The long farewell...
Going, going...
With the summer shade canopy still in place, and a bountiful clump of dried fennel heads on high, the kitchen garden still carries something of a summer sensation…inviting us in, to explore between the chaos…the sweet fennel aroma gentle, all-encompassing, comforting…as it bakes in the golden autumn sunshine. (OK, so that was yesterday…and all the days leading up to yesterday, when I began to write this post…but it’s important to mark this pivotal moment in time! It’s only just beginning to drizzle here…and we know what’s likely on the way!).
Fennel…again…you’re probably rolling your eyes by now! I recall the year I recorded the podcast, as I traced the fennel’s progress through each season, when my producer Leonie Marsh (who had sown some fennel on my recommendation) began asking month after month (as I handed in my script and audio) if it was time yet, to cut her fennel down? I joked that her repeat question had become the growing equivalent of that question so dreaded by parents on a road trip: the ‘are we there yet?’ of the gardening world!
Well…yes…we are! I mentioned last week that we’ve been cutting stems piecemeal and upending them to wherever I want to thicken up my mass fennel planting. Last weekend though, I also took to one of the clumps on the bee superhighway that’s been overtaken by rampant self-sown tomatoes. They’re setting a multitude of fruit that I want to coax into the sunlight to ripen and they were getting all tangled in the fennel…but instead of upending those tall stems, I tossed all the heads onto a big sheet, in a bid to catch as many as possible: it’s time to replenish my kitchen pantry supplies, which I’ve been going through with great gusto in a flurry of experimental bread-making for an upcoming project. I also tossed a good tablespoon of last season’s dried fennel seeds into a batch of shortbread for last week’s garden visitors, which gave it a lovely lift. (Aaron Bertelsen’s recipe from The Great Dixter Cookbook…surely the second time I’ve mentioned him and the book in as many weeks! As ‘tis not my recipe to divulge, I’ll check in with him and ask if I might share it, as I often have it on repeat for events here…and I might just ask if I can interview him in this space at the same time…that would be fun…something to look forward to when all this frantic crop rotation/gardening time settles down!).
Do you remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned the quinces and encouraged you to bake them in olive oil instead of sugar? (Post number 3, titled The First Week of Autumn ) I mentioned they were still green and unblemished and yet…they cooked beautifully. In the intervening weeks, three to be precise…they’ve turned yellow. But during that time, I’ve also lost two to that ugly bruising that seems to make itself known during the ripening process.
So in a race against the clock, which produce-growing can often be…I’ve scrubbed, cored and quartered the last remaining four this morning, and popped them into the oven to bake. By the time I’ve finished writing here, the kitchen will be filled with that delicious aroma that fills the house with pure autumn joy.
In a similar vein, and to get ahead of the predicted rain, I did a whip around the fig trees first thing this morning. The luscious ones we’ve enjoyed these last long months are all but done and dusted. There’s no point leaving almost ripe fruit on the tree to split in the rain and turn to mush, so I’ve picked earlier than I’d have liked. Just what to do with the bounty of Black Genoas I have yet to decide (I don’t like the jam they make into but I fear most will need to be cooked by some method or other). But I’ve already got the Brown Turkeys into a pan on the stove…so you can imagine…the aroma in the kitchen is increasing by the minute!
I’d had absolutely no intention of either baking quinces or making jam when I got up this morning…those two lovely tasks didn’t feature on my to-do list at all. And yet…when fruit is ready, it’s ready, and nought can be done. (Well…I could have popped them into the fridge for a couple of days but no longer…and in a couple of days it will be impossible to deal with them so…hence…they have taken priority today.). It’s a gardening life…a cooking life…but it sure is inclined to interrupt my working life! (And typically represents a moment ‘at home with you know who’!). All my days are inclined to be fractured, interrupted…as I hurtle from one urgent task to the next!
Here’s a favourite old recipe for you for FIG & GINGER JAM:
Ingredients
1kg ripe figs (I find the pale ones like Brown Turkey give a more pleasant result)
1 lemon
500g sugar
knob of ginger, grated
Method
Cut the little blunt stem from each fruit; halve, quarter and pop straight into a big heavy-based saucepan
Grate the lemon zest directly into the pan with the figs and squeeze in the juice
Add the grated ginger and sugar
Turn on the heat (low) and stir ‘til the figs drop their juice and the sugar has dissolved
Pop the lid on for about 5 minutes to bring the heat up
Simmer gently for an hour…or maybe longer, depending on how ripe the fruit was to begin with (I go by eye and aroma). Give a stir from time to time to make sure the fruit isn’t catching on the bottom of the pan. I like for most of the fruit to break down, but a few pieces to retain their shape. You will see the colour gradually darken
Pop a saucer into the fridge to chill for 5 minutes and run a ‘set’ test by popping a teaspoon of jam onto the cold plate…give it a minute then gently push your finger at the edge to see if it wrinkles - if it does, the jam is ready to take off the heat. If not, carry out this process again in another 5 minutes or so.
Pop a few jars into the oven to sterilise, allow the jam to cool slightly, then carefully ladle (using a funnel) the jam into the jars. Don’t twist the lid on too tight ‘til the jam has completely cooled.
I don’t eat a lot of jam. My exception to the self-imposed rule is Sunday mornings…when for years we’ve enjoyed a croissant at breakfast. It’s then, that I enjoy a generous dollop and I adore having fig jam during the winter months, when those precious fruits are long out of season and each jar contains a full season of summer sun to tantalise my tastebuds! Larry doesn’t like it…so when the girls aren’t home, it’s all mine! And although I might only get one or two batches in a season…it lasts the year.
Perennials…are one of the mainstays of the ornamental garden here…ringing the seasonal changes. They come…they go…they require some effort yes…but really no more so than most shrubs. They’re certainly less work than vegetables! They’re inclined to be pest free, many are self-supporting (in that they require no staking) and well planned, you can encourage an ongoing show of beauty as they travel through their seasons.
They are each inclined to have their moment to shine…and the trick of course, to good garden design, is to bring plants together in unison for a visual display (as well as plants, from a practical point of view, that enjoy a similar micro-climate). I’ll be honest…I’m inclined to be devoted to whichever particular plant is in its current moment of full flight…regardless of whether its intended neighbour is also in full flush or absent for whatever reason. Sometimes, a whole swathe of planting comes together as planned…most likely here in the springtime. But at other times, such as now, when the neighbours are quiet, at rest, I really don’t mind….they can rest away and I’ll content myself with the show that is on display, just as this Russian Sage, Perovskia atriplicifolia is now….its soft hazy, mauve spires catching the gentle afternoon light. With no competition they’re holding centre stage…and my gaze.
In mid-summer…I cut them (almost) to the ground. It’s been an annual task for as long as I can remember. They then bounce back with great rapidity and flourish once again by the autumn. The next time they will need any attention at all, will be in mid-winter, when I (or Thalia) will cut them down again, very low down their stem, to a pair of leaf buds. They require no fertiliser and are happy in fairly poor soil. They need very little water either, so in the general scheme of things…I consider them to be excellent garden specimens…for here anyway!
I first planted a couple of specimens at one end of the Borders and have since multiplied their number. so there are now two or three good clumps across the garden. Perovskia is inclined to ‘travel’…in that it runs from the root. In this way, you can grow quite a swathe, which in some climates, peeps may consider to be a problem. But in other climates, such as ours, it makes sense to allow a plant that wants to grow, to romp. It has the right character for this garden so I've planted it very deliberately in several pockets. And it’s easy enough to pull out and discard the runners I don’t want. There are almost always a few I’m happy to dig up and share around with anyone who asks!
Perovskia was a plant I’d noted early in my ‘garden visiting/learning phase’. Each garden visit was (still is) treasured and always saw me with a notebook and pen in hand (we are so pre-i-phone here that we’re virtually prehistoric!). In fact, I recall the time quite clearly that I first noted this plant that has become such an anchor, on repeat in the garden here. We made our first journey back to Europe since attaining Glenmore and since Clemmie was born. I was yet to make a garden. I’d planted some lavender, we’d moved hydrangeas and a few other specimens, but up to that point, we’d mostly been pulling down and clearing buildings, whilst tending a few remnant bits and pieces….I had a very long way to go in the garden making stakes. We were set to visit and stay with a lot of friends and family but began, on a crazy whim…in Venice! (I’d already been cooking on that single electric ring and without proper running water since Clemmie’s birth 18 months earlier, so without a fully functioning house and as a working new-mum I was going a bit stir-crazy!). We’d hatched the plan too, to re-launch my Interior Design business from the newly restored Barn in the middle of the garden and this ‘trip’ was as much a research and buying one (hello French antique markets and a long list of suppliers) as it was the opportunity to catch up with friends and family and to visit some of those gardens I’d been filling my head with…thanks to glorious books I’d been salivating over since Glenmore had taken over our lives.
Once you begin to look at plants with purpose, the whole perspective shifts. With a challenge at hand and earth to plant, my head was awash with possibility. I’ll come back to this point down the track, when there’s not quite so much pressing to divert my attention but for now…enough to say that having noted Perovskia (without knowing its name) growing in Venice, Provence, in the north of Scotland, the south of England and at last in a pair of beautifully planted substantial pots to either side of the front door at the house of dear friends…that I recognised it just might be a valuable and hardy contender for Glenmore.
It was with our friends, that at last I discovered its name and committed it to memory. We looked up Russian Sage together and it was then that Sarah introduced me to ‘The Reader’s Digest Gardeners’ Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers’. So excited was I, that I bought a hefty copy the very next day and lugged it all the way home! That book became such a well-thumbed companion during those early years and if I take it off the shelf now, I know a raft of notes, slips of paper with scribbles all over and early articles I’d cut out, will spill from its pages…a collection of memories of a garden-to-be-made…a moment in time, its rows of images and short descriptions like an old friend rediscovered.
Whilst the Perovskia is in full autumn flight, the same cannot be said for this disturbance of Plume Poppy, Macleaya cordata. It had been…quite magnificent up ‘til a few weeks prior, even if it was putting on a display in a spot that was not of my choosing! It had been making a wonderful statement since late November, so it must be forgiven for turning into a complete and utter mess by the final week of March and I’ve been so distracted trying to keep you on track with the urgency of the tasks to be carried out in the kitchen garden that I’ve omitted quite a number in the ornamental garden.
You can imagine that I took to this with great glee! I must walk past this cluster a dozen times a day…that spot catches the corner of my eye even as I sit here at my desk, and it got to a point I could just not bare to look at it anymore…where I had been all a-swoon at its terraottta-tinged plumes of flowers in the afternoon light for weeks on end, it was now screaming please cut me down! I think plants are inclined to tell you when…as much as where and how, to treat them! Five minutes later…it was all gone…nothing but a small froth of new leaves at the base of where each stem had risen. They said thank you. And now, they will settle and ponder growth for their next display.
When I say they are growing in a spot that was not of my choosing, that’s exactly what I mean. I thought…in my wisdom and planning for companionship with desirable neighbours, that it should grow towards the back of the bed, close in to the hedge, setting off a philadelphus to one side, and a large clump of bog sage to the other (I showed you a photo in reverse to this view a few weeks back). And so…when I came back one day from a visit to Michael Cooke (that wonderful landscape garden designer who tackles his work with such sensitivity and who I much admire) with a few runners in my hands (“you really don’t want to plant it you know”, he very wisely told me, as he handed them over! “Oh but I do”…said I!) I heeled them in…at the back of the bed. “It’s a thug”, Michael warned me…and of course he was absolutely right! It seemed to take forever for those runners to take and no sooner had they done so than they began popping up everywhere but where I’d planted them! Now I just give up….I weed them out of where I really don’t want them and if I think they’re going to be a short-lived statement that I enjoy, I allow them to be.
But I really did want them here! Again…their character suits the garden. They’re a bit weedy, a bit messy, romantic and wild, which I adore between other plants that are more structured. Aside from the fact I’d long admired them (I have photos of them growing in gardens far and wide…from botanic gardens to spilling from old ruins); at the time I went to visit Michael I was in hot pursuit of them because I’d been working on a local historical project where just one remnant plant existed in a pot. That plant was relevant to the property, because the earliest part of that homestead was built by then Colonial Secretary to the Colony of NSW, one Alexander Macleay…after whom I believe, the plume poppy was named: Macleaya cordata. In fact, I’d wanted to increase the number of plants in that garden, with one here, as an aside. At the time I didn’t realise just how reckless (a bit like its namesake) it was! Or that all we needed to do was to liberate that one specimen from its pot and allow it to have its way! Safer in the pot…I’d say as the previous generation had clearly come to realise! And yet…I wouldn’t be without it, and cannot wait for its next profusion of spires to sally forth…wherever that may be!
Once I finished writing to you on Easter Saturday, I took to the Kitchen Garden for my weekly tomato-tying and general tidy, As I went, I tossed a good amount of weeds and spent foliage, as I’m inclined to do in the kitchen garden, into a lazy wire cylinder: as I’m not yet fully planted I have a few lying idle. Over the last weeks I’ve been adding and adding to this particular one and over the course of a week or so, all that material gradually breaks down. I have no doubt whatsoever that…beneath the cylinder, microbial activity is hard at work, and that the breaking down of this spent matter is nourishing what lies below, its goodness seeping all around and about. Next week, I intend to make a move on planting this bed, and so this particular spot will be well prepared for the peas I intend to sow. It’s a good way of discarding weeds or odd leaves when ‘on the run’…when I’m not on my way to the compost or filling a barrow. You might find it to be a quite useful ploy too.
Next, I chopped the tops of two whole rows of lettuce that were getting ready to bolt in the leafy green bed, popped them into the fridge as quickly as I could and went back to work in the space they’d occupied. Removing two whole rows gave me a good opportunity to weed everyone to either side, to apply a new layer of mulch and…given that I’m going to keep this bed as the leafy green bed for this winter season (rotating it on in the spring), I went in again - with a smattering of blood and bone and a handful of compost per hole, and planted new lettuce seedlings just offset, to where the previous ones had been growing these last months. They’re next to a row I replanted a month ago…in an ongoing process of successional sowing, to keep us as well-stocked as I can…in leafy greens.
Then it was time to check on the progress of the Brassicas! This is a job that needs to be done as quickly as possible because I kid you not…as soon as one peels the net back for a sneak peak, a white cabbage moth will come to visit…and lay its eggs the very minute you have your back turned! As I wanted to give everyone a good once-over..an egg check, caterpillar check, a dose of liquid feed (see below) and a topping up of mulch, I spent a good half hour on high alert…shooshing away those moths with regular occurrence!
Just look at the growth on the broccoli and kale plants…they were tiny, insignificant seedlings just a month ago. On the right, it’s a bit hard to see but the front two cylinders contain tiny cauliflower seedlings planted just a week before, whilst the two caulies planted a month ago…(at the south end of the row…remember?) are racing ahead as hoped. (And still the zucchini travels next to them, not yet exhausted from its summer growing). I have space for just one more cauliflower in this row…and will plant in a few weeks time…that successional planning ensuring I won’t have all the cauliflowers to eat at the same time.
Now get those nets back on….quick!
When it comes to feeding/fertilising; I don’t do much…I expect the compost I add to be enough for the veg (and I’ll soon come to a big segment on compost making and my thinking on that score). So the only additional feed the veg receive is an occasional (very rare!) watering can of a fishy / seaweed tonic (I tend to use Harvest by Organix). When I do carry out this feed though, I’m sure to aerate/activate each 9 litre can load by turning the hose nozzle to full throttle, so that the tonic water froths up into a good oxygenated foam. It soon settles and I pour it over both foliage and soil.
I love the smell - and sometimes joke it’s as close as I can get to a visit to the beach…and afterwards, everything shimmers with an aura…as if a halo of energy hovers around each plant. I’m sure they’re grateful for this extra little kick along.
And so it was, that the brassicas, the more established lettuces, tomatoes, aubergines, remnant zucchini, fennel and celery seedlings…all got an Easter liquid feed.
I tied a lot of net bags onto newly forming tomatoes…
When each single tomato is this luscious…I reckon it’s worth the effort of bagging every one!
Then I did a whip around the entire garden with my barrow, deadheading, tidying…
And then…I tidied the potting shed. Enough said!
Over the course of the last weeks Thalia has made great inroads to catching-up, post late summer-growth. Pruning the espaliered fruit trees in the kitchen garden was long overdue. Most years we manage a cut in late Jan/early Feb and another in mid-winter, but I’ve had her doing a hard cut now and I doubt we’ll get the quantity of re-growth for a big winter cut. As I’ve mentioned before, I hate to lose the wild sense of overgrowth, but as the weather changes, it is a relief to see order return. The series of apple arches…after all these years, are beginning at last, to resemble a tunnel. This has been a very, very long time in the making and still has a very long way to go. The tunnel holds such an important place structurally in the kitchen garden: as well as dividing it in two, creating a line of sight, giving height and substance, it separates the two different growing methods I employ.
Following on from my explanation last week, of how I put those prunings from the fruit trees to good use in delineating the areas of seed I sow on the guild side of the garden, Thalia has kindly been stripping the leaves from each pruned stem (I discovered years ago, that it’s easier to strip when the leaves are fresh than when they’ve dried…although they look pretty left in big bunches hanging from the ceiling of the potting shed!) and she’s been tying them up in bundles as she goes…a bundle of peach stems, another of apricot, etc.
Someone asked last week if I’ve ever had any of these shoot when I put them in the ground in the way I explained. Well yes…I have! As I’m inclined to use the cuttings from the previous rather than the current season for the purpose, it doesn’t usually happen…but one year I did have a whole row of tiny apricot saplings in blossom! Perhaps I might do it this year for fun!
Elsewhere, Thalia has done such a good job of trimming the rampant growth on the Chinese star jasmine at the pool: after all these years, this season we’ve finally achieved a complete green frame to the end of the pool fence…about which I am positively delighted! The Hayshed rosemary needed a clip, while the Strelitzia in the front courtyard needed a clean up. The Phormiums in the Borders were looking very ragged around the edges and the Rosemary and Lavender under the citrus trees at the kitchen needed attention. Otherwise T has had a dull time of raking out the lawn gutters and weeding, but it’s those tedious jobs that make all the difference in advance of a garden visit…like the one last week and…what lies ahead this coming weekend! (Not to mention all the mowing, edge strimming and tractoring Larry did over Easter!).
And here I’ll leave you! I’m relieved to scrape in a day early this week, because from tomorrow I’ll be completely out of order! There’s no gardening this weekend (hence the pressure of the last) because I’m shifting into event mode. In collaboration with Barbara Sweeney of Food and Words, we are hosting an event for Thames & Hudson author Amber Guinness…an Afternoon, a Conversation and Twilight Supper. With the garden hopefully under control, it’s time to shift into event gear…with furniture to move, plans to hatch, dishes to wash, ideas to bring to fruition. Harriet Davidson is coming to stay and the pantry kitchen will fire up with her recipe cooking from Amber’s just released book Italian Coastal. From the purely practical to the fun and whimsical…I’ll be away from my desk for the coming days.
And I’m not a little relieved I brought these in last night…along with a host of rose petals this morning! I have plans for them all…
Have a wonderful week everyone. Keep dry, keep safe and I’ll look forward to seeing you at the next post. Mickey x
Thank you for the tip Nardia....I should give it a try :)) (although this time around, people descended and ate the lot!).
Stephanie Alexander’s candied figs is a good way to preserve excess figs. Takes time but not time consuming. I leave mine in the syrup after the final cook. The syrup will later be used instead of vanilla in cakes & creams once the figs are eaten with cheese or yogurt or in fruit cake.