One potato, two potato

This week we picked the first courgette in the new vegetable patch.

It is quiche weather here, so the usual eggs were beaten up with a sprinkling of my first harvest of thyme and some chopped chives.

I had some left over pastry in the freezer, which is always a blessing; I greased the quiche tray with olive oil, giving it a nice summery flavour; that is why it appears a little translucent. In went the sliced courgette, with the herby, cheesy egg mixture.

We held our breath as we dug up the first early potato plant. Had anything grown? It had!

There were just enough potatoes on that first plant for both of us. The first ones I've grown since 2011, before moving here.

 And the quiche turned out well too. Another small step in the right direction.

Weedy pots and little toad

  

So the garden continues to be gradually tidied. By the end of the summer, this plot should be cleared for a herb and pot garden. Once we've managed to dig out the remains of a hideous washing line pole, which the previous owner had cemented into the earth with a huge dollop of concrete. 

What remains of the potted plants and herbs I brought to Shropshire four years ago are pruned and potted up and as they've survived the neglect, they are now thriving in their new homes.  

 

There is a courgette in the coal bucket and basil on the windowsill. And a sweet pepper plant, gifted to me by a gardening neighbour.

I now have a cuttings area and two tomato plants, the first I've had for a few years. These may sound like very small things, which most people do all the time, but for me, they are big steps in the right direction. The garden is finally beginning to feel like home.

We also have a resident toad - so small and delightful.

 

It was released into a denser part of the garden, but first it had it's portrait taken with some old fungi.

Since uprooting from the Cotswolds in 2012 and with everything that has ensued, my life has felt a little like these potted auriculas; choked with weeds and  pot bound. They have somehow endured and so have I.

Now my life is getting tidier and I feel more like a freshly potted plant. With regular care and a bit of sunshine, our roots should grow back and we may even flower again.

Tackling the beast

The garden has been, to say the least, neglected. Andy and I moved here over four years ago in November 2012 and less than three months later, he was gone. As you can imagine, the last thing on my mind was keeping the lawn down or sowing hopeful seeds, as I used to. The bitter loneliness of planning a long yearned for garden, without the person you had once intended to do it with, would have been too much to bear. And pointless.

That didn't stop well meaning people advising me to get out there and tackle it ('it will make you feel better') or from giving me kindly meant plants which never got potted out. I think the best gift you can do give to someone in deep mourning and shock is simply to be with them, should they want it. But for some people, this may be the hardest thing to do. And so you get a geranium, which eventually dies as well.

I can't say that my old love of gardening gradually returned. To be honest, for the first year or so I was on a  different planet and just getting on with whatever I had to do to keep my mind intact and to try to scrape a living. That last bit remains true and I still don't have much spare time. However, since meeting Joe and having someone to share it with, I have felt what you might call a few green shoots stirring within me. 

So during one of my recent at-home stays, Brian-next-door and I got to grips with it. It was a little like Sleeping Beauty's Castle, without the castle. There was a monster vine - or creeper - which had run rampant everywhere, despite being the one thing I have occasionally cut back. 

Not to mention the ivy, which has had free run. But last year the robins nested in it's deep green depths and  we found their old nest, so it served some purpose. Brian tackled the vine, but the behemoth ivy was mine. I went to battle. 

And Brian decimated the creeper. Or vine. Or whatever it was. And all the cuttings were carefully trimmed down to several inches, so that they would fit in the compost bags.

In a corner, we found the mother-lode. It still has to be dealt with.

Brian began dismantling the decrepit old dog kennel once it was free from the jungle of creeper, and the garden really began to open up. Hopefully one day we will be able to turn this side of the garden into a raised vegetable bed. All the spare bits have been carefully stored by Brian,  'just in case they may be useful later'.

And after many hours with the loppers and secateurs,  I cleared most of the ivy. Except for the huge trunks and roots, which also have to be dealt with soon. Look, you can see the cottage!

It has been very therapeutic, which is why, of course, people initially urged me to do it. But I had to do it in my own time, and when there was a reason to do it. Thankfully, unlike myself, Joe enjoys mowing the lawn.

Seeding

Our little back garden is small and scruffy. This is Andy in the winter, having a first, exploratory dig. Excuse the washing line, the weeds and the tatty pots; we are a humble household, despite living in the grand Cotswolds. The earth looks good, but is not very nutritious, no matter what we add. If it were really and truly our own, we would transform it; as it is, our slack and greedy landlord should be thankful that when we leave, it will not be waist high in nettles and weeds, as it was when we moved in. Enough sourness. We have fun with our little bits of earth and have learned what we can and can't grow. This year (hopefully our last one here), we are simply growing as much as we can of the things which thrive. NOT root vegetables/onions/brassicas/garlic/sweetcorn. They have been poor performers. Stones grow well though. Today brought more lovely sun and we had packets of seeds whispering enticements from their pretty packets. We went down to our local DIY shop and picked up a large bag of compost. Andy slung it over his shoulder like a captured wife and we headed home. Nice Mrs S. was in her garden and I raced across the road to ask her if she had EGGS? Yes, she did have EGGS, lots, the hens had been squeezing them out. So we picked up a dozen. Mrs S's egg supply has been a bit hit and miss, and she is the only person in the village who sells them. But now she has a handy honesty bag on her doorstep (if you know where to find it) so I only have to walk ten minutes down the road for Good Eggs. Eggs are my favourite food. Ever.

Now we had compost, and an afternoon of quiet seed planting (me) and bed digging (Andy) ahead. First to unearth the last miserable attempts at celeriac. We had harvested enough on Christmas day (tennis and golf ball size) to make very tasty mash for dinner. The last few had managed to grow to more respectable sizes, and were now 'baby' rather than 'miniature'. Andy has a natural, peasant action when it comes to digging and trimming veg, you'd think he'd been doing it all his life.

Christmas 2008

March 2009

There is something so reviving about pottering in the garden. The gentle routine of nestling neat rows of seeds into fresh earth, imagining what riches they will bring forth. The smallest of events becomes an adventure; a sleepy bumble bee crashing around, strange grubs unearthed. We even caught a tiger -

I planted early peas directly into the old celeriac bed. Peas are one of the things we do well, despite my anarchic approach. A couple of years ago I thought that planting them in rows was a waste of space which we could ill afford, and after all - in the wild - seeds self sow themselves willynilly. So I sowed an entire pack in a small square, by hurling them out and loosely covering them. Amazingly it worked brilliantly, so this is how we do it now - the 'scatter gun' technique.

We had three garden helpers, but they decided to catch some rays - and the gingers do love the sun. Mousie stayed under her plastic tub, which keeps the warmth in, like a furry little potato being baked in a pot.

At the end of the day, when the wind was getting a bit picky, I had sown; stripy courgettes and round courgettes, purple beans and white beans, outdoor cucumbers, German Orange strawberry tomatoes and Cerise cherry tomatoes, chillies, 3 types of nasturtiums, Jolly Jester marigolds, peas, dwarf broad beans, spinach, mixed leaf salad and I still haven't finished. There are four types of potatoes chitting in egg boxes, by my much neglected Adana press...

...and we now share the bedroom with two trays of seeds - and two 'cheat' tomato plants we bought, just to be sure we get some tomatoes this year as we lost most of ours to blight last year and the year before. Yes, those are two old sewing machines on the right hand side. I wish I could show you rolling country views from our window, but living in the centre of the village we are hemmed in by (albeit picturesque) houses and cottages. But I've lived in worse places, so I enjoy the views every single day. Roofs and all.

Feeling all windswept, sun kissed and sleepy, I drowsed while Andy cooked bacon, sausages and Mrs S's EGGS, which were big, golden and completely delicious. And despite the crashings from the kitchen, as utensils were hurled into the sink, I didn't even have to wash up. Which was completely the perfect end to a delightfully relaxing day. And much needed; the next couple of weeks are going to be occupied with a melange of geese-y things as I tackle the first lap of another jumbo order.

Broad beans

The beans were planted somewhat optimistically in late autumn. The short winter days and vicous slug attacks made early progress unbearably slow. But come spring, they started racing away, and now stand at about 5 ft, with heavy crops. They are best straight from the pod, but also lovely steamed with a sprinkling of Maldon salt.