Harvesting for an easy life

Harvesting for an easy life

Cherry tomatoes from my hanging basket

Naughty nature. Just when we are at our laziest and summer is at its haziest, the edible garden is at its most productive.

Keeping on top of harvesting the fruits of your spring toil can often be more demanding than the work it took to get it there in the first place, so it’s worth remembering a few truths.

1. Firstly, little and often wins the day, so bring snips and a basket every time you set foot in the garden. This is particularly useful with herbs like thyme, oregano or basil which need constant pinching to prevent woodiness or bolting.

2. Secondly, a surplus of anything is simply an opportunity to make merry in the kitchen - pestos, jams, passata, soups, cordials; these are all the products of glut, and we are fuller and happier for it.

The freezer is your friend here, so stock up on receptacles of varying sizes, as well as all-important labelling paraphernalia to make you feel all Martha Stewart smug.

3. Harvesting a bit early is generally more useful than leaving anything until it is ‘perfect’ - peas, beans, courgettes and most root veg are all better this way. Tomatoes and most fruit can of course ripen on a sunny windowsill. 

4. Finally, it’s well worth coming round to the idea that something home grown and edible can justifiably be ‘fed’ to your compost heap if you cannot face washing it, preparing it, cooking it and eating it yourself!

Happy harvesting!

Late summer flowers

Late summer love

Aster

The slightly parched and faded look that can plague gardens at the end of August can be entirely avoided by adding some late summer beauties to your palette of plants.

The choice is vast, but my favourite has to be Anemonex hybrida. Available in several forms, but always either white or pink, this is an absolute stalwart for me and bursts forth with a lovely freshness any time between August and September (depending on conditions). ‘Honorine Jobert’ is the simplest and most charming with single white blooms. ‘Konigin Charlotte’ comes a close second, in a soft sugary pink. The bonus with these is that they enjoy partial shade; darker corners, sorted. Do bear in mind that they skulk about doing nothing very much for about three years before they decide it’s okay to be themselves. STICK WITH IT - you won’t be disappointed.

Punchy golden rudbeckia is another star plant for me. There are infinite colours available, (provided that colour reminds you of a sunset), and they are easy to grow, utterly unfussy and not prone to masses of pests and diseases. R.fulgidavar deamiiis a real star – compact, with golden yellow petals and a chocolate brown centre. This sunshine hue is, of course, the perfect companion to blue, (remember your colour wheel?) Fresh deep blues are few and far between come autumn, which is why Asterx frikartii‘Monch’ (see above) becomes such satisfying food for the eyes at this time. It likes a sunny spot and needs little fussing over apart from making sure that it is supported. There…next year you can have a summer holiday and return to a garden in bloom.

Lavender lowdown: when and how to chop your lavender

There’s nothing like lavender in full bloom to encapsulate the summer. The combination of soft colours, and the blurring that occurs when a plant is buzzing with insects is supremely happy-making – like the fuzzy skin of a perfect peach.

The flowers are now on the wane, and the bees have had their fill, so it’s time to get the snips out and chop them off, just at the point where the stems push proud of the main bush. You want the plant to divert its energy back into the roots, rather than making seed.

This is the first of a two-part lavender regime, and it’s definitely the easier bit. After this pruning I water and forget about the whole thing until the end of September (or October if I’m busy), at which point I go in and chop it back really hard. This always makes me gulp, but it really is essential if I want a cloud-like mound of lavender next year.

As to how far it’s safe to go, the rule is never to chop below where you can see new growth. This means that I’m usually reducing my plant by about half (and I am a cautious type). Side stems should be chopped a little lower than the central ones if you’re after billowing mounds, and then you can leave well alone until next spring, at which point your hideous brutality will be rewarded with new growth, the bees will return, and all will be forgiven and forgotten.

At some point in the game your lavender is going to get gnarly, and that’s natural; if left alone this plant loses its bushiness and becomes a grey trunk topped with flowers…a strong look, but not for everyone. I visited Le Manoir recently where they maintain a lovely lavender walkway leading up to the entrance. The gardener told me that they replace it every three to four years in order to keep it at an optimum height. They are bound by strict health and safety rules, and have to think about accessibility, and I’m guessing that you are not. Even so, replacing your lavender at least every five years is inevitable if you want that fuzzy show I spoke of at the top of this piece.

There are of course other ways of maintaining lavender, but if you are new to all this, I do hope it helps remove some of the guesswork!

x Laetitia

Home-made cleaning product recipes

Home-made cleaning products

I've been using home-made cleaning products for a year now, trying to cut down on the amount of plastic that enters (and leaves) this house, and to keep things toxin-free.
These three recipes clean all of the yuck up in our house. Full disclosure, I have a cleaning lady who does the lion's share of this work and (also full disclosure) she LOVES these sprays! They clean really well and smell great.
I got these recipes from a blog called An Organised Life. This is one of those websites I go down a rabbit-hole with, wishing I had been born with the budgeting, organising, tidying gene (I wasn't). Anyway, these recipes are really good, and they work for us.

NOTE: The oils used in these recipes are the ones I like. You should use the ones YOU like! 💋
Also: The castile soap is a great all-over body wash...kids included.
ALSO! The glass bottles I use are re-purposed Sarson's vinegar bottles which I buy from the supermarket. The squirter tops are from old 'Method' cleaning product bottles and they are a perfect fit - you may have to snip the plastic tube slightly as it's a little long).

General all-purpose cleaner

This can be used everywhere - no vinegar in it so you can use it to clean your marble if you have any (I have a lot).
It's cloudy and the oils tend to rise to the top, so you need toshake it gently before use.
In a bottle put:
6 drops Dr Bronner's Castile soap
30 drops tea tree oil
20 drops orange oil
Fill to top with water

Simple all-purpose cleaner (not pictured)
This is a cleaning spray without any oils in it, that I let my children use to wipe down the table after we have eaten etc. It smells truly lovely, because of the rose scented castile soap. Shake gently before use.
Small squirt of Dr Bronners Castille Soap (see above)
Fill up with water

Loo and bathroom spray

We use this to clean the loo and all other parts of the bathroom.
Spray and allow to sit for a few minutes to remove dried on toothpaste or OTHER unmentionables.
1 cup Dr Bronner's Sal Suds
1 cup white vinegar
80 drops tea tree oil (see above)
NOTE: this is strong-smelling. I like it but it is pretty vinegary! If you can't bear the vinegar smell then infuse your vinegar with lemon rinds for a week or so. This reduces the smell.

Glass and mirror spray

This is an excellent window and glass cleaner. Obviously elbow-grease is needed too.
1/2 cup alcohol
1/2 cup white vinegar
fill to top with water
Again, this is pretty punchy in the scent department but hey, unlike some other cleaning products, it won't make you ill.

I do hope that was useful. It seems like everyone is doing this at the moment which is absolutely brilliant, so if you don't like the look of these, then do find something else and try it out...Cleaning products never need to be toxic or dangerous - I've been reading really awful things recently about people getting very unwell through unwittingly chucking a certain cleaning product (which I won't even name) into the loo having previously cleaned said loo with bleach. Impaired lung function. Eye injuries...just AWFUL. Take care out there. I haven't even mentioned baking soda! Another time.

x Laetitia

Summer feeds - my favourites

Anyone even remotely interested in gardening will know that it is feeding the soil rather than feeding the plants in it, that will result in a gorgeous garden. If you stimulate lots of soft growth you’ll just create imbalance by attracting a surfeit of pests, not to mention plants that the soil cannot ultimately sustain.

There is though, a place for a nutrient-rich dousing for some plants. Anything living in a container relies completely on you for nutrients and therefore needs help. Fruit and vegetable crops obviously benefit from being extra big and juicy, and established shrubs which look in any way worse for wear are often lacking in essential nutrients.

For pots and crops, feed weekly. Seaweed extract in liquid form is my go-to product. Maxicrop is an organic brand, and has a general ‘Plant growth stimulant’ and a ‘Flower fertiliser’ for when flowers appear. For shrubs, seaweed can be used from above as a foliar feed, and really seems to make a difference, particularly to evergreens.

Comfrey is the bomb when it comes to fertilisers, but if your garden is small and you don’t fancy the pong, then you can get it in pellet form to make a liquid feed. Of course there are also perfectly good synthetic feeds on the market too. The choice is wide, but the rule of regular feeds, (weekly or fortnightly) still applies, as does switching from general fertilisers to something with more potassium (i.e. tomato food) when the flowers appear.

Seaweed and tomato fertiliser (there are other brands from those pictured above; I’ve used most of them and they are all much of a muchness…Maxicrop are soil-association approved though, which usually makes them my choice) are my stalwarts for the container garden and shrub drenching. I’ve also been using Topbuxus’s health mix for box. I have no idea whether it works better than other feeds as I’ve not been using it long enough, but my thinking is that the makers, being box experts, should know their subject. Lastly, the Natural Grower fertiliser - a vegan feed using a byproduct from maize crops that then goes back into the soil to fertilise it. This bottle was was kindly sent to me and it seems to be doing wonders for my squashes, although be warned, it is VERY smelly…clothes-pegs at the ready!

x Laetitia

Eruption value: hanging basket recommendations

I originally wanted to title this with the words ‘Vesuvian value’ but then found I had wrongly assumed its meaning…apparently ‘vesuvian’ actually means ‘marked by violent outbursts’ or, (n) ‘a slow-burning match, often used to light cigars’, neither of which mean what I WANT it to mean. Oh well… on with the thing!

Hanging baskets can be a bit marmite I know, and nobody wants to alienate marmite haters do they (even though there is clearly something very wrong with them), so this is an ode to all the delicious over-flowing plants; the tumblers; the avalanche wannabes; the best plants, in short, for perfect pots and outdoor chandeliers.

This year I am growing tumbling tomatoes in my one hanging basket, and very lovely they are too. Here though, are some non-edible ideas:

First and foremost will always be Calibrachoa. The Million Bells series is my absolute favourite, with smallish flowers in plenty of retina-burning shades that tumble gorgeously without being garish.

Remember to put your indulgent hat on with these plants. They have soft, sappy growth which isn’t supposed to last forever and should be treated accordingly. Lots of water, lots of fertiliser (I use liquid tomato food), along with water-retaining granules to keep the compost from drying out. In short, they should want for nothing.

Regal pelargoniums are another absolute delight, not only to you but also the bees if you stick to single ones. They’re hugely forgiving on the watering stakes too, making them the perfect choice for the ever-so-slightly-forgetful.

For dainty clouds look no further than lobelia or bacopa. Again, treat them well and you’ll get the poufy mound vibe with good trailing too.

Lastly for something rather less sudden, order some Glechoma hederacea variagata (commonly known as trailing nepeta) – It’s a stunning, low maintenance trailing beauty and unlike its floral counterparts above, doesn’t need profusion to look good.

Squashing summer boredom: How to sow and grow squash

Summer projects, though of course not strictly necessary, are nonetheless a welcome diversion, particularly if you have children to entertain, and sowing squash is a failsafe exercise that will yield fantastical results fast.

First: some word-play for anyone who is confused.
All pumpkins are squash, but not all squash are pumpkins.
Squashes are all species of the genus Cucurbita, and are generally divided into two groups:
Summer squash (courgettes and marrows are summer squash) are harvested in summer
Winter squash (butternut squash and pumpkins) are harvested at the end of summer, hence the harder skin and the flesh that needs cooking.
Gourds are very decorative squash, generally deemed inedible but definitely worth growing for their ornamental value.
All pumpkins and squash are also very useful for suppressing weeds if you have a bare space to fill.

First, find some seeds; This year I am growing Tromboncino and Uchiki Kuri - tromboncino is a climbing variety with weird and wonderful long fruits that you can eat raw, at courgette stage, or allow to harden, and Uchiki Kuri is a lovely orange-skinned squash with delicious flavour.

If you are reading this in April or May:

Sow seeds singly into small pots 7-10cm diameter (or make your own from newspaper) full of damp, peat-free multi purpose compost. Poke the seed in on its side, using a lolly stick to make a hole in the compost first.

Put the pots in a lidded tray somewhere warm, like your kitchen, until you see them start to sprout, at which time you need to remove the lid and grow them on, ready to plant out at the end of May/beginning of June. You can raise seeds indoors like this until mid-June if you like, but it would be optimal it get them going as early as possible in order to have full, gorgeous plants.

If you are reading this in June, July, August:
You can sow them direct, outside.
If you're sowing (or planting out) in the ground, prepare about a square metre of it per plant (refer to individual seed packets for spacing) by removing weeds and digging in some well rotted manure. Poke two seeds into the centre of the patch, pushing them in a couple of inches deep, and protect with a make-shift, open-top cloche cut out from an old plastic bottle. Water well every day and as soon as you see action, cull the weaker seedling and watch the lucky one go.

You can also grow them in large containers like I do, using exactly the same method as above, but I'm a bit meaner with space in a pot, as I'll be paying close attention to feeding regularly and I'm not in it for prize fruit. I'll be putting two, perhaps three tromboncino into a 70cm diameter pot.
If using a container, make it as large as possible, and fill with multi-purpose compost, mixed with some well-rotted manure. Watering is crucial, and start feeding once a fortnight as soon as fruits appear. You can either let your vine gallop along the ground, or up a tipi or over an arch.

x Laetitia

Tomato Tips

Summer is a duplicitous beast; pushing you into the garden to tend to all the plants, whilst at the same time tugging your bottom towards the nearest deckchair for a snooze. It makes sense then to stick to jobs that can be done in a half-awake state, so that you can feel accomplished, even in a soporific doze.

Tomato care is one such job, as these plants require gentleness above all else. Keeping up with the watering is the most important factor here, whether your tomatoes are in the ground, or in a container or grow-bag (and watering is vastly easier here if you keep them inside a pot within the grow-bag). This year I’m growing a hanging basket full of tumbling cherry tomatoes.

All tomatoes need regular and copious amounts of water, so make a point of filling watering cans again immediately after watering, and leave these cans out in the sun to warm (an un-proven tip, but if I were a tomato, I’d prefer it).

Feeding is simple - just add a cap-full of liquid from a bottle of tomato fertiliser every week once your plants have started flowering. If you’re growing cordons, a pocketful of ready-cut lengths of string will help you when you need to tie the growing stems gently to their cane. And lastly, carefully rub or snap off the side-shoots that appear in the axils (that intersection between the main stem and the leaves), so that the plant can concentrate all its energy into producing fruit.

x Laetitia

More time having fun, less time watering: Waterwise with Gardena {Sponsored}

There’s a point that comes in the year, usually towards the beginning of September, when I stop watering my containers. It’s not a conscious decision, just a slow, metaphorical and physical drying up of my motivation for hauling watering cans around and faffing with hoses. 

Here is a closeup of the Gardena drip irrigation system at the base of my baby yew hedge.

Ultimately I justify this behaviour with the imminent changing of the seasons, in which I remove the gone-over, summer bounty from my containers and let them lie fallow for a while before planting them up with bulbs. Oh, and then there’s the holidays, when on top of packing and organising three small people, there is the spectre of having to educate some poor, unsuspecting neighbour in the watering of my containers; having to make sure all of them are grouped together for ease and hoping against hope that said neighbour will care enough to do the job properly.

So when Gardena approached me to try out their automatic watering systems, I jumped at the opportunity to avoid the sadness of dried out, gone over containers, and the worry of neighbourly negligence (however benign!)

Gardena sent me two kits:

1.   A micro drip system for a hedge (or shrub border, with 25 metres of irrigation)

2.   A micro drip system kit for several separate containers (7 pots and 3 troughs)

I have never been good with unboxing, sorting, reading instruction manuals and getting things working…the very thought of it makes me glaze over a bit, but the product boxes have incredibly clear pictorial diagrams which are perfect for someone like me who loathes instruction booklets in eighty seven languages 

(although if you love instruction booklets in eighty seven languages, then you’ll also be fine, because there are plenty of those inside the box).

Friends, it took me a total of FIFTEEN minutes to set up the drip feed irrigation system! Yes, it was that easy. The system is a simple one – a sturdy plastic hose with little holes in it that you attach to the hose coming from your nearest tap, which you then peg down at the base of your plants. 

Here is the connecting mechanism thingy which you use to attach whatever hose you have coming from your tap, to the irrigation hose.

It’s controlled by a very simple battery operated computer, which you can set to come on whenever you want, for as long as you want.

I set mine to water for an hour, every day, AT FOUR AM! (you have no idea how happy this makes me. The fact that my hedge and containers will be watered before sunrise, so that not a drop has a chance to evaporate, and then again in the evening, once the world has cooled down, makes me feel ridiculously smug and yes, I DO hate myself just a bit). My yew hedge was planted last autumn as a set of three year old whips, so this will be its first summer in my front garden, and it’s really great to know that I won’t have to think about watering it at all.

The second kit took slightly longer to set up, because it involves a bit more planning. 

Three containers set up with the Gardena drip irrigation system. You can just about see the thin black tubing going from one pot to the next.

I have six or seven containers on my terrace – four of them full of this beautiful argyranthemum, and the other two containing my lilac lollipop trees, and I put them into two separate groups either side of my steps. This kit uses exactly the same technology as the hedge kit; a battery powered computer that you attach to your tap, and then a sturdy hose to which you attach smaller flexible tubes which you peg down at the base of your plants. 

You simply decide the way you want it to work , and then you snip the narrow tubing, and attach little drip-feed attachment things to it (they go in easily)…it’s really not a chore, SWEAR. Again, the idea is to use as little water as possible by using dripping water rather than a flood – the water comes out in a tiny trickle directly into the compost in each pot. Because you’re not dousing each pot with water there is no run-off and therefore less waste. And because you can set the timer to water at 4am (or whenever you want) there is none of the evaporation that happens when you reactively water with a hose, from above, in the middle of a boiling hot day.

The pegs keep the tubing nice and close to the base of the plants.

This was SUCH a simple system to set up and get going. I love the fact that I can change the programming according to the weather (it’s tipping down with rain right now!) This is a really simple, easy way to conserve water and cut down on time spent on watering, and, more importantly, WORRYING! Highly recommended. You can see the kits in action on my Instagram stories, saved in the highlight called ‘Waterwise’.

x Laetitia

My tiny front garden: Update!

It’s been six months since I put the finishing touches (a crabapple tree) to my tiny front garden and I thought I’d post a little update and some pictures to illustrate how it’s all been growing.

Fattening up

I’ve been so excited and thrilled by how all the planting has filled out over the past few months. The edging, which comprises a mixture of harts tongue fern, alchemical mollis and xxx fern, is giving me goosebumps it is so sumptuous.

This is most definitely a combination I’ll be repeating (whenever I get the chance). I love the mixture and greens and the textures, and now that the alchemilla is flowering, and that gorgeous acid green inflorescence is doing its thing, well, all the good feelings!

The tulips were a joy when they appeared. I filled the space with one called ‘Pretty Princess’ and it stole my heart.

The crabapple was a vision in spring when it flowered (no pics, I’m so sorry)…you’ll jut have to believe me, and now it has these delightful fruit fattening up.

And I planted some salvia to fill the gaps while the sarcococca fills out (it’s a slow burn with sarcococca when it’s small, but worth it.

But the most joyful thing is the yew hedge, which I planted last autumn, and has put on loads of fresh pale green new growth. One of the plants has died and that’s fine…I was expecting more of them to fail - I am a less than attentive mother to new things and you have to be tough to survive around here. I’m hoping this hedge will grow well beyond the top of the wall and give me the privacy I’m after.

x Laetitia

Book review: In Bloom by Clare Nolan

In Bloom, by Clare Nolan

I first met Clare Nolan when she came to style my flat for a piece she was writing, and saw first hand how she worked her magic in my space. Back then, I had no idea what a stylist actually did and I watched in awe as Clare picked her selection of things and created exquisite little vignettes in my space. The skill, I realised, was exactly the same as an artist’s, except through the eye of a camera. It’s all about creating a picture and it requires in-depth knowledge of how a camera ‘sees’ as well as an instinct for colour, form and space (especially negative space). She somehow managed to make everything sing for the camera in a way that I have never mastered, and it’s this talent, along with her experience in growing flowers simply for the joy of cutting them, that makes this book so special. Since then Clare has moved to the countryside where she grows bucketfuls of glorious blooms in her cutting patch and posts swoon-worthy pictures of them, along with her gorgeous work-space on Instagram.

In Bloom is like a marvellous, juicy scrapbook of Clare’s wisdom and experience…its cover and photography might have you thinking that this is pure coffee-table stuff, but no… it’s packed with properly useful, practical advice and tips, laid out simply in a way that everyone can understand, even if you are a total novice. Her growing instructions are detailed enough to give you a thorough insight into the task at hand, but sparse enough so as not to put anyone off having a go. She sets out an exhaustive core list of plants and how to grow them, (including her favourite cultivars).

Clare is quick to point out that growing plants to harvest is not about creating a garden in the traditional sense. I think it’s easy to get confused about motive when sowing seeds, so this very simple admonition is basically a huge get-out-of-jail-free card to those A-type personalities who want both a cutting garden AND a ‘perfect’ outdoor space. It’s not that the two are necessarily mutually exclusive…just that you’re going to have to be okay with a flower-filled jumble to mooch about in. Being the sort of person who adores a plan, I love her suggestions and plans for a simple cutting patch. The simple diagrams are a great springboard, and something that anyone could achieve over time.

There is a very helpful chapter on thinking about the ingredients of any flower displays in terms of SHAPE rather than being obsessed with particular plants. Clare divides the elements of her displays into five distinct sections…again, as a person who generally smooshes flowers together and hopes for the best, this is a revelation to me and I can’t wait to start including all these elements into bunches of flowers in the future. Here they are:

Heroes - the showstopping blooms like roses

Supporting Acts - beautiful flowers to compliment the heroes and provide a foil to them - so spikes like larkspur or snapdragon if you are using peonies, or something rounder, like cosmos or zinnia if your main event is spiky.

Fillers - These give bulk to the arrangement, adding texture and airiness, like alchemilla or ammi.

Foliage - All the leafy stuff (not necessarily green)

Sidekicks - to add ‘quirk’, or even a signature look, unique to you.

This book is one of those rare ones that straddles the two territories of ‘beautiful book’ and ‘practical guide’. The pages are going to end up muddy and crinkled AND you’ll want it centre stage on your bookshelf. My suggestion is to place it directly beneath an enormous vase of flowers. Happy reading!

Photo by Clare Nolan from her book In Bloom

x Laetitia

Stihl cordless mower review RMA 339 C

Note: This lawnmower was kindly gifted to me by Stihl without the expectation of a review. I am reviewing it in response to many many questions about whether I’d recommend it.

A history of my mowing

I’m going to say it straight off….

Mowing without dealing with an electrical cable is a truly excellent feeling.

Stihl Cordless Lawnmower RMA339 C

I used to mow with the cable draped over my shoulder (see above). I used to have to stop and unplug the cable in order to get to certain places, and I was forever stopping to move the cable which invariably gets in the way. ONE particular person (NOT ME!) actually mowed over the cable whilst on the job. This happened a couple of times and, as you can imagine, it was NOT a popular move. The person in question then ‘fixed’ the cable by attaching it with a contraption I don’t know the name of. After that, whenever I wanted to mow, the wires within this ‘fixing’ contraption would come apart (because, when you mow, you move the cable about quite a bit) and I’d have to ‘fix’ it again, numerous times. A PESTILENCE on my husband! (oh dear, did I drop the offender’s identity?) Sorry.

Unpacking and battery

So as you can imagine, I was very ready for another solution when Stihl contacted me to ask whether I wanted to try their cordless model and I jumped at the chance. It arrived in a gigantic box and, delightfully, it was ready to use as soon as it was unpacked. This was because this mower shares a battery with various other tools in Stihl’s range, and I had one, fully charged and ready to go.

It folds!

One of the lovely things about this mower is that it FOLDS. Now I’m not usually a folder of things. Like, if I had one of those pull-out beds it’s a safe bet that it would remain forever down, off the wall, ready to receive me in all my exhaustion. But a mower is a different thing altogether…you really REALLY don’t want it taking up too much space when you’re not actually using it. All you have to do with this one is remove the clippings bucket thing, press a button on the handle and fold it down over the machine. This means you can store it in a really tight space, which I love.

Using the mower

You have to charge the battery first, which takes an hour or so. The battery clicks reassuringly into its special dock and all you have to do is set the height for cutting. You do this manually by moving the lever on the left hand side. Then you do that thing of pushing the button and squishing the hand lever at the same time and you’re off. This mower is really light and, crucially, relatively quiet. But the obvious plus is that you don’t have to bother with avoiding and moving awkward cables. If you mow regularly then you don’t need the collecting bucket thing - just let the clippings fall on the lawn and fertilise it. But if you don’t get around to mowing a lot and have too many clippings, then the bucket is easily attached, removed and emptied. Mowing my entire lawn, which is full of twists and turns and a very irregular shape, takes around 15 minutes (if I’m being anal about getting every blade of grass). I don’t like stripy lawns or bowling green perfection, so I’m not the person to ask about how good it is at producing either of those things, but if you want to mow the lawn quickly, quietly and easily, then this machine is a great option.

I got this machine late last year, just after I cut down my ‘mini meadow’. It made light work of dealing with the uneven surface and long growth from that meadow, once I’d given it all a rough chop with a scythe. So I’ve been using it since November and it’s behaving itself very nicely thank you. I love it and would go as far as saying that it has changed my experience of mowing, which once was a total chore and now is something I look forward to.

x Laetitia

Water Garden 101 for small spaces

Once you’ve added water to a garden, it’s impossible to imagine having an outside space without it. I resisted for a while, when I gardened on a balcony, thinking I’d have to get involved with pumps and the like, but this couldn’t have been further from the truth.

In the end I just filled an old tin bath with water, added bricks to make it the right depth, and plonked some water plants in it. The result was transformational, and not just because I actually had dragon-flies visiting my first-floor urban balcony, but mostly due to the sense of calm that having a body of water (however small) seemed to impart.

Here’s how to do it:

Find your receptacle first. A large bowl is a fine place to start, or an old favourite glazed plant pot (lined of course). The only requirement is that it should be water-tight, and deep enough so that your pots can be submerged. In terms of plants, you can go for anything sold as a ‘marginal’ plant. This is not the time to get distracted by terms such as ‘oxygenator’ or worry about the balance of plants. Just find one, three or five plants that you love, get hold of small ones and try them out.

Three suggestions

I love Iris pseudacorus - a lovely, late-summer flowering yellow. Hydrocotyle sibthorpiodes‘Crystal confetti’ (variegated pennywort) is another favourite; it will spill over your container beautifully. Papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) is an absolute must for those needing something bold and architectural whilst being delicate at the same time. This one is a dwarf variety, and would work in a less-than-pond-sized container, but if it likes you, be warned that your water garden may just become a bog…and that’s okay!

Sink the pots in your container, paying attention to their preferred planting depth, and weighting the pots down with stones if necessary. 

If your container is large enough, be sure to submerge some stones or bricks in it so that frogs can get in or out. Having frogs in your garden, and hearing them sing their evening song is one of the more blissful experiences you can have.

Be aware that, as with any border, some plants will really enjoy their life with you, and some won’t, so be open to your particular water garden becoming a monoculture…I mean, why fight nature? Seriously. It’s important to realise that it’s the WATER, rather than anything else, that’s important here. By bringing water into your space you’ll be supporting SO much more wildlife than you thought possible. Even a small bucket of water, left alone, in a garden becomes a magnet for insects, birds and the rest, especially during the summer.

x Laetitia

Rainbow chard

Rainbow Chard

Of all the plants that are both delicious and beautiful, rainbow chard is one of the few which fall into the all-important third category of being ridiculously easy to grow as well. This is an absolute winner to fill gaps in borders as well as in the veg plot, with beautiful, jewel-like stems when the sun hits them.

The leaves can be blanched, chopped roughly and added to pretty much anything, from risottos to omelettes. 

You can sow them direct into well prepared, well watered ground right now, giving them a good 30cm in which to grow. This is a great way of beefing up your borders with edible, beautiful bounty. Sow an inch deep, cover over and then watch carefully to keep them safe from munchers.

This is a cool season crop so if you can mulch your damp soil with something (grass clippings are fine) then your plants will thank you for it.

You can also sow them in small pots to keep them away from marauding slugs and snails when they are tiny babies. Grow them on until they have a good root system (one that holds the soil within a 3 inch pot together). Plant them out into the garden, water in well and enjoy until it’s time to chop. You can of course cut off leaves singly, as and when you need them, but if you chop the entire plant close to the ground it will eventually spring up again with new leaves. If you can’t face that all that chard in one go, simply chop it up and freeze in small portions which you can then add directly into your bolognese sauce, or breakfast smoothie.

x Laetitia

How to make a mini meadow

How glorious it is to anticipate basking time. Our lawns hold so much value in terms of simple, unadulterated, good old fashioned joy, that it is worth thinking about how to get the most out of them, rather than just putting them in the “Oooh I MUST MOW” box. Of course there’s much more to it than that. If you want a perfect, bowling green-type sward, then you will have to spend time, money and much effort creating a monoculture. You will have to aerate, scarify, remove weeds and moss, re-seed, fertilise, correct imperfections and mow, mow, mow, and you will also have to be mindful that all this work leaves you enough time to sit on your lawn (if you can bear to let yourself). 

 Nobody can deny that the aesthetic benefits of a neat lawn are huge. There is no other single job that will lift a garden out of messy and into neat as easily and quickly as mowing your lawn and creating a few crisp edges. It allows you to be almost entirely slatternly in the borders and it gives you that happy feeling of being in control. But don’t go thinking that the alternative is to let it all go to rack and ruin. There is a space we can all happily inhabit in between, and by ‘all’ I’m thinking about wildlife, as well as you, and your children and your picnics and ball games. If your lawn is a good size, consider creating different areas, keeping some parts nice and short (good for rolling around, and kicking balls, and ground-nesting bees, and hedgehogs) and letting the grass grow long in other places (good for insects and birds that feed on them, and pretty Instagram photos). This is what I call a zero-fuss, totally free ‘meadow’.

Mini-meadow how-to

 When you start cutting the lawn, begin with the highest setting possible, and move down incrementally from there. Get to a stage where the grass to two or three inches in height, removing and composting any mowings, and then leave it alone from late May or early June onwards, for the whole summer. It’s not a wildflower meadow by any stretch, but it will provide a mini-jungle for all sorts of wildlife and add interest to your lawn. As long as you cut the short bits with panache, creating clean lines and a stark contrast between long and short, then it will look intentional, and therefore a feast for the eyes. Mowing around the edge of a lawn and leaving the centre long is a great first step, but sweeping paths, mazes or geometric designs are all possible with a little forethought.

If you love the whole meadow vibe, and decide that it’s definitely for you in the future, then consider replacing your long grass with a soil-appropriate wildflower turf from wildflowerturf.co.uk. in the future.

x Laetitia

How to talk about Climate Change with Children

I’ve held off writing this post for so long, mostly because I feel unqualified - like I ought to read every single study and article on this subject before I add my two cents worth. But then it struck me that as a parent, and a lover of planet earth, I am just as qualified to write about this as anyone else, using my human brain and my gut instinct (which I am learning to listen to rather more closely as I get older). The other day, after an emotional chat with my ten year old, I put out a plea on Twitter for advice on how to comfort my girl in the face of her fears for planet earth and its future (and consequently her generation’s). I got so many great ideas and responses that I promised to put them all in a post, for those facing similar fears. All of the suggestions fell roughly into three areas, and for what it’s worth, here they are.

Note: If you don’t want to read this, then please DO click on the links at the bottom of this post - there is some really good stuff down there!

1. Shield them from the doom

There is very little wisdom in burdening children, (particularly small ones) with the enormity of this devastating information unless a real effort is made and steps taken to provide them with some hope and solutions. This means that schools and parents wishing to inform their charges about the state we’re in really need to think hard about the way in which they present the information. Small children’s brains are not developed sufficiently to put them in a position to absorb this information and not become traumatised by it and consequently shut down from it. There is evidence that the younger we are taught about climate change, the less likely we are to do anything about it. It’s as if there ‘s a self-preservation switch in those little brains which turns off, to protect them from the devastating truth. Having read all of the links that were sent to me (I’ll link them all below) it seems fairly obvious that if we want to raise a generation of eco-warriors (rather than eco-worriers) we need delay exposing them to these messages until they are at least 11 or 12, and even then, present them alongside real and action-based solutions. Access to, and knowledge of local and international organisations who are making a real difference (and they are) is essential, as is access to, and knowledge of ADULTS in positions of power and authority, who are affecting change. I cannot stress enough, that although children may act and look beyond their years in their tweens and teens, they are STILL CHILDREN, children who need to know that there are at least SOME adults who are listening to them and who care about planet earth, rather than just money, and who have their backs. Knowing that they are not alone, but part of a massive movement is essential in preventing depression and/or apocalyptic behaviour.

2. Get active

So many people suggested practical steps we could take in order to give young people a sense of power over the situation. Greta Thunberg’s Fridays For Future are a great example of this, (you don’t have to go to big demonstrations…just turn up at your local town hall). But of course, actions can be as simple as the things we are ALL doing in order to be a part of the solution for climate change; reducing waste, reducing our meat and dairy consumption, being mindful about what we buy and where it’s come from, taking part in a sharing economy, using what we have…all of these things, practiced imperfectly by many millions of us, will help. A child can be made aware of the need for this type of action WITHOUT laying it on thick about climate change. For example, we want to reduce our waste because then there won’t be so much rubbish; we want to eat less meat because the meat that is good for us comes from livestock that’s had a good life, and that meat is more expensive, so we eat less of it, and value it more…etc, etc. One person said that her 12 year old child habitually asks shop-keepers where their produce is from, and whether they could guarantee it was ethically produced. This is an immensely powerful action, really calling others to account, standing up and demanding that we all think hard about the products we consume or sell. This type of stuff needs to be built on a solid foundation of knowledge that every action, EVERY action matters, and that together, we will find a way out of this.

3. Take a BALANCED view

You know what? People are out there doing BIG things and causing BIG change! I’m going to say something really unpopular here, but opinions are simply opinions. We need to be teaching our children to understand the news with that knowledge, and the sure conviction that headlines are THERE to grab our attention. Of COURSE they’re going to splash the most dramatic stuff at the top but we need to read ON (if it’s good journalism) and find out the facts behind the headlines, because they are always nuanced. If it’s bad jounalism then children need to understand the concept of writing stuff SIMPLY TO SELL MORE NEWSPAPERS, (or advertising space, or whatever). Nobody sane is denying climate change, but there is an awful lot of sloppy stuff going on when it comes to reporting the facts. When a child is bombarded with messages of doom, let’s teach them to scour that message for FACTS, for what we KNOW to be TRUE. And let’s also teach them to sleuth around for the other, less attention-grabbing stuff that’s going on… the slow, steady march of an army of millions of people doing what they can, imperfectly, every day. Yes, I agree with Greta when she says she WANTS us to panic, to act as though our house were on fire. She was directing those remarks to ADULTS, and powerful adults at that. It’s my view that if we’re not very careful with how we approach this subject around our children, we will end up with a generation of terrified, traumatised humans who will be a far cry from the resilient, resourceful ones we need them to become in order to continue the work we’re doing.

4. Get outdoors with your children!

It’s a no-brainer. Children who are brought up from an early age with a love for nature are OBVIOUSLY going to be in a better position to help preserve it. This is a really wide idea…it could be gardening with your child (euch!) or letting them play in the dirt, or walking in nature regularly, or growing your own pea shoots, or just SHUTTING UP for a bit and going outside and listening to the birds. It doesn’t matter what it is, because children are naturally drawn to the outdoors - all it needs is for US to let them outside.

Some links

An article about the amazing Joanna Macy, whose book Active Hope lays out simple steps we can take to help, AND stay positive and sane. Here is a breakdown of the contents.

This blogpost from @wildwoodchildhood which I happened upon, via instagram the very day my daughter came to me with what was troubling her.

This brilliant and well-researched article by Maria Ojala, a specialist in how young people and climate change, brought to my attention by a Twitter friend,

My favourite scented standard shrubs for containers

I love a standard shrub - stop reading now if you don’t!

The lilacs I love and adore

I love the slightly cutesy, Alice in Wonderland air they give off, the lovely cloud-on-a-stick thing they do, and the fact that they resemble lollypops. A standard ‘tree’, depending on what it is, can give your garden, or entranceway instant gravitas or glamour, or silliness. They provide a second storey in a layered planting scheme - something to fill the space between flower-bed fodder and trees…but most of all, I like to use them in pairs, to flank a walkway, or entranceway where they give me a Beyonce feeling, as if there were two gorgeous extra people in my wake…as if I HAD a wake!

Lilac (Syringa meyeri ‘Palibin’)

I’m writing this as my lilac standards are in full bloom (and yes, they were the catalyst for this post). Every year I get loads of questions about these two lilac standards. I bought them many years ago, from an advert in the back of a sunday supplement (you know the kind, where you can also order pale grey shoes and permanently pressed trousers if such things appeal). Anyway, They arrived as nothing more than a few leaves atop a stalk and I planted them without much hope for glory. But glory came, and continues to come, in abundance. The variety is Syringa meyeri ‘Palibin’, which blooms each May with tiny, pale lilac flowers which pump out the most delectable scent. I have mine planted in two large barrel pots, but for the first few years of their life they lived in such smaller ones and were shamefully neglected (I mean I let them dry out a LOT when I was new to motherhood etc). They have forgiven me though. These would look totally awesome repeated ad infinitum in a courtyard garden, or indeed in groups of two flanking a pathway. Oh the joy.

Buddleia

I do love a buddleia…and so do the butterflies, but goodness they can put on some serious weight if they decide they like you, and obliterate everything else in sight. This makes them an ideal candidate for standard life, preferably in a container, where they can be, well, CONTAINED…(although of course, there’s no accounting for seedlings!). Again, we’re talking about something that will be bare over the winter and again, that’s fine, because a standard, even when bare, has structure, and can always be covered by a net of fairy lights over the winter. This is the ultimate wildlife friendly plant, pretty much indestructible and DEEPLY beautiful to boot. If I didn’t have so many populated pots I’d be plumping for one of these pronto. Oh and then there’s the scent - like a pot of honey on a warm afternoon. Mmmmmm.

Forsythia

I’m going to be quite honest here and say that this plant probably wouldn’t get a look in in its unfettered, unclipped form; it will grow to extremely unruly proportions unless you keep well on top of it and, because it only has a moment of glory, and because that moment is a YELLOW one, having it as a standard is really the only way a forsythia and I could ever be friends, but WHAT friends! I am totally against a mass of twigs with yellow on top (which is how most of us experience forsythia) but oh boy am I here for a lovely lollypop of twigginess which turns into a sizzling lemony explosion every spring! Imagine twelve of them all the way up your garden path! The utter joy of that almond fragrance, and the zingy colour hit, just as we emerge from a long winter. Again, when I get my gigantic garden in the sky, these will be on my list.

x Laetitia

Three more garden tools I can't do without

This is the second of two blogs on my favourite gardening tools…the ones I pull out every time I rush out for my five minute gardening fling. You can find the first three here.

1. Kneeler

fancy kneeler (un-fancy ones are available, but they’re not so fancy)

A kneeler is completely essential for me. I don’t get specially dressed for gardening, so I use a kneeler to stop my clothes from getting covered with dirt or wet, but it’s also vital for saving my ageing joints too. I also pull it out if it’s wet and I want somewhere to sit without getting a wet bottom. My kneeler is very old, a gift from Joules many years ago, but I found this kneeler, by Burgon and Ball, which is almost identical in size, and, crucially, has a handle for carrying it around, as well as hanging it up. Obviously there is lots of choice here - but I love canvas, and I love a print!

2. Hori hori knife

This is a truly excellent tool. It can be used as a trowel, a weeder, a bulb planter and it also has a serrated edge, which will cut stubborn roots underground and slash dead plant material at the end of the season. It’s a great option if you’re of the minimalist persuasion as it can do a serviceable impression of several different tools, including my beloved widger (see previous blog for a eulogy to this). My Hori hori knife is from Japeto and I can vouch for its brilliance and durability, but of course, there are other models available.

3. Edging shears

Okay. I know this is niche, but in the summer and autumn, these shears are an essential part of my five minute armoury. I love these Fiskars shears because you can swivel them around depending on which way you are cutting. Of course you can totally just use your kitchen scissors, but if you’re edging a lawn once a week over several weeks, it’s worth having a dedicated tool that makes this into a joy rather than a chore. They also have a model with long handles, so if you find crouching or bending difficult, you don’t have to.

x Laetitia

I do a weekly newsletter, full of all the five minute things I do to keep the garden going, along with a bit of personal stuff (mostly how hard I’m trying, and how catastrophically I’m failing, to be a good parent!)

My top three must-have garden tools

I've been thinking a lot about reducing the amount of STUFF that surrounds me, paring things, like clothes and shoes and books and oh, I dunno baking equipment - down to the essential. And it struck me that I don't seem to have the same hoarding problem with garden tools. Over the years I've whittled things down to just what I need, and what serves me. So I thought I would share my essential pieces, so that if any of you were thinking of treating yourselves to something for the garden it might inspire you. Having said that though, it's a very personal thing - lots of gardeners will think I am mad putting a 'widger' at the top of my list, I had a gardener friend once who said she absolutely couldn't garden unless she had a hand fork with her, and couldn't understand anyone who said otherwise. I duly went and got myself a hand fork, which gets used about twice a year (if that). Anyway, for what it's worth, here are the first three of my top six.

1. My Widger

My excellent widger tool

I've had this trowel thing for years. I own other trowels but I hardly ever use them. This one is not for digging holes per say, it is best for weeding out perennials like bindweed...chasing those brittle roots to their core and removing them complete (can you tell I'm getting a bit excited about the thought of that?) It's the only thing I use, other than a hoe, when I'm weeding. My widger is from Burgon and Ball but there are others available (this one from Spear and Jackson looks almost identical and is a little cheaper.

2. My secutaurs.

Fabulous secateurs

This is a non-negotiable; you need a pair, whether you're gardening on a windowsill or a massive garden. It doesn't matter what brand they are, as long as they're sharp and they feel good in your hand. Mine are P94 PowerGear Pruners from Fiskars (they’re the guys who make those awesome kitchen scissors, which I heartily recommend) and I love them. Keep them sharp with a stone (basically like an emery board for knives) - you can find all the products I use for tool cleaning and sharpening here.

3. My shears.

Brilliant shears

I use these for clipping topiary and trimming hedges and climbers, and cutting back perennials at the end of the season, and sometimes for dead-heading many-flowered things. I love them. they are called Oskatune shears and they are from Niwaki - expensive but I've had rather too many bad pairs in the past for this to bother me in the slightest. I have other Niwaki things, because a good tool is a pleasure to use, always.

x Laetitia

Ten tips for Virgin Gardeners (part 2)

Following on from the last blog, here is the second half of my ten suggestions for newbie gardeners who just want to to get on and grow something:

6 Plant some bulbs

Bulbs are an absolute gift to the new gardener; easy, virtually failsafe and providing the most marvellous of spring surprises. Start now, though, by getting some late summer flowering bulbs, like Crocosmia, or Gladiolus callianthus and sinking them into pots or a flowerbed for a stunning display when everything else in the garden starts to turn brown. The only rule with bulbs is to plant them at about twice their own depth, and to make sure you plant enough. Abundance, always.

7 Grow something delicious 

Edibles, though rather higher maintenance than ornamental plants (and this is only because you have to prevent wildlife from chomping at them) are doubly rewarding as gardening projects, being both beautiful and tasty. Start with something ready-grown at the garden centre. You can buy all manner of baby fruit and vegetable plants, from courgettes and squash (great fun) to individual carrots (ridiculous, but also fun), grown from seed by experts, which you just plonk into a pot or a bed and water. Again, treat these first forays as experiments, rather than an ambitious stab at self-sufficiency - if you get a delicious cherry tomato, or a strawberry at the end, then go you. Harvest, enjoy and repeat until you’re an expert.

8 Sow some pea shoots

This is a fun, easy project for beginners who want to sow and grow something tasty that isn’t cress. Just fill a wide shallow container with multi-purpose compost, water it, and cover the surface with peas (from a seed packet, not a bag of frozen ones). Cover with a bit more compost and watch them erupt out of the soil and turn into delicious, sweet-tasting pea shoots complete with curly bits. Once you’ve got the hang of these, you can move on to sowing mixed salad leaves and hearted lettuces - you’ll never buy bagged salad again.

9 Plant an essential herb container

For many, keeping a little herb garden alive is the best introduction to gardening, especially if you cook regularly. Buy a selection of soft herbs, like parsley, chives and basil from a garden centre (not a supermarket) and plant them in multi-purpose compost, keeping them watered and harvesting the leaves regularly. Don’t get overwhelmed with differing soil or aspect requirements - just plant them, have them nearby so you can inspect regularly, and get to know each one, like a friend, until the end of the season when it’s time to say goodbye. Evergreen herbs, like bay, rosemary, thyme and sage can be planted in more permanent pots because they’ll stick around all year.

10 Tidy

Most gardening isn’t pruning or digging, or sowing or watering - it’s actually tidying. If that makes you flinch then stay awhile, and consider that this is not tidying as you know or understand it; it’s compulsive, meditative, happy tidying. Still not convinced? Try this: Go out into your garden and pick one square metre, absolutely anywhere (although perhaps not in the middle of a lawn). If necessary, mark off this area with a hula-hoop or some canes and a bit of string, and start tidying it. Use a hand fork to remove anything that looks like it’s a weed, and take out any over-large stones, and use some secateurs or scissors to prune off any bits of plant that look dead, or dying or unwell. Do not look up, or outside your marked area. Do not stop until you’ve completed the job. Also, don’t linger - do it fast and loose, and be slap-dash. Don't agonise over decisions - if you make a mistake, and damage something, then that sucks but it’s not the end of the world. The important thing is to get it done. When you’re finished, if you don’t move on to the next patch, I’ll eat my gardening gloves.

xx Laetitia