This blog is all about the trials of an amateur kitchen gardener in Bristol, UK. If to be lazy is to be immature, then to grow your own food is surely the peak of maturity?
Time to 'man up' and live the Good Life
It's Friday, the jet stream is heading north and summer is on its way. My boiler is fixed, my windows have been cleaned and I thought I should reflect my merry mood with a new challenge.
For the next few Fridays I'm going to post up a photo of a flower in the garden. I'll say now I have no bloody clue what these are, when I got them, or when I planted them. Most are gifts from my mum to which I probably said 'yeah ok', or are weeds.
Anyway, this one is definitely from my mum, I actually quite like it, but it tends to sit in its pot, flower, die, flower die. It's a bit of a temperamental things. I call it 'the teenager':
Yes, that's right, I know how to party. Dazzling yellow hues bring out the mower in me and I was out there for a good couple of hours today doing what I can only describe as 'the chores'. I rid the lawn of a beastly ragwort that had reached the height of my chest, and which now leaves a gaping hole. But it allowed me to get the old strimmer out and cut down the madness that had enveloped my garden.
There is something satisfying about taming the wild. I can imagine that it's what gives landscape gardeners a thrill - to see a fresh challenge ahead of them, an overgrown garden ready to be wrestled. Once I'd done the lawn, it was time to weed the paving stones that run alongside.
I'm always amazed at how weeds not only take hold in a sliver of a gap, but then shoot up to flower quicker that any bulb you deliberately plant in acres of nutritious soil. Well, today it was time to end their fun. And following that it was time for The Broom of Death.
Ok, just a broom to sweep all the mess up. But you have to at least try and make it fun! And it was then I realised what I was up to. I'd gone all Mary Poppins and was brushing to a beat, making up little games just to try and get through the sheer monotony of garden clearance.
And just as I'd got into my rhythm, SNAP! What are the chances eh?
When did you last see a butterfly in your garden, indeed anywhere?
I think I saw one in Greece, but I've certainly not had any in my garden ever. In my hazy warm childhood memories you couldn't move for a suicidal Cabbage White or sun-drugged Red Admiral, hurtling towards you in that predictably unpredictable way only to duck and weave out of danger at the last second and head merrily on as if nothing was about to happen.
What's going on?! Well, I've done some investigating and national treasure Sir David Attenborough, president of Butterfly Conservation has issued a call to gardeners arms. It seems our current nemesis RAIN is at the heart of the decline. It happened in teh deluges of 2007, with the winged population plummeting faster than you can say 'burnt moth'.
You can read more at the Butterfly Conservation website, which seems to have a photo of pretty much every butterfly out there. The photos reminded me just how striking they can be. I'm easily seduced by the absorbing colours on the wings, but of course it's all designed to distract you from...the face (sorry butterfly fans, that was very mean of me, I'm just jealous not to be called, or look like an Adonis Blue!).
But my real reason for writing about them is this:
A photo of a caterpillar that I recovered from an old digital camera yesterday. I've not seen any caterpillars this year either and it got me wondering why. Most likely they realised there ain't no goodies to be had in my garden this year!
Even these little creatures have a beauty of their own, I'm sure you agree. So this little muncher is going straight into the rogues gallery! But before you go snapping your own ones, take note of this little link:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have any photos of pests you'd like to submit for the gallery I'd love to hear from you? I haven't had a new rogue for a while so do get in touch if you have Thehaplessgardener@gmail.com
You know what's coming...I've not posted up a tune for a while to be fair.
But before we all rock out with our air guitars, a pause for thought. There is no doubt that all gardeners get attached to what they grow, be it flowers, fruit, vegetables or weeds. It brings out the nurturing side of us, and for those of us without children yet is far more socially acceptable than harbouring 35 once feral (and if you're honest still feral despite what you think) cats.
There are days of course when you feel like a bad plant parent. Perhaps you think to yourself, I'm just not doing enough to fulfil their potential, these wonderful living things who if only they had more soil/plant food/ SUNSHINE (hear me up there weather god?)/gardening tlc would produce more flowers, bigger berries, larger pods.
Coming back from holiday, that's how I felt. I saw my wreck of a garden, realised just how little I had been able to provide for it, and I could see that nothing was really growing. A failed parent.
First of all, I thought I was alone, but your comments on 'Minging in the rain' showed I was not. We all feel the same this year. But if you do, take a closer look outside.
This evening I took advantage of a rare clear blue Bristol sky and spent a bit of time clearing up. Whilst doing so, I started to notice a few things. Firstly, one of my two blueberry plants still had healthy looking berries (lets not talk about the other one for now).
Suddenly, I discovered my first raspberry of the year, hidden under all the leaves. It's not there now of course. Yum!
And finally, I'm not sure how I missed these, sitting in a tray on the ground were some flowering sweet peas. I had planted them nonchalantly in February, rescued them from a fallen growhouse in March and forgotten about them. Yet to my surprise, and (whisper it) delight, they have come good despite remaining in a seed tray all this time.
The flowers are bright and the fragrance is wonderfully reassuring; and even as I feel the sense of neglect in my bones, they clearly had enough self belief and determination to come good. I couldn't be more proud.
It has not been my finest hour in the garden - and in truth that's about all the time I've spent there. It has got to the point where I'm considering dropping the 'gardener' and leaving myself as plain old 'Hapless'.
For regular readers, I'd like to apologise for the lack of entertainment on here lately but I do hope that the following update gives you reassurance that yes there is someone so utterly inept that you're not such a bad gardener after all. And for the skilled gardeners, belief that there is always someone in need of help!
So why such little time gardening? Over the next few posts I hope to explain. Today though, let me start with the Great British Weather.
We Brits love a good old moan about it, but this year I think we've all finally lost our rag. It's been rain all the way, day after day after day.
And with that, the warmth has decided to bugger off too, leaving the energy companies rubbing their hands with glee just as much as we're rubbing ours to heat up.
What has that meant for the garden? A failure to clear up the remnants of last year's vine and buddliea demolition and a utter failure to cut the now totally wild grass:
It hasn't taken long for this fiend to take hold on the lawn. Anyone know what it is?
Now, they call it the breezy south west. Actually, they don't, I just made that up to reflect the combination of laid back Bristolians, Gloucestershire hippies, Devon ruralites and the Cornwallian surfers. In truth it's been howling a right gale down here since April. Meaning everytime I try and plant precious seeds in the grow houses, which are necessarily in locations I can't tether them down in, I get this:
I have lost pretty much all the beans I've planted this year, along with nearly all sweet peas and my precious chilli seeds I planted from last year's dried chilli. Seeing the toppled plastic towers filled me with despondency and hurt as much as annoyance.
So, the British weather has basically thrown a strop even McEnroe would be proud of and left my garden in tatters - overgrown and pretty much veg-less this summer.
And what has this meant for me?
Poolside in the Greek sunshine. Damn right.
I'd like to think that the hardier gardeners and allotmenteers out there have made some headway with their vegetables, and please do let me know if you have.
Growing vegetables is easy isn't it? You plant the seed in spring, water it regularly, watch it grow as you keep weeds away, and then when it's ready, usually harvest time in summer or autumn, you pull it out of the ground and devour with pride.
Unless of course you're me.
My approach to celeriac has been somewhat unconventional. Late last summer I decided to plant some celeriac seeds, not really paying attention to what Mr Fothergill advised on the packet. I planted the seedlings out in the ground possibly August time, perhaps a month or 5 too late but I was thinking to myself "root vegetable, will be ready in time for Christmas..."
It wasn't.
I had planted them in a somewhat crowded part of the garden, where the best sunshine falls. I blamed the raspberries for the lack of growth in the celeriac and in a rather cavalier manner uprooted the root and moved it to a place it could spread it's legs.
I had also planted one in a pot, to see if that too were possible. I realise that this most ugly of beasts can reach a size that would make most plastic pots ill fitting, with all the lumpy bits hanging out much like an inappropriately dressed overweight teenager in that dodgy bit of town you only go to to scour the charity shops for a bargain.
Not much has been happening in my garden of late, at least not much that I have designed. Having left the celeriac to get on with itself I noticed that it had in fact been growing, both in the ground and in the pot. I had left the pot on the soil next to the planted celeriac and it was only when I lifted the pot up forcefully that I realise I had torn the roots apart from the vegetable. They had gone through the holes and down into the soil.
At that moment, I guessed it was a goner. And sure enough, so it has proved.
However, in happier news, the planted celeriac appears to have found its vigour and the stalks are green, firm and growing and there is a hint of flesh on the top. Not particularly attractive flesh but then a hapless gardener like me is never going to get the prettiest vegetable...
And oh! Before I forget, when you pick the leaves you get this amazing celery like fragrance on your fingertips. Does anyone know if you can you cook with the leaves?
My only other thought is whether, upon ripening (do vegetables ripen?), the celeriac will be edible after a stunted growth? Let me know gardeners!
In the past couple of days I've been asked to help two people out with two very different challenges. Now, I admire my friend Fraser and the brave @FrenchCathy for approaching me for gardening advice - I can only assume they have more faith in me than I have in myself.
However, rather than risk ruining their changes for a summer full of juicy fruit and hearty veg, I thought it best to pass on the challenge to you. These really are ones for the experts, requiring speed of thought and instant ideas to tackle two very different pressures.
Let me introduce them
Fraser
The boy has a bit of time on his hands, and with the sun shining has been let loose in the garden. Here's what he asked:
Dear hapless,
On a lovely day, I decided to dig a new veg patch, alongside a current one. It's seven paces long, and two paces wide.
It has been just grass for at least the previous five years, but has quite a crumbly texture soil once the turf has been removed.
I've no idea how notorious the soil is, and realise its fairly late in the year, especially as I have no plan what to do with it.
Quite keen on having stuff for the stewing pot.
So, what should Fraser plant, recognising he has itchy fingers and we probably only have sun for one more day..?
@French Cathy
A rather different challenge, somewhat urgent!
Argh!! Need help! Got a great white currant bush but dreaded GREEN caterpillar are munching away!! Any tips??
I would say "squish" but I appreciate that is probably not going to solve matters. Slugs and snails I understand, but caterpillars are a new beast to me. Are there any pest experts out there?
Get cracking with your comments or tweets and hopefully we'll have two very happy gardeners, along with a rather nervous BBC Radio 4. It's about time Gardener's Question Time faced a young upstart!
Sometimes, I get so caught up in growing veg, I forget about the end product and the hypnotic pleasure of eating what you grow.
As regulars will know, raspberries are a favourite of mine, and one of my few successes. I did a lot of things with them last year. I ate them fresh, I dunked them into my porridge, I made raspberry and mint ice cubes after a tip from my friend Kate, I put them in a cake, and on a cake. And I froze a load, just as they were.
I'd forgotten all about the frozen gems until today, with almost bare freezer I saw them nestling at the back. So I said to myself, it's time to let them shine.
Nothing complicated but something luxurious to mark the first day of summer. Pancakes, ice cream and blitzed raspberries (with a bit of sugar). Heaven.
