Autumn Sowing....

Clematis Ville De Lyon

Several days ago I sat in the walled garden working on my novel, I was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, it was 82° and leaves kept falling on my manuscript. Considering that I live half way up a mountain in Shropshire UK and it is October, I was mildly confused.


Today Mother Nature has turned the dial to Autumn, it's blustery, cool enough for socks and a sweater. Lovely.

I've taken stock of the garden. We've accomplished such a lot this year; removing huge conifers and an unwanted hedge from the centre of the plot. We planted a new hedge and incorporated our orchard into the garden space. We've softened the pond area, laying turf into the water to both to hide the liner and to allow creatures safer access. Around the pond we planted nectar drenched flowers to encourage more wildlife.


At the bottom of Home Field the allotment has generated enough potatoes to last until late Spring and is now planted with leeks, spring cabbages, broad beans, onions and celeriac.


The walled garden still feeds us daily with spinach, dwarf french beans, runner beans, lettuce, parsnips, cucumbers and yet more celeriac. Here the onion sets are already sprouting.


Not wanting to rest up over the winter, I've been planting madly to try to steal a march on spring. Some of my sowings are a bit of an experiment!!! I've planted next year's sweet pea now (super early I know, but I'm pinching out the growth to see if I can make strong, bushy plants before it gets too cold.) At the moment the seedlings are in the green house. As I don't plan to heat the greenhouse till early spring, I may well bring them into the utility room, which is bright and cool, when the temperatures drop dramatically. I've sown Miss Wilmott, a vintage pink from 1901. A big blue and two types of old fashioned mixed. My garden should look and smell gorgeous next year. 

Sweet Pea Miss Wilmott

I've also sown sweet rocket, a tall perennial that can be considered invasive.... I prefer to refer to it as offering free cover to a large space.....

There's a ton of other seedlings and sowings in the greenhouse but this morning I noticed the Tutti Fruiti Lupins had broken the surface of their compost. With their garish colours they are aptly named.

This year the orchard is providing tons of huge cooking apples, probably due to the hard pruning we've administered over the past two winters. I've started making Spiced Apple Jelly from the harvest. These jars of bottled sunshine are delicious and are flecked with chilli flakes and lemon rind and would be a great pressie for Christmas. They are however quite high-maintenance to make. See next blog post for recipe.

If anyone out there has any other suggestions for Autumn sowing (particularly perennials) I'd be really pleased if you'd leave a comment.

Lou

xx

Easily Impressed from Shropshire....

Its boiling today..... by boiling, I mean that it's almost -3.

School run was pretty....blah,blah,blah; sheep, ice on trees, slippy road, ice fog in valley,..... although I did see a bird of prey take a rat from a farmyard. It crashed into a white hedge..and there was a great poof of frost and then they were gone, rat and bird. That was quite exciting... But c'mon, roll on Spring already.......... Whad'ya mean Winter's only just begun?....no,no,no, I want planting and strawberries and birds in the garden, other than robins, and fluffed up chickens, rather than the miserable looking molting sad ones I seem to have at the moment!

I cooked spaghetti for the chooks today. They're very Italian - loved it.

Then I saw something that made me really smile: Broad Beans. My broad Beans, some in pots some in the ground, are ignoring the weather, braving the ice age and popping their heads up at the meagre winter sun. How wonderful.

The onions too are toasty under the frosting.

And the leeks are delicious, seemingly unbothered by the cold. I made Leek, bacon and pork (leftover) pie the other day and it was deeee-lish.

Garlic, Auctions and Giganta-Ants....

It is official: I am a derr-brain! Last year I planted food-stuff in an effort to have some crops for Spring. That didn't really work but hey-ho! My onions just didn't seem to be growing. Last week I clocked my neighbours onions (that's not a double-entendre btw!!) Blimey they were huge. Today I stood looking at mine, they are OK but not a patch on his.... As the top leaves were dying off I decided to end my pain and torture, (and competitive growing,) so I pulled them up. Bugger me! ('scuse the french,) they aren't onions at all; they are garlic - massive garlics..... The kitchen pongs a bit now. I'm not a champion onion grower, I'm a champion garlic grower. Yeah!

***

'Oo Oo Oo,' she said, bouncing up and down with excitement like a child needing a wee! We've been to the fine art auctions again in Ludlow, on the lookout for old tat to replace the newish tat we arrived at The Larches with. The cheap Swedish stuff from the blue store looks so out of place here. I'd rather have Agneta (also from Sweden) design my home....

Hubby was like a boy trapped in a sweet shop. He bought 4 spurious little oak tables for £5, exceptionally good for drinks and family snacks in the sitting room! He bought a short chest of drawers and yet another table for £8!! I bought two old school desks with cute inkwells for £12!!! He countered with a pink striped sofa in really gorgeous condition for £20!!!!

But the pièce de résistance was the dresser: Victorian, Welsh dresser-like, it is pine and veneered with two glazed display cupboards, flanking shelves, 3 wide drawers and a lower cabinet to hide away my occasional crockery. At 72" wide there is a slight hitch, we can't get it in the car and Dizzy Disco needs a new clutch so we can't tow it back home just yet...or the sofa for that matter. But soon, soon....... I've got such plans for the kitchen now, can't wait to get started.

***

I'm not sure the children will last the summer. Having been out of school for almost 10 days their brains have rotted: Today they thought it might be amusing to jump up and down on the dung heap, deliberately disturbing a giganta-ant colony (they're big up here in Shropshire.) The little creatures fought back, running up the inside of the sproglet's clothes, biting all the way. Fair play really.

I heard the screams several fields away and raced to find the 5yo hysterical, tearing off his clothes on the top of the poo mountain. The 7yo was less eaten and was spitting on a doc leaf and rubbing at her injuries.

'Good job I didn't show them the wasp nest yet...' commented hubby. Hmmmmmmmm.

Gardening in Pictures, part III

Onions and garlic are going well.



Strawberries basking in the sun...


Fat Hen.... no, not you, the plant, the weed, it's called Fat Hen. It is delicious, although in large amounts it can be toxic, (so can wine!!) Cooking it as you would spinach reduces the potency.



The pumpkins, courgettes, peas, beans and sweetcorn are really motoring along. I'm going to start serving mini courgettes with butter at dinner and pickling the glut.



I may have overdone the potatoes!!