Hello. It’s been a while. Sometimes life throws a lot of bastard-things at you all at once and gardening has to stop for a while whilst you stamp on the bastards and try to throw them back. It’s been a bit like whack-a-mole.
Luckily, not much happens in the garden anyway when it’s covered in snow and not much happens in MY garden when grey skies prevail over my square of patio day after day. And, luckily, nature will carry on doing her thing regardless of whether I go out and prod at her or not.
Three months have passed in which I did nothing except make the occasional outing to put food-waste in the compost bin … and only then when the kitchen started to smell. Now, it’s getting warmer and green shoots are literally emerging so we should all be better equipped for continued bastard-thing-stamping and I have ventured out to take stock.
The inventory:
Leeks planted at an inappropriate time in inappropriate places continue as they were – unperturbed by bad weather, threats to the nation’s forests and public services, or the fact I heard a really great new band last week.
- The Alpine strawberries still push out the odd speculative fruit in the hope the sun will bring ripening rays before they shrivel. Not long now, my lovelies, not long now [please insert scurrilously piratical accent].
- Mizuna and land-cress are very handy winter salads, and Swiss Chard seems quite happy to sit in a bucket for months, if unmolested by nothing but a fat pigeon or two.
As before, Jerusalem artichokes absolutely insist on providing delicious meals in exchange for absolutely no effort.
- Oca was fun but not terribly productive. Get out your magnifying glass and look at that Jerusalem artichoke pic again. On the left. In the glass box. Now squint. Yep, that’s my harvest from 4 oca plants. Somehow this has delighted me even more than a middling to good harvest would have and I’m very much looking forward to trying again this year.
- The greenhouse contains a lot of dead aubergine and chilli plants and accompanying fungal growth and spores.
I still have more dried beans than I planted (despite having eaten several kilos along the way). Right now, they make me smile and marvel every time I see them. In a few weeks they will start the process of making me more beans and bring succour to my soul and stomach. A damn good deal if you ask me.
- All my chilli plants that were brought in to overwinter died through neglect. Including the hot, fleshy and delicious,* fascinating, beautiful, furry-leaved, purple-flowered, black-seeded, and getting to be properly tree-like in its second year, perennial Alberto’s Locoto**. But I have seeds so they SHALL come again! Where I have left them, some are already shooting in the pots where they fell. Plus something entirely unchilli-like has emerged and is growing at a triffid like rate. I am so excited. What will it be? I have no idea. I wonder if I will find out before it finds me out?
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* I only put these phrases into get more visitors to the blog … and then disappoint them
**Happy to share some. No exchanges necessary, though wouldn’t say no to some Oca that grows tubers as well as leaves…
February 2, 2011 at 09:44
This is all very tantalising. It’s hard to concentrate on the gardening detail while really wondering what has caused such chaos. Hope you are coming through the tunnel to good things again. Also glad the strawberries survive. They are what I most associate with you – oh, and snails! What a contrast!
Best wishes.
Glad you are back to blogging.
Hope you also have enough spare mind now that writing will be enough of a distraction to give the weary part a little rest.
Esther
February 8, 2011 at 23:06
Hi Esther. Wasn’t meaning to be coy or tantalising – just making my excuses. Thanks for your kind wishes.
I’m glad the strawberries survive too – though they were harbouring a lot of snails too. And so many species of slug that I’ve given up and ordered myself a field guide to study them properly. So more slime to share soon…
February 2, 2011 at 14:37
So glad to see that someone else likes Jerusalem artichokes. The other day I wrapped a couple up in tin foil and slow cooked them in our wood stove overnight…really good. Nice to hear from you again.:)
February 8, 2011 at 22:59
I’ll have to try the slow-roast option – sounds nicely low-effort to go well with the effort of growing them. Thanks for the tip.
February 4, 2011 at 13:41
OOoh.. I recently took delivery of my first lot of oca to be planted. I hope I get a bigger crop than that!! Only have a tiny planting space for edibles so they all need to be productive or failing that taste exquisite.
February 8, 2011 at 22:57
Good luck. I should say that the Oca plants I gave to my Dad did well in his well-dug vegetable beds. Can’t imagine why it didn’t work in my neglected pots and stony ground…
February 9, 2011 at 13:50
By the way, thanks for turning me on to the Pavlovsk seed bank. I found the history of it to be so intyeresting that I have recently purchased “Where our food comes from: retracing Nikolay Vavilov’s quest to end famine” By Gary Paul Nabhan. Can’t wait to read all about it.