Month: May 2022

It’s not all a bed of roses . . .

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The rose season has begun and the garden is heavy with their gorgeous perfume and showy blooms; we have planted several new ones since moving here and it’s good to see them becoming established and making splashes of colour in different corners of the garden. There are more wild roses here this year, too, and I love the simple, delicate beauty of their soft pink and white flowers, such a poignant symbol of the season. Rose petals turned out to be a surprise favourite ingredient in herbal teas through the winter so I have them drying all over the windowsills and the house currently smells every bit as delicious as the garden!

Let’s not get too carried away, though. I’ve written before about my thoughts on the ‘rosy-coloured spectacles’ of social media and whilst I appreciate that in a world that seems dominated by doom and gloom, it’s uplifting to see joyful and beautiful things, the stark reality is that life is not all smiley faces and happy pictures. I love to blog about pleasant things and upload (you may have noticed) far too many pretty photographs but I would hate anyone to imagine that we float about here in some fairy-dusted, unicorn-infested, perfect paradise: we don’t! So, in pursuit of balance, here is the warts ‘n’ all news from the garden this week.

The garden is full of rose chafer beetles, their iridescent green and gold bodies shining in the sun. They’re feasting on anything but the roses, though!

First of all, I found a Colorado beetle on a rogue potato plant that had appeared where we grew them last year. The beetles have been present in France since 1945 are are not a notifiable species here but that doesn’t make them any less potentially devastating to our crop, and the fact that we have purposely planted far more potatoes this year makes it doubly frustrating. We checked every leaf of every plant ~ all 124 of them ~ straight away, and didn’t find a single beetle or any signs of eggs or larvae. Thankfully, that situation hasn’t changed, although we continue to be vigilant; I planted linseed alongside the spuds as a beetle deterrent and we have a very healthy population of ladybirds and shield bugs (both voracious predators) so who knows, maybe that’s all playing a part? The potatoes themselves suffered in the drought but many are now flowering and bringing their own kind of beauty to the patch; even so, I find I can’t quite relax and enjoy them whilst constantly scanning for the merest hint of those humbug-striped invaders.

‘Acoustic’ potato flowers
‘Blue Danube’ potato flower
Lurking in the potato patch . . . but this is a red and black leafhopper, not a Colorado beetle.

I made a note to self not to sound too complacent in future blog posts since just after writing last time that our young trees were looking fine, Roger discovered that two of them had been stripped of their bark during the night: an alder buckthorn, which suffered the worst damage, but also ~ and more frustrating ~ a pear tree we planted last year and which was looking wonderful. Our first thought was roe deer, as they are very common in the area and the damage seems typical of deer nibbling; that said, we’ve never had them in the garden before and I’d have expected to see further damage to more trees and the garden in general. Perhaps it was a one-off thing?

However, the next evening a huge hare came lolloping through the garden and had us wondering if it was the culprit. I know hares will eat bark, although I thought that was more of a winter trick when grasses weren’t so available, and we’re not sure even standing on those long hind legs that a hare could have reached so high. There is no way we can fence the garden against these visitors so the only thing to do in this situation is protect what we can; Roger wrapped the damage trees in twine in the hope they will heal (the bark wasn’t completely stripped so there is a slim chance of recovery) and built wire guards for several other trees which we thought might be potential targets. So far ~ touch wood ~ there has been no further damage.

Could things get worse? Yes, they could, in the shape of a visiting rabbit that took it upon itself to prune the sweetcorn plants. Now, in complete contrast to the UK, rabbits are a very rare occurrence here; we are in fact far more likely to see hares, and this one is the first we have seen anywhere near ~ yet alone in ~ the garden. It seems to be living in one of the uncut meadow areas and, in a way, I suppose it’s one of the drawbacks of ‘wilding’ our patch: if we create something of an animal ark, we can’t really grumble when the wildlife moves in! The really frustrating part is that one of our huge neighbouring fields is planted with maize; the young plants are at the same stage as our sweetcorn and there are hundreds of thousands of them . . . so why pick on our few measly plants? Maybe it’s a fan of ‘Rustler’ corn or perhaps it just feels happier surrounded by chaotic polyculture but whatever the reason, it’s not to be encouraged, because the sweetcorn will likely be just the start of bunny’s menu du jour. Roger has rigged up a temporary netting around the corn patch and so far there has been no damage to anything else, so perhaps the rabbit has got the message. I hope so.

With the rocket having formed copious seed pods and the mesclun leaves all eaten, I decided it was time to clear the tunnel bed and add soil improvers and mulch ready for planting overwintering crops in the autumn. That meant lifting those poor sickly potatoes and in doing so, had a couple of surprises. The first was that there were far more potatoes than expected and we have enjoyed them in several meals; the first new potatoes of the year must be one of the biggest garden treats! The second is that although I had been maligning wireworm, it turned out that the problem was actually ants ~ there was a huge ants’ nest under every single root! I have read several gardening experts claiming that ants don’t really cause any problems in the garden and I’m afraid I have to disagree; not only do they farm aphids ~and boy, are they having a great time with that particular hobby this year ~ but their mining exploits can create havoc for young plants. Noticing that one of the butternut squashes on the hügel bed had gone into a state of collapse, I lifted it to find a horrendous amount of ant business going on underneath; last year, we lost aubergine plants in this way and I’m not holding out too much hope for the rescued squash.

Healthy, happy butternut squash plant . . .
. . . and the one the ants have probably done for.

We were very relieved when the rain finally arrived and gave everything a good soaking but of course, that meant the slugs and snails were in their element, too, and needless to say, they haven’t been holding back where the vegetables are concerned. I’m presowing all our beans this year in an attempt to outwit the bean seed fly and wireworm that caused such problems last year; so far, dwarf beans ‘Purple Teepee’ and ‘Stanley’ have been planted out, along with the climbing borlotti ‘Lingua di Fuoco’ and Asturian fabas. The slimy ones appear to have a preference for Italian cuisine this year as it’s the borlotti beans that are taking the worst hammering.

What can I do? Well, one of the beauties of starting these plants off in trays is that I can sow plenty of extras so there are always spares should I need to replace any. The real blessing with beans, though, is that we have an abundance of plants: 96 climbing beans in the potager, plus another 24 in the mandala bed. If we lose one or two, we probably aren’t going to suffer too much.

Climbing borlotti beans and Asturian beans (with the darker foliage) behind.
I planted 16 spare Asturian bean plants in the mandala garden, too . . . just in case.

Brassicas are probably one of the most difficult family of plants to grow well here; just the mere hint of a young cabbage plant going into the ground, and you can almost see the problems lining up in wait: flea beetle, whitefly, caterpillars, weevils, pigeons, heat . . . I’ve planted a few cauliflowers this year as a bit of a wild card (Brussels sprouts and swedes are the others) and quite frankly, given how tricky they are to grow at the best of times, I must need my bumps reading. Aphids ~ not usually a problem ~ have been a nightmare in the summer cabbages already and as for flea beetle, what can I say? I planted a sacrificial row of radishes next to a nursery row of brassicas in the hope of tempting the flea beetles away. Oh yes, they were tempted alright.

Unfortunately, not enough to keep them away from the brassicas, though. The purple sprouting broccoli seedlings are a miserable sight; I’ve covered them in the hope they will recover and have some extras sown in pots in the tunnel as back-up: PSB is one spring vegetable we can’t manage without!

Ever since we moved here, we’ve been sharing the garden with a feral cat. Black as night and sporting only half a tail, we nicknamed her ‘Slink’ after the way she moved, low-bellied and furtively, like a jaguar. She just about tolerated us ~ she was here first, after all! ~ and we respected her presence, never trying to befriend or feed her but happy to let her patrol the space. She never bothered the birds, voles were her speciality, and she particularly loved the log seat, sitting as still as a statue for hours on end and listening for the rustle of her next meal in the long grass. A few days ago, she was run over and killed along the lane and, despite the fact that she wasn’t ‘our’ cat, I feel a deep sadness at her loss. I miss her shadowy presence in the garden, her daily checking of the compost heap and her strident, undemanding independence. I also think it’s no coincidence that we suddenly have a rabbit in the garden . . .

Slink’s seat (minus Slink 😥)

Well, enough of the bad news: I mentioned balance earlier on and for every niggle there’s usually more than enough smiles to compensate. This must officially be the Week of the Baby Bird as the garden is full of them: blackbirds, song thrushes, mistle thrushes, robins, redstarts, blue tits, chaffinches and goldfinches have all hatched, and the fluffy fledglings are all over the place, trying to find their feet and wings. There are plenty more to follow, too, including cirl buntings in the hedge (a new one for us), spotted flycatchers in a stone wall niche and swallows in the Oak Shed. I’m particularly thrilled about the latter as they didn’t nest on our property at all last year; it does mean I’ll have to forego my wet weather washing line for a bit, but I’m happy to forgive them, they are so beautiful.

The cherry tree is full of young birds learning the art of PYO.

The garden is literally smiling in flowers and not just roses; there are drifts of colour in many places and the first cosmos and sweet peas are bringing a touch of soft pinks and purples to the vegetable garden. The passionflower that I brought here from Asturias as a less-than-promising twig has decided that it’s very happy in its new home. Those flowers are exquisite.

In keeping with the trend of incredible blossom this spring, the elderflowers are making a fantastic show and, unlike last year, I haven’t needed to go any further than our own hedgerows to forage for their foamy flowers. I’ve been making cordial and freezing it in batches to share with our summer visitors and also setting plenty of flowers to dry for winter teas ~ they are an excellent medicinal herb, especially if winter colds come calling. Naturally, I’ve left plenty to become autumn berries when there will be more foraging to be done and I suspect, a lot of birds tucking in, too.

Elderflowers and mints ready for drying.

On the food front, the harvest has started to come thick and fast: it’s amazing how quickly things take off once we reach a certain point in spring. Courgettes, artichokes, peas, broad beans, lettuce, chard, sorrel, gooseberries, strawberries, cherries . . . the season of plenty has begun.

As we start to set down stores of this year’s crops, it’s the perfect time to be using up anything left from last year. I’ve finished nearly all the dried herbs and flowers for tea and we have just eaten the last bag of beans from the freezer. We’ve also started working our way through the last (enormous) squash, one of our Asturian ‘specials’ which was harvested in October and has kept brilliantly, its dense orange flesh still firm and sweet. As we don’t tend to use the oven much this time of year, we’re making more summery dishes than roast tray bakes ~ squash soup, seed-encrusted squash patties, a squash dip with tahini and squash foldovers (a spicy squash and new potato filling stuffed inside garlic wraps) are some firm favourites. We love to try new things, though, and I have to say that squash tarte tatin has been a complete revelation with its buttery rough-puff pastry, soft, mallowy squash and bitter caramel; a small slice with our afternoon break (coffee for Roger, lemon verbena and lavender tea for me) is the perfect gardener’s treat . . . and on hot days, I’m beginning to wonder how we ever managed without the shade of the Love Shack! 😊

May moments #2

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Developing the vegetable garden has been a top priority ever since we moved here, and I have to admit the flower garden has felt like a relatively slow burn in comparison. Food obviously has to come first and I love the challenge and satisfaction of growing fruit and vegetables, but I am passionate about having a garden full of flowers, too. In Asturias, where our garden was so steep and growing areas were limited, I planted and encouraged flowers in any little space I could find in an approach that was very much the local way. Here, we have completely the opposite situation, a totally flat garden and masses of space, and as we started with what in essence was a blank canvas, the challenge has been how to make the best of it.

For a start, the last thing I wanted was anything that smacked too much of ‘formal’ flower beds or gardens. Giving nature free rein wherever possible is an important part of our approach, partly because wild flowers are so beautiful in themselves but mostly because they are so beneficial to the resident wildlife and an essential part of a healthy, balanced ecosystem. We have left large swathes of wild corridors uncut, several metres deep in places, and allowed the wildflowers to flourish; this in turn encourages biodiversity, including ~ we hope ~ plenty of pollinators and a wide variety of useful predators which will in turn help to control less-than-welcome visitors to our food crops.

These metallic blue day-flying forester moths feed on common sorrel and are a beautiful sight in the garden.

In other places, we just let the wildflowers grow as they want and if they mingle with ‘official’ plants, so much the better; at the moment we have several clumps of ox-eye daisies growing with calendula, such a lovely combination and one which I smiled to see had been used in a municipal planting scheme in a local town.

Perhaps society’s obsession with ridding the environment of ‘weeds’ is finally waning? If so, that’s a wonderful thing. Time for a walk on the wild side . . .

I’ve always had a soft spot for foxgloves and can’t imagine having a garden without them. I’ve known several people who pull them out of the ground on sight, refusing to tolerate them because they are poisonous. Well, yes they are . . . but only if you eat them! (Ironically, the same people happily plant daffodils and rhododendrons in their garden . . . ) Foxgloves are obviously not a safe candidate for home herbalism but their use in mainstream medicine to treat heart conditions is well-established; they are also an excellent companion plant for apple trees and therefore a helpful addition to an orchard. For me, their bright, untamed spires represent one of the great natural beauties of the season and I love to watch the visiting bumble bees disappearing deep inside the speckled flowers. I’m happy to let them seed themselves freely around the garden ~ which they certainly do! ~ and grow where they are happiest, rather than try and create a contrived setting for them. How could I improve on this?

Roger’s log seat with feature foxglove . . . a favourite contemplation spot.

Without question, one of the biggest ‘wild’ stars of the spring has been this campion; it has bloomed for weeks, and I love the way its pretty pink flowers obediently track the sun during the day, then turn back to the east in the evening ready to start again the next morning. Fascinating!

Much of my flower gardening relies on self-setting and one of the benefits of having scattered several varieties of annual seed in our first summer here is that we will have them for evermore. Californian poppies, both in traditional orange and more muted pinks, are certainly at home here and we have sunny banks of them in several places; they are currently marching at speed across the gravelled areas which is just the enthusiastic laissez-faire attitude I love.

Speaking of gravelled areas, our decision earlier this year to try and turn a former car parking area at the front of the house into a gravel garden felt like a slightly risky one; it’s not something we’ve ever tried before and we had no guarantee it would work, especially as beneath the gravel there is packed hardcore and heavy clay. Let’s just say planting starts with a pickaxe! However, it’s a case of so far, so good, and the young plants that have gone in are at last starting to make an impact. Next year, it should all look much fuller and as I’ve deliberately included reliable self-setters like granny’s bonnets, lady’s mantle and verbena bonariensis to join the foxgloves and verbascum that have already arrived of their own accord, it should continue to evolve to its own rhythm in the future.

When we started mapping out a flower garden at the back of the house early last year, the biggest challenge as far as I was concerned was getting the scale right. Basically, we are creating a garden by carving up an acre of what was little more than a field with a few apple trees in it and we’re lucky to have so much space to play with. Scale, however, can be a problem: make planting areas too big and they become unmanageable, too small and they just look ridiculous. I also disliked the fact that everything seemed so open and stark, so another problem was how to create a sense of gentle enclosure, to create a space that felt more contained and intimate without feeling too constrained or shady. Lastly, I wanted everything to curve and flow in an area that encourages wandering and weaving rather than marching in straight lines. Fine. We made a start . . .

March 2021
May 2021
May 2022

Sorting out some boundaries was the first job and here we plumped for an eclectic mix: a curved hedge of rugosa roses, a rustic support covered in clematis and climbing roses (this year I’ve planted a row of sunflowers behind it), another curve of cardoons and an area planted with a range of shrubs which will eventually fill the space. Along the front of the area, Roger built a low drystone wall ~ now home to a very healthy lizard population ~ and beyond that we have put up posts and wire to support a grapevine and thornless blackberry to create a living, edible screen. As the ‘hedges’ fill out and gain in height, the sense of an enclosed space is slowly developing; our plan is to put two small wooden arches covered in climbers to mark the entrances to the area and then all we need is to add a seat to sit and enjoy it.

Probably my biggest indulgence in planning this garden area was the inclusion of a mandala bed and I know I’ve written copiously about it before but please indulge me again because I’m just a tiny bit chuffed with how it’s turning out! This, I must admit, was another gamble and one where I could quite easily have fallen flat on my face, as I really had no idea what I was doing. That said, I’d still rather engage a sense of adventure and curiosity (however foolish) in the garden than simply trot out the same old predictable stuff all the time; if nothing else, it’s a great exercise for my grey matter and a wonderful opportunity to learn new skills and embrace different ideas. So, it all began last summer with a rock and a huge pile of cardboard . . .

June 2021
August 2021
March 2022
May 2022

The circle has an area of roughly 28m2 although obviously the planting area is less than that when the paths and rock space are taken into account. It’s more or less orientated to the compass points which gives me a handy way of labelling each of the eight sections. This is how they are currently planted:

  • North: climbing borlotti beans, strawberries, calendula, basil, dyer’s chamomile, red sorrel (self-set).
  • North-east: cucumbers, aubergines, chillies, sweet peppers, nasturtium.
  • East: annual flower seeds, strawberries.
  • South-east: courgettes.
  • South: lettuce, rainbow chard, strawberries, dyer’s chamomile.
  • South-west: summer cabbage, purple French beans, flat-leaved parsley, calendula, lemon bergamot.
  • West: annual flower seeds, strawberries, dyer’s chamomile.
  • North-west: melons, heartsease.

In all, there are 131 plants (excluding several phacelia and buckwheat volunteers and any other annual flowers that ~ hopefully! ~ will appear fairly soon), most of which are edible; the dyer’s chamomile is an exception, but it’s a useful plant, and the phacelia and buckwheat will become green manure. These are my thoughts on Project Mandala Bed so far:

  • It’s growing. A bit of a daft one to start with, perhaps, but quite significant all the same. Having spent the greatest part of my gardening life planting conventionally into carefully-prepared soil, I was highly sceptical that anything would grow ~ yet alone flourish ~ planted into what amounts to several layers of pretty rough organic material. No matter how many videos I watched of the wonderful Morag Gamble throwing coffee grounds around her no-dig garden in bare feet, I half expected everything to fail but didn’t want to write it off until I’d tried. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’m astounded . . . and converted!
Here come the cucumbers.
  • It’s easy to look after. I don’t like the concept of a ‘low-maintenance’ garden, because I believe passionately that, like raising a family or cooking a beautiful meal, a garden should require a bit of effort and a lot of love. However, that shouldn’t mean it’s all work and no play! There is no point in creating a garden that is one unbroken list of tedious chores: time to relax and enjoy it, to calm the mind or awaken the senses, are just as important. Also, I know I’m very lucky in that I can spend all my time gardening if I so wish but in my previous life spent raising a family, studying and working, a productive garden such as this that is a pleasure to be in but requires minimal attention would certainly have been a blessing. One of the things I love the best is that it’s so easy to check on everything: simply stand by the rock and turn round!
Freshly mulched and watered: the grass clippings won’t stay green for long and the damp earth soon dries . . . but together they bring a new, if fleeting, feel to the space.
  • It’s very clean. There are hardly any weeds and the few that appear are easily lifted. The worst area is around the herb hedge but trimming the grass now and again and keeping the plants heavily mulched helps to solve that problem. The size of the sections means I can reach all parts from the paths so it’s very simple to plant, water and check individual plants without treading on the planting areas. This is pretty important in a lasagne bed because I don’t want to cause any sort of compaction to the developing soil. The grass-mulched planting areas and wood-chip paths mean there is no mud which makes it a pleasure to work in; not that I mind getting my hands dirty, in fact I love the tactile experiences that come with gardening, including burying my hands in the earth, and rarely wear gloves for that reason. This patch is so clean, however, I could easily work in a ballgown if I felt the need. That’s if if I had such a thing, of course. 🤣
  • It’s full of life. When I open up planting pockets through the layers, they are teeming with earthworms which is good news since they are doing all the hard work of transforming the organic materials into nutrient-rich soil. The herbs that are currently flowering, namely sage, thyme and Welsh onions, are attracting a wide range of insects which then (theoretically) will be encouraged to visit the food crop flowers, too. As there is absolutely no need for digging, hoeing or raking, all the ‘work’ I do is at ground level which means I have the perfect opportunity to observe these essential visitors as they go about their business. I also like to watch from the balcony just before bed as that is when the birds take over. A robin dominates the rock, a redstart sits on the cucumber supports and a spotted flycatcher on the beanpoles, all staking claim to their personal territory and using them as a vantage point for spotting the next snack. Blackbirds rummage through the mulch, scattering it all over the paths (bless them), and a huge song thrush bounces through on kangaroo legs. A pair of pied wagtails runs about picking tiny insects from the surfaces and there are often goldfinches in the mix, too . . . which may well explain where some of my annual flower seeds have gone. I’m not grumbling; last year, this was a patch of sterile grass growing in compacted earth and now it bustles with a diversity of living things. I love that.
  • It’s evolving. When I set out on this great experiment, I had no planting plan in mind whatsoever and knew from the start that I didn’t want to become too precious about it. Geometric shapes don’t have to automatically mean formality. The herbs around the edge were planted totally randomly ~ they had to be, since I needed thirty two plants from five different varieties which didn’t lend itself to any precise maths or patterns. Of those plants, only one (a hyssop) failed to make it through winter, so I’ve replaced it with a spare sage plant and no-one will ever guess. The plants go into the ground as and when they are ready; I’ve grown nothing specially for the bed, everything has simply been leftovers from the main vegetable garden ‘nursery’. I refused to lose the Battle of the Lettuce, especially as I had hundreds of plants, and eventually the wireworm decided to give up but where I’ve lost a few other bits and pieces, I’ve simply popped something else in. A tiny basil crumpled, so I replaced it with lemon bergamot, and a cabbage that withered and died is now flat-leaved parsley. When we harvest the plants ~ and we will be doing that, this is not a purely ornamental activity ~ there will be other stars waiting in the wings for their turn; for instance, when those lettuce and cabbages are finished, they will be making way for tomatoes. I love the fact that phacelia, buckwheat and red sorrel have moved in of their own accord and self-setting is something I shall be encouraging.
  • It’s a place of peace. When I first started out on this adventure, I was toying with the idea of putting some sort of simple bench seat in the middle, but when Roger found that beautiful quartz rock there was no argument as to what should be the central feature. The lack of seat doesn’t matter, because I have discovered that the wood-chip paths stay warm and dry and there is enough room for me to sit in comfort on the ground with my back against the rock and enjoy the space; what’s more, there’s no excuse for being bored, as I have a choice of eight outlooks. At that level, I can either observe the fascinating minutiae of life going on around me ~ the honey bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, miner bees, solitary wasps, hoverflies, butterflies, beetles, spiders, ants and a whole host of other creatures busy within the circle ~ or I can close my eyes, listen to the chatter of the swallows overhead and the gentle purring of turtle doves in the trees around me, breathing in the scent of the aromatic plants being stirred by their insect visitors. I find myself drawn there more and more. It’s simply beautiful. I really can’t ask for more than that, can I?

May moments #1

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I’ve always been pretty hopeless when it comes to choosing ‘memorable data’ for website security purposes because I think life is too rich with possibilities to reduce everything to favourites. My favourite colour? I love blue, but then there’s green and purple, all in so many delicious shades, not to mention an entire rainbow of other choices depending on my mood. Memorable place? Favourite food? Forget it. However, I think if anyone asked me at the moment about a favourite month, I might just be tempted to say May, for it surely must be one of the most beautiful times of the year. I love the sheer energy of it, the bursting, burgeoning, buzzing life, the growth, the warmth, the light, the lushness, the softness of the air, the scent of flowers and the downright dazzling green of it all. It’s not just the beauty of the landscape, either; the hungry gap is behind us, the garden gathering strength and delivering on its promise of new seasonal goodies, fresh and inspiring. How can I feel anything other than sheer delight when gathering trugs of such green gorgeousness?

It’s not all rosy in the garden, though. The dry weather has taken its toll on a few things, even large established trees like one of our hollies which is dropping its leaves. Roger has been painstakingly watering all the small trees and hedging plants we have put in, a labour of love considering how many there are. The timing of this extraordinary and extended dry spell is just bad luck but we really don’t want to lose these plants which will bring so much to the patch in years to come. Most of them are hanging on and looking fine; it’s wonderful to have red rugosa roses at last and it’s interesting to see several new (for us) varieties bursting into life.

Sichuan pepper
Bladder senna

Sticking with my commitment to not buying bedding plants, I decided to sow a couple of baskets for the Love Shack with a mix of edible annual flowers; they are hanging on the north side, so get plenty of sun this time of year but miss the worst of the heat and they’re looking very promising so far. I’m hoping they should make a colourful splash that’s completely in keeping with the nature of a potager in a few weeks’ time.

The newly-planted window boxes are looking a bit stark, but they will get there given time and the first tiny violas (or heartsease, heart’s delight, tickle-my-fantasy, Jack-Jump-up-and-kiss-me . . . so much more fun!) have just opened their perfectly exquisite flowers. Meanwhile, in the other troughs, the lettuces are not holding back. Mmm, pelargoniums have definitely had their day.

This week’s culinary delights haven’t all been green: here is a sight to gladden the heart . . . and my breakfast bowl. 🥰

In fact, it looks like being a bumper year for fruit ~ one of the benefits of several weeks of settled, warm weather at blossom time. We are close to the first picking of gooseberries and the currant bushes are covered with trusses of green fruit. The cherry trees are loaded, including a couple that produced nothing last year, and the apple trees are looking equally as good; what they all need now is a good dollop of rain.

I’m very excited about the prospect of raspberries this year. Last season, we had a tiny handful, just enough to help identify all but one plant as summer-fruiting varieties. If the previous owners cut the canes to ground level every winter as they had done just before we moved in, they must never have had any fruit! Last year’s growth is covered in dainty white flowers which in turn are literally buzzing with honey bees; someone will be enjoying a good floral honey and we should reap the benefits of all that industrious pollination. Note the lack of poles, wires or fruit cage: I’m with Bob Flowerdew on that one, horizontal canes are far easier to pick and I’m happy to wade into the jungle when the time comes. If the birds want to tuck in a bit, I’m happy to share, too; we’ve never lost an entire soft fruit crop to them, the secret is to have plenty to go round.

Enthusiastic raspberries plus a couple of blackcurrants and (companion plant) comfrey.
A honey bee does the business.

Temperatures in the tunnel have been sweltering, meaning both doors are propped open all day and it dries out quickly . . . but rather that than losing plants to the heat. I’m pleased with how much better the soil is retaining moisture this year which means we don’t have to worry about watering so often. I’ve put a mix of chopped nettle and comfrey leaves around the base of each plant as a slow-release fertiliser and then mulched the lot with grass clippings. The first flowers have appeared on the chillies, peppers and melons and there are plenty of busy insects in there so I’m hoping this will be a far more productive space than last year.

From the far end: chillies, sweet peppers, aubergines and melons (plus bonus mouse-planted peas) with basil, flat-leaved parsley and French marigolds along the front.

The indoor courgette is enormous, and with the first outdoor ones now also cropping, they are compulsory daily eating. We’ve had a better harvest from the very short row of peas than any we ever planted in Asturias (we never understood why they wouldn’t grow well there), lots of meals and a couple of bags in the freezer; even the little Mouse Gardens have been producing. On the downside, the potatoes are not looking great and we suspect they are full of wireworm, but if they have to be a sacrificial crop to clear the pests out, so be it. The lettuce are still going strong, however; in the photo below, the middle one was cut last week and has already re-grown from the stem I left in the ground. Lazy Regenerative gardening at its best. 😆

We’re not given to doing the tourist thing very often, a local walk or bike ride from home with a picnic is as far as we ever really feel inclined to go. However, when an appointment in Falaise (about an hour’s drive away) became inevitable last week, we decided to make a day of it, treat ourselves to lunch en terrasse and have a wander round this attractive Norman town that we haven’t visited for many years.

Falaise was the birthplace of one of Normandy’s most famous figures, Guillame le Bâtard – better know to anglophones as William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and, following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, King of England. William had many obstacles to overcome in his life, not least the stain of illegitimacy and inheriting the duchy from his father as a very young child, but the imposing statue of him close to Falaise castle, dressed in full battle gear and sitting astride a monstrous horse, leaves the visitor in no doubt of the burly, powerful and often-feared leader he was to become.

Britain is littered with Norman castles and, whether they are crumbling ruins or spectacularly preserved monuments, at times it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of romanticising about them. Falaise castle, for me, has always seemed like the epitome of what these buildings actually represented: power, control and military might. It’s grim and forbidding, perched high on a rocky outcrop (la falaise means ‘cliff’) and dominated the surrounding landscape in a way that left no-one in doubt as to who was in charge; forget knights in shining armour rescuing damsels in distress, this was the real formidable and authoritarian deal.

The castle keep had an inspired interior makeover some years ago and for a modest entrance fee, it’s possible to walk on glass floors and follow an illuminating audio tour; we did it a couple of times on holiday with our children some years ago, so decided instead just to enjoy the rest of the castle grounds within the walls which are freely open to all. There’s much to see and learn, helped by plenty of information boards in French and English and viewing posts where you look through ‘binoculars’ to see an artist’s impression of what different parts of the castle looked like in its heyday. It’s worth wandering about simply to enjoy the elevated views over the old town and the surrounding countryside, rolling and richly wooded ~ such a stark contrast to the wide open Norman plains just a stone’s throw to the north.

A feature that wasn’t there last time we visited is a medieval garden, small but perfectly formed, and which (of course) drew me like a magnet. It was crammed with plants and thoughtfully organised into different sections including food plants, complete with medieval recipes, and a jardin des simples for medicines, with descriptions of the ailments each was used to treat.

Given my natural fibre addiction, I loved the section containing plants like flax for linen, woad (the indigo of the north) for dyeing, teasels for carding wool and soapwort for washing textiles. It was fascinating to see just how many of the same plants we grow in our own garden today, and of the missing few, we’ve grown several in the past but don’t bother with now ~ things like tansy, which I don’t grow any more because I can’t stand the smell of it. Pathetic, I know, but it struck me how lucky I am to have that choice; no matter where people stood in the medieval feudal hierarchy, they all needed food, medicines and clothes and the ability to grow and process these plants was an essential skill for the survival of all.

Yellow woad flowers and blue flax: what a gorgeous combination.

Back home, and we had a ‘medieval moment’ of our own when we decided to cook dinner using our Dutch cauldron, something we haven’t done in ages. It’s a brilliantly simple way of cooking and perfect for creating a long, slow-cooked meal at this time of year when the stove isn’t lit and we don’t want the electric oven on for hours. We remove the hanging grill from the tripod barbecue and hang the pot from the chains over a fire of waste wood which is kept ticking over as embers rather than flames; we always save wood from pruning or logging to use for barbecues but as in this instance the food is inside the cauldron, any old scraps of wood will do. Into the pot went a piece of high welfare pork from a local farm along with garlic, onions, herbs and spices and an old bottle of Asturian cider which Roger was given at a race eons ago and we never fancied drinking. The cauldron was left to simmer away for a good three hours and the smell of cooking that drifted around the garden as we worked was completely tantalising! It’s perfectly possible to create an entire meal by adding potatoes and other vegetables to the mix or else tucking some baking potatoes into the embers along with foil packages of veggies ~ Swiss chard works very well cooked that way. We seem to be a source of endless fascination to certain local people who drive slowly along the lane with (as Roger puts it) their ‘heads on sideways’, having a good look at what The Crazies are up to now; I’m not sure whether it’s curiosity, amusement, admiration or horror but I think our bubbling cauldron scored a few extra points on the raised eyebrow front. Ah well, it’s better than being boring, I say. 😉

Dinner cooking itself while we carried on with the gardening.

Our bedroom window is, in fact, a full length glass door and I’m happy that we’ve reached the time of year when it can stay wide open all night; there’s a screen door beyond it to ensure we don’t get eaten by beasties and having added the balcony last year, there’s no danger of falling if we decide to take up sleepwalking. The nights here are blissfully quiet, the silence only punctuated by the occasional bark of a fox, the call of owls and, in the warmer months, the pulsating chirrup of crickets, so I was a bit puzzled to wake one night hours ahead of the rowdy dawn chorus to hear woodlarks singing. Woodlarks? At 2am? Really? Knowing it probably wouldn’t be appreciated if I woke Roger to ask if he could hear them, I tiptoed downstairs and went outside to listen . . . and yes, there really were woodlarks singing somewhere close to the garden. It was quite magical, even though I was still wondering if it wasn’t my ears or imagination playing tricks (or me just simply losing the plot). A quick scout on the internet reassured me that I wasn’t: apparently, it’s a fairly common phenomenon but since woodlarks tend to live in areas of wild heathland, their night song isn’t often heard by humans. Not going mad then, just very blessed. A few nights later, a cuckoo spent several hours in the trees around the garden, calling madly in the moonlight, and this time Roger heard it, too. Is there something in the May air that means the birds are too busy to sleep?

One thing I had really been hoping to hear at night was the sound of rain falling on the roof and gurgling down the gutters into the water butts below but, despite the promise of showers in the forecast, nothing transpired. We have been hauling water to keep plants alive but everything has looked so pinched and miserable and many things have failed to thrive, plus the weather conditions seem to have sparked a massive boom in the aphid population; I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many. The French meteorological report makes for interesting ~ if sobering ~ reading: since September 2021, France has had 20% less precipitation than normal, December being the only month in that period that delivered anything close to average rainfall and with the problem exacerbated by higher than normal temperatures, many areas including ours have been officially deemed ‘very dry’ to a degree that is more usual in August than May. Local farmers have held off planting maize and sunflowers and when they can wait no longer, they have been drilling into a dust bowl. I’ve been playing the same waiting game with the last of our pre-sown plants to go in, the sweetcorn, beans, leeks and artichokes, all bursting out of pots and trays but in desperate need of moister, softer ground.

Sweetcorn: happy to be in the ground at last.

It’s been frustrating but finally – finally! – the rain arrived in the form of an almighty thunderstorm and pelted down for twenty minutes or so; I stood on the doorstep watching it and listening to the blackbirds warbling loudly through it, as thrilled as me to be getting wet at last. The strangest thing was the smell, though: it wasn’t that lovely, fresh, earthy, herbal scent that so often comes with the first rain after a dry spell but something slightly unpleasant like a stagnant muddy pond, I think because of the sheer amount of dust everywhere. It was nowhere near enough rain, just sufficient to damp things down and put a bit back in the butts, but it was incredible how much perkier everything looked the next morning: we can water as much as we like, but there is nothing like rain! We’ve had other storms since, this time leaving everything fresh and sparkling; there’s a good chance things will survive now and I shall be very relieved not to be carrying heavy cans for a while. I even have time to enjoy the flowers . . . but that’s for another post!😊

Storm clouds over the garden . . . rain at last.

Peas, preserves and planting

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It’s quite the year for blossom and the air is so heavily scented, it’s almost intoxicating. Setting my morning tea to brew, I wander outside in my pyjamas, listen to the babble of the birds and simply breathe. In France, lily-of-the-valley with its delicate waxen flowers and heavenly perfume is traditionally associated with May Day, but in the local landscape there is no doubting that the wilder, more seductive hawthorn is the May queen; the trees and hedgerows are a blizzard of come-hither white and alive with the attention of pollinators. I’ve been watching the honey bees working in the large hawthorn next to the (still very empty) pond and I’m struck by their rather agitated and feisty attitude, the kind that beekeepers expect in August when the honey stores are full and in need of protection. Is there something about the may blossom that puts them on edge, I wonder? Or maybe it’s the weather, this strange mix of hot sunshine, cold wind and air so dry it almost crackles? Whatever is going on, the little honeys certainly wouldn’t sit still for a photo.

A bit wound up – but just look at those bulging pollen baskets.

The moles are restless, too, pushing up mountainous tumps as they tunnel ever deeper in search of worms; this dry weather doesn’t seem to suit them much, either. Where the hills appear in grass, I’m gathering the soil to mix with compost and use as a planting mix for the tender outdoor vegetables but I really wish they would stop tunnelling under the garden and lifting young plants; I’ve had to tread more cabbages, lettuce, garlic and broad beans back in than I can count, but at least the deep mulch around them is doing its job and there is still moisture around their roots. That’s more than can be said for the seedlings which are struggling enough already without being pushed out of the ground on a regular basis; I just have to keep tucking them back in, watering and hoping they survive the ongoing battle.

Mulched and moled . . . hopefully we will be eating these ‘Greyhound’ cabbages in a few weeks’ time.

On the subject of battles, I was born a few miles from the site of the Battle of Shrewsbury where, in July 1403, King Henry IV fought an army of rebel barons led by Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy, and English archers unleashed the deadly longbow on each other for the first time. The events of the battle are well-documented but for me, the most poignant fact is that the battle took place in a field of peas. I can’t begin to imagine the terrible carnage wrought by medieval warfare but I’ve often wondered what sort of longer term misery the destruction of that valuable crop must have brought. The pea plants would have been fixing nitrogen and so enriching the soil (centuries before the advent of synthetic agricultural fertilisers), the straw made good fodder for animals, especially cattle, and the peas themselves would have been destined to be dried and stored to be eaten as an essential source of vegetable protein during the lean months of winter and spring, with some saved for planting the following year. History tells how young Prince Hal made a miraculous recovery from an arrow wound in the face and lived to become the famous soldier-king, Henry V . . . but how many ordinary folk struggled (or failed) to survive the winter because a vital harvest was trampled beneath the hooves of destriers?

Not the field peas of Shrewsbury but an early crop of green peas in the tunnel, perfect to eat raw in salads.

These days, of course, the citizens of Shrewsbury have a wide choice of commercial outlets where they can buy a huge range of food in all seasons and from all over the globe . . . and yet food security remains a salient concern; the effects of the pandemic and events in Ukraine have highlighted just how fragile and vulnerable the ‘just in time’ food supply chain is and if we add climate change, loss of topsoil, scarcity of water and the like, the picture can seem somewhat gloomy. For me, the answer is simply to get out there and grow food; we are very lucky that we have the time, space and wherewithal and for that, I am extremely grateful. We have never set out to be self-sufficient but more and more, it makes sense to produce and use as much as we can.

The first ‘Latino’ courgette ready for harvest in the tunnel: crisp and nutty, we sliced it raw into a salad.

On a recent foray to the charity shop to buy some ‘new’ books, I was delighted to pick up a copy of Tribes of Britain by eminent archaeologist David Miles; I’m thoroughly enjoying it and I’m glad that at 450 pages long, I shouldn’t finish it too quickly. Agriculture (and by association, gardening) arrived in the British Isles relatively late and I find myself fascinated by the lives of those early peoples who hunted and gathered in my native land before they became farmers. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not given to romanticising history; life was tough and brutally short and I’m not planning to take up flint knapping any time soon, although I suspect it would be an interesting activity and a skill I would struggle to perfect. I simply find that the more I read, the more I find inspiration in the innovation, resilience and above all, adaptability, that those people demonstrated; there are still valuable lessons there for us today, so many millennia later. Having spent the last year establishing a garden where we can grow food, our focus this year is on using every scrap of what we manage to produce. In many ways, it’s an exciting project and we’re busy researching a wealth of different methods of using and preserving our harvest. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks; we’re never too old to learn and the fact that things like sourdough bread, herbal teas and lacto-fermented vegetables have become a part of our everyday lives in recent years is testament to that. It’s only taken us 30 years to discover that Jerusalem artichokes are delicious raw and there is still a list of new foods I’d like to try growing. Interesting times ahead!

We don’t see globe artichokes as a veggie portion, more like an opportunity: even a single heart can be the star attraction on a homemade pizza.

We’re already researching a number of new techniques to try and different preserves to make through the summer and autumn seasons, especially using what we hope will be a bumper crop of peppers, aubergines, beans and courgettes (I don’t use the word ‘glut’ any more, we simply can’t have too much of anything!). Chutneys and pickles are top of the list and where fruit is concerned, the juice press doesn’t have to be limited to apples.

The soft fruit is already setting: these are redcurrants.

We’re planning to build a simple smoker and Roger fancies a go at home brewing, something we haven’t done for years. There’ll be lots of drying to be be done, too; dried apple rings and fruit leathers have been a hit and we’ve pretty much emptied the herbal tea jars so I have a good idea of what we need to collect more of this year – I’ve already started drying peppermint on the windowsills and as Roger has developed a taste for meadowsweet, we definitely need a few good foraging trips along the lanes once that’s in flower.

Pre-sown French beans emerging from the compost: the plants grow so quickly, they are ready to plant out within days.

I’m not a big fan of bedding plants although I recognise their usefulness and have been guilty on occasion of succumbing to their ease-of-life attractions. They are, however, something of an ecological nightmare, requiring vast quantities of heat, water, compost, plastic, chemical treatments and transportation in order to provide what amounts to a few weeks of colour before next season’s offerings arrive in the shops; they’re a sort of ‘fast fashion’ of the floral world. This time last year, having so many other things to do, I bought a tray of trailing pelargoniums in the hope of having a reliable splash of summer colour in the window boxes at the front of the house, something that wouldn’t require too much fuss and which could cope with the heat. To be fair to the plants, they did the job.

The problem for me, though, is that they are pretty sterile things and offer very little else: they have no scent, they don’t really work as cut flowers and the insects shun them, Also, despite my best nurturing efforts in the tunnel, only three of them made it through the winter. In contrast, the pansies that preceded them were far more generous. Yes, they were also bedding plants but they provided a wider range of colour and a valuable food supply for bumble bees in particular in early spring; they are an edible flower for us, too, and popped their seeds all over the gravel giving me plenty of seedlings to lift and replant. I have to admit the babies were very slow to get going – we’ve had a few slug issues – but they’ve been worth the wait. It’s has had me thinking that for this summer I’m going to do things differently: it could be a raging success or an unmitigated disaster but I won’t know until I’ve tried. I’ve planted the three pelargoniums in a hanging basket for the little courtyard outside the back door and filled the troughs they were in last year with mixed lettuce plants and a few nasturtium seeds. I’ve also planted a blue glazed pot with flat-leaved parsley and violas in the hope that, together with the pots of herbs on the wall, this area will sing out the ‘food and flowers’ thing I’ve got going on everywhere.

Mixed lettuce are an attractive feature: these in the tunnel are growing with self-set red sorrel.

For the window boxes, I’m raising some zinnias from seed, which I’m hoping will provide long-lasting pops of bright colours and a feast for butterflies and hoverflies, with violas and a few trailing nasturtiums sown between to pick for salads. It’s going to be a long way from the traditional look but I can’t help feeling it’s a better way of doing things. We’ll see . . .

The zinnias which came in a seed mix were a big hit in the garden last year.

The annual flower seedlings are struggling in this dry weather, the soil is so parched and they desperately need rain. Not surprisingly, it’s the sunflowers that are looking the happiest and nasturtium volunteers are bombing up everywhere. There is certainly no shortage of flowers to enjoy at the moment, though; I just hope we still manage a riot of summer colour. Come on, rain.

Today is officially the Big Plant-a-thon: I’ve started planting a few things out, but the next few hours are going to be spent getting everything into the ground – French, borlotti and Asturian beans, squash, aubergines, peppers, chillies, melons and the rest of the courgettes. They’ll all need watering which is going to pretty much empty the last of our rain butts but there is a tiny glimmer of hope on the horizon with a slight possibility of showers this afternoon before the temperature hikes up into the mid-twenties for the foreseeable future. There’s an old country saying that goes Be it dry or be it wet, Nature always pays the debt . . . I have all my fingers and toes crossed that it’s sooner rather than later! 😬

At least the potatoes are coping with the drought.