The Impulsive Gardener

Two summers ago, we got lost trying to find a friend's wedding reception. We were late and hot and beginning to stick to the car seats-very distracting when you're trying make sense of a hand-drawn map. My job was to look out for straight bits in our route where we could try to claw back precious time. The scenery whizzed past but despite the urgency of the situation, we were both appreciating the wonderful summers evening. A lone cottage came into view as we managed to reach sixth gear and abruptly the sea of barley-green exploded into a wild blur of delphiniums, sweet pea towers, neat vegetable rows, sunflowers, zinnias and something huge and silvery. And so I saw the first thistle I've ever liked, a cardoon that had made me ready to risk whiplash to take a second look.



Quick! Plant them NOW to give them a good chance to get properly leafy before winter. February sowing is better, but even with an early May sowing they'll still be able to reach an appreciable size by the first frosts of autumn. Overwinter them (upturned bucket filled with straw to protect the crowns if you get snow) and next year they'll get indulgently huge with beautifully arching silvery leaves. Like these...

Cardoons and artichokes are among my most absolute favourite edible plants. If you've got a spare metre square they're worth a try. Photo by Oliblac

Shockingly, I have no really worthwhile photos of last years magnificent cardoons to show you. Believe me though, they were brilliant. I grew from seed a total of three cardoons and six artichokes, which all romped away from the moment they were planted. I planted the seeds in February and by Autumn they'd grown leaves over a metre long. Having moved, I must have more. Somewhere out there are actually named cultivars such as:

Gigante d'Ingegnoli with large, tender spine-free stalks and drought resistance.
Plein Blanc Inerme which produces smooth solid stalks and has a more compact growth habit than others.
Large Smooth, an improved strain which is does what it says on the tin.

However I still have seeds left over from last year and the ones sown last week are up and away.



For just a bit of space and a good mulch, they'll reward you with an impressive and lush display of striking foliage and fantastic giant purple thistle-like flowers. If you're hungry and feeling adventurous you can even eat the stems. Blanch them, then boil, braise or bake and they're delicious with cheese sauce.

Looks like lavender. Smells like supper.

Why a curry plant? Probably because when I bought it I was starving and while thyme and sage smell great, they're just seasonings. Curry is a whole meal.

In hindsight however, it would not have been my choice had I been making an informed decision rather than an impulsive one. After planting it with the other herbs under the nectarine and apricot trees I went inside to do some googling on my most recent purchase. I found out that curry plants supposedly have cat scaring properties -useful if yours likes to roll on new seedlings too- it has little yellow flowers in summer, is an anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal and ...oh.... has nothing to do with curry.  Oh, sugar.

The latin name should have warned me. Former colony or not Helichrysum italicum sounds like something found a little closer to home then Murraya koenigii, the scientific name of the real curry plant, which is actually a tree found..... oh somewhere in India.

Oh, well. At least I've got another weapon against Poppy the Plant Marauder.

Squisher of Seedlings and Pooper of the Leek Bed

Maybe not this carrot.

I'm illlllllll. Earlier this week I was attacking brambles and clambering over walls, waving my favourite  secateurs while gibbering excitedly to my sweet patient Other Half about how many cherry trees we 'need' . Now, reduced to slobbing around in an outfit with too many X's, sipping chicken soup and damning my left nostril for refusing to open I'm contemplating my likely recovery time and what I will do the moment I can stand without regretting it.

There are two root veggies which are due to re-enter my life. Having put beetroot of any colour aside before I was two and had mastered the word 'No', I've been slowly discovering that actually, I like the stuff. It's not boring. Okay, it needs some help, maybe roasted with marjoram and some balsamic glaze and goats cheese, but you don't eat onions all on their own either, do you? Ew.
So, I bought some seeds. The reassuringly named red 'Bolthardy' and a lovely rich yellow variety called 'Golden Detriot'. I've sown some already and I'll sow some more in a weeks time creating a gap of about three or four weeks to try and maintain a steady supply of nice golf-ball sized little beetlets (not a real word).

Now, about carrots.

I do love them, freshly steamed with butter and dill or pulled up right from the ground, who doesn't love a snack of carrot thinnings? But for the past two years they've totally snubbed my affection. Either bolting almost immediately upon being sown or mutating into pathetic little stubs despite being planted in special beds, with no recent manuring, with soft, crumbly, specially sifted soil and no stones to stub their tender little tap roots on. Not once has there been any sign of pests or carrot root fly so I can only assume they've been failing out of spite.

Okay the water regime has been less than perfect, but I lived on chalk! Puddles just do not happen when you're living on nature's rock sponge and I've never been as diligent as I should be with watering in dry weather. However, I am made of pretty tough stuff and the soil here is fantastic, deep, soft, crumbly with the occasional little chuncklet of clay. Chuncklets of clay are not always so welcome but with my previous bad record for watering, some moisture retention in a summer set to be a drought is likely to come in handy. Time to have another go.

I've planted my first sowing of 'Chantenay' and 'Danvers 126' on the 14th of this month and they've been the first seeds to come up, beating the red and green oak leaf lettuces but being overtaken by the radishes 'Sparkler' and 'Cherry Belle'. At this very moment I'm eyeing up a really excellent looking purple carrot too, 'Dragon'. Clicketyclick. Add to basket.

'Chantenay' seedlings up and at 'em.

Red kale I grow almost more as an ornamental than as something I will regularly eat. I do like kale, both the deep green 'Cavolo Nero' and the purpley-red 'Russian' have a regular place in my eat-it-it's-good-for-you steamed greens dish and added to soups and stews. But where I appreciate them the most is in the mixed border, where the dark red 'Russian' brings some height and contrast to all the lush vibrant greens and silvers of dahlias, cardoons, sweet peas and Cerinthe major.

Okay, these are a little gaudy green and the kale last year was transplanted and so got a bit left behind while all the in-situ dahalias, zinnias, poppies and sweetpeas went crazy on the manure mulch, but tust me. Kale is super in the mixed border. Oh, and purple basil. And artichokes.

 
Red and green kale also stands up to whatever cold most winters will throw at it, adding much needed interest to your beds when not much else is going on. Those who find themselves outside amongst the early morning rays will be rewarded with beautiful deepest crimson leaves, crisped and glowing with frost lit up by weak wintry sun. Sow from March till August, pick leaves from the bottom up, stake in strong winds and water in dry spells to prevent the plant from bolting, though if it does flower it's interesting to see and you can pick the young unopened flower shoots for rapini (i.e. sprouting brassicas). Very tasty boiled in salted water for a minute or two, then drained and dressed with a dash of soy salt and a little squeeze of orange juice.

There are those among us who definitely enjoy a leafy green or two. Thrown in careless handfuls to jostle amongst hot slices of veg in a stir-fry or gently folded into a tender salmon quiche, greens are good.  What really gets supper going for me though are the colours. I'm usually starving by the time it comes to plate up so composition or pedantic arrangements are out, but however hunger crazed I might be, I do still always appreciate the sight of something green. Even a token amount adds colour to a dish and it softens the blow of whatever more calorific matter I've piled along side it.

Fickle friends, be sure to water lettuces in dry weather or they'll do this...

Now, for grow-your-own-ers there are endless lettuces to choose from, and they are good. Freckled or frilled, their textures (and slug-hiding capacity) vary hugely and you can choose green or red varieties. Lovely spicy asian leaf mixes abound with a range of leaf shapes, hues of green or red or purple and soft or crunchy fronds, stems and leaves to munch. However, while I dearly love all these things if I had to choose based on visual appeal, ease of cultivation and length of growing season it'd have to be        swiss     chard.

Oo la la

 Bright colours, minimal maintenance and it doesn't even flinch when it's a little frosty out. Okay, I say that and now someones been jinxed but still.  In my experience they've been much less prone to setting seed as the lettuces and other leafies when things get a little arid and they do tick over with minimal die-back in the early frosts. Some protection in the form of a blanket or sheeting will keep the crowns snug and the plants will survive in places no lettuce would. Come warmer weather they'll ease back into production, buying you time to get a fresh crop sown. With seed mixes such as 'Bright lights' and 'Rainbow' easily available  here or here (lots of other places too) they're well worth trying. Nows a good time to sow, you can use modules or pots but planting directly avoids the sulk they'll throw when time comes to transplant them and their roots get jostled.


Already growing  the stuff and don't know what to do? Unfamiliar and under appreciated swiss chard may be but recipes are plentiful. Nigel Slater (heart) does excellent things with this vegetable and if you don't have Tender I , run, run now and get it (Tender II is also lovely, lovely, lovely and all about fruit). This has been my go-to book for the past year as it so usefully addresses all sorts of veg - an excellent ally to have close at hand when you uncover a hoard of hibernating leeks at the bottom of the fridge or have a cabbage you don't know what to do with.

Yesterday morning, amid the boom of crow scarers (they never mention those in films about the countryside) and the clamour of a cat really wanting in was the tinny voice from the radio, warning of doom and gloom in the distance. Rain, rain, rain allll afternoon, they said. So, yesterday was one of those days where I was rushing around, trying to blitz whatever chore I was doing and never wandering too far from the nearest form of shelter. I did get a lot done though:


The flat shrubby thing that I was trying sooo hard to ignore has gone. Don't feel bad for it. It was half rotten and taking up valuable fruit-growing wall space and it fought back with thin whippy branches and tough tangled roots. It's carpet of very pretty but invasive bluebells has been re-located somewhere safe, together with the frog that appeared when I prised out the knot of root tangles. My 'Peregrine' peach now finally has a home, having been plopped in one of the plastic pots and largely forgotten except for watering times (photos will follow, but it's sulking now and looks well boring. Here's a frog instead).

Frogginton

 The coriander, or cilantro seedlings have finally come up. These in the pots will be used sparingly and most likely will be strategically placed on our table to arouse admiring ooos and ahhs from guests. To meet actual demand, I've invested in a whole row of purple basil and cilantro mixed together. Planted next to carrots, this lovely mix will hopefully overpower the smell of any broken roots or bruised foliage enough to prevent the carrot flies from ever finding them.

'Honeyoe' strawberries with fruits already forming. Forcing strawberries sounds painful and sadistic but it's very easy if you've got a greenhouse or cold frame. Lift plants in early winter and pot them up (I used an old colander as you can see below), remembering to water them from time to time. Strawberry plants are super-hardy and they need to experience some cold weather, so use this as a guide on when to lift (i.e. do it after snow or freezing temperatures). They should start to flower several weeks before plants that have been left in the ground outside but they do need to be pollinated so either get personal with a paintbrush or pop them outside during the day for the bees. Feed every two weeks or so with tomato feed as this has the nutrients which promote ample flowering and fruit but don't get carried away, better too little than too much.


 When strawberries attack; the predassors of this plant arrived on my door-step as a bundle of innocent looking roots. Three years on and they'd thrived and divided themselves, throwing out runners and growing everywhere. When the situation was taken into hand I'd given everyone in the immediate area plants but there was one final clump left. I'd long since run out of pots but did have a one receptical in the back of the cupboard. It was large enough, I'd never used it and it did have excellent drainage.

Ick, yuck and filth. That is a pretty accurate summary of what I faced yesterday when I conquered the chest-deep well thingy in the garden.

Oh  yum.

Not knowing much about what was going on before us I can only guess-no, actually I'd rather not -at what went on around and into that bricked hole to make such a smelly smelly smell. I know the funk of rotting leaves and stagnant water (did I mention I once lived in a swamp?) and I'm familiar with some of the air-thickening qualities of a pile of farmyard manure,  but      this    was    un    holy.  A curious stir with a stick awoke the sleeping beast and what seem to be it's irritable bowl. Best to leave it, I thought, backing away with a sleeve over my nose and blinking furiously at the fumes singeing my eyelashes. I've got enough to occupy my time while I find a job. There are eight trees to arrange, plant, then move around and plant again. And don't forget the trough. Even now, it's just sitting there, laughing at you (still not ready. Will explain later).

Even Poppy, whose delights (beetles, spiders, anything twitchy) are too many to be replussed by anything is grossed out.

Buuuuut it's right by the door and it turns out that it seriously kicks up when the sun hits it. So yesterday, a day that was minimally rainy and neither too hot (smell factor) nor too cold (makes doing anything unpleasant even worse) I donned my wellies and picked an old coat and washing up gloves to sacrifice to the stink gods and waded in.

Did I say my wellies?

Five implements, a lot of cursing, one change of cothing (poor judgement of welly height) and a bewildered postman later (I peek-a-booed from the depths of the pit. Hilarious.) I did scrape out four very sloshy wheelbarrow loads of matter plus a champagne glass, a saucer, a lighter,  an old volleyball and a dog collar. I am proud. Like the fig cuttings but with the added savour of feeling like I also survived something a little traumatising.


Scrubbing and disinfecting have made a big difference, taking things from smell factor 5 (red alert) down to almost 0. However I've got bigger plans and after the water and bits of sediment from a slightly crumbly brick I trod on have settled I will apply my oh-so-original plan to transform the formerly smelly pit into a truly glamorous, goldfish-riddled, waterlily mini-garden. In the meantime I will have to devise a kitty rescue ramp as goldfish, being bite-sized and delightfully twitchy will be too much of a temptation for Poppy.

Oh, I. Am. Soooo. Proud.
I love figs. Who doesn't? As a child I spent many years in deepest, darkest southern Georgia and figs were taken for granted. Like mulberries and blueberries, they grew pretty much everywhere and even now I'm never quite able to bring myself to actually buying them. Reason enough to grow more trees so theres an good supply, but this fig is even bigger than those that I remember as a kid. So now I have to grow them.

These little beauties were taken from the mac daddy of fig trees. I suspect it's a 'Brunswick', because of the deeply divided leaves and the incredibly large can't-hold-more-than-two-in-a-hand-sized fruits. The parent tree lives at OH's family farm in Hampshire and every year mummy OH and I have clambered into the bucket of the JCB to be hoisted closer to the top, where the best figs grow.

Momma fig

I missed the season the year before last to take cuttings so this time, I marked my calendar in advance and sat waiting, secateurs poised.

November  came and Snip!Snip!Snip! About ten figgy twiglets were popped into a bag wrapped in moist kitchen roll and left to experience 'winter' in the fridge. About two months ago they were rescued from behind the veg shelf where they'd fallen and laid lengthwise in trays and covered with soil. They lay basking in the gentle heat of the woodstove on their own self and were subjected to regular pokings and proddings. I got very excited when the first little white bits showed and proudly showed OH what a clever clever lady I was. Three days and a google search later deflated my enlarged and excitable ego. It's called 'corking' and while I don't recall exactly  what it was it was not roots. It looks like white raised edges along the length of the cutting. Perseverance paid off  however and eventually I was looking at rootlets on seven out of ten scions.  I took them out, chucked those that were being a bit slow (had to be ruthless, we were in the middle of moving and I'd already snuck eight trees into the van) and potted them up. Now look! Leaves!

Having realised that I can propagate actual trees has given me courage. I've now ordered root stocks for apple, pear and plum dwarf trees from Blackmoor Nurseries and I'm eyeing up potential scion-sources.

Right. In future, I will not use cheap multipurpose compost to start seeds. I know better, I really do. I knew when I (impulsively) bought the bag, I knew it when it optimistically said it was good for 'everything' and I darn well knew it when I opened it and looked at the stuff. Coarse, identifiable bits of material. John Innes would have cried to watch me carefully counting out my bean seeds and lovingly covering them with this masquerading matter. Anyway, most of the seeds sowed did come up, albeit with damaged cotyledons and the occasional mini-mushroom companion. Purple pole beans 'A Cosse Violette' suffered the most, with six out of ten failing to beat the mold gauntlet and collapsing into smelly mush. Everything sowed in the plain ol garden soil has actually done perfectly well. No mold, a few tiny brave weed seedlings but definitely no mushrooms.

Volunteer mushroom growing away quite happily on lame-o compost.

Six more seeds then. Fingers crossed now for a change in the weather and some sun! I'm running out of trays and there are a growing number of things that need potting on.

The seeds! The seeds! Oh joy, the seeds are sprouting!!! Already I'm fantasising of when all chances of flash frosts will be behind us and I can pop them into the ground. Yes, cloches exist. I could make a cold frame out of bits of things I found (to match the raised beds) but until my other half finally puts his foot down, they'll stay inside. Where I can watch them.

Courgette 'bianca di trieste' and a nameless yellow variety, cabbage 'savoy perfection' and pole bean 'Kentucky wonder wax'. Premier Seeds Direct on Ebay is where I buy most of my seeds. They combine shipping, which for most things is only about .59p, you get loads of seeds in each pack and they've been very good quality so I've been confident enough to swap leftovers or save them for next year.

Never fear bunny lovers, despite fully expecting total lettuce decimation in future, this little chap was spared becoming tasty rabbit soup. A lettuce leaf, some time by the fire and he was popped back under the brambles where he came from.

This, is my garden. Where there was ground elder there shall be lettuces...and therefore slugs but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Weather and pests permitting, this year I'll get to grow lots of lovely fruit and veg, from courgettes (two colours) to tomatoes (seven varieties) to gooseberries (red, green and yellow) and peaches and Mirabelle plums. 

Perfectionists or those offended by wonkyness should not examine the very home made raised beds created from bits of things too closely. I found the boards and they were free but none too straight which combined with my innate ability to create perfect 91* angles, means that things are a little bit...characterful. If we stay long term, I'll try harder to achieve perfect rows. Maybe.

 I've cobbled everything together without nails -too unforgiving for impulsive people who don't spend enough time measuring. Hazel stakes are much easier to prise out of the ground twice or thrice and unlike nails they don't ping off if you don't hit them straight, never to be seen again.

 While we're renting I'm trying to remain restrained with my fruit obsession. I only brought ...one, two..three, four...eight trees with me, so I was very good really.  The gooseberries are going in but my precious precious trees; peach, plum, pear, greengage, nectarine and fig are largely going to to be in pots and trained against walls, one of my favourite ways of seeing fruit trees. We'll see how well I adhere to the pot plan. Watering regimes, dabblings in grafting and the hoard of fast maturing Brunswick fig cuttings might mean that I'll have to rely more on the trough. I'll discuss the trough later.