Over the past week I cleared a part of the vegetable patch and put in some onion sets, garlic and broad beans. I had bought the onion sets from Marshalls and they arived a month or so ago in a net bag inside a padded envelop. I had opened the packet but left the sets inside it. The envelop had resealed itself so when I opened it some of the sets had rotted and many were already sprouting. I think that I got to them in the nick of time! We don't have a lot of space so I planted them about 6 inches apart in short rows.

I didn't buy new garlic this year. Instead I split up one of the largest bulbs that I lifted at the end of the summer into individual cloves and planted them.

The broad beans are the variety Aquadulce Claudia which are for autumn planting. I have put in a double row planting the beans 8 inches apart in two rows 12 inches apart.

And I finished clearing out the drainage grills around the garage. I know that there are still a lot of leaves  on the trees to come down but our worst time for fallen leaves is late March when the beech hedge suddenly looses all of it's leaves in a week or two.

When weather permits I have been getting on with some of the seasonal tasks in the garden. The wind chime has been brought in, washed and the wood given a feed of lemon oil. The fountain on the patio has been drained, the pump removed, cleaned and put away and the unit covered with plastic to give it a bit of protection from the worst of the winter weather. I have made a start on clearing out the drainage grill that runs around the garage and across the drive.

The orange chrysanth that looked so fantastic just a few weeks ago is looking sorry for itself. The flowers had finished and were beginning to rot on the plant so I cut them all off. Then the strong winds that we had on Saturday night blew the pot over smashing it. The poor thing is now temporarily propped up in a large flower pot until I can repot it properly.

In September I started to feed the birds again to help them put on weight for the winter and so that they know where to find food in bad weather. There is a robin that puts in an appearance whenever any turning over of soil is going on. Mark was doing some weeding earlier in the week and caught this picture of the little fellow. You wonder how those tiny legs can hold him up!

Well, it's been pretty wet here for the last few days so I've not been able to get out to do much in the garden. Before the rain arrived I had got started on some tidying up jobs. Until the garage was built a few years ago we had a large oak barrel in which we collected rainwater from the roof. Since the garage has been built there is not enough room for it by the downpipe. It has been sat on the path ever since, occasionally with a container with flowers in it placed on the top to cheer the corner up. I noticed that the top was looking a bit rotten so I had the idea of taking out the top and letting the rainwater collect in it and then getting the water out by dipping the watering can in. I took a sledgehammer to the top and it came out quite easily. Having removed the top I could see quite alot of daylight through the gaps - more than would be closed by the wood swelling when it had water in it. So I decided to demolish the whole thing. My first thought was to give the wood to a friend for their wood burner but then Mark reminded me that Bonfire night is coming so we're saving it for then. The barrel was originally an old whiskey barrel so I'm hoping that an essence of that will remain and that the wood will burn fragrantly!

Mark's sister has given us two small standard olive trees. We haven't decided on the final position of them yet but at the moment they are either side of the path onto the patio. I will have to get some fleece to wrap around them and the pots to protect them from frost. We have a large standard olive in a half barrel just outside the back door. It gets some sun in the summer (at midsummer the drive which is aligned E/W gets the sun all day) but not enough most of the time. The arrival of the new plants has been the spur to do something about moving it to somewhere where it can get more sun. The only place we can really put it where it will get more light is up on the back terrace. This involves making space and moving the immoveable plant and container! There was a climbing rose on the back wall. It had attractive flowers but was very prone to blackspot and only bore flowers high up. So I have whipped that out and tidied up the bed it was in. The plan is to put the olive tree in front of this little bed. I will manure the soil before next summer and then decide what to plant around the olive. We have yet to actually move the olive. Rain stopped play. It is at least a one man + one woman job. We are going to have to get the tree out of the barrel and move barrel and tree separately. Not a job I am relishing!

I picked some baby spinach the other day. As it isn't growing quickly and there are no sign of the replacement carrot seeds coming up in the little trough I decided that it was too late to sow more spinach in the half barrel that the kenyan beans had been growing in. I put in some hyacinth bulbs instead. We can feed our sense of smell and sight rather than our bellies!

Well, the heavy rain at the end of last week finally did for the tomatoes remaining on plants outside. It was a double whammy. The extra water caused some fruits to split and the dampness brought out myriads of slugs and snails which gorged on them. So I rescued what I could and brought them in to finish ripening on the window sill or, if they were ripe and split, to cook them straight away.

So that's the end of the tomatoes. The kenyan beans are also finished. I have left the roots in the half barrel and am going to fork in some chicken manure pellets and try sowing some more spinach. I hope to do that in the next few days while the weather is fairly good. The runner beans are really over too and most of them I have taken down but two or three plants still had some baby beans which I couldn't bear to cut down. So now all we have left in the garden that's edible at the moment are the carrots in pots; the baby spinach (also in a pot) which is just about ready to pick the first few leaves and the courgettes in the ground which aren't doing much at present.

I have put in a few cauliflowers to overwinter. The one's I put in earlier in the year grew well but got attacked by beasties, pitted by the weather and I didn't get the hang of turning over the leaves to prevent discolouring (they kept popping open again) and apart from a couple most of the curds were inedible. I am hoping for better things this time around!

I mentioned previously that the carrots in one of the troughs had been chomped away. There were also some self-sown tagetes in the trough which were eaten and suprisingly they have shown signs of recovery. Not much sign of the carrots recovering though so I have sown more in the same trough.  

The rain also did for the gorgeous chrysanth in the pot. The dahlias seemed to stand up to the weather better but I think they could do with further tying up.

Along the retaining wall we have a lavender hedge. Usually at this time of year I remove the dead flower heads and then February/March time I cut back the plants quite hard. The plants have been there several years now and are getting quite woody so it's time to replace them. I have taken a load of cuttings from the existing plants and pushed them into a space in the garden. It's a little bit late for the cuttings but as we're on the south coast and it's quite mild I am hoping that enough of them want to root to enable me to replace the plants we currently have.

It's a tidying up the garden time of year. As some space has appeared with the end of the runner bean's and turnips I have been able to reposition my compost bins. For many years we had a couple of wooden slatted bins but when they rotted beyond use I aquired a plastic bin. I now have two of these and I have to say that I don't find them as good as the wooden ones. It is nearly impossible to turn the material in the bin. I've tried using a fork but you end up with bruised fingers. I recently bought a plastic contraption that you push into the compost to aerate it but I'm not impressed with that either. I also find that it is not very easy to get the compost out of the little access hole at the bottom. Hence the need to reposition the bins. I have now positioned them so that the access holes face directly out on to the vegetable plot to see if that works better. It does mean however that I will not be able to get compost out during peak growing time.

As I was in a tidying up mood I finally got around to dealing with the two remaining bags that I had been growing potatoes in earlier in the year. A couple of months ago the plants were begining to show signs of blight and so I removed all the foliage and destroyed it. As I didn't empty the compost soon after I was expecting that any tubers would have rotted away. So when I slit open the first of the bags I was delighted and suprised when beautiful, clean tubers emerged. The second bag had a fewer tubers but enough for a feed which was more than I had expected. Interestingly the bag with the smaller yield contained more soil based compost than the first but that may just be a coincidence.

I am pulling young carrots from the pots. They are really tasty and just need a rinse off before popping them into the pot. A few have a tiny bit of carrot fly damage. I think that the flies must have got in the last time that I thinned out.

I have planted some hyacinth bulbs in bowls for the house in the winter. I love their fragrance. I have placed the bowls in the dark in the garage and will check on them from time to time.

Autumn has arrived and although the summer is over it's a lovely time of year. In fact, I enjoy having seaons. I don't think I could live somewhere without them! On fine days the bees are very busy in the autumn sunshine visiting the scabious and sedum flowers. As ever there is much to do in the garden - mostly to do with tidying up. Mark has given the box hedge it's annual trim and tidied up the beech hedge for the winter. Although the beech leaves die the plants retain the leaves on the young growth throughout the winter so now is not the time to cut back hard. We'll do that next year where it's needed.

The runner beans have almost come to an end and I have taken down one large wigwam. The roots fix nitrogen so I have left the roots in the soil and put the above ground material in the compost bin. There are still some Kenyan beans but they too are nearly finished. The courgettes are virtually exhausted but I am still picking one or two a couple of times a week. I'll leave the plants for a little longer yet. I still have 3 tomato plants with fruit. And the tomatoes picked from the diseased plants have been ripening well on the window sills. So it hasn't been a total disaster on the tomato front this year. In fact I have been pleased with the crop considering how dire it looked earlier in the summer.

Every trace of green in one of the troughs with carrot seedlings has been chomped away by some creature. I'm waiting a few days to see if the seedlings recover if not I will sow a few more. The spinach seedlings are growing well but not yet big enough to harvest. I am thinking of putting some more in the large half barrel when the kenyan beans come out.

One of the highlights in the garden at the moment is a glorious chrysanthemum. I bought it a couple of years ago whereupon it immediately went into decline. Last year it didn't do much so this spring I replanted it together with a good dose of slow realease fertiliser. I have made sure that it didn't dry out during the summer and all that care has been rewarded with a magnificant display which cheers every time you come through the gate.

Well, perseverance has paid off - our first tomato! Here is a picture of it. The variety is tumbler. Mark and I ate half each. The flavour was good but the skin was a bit tough. Speaking with other friends who have had a tomato harvest this year that seems to be a common problem. Still we have tomatoes! I said previously that the Tumbler plants seem to be more robust against the blight. Typically we lost one of the Tumblers soon after. I have 5 plants left, 3 Red Alert and 2 Tumbler, Mostly they are now leafless because I am cutting off anything at the first sign of blight. I am removing the trusses from the plants that have developed blight on their stems and they are ripening well on a sunny windowsill. We have been eating the tomatoes cooked, either grilled or baked with a little olive oil and a pinch of salt, and the flavour of both varieties is superb.

The carrots seeds that I sowed in the troughs are now showing through. We got some more compost and I sowed a couple more rows in the third trough. I also put some spinach, variety Campania from Marshalls, in one of the large pots (after replaceing the top few inches of compost). These seeds are large and a jade colour so very easy to see and sprinkle thinly on the compost. They have already come through. There are sufficient seeds in the packet for several sowings. The packet says to sow February - September. I maybe able to get another sowing in this year otherwise I will wait to early next year.

There were some sage plants in the garden, one purple and two green, that had got very woody. I decided it was time to get rid of them and start again. I have taken some cuttings (3" heel cuttings) and there were a few stems which had rooted which I potted up. So we will have some new plants for the garden and to give to friends who have asked for some. I don't use the sage for cooking so much as for making sage tea when colds and sore throats strike.  I hope the colds hold off long enough for the plants to grow big enough to pick leaves from! The plants have to be replaced every few years (i had left it a bit too long this time). In future I will replace them one at a time so that we always have a decent sized plant available.

We have had a couple of pots planted with pinks either side of the front door over the summer. The flowers are coming to an end now and so last week I bought a dozen pansies in the Farmers Market in Poole which I am going to pot up to take their place. I have put a few of the pansies in one of the Ali Baba pots on the patio. The pot has quite a deep rim but one of the flowers has now popped it's head up above the rim. I see a lovely big purple flower every time I open the back door... and I have to smile.

The carrots growing in pots are the size of my little finger and so further thining out was required this week giving us more yummy baby carrots to eat! The carrots are now spaced approximately a couple of inches apart and won't need any further thinning. We just need to be a little patient and wait for them to grow a bit bigger before pulling them to eat. I had a photo for you but blogger doesn't seem to want to let me add any images today.

The Kenyan beans that were growing in the little plastic troughs have now finished. The plants have been put in the compost bin and the compost that they were growing in spread on the garden. I have planted some carrot seed in a couple of the troughs and will do so in the third when I get some more compost. As the troughs aren't that deep I have planted the spherical variety Lisa from Marshall's which is particularly suitable for pots.

The garden has been looking very thirsty, particularly the hydrangeas and runner beans, so the rain a couple of days ago was very welcome. Not so the fierce winds which have beaten everything down and blown over pots and parasol (not quite sure why I put this out as it's hardly been used all summer!). I am still persevering with the tomato plants, cutting off any sign of blight and sacrificing some trusses in the hope of saving others. This has meant that the plants are a little top heavy and/or unbalanced and so the poor plants have been blown over several times in spite of me putting bricks on the pots. I grew two varieties this year. Red Alert and the patio variety Tumbler. At the risk of tempting fate Tumbler seems to have been the more robust of the two in resisting the blight. I have had to remove some plant material but nowhere near as much as for the Red Alert plants.

All the onion have been lifted now. We have enough onions and large shallots to last us a good few months. I planted the sets in various places around the garden and it has been interesting to see the difference in the resulting onions. Those growing between strawberries next to the path in full sun have grown quite large while those just a few yards away but which are shaded for part of the day are much smaller. In fact a couple of them haven't increased in girth at all and are the same size as when I put them in.

The annual scabious are a delight with white, purple and pinky mauve flowers. The dahlias have been great as well. The flowers are not so large now and the colours not so vibrant but beautiful all the same. We have yellow Graham Thomas roses outside the back door. They are having a final flourish and are a joy to see when you step outside.

A working kitchen garden

Last Saturday we went to Brockwood Park in Bramdean, Hants and visited a fantastic working kitchen garden in the grounds of the school. The garden is 1 1/2 acres and is tended by two gardeners aided by volunteers. It provides produce to The Krishnamurti Centre as well as to Brockwood Park School and produces an amazing 1/3 of the school's veggie requirements. Everything I saw looked very healthy and well tended.

There are 3 huge glass houses  and they were filled with rows of cucumbers, melons, salad stuff and tomatoes. I didn't go into the glass house with the tomatoes but from the door they all looked very healthy and blight free. The plants were at the far end of the house away from the entrance so maybe this has helped prevent them being affected.

The garden was very inspiring but, because of the difference in scale (the area growing courgettes alone was probably bigger than the whole of our garden), I didn't spot anything that I can apply to our own little plot. Maybe when we get our allotment in another 10 years time. Yes, the waiting list for an allotment in Poole is currently over 10 years!

The garden is part of the school so obviously you can't go wandering around willy nilly but the school does have open days and I'm sure that if you visited the Krishnamurti Centre it would be possible to arrange to be shown the garden by one of the staff or volunteers.


Full report of our visit to Brockwood.

Garden News

In the garden the sweetpeas are now exhausted but the annual scabious are beginning to flower. I love these flowers. I was going to say that they are one of my favourites but I have so many favourites that the term almost has no meaning. Apart from the things that I wouldn't or couldn't grow because they are unsuitable for our little garden the only plant that I wouldn't have in the garden because I don't like it is the lupin - too big and blousy. The scabious flowers are white with a hint of green and quite beautiful. I have been unable to get a satisfactory photo because viewed against the dark of the plants around them the camera seems to think that they are a light source or something and won't focus on them. I am not enough of a camera woman to know how to get around this with my little point and click automatic.

I am now picking runner beans. The kenyan beans in the troughs have been very prolific and are still going strong. Those that I planted in the half barrel and squat pot are just about to flower so we should have beans for some time to come. Other garden highlights include:

The decorative Dahlia 'Explosion' with it's large, double yellow and flame coloured flowers is magnificent at the moment. My father always grew giant golden coloured decorative dahlias which he overwintered in boxes in the shed each year. I am hoping that the plants continue to flower into the autumn. I would like to have some for samhain when I build a little altar to honour the dead who have been an influence on my life.

In the pond the Pickerel Weed (Pontederia cordata) is flowering well this year. I might have to remove some this year or next to prevent it taking over completely.

Both the white and blue Hibiscus are flowering profusely and the pineapple lilies are blooming. I have had a pot of Pineapple Lilies on the patio for a few years now. Over time they have increased so that the pot had become overcrowded. Earlier this year I re potted the bulbs keeping a couple of pots for ourselves and giving a couple of pots away. We've not had so many flowers this year as not all the bulbs have flowered but I expect a better display next year.

The hardy fuchsia plants that I planted under the front window have flowered better than I expected.

Over the weekend I put in my seed order for autumn sowings: broad bean aquadulce and turnip tiny pal for the ground, spinach campania and carrot nanco for the large pots and the round carrot early French frame 4 Lisa for the troughs. I have also ordered some onion sets and the raspberry Glencoe. I've ordered Glencoe, in spite of its purple fruit not because of it, because it is a clump-forming Floricane - I don't have the space for regular canes.

Cake

The anticipated courgette glut has yet to materialise. I seem to be keeping up with all that the plants produce. As a result I had to save up a couple of days harvest to get the 1lb required to make the Chocolate Courgette Cake in the Five-a-day Fruit and Vegetable Cookbook . The cake is a tray bake and the recipe was easy to follow. It makes a very moist cake which went down very well with my afternoon decaf. I'm not sure how to describe the flavour. You can taste the chocolate and the allspice and you can also taste the courgette but it's flavour is not so obvious. I had to eat some courgette by itself tonight just to be sure I wasn't imagining it! The whole thing has a wholesome sort of taste and I will definitely make it again. Alarmingly the recipe states it serves four to six. Maybe six navvies or growing teenagers! I cut mine into 16 portions and find 1 is quite enough. By the way the recipe is virtually identical to that for Chocolate Zucchini Cake given in What Will I Do with All Those Courgettes?. The latter uses sour cream or yogurt in place of the milk.

If you would like to know a little more about the Five-a-day Fruit and Vegetable Cookbook then read on. The book, which runs to a little over 500 pages, begins by explaining the size of a portion and how many times you can count it a day. For example spuds don't count towards your five-a-day and no matter how much fruit juice you drink a day it only counts as 1 portion. The same goes for dried fruits. The fruits and veggies are then presented in groups (stone fruits, berries and currants, squashes etc). Each fruit (or veg.) in the group is described and information is given about its nutritional value and how to buy, store, prepare and cook it. This is followed by recipes incorporating the various fruits (or veggies!) from the group. It is sumptuously illustrated with photographs throughout.

First cauli

My First Cauliflower! I tried to grow cauliflowers, unsuccessfully, a few years back. I had another go this year. I read that they like hard ground so I planted them in an area that hadn't been dug over. It was so hard it was difficult to dig a hole to plant them! They seem to have liked it though. They are in a bit of a poorly accessible part of my veggie plot next to the hedge so they haven't had much attention. And I haven't yet quite got the hang of covering them with their leaves to prevent rain damage and keep the curds white but even so I think they're pretty impressive.

No use spraying tomatoes

After further investigation I have decided spraying will be of little use even on the unaffected plants as it's washed off by rain and won't protect new, unsprayed growth. If you're interested check out this interesting discussion on use of Dithane etc. I like the plastic rigged up to protect the plants from rain but still get water to the roots! For now it seems the best I can do is remove infected leaves to slow down the spread to the fruit. Unfortunately my fruit is still small and so it may not be enough to get a crop. Until I can give plants some protection I won't be growing tomatoes again. :-(

Top Fruits and Veggies to Buy Organic - Gaiam Life

If you prefer not to eat chemicals but are unable to always buy organic because of availability or cost then check out the website above for advice as to which fruit and veggies have the most residues. I always try to buy organicwhen purchasing leafy stuff.

Tip: Wash your fruit and veggies in water which has white vinegar added (about 3 tablespoons per 2 pints). This will remove traces of pesticides which are usually water resistant (to stop them being washed off by the rain).

Top Fruits and Veggies to Buy Organic - Gaiam Life

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Moral Dilemma

Last night I binned another two tomato plants that had blight. Leaves on other plants are beginning to show sign of being infected too. I have been looking on the web for advice. Click for more info from the RHS or Allotment Growing

The only remedy available is to use the fungicide Dithane 945. Now I'm in a quandary because I don't use chemicals in the garden. It seems I have the choice of no tomatoes or to spray - if it's not already too late. I didn't grow tomatoes last year because I lost them all the year before. It appears that blight really has got a hold in the area. Apparently tomatoes grown in a greenhouse are less likely to be affected but that's not an option for me here.

When I am in town later I'll see if I can find any Dithane and read the packet before making a final decision. I am leaning towards trying the fungicide this year on my remaining plants as they represent quite an investment in time and money but not bothering to grow tomatoes here in the future.

Anticipating a bonanza of courgettes

Over the last couple of weeks the courgettes have been coming in a manageable one or two at a time. In anticipation of a bumper harvest I have been looking out some new recipes to add to my somewhat limited courgette repertoire.

I dug out my copy of the Five-a-day Fruit and Vegetable Cookbook.It's got three nice sounding recipes. Baked courgettes (with goat's cheese), Courgettes Italian-style (browned with onion and garlic then cooked in stock) and Chocolate Courgette Cake. As a chocoholic the later is going to be an early experiment!

Having heard good things about Elaine Borish's What Will I Do with All Those Courgettes?and read some good reviews about it I have acquired a copy. It's got more than 150 recipes featuring courgettes.. soups, salads, starters, snacks, side dishes, (that's a lot of words starting with s) mains and cakes and breads including another two cakes with chocolate! Phew! All those recipes to choose from. It's as overwhelming as... a glut of courgettes!

Carrot thinnings

Today I started to thin the carrots that are growing in a couple of large pots. I took out just enough for tonight's supper and will do the same over the next few days until the thinning is complete. It was quite exciting pulling them up. Even though the carrots were only small the smell was quite strong. I hope that it didn't reach the noses of any carrot flies! The little carrots would make great crudites. We ate some of them raw and the flavour was very intense but it was lessened with cooking.

Semi-standard Holly

A few years ago a Christmas magazine was handed on to me. In it there was an advert for standard holly bushes as Christmas decorations. I thought that a couple of these would look great either side of the front door in the winter. The following year I looked out for some, trawling the web etc but couldn't find any. It crossed my mind that I could grow my own but thought that I would have to grow a male plant as well as two females to get good berrying. Last year in a nearby garden centre I came across some self-pollinating holly. The variety is Ilex aquifolium JC Van Tol. It has dark, alost spineless green leaves and large red berries (yet to be seen on my specimens!). Last year I trained the main stem to a semi-standard height and I have now started to train the head. One of the plants has a few berries on it but I think that it will be another couple of years before they give a good display.

Oh no, I don't believe it!

Bad news from the garden. The tomatoes are succumbing to blight. I've removed one plant and put it in the bin but the plant that was next to it is beginning to look sick. I've cut off some of it's leaves in the desperate hope that it might be OK. I'm not alone with this problem. Everyone I've asked says the same is happening to their plants. It's very disappointing. I didn't grow tomatoes last year as I lost them all to blight the year before. Please, please, please can we have a dry spell.

The mammoth garlic has been something else that hasn't done well in the garden. I bought 6, very expensive, cloves. Only 4 came up and one of those died off. Of the 3 that were left one is the size of a small onion and the other two about the size of large shallots. I've yet to cook them so can't comment on their taste like yet.

The shallots however have done very well. I've lifted them to help them ripen and they are about the size of small onions. I guess that I won't be pickling any of them this year - I could only get 3 or 4 in a jar!

Spud update

I split open one of the sacks of potatoes yesterday evening. Disappointed with a yield of only a couple of pounds. In fact it took a bit of searching to find the potatoes at all. There were none in the top third of the bag. I'm not encouraged to start another bag at the present. There were some very funny shaped spuds! They tasted good though and no waste.

Garden News

Pond clearing and the weather have conspired to keep me from doing a great deal in the garden recently. I am now picking courgettes and beans are appearing on the Kenyan bean plants in the troughs but the tomatoes are going to need an Indian Summer. I had to remove the foliage from the potato plants growing in sacks as the leaves were showing signs of disease. I have been waiting for the weather to improve before splitting the sacks open to see what we've got. Maybe if it stays dry today I'll get to do that this evening. I have a few more seed potatoes that I was planning to start in bags but I'm now in two minds whether to or not. I'll make up my mind when I've opened the three remaining bags.

This year I tried growing spinach in a pot. I had three pickings before the plants began to bolt during the hot spell in June (remember that?!). Not a big success but I think I will give it another go over the autumn. I am also growing carrots in pots for the first time. I am growing a carrot fly resistant variety and have planted chives in the centre of the pot as a companion so that their smell will confuse the flies noses. It will be interesting to see how the carrots turn out. The pots certainly look attractive anyway.

Green shoots in Poole

The Kenyan beans that I sowed in the half barrel and squat pot on 4th July are coming through so we are hopeful of a harvest if a little later than usual!

The sweet peas have been glorious. It's lovely to have them to pick for the house and for friends. And the more you pick the more you get! They were so prolific that it has been possible have vases of them in several rooms. They've slowed down a bit now and the stems are shorter than they were but I'm hoping that they will come into a second wind. Unfortunately the greenfly found the plants and multiplied seemingly exponentially. This meant that in spite of blowing on them and giving them a good shake the greenfly got transferred indoors and made a horrible mess. Fortunately the local sparrows have come to the rescue paying me back for keeping them fed and watered through the winter. They find the greenfly delicious and have brought them down to a more bearable level. It always brings a smile to my face when I see the little birds amongst the flowers.

I have a vase of the sweet peas in our practice room. The fragrance seems much stronger when my head is upside down! I'm not sure if this is because the olfactory part of the brain is stimulated by the position or if the fragrance collects lower down.

This observation had been rolling around in my subconscious for a few days when I recalled a yoga exercise I did once with the late John Davis. In the exercise we placed the tongue in different positions in the mouth and noticed that changing the position amplified a different sense. Perhaps something related to this is happening when I invert my head. Unfortunately I can't remember the details. If you know the tongue positions and the senses that they relate to then please do let me know.

In the Garden #4

Well, when the weather permits I have spent at least 30 mins in the garden each day. It has been quite interesting psychologically! I have realised how normally when I work in the garden I am task orientated. I go to do a specific task and I allocate sufficient time to complete it and normally carry on until it is finished or rain or darkness stops play. On the days when I had a short amount of time to spend in the garden I found myself looking for jobs that fitted in the time available. Obviously that's not going to work out very often! I have found it quite difficult to start something that I won't be able to complete and then when I have started it's quite difficult to stop when the time is up! It's going to be interesting to work with this one.

A few years ago I planted a Wintersweet near the back door. I thought that it would be nice to have something fragrant in the garden in the winter. And so it is and I love the witch hazel like flowers. But it is a very vigorous plant. Every year I cut it back strongly but finally have to admit that it's just not in the right place and will have to go. So today I cut it down to the ground. It was growing between the patio and the back wall and there is no way that we will be able to dig it out. Plus there is a huge bole at the base with young stems already growing from it. So I have had to treat it with stump killer. Next year I will grow something trailing over it to hide the stump. As I was lopping the branches back my trousers occasionally brushed against the lemon verbena growing in a pot on the patio releasing a delicious lemon sherbet fragrance.

In the Garden #3

It rained overnight and on and off through the day giving the garden the good soaking it needed but making it to soggy to work outside. In between showers I fed the compost bin.

The thick cloud also meant that this mornings lunar eclipse was eclipsed!

In the Garden #2

Feeling pleased with myself as I did manage to do 30 mins in the garden today. I washed some more pots and seeds trays. Then later I collected them from all over the garden as quite a wind blew up while I left them to dry!

Also spent a few minutes picking some sweetpeas for our practice room and some strawberries and spinach for our tea. I'm just off now to water the pots.

In the Garden

For years there have been a couple of box plants in pots at the top of the steps. A few years ago lots of the leaves turned orange (possibly because the plants dried out sometime?). The leaves never fell off but the plants didn't green up either. I thought they would have to go but decided to give them one last chance. So a few months ago I cut them back very hard and put them to one side. The plants decided they wanted to grow although it was hard to see them though the weeds. My intention this morning was to repot them. However it soon became apparent that the only way to get them out of the pots would be to break the pots! One of the pots already has a crack but as I didn't have any replacements to hand I simply removed the weeds, excavated around the plants and added some slow release fertiliser and fresh compost to the top.

New this year are 6 strawberry plants in pots on top of the wall. I have been suprised and delighted that we have had some large, tasty strawberries in this their first year. But disappointed that the woodlice often seem to get there first - advice as to how to deter them would be apreciated. They are now sending out runners. I cut them back so the plants put their energy into growing rather than reproducing. Some little plantlets had a few small roots so I stuck them into pots to give them a chance to grow - and hopefully reward us with more fruit next year.

I finished off today's sojourn in the garden by washing up some plant pots.

Garden Note #1

I remember reading an article, many years ago now, about an elderly lady who said that by spending 30 minutes in her garden every day she kept on top of things and her garden had never been a problem to her.

This seemed like a sensible way of going about things and every few years it comes to mind but it's never really taken root. I guess like all things you have to make the time to begin with. Once things get on top of you it's all to easy to think 'well just 30 minutes won't make much difference... there's not much point' and not bother to get started.

Over the next few weeks I am going to spend a little time working in the garden every day and see what a difference it makes. (Maybe I could try that with the housework as well - but not just yet!)

So what did I do today?

Well, the French beans that I sowed directly into the ground failed to materialise (old seeds) and only about 2/3rds of the Kenyan beans that I sowed in pots germinated. I decided to have one more try with the Kenyan beans. I cleared out the old 1/2 barrel, lifting the hyacinth bulbs to dry and store to replant later and replacing the top few inches of compost. I also emptied a squat pot in which I have been growing crocus for the last couple of years. I then sowed more beans in both of these - fingers crossed!

Years ago I grew poached egg plants (limnanthes) as companion plants. I remember being told that you would only ever need to buy one packet of seeds because they seed themselves readily. What they meant was 'you will never be rid of them'. They are attractive flowers and the bees love them but they don't last for long. They have died down now so I scooped up several bucket fulls of their remains and underneath the ground was carpeted with seeds...

I also rescued some primulas growing in a pot that were being suffocated by some beefy weeds. I took them out of the pot and replanted them.

Being in the town it is always a treat when nature pays a visit. Today there was a chaffinch singing beautifully from it's perch on the neighbours T.V. ariel.

The bee and the heuchera

Last night I watched a bumble bee feeding on the heuchera. The heuchera has tiny flowers borne on long, slender stems. You would imagine that the weight of the bee would pull the stem down - but no. When the bee landed the individual flower bent over so that the bee was hanging upside down as it fed. Then when the bee flew off the flower sprang back.

I guess big things needn't disturb us either if we learn to give a bit and as I write I am reminded of a line in the Tao Te Ching 'The flexible are preserved unbroken'.

Mmmm...

I'm not a fan of new potatoes generally but boiled, topped with a knob of butter and some freshly ground black pepper those little potatoes tasted real good!

Potato Harvest

I have been growing potatoes in bags. As we have house guests this weekend I decided to rip open one of the bags to see what we've got. It was exciting to see the tubers emerge. Since the potatoes were grown in compost they came out lovely and clean. There were a little over three pounds of potatoes. Not bad but I think that it would have been better to leave another couple of weeks or so as some of the tubers were very small.

You can buy new potatoes for less that it has cost me to grow these so it wasn't a success as a way of saving pennies. However you may be able to buy potatoes but you can't buy these potatoes!

Turnips

I am now harvesting turnips from my veggie corner. Normally I roast them with other root vegetables, oil, lemon juice, garlic and rosemary but have been on the lookout for something more interesting to do with them.

Recently I came across a recipe for Mediterranean chicken with turnips in the Five-a-Day Fruit and Vegetable Cookbook by Kate Whiteman et al. In this recipe julienned turnips are cooked with chicken, onions, garlic, tomatoes, tomato juice, chicken stock, white wine, paprika, cayenne, olives and S&P in the oven.

I tried the recipe last night omitting the olives (yuk!) and substituting more stock for the wine. It was really yummy!