that quick to plant something else in that space yet.

Guest garden

Other blogs have guest writers, my dream garden journal will have guest gardens featuring in it. :)

The first one is a Mediterranean garden in the fortress (Chateau) of Nice, south of France. I often think that having a sunny climate in Britain would be great. Well, maybe for the vitamin D and less SAD, but gardens would become much less interesting, visually. Or the water bills would go through the roof! In Nice, unless it's the Promenade where flower beds and palm trees are irrigated twice daily, the greenery is pretty greyish and uniform. There are a lot of plants with narrow, thick leaves which help reduce water evaporating under the relentless hot rays. Many of those, however, release scents that are much more pungent when warmed up: rosemary, sage, pine trees, cypresses...

There are also some flowering shrubs that do well under the Mediterranean sun. Oleanders in all colours (well, white, pink and red) are very popular in private gardens too. Here is a white one in the Chateau garden:


Many prickly succulents are also grown or naturalised in the area. In fact, there are a few public gardens fully dedicated to them. Here's a prickly pear and a Joshua tree:



And here's proof that shady area plants like ferns can also grow in the Med. Just find a waterfall grotto!


It's more than plants that maketh a garden, or some such olde wisdom. Well, here is a stunning mosaic depicting one of the oldest stories in the world, the Oddysey:

Miserable weather

It is rather weird to feel Autumn descending upon us, when I'm still looking forward to my Summer holiday! It's still August, often the hottest month even on this island, but the rain, wind and a thick cloud covering makes me think it's October.

The garden has been somewhat battered in the process; actually, the flowers have suffered, but the grass is thriving:


There is also beauty in rain:


The courgette count is currently 19, with three sitting on the kitchen counter taunting me. Maybe I can chop them up, blanch and freeze them? Roasting them, sauteeing, making soup and stew has become slightly boring by now.

Oh, and without the sun, will my green tomatoes ripen at all?

Courgettes

Here is a picture of the two latest courgette fruits. We usually categorise it as a vegetable, but, just like tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, cucumbers and avocados, the courgettes that we eat are the fruit of the plant. Meaning, a fleshy cover protecting the seeds - the same as apples, peaches or figs.

For size comparison I've placed a large lemon (from the supermarket, unfortunately - I wish we had enough space for a small orchard and enough sun for a lemon tree) and a salt grinder in the composition. The larger courgette is probably the largest size it should be harvested before it turns into a squash...



This may be a good place to mention garden productivity. Some crops have finished, others have been squeezed out due to space limitations, and some are still to come (tomatoes). Here is the tally, as far as I remember it:

* radishes - 25ish; could have more, but the tray is now on a shelf, with little light

* strawberries - 2 handfuls, not a very rich harvest but that's common in the first year

* salad leaves, including spinach, pea shoots and rocket - about 12 salads; same fate as the radishes

* courgettes - 10 (including the uneaten ones above), with plenty still to ripen, but also more flowers to be set

* patty pan squash - 2

* butternut squash - nothing ripe yet, several growing

* tomatoes - not ripe yet

I have also harvested herbs aplenty - rosemary, mint, parsley, marjoram, thyme, sage and bay leaf; what's missing this year is basil.

Pinks and blues

One of the best perennials that I have planted this season must be the echinacea. Since the first bud formed weeks ago, it hasn't stopped flowering. This is what it looks like now:


The astilbe has only recently started to flower. It needed the occasional rain that we've had recently, I think; it's a plant for moist soils, often thriving in boggy terrain next to ponds:


The weekend before last we bought this fuchsia, lovely pink and purple pendulums and variegated foliage that livens up the border:



Finally, beautiful blue and purple morning glories - all the way from the south of France! We were given the seeds last summer by lovely belle-mere, and they seem to be flourishing although it's much less sunny here... Not this year, though! This is a very good UK summer! :)

A haven for wildlife

This is one of the essential attributes of my dream garden, and I'm happy to say that in the height of summer, we have achieved it. (Not counting our two wild felines that prowl the garden fearlessly (except during fireworks, which, admittedly, happen more in late autumn and winter)).

A little wasp in the white African daisy (osteospermum):



A ladybird, wasp and hoverfly on a bronze fennel flower. Yes, I have wanted the colours in the garden to be just pinks and purples, but this plant is mostly purple; also, the yellow flowerheads are very attractive to pollinating insects, so I just have to live with the colour clash! ;)




Ladybirds - adult and larva:




Finally, one of the stalking cats in the bottom right corner. The trellis has now been covered with honey-scented sweet peas and purple morning glories.

Three bumblebees and one honey bee...

... buzz into a bar. I mean, lavender! That was the largest number of (beneficial) insects I've seen on one plant yet. Sadly, they didn't all want to model for the photo...


If we're looking for the non=-beneficial insects, then they are to be found on the sweet peas. The plants are covered in greenfly, and when I first noticed that I started removing the little buggers (there's something deeply satisfying in sliding a finger-breadth of them off a stem, then squeezing!). However, there was a ladybird there, busily eating her way through the aphids, and I realised that for a fully organic garden I need to provide some pests for the predators to enjoy. So now the sweet peas (which, BTW, smell really nice) have greenfly *and* baby ladybirds (AKA garden crocodiles, as they look like ugly, tiny reptiles with big jaws before they turn into the familiar cute, red bug).

Courgettes are being productive, and we're still harvesting them regularly. Here's a pic of stuffed veggies (the aubergines were from a shop) a la Provancale (just meat, herbs and spices, chopped veg flesh and an egg to bind the filling together) that proved very popular on Facebook! :)

Blustery Day

It's on days like this that I worry about our dilapidated fence. It hasn't been this windy since the winter, and strong gusts have already tipped over the Jerusalem artichoke containers. I have heard about that problem, and the solution - cutting them down to 1.5m - so that's what I have done. Now the 'chokes are much shorter, and the compost heap is much bigger!

Before:


After:



Today is also "I found the macro function on the camera" day! ;) So here are the scabious, echinacea and clematis.








And the lavender/pelargonium/mints sandwich!

Something to make us go "Awww"

Sleepy kitteh:

Shock, horror!

Slugs... menace to society! And beautiful gardens. There are some plants that just serve as bait, plain and simple, and cannot thrive in a garden where there are slugs (especially of the giant orange variety, thumb-knuckle sized). In my old garden, snails were the main culprits: lupins were always munched within days of planting them; hostas would last longer, but look torn, tatty and miserable; ranunculus seedlings disappeared overnight.

Somewhat unfortunately for our aesthetic sensibilities, slugs are also part of the circle of life in the Dream Garden. Everything that grows must ultimately die (and be recycled into wonderfully rich, live-sustaining compost, but that's a different blog post) - but, sometimes, beautiful plants are helped along by tiny molluscs. Some go slowly, like this once furry sage, Salvia argentea, which took weeks of steady nibbling (and despite regular slug removal - we picked off and destroyed at least 3-5 slugs every evening) to get to this skeletal form:


And then, there are overnight jobs, like with this lobelia (which can be seen on the left hand side of the rose in the previous post). I only missed one evening of watering, as the day had been damp enough, and 48 hours after seeing it in its full glory, it was gone:


Now, you may be asking what am I doing about the slug problem. Well, I pick them up whenever I see any (and usually get my SO to squish them); and I'm learning what plants they like/adore/hunger for, so I wouldn't place them in garden soil in the future. If I still want to grow those plants (as I do with the furry sage and the lemony pale hosta), I will plant them in pots which will be well protected with copper wire barriers. Copper is toxic to molluscs (this is true even for marine types) and a circle of thin electricians wire or even pennies is traditionally used to protect sensitive plants.

Slug pellets? The answer is no. They are toxic to all life, not just slugs and snails, so could be dangerous for the cats. Also, if a bird was to eat a poisoned slug it would die too... Poison pellets are definitely not environmentally friendly.

Midsummer Dream

Whilst the English rose "Gertrude Jekyll" is still flowering its pretty socks off, the first bloom has appeared on "Zephirine Drouhin". In this picture, with dew drops from the hosepipe, you can see the Bay laurel and lobelia cardinalis in the background:



The flowering racemes of the butterfly bush have started to open too; they have an intoxicating scent of honey:


Here is the Phygelius we recently bought, already in flower - the plant info says it should continue to do so throughout the summer:


Finally, here's the veggie border with the mounds of courgette and squash plants, and the Jerusalem artichokes taller than my 6'4" SO!

New perennials

Appropriately planted on the full "Planting" moon today:

- French Lavender "Silver Anouk"
- Scabious Barocca
- Phygelius Candydrops Red
- Astilbe Red
- Lobelia Queen Victoria

Now, the last three additions have red flowers, nominally. Only the phygelius is actually in bloom, and the colour is more of a shocking pink. The lobelia has purple foliage, and we'll see if it actually flowers in this garden - I've tried it before, and it never thrived enough to do so. The astilbe, we'll see - should be shaded by the angelica enough to hide the redness...

In addition, we planted my old rosemary that I raised from seed a couple of summers ago. I also changed the entrance hanging basket plants (and the compost too - this one got some gel crystals to help with retaining water) and now have mini petunias in there, still to produce buds. Finally, I planted my Gardener's Delight tomatoes into halved growbags stood on the edge. Oh, and today I trimmed the grass, and it was fun! :))

Pictures of everything to follow!

Pink and salmon

More pictures! :)

You can see the new hosepipe in the corner of the picture. Oh, and Heki:

Poppy Princess Victoria Louise and you know which rose (the other 2 haven't bloomed yet):

Hiatus

A couple of weekends without working in the garden - is it possible?! Indeed it is. The summer is definitely here, and the plants are growing and doing their thing. Mostly flowering! Whilst we're doing our thing. Mostly enjoying :)

There are still things to be done: plant the tomatoes (yes, a bit late!), take cuttings and sow seeds for next year, trim the grass... And there are things that I keep doing daily: water pots (and veggies and perennials as needed), deadhead roses, pull weeds... After almost dislocating my shoulder with the huge watering can, I broke down and requested a garden hose. Watering the veggies on a balmy evening is now a pleasure!

Here are some pictures...

Poppies and Gertrude Jekyll rose:

Geranium

Compost heap - full of spent rose blooms

Courgettes and squashes are growing:

And so are the Jerusalem artichokes, currently just slightly taller than the fence: