On Pumpkins And The End Of An Obsession

My obsession with buying wooden kitchen chairs has come to an end.  At precisely 8.30am on Bank Holiday Monday, I realised that I just couldn't be bothered hoking and poking around in all those little straight bits and pieces and the arching backs with a little paintbrush. It's taken me roughly 25 minutes per coat, per chair; three different paintbrushes for the three colours (I can't be bothered to wash and dry brushes between colours); a six hour wait between coats with three paintbrushes wrapped in clingfilm (I can't be bothered to wash and dry brushes between coats); and a visit from an odd neighbour (let's call him Santa's Little Munchkin) who insisted on chatting to me whilst I finished off the second coats.  That I had my back to him for most of his visit was rudeness itself on my part, for which I was punished when I finally stood up and turned around to see him absent-mindedly scraping dog poo off the underside of his shoe over my Moroccan mint bed.

I'm planning to invite him round for mint tea. 

Or kill him. 

I don't think that's a figure of speech; it's an actual threat to kill.

And I have nearly 200 pumpkin and squash plants to shift by next week.

On Sowing Seeds And Dreaming Of The Year Ahead

March belted past in a blur of airports, motorways, security checks, meetings, tense negotiations, hard work and mental exhaustion.  Physically I'm in the best shape I've been for months and my liver's positively blushing with good health and sobriety.  Lent and a big contract does that.  Early yesterday morning I threw all my laundry on to wash then stepped out into my garden just before six to give it all a thorough inspection. 

Spring has sprung in my absence and all the Delft Blue hyacinths are through although I had to wait until the afternoon for them to warm up and release their scent.  The cowslips and oxlips are flooding across the borders like a perfectly happy sunshiny smiling tsunami.  The drupes are all blossomed up and the Muscari and early Narcissi are through.  All the Spring Green Purissima and Golden Apeldoorn tulips are through; the Red Apeldoorns are almost ready to open too.  The Iris are starting into strong growth and the Paeonia Karl Rosenfield is about a foot high already.  Even the garlic, still waiting patiently to be planted, is off to a flying start.  Spring has most definitely sprung.

And this afternoon, I was back in my garden with the sun at my back sowing seeds for the year ahead.  Here's the laundry list;

Giant Californian Asters, or Reine Maguerite as I bought them at Cora last autumn

Rose Trémiére Fiesta Time, ibid.

Rose Trémiére, violette, ibid.

Shedloads of climbing Borlotti Lingua di Fuoco, from Franchi

Climbing French beans Santa Anna, ibid.

Basil,

Mais multicolore, or Indian corn, bought last autumn from SuperU

Far too many tomatoes including;

Roma - Italian variety, lovely little plum and huge cropper
Costoluto Fiorentino - huge misshapen beefsteak with great flavour and eye appeal

Marmande - another whopper beefsteak great for field growing

I've buckets more to seeds to sow, including all my odd bids of dried tomato seeds, far too many climbing beans, all the summer and autumn squashes and let's not forget the herbs and salads.  I love coming home.

Felcos Follow Flowers; or A Simple Guide To Pruning Clematis

It's still tipping. Everything touched by the rain looks cleaner, fresher. Drenched. What a lovely word. The lime green tips of the bay tree bring a brightness to a sheltered corner of the terrace, near the Clematis armandii "Apple Blossom." This is a lovely, scented, evergreen climber, but the old leaves do take on a leathered appearance that frankly looks dreadful next to the new season's fresh young sappy growth of the bay. And the Clematis itself grows best at the tips of the previous season's growth, so left unpruned the scented flowers are taken further out of reach each year. Also, I'm plagued with vine weevils, Otiorhynchus sulcatus, in this corner of the garden, and although the roots seem to be strongly resisting the soil-dwelling larvae, the adult vine weevils chew great chunks from the leaves. And so the weekend chop. With any luck, new fresh growth will start to appear in the coming weeks, and by next spring I should have a more compact, densely floriferous scented bower in which to take my morning tea.

Clematis come with a scary pruning regime; prune hard to the ground each year, prune only after flowering, prune early in the spring, prune to 3' above ground... Really, there are only a couple of things to remember. If your clematis flowers early in the year, in spring time, prune it immediately after it has finished flowering. This gives the plant plenty of time to make new growth (including the precious flowering buds) over the summer and autumn, ready to flower again early next spring. If your clematis flowers in the summer and autumn time, prune it early in the spring, because this type of clematis flowers on growth made in the same year it flowers. The trick is not to prune out the flowering buds. There you go! Felcos follow flowers.

Anyone with a prostate should eat brassicas three times a week

Thursday last week picked the first of the broad beans, snappy and full with their promise of buttery goodness. "The Sutton" is such a good old workhorse of a bean, it really isn't any wonder its been a favourite for decades. I picked a bucketful during the morning, and after boiling up some Jersey Royals threw the podded beans into the water, brought back to the boil and immediately drained, before serving up with parlsey sauce and a thick slice of best British gammon.

Good God but the British know how to eat.


Parsley sauce - make a simple roux (lightly toast off the flour in the oven for 10 mins first to cook out the floury-ness), using unsalted butter and farine de blé; add half a pint of milk, lots of salt and black pepper, then once thickening nicely throw in a very large bunch of finely chopped parsley leaves.

Ful medames - drop some broad beans into a pan of boiling water and return to boil then immediately drain (clearly this can really only be done with spanking fresh, very young beans), then tip into a bowl. Add some olive oil to the beans, together with about a teaspoon of cumin seeds and nicely sliced garlic cloves, about two. Zip up by squeezing a lemon's juice over, and season as if your life depended upon it. Mix together gently with your hands. You can add a roughly chopped bit of parsley, unless you have someone sexy coming to lunch, and you intend to be smiling at them a lot...

Lazy slut's supper - Boil up some new potatoes, and when ready drain and eat hot from pan, cutting them almost in half in your hand with a knife holding a slick of unsalted butter so that the butter cuts into the potato as you slice it. Dip into Maldon sea salt as you go.

Lazy slut on a diet's supper - as above, but leave out the salt, in which case it's hardly worth bothering to eat the potatoes in the first place.