Making plans with Nigel

It’s Spring, and so, as telling of the new season as the first swallow, Gardeners’ World returns. This herald of Spring used to get me fired up for the growing season. Now I look forward to it in a rather masochistic way.

I apologise (though rather insincerely) to any fans of Monty Don, but the Lord of Cord, the Sultan of Smug, does not have us rushing for the loppers to cut our extensive hazel coppice or the hedge trimmers to get cracking on our lengthy hornbeam hedges, or even reaching for a spade to excavate an enormous pond.

No. SomeBeans and I instead engage in that most traditional of TV-watching pastimes. We shout. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make the programme any better. It doesn’t make Monty more palatable or relevant or less smug. But in a childish way, it entertains us. Then I tend to nod off until the theme tune over the credits wakes me up.

There is one ray of light. A new presenter, making his presence felt. The brains behind the Longmeadow experience. Nigel.

The brains behind the operation – Nigel the dog, with his hired help

(Source: Here)

Realising that Monty doesn’t connect with a large number of viewers, Nigel has started to implement a range of editorial changes. Viewers can expect to see the following topics covered over the next few months:

• Plant profiles of dogwoods, dog’s tooth violets and dog roses
• Why catmint is over-rated in today’s gardens
• Pergolas are so last year – this year’s must-have garden accessory is the kennel
• Garden compost – ensuring it is smelly enough to roll in
• Chopping down those bl**dy hedges to provide a lifetime’s supply of sticks for fetching.

If Nigel can get rid of his sidekick, I might start taking a little more notice. Until then, I’ll continue to alternately rant and snore. Don't tell me to stop watching - it has been part of my life for 30 years, and it's always good to have something to moan about.

Wordless Wednesday - Sunshine

Wordless Wednesday - Splodgenessabounds

Croydon

According to Wikipedia, the mundane sounding town of Croydon gets its name from the Anglo-Saxon for ‘crocus valley’. Somehow it doesn’t sound as attractive as Saffron Walden.

Circumstances have made me a little late with my photographs of these heralds of Spring, but today I spent a happy 15 minutes on my stomach in the garden, getting muddy. It was worth it, to look carefully at these little jewels. I’m not sure I’d make this effort to photograph Croydon*.

 

 

* Apologies to the denizens of Croydon – I’m sure it has some very nice bits.

The Beauty of Inflections

This post is an updated re-post from 2010, but puts well what I felt when I heard the blackbirds singing last night.

I was doing something as banal as putting a dirty nappy in the wheelie bin last night when my heart and stomach lurched as the sound of a blackbird filled the air. It is only when I hear the melodies after an absence of some time that I realise how much they are a part of the excitement of the renewing year.
Life can be measured by the singing of blackbirds; in February, they start to sing in the darkness of early spring mornings and evenings. As plants start to burst into life, the singing swells up to a crescendo in late spring and early summer. As my birthday approaches, the frequency of the sweet and mellow song starts to decline and on that day I know that the days are getting shorter and winter is on its way. A melancholic day.
Poets seem to have a soft spot for the bird, for example Wallace Stevens (from whom the title of this post comes), Tennyson, and Seamus Heaney.
So, last night I had a burst of spring time, a glimpse of lengthening days and the sound of hope. Perhaps you should too.

A brief intermission…

Thank you for your comments on the previous post. We are now out of hospital, and Thomas is doing well, but isn’t quite so keen to feed as his mum and dad are, but the midwives are keeping a close eye on him.

Thomas will be introduced to the garden as it becomes warmer, and he will need to learn how to weed pretty quickly, so he can help down at the allotment (that’ll put him off gardening for life!).

Blog posting will become even more sporadic than it has recently been, at least for a while. In the mean time, welcome to the world, little Thomas Samuel.

New arrival...

Thomas Samuel born at 5:39am on Saturday 4th February, weighing 6lb 2oz. Delivery was by caesarean but Sharon and Thomas are both doing well. They're likely to be in hospital for a few days. I'm a very proud father and I think Sharon is a hero!

Wordless Wednesday - Early arrivals

Happy (Chinese) New Year

It is the start of the Chinese new year today, and an auspicious new year too –the year of the Dragon.

Gardeners have a lot to thank China for – large numbers of beautiful plants have been collected from the varied regions of this vast country. I’ve written about some of the plant hunters who scoured the world looking for new introductions before: here and here, for example.

‘Chinese’ garden at Biddulph Gardens

Many Camellias come from China although, of course, they have been hybridised since then, to give a whole range of colour and flower forms.

A lot of Rhododendrons, similarly, come from various provinces of China, such as Rhododendron lanigerum (discovered by Frank Kingdon Ward)

 Pieris formosa var. forrestii was discovered by George Forrest in 1910 – this one was photographed at Ness Gardens, for whom Forrest collected.

We would be without the winter interest of Prunus serrula bark if it hadn’t been discovered in China.

Whilst Wisteria floribunda comes from Japan, Wisteria sinensis hails from China. This white version (var. alba) was photographed at Bodnant Gardens (North Wales).

 

Sinensis as a specific name indicates that the plant comes from China. So, we also have Camellia sinensis (Chinese tea plant), Corylopsis sinensis (Chinese winter hazel), Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, Miscanthus sinensis and so on and so on…

So many more plants in our gardens originate from China. This Chinese New Year, go out and see what plants you have which  have their origins there.

Fine words and edible parsnips

I’ve blogged about parsnips before.

Parsnips are one of the more reliable crops on the allotment, as long as the frosts aren’t so long and so hard that we can’t lever them out of the ground. There’s a fine line between ensuring that the crop has experienced some frost to make them sweeter, and roots frozen into the ground until the earth finally decides to release them, generally after they have developed a core with a hardness of of 10 on the Mohs scale.

We have harvested some huuuugggggeeee parsnips this year. And although I love roast parsnips, parsnip soup and so on, my mind has recently been harking back to a certain failure from a couple of years ago. Yes – the parsnip cake experiment. Or chemical warfare as it turned out to be. It’s a confusing moment – seeing what smells like a delicious cake but not being able to eat it. It does strange things to the mind. The brain thinks “mmm – cake = lovely”. The taste buds, however, beg you not to take another mouthful.

Now, I don’t like to be outwitted by a root vegetable, and this culinary failure has been playing on my mind for some time. So, whilst idly searching the BBC Good Food website for parsnip recipes a month or so ago, I happened across another parsnip cake recipe. I put a link up when updating the seasonal recipes on my sidebar, but hadn’t plucked up the courage to actually make the cake. Until this weekend.

And so, it was with some trepidation that SomeBeans tried a small bite of the proffered cake. The poor chap – the last time I fed him parsnip cake, he accused me of trying to poison him (though not as effectively as I did with the Jerusalem artichokes…). But this time……

SUCCESS! A cake of delights. No acrid aftertaste. No vacillation of brain vs tastebuds. A moist, sweet cake. I have beaten the parsnip demon.

(We’ve eaten quite a lot of it, as you can see. Well, we do have a guest)