In my late teens, a few months after moving to Bristol, I returned to Cornwall for a first visit home. Whilst catching up with friends, someone commented that I was now “pale and interesting”. I interpretted this as he thought I looked ill. He was possibly right. This week’s Six on Saturday are pale and interesting, although none are, as far as I am aware, homesick.
First, we have Linaria ‘Fairy Bouquet’. As I am sure our Worshipful President The Prop, has a spreadsheet listing all entries in microscropic detail, double referenced, I would do well to confess that this little lovely has been featured before quite recently. This is a much paler seedling, and valiantly continuing to bloom, so doesn’t count.
Next we have a bonasi brugmansia. Brugmansia should not be bonsaied, it desperately needs to be repotted but the gardener has been lax. It is rather an embarrassment. The early morning dew captured on its hirsute foliage was an indication of the cold night. No frost yet though.
Now the ever delightful and diddy, Fuchsia microphylla. The common name is the small leaved fuchsia, although it is also small flowered. Pretty as a pixie picture. Try saying that after a pint of rough cider!
Next we have the skeletal remains of flower heads on the deep red hydrangea in the front garden. At the moment this shrub is holding new born, young, middle-aged and elderly flowers at the same time. I liked grandma the best.
Onto a rather tatty Salvia atrocyanea, doing its best in the circumstances. Blue flowers always make me a little giddy.
Lastly a magnificent tibouchina flower, but not the specimen featured last week in bud. I must confess to owning two plants, this one is Tibouchina ‘Groovy Baby’. Although not pale, it is very interesting and of course groovy, baby!
Stay safe and well my friends, I am especially thinking of those of you across the pond. Take care.
With barely a month left to run its course, I have become accustomed to autumn. Two days of sunshine has helped my conversion immensely.
If I could put in a weather order for the next few months, today would be the template. No pinching frosts to nip vulnerable plants and fingers. For moisture I request only a heavy dew. The air must be calm, with perhaps a little laundry-drying breeze from the south. I am willing to negotiate on the details. There is one thing I will not compromise on; I demand the life-enhancing, low light that allows even the most to modest shine. Surely that is not too much to ask?
Does anyone know which department I should write to?
It has been a sad day, and the weather matched it perfectly. I think, in literary circles, this is called pathetic fallacy. I remember the phrase from studying that comedic masterpiece, Tess of the D’urbervilles. Feel free to correct me if I have got the wrong end of the stick, it was a long time ago.
The reason for my gloom, is that Lord and Lady Mantle are moving to mansions new. Today was my last visit to their grand estate. Although I am devasted to see them go, there were several pointers to suggest that my time with them was complete. First of all Her Ladyship used the word “node” and in the correct context, later she suggested that she write a label for a newly potted up specimen (quite unheard of), followed by using my preferred pronunciation of the word “crocosmia” (usually a très posh crow-ko-smia). Lord M. emptied full wheelbarrows with only subtle hinting necessary, he tipped plants out of pots with tender loving care and then fed me quiche with garlic bread and coleslaw for lunch. And all day they only had the teeniest disagreement, over the thorny issue as to the best way to fold a tarp. Between hail, thunder, lightning and torrential rain storms we managed to complete all the jobs on the gardening list. Or we think we did as the list was in Lady M’s head.
I came away with some booty; several plants (yes, I do need them), a Tom Jones LP with the most splendid cover and a couple of lovely prints. And on the way out, for the first time ever, I managed to turn my car and get out of their drive in one go. Unfortunately, nobody was watching.
In attempt at balance, I outline below both the negatives and positives of my time with The Mantles:
Things I won’t miss:
The single-track lane with its inherent threat of agricultural machinery and delivery drivers,
Reversing whilst being marked out of ten by those mentioned in 1. above.
Things I definitely will miss:
Phil and Brohna
Brohna and Phil
Lady Mantle
Lord Mantle
Lord and Lady Mantle
Young Wills (although it is unlikely he will miss me).
On the drive back, I met a delivery driver on the lane. Luckily for me he was one of the very rare subspecies Politeandgenerous who reversed for me. It was a sign.
My time with you is done. Thanks for the good times, my friends, I will miss you very much. Love you both xxxx and a special x for Wills.
After a “will she, won’t she” morning (she didn’t), and a good few hours making life or death decisions about my seed collection, the weather cleared. My mind and body needed some fresh, preferably dry, air so I ‘proofed up and headed out into the fray.
It was busier than I expected, although I suspect this was because my stroll co-incided with Walkies. I felt a bit conspicuous in my dog-less state. Perhaps I should have borrowed one.
In an attempt to avoid the canine tangle, and my obvious short-comings, I took a path that I hadn’t walked for several months, not since the first weeks of lockdown. At that time the trees were yet to leaf, today they were in the process of shedding their garb. A lot has passed since. Somehow it all seemed a lot simpler then.
If the start of your day is anything like mine (wet, windy, miserable) then you will definitely be needing something to lift your spirt. Here are some autumn crocuses (or should that be croci?) to, hopefully, do just that.
Six on Saturday, here we go again. Admittedly it has been a few weeks since I dabbled, but I’m sure I will pick it up again; the subtle nuances, the intricacies. Just like riding a bicycle. Unfortunately, I can only ride a bike in a straight line, as long as there are no cars, or other bikes, or pedestrians to distract me or I will wobble and fall off. Which is not good news for hopping back on the mega-tandem. However, I’ll do my best. I do remember that I have to name-check the illustrious Prop, our mentor with a dubious tulip affliction. Check out his blog and you will be introduced to folk from across the known universe, who have been more loyal to the cause than I have been of late. Shall we proceed?
First, we have a cyclamen which, along with assorted violas and primary coloured primulas, were bought to titivate the planters at the front of the house. I can just imagine them, waiting optimistically in the garden centre, dreaming of who will buy them and where they will make their loving home. Well my dearios, I’m afraid you drew the short straw. You will be living in the teeth of the evil northerly wind, where the sun has retired for the season. I am sure you will do your best.
Next, we have the rough tree fern, Cyathea australis, which has enjoyed the recent damp weather. Since it came to live at Chez Nous earlier in the year, it has outgrown two pots and is still curling out new fronds. Hopefully it will over-winter without too many dramas.
Onto a slack cosmos, both in habit and personality. My favourite annual has not thrived for me this year, with just this one plant flopping about popping out the odd flower as it felt fit. Not that I am complaining. At this time of year, you can forgive most slovenly behaviour.
The teasels have passed through their bee-magnet stage onto the goldfinch-larder stage, and we have already had the joy of watching these beautiful finches feast on the seeds. Again, these are in the front, Frozen North, garden, which wouldn’t seem the ideal place for a snooze. However, it appears that the snails in these parts are well ‘ard, not only cocking a snook at the cold wind but also at the thorny bed it has chosen to rest on.
Now an impatiens. I’m slightly embarrassed to say that until it flowered I wasn’t sure which one. The label just said impatiens, and I can’t blame the label because I wrote the label and I’m pretty certain that it said a lot more than that in the past. Now it is doing its floriferous thing, I am pretty certain that it is Impatiens flanaganae. It is doing very well and is perfectly pretty. I will now complete the label, so we don’t have this uncertainty again. Probably later today, or maybe tomorrow ….
Shall we finish with love? There are just two leaves left on the Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’, and this is one of them. A love heart.
That is your lot. As Woody Guthrie said “take it easy, but take it”. And stay safe and well, my friends.
I have been under-sharing recently. This is not because there has been nothing to report, quite the contrary, a whole fleet of excitement buses have been passing by. The result of this procession has been a lack of both the energy or the wherewithal to fill you in on the sordid details. Actually, there is little, if any, “sordid” at all. I just wanted to keep your attention.
On this rainy day in North Devon, whilst listening out for Grumpy Cat timer to tell me it is time to put the bread in the oven, what better occupation than to recount one of these adventures? If you are sitting comfortably …….
Last Sunday I was on Toby Buckland’s morning show on Radio Devon. Not as someone wondered, possibly one of my loving family, in the Crimewatch section. Yes, little old me, on t’radio! I was flattered to be invited; concerned they had got me mixed up with someone else. After some initial technical shenanigans whilst setting up, and having ascertained that it wasn’t imperative to be wearing clothes as no one would see me, we were all set to go. When Toby announced the upcoming Garden Guru section, I thought, that will be nice to listen to whilst I’m waiting for my turn. Then I realised he was talking about me.
For some reason, perhaps our gas-powered internet wasn’t up to the job, part way through I went a little (and I quote Caroline the Producer) “Dalek”. A quick flip of my chosen disc and a transfer to ye olde telephonium and we were back to humanoid, an interpretation anyway. I blethered on for a while, mostly nonsense, rarely about gardening, before a large hook came and pulled me off centre stage. It was all over in the blink of an eye. Toby was nothing but charming, fun and, to be honest, was just as daft as I am. And I mean that in a very good way.
Perhaps I should have warned you; you could have listened live and felt my pain. But I was worried that I would say “bottom” or burp or become Monosyllabic Mona. As far I remember I didn’t. I may have said bottom. However, if you wish to hear my not so dulcet tones you can, due to the wonders of our modern world, catch up with Toby’s Show. I’m sure you will want to listen to the whole programme, but if you are late for your extreme macrame class, my piece is at approximately 12.25pm. At the very least you should get a good dance out of it.
I am of the opinion that there are some who focus on the flowers and others that can only see the weeds. Can this be cured? I’m not sure. Perhaps it is just the way people are made. Usually I am a flower spotting kind of gal, but not always.
In the picture above, some might see a rusting chiminea, stuffed full of broken-up oddments of wood, standing next to a galvanised bin. Today, I chose to see a happy ginger monster, mouth crammed with giant twiglets, waiting for his friend Oscar the Grouch to come out to play.
It is not always this way. And sometimes it takes a little effort. But at the moment I am determined to see the flowers and not the weeds.
Raining again, so no gardening for me today. I’d put aside a recipe that had caught my eye in the weekend Guardian. Tomato and courgette loaf with tomato chutney, “well that sounds delicious” I thought, perhaps I should give it a go. As luck would have it, I had a couple of manky/well-matured courgettes lurking in the nether regions of the fridge, just waiting for an opportunity to shine. Even better I had a fair few of the other ingredients. I decided not to attempt the chutney this time, considering it best to concentrate on the loaf and hopefully, with a prevailing wind at my stern (no sniggering in the cheap seats Mr K) my creation would be ready by lunchtime. Delayed slightly, but also buoyed-up, by a re-run of Star Trek “The Next Generation”, I boldly went where no cook had gone before. In our kitchen anyway.
As always, the recipe, or approximation of, will appear in normal text, my interpretation is in italics.
Tomato and Courgette Loaf (sans tomato chutney)
First make the chutney…..
Not doing that so blah, blah, blah, skim and skip straight to ……
Heat the oven to gas mark 6, something about preparing your loaf tin.
Turn oven on, as so nicely requested, oil loaf tin.
Put grated courgettes and half a teaspoon of salt in a bowl and steep for 20 minutes.
Grated? Sounds like hard work.I’ll grate them in the food processor and then I can give it a cursory wipe it out and use it for the cheese later. Please note that I was reading ahead, as all good cooks should do when attempting a new recipe. Courgies duly grated (no not corgies, rest assured no royal dogs were harmed making this loaf) and set to steep. Ponder on “steep” for a moment, consider it a rather wonderful word. Say it out loud a few times.
Mix flour, baking powder, bicarb, garam masala, caster sugar and salt in a large bowl.
All easy except for the perennial wrong sugar problem, used demerara which of course wouldn’t go through the sieve so just tipped it in the bowl and stirred it around a bit. Not sure why we need sugar in a savoury recipe, but it seems to happen a lot these days. Of course, I could just leave it out, but I am by nature a follower of rules (again, quiet back there!).
In another bowl, whisk eggs oil and yoghurt, grated cheddar and coriander.
As I didn’t have Greek yoghurt, I used soya yoghurt. To my mind, one word in common is good enough. Although sometimes it is less than one. This often ends messily.Best not dwell that. All whisked to perfection.
Tip steeped courgettes into a clean tea towel and wring out as much liquid as possible.
Tipped steeped courgettes half onto the tea towel (clean) and half onto work surface (cleanish). Scoop wayward gratings to where they belong and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze murky green liquid into the sink.Quite satisfying.
Stir the courgettes and egg mixture into the dry ingredients and 150g of the reserved chutney.
Oops
I said……
I heard you! It seems I needed the chutney after all. Too late now, what to do? What is red and a bit liquidy? I know, red pesto! It might work. I know, there are absolutely no words in common with tomato chutney, but at least it is a similar colour. And it is all I’ve got. Stir all the stuff together with a jar of red pesto and hope for the best.
Transfer to the lined loaf tin and arrange halved red and yellow cherry tomatoes on the top.
Lined? When did you say that? Oh yes, I see. Quickly line tin, carefully spoon in mixture and arrange cherry tomatoes prettily on top. I only have red, but that is definitely acceptable. Compared to other “adjustments” it is small beer. Place in oven.
Drizzle the loaf with the final tablespoon of oil and bake for 40 minutes.
Take loaf out of the oven anddrizzle with oil. Put back in.Set grumpy cat timer.
Cover with foil, lower temperature to gas 5 and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Easy peasy, except the skewer bit, so I use a knife. Bit wobbly, put it back in for another 5 minutes. That will do. Probably.
Leave to cool in the tin for at least 30 minutes.
What, you have got to be joking?!!!!
Naturally I did wait, restraint is my middle name, and very nice it was too. We ate warm slices of the loaf with label-free homemade soup from the freezer, most likely tomato and carrot, and our cockles were warmed.
Off The Edge Gardening 