The Fuchsia’s So Bright…

Some plants are so common. You see them everywhere. And with good reason. Geranium Johnson’s Blue started flowering in April and there is still one flower there now, in December. This fuchsia (I forget its name) is flowering its heart out. OK, so we haven’t had a really hard frost which will cut it down, along with the nicotiana Sylvestris which I noticed is forming another flower bud despite the plant itself lying on the ground. Of course the fatsia japonica is really coming into its own with its weirdo umbels, but one expects that in winter.

I went to check on the rose Graham Thomas that went in at Easter. I thought that if all its leaves had dropped I would give it a fairly hard prune. It shot up skywards this summer so a bit of branching wouldn’t go amiss. As it is its first winter, I didn’t want to risk wind rock. Anyway, not only has it not lost its leaves it has three flower buds on it. Its twin on the other side of the steps is in a shadier and more sheltered position so although half the height it still hasn’t dropped its leaves.

Other things that are going mad are the penstemon Russian River cuttings in the cold frame. Taken late summer, they have not only taken, but have reached the glass.

All of these things will eventually be cut down by frosts. I am hoping for another hard winter. It’s so much better for the plants when they have a proper dormancy and if there’s the odd casualty, so what?

Herb Bell Remedy

We love tarragon. We have a nice large terracotta pot that sits on a little spur of the gravel drive. This pot used to have a fatsia japonica in it but it didn’t survive the harsh winter. I needed something to replace it, and as it is close to the herb quadrant, I decided on tarragon.

It grew like topsy in my last garden but this one is too wet for it to reliably survive. We even lost it in the raised bed that is the quadrant. So a pot is ideal. I have even put it on little terracotta feet to be extra safe. There are three plants in there and it has been growing away quite happily.

I am determined not to lose it. I have moved the pot over to the nursery area, wrapped it in bubble wrap and put a beautiful glass bell cloche on it. The only reason I moved it to the nursery is on the drive it was in danger of having an altercation with a car door. If these tarragon plants die, I may just give up gardening.

Here is my favourite recipe that includes tarragon. Heat a load of butter in a frying pan and put in a couple of handfuls of chopped tarragon. Chuck in chicken breast cut into bite size pieces and cook until almost done. The butter should be golden brown by now. Put in the zest and juice of a lemon and bubble to a thickish sauce, finishing off the cooking of the chicken in the process. Have it with noodles or rice or best of all, salad potatoes freshly dug from the garden. Yum.

All Tucked Up

I don’t know if this winter will be as severe as the last one but I’m not taking any chances. I have two cold frames (only one has a lid) and they are both full up.

The open one has all the leftover hyssop plants and echinacae that I dont’ want to risk planting out for the winter. Neither likes wet feet and our garden can get very wet in winter. They are all perfectly hardy but the root systems are not bursting out of the pot so they will be cosseted over the winter and hopefully get off to a flying start in the spring.

The covered cold frame is housing all the tanecetum niveum Jackpot plants that I grew from seed. Also in there are some cuttings of rue Jackman’s Blue, which will form a partial low hedge around the yellow border in the front garden. Also destined for the yellow border after their winter in the cold frame are some cuttings of penstemon Russian River. Yes, I know they’re purple, but purple is the opposite of yellow which will give good contrast and make the yellow look even more yellowy.

I have sown some left over sweet pea Spencer variety in toilet roll innards packed into a flowerpot. The seeds are a few years old, but we’ll see what happens. I cut off a branch of euonymous fortuniei Emerald ‘n’ Gold that had reverted back to green, trimmed it to a cutting and potted it up. There are plenty of shady spots in the garden so if it does get away it will certainly find a home.

Last, there are two teapots of mint (one black peppermint and one ginger). These spent the summer on the garden table and were nipped and nibbled. Naturally, mint isn’t particularly happy in teapots and the plants have died off much quicker than all the other plants whether they are in the ground or bigger pots. Not to worry. If they decide to sprout up again in the warmth of the frame, all well and good. If not, they’ll be released from their confines in the spring in their new homes.

Now that all these plants have been tucked away off the nursery area floor, this means that the remaining plants are all wild strawberries (Mignonette). Saves on labelling.

Beanz meanz borlotti

Life is busy just now and I am waiting for an opportunity to curl up in front of the fire with the seed catalogues. One thing I have to give careful consideration to is beans, especially borlotti.

We are divided by beans in our household. Gareth loves eating them all. I am not fussed, especially runners. I will tolerate a French bean in a salad Nicoise but not as a portion of veg on the plate. However, tiny fingernail-sized broad beans are an unsurpassable delight. I do love dried beans and chick peas in salads and our larder has many varieties: cannelini, red kidney, mung, borlotti etc.

But nothing prepared me for fresh borlotti. We buy our eggs from the roadside at Golford. A tray of 30 costs £4 and they are the best eggs. The little stall also has bags of whatever is in season and a few weeks ago that was borlotti beans at £1 a bag.

Gareth cooked them on a slow boil for 10-15 mins and they were fantastic, their marbled purple markings against the creamy background fading only slightly. I cooked the next batch, forgot about them and they went grey. The flavour was still there and some of the wonderful creamy texture. But now they are cooked properly and I put them in a jar, just covered with olive oil and keep them in the fridge where they don’t hang around for very long.

The new bed was supposed to be for peas and broad beans. A few peas maybe, definitely some broad beans, but borlotti is going to be the bulk of the crop.

They are supposed to be difficult to grow in this climate, but if they get results just down the road, we should be able to do it. The question is: what variety? The internet yields loads, the catalogues not so many, apart from Seeds of Italy, which has loads.

This is a decision to be made curled up in front of the fire, with a laptop, methinks. And a bowl of bean soup to inspire me.

Animal Magnetism

So the rectangle bed that yielded all those peas and beans this summer has been cleared. There is just one side lined with hyssop and a single Aquadulce Claudia broad bean is optimistically bursting through. I have left it.

This is the bed that next year is going to have courgettes and salad in it. We are giving up on tomatoes. They always start off so well and we always get excited and they always get blight before we can eat them. Besides, Orchard Farm Shop has a plentiful, cheap supply of local ones all season through (and longer thanks to polytunnels).

The rectangle bed has now been home to those peas and beans and a crop of potatoes the year before. The year before that it was moss and yellow subsoil. We’ve been quite lucky really, but laurels are for hedging and not resting on. That soil needs nurturing with food and fibre. Ed and Anna next-door-but-one have a horse and round about this time of year kindly put their rotted manure out in sacks. Eight of them have gone on this bed to give it a big fat duvet for the winter. Then come the spring it will be lightly forked in and planting will commence.

One courgette will be enough. We had two last year (I’m not counting the round one which was rubbish) and not only did we have all the courgettes we could eat but there are still loads of marrows in the sun room waiting to be made into chutney.

I am going to try to be more organised this year. Little and often with the pea shoots and mixed salad leaves, radishes, beetroot and spring onions.

Once the rest of the hyssop hedge is in and the courgette takes hold there won’t be that much space but with regular harvesting and a bit of feeding we should be OK.

Apple Of Our Eyes

The garden is being neglected but is not suffering. It’s not really doing anything excepting settling in for the winter. There’s practically not a flower left anywhere and the leaves of the trees and shrubs are turning.

But star of the show are the apples. The green ones in the orchard garden are really small despite being thinned out earlier this year and the taste was a bit disappointing. But they just needed a bit more time and now are delicious. One day we will get around to sending samples off to Brogdale to get the variety identified.

There are two red apple trees (again, variety unknown) with one on our side and one on Sarah’s but heavily overhanging our garden. Ours irritatingly drops all the fruit before it’s ripe, but they don’t half get the compost heap going. Sarah’s are delicious and are just past their best. I have been picking two every morning to take to work but they are all out of reach now, so I am taking about four little green apples instead.

The arch/tunnel of pyracantha and crab apple that leads from the drive to the vegetable garden is just stunning. The frothy white blossom has given way to yellow berries whose colour deepens daily. The crab apples in turn go from green to yellow to pink to red. Glorious.

And Then The Rain Came

Nothing has happened in the garden recently. Nothing. There has been no rain. The plants have all sat there doing nothing. The lawn hasn’t been mown for months and is barely shaggy. Even the weeds are lethargic.

The courgettes are still producing marrows as I keep forgetting that they’re the only plants doing anything and therefore forget to pick them.

The fruit bed and third vegetable bed were dug over and left weeks ago and there is just bare earth. I’d expect the whole lot to be covered in evil green things.

Every day I was out in the nursery area with the watering can, keeping the once-seedlings-now-fully-fledged-plants going in their 8cm pots. Desperate to stretch their roots, they have to stay put as they won’t survive in the parched earth.

Then the rains came. It started in the early hours of yesterday and has steadily continued, with a few pauses, for getting on for 36 hours.

The Jerusalem artichokes that were starting to lean have straightened up. The dogwood that has been in for four years and was wilting alarmingly has perked up. The Getrude Jekyll rose has lost its leaves but I don’t have to carry out bowls of water every day to be on the safe side.

Everything is fresh and green and as it should be. Now, can I get all the little plants in the ground before the weeds take over?

Aster La Vista Baby

There is a small shrubbery that is intended to hide the vegetable garden from view as one enters the garden from the road. As it is relatively newly planted we have been popping in some perennials.

Last October we stopped by at Bodiam Nurseries as it was winding down for the year. There were some scrappy looking plants simply labelled ‘pink asters’, and feeling generous, we bought six at £1 each. They went into the shrubbery and were promptly forgotten about.

Of these six ‘pink asters’ two survived and one of them is white. But the pink one is a joy. So late in the season yet it is only just coming into its own. Look at those adorable daisy flowers, brash pink with a yellow eye, but look at the amount of buds yet to open.

This one’s going to run and run.

Light and Shadows

We have had a bit of a hiatus in the garden of late. Plants grown from seed have been sitting in their pots, waiting for less heat and more rain before they find their way into the borders. The warm, dry weather has meant that things have been just ticking over. No mad weed growth, no mad rush to garden.

Then suddenly summer is over. There may be many warm days ahead, but the shadows are longer, the light softer and the nights a bit nippy.

Mellow may be an overused adjective for autumn, but rightly so. Everything is shifting down a gear and there doesn’t seem to be any urgency any more.

But gardens do not look after themselves, as this one has proved only too well. Mulleins sprouted up overnight in the rectangle bed that was cleared of peas and beans. They have all been weeded out and the rest of the hyssop edging can go in, in time for the plants to get their roots firmly under the table.

In fact, all those plants in pots have to find a home before Jack Frost moves in for his winter sojourn.

Patch of Nicotine

And the prize for the Best Value Plant of the Year goes to… Nicotiana sylvestris! *applause*

These three plants cost 50p each at a village plant sale at the end of May. I had no idea if they had been hardened off or not, so they were shoved in regardless.

They sat there. And sat there. And sat there. Gareth eyed them with suspicion when he weeded round them, probably wondering why these small nondescript things warranted so much room.

Then the leaves started growing and growing and the spikes grew up and up. Then the flowers arrived. I’m not a big fan of flowers that point downwards (I loathe red hot pokers with a passion) but these are so high up I make an exception.

And with the flowers came that fragrance. Just as the sun disappears the scent comes into its own, often stopping me in my tracks and I stop whatever it was I was doing to breathe it in. It is not just evening. Those still, stifling days are pervaded by the perfume.

The flowers last a long time, discreetly fading to brown to be replaced by more. Add to this its attractiveness to moths and you do indeed have a prizewinning plant.

For £1.50 there is an excellent return on investment. I just wish there were room for more.