Fleeting...
How quickly the mood of a season can change…in the blink of an eye, on the turn of a coin or…the overnight filtering in of cloud cover, as occurred last night. That cloud (which I hope yields a proper downpour) has quite stolen the magic of this past week and as a result, how I might even approach today’s correspondence with you as I’m now in a completely altered frame of mind. ‘Til this morning, the mood of the week had been a sweltering one, so typical of March, when days may begin with a chill (and even the rifling through of cupboards to find a jumper out of necessity for the dawning hours!). But soon the layers are off; beads of sweat trickling down my face if I’m late with my morning watering routine; and ending (if time allows) with an early evening dip in the pool (where the single remaining specimen of Osmanthus fragrans tucked in just outside the pool fence, is filling the atmosphere with a dense apricot-like perfume so heady, that swimming is like drowning in nectar!).
The dawns though, have been beautiful. Casting deep shadows and reflections as I tread the front verandahs, closing shutters before the sun hits the east-facing walls. The welcome morning dews have been heavy…a boon to the stinking hot days that develop slowly; with time in the pale hours for droplets to dribble down each blade of grass, leaf rim or petal tip, to seep (hopefully) into the very top layer (at least) of earth.
If there’s one thing recording that tv snippet did last week, it was to force me to spend time at the front of the house, with no other purpose than to wait…between being asked repeatedly to walk the way I just had done over and over again. Without purpose and in wait, one has the opportunity to view the scene through different eyes. To bask; reflect. I find it astonishing that the trees and specimens are indeed the size they are (and in turn I must look diminutive in their presence). All of this aspect was but a bare canvas - a scene of earthworks; and the future scale of those tiny specimens I chose to plant and coax ever so slowly into being, were nothing but a figment of my imagination. I didn’t know if their growing would even come to pass. There was an even chance they’d all just die. This is not a unique tale, but one of every home gardener…especially those of us who stay put over such a long period of time! When I do stop, step back and stand still here, it’s always a surprise, to take in the scale, the settling in of the plants in relation to the house, where those newly planted individuals were knee-high at most - ugly to be honest, yet symbols then of hope…of romance in the making.
If there’s something I seem to be completely incapable of doing, it’s verbally condensing the story of the garden here (or even my own life!). For pretty much every plant has a backstory. And without it, there is no depth or meaning. Defining each aspect in short is something I can do with pen and paper, time and thought. But verbally? I’m a basket case! Standing in the wrong part of the garden to talk about another part? My brain goes into meltdown, because the thread of connection is lost. The (not so) formality of the front of the house is all about being immersed there, and with that pocket alone comes a raft of history…that which precedes us by a long way and which is relevant in the tale of plant choice, followed by our own tenuous tenure. That portion of the garden requires an essay length ‘telling’, before we even choose to venture right, or left…via which particular path, which gap in which hedge, via which steps, which view, and which perfume is permeating the air (and hijacking my thought process!)…’til via arc and courtyard, barn garden and borders; orchard, hayshed, kitchen garden and dairy; we are spat out in the floating beds, and arrive in the field…having wended our way from an entirely other realm where we began, to the paddocks and creek vegetation beyond. Without mentioning the wider landscape, without which we would not ‘nestle in’. And doing all of that too, in reverse. How I hope therefore, that when all comes to pass, the garden will be allowed to do the telling, and my nonsensical waffle will be left out altogether! I couldn’t even spin my explanation of Hildegard’s process cohesively by the time she was loaded and steaming and trickling a heady flow of rose geranium water! Perhaps I should have had eggs for breakfast? But I was trying to get the watering done then, before the (very patient and as the day gathered pace, very hot) team arrived!
I love the symbolic specimens that provide the solid and atmospheric framework for the house. They are a constant; and I wouldn’t change them for the world. But on a daily basis, I know that what really excites me are the daily surprises that pop up unexpectedly, and romp and twine and tangle ‘down the back’. Once again, it’s the chaos within discipline principle they represent that holds me captive, and that I so often come back to describing to you here. While the planting style loosens as we venture away from the house; those delightful surprises to which I refer, mostly occur in the productive part of the garden, as they should…it’s where they belong…
I guess when all is said and done, it may be exceedingly unfashionable, but I really love playing with annuals! Not the stiff ‘bedding’ varieties so prevalent during my youth! Uggghhhh!!!! But almost all vegetables are ‘annuals’. They last but a season if that, and will have to be replaced…certainly within a six month time frame, if not sooner. Many are the ones I allow to go to seed, and their cycle is one I’ve explained so many times before. I know many peeps would say “oh what a lot of work”; but I think that comment is more likely to come from non-gardeners. Because to a gardener, a bare spot of earth represents a blank canvas upon which to create…with which to play. If the mad idea that grips you in the moment doesn’t come to pass for whatever reason, it matters not, because the result will be short-lived anyway, and you can just start all over again. This is the kind of gardening that brings a smile. It’s not work…it’s fun.
It may sound ridiculous…but my favourite thing in the garden right now (especially given the more proper or ‘expected’ vistas in other parts elsewhere and looking quite splendid!) is this random sunflower in the image above! “Oh look” I exclaimed to no-one but myself! Heart skipping a beat, little happy dance. “It worked!”. Yes…I did orchestrate this…mess? (You might think!). In sheer frustration (back in early December or so) at the lack of germination of my carefully sown sunflower seeds in the kitchen garden proper (I’m always trying to replicate visions of summers past!) I pulled apart and scattered the remaining seed ‘heads’ of last year’s Prado Red variety and tossed them into the spare compost bay down the back. At the time it was part “well if you won’t grow where I want you to….” but also part “OK, I’m not going to sow you properly, but please can you behave as if you’d done this all by yourself?”. And then I promptly forgot all about them. I’ve been growing sweet potatoes (with some moderate success) in this bay for a few years - coaxing their vine up the wigwam behind as well as allowing it to sprawl all over the ground. There’s a passionfruit on the fence behind too, and now it’s getting all tangled in the sweet potato vine and…a whole lot of self-sown amaranth shot up like rockets after one of those downpours a few weeks ago. The resulting ‘mess’ is more than I could have hoped for when I literally dropped every last sunflower seed I had into that bare bay! It worked! And I feel inclined to say…this is my absolute favourite kind of gardening! Each day the little bed is different…there are more sunflowers now; floating in a sea of amaranth spires, and the field behind is speckled here and there with roses; backed in the evening light with eucalypts casting long shadows. To me this represents joy…pure unadulterated joy.
All the early autumn colours are replicated in the produce that’s spilling into the kitchen each day. The aubergines are still coming in a treat, tomatoes too; with a regular supply of dahlias and I even scored some new season rhubarb stems - deciding to pick early on Saturday morning before the predicted heat would knock everything for six. I’ll be honest…from a gardening perspective, last weekend was a right-off. Debilitating heat that was good for no human to be exposed to, and there was no point in sowing or planting (which is what I’d have liked to be doing). As a result, I’ll be slightly behind now, but there was nought to be done. Mother nature deemed other activities should be undertaken!
Which is how I came to spend an entire afternoon completing a task I must have been putting off for a couple of years! You see…I’m a fan of hand-sewn curtains. And where appropriate, hand-sewn rings (over tapes and hooks which I think are ugly, although they do have their place!). You might not think it matters. But this is where the detail I’ve explained so far about the garden…meets the detail of interiors! And curtain ‘headings’ are something about which I’ve been passionate for a very good, long time! Since before I knew too much about gardening at all…
“Why?” I would ask myself…do I like these curtains here, and not those ones there? Early design learning, research, observation…inklings. Of course the curtains were just part of a bigger picture (why do I like this room, over that one? for example). For every single component of an interior goes towards making up the whole, in pretty much exactly the same way each component goes to making each part of a garden…from the layout of bones through every feature, texture, colour and juxtaposition, eventually building up to a whole. But for the purpose of this tangent (the first perhaps in a series of interior tales?) let’s just stick with the curtain headings!
Before I launched out on my own interior design career, I’d filled pages and pages with scribbles and notations. I’ve always had some kind of obsession with textiles being ‘flat’ rather than overtly rouched or frilled and furbellowed! Hence back in those early days in particular, you’d often find me behind the curtains in any given situation (not good advice if you’re in a house museum where guards can become anxious!). But there I’d be, peering up, to see how rings or ties might be fixed, in order to coax a curtain to drape just so. In my time I’ve commissioned curtains of all kinds…from the very grand and swagged to the most simplistic of all (my favourites that are neither blind nor curtain, but a flat panel with a loop to each top corner that I can drop over a cup hook - but they’re for low windows only, one’s that are within easy reach…and for peeps as bonkers as me!).
There was one particular heading though, that I discovered when (still early in my career) I was researching for a significant local historic house. I particularly wanted to employ no frou-frou in the one room I was engaged to help with at the time. So off I took myself to visit Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney (same era, same architect: John Verge) for some inspiration. Now part of Museums of History NSW, the furnishings at EBH are a very fine representation of the era in which both houses were built (1830’s). Although too grand and conservative for today’s contemporary living, oh the detail to be gleaned from that excellent display! So there I was behind the curtains, peering up. How I wished at the time for a ladder! Even the kind of camera we all have today on our phones, to zoom in (and up!) would have been helpful. But back then, even taking a photo seemed like the wrong thing to do in a hushed-tones kind of situation. Even so, I managed to establish what I thought I could see by eye from the ground…the makings of a heading that I’ve since used on repeat for most of my career: a perceived ‘gather’ that is not gathered and pulled by tape, but achieved simply by hooking two hooks, into the eyelet of one ring. Add a ‘heading’ depth of between 3cm to 7cm or 8cm above the hook (depending on the scale of rod onto which the rings are attached) and one can mostly obscure and thereby soften the visibility of the rod itself when the curtains are closed, and cause a rather lovely effect of gentle ruffling to either side of the rod when the curtains are open. My longtime curtain maker Nathalie, dubbed this many years ago, to be Mickey’s National Trust heading.
It’s the one you see in the image directly above in our Sitting Room, but not the one above that which I wanted to be more simplistic still, in the Gallery here…where at intervals, each individual ring is stitched 4cm below the top of the curtain to make a very, very simple heading - in context with the black, forged iron rods.
Too much detail?
But beyond a ‘build’ (whose details I equally enjoy), these are the tools…the knowledge-base if you like, that go towards creating a whole. That is, if you’re interested in the kind of ‘interior decoration’ that is filled with layers of life and colour…rather than ones of hard edges. I don’t think, given all you’ve seen to date of the garden here, that you would expect my interiors to have hard edges? Not that there’s anything wrong with spectacular hard edges…not at all…but they require a different kind of approach, and a different kind of garden to complement that style of architecture. So I assume if you’re here…(still…a year on!) that you know I’m speaking of personal experience…not casting judgement upon other styles of design. I’m fully cognisant of the fact we are all drawn to different aspects of design and ways of living. But I’m guessing it would come as no surprise that both my personal and career work do cross over in many aspects…and that I’m likely to describe interiors in the same way I do the garden. It’s all held in the same head!
To labour the point though, of interiors marrying with the view beyond the window which is something I believe so strongly in: to balance and anchor both - let’s take the Sitting Room curtains here, as example. They represent the high point here of the ‘thread of red’ that runs through so much of the house. Curtains aside, mostly the red is a hint - a ribbon tied to a door key, a dot on a cushion, a stripe on a piece of vintage mangle cloth hooked over the laundry window, repetitive stitch-work on a neutral ground…so for the most part, it’s barely noticeable. But on repeat you’ll find the same colour in the tips of the Shell Ginger outside the south facing windows, the ribs of the large Ensete ventricosum (ornamental banana) leaves and red-flowering Cannas ‘between the wings’; the buds and outer petals of the Epiphyllum that spills during spring at the corner of the Sitting Room verandah and the vibrant red Crocosmia lucifer that flowers so intensely at Christmas. Even when those plants are not in flower, their memory is represented inside…the thread is sometimes clear, other times absent, but always held in thought.
Hmmm…I’m beginning to wonder if I don’t float the idea of a proper presentation on this score…back to the Covid period zoom ones as there’s no way of conveying all this with the number of images I’d like to in this space!
Anyway, enough on that topic for now! I’d like to share a recipe (well…such as it is!) that is on regular repeat here. But before I do…just while I’m on the thread of red…oh my those Hungarian Heart tomatoes! The flesh is just so dense and the flavour simply sublime! I must be sure to save the seed again this year and don’t greedily gulp it all down by mistake! I’d hate to have a season without them!
Oh dear! Best ignore the chipped plate!!!! I wasn’t planning a photo shoot when we had a very dear, old (as in terms of our long friendship!) friend to stay this week - I didn’t even think about the dinner plates! Whoops - should have got the pretty ones out of the cupboard in her honour…let alone for a photo!!! But I’ll include the image here simply because…I so rarely photograph dinner! And I’m most unlikely to think ahead to cook ‘more’ to photograph in daylight, or to cook it especially just to take a photo! We very rarely eat risotto for lunch - events yes, but not us (maybe one day we will in some distant future!). I’m afraid real life is what you get in this space as it’s how we live here at Glenmore! Clearly our friend B was more important than the plates! (Although clearly Larry thought to get the silver out and come to think of it I did get pretty plates out for dessert…but it didn’t cross my mind to photograph that course…it would have been rude and seemed idiotic as we were consumed in conversation!).
Mickey’s version Risotto alla Milanese (Saffron Risotto)
Ingredients for two to three…
3/4 cup arborio rice
one onion
garlic - just one or two small cloves
good bunch chard or spinach (or as it comes into season, cavolo nero)
approx 500ml chicken stock (although I seemed to use 1 litre this time to 3/4 cup rice…hmmm…I was talking at the same time!)
good pinch saffron threads
sea salt and black pepper
olive oil
butter
just grated parmigiano - a handful
splash dry white wine
Method
Warm stock in a separate saucepan
Dice onion, slice garlic cloves finely, cut leaves into ribbons
Gently warm a good glug of olive oil in a heavy based pan, then add onion and garlic and cook ‘til translucent
Add rice, give a gentle stir, add saffron threads, a generous couple of pinches of sea salt and a few twists of black pepper and thoroughly stir, being careful to not let any of it catch on the bottom of the pan
Add a good splash of dry white wine and stir ‘til absorbed
Begin adding warm chicken stock one ladle at a time and stirring well between each addition ‘til absorbed by the rice, then add another and continue stirring
Towards the end of the cooking and with only a ladle or two more of stock to go, add the ribbons of leaves and stir to distribute throughout the rice
Continue to add last of the stock and stirring ‘til all the liquid you want to add is absorbed (I have to admit…I go by eye rather than exact measure)
Turn off the heat. Add a good dollop of butter and stir just once or twice, then a handful of parmigiano and stir again; then allow to sit, lid on, for 5 minutes or so
Give a good stir just before plating and then…
I sprinkle lots of herbs over once plated - in this instance, thyme and mint
We enjoyed this (I can’t seem to get rid of the dot point!) with a leafy green salad and then…although no photo…we enjoyed
Apple Crumble with Rum & Raisin Ice Cream
Ingredients
One or two cooking apples (or increase for the number of peeps)
Rapadura sugar
Cinnamon
Crumble: see recipe from last year via index here (the post ‘summing up the season’)
Rum & Raisin Ice Cream: see recipe from last year via index here (the post ‘we’re going on a lavender expedition)
Method
Peel, quarter, core & slice the apples
Add to a heavy based saucepan and sprinkle with a dessert spoon of rapadura, a heaped teaspoon of powdered cinnamon and just enough water to cook without drowning the apples
Cook for about ten minutes (maybe slightly less, depending on the apples - I find home grown ones cook very quickly and I didn’t want them to turn to mush, so they took only about five minutes)
Prepare all earlier, so you can pop the apples in a low oven and the crumble in a separate dish in the oven, so you can plate quickly when the time comes. From previous recipes, you know I scatter a smattering of the crumble mix over the fruit when I plate, so the result is always light rather than gluggy
I’ve never actually put this combination together on a plate before! No reason…the opportunity has just never presented itself. The apples had been sitting on the bench for a couple of weeks and I was toying with the idea of making a cake which we really didn’t need, though I was worried they might go over, so cooking them was a quick decision. I had crumble in a jar in the fridge (truly…that mix does keep for weeks!) and I also had one last batch of Rum & Raisin Ice Cream left from Christmas…here was proof it lasts too. Larry was desperate to know if there was any of each ingredient left the next night for a repeat performance, so it must have been good! Lucky Larry, there was indeed…just enough for him!
So for a simple little dinner that could easily be expanded in quantity for extra guests, I highly recommend this as a delicious menu for this time of year.
Earlier in the week a young (and newer!) friend also had a (kitchen plate!) candle-lit, night-scented-Jessamine perfumed verandah supper! This time I folded Sicilian Caponata through pasta (with grean leaf ribbons, extra garlic and a pinch of chilli added for a bit of extra oomph). All accompanied by belly-aching laughter…
It’s been quite a week! Washing’s all done, if not ironed…and all the while I’ve been tip-tapping away to you, the cloud’s evaporated and it’s as if the dull grey morning never happened!
Top of my list for the weekend? Sowing and planting in the kitchen garden…it’s time to get the successional growing moving along. I have my work cut out (even if the lunar calendar does suggest otherwise!).
I wish you all a happy weekend and week ahead.
Mickey x
ps not entirely sure what might occur this time next week as I’ve committed to spending Saturday 29 March with my very dear hat-makers, Axel Mano at their shop in Woollahra…taking along my Essential Dress in all sizes and colours for peeps to try on. So I might need to zip to Sydney instead of ‘substacking’. In which case I’ll make up for lost time the week after! You can see a little nonsense I popped onto instagram here (sound on and swipe!). If you happen to be in Woollahra next week…come and visit between 10 and 5 - all three of us would love to see you! There will be hat play! Axel Mano, 46 Queen Street, Woollahra.
Productive garden notes:
Eating from the garden:
Potatoes (stored in the cellar now), onions, garlic, aubergines, zucchinis, tomatoes, coloured chard and spinach, lettuce (finished the old and carefully prising early leaves from the new), rocket, Jelly Wine Palm fruits. Basil, lovage, mint, rosemary, thyme, chives.
Going / gone: beans and with Clemmie home from her travels…we’re going through the potatoes fast!
Seed saving: parsnip, beetroot, spinach, chard, parsley, land cress
Sowing: peas, broad beans, cima di rapa, carrot, beetroot, parsnip (if we ate them, turnips but I decided a few years ago to skip growing them)
Planting: brassicas (kale, cavolo nero, cabbage, broccoli, kohl rabi, cauliflower), lettuce, radicchio, fennel (bulbing) and bok choy seedlings. I’ve had round one of all these in the ground for a month now and they’re growing on well, so it’s time to plant the next round as successional sowing is everything. I’ll also plant out leeks (remember the seed head I dropped into seed-raising mix? They’re growing!). And also…I’m keen to plant out the flowering Stock I sowed into punnets but I’m a bit hamstrung with available space. It’s going to be an interesting juggle!
All that said…the lunar cycle suggests doing none of this ‘til sowing seed on Saturday next week…
Ornamental garden notes:
Picking for the house: frangipanis, tansy, dahlias, Cottonwood hibiscus, amaranth, ginger. And for a dear little guest bed arrangement - artemisia, sedum, amaranth and rose (I think our friend is now so obsessed with Jude the Obscure she will plant one herself!)
Perfumes and aromas: Still the frangipani, nicotiana and Cistus ladanifer. The white flowering stems of the ornamental ginger Hedychium coronarium are erupting daily with flowers, their perfume continuing to spill in through the dressing room and gallery windows. The night scented Jessamine floods the kitchen verandah at night and those few tiny flowers on the Osmanthus fragrans near the pool are completely intoxicating!
Pruning and other: First up were the espaliered fruit trees in the kitchen garden. I’d held off taking to them so the garden would present as a late summer profusion for the tv episode, but they should have been pruned several weeks ago. The olive trees are taking priority now. I elected to let them go a bit last year - their growth had become quite compacted and I wanted to give them some freedom. Thalia has tackled the first two and I think my ploy has worked - making it easier for her to see how to open them up without me interfering! The first years she was here we did the work together but I’ve been so distracted writing and with one thing or another, I find it hard to get to some of those big tasks. She’s often still horrified at how severely I prune things, but I can see she’s in the swing of the olives this time! For respite, she’s weeding around the park trees.
How lovely to hear from you Anna :)) At home...mine or those of others...my happy place! X
Thank you Micky, I find your prose so lyrical and inspiring. That the weave of interior design tips, growing and sharing food ideas and reflections of time in the garden just roll together in what appears to seem effortless but I know is a lot of hard work and sheer passion.