Monthly Archives: August 2012

The Summer in one day

 

Sunshine and showers

With the summer continuing changeable, one is almost taken aback by a bit of warm sunshine.  Wednesday provided the whole of this season in one day, with light rain followed by torrential rain, which cleared to warm sunshine, during which, with masterful timing I took the dog for a walk.  A good walk only spoiled by Fudge going ballistic at a slightly startled elderly rambler; though Fudge had good cause to complain: the lady was wearing full rambling gear, carrying maps, back packs and hiking stick all accessorized badly with what looked like a yellow bin liner by way of waterproofing.  Enough to freak the most laid back canine.

By the time we returned, the blue skies were being invaded by scudding clouds as the wind got up and blew away any thoughts of a leisurely afternoon sunning myself in the garden.

Instead I prepared the ground for, and planted, lines of swede and chard as well as hedging my bets by planting a couple of seed trays of the same in the greenhouse as well as some small pots of cauliflowers.

At the other end of the reap and sow spectrum, I picked more runner and french beans as well as a courgette (zucchini to our north american brethren) which magically went from the size of a small pencil to torpedo in hours flat.  In between times I had trimmed the tomato plants to stop them taking over the whole greenhouse.

Elsewhere around the garden the are plenty of flowers blooming at long last, with cornflowers for cutting looking good – though how on earth you get them to grow straight I have no idea.  At the Olympic Park they have thousands of the beggars standing straight and tall in vast beds.  Fantastic – but how do they do that?!

Blousy? Moi?

The Love in the Mist are finally blooming joining the Nicotiana in the corner bed.  The scent of Nicotiana is so lovely on a warm evening as we go to shut the chickens in.  And lovely set off with the Love in the Mist and the Cosmos.  Elsewhere there are numerous splashes of colour including the infamously blousy Dahlias (The Old Man is very pleased with them – but they stand out in the flower beds like rambler wrapped in flapping yellow plastic).  I don’t know the names of flowers – I am don’t have the brain for it – but they look kinda nice and next year we will hopefully plan and develop the colour schemes a little more.

So yesterday had all the summer in one: sun, rain, wind, cloud, preparing, planting harvesting and just some good old seasonal flowering.

Nicotiana – great performers

Fresh Produce

Ready for picking – runner beans

We are at the time of the year when I remember my parents would begin to repeat the mantra about fresh produce in the garden.  “The beans are ready for picking”, “plenty of courgettes” or “please help yourself to lettuces – or else they will go to waste”.

Waste – anathema to the generation brought up in wartime rationing and post-war depression.  Wasting good produce was deemed a cardinal sin in the garden.  All those delicious vegetables and we don’t seem to want to eat them.  Well, I am now in that happy position when some vegetables are coming to harvest time and the daily habit of picking them has started.  I say “some” because, frankly, this summer has been pretty crappy with the cold wet weather putting paid to many of the early veg like the peas (one bowlful from a row of plants).  But the runner beans are hitting their stride at the moment.

Harvesting runner beans is the equivalent of plate spinning: you check each row every day and try to pick every bean that is of the required size: not too skinny, but not too fat and stringy.  But somehow you always manage to miss a couple so next day you see a cucumber sized bean hanging in the green shade. If you left it another day, you feel it would pull the whole plant over, such is the apparent speed with which they grow.

So today I will be getting out there and trying to reap as many as I can.  And what will I do with all these beans?  Well, I will follow the parents’ example and start slicing, blanching and freezing as many of the blighters as I can.  Suddenly frozen veg in the winter seems a really worth while idea.  If it means they don’t go to waste.

Meanwhile, T.O.M. keeps informing me that the carrots in his patch are ready to pick.  I gladly took some last night – and they are delicious.  Carrots are right up there in terms of veg that truly taste so much better than shop bought.

Pull ’em, rinse ’em, steam ’em and eat ’em.  Stunningly delicious.

And in response to my pompous declarations to The Old Man that there are plenty of runners, he first of all said that he better make some runner bean chutney (what? from my beautiful fresh runners?) then, after we returned from our trip to the Olympics at the weekend, said he hadn’t realised there were any ready.

Now I know how he felt whenever I failed to heed his requests for me to pick my quota of produce.

What size omelette did you want?

Elsewhere, the hens continue to lay well, but who is laying what is a mystery as the three from the other day show: mummy egg, daddy egg and baby egg: double yoker, single yoker and, well, “could do better if she tried”.

The unpredictability of home harvests.

 

 

Shallots?

A final note on my previous post about labelling things.  I decided to lift the shallots, which I did under the supervision of T.O.M.  It was all going well, with him advising which were “banana” shallots and which the ordinary variety (pretty obvious really – no need for labels there) when I found one little clump which had not developed greatly.  We simultaneously realised that this was not a clump of underprivileged shallots, but was a garlic bulb.  How did that get there? I wondered.  Then remembered that all the shallots and garlic had been put in hurriedly at the start of the spring.  So, once agin, you need to be so careful to label things, you know.

Drying in the sun – spot the garlic

 

Process or Results

“A dreaded Sunny Day, So let’s go where we’re happy…Keats and Yeats are on your side”.

Anyone for Pimms?

So sang Morrissey with The Smiths. I like the line (as I like the Smiths) but I have had to carefully edit the Smiths lyrics to take out all the pathos and depression.

Likewise one has to do the same this summer: carefully edit out the dreadful rainy days and think only of the sunny ones. And at last we have had just that: a sunny fortnight with which we have been blessed with sunshine.  It was perfectly timed to coincide with our summer celebration for our Silver Wedding which we had ambitiously planned to have in the garden.  Two days prior to the event, the rain stopped, the sun came out and we were able to get the garden looking spick and span.  The edges were done, the lawn mown, the mole hills squashed and rabbit-proofing chicken wire taken down from around the cosmos and Nicotiana.

Beer tent with two barrels of Palmers Ales

It was a fab evening with great friends and family.  It was, to a great extent, what I had been working towards with the garden so I was pleased with the results, though a few more hours of sunshine might have got the potted sweet peas blooming and a little more colour around the garden.

To a great extent, though, gardening is about the process as much as the result.  The repetition of planting, watering, hoeing, weeding and general maintenance becomes an end in itself.  The final moment when you pick your flowers or vegetables is merely the ultimate stage in a succession of worthwhile activities.

Tables and chairs – heavy lifting instructions required

Ultimately, though, the garden is there to be enjoyed, and the sunshine gives us the opportunity to relax and take in the sights, and sounds.  So my obligatory morning coffee is taken on the grass, sitting on the wrought iron seats (purloined from my brother’s former bar – and built to be so heavy you would need a gold medal in weightlifting to be able to draw it to the table, let alone throw it across a crowded bar).

For me, making coffee has become a ritual in which process adds to the result.  I use coffee beans – from my good friends at Azorie Blue – which I grind freshly for each cup with my Krupps grinder.  I then make an espresso with our neat new Aero Press.  While I am doing this I have put the milk in the microwave to heat, then I froth that and add to my espresso for the perfect latte.  I have taken some stick from one of my more cynical brothers for the lengths to which I go for a home brewed latte, but it makes me happy and I definitely get a better cup of coffee.

And it tastes even better in the sunshine in my garden.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever; coffee in the garden is a joy for now.

A break from gardening…