Garden Gate Flowers

“I have a problem”

A statement that spells doom for us as The OM stands at the threshold to the kitchen as we wait for the follow up narrative.

TOM likes to speak in headlines.

With the rest of the article…..

Following….

Later.

One has plenty of time to try to guess the nature of issue, but it is not an easy task.  If it is a Tuesday afternoon it is likely to be a problem that involves a surfeit of sponge cake after the elderly ladies’ (and Keith’s) tennis four have played and left their tea unfinished.  In general I would liken “too much cake” to “too many cricket victories over Australia”: you cannot have a glut of either.  But in this case it is possible to have too much under risen cake – especially if it is coffee walnut: to me an abominable destruction of a Victoria sponge, or worse still the beetroot and chocolate monstrosity that was proffered as an alternative to a traditional conservative tea.

Too much cake, though,  is not an insurmountable “problem”.  If you can’t eat it, recycle it.  That’s why we have hens.

But the announcement of a problem can involve many unpredictable factors.  In the past couple of years he has had more than his fair share of medical concerns with heart and other issues for which we have been on hand to assist and support.

One gets used to it, but what one cannot get used to or anticipate is whether the nature of the challenge will match up to the bold headline that has preceded it.  So, the context of the announcement that he has “a problem” can include anything from “I can’t get the photos off my camera”, “It might freeze tonight”, or “I think I might be having a cardiac arrest”.

Solutions range from turning off the water to the lean-to, connecting the camera to the laptop, putting the kettle on and stuffing my face with Victoria sponge or phoning for an ambulance and a defibulator – though perhaps not necessarily in that order.  It keeps one on one’s toes.

The Christmas Day “problem” was a genuine one: his Alpha cooker had “locked out” and he did not know how to re-set it.  Thereby jeopardising his and Gill’s roast bird (this year a Guinea Fowl).  Fortunately this did no present a too great a challenge to us:  we are used to just pressing the button marked re-set and seeing the recalcitrant stove fire up like the Quattro in Life on Mars.  Presto duly hayed.

More recently there have been fewer problems, although the other morning after Mrs B and I had had an unusually long lie-in – it was perhaps later than 8 a.m. when we came down for breakfast –  I saw the OM standing in the drive gesticulating at me through the kitchen window.  He appeared to be waving towards the gate so I went to the door to see if there was delivery.  I reckoned I could stand at the door and sign for it.  But there was no one there and I was greeted by the request – nay demand – from TOM “Can you get the gate?  I’m just going out”.

I was gobsmacked.  “I did not realise I am gatekeeper now as well” was my stunned response.

“Saves me” was the reply as I opened the gate.

“Saves me?  SAVES ME?!  Save yourself – walk a few more paces every day, get the old ticker, with or without by-passes, working and get those lungs cleared with more fresh air” was the retort that I never dared say within his earshot.

I think there is a bigger problem than we thought.  And I think it might be mine.

(Midlife Gardener is currently spending too much time in the school boarding house.  Gardening items will resume shortly).

Half term gave me time to spend in the fresh air without a whistle in my hand or too many teenagers in tow. It was a time for solitude and seed selection.

My lovely in-laws gave me a subscription to Gardeners World magazine for Christmas and I have gleefully leafed through the glossy pages of garden porn throughout January. Amongst the lush photos of blooming shrubs and crisp bulbs I was drawn to the recommendations for vegetable seeds which come from all the high profile gardeners who set the standards in our horticultural wish lists.  Like a fawning schoolboy I was chuffed to see a large number of my “favourite” veg being recommended by the great and the good.  So I spent a happy few days browsing the internet switching to select my perfect line up of reliable heavy croppers for the spring planting.

Out in the garden I have been clearing the Silver Wedding and the Boomerang beds looking to make space for some new perennials which I hope to establish for flowers both in the garden and for cutting.  So I’ve taken up the blowsy gladioli bulbs from the boomerang as well as moving the penstemons from the Silver Wedding.  It all looks bare and tidy – ready for planting.  Another flurry of internet activity has resulted in more boxes and envelopes with seeds and bare roots plopping through the letter box at regular intervals and I have hastily stuffed some of the bare root plants into pots in the greenhouse (after I had mended a pane of glass that had blown out of the roof).   So they are sitting comfortably waiting for the first warm days of spring, which I am sure are just around the corner.

The autumn is always a time of mixed emotions in the garden, with the last of the summer veg being harvested and the root crops only beginning to get on their way to producing the much relished bounty for the bleak midwinter.  The fall this year was that much more of a time of transition and change for me, spending a large part of my time residing in a boarding house, helping to take charge of a bunch of teenagers.  It has been enjoyable in its way, but as soon as I am home and in my garden I wonder why I chose to be away.  Each time I’m home I take the obligatory stroll down to the veg patch, retracing the steps that my father would always take with my mother on the warm summer evenings when he would come home from the office and they would review and plan the horticultural programme of work.  It was daily ritual, as I recall,  (with a G&T or glass of wine in hand) but something to which I have been restricted these past months to no more than a once weekly viewing at best.  (the walk down the garden, that is, not the glass of wine or G&T).

So what have we achieved in that time – in the final third of the 2014?

Well, with a little help from Josh I was able to clear the main veg patches.  In the interests of low maintenance I have this year put a large amount of cardboard over the open areas to keep the weeds down.  On top of this I spread compost  from the field .  It all looks reasonably tidy now although getting enough cardboard was the main challenge.  But passing the electrical store in Cary just before recycling I was able to collect several TVs’ worth of packing which did the job.  I also unpacked a couple of box loads of promotional shopping bags from the bookshop which had been water damaged when they arrived some months ago and had been sitting in the garage ever since.  (It’s funny how “stuff” just accumulates isn’t it?).  So the garden now resembles a landfill site with the “Books Are My Bag” legend dotted around the edge in some bizarre sponsorship deal.  But there ain’t too many weeds.

In terms of what is actually growing at the moment, top of the class this term has got to be the leeks which are standing tall and proud and thick.  They are going down well in soups and other meals, such as my own recipe of leek and squash gratin. The butternut squashes did not store too well, but we have eaten them all before they went  off too badly.  The Crown Prince squashes are storing excellently and we have just started on our first of the season.  While the butternuts were small but perfectly formed for a single meal, each Crown Prince provides enough for several feasts.  I have no doubt there will be a lot of squash stew and soups consumed – or frozen – over the coming months.

The garlic is still looking good in its plaits, though a lot of the onions have rotted.  It seems as if red is better than white in storage terms, so must make a note to stick with the coloured rather than the white next year. I did remember to get some garlic planted in time for the end of November and just before Christmas we saw the first green shoots coming through.  It is mightily encouraging to see new growth in December and gives the garden a lift during the darkest days.

The brassicas are not looking too good – although we’ve had one or two excellent cabbages and the purple sprouting looks reasonable, if not cropping heavily at the moment.  I’m not sure how much it – along with the Brussels – might have been affected by the plague of caterpillars that had their fill during August.  The Brussels certainly have not amounted to much this year – again – and we only had shop-bought Brussels on Christmas Day – with one or two sorry examples from the garden.

Never mind:  it is not all about the crop, the end product:  the mere process of planting, nurturing and just pottering provides its own rewards in relieving stress and work-related problems.  And anyway, in terms of getting things right in the garden, there’s always next year isn’t there?

 

It has been a long time since I last wrote.  The summer sped by with a mad term at school followed by a large proportion of the summer break spent in the southern hemisphere, first on a two week school hockey tour, then three week vacation in Australia.

Naturally the garden was affected quite dramatically by my absence – or perhaps I should say unaffected.  With Josh and Verity in charge of the garden while I was away, in between their own personal breaks, the garden was pretty much left to its own devices and thrived in the warm weather.

I believe we had a great crop of beans, purple sprouting, and Kholrabi, though by the time I saw them in September they were mostly shot to seed.  It was wild: the veg patch had run away with itself, and I have spent much of the past month simply clearing and putting it to bed for the winter.  This takes place over a longer period of time than previously this year, as I am now resident at school for most of the week, attending to the pastoral needs of a bunch of teenagers.

But each time I get into the garden (only once or twice a week) it is such a breath of fresh air literally and metaphorically.  Today, as I cleared the nettles and weeds as well as the dead dwarf beans, every sense was alive.  The feel of the gardening glove – reassuring protection against the nettles.  The damp earthy smell of the leaf mould.  The sound of bird song and the sight of the robin flitting in behind me as I rake over some soil or dig out the dead cosmos.  Autumn is all around us, in the misty mornings – walking dogs in the fields – and non more so than in the taste of the last autumn bliss raspberries: the sharp astringent sweetness of the fruit – caught at the point of maximum ripeness before mold and rot takes over.

So we will see what comes of the garden over the winter and into the spring.  there will have to be some revision of planting with a lot less produce – particularly with fewer mouths to feed at home.  And of course everything will need to be able to be maintained on one day a week.  But one day a week which acts as my garden therapy.