My favourite gardening books (right now)

I don't read book reviews, preferring to use that age-old method of judging a book by its cover.

I do understand though, that not everyone is as shallow as moi, so....

Here's a list of what's on my bedside table right NOW

1. A Taste of the Unexpected by Mark Diacono

This is a seriously inspiring read.  It tells you how to grow what I call 'luxe crops'...stuff that you'd have to pay good money for in special shops, or that you might instinctively think is 'hard to grow' because, well because it's not a potato really.  Baby-bottomed apricots the colour of a cockateal's cheek, quinces to scent your life and sex up your manchego, alpine strawberries (Mr Pug's favourite food)...the list of fruit goes on, and brings to mind scenes people like this.  But I've met Mark, and he's really quite a regular kind of guy - he has a farm in Devon where he grows all this marvellous stuff, and where he and his family feast on fuschia berries on, like, a weeknight while they're watching the telly... which proves the point that all these riches are perfectly growable by us mortals...yes, even szechuan pepper.

There are recipes too, dreamt up by the divinely clever Debora Robertson, and beautiful photography from Mark himself and the obviously very talented Laura Hynde.  Mark's writing is both witty and informative, and that, my friends, means that you can use this book to grow your own egyptian walking onions, or just read it in bed and dream (I do both).

2. Food for Friends and Family by Sarah Raven

Okay, so it's not strictly a gardening book (but I'm not strictly a gardening girl)...all the greatest pleasures in life - beautiful gardens, yummy food, laughing babies, emeralds - are inextricably linked in one way or another.  Sarah Raven manages to get the perfect balance of 'look at my perfect life' and 'hey, you can do this too', and a cynic might say that this is because she's a wily, clever business-woman (which I'm sure she is) but when you read her writing, and look at the sheer volume of her output, you know all that can't come from a person unless she's in possession of some serious, genuwine passion.  This book is full of food I want to cook.  It's set out by season, which is a winning trick for me, as I get anxious when presented with too much choice; being separated into seasons means that I can confine myself to a comfortable quarter of it when I'm looking for something to cook.

The photos need a paragraph to themselves.  It's obvious that the Jonathan Buckley/Sarah Raven combo is a match made in heaven.  She seems to specialise in those juicy, jewel-like colours that he loves to shoot.  This book has quite a few beauteous pictures of Sarah and her family chilling and eating and generally having a fabulous time in various delectable locations.  If it's staged, then they've got me fooled...The photos, the recipes and Sarah's writing make me want to be friends with her (but only if she cooks me the party plum tart on page 204) x

3. Thoughtful Gardening by Robin Lane Fox

I'm reading this right now and am only 90 pages in, but I am devouring it with the same zeal I usually reserve for Heat Magazine.  I have loved Robin Lane Fox's column in the FT for ages...he's one of those writers who dispenses pearls of wisdom amidst witty prose that have you reaching for your notebook and pen or tearing out bits of pink broadsheet and vowing to stick them somewhere.  (I have piles of torn bits of paper everywhere...recipes, gardening advice, illegible notes from the Hunk...all waiting for one massive cutting and sticking session that I absolutely KNOW will never happen).  Anyway, I am besotted with RLF because he is an experienced gardener with lots of know-how who can write really well.

The book is a collection of essays really, set out seasonally but not limited by that; A brilliantly informative note on mahoniais followed by his musings on the great Nancy Lancaster and her last garden at Haseley Court, where he lived and gardened for a while.  I have to give you a quote - because then you'll understand how addictive this book is:

"By the time I knew her, Nancy had lived the grand life and spent money as freely as water from her garden hose.  Nonetheless, she worked outdoors whenever she could, alarming my wife and myself by tugging the hose through the ground floor of the cottage which we rented from her and calling at six in the morning,  'When are you going to have babies or shall I come upstairs and show you how to do it?'"

How utterly FABULOUS.

x

One-pot-wonder: An October offering (not pansies)

So here's the thing -

I love cyclamen and pansies as much as the next person

...and I have buckets of them everywhere...

...but right now I'm in the mood for something that'll go the distance with me...

Here's a lovely pot that will remain lovely all year round. I've been growing hellebores in pots and window-boxes ever since I began gardening and they are completely low-maintenance and trouble-free. I've added some bulbs to this pot for spring zing, but a hellebore and some pretty ivy is enough for me...enjoy.

You need:

1 gorgeous hellebore...they're on sale now and there are a squillion different permutations 3 little ivy plants 5 dwarf daffodil bulbs A pot (mine is 30 cm diameter) Some multi-purpose compost, mixed half and half with John Innes no. 2, because this pot is not a flash-in-the-pan part-time lover...it's a keeper.

Simply fill the pot with compost half full and put a circle of bulbs around the edge. Place your hellebore in the centre and fill in the gaps, squidging your ivy into the sides as you go. Don't worry about the bulbs getting through...they always manage somehow. Water it thoroughly and enjoy x

Autumn wonder

I love Autumn

...and not just because it's my BIRTHDAY (15th October if you must know)

This year I have this lovely bumper crop of knobbly, warty gourds

I'm also loving my blueberry...almost as much as I love it when it actually has blueberries on it...in fact, probably more. The Autumn colour is just yummy, like sweeties:

I'm taking Mark Diacono's book 'A Tast of the Unexpected' to bed with me every night and dreaming of mulberries and szechuan pepper (amongst other things). It's quite the most sumptuous and inspiring thing I've read since Jilly Cooper's Riders which made me want to put on jodhpurs ....well, this makes me want to cavort with carolina allspice...sorry to be bossy but you really should buy it, like, immediately. Mark blogs here with something magical that makes you giggle and cry all at once...I defy you not to go back for more.

If you want a bowl of gourds like mine (or better than mine) for next year, then it couldn't be easier.

Timing: Late Spring/early summer

All you need do is go out an choose a packet of gourd seeds that you love. You need fertile soil and a sunny, sheltered site.

Just sow your seeds 2cm deep and three at a time, under an up-ended jam-jar and choose the best one to grow on. My advice is just to let your gourd gallop.

I love the way they climb over everything, growing their enormous leaves, clothing and covering everything in their path.

Leave the fruits on the plant for as long as possible before the first frosts. I've cut mine off early this year because its so wet and I don't want any rottage. Actually, I think it matters not one jot. Just cut them whenever you fancy, along with a length of stem and bring them indoors to display to your heart's content.

Stuff to do in October

...should you be so inclined....

1. Get some bulbs in the ground....or if you don't have any ground, get some planted in a pot. Right now I am layering up crocus, iris, daffs, tulips and alliums..yes, that's december to June loveliness (if the squirrels don't get them first)

2. Plant some wallflowers - lovely groundcover all winter and knock-out scent in the spring. I've bought some plants from a nursery (it really is okay to do this...you're not cheating). Bung them in the ground (or in a pot, why not?) and enjoy.

3. Lastly, one word....Hippeastrum. I know these bulbs are expensive, but it's so worth investing in a few and putting them in pots, say three per month until January for total indoor drama between winter and spring.

A New View

I did a big old garden clear-up yesterday and ripped out the sweetpeas

They had had their moment

...and served their purpose, which was to act as a temporary hedge until October when I planned to plant a proper one....the idea was to have the bottom of the garden all secret... I was about to put in my order for several yew plants... but now I'm not so sure... ...all of a sudden the view is clear, and I'm loving it

Of course, this could have something to do with the sweetpeas which had gone all crispy and mildew-ey...i still got a bunch of flowers every day, but I wasn't looking after them like I should. Picking my last posy wasn't at all sad...I've had enough (there, I've said it).

So, should I keep going with this hedge idea? It would obscure the main part of the garden from view initially...but the surprise element would be gorgeous. What think you?

Love you so much....

Note to self....

Have more of these next year...

(pssst! - it's no accident that they're all late summer bloomers)

Diascia - Its gone on and on and on (with a haircut half-way through).  I bought this as bedding in those polystyrene cells and it's been one of my favourite things this year, blooming in a huge urn.  Next year I'm going to need five times more of this to keep me happy.  I could take softwood cuttings now but bought plants end up being such great value I'm not bothering.

Erysimum - Still going strong after all this time...I love it so much I might go to the trouble of sowing some seeds ...you never know.

Crocosmia - fiery finery...need more of this.  I have only one plant (silly, silly me) and will have to wait a couple more years before I can divide it, so it's off to the garden centre with me.

Gaura - do you pronounce it with an 'Ow' or the same way as you'd say 'Laura'..not sure, but I AM sure that I need more.  Will be dividing my two plants and taking cuttings next spring.

Anemone - I realise I completely forgot to dig up my 'Honorine Joberts' when I left my old back yard...I only have this pink one and I'm still hooked on the white...must buy one plant to divide.

Gladiolus callianthus - I was late buying bulbs and there was only one packet left, so I only have one pot this year and I'm used to having at least five...back to normality next year

Chutney stuff and nonsense

I've been having a chutney-making fest - it's my first time (don't know what took me so long) - and I realise that all this time I've had this weird prejudice, putting home-made chutney together in my head with people like this this -very odd really, because I've always devoured it...

There's a generosity about making chutney that I love.  The whole point of preserving is anything is to avoid wasting anything...it usually comes from having a glut of something - You don't make something like this in small quantities, so there's always a bounty of it.  It begs to be shared and given away.

I had a big pile of un-ripe tomatoes and more jalapeno chillis than even I could handle.  The chillis were bothering me badly and I briefly flirted with this idea of salsa and stuffed peppers, but In the end I got predictably lazy and decided to combine the tomatoes and the chillis so I went browsing to find out chutney secrets.  I found this wonderful recipe on the sumptuous and stylish website that is Fennel and Fern and adapted it to include my piles of jalapenos.

It couldn't be easier:

Jalapeno and green tomato chutney

Green tomatoes (6 or 7 big ones or lots of small ones), roughly chopped

Jalapenos or mild-ish chillis (I used about 12 big ones), roughly chopped

4 red onions, sliced

4 apples, cubed

450g muscovado sugar, (I didn't have enough so I used half muscovado and half demerara)

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

sultanas - a couple of handfuls

400ml cheap malt vinegar

2 tablespoons good balsamic vinegar

A knob of butter

Method

Heat the butter over a medium heat and add the sugar and sliced onions.  Cook them until they're golden and soft.  Now add everything else except the vinegar and cook it for a few minutes, just to soften, stirring occasionally.  Add the malt vinegar and simmer for half an hour.  Then add the balsamic and cook some more until the mixture is soft and thick and gloopy.  Taste and adjust, leave to cool and then put your chutney into sterilised jars.

And on the subject of jars

I bought these glass lever-arm preserving jars (rather expensively) because I fell in love with them.  Problem is I want to give away the chutney but keep the jars - such a quandry darling, but as always, there is someone out there who has blogged about it, so here, if you are agonising about such things (which I'm certain you ARE) is canning queen Marisa's take on preserving jar ettiquete...i do so love the world wide web don't you?

Oh, and I nearly forgot to tell you....it's DELICIOUS!

A september offering

Sorry there was no August pot....I was too busy doing nothing.  To compensate, here's two for the price of one:

It's all rather bulbous - but if you like gardening, then that's what autumn's all about.

This pot doesn't look like a huge amount of anything on top - in fact, what you see above is just an afterthought really.  I had a pelargonium left over from loads of cuttings I took last year and thought I'd give it a chance to shine.  What's really going on here is the bulbs...and for them, you'll have to wait.  I utterly promise you, it'll be worth it.  In addition to the scented leaved pelargonium, you're going to get a crop of delicious Mizuna leaves, then a March-April flowering of little daffodils, followed by an April-May flowering of delicate yellow and white dutch iris.

For this pot you will need:

A pack of dwarf daffodils (I used Narcissi 'Minnow')

A pack of Dwarf irises (my pack says 'Dutch Iris...no idea about them but they were on special offer)

A packet of Mizuna seeds (or any other oriental salad leaves that like to be sown in the late summer)

A small scented leaved pelargonium (You can find these languishing in dark corners of good garden centres at this time of year).  This is really just to give you something to look at for now - if you can't find pelargoniums, then just substitute with a smattering of pansies, or anything else that looks good right now.  Don't plant too densely though...you want to leave space for those bulbs to push through.

A large-ish pot - mine is 50 cm across at the top.

Multi-purpose compost

Method:

Fill the pot with compost until there's 10cm left to the top of the pot.  Now put in your daffodil bulbs - quite close together but not touching.

Now cover the bulbs with another 5 cm of compost, shove in your chosen 'see me now' plant, and surround it with your iris bulbs.

Fill in all the rest of the space and water well but gently, with the fine rose of a watering can, until you're sure the water's coming out of the bottom of the pot.

Now sow your mizuna seed - thinly and carefully around your pelargonium, covering the seeds with a smattering of compost and patting down comfortingly, to make sure the seeds are in contact with the compost.

Keep it watered, and protected from naughty squirrels and this pot will give you delicious winter leaves, as well as joy well into summertime next year.

P.S. There are so many other bulbs out there - here's another pot I've done with dwarf tulips and muscari (and mizuna too)...take a look at your garden centre, note the flowering time and double, or triple up accordingly xx

Things to do in September

....should you be so inclined:

1. If you have a lawn, then scarify it. This is like brushing you hair when you've been a bit slutty and it's got all matted (i.e. it's a bit painful but thoroughly satisfying). When you've done that, you can aerate it, either by inviting all your friends round for a party in their stilettos (fun) or a garden fork (not such fun).

2. If you have new lavender (see below) and want it to be bodacious then cut it back really quite hard by the end of this month. This way it will sprout from near the base rather than getting all woody and ugly.

3. Tidy up you lazy thing! - it's september and that means out with anything that looks tatty, and in with your bulbs (well, all your bulbs except for tulips, which should wait till November for planting)

Lemon Verbena Ice-Cream

A bowlful of summer...

I've been growing lemon verbena in pots from my very first year of gardening.  I love it, mostly just to brush past, having as it does the most lemony of lemon scents that exist in all the whole wide world.

It's wonderfully obliging as a plant - you just put it in a pot and leave it alone.  Cut it down when the leaves turn brown and keep it frost-free and it will come back again in the spring.  I grow pots of it along with scented leaved pelargoniums and bring the whole thing indoors over the winter so I always have something to look at.  You can find out lots more in my book, where I extol its virtues as a herbal infusion...but now it's September and I'm aware that change is in the air.  There's a new, brisk freshness on the breeze, and the mornings are darker.  Consequently...

I have the urge to preserve.

Ice-cream isn't exactly cozy, but put this with a hot fruit crumble and you've got the definition of comforting cut through with that amazing flavour of last summer.

I don't bother with ice-cream makers, or eggs, or churning, or anything like that.  Instead I adapt the recipe for lemon ice-cream from the fabulous Nigella Lawson's 'How to Eat' and keep the ice-cream in small-ish quantities (the sort of quantities that will never make it back into the freezer).  I also make sure I soften it inside the fridge rather than outside of it, as lack of churning etc makes it less obliging in terms of keeping its texture during harsh changes in temperature....In other words, if you want it silky-soft (which you DO) then defrost in the fridge for a good hour.

Lemon Verbena Ice-Cream

You need:

1 loosely packed cup of lemon verbena leaves (or more if you want it extra-lemon verbena-esque)

The juice of one lemon

170g icing sugar

420ml double cream (yup, you read that right)

Method:

Put the leaves, lemon juice and sugar in a food processor and wizz up until they are chopped very finely.  Leave this mixture alone for half an hour or so for the flavours to deepen.

Now whip the cream with 3 tablespoons of icy water until you get sumptuous soft peaks.  Add in the lemon verbena mixture and whisk it in.

Then just turn the whole lot into a suitable piece of tupperware.  I find that these, 1.1l boxes, very satisfyingly, are the perfect size (with enough left over in the bowl, of course, for lickage) - and just bung it in the freezer.  That is literally it.  I have scattered some lemon verbena leaves, and pelargonium petals on top to make it gorgeous-er.

Babies update

The dream?

The dream is to have THIS all over my house....for precisely ZERO quid.

Back in the beginning of June I did a post on taking leaf cuttings from my most favourite star-like white and blue streptocarpus plant.   You can find the whole post here, but here's a quick recap:

Now, a few months later.....,

and the babies are forming well, and I could have left them happily growing there for a bit longer but today I peered at the soil and saw several fungus gnat larvae squiggling about.  They're basically harmless, but in numbers, they eat fine roots.  They are there because I overwatered the cuttings before I went on holiday.  Fungus gnat larvae can't get a foothold if you let the compost dry out completely between waterings.

I don't dig wiggly things inside my house, so it's time to pot up the babies.

To do this I use a two-thirds/one third mixture of seed compost and vermiculite or pearlite.  I then tease the cutting very gently apart.  It feels a bit brutal, because you have to tug a bit, and it feels like you've broken the leaf, but don't worry, as long as the little baby comes away with some roots, then it'll be okay.

The most important bit is to keep everything scrupulously clean, fill some small pots with the compost mixture and then carefully bury the roots in it, so that the little baby is put to bed at EXACTLY the same level that it was when it was attached to it's mummy.  This will seem really shallow, but as long as you firmly and gently bury the roots, making sure there are no air pockets around them, the new leaf will stand up on its own.

Put all your babies in a tray of water and wait until you can see that the compost in your pots has turned dark with moisture.  I don't water from the top - the babes are too delicate.  If I had a greenhouse these would go straight in there....but I don't so they go inside my kitchen window.

A notebook on a wall...

Hello from Label Land!

I've been thinking about what to do with my pile of plastic plant labels....

I've been thinking about it for far too long...they've just been sitting and sitting and sitting, waiting in that limbo between a good idea and the dustbin.

Sometimes, just sometimes the planets align and the something gets done.  In this case, the Babety slept longer than usual, I had found a particularly lovely builders merchant who could cut bits of plywood to size for me, and I had run out of Curb Your Enthusiasms to watch....So I got off my bottom and collected a hammer and some pins

Attached some plywood to the side of my shed:

...and started banging in labels.

It's a can of worms, you understand, because the ply is forgiving in some places, and hard as nails in others.  I ended up using drawing pins but it's still a nightmare.  Of course, I should start again, using pin-board and finish the thing in half an hour, but I'm desperate to have it outside, and pin-board would rot most horridly...so I shall carry on.

What do you do with your plant labels?

Do you make umbrellas out of them?

Or perhaps jewellery?

Or are you a non-hectic, well balanced person who throws them in the bin?

x

This is just to say...

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox

and which you were probably saving for breakfast.

Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

William Carlos Williams

We have an embarrassment of plums.

They are juicy and sweet...

and after eating far too many, I immediately wanted more, but baked, and with custard...Here's a clafoutis, together with instructions if you fancy it.

Scald some 150ml milk and 150ml whipping cream with a vanilla pod and leave to infuse.

Whisk up four eggs with five tbsp of sugar until paleNow add the infused creamy milk as you whisk

...straining out the vanilla pod

Preheat the oven to 150 and butter an oven-proof dish very generously, sprinkling it with sugar too

Tumble in your plums (I don't bother to take the stones out...too lazy) - and pour over your frothy custard

Put it in the oven for about half an hour (or until it's stopped being wobbly (you want the custard to set)...and you'll get this gorgeousness:

I think this would be good with some ground almonds added to the custard too.

In terms of growing plums - I'm reading up on it now - my tree is VAST, and I quite fancy experimenting with getting a different variety (I don't know what my plum is) and fan-training it against a wall to see if you can grow them in a much smaller space...more of this soon.

A July pot, made from left-overs

This was the result of my terrible habit of buying sad-looking plants that nobody wants.  The nicotiana was about to flower - the leaves were all torn and it was therefore reduced (I like anything reduced) and the lobelia had suffered from having missed the garden centre spray a few too many times and was wilted and languishing, all shrunk up in its polystyrene cells.  I took both home and plonked the nicotiana in the middle with three of the healthiest lobelia around the edge.

The lobelia recovered almost instantly, but the nicotiana took a little longer to grow some new leaves at the bottom (they are so brittle that they almost never survive a garden centre without being decimated).  That's why this offering is two weeks late - the pot was in intensive care.  Here it is, good as new and giving out that intoxicating evening scent.

Delicious no?

Here's what's in it

you need

1 Nicotiana sylvestris

1 pack of lobelia bedding

Multi-purpose compost

1 pot - mine is 30cm diameter

Keep it watered and make sure you place it near a door or somewhere you're likely to spend some evening time chilling out - the scent only comes out to play at night because the flowers are mostly pollinated by moths.  This is also why the flowers glow seductively in the dark.  Now I think about it this is a rather good pot to have around if you're trying to get someone to snog you.

x

I'm having a moment...

Look, I know everyone KNOWS that a sweetpea is pretty much the most divine thing on the planet right now....

...but I just have to state the obvious once again.

There is nothing so utterly scrumptious as a little glass of sweetpeas next to your bed - just nothing (except perhaps the smell of your own baby's head or something).  If you've never had the pleasure, it's sweetly floral, but not overpowering...intoxicating, yes, but not headachey.

So now I've got that out the way, I also need to say that it's the single most GIVING plant of the entire summer...

...requiring nothing from you other than that you pick it.

I've been thinking about sweetpeas a lot because the wonderful Easton Walled Gardens have been doing a sweetpea question and answer session on twitter (and by the way, if you want to see sweetpeas in the sort of profusion that will knock your socks off, then Easton is the place to go).

I was picking my daily bunch today and putting it in FIVE vases (as you do)...and suddenly, newly, realised how lucky I was, and how these bunches were becoming such a normal part of my life, that I was forgetting to evangelise properly and praise them like I should...

...So here I am, evangelising.

This huge bunch of sweetpeas get picked daily from the plants I put in two small trenches back in March.  They were not grown from seed, (naughty, naughty me), but bought in six pots from the garden centre.  Each pot contained about six plants (Lathyrus Spencer Mix if you're interested) , and they were all crowded together.  I didn't bother to separate them, (too risky, because sweetpeas don't like root disturbance) - just dumped them into the trench, which had been dug over the month before with some horse manure.  I spaced them evenly, firmed them in and then stuck six pea-sticks in the gaps.  By the time they started growing I was so busy that I didn't even bother to tie them in, just sort of twiddled the stems into the twigs and let them find their own way.  That's it, nothing else, no tending or fussing, and I've fed them once (yesterday) with tomato food.

The point of all this is that even though I did the bare minimum, my plants still yield this vast amount of loveliness, and they do it for me every single day.  I feel like a cat that's just eaten a tub of Rodda's clotted cream (the yummiest, naughtiest cream in the world, and best spread thickly on Bonne Maman Galettes, but only if you're not on a diet).

Imagine, just IMAGINE, ladies and gentlemen, the abundance I could have achieved with a modicum of preparation and care.  At Easton Walled Gardens they dig their trenches two spades deep and add lots of manure.  They also feed much more regularly, and obviously they grow individually from seed, making sure that each plant has enough room to grow, and no competition from weeds.  I'll definitely be digging my trench much deeper next year, and will hopefully be back to growing them from seed, where I can take my pick of varieties.

If you want to discover the wonder of growing a sweetpea, you don't need to have a garden either.  I used to grow mine in a deep window box and let them cling to the railings on my balcony.  Just make sure you give them a nice deep root run and lots of water.  The most important thing though, is to keep picking, because if you stop, and let the seeds develop, then the plant will get lazy and give up flowering.

Stuff to do in July...

...should you be so inclined (which, frankly, I am NOT) Look, it's summer time capisce? ...and that means: a. SUNBATHING b. PICNICS c. DAYDREAMING WHILST BEES BUZZ

The very most you should be doing is the lovely job of picking yourself a posy every day (and see above)... But if you've got itchy feet, or if the day is dull and you're feeling energetic, here are some July-ish jobs to be getting on with:

1. Mow the lawn, but only if your sward is your pride and joy 2. Sow some biennials to avoid haemorrhaging money on them next year 3. Pull the odd weed (pesky, aren't they?) 4. Water at dusk, when the nicotiana and other evening scented stuff is doing its thing. It's a good idea to have someone nearby who will kiss you (romantically and at regular intervals) during this process.