Tag Archives: sweet peas

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.

The Sweet Scent of Success

We are coming to the end of sweet peas in the garden.  They are, to me, a bellwether flower.  Every gardener seems to grow them and anyone who sees ours in the bookshop feels compelled to comment on them, before adding a self-assessment of their own sweet peas; as if the growing of sweet peas is an indicator of one’s horticultural credentials. 

When I think of sweet peas, I think of my mother.  Throughout the summer she would provide bunches to take away whenever we stayed and when, after she died, I started growing them myself it seemed apt that the first flower seemed always to appear on her birthday – 10th July.

Over time, we have managed to bring forward the sweet pea season, but when we were tasked with supplying flowers for “The Wedding of the Year”, on 13th July, I knew we would have to bring our A-game to make sure Verity was not walking up the aisle with just a single sweet pea in her bouquet.

Planning was essential, with seeds bought as early as August last year, and sown in November.  Germination was good, but by January the ranks had been decimated by damping off.  But, as we had sown enough to sink a Russian battleship, the remaining plants ensured we were still in with a fighting chance of producing enough flowers for the summer. 

By March they were bursting out of their pots and storage containers and needed more room outside of the greenhouse.  I used to think that Sweet Peas are not hardy, but they can survive anything down to -4C, so we took a low risk gamble and planted them out.  Despite the wet weather, the first flower appeared on 5th May and by July they were in full bloom, so the job was a good ‘un. 

They have continued to crop heavily until just a week ago.  So heavily, in fact, that the rectangular frame of old gazebo poles and green netting collapsed under the weigh and now resembles the Wembley goalposts of 1977 after celebratory Scottish fans invaded the pitch.

The results were good, but after the planning and the doing, we are now in the reviewing stage and need to plan to ensure even better performance next summer.  Sterilising plant pots could reduce the chance of damping off and continuing to nip out the shoots undoubtedly helped the crop.

As to which varieties to grow, it is clear that some are better suited for cutting than others.  We tried 13 different varieties from two different suppliers (Higgledy Garden & Premier Seeds Direct):

Heaven Scent Mix

Mammoth Scarlet

Parfume Millennium

Parfume White Supreme

Winston Churchill

Beaujolais

Leamington

Painted Lady

Cupani

Starry Night

Perfume Delight

Mammoth

Swan Lake

It is not easy deciding which to buy again.  Success is not marked by sweet scent alone so, for example, although Cupani has a lovely aroma, it has short thin stems, while the Parfume white has wonderful long, strong stems, but is less scented.  Ah, but which to choose?  Perhaps we should decide it in the style of Harry Hill:

“FIGHT!!!”

Box Fresh

February has been so mild; it feels like spring.  Which it almost is, isn’t it?  But we are not fooled in the Midlife Garden, despite the daffodils coming up weeks ago, wallflowers currently adding splashes of gold in the front border and even the Viburnum Mariessii about to come into flower.  It is still not spring.  OK? 

But we are keen to get our annual flowers established in plenty of time for July and the Big Fat Somerset Wedding.  Over the years of the MLG, the trend is for me to be getting flowers to bloom earlier and earlier.  Whether this is due to my burgeoning horticultural expertise or the result of global warming, is a moot point.  When I started in the Old Man’s Garden in 2012, I was chuffed when the first sweet pea came out on 10th July – my mother’s birthday (mum was a dab hand with sweet peas, so it felt right).  A few years later I was getting sweet peas in June and even May.  So I should be cautiously optimistic about prospects for July, but it is a constant ongoing work of Plan, Do Review. As the someone once ironically said to me: “Better Never Stops”.

So, I have worked through my 2023 ‘Annual’ Review to address any potential problems for 2024.  Germination of seeds is not generally an issue: a warm windowsill (or spare bed) gets most seeds started, after which pots and trays migrate to the greenhouse to continue their early life.  It is here that we encounter challenges, be it from the threat of hard frosts or the voracious appetite of slugs and snails. 

As my internal corporate life coach tells me, challenges are opportunities for growth, so that is how I approach the issue in the MLG. I guess I could bring the seedlings inside if frost is forecast, or every night if I want to avoid the slugs. But this is time-consuming and requires a level of commitment and foresight that is often beyond me. So, this year I am going for a double insulation solution that might – just might – cover all bases.

It is an idea I found from my long-term seed supplier at Higgledy Garden.  Young Ben does not have a greenhouse, but instead uses storage boxes, which provide all the warmth the seedlings need.  With the lid on, he can guard against pests too, and if there is a truly severe frost (which is admittedly less likely in his sub-tropical Cornish wonderland), he can stack the boxes up indoors for the night.  It seems too good to be true, so I am testing his idea by popping all my seeds into 3 cm square pots, inside storage boxes and I am planning to put them in the greenhouse for that added security.  It should be seedling heaven.

I am fully aware that that even if I manage to get the boxes, get the seeds sown and they do actually germinate, I will be a long way from being out of the seedling woods, as evidenced by my sweet peas in December and January having lost 50% of the little guys (and counting) through damping off.  To try and guard against that particular threat I have, for the first time, washed all my pots to eradicate all the nasty viruses and grollies that might be lurking there from last year. 

So, come on seeds, what more do you need to work your magic?  Let’s get growing.

Autumn / Winter Collection

The Weekend Walk

Autumn has turned to winter in the blink of a Long Dog’s eye.  A fortnight ago I was harvesting chillis for jam and last weekend I walked the dogs over crisp frosted fields, under coppered leaves glinting in the sun as they somersaulted from the trees. 

But now it is cold, wet and dark; the trees are skeletons under the sky’s grey shroud.

It is the end of the calendar year, but also the start of the horticultural one.  I have sown sweet peas ready for summer and now the first tips peek from the duvet of their compost in the cool greenhouse, like tiny benevolent Grinches.

The frost has knocked back the last of the summer blooms, but the sweet peas are safe for now, in their glazed home, readying themselves to take centre stage (or table) in July.

Chillis on the plant…
…on the kitchen table…
…and in the jam pan.
Frozen Pesicaria
Two batches, jam with sweet pepper and tomato, and (original) pure chilli Jam (bit solid with too much pectin)
Yellow Rose of Texas in frost
Alstroemeria
Achillea
Delphinium
Freshly sown pots of Sweet Peas
Shooting up
Happy Grinches

One Tomato, Two Tomato

Last year’s chillis under this year’s tomatoes

The clocks have gone back, so maybe summer is finally over. The harvest should have been safely gathered in, although the recent warm air currents seem to suggest there is still more growing to do. I cleared two of the vegetable beds at the weekend, getting rid of the dead sweet peas and the tired courgettes. The courgettes, like the beans did not do well this summer, perhaps unable to cope with the long dry spell. The sweet peas, similarly, went to seed very rapidly, and the sound of their pods “popping” in the sun were one of the sounds of the summer, for me.

The most prolific vegetable producing area was the greenhouse, where tomatoes went balistic and we are still harvesting green (and red) peppers, with chillis still to come. The sheer volume of tomatoes had me scratching my head for ways of perserving them and I came up with three methods.

First of all, we made ratatouille, using up our own dodgy onions and oversized courgettes with the excellent MLG garlic. When the courgettes and onions were finished (or rotted) we went on to making the first MLG passata, which seemed pretty decent too.

But our most satisfying preserving method was our own sun-dried tomatoes. Well, strictly speaking they were oven-dried, but the results were very pleasing, all be it a little on the small side. I guess it should not be too big a suprise that dried tomatoes take up considerably less volume than the originals, but four baking trays of halved cherry tomatoes only made three jars of the sun-dried version. We swamped them in a little olive oil and loaded them with quartered garlic cloves and the results were spectacular.

Now I include my sun dried tomatoes with everything: ham sandwiches, cheese and biscuits, corn flakes (ok, maybe not corn flakes, although, but then again, why not?)

Preparation & Performance

Spursy Bed still winning Gold

This week I learnt that plans are afoot for the 2022 Open Gardens Day in the village. I have been told the date (confidentially), but as it probably needs to go through the usual committees and organisational debates, I am not allowed to say what it is. But suffice to say, we are all excited here at the Midlife Garden to think that we might be making our debut in the biannual village event. The Open Gardens Day is an opportunity to raise money for charity, while giving villagers the chance to enjoy the gardens of their near neighbours. But we all know what it really is: it is the Village Horticultural Olympics.

With the date set for next summer I was motivated to get going on preparation for big day. Initially, I needed to take stock of the current state of the garden. Is it under control? What has grown well and what has failed?

The mid-season performance review has not been positive. Yes, visitors to the Midlife Garden have been extremely complimentary on the state of the beds but, like a British Olympian crying over gaining a bronze medal instead of a gold, I see failure all around me. The broad beans that I did not tie up properly or keep weeded; the kohl Rabi that got eaten by slugs; and the kale that has struggled under the same onslaught, until I belatedly sunk beer traps. The late and lacklustre crops of cosmos and sweet peas and the negligible numbers of sugar snap and ordinary peas. It has not been a classic year. The review reads like the inquest into British Rowing. Ok, millions of lottery funds leading to five 4th place finishes and a lack of gold medals sounds might sound more serious in comparison to the Midlife Garden – but your opinion would change if you could see how the bindweed has clogged the echinacea or saw the total failure of this year’s Rudbeckia Marmalade.

While underperforming athletes are pointing to tough lockdown training conditions, in the Midlife Garden we have had to contend with the weird weather of a cold dry April, followed by a wet and windy May and then flaming June. Plants have struggled to adapt. But ultimately, I need to take a long hard look at my systems and procedures. I need to improve my funding and support for these plants and apply my experience to plan and monitor performance.

In short: I need to be more like The Old Man. Suddenly his insistence on slavishly doing things to a strict and regimented timetable seems laudable, contrasting with my approach which at times borders on laisser-faire.

But the impending announcement of an Open Gardens Day has provided fresh impetus in my gardening. In my thirties I used to run regularly, but rarely for the sake of getting fit: I needed a goal over and above the simple essential of BEING fit. Which is why I regularly entered half marathons and even one wet and windy marathon in Dublin (finishing time: 3 hrs 43 minutes, thank you for asking). Training for an event was what kept me focused and committed. So now, in a summer in which I have been, at times, going through the motions in horticultural terms, I find I have something specific to plan for, and I need to get going.

So, biennials are frantically being sown (a month late) and more hardy annuals are being purchased for autumn planting. It seems a long way off, but time will fly, and as Auden wrote:

“We are left alone with our day, And the time is short and History to the defeated May say alas but cannot help or pardon”.

We Will Grow Them in the Raised Beds…

We have moved beyond the longest day of the year, although for anyone in quarantine, or shielding, there have been a lot of “longest days” in the past few months. Not that everyone is exacly paying any heed to what is required of us any more as the new conscience-free, apology-avoiding “Dominic’s Law” seems to have been adopted by large swathes of the population as they congregate in anti-social distancing on the streets and beaches.

Despite this, here in the devolved region of the Midlife Garden we remain cautious in easing restrictions and feel that the ends are justifying the means. The PPE on the brassicas is remaining in place for the foreseeable future as we continue to register zero cases of Cabbage White caterpillar. But we have decided to comply with the Government’s pubs and restaurants policy with regard to opening up the nasturtiums. There will, no doubt, be a large spike in butterfly larvae numbers over the coming months in this sector of the garden economy, but that is our cunning plan: a sacrificial crop they call it, just don’t mention herd immunity, please. That is NOT the plan, or ever was, OK?

The PPE on the strawberries has been equally succesful with the first bowlful arriving this week. The blueberries are looking good too, happy in their world behind the curtain of netting, but will need a little longer to ripen. And elsewhere we have had the first potatoes, sugar snaps, and kale. There was some concern at the lack of social distancing between the sugar snaps and some errant self-seeded sweet peas, but we have decided to turn a Barnard Castle eye to this and wait until 4th July when, if our reading of the regulations is correct, the sweet peas will be able to be next to the sugar snaps, so long as they are wearing a bandana over their faces, have the same middle name and remember to remain unrepentant at all times.

The heart-warming success story of the garden, so far, has been the courgettes. After several weeks in ITU they have been applauded on their recuperation from frost damage and have produced their first (albeit pencil-thin) mini marrow. Those courgettes are clearly fighters, as we have said before. Let’s hope they do not follow the lead of some of our courgette-headed brethren and carry that fight onto the beaches.

One Month On

170614 (3)It’s been a month since I put finger to keyboard (or for some I know it would be thumbs to keyboard).   It is an interesting comparison to see how stuff has panned out in the past 30 days.

A month ago it was raining, I was at the end of half term, looking forward to a mad month of end of term activities and report writing. Now the sun is shining and I am on holiday looking forward to weeks of no school and starting to reap the harvest from the springtime planting, potting on and general nurturing.

In June I was worried the garlic was going over and rotting. It was suffering rust (was it the rain?)  and some did – but most are now drying nicely and have been joined by the shallots, spread out in the garage, away from the joists where the swallow fledglings sit and shit.  The Old Man’s reaction to the harvesting of shallots was typical:

“It’s a bit early for shallots”.

“Try telling the shallots” I replied: “they’re falling over”.

It’s been a good year for them (early or not) and many are the size of decent onions. I wish I had planted more now.

Up the top of the garden, a month ago the pig pen was a tangled mess of three foot high weeds.  I put my back into clearing a particularly fertile area of the pen (resulting in a trip to the osteopath) but I reckon it was worth the effort:  the new squash patch is thriving on what I cleared and what the pigs left behind.

Early June the runner beans were just beginning to grasp the canes.  Now they are over-topping them.  The first beans are formed.  The curly kale was being protected by boards – now the kale is big enough to stand by itself and the boards are protecting the cabbages, which suffered some mouse damage.

Mid-June saw the first Cosmos and sweet peas – ahead of the regular 10th July Sweet Pea Day.  And veggies came on stream: courgettes, new potatoes, peas, mangetout and any amount of kale.  And second plantings of lettuce leaves are in full swing when they were non-existent a month ago.

While the over-wintered chillies were originally small and red, they became large and yellow in June and have graduated to orange to proper sized red chillis now.   And this year’s new chillis are starting to bud.

And….much to my relief and Mrs B’s delight…we have the first tomatoes.

(A bit early for tomatoes wouldn’t you say?)

May Now

May is deceptive.  You think there is sunshine and warmth there, but look closer and all you see is grey and coldness. That’s the PM for you.

It’s no different in the garden, where temperatures remain cool and seedlings need to be tough to harden off before planting.  Even before getting to the veg patch they have to combat the “bloody difficult” slugs which continue to chomp on them, but enough are surviving the onslaught to make it to potting on.  Despite the snails rampaging through seedlings like the SNP through the Labour heartlands, I have managed to pot up plenty of Summer PSB, and enough Brussels to pay for ten thousand new policemen.  I think that figure is correct.  Give me a moment….

This weekend it did start to feel warmer and Mrs B helped me plant out the sweet peas in the goalposts.  Last year the first sweet pea blossomed on 27th May – a month and a half earlier than the usual Sweet Pea Day of 10th July.  I cannot see that we will have a sweet pea by that time this year, but perhaps one will bloom on 8th June.  We could do with something uplifting and beautiful to happen on that day.  I am not expecting any other wonderful surprises then.

Sweet Peas – “Back of the Net”
Korean Mint. Another immigrant flavour.
Hardening off
Coriander
Basil!
Brussels. UKIP’s favourite vegetable
“We’ll keep the red kale flying here”
Policemen
Ranunculus in the morning

 

 

 

Sweet Memories

20160717_184916Sweet peas are as good a reason to garden as any.  Their ease of cultivation along with the sheer abundance of flowers with their heady aroma make them the signature flower of any summer around here.

And they are a particular favourite of mine because they have always been associated with my mother who grew them every year in profusion.  Since she passed away we celebrate the first sweet pea of the summer with a small toast to mum as it will always, without fail, be blooming on 10th July – her birthday.  It is this connection with the past and with those whose passion helped create this garden which motivates me to continue.  I’ve said before how gardening gives me peace of mind and time to reflect and brings me closer to the memory of those no longer with us.

This summer we have another person to remember as we plant, weed and harvest.  Lynn finally succumbed to cancer in May, leaving the bookshop in Mrs B’s hands to continue in her name, but also leaving a wealth of anecdotes and fond memories of a lovely person who adored her garden (and allotment) as well as being delighted to help others.

When Mrs B was undergoing her course of chemo, it was Lynn who took it upon herself to come and clean the greenhouse (probably to a higher standard than she would have cleaned her kitchen).   When we started to cultivate the veg patch Lynn was always keen to pass on any plant that needed re-homing.  In that first spring she kindly planted some garlic and raspberry canes at one end of the veg patch.  I was never sure where the garlic was as Lynn was never great at labelling things.  But the raspberries continue to battle on alongside the gooseberries.  The thriving blue irises were conveyed to us by Lynn and latterly a large clump of white Asters will remind us once again of Lynn’s generosity when they bloom in a couple of weeks.

It is heartwarming that different plants can remind us of the good people and the good times. Not so much a garden of remembrance as plants of remembrance. The only small problem we might have created for ourselves this year is that the first sweet pea – incredibly for us – bloomed on 27th May: the day of  Lynn’s funeral.  The significance was not lost on us, so it looks like the annual celebration of the First Sweet Pea might have to be brought forward a month and a half from now on.

But sweet peas will always remind us of both Lynn and my mother..