Battle of the Brassicas

The idea of a French-style Potager where vegetables, herbs and fruit jostle attractively with cottage garden flowers, is very appealing.   However, if I tried the aesthetic approach with the cabbages, they wouldn’t last long.  The red varieties are particularly beautiful but all brassicas need more care and attention than other crops because they like specific growing conditions (lime) and they are plagued by pests.

The raised bed allocated to the brassicas this year does not look pretty but it is a very effective vegetable fortress and keeps all the cabbage-loving critters at bay.  The mesh is very fine and will keep the pigeons and insects out.  Cabbage white butterflies have to flutter by too.  They like to lay their eggs on the undersides of the leaves.  The eggs grow into caterpillars that then eat all the leaves.  As for the slugs, the bed has been treated with biological nematodes and for double measure, each plant has a sprinkling of organic slug pellets too.

In addition, each cabbage has a collar round the base to protect it from cabbage root fly.  This little demon lays its eggs on the soil at the base of the cabbages and when the eggs hatch, the maggots tunnel down to feed on the roots, effectively killing the cabbage. I buy packets of cabbage collars but they are expensive and I must start making my own from bits of old carpet.  They are simple enough to make, for each one you just need to cut a smallish circle, cut a straight line halfway through the circle and then cut either side so it forms a Y shape.  Then you just slip one around the base of each plant, though you need to be careful you do not damage the stem – I always have a few spare plants waiting in the wings just in case.

This year I am growing some pointed, small Hispi cabbages, white cabbages for coleslaw and our favourite red cabbage for an autumnal, spicy braise to go with pork.  Checking on progress will be challenging though.  I might need some SAS training to get under the mesh.

....And we're off!

It may have been a slow start this season but Springfield has definitely sprung and is galloping along so quickly, I can’t keep up with it.  I still have a broken left foot and this is not helping the situation.  I am not fit enough to chase after the garden but thankfully, Doc isn’t working this bank holiday weekend.  He was looking forward to a few days off and perhaps the opportunity to enjoy a Saturday as well as a Sunday paper, but he will probably think differently by the time I’ve finished prioritising his list of jobs!

The rhubarb forcer has delivered the goods and a few days ago we tasted the most sublime early (time is relative this year!) rhubarb.  The stems were candy pink and fragile and needed no more than a sprinkling of orange zest and a little sugar.  I poached it gently for a few minutes and we enjoyed it with local, vanilla ice cream.  Simply delicious.  We shall force some rhubarb next year but since it puts stress on the plant we will us a different crown. 

Today, the sun shone all day and someone turned up the heater.   It felt good to feel warmth on my face. The magnolia is a white froth of loveliness and the scent fills the garden.  The camelia is also in full bloom and the borders are bursting with perennials.  I’m sure I will manage to pot on the tomato plants in the greenhouse and I am hoping the tiny asparagus tips (finally) poking through the soil, will soon be big enough for me to harvest.  No injury will stop me making a hollandaise sauce and poached eggs to go with the lightly steamed asparagus.

Last weekend I ventured out (in the cold) for a potter around (Doc allows pottering) and I took the radio with me for my weekly fix of BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time.  I was examining a patch of golden and red dogwood and cursed the Lily of the Valley encroaching on its space.  No amount of cold, drought, flood, poor soil or absence of light stops it from creeping up on everything.  It is such a weed in our garden, a blight on the landscape and one of the few plants I would happily give away.  However, there was a lady on GQT who was asking how she could grow it!  Apparently, she had tried for 40 years without success.  And here we are, trying everything available to kill it!  We cannot even claim skill and perseverance.  The LOTV was here when we came and will probably still be here when we are long gone. 

Gardeners often have plants they cannot control or plants they cannot grow at all, whatever they try.  The plant that I would love to grow is aubretia.   In our village, several of the cottages have high, beautiful stone walls with purple, lilac or blue aubretia cascading down to the footpath.  It may be considered a cliché and suburban but aubretia makes a beautiful statement in springtime.  I love it.  We also have a stone wall and a rockery but can I grow it?  Not at all.  It looks good for about 10 minutes and then succumbs. I blame some unidentifiable critters rather than the gardeners in residence.  If anyone out there has any foolproof tips, please let me know.  Such is the life of a gardener.

Too much brown

There are many reasons why I write a gardening blog, one of which is that it is a useful garden diary.  It is interesting to look back and see what we were doing last year and beyond.

So, around this time in April 2012, I was praising the Persicaria which was in flower.  I was also sowing parsnip seeds and Doc was helping me re-plant the bed at the front of the house with new perennials.  The hungry gap was over and on the 14th April, we enjoyed Rhubarb from a very verdant rhubarb patch.  All systems were go, go, go.

 

Rhubarb for crumble - 14th April 2012

Further back, on the 8th April 2011 I was coping with a very unpleasant eye allergy.  However, I had managed to plant out peas, mange tout and lettuces.  The narcissi in the orchard helped lift my spirits but not as much as the asparagus did.  Not only were we picking it on 21st April but had been doing so for 3 weeks!

8th April 2011

What a difference a couple of years makes?  Today, the only productive plant outside in the garden is.... actually, there ISN’T a productive plant apart from a frost bitten bay tree, one brownish-looking rosemary bush and a tired thyme plant.  There isn't a hint of a shoot in the asparagus bed, the rhubarb is just unfurling a leaf or two and planting out the mange tout would be cruel.

 

There are strawberry plants in a raised bed but they are struggling to keep going.  No sooner do they put on a fresh green leaf than the frost turns it to a mush.  Their colleagues in the greenhouse are fine and I wish I had dug the outside ones up and found room for them inside too. 

 

Last week, I was concerned that the early seed potatoes might give up altogether if I did not take pity on them, so I plunged them into a raised bed and then covered them with plastic.  But I expect Bob Flowerdew would think I am mad doing this.

The temperatures have crept into double digits this weekend but it is still cold for the time of year.  Plants continue to do well the greenhouse though and I have moved some to the cold frame.  But they do need to be outside so they can explode into growth.  The lettuces are proving to be tough and I have several pots of cut and come again salad leaves which we snip daily.  The salad rocket supplies a little bit of heat to cheer us up. 

I have doubts the Morning Glory plants will barely have the stature to hold themselves upright, even if they have a nice arch to support them.  (Doc persevered to erect this in a rather brisk Southerly wind today!)  They are green but they don't look strong at all.  There are sweet peas which could be hardened off and planted out but I don't think they will do any more outside than they are inside.

I think we are at least a month behind and if we don’t get some continuing warm weather, we might not catch up at all.  Today, Doc searched the orchard and found 12 narcissi to pick and bring into the house.  12 is better than nil, isn’t it?  Never give up, is out motto. Still, we have found a new BBC programme to watch.  'Beechgrove Garden' from Scotland, is absolutely fabulous.  We love it! 

Easter Treats

 Well, it's still cold, but the sun it has been sunny today.   We cannot complain too much because an early Easter is always a gamble with the weather.   Doc and I can remember many March Easters and they were usually wet ones spent confined in our caravan, trying to invent yet another card game to entertain the children.    

We are doubly reminded to manage our weather expectations at Easter because we got married on the 27^th March which was an Easter Monday.  It was a very windy but dry day, so windy in fact my veil turned into a sail and we had to have the photographs taken inside the church.  Last March, our anniversary meal comprised of lunch at a smart restaurant and we sipped cocktails on a sunny, warm terrace (I wore a sleeveless dress!) and this year (Jade, number 35), I wore boots and it snowed!

We are visiting some friends on Easter Sunday and Jay has a houseful of folks.  She has asked me to contribute to the larder by making a cake which I am delighted to do because baking at home has to err on the ‘plain’ side nowadays - otherwise our waistlines overflow our trousers.  And let’s face it, I am not busy in the garden planting seed potatoes.  I am more likely to cook them for dinner!

So I thought an Easter themed cake is a must so I nipped down to the village to buy extra eggs and some mini chocolate Easter Eggs to decorate the top of my cake.  Apparently, there has been a last minute rush to buy mini chocolate eggs.  No-one is in the garden and everyone is baking a cake.  Typical!

Anyway, after visiting two more shops I sourced mini eggs and they could have been golden ones, such was my pleasure at managing to find some.  So in the interests of sharing, here is my recipe for Easter Chocolate Cake – and mini chocolate eggs are compulsory!

175 g (6 ozs) caster sugar

175 g (6 ozs) butter, softened in the microwave for a few seconds

175 g (6 ozs) SR flour with 2 rounded tablespoonfuls of it removed

3 large eggs

1 ½ tsps baking powder

2 rounded tables cocoa powder

Drop of milk

Method:  Put all the ingredients into a mixing bowl and beat with an electric hand mixer until smooth and light.  The mixture should fall of the spoon easily so if it is a little stiff, add a drop more milk.   Divide the mixture between 2 x 7 inch (18 cm) round cake tins lining with baking parchment.  Bake in a pre-heated oven 180 C, 350 F, Gas mark 4 for 25-30 minutes until springy and slightly shrinking away from the sides of the tin.  Cool the cakes on a wire rack.

Chocolate Icing:  Put 50 g (2 ozs) butter and 2 rounded tablespoons each of cocoa powder and milk into a saucepan.  Heat gently but don’t let it get too hot.  Remove from the heat and stir in 225 g (8 ozs) icing sugar and a few drops of vanilla essence.  Beat well and cool slightly, until it is thick enough to spread without running all over the place.  Use the chocolate icing to sandwich the two cakes together and spread the rest on the top.  Swirl it about and decorate with grated white chocolate, chocolate mini eggs (!) and an Easter chick or two.

We love rich chocolate cake but it is not everyone’s choice so I have also made a lemon drizzle loaf which is much lighter and has a zingy, refreshing taste.  I expect Doc will have a slice of both cakes.  Actually, so will I!

Lemon Drizzle loaf

175 g (6 ozs) caster sugar

175 g (6 ozs) butter, softened in the microwave for a few seconds

175 g (6 ozs) SR flour

3 large eggs

1 ½ tsps baking powder

Finely grated rind of 3 lemons

Drop of milk

Method: Line a large 2 lb loaf tin with baking parchment and pre-heat the oven to 170 C, 325 F, Gas mark 3.  Put all the ingredients into a mixing bowl and beat with an electric hand mixer until smooth and light.  The mixture should fall of the spoon easily so if it is a little stiff, add a drop more milk.  Spoon into the loaf tin and bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle, comes out clean. 

Put 175 g (6 ozs) granulated sugar into a saucepan and add the juice of the 3 lemons used above.  Boil the syrup for a minute or two and pour over the lemon loaf whilst it is still hot, in its tin.  Leave to cool for half an hour and then turn out on a wire rack to cool completely.   You can just mix the lemon juice with the sugar and pour over the cake.  It makes a lovely crunchy topping, however, since the lemon juice is not cooked, the cake will not keep as long.  Though to be fair, we have never kept a lemon drizzle cake longer than a couple of days anyway......

Happy Easter!

Daffodils rescued from the snow

 

We must not be beaten

Doc and I are keen gardeners but keeping our spirits up at the moment is a difficult.  I can’t remember seeing so much snow at the end of March, nor have I ever felt quite so cold for so long.  But whilst the thermometer sticks stubbornly at the bottom of the scale, we gardeners must find a way of carrying on the best we can.

Springfield disappeared under an 8 inch blanket of the white stuff and I have rescued a dozen or more daffodils flattened by the drifts and put them in a vase on the kitchen table.  They are a statement of intent.  Spring WILL spring forth, we must believe that.



Sagging Choisya 26th March 2013

Those of us with south facing window sills and greenhouses can weather the storm to a certain extent because we can do some indoor gardening.  Overnight, our greenhouse turned into an igloo decorated with icicles but inside it, it was a different story altogether.   Granted there was a reduced amount of light but underneath the unheated propagators our Mange Tout peas, Morning Glory and Cosmos seedlings and trays of assorted lettuces were lovely and warm and growing away quite nicely.  In fact it was so warm I took off my gloves and hat.  Snow is a superb insulator and the stone slabs in the greenhouse absorb the warmth and prevent the temperature from dipping too low in the middle of the night.  I really should buy a maximum/minimum thermometer to see just how warm it does get in there but I never get round to it.

Also nestled under glass are tubs of strawberries in full leaf and the pots of early carrots are happily growing away.  The parsley is perky and lush green and I have no doubts that the leek and beetroot seeds will be up and about soon.  I also have some perennials in pots and the patio roses and hardy fuchsias are looking lovely. 

When the sun finally showed itself, the snow on the south side of the greenhouse melted very quickly and the plants were suddenly bathed in much appreciated light.  (Actually, there was a minor avalanche when I opened the door yesterday and I was glad of my hat!).  The temperature inside the greenhouse increased several degrees very quickly so I opened a window for an hour or so in the middle of the day and gave the plants a drink of water.  I keep a couple of watering cans filled with water, in the greenhouse and the water heats up which is much kinder than dousing plants in ice cold water straight from the tap. 

In the house, the plant nursery is doing well with tomatoes, peppers, chillies and cucumbers growing into strong, little plantlets.  I have moved them from the warm kitchen (by the Aga) to the dining room which is south facing but has the radiator turned down to a whisper.  This lower temperature will help to harden them off and after Easter, I will take them down to the greenhouse where they will take their turn under the unheated propagators.  As long as the trays are turned twice a day, I don’t have a problem with seedlings growing leggy.

I never thought gardening could be quite so challenging and it is the extremes of weather that is testing us.  Usually, the explosion of shocking pink camellia flowers is over by now and although there is no damage to this enormous shrub, the buds are tightly furled and it looks like we may have to wait until April for the first bloom.  The perennials in the borders were just beginning to sprout new growth and I am praying they are protected under the thick blanket of snow, conserving their energy until the temperature warms up.

When spring truly arrives we had better hold on tight because the garden will become an explosive force of energy for a very short time, and hopefully we will have a better summer than last year.  In the meantime, Doc and I keep feeding the birds, nurturing our young plants and amuse ourselves by watching a very comical (and tubby) male pheasant fall over in the snow drifts.  He really should invest in a decent pair of boots.

Not forgetting the birds

 

Igloo turns back into a greenhouse

Snowdrops and daffodils trying their best

 

Farewell to Good Friends

It’s been quiet lately at Springfield and I have been ‘off air for a while.  The weather has been unkind and even on a sunny day, the cold threatens even the most dedicated gardener.  Everything is waiting to burst into life but we will just have to be patient.  I have never known the snowdrops last so long into March and the daffodils are very slow to get going.  The Camelia is also tightly budded and shows no signs of exploding into colour.

The cold weather is not the only thing to set us back and I have been putting off writing a blog post.  I don't usually procrastinate but there is something I need to say and until now I could not find the right words.  Sometimes I just need a little time to myself to reflect and get things in perspective.

 A couple of weeks ago, Doc and I decided to re-home our chickens.  It was not an easy decision because the girls have been with us for 3 years and we have so much enjoyed their company in the garden - and their eggs.  We also knew how much we would miss them. 

But life moves on. (Clichés are so annoyingly true!)  Our lives are changing and we have had to allow our sensible heads to rule our hearts.  Doc, who is a GP, is preparing to take up a new role as President of his local Medical Society and although this is a great honour , it will be a lot of work for both of us, with a lot of entertaining and events to organise.  We are looking forward to Doc’s year of Office immensely but in order to enjoy its challenges we need to be realistic about what we can manage to do at home and in the garden.  In addition, our little granddaughter is a huge magnet who will continue to pull us across the Irish sea.   When Number One Son asks if we can go over, we want to have a bag already packed, so we can fly off at a moment’s notice.

I don’t want to dwell on the girls’ departure because it was inevitably sad.  For days afterwards, we reminded each other to ‘coop the girls’ and I still see three little ghosts when I walk down the garden path.   However, I found a lovely lady called Anita who has given the girls a good, safe home.  When Doc and I left them, they did not look back at us and strutted off behind a rather fancy, haughty cockerel and his harem.  I am sure the girls will have some fun their new pals and we can be contented that we did right by them.  We looked after them as best we could and took our responsibility seriously.

We have such happy memories of Ginger, Tweedledee and Tweedledum.   The eggs were the best we have ever tasted and keeping hens is a good way to connect with the food we eat.  When I picked up Ginger’s last egg from the straw, it was just as special as the first one Doc brought up to the house.  We were so excited it could have been a golden egg!  I cradled the very last nutty-brown egg in my palm for ages, its warmth is something I will never forget.  It was such a privilege to enjoy home-laid eggs. 

There were funny times too such as The Great Escapes which made Mission Impossible look positively pedestrian.  Doc spent one very wet, wintry evening trying to find a hole they had made in the fencing.  To this day he is convinced the naughty trio were laughing at him. 

Our chickens taught us how important it is in life to do a bit of pottering about, doing nothing in particular.  They scratched and wandered about from dawn until dusk and were perfectly contented.  Doc and I used to take a 10 minute break, sit on the bench to drink a cuppa and we would watch the girls scrape ,scraping their way round the orchard, totally immersed in their surroundings but oblivious to it.  Doc and I have made a pact that we will still take those breaks, even without the hens to watch. 

We will fill the holes where they used to take their dust baths.  We will re-seed the grass and find a new home for the coop.  But the hens will always be part of Springfield and we will never forget our little friends.