Golden hour...
You know that dazzling yet fleeting moment on a winter’s afternoon, when shafts of bright sunlight saturate the detail of every small thing? Blink and you could miss it, when the sky is behaving in an undecided kind of way, as it was yesterday; though if you’re lucky the glory may return within seconds for a brief repeat performance, only to be extinguished moments later as the sun dips and the ground quickly dampens beneath your feet. Collect the kindling quick…before the drying effect of the day’s sun renders it useless for the evening fire!
Some days the sky is clear and blue and so the golden hour dazzles for longer; and once the sun dips, the eye is soon drawn to aquamarine heavens streaked with pink and smudged with purple. Dew forms quickly on clear afternoons, with all the roof lines wet before one’s droplet-kicking feet hurriedly reach the kitchen steps.
The very daily atmosphere this week, has exuded something of a mystical quality…that could be called neither mist or fog or haze…not even a haar. The days have presented as fine with a bright shining sun for the most part (if with his wintry hat on)…but if looking into the near distance, something magical and slightly other-worldly could be observed…an aura.
It’s the kind of weather that paradoxically…given it is now winter, promotes growth; and since learning more about the behaviour of soil these last decades, I think it’s this atmosphere that makes the very earth happy…for as I understand it, water droplets are likely to beget more water droplets. Gently delivered in this manner…(imagine dewy droplets slowly trickling their way down their host - be that a blade of grass or an accommodating stem, from where they can slip quietly into the soil) individual droplets can do much to bulk the soil with moisture. A well-hydrated soil by this means, is then likely to exhale during the course of the next daily cycle, causing more dew drops to form, and so the atmospheric cycle is likely to repeat; causing healthier vegetation, deeper roots, happy soil microbes and higher carbon sequestration: a natural cycle as applicable to a garden as it is to broad acre farming and the wild, natural environment.
No better example (although funnily enough we didn’t talk about moisture levels per se!) of the cycle could have been set before my eyes than the organically, sustainably and lovingly nurtured pasture at Gowrie Farm, where I went for a visit yesterday afternoon. As Andy Gowrie parted sections of sward with his hands, all manner of tiny seedlings could be seen popping through - his eyes as astute to just what a newly-germinated ‘two-leaf’ seedling might be in the extensive number of grasses, herbs, legumes, brassicas (and more, more, more of which his pasture consists!); as mine are to the garden here - it takes only a pair of just germinated, self-sown leaves for me to recognise too, if they belong to a carrot, a fennel, a parsley or parsnip, a poppy, a mustard or some ornamental interloper in the kitchen garden!
It’s several years now since Andy and Liz began the family farm’s regenerative journey and the results are thrilling. Since meeting them both and learning their story a couple of years ago, I’ve tried to include their cheese on the table at events here whenever I can. Producing their small batch artisanal cheeses gives them the very best opportunity to explain the wide variety of herbage and therefore nutrient their herd consumes. For the most part, their milk goes off to join that of other dairies; and so gives little chance to explain the sustainable way the family farms (no fertiliser or anything that ends in ‘cide’ for starters); but producing the variety of cheeses they do (aside from their love of doing so and which perpetuates a long family legacy), gives them opportunity to also extend the story of their pasture and practice. I’ve been joking for awhile that I reckon Andy personally knows every blade and leaf of forage his herd consumes…and now having been for a long planned visit at last…I’ve seen first hand that I wasn’t far off the mark! I popped a few more pics and a little video of happy cows on their way to milking, if you’d like to take a look…here!
Pasture aside, I’m excited that we’ll have a variety of Gowrie Farm Cheese to welcome guests to our Winter Celebration in ten days time…and given neither Andy or Liz can be here themselves on the day, I met Anna from Monks Lane Farm over there, so she too, could see first hand just what they’re up to; so that alongside me (you just know I’ll be distracted!) she can also talk to peeps with confidence, as they pair cheese with ooooooodles of her just-pressed 2026 Extra Virgin Olive Oil in which to dunk chunks of her sourdough when they arrive! (Remind me to buy paper napkins…I foresee a picture…now forming very clearly in my minds eye…of much EVOO necessitated mopping up!).
Thinking of seed sowing (oh…I hadn’t explained that bit had I? Andy sows his pastures by drone!) I got a bee in my bonnet a couple of weeks ago over the state of the citrus / chook pen, where in the short amount of time Mabel and Enid have been with us, they’ve managed to completely denude that space of any vegetation! Of course it was inevitable, and you’d have thought after all these years I might have devised a better solution for compartmentalising their accommodation. No…I don’t allow them out into the garden - where they would eat every single thing intended for our own consumption, though I do throw them a veritable smorgasbord during the course of any day. Do you remember that pic from a couple of posts ago of a cabbage leaf topped with a selection of slugs and snails? Delivering such a beautifully presented platter to the pair seems to have become a regular feature of my days of late! Snail observation has become a preoccupation as I go about other tasks. Depending where I see one, I might leave it to plump up just a bit more…to make more of a feast for those eager birds to consume at their next allotted delivery!
Anyway, I digress. Some years ago, I had great success with a chook forage crop called Clucker Tucker and really…I should have got hold of a similar seed mix and sown it before we took delivery of these new girls (but I was just a bit preoccupied at the time!) as it would be pointless to sow it and allow them in the same area whilst it’s trying to germinate. Uggghhh…. Anyway, I knew something had to be done, so with Larry’s help and Clemmie’s too…we stretched a length of wire across the citrus bed on Sunday afternoon - giving the girls a temporarily reduced run, but me access to the most prolific of the Navel orange trees from where I’m currently picking fruit. With the division now made, I gave the ground a good rake - (it resembled something akin to a brown version of a mogul-filled snowfield!) and scattered the seed all over, bar directly underneath the orange trees, then added a loose layer of lucerne mulch in the hope of disguising the fine seeds from the beady-eyed and ever vigilant wood pigeons, that seem to recognise any such seed-sowing effort the instant one does it. I was losing the light fast by the time I finished, but knowing there was no likelihood of frost, I watered it all in well. Given the daytime temperatures have been quite ridiculously mild all week, and with a good amount of sun too and some overnight rain to boot a couple of nights ago; despite knowing I really am very late in the season to be attempting success with this forage crop; I’m hopeful it just might work. For once it does, it ought to be self-perpetuating and keep the girls happy for some time to come. In the meantime, I’ll be on silver service duty - delivering chook room-service at regular intervals throughout the day!
While we’re down in the kitchen garden…what about a little progress report? At last…I tied the horizontals onto the main broad bean structure; and not a moment too soon, as already they’d surged through the lowest of the three rung-levels and at this rate, might have leapt through the second layer of rods by the end of this weekend. I don’t want to jinx them in anyway…but so far so good - with 100% germination they’ve put on steady growth ever since and ooooh I cannot wait ‘til I’m pinching out their tips to munch in the sprinter afternoon sunshine!
And the peas….ah the peas….they’re clambering fast up their wigwam supports now, latching on with fine tendrils, producing plump buds that I find difficult to resist but must…for otherwise we would not have…
The like of these fat pods swelling! I particularly have my eye on this one - the most advanced so far of the ‘Telephone’ peas (a podding variety) that I’ve been growing year in, year out, for as long as I can remember growing peas! I think I might treat myself to this one this afternoon - I can tell the little peas inside have swollen to just that point when they will be sweet as sweet - and there is nothing as sweet as the very first pea of the season on the tongue…a moment to truly savour!
I’m planning to cut the first head of broccoli today or tomorrow…the sooner the better, whilst the florets are quite compact and so that the stem left behind can get to work on producing side shoots of fine broccolini; for once the central head is removed, just give that stem a few weeks (yes it will look ugly in the meantime, but the effect will be short-lived) and it will produce side shoots aplenty to take us through into the spring.
The first sown leeks are fattening up too, and I fully intend pulling the first bulbs of fennel this evening. While we’re eating winter produce well already, I haven’t yet quite finished planting it! At the weekend I planted out more rows of lettuce and fennel, leek and kohl rabi down the back; where I’m hoping to cut the stems from the dahlias this weekend and dig them up to store over winter, to make space for the onions. If I didn’t need their space, I’d leave the dahlias right where they are, but I do and so they need to go into storage. But that said, I don’t like to cut down their stems ‘til they’re fully dried out - as with any tuber, I believe it’s in the stem gradually dying back that the feeding for the next season is delivered to the tuber, so I’m hoping they get a wriggle on because they’re holding up the works…and I do like to get the onions in by the shortest day of the year!
With all that urgent work done in the kitchen garden over the weekend, at last I got back to the Vetiver…my pet project that’s been waiting for me down at the corner of the field! “Meet me down there” I called to Clemmie…because I know she is just as eager for me to get on with this experiment as I am! And this great lump of grass is surely a two-person project if ever there was! Before she joined me I did manage, with enormous effort, to prise and roll and at least change the angle at which it was resting just enough (I do sometimes think you could make a cartoon of all the doings here!) to continue working away at its fibrous root system…teasing out with fingers between using a series of implements to dislodge the great bulk of clay soil fixed determinedly to its base.
Eventually we managed to dislodge enough earth to lighten the load just enough to enable me to ease the clump out of its hole altogether - onto flat ground…what a triumph! And then together, with a lot of grunting and groaning and bending-ze- knees, we heave-hoed it into a waiting wheelbarrow…only to get the balance wrong and the whole thing tipped over…hilarity ensued! Having gathered ourselves and wiped the tears of laughter from our cheeks, we tried again and did better that time, managing to lodge the thing on its head, roots in the air, exposed to the sun, where hopefully the clay will begin to crumble and make the process of extracting the more fleshy roots easier.
I then released Clemmie from participating in the tedium of the next phase - washing all the sediment from the roots we have collected….over two separate attempts. Well…I put them in a bucket and washed their bulk as if they were some precious cashmere jumper…over and over and over again…ridding each rinse of silt, ‘til I thought I’d got them clean enough to transfer to one of the enormous stainless steel bowls I use for washing lettuce leaves in the Dairy’s pantry kitchen - less back breaking I thought and with clean water, rather than hose/dam water, which I reckon’d was making it more difficult to know if they were now ‘clean’ or not. Several (and then some!) washes later, I eventually declared the job done; transferred the mass of hairy roots to a colander and then onto wire racks to dry.
Two days later and now dry, I thought to weigh them…as I need some vague idea before I approach the big distillation experiment. 180g! That’s all!!! And as I looked at the mass sitting atop the old scales, all I could think of was the spaghetti-scene character from the Muppet Show and whatever those words were he would utter whenever he appeared with a bowl of misbehaving pasta….at least to my young ears were something like scvurgly, scvurgly, scvurgly… I sure hope the Vetiver doesn’t rise up and try to attack me! (You’ll need to watch the above link…I’d forgotten the end of that skit!).
Needless to say…there’s still not been an actual distillation! In fact having been set aside to dry, apparently the roots next require soaking! Hopefully this weekend.
How I hope your afternoons have been golden this week too, wherever you may be.
Warmest wishes
Mickey x
Eating from the garden: Pumpkin, broccoli, celeriac, kale, fennel, peas, kohl rabi, aubergine, zucchini, tomato, warrigal greens, coloured chard, chicory, lettuce, red elk, celery, garlic (haven’t I eeked out the last tiddly ones well???!!!) Jerusalem artichoke and beans. Pomegranate, rhubarb, orange, lemon (these last two should have been on the list these last several weeks!). Coriander, basil, lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano. Nasturtium, calendula, borage and zucchini flowers, fennel fronds, pollen and seeds
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, fast approaching the last sowing…though if I can clear the decks down the back, I’m tempted to make one of those wild sowings of ‘last year’s seeds’
Planting: kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohl rabi, fennel, radicchio, chicory, leek, lettuce…stagger, stagger, stagger… Onions…this week…and then it’s all over for the season.
Ornamental garden notes:
Picking for the house: more a question of accumulating produce on the kitchen bench…where a pumpkin sits next to a bowl of tomatoes, another of pomegranates and another of oranges. I think the first jonquil may have opened…spied from the bedroom window…I need to go for a walk in that direction!
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; the aroma of labdanum has halted me a couple of times this week as I cross the Barn garden lawn…
Pruning and other: transplanted a couple of self-sown salvia aurea (or africana-lutea) but I was otherwise kitchen-garden focussed; while Larry slashed a paddock or two.
Please keep us updated on the vetiver adventure! It's a scent that I love, and it's intriguing to discover how it is captured.