The Cats Tripe

Is this the real life ...

2012-01-31T09:32:00.002+01:00

or just fantasy?

It's been a long winter break this year, and we've not been able to get to the farm at all, even at Christmas. I have been holed up in my English office/workroom fulminating and generally being depressed about it all. Living in two places is so not my thing.

But today, by cavalierly manipulations, putting off appointments, skiving off work and generally just deciding to do it I think we're going to head over there and see if it's still standing.

Naturally this raises problems of its own. How are the tender new seedlings of chillies and herbs going to manage in my absence from here? Will I be able to catch the cats? Will we freeze to death when we arrive, having chosen our week so badly that it's probably going to be the coldest of the winter so far? So many questions.

I'll let you know when I get there. Until soon, I hope.

New Seeds

2012-01-09T13:47:00.003+01:00

You'll need to click through and view the original on Flickr to read the packets.

It's that time of the year again and once more the deadly sin of greed has overwhelmed any good sense I might have had about taking on too much or wasting money on long shots.

As well as some Unwins seeds which were in my xmas stocking I've indulged in orders with Chiltern Seeds, Realseeds and the HSL. I rather fear that this may not be the last of it.

Anyway, along with some things that I've saved in the past but allowed to lapse, some hopeless recurring failures that I'm going to try one more time, Capers and Perilla please step forward, and a selection of chillies for the greenhouse there are a few oddities which I'm trying as part of the usual experimentation.

Oenothera Biennis is something I've been coddling along from a chance weed plant that popped up in Newport Pagnell. I was hoping to collect enough seed to try for a row in the vegetable patch so that the roots could be assessed for the kitchen but I've only managed to keep one saved seedling going in France which didn't flower last year as I hoped (they're biennial, just like it says on the packet but this one seems to want another year) so I've bought some seed in to avoid wasting any more time.

There are any number of odd salad leaves around, I'm very tempted by Salsola, also known as Agretti, but the cost of the seeds is prohibitive so I've put that on hold and instead decided to try Buckshorn Plantain because you can never have too many edible weeds in a garden.

I've also got some Edible Chrysanthemum. I have grown this before but never really got to grips with cooking it, so it's worth another go and if I don't like it the flowers are very pretty and brighten up the vegetable patch nicely.

Now I'm going to step away from the computer, because during the course of writing this I inadvertently opened the Seeds of Italy site and I must be strong...

Hope

2012-01-01T18:42:00.004+01:00

This is the first crop I ever took from the Ulluco that I bought from Realseeds in 2008. Look pretty don't they? Since then it's been a steadily spiralling descent into entropy and failure. The harvest I got from these in 2009 was tiny, the harvest from those in 2010 laughable, just five baked bean sized tubers from which by some miracle three survived to make plants.

During 2011 I adopted a strategy of maximum care. The little plants were cosseted and kept in a big well fed and watered tub of compost. My plan was to keep them outside during the summer and then move them indoors for November and December. The dark couldn't hurt them and the cold house would still be frost and rodent free. They grew vigorously and I had hopes of rejuvenating the seed stock with a substantial harvest.

In November I noticed the top growth was looking a bit shabby but it was autumn, it didn't seem unreasonable - until I picked up the pot to move it inside and all the leafy stems fell off. Vine weevils had invaded the pot and chewed away all the roots. I found three baked bean tubers this time and only one of them has made a shoot.

But I couldn't bear to throw away the strong, if wilted, foliage. I washed it off well and replanted the chewed stems deeply into fresh compost. Ulluco are stem rooters and it was my last best hope to save them. The pot was sealed into an air filled plastic bag as a makeshift propagator. It didn't work exactly, the stems had recognised they must die and the winter light sealed their fate but there was enough juice left in those doomed top shoots to quietly produce half a dozen good sized tubers. I didn't realise it until just a day ago but clearing the windowsill for some new cuttings I picked up the pot to throw it away and spotted colourful tubers under the decayed leaves. I have enough of the pink spotted variety for half a dozen new plants and a few too small to classify for colour that might also produce viable starts.

To say I'm pleased is an understatement. These are not throw them in the ground Peruvian imports like Oca and potatoes by any means but this determination to keep growing against the odds means that my mismanagement over four years can be ameliorated, I might finally get to learn how to grow these vegetables successfully. Fingers crossed.

A Happy Yule to you all

2011-12-20T14:36:00.002+01:00

It's time for the Solstice followed by another two weeks of festivities. I hope you all survive Sun Return and celebrate the holidays in the way that pleases you best.

We're still here

2011-11-16T11:59:00.005+01:00

But just for the moment, it's all rather quiet.

I made jelly with the wild medlars - don't they look tiny. They have a nice flavour and gave a good set. An excellent addition to anyone's forest gardening project.

The harvest from the cultivated version "Nottingham" is over 10 kgs this year. I have given a few away and the rest are now resting until they are bletted but I think I'll need some new recipes to cope with this. Does anyone have any favourite treatments? I'm thinking chutneys and pickles or wine - we already make plenty of sweets.

The fruit from the tree was covered in 7-spot ladybirds looking for a warm dry place to see out the winter. Luckily it's still relatively mild so I have ejected them and hope they can find a more appropriate place to snuggle into.

We found this tiny ladybird on the wall on the stairs, proving that wildlife will find a way. Not absolutely sure of ID on this, we think it might be a variation of Harlequin ladybird but would like to be proved wrong. Leave a comment if you know.

And we're also wedding planning. The bubbly and truffles were to celebrate choosing the engagement ring. It's really rather lovely but won't be ready until just before Christmas so no pictures until then.

From the third week of October

2011-10-24T09:51:00.003+02:00

It really is autumn and we had a cold snap last week that I thought would kill me because the men were still working on the roof and I couldn't light the fire until the evening for fear of smoking them alive. Of course, as soon as they'd finished - and it looks like they did a good job - the warmth returned with a stiff breeze from the south east. It's been another wonderful weekend, and although they say all this hot air will produce storms I choose not to believe them. What do they know anyway?

All the wilful disbelief in the world doesn't stop time passing though and I'm now in a path that requires me to get a lot of things here sorted and tied down for the winter before I take a month off to do the Stripey Cat pop-ups around the UK. If you do happen to be able to join us I'd love to meet you. Unfortunately I won't be using much home-grown produce, I'm simply not geared up to it this year, but if the venture is even partially successful it will inform my planting for next year.

One of the tasks on the list is to collect the wild medlars pictured above and from all around the farm. It's been a good year for them and the clement autumn has meant they've stayed on the trees to mature for as long as possible. They are just about edible raw now although so tiny that there's barely a bite of flesh around the seeds in the middle. Gathered up and allowed to blet for a week they should make excellent jelly and my plan to compare and contrast the wild with the cultivar Nottingham back in Newport Pagnell will finally happen.

I have managed to prepare land and get the overwintering onions planted. The garlic and elephant garlic go in today and I'll be putting bean seeds in envelopes on Thursday when the rain is forecast. The deer have found the oca already.

This is how far the Papalo has progressed. I was expecting purple poppy shaped flowers but these tiny bunches of stamens are protruding from the top of unopened buds. Knowing nothing about the botany of the plants and only having half a dozen of them I fear that this is some sort of mechanism for ensuring cross pollination that will surely fail in my greenhouse, now almost devoid of both insects and moving air. I'll keep documenting with pictures, I don't think I'm going to get any seeds.

Autumnal

2011-10-17T09:57:00.003+02:00

The roofing is proceeding slowly, too slowly if you ask me, and there's not a lot I can do to hurry them along. But the roofers won't work in the rain unsurprisingly, and I'm disappointed that two splendidly warm and sunny autumn days at the weekend were missed opportunities when there is rain forecast for most of the next week.

The butterflies had no such scruples about making use of the sunshine. Red Admirals and Peacocks were out in crowds, greedily eating rotting pears and soaking up the warmth before hibernation.

Harvesting is continuing. I tried threshing out the last of Carlin peas. It was fun, beating the dried vines and pods with a big stick but the cleaning and winnowing that was then necessary took nearly as long as if I'd sat and popped each pea out individually, particularly as the day was nearly dead calm. I collected another 800g of seed, some of which were made into dinner (after a good soak).

Recording harvests isn't something I've bothered with much before. Perhaps it would be interesting to see just how much we're getting and how close it takes us to food security but it's extra effort and I'm not sure if the day is long enough to add extra bureaucracy to it.

Almost at the stage when I can put up the Swap page for this year. It's not going to be all that exciting I'm afraid but there'll be something at least.

Unexpected bonus

2011-10-12T18:17:00.003+02:00

Here's a new to me bit of wildlife from the farm. I think it's a Water Rail - Rallus aquaticus and this one was clearly feeling a bit under the weather when I found him/her resting on the lane in full view and at risk of cat attack. It didn't move when I went back for my camera and posed obligingly for a couple of snaps until it realised it wasn't absolutely safe and disappeared into some brambles.

We're having some work done on the roof which meant I had to clear a corner of the garden that had become more than usually overgrown and wild. Whilst hacking back some invading willow, rampant brambles and a much unloved hydrangea I also had to restrain my Vitis vinifera 'Purpurea' or purple leaved vine. I've had this plant for ages, torturing it in a pot for years until we arrived here and I could set it free.

Finally, it's beginning to show some vigour again and to my surprise has recovered enough to produce a few bunches of grapes. O.k. they are a bit sharp but in a good way and it's great to find a little unexpected harvest like this. I won't try to train the mother plant, its place is in the wilderness corner but I might take some cuttings (easy enough, this plant was from an original I had in Worthing) and give them a more structured cultivation. And maybe even, buy a few more varieties for an arbor.

And so to something that I fear will never come to harvest, the Papalo. It's still hanging on in the greenhouse and has developed flower buds over the last couple of weeks but not one has opened yet and the warm autumn is dripping away into cool constant mist and drizzle. Without sun and insects any flowers that open are unlikely to set seed. Fingers still crossed.

Blessed Bee the Carpenters

2011-10-08T19:56:00.004+02:00

When we arrived back in France it was just at the tail end of the brilliant Indian summer enjoyed by the UK and Northern France at the beginning of the month. And on the last day we were thrilled to see we had Carpenter bees, Xylocopa violacea, on the sweet peas.

I'd never seen them this far north before although I knew they were often to be found just a hundred miles or so further south. There were two and I'm hoping that means we might have the start of a colony. The bees are large, nearly 2.5 cm long (about an inch, the size of the biggest bumble bee you'll ever see), a lovely hairy black body and with a violet blue sheen on the wings. They are very active but not in the least aggressive and rarely sting. With luck they will overwinter in holes they have found in dead wood around the farm and come out next spring to make babies.

The bigger better photos here were taken by Paul but I'm quite pleased with my snap in the middle so I've included it as well.

These big bees are solitary and don't socialise much but I've been doing a bit of networking with bloggers during my absence. Paul and I attended a local meet in Buckinghamshire of the Cottage Smallholder forum where it was lovely to meet some other gardening and preserving enthusiasts.

I've also been following Emma Cooper's recent Write Club event where she encouraged guest writers to contribute articles to her blog. The event is closed now but the articles are still available along with lots of other useful and interesting information about gardening so it's worth taking a look. And I was lucky enough to win a prize! Not for my writing but for a lucky random number that picked my comment to this rather nice piece about brambles that has a great recipe included in it.

The weather has gone right off now and I'm in full autumn tidy-up mode, trying to finish harvests, clear up weeds and get prepared for winter. I'm also attempting to keep up with Vegan Mofo 2011 on the Stripey Cat food blog so posting here might be a bit sparse but I do hope to list my seed swaps for this year and talk about my plans for reducing the hungry gap next spring before too long.

One last day of September

2011-09-30T13:33:00.000+02:00

Southern Hunter dragonfly

Wonderful late days of summer. So hot and dreamy that blogging is the last thing on my mind.

A few more days in the UK and then we'll be back to see what the deer have left of the vegetable patch. See you then.

Another Long Gap

2011-09-16T20:15:00.000+02:00

Sorry, I'm pretty much away with the fairies as far gardening is concerned at the moment. I'm planning and plotting stuff for the Stripey Cat Supper Club Underground Restaurant gigs (about which I promise to shut up now, here at least.), the end of the season is fast approaching with all the stress and confusion of the move back to the UK and my hand was asked for in marriage, which after 14 years or so of side-stepping the issue I have gladly agreed to. There's a lot on my mind.

So I've been drifting around, in the mostly rather lovely weather, doing things like picking rosehips to make Parfait Amour (from this recipe in the Guardian, not sure where they got it from, it seems unique on the web and not much like any commercial effort) which is very good and only possible because I had a stash of Rosehip Syrup from last year. These rosehips are to replace that so I can make it again next year.

I've also been enjoying a late bounty of wood strawberries, just as well since the blueberries are finished now.

Foraging for hazelnuts most days now for over a week. I did have a whole post planned on this but everyone and his dog seems to have covered it now so I'll confine myself to a few top tips:

Don't pick too early. Unless at least one of the nuts will come out of its leafy cluster fairly easily then it's unlikely any of them will be mature enough to ripen off the tree.
Don't bother with anything small, picking the biggest and the best is much less heartbreaking.
Take care not to damage the newly forming catkins and female flowers if you want to pick more nuts next year.
When you get your nuts home, clean them up from the leaf husks and then dump the whole lot into a bowl of water. A lot will float. The ones that sink are mostly good, with solid kernels. The ones that float are between 50% and 85% (I did tests) empty shells or full of maggot and unless you're a masochist should be discarded.
Obviously you don't need me to tell you that anything with a neat little hole already drilled in it is a non-starter.
Dry them in a shallow tray, not more than one or two nuts deep and riffle through them regularly to turn. When they're dry store them in the fridge for a few weeks but they won't last forever.

Yesterday I gathered seed pods from the nasturtiums to make pickles. People describe these as false capers but I think that's misleading as they are far spicier and more pungent. Pick only fairly young crisp seeds, they can become tough when they're nearly mature. The reddish ones in here are from the variety Cobra but they taste the same.

Soak them overnight in a strong brine (10g salt to 100g water) then rinse and drain well before packing in cider vinegar. You can add extra pickling spices like coriander seed or fennel for more flavour.

The first and last Map butterfly of the year. Still loads of Peacocks out there but it's nearly all over. Until next time.

What worked and what didn't

2011-09-04T14:00:00.001+02:00

It's a strangely end of term title, indicative that it's all over and the challenge is finished. It's not by any means, of course, but a few days of brilliant late summer followed this morning by the grey skies of a warm autumn fill a person with thoughts of closure. The swallows went home on the 2nd of September, the evenings are noticeably shorter and the blackberries are beginning to turn. The change in seasons has become obvious.

What worked?

Lots of things actually, but a notable success this year was with the climbing beans which have been profuse and prolific if a little deer bitten. I put this down (although it's only one year's experiment) to the traditional bean trenches I dug back in the spring. It helped them through the dry start and seems to be feeding them into the autumn. Worth the effort.

The achocha, not because it was a great addition to the vegetable selection; the small fruit are mildly cucumbery in salads and the large ones only fit for curry, but because of its exuberance and attractiveness as a climber and food plant for insects. We found all sorts of lovely little creatures to photograph and have plans to use it as a green screen around the outdoor dining area next year. It was also the first and only place we've ever spotted a Brown Hairstreak butterfly around here but I think that was just resting on its way past to more appropriate shrubs.

The Sarpo Mira. When the blight finally came for the potatoes about three weeks ago now every plant on the plot was wiped out, practically overnight, except for the Sarpos. We knew they were good but in other years I've usually sprayed all the plants together and so the differentiation has not been so clear. I didn't spray any Bordeaux mixture at all this year.

I will still say, loud and clear, that I'm not convinced the Sarpos are the solution to all troubles. I've had plants of them that have succumbed to blight when they were the only variety growing and the eating qualities of the potato are only so-so but, as we did this year, it's worth having a row as insurance.

The potatoes in the background of the picture are the last few Pink Fir Apple as I dug them. We have lost quite a lot of crop to tuber blight this year and may lose more in storage. Not spraying at all was a mistake but we so nearly got away with it I know I'll be tempted to avoid the poison again next year...

What didn't?

No pictures for this section, it's just all too too gruesome.

What didn't work can best be summarised by calling it anti-companion planting. I'm not a proponent of companion planting, at best it's common sense of grouping plants with similar needs together and at worst it's close enough to crystal worship to give me the willies but there were definitely some combinations of plants on the plot this year that didn't work well.

The ridge cucumbers were planted next to a row of volunteer oca. All the cucurbits suffered from mildew a bit in the dry this year but the cucumbers were devastated by disease. I had six small fruit from the entire planting early in the season and that was that. Was it the oca? I'm not sure but I suspect it was, their fleshy shade and acid dew was quite inappropriate for the preferences of the cukes.

I thought it would be amusing to plant tall sunflowers between the trailing stems of the pumpkins but although this is similar is concept to the three sisters planting system the pumpkins suffered in the fight for moisture. Yield is a long way down on normal expectations and the plants are weedy and struggling.

It was suggested that garlic and strawberries were a good combination, by chance I had them in close proximity this year but saw no benefit to either plant, unless the harvesting of the garlic allowed the the slugs to enjoy the fruit more comfortably but I think that was a change in the weather rather than anything to do with allium smell.

And direct planting of sweetcorn failed. I like wherever possible to direct sow because it saves resources and energy, potting compost, protection etc but sweet corn in this climate needs that extra boost at the start. Something to remember for next year.

Irish Preans

2011-08-27T12:04:00.002+02:00

These peas are believed to have come from an Irish Vegetable research project, although information is sparse and rather vague. I got my seeds via the Heritage Seed Library. They are quite novel compared to most modern peas, very large seeded, mealy peas that are flat and with a black hilum (the little scar where the pea attaches to the pod) that give them the appearance of small broad beans. They are a little like the Dutch Capucijners although the pods are green and not blue and there are other peas with similar characteristics in collections in the States and Canada. Of course, those were probably taken across with settlers in the past so the history remains cloudy, were the Preans some sort of reselection of an older type or new breeding from old varieties? If anyone knows I'd love to hear from them.

The plants are sturdy steady growers, big fleshy plants that will make two metres in height if they're well supported. The flowers are pink and dark red. Rather slow growing, my plants also suffered from mildew during growth although this doesn't seem to have caused them much check. I planted the seeds on 21st April and harvested today. There are still some greeny pods left. Most pods had 5 or 6 peas inside but a few were stuffed with as many as 8.

This year I didn't take any for the kitchen as I was growing for seed but the ones I had last year were very good as hearty marrowfats cooked with other vegetables in stews or just eaten raw. The pods can be eaten as mangetout when young but I think they will do best as a drying pea for the winter.

Holiday break

2011-08-23T16:54:00.003+02:00

Wow, nearly two weeks since I posted here last. We've been on holiday, staying at home but resisting a lot of time on the computer. Today though, it's a bit dull and drizzly and I'm avoiding doing anything useful out of pure laziness. Perfect day to blog.

This Small Copper butterfly is a bit unusual with a green/yellow colour flash on its wings. Probably not new to science, they are quite variable and have even been seen in shades of black and white, no orange at all.

Wasp spiders are some of the prettiest beasts around at the moment, weaving webs in the long grass to feed well on the huge quantities of grasshoppers and crickets still hopping around. The zig zagging pattern is perhaps to attract mates, although we think we saw one little chap get bitten and wrapped before he'd managed to get his leg over.

Plenty of vegetables to harvest still although I haven't been very timely with sowing for the autumn, the bed is prepared but empty. The carrots have been excellent this year after a very slow start in the droughty spring. The achocha are now in full swing but I'm sorry to say I don't find them of much use in the kitchen. Paul suggests we try currying some, and that may be the only way to add some interest to something which is basically green and crunchy with none of the character of cucumber or nutrition of beans.

The last lupini bean plant is finally making some pods but with only a few warm weeks left I'm not hopeful of getting any mature beans. A pity, I had high hopes of these as an alternative crop which would fit into our vegan protein resources but without cover or further breeding work they're not going to do in Normandy weather.

Bean Parade

2011-08-10T14:24:00.003+02:00

Annabel dwarf french bean

These have been cropping for nearly a month now and still have new beans forming. They are delicious when picked small but even the larger, goutier bean remain stringless which makes them useful at all stages. Cream/orange flower buds opening to white flowers.

Ice Crystal Wax beans

It's worth picking this old heritage variety regularly as the older pods do form irritating strings. If you get the pods young they have a marvellous flavour and texture that I find particularly good in salads. The older pods are still very edible if you take the time to string them, and it's not a difficult task. Cream/orange flower buds opening to white flowers.

Carter's Polish bean - a pea bean

I was quite sniffy about these beans which I received from HSL but they are healthy vigorous growers and setting a lot of very tender flat pods, attractively mottled with red. I've yet to see if the dried beans are going to be of any use in the kitchen but these are worth a trial to see if they suit your garden conditions and palate. Small mauve flowers.

Long Beans - name unknown

I still don't know what these beans are called as a variety. I've been calling them after their donor, Riana, but I'm sure they must be a named sort. Excellent long stringless beans that thrive in hot dry conditions. The flower buds are the creamy orange sort opening to white flowers and the bean seed are narrow ovals of brown/black colour.

Giant Purple french bean

This is another heritage variety which I think originated in Australia. The plants are strong growing and beautifully flushed with purple and the beans (at least when young) are smooth and tender although, as with all coloured beans, the beautiful colour is lost during cooking. If I have a reservation about this variety it is that all the pods seem to mature at the same time or within a very short period which makes me wonder if this was developed more for the commercial grower than the home gardener. Still, it makes a good shelling bean before the seeds dry hard. Purple flowers held high.

White Emergo runner bean

The only runner bean I'm growing this year, it's an old favourite. The pods are rather rough but with excellent flavour. Pick them young and you won't be disappointed. The flowers are white and so are the seed, not quite as big as the seed of the White Spanish but still usable and a more garden worthy plant altogether.

Back to the garden

2011-08-09T23:10:00.003+02:00

Lots of things to do in the garden still. I have managed to get the leeks planted out and the permaculture fans amongst you would have been proud of me as I sunk their holes into the undug bed where the roots of the broad beans still linger.

Today I took up the rest of the BF15 potatoes. A really lovely looking crop, no sign of the earlier dry scab and quite a reasonable yield.

The potatoes are doing well to avoid the blight after several days of warm damp but the outside tomatoes are in a terrible state. Not quite sure what to do about it, barely any ripe fruit at all. This might be a brown sauce year!

Riots

2011-08-09T14:13:00.004+02:00

This isn't a political blog. I'm not really a political person, my understanding and interest is both slight and fickle but I couldn't carry on with normal programming when the UK is such uproar over the events of the last few nights.

A little unrest in the city isn't a new thing and after the shooting of a man during a police operation almost to be expected. When the relatively peaceful demonstration began to get out of hand late in the evening I (and probably many others) expected a rapid response by the police to contain and control the rampaging protesters. That didn't happen.

When the police failed to get a grip on the second night, it was obvious that this wasn't just an ordinary disturbance, if there is such a thing. There was talk of social networking being used to organise looters and plenty of pictures of youths taunting, throwing missiles and torching property while the police were either absent or in defensive huddles apparently unable to act assertively.

By the third night, it could have been scenes from a civil war. Shopkeepers and community elders struggled to chase away hooligans, law abiding citizens locked the windows and doors and sat in fear of their buildings being set alight. Looters blatantly filled bags and suitcases from the shops they had smashed open. The police still seemed unable to cope, barely able to provide protection for fire and ambulance services working to save the casualties of the mayhem.

We are going into a fourth night, with reports on the news of the violence spreading to other cities and the government recalled to debate and sanction whatever moves are needed to return the country to law abiding peace. I don't know why the police have been so tentative in enforcing the law until now but I hope that hugely increased numbers and the support of senior politicians returned from holiday breaks will give them the confidence to bring this to a close.

And everyone is discussing why and how this happened.

It's very clear that in the deprived areas affected there is little in the way of social responsibility or cohesion, no respect for authority which is perceived as having failed, a hopeless outlook on life from lack of prospects and a raging hunger for consumer items fuelled by the relentless advertising by global businesses who have no care that what they are offering is far beyond the pockets of those on handouts. All that explains why, when the chance was offered for civil disobedience and looting many rose to the opportunity, but it's less clear why that flashpoint occurred.

I have a theory; I think this was malicious crowd sourcing instigated by a very small number of organisers, genuine criminals who wanted cover for their own activities, the chance to put small businesses in fear of their existence, creating further blackmailing income and a way of terrorising the police. They pushed the buttons and the whole media experience went to work for them, social networking, television and newspapers shared the message that the rule of law had been overthrown.

It's not unheard of, football violence in the UK, which seemed spontaneous, was eventually tracked down to various groups of thugs who had organised themselves to start confrontations at matches. This seems to be more cynical and calculating still, exploiting the disadvantaged in a way that will only make their lives worse, purely for personal gain. I hope they're found and something very horrible is done to them.

Is it autumn already?

2011-08-06T11:50:00.003+02:00

After finding the huge bloom of ceps last week we thought we'd take a wander around our field margins to see if there were any more. There weren't but we found copious quantities of chanterelles and this old hazel trunk fully laden with delicious oyster mushrooms.

It's raining again today. A bit of a pity as Paul is here and we'd hoped to do some outside work together, but if the fungus season has started so completely it might just bring on a crop of giant puffballs and they are our favourites.

The first fruits on the Gezahnte Bührer-Keel have ripened. So pretty and they taste good too. The seeds for these were sent to me by my Flickr friend Herbi Ditl who as well as being very generous and a vegan takes some very fine photos, so you should have a look at his stream.

Tomato, tomato

2011-08-04T13:47:00.004+02:00

At last the tomatoes are coming onstream. So much for my naive belief that the greenhouse would bring this happy state of affairs forward on the calendar. Never mind, despite the setbacks and cultivation difficulties we're there now.

All the varieties are producing, even the Noire de Crimée in its bed in the isolation ward. The odd seeds that I had casually labelled Black are in fact Black Prince, easy enough to see now they are grown with cross referencing to my records. Don't remember saving the seed though!

So far I've had fruit from Coeur de Boeuf, Longkeeping, Beefsteak and Black Prince in the greenhouse and the Latah outside has produced a handful of small tomatoes, with some of the Salt Spring beginning to show colour.

But although the harvest should be cause for rejoicing I have to say they haven't been as delicious as I had hoped. The larger tomatoes are rather tasteless and mushy with the Beefsteak indistinguishable from a Moneymaker (why is that I wonder, seed from HSL). The Longkeeping isn't fine flavoured, although to be honest that's not why I was growing it but more hopefully for an ability to extend the season. Instead it seems to be early, prolific and largely pointless as I'm pretty sure it will have finished long before the autumn. Of those I've tried only the Prince and Latah are providing anything like a fruit I'm eager for more of.

In terms of easy cultivation and quality yield it looks like the Black Prince is the winner by a mile, the plants are strong with good setting and the fruit is pleasingly tidy on the vines. I also have high hopes of the Gezahnte Bührer-Keel, a Swiss-Italian heritage variety, which are doing much better under glass than they did outside last year (picture at the top). I just wish I could remember the name, I've resorted to calling them GBK in my head but still have to look it up every time I blog about them.

Of course, some of the problems may be down to my growing techniques. There are plenty of rules of tomato growing available for anyone who wants to google them, everything from full regular (over)feeding to starvation and all sorts of management from stripping off every leaf to allowing every shoot to do its thing.

Mostly I've favoured minimal input and limited training, the last mainly because I detest the yellow stain and smell of the tomato dust. On a hot day it leads to migraine and nausea so I avoid touching the plants at all if I can.

This year because I've overfilled the space available I'm having to take a bit more of an interest in keeping the plants tidy if only to remove the places that slugs can hide and allow the sun to see the fruits, but I'm wondering if this combined with skimpy feeding has produced its own problems. I'm not convinced it's all down to culture because the Black Prince is working for me so perhaps it's just my choice of varieties this year.

With a feel for the way the greenhouse works again (it must be six or seven years since I made any effort at glasshouse toms) I'll be more confident with starting seed and choosing varieties for next year. I've enjoyed Potiron Ecarlate in the past, a magnificently large tomato with great flavour and Purple Calabash is another heritage sort that has good flavour. There are so many good fruit to choose from, has anyone any favourites they think I should try?

The last day of July

2011-07-31T18:51:00.002+02:00

How can it possibly be the end of July already? It's not fair.

It's been a fantastic summer's day. Warm, still, clear blue skies and quiet all around. A bit too hot really but I'm not complaining even if it has made mowing into sweaty exhausting work and the flies have driven me indoors more than once.

I went out for a walk this morning and found loads, and I mean loads, of ceps. Unfortunately I was a day or two too late and slugs and the heat had pushed most of them past a point of no return. A pity, although I'd never have been able to eat that many mushrooms by myself anyway. About 10 days ago I found a few hedgehog mushrooms in the woods but so far haven't been able to emulate my Swedish relatives who have been bringing home bucketfuls of chanterelles for the last couple of weeks.

The papalo is looking good for now. I'm awfully anxious for it though as these are my last few seeds, and if I can't bring them to flowering size and fruiting before the autumn I'll have lost the selection. So fingers crossed there.

The first reasonable sized runner bean on the White Emergo. Deer attack permitting it's looking like there'll be a good harvest here in a couple of weeks.

The Martock and Ful broad beans are now mature and I'll be cutting them soon to hang up and dry before shelling and sorting for store. They'll make good eating in the winter. I would have had them in already but I've only just cleaned the spinach seeds and hung the garlic that was taking their space in the drying area.

And finally, the Bronze Arrow lettuce is beginning to bolt, pretty good going considering the temperatures and drought we've had this year. I'm hoping to save plenty of seed from them as they've been an excellent salad for months now.

Pictures

2011-07-28T21:09:00.002+02:00

First tomatoes from the greenhouse. The big one is Coeur de Boeuf, seed from a market fruit, the small one a Beefsteak, seed from the Heritage Seed Library.

First pods from the Carters Polish bean, seeds from the Heritage Seed Library. These are still quite small, I think they'll be a bit bigger when they're mature.

Onion Stuttgarter Giant, a flat bulbed variety that I like. This is one of the biggest, grown from a set.

Below, the full onion harvest laid out on a netting support to cure. The weather is too variable to risk leaving them outside.

For the record #2

2011-07-27T19:54:00.003+02:00

Today I pulled the onions, I'd have liked to have left them a little longer but the on/off rain and sunshine was beginning to make them split and the battered down leaves were catching fungus and disease from the earth. So they're now nestling in the Tractor house on a netting frame and will stay there for a few weeks until they're cured.

I picked the first greenhouse tomatoes yesterday. Nowhere near a record but the plants themselves were living outside for their first two months of life so it's hardly surprising they're not much earlier than the outdoor crops. The greenhouse tomatoes are showing signs of virus stress with mottled and disfigured leaves. I'm so cross about that, but will just have to put it down to experience. At least some of the plants are going to produce good crops if I keep the watering constant, which is something.

Still no blight but that's only going to last for so long. I can take the tops off of the spuds now if there's any sign of trouble, this won't work with the outdoor tomatoes of course so still fingers crossed there.

Beans; these are not doing anywhere near as well as I'd hoped. I've had reasonable crops from the Annabel. The Ice Crystal Wax are flowering but very poor setting. The Royal Red and Orca are growing on, still too early to panic there although I'm tempted, it is nearly August.

In the climbing beans the Giant Purple appear to be doing o.k. as are the White Emergo runners although neither sort has set much yet. Riana's beans look rather weaker than last year, and the Mayflower beans are slow at the best of times.

The Carter's Polish are also doing o.k. The plants are big and strong, with pretty mauve flowers and the first pods setting are mottled with red. I think they'll be fine but the Striped Bunch have me quite worried.

Only four plants survived a slug attack shortly after planting out and of these four, two are climbing well and two are not being mostly bushy with very short runners that don't catch on to the poles. That could just be natural expression as beans are sometimes affected by environmental factors and will change habit as a result of it but worse than that some plants have round pods and some have flat. The most vigorous plant has many flat pods but I'm sure the little I could find about this variety on the web suggested the pods should be round. So it looks like these seeds aren't a pure selection and I won't be able to offer them for swap with a clear conscience. A pity.

Third time lucky

2011-07-22T17:35:00.004+02:00

is a really silly title for this post but honestly, I don't think I've ever blogged three times in one day on the same blog before.

I'd been watching the achocha with some interest, since it's the first year I'd ever grown it. It wasn't doing much, just getting taller and taller as it climbed the net tied onto the compost heap. There'd been some little flowers but nothing fruit-like was setting. I hung on, hardly caring because (did I say?) I've been a tad depressed anyway for the last couple of weeks.

Still, on twitter yesterday, emmathegardener was talking to rhizowen about someone else's problems with it and that spurred me on to having another look for myself. With some help from Appalachian Feet who has some sensible advice and good pictures I managed to identify the start of fruit on my own plants.

All the flowers are very tiny and as with other cucurbits the male ones are often seen first. They come out in an inflorescence on a relatively tall stem. The female flowers are singular with tiny fruit behind them, growing in the leaf axils, and have almost no stem at all. They're still very small on my plants but now they've started I'm sure they'll be romping away in no time. By the way, does anyone need any courgettes, as I have a few spare?

The rest of the garden is looking verdant after so much rain although there are signs of some sort of leaf disease on the cucumbers and the other pumpkins and squash have mildew to greater or lesser extents. The happiest plants of all are the weeds which will have to be attacked quickly before they take over. Everything needs a good clear up and then more crops planted for autumn. If the weather stays bright it might even happen.

On this day - butterflies

2011-07-22T16:14:00.003+02:00

It's not been the best year for butterflies and the recent dreadful weather seemed to be sealing their doom, but today in the sunshine, some signs of hope. These are just snaps, all taken today, visual proof of what's here.

Female Large White

Brimstone - this is the second brood, progeny of the early spring adults

Tatty little Gatekeeper

Ringlet - a very shy butterfly

Holly Blue wouldn't sit still for its photo

Marbled White - see underside here

Meadow brown, still the most common butterfly on the farm

A Skipper butterfly but I'm not sure which sort

Peacock, quite a lot of them about,which is nice

Red Admiral, another old favourite

There was also a Hummingbird Hawk moth but it's not a butterfly and it didn't want to stop for the camera either. This isn't anything like as many varieties as we get in the course of a year but it's a good cross section. I'm hoping with some sunshine we'll see many more.

Kittens and Flowers

2011-07-22T14:51:00.004+02:00

There's been no mistaking that I've been at the bottom of a very dark well of despair this last week. Today, after a morning of rain coming straight down like the traditional (and probably long forgotten by most) stair rods the sun returned and life seems worthwhile again.

The cats were pleased to come out for a photo forage with me. Madam Raven demonstrates her floating ability here.

All the insects are glad the rain has stopped too. Loads of bees and butterflies making the most of the warm sun. The teazels are flowering now and attracting plenty of attention. Later it will be birds who enjoy feeding from the seeds.

Rook has such a pretty face although it's usually obscured by cobwebs or other scrud.

These colourful things are the first harvest from the ornamental gourd patch. Unfortunately although there are twelve plants there from a mixed seed pack this seems to be the limit of the variations. Still they'll be nice decorations for the autumn.

Crow was so jealous of the attention I was paying to the gourds that he jumped on the table and posed for his portrait, which isn't like him at all.

I took loads of photos so there will be a few more posts to come from them today. I could do with an annotation and archiving application for keeping things in order and making it possible to find stuff again. What do you use or recommend for adding tags and notes to your photo archives?

Wish List Seeds

2011-07-19T12:48:00.004+02:00

Fruit on a home grown peach tree, from a seed saved from a bought peach.

The weather has been lousy for about a week and shows little sign of cheering up. I know we needed the rain but now everything is soggy and dull. Despite saying I would, I didn't spray for blight on the potatoes and tomatoes and it looks as if that omission might be a disaster. Although there are no signs of a problem yet, the continuing warm damp is perfect for blight and while it's so rainy there's not much point in trying to spray now, it would be washed off before it had settled.

Still, more cheerfully (and with fingers tightly crossed) it looks as if there might be seeds sufficient to make a good sized swap list in the autumn. The Irish Preans and Striped Bunch are making babies, the Carlin Peas are weighed down with a huge crop. There will be plenty of Babington Leeks bulbils and probably a few Walking Onion topsets too. The Oca is growing well. Maybe even Tuberous Rooted pea seeds. I'd hoped to have Welsh Onion seed too but if it doesn't stop raining that's going to rot in the heads before I can harvest it.

So my thoughts have turned to what I might be able to swap some of these treasures for. I haven't grown it for years but the Strawberry Blite, Chenopodium capitatum is a fun plant and I'd like to revisit it if anyone is saving seed for swap this year.

An odd solanum I've been meaning to try is Morelle de Balbis (Solanum sisymbrifolium) also known as the Litchi tomato. I know it grows well in the south of France and I'm sure it would do here with a little care. The only thing I'm wondering about if it is susceptible to blight, don't know if anyone can advise me on this?

And a chance conversation on G+ reminded me how much I love Morning Glories, in particular the traditional huge sky blue sort. Anyone who could spare me a handful of a reliable selection that has grown outside for them in northern Europe would make me extremely grateful.

Many thanks to Bill Barber for the photo.

Take the day off

2011-07-09T14:38:00.005+02:00

These sweetpeas and lavender flowers are scenting my room today. I'm not a great fan of cut flowers but sweetpeas are made for the job. I'd planted these around our outside eating area but at the moment it's not really picnicking weather and it seemed far nicer to bring the flowers in to enjoy than wait until they were over before doing the necessary deheading.

It's been rainy stormy weather, plenty of water for the plants but inhibiting the outdoor life. I did manage to plant some dill and fennel seeds. The fennel is from the kitchen so it may come to nothing but the dill was fresh seed so I'm hopeful there. I've also, I've just remembered, two types of chicory to sow so that had better go on the list, but I'm weary and depressed.

A friend who counsels in CBT suggested that it was o.k. to give yourself permission to do nothing for a while when all actions seem equally impossible so that's the plan for today, even though it sounds a bit like a good excuse to slack off and I do enough of that already.

Back in the geek world I've managed to get onto Google+, the latest attempt to provide an alternative service (and cash in on the lucrative datamining therein) to Facebook. If you'd like to add me to a circle then gplus.to/catofstripes should help find me.

Around and about

2011-07-06T18:05:00.004+02:00

First flower on the ridge cucumbers

Another post about everything and nothing. I'm very aware that the blog this year is both more frequent and detailed and yet contains less than ever in the way of useful information.

I started with the intention of documenting the journey of our life in France and this year at least I've been trying hard to report on the progress of the garden here for Paul who is sometimes allowed to connect to the interwebs from his cell back at the salt mines, but that doesn't always make interesting reading for everyone. So I apologise for the minutiae of my daily life and promise I will try to bring more informative posts back when there's a suitable subject to hand.

The red kale and purple sprouting patch

I am quite pleased with myself for raising our brassicas from seed this year. Normally I buy plug plants because previous attempts at seed raising have failed horribly. This year I followed all the guidelines for best practice and guess what, it worked!

There is a price to pay though. This bed, which contains 16 each of purple sprouting and red kale has used only about one quarter of the 60cm seed rows for each variety, leaving about 50 baby plants of each sort with no home to go to. It's not that I don't have the space (although cultivated land is in shorter supply) but we'd never eat that many vegetables even if I grew them on. But it does make me sad to waste them. Next year, shorter seed rows, this year I'll pop a few more in the back garden between the fruit bushes as insurance against deer attack on the main bed and harden my heart when I compost the rest. It's at moments like this I wish I was on a allotment because somebody would be pleased to take them off my hands and my guilt would be assuaged.

The plants look rather limp because I'd just transplanted them and the soil is so very dry, but they've been watered well and in theory at least we are promised showers today and tomorrow which should help mitigate the shock of being moved.

Just by the babies you can see this year's crop of Asturian tree cabbage, also grown from seed in the spring. Very useful plant and the few I left in the back garden from last year are also doing pretty well.

These are the bulbils from the elephant garlic I lifted last week. They are a useful means of propagation and should produce solid round bulbs next summer, but I've not been particularly successful with raising them so far. This could be because last year I was rather cavalier, tossed them into the top of a pot where something else had died and forgot about them. A few did come up but it was a tiny percentage.

Hoping to do better this year I looked on the webbyverse and found this useful article. It's a counsel of perfection but the advice about the hard skin seems very pertinent, I think it was my trouble last year so I've potted them up immediately and snapped the top of each bulbil with my thumbnail just enough to reveal the flesh inside. They've been well watered and my fingers are crossed. If they all come up I'll have 60 more plants to add to the projected 40 for next year.

The French beans Annabel, planted directly in the ground on the 19th April, now have beans ready for harvest. Call it 11 weeks, not too bad especially since they all but stopped growing for a couple of weeks in the dry. The Ice Crystal Wax planted at the same time are generally larger and sturdier plants but are only just beginning to form beans. No matter as I wouldn't be able to eat them all if they all came at once anyway.

Sunset on the 4th July

2011-07-04T22:28:00.004+02:00

We suddenly have loads of swallows which means that, despite some tragic losses, most of our swallow parents have managed to raise their broods. It's early enough that they might even try for a second family before it's time to head back south but I hope they'll enjoy a rest before getting stuck in again.

Deer are still attacking the vegetables, this picture is one taken by Paul last year because when I see the monsters now I'm more interested in chasing them away whilst screaming my head off than sneaking up for a photo shoot. They did a lot of damage last year and it would be awful to suffer a repeat of that this year.

Gardening has slowed down a lot. I'm still bumbling around clearing spaces for leeks and overwintering brassicas always with my thoughts on where and how best to position them so that they can be protected from deer ravages in the winter. It's all rather quiet, very very dry again and too hot during the day to do much outside even though I feel guilty about skulking inside.

The 1st

2011-07-01T20:21:00.002+02:00

Now that's more like it. Although it's not the first.

It seemed amusing to list the firsts achieved today, the 1st of July, but actually I did quite a lot of them yesterday. Just humour me, alright?

The blueberries have started to ripen which is just as well as the wild wood strawberries are pretty much over and I love being able to gather a handful of berries to have with my breakfast. Wild strawberries and blueberries are particularly useful for this as they ripen in stages extending the picking season for ages.

Another fruity first for today, blackberries! Yes, it surprised me too but they're good and will be part of the forage from now on.

I lifted the elephant garlic as it was beginning to get a bit rusty. Not quite the first as I sent one back to NP with Paul when he left, but never mind. The yield is doubled from last year and they look good. The best ones will be saved so that next year I can have 40 or so in the row. Then we can really have a garlic party!

Other vegetable firsts (well, yesterday anyway) were the first carrot and the first pea pods taken as mange tout. There are some tiny french beans finally forming on the Annabel dwarf plants, the Ice Crystal Wax aren't far behind but both varieties have been held back by lack of water and it's still very dry now.

The greenhouse; the tomatoes are growing well and there is loads of basil. No tomatoes ready to pick yet though.

And below the first flowers on the scented leaf pelargonium. I bought this in France and it was described only as 'orange' scented which it is, if you wrinkle your nose enough. Anyway, I can't identify the variety from this flower so it will probably be a mystery forever.

All in black and white

2011-06-27T21:08:00.002+02:00

Leptura maculata - long horn beetle

The cats and I have had visitors, first some friends touring northern France in their very elegant campervan conversion and then Paul for a few days to celebrate his birthday which has been wonderful. Very social and busy. So all garden work, apart from harvesting stopped dead for a while.

It's also been incredibly hot, no news to anyone in Europe I suspect, but we managed to get sunburn even sitting in the shade which has to be a little bit remarkable for a western European summer. We don't have a weather recording station here, something for the xmas present list, but locally temperatures of about 31C were recorded yesterday, maybe hotter today. Tonight it's supposed to break with thunderstorms but apart from a rumble this afternoon all the clouds seem to have passed over and the sky has cleared again so I wonder if we've missed it. A pity in a way if we have as there's little chance of rain for another 10 days at least.

The opium poppies, peony flowered poppies, breadseed poppies, call them what you will are just starting to open. This white one on the vegetable plot is spectacularly frilled. The Carlin peas are also in full flower and just beginning to form teeny tiny pods. Fingers crossed for a good crop there.

The spinach seeds are still not ready to pick although the redundant male plants are dying away now. The outdoor tomatoes look good apart from a couple that are probably affected by virus (and should be removed). Plenty of courgettes, flowers on the french beans at last, even the cucumbers have perked up a lot.

In the seed area the Irish Preans are just coming into flower and the Striped Bunch are climbing their supports although they're not in flower yet. I took the first Elephant Garlic today to send back to the UK with Paul but will leave the others for a few days more.

Greenhouse tomatoes are looking fine, enjoying the heat and racing away.

As well as some coloured poppies, the only one of which flowering so far is the white one above, I had seed for some 'black' flowered plants. These are supposed to be peony flowered too but actually the first one to open is determinedly single. Lovely colour though and I hope its siblings will be more fluffy when they come out in a few days time.

So now it's back to being a hermit or a nun or just in solitary confinement for another three weeks until it's time for Paul to visit again.

Another longest day

2011-06-21T19:52:00.004+02:00

Female Broad Bodied Chaser

One of the better things about having kept this blog going for some time is that it's possible to dip back through the years and compare dates. Looking back shows me that this year I am more organised and the garden more advanced than ever before but still I have doubts and disappointments that things aren't looking better.

Last year at this time I'd lifted a crop of over-wintered onions and some garlic. There were no over-wintering onions set last autumn and the garlic was later going in too. It will probably be ready in a month, the elephant garlic perhaps a little sooner. Now the nights are starting to draw in (terrible thought) the summer onions will bulk up. They're not looking too bad at the moment but as usual I haven't planted enough.

Two years ago and I had garlic and broad beans in abundance. Again, the broad beans were started later than usual this year and are only just beginning to make beans so even though the spring allowed for lots of work to be done, it really does pay to get some crops started in the dead of winter.

A whole row of bean seeds have failed, the so-called Jersey bean from HSL, I'm really surprised as the beans were saved at the same time and in the same way as the neighbouring seeds for Royal Red dwarf bean and that row has had 90%+ germination. It's sealed the fate on the Jersey type bean though, I wasn't happy with the provenance and although the beans cooked well if they're of poor fertility they aren't for the home seed saver. I've replanted with some Orca which I hope will quickly catch up.

More cheerfully, the Annabel french beans and the Ice Crystal Wax, which had stalled completely in the dry, have enjoyed the refreshing rains of the last ten days and are now flowering. The courgettes are coming on stream, I already have more than one person can eat, and the climbing beans are sending up their runners.

Here's to the long slow slide into winter.

Soggy Sunday

2011-06-19T20:05:00.004+02:00

The wind has finally dropped but it's still pretty grey and wet out there.

Today I made an update on the Myatt's Ashleaf potato entry, with some more pictures and tasting notes. I'll say it again here though, they really are a very well flavoured potato with a lovely buttery aroma even without adding anything.

See the update here

Tempests and tomatoes

2011-06-17T16:01:00.003+02:00

The tomatoes are looking good, mostly. Unfortunately the Noire de Crimée which I grew from seeds saved from a commercial fruit have Tobacco Mosaic Virus. I've moved them out of the greenhouse and their future hangs in the balance. They need burning, but it's probably too late anyway, TMV is dreadfully contagious and the other plants have been in close proximity so transmission is almost certain to have happened. With better attention to seed hygiene it could probably have been avoided but I must have been in a hurry when saving the seeds and didn't bother to ferment or bleach clean. A cautionary tale.

I'm hoping that I'll get a crop from the other plants anyway. The Coeur de Boeuf in the picture is the first to form fruit but all the vines look healthy and are flowering.

Is it just me that hates the smell of tomato plants though? It's almost enough to make me give up glasshouse growing before it's even started again. Ten minutes of tying in and removing side shoots in the heat makes me nauseous and that awful yellow stuff all over my hands, yuck!

This morning saw some heavy rain which has wet the soil properly. All to the good as the long term forecast predicts a return to high pressure and dry conditions by the last week of the month. At the moment though everything is in a state of flux and very strong winds of up to 65km/h are expected this afternoon. This isn't enough to get terribly worried about from a structural safety point of view but I am worried my broad beans, which have become rather tall and willowy, and the peas will suffer from it.

And unless the soaking rain today has changed something it looks like my gamble with sweetcorn has failed to come off. Just two little shoots showing from 40 seeds planted. Most disappointing but perhaps I was expecting too much from dainty F1s by planting them that deep.

It was very pleasing to see the first flowers on the Carlin peas today. The plants are looking really good, very vigorous and tall. If they can survive the gales it should be an excellent crop.

Novelty value

2011-06-15T17:12:00.006+02:00

Last night's moon, there is a partial eclipse tonight but the clouds are back.

None of the things I'm going to write about are in a photogenic mood at the moment so this post will be illustrated rather randomly.

Observant readers may have noticed that this year there's not been much talk of unusual vegetables or agrobiodiversity experiments or interesting new plants that I'd like to try. This is because after several years of poor results I had become so depressed by it all I decided to refocus on things that I can make work, build some small successes and remotivate myself into attempting greater things another year. So far, this has been working quite well, the vegetable garden is looking pretty good and the problems are acts of nature. Laxness and accidie on my part are not to blame.

Still, although I've tried not to worry about new stuff for this year there are a few old experiments that still require some nurture.

Madam Raven in sunlight

Oca is an old friend, and hardly a difficult subject for me to grow any more. Even so, after deer attack last autumn and a very cold snap in the winter it seemed I had only a handful of rescued tubers to start the bed this year. Into the ground they went, but the saved tubers have been extremely poorly and slow growing compared to the vast tranches of volunteers which survived the frost and double rotavation in the spring. It's been hard to weed these healthy survivors back and I've modified the planting plan to allow for the self promoted 'row' to grow on. I just need to time harvesting a little better and I think we'd have these cracked.

Bronze Arrow lettuce from the HSL

Ulluco: After several years of decline all I had left of these were five baked bean sized tubers I found when raking through last year's bed this January. With little hope I potted them up and left them on the kitchen windowsill. And they grew, four did anyway. I suspect they are all the same (hardiest) variety and undoubtedly riddled with virus and other debilitating diseases but they are still growing quite vigorously in a large pot. I'm going to to keep them in the pot and bring them indoors in the autumn in the hope of producing more growing stock for next year. And I really must get on with teaching myself micro-propagation techniques so that I can clean them of whatever it is they may have.

Sauromatum venosum a stinking arum

And then there's the Hopniss. I thought I'd been very clever to take a tuber as insurance against losses in the ground over winter. That was until I threw the insurance away, mistaking it for a horribly deformed seed potato. In the meantime the plant in the garden appeared to be completely dead, showing no signs of growth and rather unfortunately becoming a favourite dust bath and bed for a couple of very bad cats. I thought I'd lost it but finally in the last week of May new shoots appeared. I hope it will make up for lost time in the warm, humid weather we're having which should suit it perfectly.

And this has gone on long enough. Another day for the tuberous peas, the papalo and the chinese artichokes. There is one plant I'm trying this year which is entirely new to me, Achocha. This has seeds that someone on the web has noted as like 'witches teeth' and it's a perfect description. My plants are doing fine for now, just beginning to form flower buds. By all accounts these should be a home run. Let's hope so.

Sunshine and showers

2011-06-13T16:17:00.006+02:00

The showery weather continues but in the last day the temperatures have ramped up again significantly. This is important because until now the chilly nights have provided a measure of protection against the proliferation of blight spores. As soon as the humidity is matched by warmth for a couple of days then an event known as a Smith period occurs. The Smith period is defined precisely as at least two consecutive days where the minimum temperature is 10ºC or above and on each day at least 11 hours when the relative humidity is greater than 90%. This is just what the blight needs to sporulate and spread. Add to this the fact that frequent showers are keeping the plant leaves wet and the possibility of blight on the potatoes becomes almost inevitable.

Tomorrow, in a brief predicted moment of dry I'm going to try spraying with Bordeaux mixture. If the blight can be held away for another month we'll probably have a fairly good crop because of the very early start.

While I was in Italy the spinach bolted. Not an unexpected event given the circumstances and on the few occasions it's happened before I've just ripped the plants out pronto to make room for something else, but this time I thought I'd let nature take its course and see if I could save seed.

This was the moment that I discovered I knew less than nothing about Spinacia oleracae. It's quite unusual as a annual vegetable in that it is dioecious, having both male and female plants and requiring both sexes to be present to produce seed. It's very hard to sex the plants at the seed stage so seed packets do usually contain both male and female plants which is hardly noticed by most gardeners because they eat the young plants before the flower and seeds develop anyway.

For the home seed saver this not very complex but slightly interesting characteristic combined with a wind pollination habit that requires isolation of five miles or more to ensure purity means that plants need to be caged or bagged in mixed groups - two males for each four females - during seed production. It's easy enough to identify the sexes, the males are bit fluffy and the females have sturdy stems with big seed capsules but if you're growing specifically for seed you may need to plant in groups that can be easily contained, perhaps removing any excess male plants before you do.

Unless you happen to be five miles away from civilisation like me! I can't guarantee that no rogue spinach pollen will drift in from the village but given the distances and tall barrier of beech trees on most sides I think my Bloomsdale will be driven snow this year.

I took a harvest from the artichokes this morning. There are two seed raised plants which have proved hardy enough to survive though a couple of winters now. I think the variety was supposed to be Green Globe but as with many seed raised plants some considerable variation was shown. The smoother tidier looking heads are as Green Globe should be but the spikier, almost lethally thorned, sort is clearly a throw back to a more original type. It's still just as edible but the thorns need careful removal before serving, I use kitchen scissors to trim the leaves when the artichokes are to be served whole.

I made a jar of marinated artichokes from most of these, the recipe will probably appear on the Stripey Cat in about a week, when I've had a chance to sample them.

April Showers

2011-06-08T21:13:00.004+02:00

The weather seems to have reverted back to the months it missed. Currently, we're having the sort of blustery, showery rather cool climate you might expect in late March or April, although thankfully with little chance of frost. It's refreshing and good for the plants mostly, but is it unutterably shallow of me to wish the summer would come back again soon?

Although, it is unusual to have raspberries in April. Actually these first few fruit are very confused by it all, as they are on the variety Autumn Bliss which are not really supposed to fruit until late summer but I suppose the stress of being moved and planted out this spring has put the fear of death into them. Best practice would have me clean any fruit off before it matures this year, to allow the plants to strengthen their roots but there's only a few and I'm hoping to feed them to Paul for his breakfast on Friday morning.

Seeds planted a few days ago in the propagator are beginning to stir. I've put in half a dozen Red Ripper cowpeas, which were so poorly performing for me last year in the garden and will try them in the greenhouse. At the very least they should provide a little bit of shading for the basil and may even produce some beans.

A little bit of this and that...

2011-06-04T21:38:00.005+02:00

I had so many things to blog about and now I seem to have forgotten them all.

Oh yes, they say it's going to rain tonight and tomorrow and be showery for a lot of next week. I am a true farmer because this much awaited and necessary event fills me with dread. You see, a couple of days ago I got the first blight watch warning for the Channel Islands (which is as close to me as they go) and a few days of warmth and high humidity is just what the menace needs. I'm reluctant to spray but don't want to lose the crop.

Still it's kept me busy, I've rushed around getting seeds into beds and mowing the grass because the seeds will enjoy the damp and the grass mowing won't.

Here's a picture showing some cut grass and the sorry dry state of the plot with everything stunted and small from lack of water.

Planted on the 2nd June, seed rows for kale and purple sprouting - late I know but it shouldn't be a problem since we won't be harvesting until next March. Purslane, coriander, summer broccoli and rocket with lettuce seeds Marvel of 4 Seasons and a home saved Cos (I can't remember) indoors in the cool.

The seed amaranth was planted out. It looks a bit small but I'm reasonably confident it will make it.

Today I planted rows of French bean Royal Red and the oddity from HDRA described as the Jersey bean. I was expecting to harvest enough dry beans from these to make us self sufficient this year but looking at the slow start and poor stature of the Ice Crystal Wax and Annabel planted some six weeks ago I'm not at all hopeful unless the weather changes somewhat.

Myatt's Ashleaf Potato

2011-06-01T15:42:00.006+02:00

My novelty potato variety for this year is Myatt's Ashleaf. The seed tubers came from Alan Romans and he doesn't have a lot to say about it, just that it's something of an enigma and probably dates back to about 1840. On the other hand, if you google the variety then the same old unsourced factomatic gets cut and pasted everywhere, that it was created in 1804 by someone's gardener and the rights were sold to a Mr. Myatt who promoted the potatoes under his own name.

What Alan and the European Cultivated Potato Database do agree on is the colour of the flowers. However, there seem to be few or no pictures available of plants or tubers, and what I can't get my head around is why the monicker 'ashleaf' has been appended to them. The plants growing in my garden now have fairly ordinary foliage for an older style potato, and of the ten sorts of spud currently in the garden the only one that has leaves which are markedly different from the rest is the modern cultivar Ambo

What do you think? Does that look like an ashleaf to you?

I'll update this entry later when I've taken some potatoes up, they're not quite ready yet.

***UPDATED 19-6-2011***

This is the yield from two plants so not a huge cropper although the dry weather may have stopped full development. The plants are still looking healthy at this stage and have formed many potato berry fruits which makes them good candidates for breeding programmes.

We ate some about a week ago and the flavour was very good. Paradoxically this is a bit annoying because in every other respect I can find no benefit in growing these potatoes over any other, but good eating is the key attribute so I may grow them again anyway.

The tubers are looking rather scabby. This is common scab and I don't think it's a particular failing of the variety, all the potatoes are suffering to an extent because the very dry soil has produced ideal conditions for the infection.

In the garden yesterday

2011-05-31T11:27:00.003+02:00

Green manure Phacelia flowering

Straight into the garden yesterday to get things done.

I started by scything down the green manure... this isn't best practice, I fully intended to turn it in as soon as it was verdant but the dry weather has messed a lot of things up and this was one of them. The ground was too dry and the plants too advanced on my return from away so this seemed like the best option. I've covered the plot with black plastic to encourage the scythed material to incorporate into the soil and not turn to hay. In a month (if there's rain) I'll take off the covers, turn the plot over and sow a second crop of manure for the autumn. Of course, as soon as I put the plastic down we had a drizzle of rain but it's hardly wetted the surface so it's not much loss.

The greenhouse has been sorted out a little. Most tomato plants are now residing on their substrate for ring culture - unfortunately the rings aren't here in time but I've sunk the biggish pots in and expect nature will find a way. The rings are on order and if I think I need to add them later I'll pop them over the tops of the plants and earth up around the stems. Tomatoes are obliging like that.

Finally managed to get some sweetcorn seed in B&Q on Saturday before I came back to France. I couldn't find any locally or in Italy, which surprised me a lot, although looking at the plots there, it's probably a bit late to start from their point of view. The corn was knee high already.

The variety, I forget which exactly, is an F1, not something I'd normally consider but given the lateness of the start is probably no bad thing. It's not like I'm growing any other sorts or saving for seed this year.

The soil is terribly dry. Luckily sweetcorn will germinate from a great depth, so I scraped holes until I could find a little moisture, about 15 cm. down and put two seeds in each hole, filling up with water. When the water soaked away I covered them over and watered again. Fingers crossed.

The black radish seed which I thought was dead has germinated, perhaps 30% but enough for the row, which is nice. I thinned the large rooted rose radishes and put the thinnings in my dinner. A few parsnips were up too. I'm not sure if they'll do, starting this late in the year but experience will tell.

The Babington leeks are making substantial heads, I should have bulbils to share this autumn. The Carlin peas are looking good but no flowers yet. Everything else is more or less still there and perhaps the drizzle in the last 24 hours will help. The forecast shows no more chance of rain until next Sunday.

What I did on my hols...

2011-05-29T14:37:00.005+02:00

or, I went to Italy and all I got was this lousy Limoncello habit.

For my first properly foreign holiday in years, since France can hardly be counted as travel these days, I went to Lake Como with Paul. He was doing one of those boring academic conferences and I was swanning around sightseeing and enjoying the really rather pleasant weather.

I did quite a lot of cultural stuff interspersed with regular trips to the local supermarket to stock up on water and snacky things, also three bottles of Lagavulin malt whisky, (just don't ask). However I'm sure you don't want to see all the snaps of stuff I took so just enjoy the ducklings.

On our last day, conferencing over, we headed for the hills or rather the mountains of Switzerland, just a hop and skip over the border. It was really rather splendid.

Although I had an intellectual understanding of alpine plants, because like everyone else I know what sort of thing grows in a rock garden, I was completely blown away by finding the plants in their natural habitat. We stopped halfway up the side of a mountain, just a pull off lay by where tourists stop for a sneaky pee and a smoke, and there were the plants.

Like these gentians. I don't know how many expensive plants like this I've killed in my time, because I love gentians but here they were, growing profusely, trampled underfoot by picnickers, just doing what comes naturally. And along with them were another variety of gentian, Androsace alpina, sempervivums, alchemillas, campanulas, azaleas, pasque flowers (or at least the seed heads), alpine clovers and many others along with more mundane flowers like forget-me-nots and even some Good King Henry which surprised me a lot.

I was jumping from hillock to tussock to rocky outcrop like a mountain goat, exclaiming and pointing and just lost in wonder as Paul tried to take pictures (with a slightly inadequate camera for the job) of everything I was raving about.

As usual, it just proves the point that position is everything. Plants evolve for particular conditions and trying to entice them to grow in less congenial areas is doomed to failure eventually.

We continued our trip over the Passo della Novena at 2478 metres above sea level definitely the highest altitude I've ever been with my feet still on the ground. The views were amazing when we could see them through the clouds but the zig zag roads and terrifying plunges into nothingness just a little bit disconcerting for this traveller.

Then, after a whirlwind trip home when we nearly missed the plane to Heathrow followed by a tedious ferry journey overnight I got back to France today at about 11 a.m. to find the cats are naughty and everything in the garden has been well cared for by Alex and his partner Paul. The cats and I are very grateful.

Wild Life

2011-05-19T22:08:00.007+02:00

One of the blog posts that I keep swirling around in my head for a moment when I can get around to it is entitled House Safari. The idea is that I walk around the house taking pictures of all the wild things that have asserted their right to roam on the imposition that is my dwelling place and consequently share the space with me. It's surprising just how many different organisms are prepared to make a life in the human space.

The moth wanted to come in very much but was frustrated by the window. The slug below had no such problems, and I think must have made use of the cat flap for her ingress. When I found her she was half way up the glass door looking for the exit. I was pleased to help her on her way. Leopard slugs (Limax maximus) are omnivores and in the house she was probably cleaning up the door glass for me looking for other slugs (yes, there are some) and fungal growths but they can and do eat young plants. Even so, they are so much more attractive than the average slug it's hard to kill them, I took her to a place of safety in the bramble patch near the wood shed, well away from my vegetables.

The wheel barrow is on its last legs if such a thing is possible, so I thought I'd immortalise it on blogger. We bought it in Ireland years ago and it has an irritating slow leak in the tyre that has to be pumped up before each day's use but with the sentimentality of the tool user I'll be sorry to see it go.

Still no rain. The French government have published maps of the areas of drought and the measures in place to help survive them. For the moment Normandy seems to be managing on a meta-scale but here on the ground it's a very sorry story. The early start is now lost as plants stubbornly refuse to grow in the dryness. Plants I've started indoors and planted out are still the same size as when they were placed, seeds have germinated but are barely hanging on.

I noticed today that the White Emergo runner beans are making an attempt to grow. Beetroot is germinating too but the parsnips aren't for the second time and the scorzonera is equally recalcitrant. The large rose radishes are up but the old black radish seed is obviously gone over which is a pity.

I've planted out half a dozen of the Carter's Polish beans and four of the Giant Purple. There is a tray of Riana's climbing bean to go in tomorrow as I'm frantically trying to get everything out of pots before I go away for a week. My catsitter will water the greenhouse for me but I can't expect him to manage a thousand baby plants at the same time.

Below the two sort of broad bean. On the left is the Ful and the right are the Martock. I sniffed the flowers for their magnificent scent (if you've never tried the perfume of broad beans flowers, you simply must, it's divine!) and think that the Ful smell slightly more attractively than the Martock but it's a close thing. There may even be some baby pods to harvest on my return.

First up

2011-05-15T15:36:00.003+02:00

Today, the 15th May 2011 I harvested the first new potatoes. They were planted on the 28th March making it 48 days from start to finish, just under 7 weeks. I wasn't really expecting anything for another three weeks although Swift is a wonderfully fast early potato, but there was a plant a bit too close to a pathway that was annoying me, so I thought I'd scrape down and see if it was time to move it, and it was.

I ate the last dish of the old stored crop from last year only a few days ago, the 6th, long keeping Swedish Mandel which weren't too bad at all. I don't think we've ever managed year round potatoes from the garden before, it's quite a triumph.

The Swift plants are very short and don't seem to flower. I found a few buds on the plants but they were already aborting and falling off. I don't think this is because of the dry weather, I don't recall ever seeing them flower before. In a way this makes it harder to decide when to harvest as for most varieties waiting until they've flowered is a good rule of thumb. If we'd had just a touch more rain I think the smaller tubers would have bulked up too.

Of course, tiny yields are only to be expected with these earlies but that's o.k., by the time these 15 or so plants are finished, other potatoes will be ready for harvest.

I notice that the BF15 are well budded up and flowers have started to emerge so maybe I'll try some of those in a week or two.

I ate these with a little oil and salt. They're not the best flavoured new potatoes ever, although I'm told by people who still buy them that the Jersey Royals of the last few years aren't a patch on what they used to be, but they're not a bad flavour and if you had to have a dish of potatoes ready by mid May, if the Queen was popping in for supper say, then these do very well.

Saturday...

2011-05-14T13:13:00.004+02:00

Possibly the best picture of a swallow I've ever taken, what I'd really like to capture is their swooping flights around the yard, chasing each other's tails and shrieking with swallow laughter while they do it. This monster is the one that likes to sit above us at breakfast, turning every meal into Russian roulette as we wait to see who is the lucky recipient of his gifts this time.

The black locust is flowering. It seems an unusual choice as a hedge plant here, particularly as it is alleged to be poisonous to horses but when I took this picture it was alive with the hum of bees. I'd like to plant a few nearer the house and there are some self set seedlings in the hedge but it's too late to move them this summer, I must try not to forget again in the autumn. Black locust makes a good honey apparently, if honey were vegan and we had hives.

Lots of housekeeping going on. I must tidy for the catsitter, finish up the current round of planting out, weed and above all water. Despite a few thundery showers last weekend there's still been no significant rain and as has become routine, none forecast until next week or maybe the following weekend. I try not to water more than once a week, it's exhausting and the water costs money and it's probably better to give a thoroughly good soaking now and again than dribbles frequently.

Tomatoes were potted on yesterday, leaving just 18 to find new homes for. They'll have to take their chances outdoors, perhaps I'll treat them very severely and stop them at one or two trusses. It's a management routine I've rarely tried to impose but seems appropriate under the circumstances.

The Foul (Ful) broad beans started to flower yesterday, one day before the Martock which have a flower open today. It is possible to distinguish between the plants when grown side by side, the Foul have slightly narrower leaftlets but otherwise they are very similar for height and habit. I had to pick one top from the Martock because of blackfly infestation but the plants seem largely healthy.

Deer, that devil deer probably, attacked the pumpkins a couple of days ago, nibbling off leaves and, more seriously, pulling the plants up as they did so. I think one or two plants have had it, but I've replanted the rest and hope for the best. There are now deer scarers in the form of old CDs strung up around the place. This is irritating me as they flash unexpectedly across the garden, I'm not sure what the deer make of them, with luck they're scared back into the woods but I expect they're just biding their time.

A 10 day dash

2011-05-11T18:28:00.004+02:00

The first strawberry of the season, Aromel, picked today

It seems that due to the kindness of a friend one of my more depressing problems has been solved and I will be able make a long planned trip to Italy at the end of the month. Hurrah, I have a new horizon and that provides the motivation to get things done.

Suddenly there are rather a lot of pressing tasks that need my attention. However, for today, just a few notes on what's been sown, or I shall forget.

Several oca plants were moved to the oca bed so that I could plant a row of beetroot according to the plan. Only three of the original row of scorzonera have come up so the row was weeded and some more seed popped in. Scorzonera is perennial so the variation in germination should make little difference, they are often left for two years to bulk up before harvesting.

The parsnips also failed. I've made a net for the achocha to climb up the back of the compost heap and set the plants out there instead. There is an end of row where I've tried again for a few parsnips, using home saved seed this time.

Another row of carrots was sown next to the first one. That first row has very poor germination but on the bright side, at least it won't need thinning.

Between the chard and the spinach (already starting to go to seed) two half rows of winter radish, rose and black. I know it's more usual to plant these for the autumn but since it looks like I'm going to be watering all summer I may as well give these a go since radish pickle is a staple in this house. Only trouble is the black radish seed is seven years old. Anyone know the viability times for radish?

Still to come, planting out (and netting) the cabbage seedlings, more salad vegetables, in particular orache and purslane, making the cucumber bed ready, more beans for drying, sweetcorn! I find I have no seed but may be able to pick something up in the supermarket tomorrow - Golden Bantam is the local amateur variety around here. The work never ends but stuff must get done.

And a protective spell needs to be cast against the Devil Deer of Old Normandie!

Sometimes I wish...

2011-05-09T17:39:00.004+02:00

that this was an emo blog, because just at the moment, I'm all about the emo and there's not a lot of room for anything or anyone else. But it's not, so here are some pictures of tomatoes. Badly positioned on the left is a picture of Latah, an American early bush tomato from Realseeds taken in 2009 and on the right Tondino di Manduria, a small Italian plum tomato from Kokopelli pictured in 2010. Today I've planted out a few plants of each of these, because I can. It will be interesting to find out which performs best under similar conditions. When I grew them previously I felt that neither variety offered much over my usual favourites the Salt Spring Sunrise but I think I may have damaged this year's Salt Spring by starving them in their pots. We'll see.

Now let's talk about wheat. A few years ago I bought a kilo of seed wheat from the mill at Anglesey Abbey. Foolishly I imagined that it would be a heritage variety, venerable and long stemmed, good for organic growing. I noted that the varietal name was on the packet and then, after eating a bit of it in salads (wheat berry salad is good) I put the rest away as seed for later. Some time passed, as it inevitably does, and it was nearly four years after my trip to the Abbey that I finally got around to deciding that maybe this year I'd give the wheat a trial. I knew I was late for planting winter wheat by about 5 months but I had a strategy planned.

Not knowing anything about the variety, which is Hereward, I stuck a few grains in pots and waited to see if anything would germinate at all after such a long interval. Whilst I waited I thought I'd better research what I might be growing. Children, imagine my surprise when I found my 'heritage' variety was nothing of the sort. Hereward wheat is a premium high protein bread making grain, favoured by the big bakers and grown intensively up and down the country for big bucks.

The seed germinated. I studied best practice for its cultivation. It was not a pretty sight, a solid regime of spraying with fertilizers, fungicides and weedkillers is recommended for general use and I could find nothing for small scale or organic growers using it all. So not my sort of thing.

Anyway, I have 20 small pots of the stuff, so I'm going to carry on as I originally intended. The clumps will be planted out in a small bed, hand weeded and cut like lawn grass for the rest of the year. I'm hoping this will give it time to establish a strong well fed root system, then, if it survives the winter and I have little reason to imagine it will not, it can be allowed to complete its cycle next year. As a trial it's not really any worse than trying with the sort of grain I'd imagined I had. In the meantime, if anyone can recommend a source of some more appropriate wheat variety for the amateur corn farmer please leave a comment. I thank you.

Welcome to my life

2011-05-07T11:18:00.002+02:00

This is a picture I didn't know I'd taken.

Yesterday I heard the first cuckoo here. Late, very late, but welcome. I thought that this year there might not be one at all, a little worrying and unnatural. Not that they're very nice birds I know, but the sound is so evocative of the season.

The Striped Bunch beans are looking good, pictured here on their first exposure to the wicked world. I'll have to keep an eye on them today because last night the weather broke and there was lightning, thunder and precious rain. Today may bring more of the same and these tender babies wouldn't like that one bit, even if it does make me dance naked around the yard with joy.

This pretty but rather ordinary cistus is a flower with history. I picked its first parent from a piece of civic planting in the Teville Gate arcade (is that even there any more?) and rooted it for my garden in Worthing, cuttings from that followed me to my first French house and from there to here. If we ever move on I shall want to take it with me again, even though it would be easier just to buy a new one from a shop. This plant has shared things with me that another plant has not.

Planted two days ago, White Emergo runners beans straight into position, the new seed this time. The Salt Spring Sunrise tomatoes are planted out as well, looking rather starved and ill but some lovely thundery rain should help them perk up in no time. Yesterday, the Sweet Dumpling squash went into their bed on the compost heap in the back garden, I'm hoping they'll do much better than the Butternuts I usually grow in that position.

Amaranth and cucumbers are germinated but it looks like the Quinoa seed is dud. Maybe I didn't want to grow quinoa this year anyway.

Captain's Log

2011-05-03T21:13:00.003+02:00

Position unknown, crew disaffected, date immaterial really but it's at the bottom of the page.

Today we* did a bit of hoeing, gave up on the parsnips and blitzed the row to sow something else there, spent a bit of time locating oca in the bed assigned to them and noted how many much more healthy volunteers there were in the bed not assigned. Not quite sure what to do about that, move them or work around them. I can't bring myself to hoe them out, it just seems so wrong. Also hoed half the potatoes. Some rows rather sparse and pathetic, most significantly the Pink Fir Apples. I'm reluctant to suggest it but I think the seed potatoes were of poor quality. Even the home saved Arran Victory seem healthier.

Also planted out various flowers around the place, opium poppies in the veg. patch, weed mallow between the fruit bushes. NOTHING is growing, there still hasn't been any rain to speak of and there is NONE forecast for a week at the earliest.

Into the heated propagator went ridge cucumber seeds and some cuttings from the new lavenders and lemon verbena. I think the verbena will take, not so certain about the lavender.

In the greenhouse 46 tomato plants are jostling for position. They can't all stay there, it seems so cruel to throw them away. If it stays dry like this it might be worth trying them outside but I don't want to create a blight reservoir risk. On the other hand the tomatoes destined for outdoors are looking a bit weedy and starved. It might be better to chuck those and substitute the more tender ones BUT they are all cordon and I hate managing cordon tomatoes outdoors. Decisions, decisions.

*that's a Royal We by the way, since I am most definitely on my own for the foreseeable. Apart from cats and caterpillars that is.

And this caterpillar, I have no idea but it is rather pretty.

Happy May Day

2011-05-01T14:18:00.002+02:00

English May flowers in France

Happy May Day. Isn't time flying?

After nearly three weeks of having Paul here and even an extra visitor for a few days it's now back to just me and the cats. Today I'm feeling lonely.

The weather is neither one nor t'other, just grey, mild, dry with spits and spots of rain. We really could do with a good soaking downpour to get things growing again even if it would power the slugs and snails up.

Mixed results from the last bean sowing. The Striped Bunch are up and bouncy but the others aren't showing yet and I think the runner beans were too old. I have new seed but thought I'd try to use up some old stock from 2007. Seems this is not a good idea. Only four lupini and just two soy beans but I'm not too worried by this as they were never on the list as core crops this year.

I had a trip to the garden centre a couple of days ago, highlight of my life of course. Got some lavenders, herbs, a chilli plant, a lemon verbena to replace the one that succumbed to the winter and a scented leaved geranium. Years ago I had quite a collection of these but that was in the favourable microclimate of Worthing on Sea. Moving to the almost Midlands did for those and later attempts were thwarted by endemic whitefly that came in with the plants from the nursery. I think it's time to try again though, they are gently comforting plants that I enjoy very much and the completist in me likes the challenge of the collection.

The flowers the French favour for May

Raising a roof

2011-04-30T13:50:00.004+02:00

It's been a busy few days, lots happening but no time to blog. I was making use of a visitor to help me get the greenhouse erected. The actual kit of parts was dismantled from the garden in Newport Pagnell in January and brought over then for storage here until we had time to reassemble it.

This is the site I picked out. It's sheltered on one side by the old cowshed, backed by the derelict haybarn behind and on a disused corner of land facing the main vegetable beds at the other end of the meadow we keep cut as 'lawn'. The sun (when it's out) shines on the area for most of the day but the plot can't be seen from the house and interrupts no charming views. So far, so good.

However, when we came to prepare the area and dig out foundations for a proposed dwarf wall to lift the walls a little higher and provide some needed headroom, we hit a problem. Or several problems, in the shape of brick sized boulders of stone interspersed with golf ball sized rocks. It was impossible to get a fork in and even the mattock could do little to loosen the soil. In the end we decided to just level the site and use the fitted green house base straight onto the ground. It seems unnaturally stony here as if in times gone past hard core and rubble have been dumped here or even placed deliberately to create a hard standing. I chose the site so I'm grateful for the extreme efforts that made it possible to get the green house put up here. Nobody suggested we should move it elsewhere for a more convenient build.

And here it is. Three missing panes were already accounted for in damage before we took it to pieces in the UK, the actual transportation and construction was pretty much without incident. We'll get some replacement glass in the fullness of time but for now it's going to make growing fancy tomatoes a much more practical proposition than trying to grow them outside. I'm looking forward to using it.

A tale of two beans

2011-04-24T09:02:00.005+02:00

Carter's Polish Beans

As usual there are too many beans for me to grow them all out this year. Found in the seed box were these Carter's Polish. I don't remember requesting them from HDRA so they must have been a lucky dip selection. Peabean shaped, they are healthy solid looking beans with a glossy coat. As usual the Heritage Seed Library is vague and imprecise with details on the variety which always annoys me. On their website the bean is described as a tall grower with purple flowers and mottled purple pods. No history, no provenance and no real explanation about why this is a variety worth preserving except that it seems to exist. It could be a modern Polish breed or a Victorian selection named for the polish of its shiny coat. Almost certainly it is grown elsewhere in the world under another name but we'll never know. It has attained nirvana, trapped forever in a fluffy hazy world of seed saving nostalgia and well meaning middle class angst.

O.k. I'm beginning to sound a bit bitter now. I'm going to grow it and see. It might make the grade for my core selection of seed saving exercises but if I don't like it I shall give away all the seeds and not bother with it again. That, ultimately, is the only valid criteria for growing anything.

Striped Bunch Beans

The Striped Bunch I did choose, not so much for the apocryphal back story that came with them that they originated in Right Beaver Creek, Knott County, Kentucky but because I wondered if the seed would resemble Tiger Eye beans, since I fancy growing them but can't really justify the difficulty of obtaining seed. They don't much but there is at least a bit more information available about them on the web.

They are described as a half-runner, something that will confuse British readers since runner beans are Phaseolus coccineus and these beans are P. vulgaris, which we call French beans. However, it simply refers to the length of the climbing vine and means that these beans will grow to a height of between 3 to 5 feet. They will apparently produce 12cm long round bean pods which are ideal for pickling. I've never pickled beans before but I'm willing to give it a go.

These beans are now planted so more news on them as it breaks. Also planted yesterday, half a dozen Giant Purple, runner bean White Emergo and Riana's climbing green french bean. I must ask her again if she can remember the name of the variety because it was great last year.

And next, I'm planting out the courgettes. No rain forecast until Thursday and that's a bit tentative.

Aide memoire

2011-04-21T21:21:00.002+02:00

Peas awaiting sticks

Just some diary notes.

Planted on the 19th April two sorts of dwarf french bean, Annabel and Ice Crystal Wax. The bean poles were erected that day too, but I'm still relocating pumpkins from trays so that I can plant the climbing beans in heat.

The cabbages are up, the leeks, carrots, salsify, parsnips and scorzonera are not. This is bad. In pots, there are 7/8 Irish Preans and 10 pots of Hereward wheat. 5 rows of potatoes are now showing green tops.

All of the pumpkins etc are now individually potted, still to separate some tomatoes.

Work to do; finish back garden bed and plant out fruit bushes. Make pea sticks for Irish Preans and a teepee for some more beans there. Make beds ready for cucurbits and beetroot. Get the beans and ridge cucumbers started. And some other stuff...

Without words

2011-04-19T21:00:00.002+02:00

Digging deep

2011-04-17T20:14:00.003+02:00

There is one flower in that picture in focus. Really. I just can't help playing with depth of field.

One of the effects of the good weather, starting so early, having all the time in world etc etc is that I have no excuse to skimp on ground preparation and doing things properly. Doing things properly is hard work.

Today I thought I'd make the climbing bean bed ready. Just rake out the weeds, dig some trenches, fill them up with compost and set the poles. Easy peasy. It's taken me hours and I'm so tired I was falling asleep in front of the fire just after dinner. Digging is hard work.

The bed is still not finished, I have to cover the compost and put up the poles yet. That nice fork in the foreground is new and a good tool. I used it to break up the subsoil before adding the compost and grass clippings. Note also the bucket of couch grass extracted from a spit down.

This is effectively just two rows of double digging per trench. At least one school of thought would have me double dig the whole plot every few years and that would improve the soil. At my rate of digging that's never going to happen so my usual half-arsed approach will persist.

I know there are many proponents of permaculture out there who would like to put me straight but please, bring wine round on a Saturday afternoon and we'll discuss it then if you must. Any form of permanent bed system would, with my lousy housekeeping, descend back to nature in no time at all, and that would be too depressing.

At least the compost bin is working well, although turning it is more of that hard work.

Excursions and alarums

2011-04-14T17:05:00.003+02:00

It's been a rather irritating and depressing day for any number of trivial reasons, each of which on its own should have been easy enough to shrug off. Somehow from inside my head the view has become darker.

The first thing to go wrong was just carelessness, I snapped off the top of a pumpkin as I was taking them outside for the day. I've taped and splinted it like a child playing doctors and nurses but really there's no chance and no real need to make a fuss, I still have seven more of that sort to go.

Then I found that a snail had eaten the tops from all the Hot Wax peppers. It's too late to start any more now so we'll have to resort to buying a few plants for our chilli needs this summer. The range in France is rather poor so that's a disappointment too.

While I was pricking out asparagus this evil cat took a bird. Probably a swallow. I chased him but he doubled back through the cat flap and disappeared. I didn't see him for five hours so he knows he was bad, but he's a cat. I've spent the time desperately hoping that somehow it wasn't a swallow or it got away but where we had four this morning, now I can only see three. I'm feeling so unhappy over this.

I did a reccy on the fruit. Of fifteen raspberry canes potted up in February it looks as if only six will make it. Only five of the strawberries came through, the other fruit bushes, although small, do seem viable but it's a poor show. I've planted the six best raspberries, three Autumn Bliss and three Octavia in the back bed. I really don't know what to do with the others, whether it's worth hanging on or if I should just ditch them now and stop agonising over it.

And the cats are covered in ticks. Tomorrow Paul will arrive with my car and supplies so they can be treated but it's just horrible to see and think about. This last couple of weeks has been rather wearing on my own. At least when I have the car again I'll feel a little less isolated.

The Leeks of Babington

2011-04-13T19:45:00.008+02:00

Reading Irish Kitchen Garden today I realised that although I've been growing Babington leeks for many years now it's been rather an academic exercise. I've planted them, tended them, distributed them and looked upon them more as novelty pets instead of seeing how best to incorporate them into a vegetable garden as a useful crop. These are my records on the subject, including today's tasting notes.

Scientific Name:

Allium ampeloprasum var. babingtonii

Who was Babington?

Charles Cardale Babington (1808 – 1895) was a contemporary of Darwin. He was a botanist who studied at St John's College, Cambridge. He became Chair of Botany at the University of Cambridge in 1861 and in addition to many works of botany wrote several papers on insects. In 1833 shortly after completing his M.A. he was present at the foundation of the Royal Entomological Society. He continued to study and write papers on his interests until late in life. His papers and specimens are conserved by the University of Cambridge.

I've not been able to determine exactly when his leek was named for him. In 1840 he wrote about the differences between true leeks, Allium porrum, and Allium ampeloprasum in the ANNALS OF NATURAL HISTORY, mentioning that on Guernsey he had seen Allium ampeloprasum reproducing from bulbils produced on the flower head.

Description:

Babington's Leek is a perennial sterile plant that reproduces only by means of root offsets and the bulbils formed with the flowers. Studies have indicated that all specimens found in Britain and the Channel Islands are from a single clone. The plant is also found in Ireland although opinion is divided as to whether it's native there or perhaps introduced.

It is found mainly in the S.W. of England preferring an open environment on sea cliffs, coastal heaths and woodlands. It has no particular preferences for soil type as long as it is free draining and sunny. The plant comes into growth in early spring, forms a leek like leafy top growth and follows this with a tall flower stem in July. The florets are pale purple but the main part of the head is formed from small bulbils which start green and gradually harden up with a brown skin like tiny misshapen onions. In times of drought it may miss flowering and simply die back underground until there is sufficient moisture again.

There are few indications that it has ever been domesticated or used for food by foragers but in recent times its oddity has become popular with gardeners who have kept it going by swapping material amongst themselves. It is now becoming commercialised by marketers keen to cash in on this. However, given its peculiar method of propagation it's unlikely that any improved varieties or better selections will ever become available.

Cultivation:

Start the bulbils (or are they really topsets?) in small pots of loamy compost in the spring. They are small and slow growers to begin with and it's easier to keep a track of them in pots than the open ground. The first year they will grow up like grass, before dying back over the winter. In the second year they start to display their leeky heritage. Plant them out in good soil and allow to grow on. Keep them weed free, like all alliums they hate competition. It's at this point you might consider taking a harvest but it's tempting to let them have another year in the ground. If you're lucky they will flower giving you a new source of bulbils for the next season. Mark the row before they die back or you'll lose them. If the season is damp you might find that they also make offsets at the base, another way of increasing stocks.

Harvest:

I took these leeks in their third year. The previous year they did not flower and died back in June due to drought and I wondered if I'd lost them completely but they had started to show green again by January and were a good size by March. Dig them carefully with a spade as you would for leeks. I think the bulbs at the bottom of the plant were softened and depleted from over wintering and this could probably be avoided by harvesting before they flower and die back. I took just the clean white stems which were tender and not fibrous and, rather hopefully, replanted the old roots, which may or may not have been a good idea. ***UPDATE*** The replanted bulb ends have now produced shoots which look as if they will carry on as before, so if they're not fit for eating it is worth replanting them for another day.***

Use:

The raw taste is more garlicky than leeky, quite spicy hot. I used my stems in a potato soup and the flavour mellowed a bit in the cooking but I think they would work well anywhere you might use green garlic or scapes.

Seediness

2011-04-12T12:54:00.003+02:00

I thought I'd been rather restrained with my sowing of pumpkins, squashes and gourds. Even allowing for the old ditty "one for the vole and one for the crow, one to rot and one to grow" I'd hoped to have just the right number of plants that I could find a home for them all. In fact I've had nearly 100% successful germination and it's going to be a struggle as usual.

If the plants were smaller it might be easier to discard some but they look so fresh and eager that I'll have to give them all a chance, probably damaging quality of life for the few by the needs of the many but that's the equation, for humans as well as cucurbits. Even if it does mean being swamped in courgettes again.

Work has slowed down for a few days but more seeds are planted. Irish Prean seeds and wheat (a trial) went in pots outside three days or so ago along with some borage and coriander. Yesterday I planted up Lupini beans and soya beans in the heated propagator and today some herb seeds; sorrel, parsley, sweet cicely and more coriander in pots indoors. I also put some dill seeds into a tray but there are two problems with that, one is that the seed is so old it's probably past it and the other is that dill hates being transplanted so it's almost certainly doomed whatever happens. My brain is overheating this week and mistakes are being made.

Outside sowings of cabbages, Kalibos and Asturian Tree, along with leeks Kelvedon and Solaise Bleu. Outside seed beds are unusual for me but I'm hoping they'll work and remove the need to buy in small plants in the summer which is my normal strategy.

Still little prospect of rain, so watering is becoming a regular task although the temperatures have dropped a bit which helps somewhat.

Hello flower

2011-04-09T12:35:00.003+02:00

Flowering Cherry

Feeling rather sorry for myself today so made a bunch of flowers.

Plum blossom

Herb Robert

Ivy Leaved Toadflax

Pink Flowered strawberry cross

Three Cornered Garlic

Wallflower

Backlinks

2011-04-09T08:56:00.002+02:00

I've had to disable backlinks. Something strange happened overnight and suddenly all my recent posts had generated backlinks to each other. Needless to say, it wasn't me and they weren't relevant but the only way to delete them is to bosh each one individually or hide and ban the lot. I chose the option with least effort. Don't think it will have much effect on anyone's viewing pleasure but it's ruined my day.

For the record

2011-04-08T11:48:00.002+02:00

The potato planting is now finished. This morning, this lovely morning, I put in the last few rows. I was pleased to have room for a few of the Swedish variety Mandel which I brought back from my holiday there last year. These keep very well in storage and seem to be unattractive to rodents which is quite a consideration around here.

That useful tool came from the local DIY and similar ones can be found in most large French supermarkets and garden centres. They are available online in the UK but at prohibitive prices, so if you happen to be in France take one home with you.

The Swift went in on the 29th March and are just beginning to show green at ground level. They are very quick early potatoes and I expect to be able to take the first harvest by the middle of June.

The list really reads from left to right, rather than top to bottom, but I know what I mean.

A day called Summer

2011-04-06T20:38:00.004+02:00

Today's photos were an attempt to catch the interesting low angle early evening sun light at the full stretch of my zoom lens whilst sitting in a garden chair with a fat black cat on my lap. Never let it be said I don't suffer for my art.

It has been another stunner of a day, warm and welcoming and simply wonderful. Naturally I'm beginning to wonder if we're peaking too soon and if it continues on like this into June it'll become a burden and everything will die of thirst but ... what if it doesn't? Could I stand a summer wet and cold and miserable? Put these thoughts away. They're not helpful.

So in the last couple of days I've planted a few more rows of potatoes, just two to go now; which is relief because dragging those trenches exercises the stomach muscles like little else.

I've started clearing the concrete rimmed borders of the herb patch to be. Previously planted up with Leylandii conifers which we removed as a priority as soon as we arrived they have become overgrown with brambles and noxious weeds. As I clear I shall be planting other strong growers in their place. The solid boundaries may help keep these things under control.

Today I dug a little bit more of the back garden and I'll have to keep at that this week or it's going to bake hard in all this sunshine and become impossible. Seeds planted were salsify and carrot with a sprinkle of wild poppy under the apple tree. So much more to do.

Deheading daffodils

2011-04-04T20:04:00.002+02:00

I have a sneaking suspicion that most of my regular readers also stop by on my flickr stream from time to time but I didn't think anyone should miss this spectacular sunset from a few evenings ago. I promise not to become a sunset bore but actually the west is the only horizon around the place that isn't artificially raised by the height of the beech trees in the forest so it's natural to concentrate in that direction a bit.

In the last couple of days I've dug by hand (with a spade, natch!) about a third of the back garden bed. The soil is in wonderful friable condition and full of worms. I'm trying to train myself to bang the spadefuls of soil with the back of the blade to break them up, since it's probably easier for a worm to recover from a bang on the head than from being decapitated. Despite what you might have learnt at school most worms do die if they're cut in half. The tails never regenerate and the heads will only survive if enough of their vital internals remain attached. So that's something else to feel guilty about. Still there are plenty there and with the cats despatching moles whenever they can I feel there's a bit of symbiosis in our mutual relationships.

Planted today three more rows of potatoes, this time some more BF15, the Myatt's Ashleaf and some of the International Kidney. I have eight more rows to do but the weather is set fair for the week so that should be possible. Then I went to weed the asparagus patch and I'm pleased to report several more plants than I thought have survived the winter so there are about 16 in total. Not all very vigorous but at least they're there and if given enough tender loving care should continue to build up strength until we can harvest them.

The peas and beans are just showing above soil but none of the pumpkins have germinated yet. More swallows have arrived and two at least seem to be nesting in the old bakehouse.

Toad Hall is gaining in magnificence. I'll keep adding stones to the stately pile as it will help keep the occupant cool in the summer sun. Trouble is, I'm not sure if anyone's moved in yet.

It's in the trees

2011-04-01T22:02:00.004+02:00

Blossom against a blue, blue sky

After a couple of miserable drizzly days the sun came back. The progression of blossoms continues, the plums and sloes are on their way out now and it's the turn of the pears. This is the apple-pear behind the old cider house, the pears are hard and not very sweet but shaped much more like an apple or an oriental pear than the usual French or British pears. I suspect conditions aren't quite right for it in Normandy as I can't believe they were planted in the expectation they'd be quite as tasteless as they are.

Contrail noughts and crosses

Despite being far enough away from everyone else to imagine ourselves back in another century, sometimes it's hard to ignore the modern world all around us. It's just an ordinary Friday afternoon, no particular holiday period or international emergency, and this is the regular traffic of jet planes from Paris, America, the UK and further still crossing the skies over the farm. Above is the view to the south west and below you can see the sky traffic from the south east. From morning to late at night, thousands of travellers pass high over us and never know we're here.

Globe artichokes look to heaven

In the garden today; I dug another strip to add to the plot in the back garden. Moving the covers disturbed a big toad, so I've built him a Hall of some magnificence. I hope he finds it and settles in. In the newly cleared land went some garlic potted up in the UK in February and the strawberry plants that were still alive. We're quite disappointed with the quality of the plants that we bought from Buckingham Nursery as half the strawberries appear to have been dead on delivery and it seems several of the raspberries aren't going to make it either. However, it was a very difficult season so perhaps it's not fair to be too harsh.

I repotted some more globe artichoke seedlings to add to these two in the picture. It's surprising they came through both the last very cold winters but I'm not complaining. In the main beds, spinach, lettuce and radishes have germinated, along with a lot of weeds that will need hoeing soon.

Now the tomatoes are out of the heated propagator there is space for the cucurbits. Two sorts of courgettes went in, White Trieste from Realseeds and some Long Green Bush, sold as marrows but perfectly fine taken when small. I wanted something stripy. Pumpkins were Big Max, essentially one of the sorts for carving. Whangapararoa Crown although I won't save seed from them this year to add to the breeding programme, just eat them. Kakai which is a hull-less variety for edible seed production. Vegetable Spaghetti, I've not grown these for years but if they don't get too big to cook they're quite fun for a few novelty meals. Sweet Dumpling which are a very suitable size for one or two people at a sitting and some ornamental gourds that were bought on a whim some years ago and have been languishing in the seed box ever since. I also put some Achocha in, the first time I've tried them. I'll start the pickling cucumbers in a couple of weeks time.

Wet

2011-03-30T21:40:00.003+02:00

So the rains came, and my partner left and now it's that strange moment of dislocation between one established pattern of existence and the other more self-reliant mode where it's just me and the cats and certain forms of thought are closed off.

I took advantage of a brief gap in the inundation to try for a picture of a puddle just to prove a point, it really did rain today, but water is strangely passive and lacking in dynamism when it's just lying there. Not one of my best shots.

It's not all misery though. Yesterday I sowed the first round of green manure on the designated plot and the rain will get that settled in nicely. This particular area of land is quite impoverished after some careless treatment in the last couple of years so in late June the sowing of clovers and legumes will be turned in. Shortly after that another green manure, Phacelia will be sown. That can grow on until the autumn and then I'll cover it up until next spring to allow time for the plants to decompose and be incorporated into the soil by worms. I've kept back a sprinkle of the crimson clover to plant elsewhere as the flowers are extremely ornamental although it's not usual to allow green manures to flower for best effect as soil conditioner.

We planted the first few rows of potatoes, Swift, Shetland Black and BF15 and the rest of the land is prepared for me to complete the sowing over the next couple of weeks.

Also nearly all the tomato plants have germinated, even the old saved seed from market fruit. Which is gratifying if they can all be brought to maturity. We decided eventually where to site the greenhouse and as soon as it stops raining I'll need to clear the site in preparation as the tomatoes will be ready to go out into it within a few weeks. The green house is one from the garden in the UK, dismantled in January and transported over for reuse. Only a budget affair we plan this time to erect it on a dwarf wall to increase the headroom which will make it more pleasant to use.

Despite the almost summer-like weather the beech trees are still holding back on their new leaves. They could be very wise, it's still possible for temperatures to plummet in the next month. Mustn't get too ambitious before the season is properly started.

Turned out nice again

2011-03-27T21:52:00.005+02:00

In the end there was no rain. I tried to call its bluff by getting out the watering cans and soaking the seed beds but no luck. We had a wonderfully warm and sunny day, eating our meals in the garden and risking sunburn if we left off our shady hats. Planted today; a row each of parsnips and scorzonera. The forecast is for showers and then rain on Wednesday. I'm sure it will happen.

There was a huge clump of horseradish blocking progress in the potato patch, so I took advantage of the visiting muscles of Paul and got him to dig it out for me. The roots spread over an enormous area and I'm sure there are plenty of broken off bits left to regenerate but the main crown is now removed and a policy of zero tolerance should see the rest off eventually. I took the harvest back for the kitchen although there is a good deal more pungency there than I'm likely to get through before it turns to compost. I'll have to see if it's possible to freeze it.

Our solitary swallow is still waiting for the rest of the family to catch up with him. We're a bit concerned though as the swallows recognise and hate cats and will buzz them if they see them in the yard. This does bother the cats a bit but they soon spotted an opportunity to swipe dinner from the air as demonstrated here by Miss Fluffy Raven. Our lone bachelor has decided to start his campaign early despite having no mate or young to defend. His first battle was nearly his last this morning when he dive bombed Crow who is extremely strong and fast. It's quite a worry.

With almost nothing cultivated to harvest at the moment I'm driven to foraging for foodie entertainment. The dandelions are in full bloom and so I thought I'd make some more Dandelion Syrup. Oddly though, this time the petals weighed in at 150g so I've set them to steep in two litres of water overnight. Update in a couple of days when the final product is available.

Drying up

2011-03-25T19:49:00.002+01:00

Sunrise over the wood shed

It's been dry now for two weeks, no rain. This morning the forecast was for another week without a shower. That's changed now but I had started to consider the need to water the new planted seeds, not something one often worries about in March. Nothing is up yet, but that doesn't mean things aren't happening beneath the soil. Once the seed starts to germinate there can be no setbacks or accidents, there are no more natural strategies for protecting the new life, it must grow or die in the attempt.

So although already I mourn the passing of the blessed sunshine, I can't really complain at the 40% chance of showers forecast for the next few days.

Today, it was too hot for sustained work, or maybe I was just too twitchy at the thought of Paul arriving tomorrow. I mooched about clearing the weed from the water lily, pulling up grass from around the hops, moving small clumps of mint and comfrey to new spots as they were blocking an area that will need to be dug this weekend. I didn't seem to get anything of significance done.

But, I did see the first swallow. He, or she, swooped in from the southwest, looped the loop in the yard, made a practise run at the entrance to the swallow house, then pulled out and disappeared back into the ether.

And with that it's time to stem this flood of daily posting. I can witter on like a swallow about my lovely life here but in the end it starts to become repetitive and meaningless. I'm going to cut back to a couple of posts a week which I hope will have more of interest to report in them.

Sunset behind the wires

Seed journal entry

2011-03-24T20:09:00.002+01:00

I'm having a bit of trouble with the little Ixus 330 camera. It's eight, maybe nine years old and has served me well but the rechargeable battery is nearly defunct and will only hold a charge for 20 minutes or so and the memory cards have become corrupted, a card that should hold 64 shots is only managing to take 4 at the moment. I can replace the battery, just need to source it and I'm sure I can reformat the card with the right tools. Unfortunately I'm not clever enought at Linux to get to the bottom of the problem via this little netbook. However, my big computer is on its way so something will probably get sorted in a day or two. And with it, my Nikon camera, so maybe I won't need to fettle the Ixus after all. I think I will though, it's not dead until it's dead and it's been a fantastic tool.

Then all I have to solve is Flickr oversharpening everything I send it.

Anyway, the point of this entry is to record the seeds I sowed today. I was very good and sorted the entire mess of seed storage, re-organising as I went. It should be much easier to approach now.

In the heated propagator went 9 sorts of tomatoes; Salt Spring Sunrise, my favourite outside bush tomato and then in much smaller quantities Longkeeper and Beefsteak from the Heritage Seed library although they're not listed online. Some home saved seed from plants I've grown and from the market, Coeur de boeuf, Noir de Crimée and something enigmatically described as Black which I think is actually Purple Ukraine but could be anything. Latah and Tondo di Manduria, both trials for outdoor bush tomatoes which haven't usurped Salt Spring but do have some merits. Finally, a few Gezahnte Bührer-Keel. Last year I had a few fruit but the plants suffered in the open air and didn't show their best. This year, hoping the greenhouse will be assembled in time, conditions should be much better for them.

I also started some basil, tomatillos, Hungarian hot wax peppers (rather late), purslane and too many other things to remember right now! Outside in modules I planted various annual flower seeds, sweet peas, poppies, nasturtiums, things like that. I could have sowed direct but the bed isn't ready yet, victim of the time I've spent on the vegetables.

Oh, and the lawn mowing season has started although I nearly trashed the lawnmower almost immediately, still that's a story for another day.

Don't forget to breathe

2011-03-23T20:30:00.003+01:00

The Ragondin is back. I spotted it twice today, browsing on weed in the sheep dip pond. I'll have to sneak out tomorrow a bit more quietly and take its snap.

The first year we were here I saw one, some, but they disappeared quite quickly before the summer and we haven't seen any since. I thought the hunters must have had them, coypu makes a nice stew apparently, but of course nature abhors a vacuum. We have a desirable residence for a bank dwelling rodent and someone was bound to take the vacancy.

I rather wish they hadn't. Although they are herbivores and mild mannered they do mine the sides of the stream and pond for their homes and cause damage to the drainage. The one I saw today disappeared down the feeder pipe for the pond, which proves a couple of things, one that the coypu is quite agile and two that the pipe must be clear of obstruction, apart from ragondin that is. I think we'll have to net the entry point, I don't want giant water rats in my pond.

The gardening is coming along very well. Today I planted the oca. It's the first time I've planted them direct, normally starting them out in pots in the greenhouse but the strays I dug up when clearing the old bed are already sprouting after a winter outside. I've planted them deep, I think they'll stand a light frost if it comes. Four rows, one each of red, pink and white and one of the rosy pink sorts sent to me last year.

However I've noticed a marked reluctance in myself to plant seeds... don't know what that's all about but I can't wait any longer to get started with things like tomatoes . Tomorrow is designated seed sowing day no matter how enticing a bit of hard digging or bramble clearance seems.

This little bush of crack willow is in entirely the wrong place, growing up through the paving by the house. So pretty though, and the bees love it.

Excellent customer service

2011-03-22T21:44:00.003+01:00

Visa Tools who sold me my wonderful bramble scythe have become customer service heroes. Whilst whacking around the brambles I managed to shake loose a grub screw that holds the blade to the handle (dismounting the blade is essential for sharpening) and lose it completely in the undergrowth. The kind folk at Visa Tools have sent me a replacement gratis. I can't thank them enough. They have all sorts of wonderful tools so take a look at their website and see what you can find, my list is half a yard long already.

It's hard to express the joy I'm feeling with the current spell of good weather. Frosty overnight perhaps but warm and dry all day means a great start to the growing season. I can dig, plant, cut back and titivate without a care in the world and it's wonderful.

These pictures were taken at half past seven this morning, it's just too good waste lying in bed.

And look at this Peacock butterfly posing on the newly blossoming blackthorn. It doesn't look real does it, but there were several flying around today. I think I also saw the spring form of the Map butterfly briefly but it didn't stop long enough for certain identification and no camera to hand.

More tomorrow.

The Plan

2011-03-21T22:16:00.002+01:00

This is the plan. You can click through to Flickr to see it larger if my handwriting is hard to read. It's not all planted up yet, too early for some things. Mostly small beds, about 1m x 2.5m with earth paths between. In fact, this part is pretty much the square metre garden writ large.

The asparagus bed, Babington leeks and Welsh onions are in place from last year and growing on. I may move some or all of these in the autumn.

Already in are the onions sets and today I planted the broad beans, peas, chard and spinach with short rows of Bronze Arrow lettuce and Long White radish (from home saved seed).

If it all looks a bit vague towards the quinoa side that's because it is for now. I have to fit some field tomatoes and some other stuff in somewhere. I'm also not entirely sure which climbing beans to choose, the ones mentioned are definitely in, there are half dozen others that I can't make my mind up about but only room for a couple.

The row of comfrey will be deprecated, to use a computing term, throughout the next year. It's useful green manure but in its present spot forms an artificial barrier I've decided we don't need. I'm going to split the plants and resite some, then cut these poor specimens to death over the summer before (attempting to) rooting them out entirely in the autumn.

The green manure patch is in preparation for potatoes next year. I've decided on two crops of green manure with the plot being covered in November until planting time. I'm also covering some new plots along the edges of the existing cultivation to claw back some area after releasing the stony patch.

Not shown, the perennial patch with rhubarb, Good King Henry, lovage, sculpit, tuberous peas etc. It's just off the edge of the screen on the right hand side.

The potatoes are in a separate area this year and there is a small bed in the fenced back garden where I'm going to have a few plants for seed production, primarily the Irish Prean peas which were destroyed by deer last year.

I meant to have a long philosophical bit about seeds, sowing and getting things done but I'm just too tired. It wasn't that interesting anyway.

Here's what some of it looks like on the ground.

A snap of the fingers

2011-03-19T17:28:00.004+01:00

Asparagus in its second year

Not a lot came through the winter. Some cabbages, oca surprisingly enough, welsh onions and Babington leeks and these few plants of asparagus. Last year I put 18 seedlings out and tended them lovingly. Only five, maybe six are still with us but they do show some encouraging signs. I have another couple of pots of seedlings for pricking out and replacing the ones lost by the way. It's going to be a couple of years yet before we can sit down to that first plate of home grown asparagus but fingers crossed these survivors have what it takes.

Purple Deadnettle

Believed to be a plague sent to curse the unworthy this pretty little plant is already showing its flowers. In an attempt to encourage still more butterflies and bugs into the garden we intend to plant more weeds this year. Our wildflower patches this year will be on the stretch of ground that is being let go from the veg plot and a space actually almost in the middle of the main vegetable beds at the base of an apple tree where we can't cultivate for fear of damaging the roots. I'm still in two minds about increasing the number of Buddleias as they can become a weedy menace and are by no means native but I saw the first Brimstone, Comma and Peacock butterflies today and having more flowers for nectar does seem enticing.

This is one of the projects I think would make a good volunteer task. Our front gate has needed rehanging since before we were here and dragging the wretched thing open and closed when I need to go through one of my most hated jobs. We just need to drop four strong new posts deep into the grounds, anchor them and then rehang the gate so that it swings instead of ploughs. A few tidy fence poles and a new letter box and we'd be the smartest entrance in the village. Well, I can dream.

The exhausted cat below was a bit disgusted with me when he found the point of our long walk was to take pictures of the gate. Next time I'll have to take them into the forest where it's much more suitable for catty pursuits.

Peas underground

2011-03-18T15:55:00.003+01:00

The plan is started...

but I meant to blog these peas yesterday and forgot. The picture is from last summer, there was nothing much to see above ground except a tangle of fragile and nearly disintegrated hair thin stems.

Clearing ground for the rotavator yesterday made me look for the home of the tuberous rooted pea that was left to over winter near the rhubarb. I was amazed to find a lot (about 15) good sized roots there. I've split them up and replanted some in a short row near the other perennial plants and put a few into a pot as back up in case the slugs come, as fearfully predicted by Rhizowen. It might be a difference in soil or the close proximity of the oxalic acid rich foliage of the rhubarb but I've seen very little damage from the slimy ones. So far. Fingers crossed.

A cunning plan...

2011-03-17T19:08:00.002+01:00

is just what I need and don't have.

I've spent the last couple of days preparing the ground. I have broad bean seeds, onion sets, peas all waiting to go into it and I have not the slightest idea where to put them.

Other people have rotations, layouts, garden design software even. They keep diaries and log books. They follow a scheme and know what's what. They even know where what's going to go.,

Oh, I have some vague notion. I've read all the books and with an inbuilt fear of bowing to any authority I have airily mashed them up in my head with the full intention of synthesising a better, more comprehensive and efficient new order. This lofty ambition seems to be way beyond my remaining brain cells. Frankly, the back of an envelope with coffee stains on it looks better than my mental map at the moment.

Such lackadaisical method as I have is broadly this. Cover a patch of ground in the autumn, call it the new potato patch. Come the spring, dig it and plant potatoes. The beans. peas and pumpkins go into the old potato patch and everything else follows into their vacated spot.

However, after four, no, five years of this mayhem I'm running out of new places for the potato patch. This year they're going to be a clearing crop for my oft delayed herb garden but that will be the last time they can dig their toes in the soil there. The very first potato patch is going to be returned to nature as it is irredeemably stony compared to almost anywhere else on the planet and I am going to have to start re-using land unless I plan to put the whole 9 hectares over to vegetables through the coming seasons.

Tonight, I will make that plan. Probably.

In other news, the sun finally came out this evening for a brief moment so here is a picture of some rhubarb. More soon.

Early days

2011-03-16T10:25:00.005+01:00

Raven and Rook at the wood shed.

It was a really splendid spring day yesterday but this morning it's thick with fog. The forecast is for more sunshine later so this is my excuse to huddle in front of the fire and write a blog entry until it improves.

We've been here for a few days now. At least we have a list of some of the more pressing tasks.

Paul made a start on dismantling the fallen oak tree. It's often more dangerous to tackle a fallen tree than to cut a standing one as it can be hard to judge which branches are taking the most weight. Cut the wrong support and the whole thing could tumble over onto you. However, with care and starting at the top he's managed to chainsaw quite a lot into manageable chunks that I'm carrying away to the woodshed to be split with an axe for firewood. There are also a number of larger sections, too heavy to move that will have to be split with wedges and sledge hammers before further processing. They are almost too large for the chainsaw.

We're still not sure what to do with main trunk. It's a very usefully sized piece of hardwood that would make several much needed replacement gate posts or even a beam for renovating the cider house but it's so heavy that it's beyond ordinary person power to manage it and we have nothing powerful enough to help. It may yet end up being reduced to firewood. At least it would keep us warm for a long time.

These are just some of the brambles that are threatening to take over the whole farm. I have a trusty bramble scythe with a lethal blade but it doesn't wield itself and the work is very tiring. My hands are blistered and I'm covered in holes made by vicious bramble spines. The scythe is a little better at the job than the powered brush cutter and much quieter so I prefer it to the more modern method. At the moment all I can do is try to keep the patches from spreading, I dream of the day when we have a tractor with a suitable cutter to reduce the whole lot to a pile of shreddings.

The box hedge is flowering and in the sunshine one can smell its potent, almost offensively musky, scent all over the garden. Yesterday I saw the first butterfly of the year, a small tortoiseshell. There were also quite a lot of bumblebees searching out the dandelion flowers. The birds are nesting, we have sparrows again this year after a couple of years of their absence and many Polly Dishwashers, known here as the naughty birds for their habit of posing on just the wrong side of the roof ridge when we're trying to take their pictures. I've linked to the RSPB and they show the British subspecies as default but of course here in France we have the European sort; picture 3, race Alba.

The cats haven't found the move entirely to their liking. Rook in particular is missing central heating and the compact terrain of the back garden but he's coming around to it and Crow and Raven seem happy enough now they've found the mice again. The exercise will do them all good.

Home on the range

2011-03-13T10:34:00.003+01:00

Well, we're back and nothing is too awful. Mice have wreaked havoc in the potato store and the cats are extracting revenge at this very moment. It's horribly damp and I've had to ditch my tea store but the roof is still on, and apart from the fallen tree there seems to be no winter storm damage at all. It's comfortingly mild. That's not to say it's warm, we're still a two fires all day household but there's nothing to fear from the weather.

Not many vegetables have come through the winter to fuel the hungry gap. This is partly my fault, I didn't really attempt any winter hardy veg this year, too despondent at the thought of renewed deer attack. This cabbage is the loose leafed one from Realseeds, I forget the exact variety for the moment, it was a useful resource for a small household last autumn and seems extremely hardy. These small flowering heads could be left for seed but I think I shall eat them. I'm wondering if the plants would continue on for another season like the walking stick kales or other similar brassicas but they're in the wrong place anyway. I'll definitely start some more from seed this spring.

Are there any mycologists in the house? We found this fungus lurking like a displaced alien on the underside of a very old plank of oak that had overwintered outside. We haven't been able to identify it and neither has anybody else we've shown it to. If you have any suggestions about what it might be we'd love to hear them.

Back to the Farm

2011-03-09T09:45:00.002+01:00

Dedicated readers will notice I just posted an entry like this on Stripey Cat. Not an intentional action but I'm going to leave it there. The change of venue affects my cooking just as much as it affects the rest of life.

It's an earlier start than many years. In a way that should have some benefits, fewer small plants to transport, the opportunity to take advantage of dry days and get ahead on land preparation but it also has some drawbacks. Each year it becomes harder and harder to take the isolation away from my partner and my concern that we will never be able to enjoy it together grows.

Still, it's quite exciting. We will have a whole oak tree to dismantle. It fell over in the winter, narrowly missing the woodshed. I think the roots must have been undermined by flooding from the stream behind. That should contribute nicely to the woodpile and provide some green oak for woodworking.

And there are lots of other small projects to get up and running. If you would like to spend a couple of weeks as a house guest, receiving board and lodging in return for some volunteer work on a plot that welcomes attention email me here. We can talk about it.

Happy St. David's Day

2011-03-01T18:42:00.002+01:00

The crocuses are up again although this is a picture from last year.

Somehow the rest of February has slipped away and still nothing much has happened. There are a couple of pots of seedling asparagus plants, which might provide a crop in three years time. I've put some garlic in pots because that was the only way to get them started. A lot of lot of seeds have arrived.

One thing that did get planted in a hurry, the sea kale seeds from Chiltern Seeds. This is the third time I've tried to start this seaside gourmet's delight from seed. The seed is sent from cold storage so it's obviously very short lived and I've never yet managed to get any to germinate. If this batch fails then I'll have to buy some plants for the perennial patch.

All the seed potatoes have arrived. We've rather more BF15 seed tubers than we need, if anyone local to Newport Pagnell would like a handful.

Back to Basics

2011-02-15T17:48:00.004+01:00

I had a horrible shock today. I knew I was late making my order for seed potatoes but when I arrived at alanromans.com it was too late for several of the varieties I had hoped to buy; sold out. Paul managed to track down his favourite Ambo on Tucker's Seeds and also some BF15 so it wasn't entirely a disaster, we haven't been able to get those for ages, but still a wake up call. Time is passing and nothing is happening here.

So I thought I'd better try and re-orient myself into the right mind set. Taking out the old Complete Book of Self Sufficiency by John Seymour (now in a newer edition than my copy, first published in 1976), I settled down to read all about it, again.

It strikes me that this is something that will repay reading, even now. I thought I knew the book back to front, had taken everything from it that I could but now see new information, different nuggets of wisdom and enduring advice that seems absolutely in tune with the principles that I hold dear.

It was by no means the first book on self sufficiency I tried but it was comprehensive and well presented, a one stop manual that was very welcome and I took what I needed from it, ignoring some aspects altogether. Since then there have been many more books, television programmes, internet articles and blogs and I have changed too. It seemed to have been superseded. Coming back to it again after 10 years break I find I'm looking for new insights and the book doesn't fail me. They were here all along. A wonderful smallholder's manual, timeless.

I'm going to look more closely at his advice for grain growing. Having failed spectacularly with crops from foreign parts it seems more sensible to learn to grow some local staples well, and when I can do that, start to preserve and extend the old varieties of them.

Some of the seeds planted in January have come up. Bedfordshire Champion onion seedling in modules are looking o.k. with little damping off and there's a healthy pot of globe artichokes ready for pricking out soon.

This year I'm hoping we'll have a greenhouse which means tomatoes and chilli peppers will have a longer, more productive season. Those seeds need to be started soon.

That naughty cat will be pleased (and so will his brother and sister) when we get back to France. They've just about exhausted the mouse supply around here.

A time of lists

2011-02-01T20:32:00.002+01:00

I planted some seeds about a week ago. They haven't come up yet. This is hardly surprising but I'm all for instant gratification. The quickest way to get a plant fix is to buy some.

Although these scented cyclamen are very pretty they are grown by the trade in vast quantities as disposable ornaments. That said, I've managed to keep the odd plant for a few years in the cool of the kitchen window sill. They are tenacious little beasts and make up for their untidiness with a touching effort of new flowers each winter. Sadly they're not hardy enough to grow outside, the hardy species aren't as brightly coloured or as nicely perfumed.

The weather (and my location) still impedes progress with the vegetable patches for the time being. All I can do is plan and make lists. I have lists of seeds still to buy, a list of seed potatoes that really needs some action, a list of calls to make for help with the garden in Newport Pagnell which has degenerated into an amenity site landscape in just a few months. Any volunteers for that? And I also need to make a list for these plants.

For my birthday last year I was given money towards starting a fruit garden. I ordered a whole regiment of plants from Buckingham Nurseries in November. Unfortunately, the rotten winter slowed everything down and the plants didn't arrive here until after I'd left for France. So they've had to be potted up for now, not ideal and much more difficult to transport when the time comes but at least they shouldn't suffer too much of a check when they're planted out.

The trouble is that I shall forget the varieties almost immediately and my documentation skills aren't great so I'm going to list them here for safekeeping.

5 Strawberry, Cambridge Favourite
5 Strawberry, Aromel
1 Blueberry, Herbert pot grown to add to the one already in place
1 Kiwi Fruit, Jenny (Chinese Gooseberry) I'm hoping this will fertilise the Hayward
2 Elaeagnus ebbingei 8-12ins pot grown the start of the Forest garden...
1 Blackcurrant, Wellington XXX
1 Blackcurrant, Ben Connan
1 Raspberry, Autumn Bliss (Pack of 5)
1 Raspberry, Octavia (Pack of 5)
1 Raspberry, Polka (Pack of 5)
1 Gooseberry, Hinnomaki Yellow
1 Gooseberry, Whinham's Industry
1 Red Currant, Redstart - 2 year
1 White Currant, White Versailles
1 Tayberry, Buckingham

Now all I need to do is make a list of deer fencing.

Shameless plugs

2011-01-27T00:41:00.005+01:00

It seems a lot of people are trying to get around the spam protection and use this blog to promote their own advertising sites. If I spot you I will delete you... and if I don't delete you and you're a phony then don't think you've put one over on me, you're just too pathetic for me to bother with.

Now, to business! Living the French dream is something that catches the imagination of a lot of people. To fuel your fantasies further here are a couple of properties being sold by a friend. The picture above shows a house near Vire in Calvados, a couple of hours drive from the ferries. There are 5 buildings: a habitable cottage (pictured), cottage 2 to renovate, cottage 3, a charming but dilapidated old colombage house and a hangar. All located around a central green. Total area of 2.4 hectares (6 acres) land with an apple orchard, pear, cherry and walnut trees. 3 wells, spring, pond and a veg garden. 130,000€

Or, if that doesn't rock your boat how about;

This one is further south. The house is a former stone cottage and barn in the Brenne national park. The roof and external walls have been repaired or renewed. There’s an acre of land with a pond. It’s on top of a hill, and has magnificent views down a wooded valley.

The cottage has been opened out into a 35m2 big farmhouse kitchen, with a big old fireplace. Above the kitchen is a 17.5m2 mezzanine floor.

The barn contains a 10.5m2 bathroom, a 28m2 (unfinished) salon and two bedrooms (10.5m2 and 28m2). There’s another 42m2 of the barn that’s currently used as a full-height workshop, but which could easily be converted to two floors of bedrooms/living rooms. If you click on the picture it will take you to more pictures. This one is a little more expensive (but has better weather) at 145,000€

Buying property in France is relatively easy. Fees are paid by the purchaser and the transaction is usually handled by a single Notaire who acts for both parties.

If either of these properties interest you and you're seriously considering a purchase then please contact delanghe.steve[replace with at sign]wanadoo.fr who will tell you everything you need to know.

My Dreams are Seedy

2011-01-24T11:33:00.003+01:00

It might look like I never write blog entries any more, but I do. It's just getting them from my head to web always seems like such hard work.

Anyway, at the moment my thought are often composed of fantasies about the growing season ahead and the seeds I plan to use to create it. My chosen main seed supplier this year is Chiltern Seeds. They are a very well established company and I have used their catalogues as learning material for more years than I can remember, whether I care to or not. This year they happen to have a number of my favourite reliable varieties in their vegetable section and this will form a backbone of an order which will undoubtedly grow in oddness and magnificence when I actually come to write it. Having finally lost our old cardoons to the winter I will be buying more seeds of them, along with burdock and sea kale.

Of course, I've also started gathering seeds in other ways. The Heritage seed library selection arrived a couple of days ago and I'm thrilled to have been lucky enough to receive some more Irish Preans. We really enjoyed the handful of pods we managed to harvest last year before the deer got them so this year I will be growing them in the protected back garden patch with due diligence.

The local garden centre was having a half price sale of seeds as well, so I have stocked up with stuff from Suttons and T&M via that route. Nothing exotic of course, but chard, onions, more asparagus and artichoke seeds to extend our beds of those and wild flower seeds.

As usual I will spend more money and end up with far more seed than I need, but it's such fun. Are you planning any special growing treats for yourself this summer?

Rather good

2011-01-11T21:49:00.002+01:00

It's a funny thing, depression. I've been fretting and miserable because all logic indicated that this season's oca was a write off. Now I've had a chance to actually look at it, it's really not too bad at all. Plenty for replanting has survived and even sufficient to have some to eat, which is what it's all about after all.

Not a long entry today, I'm in mid journey and the net book is hopeless for image manipulations or long typing exercises but I had to put up something about this happier state as soon as possible. The picture shows all four colours of oca; even some of the 'rose pink' that I was sent from another enthusiast last year have come through, some Chinese artichokes, again a crop I had despaired of and one tuber from the Hopniss. There are more on the plant but I've just taken one for security which can be used to increase stocks if all goes well.

I've also managed to plant some garlic at last and have hopes my poor old car will make the journey back to Newport Pagnell successfully. What a relief...

Inspiration for the Winter months

2010-12-30T14:34:00.002+01:00

2010 hasn't been the best of years. Since returning from France at the beginning of November for the holidays it's been hard to find anything of note to be joyful about. The weather has been grimly cold, one ambition after another has been thwarted and I haven't been able to find any hope in my usual lifelines of seeds or plans for the garden. Frankly I'm at the bottom of a very deep well of despond.

I came across this book while doing the xmas shopping on Amazon and immediately added it to my own wish list! It was very good to receive it at our delayed family festive gathering.

And it's been a welcome reminder of the warmer seasons. Patrick Barkham has accurately captured the sights and smells of the countryside and the hopes and trials of the pursuit of butterflies. His book has transported me back to happier times, promised that the sun will return and with it has given me hope that there is something good to look forward to.

It's not a learned treatise, not really a text book of butterflies, sometimes rambling but the geeky quirky premise of tracking down all the native British butterflies in the course of a year is carried off with chatty aplomb. It includes useful snippets about food plants and habitats, some biological facts I had no idea about, for example that some butterflies make their own scent; smelling like flowers to attract mates, and some history of the butterfly collectors, a bizarre collection of eccentrics who have set the tone of butterfly conservationists to this day.

My only real criticism is that the pictures aren't great. There are a few plates of standard identification examples which are pitifully small (and look a bit blurry to my tired eyes) and another few pages of the author's own photos. I know I shouldn't be harsh, it's exceptionally hard to get butterflies to pose for beauty shots but these aren't great photos, more snapshots of the expedition, useful for historical reference but not enough for lust. No matter, there are many many photos on the internet and it's easy enough to find sharper images of anything that catches your imagination.

So after months of despair I feel like I'm emerging from my chrysalis at last, letting my wings dry and expand and with them regaining some ambitions for the year to come. We have Marsh fritillaries in the Forest, I may even have seen them but never tried hard enough to get a proper identification. It's time to learn to distinguish the various white butterflies and name them in our records. There are Purple Emperors to track down and numerous little brown jobs that remain tantalisingly elusive. I may yet have a plan.

Cold

2010-12-07T12:58:00.003+01:00

It will be little surprise to anyone to learn that we've been having a bit of weather recently. More particularly, very cold weather.

Plans to head back to France for a late autumn clear up, garlic planting and car rescue have been put on hold indefinitely. Harvest of the oca has been abandoned. It's really all rather depressing.

It probably won't surprise anyone that I'm not going to participate in any seed sharing this year. Hopefully things will get back to normal in 2011 - I certainly hope so.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for subjects they'd like to read a blog on, I'd be very grateful for the inspiration.

Changes

2010-11-01T14:03:00.004+01:00

It's that time of year again, closing down for the dark months, saying goodbye to the sun. All rather sad and full of nostalgia for the season past.

This maize, a dent corn which is supposed to be dried and ground for making tamales, is the variety Oaxacan Green. I was expecting it to be completely blue/green seeded like the lower cob but as you can see some are rather more colourful than that. I wondered if the seed has become contaminated over time, it's extremely difficult to keep maize varieties pure because they are wind pollinated and need a long distance between varieties to avoid cross pollination but looking at the Kokopelli site it seems it grows this way for them too. So, a mystery that's not likely to be solved, unless you know better and can help. It didn't cross here, as this was the only variety to survive the deer and grow large enough to flower.

This growing session has not been a good one and I'm not sure yet if I will have anything to put on a seed swap at all this year. The oca was chewed down by deer last week, the beans all failed except for a few Ice Crystal Wax, and I'd decided not to save seed from pumpkins this year so didn't make any attempts to isolate varieties. I need to have a good clear out and reassessment of where things are going before making my plans for next year.

The Hunt

2010-10-15T18:43:00.003+02:00

It's autumn, time for the deer to rut. These two fine gents were just enjoying the warm sunshine and some fresh grass so that they could spend the night bellowing and tearing up the turf in anger. It's interesting to see the variations in coat colour although I've yet to spot a white one. That would be special.

In Normandy the hunting season started a couple of weeks ago. Although hunters are not supposed to fire their guns within 50 metres of the house and I have asked them not to hunt on our land anyway I'm still somewhat nervous for myself and the cats. I feel I should wear a fluorescent jacket and keep the cats on leads with me whenever we go outside. And that's just for the casual hunters out for small game.

On days when there are formal hunts in the forest dates are published, notices are put up on the boundaries and warning horns are sounded. Unfortunately living within the forest I'll only see the signs if I happen to go out, the dates are yet to be published and the horns are not very directional or helpful, still there have been no accidents here yet.

Naturally as vegans we don't take part in the hunting, except for hedgehogs. Hedgehog mushrooms that is.

In France these unmistakable and common fungi are known as Pied de Mouton, Sheeps Feet. They grow under the trees close to the boundaries with fields, often in the company of chanterelles. For the beginner collecting their first wild harvests it's their spines which help to confirm that they are safe to eat. There is nothing else quite like them.

We gathered a fine crop a couple of weeks ago but the freezer was stuffed full of tomato paste so I needed to find a way to use them. This Scandinavian style treatment reminiscent of pickled herring is an interesting recipe. I'll give it as I found it but if I was making it again I think I'd change things as bit as indicated.

* 750g hedgehog mushrooms
* 1 bay leaf
* 10 allspice berries
* 1 onion, cut into rings
* 125ml water
* 20ml white vinegar
* 75g white sugar

Place the mushrooms in a saucepan with water to cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and cook for 3 minutes. If I were doing this again, I'd slice the mushrooms first, drop them into boiling water and blanch for just one minute. Drain and cut them into 3-inch slices. Place in a glass container together with the bay leaf, allspice, and onion rings. I used half a teaspoon of ground allspice as it was what I had, o.k. but leaves unsightly speckles. I'd also add some black peppercorns next time.

In a large saucepan cook the water, vinegar, and sugar together for about 2 minutes and pour over the spices and mushrooms. I couldn't bring myself to use so much sugar even on first attempt and used just 50g which I felt was plenty sweet enough. I'd also up the vinegar a bit, say to 50ml and add half a teaspoon of salt. Let cool and serve. --Carla Sundström

The liquid doesn't quite cover the mushrooms. Use a jar or bottle you can seal tightly and give it a good shake from time to time. The mushrooms will keep in the fridge for about a week and can be used in sandwiches, salads or in a tomatoey pasta sauce which is really good. I'm sure the same treatment would work on button mushrooms from the supermarket if foraging lets you down.

The Bad, the Worse and the Ugly

2010-10-06T16:49:00.004+02:00

Right, let's get this over with before paralysis causes a fatal termination of the blog. The pictures aren't going to have much relevance as I've also failed to capture the failures on film.

Leaving the woods to return to the lane.

This year hasn't been a good growing year in many respects. Yes, unusually perhaps, the bulk crops of alliums, potatoes and tomatoes have all done well. We've had many courgettes, the pumpkin crop is sufficient and I've even managed to grow a few cabbages from seed, a personal best! However, the more interesting, the more esoteric and the frankly untried have produced little. Some of it may be that intrinsically they are unsuited to the conditions and weather here, the rest of it is undoubtedly poor care on my part.

The Devil has spat on the blackberries now, luckily he missed this ladybird.

I had half a dozen or so new crops to try this year; two sorts of cowpeas, lupini beans, grain amaranth (not entirely new, I've grown it once before), millet and some types of pea from HSL which looked interesting.

The cowpeas didn't do at all. Although they made plants and even looked as if they might flower once or twice nothing came of it. Given that it was an exceptionally warm and dry early summer here which should have been ideal for them I'm not expecting that these will ever be successful here. One type was planted on poor soil which might have caused a problem but the other was in quality ground and did no better.

The lupini beans grew well but didn't start to flower properly (apart from one stunted and possibly diseased plant) until a couple of weeks ago. The large plants have since been knocked over by strong winds and torrential rain. I don't think we'll get even a handful of beans from them.

The grain amaranth has grown well but wet weather is hampering my inclination and efforts to harvest it. This one will be a fail which is mostly down to me - I need some tarpaulins/ground sheets to hang the drying seed heads over and I've avoided sorting it out until it's much too late.

The millet was a proof of concept experiment. I bought some ornamental F1 seed just to see how it did, and it did o.k. but the deer had four out of six plants and the F1 seed is of limited value for saving. Given my own poor performance this year in tending novelties I'm not sure it's worth attempting again with open pollinated seed that will likely be less robust and weather proof.

The peas had a horrible time. First of all they were washed out of their pots before germination. They were planted out in drought and barely got going before the bloody deer ate them back to stumps. I managed to get a handful of Beltony Blues for seed next year but we lost all the first crop of Irish Preans and what the deer haven't had of the second flush have gone mildewed.

Other more regular crops have also suffered. I planted the beans on poor soil this year, reasoning that with some top dressing they could look after themselves. The hot dry spell stunted them and by the time they got going weeds and lack of feeding finished them off. Possibly my worst ever year for french and runner beans.

The Golden Bantam sweet corn fell to deer just as it was about to flower. The Flint corn in the three sisters bed is just about making cobs but I'm not sure they'll be mature enough to dry properly before the end of the month.

Time for a new start.

The blue sky of tomorrow.

Kitten Diary #11

2010-09-25T12:00:00.003+02:00

Not sure where my enthusiasm for growing has gone. I have plans for a post about this year's failures, perhaps that's what's cramping my style. Anyway, here are some pictures of the pets, some creatures I nearly always have enthusiasm for.

Raven and Crow have a love hate relationship. He is needy and bit jealous of my attention so will jump on her if she's sitting with me but she takes it all very personally hissing and lashing out with annoyance. He has no sense and then pursues her all around the house instead of giving her time to calm down. At other times though they curl up together like the loving siblings they are.

This picture was taken as we were about to leave for a walk in the woods. The boys and I had got as far as the edge of the forest when we heard Madam Raven crying behind us. So we waited and called, and she sat there and cried and in the end we went back for her and a cup of tea instead. Which was just as well as the rain came down in buckets just as we got inside. It's not what was in her fluffy head though, she just wanted to make us pay attention to her.

The feral cat is still about. We nearly walked into it yesterday morning and the boys saw it off while Raven slipped past me and pretended to be doing something else entirely.

I don't think they are very concerned by it, some puffed up fur and cross expressions seem to be all that's needed to keep it under control.

Madam is enjoying chasing butterflies here. Such a naughty cat.

Butterflies like a photo

2010-09-01T11:50:00.011+02:00

Blogger has now made stats available to users. This is interesting although I've always had a Sitemeter counter on the blogs.

Peacock Butterfly - we've not seen so many of these this year, I'm guessing the very cold winter killed most of them in hibernation, so I'm hoping for a long warm autumn to allow the summer brood to hatch and mature.

The new stats along with a lot of comment on the food blogs about a blogger's conference in North America somewhere focussing on site engine optimisation (SEO) has made me consider the sort of traffic I get to my blogs.

The common blue butterfly is very variable which makes identification a problem. There are several similar species and in all of them there are differences between the males and females. We've also had Holly blues this year but I've not managed to get a good picture of one.

Of course, I would like to get more people reading, enthralled with my life and writing. Everyone likes to be noticed. On the other hand, the sort of cynical approach needed to flag the attention of the search robots isn't really my style.

We don't see that many Small Tortoiseshells (and I think I've never seen a Large one!). I think of them, with Peacocks, as the quintessential butterfly of my youth but I don't know if the reduced numbers we have here are because conditions are wrong or general environmental decline.

What people attempting SEO are really doing of course, is increasing traffic past their advertising. It's just to maximise revenue. I tried adverts here for a while and accumulated a massive £10 over six months, well below the level that Google would pay out so I gave it up as a bad job. I like money as well as the next person but I'd like to be paid directly really. It's all about recognition for me. Having said that, I noticed on another blog someone had published a link to an Amazon wishlist. Now that appeals, if anyone loves my work enough to buy me a present!

The Ringlets hang out in the dappled shade of the woodland edge feeding on blackberry flowers and being rather shy. Not a showy butterfly but sweet enough.

Looking at the stats it becomes clear that the most traffic is generated to the articles I've written that are rather more on the edge. The most popular, for example, is the one about magic mushrooms and others that get a lot of attention are for odd vegetables and fruit. More worryingly, there is nothing in the list of most read posts written this year.

The white butterflies are so frequent that they are almost overlooked, but there are a lot varieties in and around the woods. The Large and Small whites are pests of brassicas which means I've been contributing to their demise this year by squashing caterpillars and eggs on my cabbages. This makes me feel bad so next year we'll go back to caging the veg. to keep the butterflies off. I have patches of sacrificial nasturtiums for their nurseries.

I did realise that for the last couple of years, my output was dropping off both in quantity and quality. This is partly due to having said a lot of it before, some to do with personal issues, perhaps a little blog fatigue. I mean, is there anybody there?

The Gatekeeper is quite common around here but along with the Meadow Brown (not pictured but plentiful this year) is quite shy of being photographed. This one posed quite obligingly for a change.

So I suppose I have a choice, increase my output of whacky researched articles or, another route to success, include a lot of personal details about sex and drugs and rock'n'roll. Some of the most popular blogs I've seen rely on that to get readers.

The Wall butterfly is under threat and I'd never seen one before we came here although they have been common in the UK. This one is a bit tatty, one of the perils of feeding in the thistle patch.

But I think I'm still not ready to prostitute my soul to strangers. Isn't living a self sustaining, wildlife friendly, fruit and vegetable growing, back to nature lifestyle in a foreign country enough. Or am I in an interest minority of very few to one?

The Wall has a particularly pretty underwing.

I think I'm so lucky here and I really want to share it, but perhaps it comes across as smug self satisfaction.

Probably a female Sooty Copper. Like the Blues the Coppers are very difficult to identify. It's even possible to confuse Blues and Coppers, unlikely as that sounds. A couple of days ago I thought I'd spotted a Brown Argus too, but the butterfly didn't hang around long enough and the picture wasn't good enough for certain identification.

What brings people here by chance is almost entirely search engine results for images although there's a small trend of visitors from Dandelion [waves]. At least the search terms used are fairly innocuous - on the food blog one is 'cat chopped up in blender' which is bit worrying.

The Painted Ladies are migratory or at least, they come up from the south. Opinion is divided as to whether any of them ever make it back. Last year we had plenty, this year just one or two. The same applies to the Clouded Yellows, just one this year and do they hate being photographed?

So which way is the wind blowing? I don't know. Perhaps my skills would be better directed towards a book or a more formal informational site? At the moment, blogging seems to fit in fairly snugly as something complementary to my other activities but perhaps it's sapping energy and direction. Perhaps it's responsible for all the world's ills. Maybe I should concentrate on my painting, or even the weeding?

Jersey Tiger moths aren't butterflies, but it's not obvious. They are brightly coloured and fly by day. What is the difference between a moth and butterfly anyway?

Originally I only expected blogging to provide a journal of my days for friends and family but my ambitions have grown. Sometimes it feels good to pull together experiences, pictures and research that might interest or help others doing the same sort of thing but without viewers it's a bit like sex without an orgasm - lovely but doesn't quite get me there. Who said I couldn't drive search engine traffic!

The Brimstone is another butterfly that flies twice a year. This is one of the summer produced insects and possibly the best photo we've ever taken of one. They just won't sit still. This shot is one of Paul's.

Just a reminder, all content and images are copyrighted, either by me or Paul (or just occasionally another originator). I've not noticed much of an issue with people ripping me off on this site. On the other blog there is a common problem that many bloggers experience but I'm not even going to mention it here. Not all robots are as benign as the Google and Nachobots.

There are plenty of pretty Speckled Wood butterflies around here. Also reputedly in the forest there are Marsh Fritillaries. I'd really like to see one of those.

Which raises another question, when is a lot of attention too much attention? I do worry a bit about people identifying my exact location because of the snippets of personal information that inevitably get revealed. I don't want the blog to become the target for some of the attacks that I've seen happen to others. Like being on Facebook or Twitter it requires discipline to keep the details locked down but I suspect that anyone with a really evil agenda could use the information here against me, either directly or virtually. Is that paranoid?

Red Admirals are so big and strong and impressive looking. We have quite a lot at the moment feeding on the fallen plums.

Also spotted this year but not pictured here - the summer form of the Map butterfly, a female Lesser Purple Emperor and probably, a Swallowtail butterfly. We've also seen caterpillars for the Swallowtails and a new one to us, the caterpillar of the Willowherb Hawk moth. Perhaps we need to have a session trapping the night flying moths for photography - there are some magnificent creatures out there.

So this is my blog about butterflies and SEO. I shall be tracking it closely in the future and I hoped you enjoyed it. Please say something!

It's raining

2010-08-25T21:21:00.001+02:00

The rain can stop now, I'm bored.

These Arran Victory are the first of this year's harvest. Pretty aren't they, and positively glowing on this very grey day.

Around and about

2010-08-11T13:14:00.003+02:00

The tomatoes are excellent and heavy cropping but very late ripening this year. These are the Tondino di Manduria from Kokopelli

This mallow seems to be a hybrid. I saved the seed from a found plant that had seeded itself in the front garden of my son's house in New Maldon. Lovely flower, and I hope that it can be used in the same way as the common mallow.

These pink flowered strawberry plants are really for ornamental use although they do sometimes produce the odd, small but well flavoured fruit. It is some sort of hybrid between Fragaria and the marsh cinquefoil, Potentilla palustris, but I don't seem to be able to find this exact variety pictured commercially. I'd love to be able to make a reliably fruiting form although I think that's going to have to stay on my list of desirable but probably unattainable projects for the time being.

As usual the butternut squashes have set no fruit yet. Last year we were lucky and did manage to ripen half a dozen but at this rate we will have none at all this time.

This is the Asturian Tree Cabbage from Realseeds. I didn't cage the cabbages this year and they have been attacked by Cabbage White caterpillars which I have been grimly dislodging and squashing every few days.

Sloes are ripening already and the elderberries will soon be ready for cordial and ketchup.

The hops are beginning to come too, although I rarely make use of these.

And then, reward for our patience, I found the first tomato.

Beano

2010-07-30T19:16:00.002+02:00

Ice Crystal Wax Dwarf French Bean

It's been so dry here many of the peas and beans have all but given up. However, I was pleased to discover that these Ice Crystal wax beans have started producing and are looking well on the conditions.

Ice Crystal Wax beans are a very old heritage variety which mysteriously enough seem to be under represented on the web... just went looking for stuff to nudge my memory and there's almost nothing out there. Anyway, they are sturdy little dwarf french beans producing plentiful short pods which are almost white in colour as you can see in the picture below. The dried seed is white and rather small, about the size of a mung or azuki bean.

I've grown them several times in the past although the seed this year was newly sourced from the HSL at Garden Organic. The pods make a marvellous bean salad but you need to pick quickly and regularly or they toughen up unpleasantly. With any luck I'll have enough to offer these in seed swaps this year.

Ice Crystal Wax beans with some others for colour and length comparison

Every year I have a go at the Three Sisters bed system of growing maize, beans and squash. It's never terribly successful although I think I've got the spacing better this time. The maize is a green kernel flint type and the squash Waltham Butternut but the beans I've no idea about, they were part of a swap I made with Riana Laplace and all she could tell me about them was that they were grown by her neighbours on their plots.

Three Sisters bed

So the variety could be something ancient and heirloom but it might just as easily be some very well known and modern type. The French aren't terribly sentimental about vegetables, they grow for flavour and yield and welcome new varieties that promise improvements in either.

Whatever they are, selected by growers in the hot south, they've had a perfect summer here and are producing tender green beans where my other french beans are failing alarmingly.

Unnamed black/brown seeded climbing French bean from the south of France

Other beans that I hope are having a good time in this heat are the Lupini which are still growing although they do look a little wilted and stressed in the hottest part of the day. They are just coming into flower now and I'm looking forward to seeing how they progress.

The edible lupin starts to flower

And I'm kicking myself for not taking better care of the soy beans I started way back when. I have only a few plants but the weather this year couldn't have been better for them and so I've missed a crop I was really looking forward to, green soy beans in their pods which are called edamame in Japanese.

It seems best to grow your own of these. The soy bean has such a bad press for so many reasons and yet it really is a good nutritious foodstuff in moderation.

Soy beans - Glycine max

Finally, I couldn't even bear to take pictures of the cowpeas. If they were going to succeed in Normandy this would have been the summer for it I would have thought but sadly, the plants are stunted and puny. Very disappointing. I'll try again next year but I suspect these are varieties that need high input fertilisers and are therefore unsuitable for my style of gardening even if the weather could be guaranteed.

p.s. just posted this to the food blog. silly me, now removed, so don't be alarmed!

Playing Chicken

2010-07-27T19:37:00.005+02:00

Not my chicken

One of the things that is most feared by any gardener of potatoes or tomatoes is blight. This year, partly through laziness, partly through a sort of inane over confidence, I've been ignoring it and so far, I've been lucky.

The first two years here our potatoes were devastated by blight - smelly rotten destroyed plants that left us feeling helpless and depressed. Determined never to be caught out like that again I signed up for Blightwatch and the Potato Council's Fight against Blight and instigated a programme of preventative spraying with Bordeaux mixture. By this time of the season last year I had sprayed potatoes five times and the tomatoes twice. It worked, or seemed to, we had insignificant amounts of blight. Unfortunately we also had a lot of copper spread around and the eating of a tomato warm from the sun in the field became a thing of the past. Everything needed a really good wash before consumption.

This year after the punishingly cold winter and conditions that are approaching drought the blight seems to be at bay. Although the blight organism is evolving and becoming more able to withstand freezing conditions we're such a long way from anyone else I think the blight spores here are relatively old school (how do I know, I don't but I can hold an opinion can't I?). More importantly still, the very low humidity prevents the damn stuff from reproducing at all, so the need for chemicals is reduced although we're paying for it in smaller yields. Constantly expecting the worst and yet doing nothing, we seem to have got away with it. If I had to take the potatoes up now there it would by no means be the end of the world and the tomatoes are looking fine, just need a few more weeks to ripen.

However, the garden is dying and I'm praying for rain. From all over the place others are reporting that blight has moved in, my nerves won't stand it any more and today I sprayed.

Lentils

2010-07-24T12:07:00.002+02:00

Skimming through blogs in my google reader, Agricultural Biodiversity pointed me to a post about heirloom cereals in Denmark. Interesting enough stuff but within the text a couple of lines that intrigued and entranced me.

There are apparently lentil varieties that will grow that far north. I've wondered about growing my own but believed they needed a hotter climate for success. Does anyone know more about this? Is there in fact, a usable crop to harvest or are the lentils just a green manure with nitrogen fixing skills? I'd love to know.

Garlic

2010-07-18T15:04:00.002+02:00

Today I harvested the hard neck garlic. It might have benefited from another 10 days in the ground but I've found that if it gets wet after starting to go dormant it becomes difficult to clean and shatters easily. This is proof, if it were needed, that this variety was selected in another part of the world to this country. Ability to stand in indifferent weather is an eagerly sought characteristic in Northern Europe.

I also took one of the elephant garlics. You can see in the picture that not only is this as huge as you might expect but there are small offsets which form between the layers of the bulb attached to rootlets. A useful way of multiplying up the stocks for next year's planting although they will take a couple of years to reach full size. I wasn't expecting them to have flower heads but when they started to show it was intriguing enough to leave them. I wondered if they would also make bulbils on the heads like the the Babington leeks, but they didn't and I'll just nip them off next year.

And the Babington leeks don't seem to have liked this hot dry weather at all, they have died right back and a bit of excavation failed to find bulbs at any depth. I'm hoping they'll renew themselves come the autumn but in the meantime I'll have to mark the row carefully so that they don't get turned over by accident.

Still one more garlic crop to come; the Arno garlic, still growing strongly and miraculously free from rust. I think that will probably be another month finishing.

Day of the Bastille

2010-07-14T21:20:00.001+02:00

Bouquet of Magentaspreen, the tree spinach.

Other people have blogversaries, I have the anniversary of when we first made our decision to buy this place. Happy 5th Year completed!

It's been rather a pared down season, oddly as the weather has been so dramatically hot. Apart from the usual overdose of courgettes and magentaspreen nothing much is showing any signs of being ready to harvest. Even the potatoes are much later than usual.

We've had a few of the Stroma but today I took the first sensible handful of the International Kidney which have been growing strongly but more slowly than either the Stroma or the Mayan Queen. They are delicious, so well worth the wait. I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever taste a really good potato again and also if all the hype about 'Jersey Royals' was just that but I needn't have worried.

Talking of the Mayan Queen it is a bit confusing. I ordered Mayan Gold from Alan Romans but the bag of seed tubers I received were labelled Mayan Queen. Looking at the descriptions of Mayan Queen though, the potatoes I've dug so far don't match. They look like Mayan Gold! So I don't know what to make of it, I'll have to order both next year and do comparisons.

In the box, some welsh onions. I grew these from seed last year and they didn't do terribly well then but this year they're very pleasing, coming well through the icy winter, bulking up vigorously and providing an easy alternative to spring onions (or scallions if you prefer). Just right for me as I can take a few at a time as needed without having to worry about successional sowing or everything maturing at once. The seed came from Real Seeds, Helen's Welsh Siberian Perennial Bunching Onion and is recommended.

Available now!

2010-07-13T14:27:00.003+02:00

Some of my paintings have been used as cover art by a friend on his recent publications.

You might like to check out

and

Peas peas me

2010-07-07T19:17:00.003+02:00

It can't be said that I'm a pea aficionado like Rebsie Fairholm but this year I am trying a couple of varieties from the Heritage Seed Library; Beltony Blue and Irish Preans.

Of course, in my usual cack handed way I let the newly planted seeds get washed out of their pots before they'd even had a chance to germinate so it's just as well that peas are self fertile as when I shoved them back in, after draining off about 10 gallons of flood water, the two sorts were well and truly mixed.

Also luckily for this gormless gardener the peas are distinctive enough that I shall be able to separate them again. The Beltony Blue are flowering and forming pods already. Pretty flowers as in the picture above and purple pods as below.

By comparison the Irish Preans are way behind, big fleshy plants that seem to be slow growing and have not yet started to flower. In fact, due to their late start I'm a bit concerned they won't make it at all but the fantastic weather we're having will, I hope, keep them growing strongly enough to catch up. I'll take some pictures as soon as they've something to show. The green pods will distinguish them from the Blues which will be a relief at seed saving time.

I left these carrots to flower, not so much for the seed as for the foliage, hoping we would get swallowtail caterpillars (and butterflies) again this year. It's a bit early yet perhaps but the flowers were being much enjoyed by some randy beetles. Lucky sods.

Run for the Omnibus

2010-07-02T16:39:00.006+02:00

Sorry. Been distracted by having company!

The weather has been so utterly lovely as well. We have been too hot to work much although great progress has been made by Paul on completing removal of the old wood shed with his bare hands and repurposing (a ridiculous verb that amuses me very much at the moment!) the materials from it for a new huge compost bin, something we've needed for a very long time.

The old lawnmower has proved resistant to repair so we bought this shiny green machine for 260€. I was very pleased with it until I went to take the picture just now. One of the wheels was dismounted from the height adjusters, either by brambles or during a journey we'd made to mow at another house. It seems like nothing but this is a similar problem to the issues of the red machine. The engines on these mowers are very good but the manufacture of the chassis and supports is extremely poor and unlikely to stand up to the sort of punishment we give power tools. I hope it will behave itself from now on.

We've found various fungi in the woods unexpectedly early and this has surprised us as it's been so hot and dry, not fungus weather you would have thought. In the picture, taken by Paul, a lurid cep; Boletus luridus. Edible apparently, but might cause gastric upsets if not properly cooked. We decided to give it a miss this time but we did find a couple of entirely innocent and edible ceps the day before and enjoyed them very much for breakfast.

There have been some interesting insects too. This is a rose chafer beetle, I find these to be the prettiest beetles and although my pictures are quite nice I'm disappointed they're not better.

The garden is doing o.k. We have just started harvesting potatoes, there are lots of courgettes and Martock beans but the more exotic and interesting (from some points of view) plants aren't really shining. I'll do a more technical write up soon but I don't think I'm going to be blazing any trails in agricultural biodiversity this year.

The Longest Day

2010-06-21T21:27:00.002+02:00

On the first day of summer, summer arrived. It's been lovely here today and the cold wind has dropped. So I managed to get outside and do a little work in the garden. Let's hope it stays fine for a while, there's a lot to do.

I let the last couple of parsnips go to flower and hopefully, seed. Although it's usual to select the best roots for growing on to seed, preserving and enhancing the quality of the next crop, I don't think too much harm will come from saving the seed from these leftover plants from last year. Parsnip seed, like carrot seed has quite short viability. I'm hoping by having ultra fresh seeds we'll have excellent germination when I plant them next spring.

Also in the seed saving bed, some Forono beetroots. These are the long rooted sort, sometimes described as tankard shaped roots. I'm not sure of their security in the world, Suttons seeds are now offering a variety they say supersedes them and I've not seen them on offer anywhere else recently. Reason enough to start saving their seed at home, I think they're one of the best beetroot available.

These onions are from sets planted last autumn, an overwintering variety. They've not done too badly although I think the soil is rather impoverished in this back garden bed. I may have pulled them a little early but I needed the space for cabbages. I also took up the Jolimont garlic. Not hugely impressed by these, I was hoping for much larger bulbs. The plants were beginning to succumb to rust so I didn't want to leave them any longer. Still there are one or two largish bulbs and I will save them for planting in the autumn - the rest will be devoured in no time.

The other 'special' garlic I bought for this season, called Arno wasn't planted until March. It's still growing well and looks as if it might be more rewarding than the Jolimont, we'll just have to wait and see. The maincrop garlic, that same old redskinned hardneck that came from a supermarket originally is doing its stuff on the other plot. I expect it will be o.k. although the bulbs are never huge.

And I'm still all trembling from the scary joy of having a young swallow perched on my finger. An evil cat had caught it and brought it in to despatch and luckily I got there in time. The trouble with saving birds from the cats is that the birds, even if relatively unharmed are so shocked and terrified by their experience it's hard to find a safe place to let them go to recover.

The little chap sat quietly in my hand for a moment while I tried to decide which nest was most likely to have been his home when he perked up and trustingly settled on my forefinger. The bird and I surveyed each other for some moments, as I cooed and smoothed his feathers and then, when the adult pair came swooping down to investigate he bravely took off and flew away with them. I hope he's strong enough to learn never to come too close to a cat again.