Where late summer meets early autumn...
In the Kitchen Garden...
It’s the first day of March…
And the air all around the house is suffocatingly heavy…with the odour of labdanum exuding from the sticky leaves and stems of a lone cistus; the heady perfume from pinwheel flowers of a giant gardenia and tall stems of white flowering ginger, as well as the dense, tropical scent of Frangipani that permeates everywhere.
It’s a humid, overcast day, so typical of this time of year, but following one of intense 40 degree heat and an impotent night storm (that electrified the sky and the atmosphere but brought no rain save a few scattered drops). Thanks to recent downpours though, for which we are enormously grateful (we’ve enjoyed an unexpectedly wet summer) the ground is well hydrated and in the early morning exhales a fine mist, creating a hazy fog that becomes dew…ensuring the ground for the first hours is quite wet. At least that is, ’til the sun burns through as the morning progresses. Today it hasn’t…ensuring there’s still moisture in the ground…creating a deep sense of relief after debilitating heat…not just for the garden, but for we humans too!
I find this kind of atmosphere to be completely intoxicating and equals the colours of the land, foliage, texture…the sounds of insects, frogs, birdlife…(how often the black cockatoos have visited these last weeks and around here, they’re known to be the harbingers of rain and storm activity. With their prehistoric calls….we drop everything when we hear their approach at a distance…keen to see from which direction they’re coming, how many there might be, if they might land with us for a brief moment). It’s a compelling season…one that can, if we’re lucky, begin in January and continue well into March. And this year, we’ve been blessed.
I can tell already that this second post is going completely off-piste…because I had no intention whatsoever of mentioning black cockatoos (which I’ll come back to another time!). But on the other hand, perhaps I am on track, because conveying the season…the feeling of a season…is in fact, very much how I intend these posts to unfold. They’ll be a combination of descriptions like those above…because weather events, scent, sound and nature have a tremendous influence on daily life: from necessary tasks, to mood. And so…these posts will be part immersive, part practical.
But I really had intended to make this particular one purely practical because…right now, there is just so much to share. Before I lose the moment…I must get this practical information out, especially for those keen kitchen gardeners who, like me, are on the brink of crop rotation (if not already underway) and especially for those wonderful participants who joined me at last weekend’s ‘Late Summer in the Kitchen Garden’ where so much was discussed and for whom I want to re-iterate a good part of that information before the moment is lost.
But I do feel this second post is still a bit of a practice run! So with my training wheels still on, and hot on the heels of the introductory post, I ask you to please bare with me! To those incredibly generous few who have already decided to ‘subscribe’ following the introductory post, thank you for believing in my ability to come up with the goods! You’ve been with me for a long time and you know I’m inclined to over-deliver….but I just want you to know that perhaps for the first month of posts…whilst I continue to figure this out…I’ll make the entirety of each post available to everyone to see. To be honest, I would SO love to not ever put up a paywall (it doesn’t sit well with me) but equally…it must come. Don’t worry…I’ll dream up some kind of reward for early ‘paid’ subscribers!
To those of you who are not so interested in kitchen gardening…I have no doubt you are interested in eating…and thereby must take some interest in seasonal produce and from where it comes! So…whilst I launch into these practical components (which will be more in some posts, less in others as we go forward), I’ll try to do so in a way to engage you too…because I don’t want to lose you just because you think this new platform I’m creating is going to be all about growing veg (and whilst I find this aspect to be utterly captivating…I appreciate not everyone may find it to be the case!). For me, it sits side by side with everything else I do…but as the old saying goes…there is no style without substance…and whilst I love and will focus heavily on visions of beauty, aesthetic and sensory delight….all of that can only come to pass if based on a solid foundation. The beauty of a garden, a basket of produce, the density of nutrient in that produce that we prepare for our tastebuds and our health, can only come about if built…on substance.
Timing…for me, is everything, as you are bound to hear me repeat over and over again - especially when it comes to nurture in the garden. And it’s partly why I’m launching into writing here…because as I do…weekly as best I can…I hope to take you through the very subtle changes that come about…that to a gardener, are the very stuff of life…indicators…thrills, disappointments…and those subtle changes are occurring all the time.
And now…right now…is the time for crop rotation. But gently…there’s no need to panic…
We can all feel the season is on the turn…it’s been coming on for several weeks; and the rotation process, from one season to the next, is one that we can carry out slowly…bit by bit, over the coming months.
I simply don’t believe in ripping all the last season’s produce out in one go. Much of it, here in our climate anyway (and learning to understand your very own specific microclimate will be your ultimate guide to just how your garden timing works) will continue well into the autumn months. This fact…of long-lingerers, is something I took into account at the beginning of last spring, when planting for the season we’ve just enjoyed and much of which, for now, will remain in place. (Just as now, I will keep in mind those winter crops that are likely to linger at the end of this coming season…as I plant and sow). Crop rotation, I believe…need not be a clean sweep. And simply understanding that should, I hope…take some of the rush and panic out of the process…especially if you’re new to growing your own veg. No…you do not have to do it all this weekend…please slow it down!
Crop rotation part one, means clearing away the already spent crops from the previous season. (Do please leave those productive plants that are still in full flush…full fruit, full flower, right where they are). Over the past weeks, as you can see from my barrow, I first cleared a lot of plant material that had got completely out of control…over-shadowing neighbouring plants (where at the beginning of the season I was using these culprits that were already at maturity, as shade for newly sown seedlings). At that earlier stage, in full flower, they were a vision to behold, creating a meadow like affect throughout the kitchen garden, behaving as good companion planting and bringing in a plethora of insect life…the good bugs). But once their flower heads had dried and become seed I could collect, either to save or to re-sow then and there, it was time to take them down…to allow better air circulation throughout the garden, and to allow me to walk with ease once again along the paths over which they had flopped! Of course…as I did cut them down, dry seeds went pinging of everywhere…I consider this to be a valuable part of the process…and use these ‘self-sown’ seeds as a guide to when I ought to sow properly…they also make for fabulous foraging for our plates when they germinate and I may even use some of them to transplant. I’ll be talking a great deal more about the cascade effect of pinging seeds!
There is always some element of sadness to this part of the process though…whilst part of me longs to clear the decks; the romance of a wild and abundant vision goes with each barrow I cart down to the compost heap.
Another thing…before I continue, is that I haven’t pulled any of these plants out by their roots…I’ve simply cut their stems off at ground level…leaving their roots in the soil to break down, to create air passages and ultimately to break down, to contribute to the microbial activity of the soil (something I’ll come back to over and again).
Since this barrow, of mostly an overabundance of fennel stems, perpetual spinach, chard and carrot flowers, I’ve been cutting down the first sown (successional sowing is something you’ll hear me talk about a lot) tunnel of beans and its structure, stalks of corn and spent cucumber vines…all of which have gone to the compost heap down the back (and compost is something I promise to share a great deal of information about).
Once again, I’ve left the roots in the soil.
Tomatoes, aubergines, zucchini, pumpkins, second and third bean sowings, alongside carrots, parsnips, beetroot and freshly established chard are still in situ and there they shall remain ‘til eaten or completely expired.
The very next step, in the areas I’ve cleared…which in some instances has revealed the space of an entire row, in others a pocket of space…is to take a good look at the soil.
Now at this stage I realise I haven’t been documenting each step of the process as thoroughly as I might…partly due to the fact that I feel I’ve photographed it all so many times before! But now that I have launched in here with what will be thorough explanation to come…I’ll go back to that habit so you can see exactly what I mean.
When I say, take a good look at the soil…I don’t mean like a scientist (which I could not be further from and I’m sure many of you will run rings around me when it comes to precise information…but it’s just not how I operate). If you’ve already been growing, you’re bound to have been picking, weeding, watering…nurturing…and aware of the weather you’ve experienced these last weeks and months. Scrape back the mulch (I do hope you have mulch…and this is another topic to which I’ll return!).
At the end of a season, it’s unlikely your soil will be all ‘fluffy’. It’s likely to be a bit ‘flat’ and could even have a slight crust. That crust could be causing it to behave in a hydrophobic manner…in that it’s repelling, rather than absorbing water. I’ll hazard a guess that if like us, you’ve experienced some incredibly heavy downpours…that this will be the case. We’ve been on a heavy downpour / severe heat cycle…and much as we love the rain…it’s been pure bliss…those heavy downpours take a toll, even with mulch in place. And…I believe, those heavy rain events also deplete the soil of nutrient.
So…since I recorded the podcast, where I suggested over and over again that at this point in the season, you plunge your digging fork in ‘to the depth of its tines’ (not twisting, not turning the soil in any way) I’ve read a great deal more about soil (again I’m going to come back to this because this is such a significant component of everything) but for a few seasons I got so hysterical about not digging the soil at all…that I stopped even plunging in the fork! I’d recorded the podcast during the last drought and it was when that dreadful time passed, and we began experiencing the flooding rain…that I went through a stage of flux. Anyway…I will come back to this point but…if the soil does’t have a crust, I’m not plunging the fork in but where it does, I am. I hope this helps…for now! Just keep in mind that you want minimal interference with the actual soil structure, but…it may need a little aeration where it’s become compressed.
Regardless of plunging in the tines or not…where plants have been cleared, I am barrowing in compost…our compost. I drop it lightly on top of the earth and as soon as the area has compost (I work on one small area at a time) I cover it immediately with mulch. If I’m in a hurry or mulch is scarce, I cover that prepared area with hessian. Because something I did learn a very long time ago…at my very first biodynamic class; was that we must never leave the bare earth open to the atmosphere…we must protect all the valuable micro-organisms in the soil. Ever since…the sight of bare earth literally gives me the heebie-geebies!
In the image above, you can see quite a lot of space between existing structures and the remains of last season’s planting. All these spaces have had fresh compost added…plopped on top of the earth; and been topped with fresh mulch. It’s now ready for planting…whether that be with seedlings or…seed. And I know, that underneath the mulch, the micro-organisms are getting to work, combining my new compost with the old.
Two things to discuss here: as I follow a biodynamic way of making compost, whereby I layer my inputs (manure, blood & bone…the strong and fresh elements alongside the more benign) during the compost making process…by the time it comes to rotation and putting that compost out in the garden, there’s nothing too strong, likely to burn new sowings, so I have no need to wait…I can plant immediately as my compost has been resting and digesting those inputs over a good period of time. This process is a gentle approach. (My method of compost making is also ‘hot’…at the beginning, in order to kill weeds…again…let’s not get bogged down in that yet…I will tell you more down the track…I’m going to be here for the long haul!
Next…this image above, is of the ‘guild’ side of the garden, where all the plantings are mixed and muddled…they are not in tidy, straight rows, which is the case on the traditional side of the garden. For a full explanation of the two different growing methods I employ, I really do encourage you to listen to the podcast introduction, where I explain them at great length in a concise manner. But if you don’t have time…never fear….I will be explain it here too! The two differing concepts will become apparent to you in a very organic kind of way…I promise!
Unusually…and this is where each and every season differs, this season the guild side of the garden is ahead of the traditional in its prep. There are many reasons, but I want to look forward, not back!
Having said that, because I don’t want to lose non-gardeners…here come a load of pics to put you in the picture of where we’re at now…so that it will be fun for everyone to follow all that lies ahead. And…there’s a recipe on the way!
But for gardeners…kitchen gardeners…please do order seeds…in particular peas and broad beans (as I must too because…greedy me always manages to eat the last broad bean instead of saving the seed!) carrots, beetroot and parsnip, then I’ll explain as I go along what comes next. You can also buy seedlings now…lettuce of all kinds, radicchio, chard, spinach, fennel (bulbing), celery, celeriac, leek, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, kohl rabi (brussels sprouts…if you have a long winter). Don’t go bonkers though…keep in mind we want to stagger the sowing and planting because we want to stagger the eating. This list is a good place to begin!
Now…for a cake recipe!
The Au Pair’s Apple Cake (was published in The House and Garden at Glenmore 2016) but so many of you keep asking for it so….
Ingredients:
Cake Base
At least 4 apples (I have used up to 6 which makes a deeper cake)
75 self-raising flour (or I’ve been using plain white Spelt and adding 1 extra teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking powder (so 2 if you’re using Spelt)
125g caster sugar (I’ve tried rapadura…don’t…and this time I tried raw caster….but the original still makes a cake more true to the original recipe)
4 tablespoons sunflower oil
2 large eggs
Cake Topping (please get the butter out of the fridge for the topping before you embark on making at all!)
75g unsalted butter (softened)
100g caster sugar (note as above)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 large beaten egg
Method
Pre-heat oven to 170C
Grease and line the base and sides of a 20cm round, deep, spring-form cake tin
Peel, core and slice the apples, then lay / fan them out around the tin…layering them up…they do not need to be perfect!
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl then mix the remaining cake ingredients together to a smooth, thick batter.
Pour the batter over the apples and place into the oven.
Clean up part one!
Then beat the topping ingredients together.
Bake the first part of the cake for 45 - 50 minutes…until risen and golden brown…your nose will let you know when it’s reached that stage!
Remove from the oven…give the topping ingredients another whisk to be sure they haven’t separated…and pour them over the cake. Put it back in oven for another 30 minutes, until gloriously golden and crackled on top.
Cool in the tin…you’ll notice as it does so that it shrinks away from the sides. I simply love how it crackles all over…giving it great character!
Try to time baking to bring the cake out of the oven at least half an hour before you want to eat it. Release the spring, remove the ring, carefully slip your fingers under the cake to peel away the baking paper from underneath and place on your favourite flat plate.
Mine is this ruffled edge, pin-hole detailed plate from Nicola Hart…I adore her work and can never decide which piece to choose! I’ve invited her here a couple of times to display her wares…at an event and an open garden…just so I can see lots of them all piled up together! @nicolahartstudios
Well…a storm is building, looming, grumbling…a sure indication I should probably stop! I also have a prompt telling me this post is too long for email and so…if it gets truncated at your end (I suspect the images might not all display!), please read the whole in the substack app where it will be listed in my archive…all of two posts!
And how I will look forward to checking in again next week. In the meantime, happy gardening, cooking and eating. Mickey x
Cistus: Cistus ladanifer Gardenia: Gardenia thunbergia White ginger: Hedychium coronarium Frangipani: Plumeria
(It might take me awhile but I’ll try to dream up the best way of notating the plants without them taking up too much space in the text for non-gardeners!
Oh Leanne thank you...for participating in this new space...it's lovely to hear from you and that you're still getting something from my musings...the learning in the garden is ongoing...and across the platforms to date, I've always felt there's a gap in the information (well...except for those online Sunday morning presentations that were huge!!! What a lovely audience of listeners participated!!!). I'll aim to fill in the gaps here on substack...with a whole lot more to keep us all engaged in the conversation. And Pip is indeed doing wonderful things at Moorfield...one of these days I'll get to visit her...and she may even get here to visit me! I hope you will too. Mx
Sharon you are so very kind...thank you! I've no doubt there will be another day to ramble, collect bounty in the field and to capture the essence of such a day in another bottle. I can't wait to write about that in coming posts...when the time is right. Mx