Visit

It's been a weekend of splendid relaxation, aided immeasurably by the company of Ann and David. There has been considerable coffee drinking, baked good crafting, game playing, and even a film (Monsters University, which was great fun).

Someone (who shall remain nameless) decided we should make eclairs. Chocolate and salted caramel eclairs. It was a fine plan. (&copy Ian 2017)

Frankly, more weekends should be like this.

Enjoyment only slightly dampened by a missing jigsaw piece (&copy Ian 2017)

In (belated) honour of Yorkshire Day, we had Yorkshire Puddings as all three courses of dinner.

Starter with gravy (© Ian 2017)

Toad in the Hole as a main (© Ian 2017)

And served with honey as dessert (© Ian 2017)

Decorating for Christmas

We've had a long weekend, with a very pleasant two-night stay in Scarborough, before coming home yesterday morning. We've turned our attention to decorating for Christmas, which is always a two-day affair, and which is now finished...it did involve wiring up the new outside socket, in order to put lights on the acer in the front garden, and also replacing the double light switch on the hall wall with individual pull-cord switches in the cloakroom and downstairs toilet. That's been on the to-do list for years, so it's nice to get it done. It means that the little bit of wall where the switch was, which is about the only hanging space in the hall, can now have something attractive on it, instead of a two-gang switch. While were in Scarborough, we visited the excellent Stained Glass Centre, where Liz's grandparents have bought her a lovely stone-effect arched mirror, which now graces the space—the final impetus to moving the switches.

Malvern Autumn

We've had a weekend away, visiting Ludlow, and spending Sunday with Liz's grandmother at the Malvern autumn show, which we've not been to before.

It's less of a garden show than, say, Tatton Park, with only a few gardens, and a lot of 'country living' stallholders. However, there was a very good apple pavilion, with an impressive display of apples from RV Roger (who supplied all of the maiden trees for our apple walk earlier this year). We watched a very entertaining, and pertinent, 'conversation' between Joe Swift and Monty Don in the Good Life theatre, and spent a lot of the afternoon browsing the plant nursery stalls, and wondering over the size of the mammoth veg. The prize-winning pumpkin was 472kg, which was, frankly, astonishing, but only slightly more so than the 152kg cabbage, or the 6.3(ish)m beetroot and parsnip, each, apparently, world records. How one digs up a 6m parsnip root, I know not.

(Why, I know not, either.)

Anyway, we managed to fill grandma's not insignificant boot, with thirty-five plants of our own, and a number of hers, and we added a few from her garden to take home, meaning our little Corsa was well loaded for the return journey.

• Two Crocosmia 'Sunglow', and two 'Buttercup'
• a 'Twyning's After Eight' dahlia
• Three white Japanese anemones, 'Honorine Jobert'
• Two giant scabious
• Three new heucheras, 'Fire Chief', 'xxx' and 'xxx'
• A pair of variegated sedums, 'Frosty Morn'
• A painted fern, 'Burgundy Lace'
• Three Panicum grasses, 'Squaw'
• An astrantia, A. major 'Lars'
• And a tray of obscenely cheap Cyclamen hederifolium; fifteen at a pound apiece.

We finally, definitively, learnt the reason for the riduculously low end-of-show prices. Apparently, the nurseries want to offload the last of their stock at almost any price, because for the quantity involved, the cost of transporting them back to the nursery exceeds the market value—hence selling things at a pound/pot is actually financially better than transporting the stock 'home', and selling it at market value later. I'm happy to help.

We got home about five, and I nipped out to pick up the rest of our pig, having collected the bucket of blood last Wednesday, before planting everything out.

Preparing the Dining Room

Since Friday afternoon, we've had Rachel, Philip, Luke, Elizabeth, Robert, Liz, and Ash with us. We were really lucky with the weather, which meant we could spend yesterday afternoon outside, and have a barbecue. Today's been a lot worse, with high winds and heavy rain. However, as they left yesterday evening and after breakfast, respectively, we've had an opportunity to do some work inside.

This is what the dining room looked like at lunchtime.

Garden side of the dining room (© Ian 2014)

Front side of the dining room (© Ian 2014)

And this is what it was like when we finished for the day. We still need to fix the rest of the horizontal battens, and then attach the insulation, vertical battens, and plasterboard, but we didn't think we'd get any work done this weekend, so that's good.

Stripped dining room wall (© Ian 2014)

RHS Tatton Park 2014

This morning, at about 0815, we set off for Tatton Park, as we have the last couple of years, to the RHS flower show. It takes about an hour, and having parked and walked to the showground, we were in the queue at about 0940, giving us a quarter hour to start looking at the show catalogue (and map) before being let in at just before 10. I've been impressed, this year and last, at how quickly they scan the bar-coded tickets and get you in.

There were some really good show gardens, this year. We particularly liked a heritage/allotment fruit and veg stall from a group of local allotmenteers, and were struck by a scarlet mountain spinach (orache) that we've never seen in the flesh before. It's a possible potager plant next year.Grasses were much in evidence, as well as chocolate cosmos, sanguisorba, crocosmia, and brunnera. That suited us nicely, as we've many grasses that could be used in combination. We have one sanguisorba, 'Tanna', and a brunnera, 'Jack Frost', both bought at Tatton last year, and came looking for more brunnera. We have a few crocosmia, but one caught our eye today that is apparently a fairly new introduction; Twilight Fairy 'Gold'. It has lovely bronzed foliage, but sadly wasn't for sale from the show garden (the Young Designer of the Year garden by Sam Ovens).

We saw a couple of water features we liked, which might inform later plans.

(© Ian 2014)

(© Ian 2014)

This garden had a rebar construction for its runner beans: apparently I'm not the only one using rebar to construct supports! It also had a rather good green wall, one of which Liz still wants to find a space for.

These garden seats were very good, and next door we saw some very weather resistant swing seats by the well-named Yorkshire Swingseat Company.

(© Ian 2014)

(© Ian 2014)

One feature that we enjoyed was a collection of eight vignette gardens that encapsulated larger gardens' feel in small plots. They're all from Cheshire, and included Arley Hall, which is actually just down the road from Tatton Park, and we thought looked worth a real visit, based on their 'taster' garden.

(© Ian 2014)

The floral marquee was, as ever, phenomenally stocked by nurseries, and although we only bought two plants, the other displays were excellent, and gave us contact details for a number of specialist nurseries. One, near Cambridge, might be a good source of alpines, if we do decide to put a green roof on the mini-sheds. There were a couple of hosta specialists, too, for when we dig the bog garden.

(© Ian 2014)

The two plants we bought were both from the Hampshire Carnivorous Plants: one was a Sarracenia hybrid (a North American Pitcher Plant), which suited us because it actively requires a good cold winter spell, probably in the unheated greenhouse. The other is a dangling/hanging sort of plant, a Monkey Cup called 'Linda' (a hybrid, Nepenthes cv 'Linda') despite being a dioecious male. It now hangs, slightly threateningly, in the sitting room.

For us, though, the Young Designer Gardens were the best. We felt that the television coverage (Thursday and Friday evening) actually let these down, and all three, but particularly Alex Schofield's, were much better in the flesh. In fact, everything else we purchased came from these three gardens.

(© Ian 2014)

Acquisitions were:

• From Alex Schofield's garden:
• Brunnera; I need to check the cultivar
• Astrantia 'Gill Richardson'
• Sanguisorba (S. officionalis)'Tanna'
• Sedum (S. spectabile) 'Matrona'
• From Clare Broadbent's garden:
• Echinacea 'Secret Love'
• Eupatorium, I think E. purpureum
• From Sam Ovens' garden:
• Scabious 'Pink Mist'

(© Ian 2014)

Floor Finished

We made a list on Saturday morning of some things we wanted to try to do this weekend (a long one). Pleasing progress has been made, although, as it ever was, not quite everything happened.

Painting the last section (3/8ths) of the garage floor with bituminous sealant happened on Friday evening, Saturday lunch time, and Sunday morning. The plan was that the last coat (Sunday first thing) would then have a clear 24 hours to dry before we put the rest of the floor down.

Saturday morning, before we could do the second coat, we spent digging over a further section of knot garden. While I cut turves, and dug over the stony ground, Liz was busy clearing our stone dyke from last time. We've not worked on extending the herb garden since September, in order to get the overwintering alliums in the ground, so it's nice to once more make progress on it. Although we only did a couple of hours work (too hot!), we returned to the garden on Sunday, and have marked out anew the pattern. We needed to do this because we've changed our mind about the size of the squares (diamonds), which we decided were too small (roughly 1m edges), and needed to be 50% bigger. There wasn't quite enough space in them to allow planting, but still be able to walk through them.

The original (rough) plan for beds and edges in the herb garden (© Ian 2013–14)

That also means we'll only have two sorts of edge: lavender and step-over apples (which I'll try to graft over the winter). The box will be grown on to form box balls in the garden, instead of hedging: we think they might, for one thing, replace some of the Lady's Mantle that's really a weed in the long border. They'd occupy the same niche, of a rounded green mass, but with the advantage of year-round structure, and less invasive self-seeding.

The new pattern fits around the corner nicely, and finishes in about the same place, which is good. We then moved the part-painted climber supports into the beds, settling on a layout that has the taller of these forming a backdrop to the garden, in the boxes furthest from the house. There are only four of these at the moment, but I can always make more in time. The smaller are nearer the house, and there are squares that suitably frame views from the windows with supports. It looks very pleasing, and once the supports are painted, and sunk into the ground, I hope it's going to look really good.

On Saturday afternoon, we constructed a hinged roof that goes over the steps down into the wet cellar from the driveway, which will allow us to store bikes on the steps but keep the worst of the weather off them. It's a simple wooden frame, with tongue and groove cladding, but it looks quite smart...although it does draw my attention to the falling-apart (non-structural!) wall next to it, which edges the pathway. Another day's work there, I think. At the same time, Liz cleared the driveway of a pile of apple prunings that have been sat there drying: they'll be rather fragrant kindling next winter.

They've been sitting around for longer than they should (by some way, really), but we've bottled the five demijohns of wine that were waiting.

• Dandelion, from May 2013. For whatever reason, the dandelions rather passed me by this May, so I don't have a new batch on the go. This one seems good, though.
• Greengage from October (a more reasonable time-scale). This was slightly fizzy, so I added a Campden tablet, and bottled it a couple of days later. The taste seemed improved, too, after this.
• Elderflower from July: very good, this one.
• Blackberry from September, a predictably dessert-wine red. It was also slightly fizzy, but a tablet and 36 hours rest sorted this out.
• Chardonnay from a kit, in June last year. It's really rather Chardonnay-like!

In the same vein, this evening we've made a five-pint batch of elderflower cordial. Different process to previously: a dozen flowerheads, a pared then sliced lemon, and then a boiling sugar solution poured over them (1 pint water, 1lb10 sugar). You add 2.5tbsp of citric acid, once cool, and allow to sit for 24 hours before bottling.

The batch of cider that we pressed last autumn has, in turn, finally been racked into two demi-johns. It's not tasting quite 'right', but as I understand it, cider often needs a decent maturation period, so I'll bear with it.

Sunday afternoon was spent, largely, making a hatch for the garage loft, and putting up the last of the insulation. Hanging the hatch will have to wait until I've found the right hinges.

Today, then, was spent finishing the garage floor. The sealant paint was nicely dry by mid morning, so we were able to immediately start work on laying the insulation, screwing down the battens, and filling the gaps with solid insulation. The plywood sheets went on with relatively little fuss, so by about 1530 we'd finished. An hour later, and the room was tidied up, rather than having everything stacked into the half that had a floor, and we've even managed to set out the two armchairs we've had stored in a corner since 2009.

Last thing for the weekend was getting some of the preparatory work done for our new patio doors, which arrived on Friday. They're being fitted on Wednesday (including breaking out the hole for them, replacing the garden window in the dining room), and we've done as much fitting of hardware, and so on, as possible.

Scarborough

Making the most of the bank holiday weekend, we've had a couple of days in Scarborough, with Liz's grandparents, and a day in Thirsk with my parents. It's the first time I've been to Scarborough in twenty years, and about a dozen since Liz last went, so we were both really seeing it through fresh eyes.

On Saturday, after lunch, we walked down Woodland Ravine, through Peasholm Park, and along the north bay, before turning back past the open air theatre to return.

Spring colour in Woodland Ravine / Dean Road Cemetary (© Ian 2014)

Spring colour in Woodland Ravine / Dean Road Cemetary (© Ian 2014)

Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

Wildflowers: primroses, wood anemones, and forget-me-nots in Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

North Bay and Scarborough Castle (© Ian 2014)

Squirrel Sculpture, Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

Faux-Oriental sculpture, Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

The Secret Garden (© Ian 2014)

The Secret Garden (© Ian 2014)

Although Sunday morning was a bit overcast, we started at Anne Brontë's grave, before walking around Scarborough Castle. From there, we went down the side of the headland, across the harbour, and along the seafront. After going past the Spa, we came up through the gardens to meet our lift.

Ruins of North Transept in churchyard of St Mary's with Holy Apostles, destroyed in Civil War (© Ian 2014)

The Keep, Scarborough Castle (© Ian 2014)

Roman Signalling Station, Scarborough Castle (© Ian 2014)

The Keep, Scarborough Castle (© Ian 2014)

View from Scarborough Castle over North Bay (© Ian 2014)

Sunday afternoon comprised a walk through Raincliff Wood, which has a large number of paths (thank you, Woodland Trust), and an interesting bit of woodland regeneration in Raincliff Meadow.

Wood Sorrel (© Ian 2014)

Bluebells (© Ian 2014)

Woodland Flowers (© Ian 2014)

Wood Anemones (© Ian 2014)

Stumps, Raincliff Wood (© Ian 2014)

Tree roots over outcrop (© Ian 2014)

Direct Sowing

Having spent yesterday sawing, splitting, and stacking a load of firewood, today we sowed a few things in the vegetable garden. In the spaces around the potatoes we squeezed a few rows of scozonera, which we've never grown (or eaten, indeed), and a few of radishes. In the herb garden, we've planted a couple of sections of asparagus peas, which we grew last year, and which did well. We even had a few in the depths of winter, it was so mild. The sweet pea beds have also been sown with a mix of wildflowers: some collected, some bought. The three sections aren't differentiated this year: we've just mixed the seeds up. The sweet peas are all in the greenhouse, still, getting taller and twining round their sticks, waiting to be allowed out.

First Planting

We've had a busy few days, with friends visiting on Good Friday (much baking), and then getting the vegetable garden ready for the new season of crops. It's never been empty, with leeks, beetroot, celeriac, kale, cabbages, sprouts, and purple sprouting all still in, to say nothing of the green manure (mustard) that I only chopped in a few weeks ago.

However, we've finally had to lift these, to make space for new things. That's meant that we've been able to spread the last of the mulch, and the beds are all looking lovely as a result. Liz planted out a stretch of spinach, which will come out before we need the room for a later crop, and I prepared the trenches for the potatoes. Today, with a fosterling's help, we planted the 300 onion sets (150 Piroska Red, 150 Stuttgarter), and the potatoes: twenty each of Lady Christl, Red Duke of York, British Queen, International Kidney, and Lady Balfour (two first earlies; two second earlies; and a maincrop).

We've repeated the system we found worked well last year; 4 (early) or 3 (maincrop) chitted tubers planted at the bottom of a trench, 18" (earlies) or 30" (maincrops) apart. As they come up, we'll backfill the trenches, slowly. The main crop are up the wood-shelter side of the C-bed, with the second earlies along the top. The first earlies are in the bottom bed. The onions are all the way up the right side of the C-bed, leaving a small gap between them and the second earlies (probably a catch crop). The space at the fruit-garden end of the bottom bed will have the courgettes in; there's also space for a catch crop in between, I reckon.

It's later than last year, for planting, but the weather's now turning a bit warmer (and we didn't have a chance earlier!), so hopefully they'll grow quickly.

With the last of the time, we tried making our own potting compost: a 50:50 mix of compost and leaf mould, which we sieved together. There's some potting up we'll need to do later this week, which it'll be used on.

Start of a Break

We finished work for Christmas on Thursday, and spent Friday getting ourselves a little more organized for the holiday. There's a list of things we want/need to to get done, and I think we're on top of the urgent ones. Ideally, we'll spend a day quilting towards the end of the holiday, and there's some things we'd like to work on outside, weather permitting. There's always boring administrative things to get done inside, when the weather fails to cooperate (like filing the receipts for 2013...). We spent a lovely day with my parents yesterday, having a pre-Christmas dinner, and finally watching the first Hobbit film. The pork liver pâté we made in October (and froze in anticipation!) was delicious.

With some luck, we should be able to make progress on preparing the site of the apple walk. We started about a month ago, having had the idea back when we visited Barnsdale. The apple arch there (photo on this website), and a similar one in the Highgrove walled garden, are the kind of thing we're trying to create. Each side of a 33' long, 8' wide tunnel will have apple trees planted (every 3'; eleven up each side). They'll be trained up each arch of the walk (each arch being 4' vertical, then a 4' radius, 180° arch, and back down 4') to the top, where two apples will meet. They'll be trained into one-sided espaliers, with 3' long arms coming off every 18" or so, to create the structure of the apple walk.

Ideally, on a level site, each tree would have arms on both sides, half the length. However, because the walk is going to slope upwards, unavoidably, this won't work. Branches trained downhill will fail to grow.

We've got twenty apples on order, and I've found two more that I can obtain grafting material for, which we'll try grafting ourselves. They all originate (as far as we can tell) in Yorkshire, and date from Roman times, through Norman introductions, and the Victorian boom in apple varieties. Whimsically, we're going to arrange them chronologically, so that the oldest are at the top, and the most recent (just a few decades old) is at the bottom, or start.

However, long before it looks like anything at all, we need to smooth the plot, dig out the stones, and improve the soil. And, probably, dig some drainage.

York Gate

David and Ann were with us for the weekend, and having dropped them off at the station, we carried on to visit York Gate Garden, which is on the outskirts of Leeds. It's on a similar scale to our own garden, and is pleasingly divided into a number of smaller gardens, which is the kind of approach we're trying to take. It had a pretty pond, a nut walk, and a productive kitchen garden.

York Gate Gardens (© Ian 2013)

And, inevitably, a small nursery. We picked up three alpine Lady's Mantles  (Alchemilla conjuncta), which is more delicate than A. mollis, with leaves that are more divided, and silver edged. It is, apparently, less prone to seeding everywhere, and is better behaved.

Having got home, we pottered in the garden, including a contemplative look at the games lawn: Liz is floating the possibility of cutting an oval flower bed in its centre, and making the surrounding beds that bit bigger. Doing so would prevent badminton (but the combination of warm, dry and still weather necessary for a reasonable game is extremely rare), and formal croquet; but modified croquet, boules, lawn darts, and similar would all be possible. And it would make more space for plants, and probably look more attractive.

I also hooked up some new watering equipment, which arrived last week: a timer computer, which can set water going up to eight times each day, and an automatic distributor from Gardena. The latter's rather clever: each time the water comes on, it sends it out the next outlet of six, in sequence. By connecting each irrigation zone to a different outlet, and using the computer to turn the water on (and off) the same number of times, each zone will be watered. It will mean I only have to turn the water on/off once, instead of five or so times, in an evening, and the kitchen garden (and green roof) will be watered. It will also mean that the watering can be done while we're away, without laboriously inconveniencing a neighbour.

Cambridge Wedding

We went down to Cambridge late on Thursday, returning early today. The main reason for the trip was David and Anne's wedding, on Saturday, but we wanted to take the opportunity to meet up with other friends who were going: hence going down early.

Friday was spent pottering round Cambridge, going through some of the colleges, and lazily eating lunch, before going across to Rachel and Philip's for dinner. Their thyme lawn is looking really good, and the plants are just starting to touch in a few places.

The wedding service was in St John's College Chapel, and the reception (drinks; cake; 'breakfast'; ceilidh) was at Sidney Sussex (the college kitchens are closed for refurbishment at St John's). Our gift, finished and wrapped on Thursday morning, survived the journey.

Self-assembled picnic hamper (© Ian 2013)

Both colleges looked lovely, with a red-and-white palette. David always smartens up well (tails can only help!), and Anne looked lovely, in an ivory dress with some nice embroidery and a surprisingly well-behaved train.

Bridal bouquet, at the reception in Sidney Sussex gardens (© Ian 2013) 

We headed back to Katherine's rooms at about midnight, after a lovely day (and an excellent meal), and came home around lunchtime today.

The sweet peas are looking excellent, having not been picked for a week.

Sweet pea wigwams (© Ian 2013)

We then spent an hour or so cutting sweet peas, and then collecting gooseberries, the last of the red & white currants, some of the blackcurrants, and some raspberries. It's a multiple-night job, I think: the gooseberries are all ready to pick, and the blackcurrants are starting. The blueberries are gradually ripening, too.

Tulips

We've enjoyed a lovely weekend in the company of university friends (Katherine, Rachel, Philip, Liz, Robert, and their five-month-old, James), for which the weather cooperated magnificently. While we spent a lot of time outside, little of it was working, until this afternoon, when we managed to get a few things done.

We sowed the last of the RHS-produced ornamental seeds, potted up new lavender plants (48 Hidcote, 48 Munstead) that arrived on Friday, planted gladioli in pots, sowed some more cauliflowers (Mystique) and leeks (Prizetaker), watered everything, and admired the tulips.

Pots of tulips (© Ian 2012)