Gardening

A plea for insects

In mid-September, early one morning, I drove from Somerset to the Malvern Hills to see a client for a garden consultation and drove home again in the afternoon. It was a still and sunny perfect late-summer day, with a round trip of 240 miles.

When I got home, I observed the windscreen had no bugs on it. Not one, and I hadn’t used the windscreen washer since setting off from home. When I was a child, we would amuse ourselves on long car journeys by speculating which particular bug had met a sudden and occasionally colourful end on the screen.

Gardening

Covid Gardening blues

It’s a miserable wet day at the end of August, and while I am in a more fortunate position than many, living in a nice house with a nice garden in a nice village in the nice county of Somerset, I am getting properly grumpy with Covid restrictions that I am willing to adhere to, and not getting out much. So instead of a gentle piece about the joys of gardening, I will treat myself to a rant. Line the food bin with the page when you’ve finished reading it.

Gardening

Aimless August gardening

If there is any time of year to be wandering round the garden aimlessly, it must be in high summer. The evenings are still long, the cold wet misery of last winter is just a memory, yet we shall grumble when the temperature rises above 26 degrees, or below 20, moaning it is too hot to garden or too cool for proper summer. The mad spring rush of sowing propagating and planting is over, and although there is still plenty to do, it is not of a strenuous kind, until it is time for hedge trimming.

Gardening

Prepping soil and pickling artichokes

This time last year I wrote about pickling artichoke hearts in olive oil. It was a time-consuming task and resulted in several jars of delicious additions to summer salads. After a month, the jars fizzed alarmingly upon opening. so I have just evicted the last two jars of pickled botulism in my larder, wary of opening them.

I now pick the heads at snooker ball size and eat the hearts fresh. 8 square metres of artichokes yielding less than a kilo of food does not make sense except to artichoke freaks. You can’t get away with sticking artichokes into the flower border. Each one takes up a metre, looks dreadful once you decapitate the heads and the old stems loll disgracefully.

Gardening

What they don’t tell you in the rose catalogue

After weeks of lockdown I had hoped to crack with get-around-to-it jobs with a vengeance and by now be smugly up to date with spring cleaning, DIY projects and paperwork. I regret to say that not a lot of the housework to-do list has been ticked off. Quite frankly, this amazing spell of hot weather is completely unsuited to housework of any kind, and while the house has that comfortable freshly-burgled look, the garden has never looked better. I explain away the state of the house by telling visitors the butler is on furlough.

Gardening

the COVID pop-up garden

At the time of writing (25^rd March), the news is all about COVID 19, and by the time you read this, you will be enduring considerable upheaval and staying at home. Your family are in the house all the time and you are alternately enjoying their company or wanting to throttle them. It’s like Christmas, but with no presents, less tinsel, no in-laws and nicer weather.

Gardening

Evergreen plants for all year round

It is during the last week in November that the oaks and beeches finally relinquish their russet leaves, the gingkos and field maples are surrounded by pools of gold and winter is nearly upon us. If you want a view from the kitchen sink that still pleases the eye I would advise having some evergreens in sight.