Tag Archives: plants

In the Green Mid Winter

The Winter Solstice.

Winter Table Decorations for the Local Farmshop Cafe

Eight and a half thousand people gathered to see the sun rise behind the Heel Stone and send its first rays into the heart of Stonehenge on the shortest day of the year.We assume the Ancients celebrated the Solstice because from now daylight hours will start to increase. In the middle of winter, we can just begin to feel a little hopeful, with spring just over the horizon.

Like an ancient pagan, I invest more hope in the solstice with each passing year. I will be looking at the garden for those green shoots which might be groping for the lengthening days. Goodness in the dark days of winter. For me, those green shoots would normally be garlic and onions, but in a change of tack in the Midlife Garden, we have not planted garlic this year.

The other day I saw tiny little bulbs sprouting on the top of three of the Allium Ping Pong I planted last year. In 2025 they only partially flowered, because of the dry summer. Instead, they have produced a plethora of baby bulbs. So, I have stuffed them into pots – and, with any luck, I hope to plant them out in the early spring, when they could provide some colour and, perhaps, some income.

Elsewhere in the garden, I am hopeful the five hundred tulips have settled in and are not rotting under the heavy autumnal rain. Whenever I see Monty Don planting tulips, he bangs on about the need for ‘free draining soil,’ as he shovels grit into his pots. No grit in my tulip bed, but I remain positive.

Free drainage is not a great feature of our clay soil, which was one reason I did follow Monty’s advice with my Dahlias. I lifted them before the frost, even washing the soil off them, as per MD’s advice, and left them in the greenhouse to dry off. Whereupon the hard frost bit them, panicking me into wrapping them up and storing them in the garage. But, as they were still a bit damp, I only succeeded in creating the perfect conditions for many of them to rot. Maybe next time I’ll follow local advice and leave them in the ground, well-mulched. Where, I guess, the rain can rot them instead.

It would be easy to get disheartened when stuff wilts, rots, or dies in the garden, but gardening, by definition, is a pragmatic and uplifting activity, even in the depths of winter. In the greenhouse, there are plenty of seedlings doing well, with sweet peas just coming up and antirrhinums standing strong in their pots, ready for the new season. They might not be flowering by the first wedding of the year on 2nd April (fingers crossed for the tulips on that one) but they will be going strong for a bride’s bouquet in July.

And that is what gardening does: it encourages us to look forward, with patience and positivity, and in the meantime, it keeps us stimulated and busy.

Midlife Latin

Chrysanthemum Rainbow Hippy Lovechild

This week’s Cultural Wednesday took Mrs B and me to Barrington Court.  Our first visit to Barrington was with Josh, so it felt apt to be here on what would have been his 33rd birthday.  I remember enjoying wandering around the gardens and on another, subsequent visit, I we watched a small child staring into the ornamental pond, yelling “Oh my God!  Oh my God!” at the top of his voice, entranced by an enormous Koi Carp that lurked between the lily pads. 

This week there were no child-eating Carp in the pond, but there was an impressive range of shrubs and flowers in the well-ordered borders.  It being a school day, small children were notable by their absence, and so we could amble around the well-laid paths enjoying the warm sunshine in the company of folk against whom we ranked at the lower end of the age range.

But we are beginning to feel our age (‘midlifegardener’ is an increasingly tenuous nom de plume) and further evidence that we are becoming our parents, is provided by our increasing habit of attempting to name every plant we see.  I am surprised by our degree of success.  There was a time when I had to Google them or just describe a plant as “that pink flower with the green bits; well behaved plant or whatever”.  Now, “physostegia” just trips off the tongue. I know my Eryngium from my Echinops and Veronicastrum from Verbena Bonariensis.

This fluency in horticultural Latin feels to have happened suddenly, but it’s no coincidence that it manifested itself as we embarked on our cut flower journey.  I guess we need to know exactly what we are growing in our garden, and now we can identify them in the National Trust’s gardens too.  With knowledge comes power and confidence and the MLG side hustle is starting to turn into a pivot, evidenced by the creation of Garden Gate Flowers (BA22), with our lovely neighbor, Kate.  We have a regular Friday stall at Galhampton Village Hall, and we take orders and offer a delivery service to the village.  There are tentative enquiries about weddings, including a “DIY, Rustic Festival” style wedding, which matches our vibe perfectly.

You can even find us on Facebook and Insta so we really do exist.

Who knows where this will lead us?  Up the Garden Path, through the Garden Gate…

Veni, Vidi, Vendidi.

I came, I saw, I sold.

Flower Power

Autumn 1984

Mrs B bought some Russet apples last week, which brought to mind a picture I have of my mother sorting russet apples on the lawn at the old place, around 1984.  Crops of fruit were always impressive with my parents in charge and normally ended in vast quantities cooked, frozen or bottled.

I was thinking of those harvests as I sat down to review my own efforts in the garden this past summer.  Fruit was not a great success, although we got a few apples, and enough raspberries to keep us going for a while with no danger of having to deal with any surplus.

Vegetables were not great, apart from the runners and French beans and some awesome aubergines in the greenhouse.  The suggestion from Paddi and Richard to plant the aubergines in the partial shade of the tomatoes really seemed to work.   Elsewhere squashes were poor and we only harvested two courgettes in total.  An unwanted record, that one.

But there’s a good reason for the poor crop of veg, as the priority this year was flowers.  These were an undoubted success, inasmuch as we got enough to bloom on the 13th July for THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR.

But looking ahead we need to get more flowers for longer through the season.  So now comes the important planning bit, seeking out early bloomers, like tulips, ranunculus, and sweet Williams and other biennials.  And then, perhaps, something that could still be flowering into October. Which brings us to dahlias, flowers I once regarded as too blowsy and flash, but which I now realise could create an absolute bonanza of cut flowers.

It will require some investment in seeds, corms and bulbs, but the rewards should be there from April through to October.

It is the planning for a new season and new plants that keeps me going through the shortening days, and If I can apply myself to cultivating blooms like my parents produced crops of fruit, this time next year I could be looking back on a summer of flower power in the Midlife Garden.

Still picking these
Something for next year? (Saw these at Tyntesfield)
Feels like a guilty pleasure
Hardy annuals for the new season
Ranunculus planted
“And they were red and yellow and pink and….”
This is what is possible
Wouldn’t stand under that if I were you…

New Beginnings

January offers promise, after the bittersweet New Year when we tend to look back at everything we omitted to do in the previous 12 months.  When looking for promise in the depths of a wet winter, the garden is a good place to start.  We might be only just past the solstice, but it would be wrong to think of the garden as dormant. In the veg patch I am pleased to see the sharp darts of garlic offering the bold promise of spring in a few months. And there are flowers too, with hellebores providing splashes of colour as well as winter jasmine and an anonymous climber which has produced pretty white flowers for what seems the first time.

This year, more of the garden is being committed to flowers, with the Big Fat Somerset Wedding to plan for in July.  I started early and sowed a few rows of hardy annuals in October, but the results have been poor.  In contrast, the sweet peas that I sowed in November germinated well, but they have now been hit with damping off and I fear we are going to lose a lot of good seedlings out there.

So, it’s back to square one and I will sow all my annuals with spring in mind and ensure that they have the best possible of chance of hitting their straps by the time July looms.  To this end, I spent the last few days of the school holidays prepping the beds, taking out last year’s dead plants, spreading some fine horse manure and covering them with cardboard to keep the weeds down. 

Now, I just need to take another look at those seed catalogues…. 

Garden Clearances Continue

Who’s been eating my broccoli?

After our last report, we are sorry to report that further damage has been sustained to the veg patch.  Well – mainly to the Old Man’s patch.  We noticed that most of our brussels, broccoli and purple sprouting had taken direct hits from an unidentified assailant.  It was not initially clear what had done the damage: I thought that maybe a smart pigeon had somehow managed to fly in under the radar and the netting to peck the succulent leaves off.  Claire was of the opinion that slugs – which have been numerous in this sodden summer – but The Old Man was suspicious of rodent mammalian infiltration.  Either small rabbits who had dodged his air rifle pellets and got through the large gauge netting or perhaps mice.

So, smaller netting was put in place and fresh brussels plants were put in.  Over the path  in our patch we already had tighter fencing in place, but we gave a liberal sprinkling of the slug equivalent of liquorice allsorts to turn them to mush.

One small victim at the scene of his crime

The next day we had got one slug, but the new brussels in the small allotment were nibbled again.  This time TOM brought out the ultimate weapon against rodents – his mouse traps.  I had never seen these before:  they look like plastic castanets or even sets of dentures lying around the veg patch.  But the next day they had done their job.  Lying there with castanets on their heads were two mice.  Well, that is not strictly accurate.  One small grey mouse was truly dead with a set of dentures round its neck.  The other was larger, browner, and had the castanets over its nose.  And it was still alive.  I put it out of its misery.

I’ve never been very relaxed about putting animals into the afterlife.  I recall meeting our local female doctor out as she was walking her dog one time when it caught and failed to wholly despatch a rabbit.  Without breaking off our conversation Judith put her foot on the neck of the failed extra from Watership Down, and twisted its head through 360 degrees, tossed the body into the hedge, and continued the walk.  While I stood in aghast in awe at her dispassionate approach to the rabbit’s demise.  She was simply annoyed that her dog had failed to complete the job it started.

Another one bites the mouse

But my father was right: it was mice that were destroying his sprouts.  Or rather I thought the larger one looked more like a small rat.  I left the corpses for him to dispose of. Although one has to be quick around here: the other day he shot a rabbit then went for lunch (such is the casual nature with which we take away life these days) and when he came back, a couple of magpies were already picking at the choice cuts themselves.  Reminded me of the scene from film Excalibur when the knights are searching through the famished land for the grail, and there is a scene in which a crow picks the eye from a corpse.  Yummmmm.

I was later informed that my “small rat” was actually a “large field mouse”.  That made me feel a little guilty.  Field mouse conjures images of fluffy rodents (and their young) nibbling gently at golden ears of wheat under azure skies.  Admittedly, just prior to combine harvesters mashing them, but I guess they are fairly numerous and anyway they should just “get off my land!

Well, I am glad to say that there have been no more gnashers on mice and all the brussels, broccs and purps are beginning to recover from the rodent blitzkrieg.

***********************

Weeding: little and often is best!

At the weekend Claire was concerned that the garden was getting overgrown with weeds.  She was not wrong: it has been so wet and I have been busy with end of term at school and other coaching work, so the veg lines were looking shaggy.  I set to, weeding three rows of broad beans, two rows of runners and climbing french and our brussels, brocs and purps.   Like I always say, if a job is worth doing. it is worth doing quickly.  Unfortunately, in my haste, I did the unthinkable, taking off a borlotti bean and two pea plants at ground level with the Holy Blade of the Super Hoe.  Oops.  That upset me more than killing field mice, but the garden is looking better tended now albeit rather more denuded.

Survival of the fittest around here.