Foodie Heaven – Barley Wood Walled Garden

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Barley Wood Walled Garden, foraging, home brew, kitchen gardens, making own apple juice, north Somerset, The Ethicurean

One of the reasons behind getting an allotment and growing my own fruit and veg is that I love food. The term ‘foodie’ has sprung up in recent years to describe someone who seeks out good food, devotes quite a bit of time to sourcing great ingredients and loves cooking. So I guess I would describe myself as a foodie. If it’s seasonal, fresh and preferably organic then I’m in my element. Despite the vagaries of our weather we do have a great climate for producing exceptional food. We can rival any of the more famous gastronomic countries with great meat, cheeses, fish, fruit and veg. So I find it incredibly frustrating that we still can’t seem to shake off the reputation for bad  food. The 1970s and 1980s and the desire during this period to produce food quickly and cheaply has had a lot to answer for.

The reality is that there has been a bit of a food revolution in Britain in the last 10 years or so. We now have a wealth of excellent, passionate food producers in this country but with the predominance of national and international food chains you still have to seek them out.

Through the gate – Barley Wood Walled Garden

All of this is my rambling way of introducing Barley Wood Walled Garden which I discovered at the weekend. The Victorian walled garden is in a stunning location overlooking the Mendip Hills in north Somerset. Built in 1901 for Henry Herbert Wills, the director of Imperial Tobacco, it is now restored after years of neglect and lovingly tended by resident gardener Mark Cox, producing fruit and vegetables for a local box scheme. He specialises in growing heirloom and heritage varieties and grows an impressive selection of salad crops. He also works closely with the chefs of the cafe/restaurant based in the old Victorian glasshouse. The Ethicurean is a partnership of 4 chefs inspired by amazing local produce. The majority of the fruit and vegetables they use comes from the garden itself. It’s a great sight when you’re perusing the menu to see the chef wandering in with a bunch of herbs and salad leaves from the garden outside. Air miles aren’t a problem here.

Cold frames and lettuce

The garden itself would create envy in the heart of all those growing their own. Perfectly sited on a gentle slope, facing south, protected from the hills behind, with the added warmth and shelter from the brick walls creating the perfect microclimate. The lettuce here weren’t sulking like mine are on my exposed and significantly colder allotment. The walls were clothed with trained fruit trees, currently covered in gorgeous candy pink blossom, giving a tantalising idea of the bountiful crops of apples and pears to come later in the year. With over 70 varieties of apples there are more than enough for them to produce their own juice, creating blends such as Ashmeads Kernel and Blenheim Orange.

Throughout the year there are various courses ranging from foraging delights in the countryside around the garden and cheese tasting and they have even have started a home brewing club, which might explain the demi-john of parsnip wine fermenting away on top of some shelves.

Delicious food

Well they say the proof of the pudding is in the eating and the food we had certainly didn’t disappoint. Goat meatballs with lovage and lemon sole served with new potatoes and spring greens. In fact, it was so tasty we came back later for some home-baked scones and blackberry jam.

The team behind Barley Wood must be doing something right with growing demands for their organically produced veg boxes and The Ethicurean winning The Observer Ethical Restaurant 2011 award and getting their first recipe book deal. Long may it continue.

For more details you can follow The Ethicurean team on their own blog.

For more information about the Barley Wood Walled Garden and to see some great photos of it’s restoration you can visit it’s website.

I’d love to hear if anyone else knows of any foodie gems like this.

Seed Sowing No-Shows

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Dobies, minimum germination rates, Nicky's Nursery, Sarah Raven, seed sowing

So we’re well into the main seed sowing period of the gardening year. It’s a time of great anticipation, with compost, trays and seeds at the ready. It’s a crucial time for every gardener, a window in which the plants that will feed us and provide colourful flowers throughout the summer and into the autumn are started into life. It can be make or break for some plants which need a long growing season to reach maturity, such as celeriac and parsnip. If these plants miss their window of opportunity that’s your chance gone for another year.

So it can be incredibly frustrating, to say the least when seeds don’t appear. We’ve all experienced that sparsely populated compost where there should have been a sea of shoots or even worse the completely bare seed tray. Of course, we blame ourselves. We must have done something wrong. Did we sow them too deep or too shallow? Was the compost too dry and too wet? Was it too cold for them to germinate? All of these are possibilities but how many of us think it might be the seed that is the problem? It might be a more likely explanation than gardeners realise.

In recent years the consumer magazine Which has carried out research to determine the germination rates of selected seeds from some of the main seed suppliers in the UK. In 2007 it discovered that significantly high percentages of seeds were actually dead at the time of purchase. One company’s Delphinium seed were found, when analysed, to be 99% dead and  the other 1% were unhealthy and just 15% of seeds of a variety of lettuce produced healthy plants (figures were taken from a report in The Daily Telegraph). Two years later they carried out more tests and found 7 out of 17 seed supplying companies failed to meet minimum germination standards with spring onion ‘White Lisbon’ and only 27% of a variety of pelargonium germinated. They did however praise several companies, including Nicky’s Nursery and Dobies for their overall seed health.

There are legal standards set by the EU for the germination of vegetable seeds. These minimum germination percentages vary according to different plants to reflect the natural viabilities of different seeds, for example it is 80% minimum germination for cucumbers and runner beans and 65% for carrots and leeks. I suppose I hadn’t really given it much thought but it is surprising and sobering to realise that a number of the seeds we buy are already dead, even if they are meeting the legal requirements and as Which discovered many are not even meeting these. Flower seeds are not covered by any minimum standards at all which seems quite shocking to me. I can’t think of any products that we purchase that don’t have to meet some sort of minimum standard. I can quite easily spend £20 – £30 on flower seeds in a year and the thought that I’m not getting what I paid for is annoying.

Larkspur plant – one that did germinate

My own experience so far this year has been mixed. Most of the seeds have germinated well, particularly sweet peas, celeriac and lettuce but I’ve had my fair share of frustrations. I sowed one seed tray, half with blue larkspur and the other half white larkspur. They had exactly the same conditions. The blue larkspur are now good-sized plants hardening off in my cold frame, not one white larkspur appeared though. I resowed and 3 have so far germinated which is not enough for my cutting patch. Sarah Raven, who I purchased the seed from said they knew of no other problems with the seed but promptly sent out another packet and I have now sown another batch. Rudbeckia ‘Cappucino’ is another seed I have had problems with, 2 years in a row. The contrast between this variety and another Rudbeckia variety ‘Prairie Sun’ is incredible, with virtually every seed of the latter germinating and a measly 1 out of 20 from the ‘Cappucino’ germinating.

With my cutting patch I’m trying to grow lots of varieties in small groups of between 6 and 10. With the confined growing space of window sills and cold frames, the problems of patchy germination or complete no-shows are heightened. I, like many other gardeners don’t have the space to sow lots of seed en masse.

Perhaps though, one of the main reasons why this problem seems to be brushed under the carpet is our reluctance as gardeners to complain when our seeds don’t perform as expected. I am guilty of this, too. Some companies are reluctant to admit there is a problem and insist it must be the gardener at fault and what gardener wants their seed growing prowess called into disrepute? Others seem to have a better understanding of customer service, such as Sarah Raven. I was talking to a commercial grower recently who has experienced the vagaries of seed germination and the reluctance of companies to acknowledge the problem and he said we should all complain more. It is only then that the companies would have to take more notice of the issue.

I’d love to hear if you’ve suffered from similar seed germinating problems and whether you’ve complained or not.

Humble by Nature – Rural Skills Centre

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dry-stone waling, hedge-laying, Humble by Nature, Kate Humble, Monmouthshire, planting an orchard, rural skills centre, Wye Valley

Kate Humble with Myfanwy the Berkshire sow

Kate Humble, TV presenter and wildlife champion, the face of Springwatch and Lambing Live is known for her enthusiasm and passion for the natural world and it is this love for the countryside that has made her and her husband, Ludo embark on a big project. They have bought a farm in Monmouthshire, a beautiful, unspoilt county of rolling hills and river valleys where they plan to run a rural skills centre. I’ve lived here in Monmouthshire for 6 years now and know how difficult it is for rural economies to adapt, create jobs and thrive whilst preserving the ways of life that make them such great places to live and visit. Kate kindly agreed to tell me a little bit about her new venture, Humble by Nature.

What made you embark on this project? We heard that a council farm near our home in the Wye Valley was about to be broken up and sold off, probably never to be an intact farm again and we decided that was wrong. So we talked to the council and took it on in partnership with them, to try to keep it as a working farm whilst diversifying enough to make it pay its way. That’s why we’ve started a small business to run courses in rural skills and animal husbandry, all set in the middle of a beautiful working farm.

Will the farm be run organically? Whilst we are broadly in favour of organic farming practices we have chosen not to farm organically but are aiming to do conservation farming, which means farming to encourage wildlife as much as possible.

Who are the courses aimed at? The courses are aimed at anyone who has ever thought about where their food comes from or who want to reconnect with the countryside in some way. So we welcome people who are moving out of the city in order to have a bit more space, perhaps with a bit of land to keep chickens, sheep or even a pig or maybe they fancy trying their hands at bee-keeping. Also people who want to learn a new skill such as dry-stone walling or hedge-laying. Hopefully, we’ll also appeal to those already living in the countryside who have a bit of land that they would like to use more productively, or those that just fancy trying something new, just for fun or as a new hobby.

You’ve already run a hedge-laying course and a ‘how to plant an orchard’ day, what other courses do you plan to offer? We will soon be offering courses in how to keep poultry, pigs, sheep and bees, as well as some specialist food preparation courses like how to cure and salt your own meat and making sausages. There’ll be food foraging and …. well the list is almost endless!

Who will be teaching the courses? All our courses are run by local experts in their field. Our pig course, for example, is run by a very experienced local vet with many years of hands-on knowledge of looking after pigs. Our small holding teacher has just written one of the definitive guides to starting a smallholding and our bee-keepers have worked with people keeping bees across the world. So all our teachers are truly local and proper experts.

Will all the courses be practical and hands-on? Yes. The huge majority of the courses will be outside on the land as much as in the classroom and there are amazing (indoor) lunches to go with them!

How important will it be to encourage wildlife onto the farm? We are working very closely with local wildlife organisations such as Gwent Wildlife Trust and the Woodland Trust to make sure we encourage as much wildlife as we can.

With the massive decline in farmland bird populations over the last 40 years do you think it’s possible to farm profitably and also manage the countryside for the benefit of wildlife? Absolutely. We can all do something for wildlife, whether it’s just planting the right sort of plants for bees, leaving borders uncut or not removing that old bit of rotting tree trunk to encourage insects or if you have the space, planting trees and hedges and putting up nest boxes for birds. We’ll be doing all of these and more on the farm.

With this project, your TV work and your own smallholding do you find any time for a spot of gardening? I’m a very keen gardener and we have a small but productive vegetable and fruit patch at home. A lot of my filming commitments are in the summer when the very best of the fruit and vegetables are ready but I never miss an opportunity to enjoy the fruit (and veg) of my own hands!

And finally, wellies or boots? Wellies for the farm (always) but definitely boots for walking with the dogs in the Welsh hills.

To find out more about Kate’s farm you can follow her on facebook and find out more details at Humble by Nature.

Book Review – The Perfect Plot, Starting an Allotment from Scratch

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allotment association, allotments, community gardens, Simon and Schuster, The Perfect Plot

Are you on an allotment waiting list? Have you lost hope that you’ll ever have your own plot? Are you thinking of starting a community garden but not sure where to start? Well this could be the book for you. An inspiring story of a group of people from a village in Devon who started an allotment site from scratch, it takes the reader through their journey from finding the site to it becoming a patch of fruit and vegetable abundance.

Most people with an allotment and certainly those on a waiting list have heard that councils have an obligation to provide an allotment site if at least 6 people request one. I had begun to think this was just an urban myth, as I’d never actually come across anyone who had managed to get their council to do this. It is, however an actual piece of legislation from the Small Holdings and Allotments Act (1908). Using this nugget of information a resident from the village of Cornworthy wrote to his local council asking if they could look into providing some land for allotments. Maybe he was lucky there were 2 councillors who loved gardening and were inspired by the idea. What follows is a tale of ups and downs, set backs and inspiration and ultimately a brand new village allotment site.

The book covers how to set up an allotment association, what grants might be available to you and how to go about applying for them. Even if you have a plot on an established site there are ideas in this book that could maybe make your site a more pleasant place to be. I’m particularly envious of their community shed and their composting toilet. I never thought I’d say I was envious of a composting toilet but my own allotment site has neither facility and it is frustrating to need the loo or have nowhere to shelter from downpours.

The Perfect Plot is full of advice and stories from the individual plot holders, describing what to grow and what problems you might encounter. It also takes you through the process of making the plot sustainable with the committee members applying for grants to drill a borehole and install a solar powered pump and construct a straw bale urinal and composting toilet. I had never realised that such grants were available to allotments and after some digging around, if you pardon the pun, it seems there are a lot of opportunities for funding especially if you are starting a community garden.

Within 9 months of the initial letter to the council the allotment site was up and running and 2 years later with the bore hole drilled the site was fully sustainable. It is such an inspirational story of what can be achieved in a short space of time and how much the allotment has contributed to the village and community.

The Perfect Plot is now available from Amazon and all good bookshops.

Thanks to Alice at Simon and Schuster.

International Guerilla Gardening Sunflower Day

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Guerilla Gardening, International Guerilla Gardening Sunflower Day, Richard Reynolds, sunflowers

Sunflowers everywhere (photo courtesy of Richard Reynolds)

‘Lets fight the filth with forks and flowers’ are the words of Richard Reynolds the unofficial leader of the ‘guerilla gardening’ movement, where people garden on land that they are not legally allowed to use and on May 1st people will be sowing sunflower seeds in abandoned and neglected parts of their towns and cities under the guise of International Guerilla Gardening Sunflower Day.

Back in 2004, Richard Reynolds fed up with the grime and neglect of parts of London and frustrated by a lack of any growing space of his own set about tidying up abandoned patches of land, removing litter and putting in plants. It soon became his passion and led him to write a book ‘On Guerilla Gardening’ charting the history of ordinary people  challenging authority and asserting their right to culitvate land, from the Socialist Diggers of the 17th century to modern day guerilla gardeners.

Guerilla Gardening Sunflowers (photo courtesy of Richard Reynolds)

He now writes a blog guerillagardening.org, where there are tips on how to be a guerilla gardener and how like-minded people can coordinate their actions. A quick look at his website shows roundabouts, the central reservations of roads, or squares of earth around the base of trees transformed from bare and scruffy patches of earth into little oases of colour, amongst the grey, concrete and tarmac. The movement however has split the horticultural world with some sections embracing it but others disliking the anarchic element.

It could be argued that it is the ‘Big Society’ working, local people taking responsibility for the area in which they live and tackling problems that councils and businesses aren’t interested in dealing with. Volunteers cleaning up litter and beautifying their neighbourhoods with plants and flowers seem like actions that are hard to decry. There are problems though, the most obvious being that permission has not being given by the land owner to use the land and that any gardening would be trespass. However, as you can see from the photos most of the ground used is small patches with no other use and generally council owned. There are safety issues with most of the planting done illicitly at night, being around areas of busy traffic and the possibility that abandoned land might harbour toxic substances or dangerous materials on the land or in the soil. It’s also not a good idea to plant edible food in areas of high pollution such as by the side of roads.

Guerilla Gardening Sunflowers (photo courtesy of Richard Reynolds)

Planting sunflowers and other plants might seem like a bit of a jape by young people, circumventing authority but maybe it goes a lot deeper. Perhaps it is a sign that the ‘powers that be’ are not listening to those in the community. Everyone who is lucky enough to have a garden or allotment understands how much pleasure and joy being in touch with the earth brings. Some would say it is more fundamental to human wellbeing than is often acknowledged. City living, office jobs and modern life have taken us away from nature and the rhythms that our bodies crave. For those desperate for their own patch of soil it must be frustrating to walk past neglected areas, abandoned by their owner for years.

Guerilla Gardening Sunflowers (photo courtesy of Richard Reynolds)

Even where I live in rural Wales there is a patch of abandoned land in a local village that has been like that for at least 6 years and yet there is a ten year waiting list for an allotment. A few years ago some frustrated soul had stuck a poster to a telegraph pole nearby saying it was outrageous that what could be a beautiful, productive patch of land was instead covered in weeds. Maybe the message to those who can shape our communities is the importance of making the inhabitants feel like they can still be in touch with nature. So much of what is built today is cold, grey and uninspiring it’s no great surprise that with increasingly crowded cities, the growth of grow your own but the lack of space to do so that people are taking things into their own hands and greening our urban spaces.

Making a dash for it

Tags

broad beans, charlotte potatoes, cold frames, courgettes, seed sowing, squashes

Dry days have been few and far between so far this April. Now I’m not complaining, there’s no denying we need the rain to fill the reservoirs and aquifers and my garden has taken on a lovely green hue as herbaceous perennials spring into growth. But I had started to suffer a window sill and cold frame backup, with plants needing to be potted on and moved into the cold frames to harden off but with no space available in the cold frames for them. It’s just been too wet to plant anything out. Well to be honest it’s been a bit on the cold side too.

So with the weather forecast suggesting more sunshine than showers yesterday I decide to make a dash for it and in a flurry of activity I planted out, potted on, sowed more seed and shuffled plants between window sills, cold frame and the allotment.

Sweet peas ready for planting out

The first to be planted out were the first batch of sweet peas. Sown back in February they were great looking, bushy plants in desperate need of some support so they could do their thing and start climbing. Due to lack of space at the allotment these sweet peas were destined for a hazel wigwam in my front garden. The idea is that they will add some height and provide scent for the warm, sheltered garden in front of my kitchen. To be honest the ground was a little on the wet side to be planting into but with the forecast suggesting another couple of weeks of similar wet weather these plants were going in regardless. Sweet peas can grow to over 2 metres over the summer and will produce huge numbers of flowers if you keep picking them so all this effort requires some food. I tend to add a bit of compost to the planting hole with a handful of comfrey pellets. Comfrey is high in potassium, the nutrient that plants use in the flowering process so this should encourage a good supply of blooms over the next couple of months.

Another batch of broad beans and some scabious plants were taken up to the allotment and planted up. Whilst there I spotted the first Charlotte potato pushing through so grabbing a spade I earthed up the shoots to protect them from any frost.

Back at home I sowed some more lettuce, basil and carrots in pots and then moved into the cold frame some antirrhinums, asters and larkspur. It’s all a bit of juggling act at the moment trying to have enough plants to plant out with some spares. It’s also time when gardeners start to gamble, gamble on the weather that is. When to sow the tender plants such as french beans, cucumbers and squashes can be a difficult one to call. None of them like sitting in cold, wet soil and don’t like fluctuations in temperature. Sown and grown inside these plants can grow quickly with the warmth of a window sill or greenhouse. The problem is if it hasn’t warmed up outside you could have some triffids on your hands probably not a problem if you have a greenhouse but squashes and courgettes are hard to maintain on a window sill once they get going.

It’s already later than I have previously sown but I decided to sow some courgettes, Defender, Romanseco and a patty pan type squash called Sunbeam and also a couple of pots of a red skinned squash called Uchiki kuri. I’m going to wait another week or so before I sow any cucumbers or french beans.

The first Clematis in flower despite the weather

As I’m writing this it has been teeming down for about 6 hours now and I’m just preparing to go out with waterproof trousers and wellies on. Such a good look but at least I’ll be dry. They say a months worth of rain will have fallen by the end of the week and I can well believe it. Hope the plants don’t drown!!

Salad growing guru Charles Dowding

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Charles Dowding, no dig gardening, salad leaves

Charles Dowding showing us around his polytunnel

For my birthday at the end of last year, Wellyman kindly bought me a day with Charles Dowding. Charles has been growing salad crops and selling them for nearly 30 years now. He has, over that time built up quite a reputation not only for inspiring the British public to be a bit more adventurous with their salad growing but also for following the ‘no dig’ practice of mulching beds and then letting worms and other soil organisms do the hard work of improving his soil structure and fertility.

Charles runs courses from his farm, where he explains the thinking behind his ideas and you get to pick his brain and see his philosophy in action, and this is how I spent yesterday. From his farm in Somerset Charles runs a successful market garden, selling bags of mixed seasonal salads to businesses within a 4 mile radius. With 2 polytunnels and over an acre Charles makes £30,000 a year from growing salads. The site is less than ideal facing north and on clay but by using the ‘no dig’ technique of mulching with compost and well-rotted manure every year he has created soil conditions most gardeners dream of. The colour of his soil and the lack of weeds were the most striking aspects of his farm.

Just a few of Charles' incredibly productive beds

The soil is black and just so rich in organic matter from years of mulching with manure and compost. This dark colour means the soil warms up much more quickly in the spring, absorbing the warmth from the sun. The structure of his soil is much improved draining more freely but holding onto moisture when needed. In fact the structure of his soil is so amazing that he is able to walk on his beds when the ground is almost fully saturated, as it is at the moment after several weeks of rain. When he moved his feet you could see the ground underneath spring back and there was no footprint left behind. This really was quite remarkable to see.

Greeted by tea or coffee and tasty flapjack the course started with everyone introducing themselves. There was a broad mix of people, some with newly acquired polytunnels wanting inspiration, others running or planning to run their own market garden and some who just wanted to take away some ideas for their allotment or garden. Dodging the heavy downpours we spent time in the polytunnels seeing what varieties of winter salads he has been growing and getting the opportunity to taste along the way. This was particularly useful. I have never tasted sorrel or chervil before and was impressed enough to be add them to my seed wish list. Charles doesn’t just grow salad crops though and a visit during the summer and autumn will show a site packed to the brim with squashes, tomatoes, leeks, celeriac and much more.

He shared with us seed sowing tips and how to achieve good compost. Part of the garden has raised beds which Charles uses as experiment beds, comparing dig versus ‘no dig’ and the effects, if any, of charcoal as a mulch or when dug in.

A tasty lunch of foraged nettles for a soup and homemade spelt bread and of course some of Charles’ salad leaves was followed by the opportunity to ask questions and a final tour of the garden, which included a trip to the all important manure and compost piles.

Black gold - Charles' compost and manure heaps

I had a great day and came away with lots of ideas. The main ones being to track down a good source of manure and to use the space I have got more effectively to produce more salad and with lots of different varieties. For me it was refreshing to see a different and successful approach to growing. For me studying with the RHS for 4 years has been extremely useful, giving me an understanding of the theory behind growing but some of what you are taught is quite rigid and restrictive in it’s thinking. I’m learning that becoming a good grower is an ongoing process, with a great deal of experimentation and trial and error along the way. People like Charles are very inspiring and courses like the ones he offers are a great way of seeing your plot in a different light.

For more details about the courses offered by Charles Dowding visit his website.

If you can’t get to Somerset don’t despair, Charles has written a selection of books on the ‘no dig’ method, organic gardening, salad leaves and how to get the most from your plot in winter. Again have a look at his website for more information.

Collapsing Cloches and Pest Hunt

Tags

broad beans, cloche, pea and bean weevil, RHS, slugs, successional sowing

Pea and Bean Weevil Attack

There are days when I wonder why I spend time growing my own fruit and veg. The sort of day when I think, ‘you know Wellywoman you could just buy this from the supermarket or pick it up at the farmers’ market at the weekend’. That happened on Wednesday when, after a night of strong winds and torrential rain, I went up to the plot to check everything was OK. The cloche I’d constructed over some lettuce seedlings to protect them from the cold, frosty nights we’ve been having had collapsed under the weight of the rain. Fortunately most of plants had survived. The ones that hadn’t had been got by slugs.

Our slimy mollusc foe isn’t the only pest that has already started the onslaught on the vegetation growing on my plot. My broad beans which were lovingly nurtured at home before being planted out have been chomped and my peas, which were likewise started off at home, have been nothing short of mauled. I had just assumed it was either birds or mice attacking the peas and beans. These are generally the prime culprits and a quick check of my RHS Encyclopaedia seemed to confirm my suspicions. There was little I could do about mice but I constructed a barrier out of chicken wire in the hope that this would keep off the birds. Regular inspections though showed both peas and beans were still being attacked.

After some research online Wellyman, convinced it couldn’t be mice unless they had acquired the ability and equipment to dangle Tom Cruise like in Mission Impossible, came across the true culprit, pea and bean weevil. A pest that doesn’t even get a mention in my RHS Encyclopaedia, it chews distinctive u-shaped notches into the edges of leaves. Brown and grey in colour and about 5mm long they overwinter in plant debris and vegetation before moving on to plants to feed in spring. Growing green manures overwinter doesn’t seem such a great idea now but my plot is surrounded by grass paths so even without the phaecelia the weevils would have had somewhere to hide.

My forlorn looking peas

The adults are normally not active until May but in milder springs can appear earlier. It gets worse, the adults come out at night so no chance of catching them and there is no other organic control I have come across, other than growing plants until they are a good size before planting out, which is what I ‘d thought I’d done!! My problems were probably exacerbated by the cold spell just after I’d planted them out, whilst the peas and beans sulked the weevil tucked in for dinner.

It’s only April and my great plans for successional sowing are down the pan already. Some of the peas appear to be growing ok but others aren’t going to recover, so now I’m left with patchy rows. This is my first year growing peas and broad beans and I’m beginning to wonder if it was such a wise move. Others on the allotment have been affected too, but some of the older plot holders soak their seed in Jeyes Fluid so that the mice don’t eat the seed and I’m wondering whether this is also why their seedlings haven’t been nibbled nearly so much as mine. I don’t plan on resorting to Jeyes Fluid, a quick look online and it seems fairly toxic stuff, being suggested as a way to get rid of moles to being diluted and used as a weed killer. Doesn’t sound like the sort of thing I want near something I’d eat.

I have got other batches of peas growing in the cold frames which were meant to be my second crop, so my plan is just to start again. I might try and keep the new plants at home a little bit longer this time, hopefully by the time they’re sturdy plants it will have warmed up. If not, I’ve suggested to Wellyman we start look at properties in southern France. I don’t mind changing my moniker to Sandalwoman if it means my plants actually grow.

Is anyone else experiencing early season growing pains? Please share your woes to make me feel better.

My Crab Apple Tree

Tags

blossom, crab apple tree, nectar and pollen source, westonbirt arboretum

I wrote a post last year, after a visit to Westonbirt Arboretum, about my love of trees and the fact that I was known to occasionally hug a tree, a lovely experience which I can definitely recommend. I then received a post from Flighty at Flight Plot pointing me in the direction of a blog celebrating 2011′s Tree Year. The blog asked people to choose a tree they saw on a regular basis and follow how it changed through the seasons, posting about it. I thought it was such a great idea that I chose the crab apple at the end of my garden, my only disappointment was that I had come to the idea so late in the year.

A couple of people suggested I continue posting into 2012 about my tree and reading Laura’s post over at the Patiopatch about the Wych Elms she is following, I thought it was about time I devoted a post to my beautiful tree.

My Crab Apple Tree

For me, my crab apple is at it’s most stunning right now. Like a huge candy floss it stands in the left hand corner of my back garden covered in blossom. Although once open the flowers are white, the buds are rose pink and I think one of my most favourite things in nature. For weeks now I have been anticipating the show of blossom. There was the morning when I was stood at the kitchen sink and squinting could see the first signs of the pink buds emerging, finally culminating in the first white flowers opening with perfect timing for the Easter weekend. These white flowers hold a secret, they smell. I never really thought of blossom as having a scent. It was only really the first spring living in this house that I came across this delightful surprise. OK it’s not a powerful, heady scent like sweet peas, or stocks but it is for me the most perfect of spring scents, smelling like freshly washed clothes that have been blowing on the washing line. Ones that haven’t been drowned in the overpowering fragrances used by detergent companies that is. My crab apple certainly doesn’t smell of Japanese Fragrant Lily or Himalayan Lemongrass Orchid or any other bizarre sounding clothes wash.

A bee seeking out nectar

The tree is proving popular with the insect visitors to the garden, too. Stand next to the tree at the moment and there is a hum, a buzz, a noise of busily foraging bees lapping up the nectar and groaning under the weight of laden pollen sacs. I always get a sense of satisfaction to know that even my small garden can play an important part in the environment.

The crab apple is quite a hardy customer. It might look all delicate and frothy at the moment but it has had to put up quite a bit over the last week with plunging temperatures, freaky hail storms, torrential rain and howling winds. I went to bed last night thinking the predicted heavy rain and gales would strip the tree of it’s flowers but no, there is a little bit of white confetti appearing on the path but the tree looks great still.

Tightly packed pink blossom buds

The birds which have used the tree all winter, whether feeding on the crab apples or grubs and insects hidden in the branches or visiting the feeders we have put there, are still using the tree. Blackbirds, in particular, use the tree as a perch before flying down to the nearby bird bath.

It’s time for me to savour the tree and it’s blossom as much as possible. Another couple of weeks and the blossom will have faded with bright apple green leaves unfurling and taking over.

This crab apple was already here when we moved into the house, we’re not sure what variety it is, possibly ‘Evereste’ because it holds onto it’s apples for such a long period and although we have completely changed the rest of the garden it is such an important feature. If I could recommend one tree for even the smallest of gardens it would be a crab apple. They provide such interest through the year.

Laetitia Maklouf Book Giveaway

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Laetitia Maklouf, Sweet Peas for Summer

Just a quick post to say I did the draw for the book giveaway of Laetitia Maklouf’s new book Sweet Peas for Summer on Sunday night and the winner is

Congratulations Ena, I’ll send your details off to the publisher. Hope you enjoy the book.

Commiserations to everyone else but thank you for taking the time to leave a comment.