The colours, they are a-changin...
Oh good grief I am running soooooo late to begin writing to you today! And my excuse? After a couple of days otherwise engaged and distracted (in a good way!) from both the garden and my desk; with a scorcher on the way, I’ve watered, shuttered and closed the house and…let’s just say I’ve been quietly sampling the produce! First a fig plucked from the tree…one whose stalk was newly limp from holding the precious fruit upright just last night, its skin about to wrinkle and crack. Perfection! Needless to say a rather sticky result was had from scoffing that soft, sweet, juicy flesh but the sensation was pure bliss. And then? I thought I’d better check a corn cob, to see where those late summer beauties might be at. Whilst leaving to ripen a couple more days on the stem might be sensible, I just couldn’t help biting in, to see how they were travelling, which led to salivating over each and every creamy, yellow kernel on the spot, as the sun began to prickle too hot on my back and beads of sweat began to trickle! Time to bolt inside! So I’m late because…I’ve been stuffing my face on this hot summer morn! No lunch break for me then today!!
Oh but that’s what growing is all about! All of us who grow know…soil to plate, fork to fork: those descriptors we use over and over are true as true can be; but nothing, I mean nothing beats plant to tongue, right there in the garden, with mere seconds between (and sticky fingers and chin the result!).
Of course I don’t always do this alone but I am inclined to nibble a leaf here, a seed or berry there! A dear friend came to visit mid-week, and as we encountered a seemingly endless number of different varieties of ladybird busying themselves in the fennel flowers, we picked and sampled fresh seed from on high, newly germinated chard and amaranth leaves from down low, while our conversation bounced all over the place…two years of catching up interspersed with morsels of delight! Those kinds of days are so rare. They shouldn’t be, but that’s just the way life is - she’ll be in her studio now, just as I’m at my desk, but dear friends are always part of one’s existence…whether seen regularly or no.
The next peeps to encounter the same experience will likely be participants at upcoming events and workshops…I just need to keep the produce show on the road!
As you can see from the image above, snapped just before I sat to write, the colours sure are a-changin’. No…I haven’t yet been to see the Bob Dylan film but how I hope to (knowing us, we’ll probably end up waiting for it to appear on a streaming service but I would love to see it sooner!). If you don’t yet have Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ going round in circles in your head, you will now…sorry!
The tastes and colours of mid / late summer produce have seen a subtle altering of our diet over the weeks since Christmas; as firsts become trickles, then floods, then taper off…just as they should. At last the trickle of tomatoes has begun, bringing red and yellow to join the brown/black, purple and green. The depth of flavour of produce of the moment equals the perfume in the garden, alongside the play of light; all of it contributing to a well understood acknowledgement of the season.
Whilst I’m on the topic of changing colours…I simply cannot decide which (of a collection of images I just captured) to share with you; of the enthralling shades developing at the base of the Agave Americana, as the entire specimen journeys towards its ultimate demise. (I decided awhile ago that I don’t like the result of sharing a ‘gallery’ of images here as it does none of them justice). I might instead, pop a series of images on instagram for you to see, as the colours and textures developing are exquisite beyond belief. First the sunset tints appear at the centre of each embossed leaf, just as ochre tones develop too, on the huge stalk, which is veering off at a slightly precarious angle now. As the days progress, so too the colours..the salmon gradually deepening to an inky brown and then onto the most exquisite mottled effect. If I do get something onto instagram, I’ll backtrack and attach a link here, though I won’t have time to do it before I hit send to your email version of this post so you might need to give me a day or two before you backtrack to have a look!
Our little midweek lunch funnily enough, reflects almost exactly the colours of the Agave which I didn’t realise at the time! Mother nature…she’s always in tune. Our simple lunch consisted of slices of Pumpernickel Soda Bread (Belinda Jeffery), Preserved Lemon Hummus (Cherie Hausler, A Plant Based Farmhouse), fresh fennel seeds, baby amaranth leaves, lots of basil, figs from the tree and olive oil. My idea of heaven! There might have been Seville Orange Ice Cream to accompany a cup of tea later, but somehow we were still so deep in conversation that I forgot all about it! (Sorry Xanga…next time!) And to think the visit was ostensibly to sit and sketch in the garden…!
Now, Cherie has just replied to my quick message asking if I could print her recipe here and she said yes! So (much as you should get the book…I have copies here if you’re coming to visit anytime soon!) I’m going to quickly type it in here before I push send!
CHERIE’S PRESERVED LEMON HUMMUS
Ingredients
40ml lemon juice
60g tahini
250g cooked chickpeas or drained, tinned chickpeas
30ml water
1 preserved lemon quarter plus 40ml of the brine & oil (Cherie also has a recipe in the book for preserving lemons)
2 large garlic cloves, peeled
Method
Using a high-speed blender, blitz the lemon juice and tahini until whipped and creamy
Add the remaining ingredients and blitz again until smooth
Cherie goes on to say check for salt, but that she doesn’t think you’ll need any because the saltiness of the preserved lemon is enough. I agree…it doesn’t need further salt! And it is delicious!
Speaking of evolution (before I got distracted by food!), you’ll have noticed that last week I entered both fennel pollen and fresh fennel seeds into the ‘going/gone’ section (of productive notes at the bottom of each post). Although there’s still the odd fresh, new fennel flower appearing, those are becoming more rare, and while plenty of older flowers are still producing fresh seed, the bounty of fresh in its entirety is on the wane. Most now, is ripe and dry.
I can really only bring myself to remove those stems of tall, dry seed heads in sections at a time, harbouring the most incredible array of ladybirds and contributing to the overall heady summer atmosphere in the kitchen garden as they do.
The year I recorded the podcast, inThe Kitchen Garden with Mickey, lovely Leonie Marsh who produced it for me, had her very own kitchen garden in its first annual cycle, and on my encouragement, had allowed some fennel to go to flower. The podcast was recorded monthly, in arrears (I did the work, then wrote the script, made a voice recording, sent it to Leonie, recorded the sounds, sent those to Lana to integrate, then went about writing the accompanying notes and uploading them along with images, to the website - you can still see the notes, images and listen here - I’m keeping it there for posterity as I know peeps still use it as a guide!). Anyway…month by month, Leonie kept asking me when she should cut down her huge stems of fennel in flower. I joked it was becoming the ‘are we there yet’ question of the gardening realm! And now, just as then (and every year before and every year since) I can say “we’re almost there”! Cut if you want…I’m keeping a lot of mine going here!
Picking up my mention of evolution above (the demise of pollen and fresh fennel seed for our plates): as each tall stem is cut (a few notches up from the base from where the old plants will regrow once again for next year’s annual display), it’s inevitable that seeds will ping off all over the place; and in so doing, the next phase of the cycle will be cast. All that’s needed to encourage rebirth…germination for the next cycle, is a little rain. Which with any luck, may just be forthcoming. So as we wave a drawn-out farewell to the fresh seed cycle, hopefully we will soon be welcoming tiny fennel seedlings (with which to replace what has become a mid-summer staple) to pick on a daily basis for a burst of aniseed on the tongue and deliciousness on our plates. All it will take is time…and a gentle shift in the weather….
Whilst we’re up in the blue, what about this? Sometimes, one just needs to look at things from a different perspective! In life, as in the garden.
Plum-pooped after a huge gardening Sunday, I collapsed into and swam some laps in the pool. Then I thought you know? I’m going to plonk myself down for a few minutes to dry off (I seem to be in the habit of keeping on going!). So I did just that! I laid out my towel, stretched out flat on my back (not entirely sure that was a good idea!), looked up and…well, what a view to the blue! The Euphorbia appears to have little tiny button buds developing along its spiny ridges, so perhaps we’ll see another display of flowers before the summer’s out. (No…I didn’t have my phone with me…I don’t carry it with me every moment of the day! I went back same time the next day fully clothed and in contortionist mode, attempted to catch the view from the same spot…lucky it was another sunny evening!).
Verdant pasture…
I don’t often take you beyond the house and garden, only because the flurry of activity they generate in both my work and play, leaves little space for more.
But there is more…so much more to the care and nurture of Glenmore; and the work Larry puts into caring for the landscape, the land of which we are custodians for now, should be acknowledged too. Larry is not a farmer. He may have grown up on the land (in a very different land…Scotland) and although he has spent a good deal of his life immersed in landscape for one reason or another, and he relishes getting stuck into big, jobs; a real farmer he is not. Nor me. (But extrapolate all I’ve learned via gardening to all that goes on beyond our domestic fences and I have a helluva lot more of a clue than I did when we arrived here all those years ago!). Care of the wider landscape though, has been Larry’s domain these last (approaching) 37 years. It was pretty depleted when we arrived. And though it may not be perfect (getting the timing of stock and/or slashing of paddocks right is an imperfect science at the best of times) I reckon he does a pretty good job.
This last season, the cattle (yes, those wretched five that got into the garden and ran amok!) went to market just as the feed was beginning to look scarce and the weather outlook was anything but filled with summer promise. There was a moment when we feared the paddocks turning to dust as we went through a dry, dry late winter and spring. I give Larry a hard time about slashing before weeds set seed, but it’s hard when he’s beholden to clients with urgent needs, and too often he misses the optimal moment to get it right…to cut while the growth is healthy, the weather ideal, to thicken the pasture. I’m of the belief that cutting above (should well-timed, herd behaviour of ruminants not be possible) creates a more deep and comprehensive root system below, holding the complex soil web together.
But with a fortuitous shower here and a thunderstorm there, and getting the timing of his tractor days right as best he could over the last couple of months, I reckon Larry has something to be very proud of just now, exactly as he’s done so many times in the past. I’d suggest we’re superficially green (the dry late winter and spring sucked that glorious sense of full hydration we so rarely experience right out of the earth) but thanks to Larry’s management, there’s feed once again and hopefully soon, another small herd. Aside from anything else, I’m low on manure for the garden…and the more cow pats we can encourage incrementally across this luscious growth, with their accompanying dung beetles that do so much good work in the earth, contributing to the health of the soil below and therefore the wider environment, the better!
I know that many of you have never been here…indeed quite a lot of you don’t even live in this country! So whilst we’re beyond the garden gate (I snapped all these images from the side of the road when I took a little evening walk earlier in the week, inspired by the walk I took the evening before to deliver some jars of marmalade to the church for the Harvest Festival!)) why don’t I put you in the broader perspective?
We live on a little road that gently twists, turns and meanders, with pretty rise and fall to either side…the wider landscape opening up and narrowing at intervals. To the left is not our land, but the far hills extend the ridge that contributes to the view I often refer to as Rowan’s hill. We’re on the right…the sweep akin to the ‘yellow brick road’. A friend of Clemmie’s once referred to Glenmore as ‘a land far, far away’. How I like to think she was right!
As a general rule, we only open the front gates for events and workshops, as they lead to the carpark, down near the Hayshed (and all our visitors have a view of the house, set back from the road as it is, as they sweep down the drive!).
The original house stands proud of our additions to each side and behind; nestled in, anchored to its position. Looking at, rather than from, is not something I do often enough!
And behind, after taking the house shot, the evening sun continued to wane, setting the near view between us and Rowan’s hill alight in its golden glow.
Last Saturday, I enjoyed an overwhelming flood of joy as I plunged into the sea! Yippee! We realised we never actually made it to the beach last summer…and so being Larry’s birthday, we thought we’d just toss all care to the wind and take off down the coast…to a favourite beach we once often took the girls; where the waves roll gently - each seventh one or so a good size to dive through, a regular rhythm of them enough to catch in, and swim out and dive through on repeat; where the foam and aqua and turquoise turn to ocean blue and the clarity sparkles…the weight of the waves at this very particular spot somehow so satisfying in which to immerse. Good and salty we remained all day as we pootled about, eventually making our way back up the coast; up the winding escarpment through the rainforest tree-ferns and waterfalls, across the plateau of the hinterland and eventually, as the sun dipped…to our little road…all the way home!
I tip-tapped away ‘til crosseyed the first two days of the week, releasing the first events and workshops of the year, hatching plans…some serious, some fun. This first week of February is always a mish-mash as I wait (and hope and pray!) for things to fall into place. Hopefully they will!
Sending warmest wishes,
Mickey x
Productive garden notes:
Eating from the garden:
Potatoes, onions, garlic, cucumber, aubergine, zucchini, coloured chard. Lettuce, rocket, leaf amaranth, newly germinated micro spinach and chard leaves. Grapes! Figs! Many figs! Tomatoes. Basil, lovage, mint, rosemary, thyme, chives, fresh fennel seed (going - see above).
Going / gone: fennel pollen, fresh fennel seed, micro leaf amaranth
Seed saving: parsnip, beetroot, spinach, chard, parsley, land cress
Sowing: I took the stems of land cress with its dried out seed pods in tact and laid them down where I intend to plant brassicas in a few weeks time. Equally, I took some of the ripe parsley seed, still attached to its stems too, and laid it down where I like the idea of having the next row of parsley, in what will become the autumn/winter root veg bed: I said this last week and have continued to add as more seed ripened during this week. Sowed some chard seed from the heads I’d gathered into punnets which I don’t usually do! And also dropped the entire head of baby leeks forming from a flower head, into a pot of compost…I’m curious to see if they form roots and when/if they do, will separate to plant out. I’ve often thought to do this, but for some reason have never actually tried before to see what happens! (see below)
Planting: none - too hot
Ornamental garden notes:
Picking for the house: Roses, magnolias, frangipanis, tansy, dahlias, Cottonwood hibiscus, gardenia thunbergia and ginger…
Perfumes and aromas: Night scented Jessamine, Cestrum nocturnum!!! And wowsers it’s upscaled since those first few teaser flowers opened around Christmas, they were ahead of the rush! All week, intoxicating waves of deeply scented perfume have rolled…across the verandah, in through the open windows…enough to make one stop mid-sentence even inside and just inhale…Ah-oh those s-u-u-mer nights! Frangipani, magnolia, fig leaf, rose, Gardenia thunbergia. Nicotiana and fennel seed in the kitchen garden. And somehow the single Iceberg rose (left from what was once a row) at the picket gate that divides the Dairy above, from the kitchen garden below, that’s underplanted with English Lavender, has been a heady combination all week. I drag the hose up the kitchen garden path to that point each morning, mind completely elsewhere, only to be stopped in my tracks by that combination of rose and lavender swirling in the atmosphere. There’s a story there, but I’ll leave it for another time!
Pruning and other: There were a lot of fiddly jobs to do on Sunday…tying up the tomatoes, adding extra mulch. I ended up taking two full barrows to the compost during the course of the day, so I wasn’t idle! During the week, I decided it was time to cut the apricot coloured Canna Lilies in the Borders - I’m always in two minds as to whether to do it or no…but in the end do! So with those gone thanks to Thalia and all but the last Phormium trimmed back into shape, the Borders are almost through their summer pruning. Poor Thalia…we had such a lot of windfall the previous week with the storms that she barrowed a lot of mess from the front courtyard, and began on the lawn gutters which have accumulated rather a lot of weeds and general windfall over the last weeks - I never consider that job to be important, when there’s pruning to do that must be done at the right time, but the lawn gutters do reach a point where they must be cleared for the sake of everyone’s sanity! Including Thalia’s! Much more of that lies ahead next week…
Your lucky grandson's partner! Cherie's book is indeed fabulous - vegan or no (I'm not but it's packed full of fabulous information and inspiration...and of course beautifully photographed by Lean). Glad your tomatoes are beginning to ripen but oh no the wind :((( It's a good year for figs Sally...maybe neighbours may even have an oversupply? I seem to be giving them away at a rate of knots! Have just put a good batch onto the cooktop - first batch fig jam of the season coming up - should flood the kitchen with aroma any minute now.... Mx
Oh Bronwyn I'm excited for you! I don't think I've ever experienced a Sandpaper Fig - I just looked them up. I bet they are absolutely exquisite and hope you have lots of plant to tongue experiences ahead! x (I made that one up with my fingers on the run... 😂)