Layer upon layer...
as gradually the season builds...
Gradually? Or is it on fast track? Only last week I suggested tiny leaves would quickly fill out to their true form and whilst so many have, others wait in the doldrums, reluctant to emerge ‘til the temperature settles. Already some long anticipated spring beauties have rushed to perform and expired in their excitement…fizzing out and sulking now, in mounds of browned-off blossom: spring pruning looming…the gardener’s work is never done!
How I love the layering that emerges as spring romps away. From a barren layer of newly laid mulch, new foliage displays appreciation for its hard winter prune, feed, compost and top layer of mulch. Bedded in this way, the soil underneath should be singing (apparently that is actually a thing - I read somewhere the other day where scientists somewhere are recording the sounds of soil…hello darkness my old friend…!).
It’s now that the deeply serrated mix with the strappy, the feathery, the bold and the fine…some dull, some vibrant, in shades of grey through bronze and interspersed with shards of lime green. It’s the foliage now, before the flowers arrive, that captivates. Here in the Border closest to the Dairy, the tall spires of Echium virescens are first to colour, but their pale pink is so gentle, they simply highlight the foliage all around. The canopy of olive leaves behind make a shimmering foil as the eye is drawn to the Banksia rose in full flight beyond…
One of those ‘punctuation’ plants I talked about at length some posts back…that draw the eye to a halt, as it registers some huge mound declaring an exclamation, or defining a dash, as one moves from one space to another. Or indeed a full stop. How I love Rosa banksiae with her multi-clusters of tiny flowers that run the length of her never-ending stems. She’s highly romantic but also, as you can see, requires space to sprawl. There was a huge specimen when we came here…between the house and the Barn. It was only when we were clearing all the detritus from under and around her (which meant we had to prune her back severely) that we discovered an enormous in-ground, sandstone-lined tank…for want of a better description - it wasn’t a ‘well’ as such as there is no source to feed one. Pulling away at sheets of metal on the ground, it wasn’t the first time one of us almost toppled into some unforeseen underground cavity! (This time it was Larry…the previous time it had been me, under the Persian Lilac where I subsequently planted the L. dentata I mentioned in yesterday’s post!). In the process of excavating this new discovery, we lost the Banksia, but vowed to plant another. The stone blocks that lined that sunken circle are the ones that make the low wall to the loggia and the wall that divides the Dairy from the kitchen garden below. They settled well into their new home above ground, where we’re happy to have them on view instead of hiding away in the earth.
How Lady Banks draws the eye through the Dairy’s open windows! She’s visible even from the farthest point of that big white room, where I’ve been lucky to work most of this week. First there was all the prep on Monday (moving the furniture and the pre-washing up!) for a garden visit and lunch on Tuesday. Lucky tour group - I can never predict the highlights they may encounter, but they were lucky to score the Cherokee Rose down at the Hayshed on arrival (which so few peeps in fact do get to see!), as well as the Banksia rose and the Wisterias…all in full flight. They were all quite cock-a-hoop!
I do enjoy those visits - although not a super regular occurrence, garden visitors are always lovely peeps. I think I’ve mentioned before that when we do get these kinds of visits, we’re either the first or last stop on their ‘tour’, which likely includes the Southern Highlands, Canberra, perhaps the South Coast and maybe the Blue Mountains. If we’re the last stop before the bus takes them back to Sydney, they’ve probably been together for a week or more, so their lunch here may be something of a ‘farewell’. If we’re the first stop, as we were on Tuesday…their lunch is more of a ‘getting-to-know-you’ occasion. I try to make their visit something of a treat, either way.
The preparation is all consuming, their visit a whirl, as I take them on a tour of the garden, explaining all as we go (in this case, mic’d up!), then don my apron, give them lunch and before you know it they’re back on the bus and it’s all over…leaving a mountain of washing up in their wake! I don’t mind…I go through it all methodically, and its inevitable there will have been conversations upon which to reflect - each of their faces still vivid in my mind, as slowly I bring in the chairs and wall cushions between dishwasher cycles! As I walk the space over and over again, I catch all the changing light as the sun moves around to the west, making shadows on the walls, catching the piles of white plates and cups and saucers stacked to dry, bouncing chinks of light off the now gleaming cutlery…
To end the visit on Tuesday (they always like something sweet with tea and coffee before they head off!) I’d made a batch of Aaron Bertelsen’s Shortbread from his Great Dixter Cookbook. It’s become a firm favourite here, ever since that book was released and Aaron’s publisher asked me to host an event for him on his Australian book tour. Aaron too, has become a firm friend and I asked him if it would be OK to give you the recipe, to which he said yes, of course! Happy, happy me!
I’ve made this so many times now…including lemon or orange zest in the final mix (Aaron had suggested in the book that lemon zest works well, cutting through the sweetness) and on different occasions, I’ve added fresh or dried fennel seeds (as the garden provides) or poppy seeds (which will be ready any minute out there now!).
Also, I always do rub the butter into the flour with my finger tips…it reminds me of baking with my maternal grandparents (I know I’ve mentioned before that my mother hates cooking - her words, though she always did cook begrudgingly…but her parents always seemed to be cooking - and when I spent time with them, which was a lot…we were either cooking or playing cards…at least when I wasn’t playing dress-ups in my Mum’s old hats & frocks - ref. Botanical Water post!).
Aaron’s Shortbread Recipe
Ingredients
350g butter at room temperature, diced
350g plain (all-purpose) flour
175g (1 cup) rice flour
170g (1 cup) caster sugar
Method
Preheat oven to 180C
Line a pan with baking paper - something rectangular with a side…I find the best one for the job is roughly 30cm x 23cm and 4cm deep though I use another that’s 36cm x 22cm x 6cm deep…it’s pretty forgiving so don’t worry too much!
Put the plain flour and butter into a bowl and rub together until the mixture looks like rough sand - Aaron says this can be done by hand or mixer
Add the rice flour and sugar and keep mixing until clods of dough start to form (I do all of this by hand!)
If adding some flourish, like lemon or orange zest, add it now so it’s distributed through the dough
Press the mixture into the prepared pan, prick all over with a fork and bake 30 - 35 minutes until golden brown.
If you want to sprinkle with extra caster sugar (I don’t - I find it sweet enough!) do it now and…cut while still warm but let it cool completely before turning out of the pan
Aaron suggests allowing it to cool in a gentle breeze so it sets crisply! I always set mine on a board on the kitchen window sill
A note on ‘turning it out’ from me: I find if you’ve made enough of an allowance of baking paper above the rim of the pan that you can pull the paper and entire shortbread out easily, rather than tipping it on its head. Then it’s easy to break all the pieces you’ve cut apart.
Aaron says his grandmother does not approve as she likes a much drier biscuit, but it works for him and many others too! My visitors here are inclined to agree!
Those visitors also enjoyed a quite splendiferous leaf salad (alongside scrumptious quiche which I must confess I did not make - it’s sometimes ‘tour’ visitors who don’t quite get the full Mickey-grown and prepared experience - their budgets just don’t go the distance and while one pair of hands can go so far there are also only so many hours in a day! (Saint Nicks Patisserie in Camden make such divine quiches…it’s just not worth my time fiddling around with pastry when I have to be sure the garden is on best form too…and especially when quiche has been specifically requested by the operator!). All that said, they enjoyed a little cup of scented veg broth (recipe a few posts back), each topped with a little broad bean flower - we know those taste of pure broad bean, and I’d also made two loaves of Pumpernickel Soda Bread and a huge batch of Fennel Frond Pistou, so…it was only the quiche I failed on!
And the leaf salad? Every morsel was home grown! Remember I said I was worried all the lettuces were about to bolt? I did a huge pick at the weekend…from that bed down the back where you’ll recall the San Marzano tomatoes grew all summer, autumn and early winter long….it’s been pumping out produce for weeks on end…as I’ve treated the oakleaf lettuces as cut ‘n come again, along with kale, broccoli, radicchio, fennel…there’s a row of colourful chard just to the right of this image and a double-row of leeks; and to the left, the throwing bed where I tossed all that ‘expired’ seed is hitting its stride.
After a good pick-over and water bath…I’ve had enough leaves not just for Tuesday’s visitors (18 of them!) but for us too. Er….I am just a bit worried though about our own leaf supply in the immediate week or two ahead, ‘til the new seedlings put on some growth and particularly for next Friday’s event with Jeremy and his The Stones presentation and lunch! I cannot abide the idea of risotto sans leaf salad…so am in a quandary on that score…but I’ll think of something!
When it comes to a leaf salad though, I do keep meaning to share our vinaigrette recipe…it’s in the book, but peeps are always asking me for it. Of course, it’s never the same twice as I just don’t measure any of the quantities - it’s all a pinch here and a slurp there. But I did get as close as possible when the recipe went into The House and Garden at Glenmore, so here you go cos it’s such a staple in this household!
Vinaigrette for Leafy Garden Salads
Ingredients (I usually make it in a ‘Maille’ Dijon Mustard jar so the quantities are inclined to equal that screwtop jar!)
Generous pinch sea salt flakes
Generous twist black pepper
Heaped teaspoon or 1&1/2 teaspooons Dijon mustard
Generous squeeze lemon juice
40ml white wine vinegar (hmmm…maybe!)
150ml extra virgin olive oil (again…hmmm…!!)
When it came to publishing the book, all the recipes were double-checked by the food arm of the publisher. In pretty much every other recipe I provided exacting amounts…but I’ve never actually measured this out post publication to see if it measures up! Each time I make it I taste, then add a little something extra if I’m off piste…sometimes a twist more pepper, sometimes a little more mustard or lemon juice. In the book it listed a smidgen of rapadura sugar, which at the time I was substituting for the original white. I have to say…I’ve never added sugar since then…I was already phasing it out wherever possible and I know the vinaigrette is no less delicious without it. These days I’m just as inclined to use apple cider vinegar as white wine vinegar. So…it’s a truly adaptable recipe. The real original was Larry’s mother’s and in the early days, he used to always make it. At a pinch, he still does.
I go on quite a ramble about leaf salads in the book where the vinaigrette recipe is listed in the Late Winter through Spring recipe section (though we eat them all year long…as long as I can grow enough leaves), and I grow as many leaves of different varieties as I possibly can. We always have a leaf salad to accompany pasta, risotto or an omelette…which is likely four times a week. Not something I grew up with (neither of my parents are or were fans!). But Larry’s mother, being half French, clearly was; and it was very early on that leaf salads featured in our burgeoning romance….courtyard suppers on summer nights in Larry’s then Fulham house, was when they first really appeared as a regular thing on my food radar. Mâche…which is still difficult to get in Australia (sure we used to have iceberg lettuce growing up - probably why leaf salads didn’t have a great rap in our house!) is a great favourite of Larry’s (we aren’t cold enough to grow it…I’ve tried) and I gradually became more engaged with the variety of leaves available in the UK…struggling to source them when we first returned to Australia to begin our married lives. That was…’til I began growing them!
To this day, one of the very best leaf salads we’ve enjoyed, and perhaps the most memorable of them all was in France…a long time ago now. We were invited by dear friends to *join them skiing in the French Alps and flew in from here…landing in Paris in the early hours. We hired a car and enroute Larry suggested that perhaps we call in to the Auberge du Père Bise on Lac d’Annecy (where we’d spent a night towards the end of our honeymoon many years before, on our way between the South of France and Switzerland, where an older friend had invited us to stay with her for a few days). On our honeymoon visit, I recall registering chervil for the first time, as we dined by le Lac. (The Auberge had been a very popular haunt during the mid C20th and an aunt of Larry’s had enjoyed regular sojourns there in its heyday…hence he had thought it an ideal mid-point to spend a night!).
This time…we were surprised to find Madame just as we’d remembered her, still beautifully coiffed - her white hair now, in an immaculate French roll, elegantly dressed and handing us her traditional menus as we took our seats at a stiffly white-cloth’d table. Not wanting a full three-course lunch (we were straight off that long-haul flight and heading for the mountains) soup and salad seemed a likely option…although I’ve no doubt Madame didn’t approve. Oh but the leaf salad…it’s in an establishment such as this (was…looks like it’s all changed now!), that you can’t help but appreciate the care that goes into each morsel likely to land on your plate. As a rule, Larry and I aren’t good at formal restaurants and hushed tones…we’re inclined to run a mile! But there is something about tradition done right that sometimes just is so spoiling. This particular leaf salad, consisting of a multitude of fine leaves, was brought to a smaller serving table in a generous ceramic bowl…poured liberally with a stream of vinaigrette from a silver pitcher and gently turned over and over at our table with such consideration, before being carefully placed on our plates. Every morsel was perfection and although many years into our own leaf salad appreciation…I think of that spontaneous lunch we so enjoyed, when I carefully prepare and turn our salads here.
*makes it sound as if we’re always gallivanting…those friends invited us skiing every year and at last…on that particular occasion, we relented and took the opportunity to also visit Clemmie who was at uni in Edinburgh!
Perhaps not quite so elegant but…I’ve been meaning to mention Borlotti beans for weeks! I’d neglected to put them on the list at the bottom of the posts of what we’re eating ‘til a couple of weeks back…when in fact we’ve been consuming quite generous amounts of them throughout the winter weeks! So before the season marches on and expressly because the season is doing just that, I’ll pop them in here before I forget!
When I began writing these posts earlier in the year, you may recall me waxing lyrical about the Speckled Cranberry beans, whose crimson-streaked pods were on fine display in the kitchen garden. At the time I mentioned how we were eating the newly minted beans as small ‘flat’ beans - a stage at which they are delicious and I’ll show you when that time next rolls around. But once they begin to swell, it’s too late to eat them pod and all, so I allow them to journey on their merry way, ‘til they’re fully mature and dry on the vine. You’ll recall when I collected them by the colander full and ultimately popped all the dry borlottis out of their colourful shells.
Well…I stored them in jars - as a staple for us to eat during the winter months. But of course those same ‘borlotti’ that we eat, are the seeds that I’ll sow for the coming season. So it’s relevant to talk about them now because…although I won’t do it quite yet (we’re still experiencing very chilly evenings here with a fire most nights), I am just beginning to think about the next crop rotation and so….what we’re eating now is also what I’ll soon be sowing into the ground. Watch this space!
Borlotti Beans - from dry to edible
soak overnight - I’m inclined to put about three to four times the amount of water to quantity of beans as they swell up substantially
strain, rinse and…I’m inclined to soak again
strain, rinse, cover with water, add a splash of olive oil and a couple of bay leaves and bring to the boil…simmer 45 minutes
because I’m super cautious I guess, I’m inclined to strain, rinse and bring to the boil once more…but for a shorter time and this time I add a teaspoon of salt
strain then toss in lots of olive oil, a good twist of black pepper and herbs: I like them as a little side to roast chicken or meat or…fold them into stews or slow cooked lamb shanks or however you’d like to enjoy them
Three recipes in one post! Making up for the last two weeks and…because of our event with Jeremy next Friday, I fear I’ll miss writing next week’s post!
Otherwise in the garden, there’s just so much popping open I can’t keep track! The Viburnum plicatum ‘Mariesii’…that I so love, is ahead of schedule and to my astonishment, travelled from tight bud to my favourite ‘just opening green-tinged petal’ stage in just one day! Oh how I long to cut great armfuls of her lace-cap flowers to bring inside…but although she’s large, she’s not that large, and I don’t want to spoil the effect she’s creating in the corner of the courtyard by denuding her! How I hope she lasts awhile. In the opposite corner, her companion the guelder-rose or snowball bush, Viburnum opulus, is the one that usually leads the dance between these two, but she is still in tight green form. There will be a transient moment when she’s just a shade more green than white, as she journeys through her transformation, which is my absolute favourite vision of her…and it hasn’t arrived…yet!
And if they’d just both grow bigger, I’d make a huge arrangement of them with great drifts of lilac interspersed amongst those green tinged viburnum flowers! I’m afraid all three of these (the two viburnums and the lilac) are not in their happiest place here…though they do OK, they are not as abundant as they might be to the south or west of here…just a bit higher than we are. But I just consider we are so lucky to be able to grow such a wide array of plant material at all - with plenty that I love that would not grow if we were either to the south or the west, so I admire what we have in the small amounts they are kind enough to display; and you can bet I’ll plunge my nose deeply, into those few lilac blooms while they’re here, and inhale several times a day!
To that same vase I might add the blossom of the Golden Elm tree, that’s at its best this week. Slowly but surely, it’s become a substantial tree, grown from tiny tubestock. Annoyingly I don’t necessarily walk in that direction a great deal so I can be inclined to miss it and was surprised as I took those peeps all around on Tuesday, to find it in full flush! I backtracked in the dusk to take a quick pic and admire its ethereal form before those enchanting blossoms turn to brown.
The wisteria is going over now…new foliage joining fading purple flowers whose perfume is no less than this time last week, while another beauty in the blue/purple hue that’s been lurking these last couple of weeks is a little collection of the common Bluebell Hyacinthoides non-scripta. Well…they may be common ‘in Atlantic areas from the north-western part of the Iberian Peninsula to the British Isles’ but they sure are anything but here! I planted a few bulbs so very long ago by the courtyard gate (back when the huge peppercorn tree had a giant swing we’d hung from its main lateral branch that the girls and I spent many a happy hour swinging on) as a token of pure romantic nonsense. The year I met Larry, he invited me to stay with his godfather one weekend in Scotland. During the course of the weekend, we all went for a very long walk, up and over the hill behind that Scottish baronial-style pile, returning via a wood with glades of bluebells at their very best. Larry disappeared for awhile and by the time he caught up, we were at the ‘kissing-gate’ on the way home (it was the first one I’d ever encountered) and of course was besotted at being handed a bunch of just-picked bluebells at that very moment. It was all quite hopeless really don’t you think? I was gone, hook, line and sinker! (In fact the descriptor in relation to the gate is more to do with the way the gates touch…allowing one pedestrian through at a time and not livestock, but even so…it’s a good excuse for a kiss and especially if you’ve just been handed a bunch of bluebells!).
Another to join the throng of unfurling blooms this last week is the Port Wine Magnolia Michelia figo. I’ve been slowly growing a pair from tubestock in the Courtyard for years. There used to be a pair of roses behind each Lutyens-style bench that face each other across the pond, but a few years ago now, those hybrid musks packed in their initial robust performance. I’d forgotten all about Port Wine Magnolias (we had a pair of them as topiaried balls in our first little house to either side of our front door) when one day I passed one in full bloom (when they’re on, their perfume is inescapable!) on a Sydney day and made a mental note to see if I could find one. In the early days here especially, I often thought things that grow well in Sydney wouldn’t with us…but I’ve been proved wrong so many times and sometimes wonder if I’ve lost time when I might have established some substantial plants earlier. We all live and learn. Anyway…I got one of these into the ground a couple of years ahead of the other, after potting them on and on again, so one is much bigger than the other! And it will be years more before I manage to get them to the shape I’d like. But for now anyway, their small, glossy green leaves are beginning to make their impact felt and speckled as they are just now with tiny pink flowers whose size belies their magnitude in the olfactory department, I’m excited for their future.
I took such a beautiful Orange Blossom distillation on Wednesday. I said I’d hoped for one more and that I rarely manage more than three and this one luckily, was more substantial than the previous two. A week on from the first, although the trees are now smothered in blossom, for the purpose of capturing the very best essence they’re likely to yield, I believe it’s best to pick and distill blossom I can be sure opened today….not yesterday. Now, we’ve crossed that threshold. So what’s been captured for this year now rests in the cellar - precious drops in clear glass jars of pure aromatic botanical water.
I’ll leave you today with peas of pure delight! In all shapes and size…they may not all be petit pois but when they’re just picked and their pods ‘squeak’, size matters not! It’s my understanding that the sugars in peas begin converting to starch within four hours of picking, so if you don’t have peas to pick and eat…you’re better off eating frozen ones!
Popping shelling-pea pods (if you press gently with your thumb at the end of the upturned seam, they literally ‘pop’ open) is tremendously therapeutic - as long as you have time! I love to accumulate a bounty, and to cook I simply blanch them very quickly in boiling water, strain immediately and…whereas I tend to use olive oil to toss most veg around in, nothing beats peas with a good knob of butter allowed to melt through them! I might need to go and see if I can find enough for dinner tonight!
If I don’t catch you next week, I promise to make up for it the week after, with part two of the Field of Flowers and…to catch you up with a dizzying fortnight of spring activity!
Sending warmest wishes,
Mickey x
Productive garden notes:
Eating from the garden:
Valencia oranges, Lisbon lemons, rhubarb; Jerusalem artichokes (going), parsnip, celeriac (going), pumpkins (going). Leaves of all kinds - spinach, kale - cavolo nero (now the weather has turned it’s leaves are a quite different consistency and although perfectly edible, there is a distinct difference between kale leaves that have been deeply chilled and those which haven’t!). Leeks, lettuce, radicchio (going), wild rocket, warrigal greens. Fennel bulbs, radish. Plentiful peas, broad beans. Fennel fronds, parsley, mint, rosemary, thyme, chives, coriander, nasturtium and calendula petals, borage flowers. Cape gooseberry (new - promised to tell you more about them this week but…I’ve collected a whole lot more and they’re all still sitting on the kitchen bench so will save ‘til next time!)
And…the dried Speckled Cranberry Borlotti Beans!
Going / gone: mandarins, Navel oranges, Jerusalem artichokes, pumpkins, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, red elk mustard leaf, giant red mustard, radicchio, broad bean tips (there are some new ones, thanks to ‘tipping’ all the first round!)
Seed saving: none
Sowing: thinking about roots: beetroot, carrot and parsnip but will wait for the waning moon. I’m turning the tomato seedlings around to face towards the north each day and thinking it might be time to pot them on.
Planting: lettuce and thinking a little about what comes next!
Ornamental garden notes:
Picking for the house: Quince blossom, dentata lavender but sorely tempted to pick viburnum and lilac and golden elm blossom!
Perfumes and aromas: are vying for olfactory attention at every turn…orange blossom, wisteria, jasmine (even though ‘over’), solandra, broad bean blossom and stand back for the Port Wine Magnolia!
Pruning and other: Thalia has made progress with sugar cane mulch to the field rows though not quite finished (and it’s too windy to continue). She’s trailered loads of compost to the oleander hedge that surrounds the Elm lawn and followed with a layer of forest fines for mulch - it’s a big job that took two days. There was tweaking here and there - there are still a lot of hang-over winter jobs we’ve not quite finished and also patches of very messy grass from that ‘army worm’ attack earlier in the year - all we can do is try to aerate by digging in the tines of a fork, spreading compost and watering with a sprinkler. I aim to finish the sugar cane mulch to the rows tomorrow and I need to do a lot of work with the courtyard pots and the ones between the wings…I can see pots dominating next week’s list ahead of The Stones visit on Friday…alongside a whole lot of cooking!
Lovely to hear you've put all those beautiful blooms together in a vase Sally :)) And that you have The Great Dixter Cookbook AND...that you are not so far from Jeremy & Grant at The Stones! I'm much looking forward to this Friday - everyone is in for such a treat. Mx
Wow, that Banksia Rose, how huge! We had one once, and it always flowered profusely, it was only to look at not to pick, but that’s ok, I do that a lot with our flowers in the garden, but when I got to where you were talking about the Verbena and Lilac, at our last home we had both of them growing and always blessing us with a profusion of blooms. One of my favourite photos is of them both in a vase, such beauty. I happen to have The Great Dixter Cookbook, so next time I’m baking I will try those shortbreads, and like Larry’s Grandmother, I also like a drier shortbread.. I looked up “The Stones” on IG and noted that they are only a couple of hours from here at Daylesford. I’m sure you will have a great day with Jeremy, if you do happen to write about that visit I’ll look forward to that also.