Swinging into action...
It’s funny how quickly the reverie days evaporate into thin air. Rather like popping a balloon, dare to pick up a tool (as must be done) and both mood and atmosphere shift in a flash. The idle days vanish…just like that.
Their demise began with a ball of string, a pair of scissors and the tying in of the tomatoes; which have now reached a substantial enough strength and height to allow their flowers to set tiny fruit. Snipping out excess foliage and training their branches in espalier style creates good air circulation, which in turn keeps them healthy during their long, summer growing and fruiting journey. So this was a good place to get back in the swing!
The dozen San Marzanos grown on traditional stakes down the back (as always…I just rotate them to a different position each year) are good and sturdy now. Half way up their stakes, I’ve allowed them to begin setting fruit too - especially as all the fruit I baked and froze last year, which have been such a boon these last tomato-less months, are dwindling now. With any luck the last of the frozen will coincide with the first batch of the new season - at least I have my fingers crossed it works out that way!
The still fragile beans required a little coaxing too, towards their support rods, where getting them off to an anticlockwise twirl should set them in good stead - if only the bower birds can just stay away for long enough to allow them to gather their strength.
With a couple of severe heatwave days predicted (the days were already dry and scorching as it was) I decided to rig up some shade for the Dahlias while I still had the ball of string in my hands. In this spot they are in full sun from morning ‘til the final evening rays and I’ve had them burn off dreadfully in years gone by. It’s not a big job to tie a length of hessian over their heads and I’d rather put the twenty minutes or so in to doing that before it’s too late, than have to deal with the ugly fallout later.
By now I was on a roll…the book reading days but a memory left behind (although maybe, just maybe the long weekend at the end of the month will yield one more opportunity!).
The heat by the time I’d completed those simple jobs was too severe to be outside and the need to tidy the potting shed(s) has been niggling away at me for months. Clearing them is a big, dirty job…I was already in a muck sweat so I thought it a good idea to tackle something out of the sun. I don’t really know why the potting sheds get so out of hand but they do. Nets and cages hauled out in a hurry, bags of potting mix nibbled by rats, pots and punnets not quite put back where they belong…the big potting shed is open to the elements too, so between wind-blow, spiderwebs and hasty storage…over a period of months it all adds up.
As I got everything outside under the extended verandah roof, and found myself smothered in clouds of dust from sweeping, I began to realise it was so dark I could hardly see what I was doing. Distant thunder grumbled through the heavy stillness but I just kept going. Then a breeze and a cascade of fluttering leaves caught my eye as I moved yet another tower of pots from inside to out; and a few big, heavy spots of rain that I feared could spell hail fell, but I ignored them and kept sweeping. And then…the heavens opened! The sound of rain on the tin roof above was deafening, and oh the relief after weeks of immense heat. As rain pounded the parched ground, the deeply satisfying petrichor aroma swirled all around. Bliss…! And I just kept going, filthy now, ‘til the job was done, the rain eased and the sun returned!
One potting shed done…one to go!
On Sunday we knew we were in for another day of stinking heat but we’d agreed to turn the compost even so. Truly? It just couldn’t wait any longer! The spring/summer weekends were so crammed with events (and crop rotation) that we hadn’t had a chance and although one heap (that had had one turn) was well on its way to usable compost and a sizeable pile, I decided to combine it with the vast mountain of more recently pruned material. We won’t need compost to add to the beds ‘til the end of February…when the next rotation begins and although it’s a bit of a gamble (and a challenge!) I reckon that in combining and layering the heap that was already well on the way with the newer material will help the new material to break down more quickly.
Although Larry does the heavy lifting by tractor, it’s still an enormous job and I do the ‘ground’ work…adding the inputs: manure, blood and bone, comfrey leaves and water…as we go. Given we’ve had virtually no rain these last months, the material was dry as a crisp and so water truly was the most important ingredient of all.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I’ve often joked that one day the headline news will read ‘wife killed during compost session’! Really, Larry gets so focussed on picking up the pile with the tractor bucket I think he often forgets I’m there! On Sunday it was just lucky he was in forward motion, collecting the next load when he completely missed my legs-all-a-kimbo pirouette, as a large red-bellied black snake slithered at high speed out of the pile Larry was collecting from, and straight in my direction! There was no time to think…I dropped the hose, leapt in the air and ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction, which happened to be behind the tractor. “What are you doing?” he asked as he clocked the hose thrashing about on its own. He’d missed the entire event! Well that got my heart racing I can tell you…goodness!
I spoke some weeks ago about allowing the garden to have its way…to visit the wild side, which is a phase I so look forward to. It’s a very long one and if you’re prepared to see it through, to allow the season to play out in its own time without interfering in the full seed to seed cycle, the time will come when you are in for a trickle of daily surprises.
It usually takes a shower (or maybe a downpour!) of rain to flick the switch, but once it begins, a whole new cycle begins to evolve right before your eyes. I find it thrilling and the years don’t seem to diminish my excitement! Of course I can never be absolutely sure it will occur (but of course it will…I mean really, this is just stupid by now…even droughts do eventually break and when they do this is the first thing to happen in the kitchen garden!). But my delight at this occurrence is as profound now as it was when I first recognised new seedlings emerge all those years ago. If you’re new to gardening, pay close attention to what at first you may think are weeds popping up after the rain, but you’ll soon begin to recognise a tiny weed from a newly emerged spinach, carrot, fennel, kale, parsnip, mustard, cress, beetroot or borage…the list is endless…depending upon just who you’ve allowed to flower…and left to evolve on their merry way to seed.
I’m inclined to leave sections of the ‘guild’ side of the kitchen garden free of planting in the spring (though add compost to replenish the soil) so those patches are really an open seed bed, waiting for the great free-fall of seed to tumble from overhead.
The Borders are full and heavy now, they’ve exploded beyond their means and are ready for their annual summer pruning. If I was really doing the right thing by them, I’d do a proper cutback in late November/early December (the equivalent of the ‘Chelsea-Chop’) as really the herbaceous plants they contain ought to be set back straight after their peak to grow on again instead of allowing them to carry on putting their energy into spent flowers. But December coincides with the Christmas rush and the last thing I want to do is go-a-pruning! So I rather revel in this dishevelled, spent, over-abundant vision during the reverie days. But if we want an autumn display, there’s work to be done.
In the Barn Garden, even the spires of Russian Sage were thwacked in the severe heat, so they’re having an earlier than usual summer-chop this year.
The Arc and Courtyard too, have plenty of summer pruning to be done, but depending where you view them from, they still seem full and enchanting.
And the kitchen garden is awash with Fennel at every stage of its flowering cycle.
Although we’re in the midst of a bit of a hungry gap, now we’ve had some rain it should (hopefully!) be quite short-lived. The first aubergine arrived along with the first pink zinnia…planted side by side it’s a colour combination that heralds the change of season, atmosphere and our diet. It makes sense there should be a little space, as the spring/summer gives way to the mid-summer…an altogether stronger palette of colour and tastes emerging as the days go by. I have plans for this beauty…I’m just crossing my fingers the second one is ready to pick by the weekend!
But garden and produce aside, I’m wading through those piles I mentioned last week and even got my first newsletter of the year out this morning! (Are you on the newsletter list???!!!). I mentioned last week that January comes with an air of uncertainty, as slowly the wheels begin to whirr into action: one part inactive, one part over-active as ideas and possibilities fly all around. I’ve already spread a lot of good intention into the ether via the airwaves and channels of communication…now conversations, emails and messages lie pending. It will be curious to see where it all lands and just what may lie ahead!
With hopes of more rain ahead, I’ll look forward to meeting you at the next post.
Mickey x
Productive garden notes:
Eating from the garden:
Potatoes, onions, garlic, cucumbers, aubergine (new). Just a little coloured chard, lettuce, rocket (a bit leathery now but still good for a pungent addition of a few leaves to a salad), lovage, mint, rosemary, thyme, chives, basil, fresh fennel seed, fennel pollen. There’s a bit of a hungry gap now though we should be eating beans and also zucchinis which are being slow…the scorching heat really did do damage. One more passionfruit! I’m not sure if the heat is to blame or birds, but there were a lot more set fruit on the vine than there appears to be now which is disappointing…because they are simply delicious!
Going / gone: fennel fronds
Seed saving: a late coriander and land cress…I need to decide where to put stems of ripe seed of the latter directly onto the ground as they would benefit growing as a companion amongst the Brassica family in the next round…
Sowing: If you feel inclined to grow your brassica family from seed, then now is the time to sow into punnets. Land cress (see above)
Planting: none
Ornamental garden notes:
Picking for the house: Roses, magnolias, frangipani and I might treat myself to some more hydrangeas
Perfumes and aromas: the frangipanis are still the most potent, along with fig leaf and magnolia. The steamy aroma of petrichor that came with the rain was simply divine and post compost turn, the air all around the drying green is basking in the sweet, clean smell of just-turned compost. Blink and you’ll miss it but dwell and it’s obvious: all the air in the kitchen garden is infused with the dusty aromatic odour of drying fennel seed
Pruning and other: Last week I suggested the tipping point had arrived…and so it had! Thalia’s been back this week and first up was to severely prune the Brunonii roses along the drive fence (the ones from which I carried out the two distillations in November). As spring-bloomers, now is the time to be harsh. At the weekend I took to the spent stems of Shell Ginger on the south side of the bedroom wing and also the Justicia that flowered so beautifully in the lead-up to Christmas between the wings. And I went-a-wiseria tendril cutting as well as deadheading all the roses in the garden and field. Since then, the Phlomis, Tradescantia and Achillea in The Arc have all had a big cut back, the Thyme, Achillea and Salvia as we round into the Barn Garden, where Thalia has done a good job removing all the spent Acanthus spikes and taking the Perovskia down by roughly two-thirds. The Ceanothus required a trim to keep its shape and the Erigeron Daisy that fills the gap between the timber slabs at the Barn is back to bare bones. I intend to remove the stems that flowered on the Philadelphus at the weekend and to do a bit of shaping to the Pineapple Guava and Saltbush…both of which I’m trying to coax into dense but imperfect blobs! I might pull out some of the Macleaya which is quite out of hand but oh so pretty. The Juniper hedge is growing too quickly where I don’t want it and not fast enough where I do!
Funny how some things work some years and not others Sally. Sounds like you have a fabulous bounty though :)))) Mx
😂