AFTER THE SUN, RAIN AND JAM

 Comes rain, but first we did get a little solar comfort.

Now it is Friday and raining. The Hydrangea Annabelle will be prostrated on the ground and it had been doing well. It never quite recovers as the flowerheads are so large and, when wet, heavy.

Our red climbing roses, one came from P one from A and P are in fine fettle on the shed and up the holly tree in the bottom hedge. One of our golden showers yellow roses died but I had forgotten that I had such a cutting in  a veg bed and it is flowering. Now I have to decide where to plant it.

Saturday and still raining a lot.

So what to do? Hooray for freezers where lurketh raspberries. And Hooray for Mrs Beeton's great jam recipe - 2 1/2 lb raspberries, 3 lb sugar. Bring fruit gently to the boil then boil hard for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sugar (warmed in oven) till dissolved. Bring to boil and boil hard 1 minute. skim and put in jars. Note - these are 12oz jars so just over 5 lbs jam. Tighten lids and label. Enjoy hearing lids pop as vacuum seal occurs with cooling.

The hen pheasant has abandoned her nest on the lower banking and the eggs are cold. With magpies and stoats about I am surprised they have not been eaten. I assume she will try again, hopefully somewhere less vulnerable - but will not bet on it.

We have bright colours still though we are entering the August hiatus.

The pond looks much better now a lot of vegetation has been cleared although moving the stuff the gardener dug out was strenuous for an old bloke. You can see the uncut tuft on the banking where the nest is.

Message for Paul - we have one big gunnera leaf so the plant has taken.

I have just noticed that the grey poplar has shot up and is now as tall as its neighbour, the eucalyptus. Both look good, grey against a blue sky. (The blue sky was yesterday)

The veg beds are ok but nothing to shout about - here front to back, carrots, marrow and broccoli. We have courgettes and some weedy parsnips, a small patch of parsley, chives by the handful but I am not a great veg man - too much like hard work. I like to shove things in and feed and water them - if the do well ok, if not - c'est la vie (or in the case of my veg mort.)

Still some sweet peas amazingly. Not stupendous but enough for a vase or two in the house.

DAISY DAYS (AND SPIKE JONES?)

Got that song of his going through my head - Mairzy Doats - very sad. Spike Jones and the Wacky Wacketeers (he was also with the City Slickers). I think my parents must have had a 78rpm disc of it, possibly with Three Little Fishies on the other side?

Back to partial sanity.

Daisies, such a huge family of flowering plants - daisies of all sorts and plants that look like daisies, feverfew and olearia, erigeron by the paving down from the house, and daisies, proper ones -in the lawn and ox-eyes in the long grass.

Just been down to the damson trees to check on the pocket plum - Taphrina pruni - a fungal disease, and there are a lot of mite galls on the leaves. At least the latter is harmless.

One thing that a garden can bring is flowers into the house. (Is or are - lots of flowers but 'one thing' ? Grammar, grammar.) And at this time of year that means roses. Roses with alchemilla and geranium, roses with roses and roses with lovage.

 

Not forgetting pinks. Yesterday I noticed a shrub that was a but boring had produced white flowers. It had done nothing at the back of the house so I stuck it in the lower banking. Then I realised it was a eucryphia about which I had forgotten. You can just see the flowers on the right of the small pic.

Nearly hacking back time for the geraniums - cut them back to the ground and they will burgeon forth with, possibly, another flush of flowers in the autumn.

Some flowers in the garden, especially pale pink ones just quietly get on with it. Like this pink evening primrose and the Allium Christophii. The latter appear from long grass, amongst the Rosa rugosa, in many places where they have been forgotten.

Friday/Saturday and it is raiiiiiining so bag of Seville oranges out of the freezer and making marmalade - 

To the recipe - 9 Seville (bitter) oranges, one sweet one and a couple of lemons, squeeze out juice, put pips etc into muslin bag, put peel and pith through a mincer. Shove the lot into a big jam pan with bag of bits hanging in it. Leave 24 hours.
Bring to boil and simmer till rind soft - say a couple of hours.
Add 8 pounds sugar (I warm it in the bottom range oven first) and stir over low heat till all sugar dissolved, Boil hard for 10 minutes and begin testing by taking off heat and putting a small spoonful on plate chilled in fridge. Push with finger and when ripples - done. You may need to repeat this a few times if not yet ready, boiling for a minute or two and then testing again.
You may need to do it in 2 batches depending on pan size. 
Put into hot jars and seal, label and eat.

Breakfast and open a jar and there is an earwig running about on top of the jam. Now it could not have been in there before I opened the jar - too hot - jars sealed when jam very hot. So?
I had been in the garden and the insect must have dropped off me after I opened the jar. R shudders and says there is no way she is eating that marmalade. I take the earwig outside, then return to my bread. At least I have not eaten bread and earwig.

Sunday and a novelty as we walk the 1 mile into town after breakfast and enjoy a coffee outside the Farmers' Arms pub after having temperature taken. On the way back we meet good friend NC who tells us that there is a juvenile heron standing in a field by the road. It just stands there and ignores us. The herons that visit our pond usually fly off at the slightest thing.

Picking last of red currants, more raspberries and black currants. Threatening the raspberries with the bonfire seems to have worked. Lots of pears, plums and apples to come. And first of chard for tonight. Lawns too wet to mow. 

Did nothing in garden (well picked more raspberries to go with meringue and cream).

A SURREAL WORLD

I am reading Neil Curry's new book, William Shenstone, Landscape Gardener and Poet, a copy of which he has kindly given me.
Shenstone was a poet, gardener and tended to indolence - sounds familiar. But the thing that really seized me was when I read the quote from Horace on page 150 -

This was what I had prayed for: a small piece of land
With a garden, a fresh flowing spring of water at hand
Near the house, and, above and behind a small forest stand,
But the gods have done much better for me, and more -
It's perfect. I ask nothing else.

Well, knowing me, and my indolence, I could add a few other things like chocolate, family and friends ...

But this morning, despite the virus, the sun shines, lambs are calling in the fields, the fields are greening, both song and mistle thrushes sing, a yellowhammer is calling from a tall ash tree, the first cherry is about to explode with blossom . . .
With the virus we are walking, fields and empty lanes, enjoying the wild flowers - lesser celandine, dandelion, barren strawberry, dog's mercury, wood anemone and blackthorn.

Yesterday I mowed much of the lawns with the sit on, managed to bog it down in a compost heap and had to dig it out, then lift it out! Not good for old backs. We went to the garden centre and I bought potatoes for chitting and some veg seed. Oh! and some nasturtium seed for R.
   After raising the leaf canopy on the big magnolia it became clear that the small portion of beech hedge beyond blocked the view further on, so that has gone too. The first flowering heads removed from the rhubarb. 

Forced rhubarb is such a wonderful colour.

This is a surreal world we now inhabit, the local hospital ICU beds full and more, and I find myself sleeping too much - well it is something to do. I have volunteered to help out but being elderly they may say no - we will see.
I have ordered 2 huge bags of slate chippings for the paths and Sam, the gardener, says he will come next Monday (if he can) to do the repairs.

These leaves are called Easter-ledges (or bistort) and are used to make a traditional Cumbrian pudding - 

Ingredients: Easter-ledges about 4 inches high; half as many young nettles; 1 large onion; tea-cup of barley; 1/2 teaspoon salt; teaspoon pepper; 1 egg; some butter (or bacon dripping).

Method: Remove stems of Easter-ledges and chop well together with young nettles and onion, wash the barley and sprinkle this in among the greens adding salt. Put all together and tie up in a muslin bag and boil for one and a half to two hours. Before serving beat it up in a dish with one egg and some butter (or bacon dripping is excellent) flavour well with salt and pepper.

Wednesday morning, sunshine and warmth on my back, birds singing, flowers everywhere - a God wot day. (Thos. Brown). Picked a camellia for the house, noted the fritillaries are almost out, and there are blue tits everywhere - no wonder, they have been fed like kings all winter.

The view out of the new extension to the garden -

And a panoramic video - 

Come the afternoon, a walk to Knotallow Tarn, Horace and back, views up the Lakes, (very hazy), lapwings and skylarks calling and I found a rook skull in the roadside.

After we had a cup of tea with the doors wide open. Mr and Mrs Pheasant ambling by -

Spring is sprung. Madame Le Fevre is blasting out from her two pots -

JUST A LOAD OF CHUTNEY

Time slows, winter comes, darkness creeps in, moss grows over the little boy up in the wood.

So, there I was, making a load of apple chutney, sneezing at the apple vinegar fumes, when R showed me a Facebook post of a man saying, re Brexit, that it will be could to get back to the British Empire! (He was with N Farage). Give me modern dental treatment any day. There is no going back, only heading off in a different direction to ????
Anyway, there has been a lot of compost spreading since last blog, (not verbal compost), pulling up of slug chewed beetroot, yet more apples off the Bramley, and the pond is overflowing. The sparrow hawk has taken to zooming through the garden causing mayhem with the pigeons and blackbirds and I have given up with the squirrels, they are too clever for me.


There are still flowers in the garden - the Michaelmas Daisies continue to burst from the shadows.

Leaf colour, not autumnal, still exists with the magnolia, poplar and eucalyptus to name but a few. I wonder if we have hedgehog in the bonfire and move it to make sure. Of course, having badgers nearby means, almost certainly, we do not have egodges.

Pruned a branch off the apple and found six more apples, took out the old wood from the blackcurrants, more chipping to paths, R weeding, General tidy.

There is still some late flowering and colour - 

Even the Astrantia Major (Masterwort) with its papery petals is doing well. The builder is coming soon so all the cosmos and poppies will disappear under concrete, paving and builders' boots.
The ash trees are mostly naked of foliage though  one or two cling on despite the blast of colder weather coming down from the Arctic.
  

In this photograph you can see the Bushnell camera on its stake, well a bit of an old bird feeder support. It is pointed at a crossing of the small stream off to the right to try and catch animals - but they seem to ignore these points and just jump over anywhere.

So -
Recipe for the apple chutney (which I think is a bit sweet) -

1.5 kg Apples chopped,
750g light muscovado sugar
500g raisins
2 med onions
2 teasp mustard seeds
2 teasp ground ginger
1 teasp salt
700 ml cider vinegar (I used our apple vinegar which might be sweeter so . . .)

Bung in big pan, boil then simmer uncovered 30-40 minutes till thick and pulpy - stir to stop it sticking. (I put it in the bottom oven of our range for 90 minutes but . . )
Leave to cool, put in jars.


Finally got two of my books onto Amazon.com, for some reason not on Amazon.co.uk. They don't half mark them up though. The Spontaneous Line is a mixture of line drawings and verse, Landscapes of Light photography and poetry.