Legumes, Cowslips and an Asparagus Tip

Tags

broad beans, cowslips, Gwent Wildlife Trust, peas, Pentwyn Farm, Wye Valley asparagus

Pear Blossom

On the vegetable front the past few weeks have been mostly about peas and beans. Not only have I been sowing mangetout, ‘Sweet Horizon’, a maincrop pea, ‘Hurst Greenshaft’ and broad beans, ‘Masterpiece Green Longpod’ but we’ve been feasting on peas shoots for a while now. I absolutely love broad beans but it wasn’t always that way. My memory of broad beans was those dreadful grey, dry, woolly things I was fed in the eighties. *shudders* The broad beans we eat now bear no resemblance, pick them when young and double pod them and the vivid green captures early summer on the plot. It’s difficult to buy organic broad beans, and even non-organic are sooooo expensive. For me, they are a must on our plot.

Until last year I had never thought it was worth growing my own peas. Frozen peas are nutritious and easy to come by. I did grow some sugar snaps though, and occasionally some of them swelled so much that we needed to discard the outer casing and eat the peas inside. Eaten straight away, and raw in salads they were so incredibly sweet and tasty. So, last year actual peas were introduced to the plot and despite the weather were a real success. Both sets of peas and the broad beans are all planted out now.

Making a bid for freedom – my forced rhubarb

Everything is crazily busy at the moment, hence my absence from blogging for a while. I’m either at the computer writing or in the greenhouse. My apologies if comments don’t go up for a while and I don’t get back to you or I don’t make it over to your blog. I still read all your comments and really appreciate you popping by. I would really love it if there were a few extra hours in each day. I did, however manage to get out for a bit of a walk on Saturday. Pentwyn Farm near Monmouth is an idyllic spot even if the cold wind had returned. It’s an area of unimproved grassland owned by Gwent Wildlife Trust.  A habitat that’s quite rare now, the fields are managed to protect the wide variety of wild flowers that grow there. We tend to come up here in early summer to see the orchids. It was strange to wander around through the fields in late April and there be so little to see. If you didn’t know what was hiding away in the soil waiting to appear you’d be forgiven for wondering why Pentwyn Farm is so important. This was the first time we’d used the new nature trail the wildlife trust have created. It took us down the valley and out past a field of Hebridean sheep which are being used to manage the grassland. There was also the slightly disconcerting sight of a couple of alpacas. It’s not that unusual now to see alpacas in the British countryside, brought in to protect newborn lambs from foxes, or kept for their wool. I still find it funny to see them, a touch of the Andes in Wales.

Cowslips

It may be May in a few days time but the landscape feels like it is only very reluctantly emerging into spring. Trees are coming to life but it was hard to imagine the fields in a month or so’s time, covered in orchids, eyebright, and yellow rattle. Then, just as we were leaving, we came across a field of cowslips. It’s been a great year for primroses, the cooler conditions meaning their flowering season has been long but we hadn’t come across any cowslips until yesterday. Unlike its cousin the primrose, cowslips need more sunshine and an open site in order to thrive. Once an abundant plant it played a significant role in the celebration of spring’s arrival but intensive agriculture and spraying of herbicides lead to a dramatic decline in their numbers, along with so many of our wild flowers. My own garden is teeming with primroses but I have only one cowslip plant which my mum gave me last year. The first thing I did when we got back from the walk was to go and see if it was flowering yet. And there they were, a couple of stems with delicate yellow trumpet-like flowers.

Asparagus spears

To complete the spring theme we came across the first bundle of asparagus spears in a local deli. I was surprised to see them to be honest. I had thought the cold spring would have delayed the harvest but it appears not. It was impossible to resist them even if the price tag was a little steep. The season is so short that they are such a treat to have over the coming weeks. Herefordshire and Worcestershire are proud of their asparagus growing, there’s a festival to celebrate the green spears with food, music and even inflatable asparagus. When it comes to cooking asparagus I prefer simplicity. I do occasionally put it in quiches or frittatas, but steamed with a few shavings of parmesan or with goats cheese and parma ham are my favourites. When it comes to snapping off the woodier base of a spear, my asparagus tip (sorry, dreadful pun, I know) is don’t throw the ends away. If you make your own vegetable stock they make a great addition giving it a lovely sweet flavour. I put the ends in a freezer bag, collecting them over the course of the asparagus season and keep them in the freezer. When you’re making your stock just get a few out and put in the simmering water along with your other veg.

Advertisement

RHS Cardiff Show – Spring has Sprung

Tags

Bute Park, Edible Garden Show, National Gardening Week, RHS Cardiff Show, Sea Spring Seeds, Staddon Farm Nurseries

R A Scamp Daffodils at Cardiff Show (copyright Ian Curley)

I’ve lived in south Wales for nearly six years now but today was my first visit to the RHS show in Cardiff. It’s the first of the outdoor shows, kicking off the gardening calendar and for the last two years has been the culmination of National Gardening Week.

I think in the past I’ve been put off by the timing of the show. Held in April it does suffer from the vagaries of the weather. I have a friend who has visited for the last few years and needed her winter down-filled coat one year and was in a summery dress the following year. Having said that with our changing climate you could probably say that about August. I did think it was about time I supported my local show though. I recently read that the Edible Garden Show, normally held near Coventry, is now moving to a new home in London and think it’s a pity that everything gravitates towards the capital. I’ve also been hunkered down in my study and/or greenhouse for the last few weeks working on my book and growing my plants as the deadline looms ever closer, so felt like I deserved a day out. So with that in mind Cardiff beckoned.

The Sea Spring Seeds Stand – inspirational veg growing (copyright Ian Curley)

The show is set in Bute Park, the grounds of Cardiff Castle, in the city centre.  It’s smaller than other RHS shows and more compact but these weren’t negatives by any means. You need stamina for the other shows, particularly if you’re on a plant buying mission. My day at Cardiff was a much more relaxed and leisurely experience. That’s not to say I didn’t come armed with a shopping list. Thanks to the RHS’s great website I had already had a look through the nurseries that would be participating, so I had an idea about what I’d be looking for. Staddon Farm Nurseries and their Primula sieboldii collection was too hard to resist particularly in light of my new found primula plant addiction. There was a visit to Sea Spring Seeds’ stand. I had seen their stunning collection of colourful chillies at the Abergavenny Food Festival last year and having run out of space to germinate any more seeds I made a bee-line for their young plants. I plumped for Hungarian Hot Wax. A paltry 6,000 on the scoville heatness scale but then both Wellyman and I are wusses when it comes to spicy food.

Wheelbarrow garden competition (copyright Ian Curley)

I loved that there were quite a few school groups there, wandering around, having a look at the show gardens and the floral marquees. Some of them had entered the wheelbarrow garden competition that was on display near the entrance to the showground. An inspired idea with some brilliantly inventive designs, lets hope it inspires some budding gardeners for the future.

Considering the prolonged cold start to the year and, up until very recently, the lack of anything remotely spring-like it was amazing that the nurseries in the marquees put on such a stunning show. I think my favourite had to be R A Scamp Daffodils from Falmouth in Cornwall.

‘Up-cycle’ show garden (copyright Ian Curley)

Perhaps the weakest element of this event were the show gardens. They were small and some lacking in any great design or even plants in some cases. Having said that I loved the colours and ideas behind Wade and Nicol Landscape’s ‘Up-cycle’ garden. Wellyman has already been tasked with making some wooden pallet seats for the garden this year.

The weather is looking settled for the weekend so if you fancy a spot of gardening indulgence pop along to Cardiff, you won’t be disappointed.

For more details about RHS Cardiff Show

On the theme of RHS shows, would you like the chance to win tickets to this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. The clothing company Jacques Vert contacted me to say that they are running a competition and would I mention it on my blog. This isn’t an endorsement for them and I don’t receive anything for this but I thought it could be a great opportunity for you to be in with the chance of winning tickets. The prize is two tickets to RHS Chelsea Show for Friday 24th May 2013. Travel and accommodation are NOT included. The closing date is midnight Tuesday 7th May and the winner will be notified by email by 9th May. You need to be over 18 to enter. If you fancy giving it a go you can enter at the Jacques Vert blog.   Good Luck!

The Quest is Over

Tags

Britain in Bloom, green waste compost, mulching borders, mushroom compost

Newly mulched garden border

For a couple of years now I have been searching for a good source of compost to mulch my garden and allotment, with no success. It has been frustrating to say the least. It wasn’t as if my soil had gone completely without any new organic matter. There have been toppings of leaf mould, spent compost from containers and the occasional dollop of home-made stuff but none of it goes very far. There’s something about mulching your soil, covering it in rich, crumbly organic matter, that makes me feel like a proper gardener but the soil levels in some of my raised beds had dropped and I knew I needed to get hold of a large delivery and soon.

For sowing and in containers I tend to use New Horizon’s multi-purpose compost but it would be an expensive habit to use this as a garden mulch. I have a compost bin in the garden for kitchen and garden waste and another at the allotment but it’s surprising how little compost they actually generate. The regular supply of horse manure that used to be delivered has dried up too. My local council used to sell green waste, once it was composted, at a local garden centre. It was pretty dreadful stuff though. We went along one day to have a look at it but we could smell it as soon as we got out of the car and the aroma wasn’t good. As you approached it you could feel the heat coming off it. I’m generally of the opinion that if something smells bad it’s best avoided, and there was no way it was going inside the car. A few days later I heard how it had been used by a local Britain in Bloom group and that it had killed the plants they had just planted into it. Something was clearly not right with the composting process and last year I read that the company had their licence removed for breaches of health and safety legislation at the composting site.

There’s one plot at the allotments with bags piled up of truly gorgeous black stuff. The plot holder is a dentist and has a lot of farmers as patients. A couple of us think he extracts agreement from them to supply him whilst he’s also extracting their teeth. I’m not a fan of going to the dentist and I’d probably agree to anything if I had a drill coming towards me. Without such contacts or powers of persuasion I ended up spending the best part of 2 mornings last week on the internet, the phone and on twitter trying to track down some compost.

I found places which sold farmyard manure but I’m still wary that this could be contaminated with the herbicide that caused so many problems a few years ago. The other alternative was mushroom compost which I’ve heard is great stuff particularly for brassica crops. But even that has animal manures in it and is no to be used around acid loving plants because of the lime it contains. Green waste compost was really what I was looking for. We thought we’d cracked it but then discovered that the product had added fertilisers in it, artificial ones and as I grow organically this was no good either. Then there were places that had the right product but would only deliver loose and as we don’t have a driveway I don’t think the neighbours would have been too happy with a small mountain of compost dumped in the access road.

Finally, I was put in touch with a really helpful man from a company who deal with the green waste from several neighbouring counties. I think he could tell I was on the verge of giving up. Apparently there was a recycling centre that wasn’t too far from us and they sold it by the bag for £2. I did the sums and it was significantly cheaper than anything else I had been quoted. Wellyman picked up a test bag and later that night as I spread it around of the beds I was hoping it wouldn’t be riddled with rubbish. I nearly did a little dance because it was gorgeous. Dark, crumbly, not a sign of plastic and it smelt, like it should, of woodland floor.

So, on Saturday, we made several trips, filling the boot. Ideally Wellyman wouldn’t have picked up a brand new car the day before and we wouldn’t have spent the journeys worrying that the suspension was going to break. And, in hindsight, it would have made more sense to do it on a day when it wasn’t raining. By the time we had emptied the bags around the garden and the plot, the combination of compost and rain meant we looked like we had just emerged from a swamp.

I’m a happy gardener now though. It’s strangely satisfying looking out on to the dark mulch that now covers the borders. I love a bit of neatness and order and it certainly appeals to that side of me. We need to make another trip to finish off at the plot but at last the quest is over.

Shrinking violets and dahlia shrieks

Tags

Barnhaven Primulas, Bodmin Plant Nursery, broad beans, heated propagator

Buds on my crab apple

I’ve been feeling a little bit grumpy of late. The weather has been preoccupying me somewhat. With my book deadline looming and photo shoots booked I’ve been anxiously looking at a garden and allotment that should be springing into life. Instead I’ve got bare soil and plants that are sulking, sitting there waiting for some warmer weather. The first photos of the year have already had to be postponed and now it’s a waiting game with me wondering whether spring and summer will arrive in time.

Over the last week or so I’ve started to write a post but I’ve heard my words as I type and I just sounded pretty fed up. I don’t like writing when I feel like that. Sometimes it can be cathartic but most of the time I find it just compounds my thoughts rather than relieving them. I promised myself I would only post if I could write something more positive, rather than inflicting my rants and frustrations on you all. So today I bring you flowers to cheer, green shoots and seedlings galore.

Heartsease

Last week I finally managed to plant up my purchases from my break in Cornwall. My run-in with some ropy seafood and a spell of decorating indoors has meant that they have languished in my cold frame for nearly a month now. I’d chosen a selection of shade loving, spring-flowering plants. a pretty little heartease and a sweet violet which was in bloom when I bought it in mild Cornwall, but a spell in colder Wales has made it a shrinking violet and there are no flowers to be seen at the moment.

My gold-laced primulas don’t seem too perturbed by the lack of warmth though. I’ve developed a bit of a primula addiction recently. Lynne Lawson from Barnhaven Primulas recommended a book to me, ‘The Polyanthus’ by Roy Genders. Written in the 1960s I managed to track down a copy on the internet and I’m now hooked. Hence my other purchases of Primula ‘Francisca’ and P. sieboldii ‘Snowflake’. Francisca has really unusual green, ruffled flowers which are tantalisingly close to opening and ‘Snowflake’ has small, white flowers with intricately cut petals which are held on tall stems above the foliage. My P. denticulata are just coming into flower. This is my first year of growing them and I’m intrigued to discover that they have quite a strange way of producing their flowers. Rather than sending up a stem and then the flower buds opening, the flowers are opening in a tightly packed rosette nestled in amongst the leaves, instead. I had thought it was something I had done but in the last few days I’ve noticed the stems are starting to elongate, carrying the globe of individual flowers upwards. Apparently this is perfectly normal and what these drumstick primulas do.

Primula denticulata

The Bodmin Plant and Herb Nursery in Cornwall is one of my favourites and no visit to the area is complete without a trip here. They have the most amazing selection of herbs. I never realised there were so many different types of rosemary and thyme for instance until I wandered into one of their polytunnels. This time I was tempted by a pot of parcel or leaf celery. Celery itself is notoriously hard to grow and I’ve never attempted it but the leaves of parcel taste just like celery and can be added to soups towards the end of cooking to give a celery flavour. I’m also hoping they’ll taste good in omelettes and salads.

My herb planters are otherwise engaged at the moment, planted up with tulips I couldn’t get into the ground last winter because of all the rain. But once they have finished flowering the parcel can go in the zinc baths along with my other herbs which have spent the winter in the greenhouse.

It may have been unseasonably cold so far this spring, and this may have played havoc with plants outdoors but we have been lucky in this part of Wales to have had some lovely sunshine at least. And, behind the glass on my windowsills, seeds have been germinating at a pace. In fact, my seedlings are at the stage I would expect them to be for the time of year. I sowed some zinnias at the start of April and they had popped up within days. The addition of a heated propagator this year has made a difference, certainly with some flowers I’m growing which needed to be started off in February. I’ve also tried to do everything properly, using seed compost for seed sowing rather than just multi-purpose and incorporating perlite. Germination from most seeds has been good but there have still been disappointments and frantic resowing in the hope I don’t lose any time.

Broad beans ready and waiting

In the greenhouse the broad beans have finally started to grow. I’ve potted them on into bigger pots and they can sit in the cold frame for a few weeks now. I much prefer to plant out substantial plants if I can and my February sown broad beans are even a little further on than some of those my allotment neighbours sowed back in November. I’m pleased I ignored the weather and sowed trays of lettuce, peas, beetroot and spinach. We have a fairly short growing season anyway so anything to try to gain some extra time is worth it for me.

seedlings in the greenhouse

My windowsills are pretty much at full capacity at the moment so some milder weather would be welcome, allowing me to move a few hardy annuals into the greenhouse. Oh, and I did get quite excited yesterday to discover the first shoots of a dahlia poking through the compost. I let out a bit of a squeal, loud enough for Wellyman to come downstairs to see what was going on. I think he thought I’d discovered a mouse or something.

So I’m trying to defy mother nature as best as I can but soon my plants will have to go outside. Lets just hope by then spring, at least, has arrived.

The same but different

Tags

King Alfred's Cake fungus, Offa's Dyke, wild garlic, wood anemone, Wye Valley

Wood Anemone

I’m all for trying something new. Seeing and doing something different is not only fun but, as the saying goes, stretches the mind, makes us view people and places in a different light and challenges us and our opinions. But as with most things businesses and the media latch on to this and now we’re bombarded with the notion that life is a series of experiences to cross off a list. There was a time in the pre-economic doom years when travel programmes showed us the places we should be going to if we wanted somewhere interesting to show off about at a dinner party. There was the ever-increasing quest by the producers of said programmes to find more and more extravagant holidays or far-flung destinations. If you hadn’t yak herded in Mongolia or eaten mongoose with some impossibly remote tribe with an unpronounceable name then you hadn’t lived. Maybe these programmes had run their course or perhaps it was increasingly hard to justify holidays which cost more than a new car once recession had started to bite.

Then that dreadful word ‘staycation’ appeared everywhere, but I can forgive all those who used it, if it made people look at what was on their own doorstep in a different way. I have a friend who has been to every continent including Antarctica but has never visited Cornwall. *incredulous look at computer screen* I must admit to being rather jealous of her seeing penguins in their true habitat and not just in a rather dubious looking pool construction at a zoo but you don’t have to spend lots of money or travel long distances to come across the new and interesting.

This weekend we walked a stretch of Offa’s Dyke that we know well. One of our favourite places, the paths take us through ancient woodland clinging to the side of the Wye Valley. On one hand there is a comfortable feeling of familiarity, knowing the terrain, the sections that will be muddy because of the underground spring or the steep part that we need to descend to return to the car. On the other is the feeling of discovery whenever we visit. It might well be the same walk, through the same trees but it’s always different.

Seeing how the seasons and the weather affect the woods is the most noticeable difference. Last year we visited in mid- March,and in the warmth of the early spring bluebells had created a spectacular show and were joined by wild garlic and wood anemones. These bluebells were out about a month earlier than the previous year but this time around, unsurprisingly, there were none to be seen. The foliage was there but the first flowers may well not appear until May. The buds of the first wood anemones had appeared but only a few had opened; they, like us craving some sunshine. A carpet of wild garlic had formed though and we picked a few leaves to take home to make a pesto.

The winter storms had taken their toll. A huge tree had split with two sections now lying at right angles to the trunk. As these had fallen they had taken out other trees in their path. It looked like a scene of destruction but as the wood starts to rot it will become the perfect home to so many creatures.

King Alfred’s Cake Fungus

Wellyman spotted these fascinating fungi which we’d never seen before. Whilst I was waffling on about them looking like those men, often with no teeth, who take part in the gurning competition in Cumbria he was off looking for a stick to poke one that had fallen on to the ground. Apparently he was looking to see if the inside was full of rings rather like the trunk of a tree and thought they were called King Alfred’s cakes. The fungus did have the said rings running through its inside and checking when we got home it turns out Wellyman’s fungi identification skills, on this occasion, were correct. Their name derives from the fact that the black varieties look burnt just like the cakes King Alfred is said to have overcooked. Apparently they can be used as kindling for those who like the idea of bushcraft.

The inner rings of a King Alfred’s Cake Fungus

Of course, even in such a beautiful spot as this there are always some who just don’t seem to appreciate what’s there. I really dislike seeing trees that have been vandalised. On this occasion it was initials and dates carved into the trunk of a tree. Some were obviously more recent than others as the bark hadn’t had a chance to fully heal. Banging nails into a tree in order to hang up a poster annoys me too. I know the tree doesn’t feel pain but it’s the lack of respect that frustrates me. Trees really are incredible and deserve more than being treated as a convenient spot to advertise some nightclub, a missing pet or as a place for RR to declare their ‘love’ for LT.