This little piggy...

Two comments I often get when I mention this blog to friends:

"I never had you down as a gardener," (even my mum said that)

"I just don't get Twitter"

Gardening began as a way to keep me and my mind occupied in the months after a relationship ended. My motivation was the anticipation and intrinsic pleasure of eating something I'd grown. It didn't need sharing or talking about because it gave a very personal, very private happiness.

But when I began writing, and got a bit carried away with the joy of this particular craft a Twitter presence was recommended by the friend who got me writing in the first place.

I have just this evening polished off quite possibly the best meal I have ever cooked. Now, I'm about as creative in the kitchen as I am skilled in the garden but tonight I got so excited I got my whizzer out to get all sorts of ingredients singing together in honour of one prime piece of pork belly. However, the real story lies behind the supporting cast which I hope will become clear

I love crackling. It's a vice of mine, but I haven't often cooked my own. The other day I wrote about fennel seeds (sowing the aniseed of love) that were a present from my friend Ruth. I originally met Ruth through Twitter and we have found a shared passion for growing your own, and she has been trying her hardest to inspire me to get into the kitchen.

After writing, I asked followers on Twitter whether they loved or loathed the fragrant/pungent seed of the fennel plant. Two of the responses tickled my tastebuds with passionate responses. @Grajeras and @AKentishKitchen both professed their love of the seed and over the course of a conversation persuaded me to crush the fennel into pork skin and accompany with caramelised apples.

You only have to say the word caramlised to start drooling

So this evening I donned the apron and got crackling...

I followed @grajeras' advice and mixed crushed fennel seed, crushed garlic and salt together.

I rubbed the mix into my pork belly, which I had the butcher score for me given the lack of anything but blunt kitchen knives in my home. On this occasion I went to a butchers (Ruby and White, newly opened in Bristol) for my meat. I thought, my  accompaniments are of the highest quality, so should the star be.

Because it's the accompaniments that meant I've treated this meal as if I was eating at a Michelin quality restaurant. The garlic was planted in my soil as a clove in February and when I pulled up my first one I was thrilled (Clove Tuesday) has treated me on several occasions now. This was my last bulb.

To roast with the meat went apples and onions. Sadly I'd run out of home-grown onions, but for apples I have plenty because I made it my ambition this year to cajole, coax and convince the tree to bear fruit, which it had almost failed to do last year (Ripe for a tart). So three were cut into chunks and laid in a roasting dish with onion and some olive oil, meat rested on top.



I decided to go with a comfort of my childhood and roast some potatoes. My potatoes have been long eaten, but in with the ones I bought went more garlic, and some rosemary. Now I've not written about my rosemary because I forgot about it. But a year ago a friend gave me a cutting from hers and said 'see if it takes'. For a long time it didn't, but the other day I noticed it had started to spread. So torch in hand I went out and cut myself a stalk.

And an hour later, out the oven, a meal in which I, friends and acquaintances have created. Sadly for the others the distances between Bristol and Poole, Kent and Andalucia respectively have meant that the pleasure, including the best crackling I have ever tasted, is all mine this time. Although naturally I burnt the potatoes...

Everything happens for a season

It's the heart of Autumn in Bristol. I love autumn and when I felt bold enough to share my feelings on the matter they revolved around how it offered a time to reflect in the calm after the summer growth storm, whilst you bask in the golden hues reflecting on the last of the ripening apples...

So yesterday afternoon my good friend Sarah came over for lunch. On the table were said apples to accompany good soup, bread and cheeses. Sarah is a landscape architect and before lunch had concocted a plan to encourage me to do a spot of pruning. This came about purely by chance having taken her out to help identify one of my shrubs. The shrubs do admittedly need a bit of a trim, their locks flowing uncontrollably in the winds of the south west.

And so we sat down for lunch and lined our stomachs for what I imagined would be gentle afternoon's chopping of unruly stems and wayward branches. My body was recovering from a rather late night too so, y'know, nothing a spot of handiwork in the fresh air couldn't help resolve.

Except before you ever embark on anything with a landscape architect, make sure you read that obscure title of 'The Oxford Landscape Architect's dictionary', no doubt available at all good garden centres? No? Well it bloody well should be. Because if it was then I would have had a chance to discover that the definition of 'pruning' is something along the lines of:

'the act of taking a hacking saw to all 5 trunks of the 12 ft buddleia forcibly detatching it from the rampant Russian vine that has weaved its way through every branch, whilst simultanously ripping the vine, complete with rotting trellis away from the back wall, and then piling it all on the 'lawn' whilst considering how to remove the waste over the next two days carrying it through the flat, the communal hallway and into the car without making any mess whatsoever'

Yes, where the amateur gardener tinkers about at the edges, the pro gets stuck in. Luckily for me Sarah was more than happy to charge in with the saw as we set about dealing with the heart of the problem in my garden - the evil Russian Vine. More on that another time as the point of this post is that by encouraging me to tackle the problem whole heartedly, despite creating more work for me in the garden, Sarah has opened up a whole world of potential and excitement.

Gone is the dark canopy of branches and vines that had put the garden into shadow and sterilised half the growing beds. The solid, if not particularly striking wall at the back provides structure and a chance to draw my eyes to happily through the garden.



In there I'm sure is a lesson for life. If something is taking over, darkening your world and you either ignore it, fear it or play around at the edges trying to keep it in control then what is the best you can hope for? If you're bold, however, then the rewards will be handsome.

Yesterday we were bold and all of a sudden, the winter season is filled with the promise of excitement as I can take time to explore just what to do with all this new found space, light and soil. Just the small matter of clearing the carnage...

Ripe for a tart

What's your favourite pudding?

When I were a lad, it were Arctic Roll. Then, when I discovered my palette it was, well still Arctic Roll. I never was the adventurous sort.

Apples were my fruit of choice. I shunned the pear, despite my parents having a pear tree in the garden. The wonderful thing about apples is that if you don't like one type, there's usually another variety that will suit your fickle buds. From the crisp to the soft, sweet to the sharp and then the mighty Russet. The greengrocer is starting to stock up Russets and these nutty wonders are by far my favourite.

But there is a new boy in town, waving its wares through my bedroom window on a daily basis. The tree I have nurtured through the spring is starting to reward me handsomely.

As you may recall from an earlier post I was puzzled at the lack of fruit last year and challenged myself to see if I could entice some fruit with a bit of TLC. I invested in a pruning saw and fully intended to get myself up a ladder.

Having absolutely no idea what I was doing, I took time out to take tips from Youtube and my RHS 'grow your own' book. Essentially these were:

• Don't over prune, it will distress the tree. No more than a third of the crown.
• Cut diseased or dead branches
• Remove crossing branches
• Aim to let light and air through the middle of the tree
• Cut above a bud just high enough to protect it, at and angle that doesn't allow water to run on to the bud.
• Don't use a ladder (unless it's secure...)
• "large fruit trees need to be pruned by a professional tree surgeon. Don't risk it yourself..."

There's only so much weeding and rose bush trimming a guy without a garden shed or lawn big enough to justify a petrol-driven lawn mower can take before thinking he wants to get involved with something more substantial. So I got up that ladder, saw in hand, told myself all professionals have to start somewhere and got busy in amongst the crossing branches.

As for the pear tree, apparently it's decades old. When I moved in two years ago, it was being strangled by an evil aggressive vine. I spent my weekends thoroughly hacking into that wintering weed, still very much alive, to hopefully limit its antics this summer (but of course it's twice as aggressive).

To both trees I added 'zoo poo' from Paignton Zoo and since then I've let the trees get on with their side of the bargain.  

And boy am I chuffed with the results. For all my failure to protect my crops from snails, wind and my own disorganisation this summer, the time and effort invested earlier this year is starting to prove worthwhile.

Back to the puddings, and whilst I have cravings to make my own apple pie, I've never eaten, let alone made a pear pud. Does anyone have the ultimate apple or pear dessert for me to make, bearing in mind that although I can handle myself in the kitchen, I'm no master baker, caker or dessert maker.

Tweet or facebook a link to a recipe, or leave a message on the blog.

Until then, I'll bask in the fact that my apple and pear trees are happy. And happy because at the end of the day, we all love a bit of TLC

Apple fumble

Oh yes, this year I'll be getting my mits on a bumper crop, provided they don't all fall off the tree first and rot on the ground.

When I was young we had a cooking apple tree, and there was no worse task for pocket money than picking up the rotting diseased apples from the garden. The mouldy brown ones with white speckles that would disintegrate in your hands. We couldn't use gloves either so you had to pick them up by the stalk.

Yet I would devour apples as a child. Possibly the only fruit I would eat. I even ate Granny Smiths, getting a buzz from the moment the bittersweet, almost sherbet like fizz made the inside of your mouth shrivel up until it dissipated and you were left with the satisfying flesh and crisp skin.

Apples capture the imagination. We had a book called 'Apple Pigs' in which there were so many apples, the family had to find creative ways to use them all. Our version was well thumbed. It now goes on Amazon at hardback, used for £99.

But, with the exception of specialists, I wonder if most of us take them for granted? Have you ever eaten a nutty Russet ? Or do you buy Braeburns from the supermarket every week? Braeburns, the sneaky Kiwi fruit;  the grey squirrel of the apple world.

In my back garden I have a mature apple tree. So mature I thought it had given up fruiting last year. I only had two apples from the whole tree. Back in February I got busy and read up on how to reinvigorate this  fruit bearing beauty. I watched YouTube videos on pruning and gave it a healthy dose of zoo poo, which they love apparently.

I got up on the ladder with secateurs and a pruning saw, removed crossing branches, dead wood and got some light into the middle. I assiduously fed the soil, and woohoo, look! My tree has come alive:

And then, last week I was told "trees only fruit every other year"