We spent rather a lot of time on (if not in!) the laundry last week didn’t we? Not saying we won’t go back there today…because Saturday’s Good Drying Day workshop was indeed a glorious thing…but…as they’re inclined to do, the days have moved on and already that week of immersion in the idea of linens and garments bobbing about on the washing line has been eclipsed. On Monday I was still deep in the mood of it, as I swept the Dairy through and moved all the furniture - a replay of snippets of conversation in my head, reflecting on the hush of concentration as works came to life; the explosion of chatter at the lunch table, as if a collective held-breath during the morning session was let go, and the joy of having Matilda Dumas in the house.

But since then, my head has been all over the place…pulled and tugged every which way, even if there’s not a lot of ‘imagery’ to show for it (which if we were back in the old days, before digital cameras and social media; is the way it would have been!).

At the beginning of the week…decorating / design was far from my mind. Although it’s made up the best part of a long career, for the most part during the last years, it’s been eclipsed…sidelined, if you like; by a more values-based chapter. Not that design principles are not values-based - indeed they very much are! But my life seems to straddle a dual world…where what might be perceived from the outside to be frivolous to those who’s focus is deep in soil, nature and community; from my side of the equation, the threads of all the components are inextricably intertwined. At the end of the day, I revel in the delight of seeing other people revel in their surroundings, at home in their daily routine, encouraging them if I can to grow…and knowing that if I can make things better for their lives, the spillover in their realm will be of value not just to them…but to their extended families and community too.

And so it is that this week I’ve somehow participated in discussions on everything from roof lines and gutters to floor wastes and shower grates (thought we were going to discuss shutters?????); as well as the likely placement of furniture in a newly purchased house for one of my most long-standing clients as she embarks upon a new life, an important chapter in which old friends will play a huge part: I know every piece of her furniture pretty much as well as she does - pieces have nicknames, her predilections for certain aspects of life I recall only too well - some of which make us both laugh outrageously; but as we discussed the likely placement at a distance (by looking at the new house images online while discussing on the phone - now there is a miracle of modernity if ever there was - me here, she there miles away!) we might have been talking practicality; but in my mind I was playing with sunlight, seeing her silhouette go about her daily routine as she likely prepares her breakfast, or a cuppa to enjoy on her verandah; where she might sit as she fills her evenings; imagining her family visiting - a new era of little children filling this new house with giggles and woes as it quickly morphs into her home.

As we ended the call, that might easily have been the end of those thoughts on what has become a kind of supporting career, rather than the main component of my every waking moment; but then something funny happened when I checked instagram this morning: Sara Slim who pops up on my radar from time, had uploaded a slew of images in her ‘stories’ from the WOW!house exhibition that’s currently on in London…and which looks to be living entirely up to its name…like WOW! I couldn’t resist scrolling through the pics Sara had added, when one stopped me in my tracks - the *Schumacher room by designer Max Rollitt: a Dining Room that…thanks to its damask-style patterned wallpaper in ochre tones and beautiful table setting that includes bottle-green glasses; took my mind immediately back to a Dining Room I once set up for the Interior Decorators Fair at Lindesay, Darling Point (Sydney)…not from the perspective of blowing my own trumpet, but just because the resemblance was kind of uncanny, and as ever I’m amused at how everything comes around/goes around.

I’m going to go and see if I can find an old photo (as this was way pre the digital and social media era!) to see if I can show you!

*In the link to Max Rollitt’s insta, I see he had blue glasses on the table, whereas he must have settled on green for the final exhibit, as in Sara’s images! Be quick to see Sara’s though before they disappear as they’re not on her ‘grid’ but in her ‘stories’. Though I imagine there will be pics of that room everywhere…

The funny thing is…before I even saw Sara’s Wow!house images this morning, I was already thinking back to another Lindesay Decorators Fair of long ago (prompted by that long-distance phone call). For not the year I drew the Lindesay ‘Dining Room’ to decorate, but the year I drew the short straw (literally!) from the hat, and scored a tiny dark and damp ‘Small Room’ with exposed walls of block sandstone and peeling paint in the basement of that house, to decorate for the week-long exhibition; I ‘borrowed’ from that same client, one of a pair of sofas we had just had made for her (by O’Hehir & Sons); and that I recognised (having scored this tiny room for the exhibition not long after she’d taken delivery), would lend itself so beautifully to the scene I was aiming to create. It was so kind of her to let me borrow it back at the time…cos I can tell you that funding such ‘exhibitions’ is not a cheap exercise! Yes…one can put it all down to necessary PR in a young career; and though many goods can be ‘borrowed’ (if they were willing) with credits to suppliers, still there were a lot of out of pocket expenses.

The year of the Small Room, I was lucky to be lent (with a good deal of persuasion!) a medieval Lady and Unicorn ‘cartoon’ (the painted design for which a tapestry is viewed to be woven) from Geoff at The Country Trader (now sadly long gone…hopefully not Geoff himself, but how TCT and Geoff were an integral part of the Sydney antique and decorator scene in those days, which were prior to the Paddington premises morphing into the exquisite emporium it later became at Waterloo); a handsome Georgian pedestal sofa table from Paul Kenny (also integral to that world of fine and decorative antiques and these days still pulling the strings, as far as I know, behind The Classic Chair Company) and a flat-weave Kazakstan rug from Robyn Cosgrove (who is still going strong…as is the rug - I couldn’t resist bringing that one home!). There were plenty of ‘smalls’ to borrow too, though I brought in our own little button-back chair and ottoman; books, paintings, lamps, candlesticks and a whole lot more besides…though what happened to the enormous cream damask curtain I had made to look as if there might have been a window lurking in the corner, I have no idea!

For the Dining Room year, although I’d personally have loved to rid the Lindesay walls of the crimson flock wallpaper (which of course was impossible!), I went all out to make the room look otherwise young and vibrant…though elegant, and with a storied family history. At the time Moss River were importing the most fabulous, huge Belgian sofas, and I was so very lucky they agreed to lend one to me. I had my lovely ‘loose cover’ maker sew up a cover in wide teal and white stripes for it (later re-cut to fit our own sofa here - it was not an expense I could otherwise absorb…indeed in participating in such exhibitions, I needed to be occupying two projects in my head - one the exhibition, the other as to where the results would end up - whether for me or a client, but be equally ‘right’ in both!). I borrowed lots of William Yeoward glass, again from Paul Kenny who represented (the now very sadly late) William in those days…including those handsome dark green goblets, which are what really made the connection, alongside the wallpaper, that set off this entire spiel, when I spied that photo this morning! From our dear collector friends I borrowed too, a long-ago taxiderm’d turtle, specimens under glass and precious C18th sailor’s shell mementos in beautiful boxes. It may all sound bonkers, but these things brought to bear the narrative I had in mind for the inhabitants of that room; because a room is nothing on its own without those who occupy it - even if they are imaginary. And my imaginary couple, had quite a backstory!

I sometimes wonder, at leaving that life behind…(I probably should have been in Chelsea dressed in my glad rags and ooohing and ahhhing at the Wow!house this week too…just as I should have been at the Flower Show!). And yet…here instead I’ve been; doing the like of segmenting one perfect, perfumed orange, having stripped its skin of fine zest, to add to a delicious cake…and perfectly happy to be doing so! Because on Tuesday morning, I was overcome with a sense of urgency to work further towards our upcoming Winter Solstice event - the time had come to collaborate!

On Monday afternoon I’d invited Anna from Monks Lane to come the next morning to discuss the part she might play in that day…and in contacting her discovered a cake recipe she’d uploaded to her own insta grid - one that looked to be a very quick and easy one to make and loaded up with her beautiful extra virgin olive oil.

I decided on the spot to give it a whirl…and cannot recommend more heartily that you give it a go too! Although mine sank in the middle (no doubt some error of my own making!) it presented the perfect opportunity to fill the cavity with orange segments sprinkled with rapadura and poached in their own juice. And… mmm….mmmmmmm!!

I’m linking you here to Anna’s post so you can discover the recipe for yourself! I swapped out her lemon for orange…given I have a mountain of them sitting on the kitchen bench and generally find in any given citrus cake recipe, that one can substitute whichever one has on hand with a positive result. There are some more images of the cake making episode and morning tea here!

Remember I picked the pumpkins a couple of weeks ago…and cleared the kitchen garden path in the process so I can see…and walk it again? At the time I was in two minds as to whether to pull all the pumpkin vine and take it to the compost, which I usually do…or to leave it right where it is. In the end, I decided to leave it to break down in its own time…but with another purpose in mind, I’m not entirely sure if this decision will help or hamper.

Already I’d decided to sow another crop of grain in this spot…like I did in experimental fashion last year. Do you remember how beautiful it looked…standing tall and bleached in the spring? I know much of that experiment has self-sown - clumps of rye are popping up here and there and I suspect barley and oats may do the same, but I imagine that will all be very hit and miss. I couldn’t decide which of those grains to sow again for a repeat performance, but when I discovered none were available, the decision was kind of made for me…the only one I could seemingly get my hands on (I know…I’m late to be doing this!) was the ancient grain Khorasan. As I’m a fan anyway, I’m excited now to see how this grows - it will hopefully give me a more uniform crop over the two beds, than the three separate blocks I sowed last year. So…yesterday morning, I took the digging fork and pronged holes all over the two beds, though the likelihood of the seed having fallen into them as I scattered it, is likely remote! What I’m hoping for though, is that the remnant pumpkin foliage hides the seed from the birds while it settles into the ground. I watered it all in well, so hopefully it’s dispersed itself through the remnant lucerne mulch and twining vines and will soon get established. We’ll just have to wait and see…

While in the meantime, do you remember all the Peony Poppy seeds I scattered some weeks back? Well…there are veritable carpets of tiny seedlings appearing now! It’s going to be a question of survival of the fittest, because I’m certainly not going to thin them out!!!

But back to our ‘Good Drying Day’…when rows of animated garments and linens bobbed about in the breeze…a general jumble of work clothes and tea towels…coloureds and whites, presented something for our participants to hone their eyes to, as they sketched en plein air during the morning, before settling at the long tables in the Dairy - many of them working with oil paints for the very first time. With Til’s sure but gentle tutelage…and their own revelatory aptitude…lovely scenes on boards began to evolve.

With the crackle and occasional pop of burning logs in the background; a warm and nourishing lunch for everyone to enjoy, all of it came to an end too soon. “Surely it can’t be that time already?” was the exclamation of the hour, as brushes were laid to rest and everyone applauded everyone else’s work. Every single one was so very different! I’m always amazed and so excited to see each person’s individual perception and interpretation of any given subject..and have absolutely no idea which view I might have tackled myself! There are more pics of the day here… and here…because I couldn’t fit it all into one insta post!

But one thing was for sure…as everyone put the finishing touches to their work, I had a basket of sun dried washing to plonk by the fire, in that lovely afternoon glow before the damp descended. It was a day none will forget in a hurry…a one-off to treasure. And since…combined with the amount of real washing the day made…I’ve been ironing every evening since!!!!

I hope you’ve had a lovely week. The first week of winter sure arrived with a chill factor here, though we’ve yet to experience a frost. But an evening fire in the kitchen is prerequisite now…though I’ve resisted a daytime one…so far at least….I’ve wrapped myself in a blanket instead…but now I’m off to gather kindling and logs!

With happy wishes for the weekend (I keep forgetting it’s a long one here!) and week ahead.

Mickey x

Eating from the garden: Aubergine, zucchini, tomato, warrigal greens, coloured chard, chicory, cavolo nero, lettuce, red elk, rocket, garlic (the very last stored), kohl rabi, Jerusalem artichoke. Beans….a surprise late haul! Figs (yes…still! in June…can’t quite believe it but picked another half dozen!), rhubarb. Basil, lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, nasturtium flowers, zucchini flowers, fennel fronds, pollen and seeds and…fine new stems of very immature self-sown celery…now there’s a first!

Going / gone: beans, aubergine, zucchini, figs, garlic (the last tiddlies are rapidly disappearing!) Cape gooseberry (I’m hopeful I may find some more if I go for a forage!)

Seed saving: Bean, amaranth, tomato

Sowing: peas, rocket, cima di rappa, coriander, ‘red elk’ mustard, chervil, dill, parsley, carrots, beetroot, parsnip but fast approaching the last sowing…

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohl rabi, fennel, radicchio, chicory, leek, lettuce…stagger, stagger, stagger… Onions! I hope my friends are at the market tomorrow so I can make my last purchase of the season…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: sparingly now…roses…

Perfumes and aromas: the earthy aroma of just-dug Jerusalem artichokes each time I dig a few more…and oranges…their perfume fills the kitchen garden as the sun warms them on the trees, and the kitchen where they’re mounded in a wide bowl on the bench

Pruning and other: not much…I seem to have been otherwise occupied!

Too much, too much to relay today...with prep on the agenda for tomorrow…but…let’s give it a whirl! For I seem to have been picking and prepping and blitzing and baking already…for days in advance! But let’s put all that aside for this minute (tho I’m a bit loathe to go off on a tangent, knowing I still have a list a mile long to achieve) because it just might help me to refocus on the reason I invited artist Matilda Dumas to guide a lovely group of participants in the pursuit of ‘painting the washing line’ in the first place; for the distraction of all the necessary prep that is part and parcel of any event can be so all-consuming, it can eclipse the very essence of the thing at hand. And the thing at hand is ‘A Good Drying Day’!

For Til’s charming paintings aside; the background for my initiating this workshop stems from my own personal fascination in the running of a domestic household - the very stuff that underpins good interior design (and the thing I reckon can often get lost in the wash when it comes to sound planning); for the working core of a house must do that…it must function seamlessly (well…as seamlessly as possible) for they who inhabit the household. The flow of daily life, the temperament and good (or otherwise) humour of those inhabiting a space depend upon it doing so; on top of which I believe regular household tasks ought to be pleasant to carry out - with washing, being one of them. Hence, where I can, I advocate for a window or two with a view and a door to a garden for a laundry. Of course it isn’t always possible, especially in the city; but I’m averse to a laundry being stuffed away in an airless cupboard unless absolutely necessary (which even for some of my very favourite long time clients is indeed the case as it was in my own childhood). I’d go so far as to say that over a long career, the possibility of ‘drying the washing on the line’ has been a goal of so many of my city dwellers…the lack of ability to do so causes them problems that long ago made me realise what a privilege it is to have space and fresh air for a washing line - which is not the usual high priority reason given for living in a rural setting! Laundry isn’t often the topic of conversation in daily life…but in such a career as mine has been…it has often been a major driver; and I know the difference it’s made in the lives of those for whom we’ve achieved even a portion of their dream laundry.

Initiating the workshop led me to think further and even do a little research on the history of the washing line: we all know that once upon a time, clothes were inclined to be draped over aromatic plants…like lavender or rosemary; as well as over hedges or hung on accommodating tree branches…if not flat out on hot rocks - any of which would likely cause clean washing surely…to be speckled with some remnant particles of some kind in their fibres? It seems the idea to hang garments / linens over some kind of ‘line’ to catch a breeze, only really came about during the industrial revolution, when populations became increasingly urbanised, and shrubs, hedges and fences were scarce. Equally, I did turn up an image of a length of fabric draped over a suspended pole (bamboo perhaps?) in a Pompeiian fresco; so no doubt every age and culture has come up with its own solution for drying the washing through the ages. Apparently the clothes peg was only invented in 1809 by one Jérémie Opdebec (it’s likely before this that many clothes blew away!) and…I had no idea that in England, pegs were often whittled by members of the Romani community from Willow, which they reckoned provided the best material for the purpose and as a result, landowners who didn’t want unwanted Travellers hanging about, removed the trees! Goodness…who knew? (ref. Michael McGirr, The Washing Line).

In tandem with the historical placement of a Laundry in a house plan, I like to associate a Still Room; once an integral part too, of a household. Now really, if I was worth my weight in your reading along here, I would do my diligent research and write a proper essay on these things. But I’ve chosen the wrong day to get bogged down in the like of what we might discover if we re-read Pride & Prejudice (I still need to pick and blanche warrigal greens, spin and dry the lettuce leaves, make the vinaigrette, find the piles of laundry to hang on the line and then some!).

Suffice to say, I’m leaving Hildegard on display for tomorrow, to prompt a brief discussion about capturing botanical essence in the way ‘ladies of the household’ (and likely their daughters too) would have done once upon a time; thereby having everything from medicinal and therapeutic remedies to cleaning materials and perfumes on hand…whether or not they used the results as ‘ironing water’ per se, I cannot say, but anyway I’ve been busy bottling pure Lavender Water for each participant to take home at the end of the day, as well as enough to spritz the air and the washing they’ll be painting!

Just as well it’s Til who’s in charge of the actual oil painting workshop…with all the prepped boards and materials our participants will need…my faculties are addled!

To cap off all this intense focus on the topic of the washing line and household duties…I cannot quite believe the coincidental timing of a visit by a family of Moore descendants last weekend - three generations, the eldest of whom lived here in the house as a boy and shared wonderful recollections as he placed various memories with the buildings that still stand and the chores (as well as fun and games) that were his responsibility. “I wonder where the washing line was?” I posed at one point during our garden wander. “Oh…it was over there” Jim said. And then his lovely daughter piped up with “I’ve seen a photo of it…I’ll see if I can find it”. And so she did! I’m guessing someone was taking a photo of the lamb with its woolly mama and the washing line just happened to get in on the act! But what are the chances? The timing????!!!! Thank you Donna - this just tickled me with absolute delight!

I had such a lovely time wandering and chatting with the Moore family descendants that…it did rather throw my own intended weekend chores into chaos! But some things are just more important…and so I got cracking just as soon as they left. Already the arrival of those chitted potatoes had me in a spin…so I prematurely cut down the last of the San Marzano tomatoes - normally I’d leave them a bit longer, but for the sake of maybe a dozen fruit, given the space they were taking up, I had to make the call. So out they came and with a quick tidy and minimal prep, in went the potatoes. Not all - I’m hoping the other four varieties will hold out and I’ve popped them in the cellar for now, though I must keep an eye on them; but I planted out all the Nicola and King Edwards before they turned to mush.

And then (the thing I’d been so looking forward to for weeks) I picked the pumpkins! One at a time…slowly, slowly…brushing them off, picking off any snails to toss to the chooks and setting them on whichever wall was closest to where I was standing…until I had 35 all lined up! By the time I’d cleared up the vines and weeded all around, so I could see the path again, it was dark…and when I woke in the night to the sound of rain, oh how I agonised about the pumpkins - all of them set right way up and no doubt pools of water forming around their stalks!

And so first thing next day, I took them all across to the table in the Hayshed, setting each one stalk-side down (which I don’t like to do because I reckon it weakens the stalk which is the thing that kept in tact, will lengthen their ‘keeping’ time). As soon as their bottoms were dry….I turned them all over. Phew…and all is right in the pumpkin world!

Tapping their bottoms to see if they make a hollow sound is the way you know a pumpkin is ready (I got to wondering if they might all make a different sound? As in…I wonder if you could ‘play the pumpkins’ in the way you can glasses filled with different levels of water? Silly no doubt…keep on track for goodness sake Mickey!) and I brought two up to the house to cut and roast for tomorrow’s lunch…and then decided one was enough…now I wonder if it is? Fingers crossed! Oh but just look at this beauty - which cut through clean as a whistle and with ease…thanks to that cleaver Jeremy (The Stones) sent me last year!

Before another drop of rain could fall, I rescued the pods of Sunset Runner Beans that had cured on the vine. It’s such a fine line…between them not being quite ready to pick for the purpose of seed saving, and if the weather is wet, the risk of losing them due to mould. As it was, the vines of this variety that I grew in the main beds through the summer were so thwarted by the bower birds, there was no seed to collect. And so I’ve been counting on this later sowing I made in the old raspberry cage to yield seeds to sow again next year. I’ve been saving these year to year for so long, I would hate to be without this variety in the garden - their peachy pink flowers make such a pretty (and tasty) addition to summer plates (as well as the garden itself) and it isn’t so commonly available. So…I think I’ve saved the strain for another year! Another phew!

Gosh…well…I think I’d better actually stop! While I’ve been sitting here tip-tapping, the clouds have cleared and the sky is blue…which means the rain drops should be drying in the kitchen garden; making the picking of warrigal greens a more pleasant task!

Oh how I have been holding my breath that tomorrow will indeed be a good drying day…not that I don’t have a back-up plan but it will be oh so much more fun if it truly, truly is!

With happy wishes to you all,

Mickey x

Eating from the garden: Aubergine, zucchini, tomato, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, cavolo nero, lettuce, red elk, rocket, garlic (the very last stored), kohl rabi, Jerusalem artichoke. Figs (yes…still! in May…can’t quite believe it but picked another plump half dozen!), rhubarb, Cape gooseberry. Basil, lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, nasturtium flowers, zucchini flowers, fennel fronds, pollen and seeds and…fine new stems of very immature self-sown celery…now there’s a first!

Going / gone: beans, aubergine, figs, garlic (the last tiddlies are rapidly disappearing!)

Seed saving: Bean, parsnip, amaranth, tomato

Sowing: peas, rocket, cima di rappa, coriander, ‘red elk’ mustard, chervil, dill, parsley, sweet peas, carrots, beetroot, parsnip (I actually did sow carrots, beetroot and parsnip this week!). Potatoes…but only because the ones that arrived had chitted

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohl rabi, fennel, radicchio, chicory, leek, lettuce…stagger, stagger, stagger…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: sparingly now…roses…

Perfumes and aromas: waves of labdanum emanating from the Cistus have flooded the Barn garden this week…and the earthy aroma of just-dug Jerusalem artichokes each time I dig a few more…

Pruning and other: Larry and I turned the compost on Sunday afternoon! And while Larry strimmed the edges and mowed the grass (the regular need for both has eased since summer and this may even be the last of the season), I raked the field rows and paths to give them a tidy.

Goodness I had to laugh! As I sat here wondering which image I might lead with today…eventually settling on one of root veg (with good reason, thinking it might clearly express a significant component of the day’s proceedings) deliberately pulled at last Sunday’s Garden to Scent: Edible Aromatics Workshop; when what do I see but a half-nibbled strand of red elk mustard leaf lying on top of the carrots! Whilst I could (did!) raise my eyebrows and say what is it doing there? The fact that it is lying haphazardly across the carrot is actually entirely fitting…an honest depiction of the tale to be told!

What a day we enjoyed, with Tahi leading our group of merry olfactory and taste seeking participants….as during our garden ramble, we hung on her every word, as she explained the healing power of plants; the effects a wide range of bitters and herbs have on our digestive systems, and how we might integrate them into our daily lives; alongside how gardens, and gardening…can truly nourish our bodies and minds.

As any of us who do garden already know…these are not lessons we need to learn, for they come by chance and are integrated into our lives as if by osmosis. But whenever I listen to those with a deep understanding of this vast topic of individual plant benefits to our health (as they with the knowledge stand in the garden beside me), I’m reminded of the true privilege it is, to have the opportunity to have one’s hands in the soil…indeed to have soil to nurture and as a result, a near constant range of botanical diversity to add to our to our diet; the associated aromas and all the beneficial sensations at our finger tips, the tip of our tongues and our nostrils. And on such days, the opportunity to share a gardener’s aspect…in the hope…of encouraging all present, if they haven’t already, to pick up a trowel, to plunge their hands too into the soil…to make a start, is perhaps the most important and possibly life changing component, of all.

And so on Sunday…as we all stood in the kitchen garden, I dug a couple of carrots…and handed them around for each participant to inhale their rich, carotene aroma…which is always at its most pungent when just pulled from the earth. Next, I pulled a parsnip - all sweet and earthy…and so very, very different an aroma to that of the carrot. While Jerusalem artichokes have no specific odour, just dug they carry the redolent smell of damp earth; while just-sieved compost carries in its make-up, a purity of earthly nourishment…and the little mound I dropped onto the table to make something of a feature as well as a bed for our gathered veg, and for peeps to plunge their noses into, even had a couple of errant earth worms wriggling around, disturbed from the work they’d just been about in the heap down the back.

Well…if that combination wasn’t enough to get everyone’s little grey cells working and their taste-buds into a state of excited anticipation, I don’t know what might be!

In fact, the ‘earth’ component of our wander was part two; as we began by picking and tasting bitter greens - radicchio, mizuna and chicory, as a kind of sensory palate stimulant to what would come next…preparing our digestive systems for a little cup of Tahi’s ‘Shiitake Mushroom Broth’ - a nourishing boost to our immune systems. And then, before sauntering off to the field (where we ran our fingers through lavender, rose geranium and other aromatic foliage) via the drying green where we each popped an Elderberry (a little hit of vitamin C) I distributed several stems of Red Elk Mustard amongst the group, so each could take a section to taste and pass on - pure bliss after the Mushroom Broth…as palate cleanser…and clearly that is when the errant strand of purple leaf landed on top of my previously deposited carrots! How I didn’t notice at the time of snapping the pic I’ve no idea…except by then I was under the pump time-wise - that was for sure!

Earlier in the day, the Dairy had gone from blank canvas to apothecary in the space of less than an hour!

What enormous fun. I had all the tables and places in position before Tahi arrived, with Hildegard holding centre stage as so many of the ingredients Tahi brought along for her intensive class featured distilled aromatics, even though we recognised there would be no time to include an actual distillation in an already activity-filled schedule.

And then…much consideration went into various preparations as participants “mixed tinctures from dried herbs, roots and botanicals; swirled personalised aromatherapy sprays, blended teas and sipped herb and berry cordials for brain, clarity and calm” as said one of our lovely participants…(thanks Mel!)…we wouldn’t have a record without her! As I was out the back…

Stirring a beetroot risotto, wilting a mountain of cavolo nero, roasting Jerusalem artichokes and scattering little plates of Labneh and Fetta from local Gowrie Farm Cheese with calendula petals and fresh fennel seeds, drizzled with EVOO from local Monks Lane and tossing nasturtium flowers through a huge bowl of mixed lettuce leaves from the garden…phew! Once everyone settled back into their afternoon activity after lunch, I sat at the back chopping squeaky stems of rhubarb and shelling cape gooseberries, so each could have a taste of spiced, baked rhubarb before leaving - homeward bound with their packets and bottles and all manner of goodies in their arms.

It was one very, very full day…and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if everyone is still getting over it! And especially Tahi who so generously shared her knowledge and enthusiasm…not to mention ingredients…oh my the ingredients, with one and all.

How I love such days! Seeing everyone so engaged and filled with pure delight…fills me to the brim. I know a variety of elements that unfold throughout such a day will have struck a chord, set off some little realisation for each participant - likely something different for each and every one.

And it must be said…I love the post-event days too. Yes, it will involve pegging washing to the line, as well as clattering china and clinking cutlery as I put everything back in its place in the yellow cupboards; rearrange the furniture and do a big sweep. My steps will be a little slower than the previous day…that is guaranteed, and so they should be! Once the linens are dry, I’ll iron them (best if still a bit damp for the best results which wasn’t difficult this week - as this lot above, ended up pegged in the laundry once the showers of rain began!). Ironing is the final effort that completes an event cycle: from early collaboration likely months in advance…through every element of bringing any such day to fruition - from painting it in words and imagery, through all the practicalities and sensibilities required to bring such a day to life…the planning, the placement, the sheer thrill of each and every tiny part. Then once the napkins and tea towels are back in the cupboard, it’s all wrapped up…and put to bed with a smile…and a sigh.

While in a slightly slow and domestic frame of mind, I thought it timely to make a batch of chicken broth - after all, it’s that time of year. Although we use a lot of chicken broth in the summer months too (Sunday supper risotto and it’s the base too, for some of our favourite chilled summer soups); the winter months are bound to require twice as much. So in the same way I’ve begun collecting twigs and sticks for kindling on fine days (we’ve only lit two fires in the kitchen so far this autumn), for I know we need plenty of kindling in reserve…the stores of chicken broth will need constant replenishing in the months ahead too.

I know I’ve written it up before, and it’s hardly a recipe; but in case you’d like a refresher…I save the bones from each roast chicken we eat and pop them in the freezer. When the time comes to make a batch of broth - I take the bones of approx. two chooks, dice an onion, chop 4 - 6 carrots into fine rounds, dice a stick or two of celery if in season (but as it’s not yet formed here - celery is winter growing, I added chopped celeriac stalks and leaves instead) and a good bunch of chopped parsley. Add water to the brim of the pan and toss in six or so black peppercorns. Use the biggest saucepan you have; put on the lid and bring very slowly to a simmer. Given the bones were frozen, I find this can take a couple of hours. Then…it can simply simmer away all day - ‘all-day chicken broth’. I try to get it on the go at breakfast…and turn off the heat at about 4.30 / 5pm, as I like to get it strained into a wide and deep stainless steel bowl so that it cools before we go to bed. I don’t like putting steaming things into the fridge…equally I like to put it in the fridge, so that overnight the fat rises and settles on the top and can easily be skimmed off next morning; before I portion it into containers for the freezer. Yes, it’s all a bit messy; but worth the effort for the rich and nourishing contribution it will make to the base of so many soups and risottos…and the like of slow-baked lamb shanks or shoulder, as the truly cold days set in. And…it will mean I’ve literally extracted every last morsel of goodness that chicken had to give - each bird a good dinner, a week of sandwiches and…the foundation of many meals ahead.

Whilst I’m on food….given the aubergines are still coming in thick and fast…I couldn’t resist compiling another of these madcap towers! While I love aubergines and would eat them ‘til I look like one, I know they’re not necessarily Larry’s favourite, but baked this way, he finds them as irresistible as me! At the risk of sounding like a broken record - this version of Torta di Melanzane came to be, because years and years ago, I was so disappointed with the result of a recipe I followed from one in a newspaper (that in its photo looked amazing), that I decided to take another tack! I swear the image of the one in the paper must have had two stuck on top of each other…whereas my effort in the pan size suggested, yielded a flat and disappointing result. I was not going to be deterred though, and next tried baking one in a spring-form cake tin instead - and if I’m to feed lots of peeps, then that’s still what I do. But if it’s just for Larry and me…I find this small (10cm diameter/7cm deep) round tin, lined with baking paper delivers this eye-popping tower for two! And it pops out of the tin very easily. I use only the tiniest amount of grated parmigiano to bind the fried slices of aubergine together (fry the slices in only as much olive oil as they truly need and don’t overdo the salt). Again…I made this one days in advance…worried the bounty of fruit I’d collected might go off if I didn’t cook it, so fried them off while I was preparing dinner one night and put it together, then sat it in the fridge - so there it was on standby. With a salad of tomatoes in balsamic, a dollop of pesto and scattered with basil…what, oh what a good gardening lunch!

What a dilemma I’m faced with, after a trip to the post office this morning. My order of potatoes has arrived, from a different supplier to normal (I usually order potatoes from Diggers, but to my horror, they were all sold out when I checked online a few weeks ago!). As a general rule, even if my order of seed potatoes do arrive around now, they have rarely ‘chitted’ and I pop them in the cellar ‘til August and plant them out then, at the end of winter. But these ones have chitted away, presumably in transit and some…are even soft to the touch. Yikes.

Planting potatoes was seriously not on my agenda this weekend. I’m not sure it’s even a good idea - the soil is cooling off, not warming up - it’s inevitable we will be in for frosts ahead. I don’t even have available space just now - I was intent on preparing my overflow ‘down the back’ this weekend (having completed the rotation in the kitchen garden ‘proper’), for my final raft of planting for the season, and that most definitely did not take potatoes into account! What to do? Well…I guess I’ll think of something but it is a bit annoying…

Although the weather has been grey and cool and showery, and most of the garden is receding into winter retirement, with flurries of colourful leaves pirouetting their way to the ground at intervals, the kitchen garden is pumping away…

Every day there’s some new combination of edibles to play with…with eye popping colours and tastes (and therefore health benefits!) and possibilities to add to our plates. As ever I maintain…life with a kitchen garden, could never be boring!

I hope all is well in your neck of the woods and will look forward to catching up again next week. Still no Vetiver distillation…maybe next week!

Warmest wishes

Mickey x

ps for those in the Aussie realm…the garden of our friends (remember the lovely event we had here for J’s presentation about The Stones last year?) Jeremy and Grant at The Stones Central Victoria is to be featured on Gardening Australia tonight!

Eating from the garden: Aubergine, zucchini, tomato, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, cavolo nero, lettuce, red elk, rocket, garlic (the very last stored), kohl rabi, Jerusalem artichoke. Figs (yes…still! in May…can’t quite believe it but picked another plump half dozen!), rhubarb, Cape gooseberry. Basil, lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, nasturtium flowers, zucchini flowers, fennel fronds, pollen and seeds

Going / gone: beans, aubergine, figs, garlic (the last tiddlies are rapidly disappearing!)

Seed saving: Fennel, bean, parsnip, amaranth, tomato

Sowing: peas, rocket, cima di rappa, coriander, ‘red elk’ mustard, chervil, dill, parsley, sweet peas, carrots, beetroot, parsnip (I keep forgetting / running out of time to sow root veg!)

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohl rabi, fennel, radicchio, chicory, leek, lettuce…stagger, stagger, stagger…(and it looks like I’m going to have to plant potatoes!)

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: sparingly now…roses…

Perfumes and aromas: nicotiana in the kitchen garden, and waves of the ghost of an Immortelle past in the Borders (whenever this occurs it takes me by surprise and has something to do with the weather conditions being just so). Oh and the earthy aroma of just-dug Jerusalem artichokes each time I dig a few more, of course!

Pruning and other: Whisps of jasmine had struck again down at the back of the pool fence frame and the Hayshed rosemary put on a new growth spurt, so both had a little trim but otherwise, it’s a more a question of waiting to do the big winter cut-back…

Partially obscured…a tantalising glimpse…don’t we all love to peer through a gate and wonder? Imagine? Dream? Somehow it’s rare I find myself on the outside looking in here…as if I were a stranger sauntering by. Sure, I glance fleetingly when I collect the mail at the letterbox, and though the view always makes me smile, I’m generally in the midst of going about my day. But I know if I didn’t live here…my interest would be so very piqued…and with my imagination racing, perhaps I might be discovered hovering! For the best part of the year, it’s really very hard to see much of the house from outside the railing fence and gates, obscured as it is by dense foliage that clothes the trees on the Persimmon Lawn, but as the leaves colour through their golden and burnt orange tones, through russets and crimsons and umbers, by now they’ve mostly fallen to the ground in a pleasing, ephemeral drift, and so a beckoning glimpse of the house from outside the gate is more possible.

Although (to be honest) the house itself then, looked nothing like it does today; it was through these railings 38 years ago this coming week, that I did have my first glimpse of what I had no idea would become our home for the best part of our lives. Next Tuesday 19 May will mark 38 years since the auction at which Larry was tempted to raise his hand (without my knowing!); and the very following Saturday, we ventured down to Glenmore with a picnic basket on the back seat of the car. It was a glorious autumn morning not unlike last Sunday (when I snapped this pic above). And oh my how I had to laugh…for the reason I…we, were up at the front gate for a protracted length of time, was because we needed to tackle the Agave americana specimens to either side of the front gate - as through the summer they had put on so much growth they looked like monsters from the deep, and any visitor would likely collect a long scratch to either side of their vehicle on attempt to drive through! Never mind it was our 40th wedding anniversary…if anyone had told me back then….????!!!!

So…whilst I gathered my long saw and gloves, and put on a thick jumper to protect my arms from those beautiful (but piercingly sharp) points that punctuate the sturdy leaves of those splendid Agave at regular intervals, Larry went off to get the tractor: this was not a job to mess with! And so first I removed the excess leaves, then guided each specimen carefully through various components of the tractor (cross bar/wheels etc) as Larry gave them a gentle push to get them upright…so we could prop them up with a brick or two (we’ve long discovered this to be a successful method in the front courtyard!). The ones more stubborn though, required a rope and gentle traction from inside the gate before we could do the work around their base…one at a time.

And soon, voila! We had them back in order…and that job, if nothing else…deserved a glass of champagne on Sunday evening! To be honest…I think it’s tasks worked on together, that make for good companionship - whether in marriage, or any relationship. As in collaboration - when each plays their part to contribute to an outcome, a sense of wellbeing sits alongside accomplishment. I’m not saying there was no annoyance or grievance along the way…or accident (I mean how on earth can you hit yourself in the forehead with a digging bar I ask you? But nothing ever phases Larry…he just shrugs it off and gets on with the task at hand…muttering as ever, “some mothers do have ‘em, and mine did!”). ref. 1970’s British tv show that I don’t quite think I could watch these days, though just thinking of it makes me laugh ‘til I cry!

As an aside…a lovely young person sent me a message on Sunday evening asking what the secret was? Although at the time I replied ‘patience’, of which a great deal it has to be said, is required, I think a sense of humour truly goes a long way. I’ve no doubt many peeps wonder at Larry’s and my compatibility…we hail from different backgrounds, different countries…and even almost generations (he being ten years my senior). We do not see eye to eye on everything, we’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way (mostly when it comes to parenting - do any parents get it right?) tho we love our girls to bits. In many ways he drives me bonkers…and I’ve no doubt I am equally maddening in reverse. And yet…

But…back to all one can really see of Glenmore from our little road (of any of the buildings or gardens that connect them, and that make up the domestic bounds and all the activity that occurs) is the Hayshed; with its original, rusty corrugated iron roof. All else is tucked away…each pocket with its own character and atmosphere a secret to discover, to be revealed, one slow step at a time. It’s the polar opposite I guess…of ‘showy’, which is just the way we like it!

While on the topic of railings…this little enclosure was beckoning to me this morning! One of three, I know they’re completely dotty, placed as they are at intervals in the grass in the old home paddock. Though not as spectacular as some years - I don’t know why it’s been a poor year for Zinnias…seems silly; but still they draw my eye from behind the tomato-stake palings…reminding me of speckled eggs. How I love an enclosure - any kind of fence or wall - and I’m not sure if I like them best left blank, or infilled. Blank, they are filled with possibility; filled, they are enchanting. The best blank enclosure I ever recall seeing, was many years ago, and whenever I think of an enclosure, I’m reminded of it…I recall feeling such a pull towards it, that the sense has never been forgot. It was at poet, writer, visual artist and gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay’s ‘Little Sparta’ in the Pentland Hills not far from Edinburgh…and an ode, as it were, to the traditional ‘sheepfold’.

Oh now how unexpectedly delighted I am to have gone on this tangent! Given I just googled Little Sparta to attach the link for you (above), I’ve discovered they have an interactive garden map (who knew?)…and what’s more…I’ve found my way (given I knew already roughly within the setting where it was!) to the sheepfold itself - complete with image, description and all…and I can sense the thrill of it to my bones, all over again! Here’s the description for you:

Eclogue, Folding the Last Sheep

This drystone walled construction of the sheepfold evokes both the long but precarious tradition of hill sheep farming in Scotland, and the English artist Samuel Palmer who, towards the end of his life, made a translation of Virgil’s Eclogues and illustrated them with drawings and etchings of English pastoral scenes full of tender feeling and visionary intensity. This work is one of homage, subtly underlined by the base meaning of the word eclogue -something chosen from among many. The text reads:

ECLOGUE
FOLDING
THE LAST
SHEEP

I’m scouring now for my own image…

And here it is…found it! July 2012! Oh and now I am truly reminded at the sheer thrill of it all…the multiple walls and carefully placed rocks…stones…inscriptions.

Although there are plants of course, and beautiful vistas, Little Sparta is a garden filled with (albeit thoughtfully, poetically, visionary placed) piles of…stones. Which for me have a kind of deep, magnetic pull. I really must go back one day…

Here’s a circuit breaker…before you think I’ve got rocks in my head! A pile of oranges, delivered courtesy of a flock of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos…grrrrr….I really wasn’t planning to pick them yet; it’s too early and though they are ripening, they are not yet sweet as can be, although they are beautifully juicy. Each one squeezed yields a good half glass of juice and just look at those segments! I hope it was just a one-off attack and that the birds have lost interest now, as I really do much prefer to leave the oranges on the trees, to pick as we need them. They ‘keep’ much better there and if the birds leave them alone, there will be oranges for us a-plenty from now ‘til the spring, giving us our daily hit of vitamin C, just when we need it most.

I cannot tell you how surprised I was, to find the first pea bud of the season this morning! It looks like the Golden Pod is leaping ahead of the other varieties, though I see plump pre-buds beginning to form on those too, as multiple tendrils latch on to their upright supports…the kind of plump pre-pea-buds that look so tempting to eat, but I mustn’t…not yet! There will be time enough in the weeks ahead, these are still early days…

Intent as I am on sharing as many colours and tastes (alongside all those olfactory delights I’ve been accumulating) at our workshop on Sunday, I’m thrilled to see the radicchio leaves beginning to gather a hint of that deep brownish-red developing in their already substantial veined leaves, alongside the lilac-stemmed, bulbous forms of kohl rabi. With chicory, mizuna and red-elk mustard for bitters; a plethora of herbs and even fennel pollen and fresh seed (a seasonal anomaly - I would usually expect this in spring!), we will have plenty of tastes to test, as our participants gather in the kitchen garden for a thoroughly immersive, edible exploration.

For the best part of this week, I’ve been collaborating behind the scenes, in a bid to bring a Winter Event together, and therefore tip-tapping away at my desk as rain showers have come and gone. Fireside with slow-food, fair-isles, woollen blankets…and two fun and inspiring young women: Lucy Tweed whose about-to-be released (third) book Tender (filled with scintillating winter recipes that make me hungry at the very thought of it, and several in which we will indulge on the day); and Amanda Cochran, founder of Grampian Goods Co., whose wares…I’m rather drawn to! Don’t we all love a good plaid, woollen blanket? And as for those fair isle knits… (come to think of it…one would be ideal in which to revisit Little Sparta down the track!).

As one who is inclined to keep my clothes for years on end (still wearing the gardening shirt I bought when we got underway here at Glenmore all those years ago - DJ’s men’s department!), I like to make considered decisions. How I look forward to pulling favourite jumpers from the cupboard each year - the precious ones that are always folded after wear, back in tissue as if brand new. Things here get mended (or when they don’t, the holes just get bigger!). The girls still steal my old clothes…ones I thought would never see the light of day again; but they appreciate the quality of yarns from years gone by - “you can’t get rid of that”, they say. Will we ever have a garage sale, I wonder? Not that I’ve yet thought through how that process may even begin to work! I’ve long joked that come the day for us to leave here, I’d put things out on tables dotted about on the grass, with little price tags attached, like Karen Blixen did in Out of Africa (it’s so long since I’ve watched that film, I almost wonder if I made that scene up?). But I’m really not sure in reality, just how that might work? I think we’d need a lot of helpers!

Ever the romantic…I’m not sure there’s any harm in pondering the possibility of that scenario…but I can’t help thinking it might work better on a film set than in reality! I just noticed Clemmie is wearing a pair of Utility trousers today, that I wore to death (or thought I had!) when she was a baby…

Well…time to get back to the preparations for Sunday! I’ve made the fennel frond pistou, picked the rhubarb and even baked and rubbed the skins off the beetroot for the risotto. I’ve moved the tables (with Thalia’s help) into position in the Dairy and Loggia, but I can’t help thinking there is still a lot to be done. So…I’ll wish you a happy weekend and week ahead and look forward to catching you all again next week.

Mickey x

ps haven’t yet had time to return to the Vetiver I mentioned last week, but the aroma in the Dairy from the roots we did collect is utterly divine!

Eating from the garden: Aubergine, zucchini, tomato, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, red elk, rocket, garlic, kohl rabi, Jerusalem artichokes. Figs (yes! in May…can’t quite believe it but picked another plump dozen!), rhubarb, Cape gooseberry, feijoa. Basil, lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, nasturtium flowers, zucchini flowers, fennel fronds, pollen and seeds

Going / gone: beans, aubergine, figs, garlic (though I still have lots of tiddlies I’m working my way through)

Seed saving: Fennel, bean, parsnip, amaranth, tomato

Sowing: peas, rocket, cima di rappa, coriander, ‘red elk’ mustard, chervil, dill, parsley, sweet peas, carrots, beetroot, parsnip (I keep forgetting / running out of time to sow root veg!)

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohl rabi, fennel, radicchio, chicory, endive, leek, lettuce…stagger, stagger, stagger…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: sparingly now…roses, gardenia

Perfumes and aromas: nicotiana in the kitchen garden, and waves of pungent labdanum emanating from the Cistus (rock rose) in the Barn garden. By default…the sweet aroma of ripening oranges on the kitchen bench…

Pruning and other: I got so excited pulling tall grass that had grown into the Photinia hedge that runs the length of the fence to either side of the front gate while I was waiting for Larry to bring the tractor around that it’s been the job of the week! How I wish it was me doing it…I’ve wanted to for simply ages…it’s the kind of job that brings enormous satisfaction. But I’m afraid I had to task Thalia with doing it as it’s the kind of thing I just can’t get around to, though wish I could! I did cut back both the Heliotrope I mentioned last week, with great satisfaction - relieved of all that heavy, lanky growth, it’s free for air to whistle through now and won’t take long to recover. I couldn’t help getting stuck into the Nepeta at the same time…give me a pair of secateurs and….if it wasn’t for other peeps, I’d be there ‘til midnight!

Late…I’m late, for a very important date…!!! Oh dear, I just had to write those words out…to get them out of my head…for I am running so late to my desk today, for my date with you! Friday mornings are meant to run smoothly, calmly…I try not to schedule anything other than a garden check and urgent watering before I sit down, but of course that isn’t always possible. And this morning…there was a distraction of great import. Although still a week off, a discussion with Tahi about our upcoming Garden to Scent, Edible Aromatic Workshop had us both in a flurry of excitement and possibility. And as we said goodbye, I had to wonder…who on earth gets to discuss the like of drying fig leaves, nicotiana leaves and roses in the same breath? Alongside earth encrusted root veg, bitter greens, fennel in all its parts and herbs; the phytonutrient value of colourful veg and the picking of bundles of aromatic foliage? A chef? Perfumer? I wish I could say it was a Health Practitioner. It’s going to be one helluva day; bringing visual beauty, olfactory and taste senses together; with soil and health to the fore, for Tahi and I both believe they are all intertwined. So although we’re still ten days out, workshop content aside, my head is spinning with table and set-up plans - I’m in full-on preparation mode as I sit down to tip-tap to you today, and that state of mind is amplified because it’s how I’ve spent much of this week…with another event bubbling away in the background - a collaboration in full swing behind the scenes for an idyllic and nourishing winter day out. Fun, fun, fun!

When I’m in the midst of such things, I do have cause to wonder when the odd peep tells me to make sure I have time to enjoy my time here at Glenmore. But I do, I do, I do, I do, I do!!!! Sure…I do also wish I had the opportunity to sit in the morning sun on the front verandah and read a book - the kind of thing I’ve always thought I might do when I’m old. (Which I’m not - yet…at least not very!). And I do also wish I could get the local girls here for a game of tennis (I’ve picked up a racket once in the last ten years and I think the previous time was ten years before that!). But…I’ve always been a working girl…all my adult life. I find it hard to allow myself such an indulgence. And just when I think I can see a clear day or two ahead, something always seems to occur. And so…I take my enjoyment as it comes - and come it does amidst beauty…if you choose to find beauty in each small thing, which I do.

For it’s also been a week of bleached out, dried out fascination, that began on Sunday when I retrieved the three buckets into which I’d placed all the Peony Poppy seed heads (upright on their stems so as not to spill their precious load) from their safe place in the potting shed. No need to further wax lyrical here about their detail in dried form - I think I did that when I collected them in the spring (and I know I do each and every spring because I can’t help it). You can clearly see in the image at the top, how all their little ‘hats’ have popped up, revealing the openings through which their seed can escape - rivers of it, hundreds and thousands of tiny black seeds…

And so off I went to spill the lot, under the fig trees inside their cages and around the other orchard trees. Those of you who have been following on here will recall those billowing, blousy beauties that flutter their delicate petals in a glorious ballet in the spring breeze; and recall too, the Poppy Illustration Workshop we ran with Rose Colbeck here in October last year…so utterly divine. Well…this is where it all begins each year, and with every stem shaken and dropped, I have high hopes of repeating the same vision come spring, all over again. Of course, only time will tell. But I hope I got my timing right - after a huge weekend of kitchen gardening activity, I was determined to scatter these before the sun went down on Sunday afternoon and only just got them all out in time. And then, on Monday morning, we had some very welcome, gentle rain. Not as much as I’d have liked, but enough as they say…to settle the dust. And enough hopefully, to settle the poppy seed and begin the germination process - the first step in their long journey to spring.

And what, I hear you say…is this hairy mass? Well…well may you ask! This is the very first time I’ve tackled this particular olfactory subject - the entire process is one of pure experimentation, and one I’ve been wanting to investigate for a very long time. Back when I was planning and planting up the Field of Flowers; immersed in learning the process of distillation, and therefore reading about the various facets of all things aromatic, the possibility of growing Vetiver grass captured my imagination. For as an aroma, it’s one I’m particularly fond of…earthy, smokey and hay-like, rather than floral.

It’s really only since coming to the process of distillation that I’ve become so very intrigued as to which parts of plants aromas truly emanate from - before it was a cursory, perhaps imagined (and so very possibly wrongly imagined) vague idea. There’s nothing like going through a process, step by step, to glean actual knowledge. In the instance of Vetiver, its grass-like leaves carry no hint of scent (although this is something I’d like to explore further, for I’ve read where in India, blinds are woven from the grass and sprayed with water so when catching a hot breeze, they emanate a fresh and cooling aroma - (do you think there’s any chance I might find some time to start weaving a blind?????).

Anyway, be sensible Mickey! And so it was that when I discovered I could buy a wee Vetiver grass online and have it posted, I did. With no idea where to plant it, but knowing I wanted to experiment with olfactory purpose in mind, I decided to pop it into the corner of the Field, as knowing I’d ultimately have to dig it up, it made no sense to place it somewhere for longterm visual impact and where digging it up might upset companions. I had a vague idea of running a swathe of it across the end of the Field; and part of me is still tempted, but I’ve long hesitated because I don’t want the Field to look in any way ‘finished’ or proper or to take on any sense of formality - I love that there’s nothing but a barbed wire fence to keep the cattle out and there’s a clear view to the eucalypts beyond…if I planted a row of Vetiver, it would make a long and solid barrier, creating a sense of enclosure and structure. Anyway…maybe I’ve left my run a bit late if I wanted to do it! (Or not!). So there the clump has sat. It grew quite fast; the cows often chomp it from behind when doing their stint in their cell-grazing sequence, and I’ve not bothered to stress.

So….earlier this week, having done some research, I thought to dig it up, which I should have done a couple, if not three years ago…(best results apparently with two year old plants!). But it is an experiment and better late than never; and more easily said than done…I can now see why two year old plants are suggested! And it would be easier if it was in one of the Field ‘rows’!

I was keen to get a move on with it…part excitement, part lack of time (I wasn’t having a ‘gardening’ day and was inappropriately dressed - I do hate that - can’t work at my desk in gardening clothes, can’t garden in desk clothes!), so I called Thalia down to help. We cut the grass off the top in order to have better access to the root ball, and then we were left with a blob. At first I tried plunging in around the roots with the digging fork. And then the mattock. And then the fork again, which broke! Thalia went off to get the spade and made a good attempt at cutting a circle around its base. She managed to loosen some soil around the drip line. We tried to get the digging bar underneath to see if we could gain any purchase. “What about watering it?” Thalia suggested. “Good idea…we’ll come back tomorrow!” I said. But in the meantime, because I couldn’t resist…I did go and find my gardening jeans and shirt, told Clemmie what I was up to and the two of us spent the next hour sifting through the soil we had managed to dislodge and picked out as many Vetiver roots as we could find. Which amounted to a good many more than I imagined!

And so this is my big excitement of the week! A mound of Vetiver root and you should smell the Dairy!

As this is as far as I’ve got, the rest of the story will have to wait. Watering did help enormously, and after two days, Thalia did manage to dislodge the entire root ball, so I hope to turn the entire thing out on its head this weekend and tease out as many roots as I possibly can (whilst also cutting out some to replant). Apparently one is meant to dry the roots for a few days before then soaking prior to distillation. And although one needs kilos of the substance to produce any Vetiver Essential Oil, as the oil has never been my priority and I’m content with Botanical Water (hydrosol), I think I’ll have more than enough for a batch to distill its essence into a water…Eau de Vetiver. It will be a first for me…so I’ll keep you posted!

Another reason for crawling around in the dirt this week was a beautiful drop of Cape Gooseberries! Although I rather wish one could pick them from their stems, whilst you might get the odd one or two this way, you’re more likely to glean a bounty by crawling around under the sprawling tangle of foliage. And my it’s worth the effort! I’ve only eaten a couple raw, and will pop the rest of this lot out of their delicately veined, papery shells and bake them in the oven with a drizzle of olive oil. Might save just enough so each participant can taste one at our upcoming workshop! And I have my fingers crossed this is only the first drop. They are so delicious - those who know them are obsessed and in a good year I’m happy to share them around. Last year I think we had none, and they are a most maddening plant - they never grow where you want them to, and so when I see one, I leave it to its own devices - they take themselves to where they want to go, and one has no choice but to go with their flow.

I’m thrilled to bits with the rate of garlic germination. Two weeks on (tomorrow) I think I may have 100% success (shhhhhhh….don’t want to jinx them!).

And the same can be said for the broad beans. Goodness I had to laugh…when explaining the pattern of five in which I sow my broad bean seeds inside their structures for best support once they mature, to Edwina Bartholomew the other day, I didn’t realise she was filming…and the clip she uploaded to insta showed me counting to five…with the delight of a five year old! Which I was! How I hope you’ve got your broad beans sown in similar fashion by now. The rate of growth here has been exponential and I’ll need to tie the cross bars onto the main structure this weekend, before it’s too late. I noticed this week, that spring broad beans are on the menu in Europe…how delish. I can’t wait ‘til ours reach tip-pinching time for that first hint of broad bean flavour here…but that will be a few months off yet.

Do you remember when after a storm some weeks ago, I had to stake the heavily foliaged stems of Jerusalem artichokes, topped with their golden yellow, daisy-like flowers? At the time I said my temporary fix needn’t be for too long as, tho it was a shame as up ‘til that point they’d made such a breathtaking vision in summer height and substance; but once they flower, they’re on a one way passage. It’s important though, to allow them to retreat slowly, their leaves to crumple, their stems to brown off. Well…their time has come! Leaning heavily windward now, I am itching to free them from those tall bamboo canes and cut them down to knee height and…to dig the very first tubers of the season. Tomorrow…

Mid-week, I unexpectedly discovered a pair of Feijoas, Pineapple Guava, on the ground beneath the shrub I’ve been patiently training into a mound-like shape next to the cubby house, these last five years or so. Although I’d noticed the flowers at the time, I truly hadn’t seen any fruit developing at all, even when I gave it a light trim a few weeks ago; so you can imagine my surprise when this pair appeared seemingly, from nowhere. And then three more! I can’t recall ever eating one before, and tho I’m not sure I’d go out of my way to do so, well…clearly some peeps are obsessed! A little bit Kiwi like…but throw in a more tropical flavour. Hmmm… Anyway, I know they can be used in cooking, but I’d need more than five, so…they’ve made an interesting addition to this week’s fruit component on our plates!

How the waters are shimmering down at the dam…sparkling in the autumn sun - our (tongue-in-cheek!) ‘harbour view’. From the house the view has been partially obscured by dense foliage all summer long, but now the trees are losing their leaves, it’s almost as if the dam has crept closer…it feels enormous, its dazzling imminence almost reaching in through the kitchen window.

And it’s not only the waters shimmering here…but the autumn leaves in all their glory, despite yesterday’s positively arctic blast of cold air and wind - I’m sure I’m not the only one on the eastern seaboard who went rushing to scour their cupboards for woolly knits and Ugg boots!

I wish you all a happy week ahead…one that keeps you toasty and warm!

Mickey x

Eating from the garden: Beans, aubergine, zucchini, tomato, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, red elk, rocket, garlic, kohl rabi (new). Figs, rhubarb, Cape gooseberry, feijoa. Basil, lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, nasturtium flowers, zucchini flowers, fennel fronds, pollen and seeds. Jerusalem artichokes!

Going / gone: beans, aubergine, figs, garlic (though I still have lots of tiddlies I’m working my way through)

Seed saving: Fennel, bean, parsnip, amaranth

Sowing: peas, broad beans, rocket, cima di rappa, coriander, ‘red elk’ mustard, chervil, dill, parsley, sweet peas

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohl rabi, fennel, radicchio, chicory, endive, leek, lettuce…stagger, stagger, stagger…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: likely the very last dahlia, roses, gardenia

Perfumes and aromas: rose, fig leaf, gardenia, nicotiana

Pruning and other: I was mostly in the kitchen garden…and have almost completed the seasonal planting and sowing. This weekend, I hope to add compost and mulch to the strips to either side of the apple tunnel, and the south-facing companion beds. I’m longing to snip some of the ornamental shrubs - in particular the Heliotrope. Thinking we would be going to market, I allowed some things a longer flowering than I usually would and now of course, they’re paying the price…too leggy…so my fingers are itching to pick up the secateurs and get them back into shape. Thalia’s been weeding and adding mulch to trees in the Park and Persimmon lawn.

When one is attuned to the signs, in unison with the season; blotting out the wider world and instead immersing in the one that sustains us…the real cycle of life is revealed; unfolding before our very eyes, prompting and encouraging us to act, entirely of its own accord. “Look!” This single expectant clove, emerging from a plump head of papery garlic seemed to be saying… “It’s time…”

Of course after all these years, I knew the timing would be right, but even so I find it reassuring to see a visible sign of proof! As ever, I’d already nominated Anzac Day as garlic day, and down at the potting bench behind the hedge, with a view to my left over the old home paddock and out to the eucalypts beyond, I went quietly about separating the largest cloves from the largest heads saved from last year’s crop. Separating is a time consuming task, with each head prised gently apart, leaving me with a pile of tiddlies to use in the kitchen - the inner cloves that infill the space between the larger ones within the whole head. I don’t mind the extra fiddly work removing their papery shells from the tiny ones involves when I’m not in a hurry…and am grateful for all the smaller ones that will provide garlic for us to eat, for many weeks ahead.

If I can, I always aim to complete the separating part of the task before lunch on garlic day…before the sun makes its way around to that spot that makes such a welcome sun-trap on wintery afternoons…

Then I can spend the afternoon on hands and knees, gradually making my way across the nominated bed, sowing one row at a time, using my string line to keep me on the straight and narrow and backfilling as I go. To my delight, this time I sowed a total of 300 cloves! What a thing of satisfaction…committing seeds to the earth, each filled with hope and promise for the future, for there lies now, what will be a significant contributor to our future diet; a kitchen staple throughout next summer, autumn and early winter.

Given the news I shared a few weeks back…of course I was mulling over what on earth I was actually doing, the entire time; for we’ve been procrastinating over the timing of our own personal decision to release Glenmore on to the market ever since. Although we still hadn’t decided last weekend; with every clove of garlic I committed to the earth, I had a feeling I was kicking the can down the road. And so it is, given the ugly current world situation, that we’ve agreed…to hold off the marketing campaign ‘til the spring. It seems the only sensible thing to do. I’m not sure I’ve quite digested this decision yet (made only last night) but…it’s not like we urgently have any other place to be. And so…unless some random person pops up to make their bid in the meantime, we envisage something different to what we originally had in mind…a spring (rather than a late summer/early autumn) campaign.

You can hardly expect me to go now that I’ve buried the garlic in the ground, can you? And…it’s already beginning to germinate!

It’s time now too, to have this beauty of the season on our plates! I know I’ve given you the recipe (such as it is) for this Torta di Melanzane before; but honestly? Slice whatever aubergines you have - in this case I had two medium’ish sized ones (the larger, full-bodied rather than the narrow variety work best for this) and gently fry off each slice in olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt - don’t overdo the latter as you get a build-up. Then line a tin…in this case I used a very small but deep, round one, and layer the slices with the tiniest sprinkling of grated parmigiano between each slice - just enough to bind the slices together. Bake at about 180C for…maybe half an hour.

I made this one in advance…I was worried the pair I’d picked might go off (unforgivable given I’d grown them to perfection!), and fried the slices of aubergine one evening when I was making our dinner, then compiled and baked it, allowed it to cool and popped it in the fridge. On Saturday, when time came for lunch, I popped it in the oven about half an hour before and voila. Saturday’s lunch was done…and oh my…with a good dollop of hummus, a few tomatoes, a dollop too of fennel frond pistou…well…yum. Best autumn lunch!

In the same vein…the cake for this moment in the season must surely be the Sticky Ginger Syrup Cake? I’ve given you the recipe for that one before too…I’m nothing if not a creature of habit! But it feels just right for now…its colour, taste…truly is just the thing one wants a chunk of, after a bout on hands and knees, or bonfiring, or wielding secateurs; as well as if one happens to be expecting someone for a cuppa.

There wasn’t enough of it to go round though, for the next lot of expected visitors, and no sooner had I put away one lot of cups and saucers and cleared the kitchen of a lovely bake-off, I was at it again. This time shortbread (Aaron Bertelsen’s recipe as shared previously)…alongside the rest of the menu for a bus-tour of garden visitors.

How those days disappear in a whirl of activity - I don’t think anyone would quite believe the hours that go into such a ‘visit’ - nominally from 11am ‘til 1.15. But in fact such a visit means the entire previous day disappears in a frenzy of preparation - of picking and cooking and dishwashing and table-moving. The ‘morning-of’ will be exceedingly time-pressed. “Why are you setting your alarm so early?” Larry will say as I select 5am on getting into bed the night before; but experience tells me that every single second counts! And then once the group arrives, we take a (hopefully!) inspiring, conversational garden tour all around…before a jolly lunch at the long tables and before you know it…they’re back on the bus and it’s all done save the washing up…and backtracking and putting away; which I finally got done by about 6pm. All for 2 &1/4 hours! It’s quite bonkers really, if lovely. And how I do love meeting those folk…especially when they yield the occasional spritely 96 year old who still gardens, as one darling amongst this bunch certainly did!

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to persuade each of those visitors to sample an Elder berry alongside their welcome glass of Elder flower cordial - having both of them on display at the same time is something of a rarity…a seasonal anomaly. Peeps are always so intrigued to discover what the flowers look like (as well as the scale of the shrub itself once we get to that part of the garden); and what a lovely eye-popping, mouth-watering treat it was, to be able to share both ‘tastes’ the Elder provides at the same time!

In the last week or so I’ve begun to pop just one of these berries a morning - my little seasonal hit of vitamin C…and can’t help thinking how very generous it is of the berries to appear right when our immune systems need a boost. I do recall Anthia saying years ago though, something about not eating too many of them raw…so I just pop one a day, and as I explained to the group, we generally have few heads of berries here, as I’m inclined to pick the flowers to make cordial in the spring - one can’t have everything! Oh and how I prefer to take my vitamins directly from the garden…instead of taking them from something made by a pharmaceutical company!

The visitors also had a huge plate of garden beans from which to help themselves (alongside their pumpernickel soda bread, fennel frond pistou, chèvre, quiche and leafy salad). I always aim to have some little extra treat from the garden…but what oh what would it be this time? I knew I’d been accumulating rather a lot of beans during the previous week…more than we needed ourselves. But equally, would there be more coming for us? I needn’t have worried…I snapped this pic this morning, of another handful which I reckon should be ready just in time for dinner tomorrow night! So our visitors got to happily help themselves to a lovely mound of just-out-of-the-pan-and-drained garden beans, tossed in olive oil, a little sea salt and smattered with plump, fresh fennel seeds - the kind of combination only a garden can yield.

Remember last week I said I’d collect fig leaves for our mid-May Garden to Scent, Edible Aromatics workshop with Tahi? I have a crumpled collection now, all in the process of curling their edges, exposing their veins and as they do so, generously releasing their sweet, dusky aroma into the air.

And the roses I’ve been collecting by the day are taking on the most vivid shade of crimson-violet! Combined…the fig leaves and roses are slowly becoming the imprint of that anticipated day, though as ingredients, they will likely make only the tiniest component.

I did have to laugh on Sunday morning…well…at least once I got underway with such a classic long-weekend ‘situation’! The kind when one turns the garden tap to ‘on’ and nothing happens. Which sends Larry into one of those inevitable pump-investigation routines that occur from time to time - and as we joked…usually on some long weekend holiday when no professional is around to fix the problem. Whilst Larry might try (and often does manage to fix the stubborn thing), in this instance it was a no. So there was nothing for it, with so many newly germinated seedlings, but to find a way…any way, to give them water. And so it was that after beginning myself to fill a pair of cans from the water tank down the back, I got a relay going with Clemmie; for it is a rather time-consuming walk back up to the kitchen garden! And so we’d meet half way…me with the empty can, her with a newly filled one.

Not for the first time, did this fix my mind on ancient, gravity-fed water systems. It’s something I ponder a lot, a topic that lights my imagination, and one that I know one day, I will implement somewhere.

But it got me to thinking too, on just how differently the rose of a watering can, as opposed to the nozzle of a hose (no matter how one adjusts the ‘spray’) delivers water to the soil. The droplets delivered from a can come with weight in their volume…it’s a curious thing, and the overall result felt so much more thorough and satisfying (if not remotely possible on a daily basis!). I do sometimes wonder if the older I get, the more my passion for the simplicity of implements and concepts long past doesn’t strengthen. Time saving measures don’t necessarily deliver the best outcome and nor either, may they be so advantageous to our health or the environment. I was a bit surprised after this episode, that my arms and back weren’t screaming in agony, but no…instead I felt I’d used all my muscles to their best advantage! Live and learn…and always look on the bright side of life. (Oh dear…India is going to kill me…another ear-worm, but I couldn’t resist!).

The golden autumn light…that sets even the bleached aglow…

The dazzling colours - burnt orange and umbers, coppers and clarets that draw the eye with their beauty…

And the bounty that comes in by the basket day after day…

Have all contributed to a people, plant and food-fuelled week..just the way I like it…

I hope it’s been a good week in your world.

With warmest wishes

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Beans, aubergine, zucchini, tomato, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, red elk, rocket, garlic. Figs, rhubarb. Basil, lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, nasturtium flowers, zucchini flowers.

Going / gone: onions, garlic, cucumber

Seed saving: Fennel, bean, parsnip, amaranth

Sowing: GARLIC (if you haven’t yet done it…this weekend), peas, broad beans, rocket, cima di rappa, coriander, ‘red elk’ mustard, chervil, dill, parsley, sweet peas

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohl rabi, fennel, radicchio, chicory, endive, leek, lettuce…stagger, stagger, stagger…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias (but they’re on their last legs now), roses, gardenia

Perfumes and aromas: rose, fig leaf, gardenia. I love how the scent of nicotiana (Nicotiana sylvestris) floats on the dawn and dusk air…not that I enjoy the dawn air every day, but it hangs around longer than one might expect and is certainly on high volume when comes time to raise the chickens’ drawbridge in the evenings…

Pruning and other: a tidy-up of the courtyard pots, a trim to the Port Wine Magnolias, a little rose training against buildings. We had the hedge man in to give a light trim - this time to the hedge below the kitchen garden and the one in the drying green, which will get them through ‘til the spring; and given I’ve been cooking and washing up all week, I asked Thalia to scrape back the mulch at each fig tree, add a layer of compost and replace the mulch…then do the same around the other orchard trees for…I want to sow poppy seeds this weekend! It’s time…

I’m bringing you the small things today…for they surely seem to be the ones filled with most hope and promise (as a kind of unilateral sense of dis-ease otherwise permeates every decision and conversation). So let’s double-down here instead on the beauty, the tiny eruptions of hope. For that’s what’s been happening here day after day, in some instances almost hour by hour, down deep in the garden - as from beneath the soil’s surface, germinating seeds erupt from their casings and prise apart the thin layer of compost above their burgeoning form. I wonder if (I imagine there must be a way with some clever David Attenborough’esque style technology perhaps?) that initial, somewhat speedy growth spurt is accompanied by a sound inaudible to the human ear…as those sturdy, stubby stems already surrounded by leaves ready to unfurl, surge upwards.

For this…is the week of broad bean germination! Just two days ago there was no sign, then yesterday morning I thought I could detect a slight break in the dark surface of the compost into which I’d plunged one of those seeds ten days ago, just the hint of a crack as I carried out the morning watering. By evening, there were several such fractures and at the first, the merest speck of green, where I’d noticed that first fissure. But was it a weed or the first sign of an emerging broad bean? By next morning, there was no question…the annual broad bean eruption had begun - yip-eeeeeee!! It isn’t finished - there are still a handful missing, but hopefully over the coming days, they too will appear, and phase one of one of my favourite crops of all will be apparent for all to see! Oh so much hope there is, held in those newly-exposed shoots of green.

Carrot seeds…I’m sure there can be nothing more tiny yet filled with hope, that I can possibly bring you. Carrot seed heads have long fascinated me - ever since I mistakenly left several carrots in the ground for too long, so many moons ago, and was so delighted at the discovery of their flowers that burst into delicate umbellifer form. That was back in the years of great garden learning, and I’ve never been without carrot flowers through the spring and summer months here again - I allow hundreds to self-sow and add a few more for good measure; just in case they don’t happen to do it by themselves! I noticed a good swathe coming up last weekend - a sure indicator to throw some more around from the heads I have in store.

Although I sow the carrot seeds with a future romantic vision in mind, I do it also for the purpose that they are particularly beneficial companions in the garden - I know no other flower that attracts quite so many ladybirds, who love to hide in the basket-like undercarriage; and not just when the carrots are in fresh flower, but as they travel through their drying phase as well. By chance, I had a rather delightful conversation with a complete stranger at the market last Saturday, as I collected the next batch of seedlings for my successional sowing schedule from my favourite grower, Patio Plants. Charles was experiencing an aphid problem - what could he do? Well…it won’t help him this season but, I suggested he go and buy a packet of carrot seeds and toss them into his garden - no special prep, certainly not in his most rich spot of earth, in fact they may be more likely to ‘take’ in a path, I suggested; and encouraged him to allow them, once germinated, to travel through their full journey - from seed to flower and onto seed again. Hopefully it will be the beginning of a new cycle of gardening for Charles - of course, he may not particularly like the carrot flower effect - it may be too whimsical and romantic, after all, I don’t know him or his garden, but he seemed to me the kind of man who would consider these things with both sensibility and efficiency, and if he just lets them flower once, I’m sure he’ll figure out how best to make these beneficial flowers work for him…and his aphid infestation in the future!

A couple of days ago a lovely bout of unexpected spontaneity kicked in. During the preparation for release of an upcoming event, I always spend an inordinate amount of time at my desk - trying to shape an idea, to bring it to life by means of clearly conveying the magic of how a day will unfold, with practical alongside emotive information. And when collaborating with someone (in this case lovely Tahi Cody of Pachamama Remedies) it’s so important to weave their vision together with mine, so that in the end, the day we collectively bring to bear will be more than we (or our participants!) could have imagined in our minds eye.

Words aside, an image is always required to convey the expectation; which can be easy when that guest has held a previous workshop here; but when they haven’t, gosh conveying what the day will hold in a single image is something over which I procrastinate! Whilst I have thousands of images; and Tahi is a long-time repeat visitor, none of them were quite right…and so in the end I decided for this particular newsletter release, to use the bright image of a fennel flower at its vibrant pollen stage…one that suggested the kind of vital energy I know that day will bring - alongside the fact those flowers will be a key ingredient in our topic as well as on our our tongues, as we’ll be exploring: Garden to Scent, Edible Aromatics.

With all the ‘i’s’ dotted and ‘t’s crossed, I felt energised at the prospect of our proposed day, whilst also realising the garden is well and truly on the turn now…cruising into autumn proper. And so whilst there will be plenty of aromatic edibles for our ‘taste’ component; signs of obvious ‘scent’ will be on the wane. How I love these kinds of challenges - the kind that extend thinking and possibility. And I know Tahi does too - kindred olfactory spirits that we are! I’ve since had so many thoughts beyond those we’ve anticipated - all of them seasonal touchstones for both our participants’ taste and olfactive senses to explore on the day and am so excited I can hardly contain my anticipation!

As you might imagine, all this sent me into a flurry. I realised one of those key intoxicating, autumnal olfactive delights will be that of dried fig leaves; so off I went in search - and plucked a half dozen as a reminder to go back at the weekend to collect more. Although scrunching a fresh leaf yields that beautiful dusky, figgy aroma; by Sunday 17 May there’s a chance they’ll all have fallen to the ground and have commenced their path to disintegration! Whereas if I lay them all out on a wicker tray for airflow now, they should dehydrate and crinkle in a very pleasing way. Those of you who have been reading along here awhile will remember when I did this last year and filled the big cachepot in the Sitting Room with my haul, where for months they remained, filling the old house with their evocative aroma. When on a whim I needed to replace them with something fresh (they’d gone a bit flat and lost their colour), in haste I moved them to this glass vase - empty receptacle as it was in the moment, sitting on the bench in the laundry which is the only place I can find to store this big beauty; and ever since they’ve continued to fill that space with their comforting aroma that becomes more or less pungent, depending on the weather.

But then there was more! Realising that the abundance of fresh roses Tahi is used to seeing on her visits here are unlikely to be quite so profuse in mid-May, I flew into action…trug and secateurs in hand, to the Field.

Thanks to all that Easter rose-work, there’s a lovely new flush on some of the shrubs; in particular the Rugosa rose ‘Sarah van Fleet’. Long an absolute favourite, I could never be without her - those flat, clear pink blooms that have a slightly crumpled effect just make my heart melt; and the open habit that exposes her pollen-laden, central stamens makes her a favourite with the bees too. Whilst I always work with fresh flowers for distillation, I know Tahi has some other ideas up her sleeve for our workshop, and I’m thinking a collection of dried roses could well make a welcome contribution to her ingredients.

With hitherto only two days collecting, and so only a couple of dozen flowers; when I opened the door to that huge, white, airy Dairy space this morning after collecting for a third morning in a row; the mellifluous rosy odour that greeted me was almost overwhelming. What a surprise. If I was not in an ‘event planning’ mode of mind, I might not have bothered to pick these ones…as in the general day-to-day of things, these roses tend to come and go - delighting where they stand but otherwise, as that long-ago person of whom I enquired the name of this enchanting rose at her vineyard gate told me “she’s not a picking rose”. At the time I found her remark rather brusque and uncalled for - after all, I’d simply enquired as to the name because I thought she was so beautiful. Of course you can pick her…but her flower clusters do form atop heavily thorn’d stems - and tend to open one at a time in the cluster, so perhaps better to say she’s not an ideal picking rose for a vase!

Anyway, the fig/rose combination has brought some very simple, pure and utter delight these last days and I cannot wait to share all of this with our participants on Sunday 17 May!

What’s going on here? Well may you ask! When Clemmie asked me to help her retrieve a specially-made box from the back of the car, I hadn’t quite envisioned this coffin-like scenario! Just as when she asked if I could please help her to pack all her ‘costumes’ my first reaction was to wonder why she couldn’t do it herself…but nothing here, is ever quite that simple! As soon as I saw the pile of multiple plastic-wrapped bundles (for protection from the dry cleaner for their journey home) of costume-bearing coat-hangers, I could see why…

And so it was that most of yesterday (along with my own intentions) disappeared in a sea of acid-free tissue paper, as character after character (after too many years left languishing in cupboards) was carefully positioned and gradually swallowed up in the big, sturdy box. Each component (from corsets and petticoats, trousers and bloomers, waitstcoats and bodices, to crinolines and weighty coats) of each costume a reminder…of seeds of ideas hatched; followed by weeks and months of relentless sourcing, learning, stitching and making; each with their own tale to tell, from frustration to fruition.

For the most part, they are but memories now; where buttons of bone and mother of pearl meet ribbons, fine linens, hemp and raw silk, horsehair and raffia, eyelets and leather, strings and yarns, skins and inks and detailed depictions applied with a paint brush.

Packing away is inevitably a time for reflection…Clemmie’s different to mine - mine as bystander, ideas bouncer and at times procurer (where do you think those palm inflorences for the Fanny Macleay headdress came from?! Luckily this was before the UK cracked down on natural materials going into the country and on that occasion, I could pack very few items of clothing into my suitcase!). Each of those costumes carries a memory for everyone involved. Will they ever see the light of day again? Who knows? But for now, they’ve been professionally cleaned and now they’re safely stored. Just thinking about these ones from Clemmie’s ‘Botanical Absurd’, which are almost the earliest of her collection, tho later making an appearance roaming through and engaging with guests (with Clemmie inhabiting the costume of Georgiana Lowe on that occasion) the closing night of the ‘Australia’ exhibition at The Royal Academy in London; sent me on a hunt back through the old blog archive to revisit some of the magic of the time when they made their very first appearance. But now, for everyone I reckon…it’s time to move on.

With Anzac Day tomorrow…you all know what’s on my agenda…I’ll be sowing the garlic! It’s a long tradition here now and I can’t believe we’ve already reached this time of year…so I’ll be separating the cloves, the large from the small and plunging them row by row into the ready-prepared earth.

However (for those of you on these shores) you choose to remember and reflect on Anzac Day, I wish you a happy long weekend; whereas for others of you - I know spring is springing and I hope it’s beginning to unfurl in your part of the world beautifully.

With warmest wishes

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Beans, aubergine, zucchini, tomato, cucumber, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, red elk, rocket, garlic. Figs, rhubarb. Basil, lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, nasturtium flowers, zucchini flowers.

Going / gone: onions, garlic, cucumber, pears

Seed saving: Fennel, bean, parsnip, amaranth

Sowing: GARLIC, peas, broad beans, rocket, cima di rappa, coriander, ‘red elk’ mustard, chervil, dill, parsley, sweet peas

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohl rabi, fennel, radicchio, chicory, endive, leek, lettuce…stagger, stagger, stagger…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias, roses, gardenia, ginger

Perfumes and aromas: rose, fig leaf, gardenia. I love how the scent of nicotiana (Nicotiana sylvestris) floats on the dawn and dusk air…not that I enjoy the dawn air every day, but it hangs around longer than one might expect and is certainly on high volume when comes time to raise the chickens’ drawbridge in the evenings…

Pruning and other: as intended, I took to the pair of the Philadelphus I cut back hard the previous weekend, and followed on with a good cut to the Saltbush and a neat trim to the Salvia ‘africana-lutea’ - both specimens I’d planted to form loose balls of foliage in the Barn Garden and after a good many years, have developed into the kind of size I was hoping for (not so the apricot flowering oleanders behind them which are being so dreadfully slow!). I took next to the Feijoa (pineapple guava) next to the cubby house which at last is also developing into a more sturdy size, and cut out a huge chunk of old honeysuckle that was weighing down new shoots that have the freedom now to take off once again over the cubby house roof. I attended to other storm/heat cycle growth had got away…the curry plant in the Arc had all but turned up its toes, but in alleviating that old plant of its dead section, the new can spring into action.

Oh…and I tidied up the Potting Shed! What a job!!!! It always makes me think of Mary Poppins suggesting the children “tidy up the nursery”.

The minute I hit ‘send’ last week, I realised I’d meant to say that Enid laid an egg! How could I forget to tell you? Part of me had been thinking how fun it would be if the first egg appeared on Easter Sunday, but that auspicious day came and went…eggless. Surely soon? I’d been thinking. Then on Thursday last week, there it was - the very first egg from this new pair of chooks. She hasn’t laid every day since, but she has laid half a dozen and yesterday’s was a very good size! She’s leaving Mabel far behind on the laying front - poor darling, her comb is yet to fill out, and I suspect she’s feeling a bit inadequate. Funny how pairs of chooks always seem to be this way…one more bossy, the other meek, one advanced, the other slow…although I’m glad to note that Mabel is getting in quickly to take her fair share of whatever I toss to them, over the fence…so Enid isn’t quite ruling the roost entirely!

And funny too, how just having the pair there (where we’ve been without chooks for quite some time) can put such a different spin on the way one looks at what is a likely a pest problem in the edible garden; for this is the prime time for white cabbage moth infestation. With a good many of the brasssica crop growing on, and those white moths at their most prolific (they favour laying their eggs on those oft crinkly, grey/green leaves that need to get a move on in their growth so they’re ready for us to eat when the first frosts arrive) at first I was thinking damn…I’m back to rubbing off their tiny yellow eggs with my finger - and checking leaves morning and night; but of course it’s impossible to get them all and anyway, easier to pick off the green caterpillars that soon emerge. At first I was being vigilant - rubbing off tiny caterpillars, but having missed a few, it’s much easier to pick them off when they’re just a bit bigger, and inclined to place themselves on the central rib of a leaf - where they’re easier to see! Of course the fact they’re larger means they’ve been nibbling holes in the leaves…but at this stage, as long as the overall plant is developing a healthy root system so it’s ready to leap ahead, when the moths are wiped out by a frost, and the time is right for us to incorporate these winter beauties into our diet, that’s OK. A hole is just a hole and anyway…it makes no difference when you eat it!

But the point of this is…whereas a week ago I was rubbing off tiny caterpillars which is fiddly and annoying…this week I’m only checking once a day - allowing them to fatten up just a bit more on those precious leaves, which means the chooks get a more filling treat! By now I’m almost disappointed if there are no caterpillars to toss to Enid and Mabel and I can see their disappointment too, if I emerge empty handed from the bed directly opposite their enclosure. As soon as they see me, they rush to the gate, watching eagerly to see if I’m heading to that particular spot where the brassicas grow, and no doubt to see if I’m bending over - a sure sign something might be coming their way! From my perspective I reckon the more plump caterpillars I feed them, and the more leaves I give them from the garden, the better their eggs will be - and as we are the ones eating the eggs, why would I not go to the trouble? If you’re now wondering how on earth I have the time….let’s say it’s just a 2 - 3 minute exercise - 5 at most! And I might pop down there to stretch my legs after a stint at the computer when my bottom’s gone numb…so there’s a stretch for me, a treat for the chooks, and another leaf saved from holes!

After the last fortnight of visitors and events, it’s been a more domestic week here (perhaps hence the reason I’ve been able to devote those minutes to picking off caterpillars!). How I do love those visitors and events, but how they cause the household to get completely out of control! And so it was, that the line I used in a recent newsletter, releasing our upcoming ‘A Good Drying Day’ workshop with Matilda Dumas, came to fruition in all honesty; as late afternoon sun filtered into the kitchen, I did indeed have a pan simmering on the cooktop; a basket of sunbaked washing from the line, as well as a basket of just-picked veg, herbs and flowers all within reach of each other…my trifecta, if you like, of domestic bliss!

I’m silly excited about this painting workshop coming up with Til! I’d hesitated to ask her for so long if she might be tempted to run such a day, but I adore her series of washing line paintings. I know washing doesn’t always look aesthetically pleasing…and much prefer my line when it has all the napkins and favourite tea towels, and a tablecloth perhaps, flapping in the breeze, compared to one with all our work clothes! But as with all things in life, the good, the bad and the ugly do tend to balance out! And how I love an old-fashioned, country clothes line. We have too much washing for a simple, forked branch between the trees, as depicted in Til’s painting above, but our line is the old-fashioned kind, with wires strung taught between cross-bars attached to two round, upright timber poles, and a chain at each end, that enables the ‘lines’ to be tilted up, or down.

If I recall correctly, I had no say in the placement of our washing line here! It was something of a fait accompli. For we’d landed full time at Glenmore rather unexpectedly (at the beginning of that recession that, according to our then Prime Minister, we apparently had to have). Clemmie was just six weeks old and hitherto, we’d only got as far as thinking about life at Glenmore as a ‘maybe’…having only just got the house restored to a stage where we could spend the weekend, just a few short months prior to Clemmie’s arrival. There was no kitchen and most definitely no laundry! We only had hot water in the recently installed upstairs bathroom, to where I know I’ve mentioned over and over…I had to take a bucket to fill if I needed more ‘hot’ than a kettle could boil.

So finding ourselves rather unceremoniously living here full time; and with no hope of installing either a kitchen or laundry of any kind in the foreseeable future; we thought to put the washing machine down in the old separating shed, which was the only other building aside from the very basic (at that stage) house, that was vaguely enclosed and capable of holding a power point and that we might plumb for water and drainage. Even so…it was impossible to keep it clean - attached as it was to the old Dairy, that was in its original, deplorable state.

Of course though, I also needed a washing line…and quickly…especially given I refused to use disposable nappies. In his wisdom (I ask you?) Larry and one of the very dear, early locals who helped us out with fencing and the like, decided to erect one for me…in the paddock…out the far side of the old cattle yard behind the Dairy. I mean honestly…just what they were thinking I have no idea! And pleased as punch they were with themselves too! The whole thing was so far from the house - already the washing machine was miles from the back door (with its not-very-well-balanced pair of rocks that made for a pair of steps down to ground level) and from there a swathe of bare earth had to be crossed to get to the machine. Now the line was another goodness knows how far to reach! I needed to push the pram over a rocky path with one hand and hold the fully laden basket on my hip with the other…the entire process a palava and a half! (Especially for that city girl I once was…and new mother at that!).

But…oh the things one gets used to. And there the line has stayed all these years, as the kitchen garden came to be on top of that old cattle yard, as the hedges grew and the potting shed was erected of salvaged materials, the compost bays came to be and over the years I gradually ‘stole back’ the edges of the ‘lawn’ in which the line sat (no such thing as lawn here - its all just mowed paddock!) for overflow ‘main crops’ in addition to the kitchen garden proper. In fact that entire area we call the Drying Green is the hub of all garden activity here; and since the rest of the garden has grown to maturity, and paths and fences have aged to seem as if they’ve always been here; it’s a very long time since I’ve considered the washing line to be ‘all the way down there’! Its position gives me cause to walk further (I much prefer to take my exercise with purpose); it gives my mind time to rest and…that line catches both good sun and even the most gentle of breezes. And so…I forgave those pair for any grievance I may have carried in those early years a long time ago!

I can’t wait to see how participants capture the line…if they include the immediate veg growing beds, the elder in berry, the eucalypts in the near distance that rustle in the breeze and sparkle in the sunlight; the shadows cast by whatever garments or fragments of textile we hang, the old stump placed to hold the basket at rest, the peg bag that hangs on a steel pin, the chain…or perhaps they may choose to look from the other side, back towards the potting shed. All I do know, is that each and every work will be completely different - they always are. I love Til’s painting workshops here - this will make three I think, as well as other fun events we’ve collaborated on over the years. I can’t help but wonder if it may be the last…

The surprises this week have come in the form of pumpkins! As the giant leaves begin to wither away, fruit of all different shape, pattern and size are being revealed - a single here, a clutch of three in close proximity there…some are still very new and small and hidden, a couple of such a size and colour that I’m almost tempted to tap their bottoms to see if they might be ready to eat. Not that I want to eat them quite yet…I don’t feel like pumpkin weather has quite arrived. Maybe in tandem with Til’s washing line day at the end of May?

Whereas the tomatoes continue to trickle onto our plates, and the ripening of each large one is awaited with such anticipation…it takes so long I feel almost inclined to saddle them with individual names! To date, the largest have been the Oxhearts and my have they been dense of flesh and sweetly rich to taste. Although there are more on board to come, I feel the Oxhearts will run their course, whereas the Hungarian Hearts, my favourites of all, are only just beginning to get a wriggle on. This one, just beginning to show a flushed cheek, will be the first of the season. To think I sowed the seed in July last year! Tomatoes really are a very longterm prospect. Our crop is generally quite late in the scheme of things - whether because of the particular varieties I choose to grow, or because of our very own micro-climate, who can say? I have no problem with their timing - we eat in tandem with the garden - what it yields is what we eat - nothing is prescribed.

I’ve baked trays and trays of San Marzano’s, picked from their traditional stakes down the back and frozen so we’ll have plenty of sticky, rich tomatoes to get us through the winter months (I’ve long found this works well…and for someone who doesn’t particularly like to freeze things, that’s saying something!). Equally…I did freeze the leaves of what looked to be the most enormous mound of Warrigal greens at the weekend - this is where gardening and cooking trip over each other: the self-sown greens had become so prolific in the old raspberry cage where I have the late-sown beans growing, and with the beans now in full production it was becoming impossible to not tread on the fulsome green leaves! So…I picked the best of the long stems with the most luscious looking leaves, then chopped & dropped the rest - where they are now acting as a layer of protection to the soil from my regular footsteps as I gather beans morning and night. But the mountain of beautiful leaves were picked from the stems and blanched in batches, drained, and squeezed into balls all laid out on the bench to dry further, before popping them into a container to freeze (with a sheet of greaseproof paper between each layer). I know they’ll be useful on some cold, dark night when I miss the opportunity to pick! And I couldn’t bare the idea of wasting them…

But back to the trickles! An unexpected tomato vine sprang up under the shade canopy between the leafy greens early in the summer season. Whilst I wouldn’t have planted it there, neither could I bring myself to pull it out, and so as the weeks passed, at first I gave it one stake, and then two…in an attempt to persuade it to gradually grow towards the upright supports of the shade canopy. And now that it’s made its way successfully to both one corner and the centre supports I’m tying strings to coax new lateral branches up and away as well. You can see it’s reached the bamboo rod that’s holding the canopy in place, and so now I’ll train it along there too…my plan is to keep it going for as long as I possibly can…

Because how Larry loves to pick at a plate of sweet, little tomatoes on the kitchen bench!

Remember how I said I was going to sow the broad beans last weekend? I did exactly as suggested…first setting the seeds to soak in water, then sieving a barrow load of compost; and one section at a time, beginning at the far end of the frame; I first gently forked the summer-hardened soil before adding compost, then mulch, then making my five spaces in the mulch and sowing a seed into each, before retreating into the next section…gradually backing my way out of this long frame of what will be four individual sections, and giving it a good water. As there’s been no rain this week and the days have been quite hot, I’ve given them a sprinkle each morning too, as I don’t want the soil to dry out, though I’m cautious too, as I don’t want the seed to rot. So now we must wait and see…with fingers and toes crossed! And I’ll tie on the cross bars when I have a minute…as I often say - the living comes before the inanimate! And not having the cross bars on yet will make not one iota of difference to the germination of the bean seeds…and the longer I leave it, the easier it will be to have access to each side of the structure - as the zucchini to one side and aubergines to the other, gradually lose their will to continue production as the weather inevitably cools.

And then I got to giving the peas a little support…a pea stick each, up which to latch on with newly forming tendrils that should guide them to the wigwam rods, as well as a collection of cylinders to each structure - a kind of Fort Knox against the Bower birds! I don’t want to jinx my luck, and I know those birds are still around - I’ve heard them and saw one this morning, but…so far so good. Last winter they seemed to disappear for a while and I’m hoping they might do the same this year, to give my peas a chance.

Just this morning, I noticed the Navel oranges are beginning to show a tinge of colour! We generally don’t begin eating them ‘til June…the longer on the tree, the sweeter their juice will be, but along with the berries developing on the Elder (just one, is my daily little hit of Vitamin C), it’s a sure sign the season is on the move.

We had a trickle too, of Meyer lemons come in this week - I touched one on the branch to see if it might be ready…and half a dozen promptly fell to the ground…what a windfall! It will be months before the Lisbons join in, but a handful of lemons is always welcome in the kitchen.

And another clutch of figs! Oh those luscious beauties…I’m tempted to think this has been the best season ever. It was a shame they took a little recess over Easter, though Emiko brought some (a different variety!) from her Mum’s tree in Canberra to incorporate into her Focaccia, but I’ve had sporadic bursts of fruit in the days since…which makes me think…I ought to go and have another look…I’d hate to miss one!

And I’ll leave you with a Zinnia. They’re few and far between this year, which is unusual…while the Dahlias are so abundant the kitchen looks like a crazed flower shop! I’ve written at such length about Zinnias in the past…I’m sure there’s no need to repeat, but isn’t this a beauty? Her inner crown of fairy flowers have yet to fully open but oh the saturated colour of those petals!

Wishing you all a very happy weekend and week ahead.

Warmest wishes

Mickey x

ps I’m still discovering messages from some of you in response to the Big little news a few weeks ago, that very annoyingly went to my ‘junk’ box. Most of you choose to hit ‘reply’ to this email, rather than selecting ‘comment’ in the app - in fact you pretty much all do! Which means I receive (usually) your messages in my inbox…and the thread conjoins them all which can make it tricky to unpick them all! I also know some went missing altogether last week which is maddening. So if I haven’t responded (I’m almost 100% sure I’ve replied to everyone now), please let me know - I don’t mean to ignore you.

Eating from the garden:

Beans, aubergine, zucchini, tomato, cucumber, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, red elk as micro-greens, rocket, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Figs, rhubarb. Basil, lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, nasturtium flowers, zucchini flowers. We ate the quince!

Going / gone: onions…beginning to run very low on stores and they’re beginning to shoot, cucumbers, pears (I’ve taken figs off this list as there seem to be more on the way again!)

Seed saving: Fennel, bean, parsnip, amaranth

Sowing: peas, broad beans, rocket, cima di rappa, coriander, ‘red elk’ mustard, chervil, dill, parsley. You all know by now I usually wait for Anzac Day to sow my cloves of garlic, but of course you can do it any time now and also…Sweet Peas

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohl rabi, fennel, radicchio, chicory, endive, leek, lettuce…stagger, stagger, stagger…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias, roses, gardenia, ginger

Perfumes and aromas: rose, fig leaf, gardenia, nicotiana and the night-scented Jessamine has been in flush again this week

Pruning and other: I could wait not a minute longer to take my secateurs to the Philadelphus in the Barn Garden! What a vast amount of summer growth…far too much for the wheelbarrow, I carted it in unwieldy armloads down to the compost; and that was just one - I’ll tackle its ‘pair’ this weekend, though that one is much smaller. I asked Thalia to cut out much of the spent Macleaya and to remove the girth of the Dietes (not my favourite though it serves a purpose) in the Arc; trim up the lavender angustifolia outside the kitchen and remove spent stems of the shell-ginger from beside the bedroom wing. Otherwise it’s been lawn-gutter tidying - just to keep on top of things.

As ever, just where to begin today’s post is confounding, conflicting…torn. How can it be, I wonder, that the human spirit can be so filled with heartache and yet buoyed with possibility? To say I am utterly disgusted with world affairs is hardly strong enough a word…but if I go down that path here it will take me so off piste that by choice, I will focus instead on taking our minds away from the devastation that is plaguing our every tuned-in moment, for you sure don’t need me to amplify the situation. But before doing so, because this is not where my skillset lies, if (and I cannot imagine any one of us is not feeling ill at ease) you are in need of wise and reassuring words, alongside the blunt truth of the matter at hand, I encourage you to visit a thoughtfully written (though short) 13-part post that our dear friend Anthia Koullouros uploaded to her instagram yesterday. Anthia has a gift, as well as well-honed skills in expressing her vast knowledge alongside a deep sensitivity for humanity.

And so…let’s get down to a more hopeful and positive start…for the wider world aside, a sense of synergetic energy has seemingly permeated the days since I left you in such haste this time last week; and I wonder if you too, find that synergy plays a regular part in your life? It’s not something than can be predicted or forced. It isn’t always there, but when it is, synergy tends to come as a surprise and in the shape of small things for which one feels so very inclined to give thanks…(be they to one on high or into the ether). Synergy carries with it a thread of connectivity; if you follow the dots; potential, hope and positivity may ensue, or they may come to nought, but in the moment, at the very least they can bring some sense of reassurance and make you smile.

Let’s see if I can connect the synergy with the bounty and beauty for you as today’s challenge, as I recount this past week!

First, from the minute I collected Emiko from the station our conversation twisted and turned and toppled…her life in Italy, her girls, her current months with her family in Australia more extended than usual; (and since her last visit to Glenmore) her move from Florence to her now home and Cooking School in San Miniato and the Enoteca Marilu she runs with her husband Marco; as well as her more recently published books; all this alongside her proposed menu and set-up for the next day (I failed to get everything through the dishwasher before going to collect her, so in the end we did that together!), before making dinner while Emiko prepared the dough for the next morning’s Riccarelli, when somehow we got onto the topic of Greece. (I know I still owe paid subscribers at least one extra post and it’s to Greece we may go just as soon as I have a spare few hours!).

As Emiko regaled me with tales of a workshop run perhaps some ten years ago, around the same time she first came to Glenmore; little things she mentioned began to sound familiar. “Where was this workshop in Greece Emiko?” I asked. “On the island of Andros” she replied. “Not Melisses?” I asked. “Why yes!” she responded. Oh the sheer delight of such a discovery! How I have been searching for an excuse to take that Aegean-blue, stitch-patterned tea towel out of the cupboard! I didn’t expect the opportunity would arise from an Italian cooking workshop! So off I went to retrieve that folded memento, around which to lay our Good Friday supper, and from there we were enticingly prompted to reflect on the beautiful workshops and retreats that Allegra runs from her idyllic, Cycladic paradise. (Not that Larry and I participated in such an activity…but we did stay the first few nights of our Greek odyssey there last year, by way of acclimatising before Larry went off to complete his charity walk on the island of Crete). And in Allegra and all she pursues, oh my there is synergy! How I would love to go back there one day…and perhaps even take a handful of you along with me! Mind you…you’ll need to be brave to tackle that narrow, almost perpendicular, twisting track to get there…but you know…Emiko and we too, are still here to tell the tale…you just need to navigate with care! That Allegra is Italian, kind of brought the entire thing full circle. Such a small thing…such a wild connection (and that simple piece of cloth now carries so much more weight!). By the way, Allegra writes beautifully…I’ve given you the link to the Melisses website above, but here is the link too, to her Instagram…and from there you can dream! (By the way…Allegra knows not a thing about this peculiar set of serendipitous connections and as ever, I’m neither promoting or am sponsored by anyone! Or will I ever be…how that would impede any likelihood of serendipitous discovery…or honesty).

Time to relay something of our actual day! It began early…I was up at 5, mindful of so much preparation still needing to be done before everyone arrived, and wanting to make sure Emiko had nothing to worry about except being her delightful, gentle, knowledgeable and abundantly generous self.

Emiko presided over a bench that was constantly surrounded by eager, apron-clad participants…taking turns at making dough and pastry…mixing, kneading, rolling; as well as preparing fresh produce and breaking eggs…many eggs; all the while listening to Emiko regale us with tales and how-to’s; from history and recipes to modern day short-cuts.

We all went into the garden to pick…chicory, rocket, herbs and flowers, tasting as we went; and took such a spontaneous opportunity to learn how to prepare and cook the stems of a Cardoon. I cannot tell you how often I’m asked if I know how! I’ve been growing Cardoons as ornamental specimens in the Borders for years, where they contribute handsome clumps of large, heavily serrated, grey-green foliage that anchor more flighty companions. But they also have quite evil prickles, which have always deterred me from even contemplating eating them! So Emiko gave us a potted lesson on their use through culinary history (as well as her recognition of the shape of their leaves used as a decorative feature on the altar piece of the early Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta on the island of Torcello in the Venetian lagoon - now I’m going to have to go back there one day to have another look!).

With such conversation piquing everyone’s interest by then, my initial thought to ask Emiko to show us how to prepare one young leaf seemed pathetic; and whilst we were all gathered around, I noted a young plant at the back of the Border, at what I reckoned was probably the perfect stage of growth for edible purpose. What the hell, I thought…and went in and pulled it up by the roots - this was not an opportunity to be missed! (I’m sure another one will appear as they’re inclined to self-seed). And so it was, that as well as enjoying fiore fritti (deep fried flowers) we also got to taste Cardoon stems! And that…I believe, is what a seasonal and garden-led cooking workshop should be all about…

And then we ate…Focaccia con fischi (focaccia with figs and one with herbs), Insalata del Vendemmiatore (Sicilian Wine Harvest Salad), Torta Pasqualina (Ligurian Easter Pie) and Torta di Pera di Camillo (Camillo’s pear torte). I’m going to ask Emiko if I can share the Easter Pie recipe with you as I reckon it’s one you might want to pop into your repertoire…filled as it is with Easter eggs! But I haven’t asked her yet so…it’s on my to-do list!

The day was so filled to the brim and you know I can’t include too many images here or I get into trouble with the length of the post…so if you’d like to indulge in some further insights and pretend you were here…Emiko uploaded a beautiful post (her images are as sumptuous as her food - don’t know where she found the time to snap them!); and Edward Smith, the ballet-dancing, theatre performing son of dear Kim (who was operating on high performance mode out the back, keeping on top of the ovens and constant replenishing of utensils and the endless stream of washing up - how we all love Kim!) captured a beautiful video as he followed us all around all day long - thank you Edward! It’s a treat to have some footage of such a day, and we were so lucky Edward has a new camera he wanted to play with…so in this instance, very, very lucky us. Kim herself, put up a post and so did I! So between us all, there are enough images out there if you’d like to view them, to make you feel as if you too, were here with us (if indeed you weren’t!).

Next day…Easter Sunday, I knew I had work ahead of me…and how eager I was to wade in! The activities of the previous day ensured I felt we’d already feasted and celebrated and to be honest…I was aching to get into the garden!

Thanks to all the extra-peripheral things going on here of late, I’m behind with some seasonal tasks and to be honest…I need to do them for me, just as much as the plants need my input. All these last weeks I’ve been doing my best to ignore the Field, and the vast amount of growth the spring-flowering roses put on during the heat/storm cycle. They may not look so in the image - I should have put a figure in for comparison (I didn’t think to take a selfie…I never do!) but I must have looked diminutive in the presence of the first row! Those fifteen shrubs of Rosa x damascena 'Trigintipetala', the Bulgarian Rose or Rose of Kazanlak, must each have been 8 feet tall, towering easily over my head.

It’s imperative that spring-only flowering roses have their annual prune during the late summer/early autumn and hopefully I’ve made my way through them in the nick of time. At first glance, the job ahead might seem…well…big! But it doesn’t take long to find a rhythm…and soon long stems were disentangled, criss-crossing and inward growing ones were quickly removed…cuts became deft, quick and precise; with secateurs swapped out intermittently for the saw and quite quickly, five then six, seven then eight, all had superfluous growth from one side (and a good portion too, of the far side of the plant) removed. My mission was to make it to the end of one side of the first row by the end of the day…and with an hour less daylight thanks to the clocks changing, as well as intermittent showers of rain, I only just got there in time! (Of course I got off to a late start as there were gently spiced, warm pears and hot cross buns for a leisurely breakfast and…I had to get all the washing on the line from the previous day!).

But here comes back the synchronicity, causing a general sense of doing right, at the right time…in the way of small things. Where the weather for our Saturday event had not been ideal, at least it hadn’t rained - it was one of those ‘jumpers on/jumpers off’ kind of days but as there had been a shower during the night and it was not at all hot, I hadn’t needed to water, which is always near impossible on an event day. There, thank goodness, was one small mercy. There was a more substantial shower of rain in the early hours of Easter Sunday and….it was chilly; so again no need to water, meaning I could get directly on with the rose pruning which was all I had eyes for and…given the very chilly temperature, I needed to wear a jumper - which is always preferable for rose pruning, otherwise I’d be scratched to smithereens! Although intermittent showers were an annoyance to the washing on the line and caused me to repeatedly stop-start my pruning mission…some showers were so heavy they were a true blessing…they were proper rain. On Monday, with no watering needed for the third day in a row, I began earlier, determined now to complete not just the first row, but the second too, filled as it is with Gallica, Alba, Damask, Centifolia and Bourbon roses (also spring-only flowering…well, bar the Bourbons!) and…if I could manage it, to do some light work too in the third row, filled with David Austin roses, who had also put on a bit too much wild and wippy summer growth.

I was quite determined to get through them all…while Larry’s bonfire was alight - a sure sign of autumn; and to get all my prunings onto it and away before the deadline of his permit expired. By mid afternoon I was stripping off layers as the sun penetrated what had hitherto been one of those dull, grey and non-committal kind of days; but that became a quite spectacular, smoke-streaked, golden evening. Thankfully some of those David Austins are not as prickly as the species/heritage variety! So…job done, happy me…happy roses, happy Easter. We’d had rain, we’d had sun, I’d needed a jumper on to keep me warm right when I needed one to protect me from the thorns. Synergy in timing…someone was smiling from above…

All the while, as I was working away in the roses, I was tempted to stop and take photos to send directly to Karima…as a kind of personal instruction in rose growing - a phase she needs to learn if she is to further explore her new obsession with distilling rosewater! You all remember Karima - of Sunday Kitchen and the beautiful events we’ve had here with her and her mama Sivine, including that beautiful celebration for their book Sofra when it launched the year before last. The story of rosewater is so interwoven with the pair of them, and their long culture; which I know I’ve alluded to here in these posts before…right down to the roses we picked and rosewater we distilled with all the guests on the day of the Sofra book event that was accompanied by the most beautiful feast. You might recall too, a handful of posts back, that I invited Karima to come and visit during my last good flush of roses; as a friend of hers had sent her a small, stove-top copper still from Lebanon, and Karima was looking for roses with which to experiment - for her very own first batch of rosewater. You can see the outcome of that Sunday afternoon revealed here! But one can’t distill rosewater, without roses. And so…as I wielded my secateurs and my saw, it was Karima I had on my mind…bringing us too, full circle back to the devastation we are all baring witness to in the country of her family’s origin, and the very real pain and heartache they are enduring…

So you can imagine my delight when this morning, on opening my laptop, what did I find? But a message from Karima…announcing her very first Substack post: ‘A new home’ for Sunday Kitchen Recipes! I’m excited for her…to have a new project to commit to at this particular moment in time…and excited for all of us too, because truly…I can’t keep up with her insta posts where she whizzes up the most delicious food that makes me so damn hungry; and it will be easier to refer back and have a chance of replicating her recipes via the Substack platform! I had absolutely no idea she would be launching on this platform today and how it made me smile…bringing my weekend thoughts to a lovely conclusion.

Given the state of the world and our inkling to maybe hold back our own personal plans for now; maybe I’ll yet have the opportunity to pick roses and distill rosewater here one more time with Karima in the spring. Who knows….?

But there you have…the last piece of my synergetic week! In the grand scheme of things, none of these little moments matter…but each one of them has brought me such a sense of joy and connection to the energy of, and people who inhabit this precarious world in which we live.

On a more practical note, for those of you who are food-gardening, now is the time to get your broad beans in; which means, building a structure of some kind before you sow the seeds! I promised visitors to the previous weekend’s Sydney Edible Garden Trail to show an image once the main-crop structure was built…and here it is, bar the three levels of cross-bars which once tied, will create four individual sections within the long frame.

I am soooo excited to have got this section up! Which probably sounds so silly…but it’s an integral part of the winter kitchen garden layout and planting sequence. Now it’s done (I did this yesterday with Thalia as although it’s doable on one’s own, the time saved with another pair of hands is immeasurable…for the ‘eyeing up’ to see if all the stakes are in a row from each direction makes for a lot of hopping about and therefore time-wasting, if doing it oneself) I can devote time at the weekend to preparing the soil - I’m thinking a little aeration by means of pressing in the tines of a digging fork, before dropping scant shovel-loads of compost on top, and then finishing with a thin layer of mulch. I’ll sow the seeds (soaked before) in the number of five per segment (in the shape of dots you find on a 5 on a dice) as I go - starting at the far end of the bed and working my way backwards so I don’t tread on the prepared soil. It doesn’t matter if I don’t yet tie on the cross bars - I will when there is spare time, as long as I do so before the germinated seeds grow on to the height of the first rung (and I can do this from outside the structure!).

Having missed two full weekends in the kitchen garden…broad bean prep and sowing aside, I simply cannot wait to get primping away! The first sown seedlings are growing apace (broccoli, kale, kohl rabi, cabbage, fennel and lettuce); the pea seeds have all (but a few) germinated and even the coriander seed is showing first leaf pairs. But in the meantime, the zucchinis continue their journey towards the sun, their huge leaves inevitably shading each next neighbour they reach, so they need attention and the tomatoes need tying in and leaf removal for better air circulation. The late sowing of beans is, at last, in production! Inside the old raspberry cage and therefore protected from the Bower birds, their growth is prolific now and the bean-fest we missed out on in the early/mid summer months is all forgiven now, as I pick both morning and night…for which you need your ‘bean eyes’ on - it’s so easy to miss them hiding in the foliage! And there’s a very definite moment when a bean is at the stage it must be picked - not too flat and skinny, not too plump it’s stringy…but a stage when it’s just right! (Which can be the difference between morning and night, dusk and dawn!). There will be plenty of beans on our plates this weekend, that’s for sure. And more coming to replenish my seed bank, which is of the utmost importance!

If nothing else, I hope this little recollection of the week has brought you some lighthearted moment of distraction…where beauty and bounty collide, despite the greater world outside. (And believe me…as I always am, I’m as surprised as you in where this post went!)

‘Til next week, take very good care of everyone in your realm.

Warmest wishes

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Beans, aubergine, zucchini, tomato, cucumber, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, red elk as micro-greens, rocket, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Figs, rhubarb, pears. Basil, lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, new season nasturtium leaves and flowers and last but not least…we’re enjoying a good crop of zucchini flowers (which I’m inclined to tear apart in segments and just toss around in a little olive oil). Ooooh…there’s one quince! Almost forgot…

Going / gone: onions…beginning to run very low on stores and they’re beginning to shoot…figs (though more arrived today), cucumbers, pears

Seed saving: Fennel, bean, parsnip, amaranth

Sowing: peas, broad beans, rocket, cima di rappa, coriander, ‘red elk’ mustard

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, kohl rabi, fennel, lettuce…stagger, stagger, stagger…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias, roses, frangipani, gardenia, magnolia, ginger

Perfumes and aromas: rose, frangipani, fig leaf, gardenia, magnolia grandiflora, port wine magnolia, nicotiana

Pruning and other: the Field roses were the big pruning job for me, and since then I asked Thalia to focus on the lavender that edges row two in the Field…for where the habit of the roses has allowed in good light, there is good regrowth, and though it can be a risky thing to cut back Lavandula angustifolia too hard, given the heat/storm cycle they’ve endured, lightening their load is the kindest thing we can do. The Pomegranate hedge had put on tremendous growth again, so Thalia cut off all the top and wispy growth and gave that bed a good weed.

Firstly…thank you for all your kind, thoughtful and heartfelt messages following last week’s post - I’m still wading my way through them…from the stunned, shocked and surprised…to the disappointed and teary…the emotions conveyed have been many; but in the end, all have contained well-wishes which are truly, truly welcome at this end. In a way, it’s all a bit pre-emptive - for the purpose of that post was that I wanted to let those of you who do have a connection to Glenmore know of our decision in advance; for I recognise that for many of you it’s been a long-held and deep connection - so many of you are repeat visitors and participants from way back; so many of you continue to pick up the book, re-listen to the podcast (even if just to send you peacefully to sleep!) are regular insta followers of the evening basket of produce…and of course, you follow along here on these almost weekly tip-tappings.

So I’m glad…even relieved that you now know; whereas the wider public still doesn’t and that’s a moment I’m kind of dreading. It will come…maybe in a few weeks, but in the meantime life goes on…the morning light is soft, the grass dewy, the evening light golden; the Kapok is in full bloom, the dahlias are exquisite, there are lemony-scented magnolias in flower, the produce is bountiful and daily life is well, normal…believe me - I’ve moved all the furniture for Emiko’s beautiful event tomorrow but as soon as I’m done tip-tapping here today, I must go back down to the Dairy with the cobwebber and a cloth, get out the broom and dustpan and brush, get the dishwasher into action to run through all the glass and china and cutlery we’re likely to use, before I go to collect dear Emiko from the station!

So…the other (bigger picture) is all a bit surreal…it feels as if on the backburner for now, and yes…to answer those myriad questions - I’ll keep writing or posting or something! Yesterday I received a very funny card in the mail…suggesting I enjoy my time to ‘wine’ down! Well…it did make me giggle but um…I’m not planning on retiring any time soon!

Given I really do have to do all those things I’ve just suggested above, today’s post will have to be shorter than I’d like and I’ll do some backtracking next week to fill out the things I must scoot over today. Last weekend though, really was a wonderful two days of taking both ‘would-be’ and ‘old-hand’ kitchen gardeners on very full tours through the kitchen garden…all of them participants in the Sydney Edible Garden Trail. Goodness it was fabulous to hear some say they’d taken full advantage of visiting multiple, multiple edible gardens throughout the Sydney region over two weekends! Keep it in mind for next year peeps…for I know every garden host shares their knowledge generously and it’s such an opportunity to learn from each other.

Needless to say I could hardly speak by Sunday evening, having been ‘on repeat’ all weekend! But a couple of days later, I recorded three little videos in an attempt to catch up anyone who hadn’t been able to visit. I’m really not technically minded at all…and although insta says you can upload up to 15 minutes of material in a ‘reel’, it seems to have chopped them all off short. I sure don’t want to listen to the sound of my own voice again…to see how long they go for! And nor does this platform support up to quarter of an hour of video footage…so perhaps this is something I need to investigate, because so many of you keep asking for more. Well…we shall see! Anyway, here are links to the clips - even if you only get the first few minutes of each section of the kitchen garden - the traditional side, the guild side and down the back! A glimpse…into the kitchen garden as it is at this particular moment in time…just minus the extra minutes and explanations recorded!

I admit to taking a few stolen hours during this week…in the late afternoon sunshine (given I missed the entire weekend of potential gardening at this vital moment in the season!). Working gently away, I sieved a couple of barrow-loads of compost over a few days and took to preparing little pockets of the garden…planting a cabbage here, a broccoli there; a whole row of leeks, a second batch of fennel and a punnet of mixed butter and mignonette lettuce…all of them a continuation of my ‘successional planting’ schedule. And all of them planted with minimal soil disturbance - no digging or forking over, just a little hole for each seedling, a sprinkle of blood and bone in the bottom of the hole, a handful of compost before dropping in the seedling and filling all around it with compost and then giving a good top-up of compost all around each individual specimen, before adding a sprinkling of mulch…for water and micro-organism retention.

All the seed I sowed the week before has pretty much germinated…I’ll come back to all of that in next week’s post. But if you’re growing…now is the time…to get planting and sowing!

Of course not everything in the garden is luv-erly…it can’t be! (How funny…I cannot find a link to that song I have in my head…though I think it must be the one that originated from an 1890’s London music-hall). As I was tip-tapping away to you here last week, that huge storm came up with its accompanying wind and took out both the passionfruit-covered wigwam and all the Jerusalem artichokes, that hitherto had been lolling around in the early autumn sunlight…causing us all to ooh and ahh in appreciation at their simple beauty. There was nothing to be done - weekend visitors had priority, so there they had to stay…

‘Til Monday…when I plunged a handful of tall bamboo rods into the ground to tie them to as a temporary measure. The effect may not be quite as handsome as they had been, when they were supporting their own weight, but at this stage of their journey all that matters is that they die back of their own accord and as they do, their energy will be transferred instead to the rhizomes growing around the base of each stalk, for the season of Jerusalem artichoke eating is now not far away, and so I’ll soon be cutting them down to knee-height anyway.

On Monday evening I zipped in to Sydney to hear Danielle Alvarez in conversation with Stephanie Alexander at the Opera House. What a treat to see all the ferry boats on the sparkling waters of the harbour as the sun began to sink behind the bridge, before everyone bundled inside to take their seats…the evening an opportunity to celebrate 30 years and the third published update of The Cook’s Companion. It was a beautiful and wide-ranging conversation…an insight to the character of one of this country’s most iconic cooks and Danielle of course, is pure joy…but one of Stephanie’s comments that has stuck fast in my mind all week (perhaps because it so neatly converged with a conversation I’d had at the weekend with a garden visitor) was…along the lines of not understanding how anyone could reach dinner time without knowing what to have for dinner! I don’t want to misquote her…but it was along those lines and made us all laugh - clear that each and every person in the audience most likely considers food to be a priority in their lives.

But I fully recognise, having been a longtime ‘working Mum’, just how that situation might occur across a vast swathe of the population. I get it…but also established a way very early in our married lives…as I’ve always worked…just how to get around that situation. It might sound boring, but I can pretty much say we never eat exactly the same thing twice. If it has to have a term, I guess it’s ‘menu-planning’ but it’s not something I’ve ever written down and I completely admit to it being much easier with a kitchen garden on hand…and I never intend to be without one of those again!

But my ‘plan’ has long been, that we have roast chicken on Monday nights (it’s the chook that’s the fixture - which means one only need think about what might accompany it, which is always different and last minute); we have either pasta or risotto on Tuesday (so all I need do is pick ingredients and either will be accompanied by a leaf salad); Wednesday is omelette night (with leaf salad or horta), Thursday pasta or risotto (whichever we didn’t have on Tuesday and also requiring a leaf salad); Friday is always fish (with whichever veg), Saturday meat (with whichever veg), Sunday is pasta or risotto…but it always works out that we likely have risotto once a week and pasta twice. It all kicks off with what we feel like on Sunday! The Monday chicken ensures Larry’s (or any other blow-in’s) sandwiches for the week. Saturday’s meat means one of the pasta nights will include leftover meat…I think about that when I’m cooking it on Saturday and hold a small amount back rather than putting it all on our plates. None of these require a recipe…just the knowledge there’s rice, pearl barley and cous cous in the cupboard (alongside pasta, spices and olive oil), and that there are eggs in the fridge. But of course I’m lucky in that there are leaves and herbs and a vast array of veg in the kitchen garden which does make an enormous difference.

I think Stephanie would have approved of my advance planning for Monday evening had she known…and given the audience, I’m guessing I wasn’t alone in hatching such a plan! For as I knew I wouldn’t get home ‘til super late, a few days in advance, when I was preparing that evening’s dinner, I also made that delicious baked Zucchini and Tomato recipe of Angela Palermo's that I shared with you last week. On Sunday I picked and washed double the amount of lettuce leaves we needed that evening, so there would be plenty of those in the fridge too…which meant Monday night’s simple supper was all done the minute I got in the door - heat the ‘bake’, toss the leaves. Delicious, healthy and no fuss…thanks to a bit of forward thinking!

I do know there are times in one’s life when even all this could be a stretch too far…but I think the key is to eat simply. Nothing I cook here is complicated. Home grown veg require the lightest touch which brings me back to…we all need to grow our own, we need more community gardens…we need grandparents to garden for their children and grandchildren at a time in their lives when the above suggestion may be too much for those generations to contemplate…and above all, we need to ensure our food supply is secure - for those around us who cannot provide for themselves.

I’ve likely rushed this thought through today…the clock is ticking…but I’ll flesh it out in upcoming posts when I’m not on a looming deadline…Emiko’s train arrives at 3.30!

But I can’t leave you without a glimpse of this year’s Sydney Royal Easter Show’s ‘District Exhibits’…the landscapes and portraits so vividly brought to life, the depictions of life on the land. This year’s themes weave the traditional with the contemporary - each of them thought and conversation provoking….from the integration of solar power into agriculture, to the enormous value (writ large) that the agricultural sector adds to this country’s economy; from the significance the ‘general store’ plays in society to the true value of the ‘long lunch’ within communities and especially for mental health. Each story told through a tumble of fruit and vegetables, fleece and fibre, seed and pulse…exhibiting the bounty of each district via the exquisite skills of their respective communities. I never cease to be amazed by the District Exhibits. As a child, they were always the drawcard for me in attending the annual Easter Show…and to be one of a panel judges these last many years has been such a privilege. Personally…I’d give them all 100%!

The Sydney Royal Easter Show is on ‘til 13 April…so get yer riders on and go and see the country come to the big smoke…from the four-legged to the winged, from cakes to crochet and flowers to woodchopping…it’s an Easter tradition!

Just before I sat down here, I picked the first bunch of beautiful feathery foliage that has re-shot on all the mature fennel plants - which is sooooo exciting. So Fennel frond pistou is back on the menu!! I know I’ve shared this with you before but…really it’s the same for any green ‘pistou’:

Blitz the fronds with a couple of cloves of garlic (smashed and ground with sea salt using the blade of a heavy knife), a few twists of black pepper, enough olive oil to bring together and a squeeze of lemon juice. It will keep in a jar for weeks…if you can make it last that long!

I particularly wanted to make it ahead of Emiko’s arrival…as we’ll have a very plain dinner tonight - Larry got river trout at the fishmonger, so we’ll have baked fish with a little rice folded through with leaves from the garden, and a simply baked sweet potato (mine aren’t yet ready so had to buy that one!). A good dollop of fennel frond pistou will be just the thing to perk it all up. Good Friday…is always ‘plain’ here.

With happiest of Easter wishes to you all,

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Aubergine, zucchini, tomato, cucumber, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, rocket, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Figs, rhubarb, pears. Basil, lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, new season nasturtium leaves. Beans…the last sowing has a bounty that will be ready for the picking tomorrow!

Going / gone: onions…beginning to run very low on stores and they’re beginning to shoot…figs…

Seed saving: Fennel, bean

Sowing: peas, broad beans, rocket, cima di rappa, coriander, mustard red elk

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, kohl rabi, fennel, lettuce…stagger, stagger, stagger…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias, roses, frangipani, gardenia, magnolia

Perfumes and aromas: rose, frangipani, fig leaf, lavender, gardenia, magnolia grandiflora, port wine magnolia, nicotiana

Pruning and other: a lot of little tweaking jobs…nothing major but weeding and leaf raking after that ugly storm…

If ever there was a post to write…this one…may be the hardest of them all; and I guess there’s no point beating around the bush, for I can keep you in the dark no longer: the time has come to let you know that in the last week, Larry and I have quietly released Glenmore House onto the market. Gulp.

Take a breath…

As you can imagine, this has not been an easy decision to make; even if it’s one we’ve been preparing ourselves for, in a way, for years. If one can prepare for such a thing (in fact I think we’re not remotely prepared for it at all!). Whilst we’ve long known the inevitable day would come…there’s always been one more idea to instigate, one more experiment to try, tree to plant…one more breakfast on the verandah, one more candlelit garden dinner, one more workshop, event, another dawn, another dusk, another dew-trodden path through the morning grass…and so we’ve never been able to bring ourselves to do it…for we do love it so. During our 38 year tenure (in May) we have poured our absolute everything into Glenmore, and the longer we’ve stayed, the deeper the roots, the harder it is to make this decision.

Who knows? Nothing may happen. Perhaps we’re not meant to leave. But we have set the wheels in motion and…well, what happens next is anyone’s guess. I know this will come as a surprise to many and I feel dreadful already at the response of dear friends and all those who have had a long, even inter-generational connection to us here…which extends (from neighbours through garden helpers and all the transient support team of builders, plumbers, electricians, painters and even mechanics - by the last you can read Larry is always in trouble with one piece of equipment or another!) through to *all who have visited over the decades, whether to ramble around the garden, participate in a workshop…to teach workshops or cook for them - for they who do are often the ones with whom I form the deepest bonds; and I can fully see how it’s taking time not just for us, but for others near and dear and far as well, to digest the idea that we will likely not be here into the future.

I wanted you to hear this news direct from me before it’s out there in the wider public realm…which is coming. You’ve been a dedicated band of followers since I began writing here over two years ago and I truly value your consistent engagement. It would be too awful if you discovered the news by hearsay or the grapevine, instead of by my tip-tapping to you here in the peculiar fashion that I do. And so now I’ve blurted it out…well…phew.

I wanted to tell you last week, as the days were racing towards the campaign going public, but we called a temporary delay to the broader campaign, due to the dire current world situation…which we couldn’t have predicted during the first months of the year, as we went through the lengthy and stressful process of preparation to get to this point.

In the wider scheme of things, what is happening here with us, in this little neck of the woods, is of little to no consequence whatsoever; and the whole, like the world, may stall. I don’t think any of us knows what is coming from one day to the next and I just thank our lucky stars we (at least for now) have a roof over our heads. Such uncertainty for every one of us, let alone our own personal situation, has me in “carry on” mode. In some ways I’m just burying my head in the sand (well - soil!) and continuing on as if nothing is awry…for I cannot control our own personal world, let alone the wider one. Hence - the regular routine of daily garden nurture and event planning are consuming my time as they always do.

I imagine you might begin to wonder where all this might lead for these “at Home” tip-tappings? (Especially if you’re a paid subscriber, and even if you’re not). Well…there’s plenty of time to figure that out - as I’m not going anywhere in a great hurry! So for now…I’ll just “carry on”! As long as you want me to. I do often wonder what on earth the point is, of me twittering away to you here…but then your lovely messages request me to keep doing so, and so in the longterm, if you want me to, I’ll take you along on the next leg of the journey as it unfolds. Perhaps the handle will transition from time to time…“at Large”? “on the Road”? “in Limbo”?!! For there may be a time when there is no actual “home” for Mickey Robertson to be “at”! Goodness what a thought!

I’ve no doubt there will be plenty of conversations to explore. Perhaps losing that moniker for awhile may free me up to ponder other things…to broaden the scope of these posts. I’ve truly no idea…and can only trust in that old adage ‘when one door closes, another opens’…and I’m guessing one needs to shut the door completely, in order to be open to what may occur next. All I do know is that there will be a garden! And ultimately a house…though I have this peculiar yearning for the former to come first.

Before you ask, no - we don’t have a plan. Funny how the most significant decisions in my life have been made without a plan - I know I’ve mentioned here before that I’m inclined to be spontaneous, which is perhaps at odds with also being sensible and disciplined…but there you have it. I’ve always said “we won’t know what comes next ‘til we go”, whilst Larry has always said, “we must know before we go”. Well…it looks at this stage like my version is the one most likely to play out (if indeed we go anywhere at all). Maybe I’m a bad influence!

All I do know is that it will involve a garden…I cannot fathom the idea of not tending one, eating from one, and intend to do so ‘til I drop, which I hope is a very, very long way off indeed. For all the tropes by which I live and bleat about incessantly; the ‘hands in the soil’, ‘garden to plate’, ‘seasonal organic produce’, ‘seed to seed’, ‘cycle to cycle’ and ‘gardening being central to physical and mental health’ I honestly do believe in; and have lived by them now, for the vast majority of my life. They’re not some glib, fashionable or catchy passing phase. To me (and I know I’m not alone) they are life-giving.

In setting the wheels in motion as we have, we really are trying to be sensible. We recognise neither of us is getting any younger…and Larry is ten years my senior. Whilst either (or both!) of us could be struck down tomorrow, we also recognise that before it’s too late, we have the opportunity to make another start, but on a much smaller scale. Of course I could go first, but it was very sweet to hear Larry say the other day, that he would like to make sure I’m settled in my next garden - one that I can tend well into my 90’s, should something happen to him first! Goodness…you may all be stuck with me carrying on about the significance of soil for a very long time to come!

As every word I type here has my brain flitting off in another direction; suggesting a possible tangent (and you know how those go!)…the like of - should I sow this year’s garlic into the ground or into pots? Half and half? A bet each way? Half for me, half for possible new incumbents? (happy to share!); or indeed the real value of mature fruiting trees - ie how many years might it be before I can gorge on figs in such a way again, or make Seville orange marmalade, pick lemons, make elderflower cordial - and oh and that mountain of compost we’ve been making: I think I might save the rest for another time, don’t you?

There’s much to digest…to think on, to dwell upon, to absorb. If I’ve doubled-up here for those who also received yesterday’s (much more compact) Glenmore House newsletter, I’m sorry…but with the ‘news’ out there (once you’ve had the opportunity to consume this post), I can breathe again…and move on. I’m guessing that eventually, writing here on substack will take the place of those years of newsletters, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves - one thing at a time.

As I did say, in yesterday’s newsletter, what has truly been consuming our thought process (and taking precedence in our meetings with the agents) is our very real concern about all that constitutes the makeup of “Glenmore House”; and our hope that whoever follows our custodianship of this parcel of land, nestled so happily into the hills, is that they too, will love her as we do and…take her forward into her next chapter. We haven’t fallen out of love with her, or exhausted every good idea for her potential. In some ways, I feel we’re holding her back, where someone else might take the opportunity to gently grow her further; to build upon the principles we’ve instigated. If I could, I would grow her into the wider community; but equally, someone might just want to grow their family here and if that should be the case…how happy I would be - they will have pools of shade in which to picnic or read on hot days, food and flowers to pick, perfumes in which to delight; places to run and secret places to hide; bush walks to take, fresh air to breathe, a sense of freedom and space whilst being held and nurtured by the landscape…and stars overhead to marvel at in the night sky.

*I got to thinking (not a good idea!) on all the peeps whose visits permeate this place but the list was too long to mention in the para above: from the very tight team associated with The House and Garden at Glenmore, each whom I contacted individually…and who I know carry this place in their hearts…alongside every magazine editor, journalist, stylist, photographer (whether food, fashion or garden), every bespoke brand who have photographed their advertising campaign (or even had their team training days here), every model - adult or child, every tv crew…especially the extensive team from Gardening Australia and GA junior, whose laughter and crazy antics have filled the atmosphere on so many occasions…extending to the families who always accompany those vibrant young characters…and the myriad support crews that have based themselves in the Dairy…whether for hours or days at a time…and well…the list goes on. I know Glenmore has left each one of those peeps feeling…well…a little bit lighter. So many seeds have left here over the years…not just physical ones to put in the ground (which would number thousands), but seeds of hope and encouragement too…for you know I wish the whole world had a garden.

And so…

In “carry on” mode, if we put all the above aside, there has been much to do this week in preparation for this weekend’s Sydney Edible Garden Trail! Saturday: 10.30 - 12.00 and 1.30 - 3.00 and Sunday 11.00 - 12.30 and 1.30 - 3.00…when during each allocated time we’ll walk the kitchen garden and see all there is to see…which is such a lot! How I love this cross-over period that early autumn brings…filled with large-leaved summer veg lolling and lagging behind, bringing in the daily bounty; whilst I’ve been busy interspersing the spaces the forerunners vacate, with next seasons sowings and plantings. It’s a continuous process now, this business of rotating crops from one season into the next, that won’t be completed for weeks and weeks to come, occurring as it does, just a little at a time. Working in the kitchen garden brings me such pure, pure joy; and I’m looking forward to sharing it with peeps this weekend.

In fact there’s so much going on down there, I’d like to have devoted this entire post to sharing it with you…but conveying ’the news’ was more important this time around! If you’d like a quick kitchen garden round-up though from this week (including a pic of the one that was about to get away, and then I forgot ‘til it was too late and it had!) I took these quick pics mid-week for a post on insta.

What I am going to share with you though, is a recipe that I think you need…right now! Especially if you’re growing; as I’ll bet that like me…you have more than one zucchini that has got away. I get so mad with myself when I miss one! If I can anticipate their likely growth spurt during the course of the day, I like to catch them either a bit on the smallish side or that moment when they are just the perfect size to fit into the ‘spiraliser’, so I can make lovely mounds of zucchini ribbons (or as Bonnie has long called them…courgetty spaghetti). But damn it - not one but two got away from me this week and I just don’t know how I missed them! Although you can make this recipe with cherry tomatoes (which I did for my last one as that’s what the garden grew!) how I love when the Oxhearts reach their moment of perfection…and just look at those beauties above! So when I took the knife to the one of those zucchinis that escaped my not-so vigilant attention, I also plucked two of those tomato filled bags from the wigwam…as I knew exactly what must be on the menu for dinner!

Angela Palermo (remember our fabulous Italian Lunch with Ange last winter?) posted this recipe on her insta a few years ago, and at the time I scribbled it down in some kind of shorthand - just enough to go on and now splattered all over as good recipes tend to be. Luckily for you, I asked if she would mind sending me the proper version please, to share with you here.

ANGELA PALERMO’S ZUCCHINI SLICE with TOMATOES (cherry or heirloom)

(Fette di Zucchini con Pomodorini Arrostiti)

Serves 4-6
INGREDIENTS:

• 500g zucchini, grated (about 7 to 8 medium or 2 large) (ONE LARGE in my case!)

• 1 red onion medium to large, finely chopped

• 150-170g parmigiano reggiano cheese, flakey grated preferable

• 1/2 bunch basil leaves, finely sliced

• 150g plain unbleached flour, sifted

• 1 tsp baking powder, sifted

• 3 large eggs, whole, free-range/organic, lightly beaten in a small bowl

• good pinch of sea salt and lots of cracked pepper

• 2 to 3 heirloom tomatoes, cut into 5mm thick slices

• extra-virgin olive oil (evoo) to drizzle

METHOD:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush a 20cmx20cm square tin, or a 20cm x 30cm rectangle slice tin with evoo and line the base with baking paper (you can allow the baking paper to overhang on the two longer sides of tin).

2. In a large bowl, add the grated zucchini, red onion, basil, parmigiano cheese, sifted flours & baking powder, beaten eggs and seasoning. Mix together until it comes together (note - if the mixture is on the dry side and not coming together; add another egg).

3. Pour mixture into prepared tin and smooth the top with the back of a spoon or a pastry knife/spatula. Layer the top with the slices of cherry or heirloom tomatoes, drizzle with evoo and place in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the zucchini slice is firm to touch and cooked through.

Serve with a garden salad

Thank you Ange!

Angela Palermo is always so very generous with her recipes…well…with everything…with life! She spills over with generosity and if you love honest and authentic Italian food that comes as knowledge mixed with love - I encourage you to join her weekly ‘Village Cooks’ newsletter - she rarely misses a Friday and though I will miss the opportunity to invite her to have the odd beautiful food and fun filled day with her here in the future, I just may have the opportunity to join some of her own classes!

How I hope you’ll make this simple-to-put-together beauty - it keeps well in the fridge for several days and is well worth making in advance and I have to say…I almost love it best as leftovers…and particularly for breakfast!

And with that, I’ll leave you. I really do need to be ready for the weekend’s edible garden trail. We’ve manoeuvred the old ‘medieval-style’ tent into position, from where to greet peeps when they arrive; but I have signs and seed labels and ropes and a whole host of stuff to sort, so as not to be in a panic tomorrow morning! Now there’s a bit of “carrying on” to be done, if ever there was!

With warmest wishes as ever,

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Aubergine, zucchini, tomato, cucumber, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, rocket, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Figs, rhubarb, jelly wine fruit, pears. Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, new season nasturtium leaves and basil.

Going / gone: Corn, carrots (hopefully there are more of the latter coming); beans (although the later sown are growing well, so there may be a second flush) and though I’ve had potatoes listed here for awhile and we finished eating the main crop, so many random plants have popped up from years gone by, there may well be more ahead…onions…beginning to run very low on stores and they’re beginning to shoot…

Seed saving: Fennel, bean

Sowing: peas, broad beans, rocket, cima di rappa, coriander, rocket

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, kohl rabi, fennel, lettuce…the ones I planted a couple of weeks ago are settling in well…so it’s soon time to pop some more in…stagger, stagger, stagger…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias, roses, ginger, frangipani, gardenia

Perfumes and aromas: rose, frangipani, ginger - yellow and white, fig leaf, lavender, gardenia, port wine magnolia (at least they were in high scent - everything has taken fright today as we’ve plunged from nigh on C30 yesterday to C13 today! I had to go and find my ugg boots!)

Pruning and other: I spent most of last weekend in the kitchen garden in preparation for this weekend, as well as deadheading the roses - favourite Sunday afternoon job. Matt came to run his hedge trimmer over the oleander, murraya and cherokee rose again - it really has been the most crazy season but they all went bonkers in the storm/heat cycle; and Thalia has mostly been weeding…for the same reason! When the weather cools, that will all settle down… I’m already thinking ahead to Easter jobs; that is after we have our lovely day with Emiko Davies on Easter Saturday…where there are just two little spots left! Someone will be lucky…

Does anyone call them ‘glare glasses’ anymore? I wonder? Or did that nomenclature go out with my parents’ generation? I do still, funnily enough, absent-mindedly call them that from time to time. Perhaps reverting to the familiar language of childhood is a sign of ageing! If it’s all too much, scroll quickly down…I just wanted to convey the intensity of an early autumn evening’s light…the pure saturation of it. I haven’t manipulated the image and it’s not even a particularly good one…(I’m sure we’re not meant to photograph into the sun anyway) but it captures, even without colourful flowers…that quality of the atmosphere that really does make one stop, and linger…to drink in the highlighted, golden, mellow beauty all around.

Another and then I’ll stop…or you’ll start to get ‘crow’s feet’ from squinting…a habit I know I’ve had all my life, so there’s no hope for me on that score! I’ve always loved the evening light…absorbing it. It has a different quality to the morning light which I love in equal measure, but it’s not the same as that golden glow that has the capacity to charge you through to your very bones. But the minutes of it are rapidly becoming less as the days roll by, so absorb every last possible second, before the sun dips…these days akin to an Indian summer will not be much longer…for we’re on the cusp…

OK…you can take them off now!

What a bit of excitement there was mid-week, when the book I alluded to a couple of posts ago arrived - and not just one, but a box-full, in preparation for our participation in the Sydney Edible Garden Trail (not this weekend, but next, 28 & 29 March). I’ve been lucky to have a sneak-peek, as it won’t be officially launched ‘til March 25 worldwide; and though I haven’t yet had time for a thorough read…I simply cannot wait to pour over every one of Toby Musgrave’s words and run my finger along every path in the accompanying images…of which there a many! The finger-running along the paths has also been a thing for me since childhood - you all know of my long-held fascination for aerial views, maps…particularly of garden illustrations, and this book contains many opportunities for discovering nooks and crannies as the eyes take in every possibility, every lead.

I’m not entirely sure why we’re included! But there we are…in a very small way. The book is a compilation of Kitchen Gardens around the world…some renowned, others less so. There are many others I can think of, that I would personally have included! But also many of my absolute favourites…ones from which I’ve derived enormous inspiration and fascination…(even if the end result of what I’ve done here is nothing like any of them…at the end of the day, microclimates dictate, and anyway - there’s no point in copying!) But they’ve informed my knowledge bank and immersing in them has brought me unfathomable joy.

I’ve long held Prieuré d’Orsan in France, to be the most beguiling of productive gardens. The attention to detail, by Patrice Taravella and Sonia Lesot, who created the garden from the bare bones and earth of a monastic ruin makes my heart race at the very thought of it. We were lucky to stay on two occasions, many years ago (whilst the two were still custodians); and at that, to occupy a room on the second floor, thereby having the opportunity to look over, through tiny windows, the entire layout of the garden below. Larry and I stayed on our own the first time, but we took the girls with us the next…as a more enchanting experience for them, I could not imagine. No doubt for them, the memory is vague these days; but at the time (the entire garden is like a maze, a pattern to follow, with one’s feet as much as ones eyes) I know they were as thrilled to be there as me; and although such places may not give Larry quite the heart palpitations they give me…I know he adores such explorations and adventures too.

Gosh…this could be a very long post if I go on at this rate! What I should have said is…it contains Prieuré d’Orsan, as well as Babylonstoren (also designed by Patrice) and I’ve written about this exquisite place on earth before…a garden I hold in such high esteem (of course it’s on a scale that requires days to absorb - but that matters not - the example it sets is exemplary and the learning one can derive is enormous - afterall, it takes many small parts to make a whole). Thomas Jefferson’s vegetable garden at Monticello is another that makes my pulse race off the charts…laid out as it is, in experimental plots (as for the internal layout and detail of the house…well…I’ll save that for another day!).

Inverewe on the west coast of Scotland, is another that made my heart sing when we visited many moons ago (exploring gardens that reap the climatic benefits of the Gulf Stream by their situation became a real thing for me for awhile and I’d encourage anyone who loves gardens to do the same). The sheer romance of that coast is magical anyway, but add rows of neatly laid out vegetables and flowers within a walled garden containing a gate to a loch…and well…you know, I was completely gone! In fact it was that gate as much as the garden, that piqued my interest when I first stumbled upon images of that magical garden…just as much a temptation as those bottles were to Alice! Gates…how I love them! For where do they lead?

Thinking of gates, Highgrove is another included in the book; and one about which I read so much in my early garden learning…always coming back though, to one very particular image that held me captivated - of the PINK GATE to the kitchen garden! Once upon a time, it used to be so very difficult to visit the garden at Highgrove…one needed to be part of a ‘tour group’ which is something we’ve never done. And then one year, when Larry was on a business trip to London, he attended a charity auction which I think may have been something to do with his old regiment…or anyway, he’d been invited to attend with friends; and one of the items being auctioned was a ‘private visit for two to the garden at Highgrove’. I’ve never asked what his contribution to the charity was that evening…all I know is that he presented me that year, with a beautiful slim, turqoise-lidded, purple box, wrapped with amethyst ribbon impregnated with the words Highgrove at intervals, and containing an invitation to visit and how to arrange it, as a birthday present. And so on our next trip, off we went! We had a lovely tour, with the senior garden guide…and there was not another soul about. The tour was of the whole garden, but I only had eyes for the kitchen garden…and that PINK GATE! The really annoying thing is…one is not allowed to take photos there under any circumstances…and the pink gate appears in images so rarely! So there I stood, trying to laser the site of it into my memory! It’s not so hard to visit the garden there these days…and years later I took my Mum for one of their ‘garden visits with a champagne high tea’. It tickled her pink…but I could still not take my very own photo of the PINK GATE! You’ll be delighted to hear there IS a photo of it in this book!!! I am delighted…although the gate at Inverewe does not appear to be there…I guess they weren’t to know Mrs Robertson would be scanning those images with the equivalent of a magnifying glass!

Anyway, there are too many more to mention…the kitchen garden at Chanticleer in the USA is another I adored visiting but how I would love to visit the Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa; Bunny Mellon’s Oak Spring is still on my wish-list and oh my the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore Garden on the Guidecca in Venice; not to mention Gravetye (birds eye images of that layout always make me think of Noahs Ark) and I cannot think why I haven’t been to see it first hand…and a plethora of productive kitchen gardens implementing best practice…from Spain to Norway, South Africa to New Zealand…not to mention Heidi in Melbourne - a fellow Australian inclusion. But I can’t wait to read Toby’s introduction…The Story of the Kitchen Garden, which looks to come as a potted history, the kind in which I delight…of early illustrations and filled with all the words that make a kitchen gardener’s heart and imagination light up…along with the chapters on all things horticultural and growing techniques and soil and compost and all the rest. Some lovely reading lies in wait…whether kitchen gardener or armchair observer!

But it’s to Aaron Bertelsen for his mention in the Foreword…that I say a heartfelt thank you. For at the end of the day, it’s the personal experience one remembers of a garden…no matter its layout, that is what one truly connects with. We did indeed “pick ripe figs early one morning, as the world slept around us…for the breakfast table…” but it’s the long breakfast and conversation on the verandah with those dear peeps here on that beautiful late summer morning, that resonates most.

Anyway…The Kitchen Garden by Toby Musgrave, published by Phaidon, will be on the shelves this week!

And…if you’re not too far away, The Sydney Edible Garden Trail begins this weekend - the organisers have spread the event over two weekends this year - covering the northern areas this weekend, and those to the south, next (to give peeps the opportunity to visit different areas without criss-crossing the entire city!). A ticket gives you access to gardens across both weekends and you can visit as many gardens as you can squeeze in.

But if you’re thinking to come here (and how I would LOVE to see you!), we are opening for very specific hours each day (as are many others) - it’s not an ‘open garden’ (read I am simply terrified this could turn into something I’m not remotely prepared for!) and I’ll be taking two ‘tours’ per day - they will be like mini ‘in the Kitchen Garden with Mickey’ days and there is plenty, plenty, plenty to see…this particular moment in the cycle is so filled with activity and produce and hints to share. I’m truly looking forward to it! And yes, there will be copies of The Kitchen Garden.

You know…I know this garden and landscape like the back of my hand…but I am often surprised at the number of surprises still to be had. Yes…I’ve super-zoomed in on the image above, in the name of getting my point across; for the tree that hovers now, as a focal point beyond the pumpkin path, has become a rather integral layer in the general scheme of things. Well…that is if…you happen to stand in the right spot. It falls into the category of ‘borrowed landscape’ but it’s only recently that it’s made such an impact on our far view. I’m not even sure if it’s in the garden of our neighbours at the Old School House or if it’s behind the Church (they march with each other). It’s something I’ve noticed with a lot of trees recently, that aren’t in our immediate garden, that we’ve had no hand in planting, (like the Eucalypts in the creek and others that have long preceded our tenure) how they’ve grown! Exponentially! I can only think they’ve revelled in the last years of wetter-than-usual summers, and exploded into maturity. But with this one in particular (is it a Bunya? I’m going to have to go for an explore to see if I can find out!) if I take one step right or left, from where I turn the tap on each morning to water the left side of the kitchen garden; I can’t see it at all! Hence when I do, each time it comes as something of a lovely, unexpected surprise!

It does one well…to slow down, to look beyond…into the distance…

On Sunday I declared I could look no longer at the lanky growth on the citrus trees outside the kitchen window! They’d got so large they were obscuring my view of Big Hill - now there’s a thing! Their time for a chop had come…but nor could I bear to waste the best lengths of glossy foliage, so brimming as they were with viriditas*.

*I’ve mentioned this word coined by Hildegard of Bingen many times before, but for those who are new or missed it, the C12th abbess came up with it as a description for ‘green-ness’. For me (as I expect it must have been for her)…it encapsulates that moment when plant material is at its absolute peak, when the cellular energy it holds seems to resonate at a higher frequency, as if about to burst, and causes a kind of aura. No wonder Hildegard came up with a word to describe this stage of a plant’s journey - it makes one sound less like a fruit loop! And yes, she is the namesake of my Still (also accounted for in an earlier post!).

In the cool shade of the Loggia…I separated each highly aromatic leaf from its stem…

Weighing out as many as I felt I could possibly load into the column of the Still (700g max - it wouldn’t be possible to get even one more leaf in!)…put her all together…and sat quietly (after a hugely energetic morning of pruning and barrowing)…enjoying the stillness that followed…

The gentle movement of the flame, the gurgling and occasional belch of water from the condenser pot that carries a constant reticulation of cool water around the coil, and watching the threads from my linen bandages (with which I wrap Hildegard, to prevent steam from escaping)…catch the breeze from the open doors…while waiting for those first precious drops of aromatic botanical water to spill from her spout. There are a couple of moving images on this insta post…if you want more of a hint of the atmosphere….

And oh the evocative aroma that permeated the entire space of that big room!

Funny…much as I love each of the botanical waters I think of as ‘proper’ and on occasion sell…it’s this one I turned to with regularity during those heatwave days a few weeks ago; for a refreshing mist…it’s one that almost takes the breath away with its unique sense of pure green mixed with an aromatic earthiness. Although traditionally made with little fruit as well as the leaves of the bitter orange, I’ve found the botanical waters resulting from using only the leaves from my Seville, to be just as intoxicating. And as there were no little fruit (a couple of big ones coming along nicely!) and the tree needed pruning right there and then…leaves only it was! And though I’ve used but a fraction of the contents from the previous Petitgrain distillation, I’m so thrilled to have added to my reserve stock!

I picked the pears! I’d been meaning to for days, but hiding as they were, espaliered on the east-facing side of the Barn, I kept forgetting to collect them as that’s probably the path I least walk on a daily basis. One is meant to pick pears before they’re quite ripe and allow them to ripen off the tree. I rather hope they don’t all do so at once, or soon…as how I am enjoying this still life in the middle of the kitchen bench.

Yesterday morning I noticed a whole lot of little fruit from the Jelly Wine Palm (Butia capitata) had fallen to the ground (remember last week I was bemoaning the fact I couldn’t reach them this year?). They really are rather moorish…(maybe that’s not the word…how funny, perhaps I’ve never written it down before, but equally, these must surely be related to dates?); in that if you eat one, somehow you can’t resist another! You will remember from this time last year that I cooked them to a pulp and even made ice cream…but they are very fibrous. I wonder if one could dry them out…like a date? I don’t have a dehydrator…but maybe I should try an experiment in the oven! I sure can’t eat all of these…I’ll explode! (And no-one else seems to be quite so enthusiastic!).

This morning before I got underway here…I popped into the Camden Show…with the express interest of seeing how a very dear, young local friend had got on with her District Exhibit. She’s been collecting around and about and experimenting with attempts at keeping tendrils of foliage…alive! How I love to see these traditions carried on…and this exhibit aside, from flower stems to jams, chooks and ducks to crochet and patchwork, from coconut ice (truly - seeing that on display always makes me feel about 6 and I can feel my teeth on edge!) to shortbread and sponge cake and fruit cakes galore…the honey and blocks of beeswax…and well…there’s a whole lot more, but I had to race home!

The Camden Show (always the last of the regional shows before The Royal - upcoming in a fortnight!) is celebrating 140 years. If you’re out this way…it’s a hive of activity and as the poster says…it’s still a country show!

With warmest wishes as always,

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Aubergine (my oh my are we eating aubergines) and zucchinis! Cucumber, tomatoes, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, rocket, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Corn…I can’t say they’re my finest cobs, but those kernels are peculiarly addictive when you start eating them in the garden! Figs, rhubarb, jelly wine fruit. Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, new season nasturtium leaves and basil.

Going / gone: Corn, carrots (hopefully there are more coming!); beans (although the later sown are growing well, so there may be a second flush) and though I’ve had potatoes listed here for awhile and we finished eating the main crop, so many random plants have popped up from years gone by, there may well be more ahead…

Seed saving: Fennel, bean

Sowing: I may begin this weekend…peas, cima di rappa, red elk mustard, rocket…maybe!

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, kohl rabi, fennel, lettuce…it’s time to think autumn/winter growing. The ones I planted a couple of weeks ago are settling in well…so I’ll not plant again for a couple of weeks in order to stagger…to successionally sow, as I don’t want to have them all ready to eat at the same time…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias, roses, ginger, frangipani, gardenia

Perfumes and aromas: rose, frangipani, ginger - yellow and white, fig leaf, lavender, gardenia, port wine magnolia, Osmanthus fragrans, Chinese star jasmine…

Pruning and other: I did a big chop of flowering Perovskia stems that had collapsed over the Barn garden path and a whole lot of primping and preening, alongside rose deadheading, before getting stuck into those citrus trees outside the kitchen. Thalia has mostly been weeding the lawn gutters this week, and re-edging the labyrinth, and weeding the field paths…but I do know the oleander hedge and murraya hedge and mounds of Cherokee rose that are beginning to resemble a hedge down near the Hayshed…are in need of a trim…the weather has made them go wild!

When I think back to our earliest days here at Glenmore…I can honestly tell you I had no idea about soil. (I often wonder in fact, if I had any idea about life at all!). I grew up in an urban environment - one where sure, we ‘went to the park’, ‘went to the beach’ and I was lucky those parks were the like of Centennial and the Botanical Gardens - each offering a multitude of different kinds of ‘gardens’ within their vast spaces (how I loved threading my way through the rose beds at Centennial Park as much as playing hide & seek amongst the Paperbarks, Melaleuca); as well as idling away hours in hidden treasures like Gladswood Gardens, tucked-in as it is, to the harbour shoreline; with chinks visible through enormous trees to the sparkling waters below…that one in particular, felt like my very own secret garden, and was perhaps where the earliest seeds of my future love of gardens were sown…aged 3, 4, 5…6. We must have continued to visit (my grandparents lived very close by) as I distinctly recall holding onto the waistband of my younger brother’s trousers when he wasn’t much more than a toddler, as he tried to catch tadpoles in the pond (which is still there!). “Don’t let go of him”, Nanna would say (he’s 6&1/2 years my junior!).

Combined with an early enchantment of illustrated nursery rhymes: “Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?” I can still visualise the illustration that accompanied that particular one, with the bonneted toddler holding her watering can so very clearly in my mind’s eye, a little bed of flowers edged by shells…all of which is a million miles in time…from first plunging my hands into the soil here.

And when I did…I just dug a hole into the bare clay. I mean…what did I know? Luckily I didn’t plant much at the very beginning! There was no point…it was all about clearing…for there was a great deal to clear, in order to discover the bones…which came in the form of a handful of disparate buildings, each of which had clearly performed its function once upon a time, with the purpose of serving the daily life of an inter-generational dairy. Oh those buildings had character, of that there was no doubt. But it had been a long time since Glenmore had operated as a farm…and we were not farmers. And so…at the beginning, rescuing the buildings (which we fell instantly in love with) before they were completely beyond repair, took precedence over making a garden; much as I was itching to make a start.

I’ve often mentioned the book my paternal grandmother gave me: Esther Dean’s “Growing without Digging”. It was hugely sensible of her (for she was sensible: my 16th birthday present I clearly remember was the book of “Common Sense Cookery”). Of course Esther Deans’ isn’t a particularly pretty book (the kind of which I was quickly accumulating!), but it did more than pique my interest, for luckily…I inherited some sense of sensibility along the way, and realised that in revealing Esther’s good advice to me, my grandmother had given me the greatest gift in those pages: that of gleaning some understanding of how things actually grow, before I’d made what might have been a very false start. (Incidentally she’s the one who was called Enid, ref. our new pair of chooks, and decided when I was about 10, because she now had several more grandchildren - my younger cousins, that she would like to be known henceforth as GrandE).

And so it was that every garden ‘bed’ here was made by implementing Esther’s ‘no dig’ principles. Layers of cardboard, newspaper…as well as gypsum to help break down the clay, and with load after load (Larry had bought a ute very early on) of compost. We were so lucky in the early days, that ‘Jensen’s Garden Centre’ was literally at the end of our little road…with bays of hot compost ready to go. It’s many years since I’ve learned it oughtn’t to have been so hot, or smell the way it did, which was quite a pong, but one that honestly? I just loved! This love of shovelling stuff onto beds, of tucking in new plants, felt the equivalent of tucking children into bed…all snug as bugs…in the knowledge I was enhancing the clay sub soil so it would better absorb and hold nutrient as well as water, alongside encouraging a plethora of micro-organisms to flourish. It was only later, as I learned more from discovering the principles of biodynamics, and with evermore conversation about the environment and the significance of carbon sequestration whirling, that I realised the true significance of what we were doing, in our own small way. With the addition too, of mulch over the compost, we were protecting and nurturing our precious soil; and the roots of our new plantings were contributing their newly forming roots to the mix, creating air passages: in doing what we were, we were encouraging a whole underground environment that we couldn’t see, to flourish…and in return, that underground activity…for it is active…was supporting the beauty that we could see, above.

But in those early days, before we truly had our systems sorted, and before I learned more about closed-loop-cycles, we had to buy compost in. My early attempts at making the stuff seemed futile; and it was only when I truly got to grips with the cycles of the kitchen garden here, that I declared enough was enough, and we must do this properly. The thing is, we are gardening here on a large scale; and making compost with the amount of material we accumulate, is not something I can do alone (well…if I didn’t have other things to do like work…maybe!).

I recall seeing an event for a talk in Sydney being publicised, with the then head gardener to (then) Prince Charles, at Highgrove, specifically about the significance of compost and the part it plays in the growing of the Duchy of Cornwall’s renowned organic produce. I dragged Larry along (it is often not enough my bleating on about something - I need back-up!). Another event at Mulloon Creek in the Southern Tablelands of NSW, added more grist to my mill; as did another illuminating evening talk in Sydney with early-regen-farming advocate Joel Salatin; and slowly, slowly, I could see Larry coming around to my way of thinking. Although I couldn’t persuade him to join me at various biodynamic events with Charlie Arnott and Hamish McKay (later hosting events here with those two well-informed mavericks!), Larry’s enthusiasm did eventually rise to a point where he began to ask if we would be turning the compost at the weekend? It may take time and patience…this business of persuasion…but ‘tis worth the agony of it! And I know I’m not alone…these are the kinds of conversations I’ve had with so many attendees at kitchen gardening days here over the years!

If I’ve lost you so far on this post with this composting tangent, I apologise! But it’s a topic to which I simply must make reference from time to time, because it’s the stuff upon which this garden grows. But more than that, it is the stuff upon which our own health relies. The adage “you are what you eat” can only go so far; for indeed the food you eat, is made up of the substance in which it grows. So what your soil is made of…is everything.

How I love the quote Laura Dalrymple of Feather & Bone coined: “You are what your food ate”. At least I think it was Laura’s doing and certainly the only place I’ve ever seen it!

And so it is that…every six weeks or so, we ‘turn the compost’. During the intervening weeks, it’s inevitable material from all over the garden will accumulate - a handful here, a barrow load there; and at some point, we (well…I!) will deem it to have reached the turning point. The heap you see in the top image will have no more fresh material added…it’s already made up of a heap once turned as well as new material. It will be turned a couple more times before it’s ready to use. In the meantime, we emptied the bay from where I’ve been using the last of the compost from the previous batch into the mower trailer…from where I’ve been taking buckets as I begin the process of crop rotation in the kitchen garden…and turned the most recent heap for its last time, into the bay that’s always the final resting place…the one from where we know we can always find all the compost we need…beautiful and black as 90% cocoa!

To get it to that point, I run it through a wire panel…like a sieve, to remove any larger, twiggy material, for we put pretty much everything into our compost, and some of the thicker pieces don’t break down as quickly as others - it’s all in there - from the strappy to the feathery, the substantial to the flimsy. Anything that hasn’t broken down, just rejoins the next heap on the go…it will break down eventually.

With a good job done, and everything neat and tidy down in the compost bays…I went off to deadhead the roses. It’s long been a Sunday afternoon rose-season activity, that I thoroughly enjoy. When the girls were little, they’d follow me with my barrow around the garden, picking off all the petals and throwing them in the air like confetti; and what was left, has always been the final flourish to finish off a Sunday compost heap…whether it’s been turned, or not!

There’s so much reading you can do on the topic of soil…I thoroughly recommend Matthew Evans’ ‘SOIL’; Nicole Masters’ ‘For the Love of Soil’ and of course, The Land Gardeners’ ‘Soil to Table’. Had I begun substacking when I had Bridget and Henrietta here for an event? I have a funny feeling I hadn’t…but I have a feeling I’ve written about it on this platform? In case not, here’s a link back to the insta post! Oh what fun I had loading handfuls of our compost into the pretty soup tureen (best contents I reckon, it may ever have held!). And let us not forget those two fabulous films that we screened here year before last: Six Inches of Soil and Thankful for Soil, the last produced by Suzannah Cowley…and another event at which I set little terracotta pots filled with compost down the lunch tables…the only way I know how to tackle the art of gentle soil persuasion!

I cannot tell you how expansive the kitchen garden feels, now the surrounding tall stems of fennel have been cut down. Romantic as it was…and cling to the last of the fennel cycle as I’m always inclined to do…the garden can breathe again now. The fennel played a significant part in protection from the elements though, during those searing heatwave days - it’s just one of the reasons I leave it in place so long; but now I literally need to Let the Sunshine in! (Sorry…couldn’t help it - at least you can’t say I’m stuck in a musical rut!).

While the pumpkin vines have taken on a gargantuan, sea-like froth of growth that is making me feel like some comedic, tiny, cartoon-like figure in their presence; in the traditional beds proper, I’ve begun an overhaul; interplanting autumn/winter-growing brassicas and the first fennel seedlings of the season. I picked up some lettuce seedlings too, at the market last weekend, but have yet to have a moment to plant them, so this weekend, I’ll be making good use of what remains of the compost in the trailer (I don’t like to leave it removed from the earth for any longer than is absolutely necessary) and bedding those in too.

With a quick glance back to last week’s post…I have confirmation that the Epiphyllum that caused me to stop and gawp in amazement, was indeed from Camden Park: Selenicereus undatus (Dragon Fruit); and comes with the warning of being very vigorous! At risk of causing a great rush at their next open garden in September…at least I’ve given Edwina warning that her specimen may be high on the wish list of visitors to buy! I’ll let you know more details closer to the time!

The fig-gluttony season continues…though this afternoon I sense a change…has the last evening swim been had? As the sun began to dip yesterday, with beads of sweat collecting on my brow as I sat at my desk, I couldn’t resist nipping down to the pool, where great gulps of osmanthus fragrans mixed with jasmine, frangipani and fig leaf aroma hovered over the water, trapped within the ironbark fence, nowhere to go in the still air…

Dripping, I watched the blades of the windmill spin in the near distance…when the puff of breeze diminished, its frame reflected perfectly in the still waters of the dam below…

Revelled in the golden light falling on Big Hill, glimpsed through the tall poles of the Hay Shed…

And the shimmering grasses and olive leaves, backed by the immensity of the Port Jackson Fig. I sent Larry a message - “do you remember when we stood on this spot, feeling utterly exposed, with a naked view all the way to the house on the hill way over in the distance?” “I do” he replied…

When we put the pool in, there was no garden. In its way, the size of that tree represents the years I’ve had my hands in the soil, in the compost…that makes the garden grow.

‘Til next week…as together we face tumultuous times.

With warmest wishes,

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Aubergine (my oh my are we eating aubergines) and zucchinis! Cucumber, tomatoes, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, rocket, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Corn…I can’t say they’re my finest cobs, but those kernels are peculiarly addictive when you start eating them in the garden! Figs, rhubarb. Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, new season nasturtium leaves and basil. There would be fruits of the Jelly Wine Palm if I could reach them…

Going / gone: Carrots (hopefully there are more coming!); beans (although the later sown are growing well, so there may be a second flush) and though I’ve had potatoes listed here for awhile and we finished eating the main crop, so many random plants have popped up from years gone by, there may well be more ahead…

Seed saving: carrot, parsnip, bean, fennel

Sowing: I still think it’s a little too early…though perhaps some cima di rappa…

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, kohl rabi, fennel, lettuce…it’s time to think autumn/winter growing

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias, roses, ginger, frangipani, gardenia

Perfumes and aromas: rose, frangipani, ginger, fig leaf, lavender (a new flush), gardenia, port wine magnolia, Osmanthus fragrans, night-scented Jessamine, Chinese star jasmine…and this week the first delicate flowers of Hedychium coronarium the white-flowering ginger and surely…this must be the perfume that fills heaven…?

Pruning and other: the remaining fennel stems in the two ‘box frames’ are now upended in a bid to encourage new seedlings where the established plants have become a bit thin on the ground and the first round of Tansy flowers have been cut to the base of their stems. Lawn gutters have been cleared of weeds and around the orchard trees too. Larry has done a lot of edge-strimming and mowing! But that season is drawing slowly, to a close methinks!

There I was the other morning, taking the compost bucket down the back to tip the contents from the previous evening into the aerobin, minding my own business and thinking on the day ahead when…WHOAA!!!! Like a beacon in the dull atmosphere, these completely unexpected blooms drew my eyes upwards and literally stopped me in my tracks (actual tracks through the thick, wet grass). Like WOW and well…did you ever? And ever since that moment I’ve had “what a swell party, a swell party, a swellegant, elegant party…this is” swirling around in my head! Why on earth do flowers and situations set me off on some kind of musical treasure hunt? It’s an immediate thing…I haven’t watched High Society in years…but there it was, my first response to this extraordinary sight!

“Run down to the sinks” I excitedly told Thalia the minute I saw her arrive. “Quickly, before they close!”. “What?” she asked…”Just go!”. Only once before has this nameless Epiphyllum set a flower - last year; and by the time I noticed, it had already closed. So this is the first time I’ve ever seen one open. And not one, but two. Already the top one was closing and I know not just when they opened…their bud formation had escaped my attention. Did they open in the middle of the night? At dusk? At dawn? Too high up to notice if they might exude even a faint perfume, I could perceive no hint of one from below (and took this pic above on tippy-toes with arms up-stretched!).

I say nameless because…I am truly not completely sure from whence it came. But I’m thinking…it must surely be from Camden Park. Dwin? Is it yours? I remember being generously given a couple of slips, a long, long time ago and this is the only one of those to survive, but in the meantime, someone else gave me a couple from a garden in Sydney…but I’m pretty sure this one is the local unexpected gift, and must come with a record of provenance.

The thing with Epiphyllums is that for years they do nothing but sit, looking like some strange rubber feature, sulking. And then one day you might notice the development of a node…how exciting…a piece of rubber showing a sign of life. In this instance, after more years, node after node began to develop into succulent leaf sections, and after awhile, ever so slowly this specimen crept up the corner of the tractor shed, built of ironbark slabs from the original dwelling here (the remnants of their last coat of paint from who knows when still visible); sending out ‘sections’ towards the spiderweb-crazed window (also from that original dwelling), its aerial roots eventually reaching the underside of the corrugated tin roof. I recall taking ages to decide just where to plant this specimen - as such unique species I think, need to be placed just so, in order to achieve a sense of belonging. One couldn’t just plonk it anywhere. And how I think this one does now belong.

You’ve often heard me mention Pacita’s Epiphyllum (not its real name, but the one I have bestowed upon it), that grows at the corner of the stone house here and flowers each November. Pacita gave me a slip of that one in our very early years and it has quite a different habit to this un-named one, that seemingly tends to only cling to a surface, rather than fall over itself like Pacita’s. But if I wing off some correspondence, perhaps by next week’s post I might have a name for this one too, for how very, very spectacular (and at home) it now is! I just wish the party had lasted longer!

It’s been a week of activity, burgeoning produce and cooking. I haven’t had a proper ‘cooking day’ in ages and oh how I revelled in the opportunity! Making up a menu at this time of year involves so many of my favourite recipes and ingredients - aubergines, capsicums, tomatoes and cucumbers; garlic before it begins to shoot, figs from the tree. So having spontaneously invited a group of friends the week before; when I realised the roses in the field were smothered in buds, and therefore likely to produce enough for a long-hoped for day of rose play and distillation (the last time I tried to arrange such a day was over three years ago!); I got cracking on food-prep, so the day might run (in similar vein to a proper workshop) without fuss, once everyone arrived….

There was Chestnut Flour, Rosemary, Raisin & Pine Nut Cake; and a tisane of lemon balm, thyme & rose to begin, before everyone was given a linen bag to sling across their torso on their way to the field…

Chatting away together, lost in the revelry, we plucked rose after rose…holding each to our noses, inhaling deeply individual perfumes, marvelling at their velvety petals and vivacious colours…

Back in the Dairy we emptied our bloom-filled bags onto the trestle table and tossed them all in the air, over and over, releasing their perfume into the atmosphere…before more sensibly, separating petals from calyx and…

Weighing our bounty.

By that point, all my focus was on Hildegard and the distillation (as well as our lunch!) so sadly I’ve no more images to share…but Hildegard played her part beautifully, gurgling and splish-sploshing from time to time, and I know we captured the essence of that special day…in a bottle.

But back to that favourite menu! Belinda Jefferey’s Pumpernickel Soda Bread…of course! A big bowl of Hummus - I’ve shared Cherie Hausler’s Preserved Lemon Hummus recipe with you before, though in this case I winged it…I’m all out of preserved lemons but it wasn’t a bad concoction! Sicilian Caponata and Tzatziki…which I have a feeling I haven’t shared before, so here you go. How I love this combination on a plate…all of it truly chiming with the season, and a festival on the tongue! And then later…Seville Orange Ice Cream and a fig each…each one from the tree simply bursting its seams!

Tzatziki

Ingredients

• One long European cucumber, or two or three Lebanese ones (I find the Lebanese variety to have given up by this stage of the season, though they are my preference for eating, whereas the long European ones seem to begin fruiting later and take us through into this later part of the season)

• A clove or two of garlic, crushed

• A tablespoon or two of thick, Greek-stye yoghurt

• A squeeze of lemon juice (optional…I usually find it tangy enough)

Method

• Grate the cucumber (skin on)

• Sprinkle with sea salt and set in a strainer or colander…for a good half hour at least, so the cucumber releases its water content

• Give the rested, grated cucumber a very good squeeze, to eliminate as much retained excess fluid as possible and transfer to a bowl

• Fold through the garlic and yoghurt

I’m not giving you specific quantities - I think it’s one you can gauge once you have the size of cucumbers on hand…but the end result should be stiff and thick / not runny.

That very special lunch aside…my it’s somehow been a week of indulging in produce…I admit to fig gluttony…but it won’t go on much longer and such fruit are not to be squandered…but enjoyed and shared. Many of you will remember the several events I’ve had here since beginning these posts, with Karima and Sivine of Sunday Kitchen, and Sofra the beautiful book of recipes they released, year before last. Out of the blue last week, Karima got in touch…a friend in Lebanon (a very clever, engineering friend no less!) had gifted her a small Still, of unique design and I have to say…my interest is very piqued! Where would she find Damask roses? Karima asked…well not at this time of year I responded! “But please don’t go and buy roses to experiment with” I added. "Come, come here!”. And so she did, on Sunday afternoon, and I sent her home with a huge basket full of mixed blooms.

In return, (and most unexpectedly) she left with me (and I have to say lucky, lucky me), a very large tin of Premium Organic Palestinian Fair Trade Extra Virgin Olive Oil (into which we can read bravery, passion for land and continuity of culture over generations); as well as a jar from that same land of Za’atar, and the most fluffy length of folded flat-bread I have ever seen…it seemed to keep unfolding out of the large paper bag in which she brought it! And so my own lunches this week have consisted of torn sections of said flat-bread (warmed in the oven), laden with her olive oil and za’atar, tomatoes or figs; hummus and tzatziki. I’m not sure the combination can be bettered. Unless shared…(luckily Larry’s been here most days to help out with the length of bread and other ingredients!) and as Karima has been sending me images of her distillation experimentation (she’s become obsessed…oh how I know the feeling, and am so excited to see her experiencing the same!) I feel we’re sharing the lunches together too, by osmosis!

In case it sounds like all I’ve done all week is stuff my face with good food…there has been a great deal of other activity! As suggested last week, I began the process of cutting down the multitude of fennel stems in and around the kitchen garden. Consequently, all weekend my hair and every crevice of clothing…(pockets, seams) were full of fennel seed, as I cut and carted huge armfuls of the stuff down to the compost - there was so much of it I completely gave up on the wheelbarrow, using it instead to pile up mountain loads for picking up later. I still have bunches dotted all around the kitchen garden, and really mind not just how long they stay there for…I love to see these signs of activity not quite complete: they herald a change in the season.

I’ve scattered a good amount of the fennel seed heads about, where in patches, stems seemed a bit thin on the ground (as well as cutting off dozens of heads for Karima to take home…she knows there’s plenty more where that lot came from!). When I have a chance, I too, will cut off some heads to store in a jar in the pantry - I like to have a good store of them on hand, especially for when I make that lovely clear, scented vegetable broth that calls for a couple of tablespoons of fennel seed…and cannot imagine using ‘bought’!

I’m so glad though, to have at least cleared the fennel in the actual growing beds…making way for late planted zucchinis to grow their way towards the north - each of them snaking their way now, leaves billowing, across each of the guild beds; setting fruit that grows at a rate of knots each day. Courgetti-spaghetti (all you need is a spiraliser) has been the ‘green’ on our plates most of this week - gently fry off a clove of two of crushed garlic and a sliced onion in olive oil, then add handfuls of fine, zucchini ribbons and toss around for a few minutes, with a good pinch of salt, a few twists of black pepper…and maybe even a sprinkle of za’atar.

And grow at a rate of knots in this sultry March weather, the zucchinis have certainly been doing! SULTRY…I reckon, is the only word to describe the weather at this time of year. And according to the weather man on the ABC, the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) have removed it from their lexicon of weather descriptors! Really? Much of this district has been shrouded in a kind of haar….(a word I learned from Larry many moons ago…a Scottish term for a cold sea fog, as I understand it, but it seems the ideal descriptor for this week’s mornings, though of course we’re not cold!) - a not quite fog, nor quite mist, but a a romantic shroud nevertheless. Some days the sun burns it off by late morning, other days not ‘til mid afternoon, but as soon as the sun’s efforts play out, the level of heat and humidity increase rapidly; and the low, half-hearted cicada thrum begins to fill the air. It’s an evocative atmosphere; if steamy, and some days may bring a thunderstorm. Of course this sultry weather causes everything to grow like triffids; and so the sense of bucolic abandon continues.

This weekend, I hope to plant the first of next season’s seedlings…it’s time to get some brassicas in, and some lettuces too, to stagger my efforts in a bid to not run out and being the first Saturday of the month…I’m hoping Patio Plants will be at the Cobbitty Market with their beautiful seedlings tomorrow morning!

‘Til next week, when I think I might have some news of an about-to-be published (on these shores) new book on Kitchen Gardens. For those in the UK…I think it’s already on the shelves; and although the inclusion of the garden here is very much tail-end-Charlie…(I have yet to see a hard copy but I think we occupy two pages to everyone else’s four to six!) to be included at all in such company is pretty exciting.

I wish you all a lovely weekend and a good week ahead and will look forward to being in touch again this time next week.

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Aubergine (my oh my are we eating aubergines) and zucchinis! Cucumber, tomatoes, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, rocket, carrots, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Figs, rhubarb. Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, new season nasturtium leaves and basil…which I keep forgetting to add to the list! Mind you…it was slow to establish this year but is going great guns now!

Going / gone: potatoes, fresh fennel seeds, beans (although the later sown are beginning to grow, so there may be a second flush)

Seed saving: carrot, parsnip, bean, fennel

Sowing: I think it’s a little too early…though I’m keen to get some coriander underway…and perhaps some cima di rappa…perhaps some carrot, beetroot and parsnip but I’ll need to do a great deal of prep before I get those in…don’t rush - note to self as much as a message from me to you!

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, fennel, lettuce…it’s time to think autumn/winter growing

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias, roses, ginger, frangipani, gardenia

Perfumes and aromas: rose, frangipani, ginger, fig leaf, lavender (a new flush), gardenia, port wine magnolia, Osmanthus fragrans…magnolia grandiflora, stephanotis…night-scented Jessamine (having given it such a wrap in the post last week, I forgot to include it here!)…

Pruning and other: I deadheaded all the roses and cut out some sections of lavender that haven’t enjoyed the damp weather, but otherwise it’s been more about weeding this week, as well as rubbing off the fuzz of new growth at the base of olive trees and the like; clearing lawn gutters and raking leaves from the gravel in the front courtyard…tweaking, primping…and for Larry…mowing! Everywhere one goes, the sound of mowers fills the air…

Where shall we go to today my friends? Where shall we go to today?

It’s been a week of moody skies, abundant produce and raindrops on seed-heads…where pumpkins romp (the entire aim of those vines now appears to be to escape their confines!). As zucchinis swell in the blink of an eye, tomatoes ripen on the vine and aubergines fill their shiny skins; plump buds open to reveal dahlias that dazzle or roses so heavy with perfume, it’s impossible to not stop and plunge in one’s nose to inhale, deeply…

The ‘feral’ component of last week’s title continues unabated! It’s such a fine line between the sheer romance of this time in the season, and a sense of well…wild abandonment! “I must mow the park this weekend” says Larry. “Oh no….no…please don’t” says me! For how I love the mown paths that meander through swathes of tall grass (OK…so now it’s getting so long the grass is beginning to resemble a jungle!). But it’s alive…as each evening a cacophony of cricket and frog song erupts…

In the kitchen garden, I know the time has come. I’ve been stringing it out from week to week; delaying the swansong. I’m sure those of you who have been reading along for awhile now, will recall that comment in the podcast that I’ve referred back to before (when my producer Leonie Marsh, coaxed on be me, allowed a fennel specimen in her garden to reach maturity and therefore great height) asked over and over, “are we there yet?”. Could she cut it down now? And I joked her repeat question sounded like that of children on a road trip! “Yes…you can cut it down now!” I replied at last. “As long as it’s shooting from somewhere at the base of the stem”.

While the stems stand tall and straight, a combination of new flowers still burgeoning with pollen and fresh heads of edible seed on their journey to drying out (and therefore instigating the next life cycle); I cannot cut them down. I love all the combined stages on display together…the golden-yellow pollen and pops of freshest green seed that delight the taste buds, all the way through to waxed oilcloth brown as they age…like a well-seasoned drizabone. On hot and steamy days the flowers at all their stages fill the atmosphere with a sweet and dusty aroma; after rain, the droplets of water cling to their every part, like magical orbs. As the weeks pass by, new shoots begin to appear on specimens happy to continue for another year - those shoots begging one to cut out the old and give them the freedom to grow on. The older ones that show no signs of reshooting can go; for everywhere now, are signs of emerging fennel seedlings…individuals and clumps alike; yielding a plethora of goodness for our plates, or something to nibble as going about one’s tasks.

But now…with the stems on an inevitable Titanic-like tilt from which there is no return…I can feel my fingers beginning to twitch…the sense of anticipation rising! If I was not right now glued here to my desk chair, keyboard and screen, I would be out wielding my secateurs with gusto…I literally cannot wait!!!!

And so the gradual transformation from summer towards the coming autumn will begin. It occurs at a very slow pace here…the essence of ‘late summer’ will continue well into the weeks ahead; there’s no need to rush, but the first work towards the summer/autumn crop rotation in the kitchen garden, will inevitably begin this weekend; and I’ll make a list (below) for seedlings to buy at the market tomorrow.

Whilst the kitchen garden may need an overhaul, not so the ornamental garden, where growth is burgeoning like topsy, creating that fulsome and romantic atmosphere I so enjoy. Perfume takes one by surprise…Osmanthus here, Port Wine Magnolia there, fig leaf, rose, resinous cistus, gardenia…the late summer garden is a riot for the olfactory sense.

In the evenings, great waves of night-scented Jessamine, Cestrum nocturnum float across the verandah and in through the open windows. For such a tiny, insignificant tubular flower (I’ve zoomed in above), my goodness those clusters know how to make themselves known!

The girls are yet to lay…and seem content if unadventurous - indeed aside from two little forays beyond their immediate ‘coop’ to scratch around under the citrus trees (that I’ve noticed anyway, and was thrilled they took themselves home!) they otherwise stay in close quarters. I’ve noticed that already one leads and the other mimics behaviour…the second one’s head turning a second later in the direction the first turned hers; the mimic hopping onto the ramp that takes them upstairs only after the leader has chosen to do so. Copycat behaviour! I wonder how this will play out? As much as I wonder which one is Mabel and which one is Enid? I suspect the coming weeks will reveal exactly just who…is who!

Now last week, after hitting ‘share’, I remembered too late that that particular post marked my 100th here on Substack! Whilst I don’t think it quite calls for a bottle of champagne to be opened…it does account for 100 individual days…of writing to you. I wonder what that would look like if my posts were letters, all carefully hand-written on beautiful paper; folded neatly and popped into an envelope to post (as they once might have been)? Or what 100 filled envelopes would look like, bundled together with a length of ribbon or string? (Oh dear…the course of where my imagination spontaneously leads me has not improved over the course of 100 posts!). I’m now unintentionally back in the land of Jane Austen, with bundles of correspondence stored in a trunk in the attic…sorry!

I also just noted that the very first, titled “A new adventure” was released on 28 February, 2024..so we are but one day out from precisely two years of almost weekly ‘substacking’ as I’ve come to call it. For fun, I just had a quick squizz…a flick back to that very first post. Whether you’ve lobbed in along the way and have never gone back to the beginning…or if you’ve been here for the entire adventure, how I hope I’ve fulfilled your expectations with the list of topics I suggested I would aim to share.

So many of you have been here since that very first post…(so many of you were already here with me in some way or other, before I launched in here on the Substack platform). Whilst some arrive and others leave…(I do often wonder what it is I’ve said that causes peeps to leave…are they bored or did I say something to offend? Who knows? None of us can keep everyone happy all of the time…’tis life). I’m guessing most of you have a measure of my (perhaps peculiar) sense of humour by now! There seems to be a stalwart core of you who remain, and it’s always so lovely to hear from you. I hope in some way, that the weekly posts brighten your day; perhaps there’s some snippet of information that’s helpful, or even better useful; perhaps some link that makes you go ‘ahhhh’, that resonates; or some stupidity that makes you laugh along with me, or a song that finds its way too, into your life as it has mine. I hope your gardening goes better, or that (and I know this to be the case for a few of you), you continue to enjoy gardening via my exploits.

Where to from here? Well…we shall just see! More of the same as well as something new in the wings methinks. Watch this space…as with all things…all in good time. But in the meantime, thank you for spending the time with me, that you do.

With warmest wishes as ever to you all,

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Aubergine (my oh my are we eating aubergines!), zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes, beans, warrigal greens, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory, lettuce, rocket, carrots, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Figs, rhubarb. Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano and new season nasturtium leaves

Going / gone: potatoes, fresh fennel seeds, beans (although the later sown are beginning to grow, so there may be a second flush)

Seed saving: carrot, parsnip, bean (I could be saving fennel seed…there is miles of it, but I don’t because I allow it to spill, and then I forage its newly erupted seedlings for our plates)

Sowing: I think it’s a little too early…though I’m keen to get some coriander underway…and perhaps some cima di rappa…perhaps some carrot, beetroot and parsnip but I’ll need to do a great deal of prep before I get those in…don’t rush - note to self as much as a message from me to you!

Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, fennel, lettuce…it’s time to think autumn/winter growing

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias, ginger, roses, frangipani

Perfumes and aromas: frangipani, fig leaf, lavender (a new flush), gardenia, port wine magnolia, Osmanthus fragrans…

Pruning and other: late-summer pruning of the espaliered fruit trees, the tangle of new growth the Chinese star jasmine put on had to be stifled and there’s been a good deal of tree-lopping - it’s inevitable a dead branch or section of tree gives up as seasons pass and from time to time, we bring someone in to tackle things we can’t reach. Thank you Jackson - a young man who did a fine job this week…Larry has begun a bonfire pile for the autumn and I’ll help him to load the rest into the ute tomorrow.

Sorry I missed last week’s post…it was a helluva day! At one point, in a blind moment of inspiration, I sat for five minutes at my desk and wrote something quickly, thinking to return to it later (cos as I went about the urgent tasks at hand, that topic about which I wrote a few lines in haste was occupying my mind). But when I still didn’t have dinner on the table by 9pm…well…that intention evaporated…I had to declare my good intent to write to you futile! And so here I am, a whole week on, thinking perhaps I should pick up where I left off? Thoughts though, are never quite the same as they are ‘in the moment’; but…let’s see if I can pop myself back in that headspace when…

Prompted by a question from a longtime correspondent, after popping this pic (above) of my laden wheelbarrow up on instagram, I thought to seize the opportunity for a little chat on the subject of the ‘Gardener’s Back’…for it’s one of real concern - not just for gardeners, but every human: at some stage I reckon each of us has suffered at least a twinge…something not quite right or just a little out of whack, and before you know it other parts of the body don’t function properly either and the level of pain can be excruciating.

“Mickey, do you ever suffer from a bad back from all your gardening?” asked my (quite regular!) correspondent. At the time it was such a prescient question, given literally the day before, when planting out a series of rows of lettuce, I’d found myself backing out of my position (where hitherto I had been kneeling) on a single narrow board, one-foot-behind-the-other; ‘walking the plank’ backwards; one foot at a time, trying to keep balance like an acrobat on a tight rope - which is not so easy! In fact thank goodness my ‘plank’ was flat on the ground!

As practicing this acrobatic feat, I was in fact dwelling on the concept of balance; particularly as we age…hence Ginny’s question the following day about my back, being so relevant.

In answering Ginny’s question, I relayed the story of how many years ago, I invited the longtime ‘back guru’ Sarah Key, to come to Glenmore for a full day workshop which we called ‘The Gardener’s Back’. It was well attended, we hit a nerve! In fact I can’t quite think why we haven’t done it again…

But at the time, I recall asking Sarah if all the physical work I was doing in the garden, would likely be detrimental to my body in the long run? I’m guessing that many peeps to this day just assume we have loads of help and that I only carry out light (and pretty!) duties, but I can assure you that since day one…I have done and continue to do my fair share of heavy lifting (perhaps more than I should!)…and in fact I can’t imagine life without doing so! But even back at that workshop which I’m guessing is about 15 years ago (just looked it up, 2012…I was close!) the amount of physical work I’d done by then was enough to prompt my question to Sarah. Heavy lifting is one thing, but I also often liken gardening to playing a game of twister - why oh why is every tool or bucket or seedling one needs just out of reach at the critical moment? And so one s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s just that little bit further, maybe twisting too, and sometimes even overbalancing! (I’m guessing I’m not the only one ever to have squashed the plant behind by literally sitting on it!). And then there’s the sawing; let alone barrowing, shovelling, dragging hoses…the list, as every gardener knows, goes on. But would I rather do all this than go to the gym? You bet! Afterall…I do get to do all the pretty as well!

Sarah’s answer brought me an enormous sense of relief. After all, the years do tick by. At the time, I was pushing 50 (you can do the maths!). All my life, I’d say since my early teens, I’ve done a series of morning stretch exercises, though back then I’d never heard of Pilates. Of course the time line of my own life saw aerobics as a huge fitness craze; one in which I participated during my late teens and early 20’s; though I replaced that with more stretch-focussed exercise from my mid-20’s. I’ve never been a runner, but I used to be a keen swimmer and regular tennis player. I did take up Pilates classes at a local gym in my early/mid 40’s I guess…in the end persuading the instructor to come here once a week instead; when a group of local girls would attend on a Monday morning - how funny to think back to then, when the Dairy was covered in mats and all of us going through our routine. One day though, the instructor didn’t turn up…and so that period came to an end. But ever since I’ve taken the best of those exercises, combined with various ones given by sports-physios for one ache, pain or other (knee, shoulder, neck, hand) and I am faithful to practicing them every single morning. If I have a super early start to the day, I always get up half an hour earlier…even if that means 4.30 in the pitch dark…as I cannot begin the day without going through my routine!

Anyway…back to Sarah and the ‘Gardener’s Back’, when she suggested that contrary to my concerns, carrying out such a wide variety of tasks means we’re inclined to use all our supporting muscles, which in turn strengthens our back. I’m always mindful of the ‘core’, especially when expending huge effort…for example when pushing a full wheelbarrow (and especially if doing so uphill!).

It doesn’t mean I don’t get stiff, and from time to time I do do something silly and find myself in strife. But if it’s my back to which I’ve caused some issue, I drag out Sarah’s ‘back block’ and run through her series of exercises. If I was being very good, I would use Sarah’s ‘block’ morning and night, but I’m not so diligent…it takes time. But boy has it got me out of what might have been annoying visits to a physio over the years…a couple of days implementing Sarah’s instructions generally sets me right again.

By all means go in search of Sarah! I think she’s writing on Substack now too…but here’s a link to her website. When I mentioned Sarah to my insta correspondent she came back immediately telling me how delighted she was I was a Sarah Key advocate…she has long been too. Perhaps it’s time for another ‘Gardener’s Back Workshop’?

So that’s where my head was at this time last week, whilst my hands were otherwise engaged! Had I completed these paragraphs as intended, today’s post would no doubt, have begun very differently! So where to now?

So many thoughts in the last fortnight, but before I continue on, a post that appeared at the top of my insta feed this morning set me off with such a giggle I can’t resist sharing it…cos it just resonated…

I don’t know anything about Paul Avellino and am guessing he’s in the States (I just referred back…he has an insta following of 520,000!) but the algorithm clearly decided through his cheeky post today, that he ought to be on my radar!

The accompanying text to his image with a raised eyebrow goes…

Me meeting someone new:

Them: “I hear you’re into gardening”

Me: “I don’t think you’re fully prepared for this conversation”

Oh how I laughed out loud!!!!

I’ve linked the highlight of his name above to his post, so if you have a minute, do visit his insta profile and read the accompanying text (he may never appear on my feed again but this one post was worth seeing!). I’ve never considered myself to be particularly radical…but there are truths in his words that chime…I have long been on the same page of his expression and oh how those very words above (the latter line never actually spoken aloud!) have been the reality for me over and over and over again…the years of accompanying Larry to some swish business event or other (finger nails scrupulously plunged before leaving here into a half lemon; glad-rags on, attempts at getting hair to look as if I’d just stepped from a salon questionable!); but be those peeps I’d never met before prepared or not…be they likely recipients of the message of how growing veg grows you or not…I’m happy to convey that those conversations they were unlikely to have been prepared for, have often lasted, unexpectedly, for hours!

Now back to things sensible…(you know if I could persuade each and every person I stumble across to grow I would! I also accept not everyone can…or will…all I can do is try…).

The figs…oh my the figs! I’m still giving them away but finally got a chance to make jam from two kilos of them yesterday.

I’m going to look like a fig! A fat fig, I told Bonnie the other day!

I’m not sure there is a more plentiful, abundant time of year! In the last weeks, at one point the grass grew to the height of our knees (when both Larry’s mowers had a problem and went off to be fixed!). The Photinia hedge at the very front shot a plethora of new red-tip growth that got so tall it bowed down in the rain; the bright leaf tips of the Murraya hedge too, grew inches seemingly overnight and the hedge of Oleander shot up stems a foot or more tall!

Combined with searing heat, occasional thunderstorms and the insistent thrum of cicadas…it’s made for a utopia one can smell, touch, feel…and taste, for the produce has been coming in too, in bountiful fashion. On one expectant, heat-wave morning, on closing the shutters and post-early watering, I raced around with my secateurs and knife to bring in lettuce before it suffocated, rocket before it was leather, beans before they baked on the vine and zucchinis before they all turned to marrows…then plunged myself into the pool before retreating to the cool inside where ceiling fans ticked pleasantly overhead!

The pumpkin vines are romping away now! I think when I last wrote, I’d just been to collect a ute load of lucerne to cover the citrus bed that makes up the chook run (see more below) but there was enough left over to spread around the giant pumpkin leaves and I got to those just in the nick of time…before they really took off! I love that moment when all of a sudden…the pumpkin vines are away! With their enormous leaves that float on a breeze, I was thrilled to bits when two days ago, the lead shoot crossed the base of the step to Mr McGregor’s Gate at the top of the path! I’ve been tweaking and coaxing it and crossing my fingers for weeks…and at last…it’s made it! Everyone has been warned they will not live to see another day if they should tread on it!

Earlier this week, a couple of new birds arrived! We’ve been without chooks for well over a year…(in fact I think it may even be two!). The last pair were troublesome and we needed to do some repairs too, to the chook house, before getting new ones. How evocative, I’d thought to myself upon introducing the bales of lucerne a fortnight ago, when spreading them cast the sweet aroma of an agricultural show. Combined with the additional pleasant odour that feathered friends bring…a new atmosphere has settled in the kitchen garden…there can be no doubt about the attributes of the new girls’ presence…they’ve already added a life force that’s been missing here for awhile. I just need to remember to factor ‘putting them away’ and ‘letting them out’ into my daily routine…it’s been awhile!

I’ll be honest, I’m not good with birds - I have a phobia, so you won’t find me picking them up. I’m not as bad as I once was (years ago we used to allow a flock of 5 to roam the garden but the damage they did was ridiculous). Still…I’m happiest if they stick to their allotted space. They’ve been cooped up (on advice) since they arrived, but just earlier today, we opened the gate, so they are free to roam now all around the citrus trees. Ever since we introduced ‘pairs’ (I’m guessing these must be maybe the sixth or so ‘pair’!) to the kitchen garden in this dedicated area, I’ve named them ‘Cabbage’ & ‘Rose’ (yes, after Cabbages & Roses, that eponymous British company I’ve long so adored, admired and written about in previous posts) but I’m not so sure that this time maybe they shouldn’t be Mabel & Enid after my grandmothers! Thalia says she always has one called Ethel. We both laughed! Anyway…whatever their names may be, the new girls I hope…will be happy in their new home and begin to lay in just a couple of weeks.

By way of a Bunya update, the first of the cones has split itself apart…in very neat fashion I must say, compared to some explosive parting of the ways we’ve witnessed in earlier seasons! It means we’ll soon begin eating them…but I’ll wait for Clemmie to be back here before we do as really it’s her thing…she did such a lot of research into them awhile back and I’ll share the outcome when we get there. Since I last wrote though, her idea the tree might double its number of cones with each season has had a spanner thrown in the works - we now have 57 (whereas her theory would have required 56!). We’ve counted and re-counted…but have had to put that one to rest as 57 there are, and we’re not sure there isn’t still one at the top of the tree!

I have discovered this week though (as our local botanical illustrator posed the question, so I thought I should do some backtracking to glean an answer for her) that we planted the young Bunya sapling, Araucaria bidwillii here in 2009, when I found it at a plant stall during the bicentenary celebrations of Mulgoa - an early colonial settlement not too far from here as the crow flies. So our tree is 17 years old. I know as it matures, the cones themselves will be much larger…more than double the size…but I’m more than content with the size they are now - I never even thought I’d see it produce even one in my lifetime!

Speaking of strenuous jobs (above!)…Thalia and I have tackled some beauties in the last week! I’m sure I’ve written before at length about the Strelitzia nicolai, that has grown to such a fulsome specimen right outside the bedroom wing…lending character to that position both inside and out…creating a Sydney-esque atmosphere to the garden, providing shade to the eastern facade of the house and creating a secret place to read on the verandah on a too-hot summer’s day; but to say its grown to all I ever imagined and more in the last year or so, is certainly true! It’s just as I envisioned all those years ago, when we were building the bedroom ‘pavillion’. A ‘floating island’ as I would refer to them as a child…resembling some far-off romantic place in my imagination (just in a sea of grass rather than water) in the like of the Botanic Gardens or Centennial Park.

But with that growth of course, comes dead bits! Spent flowers, wind-thrashed leaves, and most of them way too high to reach. In desperation I asked Larry to please bring up the A-frames (can’t think why on earth I didn’t just do so myself but they are heavy!). And this time, he relented; helped me get them and their plank into position, and then…Thalia and I just got on with the job! A couple of hours later, after making the biggest mess; we had it all loaded into the back of the ute. Job done. Girl power! Maybe this weekend I might actually get to sit on my verandah chair and read a few pages in my favourite place…looking out from behind those large leaves to the peaceful vista beyond…

When I should have been writing to you last week, instead I was up at the front gate, saw in hand. “Meet you up there” I said to Thalia. The thing is, we don’t use the main gates every day…we use the secondary ones, and so I’m inclined to only look properly at the front gates when I open them for visitors or collect the mail, and then promptly forget. At this time of year, given only friends have been visiting, and therefore been using the same gates as us, it dawned on me that the growth had been so rampant since our last event, that no-one would be able to get their car through the gates without it getting scratched by an errant, over-extended Agave tip!

As is often the way, taking out just a few leaves became one of those ‘bigger than Ben-Hur’ activities. I caught Larry on the hop “you couldn’t just bring the ute up here could you?” And then he looked at the ground all around!!!! Thalia and I tackled both clumps, to either side of the gate. It’s an addictive thing…once you begin. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but finding the right angle to pull just the right runner, yields the opportunity to pull out all the babies that accrue around the base of each specimen, and as each one comes away there are shrieks of delight and satisfaction to be heard! No doubt anyone driving by would have thought it a funny sight! Anyway, there was another good job done!

It may sound like a lot of work, yet everywhere I look a bucolic vista beckons…some breathtaking late summer vision is illuminated in ethereal light…perfumes gather and spill; textures tumble and play, and hills of borrowed landscape frame the whole.

Time to attend to the productive garden notes etc. below! I hope the last fortnight has treated you well and I’ll look forward to catching up again next week.

With warmest wishes

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Potatoes, beans, aubergines, zucchini, warrigal greens, carrots, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory (planting these last two this season was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!), cucumber, tomatoes, lettuce, rocket, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Figs, rhubarb. Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano and new season nasturtium leaves

Going / gone: fresh fennel seeds, fennel fronds, fennel pollen

Seed saving: carrot, parsnip, bean (I could be saving fennel seed…there is miles of it, but I don’t because I allow it to spill, and then I forage its newly erupted seedlings for our plates)

Sowing: I thought to try for a last bean seed sowing, and they’ve germinated. Not much else has yet though from that wild sowing but given the topsy turvy weather interspersed with heatwave days, it’s not surprising…so I’m holding off for now

Planting: I did sow rows of lettuce, one of coloured chard and one of mizuna. The time for planting is coming…very soon…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias, ginger, roses, frangipani

Perfumes and aromas: frangipani, fig leaf, lemon blossom (Meyer), lavender (a new flush). Pick a citrus leaf and fold to break, and you have all the attributes of petitgrain. A heightened sense of perfume simply hangs in the languid air all around…

Pruning and other: In addition to the agave and strelitzia work above, I did deadhead the hydrangeas - both mop-head and oakleaf. The photinia, murraya and oleander hedges have all been clipped (thank you Matt!) as well as the Cherokee rose. The pomegranate hedge has been given a clip and weed and the huge balls of Bay tree to each side of the garden courtyard door too. There’s a constant ‘tip’ pruning to all manner of shrubs at this time of year when growth is so rampant, but how we love it so!

You’re likely getting pretty bored of this by now…but we are not! Every day a surprise…a new shriek of delight! For now there are a total of…

FIFTY-THREE…and counting! Clemmie is developing a theory, upon which we can only ponder: we are positive that at the last fruiting, two years ago, we had twenty-eight; and were completely astonished at that number back then, so you might imagine how we feel now! But she is wondering if perhaps they produce exactly double the number the following season? And if so, surely that cannot be the case forever? Tho maybe at this particular stage of the tree’s growth? Well…it’s an interesting conundrum to chew over (she has a fascination for sacred geometry and the like…to a much greater depth than me); and it will be fascinating to see what the final count may be. Peeps keep asking now what we’re going to do with them? Well…for the moment I am simply enjoying looking at them…I know it won’t last…and once the next stage of their journey occurs…I promise to fill you in on just what we do do!

Remember I described how it was sooooooooo stifling as I wrote to you last week? A stinker of a day that saw no relief, followed by another, that yielded a late night light-show and surprise shower of rain…woohoo. And then…on Sunday…with a great clap of thunder (that caught me out, absorbed as I was, all the way down at the potting shed!)…

(pop your sound on full for the video!)

*The rain came tumbling down! (see below)

And down and down it came! Realising all the windows in the house were wide open (the temperature had cooled) there was nothing for it but to make a dash, so I got back to the house like a drowned, dripping rat! I hastily kicked off my shoes and ran from room to room like a whirlwind, closing the windows firmly shut as the rain came from every which way; and soon the lawn gutters were awash, with rivers of water. What a thrill!

At this time of year in particular, the more rain one gets, the more one seems likely to get, as humidity levels rise along with full hydration of the soil. One can sense the earth exhaling moisture into the atmosphere, which in return is inclined to draw down more rain: an age-old symbiotic cycle. Up ‘til a few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure it would occur this season; as you know, we were dry as dry; but how excited I am our mid-summer season is unfolding true to form (and only hope it continues!); whilst being well aware this isn’t the case for everyone…too many parts of the country are bereft of moisture…and how I wish I could blow this localised atmosphere in their direction, so they too could fill their dams, raise their water table; put paid to the risk of wild fires and create surety for the months ahead.

*How I adore John Denver’s ‘Garden Song’! I know…I’m a dag! (Yes the linked clip is from the Muppet Show…it seems to be the only one!). Funny…despite having been a fan (maybe closet…I mean who would’ve admitted it during those judgmental teen years back then?) of John Denver and having several of his albums on cassette tape at the time; I’d never heard this particular folk song ‘til hurriedly trying to find an appropriate tune to accompany an instagram reel a few years back. Consequently, whenever I reference ‘rain tumbling down’ I find it lodges in my head! I love the simplicity and honesty the lyrics evoke…they just resonate (whereas creating instagram reels completely does my head in…I’m so far behind with my posts on the ‘grid’ - after coming to a grinding halt after our event with Adelaide Bragg last year when I thought I’d timed a tune (‘Our House…Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) and images from the day to perfection alongside the first verse: “I’ll light the fire, you place the flowers in the vase that you bought, today…”) only to lose the entire thing at the mis-hit of a finger!).

The figs are in!!!! Woohoo!!! This is the second such basket this week and I haven’t been out to check this morning (looking at the sky perhaps I should make a dash and do so!). Oh what a treat each single fruit is. I’ve been giving them away, half a dozen at a time to whoever turns up or wherever I go, and am otherwise happily gorging on them direct from the tree, or on sourdough with goat’s cheese and lashings of EVOO, a twist of black pepper and a torn basil leaf or two! At this rate, I’ll soon need to start cooking them.

(Just in from my dash with another basket resembling the one above - not sure this storm will come to much more than a few drops, but the atmosphere all around is heaven!).

Remember last week I suggested I might indulge in a seed-throwing episode if the weather was right? Well…after the shower on Saturday night I thought to dig the last of the potatoes - this year I didn’t sow as many (suppliers didn’t have as many on offer!); nor did I put them in the most sensible place, though I’ve grown them there before and it was the right place for this year. So whilst they’ve been good, there aren’t as many, and I thought to put their spot to better use rather than storing these few left in the ground.

Given the heat on Saturday was so intense, I opted for an inside job and made a stab at sorting some of the seed bank, so on Sunday, I went a-flinging! I’m not entirely sure now just what I threw…but all of it was two years old and since replaced, so it will be curious to see what, if anything, happens. I do so love this playful way of gardening - the results are often bewitching and almost certainly provide…food!

Rhubarb has been on my ‘eating from the garden’ list at the bottom of each post for weeks, if not months. Whilst it’s been there for the picking, even we are inclined to be distracted by the like of mangoes and papayas during the summer months, and I’ve felt disinclined to pick the stems that I admit struggle in the heat, yet have been there for the picking if we wanted to eat them. The rain though, perked them up no end and so from now we’ll forego the tropical fruits as we have a surfeit of our own - rhubarb, as well as figs…are back on the menu!

When I was replacing everything in the Barn a couple of weeks ago (thank goodness that job is done!) I kept wondering from where delicate, seed-carrying filaments were arriving…floating in as they were, through the open, double stable-doors. I usually associate these fine puffs of white with cardoons, but I knew we’d taken those stems out weeks ago. Silly me, I realised after…the seed heads of the globe artichokes (so closely related to the cardoon) outside the kitchen (which makes their proximity just as close to the Barn) had reached that point in their cycle. As I’ve mentioned before, it does no good to the parent plant to remove the spent stem before new growth appears at the base, which it hand’t a fortnight ago. But it has now!

How exquisite the stems of dried heads are…I always find it difficult to throw them in the compost and every year am tempted to tie them as I once did many moons ago, to hang in the Dairy where they kept their form for months and months…’til one day I opened the door to find those light-as-a-feather filaments everywhere! The heads had simply exploded in the warmth of a fine spring day and could I catch them? Sweep them? Vacuum them? It was one of those situations where all I could do was laugh as I chased them around, attempting to pick them up in my fingers one at a time! So these ones…are going straight to the compost before I’m even tempted!

You know how often I say it pays to not be too meticulous with your weeding…or at least to ascertain which tiny seedling is indeed a weed as opposed to a likely harbinger of joy? I consider this flowering carrot to be one such result of leaving well alone - of course I wasn’t going to eat it as a carrot, growing there in the gravel…but as a multi-stemmed bearer of flower-heads against the stone wall of the chook run? You bet! How I would hate to miss out on such a happy sight.

Speaking of which (the chook run that is!)…yesterday I zipped over to our dear, near neighbours…accompanied almost all the way by the song of cicadas. The sky was blue, the sun was hot, and with the window wound all the way down (yes…the ute has old-fashioned manual window- winders!) a lovely breeze passed through the cab as I bumped and trundled along. The pastures were green, the country lane narrow and winding. Could one possibly ask for more on a Thursday morn?

But more I got…a whole ute load of sweet smelling bales of lucerne, for which I’m enormously grateful. I’ve been meaning to smother the chook run in lucerne for months and months, but just hadn’t had a chance to do the round-trip. And now? The chook enclosure is a sea of cut lucerne…where earthworms can multiply, micro-organisms flourish and soon…a new pair of chooks can call home!

By the way….this year’s crop of oranges are looking good…June perhaps, for the first of these navels to ripen, but they’re growing on well. With a side dressing of lucerne, I’ve no doubt they’ll flourish.

And that my friends will, I hope, keep you going! Thank you as ever for being here. Do you know? If I’ve kept my record diligently, this is post number 99! I’m almost two years into this ‘substacking’ adventure and just had a little look back…the automated ‘coming soon’ message that announced the title I settled on (was it right? is it right?), went out with my heart in my mouth on 16 Feb 2024 with my first actual ‘post’…a new adventure, heading out into the world (after a great deal of figuring out how on earth to make it do so - tech is really not my thing!) the following Feb 28. Perhaps at the next post, I might revisit that original post to see if I’ve stuck to the promise of what I might deliver! Two whole years…where on earth have they gone?

Catch you next time. In the meantime, I send you warmest wishes as ever; wherever you are,

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Potatoes, aubergines, zucchini, warrigal greens, carrots, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory (planting these last two this season was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!), cucumber, the first tomatoes (at last! just cherry varieties so far…the big ones take longer to ripen), lettuce, rocket, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Figs! Rhubarb! Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano (that was the thing I realised last week that I never mention!). Fennel pollen, fresh fennel seeds, poppy seeds, nigella seeds (these last two saved)

Going / gone: mizuna (I need to replace this lot - it’s bolted!) chive flowers, fennel fronds. Peaches…oh my how good they were!

Seed saving: carrot

Sowing: I did indeed scatter a wild smattering of seed (see above) though none I had on hand were suitable for the base of the north-heading zucchini…I might try to find something this weekend for that spot…

Planting: if my friends are at the market as they suggested they might be tomorrow, I badly need to replace the bolting lettuce and mizuna but I do think the weather is too unstable for anything more…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: dahlias, ginger (I couldn’t resist!) roses, frangipani, magnolia

Perfumes and aromas: Gardenia thunbergia, frangipani, fig leaf, osmanthus fragrans, murraya (oh that’s just wild now!), lemon blossom (Meyer). A heightened sense of perfume simply hangs in the languid air all around…

Pruning and other: I’m still sitting on my hands…longing to deadhead the hydrangeas that were so badly baked before the weather changed, but loathe to do so with further heat ahead, as those burnt leaves are protecting the new ones emerging below, so instead contented myself with tying in the tomatoes and cucumbers and tidying the tropicals between the wings, including deadheading the spent flowers of the Justicea, making way for her next flush. There’s been a good deal of raking post storm and removing burnt leaves from the cliveas and agapanthus post-heat! Thalia is giving the rosemary hedges in the Hayshed a good clip as I write…the mid-summer ‘keeping in check’ continues…

When I suggested in last week’s post (tongue in cheek!) that I’d need to place someone on ‘lookout duty’ as I made a dash to retrieve the cones from underneath the boughs of the Bunya pine, this particular image fleetingly popped into my head; and I couldn’t resist asking the girls to dig it out for me, for truly…one must be as alert in the pursuit of Bunya cone collection, as one might be were there tigers in the vicinity!

Which was perhaps the inspiration for this long-ago image - one of a raft whose narratives Bonnie would draw and plan out at great length, often coaxing her sister to dress up and play the character she was seeking to portray. This would inevitably mean raiding the dress-up box and on many occasions, as her passion for dreaming up quirky scenarios for photography proliferated, involve the entire family, sometimes stretching to godparents and kind friends willing to be roped into the fun too. The dramatics of Bonnie’s final school year, during which photography played a significant role, were so numerous I could fill today’s entire post and then some, with the antics she employed to bring her ideas to fruition! For a hint…I once persuaded a fish monger in Sydney to save the skeleton (fish-head and tail in tact) of a very big Atlantic salmon; which next day joined half a dozen cabbages, a squeaky old wheelbarrow, a ladder, a length of bamboo and various other props in the back of the car. Then along with Bonnie’s good friend Edwina, clad in a tutu (who has indeed gone on to become a wildly successful international model) we set off on a long and winding drive down the escarpment to Lake Illawarra. Well might you imagine the odour that accompanied us not just on our way there…but all the way home too! Then there was the dash Larry and I made to the Collector Pumpkin Festival (about 2 hours drive away) in the ute, to collect a huge prizewinning specimen that filled the entire ute ‘tray’, and the following weekend had to be dragged up neighbour farmer Rowan’s hill by tractor; and the weekend I spent baking bread, making cakes and jellies and I can’t even remember what else, then transporting the entire substantial spread (very slowly in case each precious prop should crash) to a very particular local landscape belonging to kind and generous friends, where the gradient of a hill was just ‘so’ that it might give the impression Edwina was flying on a broomstick! Oh my….what a year that was!

While there are too many to list here, the most tumultuous of all was the day Edwina almost floated away, as she stood in an old trunk engulfed by a bounty of ‘treasure’ as if washed up on the sand at the rocky end of a beach…whilst B waited for just the right wave to crash and spray as a backdrop. Truly my heart raced as the trunk began to swirl with the last outgoing wave…what was I going tell Edwina’s mother? I could just imagine the headlines! But then nothing ever phased Edwina…(not even tipping a bucket of water on her from an overhead second storey window while she clutched a hapless chicken!). I wish I had copies of Bonnie’s final images but I don’t…she took them on film and anyway, they’re hers to share. I have though, just located a few I snapped behind the scenes, and am even more horrified that in that particular ‘trunk’ instance, I allowed them to continue - but then each of them was as determined as the other in the pursuit of achieving the intended outcome!

But back to the Bunyas…

As it was, I risked a repetitive collection, one at a time, of half a dozen from directly underneath the tree on a very calm evening earlier this week. Phew…I thought. My stack on the verandah table was increasing from the original three that had nestled into the grass at a distance from the tree - those ones I’d gathered without hesitation, imagining they’d rolled to their location. Then at pretty much the exact same time next day, Clemmie came rushing in to the kitchen with a “did you hear that?” “Did you see that”?

“See what?” said I. It would seem she first heard the rush from her position on the verandah…a rustle that gathered momentum; but by the time she registered what the sound was, only witnessed the very last centimetres of the load of six drop to the ground…and bounce! And then again the same thing this morning! Why oh why am I never in the right place at the right time to see this spectacle for myself? On the other hand perhaps I should re-think; re-phrase and simply thank the good Lord I was nowhere nearby!

I’ve yet to pick up the latest falls but Clemmie did a count this morning and says we now have 29; with still more at the top, though we have only 28 here, as the lovely local botanical artist I mentioned last week did indeed come to visit yesterday, prepared with a thick towel in which to load and protect the precious cargo she had come to choose. After serious inspection of all specimens, off she went with her well-wrapped choice, and I am so excited to see the stages she captures of the cone’s progress - as alongside the research she plans to undertake. She’s in for surprise after surprise as the cone she now has ripens, and eventually splits apart.

In the meantime, what a lovely backdrop the cones have made for this week’s simple, mid-summer verandah lunches, where we’ve had the fun of welcoming family and friends, young and old, from afar.

Sumptuous Greek salads have been taking centre stage and although I can’t yet claim the tomato component to be my own…they are coming (or the olives or fetta!); the cucumbers surely are! Up ‘til about ten or so years ago, I really wasn’t familiar with the ‘Crystal Apple’ variety of cucumber. An Australian heirloom, one year I picked up a seedling at the market by mistake, and what a mistake to make! During their early growth phase, while the vine is getting established, should tiny fruit appear I’m inclined to pick those morsels no bigger than a finger nail and eat them on the spot (one of those very special treats for the gardener!). But once the vine gets a move on, I allow the fruit to grow on and during the last couple of weeks, since the bout of rain gave them a boost, all the cucumbers (long and Lebanese too) have become prolific.

Last weekend I spent some time sorting out the tangle the cucumbers had got themselves into during the heatwave and subsequent rain. Upon removing all the sunburnt leaves I was delighted to find enough growth on some vines to coax them at last (usually I’d get them to a good height well before Christmas) up some strings, where they have a much better chance of good airflow, thereby causing the entire vine to be more healthy and productive - hence the bounty of fruit this week.

How fun it’s been to be back in the kitchen and with friends at the table, after all the sorting and washing the month of January has brought. I only wish I could tell you I’d completed the task, afterall, January is about to be February…and I haven’t!

There is so much more beauty occurring in the kitchen garden. Where during the course of the last ten days or so, the individual outer bracts of the corn ‘tassels’ have been tinged that shade of pinkish, reddish brown of which I’m so enamoured; during the last couple of days they’ve opened to reveal their inner pollen-carrying stamens…so where that colour was to be seen erupting profusely from the stem above…

Now instead, it’s to be found below - in the shaggy silks that have opened at the top of each newly formed, fine corncob-to-be. Now all we need is the breeze to cause the pollen overhead to dance and spill onto the tip of each thread below. You can see in the image above, where one has landed just so.

To my delight, a recently planted Feverfew has exploded into a sea of delicate yellow-centred, daisy-like flowers; amidst a froth of newly opened, blue Borage flowers. The borage I’ve had here forever and a day, but as a general rule I wouldn’t expect such a proliferation at this time of year…they usually do better here in the winter, so I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but I’m certainly not complaining! The feverfew on the other hand, is new; and I have no good excuse for not having planted it years and years ago. It’s one I’ve always meant to plant and occasionally stumble upon an unopened seed packet - always at the wrong time of year supposedly, to sow. And so I leave it thinking I’ll do so later…and then somehow find the packet still there same time next year! When I mentioned this to Thalia one day she said she had it everywhere and was weeding it out and would I like some? “Yes please” I said. “You’ll regret it” said she. Well yes…I have many of those but I’ve no objection to weeding out something when it’s the result of something I want to grow! So simple as it is, I’m thrilled to bits with the display on this very first specimen to grow here, of feverfew!

While I think of fledgling seedlings ‘popping up’, I’ve noticed these last few days a number of very fine new fennel ones, about which I’m thrilled. Some of the fennel plants that have been growing for years have become so old and woody, they need to be replaced. A handful have died during the course of these last weeks - not that anyone else would notice there’s such an abundance of them, and as their bases rot out, I’ll tease them from the throng in the knowledge their replacements are growing on nearby all of their own accord. A happy and natural cycle.

Down the back, lovely things are happening too. I haven’t rigged up the shade for a couple of weeks but the garden’s under sail again today. Last time I had the nets over this section, the corn was so tiny I didn’t have to think, but yesterday I found myself searching for the means to prop the net ever higher, as the corn in this run has well exceeded the height of the tomato stakes used to support the dahlias next door! A handy length of bamboo was easy to plunge into the damp earth though, so although everyone will still wilt in the heat, hopefully they won’t scorch…and this time, the earth is hydrated.

How I love ‘down the back’! Ostensibly the part other peeps don’t see (there’s nothing here that no-one sees!), it’s where the washing line as well as the potting shed and wood storage are. Over the years all manner of spontaneous planting has occurred down here and when I asked Thalia to divide some of the ornamental gingers in the pots ‘between the wings’ last year and she seemed to have a surplus of rhizomes after her re-planting exercise, she asked what to do with them. As I really don’t need more pots, I had a think and (it’s the kind of thought Larry hates!) pondered the little space between the last of the three sinks that rest against the slab wall of the tractor shed and the first bay of kindling storage. It’s always just gathered grass and weeds and so…I wondered? “Just clear it and add some compost and pop them in” I said to Thalia, hoping no-one would notice. I faithfully watered them during those first months then left well alone during the winter, but began giving them a drop each morning once the weather warmed. We had no idea which variety they were as they all got muddled; but during these last days buds have been forming and today…we have the answer!

Of course part of my thinking in plonking them down the back, was that I might get some flower spikes to pick for the house, as it wouldn’t matter if they went missing from that corner. That’s how one ought to think of ‘down the back’. But of course I don’t! I knew full well that if they flowered there, against the aged, patinated ironbark slabs salvaged from the original dwelling here, they would look exquisite and just right, as if they’d been there forever. And so now I don’t want to pick them at all! And yet I do…maybe I will pick that first one tonight, so it doesn’t bake in tomorrow’s heat that is expected to be worse than today…there’s an excuse anyway, and how I would love to have the scent of this beauty filling filling my nostrils in the house! Let alone the sight of it. But where? Kitchen? Bedroom? Bathroom? Gallery? I really need to plant a vast swathe of them so I can fill each room of the house!

Scent is filling every pocket of the garden as one roams…and roam I did yesterday, with a darling visitor, the friend of a friend. And it was she this time, who stopped us both dead in our tracks - usually it’s me! “What is that?” she asked and the two of us followed our noses round in circles. Seconds earlier I had picked up the ephemeral hint of osmanthus that faded as quickly as I noted it, mid-sentence; but we were near the half-open stable door to the pool and so the deep frangipani perfume was spilling through that building from the far side and we were standing next to a barrow of rosemary clippings! “Gardenia?” she offered…but we were a distance from the courtyard where those pinwheel flowers were still spinning on the thunbergia. And then I saw it - the cluster of waxy flowers on the Murraya hedge! “That’s it” she shrieked with delight! A once-Aussie girl who has lived a lifetime in England. “Do you think I could grow it over there?”. Well…maybe as an indoor specimen! Or somewhere protected. I’m hopeful she’ll give it a try and let me know…for these are the things for us all, that bring with them floods of memories.

As we roamed, I noticed the first of the figs had coloured…although their short stalks were still holding each fruit stiffly aloft. Just a few more hours of sunlight though and…the evening pick announced fig season to be officially here!

Whilst just three luscious peaches have, one at a time these last days, filled the kitchen with the sweetest, peachiest perfume you might imagine!

On a funny note to end, just because it made me laugh and may cause you to do the same: when I went to post my evening ‘pick’ on insta yesterday, I discovered at the top of my feed (thanks to ) this utterly divine excerpt of Helena Bonham Carter in Seven Dials. Looks like it’s a new adaptation and although I’m not entirely sure I’m keen to revisit that Agatha Christie story (doesn’t that one have rather too many gruesome murders?????) it’s just shot to the top of my ‘must watch’ list…purely for the sake of Helena’s performance!

Sending warmest wishes to everyone for the week ahead.

Mickey x

Eating from the garden:

Potatoes, aubergines, carrots, coloured chard, warrigal greens, mizuna, chicory (planting these last two this season was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!), cucumber, zucchini, lettuce, rocket, rhubarb, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Peaches and figs! Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme. Fennel pollen, fresh fennel seeds, poppy seeds, nigella seeds (these last two saved), chive flowers. I just know there’s something else I keep meaning to mention…but I cannot think what it is…

Going / gone: chive flowers, fennel fronds, amaranth leaves (though I’m hoping for another flush of the latter after the rain…so I said last week and indeed there are some more popping up but they’ll likely be baked today and tomorrow!)

Seed saving: nigella, carrot

Sowing: if we do get showers of rain on Sunday/Monday, I feel inclined to scatter carrot seed in odd pockets down the back, for the purpose of encouraging a wild and unkempt effect down the track…Also, the first of the zucchinis planted is romping now from south to north as predicted and I feel inclined to sow seeds around its naked stem…food for thought!

Planting: nothing - my friends weren’t at the market last week but will be next, so I’ll not plant ‘til I see them then, when more chicory and mizuna will be on my list, amongst lettuce seedlings and maybe, depending on the weather, a brassica or two.

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: roses, frangipani, Gardenia thunbergia, dahlia and maybe, just maybe…ginger!

Perfumes and aromas: Gardenia thunbergia, frangipani, fig leaf, osmanthus fragrans, murraya, Chinese star jasmine (although not as full as the first flush there are enough little flowers threaded through to note their scent), as there are Port Wine Magnolias. And grandifloras, and a few jasmine sambac and stephanotis and of course tansy…and apple pelargonium (see below)

Pruning and other: the week began with lawn-gutter clearing as it hadn’t been done in awhile, with a good rake of the front courtyard gravel. The vetiver grass in the corner of the field had its annual cut and the field paths had a weed and rake. The pool beds had a weed and tidy and spent frangipani flowers are regularly swept to the corners for weekly collection . Thalia has just removed all the spent flower trails of apple pelargonium (hence their perfume filling the air!) and the rosemary that underpins the citrus next to the kitchen verandah has just had a mid-season cut so it doesn’t get straggly - it’s been a bit of a primping kind of week…and so the compost heap grows!

What is it? I hear some of you say…especially those who may be reading along from other continents! Well…it’s the spectacular cone of an Araucaria bidwillii, or Bunya pine and is a very large, very beautiful, highly ornamental and edible (internal nuts) object:

“Araucaria bidwillii, commonly known as the bunya pine (/ˈbʌnjə/),^[4] banya^[5] or bunya-bunya, is a large evergreen coniferous tree in the family Araucariaceae which is endemic to Australia”.

“The cones are terminal, the male (or pollen) cone is a spike up to 20 cm (7.9 in) long which matures around October to November.^{[7][8][9][10]} The female (or seed) cone is much larger, reaching up to 30 cm (12 in) long and 20 cm (7.9 in) wide, which is roughly equivalent to a rugby ball.^{[7][8][9][10]} At maturity, which occurs from December through to March,^[7][8] female cones are green with 50–100 pointed segments, each of which encloses a seed, and they can weigh up to 10 kg.^{[8][9][11][12]} Both seed and pollen cones are some of the largest of all conifer species.^[13] The edible seeds, known as bunya nuts, measure between 2.5 cm (1.0 in) and 5 cm (2.0 in) long and are ovoid to long-elliptic.^{[6][7][8][10]”}

So sayeth Wikipedia, which in the name of expedition of today’s post, I’ve copied this chunk for you holus-bolus! But more importantly than the detailed description above, is the meaning of these magnificent trees to our Indigenous population:

“Bunya trees (Araucaria bidwillii) are deeply sacred, ancient, and culturally significant to Indigenous Australians, particularly in South-East Queensland, serving as a vital food source, marker of territory, and centerpiece for massive, peaceful, multi-tribal gatherings. The nuts were celebrated during “bunya festivals” every 3–4 years, facilitating trade, marriage, and law-making”.

Oh good grief…did I just allow AI generated info to creep in here for the very first time? At least I’m admitting to it…in the name of speed…and you’ll see why further down! (Note…I’d have spelled centrepiece differently!).

But to bring the bunya back to a more specifically localised and personal narrative…(I know I’ve told the story before of how I came to find the tiny sapling at a fair at Mulgoa some 12 or 15 years ago and so tiny was it, it fitted in the space behind the driver’s seat of the car); our now handsome specimen seemingly began to shed its biannual load during last weekend’s oh-so-welcome rain. I’ve never seen one of the cones actually fall from its great height! Nor do I care to be underneath the tree when one does (note the weight and size mentioned above, not to mention the pointy tips!), though I am so keen to collect the ones directly underneath the tree, I may have to put someone on lookout duty while I make a dash! The eight that have fallen so far are dispersed - some at such a distance from the tree that I can only imagine they rolled, as luckily for us, we only had a mild breeze rather than the strong winds that others experienced with last weekend’s lovely, steady rain. But bring them in I’m so keen to do…for a. how I love to see them accumulate on the verandah table b. someone has just asked me if they might have a specimen from which to make an illustration (yes, yes, yes of course she can!) and c. another has just asked for a reason I won’t yet divulge (though I’m not sure I can keep each cone together in one piece for as long as she needs - as the inevitable and spontaneous moment will arrive, when each cone splits in two and with an explosive thrust, the huge, individual seed segments disperse). If we manage to get around to the process of extricating any of the nuts to eat this season…I’ll be sure to let you know!

Now to the linen section of today’s leading line…for truly I seem to have spent all this week either up a ladder or up to my armpits in loads of washing…

First let’s take the kitchen curtains…I’ve only washed three drops so far, so have three more to go, but it occurred to me to share a little tip, should you have raw linen curtains and feel inclined (or come to conclusion, as I did, that it’s a necessary act!) to do the same. Once heavy linen is washed, it’s inclined to be very ‘springy’ and at first is disinclined to fall back into position until it has a chance to relax; to allow its natural fibres to reabsorb the atmosphere. So after drying each drop in the sun, then re-attaching the hooks through the flat cotton tape that runs the length of the top of the curtain (set about 5cm down) and pushing two hooks into each curtain ring eyelet (I sometimes rue the day I discovered this method of creating the curtain ‘heading’ I so love, as the business of making it occur can be extremely frustrating…I’ve referred to this ‘heading’ before in an earlier post, describing how my curtain maker Nathalie and I dubbed it the ‘national trust’ heading some 35 years ago). I then steamed all the wild creases that formed during the washing and drying, before gently setting by hand, an informal ‘fall’, whilst trying to coax the leading edge to present a ‘rounded’ rather than a flat face. Still they kept springing closed! I didn’t much mind in the fading light, but this morning when I did want light to stream into the kitchen, I decided to give in to the old-fashioned method of tying the drops in, in an attempt to create a new fibre memory. A few days of humidity in the atmosphere should see them right, and how divine it is to have dust-free, clean linen at the windows!

Alongside the curtains has been a daily load of fine-linen washing. I know I’m not the only one to accumulate lovely old linens that are inclined to gather a yellowing with age. Whether sentimental, inherited pieces; vintage finds or old baby clothes (no…I’m not going through those but I have friends who are!) that yellowing can be a bind, especially if one is disinclined to use bleach or other harsh chemicals. When I couldn’t resist a couple of small, fringed hand towels (one with fine blue stripes and the other with red and aqua - swoon!) on that expedition to Greece last year (small enough I thought to fit in the suitcase and if I couldn’t expunge the yellow marks it wouldn’t be the end of the world) I was prompted to contact Johanna (La Grosse Toile); font as she is of antique and vintage textile knowledge and care.

I know I’ve referred to Johanna numerous times…it must be four or five years since she gave a wonderful talk and presentation here on her quite extraordinary life and textile journey (you can discover her substack writing called Strolling Along here). “What was that method you mentioned for removing yellow stains?” I messaged her. “Percarbonate soda” she replied. That was it. Nor have I been able to find specific directions, beyond the stuff fizzing up in boiling hot water; soaking for a minimum of two hours or for stubborn yellowing overnight; then rinsing, washing and drying in the sun. And so it is I’ve been adding about three tablespoons of the stuff to a big bucket of hot water, then adding a kettle or two of boiling water, as gradually the air pockets in the clothes subside. Each time I pass the laundry, I give them a good prod with a long-handled wooden spoon.

All this has made me feel very ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ as I take each load, basket on hip, to peg on the line (brushing past the pungent tansy as I do!); and not least because these loads mostly consist of vintage / original pieces Clemmie has gathered over the years, for one performance piece or another…from bloomers and camisoles to fine-buttoned blouses…embroidered, lace-panelled, frill-cuffed; at times used as undergarments to more wild and gregarious costumes, at others just as they come; but all of them collected from specialist purveyors over the years, from Portobello to Paris and obscure country towns.

The results though, of the percarbonate soak, are thrilling! Why did I not know of this earlier in my life? I view this as a serious gap in my education! (No…there’s no magic fairy here to do my washing!). Probably some of you will tell me it comes under the name of some common product available at the supermarket! But since posting a story on instagram I’ve been inundated with requests for the ‘recipe’, so I gather I’m not alone in this pursuit of getting old things back to white! I did trial a small packet first (on those lovely Greek hand towels and their companion red and blue hand-embroidered, crochet-edged white cloth, that Larry later added to the parcel without my knowledge - he’d seen my eyes dash to it in the little shop, but hadn’t realised I’d dismissed it out of hand because of a huge yellow stain I discovered when I unfolded it! Somehow it appeared under the Christmas tree a few weeks ago and if you flick back to the image at the top of last week’s post, you’ll see it about halfway down the pile), but relented last week and ordered a 2kg packet from these peeps I discovered online! It seemed to arrive without hassle…

As Clemmie works her way through sorting her years of research and archive of works on paper, all of it laid out on trestle tables in the Dairy (I did mention we’d nominated this January as the month for a major tidying effort…I feel there may be some kind of garage / cupboard / garden sale on the not-too-distant horizon - we’ve never had one!)…

The painter has moved from last week’s efforts in the gallery, to a long overdue ceiling paint in the Barn, where the unattractive result of a leak fixed a couple of years ago was still visibly apparent. Which means…

The vast bulk of the Barn contents are sitting in the loggia! I moved them there on Tuesday and now the painter’s finished and the builders have just this minute returned to take the scaffolding away, my work for this afternoon is cut out…as with hoover, dusters, muscle and grit, I move it all back in! And then…sometime over the coming days, I’ll dust and rearrange all the ‘smalls’ on the shelves that were protected by plastic sheets during the painting process! Such is the reason for my rush with today’s post…My oh my oh my…!!!

Thank goodness I say…for the perfume! Spilling all around us, the pinwheel flowers of Gardenia thunbergia exude their intense summer olfactory stimulus which is much, much needed!

Catch you at the next post,

Mickey x

*It popped into my head a couple of days ago with the gardenias and I can’t get it out of my head! Blood, Sweat & Tears ‘SpinningWheel’

Eating from the garden:

Potatoes, carrots, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory (planting these last two this season was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!), cucumber, zucchini, lettuce, rocket, rhubarb, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Warrigal greens…I don’t always mention them but they’re always here somewhere and proliferate after rain. Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme. Fennel pollen, fresh fennel seeds, poppy seeds, nigella seeds (these last two saved), chive flowers. The first aubergines…and yesterday evening I picked one huge, unexpected purple asparagus!

Going / gone: chive flowers, fennel fronds, amaranth leaves (though I’m hoping for another flush of the latter after the rain)

Seed saving: giant black radish, nigella, carrot

Sowing: none (though if I was inclined I’d be sowing brassica seeds into punnets, but I choose to buy seedlings instead)

Planting: thinking to pick up some lettuce seedlings as a couple of rows are bolting and need to be replaced. Also thinking to pick up more chicory and mizuna for the same reason…what saviours those two have been and I think maybe, my friends from Patio Plants might be at tomorrow morning’s market…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: roses, frangipani, Gardenia thunbergia, dahlia

Perfumes and aromas: Gardenia thunbergia, frangipani, fig leaf and tansy are this week’s most prevalent…

Pruning and other: well…as you can see I’ve been rather preoccupied with other duties! I am simply itching to get into the garden…but Thalia has done some gentle tidying this week - spent flower stems of the shell ginger from alongside the bedroom wing, burnt crinum leaves and windfall at the front of the house; spent flower stems of crocosmia that were badly burnt in the heat and similarly ginger leaves in Mrs R’s; a half-height chop to the salvia, spent lamb’s-ear flowers (Stachys byzantina), echinacea and echium stems in the Borders and weeding the kitchen garden paths…whereas I truly want to trim the tops of the citrus trees outside the kitchen but am sitting on my hands for fear of the next predicted 40C day on Sunday and for now, that new growth will protect the lower leaves should it come to that and the same goes for the hydrangeas…I must bide my time, but not for long…

And sorting, is what I’ve spent the vast majority of this week doing…so it’s here I’ll begin this week’s instalment. After all…the title for these scribblings suggests the contents are likely about my being “at home” which at the moment I most surely and steadfastly am! I imagine some of you may think I probably should have named it “in the garden” and even I sometimes wonder if the title is a bit misleading, given the amount of space I devote to that subject; but then I consider “home” to encompass the garden, whereas I doubt you’d expect me to write of anything but the garden, if I’d named it otherwise!

Anyway, back to the sorting, because sorting is what is occupying my mind and seemingly my every waking hour. You see…we designated this January to be the one. The one we’ve kicked down the road…for years. Yes, I always have a big tidy and achieve a great deal at this time of year that I can’t at others (like clearing out the potting sheds) but because the garden is alive, it always comes first. There are some big tasks out there that require annual attention in January; tasks I love doing - like summer pruning the spring-flowering roses for instance, from which I derive an enormous amount of pleasure, and if I get my timing right, the plants respond according to plan. And so it is I favour those tasks over ones that involve inanimate objects, which can wait. The downside of course, is that inside jobs are put off - over and over again, for a rainy day as it were. It’s not that I don’t enjoy those jobs too…once (like any task needing to be done!) I make a start! But in most instances, as January is never long enough, they just never get a look-in.

I find the linen cupboard a good place to start! To be honest, it does get an annual overhaul - if it doesn’t, everything starts falling out at me when I open the doors (and I’m sure I’m not alone in this! In fact I know I’m not…such situations have long been the stuff of giggle-making, design-client conversations!). But I knew the time was nigh when (post those overnight-stayers a couple of weeks back) having washed then sun-baked three sets of sheets and towels on the line; once ironed, couldn’t fit any of them back in the cupboard! The time had come…

Nor had I been able to find things I was specifically looking for when in a hurry, for events. Between the linen cupboard and its pair, the china cupboard; they’re akin to a one-stop prop-shop and I need everything to be visible. When I discovered a fine, crisp voile cloth on the top shelf that once belonged to my Nanna, I realised I mustn’t have been up that high for several years - no wonder I couldn’t find it! What was it doing up there when I was looking for it down below, needing it urgently to cover the Sofra feast year before last and then Tilly’s cakes last December. Well…it’s back where it should be now!

The linen cupboard job though, truly is a pleasurable one; each cloth, set of napkins, hand towel or box of soap, reminders of adventures, places, people; each one a key to other worlds as well as to those closer to home. Do you recall when you used a specific piece? All mine are seemingly laden with memories. As I take out a length of faded Cabbages & Roses ‘Hatley’ linen, I think of all that eponymous English name represents - the romance of it that continues to encapsulate my young dreams. It causes me to reflect too, on the great sadness of the too-early demise of its founder Christina Strutt - what vision she had, as well as the ability to bring to life a much-cherished vision that she so clearly lived and believed in, and in so doing, brought that pure, joyous delight to a swathe of like-minded souls. I used that piece of fabric to underpin the shot we took of a Summer Pudding to accompany its recipe in *The House & Garden at Glenmore; as well as using it on numerous other occasions. Next, a length of block-printed cotton from Pigotts, another eponymous name, that instantly takes me to that treasure-filled corner store in Woollahra. When the girls were small, a regular game they’d play was pretending to ride the rocking-horse that sat in the kitchen (funnily enough, there’s never been anywhere else for it to fit and it continues to sit next to my desk, a convenient elbow rest whose existence I really don’t even register!) all the way to Pigott’s Store! It makes me realise how long ago Nano began her charming shop, and to ponder her adventures to India as well as happy times spent over the years with her immediate family who are dear friends. All in a cloth! Well…it’s not really a cloth, more a length of metres of fabric I’ve stretched on numerous occasions over the years - the first of them a long-table lunch for which I bought the fabric, for Adelaide Bragg; another time to greet guests arriving to an event for Paul Bangay; a large arrangement of elderflowers sitting atop its apple-green print. It’s been out & about for others too and no doubt its turn will come again; but in the meantime as I fold, I think of the most recent event we held for Adelaide’s City, Coast & Country book launched just last year and and of how her life has unfolded since first we met, working at Laura Ashley in Double Bay all those years ago.

Not all the contents of the linen cupboard appear at events or pop up as props though…most are just ‘us’. The pairs or ‘fours’ of linen napkins we’ve packed into suitcases - each stitch or print a reminder of an adventure. The girls have favourite cloths they recall from being small too, though heaven-help-me the favourite of them both is the same! A long sari-length of crisp block-printed cotton I discovered at a house sale when Bonnie was a baby - I remember her resting her sleeping face on my shoulder as I rifled through a bounty of exquisite pieces but left with just this one - a treasure of swirling pink flowers that cling to a trailing vine of olive green on a muddied-orange ground. That one is inclined to come out at Christmas and how I love to see it in the days that follow, drying on the line, and then as I iron it flat (with ease its cotton is so beautiful) before folding it away ‘til next time.

There’s the blue & white from Sally Campbell that sends me off on another tangent entirely as I add it to the pile (funny…it’s the same blue as the spine of her sister Cressida’s glorious book of Woodblock Paintings); then the indigo dyed, crochet-edged blue from Guinevere Antiques on the Kings Road in London (so sad that institution is no longer and so glad I made that one and only purchase all those years ago - I sure couldn’t afford anything else in there!). There’s the pale green cloth from the Shibori girls Karen and Pepa, that inspired me to ask them to custom dye, in a similar pattern, beautiful lengths of linen for me, to be made into a loose cover for a dear friend. On the top shelf I’d forgotten all about the Rubelli showroom sample given to me when Brunschwig & Fils closed the doors on their Queen Street shop: an exquisite floral design reminiscent of ornate C18th illustration, though printed on raw linen which gave it a contemporary edge, that I’d included for the owner of a house dear to my heart; and I knew how it would chime with her just as it did with me. The then manager of B&F knew how much I loved that fabric and very naughtily gifted me the original showroom sample…shhhh!!! Around the same time, I’d included quite a lot of Rubelli fabrics in another house, which led to a private view of their archive on a long-ago trip to Venice - one where gloved hands brought exquisite, textile artefacts and documents from long, thin drawers to show the history and dedication of that revered house of textiles.

Suffice to say…I’d be here all day if I explained the resonance of every single piece! Now that it’s done though, I can turn to other things, and there are plenty of them…the linen cupboard was but the tip of the iceberg…the painter is here too, so the house is on its head (stuff he was meant to do last year - how I wish he had!); and Clemmie is going through all her belongings since childhood and years of gypsy living, so between those two well…best you don’t even try to imagine! Which is why I’ll keep this week’s post relatively short as I need to get back to helping…

Oh that heat! My oh my it was all too much…and despite my best efforts with all the netting, the burn and scorch damage was tremendous. Bar a few literal ‘baked beans’ though, for the most part everyone survived. I’m just grateful we were spared the predicted winds which surely would have finished some specimens off, and of course the fires that plagued Victoria with dire consequences. How my heart goes out to all those who have lost so much and to everyone who lived through those anxious days. Jeremy wrote a beautiful piece on Instagram, if you’d like to read an insight and summation of the effects of those days down there (thank goodness he, Grant and The Stones were spared). It’s some years thankfully, since such a threat was so close to home here, and like anyone, we hope never to have to live through such a threat of close proximity again, whilst being well aware of course, like everyone, that we could). Jeremy’s take is more ‘fresh’ at hand, than anything I might pen at the moment.

For us the heat eventually dissipated and though it didn’t rain immediately, the atmosphere since has been one of the earth collecting itself, of reorganising, in a similar vein to me reorganising the house. A foggy morning here, a shower there; a seemingly gigantic sigh of exhalation forming clouds above from deep below the ground; the vague rumbling of thunder that comes to nought but a few drops. Even the cicada song has become one subdued, monotonous drone.

One afternoon those itching secateur fingers I mentioned last week got the better of me, as a hitherto clear sky turned to cloud and the temperature dropped. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to tackle some of the most unsightly specimens and had just long enough to work my way through filling a couple of wheelbarrows worth of material before distant rumbles of thunder edged closer. Oh but how I wanted to keep going! There’s never enough time to do all I want to do…and heading back to the house with the first gentle spots of rain, I passed yet another half dozen jobs I’d have loved to tackle in that spontaneous session of a few hours of secateur-wielding!

Some plants require urgency, whilst others I sum up, in a “do I take to you this week or next?” “The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll reshoot” I say, and yet “if I leave you a few more days, the whole will not look so bare”. It’s a conundrum that goes round in circles ‘til I bight the bullet and just cut! And when I do, oh how much better I always feel! The sense of loss is in fact, so short-lived I honestly don’t know why I dither.

Now try as I might, as I suggested I would last week and…I have a funny feeling I did just before Christmas too, I cannot seem to find any record of having shared the recipe for this famous Carrot & Orange Soup I keep referring to, and which I’m inclined to make in all the weeks leading up to and including Christmas! As it truly is a longterm favourite that I’d love for you to have in your repertoire, by way of ending today’s post, I intend to remedy that situation! Please find said recipe below!

Carrot & Orange Soup (delicious both warm and chilled…we most often enjoy it chilled on a hot day)

Ingredients

• 1-2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 large onion, diced

• 1kg carrots, peeled and chopped

• good pinch sea salt, black pepper

• 1 litre chicken stock

• 500ml freshly squeezed orange juice

• (the original recipe included 1 teaspoon raw caster sugar but I haven’t popped that in for years…it also called for one cup of cream to be added at the end but one day I forgot and have never bothered to add it since!)

Method

• heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat then add the onion and sweat for 3 - 4 minutes ‘til translucent

• add carrots, a good pinch of sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper from the mill and stir to coat

• cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally so the ingredients don’t get stuck to the bottom of the pan, then add the chicken stock

• pop the lid on, bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer for about 15 minutes - ‘til the carrots are cooked, but still a bit crisp

• allow to cool slightly then blitz with a stick blender ‘til smooth

• stir in the orange juice

You’re done! Well…unless you want it chilled! Best to make a day in advance so then it’s ready to go. It really is very easy and so delish. I always scatter a few herbs on top - you could add a dollop of sour cream or yoghurt, but as we often enjoy it with that pumpernickel soda bread and a good smear of chèvre…I guess I’d rather have the dairy with the bread than in the soup and am disinclined to double-up! I do hope you give it a whirl.

Catch you at the next post!

Mickey x

*Although long out of publication, The House and Garden at Glenmore is still available as an E-book!

Productive garden notes:

Eating from the garden:

Potatoes, carrots, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory (planting these last two this season was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!), cucumber, zucchini, lettuce, rocket, rhubarb, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme. Fennel pollen, fresh fennel seeds, poppy seeds, nigella seeds, amaranth leaves, fennel fronds (going), chive flowers. I see the first aubergines filling out…

Going / gone: chive flowers, fennel fronds

Seed saving: giant black radish, nigella, carrot

Sowing: none (though if I was inclined I’d be sowing brassica seeds into punnets, but I choose to buy seedlings instead)

Planting: none

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: roses, frangipani, a magnolia from time to time and in the last days the pinwheel flowers of Gardenia thunbergia have begun to to open…

Perfumes and aromas: Frangipani and fig leaf intermingle near the pool and the resinous odour of Cistus comes in waves. The first of a cluster of Stephanotis opened and a tiny, lone flower of Biblical jasmine, Sambac. Although I wish it would flower in abundance, just one flower makes me smile. Tansy is beginning to flower in the kitchen garden companion beds and as I brush past with my laundry basket to the washing line, that pungent odour rises - I know not everyone does, but I do love it!

Pruning and other: goodness I rushed around at such a pace…what did I do? I realised we hadn’t taken out quite all the Acanthus spikes from the Barn garden, so it was chop-chop to the base of their stems and I deadheaded all the roses. The blade-like foliage and spent flowers of Tradescantia needs cutting to the ground at this time so I clipped away at those and took out the Macleaya at the front of the Arc as the foliage of those plume poppies got so very badly scorched, beyond recovery, but at least the front took the brunt and protected its companions behind. The Solandra maxima had sent out some wild shoots that were heading for the eaves of the old house so I cut them out but need to revisit with my saw to take out one of the lower branches. I cut down all the oats that had been supporting the pumpkins - the ones I’d previously tied into stooks and which did a fabulous job of protecting those pumpkins during the heat - now the new shoots of those cucurbits are on the move, it’s better the oat stalks are flat on the ground as proper mulch. I did some primping and twiddling in the kitchen garden - there are a lot more burnt leaves to remove and many a scorched fennel frond to strip - I got about half way through before the thunder shook the ground at my feet!