Navigating the worldly winds

It’s been a difficult start to the year. This week we were told of appalling funding cuts in Birmingham, which will affect me personally but – far, far more importantly – will have a far-reaching and long-lasting effect on children, young people, disabled people, and those who are on the breadline. How many times in my career have I had to write crisis comms statements, had to re-budget due to yet another cut, had to sympathise with charity Chief Execs who feel personally responsible for each and every one of their employees, freelancers and beneficiaries as they receive yet another knock-back from their local authority or national funder? It does not help when politicians give their opinions from London (which is definitely not in recession, from what I can see) thinking that they can ‘fix us’ in some way, without knowing the local context or understanding just how hard people’s lives can be outside of the South East. There’s an economic crisis and it feels like no-one in power notices (or cares) and in the meantime public services and assets continue to be eroded and then eroded again. I am so tired of it all. And angry, really really angry. I know this feeling will pass. But right now, it’s hard.

Of course, I am one of the lucky ones. I have a garden, an allotment and a kitchen, all of which offer respite. As does a car: during half-term I took Harry down to the Cotswolds to explore Cerney House, with its snowdrop woods and walled garden. At this time of year very little is growing, which allows the bones of the place to reveal itself and the beauty of the lichen-covered apple boughs to shine through.

Half term at Cerney House and Gardens
The walled garden remains the dream!

At home, the garden is emerging into life after what has been an odd, warm, wet and stormy winter. The hellebores are at their peak, with their delicate markings at odds with the sturdy toughness of these stalwarts. Pots by the front door bring some colourful cheer – I particularly look forward to the Iris reticula, in particular ‘purple hill’, with its regal purple richness.

Helleborus x hybrida
Iris reticulata ‘purple hill’

On the allotment it’s meant to be the season of tidying and preparation, which was going well – Matt has been busy cleaning the bramble thicket next to the stream. Sadly, as was ever the case, he’s now got distracted by work and so the pile of rotten pallets and dried prickly stems is languishing as I await their movement to the tip. As soon as he’s done I can get started with removing the plastic sheeting from the beds and maybe putting on some green manure to get some nutrition into the soil. There is life emerging already, with the peonies, rhubarb and fennel all showing their fresh new shoots to the sun.

The allotment, mid-clear of the brambles by the bank.

At home, I am looking to the future. It took a few weeks but the antirrhinum seedlings have finally emerged, including ones from last year’s saved seed – these were F1 hybrids so I have no idea how they will behave, and I am interested to watch their progress. I popped some broad beans into pots today too, impatient for the season to start.

This morning, after days of grey and rain, the sky was bright blue. I wandered out to the back garden, Gertrude trotting behind me, to take in the changes. Fresh new growth on the viburnum. The catch of a sweet floral scent from the skimmia. Green shoots from the allium, narcissi, tulips. The magpies are busy building their nests, as they do every year. The neighbour’s dog plays with a squeaky toy. The bergenia has sent up a single pink-flowering stem. The periwinkle has run rampant during the winter, with its pretty purple-blue flowers (but I make a note to cut it back before it takes over). Gertrude sniffs around then hops onto the cold frame for a spot of sun bathing. I notice that there’s a new view of the garden because I took out the ancient hydrangea, which has opened up a large space next to the equally-ancient Rosa ballerina. In the veg trug, there’s chard for cooking plus sweet peas and cornflower seedlings. Harry wants me to come in to look at the new level he’s made on Super Mario Maker. Matt texts to say he’s bought me a chelsea bun. The sun is briefly warm on my face.

I remind myself that after the dark comes the light, and all will be well.

Also this month:

Allotment/garden: Started off broad beans; potted on cornflower seedlings sowed last September; cut back raspberries (despaired of the brambles); pruned hydrangea. Antirrhinum seedlings have germinated including the F1s saved from last summer, interesting to see how they develop. The back garden is full of emerging bulbs and early perennials. Allotment still under cover but some hints of emerging peonies, rhubarb and euphorbia.

Cooking and eating: Forced rhubarb making its way into crumbles and cakes, but only one rhubarb bellini so far because I have a recurrent alcohol intolerance. Moussaka. Amazing home-made pizza at Lizzie and Rich’s house. Fruit compotes using last summer’s frozen berries. Haricot beans, soaked then braised with soffrito and tomato. Am cooking simple food for comfort, to distract from the outside world.

Also: Too tired to read, really, but dipping into a bit of buddhism/yoga for spiritual sustenance. Half-term trips to Science Museum, Lego Store, Cerney House. Travel/documentaries on the telly. Attempting to set boundaries on the Switch.

Approaching the solstice

With just over a week to the winter solstice, this is peak SAD time, which we humans inexplicably decide to make worse with all the Christmas-commercial pressure, looming January tax bills and (in my case anyway) an intense period of work activity, what with December ticket sales traditionally bank-rolling the rest of the cultural year.

An excellent way of alleviating the winter gloom is to immerse oneself within nature, be it the woods, the sea (I don’t mean literally but more on that later) or the garden, and in so doing, tune into the natural rhythms of the world. There is wisdom in letting go of leaves in the autumn, and giving space for the rest and quiet renewal of winter.

1 November, capturing the autumn colour at Westonbirt

I would recommend any quiet that involves one’s hands – even in the results come out as disastrously as mine and Harry’s gingerbread houses.

This year’s terrible attempt at gingerbread construction

Having spent much of November indoors, last weekend in Mawgan Porth finally gave us some open skies and great sea vistas. And the wind, with all its rajasic energy and furious life, was actually quite fun. I do not think it is possible for me to love a place more than I do the beach at MP, particularly when it’s only us and a few dog walkers there.

Winter sea at Mawgan Porth
A picture taken in a reverie – then ten seconds later the sea came into my mid-calf

Although this year, for the first time ever in twelve years of visiting, the sea finally captured me into its energetic grasp. As I wandered in reverie at the sky and the rocks and the sand and getting the perfect Instagram shot, a particularly determined wave swept in. I jumped onto the rocks in panic but no use, I was up to my mid-calf in swirling December water. It was actually a bit frightening for a few seconds, but then I mostly felt like a townie-idiot who got what she deserved. Jeans and boots ruined, I spent the rest of the weekend wearing yoga pants and ancient, holey wellies that I happen to keep in the car at all times. The message: keep your eye on the sea at all times.

Literally soaked boots and jeans
Me and Harry at our favourite cafe at Carnewas

I have been quiet on the allotment front for a few weeks, leaving Matt to get on with some overdue clearing and hacking back of the brambles. The last harvest came on 22nd November with an armful of chrysanthemums; these lasted two weeks indoors in the house and I’ve now moved them outside the back door to wilt at their own pace.

Matt has been attacking the wilderness, clearing brambles and debris
An armful of firework chrysanthemums (22nd Nov)

I think this means that there’s been a flower harvest from March to November this year, so 9 months, which is not bad going at all. (If I planted early narcissus I could probably stretch it to a ten or even 11 month harvest.) The veg obviously get a far shorter run, and next year will be a slow start given that only one PSB plant survived the slug/crappy-compost double bill disaster of spring 2023; usually I’d have a few kales as well to get me through until spring. There is chard in the veg trug however so all is not lost.

We got the dahlias mulched over just a few days before the real cold weather came. This year I’ve used bark chippings, which should give a good thick insulation and also keep the weeds down.

Dahlias mulched with bark, just a few days before the proper cold weather arrived

And so back to the solstice. The tradition is to have evergreens in the house at this time of year, and whilst I can see the beauty in that, my preference is to use the dried remains of this year’s harvest: allium, hydrangea, echinops, cornflower, and so on. All I do, once the flowers have been cut, is to trim off the leaves then dry them upside down in bunches, in our sun room, for a few months. The best dried flowers both keep their colour intact AND have extraordinary shapes and textures, which come into their own when dried.

Today I tied an armful of dried sorrel with hydrangea, allium and a few other more delicate stems into a swag for the front door, and the remaining stems have gone into two vases for the dining room. No skill necessary or tools other than a bit of string and maybe a wave of hairspray to attempt to keep the delicate petals intact. These will stay until the first narcissi come in a few weeks – and with them, the hope of spring.

Two vases of dried summer flowers – hydrangea, allium, echinops, love-lies-bleeding
A swag for the winter solstice, with sorrel, allium, cornflower, gypsophila, sweet william, calendula and hydrangea.

Also this month:

Harvesting: Very little! Last chrysanthemum came on 22 November. There is rosemary, bayleaves, chard, and in the sun room some ripening peppers and chillies.

Jobs: Sowed sweetpeas in November, once germinated moved them and the cornflower seedlings to the veg trug to get some cold weather. Matt has been clearing enormous brambles and debris from the wilderness. Cut back and covered dahlias.

Cooking and eating: Chicken and barley broth, mince pies, panettone, gingerbread, fish curry at Rick Stein’s (wearing wellies), making full use of ragu, puddings and chillies from the freezer. As usual at this time of year, my ability to drink alcohol has reduced to zero.

Also: Loved The Change by Bridget Christie on C4 – highly recommended viewing. Generally trying to hold onto sanity in what is the dangerous month for mental health.

Soil analysis, seed saving & plot clearing

The autumn clear-out has started earlier than normal this year. I’ve learn from years of wrestling mulches and black plastic with painful, numbed fingers that it’s best to get the bulk of the work done before the frosts come, even if that means ripping out the last of the cosmos, snapdragons and nasturtium before their natural end. It’s also, I admit, a sigh of relief; Calling another year done lets the mistakes of the year slip away, and I can get the planning for next year’s glorious successes (perhaps)!

First job is seed saving. There’s a tray of runner and French bean seeds drying out in the sun room, some destined for the cooking pot, but others I’ll plant in March in hopes of another harvest as good as this year’s. I’ve also saved seeds from the tall, florists snapdragons, which is good because the bought-stuff is super pricey (about £6 for a tiny packet). Alas the sweet peas fell to some kind of fungal infection before I could get their little black balls, but I’ll make a note to set aside some squash seeds after halloween is done with. We had a good harvest of squash this year, green and orange and knobbly, and now adorning mantlepieces as we head to the start of winter.

French and runner bean seeds, dried ready for storage
18 squash & gourds this year, curing in the sun room alongside the dried allotment flowers

Clearing started with the perennial issue of creeping buttercup and grass, which had carpeted the length of the shed-side bed. This area also has a few perennials and shrubs in there (rosemary, peony, fennel) as well as spring bulbs, so I can’t simply cover it over and wait for the offending plants to die back; proper remedial work is required. Over two lengthy lunchtimes I forked out trug after trug of white fleshy creeping roots. I last did this two years ago, and try not to dwell that it’s a task that needs repeating again and again and again. As far as the main beds go this is the end of the autumn clearing, as I prefer to mulch with black plastic and allow any remaining foliage from the annuals to die back into the soil over the winter, which adds to the organic layer. Come spring I’ll fork all the beds over ready for planting.

Looks small but it took two lengthy lunchtime sessions to weed this area of grass and creeping buttercup

Homework this week from gardening school (I am studying for the RHS Level 2 Certificate in Horticulture at Winterborne House) is, essentially, to dig a massive hole and take a look at the soil. The proper name for this is site-based assessment via a profile pit. Obviously I can not possibly be bothered to dig a one metre deep pit by myself, so I enlisted manual labour from the boys.

I enlisted freelance support to dig the profile pit

Here is our site analysis for the allotment site. The first 25cm or so of topsoil is light, crumbly and loamy, full of worms, a few stones but not many, and just a few roots from the hops and weedy grass. In short, lovely stuff.

The topsoil layer, dark, crumbly and full of worms

At 25cm down we hit the sub soil, which has several layers to it. At first we meet a layer of reddish-brown earth, clearly with a higher percentage of sand, with larger round pebbles. The texture is dry, fine and crumbly, even after the recent weeks of wet weather. I’d call this sandy loam. No worms here. This layer is about 45-50 cm deep.

At 25cm we’re into sandy loam, which is drier, finely crumbed and with larger pebbles

At 65cm down it gets very wet indeed – imagine digging into a Cornish beach and you’re about there. There’s still some earth but the sand content is high, and it’s so wet that it holds the shape of the spade. There’s gravel here too. This goes on until about 90cm down, where there’s a very hard compacted layer of earth – this is the reason for the wet of course, because the water is getting stuck at this level. Break through that, about 95cm-1m deep, and suddenly it’s very very dry, almost pure sand and gravel, and orange in colour.

At 65cm we’re into beach-type wet sand and gravel, which takes us to a dense layer of compacted soil at 90cm
After the soil pan, about 95cm, the earth is very dry, full of sand and gravel – essentially a gravel pit

Chatting to allotment-neighbour Martin, it turns out that on Ordnance Survey maps from about 100 years ago, the area next to the high school at the edge of the allotment site is marked as a gravel pit. We’re cultivating land that is essentially a river bed – right next to the Chad brook – so very free draining and sandy.

What can I learn from this? The topsoil is lovely stuff, augmented with years of manure and compost through years of cultivation. Underneath will be (I suspect) much lower in nutrients, because of the high percentage of sand, which is inert and doesn’t hold nutrients or minerals well. It’s free-draining down to about 95cm. In a dry year, plants that need moisture will suffer, particularly because my time for watering is limited in the summer months. On the other hand, those Mediterranean plants adapted for free draining soil should do well – no wonder the lavender and rosemary love it here so much.

So with that fun job done, and the main plots covered, I look around to see what else needs attention. Next up for attention is the dahlia bed, which has become carpeted with the encroaching grass and buttercup, but also (happily) has become home to some self-sown rudbeckia. Clearing that bed will be another job to do before the ice falls.

Soil analysis completed, I’ve covered over the main beds with black plastic – just a few chrysanthemums, next year’s sweet williams and a solitary PSB plan are poking through
Attention now turns to the dahlia bed, which is (surprise surprise) over-run with grass but is also, happily, now home to these self-sown rudbeckia.

Finally, a mention that underneath the paving slabs that I keep for weighing down the plastic sheets, I find clutches of tiny white eggs (slugs?), woodlice the size of a grain of sand, and a small ball of dried golden grass, with a little tunnel hollowed out. Surely the home of a mouse? I put the slab back and left them all in peace, obviously. A reminder that I share this plot with about a billion other creatures. AND that reminds me that when I cleared a plot yesterday at gardening school, I uncovered the home of five newts, each grey-brown body huddled into the next for warmth. For a second, the world stopped as I felt wonder and glory, in creatures the size of my little finger.

Also this month:

Harvesting: Last squash and gourds, rosemary, last raspberries (they are actually still going but I can take no more), last dahlias, still waiting on the chrysanthemums though.

Jobs: Clearing, covering, weeding – generally preparing for next year

Cooking and eating: All hail cauliflower cheese. Butternut squash and sweet potato soup. Cranberry and marmalade cake. Blackberry and apple crumble. Successfully knocked £100 off my monthly food bill by eating up the freezer and batch-cooking with veg and beans.

Also: Pumpkin carving. Cheltenham Literature Festival. Reading The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn, This is not a diet book by Bee Wilson, Girl Woman Other by Bernadine Evaristo, The Hollow by Agatha Christie, and loved Sort your life out with Stacey Solomon.

The year turns

I wrote a draft of this post two weeks ago but due to very dull technical issues it was never posted. Better late than never, and there’s an update at the end about today’s harvest.
—-
September 18 2023:
Summer’s end marks the return to school, breathing space (for me, anyway), and the small matter of a birthday. The cake remains the same every year, but the boys get bigger and the table-top dinosaur collection that much noisier!

Harry’s birthday cake, the 6th year in a row it’s come out. Hopefully I can keep this up forever and he’ll never request a dinosaur/Minecraft/Lego technical challenge.
Evening pasta had to take second place to the more important Lego build

September is the month for courgettes and cosmos, on our plot anyway, which as I’ve noted before is several weeks behind those of you in Worcestershire. The strange scorching week at the start of September sent a few plants over the edge, followed by a storm that literally sent the sunflowers flying; a shame as they had only just come into flower on the first week of the month.

Cosmos, courgette, squash and a sea of nasturtiums
Sunflower got felled by the storm

The dahlias have merged into a solid mass of colour, reds, oranges, whites, yellows, purple. It is not artistic, for the colours clash and the sizes of each plant differ, but I don’t mind and the effort of lifting and moving them makes we want to weep. Just to the left are a few self-seeded rudbeckia, a few weeks from flowering yet, and a welcome surprise. They’re not the only self-seeders that have popped up in recent weeks; there’s also spears of amaranth, snapdragon and cerinthe, all of which are healthier plants than the ones I started from scratch back in the spring.

The dahlia block with a few surprise rudbeckia beneath
September is the colour of reds, oranges and corals

Update, 2 October 2023

The year has started to turn. The nights draw in that much earlier, the days lighten that much later. The shock isn’t great – yet – and there’s still warmth in the air, but I can sense everything starting to let go, starting to fall. I don’t find it sad. On the contrary, it’s as if the veg patch is breathing a sigh of relief (as do I) that the intense activity of spring and summer is coming to an end.

There’s still harvesting of course – cosmos, sunflowers, amaranth and now the first chrysanthemums, with that evocative old-fashioned fragrance that takes me back to days flower arranging with my mum in the 1980s.

Sunflowers now at their best, and the ammi seedheads look wonderful with them in the vase

Annoyingly my technical issues continue and I can’t upload the images I took today of the gourd/squash harvest – 17 green and orange specimens, some gnarly, some smooth, are left out to cure before I’ll bring them inside – or of the box of brown leathery runner beans that I allowed to dry out on their sticks before cutting them down. I read somewhere that you can treat runner beans as you do borlotti, that is, allow their deep purple seeds to ripen and dry, then store them for winter bean cookery. Given that runner beans quickly become overwhelming and glut-like, I like this approach to extending their harvest potential.

The other big news is that I have realised this past fortnight that all recipes for chips/roast potatoes are incorrect, in that they usually tell you to take your maris piper potato then chop it up blah blah blah. All recipes should actually begin, “First, grow your own potatoes”. Because the maris pipers that we harvested two weeks ago are SO BRILLIANT that I might consider chucking everything else in and just growing spuds from here-on-in. I don’t know why our ground produces good potatoes, if it’s the climate or the sharp drainage or what, but these are crispiest, fluffiest roasties I have ever produced. I’ve never really understood the point of growing things that are inexpensive and easy to come by in the shops, but with the quality of these spuds – now I understand.

Also this month:
Harvesting: Squash, gourds, last courgettes, last raspberries, chard, rosemary, marjoram, dried runner beans, maris piper potatoes, chrysanthemum, cosmos, sunflower, amaranth, dahlias.

Cooking & eating: Salt marsh lamb from the Cartmel peninsula, slow-roasted gigot style, with dauphinoise potatoes; tons of chips/roasties from our potatoes; carrot cake, nectarine ice cream; first Christmas stollen in Aldi which I find simultaneously terrible (so early!) and brilliant (it’s stollen!). Raspberry compote for the freezer. The freezer is full, and I mean stuffed, with soft fruit, mainly raspberries which have been brilliantly productive this year.

Jobs: Planted out biennials to allotment and a few in pots (sweet william and wallflower). Squirrels have had the ones in pots but the allotment ones should be OK. The seedlings were tiny tiny, too small to go out really, due to my ongoing issue trying to propagate in peat-free compost. Planted chard in the veg trug and mustard leaves in the oak planter.

Also: Lots of weekend walks now that Harry’s able, to Kinver and the Lickey Hills. Gardening School has started again, year two.

August, Perch Hill & Sissinghurst

Summer is already closing down. The hedgerows are ripe with berries and haws, autumn cyclamen have nudged their heads through, and I’ve just spent a fortune on new school uniform. August has been intensely busy; not always enjoyably so. There’s been a lot of (too much) work, which makes school holidays a challenge. Living in the moment is difficult when there are too many calls on your time and energy, and this is particularly hard at this time of year, knowing that the light, the heat, the colour, will soon fade away into winter. So I’m looking forward to September, in the hope of a quieter few weeks, getting some essential tasks finished in the garden and allotment, and hopefully an Indian summer after the endless rain of July and changeability of August.

This post is a visual scrapbook of my August, including notes from the veg patch, my biannual pilgrimage to Perch Hill and Sissinghurst for creative inspiration, and other bits of messing about.

Allotment life

In short, after a lousy start, we’ve done OK on the allotment this summer. July rain helped enormously, creating an abundance of French and runner beans, excellent soft fruit (in particular the raspberries) and a good number of courgette. No kale this year, due to all the slugs and that rubbish compost, though there’s still chance of a winter harvest.

Perennial cut flowers now a riot of colour
Climbing beans (runner, French, borlotti) have thrived in the wet summer

The dahlias, snap dragon and gladioli are particularly happy this year, meaning I’m getting regular car boot-fulls of cut flowers. The colour way is definitely on the pink/white spectrum, and next year I’d like more orangey-red-peachy shades plus some light, airy stems. Special note to the sweet peas, which have thrived in pots in the gloom, and are still flowering now even as we near September.

A regular boot full of blooms and berries
Dahlias nudging up against sweet peas
Hot magentas with whites

It should be noted that any modest success I have is put into proportion by my Mum and Dad, who could be market gardeners really. Every trip home I am given a veg box heaving with tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, aubergine, lettuce, sweetcorn…

Every visit home leaves me with a veg box

Perch Hill, East Sussex

To Sussex, for the dahlia open day at Perch Hill (Sarah Raven’s cutting garden). It’s my fourth visit here, for this place is SO brilliant, so abundant, so creative in its planting combinations and colour, that it’s a joy to visit. Happily since learning that they have several full time gardeners (and pots of cash of course) I feel less bad about the comparison to my humble efforts.

Take aways for me this year are the coral/peach spectrum dahlias, which I would like more of, and the sheer number of pots with hot, vibrant shades of really quite common plants such as French marigold, achillea and fuchsia, which feels very achievable at home. The persicaria orientalis is amazing, towering over me with magenta colour.

The sensational dahlias beds
Ammi visnaga is as tall as me, crammed in with scabious and more dahlias in the cutting garden
Love the persicaria orientalis, a good eight feet tall and hot pink
Helpful plant ID stands are dotted around the garden
Enjoyed the clashing achillea crammed together into one bucket
The Oast garden is a jungle of hot-coloured abundance
Rich oranges and corals in the Dutch Garden

My stand out plant was actually not a flower at all, but this humble kale, called ‘dazzling blue’ – I presume it’s a cross between a cavolo nero and a blue kale, and planted next to orange marigolds looked amazing.

My star plant was actually this kale called Dazzling Blue – a beauty

Sissinghurst, Kent

On to Sissinghurst, the pinnacle of garden design – a place of romance, bohemia, artistry and of course serious hard graft for the people who keep it going. I wanted to soak up the beauty of the rose garden and see the newly planted dry garden (Delos) for the first time, but mainly my visit was to see what this place does at the end of summer, for Sissinghurst is famously a garden for June.

The answer is that the cottage garden is vibrant with jungle colour – oranges, reds, yellows, from more French marigolds, sunflowers, cannas and rudbeckias. Simply wonderful.

View to the rose garden from the tower
Looking over Delos, the newly recreated dry garden
Yellows and oranges in the cottage garden
Love this clash of red and orange

The other thing Sissinghurst does at this time of year is grow serious (I mean serious) amounts of fruit and veg. The kitchen garden is so vast and so productive that it’s kind of unreal; this isn’t your usual pretty-pretty National Trust veg patch, but a serious working market garden. That, and they coppice of course, a tradition that is rich in this part of Southern England but harder to find further north. As a family we are, naturally enough, extremely drawn to this sustainable method of wood production.

Sissinghurst hosts the veg patch of dreams! Beans, squash and lettuce in abundance.
Sissinghurst has acres of coppiced hazel
The tradition of coppicing is rich in Kent and Sussex

August living

Work, harvesting and gardens aside, there has been a bit of messing about. A weekend in the Peaks, a visit to London, a few days in a yurt…

On top of Thorpe Cloud in the Peaks
Yurt life! It’s our second visit to the yurt at Dogwood Camping near Rye. This time we got wise and brought the mini oven, meaning that baked pancakes and fish-finger curry were on the menu (not on the same plate obviously).
Spotting fish in the Sissinghurst lake. The wider woodland at Sissinghurst is a revelation, well worth an explore, and completely free of visitors.
Playing soldiers in Kent parkland (you can just see Harry’s legs)
Messing about on the beach at Bexhill
Picnic at Dungeness

Also not pictured: rain storms, tantrums (from both child and parents), mud, over-priced ice cream, emergency trip to Morrisons for aforementioned fish fingers, big fat CLOSED sign at Knole (ffs), traffic jams, horrendous numbers of work WhatsApp messages at evenings/weekends, guilt at not being more available for work, guilt over not being more available for family, slugs, weeds, washing piles, YouTube videos.

Also this month:

Harvesting: French beans (purple ones particularly productive this year), courgettes, raspberries, blueberries. Runner beans I am leaving to pod up, then harvest as we would borlotti. No greens/kales this year. Dahlias, cosmos, snapdragon, glads, self-seeded cornflowers, last sweet peas. Every trip home I am gifted tomatoes, excellent cucumbers, beans, aubergine, peppers, blueberries…the list goes on.

Allotment: Put down three green manures to compare their efficacy. Squash doing well. Hops and crysanthemums have both succumbed to some kind of insect/virus attached. Sunflowers nearly out, though one has died after having its stem stripped by enterprising wasps. Could do with more perennials…dahlias, oranges/red/coral shades, plus rudbeckia, helianthus, that kind of thing.

Cooking and eating: Camp food – fish-finger curry, chicken goujon tacos, baked plum pancakes, thermos of tea. Lots of plums. Prepping bags and bags of soft fruit, apples from Clives, roast tomatoes and beans, and sweet corn for the freezer. It takes hours but I’ll be grateful for it come February.

Also: Reading Sarah Raven’s book about the making of Sissinghurst. Went back to the Agatha Christie’s but after four Poirots in a row I need a break from all the murders. No time for telly. Wondering what happened to my creative brain, for it is now full of tasks, emails and deadlines.

The tale of the stunted seedlings

During my RHS course, which has finished for now, we spent a lot of time hearing about horticulture is good for one’s mental and physical health. And everytime I heard this, I thought “well that may be true for some people, some of the time, but what about July on the allotment?” Because it’s now that the time, labour, sweat, blood and cash is meant to come together to one glorious harvest – and the heartache when it doesn’t is palpable.

Every year at this time, I bring to mind an anecdote about Vita Sackville West’s column in The Observer, in correspondence with a reader who opined that she was “an armchair, library fireside gardener”, to which she replied “May I assure him that for the last forty years of my life I have broken my back, my finger-nails and sometimes my heart in the practical pursuit of my favourite occupation?”.

Heartbreak is something not often discussed with allotments, but it’s there and it is real. A heartbreak fuelled by hopes and dreams born of a thousand seed catalogues, Instagram reels, glossy magazines and TV programmes. Our expectations are set high and so when reality doesn’t match up, disappointment lurks. I should remember the teachings of the Buddhists and the Stoics: desire is the root of all suffering.

To explain, let’s head back a few weeks.

Remember the seedlings, started off as usual in early April in plugs and pots, in virtuous peat-free compost (a coir and woodchip mix), in the sun room? Well they germinated OK but then just sat there, with baby seed leaves, not really doing anything. By the start of June I thought enough is enough and so out they came to be potted up and get some proper weather…well proper weather they got, with what we now now to be the hottest June on record. What they also got was a devouring from the world’s biggest population of slugs and snails. (What is it about Bearwood and our crazy slug/snail population?!. Every evening I’d head out to pick off the gastropods and there would easily be 20-30 in one tiny area).

Reader, my baby cut-flower and veg plants did not stand a chance.

The tale of the stunted seedlings: compost, cold, heat, slugs, drought, light levels….everything has been against them

I did my best to help the babies, moving them away from the main slug area, getting them out of the coir and into a different compost mix, and whilst some did perk up (scabious and redbor kale), others stayed weak and without much hope (cornflower, cosmos and cavolo nero). Others failed completely: there won’t be any phlox, cleome or strawflower this year. At least three trays worth of seedlings have completely vanished, done for by the slugs/snails and the weather.

Finally, this last fortnight, I have planted out what was salvageable – a good 4 to 6 weeks after I might normally expect to. A few lessons here:

  1. I left the seedlings in the coir for way too long, and they weren’t getting the nutrition they needed. If using coir, four weeks nutrition maximum is all it can offer. Peat-free is absolutely the way forward, but it isn’t easy.
  2. Really I attempt to grow way too much from seed without a greenhouse. I do this partly for pride and partly for interest, but it actually is a waste of money if all the plants are getting eaten by snails or whither from exposure. Better to buy a few plugs and attempt to pot them on.
  3. I haven’t used any slug pellets this year because of what they do to the ecosystem. That’s all well and good, but to have no slug protection on young plants is untenable; they simply can’t stand the nightly assaults. Next year I’ll need to try either raising plants up onto trestles, using wool pellets or gravel or something.
  4. June and July on the allotment is always stressful. Always has been, probably always will be.

So that’s the Tale of the Stunted Seedlings. There are other tales to tell to, of the brambles, grass, buttercup and fat hen that are endemic. I am tolerant of quite a lot of weeds now, as I understand them to be important habitat for insects, but there is a balancing act to be found and currently the weeds have the upper hand. Then there’s the Tale of the Soil That Could be Sand, so free-draining and so dry that many hungry veg will always struggle (peas, I’m looking at you). A few lorryloads of manure a year would sort it out, but of course that is far easier said than done. Let’s not even talk about the black bean aphid that got to the broad beans before I did.

At this time of year I simply do not have the hours in my day to keep on top of it all, what with work, family, RHS exams, house and garden to keep up as well.

Having said all that, it’s not all doom and gloom. The cornflowers that I put in in March have been magnificent, and the calendula and sweet William did OK too.

After my doubts, autumn-sown cornflower and calendula are romping away
A harvest for drying – allium, calendula, cornflower
Cut flowers are still thin on the ground but we do have sweet peas and cornflower, and a few sweet william

The climbing beans are actually growing for once (pigeon protection worked!) and I’ve had a little poke around the potatoes and am hopeful of a decent harvest in a fortnight or so.

First dig of Charlotte potatoes plus chard and some tiny peas
Beans on 8 June…
…and again on 1 July. Ignore the weeds. This image has pixelated for no obvious reason.

It’s the shrubs and perennials that earn their keep on the allotment. Dahlias and gladioli just get on with it; after removing some plastic sheeting that I’d put down for weed control that was inadvertently a perfect slug habitat, they are now thriving. The red and blackcurrants have not been productive this year, but they are probably 20+ years old now so I’ll let them off. Blueberries and raspberries are looking promising.

Dahlias and glads were in a battle against the slugs at the start of June
…but they perked up nicely once I removed the slug hiding places

As ever, it’s the nasturtium that are threatening to take over. I planted these once, about eight years ago, and now they seed themselves and have to be ripped out before they engulf what’s left of the cut flowers.

As ever it’s the nasturtiums that romp away

My notebook from last year reminds me that the bulk of our harvest comes later in the year, and that’s just how it is. A reminder of the Stoical approach.

Also this month:

Harvesting: First chard, first stick beans, first potatoes, broad beans (though black bean aphid got most of them before I did), a few strawberries, redcurrants (v poor harvest), red russian kale (veg trug). Last sweet William, last foxgloves, lots of sweetpeas, quaking grass, cornflower, calendula, roses (garden).

Sowing and planting: Trying again with fresh sowing of cavolo nero and chard for autumn/winter. Planted out the final lot of spring-sown cut flower and veg seedlings: scabious, cosmos, bunny tail grass, kohl rabi, cavolo nero, redbor kale, squash and courgette. Many seedlings went straight into the green bin. Moved a few slug-ravaged dahlias inside to see if they recover.

Also in the garden: The roses and summer drummer alliums are out and brilliant. My thoughts turn to late summer and what has perennality in our conditions whilst being slug proof. Sanguisorba, fennel, that kind of thing. We cut back the spring flowering shrubs but due to ongoing bin strikes have no way of getting rid of the massive pile of cuttings, so they sit at the back of the lawn, a new habitat for invertebrates.

Cooking and eating: It’s fruit season. Strawberries, blueberries, nectarines, apricots, plums, raspberries, all eaten fresh but I’m growing bored and want crumbles, cakes, patisserie. Creamy broad beans. Moussaka. Meringues. Oatmeal raisin cookies. Thomasina Miers’ vanilla milk ice.

Also: RHS exam ate up time and energy. Massive IT meltdown caused weeks of disruption and a very expensive new laptop. Visit to Highgrove for my birthday, and David Austin roses with Emma. So much to think about and manage for school holidays/clubs and work. Reading Seed to Dust by Marc Hamer, wonderful, and Mountains by Steve Backshall. Not had any telly in weeks.

Finally, the warm months

My last entry included a snowscape of cold and daffodils shivering in the breeze. Not so any longer. The chill has finally lifted and with it, life has returned to business (should that say busy-ness?).

This last month we’ve had what feels like a thousand bank holidays, which on the one hand is opportunity for fun, but on the other means not enough time to get the work that needs to be done, done. But putting that to one side – the Coronation saw my husband invent the Coronation Scone (picture below) but more importantly for me, the first proper flower harvest of the year, with appropriately regal purple alium, lilac, the deepest dark tulips and frothy cow parsley. It is a fleeting vase, but a good one.

The Coronation Scone – jam, cream, chocolate mini roll
Picked on coronation day – cow parsley, lilac, allium, tulip

And then we had a birthday, where aforementioned husband finally turned 40 (I am older and therefore always waiting for him to catch up). We headed down to Dorset for a glamping weekend, which was lovely, but was also way too busy. In the rush to crack on and see/do it all, I think I’ve forgotten how important it is to slow down.

Matt turned 40!
Luxury camping in Dorset
The return of golden sunsets
Stonehenge

The great thing about camping/glamping is that you are so immersed in nature, it is like breathing in life-force energy. I could admire this oak, just outside our tent door, for hours. The woodland was richly carpeted in wild garlic, its scent carrying for miles, and mornings were dotted with the sound of newborn lambs pestering their mothers.

A particularly magnificent oak, just coming into leaf
The woodland still abounds with wild garlic

But let’s get down to business. It’s a mixed start to the year. The propogation area in my loftily-titled sun room is very, very slow to get going. Many of these veg and flower seeds were sown well over a month ago now, and germination has been slow, and then growth miniscule. March and April have been chilly, which didn’t help, but I do wonder if the peat-free compost is yet to deliver the goods?

The propagation room – slow to get started this year

Outside, I had to move some tender seedlings outside to the cold frame WAY too early in order to make space, and have paid the price. Slugs have been at the courgettes (I’ve since made a repeat sow) and the sunflowers are far from thriving. Dahlias and Iris in posts are very, very slow to get going; I hope this current warm spell with encourage them into life. I’ve not used any slug pellets this year, which is a bold move for Bearwood (we are heavily slug-prone), but I can no longer justify the amount of death I was causing. So instead I am keeping the most munchable seedlings away from where the slugs hide, and doing twice-daily slug hunts.

On the plus side, the January-sown sweet peas are now romping away in their pots. I had a brilliant veg-trug harvest of winter-sown rocket, mustard and spinach, and have now replaced them with more baby spinach and ‘red russian’ kale. Beetroot has gone into the oak planter. The two pots of Sarah Raven tulips were magnificent but their time has now gone; if the dahlias ever grow, I’ll swap them into the big ceramic tulip posts for a late summer display.

Sweet peas are starting to romp away in the pots. The plugs in front are on hard standing to keep them away from the slugs.

And the back garden is booming with allium and foxgloves, and wonderfully healthy roses. The whitebells that introduced themselves are happily echoed by the white of the self-sown Orlaya grandiflora, plus there are quite a few unknowns; I’m leaving most of the self-sowers in to see what happens.

The garden coming into late May fullness
This rose – its name forgotten but it’s a David Austen – is now taller than me

On the allotment, the soil has been uncovered but is mostly still unplanted, waiting until the bulk of the annual cut flowers, dwarf beans, courgettes and squash are ready to go out. The broad beans are coming along slowly, and the stick beans are out and so far have avoided a complete decimation by slugs and pigeons. I always keep a few plants back now for the inevitable re-planting that happens every year.

Broad beans were all planted out at the start of May
Stick beans are also out, with extravagant pigeon-defence netting

These peas were planted out this week, with the most elaborate pigeon-defence system I have ever made – pea sticks, fleece, dried brambles. So far, so good.

Peas are hidden in a shroud of fleece
I also sneaked dried brambles in amongst the pea sticks to deter winged visitors

As for the allotment harvest, it has been a slow start to the year. I didn’t put in any new tulip bulbs last autumn, and the wild rocket didn’t take too well (I only now have one plant coming into flower). None of the Honesty made it, and the Sweet Williams are sort-of-maybe thinking about flowering. So thank goodness for the purple sprouting, which finally came good a good three weeks after I had completely given up on it. So far I’ve had three massive colander-fulls; it may even have replaced asparagus as my favourite May veg (and that is saying something).

The harvest I had given up on – purple sprouting broccoli is delivering at last

For the most delicious, easy and economical pasta, the Italian classic Oriechette with PSB is as good as any. Traditionally, the Italians would use Cime di rapa for this, but that’s hard to come by in the UK, and PSB makes a fine substitute. Cook a good portion of purple sprouting with oriechette in heavily salted water until the pasta is al dente – the greens will collapse a little, which is all to the good. Meanwhile, sizzle sliced garlic, red chilli and a few anchovies in good olive oil until the anchovy has collapsed and the garlic is aromatic. It is essential that it does not burn. Drain the pasta and greens, add to the garlicky oil, and toss the lot together – add a little of the pasta cooking water to make a smooth emulsion, though this isn’t really a ‘saucy’ dish. Season with pepper but probably no salt, due to the anchovies. Serve at once, with grated pecorino or, even better, crisply fried pangrattato (bread crumbs). I like a little squeeze of lemon as well.

Also this month:
Harvesting: PSB, spinach, rocket, oregano, thyme, rosemary, alliums, lilac, last of the tulips, cow parsley, sweet rocket
Sowing: Everything has been sown or repeat sown by now. Maincrop potatoes went in at the start of May, as did a direct sowing of parsnips and carrots (more in hope rather than expectation).
Cooking and eating: First barbecue of the year with steak, sausages and lamb kebabs. Bulghar wheat salad with rocket and peppers. Foccacia. Many, many dishes pulled from the freezer because life is busy now.
Also: Reading Cracking the Menopause by Mariella Frostrup, for it is good to be prepared, and Sophie Grigson’s fab memoir of moving to Puglia, A Curious Absence of Chickens? Too much work to do in too little time, life is a bit stressful again.

Getting down to business

Spring is undoubtedly here. There are cold winds, yes, but also beds of daffodils, tulips and emerging alliums, purple-pink rose foliage unfurling and lawn is littered with yellow forsythia petals. Heavy snow came the second week of March, pushing everything back, but now new life is springing.

A late fall of snow on 9-10 March
Plant supports with a bank of narcissus behind, at the Chatsworth maze

This Easter weekend I went asparagus hunting, that well-known April pastime, and was rewarded with an eye-wateringly expensive haul. Less than a week later I’ve cooked four rounds, I think, and I’m finally just about getting the timing right – no-one needs overcooked asparagus. Whilst I look longingly at the new season veg, the boys only have eyes for chocolate…

Annual picture of the first asparagus at Hillers
Easter cake

Whilst further south the spring bulbs are nearly all over, here we’re just getting started. In the garden, the bed of established ‘pheasant’s eye’ narcissus is just about out now, though the native English Narcissus pseudonarscissus that I planted last autumn have completely vanished….whether the squirrels or the weather did for them, who knows. I only did a few pots this year but they’re marvellous – Narcissus February Gold (which didn’t flower until mid-March) and the Sarah Raven white tulip collection are highly recommended.

Narcissus ‘February Gold’ didn’t bloom until March, alongside the Sarah Raven white tulip collection

Now that the clocks have changed, it is of course time to start getting down to business. On the allotment, the hopolisk has risen for another year, and I’ve put a deep mulch of compost over the dahlia bed. Harry and I planted a few rows of Charlotte potatoes in the Good Friday sun, alongside the broad bean seedlings that I sowed back in February. The black plastic covering the bulk of the beds will stay down for a few weeks yet, partly to warm the soil but mainly to keep the worse of the weeds away. It’s ugly, but it’s a life-saver.

Allotment is still mainly undercover, but the hopolisk is risen and the first potatoes are in
A lunchtime visitor

Incidentally, the autumn-sown cornflower and calendula that I planted out back in late February took a battering in that March snow. They may be hardy, but that doesn’t mean that they enjoy icy gales. It was worth the experiment, and in a more-sheltered southerly site they’d be OK, but I’m not convinced it’s worth the bother of autumn sowing in this chilly spot in the Midlands.

The autumn-sown cornflower and calendula are doing terribly, now joined by broad beans and (behind) a few rows of Charlotte potatoes

Back home, the sunroom is filled with seed trays, pots and seedlings. I started off the hardy annuals back in March (more cornflower, various grasses for cutting, scabious, phlox, kales, beets, chard, spinach) and this week it’s the turn of the more delicate sun-lovers: sunflowers, cosmos, dwarf beans, plus more kales. I still need to get the climbing beans going, and a few weeks later the courgettes. It’s all a question of space, which remains at a premium, and light: go too early and everything just gets leggy, which tends to lead to disappointment.

But thank God for this return to life. Turning one’s face towards the sun (literally and metaphorically), and stepping away from the fallow months, into the action.

Also this week:

Sowing and planting: Kales, dwarf beans, cosmos, sunflowers. Hardier plants were begun in March, including the grasses for cutting, scabious, cornflower, chard, spinach, amaranths. Planted out mustard mix leaves to sit alongside spinach and rocket. Planted out broad bean seedlings and Charlotte potatoes. Need to crack on with sowing the climbing beans, planting up summer pots and sweet pea pots.

Other jobs: Mulched and weeded dahlias. Matt cut back the brambles. Hopolisk is risen.

Cooking and eating: First asparagus! Slow-cooked lamb with cumin, paprika and chillies. Turkey and trifle at Grove House. Easter chocolate cake. Easter biscuits. Melon, strawberries and kiwi, because the fruit craving after a long winter has got too much. Many, many hot cross buns. Afternoon cream team at Chatsworth in the rain. Salmon and PSB quiche.

Also: Chatsworth garden and farm park; Easter trail at Caughton Court. Hillers for asparagus. First week of Easter holidays a stressful juggle but by week two we’d got into the swing of it.

Chipping the rasps

It’s still bitterly cold out but the thin, improving light means we are unquestionably heading towards spring. I enjoy a cold snap during March and April; it’s nature’s way of reminding us to not get ahead of ourselves, to not go speeding off. This winter has been kind to us, actually, with plenty of slow time and a few opportunities to get out and explore. The snowdrops at Colesbourne Park in Gloucestershire were wonderful, and a half term visit to London led to a surprise visit to Fulham Palace, with its ancient wisteria and enviable walled garden.

Snowdrops and cyclamen at Colesborne Park, Gloucestershire
An extraordinary ancient wisteria at Fulham Palace

I’ve been making an effort to cook again too, minded towards seasonality and health (sounds dull but actually I enjoy feeding a family with nutrition in mind). Forced rhubarb is still eye-waveringly expensive so it’s only had two outings this season, baked with blood oranges and honey. And the freezer is giving up last summer’s fruit hoard, with blackberries, blueberries, blackcurrants and raspberries making their way into puddings, compotes and cakes.

Roasted rhubarb and bread & butter pudding with blackberries

Outside, slowly but surely, there is emerging life. The spring bulbs have greened up the garden, whilst hellebore hide their bowing heads against the wind. The sweet peas that I sowed back in January are doing well, as are the broad beans.

January-sown sweetpeas coming along nicely

February is time for that most unpleasant of allotment jobs: cutting back the autumn raspberries, which actually means attempting to remove the rampant blackberries that have taken hold whilst not getting stabbed in the eye by a spent raspberry cane. I cut the canes back about two weeks ago now, taking advantage of a mild day, and rooted out the brambles as best I could (I will never win, it’s just a question of who – woman or bramble – has the balance of power at any one time). In order to keep the grass and weeds down, the patch also needed a really good mulch, which is a nuisance of a job because bark/compost/manure etc is HEAVY and everything has to be moved by hand. For the last three years I haven’t bothered but last summer the grass was taller than my head, and the raspberries also hated the drought, so action needed to be taken to keep weeds out and water in.

The raspberries – BEFORE

So last week we took advantage of a school strike day and had a family trip to Canon Frome in Herefordshire, to collect a van load of wood chippings from Say it with Wood. They make fences and stakes and suchlike from coppiced hard wood, and sell their waste wood chip for about £30 a square metre (that’s one JCB-scoop), which is about half the price of buying bark from a garden centre. I like this for three reasons: one, it’s a waste product that is having a second life. Two, it’s a local loose product, so its carbon footprint is low and I don’t have heaps of plastic to get rid of. Three, it’s always fun to visit small creative rural businesses, and they had a puppy to play with. Granted, mulching an allotment this way requires a van and a bit of elbow grease, but luckily for me Matt enjoys this kind of thing.

A JCB-scoop of wood chip takes a surprisingly long time to move by hand
Say it with Wood at Canon Frome, Herefordshire

So the wood chip was collected, moved from Herefordshire to Harborne, wheel-barrowed from the car park to the plot, and then spread over the raspberries. As usual, I could have taken the same amount of mulch again…it never stops amazing me just how huge our plot is and how it eats up raw materials.

Whilst Matt moved chippings, Harry and I planted out the calendula and cornflowers that I started off last September as an experiment in autumn-sowing. Truth be told, they are probably some of the worst plants I have ever grown – leggy, with a few greenfly – but if we get a harvest one- or two-months earlier than normal then it might be worth it.

Raspberries – AFTER
Autumn-sown calendula and cornflowers were planted out whilst Harry’s tractors seem to have endured a major incident

The slow season is drawing to an end now, and in a few weeks the sun room will be full of seed trays and pots again. I have dahlias and iris to pot up, and heaps of flowers and veg to start off. We’re just waiting for more light, and of course, a little more heat.

Also this month:

Harvesting and growing: Not much to harvest apart from last season’s soft fruit from the freezer. Planted out calendula and cornflower. Started off more broadbeans, mustard mix and snapdragons.

Cooking and eating: Slow roast lamb shoulder with tadig; Toscaka; lots of pancakes and waffles with freezer fruit; heaps of things from the River Cottage Good Comfort book including dahl soups, cowboy bangers and beans, cornbread and oaty cookies.

Out and about: Fulham Palace Gardens, Natural History Museum and Horniman Museum during half-term; lunch with friends in Godalming; Birmingham Botanical Gardens; Athletics at the NIA; Matt did a half marathon with more in the pipeline; RHS exam number 1; yin yoga workshop. Thinking ahead to summer visits and inspirations.

Reading: Lucy Worsley’s biography of Queen Victoria. Sandi Toksvig memoir. A pile of reading for my RHS course that is waist high.

Wintering

Jean messaged me earlier this week to ask what had happened to the blog because she missed it. A kind thing to say, and also a useful reminder for me to sit down and just do it. I think I’ve been wintering since about the end of November – after the noisiness of 2022 (three PMs, two monarchs, one child starting school, a gazillion work projects, climate crisis, cost-of-living crisis, having builders in…) I’ve felt the need for quiet. Plus all my creative/learning brain has been busy on my RHS course, which I will talk about here at some point, but suffice to say is intellectually all-consuming (and wonderful).

The allotment was covered early this year, by mid-November

The allotment got covered slightly earlier than normal this year, by mid-November, though the dahlias were still going strong in that strange, mild autumn that we had. I thought it wise to make the most of the warm days and get the plastic sheeting down early, because normally it’s a job I do with ice for fingers (not fun). There are so many things that need doing on the plot, from digging out the creeping buttercup Ranunculus repens* AGAIN, getting the pesky brambles out of the raspberries AGAIN, removing weeds in the perennial cut flower patch AGAIN, tidying the edges AGAIN, and so on. I’m not ready yet. It can all wait.

*For RHS exam purposes I am having to learn Latin binomial names. Every now and then I’ll yell out Hedera helix or Persicaria orientalis, like I’m casting a spell in Harry Potter.

Instead the focus is home, proper cooking, learning those aforementioned Latin names, and getting a few flower and veg seeds going. Matt’s rather pleased with the waffle maker that we’re baby-sitting for Emma and Chris whilst they’re in Vietnam for a couple of years (they probably won’t get it back). Meanwhile I’ve been keeping an eye on both pennies and health, cooking more with wholegrains, pulses, sturdy winter veg and the like.

Sunday morning waffles
My RHS course includes a spot of garden design, which I love. These are Matt’s watercolour pencils that he bought for A-level art.

The autumn-sown calendula and cornflowers are thriving in our chilly sunroom (it’s never above 10c in there during the winter), despite the odd patch of botrytis caused by lack of ventilation. Once the weather warms up I’ll pop them onto the allotment, hoping for an earlier-than-usual crop of orange and blue flowers.

autumn-sown calendula and cornflowers are doing well despite botrytis

I’ve been getting other early-starters going too. Three trays of broadbean (stereo green longpod, crimson flowered and aquadulce) and also the sweetpeas – ciprani, which is one of the very oldest varieties, dating from the 16th century, plus a lot of seed that I saved from last year’s tubs. I don’t know if they will come true, and that’s the fun – it’s like a no-pressure science experiment, and Harry and I are looking forward to finding the results. Over the spring we’re also going to do some soil pH testing, and have a go at making a mini-wormery.

Sweetpeas sown in mid-January, ingloriously perching on top of the washing machine

A few further experiments for this year – I want to grow more flowers for drying, so I’ll try Briza maxima (greater quaking grass), Lagurus ovatus (Bunny’s tail grass) and Xeranthemum annuum on the allotment, all of which are new to me. And given the success of the sensational White giant snapdragons, I’m trying another one bred for cutting – Antirrhinum majus ‘Potomac Crimson’. Hot magenta pink in colour, it should be a whopper.

Some new flowers that I’ll trial for 2023

So that’s it! Make the most of this quiet wintering time if you can, bringing with it rest and quiet renewal.

Also this month:
Cooking and eating: Lots of things from the River Cottage Good Comfort book, which has all the stuff you want to eat in winter, but made better for you: sticky pork ribs, corn bread, sausages and beans, dal, and so on. I’m doing a lot with wholemeal flour, lentils, carrots, swede, celeriac – sounds worthy and dull but is actually soul food.

Growing: Broad beans, sweetpeas, I’ll start the antirrhinum in a few weeks. Cut back the ivy and pruned the roses. Alliums are up already and narcissi are just poking their heads through.

Also: RHS course work. Enjoying the Sarah Raven podcast and planning for 2023 growing. Reading Expedition by Steve Backshall and Thinking on my feet by Kate Humble (they’re outside so I don’t need to be).