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.